Cross-posted from "TRUE communism!" by @Muaddib@sopuli.xyz in !politicalmemes@lemmy.world
this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2025
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Flippanarchy
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Flippant Anarchism. A lighter take on social criticism with the aim of agitation.
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Happens to me all the fucking time lmao.
shit on this account I've been accused of being a tankie for having positions like: hating and fearing china is pretty stupid given their lack of militarism, massive improvements in quality of life for the working class, and frankly astounding technological progress in sustainable technologies.
Apparently wanting to end hierarchy and being sceptical of stateist projects means I have to ignore when they work at all and be constantly at war with like the entire world for not being pure enough. There's enough shit keeping me busy in my own life to make up drama about the spooky red threat that seems to be a surveillance state like... every other highly industrialised society right now.
If they find my hexbear account I will be thrown out of town ;)
We don't ban hexbears just because they're from hexbear. I've known you've had an account there for years.
Well of course you know
It is a joke about the content of said account.
Lemme get the anarcho-police to check it on the tankiemeter....
It all comes out now, nobody can survive contact with power. Even administrating a lemmy instance corrupts.
Come see the violence folks, come see anarchy in action!
For real though, I respect you a fair bit but I do find fanning the flames of this internet slapfight over tankies a bit silly. Ultimately lemmy is not determining the course the future, it's the stuff we do outside and I've never had a conversation come up about whether Stalin's apparent antisemitism was a result of intrinsic bias or complex geopolitical realities outside of lemmy. I've stood in line with people without knowing anything deeper than that they're here now about them. I'd apprehensively (lets be honest protest spoopy) do it again.
Basically everyone people call tankies on lemmy want the same good things as "ideology pure" leftists. We're a tiny minority of a minority, aside from like 3 weird people everyone on hexbear/grad/ml is chill. I don't see this doing much except scaring left curious libs away from studying any ideas more serious than welfare stateism.
Mate, I just posted a meme in our own comm. They don't have to come here and start shit. I just want to laugh about this very real effect with other anarchists. My world doesn't revolve around hexbears, but they can't help but make their insecurities my problem.
As I always say, what we say want is irrelevant (nevermind that a lot of tankies like Cowbee will tell you that what they really want is something like modern China). How we go about achieving it is the only thing that matters, and in practice our tactics are not compatible. So the only collaboration that happens between MLs and Anarchists is when the former act like the latter, (until they inevitably try to take control of those orgs)
Are you fucking serious? Remind me again what the first comment posted in this thread was? Was it you saying:
Yes, yes it was, you disengenuous fuck. I'm beginning to agree with the people saying you have a humiliation fetish, I don't know why else you'd decide to make this post.
Me recognising that salty hexbears can't help themselves from showing their asses, doesn't mean I want them to do it.
As much as it is stunning to believe, my life doesn't revolve about what terminally online campists think of me.
Ok, well, enjoy the results of your very obvious bait post I guess.
I find it extremely shitty for someone to actively pick a fight and then whine about how they didn't actually want a fight, but you do you.
Awww come on, you know you post bait. A lot of the more aggro users are pretty young and very online, you know how the all feed works. You've either gotta aggressive ban arguing or it just turns into this.
Like with this comic, which is kinda funny, it's a superficial view of sometimes really complex and for people perhaps too invested in the complexities it's like whatever the rage-virus version of catnip is.
I dunno about the working together stuff. The people I've found the most useful in union movements tends to be pretty dogmatic about Lenin. I lean syndicalist myself - believing that unless we control work and train people in democracy that way we'll be destroyed by police - so that might be my own lens on things but a lot of self identifying anarchists aren't the most practical of people.
Well that's the thing, I post "bait" from all angles. Just look at my posts in /flippanarchy about liberal electoralism. I get swarmed by libs frothing at the mouth about "vote blue no matter who" (and I'm not even USian). If I consistently avoid all anarchist topics which enrage terminally online weirdoes, I might as well close down this comm, yanno?
Anarchist agitation just happens to looks like "bait" with those it criticizes.
Counterpoint: the IWW
But yes, there's lifestyle anarchists out there, as much as there's tankie LARPers who put on ushankas and dress in red. Likewise I've seen a ton more hypocrisy in meatspace ML circles than online ones, but I've also witnessed anarchist crustpunks who are toxic to the working class. There's shitty people in all areas, but historically we can clearly see that anarchist praxis does bring the goods.
