I appreciate that someone is trying to have a real conversation about this kind of thing. I don’t think leftists have enough conversations where they’re acknowledging the actual sources of conflict within their ranks.

I have a little experience with moderation (including in leftist spaces), and one of the things that I’ve found to be really helpful in understanding these sorts of problems is actually the modern theory of narcissism. A lot has been learned about what happens when a person’s empathy is physiologically impaired in the last decade, and understanding this personality pattern is immensely helpful in navigating interpersonal conflicts and all scales. Tankies as you describe them are actually one of the more clear-cut cases of a narcissistic subculture within the left. The constant abuse of language, bad-faith argumentation, hypersensitivity to ideological or personal criticism of any kind, the dismissal of any legitimate concerns or established facts that would threaten their apparent worldview, etc… This is all classic narcissistic argumentation.

And somewhere along the way, that desire got calcified into a set of talking points. It got buried under defensiveness and online clout games. The pain turned inward, and now they lash out at anyone who doesn’t match their script. That’s not an excuse. But it is something to hold with empathy.

Unfortunately, this narrative is simply wrong. One of the things that you really have to understand about these sorts of people is that the cause and effect between their arguments and their beliefs is reversed from what you would expect. They do not believe things because they buy the arguments that they were given. They hold beliefs abut what is and is not acceptable because of how they want to be allowed to behave and what rights and privileges they feel they deserve, and then they seek out a narrative/ideology that allows them to justify all of that. We’re not dealing with people who are making decisions based on any sort of rational process. We’re dealing with people who are trying to find palatable justifications for them getting whatever it is that they want (power, status, accolades, etc…). The lack of empathy comes first!

The reason that some of these people find themselves in the left is that they can often misconstrue arguments in favor of broad freedom for all into justifications for a system of ‘governance’ where there is no such thing as personal accountability (at least for them, personally). This is where you get your anarcho-nihilists who don’t want any sort of rule-enforcement structures at all, or anarcho-capitalists who believe that rules should be enforced by the people who can pay the private militias to enforce them (and they, of course, would be the sort of people who could afford such a service). Tankies lean on their disordered trait of ‘living in their future success’ more than most - believing that they will somehow rise to the top (or somewhere near it) of whatever authoritarian regime they’re advocating for, essentially escaping any sort of accountability and holding absolute power, all while appealing to the desire for liberation from the disenfranchised.

If you don’t believe me, then here’s an experiment for you. Try to have a conversation about accountability with anyone who is acting suspect like this. Ask them about what sorts of systems of accountability they would like to see in a society, and ask them about where they see themselves fitting into that system. Ask them how they think that system should respond to some of their sketchier behaviors. Accountability is the #1 enemy of any narcissist. The responses you’ll get will be absolutely insane.

those miserable fucks are mocking this thread https://hexbear.net/post/4671954?sort=Top

keep an eye out for brigaders (I see at almost a dozen sketchy comments here already) and report anyone you even get a whiff of being tankie alt. Even mild tankie apologetics or sympathy shouldn’t be tolerated or else they start thinking this is a safe space for them.

Sometimes it’s hard to believe these people are real. It almost makes more sense they exist to make the left appear completely toxic to everyone, including left leaning people.

I hope that’s the case anyway and all the above is just a lot of over analysing, cos man, they suck.

I checked, guys. OP doesn’t have .ml next to his name.

Sadly, this means we can’t just call him out and we have to actually read the post this time.

Myself, I’ve seen a bit of similar stuff.

Since arriving on Lemmy, I’ve sometimes stumbled on instances where ideological purity is enforced with an iron fist, and dozens of communities have the same overlapping moderators (no point in appealing any decision).

In such places, I’ve sometimes ended up arguing - usually describing history from the viewpoint that Wikipedia takes, from the viewpoint which has the benefit of supporting evidence. In those few places, this has been deemed “reactionary” and I’ve been banned a few times.

Upon examining the moderation logs of the threads where I got banned, I’ve found other peculiarities, like people getting banned for voting the wrong way.

I’ve never been too sure about what the appropriate response is, but my response has been reminding the admin of a local Lemmy instance (I have accounts on multiple instances) that federating with strange places has adverse consequences.

If one federates with an authoritarian place where censorship occurs strongly, everyone will see the counterfactual narratives pushed there, but nobody can argue, since they’ll get banned in those communities super fast. That’s not a balanced exchange of views and I’ve come to dislike that.

