Why do boy leftists enjoy riots so much?

[mew]

Of course there are lady leftists who enjoy riots and boy ones who do not but. Consistently boy leftists I've talked to get I can only describe as pruriently excited by just the thought or mention of a riot. Their eyes glaze over and their ears perk up as if seeing a beautiful naked lady. Why is this so? I know ones who go to protests and antagonize cops because enjoy fighting and I guess want to invite riots (also egging people to riot through speeches I guess.) it's funny because often male leftists are nerdy and physically unaggressive otherwise generally. I guess this is more the question. It's obviously fun for a lot of boys to smash things etc but riots specifically bring out something special in boy leftists that like just a street fight might not.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Because they place leftists in direct conflict with the state, hence separating the leftists from the "leftists"

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Because men are stupid.

[Brutus]

We're full of teenage anger and hormones!

[Sasha]

lrNSjItTfes

[ind_com]

Of course there are lady leftists who enjoy riots and boy ones who do not but. Consistently boy leftists I've talked to get I can only describe as pruriently excited by just the thought or mention of a riot. Their eyes glaze over and their ears perk up as if seeing a beautiful naked lady. Why is this so? I know ones who go to protests and antagonize cops because enjoy fighting and I guess want to invite riots (also egging people to riot through speeches I guess.) it's funny because often male leftists are nerdy and physically unaggressive otherwise generally. I guess this is more the question. It's obviously fun for a lot of boys to smash things etc but riots specifically bring out something special in boy leftists that like just a street fight might not.

You should talk more to homosexual boy leftists. They tend to be way cooler and more practical. :D

[Quail]

I think there can be quite a bit of "hard-man" posturing among leftists (especially men) when it comes to riots/anti-fascist stuff. I'm not sure why although I suspect it's probably related to the way men are expected to behave in society at large.

[Sasha]

Slightly more serious answer; testosterone meets societal conditioning that boys can enjoy tribal warfare

[Blake's Baby]

Tiny penises, is my guess. Then, overcompensating so as their 'comrades' (sublimated homoerotic coteries) think they're 'real' revolutionaries.

That's my considered opinion.

However there's probably a small percentage who are merely going 'ur-huh, ur-huh, I just like to watch the things burn'.

[The Douche]

I doubt any of the people you talked to have been in a riot.

[bcbm]

shits funny

[vizzek]

probably because they have boring lives and want to assert their masculinity in a way that looks heroic

[Art Vandelay]

Because this world fucking sucks.

[La Guaneña]

Probably because they have never seen a riot. And manarchism

[Os Cangaceiros]

Gets the blood pumping. Have you ever been in a position where someone's pulled a knife on you, or you have to run from the cops, or you're confronted suddenly with a large carnivorous animal, or you skid on black ice going 40 mph and come inches from hitting another car, or you suddenly hear a loud pounding on your front door when you're really stoned & paranoid? That surge of adrenaline where, even though the experience is unpleasant (possibly even terrifying in a bladder-emptying kind of way), it still feels good, kind of? Maybe I'm just weird but that's always how it's been with me...(I've never been in a riot though)

[Comrade #138672]

Because they feel that they can inflict damage on the bourgeois State, which is their enemy.

[Brutus]

Because this world fucking sucks.

True dat

[Ele'ill]

because people are conditioned to receive a response to feel relevant instead of getting busy and leaving before the response

[Ele'ill]

or you skid on black ice going 40 mph and come inches from hitting another car, and you suddenly hear a loud pounding on your front door when you're really stoned & paranoid?

fixed this for personal reasons

[Bostana]

I fell offended. :p

[Sam_b]

"lady" leftists?

[Crixus]

Of course there are lady leftists who enjoy riots and boy ones who do not but. Consistently boy leftists I've talked to get I can only describe as pruriently excited by just the thought or mention of a riot. Their eyes glaze over and their ears perk up as if seeing a beautiful naked lady. Why is this so? I know ones who go to protests and antagonize cops because enjoy fighting and I guess want to invite riots (also egging people to riot through speeches I guess.) it's funny because often male leftists are nerdy and physically unaggressive otherwise generally. I guess this is more the question. It's obviously fun for a lot of boys to smash things etc but riots specifically bring out something special in boy leftists that like just a street fight might not.
Anarchists tend to be younger (early 20's) that and the anarchist theory of 'direct action' somewhat opens the door for property destruction as a political tactic. I've seen plenty of younger women anarchists spray paint and break things. The occasional dumpster fire starter. Are you implying it's an expression of patriarchal aggression? I would think it's an expression of anarchist theory in practice. Different cultures are also facing different material conditions. In Greece arent the unemployment numbers for youth around 40%? I would think the worse conditions get the more open people become to letting their frustration out on property.

