biglizardofficial

[biglizardofficial]

Elmer Fudd Dwyer opening a manila envelope and taking out a sign that says "Me Season"

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How do be a communist online tutorial (year doesn't matter, advice is evergreen): - Read no theory - Learn no history - Study no sciences - Whine endlessly about every existing organization - Support every past organization which no longer exists - Defend movements only after they are defeated and never before - Don't even think about starting or joining a Communist party - Recirculate propaganda and disinformation about all Communist parties unless they've already been defeated - Argue endlessly with other online communists just like you - If people say you're being anti-communist, call them out for failing to receive "self-criticism" (as everyone knows, self-criticism is when you publicly air our every little complaint and grievance about a movement you're not part of) - Call people revisionist if they don't do all this

this is how we'll build the revolution. This is what Marx would have wanted

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when a post shares accurate information on the horrors of US imperialism but finishes it off with "this is not an endorsement of [insert country the US wants to invade here]"

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accusations of "whataboutism" are a particularly childish piece of sophistry, where the interlocutor is pretending to not know what they are actually arguing about and are annoyed that you won't play along

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ateez during the napoleonic wars

ateez during the american civil war

ateez during the february revolution

ateez during the third reich

ateez during the gulf wars

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I dream of labour . please fucking employ me

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It’s very funny how much of Lovecraft’s work can be seen as, effectively, an aristocrat’s existential horror at the idea that, as Rosa Luxemburg said, “Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to Socialism or regression into Barbarism.”

In 1921, Lovecraft wrote ‘The Outsider’, one of the more clear expressions, in his works, of a fear of lacking a place in society. A man wakes up in a decaying, decrepit castle - once great, now in ruins - and descends, down to the townsfolk, who have renovated an old mansion, turning it into apartments. Upon seeing him, they panic, finding him terrifying and disgusting. Looking in the mirror, he sees that he is, in fact, a beast; even going so far to describe himself as “a stranger in this century.” In 1921, as the aristocracy gave its final breath, it’s not hard to see why.

However, ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ stands as the most direct example of the ‘existential horror’ of capitalism. Luxemburg’s quote, that bourgeois society - capitalism - stands at the transition to socialism was not just an expression of a specific historical period. Capitalism innately, inherently works towards its own destruction. Capitalism develops and expands the proletariat, the class that aspires to destroy it. As capitalism develops science and technology, as it develops the means of production, it makes itself obsolete. Capitalist relations of production become limiting factors for new forms of industry - just as a nation that remained feudalist would be left behind and destroyed in the age of steam and industry, a nation that remains capitalist is dooming itself to the march of history. It is precisely the development of capitalism that makes possible, if not historically inevitable, the building of socialism. Compare this with the passage from ‘The Call of Cthulhu’:

The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

Of course, socialism would seem like madness, in the eyes of the aristocrat. Comprehending, but briefly, the idea of communism, of a society without class, without class conflict and class oppression, might drive one to conclude that “mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside.“

Historical materialism, the scientific understanding of human society, cares very little for the ideas or desires of individuals, as far as shaping the course of society goes. It is quite resolute: the only options are class society, and the inevitable march towards communism, or no society. This would have been a very pressing fact in the 1920s, with the establishment of socialism in Russia, and socialist movements across the world spreading like prairie fire. ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ describes Cthulhu’s dream infecting the human psyche - “average people in society and business“ in the west are unaffected, though scientists and artists stir with it. Across the global south, however, there is great unrest, especially among indigenous peoples - even Ireland gets rowdy - and in South America, “a fanatic deduces a dire future from visions he has seen.“

The idea that class society is a specific historical phenomenon, one which is unerringly moving towards its own abolition, must be a frightening one for a member of the upper classes. I’ll leave it to Lovecraft to express this existential horror: “Old Castro remembered bits of hideous legend that paled the speculations of theosophists, and made man and the world seem recent and transient indeed.“

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it's all just vibes, never learn what anything means, never study, just assume you've got the shape of things and never check or verify from there.

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How is, just for one example, someone who sells shirts online and barely makes ends meet more privileged than a "proletarian" lawyer who makes six figures? At some point, wealth does end up being more materially important and influential in a person's life than strictly their relation to the means production, right?

Class relations and individual privilege are not the same thing. The question of class with regard to revolutionary potential is not a question of individual material outcomes, it is a question of what social forces will be at the forefront of revolutionary social change. Marx argued that because economic activity was becoming more and more socialized and dependent on the collective labor of the proletariat, that the proletariat would become the leading force in the next great social revolution, just as the bourgeoisie had been before them.