I have never seen any discussion like you are describing. However I see a post complaining of tankies every day.

I am relieved to read this.

I can’t strictly identify with your beliefs, but the “this country versus that country” conversations are driving me nuts; as though any government is ideal, or free from corruption.

The only thing I will add is that the “Theory Maximalists” don’t actually seem to have read a lot of the theory they claim. Or when they do, they don’t have a border background in political science to contextualize it. It’s literally the leftist equivalent of Plato’s cave.

I don’t write this to mock anyone. I write it because I want us to do better, recognize our differences and hopefully come to a fair conclusion. And Idk, I still believe we can. Ape together strong 💖

I’ve always defended that aswell, and I guess I’ve chosen my communities well enough to never see outright hatred towards anarchists within the ML circles I’m a part of. Not gonna argue that it’s not the case when it comes to talking about liberals, there is a lot of frustration and resentment, but I think the current state of the world and the historical treatment of commies/anarchists alike justifies that.

There’s disagreements of course (regarding the nature of authority and some historical events), and some unserious jokes, but the news sources, podcasts, online discussion that I consume often feature anarchists in a completely non-adversarial way. There’s quite a few anarchists who I defer to first when it comes to current and historical analysis. I’ve recently discovered Greg Stoker on an ML podcast for example. He is a US army veteran turned anarchist, has great insights into US military and foreign policies and is someone I’ve listened to a lot ever since.

I do see a lot of hate aimed at Marxism-Leninism, but I choose to ignore it. I’m responding to this post because I think it is genuine. Marxism (dialectical materialism) has been the most valuable tool for me to make sense of the world, but the main drive that makes me desperately need to understand the world and try my best to move in the right direction is anti-imperialism.

It’s not the need for an identity, dogmatism to fit in, or because I think it’s “cool” (which would be delusional, even among leftist spaces). If there’s one reason it’s all the horrors I’ve seen and read about that keep me up at night. There’s psychos in all our movements, and you won’t see me stand for people defending the invasion of Ukraine for example (I’m not sure what’s going on in those folks’ heads to be honest, but it’s definitely not theory). While I can’t take seriously a lot of the accusations commonly thrown at Marxism-Leninism, I at least understand the fear and unease behind authority as a whole.

My informed belief is that this fear is manufactured in big part as a way to prevent oppressed people from seizing power (directing very real oppression towards “human nature” or the nature of authority), and this is something that has sunk its teeth so deeply in us that I can’t seem to find a TV show or movie these days that doesn’t feature the “false prophet that ended up being worse than the oppressor” trope.

Regardless, I’ve seen countless grounded, empathetic discussions between different leftists currents that didn’t resort to name calling and willful mischaracterizations, so I second you entirely on this point comrade, I’d love to see more of that ❤️

Tankies are just another extremist cult, that’s extremely online.

Authoritarian Communists have a long tradition of fracturing into political sects. The whole theory heavy stuff is alike to religious texts and their interpretation.

These are political cults. They prey on the weak and lost by giving them something to believe in and a community of sorts. They can only stay part of the community by ideological purity.

This gives these small groups outsized propaganda reach. They will attack all leftists for not being extreme enough. That has a chilling effect.

Todays society, especially on social media, is fractured into small groups that punish disagreement harshly. Gen Z is more into conformity for example.

It’s like you said, an identity or fandom picked by vibes. Actual political change is irrelevant.

Prime example: the biggest left political streamer Hassan Piker is an extremist anti west tankie.

This tankie left completely ignores everything Frankfurt School for example. It‘s just about disillusionment and being anti west.

Not an anarchist, but I think this is an excellent write-up, good job.

Though, I could argue that points 2, 3 and 4 aren’t necessarily exclusive to ML’s but rather the online ideology cultures as a whole - Anarchists, Communists, Liberals, Conservatives or Nazis included. There’s always going to be terminally online people who make political ideologies as their personality and attacks upon them being taken as personal attacks, and this doesn’t apply to ideologies exclusively but rather to hobbies like video games as well. However, both from what I’ve seen and experienced, it is just a phase that does blow over - after a while the enthusiasm subsides, other interests start taking priority, and while the ideas do stay, they do become less prominent and room opens for a more nuanced discussion.

