There is a well-known internet proverb, the bullshit assymetry principle:
“The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.”
Anyone who has been in a few software chatrooms, a political communities, or any hobby groups has probably seen the eternal fountain of people asking really obvious questions, all the time, forever. No amount of patience and free time would allow a community to give quality answers by hand to each and every one of them, and gradually the originally-helpful people answering get sick of dealing with this constantly, then newcomers will often get treated with annoyance and hostility for their ignorant laziness. That’s one way how communities get a reputation for being ‘toxic’ or ‘elitist’. I’ve occasionally seen this first hand even on Lemmy, and obviously telling people to go away until they’ve figured out the answer themselves isn’t a useful way to build a mass movement.
This is a reason why efficient communication matters.
Efficient teaching isn’t a new idea, so we have plenty of techniques to draw from. One of the most famous texts in the world is a pamphlet, the Manifesto of the Communist Party, a way for the Communist League to share the idea of historical materialism to many thousands using a couple of dozen pages. Pamphlets and fliers are still used today at protests and rallies and for general promotion, and in the real world are often used as a resource when someone asks for a basic introduction to an ideology.
However, online, we have increased access to existing resources and linking people to information is easier than ever. I’ve seen some great examples of this on Lemmy with Dessalines often integrating pages of their FAQ/resources list into short to-the-point replies, and Cowbee linking their introductory reading list. So instead of burning out rewriting detailed replies to each and every beginner question from a propagandised liberal, or just banning/kicking people who don’t even understand what they said wrong (propaganda is a hell of a drug), these users can pack a lot of information into their posts using effective links. Using existing resources counters the bullshit assymetry principle. There’s a far lower risk of burnout and hostility when you can simply copy a bookmarked page, paste it, and write a short sentence to contextualize it. No 5 minute mini-essay in your reply to get the message across properly, finding sources each time, getting it nitpicked by trolls, and all that. Just link to an already-polished answer one click away!
There are many FAQ sites for different topics and ideological schools of thought (e.g. here’s a well-designed anarchist FAQ I’ve been linked to years ago). There are also plenty of wikis, like ProleWiki and Leftypedia, which I think are seriously underused (I’m surprised Lemmygrad staff and users haven’t built a culture of constantly linking common silly takes to their wiki’s articles. What’s the point of the wiki if it’s not being used much by its host community?).
Notice that an FAQ is often able to link to specific common questions, and is very different from the classic “read this entire book” reply some of you may have seen before - unfortunately when a post says “how can value com from labor and not supply nd demand?”, they’re probably not in the mood to read Capital Vol. I-III to answer their question no matter how you ask them, but they might skim a wiki page on LTV and maybe then read further.
(Honestly, I think there’s a missed opportunity for integrating information resources into ban messages and/or the global rules pages, because I guarantee more than half the people getting banned for sinophobia/xenophobia/orientalism sincerely don’t think anything they said was racist or chauvanistic - it’s often reiterating normal rhetoric and ““established facts”” in mass media; not a sign of reactionary attitude. The least we can do is give them a learning opportunity instead of simply pushing them further from the labour movement)
What turned you away from Marxism and into Anarchism? I don’t think any Marxists consider Marxism to be “auth,” rather, the centralizing of all property in the public sector allows for actual democratic participation.
Oh for sure, I just meant it acted as my pipeline away from authoritarian communism. Basically Marx got me to the point of “oh, state control shouldn’t be the end goal” and then I just took that one step further
I don’t really see how that fits, the Marxist concept of a State is entirely different from the Anarchist concept of a State. For a Marxist, States are implementations of class oppression, for Anarchists states are monopolies on violence and an extension of hierarchy. Again, this isn’t Marxists being “authoritarian,” unless you redefine everything non-Anarchist to be authoritarian.
For a Marxist, a fully publicly owned, centrally planned government is Stateless, but not for an Anarchist, as there is hierarchy.
For an Anarchist, a horizontal network of cooperatives and communes is Stateless, but not for Marxists, as there are classes.
If you went from Marxism to Anarchism based on the Marxist conception of the State, then I think you really should read Socialism: Utopian and Scientific | Audiobook as well as The State and Revolution | Audiobook.
I’m not saying Marxism is auth. If we had to place it all on a continuum though, it’s certainly more authoritarian than anarchism. I’m not trying to say that that adjective is at all a good descriptor outside of this context though
I don’t think it makes sense to use a continuum, I guess. I don’t even thing auth is a good adjective even within this context. Additionally, I don’t know what you mean by an “authoritarian Communist” if not a Marxist, considering you are contrasting it with Anarchism.
I know the political compass is flawed but, to illustrate:
Maybe I should’ve said “less libertarian” rather than “more authoritarian”?
The political compass exists so that right libertarians can feel good about themselves and call everyone else names. It was created by a right libertarian. It’s really just a “how far away are you from (racist) Ron Paul?” map along two axes. And the vertical axis was invented just to distance them from the Nazis that they inevitably end up supporting anyways and in order to claim to be on equal liberationist footing as anarchists despite supporting the primary vehicle of oppression, capitalism. Right libertarians are not, in reality, libertarian at all. They never saw a CEO’s boot they didn’t want to lick.
When comparing anarchists and Marxists or communists, authority isn’t really a distinguishing factor. It is about theoretical understanding, the goal towards which the group organizes, and what structures are used to advance that goal. Anarchists always have internal authority to deal with, there are always people with outsized impact and decision-making power, and when larger than 10-20 people, there is a need for hierarchy to actually accomplish anything for more than a week.
What is different is a few other things.
One is that Marxists tend to declare a party to be the best apparatus for advancing the goal of revolution, with decisive mass action by that party, while anarchists focus on free association and spontaneous waves in participation. There are aspects of each of these tendencies in the other, but it is distinguishing.
Another is that Marxists plan for a need to defend the revolution against the bourgeoisie both domestically and internationally and that this requires organized industry and a coherent internal politucal program. Anarchists do not always plan on defending the revolution at all, but focus on building communes here and now, during the revolution, and after the revolution. Some do plan on defending the revolution but only in a context where these collectives are primary over organizing industry or oppressing thr bourgeoisie.
That’s helpful, thanks!
I’m glad!
I understand what you’re getting at here, but in my PoV the political compass is so beyond useless that it adds confusion. There isn’t really a continuum between “libertarianism” and “authoritarianism” and drawing them on an axis doesn’t really make sense. Like, I get it conceptually, but when discussing actual real world systems and ideologies it gets more in the way of understanding than it helps.
That’s fair. Though “more concentration of power <-> less concentration of power” seems like an appropriate continuum to me when discussing theory, which is how I interpret that axis. Am I wrong on that?
I think so. Let’s compare end-game, idealized Anarchism vs Marxism.
In Anarchism, there is a decentralized network of cooperatives, communes, etc.
In Marxism, there is full public ownership and central planning.
The capacity for voice in Marxism is greater for the overall system, while allowing strong voice over local systems, whereas in Anarchism the capacity for voice is largely individual to local.
In this manner, Marxism’s power concentration is spread over the entire planet, the entire society, whereas in Anarchism power is highly concentrated in each cluster, and potentially among related clusters if one has more power. This isn’t a sliding scale, it’s much more multi-faceted. Using a direct linear comparison doesn’t make much sense IMO and obscures the actual mechanisms being compared.
Just my 2 cents.