cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/29028246
this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
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you're not a leftist
also, you spent most of your words defending your right to defend your political stance and didn't actually argue back much against the criticisms the other guy brought up, such as
You’re not a leftist either. You’re a capitalist pig who wants to disrupt any civil discourse between socialists.
No
you're still not addressing any of the criticisms
Well thats mainly because it’s absolutely baffling to take any term and say “yea no, it’s pointless, don't use that term”. When a term like totalitarianism exists there is obviously a definition behind. When you hear it, you know what it refers to. For the millionth time:
A state. That controls. Every aspect. Of life.
Thats it! I didn’t criticise a specific state. You’re mind obviously went to USSR. I know that for a fact and ask me how. You think when I use this word I immediately bash any sort of socialist progress in history. That’s a huge problem. We all want progress.
If you’re interested, I’d like to further this conversation. Perhaps in DMs? I want to know why exactly you see my statement as a threat to your political stance. Insult me all you want, I want to see your POV truly.
i'm not going to extend this discussion further (nothing personal), but i want to say this:
you say the definition of totalitarianism is straightforward and unambiguous, but definitions don't exist in a vacuum. even the most seemingly self-evident definitions have a reasoning behind them. and my problem with totalitarianism (and likely the other guy's problem as well) is that it is an inherently anti-communist definition. we already have a term for oppressive regimes that control the roles and behavior of their citizens tightly with a rigid hierarchy: fascism. but fascism is fundamentally right-wing, so liberals can't use this to vilify socialist regimes (and trying to make up bullshit like "left fascism" would make them look like idiots). totalitarianism, as a concept, solves this problem for them: it conveniently abstracts two policitally opposite kinds of regimes into a single category. then liberals can use it to defend capitalist "democracy" from its left-wing enemy, socialism, and its pretend enemy, fascism.
my mind immediately went to the ussr because that's exactly what the idea of totalitarianism was made for. i'll say it again: it creates a false equivalence between the fascist regimes that terrorized europe in the 20th century and the socialist regimes (the ussr, china, cuba, vietnam, etc) that represented a massive threat to capitalism. it's an attempt to extend the fear of fascism to successful socialist regimes
i checked your profile and it looks like you're an anarchist. i'm not gonna argue for or against that, but it's pretty well stablished among communists that totalitarianism is an anti-communist concept, so it shouldn't surprise you that we wouldn't receive it well. it makes you sound like a liberal from the usa, to be completely honest, which is why i immediately replied that you're not a leftist. regardless of how you feel about socialist regimes, maybe consider not using liberal concepts crafted specifically to attack socialism or at least understand why we don't like them
peace