A community dedicated to critical left unity and the synthesis of ideas. Everyone is welcome here, but, please avoid uncritical or unproductive sectarianism.
(Please read the rest of their sidebar as well to get a feel)
We as Marxists (regardless of whether ML, trot, Maoist, etc) I believe tend to universally uphold the notion that left-unity is not Marxist. That we practice only Marxist-unity (and with plenty of criticism amongst ourselves at that for non-ML’s especially that often goes as far as exclusion for those who don’t support AES at least critically).
To put it bluntly: I do not want people who practice left-unity to get a beachhead or toehold here with a dedicated community.
There is an anarchist alternative (raddle), at least one anarchist instance to my recollections on lemmy itself and most liberal and left leaning instances on lemmy allow anarchists but explicitly ban Marxists.
In other words, this is our one, singular space which these people are now pushing into. We should not cede an inch of it to allowing non-Marxists and those who discourage vicious criticism and yes even venting and sneering and meming on of the compatible-left, the CIA-left, the synthetic-left and other such names.
I’ll note that hexbear is basically a left unity platform and will be federating with us shortly. They tolerate and allow anarchists and discussion between them and ML’s so such content would be better there.
I believe at any rate that anarchists are not disallowed from here if they’re here to ask honest questions and not just spew imperialist propaganda and anti-communist, anti-AES dogma. Thus the community serves as nothing more than an attempted safe-space for anarchists and other deviations (left, right, etc), a safe harbor from site rules and standards.
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Wanted to post the same quote, I think we ought to leave the Left Unity niche to hexbear and let ourselves stay a Marxist instance.
I can understand that, but my experience (mainly on Hexbear) has been that as long as we take a hardline on aggressive spammers and people starting shitfights, we can mostly reach agreements and in many cases convert baby anarchists from their more liberal positions with minimal effort.
Either converting them to Marxists, or at the very least forcing them to actually read anarchist theory to try and “debunk” us which usually leads them to a greater understanding of their own ideological biases and mellows them out, or starts them down a path where they see that their idea of “anarchism” is actually just street politics and is compatible with Marxist/Leninist political theory.
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Definitely understand that, just sharing my experiences with this situation. If lemmygrad is meant to be a primarily ML space that’s also cool. Aggressive purging will always be necessary, but allowing some controlled discourse can be helpful for education. It also creates an environment where younger MLs can see and participate in those sorts of debates in good faith.
I don’t want to step on any toes though because I’m just from Hexbear and am not super familiar with the Grad’s site etiquette and community vibes. Was just trying to give some input is all.
Generally in my experience, younger MLs are welcomed, and questions are answered usually in the manner they are asked. I have seen liberals and anarchists ask questions and or poke around, and so long as no rules are violated, and they are not being disrespectful, they are usually allowed to do so. However we are a marxist, predominantly ML instance, and I find it unwise to make a community that is explicitly for generic left unity, inviting in anarchists and more to the point, disallowing criticism of them as sectarianism.
That’s good, allowing discourse on some level is good because otherwise you’ll just run into constant witchunts and name-calling over who’s saying anarchist things. As long as we’re all on the same page and are able to both identify people who are coming here to wreck while also allowing for some fair amount of discourse that’s good.
Not that debate is necessarily a good thing, but preventing a “hunt” for wrong think is good at maintaining community cohesion. The trick is finding the balance between what’s considered acceptable and what’s a sign that someone’s acting in bad faith.
This was hexbears approach and for the most part just acting this way led to the site being predominantly ML and the response to vagrant anarchists was usually scaring them away with 40 paragraphs of text.
I agree. We must have a more principled stance on Marxism. This is not to mean that Left Unity is not possible, rather that it is limited. Anarchism and Marxism are fundamentally incompatible with each other, hence we should not even bother to consider uniting together. This should be served as a safe space for marxists.
What with the hordes of unswayable liberal-dom making their way to using ‘left’ as a descriptor for themselves, I’m with it. We don’t do ‘left’ unity in my house, we save that shit for the Marxists and maybe the anarchists, but they can’t be settlers even in that case.
Nah atleast in my house no anarchists get to join in the unity. Anarchists can go do their anarchism elsewhere
I personally agree, if we need a dedicated theory comunity we still have https://lemmygrad.ml/c/genzhou
This feels like unnesisarily ceeding ground, with hexbear being the spot for generic left unity, and a potential federation on its way, lets leave the left unity there, and leave here dedicated to Marxist unity.
I would make the case that the main, pertinent criticism is that this community wants to be an exception to instance-wide policy, and with its 3rd rule contain that exceptional behaviour within that community. Under those circumstances it just makes sense for it to exist elsewhere; being here is going to create unnecessary work for both the community’s mods and the instance’s admins for no benefit at all.
For it to exist on a different instance is objectively better for all involved. That said, if it existed on an instance that practiced left-unity, it would be totally redundant. In which case, does it have a reason to exist at all? Any discussion started there can just as easily be started on existing communities on left-unity friendly instances we’re already federated with.
And in consideration of all of the above, it just makes the reason for creating this community at all really rather suss. (edit: and it’s created by a new user, a day after the user account was created… they either don’t know this instance community at all, or they’re hiding behind an alt).
I would be worried because I know some folks on hexbear have talked about wanting us to become hexbear 2, and with that low turn arround time I would be worried,
Maoists are not MLs or are at least revisionist; we shouldn’t allow them in.
I don’t think that it should be as there isn’t really a dedicated theory community on lemmygrad that I know of (other than GenZhouArchive, but that’s an archive). Analytical Unity is the closest I have found so far. I don’t think it should be banned until a better alternative is made.
Also, are posts lost when a community is deleted on Lemmy?
No we have a dedicated theory community, It just has not been super active as we have used other comunities to spread theory in but here is GenZhou https://lemmygrad.ml/c/genzhou
Also, are posts lost when a community is deleted on Lemmy?
i think they remain in the OP’s account, but i have no idea.
like, communities are an empty shell with the individual posts, kinda.
i am new on lemmy, but i feel that, as long as they are on that sub, that is not a problem. like, it will be the little /c/ where anarchists will be allowed to talk and debate.
if they go to other /c/ will be a problem, but as long as it is contained, it can be a good ideia.
just put in the rules “This is the only community in the whole instance where anarchist ideology, in good faith, is allowed”
Anarchists are theoreticly allowed to talk anywhere, if they ask questions in good faith we will educate them, talk with them engage with them, but this instince isn’t ment for anarchists, its a Marxist instance. This would be even more notable if hexbear federates, as they are all left unity and have the no unnecessary sectarianism, I dont personally see the need for the community here, and I agree with the original poster that it isn’t appropriate here
