I still consider myself a leftist, despite not engaging in debate and discussions. One observation I would make about certain strains of the left, is how they seem to take constructive criticism as invitations to debate. Sometimes there is overlap between the two concepts, but there are cases where debate is simply not appropriate: a good example, is when your editor sends you back notes for your manuscript for a book you want to publish.
I’ve only interacted with leftist channels briefly, and so far most of what I get out of it is worship of different classic anarchists, and a total absence of any kind of encouragement of thinking for oneself. And yet these are the people that most commonly start arguments, and try to drag other people into debates. Simply being on the left does not remove your obligation to act like a professional.
Concepts of professional ethics don’t just apply to consumerist landscapes, but it applies regardless of whether money is changing hands, and you can grab what you need in a storage facility. That those on the left focus more on arguing for argument’s sake, rather than organizing protests, is perhaps one of the main reasons we haven’t installed non-state communism in this “union”--really a collection of generally dissimilar nation states.
If we want to progress as a leftist movement, then we need something more than simply pontificated about theory that’s hundreds of years old. Some of these people also use and abuse the term authoritarian, as if they were somehow experts of the topic. Rather than observing actual genuine dictators like Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, and a host of other tyrants.
I consider myself a leftist, however it must be emphasized, I’m strongly considering abandoning both Marxism and Anarchism, for a kind of Left Libertarianism that focuses on organizing and improving work flow, not simply pontificating about dated theory that’s no longer relevant.
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