203
Shot:
they are a legitimate threat to freedom and to anti-authoritarian leftists,
Chaser:
we shouldn't allow these people to exist in the internet free
https://old.reddit.com/r/tankiejerk/comments/197l9ik/tankie_is_not_offensive_anymore/
this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
203 points (100.0% liked)
the_dunk_tank
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It's the dunk tank.
This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.
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As someone with a background in writing (like every other commie), I'd be happy to contribute in some way to this. However, I don't really know what actionable step could be taken.
I also worry that the technique would be pretty quickly coopted, and the terms "fascist" and "racist" would be defined as thought terminating cliches. It's already started with the "not everyone you disagree with is a fascist" line
Actionable steps here are more concretely achieved by orgs or people with current access to existing various published things (blogs, newspapers, etc etc). But I think something like Prolewiki might be able to be a spark point for something like this, depending on whether Prolewiki participants/management are willing to be the creation point of something rather than just a documenting and citing site.
I see some things pop up on Medium that successfully spread but I'm not sure how often those do that. Could be that's a handful of things among tens of thousands that just waste their time. Likely depends on whether big networks reshare content and that momentum keeps going.
Generally the point here is to write something that's clear enough for people to link to it frequently, and also potentially inspiring enough for others to also write about the phenomenon. If something can be written that also gets others to write about it then you get momentum.
Really the most meaningful thing here is to get a few places to write about something like this and then put it on natopedia, where it is then going to gain the automatic credibility of being on natopedia in the eyes of libs and debatebros, those people will then take part in opposing the tactic whenever they recognise it. Once you get those people on board with opposing it because they're rules-perverts and will consider it against the "rules" the whole tactic may effectively collapse, in the online space at least.
So really the limitation here is access to a resource, that resource being article publishing online.
It would have more credibility if we could find and reuse a similar concept/name from an earlier and more "objective" source. Not sure where to start digging, but this has to be something that someone has named previously. Then we're just popularizing instead of inventing something new.
Maybe. I'd start with the labelling of everything as "terrorist" first. That's probably got the most. After that is probably like "authoritarian" or some shit.
The tactic is pervasive.
I mean, the "thought terminating cliche" is a really old thing. You know the "Our noble government, their perfidious regime" cartoon? It's exactly that. Hell, Lenin's snark about "changing the name of things not changing the thing itself" is a part of it. You can probably find ancient Roman authors commenting on this practice if you look.
Right but does it have a name? If it doesn't have a name, it hasn't been formalised. Naming it gives you something to attack, it gives you a way to communicate that it's bad.
The goal here, in essence, is to use the practice against itself. I want to thought-terminating cliche the tactic of thought-terminating cliches. Give it a name so people can debatebro it as a bad thing that you absolutely should not do every time they see it.
The thing is, if we believe we are on the side of reason, the nature of such an argument should only be considered a nuisance to us rather than catastrophic. If I want to prove that Israel is fascist and someone hits me with the "not everyone you disagree with is a fascist" line, then I can simply ask them to give me a set of criteria and either argue the criteria being incorrect or argue that Israel meets it (depending on the criteria, context, etc.) What our comrade is proposing is a way of opening discussion so that preconceived notions can be challenged more thoroughly.
Socialism is the ruthless criticism of all that exists; if a socialist can't produce a justification for their ideology, this isn't an argument they should be getting into (they should be studying, whether through reading or investigating the world).