hey, anti-authoritarians

[Franz Fanonipants]

basically i am under the impression via peter novick that the idea of "authoritarianism," "totalitarianism," and even "dictatorship" is something constructed by American and British historians after wwii to legitimize the expansion of capital.

cite (http://books.google.com/books?id=mhiw__MLyVAC&pg=PR9&dq=That+Noble+Dream+The+defense+of+the+West&hl=en&ei=9YfGTr7CJqTjiAL6tdjgDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false), go to contents and click on XII.

what do you all think?

[Tim Cornelis]

What...

So Saudi Arabia, North Korea, and Myanmar are a beacons of freedom and democracy.

This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my entire life.

[Franz Fanonipants]

no one is saying that.

i'm saying that saudi arabia, north korea, and myanmar have nothing in common with each other, other than capitalist societies choose to class them together as an taxonomic category to contrast themselves and liberal "Freedom" against.

e: and as a result that shit basically is a useless way to define yourself. this has actually come up in the past, how if you are for a revolution you are essentially for a "authoritarian" act. classing things as authoritarian, dictatorial, etc. is just some leftover cruft you guys have from liberalism or something idk.

[Art Vandelay]

no one is saying that.

i'm saying that saudi arabia, north korea, and myanmar have nothing in common with each other, other than capitalist societies choose to class them together as an taxonomic category to contrast themselves and liberal "Freedom" against.

e: and as a result that shit basically is a useless way to define yourself. this has actually come up in the past, how if you are for a revolution you are essentially for a "authoritarian" act. classing things as authoritarian, dictatorial, etc. is just some leftover cruft you guys have from liberalism or something idk.

Totalitarianism, I believe, was created to describe and link both the fascist and communist regimes. So yea it was created by liberals as a way to tarnish both ends of the political spectrum with one brush. However I have heard alot of people claiming around here lately that there is no such thing as authoritarian and libertarian blah blah blah. Regardless of what purpose these words were created I think it is pretty clear what they mean and that they both still apply to our movement.

Revolutions are authoritarian acts regardless if they are anarchist, Marxist-Leninist, or anything in between. It is one class exercising its will over another class. However I think it is also pretty clear that there are two camps in the revolutionary left, one authoritarian and one libertarian. Which one you fall into depends on how you wish to go about achieving our goal.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Regardless of what purpose these words were created I think it is pretty clear what they mean and that they both still apply to our movement.

real talk tho, why?

i mean other than rejecting say a soviet-style vanguard what's the utility?

[El Louton]

Are you for real?!

[Franz Fanonipants]

Are you for real?!

you got documentation that proves this shit is wrong? and what am i "for real" w/comrade?

[El Louton]

That those countries are beacons of democracy!

[Sasha]

Adorno and other post/neo-marxists wrote extensively about authoritarianism etc.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Adorno and other post/neo-marxists wrote extensively about authoritarianism etc.

Its a fair cop. I don't think I've read Adorno, can you give me a cite on where to start?

Is it stuff like Hanah Arendt or?

E: ahah, it is frankfurt school stuff. you know when i was younger i dug arendt etc., but as i got a little deeper into marxism i kind of backed off of that stuff as being, i don't know, kind of weaksauce, liberal or "third-way" crap.

[El Louton]

Woah sorry Comrade I didn't read bits of it. I apologise for my arrogance and ignorance. Apologies brother.

[ComradeOm]

While I'm not sure that I'd go so far to describe it as a concious effort to "legitimize the expansion of capital", I have argued extensively here in the past (http://www.revleft.com/vb/discarding-totalitarianism-relevance-t140232/index.html?p=1834419#post1834419) that 'totalitarianism' is a) unsustainable as a historical framework and b) used to distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' (read: pro and anti-West respectively) dictatorships. You're perfectly correct to note that implicit in all discussions of totalitarian is the (oft hidden) presence of the West. Fitzpatrick and co's Beyond Totalitarianism is well worth checking out on the subject from a historical perspective

That said, I do believe that 'authoritarianism' is a legitimate label as it is based on a direct comparison with Western democracies; that is, it highlights the differences between a hegemonic and coercive regime. It's vague enough to work and doesn't make the same promises as totalitarianism does


Totalitarianism, I believe, was created to describe and link both the fascist and communist regimesAFAIK the term was first used by the Italian Fascists to explicitly distinguish their new and supposed dynamic regime from the liberal order. Ironically Italy was the least conventionally 'totalitarian' of these emerging new states and is largely ignored in Nazi/Soviet comparisons

It was then co-opted by some anti-Soviet socialists as a slur ('red fascism', etc, etc) and then picked up by post-war liberals. Even then the latter, such as Arendt, had fair grounds for using it; looking in from the outside during the the 1950s, there were plenty of superficial similarities between the Nazi and Soviet regimes. The problem is that decades of subsequent research has not supported the thesis (ie, these states did not operates as they were imagined to). Therefore it's necessary to make the false/sly comparison with the West in order to minimise the contradictions within the totalitarian model itself. It's like trying to compare apples and oranges by claiming that they're not cars