This does not mean that only the proletariat is capable of revolutionary activity (the peasantry, for instance, was crucial to the earliest socialist revolutions in ways Marx did not anticipate) nor does it mean that proletarians are uniformly oppressed (we have seen the formation of what is often called the "labor aristocracy" within the imperial core, for instance, which benefits heavily from access to imperial superprofits at the expense of the proletariat in imperialized nations). Rather, the revolutionary potential of the proletariat as a class is simply due to their position in relation to the means of production, no more and no less.

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my girlfriend had a dream about matching halloween costumes for us- as weather reporter and Weather-themed Demiurge

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desegregate all sports now. no more gendered sports. its stupid

if you absolutely must, in primarily muscle force-based sports, create competitive classes like in boxing except separated by body comp, not just pure body weight. i mean, if you must. this will eliminate any tiny advantages in muscle mass. some will say basketball should have height classes but frankly some of the NBA's most impressive players were not tall so idk that this actually matters ever

the primary athletic impediment to all women is overwhelmingly cultural and psychological. i have won probably half the physical competitions with cis men that i have engaged in, friendly or otherwise. even without the benefit of a lifetime of people trying to make me throw or hit balls, i have won wrestling matches, sparring matches, funny backyard foam sword fights, video games, equestrian activities, dance, endurance tests of various kinds, etc. i'm small and weak. men think theyre stronger and more skilled than they are, women think the opposite about themselves

humans just arent that differently-sized or -shaped, as a species. we have almost no sexual dimorphism at all compared to the vast majority of other mammals.

animals that have similar levels of sexual dimorphism to humans, for example cats, dogs, and horses, do not generally have competitive events segregated by sex. the dog agility trials dont normally have separate leagues for male and female dogs (gendered competitions exist they're just unusual). because it doesnt matter. there is no kentucky derby 2 just for girl horses. thats not a thing

remove all gendered categories from online shopping websites and universalize clothing and shoe sizing. im sick of having to search two entirely different sections of ebay when im just trying to find a nice velvet loafer in size 39 EU. what the hell is "women's clothing"

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Genuinely asking, how can you be a Marxist and a trans woman? it doesn’t logically compute for me. If you believe misogyny is real, and you can adapt dialectical materialism to the feminist framework (as you know, misogyny as opression of women by men) then can’t you notice women are being oppressed on the basis of the material reality (their genitals)? And that you can’t identify out of the opression - identify as the opressor.

So on one hand my gut reaction to this deeply disrespectful and transmisogynist ask is to respond very shortly with reference to bathtubs and car batteries and what I personally think you should do with those two items, but on the other hand this kinda vulgar materialism is unfortunately Very Common amongst marxist circles here in the US, as is your idealist conceptions of the social categories of gender and sex and your chauvinism. Only difference is that usually people aren't as needlessly inflamitory as you are. Cuz of all that I'll respond seriously, if you are genuinely genuine in your genuineness maybe it'll be of some help in clarifying your understanding of the topic and will clear up misconceptions in others who read the post. Because I'm just so niceys :D.

So lets start with that definition of misogyny/patriarchy, that it's "oppression of women by men". This is a fantastic starting definition and I would not hesitate to use this phrasing were I explaining the topic for the first time to a child in the fourth grade. Unfortunately as marxists it's our duty to be a little more rigerous about this! It takes for granted that your definition of gender (man and woman)-- humans differentiated based on genetalia (and lets include all sexual dimorphism in this just to be generous), is a reflection of material reality in any way. In actuality it is deeply idealist, proposing that there are innate Man Particles within Penises and Woman Particles within Vaginas, and even were that the case then we have to contend with the fact that categorization is entirely a human-made social technology. This definition of gender as something innate makes your definition of misogyny/patriarchy as a mode of structural oppression deeply fraught!!! No wonder you cannot conceptialize the existance of trans people if you conceptualize forces of gendered oppression fighting those of liberation as a battle for supremacy between two subspecies of humans. Such a conflict is irreconsileable. We start to see why TERFism so easily fits in with other forms of reaction if we use your faulty definition as an example. Lets get a better one then shall we?

First thing I wanna do before I write up my definition is that I reject the common division of sex and gender as seperate categories of biology and social relations respectively, I think it runs into the exact problem I have criticized you for by just offloading the biological aspects onto the concept of "sex" as a false binary. So I will do none of that-- primary and secondary sex characteristics instead act as the *percieved* (extra extra extra emphasis on that word!!!) historical basis of my definition of gender.

