Honestly, MLs tend to do this with a lot of convos, I feel.
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I definitely have a hard time consuming media now that I can see the ideology it subtly yet effectively espouses, especially anti-communism. And now that I am outside that, I see how the labor aristocratic people around me basically center their lives around propagandistic fiction and I can’t help but see it as disgusting. So certain things like that, I don’t think I will ever be able to engage with again and will always call out the politics involved.
I feel like part of being critical of propagandistic fiction is being willing to allow yourself enjoy and especially create alternatives to it. If you say “Marvel movies suck because they’re an extension of the military industrial complex”, you’ll get a few people agreeing with you, but others will just shut down and refuse to listen.
On the other hand, if you say “oh yeah, that movie had cool special effects I guess, that reminds me of the story I’ve been reading about revolutionary super heroes killing slave owners in the civil war”, people will think you’re quirky and cool (and anyone who complains is immediately outed as an annoying slave-owner defending nerd)
You can even criticize things while still participating in them to an extent (you can still talk about the latest Marvel movie with your friends, bring up the interactions between Marvel and the military industrial complex, and continue with talking about the movie, all in a seamless part of the same conversation. Bring it up as a “scary fun fact”.)
Solidarity comrade.
I think we all do, comrade. That manic phase of reading and being red-hot angry about how fucked the system is.
Eventually you realize that you can’t hold that level of anger constantly. Or if you do, you’re gonna go and do some adventurism and end up in prison.
It’s a tight balancing act, but you gotta choose your battles. Enjoy life a little if you’re privileged enough to do so, but that doesn’t mean don’t organize and educate…
I agree.
On the one hand, I agree with the general sentiment. On the other, well. It’s not easy, you know? A lot of things that used to bring me entertainment or joy have just ceased to, even before my swerve into ML proper. Sometimes even rudimentary, instinctive acknowledgement of materialism is enough.
To not be empty worded: I’ll rant about videogames and movies elsewhere, and focus on one specific example here. There’s this fanfic (for the lack of a better term) I used to like, called something like “Humans are space orcs”. The basic idea of the author was to highlight some strange things about human biology and behaviour that we take for granted - i.e. having a stupidly corrosive acid right in the middle of our bodies and having to constantly regenerate special cells just to keep it in. Sounds simple fun, right?
Except it doesn’t. The author’s biases and lack of materialism are so glaring, reading stops being enjoyable and becomes infuriating. I.e. alien species in this setting are essentially categorised into having some single trait that defines them (except for humans, coz we special). One species is obsessed with rules and regulations, but the author fails to actually analyse the implications and just handwaves it as “oh they’re bureaucratic haha”. Another is apparently obsessed with material (read: monetary) gain, but the author never really connects it with capitalism. Instead it is humans that teach them capitalism! And once again, the author fails in the analysis, instead trying to portray modern day US as essentially what future humanity is. It’s annoying.
And it’s the same with everything. And on top of that, enjoying simple things (a good book, some miniature painting) gets rather difficult when there’s a very real and serious threat of violence and war looming overhead.
Same. Very frustrating to watch/read something I used to enjoy only for it to be full of massive neoliberal pro-capitalist propaganda, so on the nose that it astounds me that I never noticed it before.
As a writer/artist myself, I try to consider the idea that all media is problematic to some extent, and all media contains the biases of their author. So the key is to just work out which stuff I can be less bothered by, and when stuff does bother me, I try to think of it in terms of the people who made it just not considering the implications of their statements and try to avoid taking it “personally.”
And with the idea of dangerous things on the horizon, I just don’t see the point in being worried about it. It’s terrifying, sure, but being paralyzed with fear doesn’t help anything or anyone. No one can just work to build socialism 24/7, we all need down time, it doesn’t make you a bad person or a bad communist to enjoy some trashy fiction every now and then, even if it is filled with issues because of the author’s biases.
It’s unhealthy behavior.
