Welcome again to everybody. Take a seat make yourself at home, we are out of tea though. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is the weekly discussion thread.
• Matrix homeserver and space
• Theory discussion group on /c/theory@lemmygrad.ml
• Find theory on ProleWiki, marxists.org, Anna’s Archive
I think i get so incensed at some people, including comrades, because I hate when people use something being “hard” as an excuse to not do the work to actually think properly. [Materially it can be different. If you’re disabled then that’s a reasonable thing to say it’s hard to do physical things like protest]
“It’s hard for me to sympathize with x” or “well it’s hard for me to see it like that because y.” Well tough. That’s really all I have to say. If you want to have a huff and a puff about it then go calm down and think about it. If you actually have something logical to say then I’ll listen to it, but if all you have is Pathos then you have nothing at all
Edit: This isn’t related to something recent or anything. I was thinking about a conversation I had with a Chinese comrade a while back that bugged me
Edit 2: I think I also hate emotional reasoning in general. I’m not saying you shouldn’t experience emotion, but the amount of times ive seen someone say something immaterial because of emotions is dumb.
Moving on, I often feel like nuclear weapons were the worst invention ever created by humanity. Imagine in the post ww2 era there were no nuclear weapons. The US wouldn’t have a “win button” that held the entire world hostage. Maybe Stalin would have gotten to Paris.
Idk, it doesn’t really matter unless someone invents a time machine, but it feels like someone sent a bunch of teenagers into the woods with knives and bats, and then gave one of those kids a gun. None of of them are mature enough to handle that, and any mistake can cost a lot.
Just feeling things tonight, are simple music links allowed here?
Yes music is allowed
mandstory
✊️
Moving back to The Netherlands with years of communist organising experience I gained in Belgium will be interesting. I’ll return to a typical Dutch working class environment. An environment in dire need of a proper communist movement. Staying at my parents house and they are watching the most shite tv programs on channels like SBS. Absolute brainrot, BUT that’s what the working class watches here. I feel like there will be lots of opportunities to seize when I settle down here. Hopefully I can start something meaningful.
Sometimes I wish I had enough energy to join a communist movement, although where I live it’s very difficult to find any local communist organization. I’m very excited to hear your experience in communist organizing.
It’s so weird to see the differences in the sensory environments at my great-grandparents’ house and my parents’ house especially after moving out last year.
As an autistic adult, I feel like my great-grandparents’ house is much more sensory friendly. What I love is that I get to be my largely unmasked autistic self; I’ve been on an unmasking process for the past couple of years. I also get to socialize a lot more, even outside of my job and it isn’t very socially exhausting. It still has several issues and one in particular is obviously the western propaganda they watch all the time but I don’t have to hear it since I have my headphones in a lot.
My parents’ house is okay, but it’s become less sensory friendly in the last 4-5 years. it’s gotten to a point where I’ve been told not to come for my own comfort. Everyday there’s always someone emotionally dysregulated; for the most part it’s my dad.
I am genuinely convinced that tertiary education is a scam for most jobs.
Fuck do I need a Bachelor’s Degree for a glorified customer service role? Why do I have to go to college for three years just to be a supervisor? Like, what is this nonsense? These aren’t complicated roles but they want me to have a degree in order to do something as basic as tracking truck routes.
This is just financial gatekeeping to keep poor people out of these roles and I don’t understand why. What’s the end game here? How do the bourgeoisie benefit from artificially limiting their recruitment pool like this?
If you put an application out for a basic role, you’ll get hundreds of applicants. To save on processing costs, they’ll put bullshit requirements to limit the number of applications.
This is just financial gatekeeping to keep poor people out of these roles
bingo. Its a hazing ritual. The wealthy can get through easily because they dont have to worry about anything other than going through school. The poor people who can complete the process of getting higher education are then forced to stay poor to pay off student loans. They have had to work so hard to pay for their subsistence while also doing the work of studying that they are stripped of any time for politics.
I am genuinely convinced that tertiary education is a scam for most jobs.
it is, it only started being a thing like 25-30 years ago when tertiary education was opened up
Having been through university proves you respect deadlines and can follow orders competently, especially if they’re complicated, poorly expressed, or totally arbitrary. Degrees are super common nowadays so if you’re an employer, you’re gonna want the candidate that has proof of being at least somewhat intelligent and obedient over a candidate that doesn’t, all else equal.
I feel like there are two types of engineers
- John Mcsmith
White guy with a beard, possibly balding. Decently tired. Most employed man you’ve ever met. If the Stasi followed him his file would be one page long that said he likes football and drank beer occasionally. Usually apolitical, if not just a liberal who doesn’t care that much
- Welson T Fumes
Pioneer in his field. Extremely odd. Personally believes they will summon Cthulu with their new invention. Is or was a communist/fascist, and is extremely deboucherous. Everyone wants to fire him but he’s too valuable to the project. Might become an odd recluse and/or accidentally blow themselves up
I’ve met a few engineers and this about sums them up. They’re either depressingly boring or the most fascinating enigmas you’ve ever met.
Welson T Fumes
Gave me a good laugh. 😆
As a vegan, sober, auty communist I do sometimes feel like I’ve placed myself outside of society a bit lol
The other day my manager asked my how I managed to stay in good shape and I said: I work out three times a week, walk to the office, currently train for a half marathon, eat healthy and don’t drink. And he looked at me as if I insulated his mother. Like, what answer do you want? Lol. I don’t get it.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I dont really understand why Marxism is so stagnant tbh.
