cross-posted from: https://quokk.au/c/iasip@sh.itjust.works/p/426876/the-downsides-of-running-a-fediverse-platform
S17E3 "Mac and Dennis Become EMTs"
this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2025
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I agree that all states reproduce domination and justify it through ideology, but framing liberation primarily as a matter of expanding consciousness is overly deterministic in its own way.
Capitalist domination is enforced through material institutions that constrain people regardless of what they believe. Rejecting the narrative is necessary I don't think it's sufficient to actually end the system.
Treating all authority as equivalent, or differences as superficial, flattens real differences in how power is exercised and contested. It does so without meaningfully explaining how domination is actually dismantled.
Communist governments will often suppress liberatory currents, that outcome follows from centralized power reproducing itself. However, that is also contextualized by capitalist governments attempting to undermine them. There's not some inevitable law that makes all revolutionary struggle collapse into the same form, which is what the'authoritarian vs anti-authoritarian' lens implies.
Overemphasizing the distinction among different justifications of power plays into the myth that certain consolidations of power are a path toward liberation. We should critically examine the differences while also remaining aware of the commonalities.
Ultimately, rejection of all authority is essential, even if not sufficient, for emancipation. Thus, it is constructive to propagate the understanding that authoritarian leftism is in many ways quite similar to rightism.
Saying authoritarian leftism is 'quite similar' to rightism collapses historically and materially different projects into a moral equivalence that explains very little about how power is produced, resisted or dismantled.
Rejecting all authority is an essential commitment that we do agree on. However, if that rejection erases distinctions in context, structure and antagonism then it becomes less a tool for emancipation and more a shorthand that discourages serious analysis of how domination actually operates and how it might be undone.
Everyone cannot read a treatise on every subject.
We need simple devices to break through entrenched misconceptions.
Such devices complement, not replace, properly nuanced discourse.
We seem to agree generally on the concepts, but for some reason you seem to be objecting, through the use of quote mining.
I quoted the last sentence of your last response because I disagreed with it, and gave the reasons for why in my response. I don't think simplifying things in the way that you are is either constructive or complementing nuanced discourse.
I don't see how that's quote mining.
I acknowledge differences as well as commonalities, yet you select one particular facet of my explanation to insist I am "collaps[ing]… different projects".
The situation we face is that much of the public believes leftism to be inherently authoritarian. The proposed "stethoscope" diagram is effective in separating the authoritarian versus anti-authoritarian left, keeping the latter close to rightism but not fully merged.
Breaking through the prevailing misconceptions requires us to emphasize specific relationships while keeping others as less prominent. We are not abandoning proper theory, only adopting messaging appropriate for the current circumstances.
I’m not interested in sorting leftists into 'good' and 'bad' categories for public consumption because that approach accepts the premise that left politics must earn legitimacy by distancing itself from its own radicals.
Even as purely a messaging exercise, this reinforces the idea that domination is a matter of posture rather than structure. That orientation leads the public to see liberation as a branding/mental exercise instead of a material struggle.
That type of approach narrows what kinds of opposition to capitalism can even be imagined as legitimate.
I feel your pure motives are in tension with practical constraints.
Messaging achieves efficacy through simplification. We pick the most important priorities, while still maintaining more rigorous discourse for anyone specifically able to engage more deeply. As movements evolve, and public consciousness develops, we find newer priorities, perhaps ones more favorable generally.
Being overly earnest in seeking a pure form of communication simply keeps the larger mass alienated that we rather need to be participants.
Regardless, state capitalism is not any kind of opposition to capitalism. We certainly should exclude opposition that is not meaningful.
I think you replied to me twice with the same comment:
What is the practical constraint?
I already said I dont think there's value in approaching this as a messaging campaign. I also don't see how this would be an important priority.
I don't understand what you're trying to convey by saying this is a 'pure form of communication'. I think that this is a material struggle and trying to approach it like a marketing campaign is not constructive, it also reproduces liberal assumptions about power by treating domination as a matter of style rather than structure.
