In a comment below you wrote:
Maybe a lemmygrad strike force?
Can't say I like the sound of this. It's the kind of thing that will get us defederated from other instances for brigading. It's asking us to do the exact thing that Hexbear is accused of potentially doing, which has led for it to be pre-emptively defederated from dotworld.
If liberals want to learn and are open about it, they will do so; but most libs don't want to and they often see us as arseholes when we go to other instances and talk about reality. If this happens organically, fine. But to try to organise it… I'm not so sure it will be successful.
Part of the problem is that if libs don't want to think critically, they absolutely will cry and whine about every logical fallacy under the sun without thinking. Part of the problem is the material conditions of the global north audience, most of whom are labour aristocrats (we’ve had some good discussions about that if you search for them). Those who are open to new ideas are going to listen anyway.
As for dunking on libs, Marxists dunk on each other all the time for liberal tendencies. And rightly so. It's a constant struggle. The difficulty with libs is that they have internalised liberalism, so criticising liberalism can feel like a personal attack. MLs tend to take it with thanks for being shown the error of their ways.
For those liberals who are looking for a way to understand the contradictions in liberalism and their material reality, dunking and ribbing won't put them off because they are already looking for a mental way out. The dunking and ribbing makes it something to laugh about; it's much easier to take than e.g. a detailed review, an outline and critique of every premise in an argument, and a grammar correction; the (good) literature on pedagogy suggests the latter will never work.
I can see how it would be useful for us to talk about how to engage with others, to spot wreckers, trolls, etc, and distinguish them from the good faith users. We've been doing that for some time already. And just by engaging with the increasing influx of liberals to the lemmyverse, I think those of us who do engage on and outside Lemmygrad have got better at it. But this is often more about knowing the audience than changing how we say things.
I think if we try to force any kind of rules or discipline beyond those that already exist we risk, among other things:
- tone policing (which is in direct opposition to the type of expression that we should cultivate in ML spaces)
- accepting some truth to the argument that we're rude or unconcerned with intellectual, rigorous discussion (which is false)
- ostracising users who prefer to shitpost and dunk on libs (which let's face it is fun and a worthy cause)
- ostracising those who are earlier in their Marxist journey (by creating a intimidating threshold for participation)
- turning this into work, as in labour (I like it here because there's a mix of theory and people just making me laugh or having pleasant conversations without the need to self-censor. For me, it's enough that LG is a space where I can enjoy the company of other MLs)
As others have said, there’s a good community here, which took time to build. I would caution against implementing any kind of policy about how we should engage or what we should engage about. Especially at the moment, where federation is bringing some wider changes. I noticed that many Hexbear users were concerned about federation changing their culture, too. So it’s a broader concern.
While I hope it doesn’t change the atmosphere here, too much (there will surely be some change), one of the things I’m looking forward to about federating with Hexbear is seeing more shitposting on their communities. Comic praxis is still praxis.
Further, while you may have heard someone “talking about how most discourse happening was of poor quality and indicative of a lack of genuine leftist groups in the imperial core[,]” that does not make it true. The quality of discourse on LG is high. What might be true is that not everything is about theory, etc; but that's because we're all already talking on the same page.
There's no need to keep going through the basics in every community unless libs turn up. Elsewhere on the internet, ML forums degenerate into either 101 or dunking spaces. That's not necessary here (although it does happen as well) because every community builds on the same common understanding, which is taken as granted; the discussion can start at a more mature Marxist place. This may give the impression that e.g. there’s no discussion of theory (due to a lack of imperial core organising or otherwise) but it’s a false impression, I think.
It’s also important to know that while westerners are probably still the majority, here, the ratio is far better and there are a significant number of users from the global south. Further, the westerners here tend to be MLs, not ’western’ Marxists. Which means conversations are built on different assumptions than is common to see in the west. Many people here aren’t interested in e.g. US politics, which means there is less analysis of US party politics than a typical western radical might expect to find in a political forum. It doesn’t meant the political theory isn’t happening.
To be clear, I am all for education and educating. I just don't think it needs to be explicitly organised on here unless it's through a voluntary thing, perhaps on a dedicated community. Personally, I'd probably rather just do my own thing in that regard. I quite like the balance that we already have.