[Comrade #138672]

Oh, I missed the "boys vs girls" part. Anyway, it has already been explained.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

I was a nerdy riot enjoying leftist boy.

What's wrong with being a nerdy riot-enjoying leftist boy? Hell:

What's wrong with being nerdy?

What's wrong with enjoying riots?

[homegrown terror]

What's wrong with enjoying riots?

because violent action is meant to be a practical, useful tactic, not an activity for our enjoyment. there's a difference between being ready to commit acts of violence for your cause, and actively seeking out violent action for the thrill.

[Art Vandelay]

I can't stand people who define property destruction as violence.

[Os Cangaceiros]

because violent action is meant to be a practical, useful tactic, not an activity for our enjoyment. there's a difference between being ready to commit acts of violence for your cause, and actively seeking out violent action for the thrill.

I like violence for the sake of violence. Not violence against me, though. I don't like that violence. Although my threshold for physical pain is generally pretty high.

[homegrown terror]

I like violence for the sake of violence. Not violence against me, though. I don't like that violence. Although my threshold for physical pain is generally pretty high.

are you talking about things like boxing or sport fighting? that's perfectly fine. if you mean senseless "real" violence, that's a dangerous proposition since even if you pick your targets well, there's always the risk of someone innocent getting hurt as well. attack the wrong bourgeois employer and there's a good chance your fellow workers will end up being the ones who are actually hurt by it.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Well with the riot-porn types, I think it's basically a pessimism about mass change, and sometimes social change in general.

Believing either than change is inevitable, or impossible then makes political action more of a moral stand. I'm taking it to the enemy, I'm doing "something".

I think outside of people who see riots as a "tactic" or something that can be sparked, in general rioting happens because people don't feel they have control over things in their lives. So for the left there's that at play too I think - since we don't have much control over our lives too and on top of that we are politically marginal.

[An archist]

I have no idea actually.
Riots can be very effective and also very useless, so I never try to glamourize it as 'direct action', but for some reason, you can get sucked into it and you feel very much alive.
Like squatting or any kind of illegal activites, it gives you a rush and it's kind of addicting.

[The Douche]

I like violence for the sake of violence. Not violence against me, though. I don't like that violence. Although my threshold for physical pain is generally pretty high.

I dunno about violence for violence's sake, but I definitely don't mind chaos and destruction just for fun.

Sorry to everybody who thinks windows and newspaper boxes can have acts of violence committed against them.:crying:

[BIXX]

I remember my first protest that I can remember (which, to be honest, wasn't that long ago), I was pepper sprayed along with some very close friends of mine. That protest really changed who I was, and I remember how invigorating it felt. It's a feeling not much can give me. While it was awful and I wasn't mentally prepared for my friends to be on the ground, crying, in pain, and blind, it was one of the best times in my life. I remember that entire week afterward, I felt more motivated than ever. Conflict always renews that in me.

[bcbm]

I can't stand people who define property destruction as violence.

whacking a hammer through a window is a violent act, but who cares?

[NewLeft]

i enojy u

[Kalinin's Facial Hair]

Stupid fetish.

[L.A.P.]

Gets the blood pumping. Have you ever been in a position where someone's pulled a knife on you, or you have to run from the cops, or you're confronted suddenly with a large carnivorous animal, or you skid on black ice going 40 mph and come inches from hitting another car, or you suddenly hear a loud pounding on your front door when you're really stoned & paranoid? That surge of adrenaline where, even though the experience is unpleasant (possibly even terrifying in a bladder-emptying kind of way), it still feels good, kind of? Maybe I'm just weird but that's always how it's been with me...(I've never been in a riot though)

nah, you're not weird. it's called jouissance.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Well I read the wiki article on that, but I don't really think that I understand it...

