FoolishOwl
@chairman_meh It's frustrating, in that "left" has contradictory definitions, going all the way back to its origin as a political descriptor. It's understood as an axis, defined by opposition or support of centralization of power. And it's understood as referring to seating arrangements in European parliaments, going back to the French Revolution.
By one definition, anarchists are the farthest left position. By the other, they're not part of the left.
Chairman Meh
wait, anarchists aren't considered "left"? Huh? I never understand these definitions and cliques. Is this another 'third position' thing? What labels do I need to apply to someone to get them to start helping those being crushed by the system, be it red, blue, green, or whatever?
Passenger
This is kinda why I don't consider post-Left anarchism to be a useful concept (though I respect that @hakan_geijer , who identifies as post-Left, will disagree): hearing someone say "I am not a Leftist" is less about what that person's politics are than about how they define "Leftist."
It's like hearing someone say "I'm middle class." It rapidly becomes an argument about definitions, which is usually unproductive.
For myself, If I say "I am a Leftist", I'm saying that I'm willing to ally with communists and socdems because we have greater enemies in common. But you might have a different definition, and if we don't have that conversation then we rapidly become confused.
Passenger
@hakan_geijer @foolishowl @chairman_meh
That's fair. Personally I get very irritated with people confusing me with an ancap in the Rand / Hoppe mold, because that's what anarchist means to them; and so I use labels which identify me more closely with the other people who do the same sorts of things that I do, like union organising and mutual aid groups (and antifascism, as you say.)
Passenger
@hakan_geijer @foolishowl @chairman_meh
Weirdly, when I tell people I'm an anarchist, about twenty percent of the time people respond by asking if I'm a sovereign citizen / antivaxer / 5G-tower conspiracy theorist. I once even got asked if it means I'm pro-Putin. Maybe I just have very odd in-person vibes, but I think it's more that "anarchist" is a word that a lot of people are carrying around weird definitions of, and that means the word is of limited communicative value.
At times, when people ask if I'm a communist, I say yes; not because any communist would regard me as a communist, but because by the values set carried around by that person, their definition of communist would include me.
Passenger
@hakan_geijer @foolishowl @chairman_meh
Sadly, to a lot of people, "communist" means "you don't like cops and capitalism, and you refuse to be nationalistic." If such a person asked you whether you were a communist, then if you didn't have time for a long and potentially frustrating definition, then the clearest way to communicate your politics to them might be to say "yes."
(I'm certainly not claiming that this is a generally useful definition, but words mean what people use them to mean.)
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