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Comradeship // Freechat @lemmygrad.ml urshanabi [he/they] @lemmygrad.ml

Online Party Discipline?

Hello comrades, I read a comment on a post either on lemmygrad or hexbear talking about how most discourse happening was of poor quality and indicative of a lack of genuine leftist groups in the imperial core. Basically if there were patty's with some teeth they would enforce party discipline and education and that would lead to higher quality discourse online.

I also read some of Lenins2ndcat's comments which were very patient when they were interacting with users from other communities.

Is there anyway to work on like, an online party discipline? Or like having users who are very good at discussing with libs have a more concerted approach to their interactions? It really seems that much of us are often too aggressive and meme-y and as fun as that is it really isn't productive.

I get that this isn't how praxis or anything happens, it seems more like the way we engage could be more productive and fruitful in the long term and considerations like this might go a long way.

TL;DR Planned economy but for memeposting

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12 comments

  • It really seems that much of us are often too aggressive and meme-y and as fun as that is it really isn't productive.

    I don't agree. I like it here.

    You have a 2 month old account here with 13 comments, you are manifestly not leading the charge on engaging liberals "productively and fruitfully". Why don't you engage liberals in the way you recommend?

    This is the second post like this from a low activity account, and it honestly is starting to feel like wrecker shit to suck the fun out of the grad.

    I like the culture here. The admins are also aggressive and meme-y sometimes. I like that too. I would not be here without that.

    • If I understand correctly you don't want the culture to change due to the sentimental value you ascribe to it. I wouldn't want to alienate the existing members of the community and that was not my intention. I appreciate how clear you were in your disagreement.

      I'll try to show what I meant in response to this comment. There are a few points here which I will make explicit and argue against explicitly for clarity. I hope it makes it easier for us to come to an understanding.

      Argument

      P1: you are manifestly not leading the charge on engaging liberals “productively and fruitfully”.

      P2: Why don’t you engage liberals in the way you recommend?

      P3: This is the second post like this from a low activity account

      P4: I like the culture here.

      P5: The admins are also aggressive and meme-y sometimes.

      P6: I like that too. I would not be here without that.

      C: and it honestly is starting to feel like wrecker shit to suck the fun out of the grad.

      Examination

      If I did not get the points or conclusion correct please let me know.

      You made an inductive claim in P1 stating that as someone without a history of engaging in quality discourse I have not provided evidence of this being a valid strategy, either because I presume as someone who has not engaged in it I cannot know the effectiveness of what I claim perhaps due to some idealistic notion. There is some knowledge conferred through experience which I do not have and which I may have if I had engaged in the way I mentioned. The other point I see is that there is a degree of authority I lack as someone who does not have this experience which could be deferred to if I at least did engage even if it was not done "productively and fruitfully".

      For P2 I think this is the stronger charge, you question my actions as not lining up with what I espoused. If this was such a great method why not engage in it? There are several reasons why this may not be the case but they would require being open-minded and considerate of options which are non-typical. As you said I am new, at least this account is, I have been doing my best to learn, observe, and lurk, prior to making any comments or engagements. I did not think I had even a base level of understanding until now where I think I have met some threshold. The other, I may be able to, as a seeming outsider, to give a useful perspective from a different standpoint as I have not subsumed the specific tendencies in this community. The weakness here comes from you not knowing where I come from or what my strengths might be. This is definitely less of an argument based on the content but rather closer (but I would not say it is) an attack or questioning of character and authority.

      In the case of P3 the frequency of this type of post brings into question its validity. I do not think this is particularly important but perhaps it is because you have been a member for a while and the recent uptick is notable.

      P4 and P6 are similar, these are emotive claims about your sentimental value towards the community and the norms and customs you have become accustomed to. Any change to this would presumably want to be avoided as it would necessitate change in the behaviour in existing members and what made this community, going so far as to push away the members which made this community what it is. This is disastrous as change could mean a cessation of what made this community as it is and there is little guarantee that some future evolution of this community would maintain what made the community initially great to you.