Personally I find their constant bad faith arguments tiring so I usually don’t engage. Many campists have the right critique of the existing systems but are useless at knowing what to do to change it. Their best takes are usually to emulate socialist movements of the early 20th century like a cargo cult and hope if they do the same motions, it will magically lead to the same socialism (with them on the vanguard ofc). So ultimately worthless praxis built on stale rhetoric. It’s telling that even the most “left unity” oriented campists manage to thoroughly alienating most of those they believe they should be united with.

I have noticed how they often use identical tactics to the Alt-Right movement in the USA, as described masterfully in Innuendo Studios’ The Alt Right Playbook. As such, I’ve started thinking of tankies as a kind of Alt-Left, where facts matter little to none and instead feelings are supreme - though exclusively theirs, while yours count for little (although ironically not none, bc cruelty is the point).

And since algorithms that foster “engagement” tend to make this argumentation style more prevalent, it is becoming more prominent all over the world.

Sadly, it’s fairly prominent in Lemmy as well, though tbf, we who came here from Reddit joined their space, not the other way around. This is why supporting independent development of software such as PieFed and Mbin is so crucial, bc otherwise authoritarianism seeps into everything. E.g. Lemmy has a modlog but no modmail, no notification sent to inform the recipient of a moderation action, no ability to enquire or dispute it even if you somehow find out about it - bc the modlog simply says it was done by a “mod” - and therefore Lemmy is actually somehow more authoritian than Reddit itself was??? (Caveat: admins have near total freedom, at the cost of potentially great efforts required to modify the codebase, and mods have elevated privileges as well, but for the end user… it is much the same, at least with regard to a specific community - they can take what it offers, or else leave).

What makes the Threadiverse fantastic and worth visiting is its userbase. Highly ironically then, what makes the Threadiverse toxic AF is its userbase. 🙃 (So many people over on r/RedditAlternatives saying how they could not tolerate it…) Thus, blocking it is then, with people who use such bad faith arguments chief among my own prioritization for such. (Btw it’s not really possible to fully block all users from a specific instance on Lemmy - that feature would have far better been named as a “community mute” imho - unless you use the Sync or Connect app, switch to PieFed, or delve into making Ublock filters or creating your own instance to defederate them, none of them particularly easy to do, for a mainstream non-technical normie, who might otherwise be a fantastic content creator if the Threadiverse hadn’t decided to run them off with its high level of toxicity.)

Some people simply like to be contrarian and troll online communities, including leftist ones. Or they’re doing it out of anger or despair or low self esteem (or they’re paid to by a government lol). Good modding, that has the tools, time, and numbers to do a good job, may be an answer to that side of it.

Otherwise, I think being involved with local irl groups doing things and then posting report backs is going to be a less-theoretical form of posting. I’d hope that would lead to more productive and inspiring discussions.

Thanks for your post!

self-identified Marxist-Leninists, the kind often referred to as “tankies.”

Tankie is a term that NAFO bodysnatcher nazi US empire lovers use to criticize those who oppose US empire’s geopolitical extortion. Naziism is simply superior to Russia’s self defense needs, or China’s humanist abundance strategy. There is no need to support Marxism to be called a tankie. US puppet democracy simply must be considered supreme, and no matter how distant the human rights abuses (that far pale in comparison to even current US evil) of those resisting US evil, you are a tankie for not favouring US naziism and genocide.

tankie is simply a brainwashing insult meant to uphold the illusory “good vs evil historical narrative the audience learned in grade school from pledge of allegiance”

Identity Leftist

It is common in anarchist circles for feminist/queer supremacists, identity pride, to view anarchism as a platform to launch a new fascist order where their identity values rule supreme. The evil of religion/church is identity pride that replaces “thou shalt not kill” principles. Where Marxism is labour identity supremacism, that too becomes a basis for fascism.

Regardless of Citizen’s united, money has always been speech. So, corporatist/oligarchist/capitalist supremacy can spend on divisivness to grant them supremacism. Zionism has always been the Empire’s friend, but it was ultimate alliance point for oligarchy in last election.

Freedom dividends/UBI is far more important than democracy. It permits fair/fairer markets, where labour is not priced based on the desperation level of labour, and returns on capital reflects the opportunity for competition. UBI is less about wealth redistribution as it is power redistribution. Less of a master, is far more achievable than a vacuum opportunity for new masters.