Perhaps. Can’t spend my life being constantly frustrated. But what’s the solution there? Relax and enjoy? Bit late for that
“Smoke 'em if you got 'em; shoot 'em when the cops come.” – That Handsome Devil, “Rob The Prez-o-dent”
I suppose that it depends on what exactly you’re trying to enjoy.
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism but that doesn’t mean that some consumption isn’t worse than others
I enjoy everything, tbh.
What about pornography?
Why can it not be enjoyable? I understand that films and sex work are extremely exploitative, but I prefer (unproblematic of course) drawn and written smut by individual artists, or even sometimes writing/drawing my own. Would these avenues not be substantially more ethical to consume then things that come out of the extremely exploitative pornography industry?
Proponents of anti-pornography, feminism and other pro-women movements might argue that all forms of porn, even if no real humans partake in the activity, still contribute to an over-sexualized, over-fetishized image of women among the target audience; mostly, heterosexual males.
Firstly, who said that the porn I was consuming included women at all? Even so, if they were, over-sexualized, and over-fetishized depictions are very disgusting to me and I do not enjoy them. Hence why I like to consume comics depicting normal or healthy relationships, or unproblematic and consensual kinks.
I feel like you are still looking at this from the lens of drawn or written porn being in the same vein as generic porno-film quality with cheesy or problematic dialogue, with exaggerated moans and emotionless sex.
I feel like this speaks more about the problematic nature of what porn depicts, rather then the medium itself. This would be like saying that consensual sex is bad, because rape exists.
I guess…that doesn’t sound too bad? Your suggestion seems fine to my ears, but others might disagree.
Regardless, pornography will most likely be banned in all socialist countries anyways; just like how it’s banned in China, for instance.
Pornography is not banned in China. Selling, purchasing, transporting, or producing it for PROFIT is banned. If you want to draw or write some smut and put it on an 18+ forum, no one cares or is going to stop that. Self made porn is also not banned if you aren’t disseminating it for profit (something like Onlyfans). Artistic, educational, and medical depictions also have exemptions under Chinese law, and a lot of drawn pornography sites use the artistic exemption.
If you make a website selling pornographic art or films or open a film studio, that’ll get taken down and is very illegal. For example the site Erotica Juneday required users pay around 20-500 dollars a year for their service. That was taken down and the administrators were imprisoned. The Chinese version of DeviantArt and Rule34 however are free and run no advertisements, and they have remained up for years.
Peer to peer dissemination is also not illegal, which is why services like Baidu offer that as a service.
Further, the vast majority of Chinese people use VPN’s, and it is estimated that a large percentage of that traffic is to foreign pornographic sites.
Feminists and other pro-women movements have a lot of different opinions on pornography. Some agree with the position you’re describing, but to my knowledge it’s far from a consensus.
Indeed. I am still working up the courage, but I would like to try being a cam girl. NOT because I need the money, but because it sounds fun to me. It’s just a bit of sex.
Edit: hey downvoters! How about you tell me why you think you should have some say over what I do with my body or who I show it to? And how that relates to feminism?
I’m an upvoter, but some of us may be fearful of you going into a potentially dangerous field and/or reproducing patriarchal ideas in your potential customers as well as reproducing the notion that becoming a cam girl is a fun idea in this patriarchal climate. In all the feminist literature I’ve read, though, shaming, gaslighting or traumatizing individual practitioners of sex-work or adjacent work was never presented as a good or feasible idea, and I assume you’re aware of the risks and are doing it despite not having a need for money, so I support you here.
100% agree with this and would argue that “smut” or any other form of pornography will always be unacceptable due to this reason and the argument that “it’s drawn” is a ridiculous reason as it still promotes these ideas. We wouldn’t say “oh it’s just drawn or written” about anything else and saying that “it’s just pixels” sounds an awful lot like a certain other group
And more ethical to consume doesn’t mean ethical. It may be slightly less worse but that doesn’t mean acceptable or okay
That is a subjective viewpoint from your personal tastes. How does that determine morality? Who are you to say that its slightly worse but not acceptable?