Gender is a form of social division of labor that arose with the advent of class society from the material basis of percieved sex characteristics that has changed and adapted through the epochs as the economic mode of production has changed and adapted to the material conditions of any given society in any given time and is enforced through class domination via gendering violence. This explains a lot more about gender than any "man=penis woman=vagina", "woman=nuturing man=strong" nonsense! Suddenly the phenomenon of trans people and intersex people existing are things we can make sense of and analyze even if we dont fully understand the science of it all! Suddenly it makes sense why our entire social definitions of gender are entirely based on the division of domestic and external labor, because historically, these divisions were needed for development of class society!

This also means we have to redo your definition of misogyny/patriarchy not as simply men dominating women, but as the system of violent enfocement of this labor division to thereby uphold the functioning of the class society that has created the current itteration of the gender division. This is done both by the domination of the "subservient" gender, by the violent weeding out of those who reguardless of intention challenge the current order of power (trans people, gay people, intersex people, polyamorous people, etc.), or by incorperating those challengers into the heirarchy (gay marriage/general "inclusive" concepts of the family, trans MRAs, etc.).

Now to get to the actual interesting part! How can I as a trans woman be a marxist is what you asked, and I think I proved the how, but what about the why? Well, because marxists should all be gender and family abolotionists is the short answer, but I have other thoughts as well.

Something very interesting has happened in the last century as we sit stewing in the epoch of the end of capitalism/rise of socialism that I believe is one of the reasons us as trans people have become more and more prevelant of an issue within society as threats to bourgeois society. Angela Davis wrote a very interesting article on it in the 80s called "The Approaching Obsolecense of Housework" which I highly reccomend reading, which highlights that the need for the division of domestic and external labor divisions is withering with the advent of new household technology and the subsuming of domestic tasks into the wider external economy (cleaning services, industrial production of clothing and furniture, industrialization of food preperation, infantcare, full day education of children, etc.). This combined with the proletarianization of women under capitalism has created a major contradiction within capitalist society: the need for the existance of the family and gender systems to uphold bourgeois rule and reproduce bourgeois society on one side and the slow withering of domestic labor divisions on the other. One of the many results, I personally believe, is the rise in societal acceptence of trans and queer identites- a glimpse of the next epoch after we collectively do away with bourgeois property relations and the need to define gender through labor division fully disappates. I fully predict that, like Cuba now, we will see existing socialist and dotp nations go through these changes significantly faster and make leaps and bounds into the future as beacons of queer rights. This is also why bourgeois society and the forces of reaction and fascism as a movement see trans people as a threat just one level down to that of communists! This is also why I fully reject any attempts to incorperate queerness into bourgeois society (that arent historically progressive of course!) and always call for a uniting of queer politics under marxism.

So yes, I am a transfem and a marxist, I was one before the other for some reason I cant really fully understand, but over time I came to realize I cannot fully be one without the other.

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Imagine a world where creationism was unanimously central both to the ruling class's conception of self and to the logic that justifies their power. Darwin's work still exists, attempts to suppress it outright would only drive interest; curious and rigorous scholars who've sought out his work can testify to its quality and relevance, and often teach natural selection in their courses. Still, there remains an understanding that Darwin is not what the people with money and power want to hear, and so when proposing research grants or attempting to climb the academic ladder, Darwin is typically ignored in favor of alternative theoretical frameworks which, while less useful, are far more likely to receive funding.

This creates a cycle where, because Darwinism has been ignored in all of the most influential and groundbreaking research, it becomes inessential. Scholars can receive their PhDs without ever having read a single work on natural selection. Despite its utility as a theory, intuition and an implicit trust in the social reality created by and within these institions creates the sense that Darwinism is, to put it bluntly "crank shit," the sort of thing you study to amuse your own curiosity and stroke your ego rather than actually trying to change the world.

Of course, none of this changes the fact that Darwin was correct, that evolution by natural selection is the primary mechanism by which species develop and change over time. However, since using Darwinist theory (or any alternative routes taken to similar models and conclusions) as anything but a garnish will get you labeled as a crank, the entire discipline of biology becomes warped around its absence. Entire fields form to cobble together makeshift solutions to the gaps Darwinism fills, further cementing it's irrelevance. Thousands of scholars devote their lives to fleshing out the forest of asterisks and duct tape holding on a vastly overstretched lamarckian and at times implictly creationist framework.

From the outside, the discipline begins looking absurd. Clearly driven by internal politics, sprawling in a million directions without any consistent underlying theory, shy on results. Despite billions pouring in year after year trying to answer some of the most fundamental questions about humanity, history, health, all lines of inquiry seem to eventually terminate in a shrug of "life is complex, how could we hope to understand everything about it?"

Okay now switch Darwin with Marx. This is the state of contemporary western social science.

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listen up folks he may be a paleolithic racist who failed upwards until he was in a position to give tens of billions of dollars to enable a genocide but you're mean and that's worse. remember the human.