I mean…look, i know I’m “different.” But…what else is there? Do people really want another flavour of liberalism or nationalism or whatever? I’m not saying one day i suddenly became a fully fledged ideologically consistent socialist, obviously.
What i mean is just look at the UK. The country is going to shit, and the best there is the greens? I don’t understand how you can go through 20 years of this and then go “well obviously we just need a different type of capitalism.”
It’s not easy, I get that, but i mean in that case you’d think you’d get more Eurocommunists than anything.
But even looking at the global south. The fact that places like Indonesia and Thailand literally don’t have communist parties anymore, or how Argentina is constantly falling down rapidly and people are still worried about Peronists vs Millei-ists. There’s an answer right there, outside of all of that.
This isn’t some criticism of people. I just thought Marxism was easy to understand, and sometimes i wonder if maybe its not. Idk. This isn’t doom posting either. I think I’ll just invent a time machine to kill Friedrich Ebert and Albert Noske. That should fix things
There are a lot of factors that go into the lack of traction for Marxist ideals.
Propaganda is one thing, fear that trying to upset the status quo could backfire, just pessimism about the feasibility of another system, and it doesn’t help that Marxists are often bad at explaining our positions by using too much jargon.
I think it’s good to keep in mind that a lot of communists were purged. I mean look at Jakarta in the 60s, Nazi Germany, all the military dictatorships of LatAm.
I just wanted to post this somewhere, but It feels so weird now that my dad is gone, and weird that both my parents are now gone. I think the main thing I noticed is I’m no longer constantly fretting over my dad and his drinking anymore or living in that kind of environment, and I’m realizing how much living in that kind of space took away from me. It really wasn’t a good environment, how could it ever be.
That is some healthy introspection. Sounds like you are doing well. :)
Justin Podur’s history Podcast just did an episode about Reza Shah Pahlavi if you want a briefer on how fucking horrible he really was.
we smokeen good thess days (´ー`)y-~~
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Ngl finding out Marat had a healthy relationship with his family makes him more unrelatable than him being a doctor or from the 18th century
Edit: genuinely just can’t stand them. I guess they’re not the worst people but…idk, i can’t take it for some reason they make me so goddamn sad and angry and…ugh
I wonder if there’s a more casual term for “labor aristocracy” than the “aristocracy” part. My understanding is it (tends to refer to) the position that the working class of the empire tends to be in, but it’s one of those words that’s a bit obscure. Maybe a casual way would be “the comfortable working class” or something - referring to those who, despite being working class, have enough financial padding and material comforts that doubting the system, much less thoughts of revolt, may never even occur to them.
What about westoid? Lol
I was more thinking of a descriptive term that would help people understand the context of it at a glance rather than an insult, but that is funny.
Westyid is describbtve it refers not justto westernfsd but also the comfortable upwardlymobble seeking westernnes sclasses attached to comprador rggimes and transnational vorporations acriss the glbbn
Since everyone in the west is Disney-brained, maybe something like storm-labour or storm-worker a-la storm trooper. Pawns of the empire.
Treatlerite
👆
For the heck of it, I asked an LLM to see what it could come up with. Here are its suggestions:
- The Laptop Class This is a very strong contender that has gained significant traction in recent years. It perfectly captures the modern reality of this group: their work is often non-manual, done remotely on a computer, and they enjoy a level of flexibility and cultural capital that sets them apart from traditional blue-collar or service workers. It implies a professional, often white-collar, identity that feels distinct from both the “boss” and the “worker on the factory floor.” It feels very current and immediately understandable.
- Yuppie This is a classic term from the 1980s (“Young Urban Professional”) that has endured. It focuses on the consumerist and aspirational aspects of the labor aristocracy. A “yuppie” is defined by their lifestyle—gym memberships, expensive coffee, organic food, travel—and their career focus. While it doesn’t explicitly mention a betrayal of the working class, it strongly implies a self-interested, upwardly mobile individual who is more concerned with personal success than collective action. It’s a bit dated but still widely recognized and has a casual, slightly critical edge.
- The Comfortably Numb This is a more cynical and highly descriptive phrase. It gets to the heart of the political function of the labor aristocracy. Their comfort—good salary, benefits, job security—makes them “numb” to the anxieties and struggles of the working poor and the precariat. It suggests a lack of urgency and a disconnection from the systemic issues affecting others. It’s less of a label for a person and more of a description of their state of being, making it a powerful, if slightly less casual, term.
- The C-Suite’s Pets This is a much more direct and confrontational term, borrowing from the original’s political sharpness. It’s provocative and frames the relationship in explicitly subservient terms. It implies that this group’s loyalty has been bought by corporate perks (high salaries, stock options, good healthcare) and that they act as a loyal, domesticated force for the interests of the “C-Suite” (executives). It’s great for a more radical or critical discussion but might be too aggressive for casual use.
The Laptop Class has a nice ring to it, I feel, but could be taken too literally by people. C-Suite’s Pets has me 💀
Edit: Wait, nah, I skimmed the article a bit, it seems iffy, removing it (Laptop Class seems to have some reactionary roots so ew).
Edit2: I prompted it about issues of reactionary connotations and it gave me a few more, one that I like: the gentrifier class.