I would argue that it’s not acceptable for the reasons given but the idea that it’s not as bad as traditional pornography is subjective and my own opinion. I won’t say that that is absolutely true but is simply what I think.
I can agree with you there. That is reasonable and how opinions work. However the reasons listed are themselves still subjective since they do not apply to a wide array of situations. The problem arises more in attempting to impose that ideal on others who don’t hold it.
That is reasonable to do when there are significant moral and ethical issues (CP, Bestiality, Revenge Porn, Rape, exploitatively media, inaccurate depictions, purposeful objectification and so on), but simply stating that sexual material as a monolith is entirely unacceptable would face immense backlash.
Because it still promotes the idea of exploitation of other people by reducing them to an object.
How? Lets say for example you draw a couple engaging in regular sex, how does this promote exploitation or reducing people to objects?
If a persons takeaway from drawn or written porn depicting nothing more then regular sexual encounters is that the subjects in it are nothing more then objects, that seems to speak more about the viewer then the medium.
That’s like the “Video games cause violence” narrative. If you cannot detract fiction from reality, that is an issue with the viewer.
Do you see two people engaging in an in-person sexual-attraction based hookup as exploitation?
Japan and their drawn porn filled with sexual assault and pedophilia definitely is oo and does not help perpetuate their rampant misogyny and sexual harassment issue
/S
Because it reduces the interaction of the person with the media to the concept of sexuality. As that is normalized it leads to association of people with that. The media=sexualness and because the depiction of the people is sexual is leads to the idea that the people are also objects that are for sex because that’s what they are in the media. Seeing something over and over will have an effect on people. Essentially, objectifying the charecters by association with sex as well as the normalization of objectivity. Obviously, it’s not as bad as traditional “pornography” but that doesn’t mean it’s good
Alright? I struggle to see the conflict here, you are again describing an issue with the viewer rather then the medium.
That is also a massive leap in logic. How will people viewing sex cause them to view the other gender as nothing more then objects of desire? Again, if a person cannot disconnect their reality from a fictional medium, that is a personal issue. Further, of there is nothing problematic being depicted, then what is the negative takeaway in this scenario?
You also run into the issue that the vast majority of humans are inherently sexual. That is how we have literally survived as a species for hundreds of thousands of years. Humans have also been masturbating for hundreds of thousands of years, so how would you magically attempt to cease a base human instinct? Lets say a person did not have access to pornography, would they not just then resort to their imagination which would serve the exact same purpose??? Could people not simply just imagine others in their minds as “objects of desire”?
Again, this seems to be a societal, and educational problem rather then one related to the medium of drawn or written smut.
This argument also seems pretty logically sound.
I think that the discussion around the abolition of pornography is so difficult for men to talk about as we - most of us - want to see pretty, naked girls; however, for the sake of public harmony, it’s probably something that just has to be accepted.
It’s the same thing for meatless diets, as well.
Cumtown
I feel like I’m still in the middle phase but heading towards going back down. Some things I can’t engage with neutrally as I’m too irritated to just brush past the cognitive dissonance, but with others I follow the mantra “yes, I understand the frustration but lets all take a deep breath and realize you don’t actually care about that” and its made scrolling social media and talking with people a lot easier.
I’ve mostly stopped caring since its clear nothing is going to change for the better unless something catastrophic happens first. Like for instance famines and other climate change induced supply chain failures forcing people to fight a government that has nothing left to offer them except violence. I’ll still be fighting with CPUSA until I die though.
Collapse has to hit for the west to start considering anything new; and when they do, they’ll probably consider fascism first to the exclusion of all else, so you’re not wrong. I’ve hit the doomer streak, and don’t really see a way to unflip that switch now that the feedback loops have started. Cosigning ComradeSalad, tho; please pick a better org. I don’t trust or expect anything out of CPUSA but tailism to reformists.
We are neither reformist or tailist.