      P5 This is an appeal to authority, perhaps there must be some good reason the admins behave in the way they do. The other is that though it works for them, it is something non-admins can attempt to emulate. This could be modus operandi which works for admins but not others.

      C The current mood and environment of the community is starting to sour and turn you and potentially others away from the community. I mentioned why this could be an issue in my response to P4 and P6, as well it causes discomfort towards you and perhaps others.

      Response

      I'll put my response as clearly as I can below.

      1 Change in communities always occurs. Members of communities always adjust. There is a rate of change and rate of adjustment which can be made so as not to alienate existing members and also develop the community towards some goal. Explicitly monitoring and modifying these rates is useful as opposed to in-explicitly or organically.

      2 There is always some goal for some community, it may be vague, it may be better represented as multiple points, but the set contained is the goal.

      3 Working towards a goal is beneficial for the belongingness of members of the community and it can mitigate any alienation or issues with change.

      4 The feelings or sentiment members have is important, and can be accommodated through open and regular dialogue. This is true besides notions I am advocating for.

      5 There is a way which members of the community can engage which develops their argumentation and theoretical knowledge which is preferable or better than it currently is. This is true generally and certainly not for all.

      6 Engaging in such a way is an extension of the beliefs and values of the community.

      C We should at least attempt to do something different even if it seems unviable. As scientific thinkers we cannot determine in advance what will happen and experiments are necessary. The costs and the benefits must considered, but it should not be avoided for fear of potential harm. We use models to determine what may happen, as materialists we know what we think is provisional and not the same as the material world.

      Thank you for coming to my TED Talk

      • I honestly resent the amount of homework you're trying to give me here. I did not ask to come to a TED talk, but I think it's the perfect analogy here - empty, patronizing, and full of pomp.

        I tried to write about 14 paragraphs in an attempt to fence back, but I'll leave it at this - I find your examination of my argument patronizing and willfully obtuse. I don't care for your logical deconstruction because it makes for an impossible amount of text - I can't both parry your examination of what I said and respond to your response without writing a fucking research paper.

        Your response leaves out answers to what I feel are the most important parts I had to say:

        • You are not an appropriate agent to enact change in the community.
        • You have not shown that being nicer is an effective way of creating converts.
        • You have not shown that the community's beliefs and values fully align with your own (creating converts in the online space by talking sweetly to liberals).

        Your conclusion about scientific thinking is honestly a laugh. Where is your scientific thinking in proving your own method?

  • In a comment below you wrote:

    Maybe a lemmygrad strike force?

    Can't say I like the sound of this. It's the kind of thing that will get us defederated from other instances for brigading. It's asking us to do the exact thing that Hexbear is accused of potentially doing, which has led for it to be pre-emptively defederated from dotworld.

    If liberals want to learn and are open about it, they will do so; but most libs don't want to and they often see us as arseholes when we go to other instances and talk about reality. If this happens organically, fine. But to try to organise it
 I'm not so sure it will be successful.

    Part of the problem is that if libs don't want to think critically, they absolutely will cry and whine about every logical fallacy under the sun without thinking. Part of the problem is the material conditions of the global north audience, most of whom are labour aristocrats (we’ve had some good discussions about that if you search for them). Those who are open to new ideas are going to listen anyway.

    As for dunking on libs, Marxists dunk on each other all the time for liberal tendencies. And rightly so. It's a constant struggle. The difficulty with libs is that they have internalised liberalism, so criticising liberalism can feel like a personal attack. MLs tend to take it with thanks for being shown the error of their ways.

    For those liberals who are looking for a way to understand the contradictions in liberalism and their material reality, dunking and ribbing won't put them off because they are already looking for a mental way out. The dunking and ribbing makes it something to laugh about; it's much easier to take than e.g. a detailed review, an outline and critique of every premise in an argument, and a grammar correction; the (good) literature on pedagogy suggests the latter will never work.

    I can see how it would be useful for us to talk about how to engage with others, to spot wreckers, trolls, etc, and distinguish them from the good faith users. We've been doing that for some time already. And just by engaging with the increasing influx of liberals to the lemmyverse, I think those of us who do engage on and outside Lemmygrad have got better at it. But this is often more about knowing the audience than changing how we say things.

