https://discuss.online/post/29250428/18869440
I thought I’d try my hand at explaining why this meme fundamentally misunderstands communist theory and that I’d better move it here after I posted it, because the people on that community sure love downvoting and/or removing any good point made against the tankie dogma.
Oh, and remember to always lead by challenging tankies’ attempts to portray themselves as the ingroup of communism and any critics as the outgroup. That’s a tactic they love using, they construct their opinions as the absolute communist truth, and brand any opposing opinion as liberal and capitalist, while also strawmanning it. If you open by criticising their communist credentials, they can’t dismiss you as a liberal and pretend they’re arguing in good faith.
There are plenty of real-world attempts at communism that didn’t lead to fascism, including Catalonia, Turtle Island, and indigenous Australia.
I’m always very hesitant about pointing towards ‘primitive communism’, because of the often immensely unjust social interactions which characterize such societies but are often ignored or denied by people seeking to lionize those societies. It goes against the spirit of communism as most people would understand it, even if it is, technically, in some cases, a classless, moneyless, stateless society.
But Anarchist Catalonia, certainly.
Nothing is perfect. Achieving communism won’t end all prejudices overnight, the revolution will need to continue essentially forever. There are plenty of problems with historical examples of communism like the division between men’s business and women’s business, but there are also things white people call problems which are simply different, like payback. Many white people call payback barbaric, but after actually reading what indigenous people have to say about it, I like it better as a punishment for crimes than the white prison-based “justice” system. I believe the wisdom of indigenous societies can be synthesised with the wisdom of western societies to create a truly equal communist society. Some might call that historical dialectics.
If you’re hesitant to comment on indigenous societies, then the best advice I can give you is to talk to indigenous people and read what they’ve written, so you can use your voice to amplify their comments. The indigenous people where I live have told me that they’re the original socialists. Their words, not mine. Indigenous people are not a monolith and many indigenous societies were not socialists, but I speak from what I know from talking to the people on whose land I live and learn.
Of course, but that’s not the point I’m disputing. Anarchist Catalonia was imperfect, but I regard it extremely highly as a model for examination and emulation in terms of a modern conception of socialism or communism.
… that’s an extremely concerning position. That’s what leads to ‘honor societies’ pretty inevitably.
I’m not hesitant to comment on them. I’m hesitant to regard the concept of ‘primitive communism’ as positively connected to modern conceptions of communism, given the past ~100 years of anthropology, political philosophy, and sociology. Societies develop tools and systems according to their own circumstances and needs; ‘primitive communism’, again, acknowledging my dislike of the term, is not reflective of a society that has developed modern ideas of justice and equality, but of societies which face issues entirely different from modern ideas of justice and equality.
I think many of the issues they faced were the same issues we face today. Working hard to make a living. Fighting over a girl. Wanting to know your kids are learning the right lessons in life. Worrying about whether the stories are being retold correctly. Posturing over resources and territory. Wanting revenge for perceived wrongdoing. Wanting respect from your community.
We’ve got more problems today, but the solutions for the old problems are still good. We just need to add more solutions.
You’re being pretty liberal with your attempts there.
Indigenous Australia was a tribal society, where there was no such thing as class.
So you’re saying it was a classless society.
Probably. Indigenous Australians didn’t keep many records of their society or way of life because they lacked writing materials, so it was mostly an oral history.
Removed by mod
They kept a more detailed, ancient, and intact history than any other continent up until the invaders committed genocide and killed many of their storytellers. “Didn’t keep many records” my ass.
no they didn’t. Aboriginal history was mainly oral, passed down from generation to generation. We don’t have any physical records of their society because they didn’t write about it.
Okay so what’s happening right now is that I’m subtly pointing out that oral histories are historical records and you’re not getting it.
And the accuracy of these records isn’t nearly as solid as physical records. With oral history, how do you differentiate fact from fiction?
And there’s the racism. To answer your question, the record keepers are verified in skill and trustworthiness by their predecessors, and they take their jobs very seriously because if they mess up, their friends could die. The information in oral histories is practical and academic in equal measure. If a tribe has a bad record keeper, they don’t survive very long.
I’m not saying it’s perfect, but it’s at least as accurate as all the nonsense Herodotus wrote down. Putting it on paper didn’t keep half of it from being made up. And Australian historical records go a lot further back than Herodotus’ age.