Just a little thought I wanna discuss.
Unlike the more massive social media or the real world where theres not many leftists and we are gladly more united Lemmy and its left leaning tendencies with the instances providing natural cult grouping tendencies. Add to that the matrix in groups there and we all seem to be making a thing out of how to anger each other. How to troll each other or annoy x or y instance.
I hate this.
Living in an extreme right wing nation I know no other anarchist. A few left wingers. Even the libs here are right wing extremists by the standards of a western nation. I hold dear any solidarity.
I support unions here even when everyone there is a religious fundamentalist who wants sharia law bc they still qantnto improve the conditions of the working class.
Many folks here, who again I don’t have any hate for, I see intending these fights and dramas. Having the goal to be banned from x or y community or instance.
- Why!?!?
- What do you gain?
- What is the desire here??
The most important point of unity for the left is the economics. Political identity must be defined by being the proletariat first and foremost.
When you have people who break that, well their place is questioned.
Mmm hmmm. Yeah. Yes.
So an American proletariat is . . . Anyone who is limited by health insurance, student loans, and mortgage rates? Or is it something else?
We don’t really use the word proletariat, uh, at all. Ever.
In a very basic sense (and this may very well be debated but to explain it simply I’ll say): anyone who doesn’t own their own labour, as in you work for someone else.
That’s pretty much every liberal I know, yeah.
Well. I know some house painters I guess. They don’t work for someone else, per se.
Yeah being part of smth and identifying as smth are two separate things.
I’m a man, straight, brown, proletariat etc. The question is what part of that do I see as the most fundamental part of my identity or politics.
Hm. Well, that’s interesting.
This is also where the concept of alienation in the Marxist sense comes in. He took Hegel’s framework, which Feuerbach and Bauer had used to analyse religion and he applied that to law and economics.
So this Marxist alienation which is in the Hegelian tradition is worth reading.
Now alienation can interestingly also be a desired outcome in leftist movements as the French existentialists talked about.
We also have a third brand of alienation in Buddhism etc.
Some want it some hate it.
I’m with Marx on this one.
If you are interested I can find some introductory article for you to take a look at.