In the West, we are constantly bombarded with lies and blatantly incorrect statements about the living conditions of socialist countries. During the original Cold War, depictions of the USSR as a cold, purely utilitarian world with extreme restrictions on any sort of luxury were quite frequent, and though they were blatantly false, it still rubbed off on the West’s impression of socialism in numerous ways that affect even those ideologically committed to socialism subconsciously.
How else to explain the existence of “Nazbol” ideology? People, due to some degree of ignorance about the true nature of the USSR and of socialism in general, but drawn to ascetic, “anti-excessive” (excessive, a term butchered and vulgarized so much I could write an essay about that alone) aesthetics. These people could be drawn to this completely illusory ideology due to bigotry, mere aesthetic appeal, or any number of reasons, but the important thing to remember is that the majority of people are not like this.
The USSR greatly supported “excessive” things that the Nazbol would see as absurd. State-funded movie directors existed. And the USSR pioneered much of modern animation. And what a legacy that is! Not only is animation for the sake of art and self-expression the furthest from cold asceticism I can think of, this deeply important art form has direct ties with numerous current-day queer communities.
Socialism and “excessive” art does not end with the USSR. Anyone who has been in the furry community long enough knows this to be the case. I will not elaborate as to respect the instance’s rules against sexual content (though, arguably, the original content is not sexual, the internet’s general reaction to it definitely was, and the original was by no means drab). The fact I even have to specify that hopefully demonstrates my point.
In this present day, despite all of these obvious examples of rich, romantic and “excessive” art from socialist countries, the Western left still had a somewhat ascetic view of socialism, this could be based on a misguided belief that Lenin’s view of a responsible and likeable revolutionary was proposing excessive self-restraint, but if anyone truly believed that Lenin advocated that, it’s quite sad. Beating yourself up moralistically for enjoying anything is a fairly reliable way to get people to think you’re weird, in a way more unsettling to people than any kind of “excessive” activity the Nazbol would despise.
I propose that we must fight this tendency however we can. But how?
Does anyone else remember when a socialist subreddit banned catgirls for objectifying women?
I’m not going to get into if that was right or wrong here, but it sounds like a pretty good example of something “excessive”, something which, even when having it’s truly problematic character removed from it (possibly especially at that point given how misogynistic Nazbols probably are) scares the aesthetically committed revolutionary.
These days, the catgirl is not exclusively associated with misogyny. Plenty of queer and women-dominated spaces have adopted it as an icon of sorts. We can, then, fight two reactionary tendencies, social conservatism and Nazbol ideology, with one stone.
Let’s post more catgirls. And make them queer feminist ones.
Social activities exist within a defined culture. It’s true that connecting to others can help with organizing, but things like catgirls (not specifically, but so-called “infantile” things like it) have become the culture that you connect over. Not to mention, these things are not any more individualistic than the activities you mentioned as supposedly good.
If you want an example, the furry fandom has multiple organized meetings across the entire United States, a distinct cultural identity which allows members of it to connect to each other, full-on traditions, music that furries listen to together in person, and more.
Personally, I think what you’re saying is missing the actual harmful element of what you’re seeing- Individualistic consumption. Though you mentioned it, you seem to have failed to identify it as the root cause, choosing instead to target the aesthetics of these things.
The actual truth is that nearly any activity can become a source of connection to others through some organizing.
In many situations where we can’t, such as the oft-maligned Disney adult, their reactionary nature comes from their ideological commitment to a company.
Aesthetics like “cat girls” are not connected even remotely enough to a specific capitalist organization for that to be the case, and as such, are entirely capable of being part of the social activities that are essential to a healthy socialist society.
Either way, it’s on us to reach out to the interests people have, and agitate through them, not expect people to spontaneously decide to swap to ones we already have an easy time connecting in because of something they would need to be a very specific kind of ideological Marxist to figure out. And, since we need to reach out to people’s interests and not the other way around, it seems silly to spend time and energy changing one’s interests when connecting with others within the ones they already have is possible.