this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2024
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askchapo
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People here should read more right wing theory. I think its very easy to get the impression that the only right wingers that exist are Shapiro or Alex Jones types and so when people on the left encounter a right winger who isn't a total moron/grifter they can be overly impressed and more easily swayed by them.
Case in point being Aleksandr Dugin. While he's not as influential since the ACP was founded, I used to hear some his talking points on here a whole lot. He explicitly talks about using internet marxists as a 5th column to push right wing ideas. So inoculate yourselves.
There's a not uncommon tendency among leftists, and especially MLs where they want to consume the "right" kind of information, as though reading anything that isn't the most pure, anti-imperialist, regionally specific Chinese news paper will taint them with liberalism.
No baby girl, you need to read liberal, reactionary, and other leftist sources in earnest, with a principled Marxist analysis, and genuinely understand them.
Tbh, I think this tendency is a manifestation of the western left's pseudo-Christian purity obsession.
sometimes i think the western left has basically entered the "early middle age Irish monks preserving the classics and also drawing anthro bunnies" phase
the purity stuff comes from the marginalization and effort to just keep the lights on right now
Oh yeah don't get me started on the left's residual Christian thinking. The amount of barely veiled protestant thinking is too damn high. The obsession with splitting is a perfect example.
Marx and Engels clarified many of their ideas through their critical readings and polemics.
I can’t recall where — I think a preface to one of Marx’s works — Engels describes how the publishing of the work was not important in the end; that the important thing was the clarification of their own ideas through the effort of refuting their opponents. I think it was against Proudhon or Stirner… can’t remember…
Maybe I’ve just not read the “correct” stuff, but I’ve largely found fascist propaganda to be incoherent and a waste of time.
Well there's more to the right than just fascism. Catholic integralism is a hot topic right now. For a real head scratcher try George Fitzhugh. He was a pro slavery anti-capitalist who liked socialism because he thought it was the ultimate form of slavery.
I think also whispers Hayek did actually have some valid critiques of managed economies. I believe there are solutions to these problems tbc, but you can't just hand-wave the critique, even if he was an evil pos.
I don't think I've ever personally conversed with a right winger who has actually engaged with 'the good stuff' from the Right tradition however, so it's important to understand that the cultural impact of this stuff is negligible compared to e.g. Rand
Certainly of Soviet style planned economies. Though just the existence of computers refutes a lot of his so called problems.
Theoretically literate right wingers don't go around proselytizing because that would go against their theory of power. You don't teach the peasants, you use them. I would argue that policy wise the popular 'theorists' are only now making in roads because no one reads anything anymore, left or right.
Definitely agree on Hayek. He's one of the grandfathers of contemporary complex systems theory and has some stuff that's worth reading from that angle too. It's also worth knowing your enemy.
If your "strongly held belief" can't survive scrutiny or contact with intelligent argumentation it doesn't deserve to be a "strongly held belief."
Regularly examining your own assumptions and attacking your own point of view will not only help you better solve real problems, it will allow you to better recognize and answer specious arguments as they arise.
Yeah. Listening to JD Vance of all people talk eloquently and with a populist message about the east Palestine train derailment really took me by surprise. The guy - our future far right VP - sounded like Bernie sanders.
I think the political parties are doing a really weird shift and most people haven’t caught on yet.
I kinda hate that one of the few people on the left I've heard talk about this phenomenon is Joshua Cittarella who is far too comfortable with taking the next step into "maybe the fascists have a point."
I mean they don’t call them National socialists for nothing. I’m not the least bit surprised that fascists are talking socialist adjacent talking points but rebranded. IIRC even the Nazis had some redeeming social welfare programs (for good aryan Germans, fuck everyone else) that were adjacent to socialism… to capture the interest of those who would vote for real socialists.
Kinda like how Starbucks has decent workers benefits compared to their competitors - to prevent unionization. Or how FDR enacted the new deal to prevent actual socialists from gaining power.
I hope I’m getting my point across…
Yeah I get your point but all that stuff is completely empty. The Nazis still privatized everything and worked with big German and foreign capitalists to fund the Holocaust. When fascists say all the populist crap they don't mean it.
Yup that’s why I used it as an example
There is a podcast that tackles this very subject.
The Black and Red Book Review
Highly recommend, though production quality is not exactly great.
I was watching a China special on teleSUR a couple of nights ago and got my first taste of Dugin. I honestly have no idea why he was a part of it. He didn't even talk about China, but was harping on about how all of Africa must unite to struggle against American imperialism. He didn't put forth a single idea regarding how that can be achieved. As if all of Africa is some monolith. And this nonsense was immediately preceded by a pretty good Radhika Desai lecture. Needless to say, I was not impressed.
i recall C. Derick Varn making a similar point and it's mostly true. that's why i'm personally annoyed when people still do the "right-wingers are stupid" bit
If it's stupid and it keeps beating you, how stupid is it really? Things can be evil and smart at the same time.