Roderic Day talking about {Hexbear}

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/2331989

I don’t really think he knows this site’s culture at all. No one is dissuading people from reading theory lol

Yey or ney for him?

As someone said in the post

As far as I can tell, he's a guy who spends all his time posting about how all leftists do is post.

~~And this ain't the first time, Roderick's a bit terminally online, arguing against other progressives like JT (Second Thought) and Michael Hudson....~~

Edit:

Ok I've made a right-deviationist mistake in saying that Michael Hudson is a progressive, and indirectly agreeing with the views of the former....

I've not investigated into JT's MMT videos nor looked carefully into Hudson (I thought he was also against capitalism, turns out, only finance and feudalism..., just cares for industrial capitalism)

61 comments

I like Roderic. He reminds us (communists) that it's not all memes and fun, there's serious effort that needs to be made and the course this effort should take is found in theory.
Yes you could say he's sometimes a bit too harsh in his criticism, but he also makes tons of good points and we need people like him too, with or without their flaws. Nobody's perfect. He's harsh, but he's not insulting (that I've seen) and in the end he does it to reach a better understanding of the matter with the people he struggles with. It took me a while in my life to detach from "neutral language criticism" and not see it as harsh criticism because it didn't have a word of praise in it (like "you're partly correct" or "you're on the right track but"). This is what he does, is neutral criticism. He doesn't go out of his way to insult or demean you but makes you see his point.
He spends a lot of time on Twitter, sure why not, but he's also one of the only people there that will talk to you in DMs and answer your questions there, and even if you have 2 followers -- many do not bother to talk to you either because they have too many notifications (he has a big account so I'm sure he has the notifs too) or because you don't have followers. Also anyone can have a Twitter account, and I know many big accounts like Roderic's that are not half as good at Marxism as he is.
His thing, from what I can tell, is to engage with the points and the criticism. Many people dismiss criticisms because they see it as wrong from the get-go, and don't even want to try and falsify it on that basis. He pushes us rather to engage with it, even if it's wrong, in order to show why it's wrong or doesn't apply, thereby reaching a higher level of understanding from both parties. He can be wrong too and doesn't claim to know everything.
- The neutral criticism piece I actually disagree with. I think it's equally on the people's perception as it is on the person delivering/intention, and in a society where most people are going to be much more likely to be responsive to a positive languaged critique, there is no reason not to. We don't have to be logic-lords or Spock, we're humans and we like to be reassured and talked to nicely even when we are wrong. This is all assuming the person is good faith ofc.
  It probably differs based on who you're talking to, y'know, other comrades can probably take a little more direct language compared to some random newbie but I think it stands regardless, you have to frame it in a way that is digestible because of the large possibility that it could be blocked by your tone and their response to it. If we want to be practical, we need to consider this.
  Personally I still agree with you lol, and am working on/getting better at taking direct criticism as not personal. But that doesn't mean we should expect everyone to take it that way, it's just not the way most people think.
  Edit: everything else you said I agree with though, I still just have my own issues I listed above lol ^

And this ain’t the first time, Roderick’s a bit terminally online, arguing against other based progressive like JT (Second Thought) and Michael Hudson…
Why shouldn't he? Hudson's following reproduces Industrial Capitalist apologia in the same way that fed Social Chauvinism in Europe prior to WW1 (and during the height of Imperialism's African carve). I can see the consequences of Hudson in the patsoc space. Second Thought's video on MMT was uncritical and like Hudson reproduces petty booj cope about "the economy" and reform.
Hudson and ST are Marxist educators, they should be criticized so that their performance at that role can improve. If we are giving these people a living as revolutionary educators, shouldn't they be held to the highest standards?
The western left has a deep cultural lack of seriousness (I wonder why that is?). Memes and jokes are fine but bigotry and anti-intellectualism shouldn't be passed off as jokes to avoid criticism.

Yay, he’s right. He’s a little too online, but principled. I may be why he knows about hexbear. Idk what he said about JT, but it was probably reasonable. I have my own criticisms of him, but he’s overall positive. Also, Hudson’s a total revisionist. I struggled against that stance and was defeated.
- It was about ST's MMT video, it was deserved.
- about JT
  The MMT video....

