I really have to go back to my point that this crap was happening on the radical Left long before the Internet, let alone social media; it just happened slower
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One of the reasons I'm so excited about the Library Project is that these teen tankies HAVE to sit down and eg. read the history of US Maoism in the 70s and realise, Battlestar Galactica-style, that "all this has happened before". Same pathologies, different media. https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-5/index.htm
I remember some of the older left who were still active then making similar points, the old 'struggle sessions' of what used to be called the new left were for a new generation happening 24/7 via a pocket sized computer, repeating the mistakes but at lightning speed
I suppose I'm having an allergic reaction because I'm one of those people you talk about getting monstered, and I don't blame social media, I blame clique politics. Similarly, the opposition to Vijay Prashad went nowhere because people misidentified it as a "social media pile-on".
Probably a fair few, I got a bit swept up in myself back then. That's part of the social media problem, we'd be rewarded with a dopamine hit of likes and engagement for dunking on or one-uping others
The Scylla and Charybdis here are: (a) stupid fights and noxious community dynamics based on clique politics; (b) the kind of noxious "unity" which means that we aren't allowed to disagree with anyone calling themselves a Socialist. When can we ever learn to have POLITICAL debates
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I instantly understand what was meant by that phrase but also, that wasn't what the letter was at all