Why Leftist Movements Tend to Fail

PATREON🏆🏆:

MERCH 👕👕:

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Music and Animation by IZAAK THOMAS 🎶🎶:

SOURCES🔍🔍:
"Sartre’s philosophy of praxis" by Lorenzo Buti

Critique of Dialectical Reason by J.P. Sartre

[filipesimoesdasilva]

On behalf of the People's Front of Judaea, I refuse to collaborate with those rascals from the Judaean People's Front

[AsiniusNaso]

"Aren't you tired of fighting so hard just to get the 'less bad' option?"
"Aren't you tired of fighting against imperfect allies instead of the real enemy?"

[georgeabreu]

Nice one. Definitely a good one to keep in mind for leftist movements. Allowing internal disagreements to develop into antagonisms is one sure way to lose a movement's momentum and mass organization. Also, up to a point different but related organizations can work together for a common end even if eventually, they'll have to diverge.

[chuckblaze]

So a snake walks into a bar and the bartender says "how tf did you do that"

[norkimo]

Sometimes when I'm laying down I sneeze straight up and let the water rain down on me

[meninmenin]

This is repeated often but I agree with the stance that the 'left is mostly thinking and doing nothing, while the right is hardly thinking but doing a lot.'

As in, the atomized form of working towards a similar goal might be observed bcz one is "thinking about"/analyzing the goal too deeply, which makes sense because those antagonisms usually disappear, when no centrally established reason of the goal/true cause of the problem is "thought-about".

This lack of "thinking" observed in the right where goals like "anti-genderism" is able to be blindly supported, since the term genderism(the 'problem') acts as an empty signifier (hence it being able to exist as colonialist(western) propaganda OR feminist propaganda OR communist propaganda OR socialist propaganda, i.e varying depending on whichever right faction you ask) bcz they didn't establish a centralized purpose(lack of thinking), allowing them to nevertheless unite, despite actually having different stances...maybe...jkm.. Also, this video's awesome.

[ValidatingUsername]

It’s even worse, it’s “I barely tolerate you” which likely would lead to a high incidence of sociopathy diagnosis.

[michaeljoseph]

Why its more important to unite on goals over identity

[nascentspace]

Edit: Online arguments are a zero sum game, please go get organized

I'm part of a socialist organization and have recently witnessed the exact kind of infighting that's being talked about, there's a smaller group who split off from the same org that our group did, and over time their politics have caused them to shrink to a very small size. In attempting to regain traction, and due to the fact that they are just that small, their politics and strategy has essentially just turned into trying to antagonize and shit on our group. They are barely socialists at this point and have highly contradictory views.

[devlinmcguire]

Someone HAD to say it. I'm glad that you did. It needs to be said.

[ashleyk]

I value your insight more than I could ever express in a simple youtube comment. I am so glad you made a channel! Thank you for your work, internet stranger!

[willashley]

Listen to some degree I understand that leftists do have things in common and should work for the greater good, but at the same time I have seen in a lot of leftists spaces (mostly the ML type) some quite sociopath things that any normal person would just find absurd, and I find it hard anyone would work with someone who openly work’s with someone else who thinks repression is needed to succeeded in their goals, or openly defend authoritarian governments, I don’t think many leftists would be super okay with that, and could in fact damage there cause due to them, I don’t know, maybe I'm not as pragmatic as I could, but I don’t want to associate with anyone who thinks Stalin is based, and that the Chinese government is fine in it’s treatment on it’s Muslim population, but maybe that just me.


P.S, wish you good luck on that relief fund, hope you get to raise some more money.

[kaira]

I'm so prepared for the comments on this one.

[Rayowag]

I find the antagonizing of slightly different flavors of leftist thought so weird. To put it in a weird example: It's often like a vegan fighting a vegetarian. Both still move the needle in the right space but argue about which way is better. When indeed both ways are better than the absence of action.
I will always disagree with a leftist that's still in favor of the death penalty, but I won't antagonize them if literally 80% of our political thought aligns. Disagreement ≠ Antagonizing. I feel like the left has an issue with not being able to stop at simply disagreeing and moving on.

[owgirl]

"Since we shop at the same store but hate each other at the core
And neither one is getting a fair deal"
Wooden Soldiers by Modest Mouse

[jimbovitikan]

love, growth, and atleast understanding is an essential foundation
destructive things like anger or hate cannot be the main driver of change

[Keezawea]

This particular comment section is going to be interesting...for a lack of better word

[claudiaborges]

It’s a cool concept but I dont think it properly defines why movements act antagonistically.
Some dont have the same goals or have methods which are anathema to one another. Although I do think that in some cases this is indeed the main reason why distinctions become competitions; many anarchists may think that electoral politics are a waste of time and this or that tactic is what we should try instead, but it’s foolish to attempt to convince people to avoid this type of activism if they haven’t been convinced to act closer to the roots of an issue. This does not mean that anything goes and that no action can be in any way counterproductive, there’s history to all activism and through it can we figure out what we think is the most effective option for what we think to be the right goals, hence why the key is to investigate this history (or look up people who have and go through their discussions and update them instead of just repeating everything) and stand on the shoulders of giants when it comes to our activism.

I really dont like the idea of assuming we are all doing the same thing and just having to “set our differences aside” and everything will sort itself out afterwards. This is nothing new, this is a common fallacy when people try to analyze why a movement has failed, and they’re not totally wrong, but this is reductionist and therefore can at times be misleading, conclusions draw from it can only be flawed if nothing else is brought to the table. Co-optation can and will always be a major threat, specially because it targets a movement at its popularity, abusing its accessibility and sheer scale. There is no silver bullet.
However…
I try to keep these principles in mind:
1- Investigate your assumptions, all of them, and find realistic ends, be mindful that if a conclusion cannot be found (such as “is human nature good or bad?”), you should not make up one;
2- If your means and ends do not match, well… here’s a quote bc that’s what we do round here “it is not enough to desire something; if one really wants it adequate means must be used to secure it. And these means are not arbitrary, but instead cannot but be conditioned by the ends we aspire to and by the circumstances in which the struggle takes place, for if we ignore the choice of means we would achieve other ends, possibly diametrically opposed to those we aspire to, and this would be the obvious and inevitable consequence of our choice of means. Whoever sets out on the highroad and takes a wrong turning does not go where he intends to go but where the road leads him.”;
3- push yourself and other people further this side of the compass, one step at a time, meet them where they’re at, and incentivize yourself and them to find the roots of ours problems, always going deeper and deeper;
4- support and advocate for any activity that is not inherently opposed to our goals, if it matches our means-ends unity, it’s fine, even if it’s not the most efficient or is somewhat ambiguous in its results, they’re fine as long as there are tangible positive results short or long term and minimal negative consequences;
5- if another movement’s means or ends do not match yours’, then only cooperate with them as far as your means/ends harmonize, otherwise isolate or oppose them according to how much harm they risk causing. This means that you, for example, perhaps cooperate with a movement that incentivizes food production and distribution cooperatives by also doing so but oppose their attempts at designing industrial-style agriculture, instead incentivizing them to implement various levels of permaculture in its place;
6- Free association, do come together, and sometimes, just let em split, the less you fight in the process of splitting the less hostile y’all’ll be towards each other. This is perhaps the most important one here, y’all should not be forced to do or not to do something if you dont want to.
Ofc you can and should apply this to individuals and larger agents, such as a small local group or larger-scale movements.

[tendies-qyre]

finally a video without a sponsorship taking up 4 minutes of my life

[Alexzoidberg]

i have a feeling that these short videos are gonna get compiled into a compilation