CriticalResist8

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5770703

My own article as a companion to the new ProleWiki homepage we are releasing very very soon, explaining how we started from nothing and got the final full page.

When we think of "criticism and self-criticism", we often think of criticism we've been brought up to live with: the kind that simply seeks to destroy, or the kind that's naturally antagonistic.

It took me a while to truly understand what criticism means for communists; incidentally, working on ProleWiki helped me a lot with that.

Criticism is through other words the process of struggle (again a word that seems strong but that you might be more familiar with).

Criticism is not necessarily meant to be aggressive or even find faults. This, in my opinion, is actually counterproductive and even a deviation from what criticism is for us communists. You might know this better as constructive criticism.

Likewise, self-criticism is not necessarily you belittling yourself and listing all your bad traits.

I think we look at the pictures of struggle sessions in the early PRC, and we look inwardly at what the word "critique" means to us in late-stage capitalism, and we kinda form a nebulous idea of what that is and run with that. After all, "communists ruthlessly criticize all that exists", right?

I think however that criticism can be done with care, and is more productive that way. This is because the purpose of criticism isn't, like I said earlier, to necessarily find faults with what you did or what your org does.

A mistake I see often is to think of criticism as your chance to start blasting whatever woes you can think of, and the other party has to sit there and take it because you're doing it marxistly.

Criticism has to be productive and lead to action; it breaches from theory to practice. Practice then makes good on the criticism, changes the state of things (dialectics, if you are not at the stage you can tell readily yet), and then further criticism can happen.

The point of criticism, the whole reason we are doing struggle sessions in the first place is precisely to enact the best praxis we can, and do so quickly. We are not in a position right now as communists that we can build a party in a hundred years. We need to build it now, and for that we need effective praxis. This is the whole point of doing struggle sessions and crit and self-crit.

This is something both parties in a struggle session must first understand and mutually acknowledge. The critic is not here to disparage your efforts, but to help them reach their higher potential. You are not here either to shield yourself from all criticism on the basis that you're too proud to hear it or that your successes outweigh your shortcomings -- I prefer *shortcomings * to "faults" or "issues". I also prefer challenges instead of saying something is impossible; a challenge can be overcome.

Some criticisms we've dealt with on ProleWiki for example was super simple. It wasn't even a disagreement, which can happen sometimes and doesn't mean your idea is necessarily wrong or misguided, just that it's perhaps not fully realized.

Sometimes, we offer up ideas and then debate them in what I think is the ideal struggle session. Nobody necessarily disagrees or thinks "it's a stupid idea, why did you even bring that up, this'll never work": that would not be criticism, that would be cathartic bashing. A criticism has to offer a solution or, at the very least, seek improvement selflessly.

I myself have often debated ideas editors proposed not because I thought they wouldn't fit or we shouldn't follow up on them, but just trying to help them make sure they've covered all their bases and have thought about all questions before they proceed.

Thus the goal is to reach the full potential of our ideas so that we issue the best praxis once we get down to work, saving time and effort.

I'm talking about very practical critic self-crit here because that's mostly where I employ it, but this works also in more theoretically grounded struggle sessions, where you discuss strictly theory and which line is correct. By my own conclusion of what criticism is however, criticizing a party line that the party refuses to change (and calling attention to that fact) would not be criticism, but I think it is -- it is the most important criticism we can make as marxists, in fact. So remember that this is a model and not the final analysis.

The process of criticism acknowledges, weighs, analyzes, and then **acts. **

Acknowledge criticism that applies. The point is to make you stronger, even if it hurts to hear (it shouldn't if you follow the basis that it's done in good faith).

Then, weigh it: is this something we were aware of? How dangerous is it? How difficult would it be to overcome, and is there something more urgent we need to look at first?

Analyze before acting: what can we do about it with our current resources? Is it realistic to? Propose some solutions to the problem that was brought up.

And finally, deploy all of that to act on the criticism and improve. I guarantee you in one year, you'll have forgotten people made the criticism, but you'll remember forever that you did improve with it, and that you are in a much better position after it than before.

The dialectic between teacher and learner is one of great importance but is often misunderstood or, perhaps in more weighted terms, is not brought to its full potential by the teachers.

This permeates in the marxist environment, which is the only one I'm concerned with currently, where teachers do not realize their role and full capabilities as such. It remains by and large -- in my experience only -- as not a dialectic, but a unidirectional conveyance.

The teacher speaks, and the learner listens. This is the metaphysical model.

But are we not all being taught, and thus learning, at any time? From discussions I've had where I started in this metaphysical "authority" role of the teacher (a role most people, me included, subordinate themselves to rather easily as what they think a learner should be) and ended up learning more than I taught.

I may know dialectics well. But I may not know economics well. A learner is a fluid thing, it goes through stages back and forth. I teach dialectics to someone, and I learn economics from them. By asking their questions, they help me refine my understanding -- and capabilities to teach -- of dialectics further.

The teacher should explain, promote, make considerations. The learner should retain, evaluate and analyze.

This requires for the learner to understand that their role is not simply to nod along and retain everything from the authority, and for the teacher to be open to changing their mind and methods.

The dialectic (contradiction) is resolved when the session gives birth to a new third thing, in this case similarly to the "original" Ancient Greek dialectic, and both parties come out with a third new idea that did not exist previously. The learner has learned and taught, and the teacher has taught and learned in a way they both further their understanding of the topic.

It can then repeat with the learner being able to become a teacher (in any capacity) and the teacher having refined what they will say (and how) to the next learner.

I see the complete opposite too often; marxists that would rather confirm their biases, eschewing their own capabilities as teachers (and learners -- many think of themselves too highly to still be "learners") and completely smothering any potential their interactions may have had as a teaching opportunity, at least dialectically.

You see this most often on social media, where the order of the day is to make cheap jokes, quick "stream of consciousness" quips, and confirming one's own already formed beliefs.

In this role, they are being metaphysical (or at the very least undialectic). It's not bad for the sake of it and me being able to use the jargon; it's a malformed process because dialectic cannot take place, and cannot make things advance. Thus they remain stuck where they were exactly before: further confirming their belief that their tendency/ideas are the best, and working not to advance that tendency or idea, but to disprove that any other is good.

Follow-up to last week's article about how feudalism is misrepresented in a certain game.

Let me know if this isn't relevant to privacy-minded people but it seems on topic considering the org AND not getting caught up in honeypots for your own security.

I don't know how world news this is, but I couldn't find a better community and it does talk about the mainstream media (CNN specifically). Please feel free to redirect me to a better community if there is one.

https://twitter.com/prolewiki/status/1746225797109600706

It's a mess of quote tweets to follow so check the QTs (or his profile) to see the followups.

We're not gonna engage more cause this is childish and boring, but I thought lemmygrad might enjoy it.