Honestly I think I just like the feeling of epinephrine.

[L.A.P.]

everyone likes epinephrine

[Craig_J]

I think testostorone does play a part but the biggest problem is the way the capitalist society we live in has brought as lads up to think. Up till the age of about 16 I thought of riots as cool. I think this concept applies more to working class boys such as myself who enjoy seeing frustration and anger at the system that makes their life a misery being taken out on them. Gives us a sense of the people in power having something to cloear up and anger being expressed. I'm 19 now and much more passive but I think the fact capitalist society tells boys to be strong and fighters, probably because they want them to groom them into any need for future soldiers, makes boys have a minor obssesion with carnage and chaos and general unrest.

I will still admit that part of me enjoys seeing a riot, like the LOndon riots where I was actually in East London at the time (I was visiting family, not involved!), as it was a demonstration of people's anger at how the government have been treating working class people and ethnic minorities in that area and in other reigions of the country. But at the same time part of me hated it as it kind of just ends up ataching further labels to people and makiing the problem worse. And it's never nice to see some poor old bloke who owns a barbers or something see his career and hobby burnt to dust.

[Ele'ill]

I think testostorone does play a part but the biggest problem is the way the capitalist society we live in has brought as lads up to think. Up till the age of about 16 I thought of riots as cool. I think this concept applies more to working class boys such as myself who enjoy seeing frustration and anger at the system that makes their life a misery being taken out on them. Gives us a sense of the people in power having something to cloear up and anger being expressed. I'm 19 now and much more passive but I think the fact capitalist society tells boys to be strong and fighters, probably because they want them to groom them into any need for future soldiers, makes boys have a minor obssesion with carnage and chaos and general unrest.

but also just regarding everyone wouldn't you say the exact opposite is true, the reason a lot of people feel they have to go to church right after seeing a window get broken isn't because they have overcome anything, they are actually still under control of the same or a similar 'spell'

[human strike]

because violent action is meant to be a practical, useful tactic, not an activity for our enjoyment. there's a difference between being ready to commit acts of violence for your cause, and actively seeking out violent action for the thrill.

Typical dour and repressed lefty bullshit.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Why must violence be "productive"? Doesn't this alienate the act of violence from it's intrinsic pleasure? Why should anti-capitalist action be subjected to the limits of capital?

[Orange Juche]

Why must violence be "productive"? Doesn't this alienate the act of violence from it's intrinsic pleasure?

If one is harming others for the simple feeling of pleasure, that's very concerning.

[human strike]

If one is harming others for the simple feeling of pleasure, that's very concerning.

We're talking about riots so it's unlikely to ever be simply for that reason. But why shouldn't harming cops bring us pleasure?

[The Feral Underclass]

I've not met a leftist boy yet who enjoys a riot. Leftist boys enjoy paper sales, internal trade union politics and badly attended public meetings about something incredibly esoteric and boring.

[Brutus]

Leftist boys enjoy paper sales, internal trade union politics and badly attended public meetings about something incredibly esoteric and boring.
^^^^

[Ele'ill]

I've not met a leftist boy yet who enjoys a riot. Leftist boys enjoy paper sales, internal trade union politics and badly attended public meetings about something incredibly esoteric and boring.

they love riots it gives them something to complain about on paper that their friends will probably only glance at

[Jimmie Higgins]

Leftists who fetishize the act of a riot do so because they are impotent politically. Other people rioting allows these leftists to project their politics onto the mass anger while not having any stakes. Participating in rioting itself becomes the flip-side of candel-light vigils: a moral stand against oppression, the police, etc. If no ground is gained from the rioting, then it's the fetishization of the act of rebellion and so the act itself is the positive result. If it's an actual riot of significant proportions, then the state responds with repression and empty reform promises and therefore, rioting works according to the fetishists.

Why should revolutionaries fetishize riots - instead we should enjoy or point to positive results while being sober about outbursts which doesn't really gain workers any ground and is more about the feelings of the radicals who participate.