Did anticolonialism and Black self-determination ever make it back into the party platform post-Civil Rights Movement? Did they ever apologize for purges of revolutionary Black nationalists in the wake of white Amerika’s uproar over the (in tragic hindsight) false Emmett Till allegations? Did they ever decouple from assimilationism and settler-leftism? Historically, CPUSA has been a capitulatory organization. I do not expect anything better of them in the modern day. This is a ‘show and prove’ moment.
Actually, we never gave up on anti-colonialism and Black self-determination.
Also, we never purged Black nationalists; many remained with the party.
We are not assimilationist or anything like that.
You’re kinda just repeating fed talking points, no offense. 😜
…Cool; this conversation is over with 'cause after that? I’m patently incapable of handling you civilly; and this is not your first time showing your ass.
If you’re going to “vague-post” you shouldn’t bother posting.
I believe it is you who has “showed your ass” lmao 😅
Idk about the current state of CPUSA, but I’ll point you to the recent post where it’s mentioned that Rainer Shea is using old CPUSA revisionism to defend his shift toward patriotic socialism.
Some people may criticize your comment as being doomer-ish, and I understand that sentiment, but I also know that in certain countries, like my own, it really is going to take something catastrophic to push people into fighting for meaningful changes.
I mean, I live in Canada which means people here are incredibly dismissive and complacent (except Indigenous communities) which is going to require something BIG to wake the masses.
Might want to pick a better org.
Why?
The CPUSA leadership are corrupt, backwards, and completely out of touch with their reality as an organization and material reality in the United States.
The only main pushes seem to be for empty electoralism for Democrat politics and never any other substantial effort. The leadership are completely unable to let go of the fact that it’s not the 1960’s-80’s anymore. They are also Pro-Khrushchev and believe in market economics.
The party line is that they are literally opposed to a revolution. They are a liberal shill party that’s an empty shell of its former self, and the positions are extremely idealist and removed from material reality.
They also promote “common sense gun reform” which is essentially just disarming the working class so that only the military has guns. And disarming the working class seems to go pretty heavily against Marx and is only something a reformist group could promote
COINTELPRO did a number on them? i’d imagine so since that’s what the op was created to target
Actually, they are not corrupt or backwards. They are more realistic and in touch than most other orgs.
We do not and never have endorsed Democrats as well.
We are also anti-Khruschv.
We are also not opposed to revolution.
👍
There is evidence to back up every single one of these claims? Why lie???
One of the lines is literally “We have to defeat Trump by voting Hillary”
https://www.cpusa.org/article/hillarys-hour/
Leaders in the 50’s/60’s to the modern day continued to parrot Khrushchev “revelations” about Stalin.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/40403665.pdf
Here they explicitly lay out that the movement will see victory against fascism and will lead the “Revolution”, through electoral means, and that with the ballot box they can strike blows against the right wing.
https://www.cpusa.org/article/defeating-the-rightwing-on-the-road-to-socialism/
This is all beyond idealist and completely devoid of theory or Marxist policy.
“But actually, promoting the invasion of Libya was something that communist support because uhhhh Trump”/s
I mean yes both Dems and Republicans are capitalist imperialists who are never reformable and will forever be capitalist imperialists, however while the revolution hasn’t happened yet it is important to vote Dems which takes barely any effort.
Conservatives straight up are threatening the lives of minority groups and LGBTQ on an entirely different scale than democrats and life for me as a minority living in the US has gotten significantly worse since trump.
It is idealistic to just not vote or vote for some 3rd party that never wins while real shit has been ramping up for people like me from the republican side (and yes I know Dems do it too and are also bigoted racists but again Republicans do it on a whole nother scale).
Conservatives straight up are threatening the lives of minority groups and LGBTQ on an entirely different scale than democrats and life for me as a minority living in the US has gotten significantly worse since trump.
Democrats have been in power in that time! Dems are complicit!
What do they actually, materially, do? Do they just talk about protection without following through?