Michael Hudson is not a based progressive, he is a PB academic with a long background working for banks and other capitalist institutions. He posts his work on the literal fascist website Unz review (which he still does years after being notified it was a literal fascist website in case he was unaware) where the comments there are full of people picking up on his fascist and anti-Semitic dog whistles and running with them. All his focus on "finance capital" is quite interesting when you look at his writing about Jesus being killed by Jewish financiers and how his solution to fight finance capital is essentially empowering industrial capital. What other groups were very pro industrial capital and focused heavily on Jews as a financial elite? Probably some of the ones who are big fans of Unz Review, so Hudson seems to have chosen the right place to voluntarily publish his work online.
He was raised by Trots and his hyper focus on economics allows him to avoid any revolutionary analysis; Hudson is essentially pushing a patsoc/demsoc narrative about "fixing" the US economy by trying to roll back finance capital and do some New Deal shit which is caping for capital, not fighting it.
There may be value in his knowledge as an economist but he's absolutely not based or someone I would look to for any info outside of very specific economic data that also isn't super relevant in any organizing arena I've ever seen.
As far as Roderic Day goes, I'm not on social media to know about how terminally online he, his posts, or personality are, but I have read a few of his essays which I found very well done and informative.
- how his solution to fight finance capital is essentially empowering industrial capital. What other groups were very pro industrial capital and focused heavily on Jews as a financial elite? Probably some of the ones who are big fans of Unz Review, so Hudson seems to have chosen the right place to voluntarily publish his work online.
  He was raised by Trots and his hyper focus on economics allows him to avoid any revolutionary analysis; Hudson is essentially pushing a patsoc/demsoc narrative about “fixing” the US economy by trying to roll back finance capital and do some New Deal shit which is caping for capital, not fighting it.
  The hell? I screwed up in thinking that... he may have abhored Larouchites, but I guess his economic policy and thinking is Larouchism...
  
  He has been given a lot of space on many leftish / left adjacent platforms over the last several years which has given him a lot of credibility. I was very surprised to see Ben Norton giving him space on his channel for instance, someone I typically trust more than the majority of other influencers/journalists.

Imo its an L take, sure there are some childish hexbearers but there are many more promoting reading theory and organizing, they are actually very deep into das Kapital. Its a big community..
Although its kind of fun to poke our hexbear comrades from time to time.
- the post in question only has 20 something upbeats, and like 60 comments
  hexbear is suddenly a united front umbrella group and we all agree all the time.

I think he expects too much from what at its foundation is a link aggregation website.
- What he expects is for the western left to take itself more seriously if it's to have any success at all, and dodging critique by hiding behind "it's a site for memes" isn't doing any good to anyone that actually wants change.
  Not "expecting too much" from a link aggregation site is like not expecting too much from any western communists. The masses are online and online spaces are not separated from "real" life like that. No one is saying we can't have any fun, but at the end of the day If we don't take ourselves seriously why should anyone else take us seriously.
  While I do find lemmygrad a bit better than hexbear in regards to this, it also still has an abundance of low effort meme posts and a lack of serious discussion.
  
  He's talked several times about creating such a space, and why not? We are experimenting many things still, maybe this kind of space could work. I take the view that there's always something to learn about anything, whether we like it or not, or whether we intended for it to be a lesson or not.
  He's also not entirely against fun and memes, it's just that it's not his thing. I've talked to him in DMs once and he said that's fine with him, it's just not what he's looking for. That's valid too.
  I think on some level people think of him to be infallible and the end all be all, but I don't think he claims to be. He's just very present and he makes a lot of good points, which perhaps cultivates this image in the process (which I don't think is intended). I mean that we can have Lemmygrad and Hexbear, and there can also be a third instance that's this more serious, heavier moderation space.
  
  i mean i think you can compare the thread hosted on a hexbear comm vs a thread hosted on the lemmygrad comm, i think we are much much closer to this level of seriousness desired. I still don't quite get why having less serious (silly, if you want) comms is a problem because you can just block those comms and never see posts from them again.
  
  I mean hexbear is just one online place. It's not like the revolution depends on how hexbear is operating. Same for Lemmygrad. If I look at my own work for our party I think my real life efforts are endlessly more important than the shitposts I make on Lemmygrad. To me he comes off as a bit sour because he sees people having fun and he decides that's a problem to him lol. Sure, we could turn this place into a discussion board majority only but I have a feeling that we will be without users at the end of the year. Discussion is always welcome of course and we encourage it even. Everyone is free to ask whatever they want.
  
  I am not sure what taking itself more seriously entails. What would a serious Western left Lemmy instance look like to you? Is there any other website in this domain that you point to for inspiration?
  
  dodging critique by hiding behind “it’s a site for memes” isn’t doing any good to anyone that actually wants change
  Our political memes should be both funny and a good reflection of our politics; it's right there in the concept itself. Of course you don't hold them to the same standards you would theory, but if the political point is sloppy enough it's just not a very good meme.
  That's also setting aside occasions where people are having a substantive discussion and someone cops out with "come on this is just a meme board." That flies some for memes themselves and joke threads, but there are plenty of run-of-the-mill news discussions where that pops up, too.
  
  I miss the better memes and more frequent discussions here.
  
  Even lenin shitposted in private letters comrade, we shouldnt be expected to be anything in a anon shitposting space.
  We will not respond to his silly letters...
  