In the US in the 60s, there were major riots in major cities each year for at least half a decade from 63 harlem, 64 Watts, Oakland, Detroit, etc. Tons of shit was destroyed, people took up arms against the cops and national guard. It was also highly politicallly concious, tailing after a decade of souther civil rights organizing and increased militant organizing in the cities. The riots were such a problem that the US government was forced to look into ghetto housing conditions and police brutality and sometimes offer some reforms (and repression with the other hand). So in a way to festishize the act of riots, is to be a reformist who just doesn't like lobbying. But the riots themselves were unable to produce an alternative to the status quo, despite bringing attention to "ghetto problems". The organizing of communities and workers in the wake of these riots, being able to "capitalize" and use the fissures exposed by the mass anger to build up neighborhood resistance to police brutality (Black Panthers) or racist municiple neglect (the Young Lords) or the racism of the auto-bosses and union in Detroit in the wake of their huge riot.

Riots are a part of class struggle and struggles against oppression and so it really makes no sense to condemn or fetishize them - but the riot itself just exposes mass anger, it doesn't mean anything will necissarily come out of it. Cars run on explosions, but explosions of any kind won't make a car run, it's explosions in the context of a complex system of many different but coordinated parts that turns the raw energy into some kind of concerted force. And generally this is what has come out of riots - ironically for those who see spontanety and organization as seperate, organized political activities sometimes result in riots and uprisings of any political content generally lead to people then organizing politically.

[The Feral Underclass]

People keep using the term "leftist" incorrectly. What "leftist" has ever loved a riot. They are traditionally the ones who oppose riots and rat people out to the cops.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

If one is harming others for the simple feeling of pleasure, that's very concerning.

I simply think that this is problematic from a Marxist standpoint. It suggests that all self-activity of the working class ought to be productive, and that atitute is the anti-thesis of working class emancipation. We should endorse riots because they are unproductive

[Jimmie Higgins]

I simply think that this is problematic from a Marxist standpoint. It suggests that all self-activity of the working class ought to be productive, and that atitute is the anti-thesis of working class emancipation. We should endorse riots because they are unproductive:confused:
If a riot isn't productive in terms of helping workers defend themselves or gain more leverage or assert their class anger or interests, then isn't not-rioting the same and equally as unproductive as rioting?

I really don't think there is anything to support or not support about rioting - the results, potential, etc that may come out of an uprising could be important for class struggle or consiousness, but that's different. Riots can be a rebellion or they can become something more like a pogrom... looking at them outside of the social context as a thing in of themselves just doesn't make sense IMO.

[Ele'ill]

Leftists who fetishize the act of a riot do so because they are impotent politically. Other people rioting allows these leftists to project their politics onto the mass anger while not having any stakes. Participating in rioting itself becomes the flip-side of candel-light vigils: a moral stand against oppression, the police, etc. If no ground is gained from the rioting, then it's the fetishization of the act of rebellion and so the act itself is the positive result. If it's an actual riot of significant proportions, then the state responds with repression and empty reform promises and therefore, rioting works according to the fetishists.

Why should revolutionaries fetishize riots - instead we should enjoy or point to positive results while being sober about outbursts which doesn't really gain workers any ground and is more about the feelings of the radicals who participate.

In the US in the 60s, there were major riots in major cities each year for at least half a decade from 63 harlem, 64 Watts, Oakland, Detroit, etc. Tons of shit was destroyed, people took up arms against the cops and national guard. It was also highly politicallly concious, tailing after a decade of souther civil rights organizing and increased militant organizing in the cities. The riots were such a problem that the US government was forced to look into ghetto housing conditions and police brutality and sometimes offer some reforms (and repression with the other hand). So in a way to festishize the act of riots, is to be a reformist who just doesn't like lobbying. But the riots themselves were unable to produce an alternative to the status quo, despite bringing attention to "ghetto problems". The organizing of communities and workers in the wake of these riots, being able to "capitalize" and use the fissures exposed by the mass anger to build up neighborhood resistance to police brutality (Black Panthers) or racist municiple neglect (the Young Lords) or the racism of the auto-bosses and union in Detroit in the wake of their huge riot.