It is idealistic to just not vote or vote for some 3rd party that never wins while real shit has been ramping up for people like me from the republican side (and yes I know Dems do it too and are also bigoted racists but again Republicans do it on a whole nother scale).
Voting does not stop anything. It is not important.
I’ll still do it, some, but it doesn’t stop what’s coming for all of us.
The Dems just want donations, they don’t want to help anyone.
If the left guarantees dems our votes then they will only move further right to get anti-trump right-wingers’ reluctant votes. They will only be pressured to not be as bad as republicans if we pressure them by not “voting blue no matter who.”
i really thought this was going to end with a /s
damn
Actually, none of these endorse a single Democrat.
I have nothing to lie about. 😜
Uh huh, what does “we will not settle for the both parties are the same”, line mean?
Also, “Vote Hillary Clinton” is not endorsing a Democrat? You never even opened the link did you?
This seems opposed to revolutions (https://www.cpusa.org/interact_cpusa/do-we-need-an-armed-response-to-the-fascist-threat/)
Yeah, I’ve stopped being angry.
I’m morally opposed to capitalism. That’s enough for me. It needs to die, logically. I’m not emotional about it all. I’m methodical.
Oh yeah, and fancy seeing a CPUSA member here. This place is very anti-CPUSA so I generally stick out like a sore thumb.
To anyone saying we’re an echo-chamber, I’d point them to you as a great example that we do keep around those we disagree with. Wishing you a pleasant day, American!
Edit: I just had to open my mouth, didn’t I?
Well, they’re banned now
Guess I spoke too soon, shame
Just a 3day temp ban, tho
How can you see that? I was really liking Makan’s effort to generate weekly conversation, then saw yesterday they were banned and had to look back in their history to find this whole thread. I’ve got no dog in this fight as I’m stuck in a region where our only option is a practically defunct DSA chapter so was just floating through the lefty void.
It was because they were rude while defending them (and now I believe the ban is permanent according to the mod logs due to them causing arguments in the Matrix server after this)
Gonna check modlog now. Thanks.
It’s in the modlog:
I also like Makan, and think they have great contributions.
I’m not an admin, and can’t speak for them. I think there’s something to the temp ban, though. Every party in the U$ is bad in some way, and it’s poor form not to recognize that in some way.
If Makan had just said, “yeah, they’re flawed but they’re the only party around me. I like the work we do here”, that wouldn’t have been a problem.
Just about every criticism that was put forward of CPUSA was warranted (if kind of piled on, and not really relevant to the thread).
Thanks for the link. I admit I’m a fairly quiet DSA member in my area but we def have our flaws too. I am on the mailing list for CPUSA and was looking into starting up a chapter in my area but I’m not sure if the effort that would be needed to put into it would be worth it since it’s a Republican stronghold and even the Dem presence is shit here.
Still not justified. “uncivilly defending CPUSA, when everyone else in the conversation had valid points.” Really?
Edit: what baffles me is thinking that banning people will somehow reform them.
Edit2: fixed crucial typo
CPUSA is flawed (like every party in the U$). It’s an odd move to act like they’re above criticism.
Idk why you’d think a temp ban would have no effect on behavior.
Edit-removed typo correction
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People here aren’t generally banned for association with communist parties
If you want to be absolutely practical about that, not forcing politics onto everything allows you to be a lot easier to live for everyone around you, which is actually good for the cause. A lot of lefty people are super annoying to be around because they do that. In my experience, no one is willing to change their minds about controversial topics to someone who is constantly bringing them. Oppositely a lot of people will accept the views of someone they see as laid back, fun, socially acceptable and intelligent.
it’s something you see a lot with atheists, especially those who have just broken free from a religion. getting into arguments with everyone all the time can deter people from what you’re desperately trying to say. it’s good to try… plant seeds and water them but you can’t just water them all day every day to try to force them to grow. you gotta keep a nice healthy pace.
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I love forcing politics into things doe
