this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023
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Lefty Memes
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An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Serious posts, news, and discussion go in c/Socialism.
If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, updooting good contributions and downdooting those of low-quality!
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0. Only post socialist memes
That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme)
1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith interactions is enforced here
Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism.
2. Anti-Imperialism means recognizing capitalist states like Russia and China as such
That means condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
3. No liberalism, (right-wing) revisionism or reactionaries.
That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" seen on lemmygrad and more specifically GenZedong (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).
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The only dangerous minority is the rich.
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We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.
(if you are reading the rules to apply for modding this community, mention "Mantic Minotaur" when answering question 2)
6. Don't idolize/glorify previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.
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Ok, so give me an alternative then.
Let's say I'm running a workshop to teach children to paint. Some children will be apprehensive about painting due to thinking they don't have the ability or creativity to do so. To encourage them, I say "Everyone can learn to paint!".
But uh oh, some people have severe learning disabilities and may not be able to learn to paint. Some people lack the ability to move any part of their body and can't paint in a way that I would be equipped to teach them. Some people are comatose or otherwise completely non-responsive and obviously can't paint.
What do I say instead? "Some people can paint!"? "Everyone except X, Y, Z can paint!"? Is that encouraging to anyone?
In your example, you can still say "everyone can learn to paint" because of accessibility options for those without arms or whatever.
"Everyone can run" is an objectively false statement that better illustrates the point this user is trying to make.
Not only is it easy to alter what you say to be more inclusive (of you're not being an asshole about it), it also makes for better content.
Say I want to make a video about playing games on the Switch. "Anybody can play this game!" I might say. Then I can take a minute to discuss accessibility options for people who, say, only have use of one hand. "You can buy this modified Switch controller for a mere ten dollars online, which allows for one-handed play, and after some practice, is pretty easy to use!"
Better, more interesting content without being an exclusionary dickhole.
But there will always be someone that can't do literally any potential activity.
I gave an example of someone who is comatose. Is it ableist to say "Anybody can play this game!" if someone in a coma couldn't regardless of accessibility options? Why is it ok to exclude them, but not people with other disabilities?
Edit: I'm going to respond to your other comment here too so we don't have two separate threads going. What is even the point of saying “Almost anybody can do X!” or “Most people can learn to do X!”? The original purpose of the statement was to be encouraging, this is just plainly stating an obvious fact.
There is nothing stopping those people from painting other than your ableism and whatever hurdles you put in their way
and using
makes it clear that you're not arguing in good faith.
Expecting someone to provide you with instructions for some exaugurated made up (and clearly facetious)
scenario you created in your head (aka a strawman) because you're too lazy to even consider thinking for yourself and making the tiniest effort to include all the people you might be talking to if the relevant situation ever came up is pretty pathetic.
That wasn't a strawman. Fartmaster used the same language as the original tweet and merely extrapolated it to a real-world application. And a very reasonable one, at that.
Your comment isn't showing up on lemmy.world so I'll respond to it here.
Do you honestly believe that it's ableism for a random person trying to teach kids a creative outlet of painting to not be equipped to teach someone with a severe learning disability or someone who is completely paralyzed? They could have the best intentions in the world and still not have the experience, equipment, and additional resources to take something like that on. There are entire industries and academic programs specializing in both to teach those skills.
How is considering someone who is comatose or non-responsive not arguing in good faith? Because you'd rather pretend they don't exist for the sake of your argument?
How is taking a hypothetical situation and trying to apply it to a real-world situation a strawman? I'm not misconstruing or misrepresenting the original position in any way, am I? I'm just thinking about it beyond a surface-level complaint to find an actual solution.
Disabled people are just people and if considering us and treating us with minimal respect is so unnatural to you that's definitely a you issue.
lol, ok so you also agree that there isn't a viable alternative that conveys the same meaning and also acknowledges disabled people exist without being even more ableist or exclusive, thanks.
unless you really want to die on this hill and explain to me where I implied that disabled people aren't people, or that it is "unnatural" for me to show them respect with the questions I've just asked.
or, you know, you could just actually make an attempt at answering them, since it's such a simple problem to solve in your opinion.
You don't have to say "everybody can do X except people with Y." It's clunky and annoying and unnatural, when saying "Almost anybody can do X!" Or "Most people can learn to do X!"
Pretty easy, pretty simple, costs zero effort.