Riots are a part of class struggle and struggles against oppression and so it really makes no sense to condemn or fetishize them - but the riot itself just exposes mass anger, it doesn't mean anything will necissarily come out of it. Cars run on explosions, but explosions of any kind won't make a car run, it's explosions in the context of a complex system of many different but coordinated parts that turns the raw energy into some kind of concerted force. And generally this is what has come out of riots - ironically for those who see spontanety and organization as seperate, organized political activities sometimes result in riots and uprisings of any political content generally lead to people then organizing politically.

sometimes people just want to have fun

[Ravachol]

sometimes people just want to have fun

Not if you're with the ISO

[The Feral Underclass]

Not if you're with the ISO

Ooooooohhhh snap.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

sometimes people just want to have fun

Good for them, but how is that relevant to communists? I mean, no one is saying that rioting for the fun of it is sinful or immoral or whatever nonsense people come up with when they want to impose their own preferences on someone else, but if it doesn't serve a revolutionary purpose, it isn't relevant to revolutionary organisations.

[The Feral Underclass]

In many cases riots are visceral, primal expressions of class warfare. At times they are incoherent, lack necessary consciousness or politicisation, but they are always a direct assault on class society, as crude as that assault may be.

The issue here is that you have a prescriptive understanding of class struggle in which riots simply do not gauge as legitimate. Nevertheless, they are what they are and in my view, unless they take on an overtly contradictory political dimension , they should [I]never be condemned.

[The Feral Underclass]

In fact I would go so far as to say they should be condoned!

[Ele'ill]

Good for them, but how is that relevant to communists?

I think social rupture is relevant



I mean, no one is saying that rioting for the fun of it is sinful or immoral or whatever nonsense people come up with when they want to impose their own preferences on someone else,


okay



but if it doesn't serve a revolutionary purpose, it isn't relevant to revolutionary organisations.

i don't think revolutionary organizations and that entire branch of praxis serves a revolutionary purpose but you already know this so I'm a little confused why you'd post this to me

[Jimmie Higgins]

sometimes people just want to have funThen I have no problem with that, I just think maybe they seem a little like sheltered people if they celebrate riots as fun for the sake of fun. Drunk frat boys after their college team looses, do what they like to do. Or, if someone in a more political context feels a rush in seeing the cops have to flee and city officials being helpless, then yeah that makes sense too. In either of these cases - idotic frat-boys, or a more liberatory sense - the answer to the general question of why do some people enjoy riots probably is "that it's fun" that people feel a rush for stupid or good reasons.

But, most major riots are because of rats in folks beds and cops beating people up which doesn't sound very fun to me, it sounds like the daily shit that I would want nothing more than to see ended. So to politically celebrate riots in general rather than celebrate specific results or outcomes or broader political militancy it might represent, seems to just celebrate people living in a miserable state.


Not if you're with the ISOI'm glad that you've found politics as a way to create an identity for yourself and to fill whatever void exists in your life... but I have fun on my own and have for many years without having to pick an ideology in order make me feel special or unique. But whatevers, I'm glad that radicals got to you before the Scientologists did.

[Ravachol]

I'm glad that you've found politics as a way to create an identity for yourself and to fill whatever void exists in your life... but I have fun on my own and have for many years without having to pick an ideology in order make me feel special or unique. But whatevers, I'm glad that radicals got to you before the Scientologists did.

I'll refrain from making fun of your cult of choice if it upsets you that much geez, I'll leave you to your dianetics now errr i mean dialectics

[human strike]

Good for them, but how is that relevant to communists? I mean, no one is saying that rioting for the fun of it is sinful or immoral or whatever nonsense people come up with when they want to impose their own preferences on someone else, but if it doesn't serve a revolutionary purpose, it isn't relevant to revolutionary organisations.

Revolutionary organisations are irrelevant to communism and boredom is counter-revolutionary.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I think social rupture is relevant

Can "social rupture" change the mode of production?


i don't think revolutionary organizations and that entire branch of praxis serves a revolutionary purpose but you already know this so I'm a little confused why you'd post this to me

I was making a fairly broad point; replace "revolutionary organisations" with "communists" or whatever. If rioting for the fun of it can't change the mode of production, why should communists support it?


Revolutionary organisations are irrelevant to communism and boredom is counter-revolutionary.

That must be why post-left theory is so tedious.