TBH outside of some examples like mondragon (more Basque than anarchist) and the zapatistas it kinda seems like we're getting fucking owned. The left in general seems like it's getting fucking owned. It's one of the things that keeps me up at night.
Describing china as leftist is kinda funny. They're defs more welfare oriented than neoliberal countries but after the reforms shit is a bit of a joke.
Public ownership is the principle aspect of their economy, the large firms and key industries are thoroughly owned by the state, and the proletariat is in control politically. It certainly has a long way to go as it develops through socialism, but the ultraleftism of the Gang of Four and the late Mao period were ultimately not based on materialism, but an egotistical desire to try to acheive communism well before it could actually be.
The reforms were a calculated and sober return to more traditional Marxist understanding. The Gang of Four were dogmatically high on their own supply, and thought, legitimately, that it would be better to have worse material conditions in a more planned economy than introduce controlled market reforms and achieve higher levels of material conditions and metrics for the working class.
I understand that it isn't anarchist, not by any stretch, but it appears to have paid off quite well so far. Growth is more consistent, stable, and rapid than before, and that's referring to the material conditions of the working class, not just profits.
Capitalist propaganda has been very effective when things were going up in the everything bubble, but these things quickly change as the system instabilities accumulate. Ultimately it doesn't matter if "the left is getting owned". Acting prefiguratively does improve our lives in the here and now so we just keep agitating for those methods, that's the beauty of it.
It would be silly of me to disavow prefiguration when my primary interaction with lemmy has been making it melt down with how vegan I am :p
But I guess that's where these navel-gazey comics and internet slapfights rub me the wrong way. To get where we need to be we don't need a billion anarchists, we need a billion people willing to ignore lords and masters. Agitation focused on waking people up to the flaws in liberal capitalism rather than agitation that fragments the already prostrate left seems more useful to me.
That's the thing, I don't think there's anything to divide. Anarchists have not been united with MLs since the first international. We just have non-compatible praxis and our actions will lead to severely different results. I think it's important to remind people of that now and then. I'm OK with working with MLs who follow anarchist praxis, but I also know we must remain vigilant for entryism and takeovers of our orgs.
I have a different perspective but we've both said our pieces.
My handler is texting me, I've fallen behind on dividing the west so I'm off to be trans on Facebook.
Gawdspeed
I once said something about hating tankies and got name-checked into a thread there. I explained that I don't care for authoritarianism of any kind, and one mouthy punk kept trying to rile me up.
Y'all got a reputation for a reason.
(There were others who were chill about it, but people tend to remember loud assholes better than chill people.)
Hexbear and its influences have been a disaster for the fediverse.
Soooo... a tankie space.
Terminally online radlibs call me a tankie too so apparently yes...
How would left unity work?
Anarchism and MLism are so different from each other that any unity between supporters of either would be short lived. Like the unity between the USSR and the USA during WW2.
Sure, but those methods are severly different.
FWIW: I think left unity is pretty important now, during another rise in fascism, but I don't think it will last long.
That's a really good take, actually.
Personally, I dont think its important if left-unity its temporary or permanent so long as it last long enough to overthrow the capitalist system.
As a wise kangaroo once said
Since when was it anarchist's goal to enslave the working class to party bureaucrats?
In my ideal postrevolutionary society, there would be special political/economic zones where anarchists could live and try to build a model for the society of the future, sheltered from external threats by the communist state. I don't think anarchists and MLs necessarily need to be at odds.
That's an interesting idea
You realize that that idea basically means that anarchists would have to help MLs seize power their way, and then hope they stick to their promises (because they're then at their mercy). For me, It's an absurd idea on its face and only serves to make us willing tools.
You should actually look up the history of and contemporary anarchism in socialist states. Hell Mao himself was in anarchist circles in his college days. You just like to stir shit for no reason at all. This meme you posted is not a principled critique and is just a tired liberal trope. As anarchists we should do better. But frankly I expect nothing better from you given my past encounters with you.
Your MOM gas a more nuanced position on AES than us.
Would she consider a lecture series?
Or... Or maybe an intimate one on one explainer over coffee?
...well?
I'm too much of a coward to askher myself.
No, thats the beauty of it! I'd just be a secondary fallback stepmom.
I make really good mocktails, half decent coctails, and ice cream from scratch.