I was listening to this series on audio book in the shower when this occurred to me. ‘Gadara’ is a fantasy species of wolfpeople’s word for enemies that are respected and even trusted. A worthy foe sort of thing.
The idea is that the predatory wolf people believe friends can betray you, but an enemy can be trusted to act in their own self interest if they show themselves to be an honorable sort. Each party to the relationship maintains their status as enemies and expects the other to kill them if given the opportunity, but also can work together against threats to both. Being a gadara to someone also confers a bit of protection with your gadara’s allies. A gadara can vouch for each other, and have laid claim to the honor of killing the other. So vouching for a gadara is saying “I want to be the one to kill this one, please respect that and leave them to me.”
So to bring this around, an understanding between individual tankies and anarchists where both parties understand their ideals are incompatible, but the other can be trusted to work against fash would be a pretty useful arrangement. If we don’t look past each other to the greater threat of fascism we won’t be around long enough to get to have our fight in the end.
Tankies (for any reasonable definition of the word) and fascists should always shunned and opposed, by communists and anarchists alike.
Opposed: Yes Shunned: Might be pragmatic to not-shun
You mean like vegans teaming up with butchers to fight against the meat-industry?
I mean yeah that kinda works as a metaphor. Imagine if vegans and butchers teamed up to destroy Tyson foods before going back to being enemies
That does not make sense. Vegans teaming up with vegetarians may make a bit more sense, but even in this is not plausible because vegetarians are ok with killing animals, they are just not ok with eating them.
The key is finding the axis along which your interests align, and finding an individual enemy whose motivations are enough to trust. If you find for instance a halal butcher who the corporate player is trying to crush, you might find yourself someone with means and motivation to help you improve the world somewhat before your division reasserts itself. It isn’t so much ‘let’s compromise’ as it is ‘we might never get along, but destroying the meat corporation is a matter of survival for both of us’
vegetarians are ok with killing animals, they are just not ok with eating them.
what?
vegetarianism simply means not eating meat. i don’t understand where did you get that all people who don’t eat meat have the same motivation (whatever that’s supposed to be) and why do you present it like a fact.
i’m a vegetarian because i’m not ok with killing animals.
This could be a language problem. In my mother tongue a vegetarian still consumes dairy products and eggs and maybe wears leather. And If you drink milk, eat cheese/yoghurt/butter, your ok with killing animals. A cow needs a calf to give milk, and the calves are being slaughtered because a dairy farm has not the space to keep them around.
There’s like a million reasons some people can’t affort to go full vegan, and shittalking people who at least do something is not a good idea when the majority doesn’t care. It’s like saying people who use public transport are ok with global warming because they could just walk or ride a bike.
How can tankies be trusted to work against fascist when their goals align?
If their goals align with fash they can’t, that’s kind of the beauty of this relationship. Also gadara are personal relations not organisational ones in-universe, so it isn’t so much can tankies as a whole be trusted and more of a can this individual tankie be counted on to act against fash. Its also somewhat circumstance based, if I understand their motivations and ideals, I can probably determine if a given fash threat will be enough to keep their mind on the right target.
Communism is supposed to dissolve the state at the final step, so all of this infighting is just a psyop. Communists and anarchists have the same goals.
Juat one more 5-year plan bro, I swear!
All the leaders of the West were just revealed to be pedophiles as 100% undeniable fact. I’ll take those 5 year plans over culture war plans.
I think you’re probably right, I’d be quite happy if the ‘fight’ at the end between tankies and anarchists was simply diplomatic. Having met a few people who I would qualify as red-fash though, I am not fully optimistic on that count. My point is I guess that a pragmatic approach to building working relationships on a low-trust basis will get us to that point more readily than completely dismissing each other.
You had me at “wolfpeople.”
What is the book? “Codex Alera?”
phenomal series, slow start, EPIC conclusion
Yes! 6 Book series, and the first is Furies of Calderon. Trigger warnings for sexual violence and sex trafficking, but its a neat little series based on the idea of crossing the lost Roman legion and Pokémon if that doesn’t bother you.
Has several cute romances and the wolf people are absolutely sick. They come in during book 2.
Understanding between individuals like you describe occur naturally all the time. When there’s a protest against something, nobody questions attenders about their ideology. If they support the cause, they protest. All together. It doesn’t have to be formalized.
Damn, being the 10th man for a bunch of leftists sounds like a lot of fun, sadly the same Corpo experience that would make me valuable also marks me as an obvious FBI plant
Tankies are authoritarian. How could any Anarchist view them as honourable?
Tankies as a whole, no. Individual tankies absolutely could be. Also it is quite possible to be honorable and still evil, you can be a villain and still be honest and idealistic enough to be trusted to act against a common enemy. If a tankie told me they would put me against the wall if they had the power, but would never betray me to ICE that is a slim common ground, but being that direct I might trust enough to share info or loosely coordinate against ICE
Tankies as a whole, no.
the litmus test for tankies is whether they blindly support modern era china, russia, and nk, all authright (wannabe) empires. what do you think a tankie is?
the litmus test for tankies is whether they blindly support modern era china, russia, and nk, all authright empires
This is pretty close to my own thoughts, though my definition might go more into the ideological underpinnings of those positions. There’s also a lot of leeway in the “blindly” on that one, and I would guess I am less likely to label someone a tankie than others here.
The term is thrown around pretty loosely on Lemmy. I’ve been called a tankie on here for criticizing democrats and for disagreeing with specific criticisms of the Trump regime (things like going after Melania’s nudes or other things I find entirely trivial next to the monstrous crimes) so I expected it to be taken as the more vibes based usage here.
I’m not sure if you use the term tankie correctly. Tankies are the people justifying genocides, massacres and oppression if their perpetrators claim to be communist.
I can agree with statist communist that we share values but disagree on how should they be achieved. But I can never agree with a tankie claiming to share those values while supporting regimes that would make even marx and lenin vomit (or I hope so, even though I’m not their fan and don’t know that much about them).
I’m not sure if you use the term tankie correctly.
Quite right. I was using it this way because it is used often incorrectly on Lemmy and I figured it would get the point I was making across.
But I can never agree with a tankie claiming to share those values while supporting regimes that would make even marx and lenin vomit (or I hope so, even though I’m not their fan and don’t know that much about them).
Very easy to end up sharing those values and supporting regimes that don’t agree simply with the prevalence of misinformation, or sometimes when a difference in priorities is masquerading as a difference in values. As someone who is not a fan of nation states in general, I just try to sus out if people are unironically on board with atrocities or just disagree about the history but would be horrified if they believed.
Lenin didn’t mind massacres and oppression at all, as long as he got to be the government