I don’t think wholesale denunciation of past revolutionary movements in the name of consciousness-raising is useful. It turns complex, material struggles into symbols of what not to be, tailored for acceptability rather than understanding. That kind of simplification doesn’t challenge domination, it reassures people that nothing more disruptive need be imagined.
The reality is that our movements may only succeed through expanding participation and improving unity.
Messaging plays a vital role in our movements developing along such a successful course, messaging that is accessible and straightforward even at the cost of completeness.
I doubt you will find a historical example to contrary, but it seems that on the particular matter we are simply in disagreement.
I don’t disagree that expanding participation and unity matters. I don't see that specific type of messaging as constructive to that end.
Most mass movements that achieved real gains did so by forcing confrontation with material conditions, not by first correcting public misconceptions. Simplified messaging tends to follow success rather than generate it.
Also that simplification isn't exactly neutral, it shapes how people understand power, struggle, and possibility. Messaging that gains accessibility by adopting liberal moral frames around 'authoritarianism' may broaden appeal in the short term, but it does so by narrowing the horizon of what opposition to capitalism can look like.
That tradeoff isn’t just about completeness, it’s about whether unity is built around confronting material structures of domination or around reassuring people that nothing too disruptive is required. I think we’re simply at different conclusions.
I appreciate the conversation, even if we don’t agree.
I stand by my assertion that accessible and straightforward messaging is essential, even while not sufffient, for movements to succeed, and that some simplification becomes inevitable.
I understand you disagree.
Regardless, criticism of authority is fundamental and unique to leftism. It is not "liberal moral frames".
I don’t deny the need for accessibility or simplification. I’m questioning whether centering 'authoritarianism' is a neutral simplification, rather than one that imports liberal assumptions about power and legitimacy.
Critiquing authority is central to anarchism precisely because liberalism already critiques some authorities while normalizing others. That distinction tends to get blurred when domination is understood more in moral terms than in structural ones.
Criticism of authority is central to anarchism because anarchism entails opposition to authority. Liberalism is incidental.
The anarchist criticism of authority is that it cannot occur except by coercion and deceit, and always produces exploitation and oppression.
All along I have been using the language "authoritarian leftism". I am at a loss to imagine how anyone would think I am referring to other than leftism. We clearly have authoritarian leftism, anti-authoritarian leftism, and liberalism, as three distinct orientations.
My argument was that the framing reproduces liberal ways of evaluating power, even when applied internally to the left.
My point isn’t that anarchism borrows its opposition to authority from liberalism, but rather that liberalism is relevant because it shapes the dominant criteria by which authority is judged, even within left and anarchist discourse.
You seem very certain that there's three distinct orientations. I’m not convinced those are discrete or stable categories in practice, rather than overlapping tendencies that emerge differently under specific material conditions.
What does this three-part distinction explain that a structural analysis of power doesn’t?
There may be overlap, but each of the three has features distinct from the others'.
The terms allow us to identify the features of someone's position without an exhaustive elucidation, even if the terms function as tools that are imperfect.
Tankies in particular are in the extreme of authoritarianism within leftism. The criticisms of authoritarian leftists by anti-authoritarian leftists represent a quite expansive corpus of writing.
Your objection is very abstract. With each passing comment, I feel less hopeful of understanding your concerns.
I don't think I've been particularly abstract. Treating 'authoritarianism' as the primary lens encourages moral sorting over structural analysis, which in practice narrows what kinds of resistance people see as possible or legitimate.
I’m questioning what this taxonomy explains about how power operates and reproduces itself, while you keep restating its usefulness for labeling positions. That’s not the argument I’m making, and I've expressed my concerns several times now without you addressing them.
Taking revolutionary failures as proof that the whole framework was wrong or should be ignored reduces complex material conditions to a moral judgment after the fact.