For me, it’s not the fact that the instance exists that’s troublesome, it’s the fact that it’s popular, potentially luring new users into a pipeline. It’s truly a shame how big it’s gotten…
Comment on Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.
JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 2 days ago
The solution is that an instance that cheerfully associates itself with an ideology that wiped away the lives of many tens of millions of people and immiserated possibly a billion more - that instance should be relegated to a dusty basement room where new users won’t easily find it.
samuelblock@lemmy.world 2 days ago
JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Yes, sure. As a liberal, I’m pretty suspicious of even speech-policing, let alone bans or (here) defederation. But I just wish more people understood that the ideas these people claim to support are not anodyne. They’re not just sticking it to The Man, they’re not democrats or even Swedish-style socialists. They’re defending the indefensible.
umbrella@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
you mean the us-led neoliberal ideology?
if so agreed
Objection@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
EleventhHour@lemmy.world 2 days ago
To be fair, those deaths can be blamed on the brutality of the likes of Stalin and Mao. Communism didn’t kill those people— but its authoritarian nature certainly provided fertile ground to be abused by monsters.
Like most things political, it’s highly nuanced and complex. I don’t particularly like to defend communism, but an ideology alone can’t do anything. It requires bad actors who use that ideology for their own ends.
halm@leminal.space 2 days ago
I think that, more to the point, no matter the culpability of communism in Soviet politics, tankies seem more enamoured with the latter — the militant, strongarm regimes — than the actual ideals and principles of ideology.
JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Many would say that this is disingenuous reasoning. The fact is that the brutality was committed in the name of the ideology, and that whenever the ideology has been tried out, it always - always - ends the same way. For exactly the reason you suggest: any ideology that precludes dissent is ripe for abuse.
Stovetop@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I don’t think any ideology has not had brutality committed in its name.
JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Disingenuous or ignorant. By definition a Quaker or a Jain cannot commit brutality in the name of their beliefs. Conversely, an ideology which puts the collective before the individual, such as fascism or communism, is, a straightforward recipe for brutality.
Eldritch@lemmy.world 2 days ago
A few things. Communism isn’t Marxist leninism. Communism isn’t authoritarian. And it’s not just Stalin and Mao. It’s literally everywhere Marxist leninism has ever been attempted. Communism is a classless stateless society. Therefore a Marxist leninist government will never become communist. Because they are defined by their class separation of those with political power and those without, and the strong overbearing presence of the state.
There’s nothing objectionable to Communism whatsoever. And no one should have any qualms about defending it ever. What we should question is why one group of authoritarians the Marxist leninist desire to be so closely tied to it. And another group of authoritarians the capitalists demand everyone be afraid of it.