  Could it be that the western left prefers spending more time socializing online than seriously undertaking the construction of revolution because of their inherent foundation in a labor aristocracy which benefits more from imperialism and neo-colonialism than it has to gain from destroying capitalism? With most people so socially alienated in the west, coupled with having limited capacity outside of productive and reproductive labor, it isn't hard to imagine that westerners would default to commiserating on the internet over using any free time they have to study, be of service to the masses, and improve themselves. For the west, shit posting on the toilet is much easier than looking in a mirror.

I'm not really understanding his point in the second screenshot

Well now I'm going to have to spread the rumor that Hexbear is about weird Christian nonsense instead of Marxism.

Michael Hudson
Literally who?
- Better you don’t know
- Someone well worth reading. He grew up in a Trotskyist household. Became a banker/economist. His mentor agreed to mentor him if he read Marx, Theories of Surplus Value and everything cited in it. Hence Hudson's ability to see and explain how bourgeois economics works and why and where it fails/will fail. He wrote a report that made him semi famous and apparently wealthy; later published as a book now in it's third edition, Superimperialism.
  Just don't expect a Leninist conclusion of 'that's why we need a revolution and here's how to do it'. He frequently kinda implies that all the bad things will simply disappear due to the weight of capitalist contradictions.
  Have to admit, he's hard going even for me, who's read a reasonable amount of political economy. It's the same with his video/audio recordings and writing, tbh. I struggle to follow what he's saying because of the structure. He kind of starts too far into the argument IMO but you can piece things together by the end.
  
  He is certainly lacking an understanding of capitalism as a whole system, suggesting reforms to make it run smoother rather than seeing it as a fundamentally flawed and contradictory system.
  
  Superimperialism
  Kauskyism!
  Kind of a weird deviation honestly... I've tried to grasp it but the idea that middle managers are the ultimate bad guys seems to be missing the mark.

I hope I'm not crucified for this but I can't stand this guy. People have made good points about him, and theoretically/intellectually he is brilliant - we all know communists need to be engaged in serious business and not just spam posting memes and hanging out in our circle-jerk platforms.
But is he not a flaming hypocrite? I swear I've read something about how he isn't even involved in an organization because he "just can't find anything serious enough" (this could be a dream on my part tho) - that is just insufferable. There are a few good orgs in the US/Canadian area and it's ridiculous to throw everything out because they don't adhere to page 4858584 line 5 of some obscure Marxist's writing. It seems to me that he dishes out criticism after criticism and spams writings on the internet, engaging in borderline useless beef that doesn't get much traction, all while being... chronically online himself?
I just think that like, anyone who is willing/able to understand/actually applying this level of Marxist thought isn't just sitting online anymore and doesn't need constant "takedowns" because someone said something vaguely wrong. JT makes one iffy MMT video that is literally one of his least effectual creations and dude wets his pants over it. I'm not saying don't criticize but the frequency in which he makes them, combined with his harsh ass wording, combined with the (maybe?) fact that he is not even doing anything serious in real life? Rubs me the wrong way and just paints the stereotypical insufferable communist picture we all know.
He extrapolated very erroneously that anyone said don't read theory here, and although the "you have to be a literal slave to be a commie" is braindead, he seems to latch on to literally anything that could be false and go deboonk mode.
Part of flowing through the masses and being one of them is not being an insufferable nerd. If this guy preaches sincerity and seriousness, then I think we should get serious that this rhetoric and behavior online isn't doing shit other than MAYBE fine-tuning already-ML-aligned people. There's a use for that, but good lord, if he tried this shit in an organization he would be hated. You can't be obnoxious to your comrades or random members of society if you expect anything.
I could be going too harsh here honestly, I just have had these thoughts for quite a while and never really said anything lol. If it is proven true that he is in fact in a real life org then a lot of this would fall through and I would only stand on "stop being annoying" point, but I don't know. You have to be personable and digestible to be an effective communist, not just "I know my shit and you don't and here's why"
Mucho texto over, burn me alive if necessary
Edit: Stawp downvoting me and explainnnnn
- I don’t know if he’s doing anything irl, but redsails is pretty good for making theory accessible.
- I think the problem with the nature of being an online content creator is that is drives people to be polarizing and harsh because that generates clicks. I've never been on social media since like 2015, especially twitter, so I get to avoid the results of such a cycle, but when any comrades clue me in on the latest online leftist gossip it always seems to be some form of this type of thing. Ostensibly principled or politically developed people consciously or subconsciously stirring up internet drama for clicks.
  
  That could be true, and definitely is for a number of "left-wing" creators. I don't know if that's the case for this, though, because he seems to (no hate to him here) really not be that popular? Or content-creator-y? Like he writes essays and critique pieces, he doesn't make videos or whatever and to my knowledge none of this is monetized, so would that even be a motive? I don't know, but either way it's an "ugh" moment lol.

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