    I think if we try to force any kind of rules or discipline beyond those that already exist we risk, among other things:

    • tone policing (which is in direct opposition to the type of expression that we should cultivate in ML spaces)
    • accepting some truth to the argument that we're rude or unconcerned with intellectual, rigorous discussion (which is false)
    • ostracising users who prefer to shitpost and dunk on libs (which let's face it is fun and a worthy cause)
    • ostracising those who are earlier in their Marxist journey (by creating a intimidating threshold for participation)
    • turning this into work, as in labour (I like it here because there's a mix of theory and people just making me laugh or having pleasant conversations without the need to self-censor. For me, it's enough that LG is a space where I can enjoy the company of other MLs)

    As others have said, there’s a good community here, which took time to build. I would caution against implementing any kind of policy about how we should engage or what we should engage about. Especially at the moment, where federation is bringing some wider changes. I noticed that many Hexbear users were concerned about federation changing their culture, too. So it’s a broader concern.

    While I hope it doesn’t change the atmosphere here, too much (there will surely be some change), one of the things I’m looking forward to about federating with Hexbear is seeing more shitposting on their communities. Comic praxis is still praxis.

    Further, while you may have heard someone “talking about how most discourse happening was of poor quality and indicative of a lack of genuine leftist groups in the imperial core[,]” that does not make it true. The quality of discourse on LG is high. What might be true is that not everything is about theory, etc; but that's because we're all already talking on the same page.

    There's no need to keep going through the basics in every community unless libs turn up. Elsewhere on the internet, ML forums degenerate into either 101 or dunking spaces. That's not necessary here (although it does happen as well) because every community builds on the same common understanding, which is taken as granted; the discussion can start at a more mature Marxist place. This may give the impression that e.g. there’s no discussion of theory (due to a lack of imperial core organising or otherwise) but it’s a false impression, I think.

    It’s also important to know that while westerners are probably still the majority, here, the ratio is far better and there are a significant number of users from the global south. Further, the westerners here tend to be MLs, not ’western’ Marxists. Which means conversations are built on different assumptions than is common to see in the west. Many people here aren’t interested in e.g. US politics, which means there is less analysis of US party politics than a typical western radical might expect to find in a political forum. It doesn’t meant the political theory isn’t happening.

    To be clear, I am all for education and educating. I just don't think it needs to be explicitly organised on here unless it's through a voluntary thing, perhaps on a dedicated community. Personally, I'd probably rather just do my own thing in that regard. I quite like the balance that we already have.

    • Thanks for the response. I don't agree with your point in tone policing. There are some of us here, myself included, who are much easier to harm with crude language and pejorative words. You can see examples of it to the responses I have made in this thread and the good faith responses I have made and the vote counts on those comments. I have already been quite hurt. There is already policy and ways which the community operates and how individuals conduct themselves if not explicitly than implicitly. If we've set a lower bound for this generally and in specific cases (as in interacting with other communities) I would argue subsequent changes are inevitable and necessary to protect the more vulnerable and sensitive members of this community and any community. If it really is inevitable, it makes sense to plan it out in some capacity.

      I believe what you said about what pedagogy says, though this is a big claim to make and such claims require proportional evidence. Could you please provide me with some resources if possible?

  • There should not be much debate about the fact that online interactions change minds. Tons of people in leftist spaces (including many in this thread) will point to a subreddit, YouTuber, podcast, etc. that was a key part of their radicalization. You see the same thing on the right -- how many people got sucked into open fascism through online rabbit holes? And of course theories on how media can reinforce capitalist hegemony have been prominent in leftist thinking for at least the past ~40 years.

    There should absolutely be more effort applied to identifying:

    1. Groups who can be brought to our side with a reasonable amount of effort
    2. Where those groups can be found online
    3. What is persuasive to those groups
    4. How to best get persuasive content in front of them

    Fascists have been consciously doing this online dating back to at least the mid-00s. We can either abandon ground to them and NYT libs or provide an alternative.

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