We're not going to vote our way into a revolution and I'm very confident that he knows that. He sees his place as pushing the narrative that leads people to dig deeper and shift the overton window, and I'd argue that he's very successful at doing this. He's just one of the many pressure points we need to apply to the system, we have a different role.

[–] InexplicableLunchFiend@hexbear.net 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

overton window is not a real thing, and is a fundamentally idealist framing of the world and politics

there is a liberal understanding of the world and history, and the marxist one. There is very little overlap. You can't "drag a liberal left" slowly like a gradient until they are a communist, at a certain point they must make a qualitative leap into a fundamentally different ideology. There is a point of confusion and radicalization where the radicalizing Liberal has "radliberal" confused beliefs, but this is not a real or legitimate position that has any coherency. It's just a moment of confusion as their old understanding breaks down and they have to build up the new one. There is no Liberal-Marxist synthesis ideology that has any coherency whatsoever, they're all philosophical abominations.

Claiming that people like Hasan are "pipelines to the left" fundamentally misunderstands how radicalization works. There is no straight line from Liberal to Marxist, you have to shift to another model entirely not move along an axis within a single unified "political compass" or "political gradient". Hasan can only take people as far left as he is, which is radliberal. He can only bring them into the confusion that he is mired in himself. He's stuck in that in-between incoherent stage, which is why he often gets "gotcha'd" in arguments or comes to the right conclusions for the wrong reasons (or the wrong conclusions entirely, like that we should support Ukraine). It's also why a lot of people on the left don't like him, he continues to make a lot of radliberal arguments and incoherent points.

[–] tactical_trans_karen@hexbear.net 9 points 2 weeks ago

Well it's probably my personal experience coloring it, but that's essentially how I became radicalized. To that end, I don't think we can say there's a blanket way in which all radicalization happens. And he also introduces audiences to further left figures than him. I'm just not on board with the idea that he's harmful to revolutionary work. But I will say I'm not the most focused theorist, I watch him to keep up on bleeding edge news with someone who calls out bullshit in real time.

[–] CommieKhinkali@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 2 weeks ago

Sure, but whenever someone in his chat criticizes him from the left he instantly dismisses them often by saying "hit the communism button right now". Im just saying praising hasan and hasan being the most left person anywhere is bad. Imo you cant be a reformist and a communist/radical at the same time, hes more of a socdem himself with often correct takes on foreign policy. I just switched to watching yugopnik instead