[Ele'ill]

Then I have no problem with that, I just think maybe they seem a little like sheltered people if they celebrate riots as fun for the sake of fun. Drunk frat boys after their college team looses, do what they like to do. Or, if someone in a more political context feels a rush in seeing the cops have to flee and city officials being helpless, then yeah that makes sense too. In either of these cases - idotic frat-boys, or a more liberatory sense - the answer to the general question of why do some people enjoy riots probably is "that it's fun" that people feel a rush for stupid or good reasons.

lol so I guess at the very end of this quite confusing thing you've written here that we could say that people could possibly participate in many different liberatory actions as individuals or as groups while gleaning personal as well as a broader value from it


But, most major riots are because of rats in folks beds and cops beating people up which doesn't sound very fun to me, it sounds like the daily shit that I would want nothing more than to see ended.you are kind of dishonest in this thread, so end it, or, fail to and watch as people take individual and collective action against their oppression by other means. This is war not a political campaign.



So to politically celebrate riots in general rather than celebrate specific results or outcomes or broader political militancy it might represent, seems to just celebrate people living in a miserable state.maybe because 'the broader political' strata is completely out of touch and useless to the point that we celebrate a break from it



I'm glad that you've found politics as a way to create an identity for yourself and to fill whatever void exists in your life... but I have fun on my own and have for many years without having to pick an ideology in order make me feel special or unique. But whatevers, I'm glad that radicals got to you before the Scientologists did.the irony of this is as shocking as seeing a car accident happen

[Ele'ill]

Can "social rupture" change the mode of production?






I was making a fairly broad point; replace "revolutionary organisations" with "communists" or whatever. If rioting for the fun of it can't change the mode of production, why should communists support it?




That must be why post-left theory is so tedious.


how much post-left theory have you read

[Jimmie Higgins]

lol so I guess at the very end of this quite confusing thing you've written here that we could say that people could possibly participate in many different liberatory actions as individuals or as groups while gleaning personal as well as a broader value from it
It's probably all confusing and sorry for that - I'm just typing what comes to mind, so no doubt it's all jumbled up.

My point is that riots in of themselves don't mean much and can't really be "advocated". Watts and the whole string of massive urban uprisings in the US, the 92 LA Riots, Paris Riots, etc. These are all significant IMO in demonstrating massive class anger, but in of themselves they may not necissarily create any real impact - that depends on circumstances around rioting. So a riot or a mass march might have impacts on induviudals, might signal a larger "mood", might feel exhilerating for some participants, but alone they can't do much. Capitalism can handle atomic bomb and firebombs in industrial cities, it can handle WWI and WWII - it can handle riots, just fine. What it can't handle are the people who might be involved in those riots and their ability to organize their workplaces and communities.

Like TAT said, any riot of the oppressed should not be condemned or moralized over. But I think what a lot of people are critizing - and maybe this is not really the case that much and has become a straw-man - is advocating riots as a tactic or romanticizing them. A small groups of a dozen radicals "rioting" in isolation at the end of the Occupy movement in the name of "escalation" are doing pretty much the same thing as the big anti-war coalitions doing the same big (actually more like initially big with diminishing returns) marches over and over. These things can be a starting point, they can represent a larger oppositinal view or mood, but if people don't organize themselves out of these things, if a broad anti-war march doesn't also create grassroots (and more democratic) organizers and potentially a movement, then marching just becomes "moral witness". If some other movement ends up with just the already converted burning some trash and breaking a window or two or challenging the police in small groups and having no connection to anyone but other radicals - again, it becomes "moral witness" - I challenged the cops not because it could help us vs the ruling class, but because I'm the most down for change.


you are kind of dishonest in this thread, so end it, or, fail to and watch as people take individual and collective action against their oppression by other means. This is war not a political campaign. What exactly am I lieing about?

What other means? Riots are just a fact of oppressive societies. Personally with all the daily random anger that's around, I honestly don't know why there aren't riots in every city at least once a month in the US.

As far as class war - yes there is always class war, but right now there is no class army(ies) on our side, just theirs.


maybe because 'the broader political' strata is completely out of touch and useless to the point that we celebrate a break from itSo we should celebrate the gulf between radical ideas/tactics and the working class? So small groups of self-appointed radicals will lead revolution OVER the working class?


I'll refrain from making fun of your cult of choice if it upsets you that much geez, Oh Please, don't complain if you insult someone by calling them boring and then they insult you back.


I'll leave you to your dianetics now errr i mean dialecticsThat's clever tho :D