I’ve run across these terms several times, but without enough context to figure out what they mean. Could someone help me out, please?
ETA All of you are amazing! A huge thank you to everyone who responded, and an extra thank you to those who have provided links or explanations to further and/or related information. I am learning so much by reading all of these comments!
Damn - the mental gymnastics that account performs to try and justify systematic oppression is worthy of Olympic Gold. 90% of their arguments are "China's not bad because the US is worse", followed by a full frontal attack on democracy and "wokeness" while claiming to be a leftist. A very shrill shill.
Tankies are Red Fascists. They're essentially communism-flavored authoritarians. I would contend they do not qualify as "left", "leftists", etc but far-right. They support and defend Soviet Russia and the CCP, specifically defending their atrocities and oppression.
I don’t see why not since progressive leftist describes where their beliefs lie and authoritarianism describes how they go about enforcing their beliefs.
Really depends on how specific you want to be with the definition of leftist though.
Sure, I guess I equate a desire to be subject to an authoritarian, strongman type leader as something that appeals more to people on the right. We’re a diverse and messy species though so there’s likely someone, somewhere who will be the exception that proves the rule.
I suppose it's always possible to believe in a benevolent dictator who will use their authority to establish whatever system it is that you think is "best", even if it's not authoritarian. Lots of revolutions try that.
Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy as a whole[1][2][3][4] or certain social hierarchies.[5]
According to emeritus professor of economics Barry Clark, supporters of left-wing politics "claim that human development flourishes when individuals engage in cooperative, mutually respectful relations that can thrive only when excessive differences in status, power, and wealth are eliminated."[6]
So maybe? If you had a truly benevolent dictator that promoted equality, freedom (limited to everything except changing nature of government) and prosperity for all then that might fit? But in the real world, not effectively.
I’ve seen plenty of people start off with good intentions and then they change when they get a taste of power.
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.” - Lord Acton.
Can there be such a thing as a progressive/leftist who is pro-authoritarianism?
Not really.
Progressivness is about freedom, authoritarianism about the lack of freedom.
But someone could hypothetically be an actual communist and an authoritarian. Because communism is just an economic system.
In practice the only way it would work is “mob rule”. Like what happened during the French revolution where people rose up, killed the ruling class, and then distributed their wealth.
But even that wasn’t the same because the mob didn’t attempt to distribute it equally. Everyone just grabbed shit.
I think it’s especially confusing to people with a two party political system, because economic and social policy start to get intertwined, when they’re two different things.
Which a cynic would say is intentional so that no matter who gets elected, the wealthy win.
A cynic or a realist? All political systems have to have some checks against human greed and avarice or things quickly turn to shit for the average person. If you can’t vote someone out, that’s an important check you’re giving up.
Relative to his society, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk? "I am going to make you vote, be secular, and give women rights, and you are going to like it or else the army will put you down like the dogs you are"
It would be difficult, since the authoritarian countries are inherently anti-progressive. So it would require a lot of compartmentalization and purposeful hypocrisy to hold such support.
Did he lead cuba? Because Castro is a prime example of authoritarians masquerading as communists. This is a pretty common tactic. Use actual communists to incite revolution and overthrow the government. Then an authoritarian steps in and assumes control and never transitions to full communism: i.e. party-less state.
Even Jeremy fucking Corbyn defends the USSR ffs.
Well then he's a fucking idiot. Imagine defending the USSR, lol.
Someone once described Tankies (at least the ones that are behind the Lemmy codebase) as "conservative communists who think the Tiananmen Square Massacre was a hoax" and uh, I just find that fitting.
People conveniently forget that calling something communism (or socialism, or a people's republic or a democracy) doesn't actually make it that thing, and that co-opting leftist language and ideas in order to gain popularity, support and the power they give, is a well known fascist tactic.
One thing about sealioning that I haven’t seen mentioned yet is that it’s a tactic designed to utterly exhaust the other person by asking question after question with no willingness to listen to the answers. It’s there to waste time and grind down your opponent until they have had enough of your bullshit and tell you to fuck off. At that point you can feign offense and declare victory.
Sealioning originiates with this comic strip. Tankies is a perjorative term broadly applied to anyoneone with marxist-leninist beliefs, applied by centre left and liberals. It refers originally to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia with the implication being that “tankies” support the crushing of resistence to Soviet authority but used more generally just do dismiss anyone with militantly anti-capitalist ideals.
Tankies are generally not just anybody with communist perspectives, but a. certain extreme. A tankie is the type of person who will essentially argue that capitalism and western society are the roots of all evil, and deflect from any criticism of Russia, China, Iran, etc. by attacking the US instead of actually addressing the criticism.
That's just regular old black and white thinking. Every time you've decided that an "ism" is the root of all the world's evils you've lost the game. Doesn't matter what it is. The "isms" are never the source of the trouble; that would be humanity itself.
If you genuinely accept critiques of Iran, China, and Russia as well as disliking the West's capitalism then you're just a communist, not a tankie. However if you just kinda accept critiques in a "No one's perfect" kinda way but still cheer when Russians shoot Ukrainians, you'd be a tankie who fell for Russian propaganda. I'd recommend looking into the firehose of falsehood, it informs a lot about certain righties' and lefties' perspectives.
You're not even necessarily a communist. I don't call myself a communist, but yeah, there are problems with capitalism, that's not a weird thing to say.
My b, you're right. If you critique capitalism but ultimately think it's the best option you're a soc-dem of some sort and if you're anti capitalism then you're some type of socialist, communist, anarchist, or syndicalist. Tankies are almost exclusively going to fall in the anti capitalist communist camp though.
Yeah I’m an anarchist. I have friends who are ML. If they were to say, support a theoretical Cuban invasion of Rojava (listen there aren’t many anti capitalist countries in 2023) because Rojava isn’t the right kind of anti capitalist that would be some tankie ass shit.
The Soviets weren’t saying “be communist or be destroyed” the rebels believed in communism they just wanted self rule.
Also tankie usually implies someone supports Russia and China no matter what they do. Often they use the argument of being anti imperialist even when defending imperialist expansion.
It's a term that originates with the left. Specifically, those who broke with the USSR over imperialist invasions, referring to those who did not. More broadly, it refers to the authoritarian left (as opposed to the anarchist left).
In short, “tankie” is a thought-terminating phrase thrown into any conversations where people want to get others to terminate all thought coming from people to their left. It gets thrown at communists by other communists, it gets thrown at communists by anarchists, it gets thrown at all of the above by socdems, it gets thrown at all of the above by liberals, and it gets thrown at all of the above including liberals by fascists.
Its function in actual practice is that it moves discourse and spaces rightwards. Anyone using the phrase should be completely disregarded as a person that wants you to keep your brain closed.
EDIT: Downvoters literally downvoting actually published leftist internationalist author saying exactly what I just said here because they don’t want to stop using it as a thought-terminator and don’t consider the fact that all they’re doing is moving things rightwards when they use it.
As others have said above, tankies are those who defend despotic authoritarian countries that at least claim to be communist, though really haven't been for a while since they're either a dictatorship or an oligarchy at this point and frequently rather capitalist. How many billionaires does China have now?
And sealioning is purposefully asking leading questions over and over without acknowledging the answers being given. Those that sealion also frequently gish-gallop in response, which is throwing a whole bunch of claims at once that take far more effort to actually provide the necessary amount of information to debunk than it took for the person to make the claims without evidence.
On a personal note, I've always found tankies to be the most extreme example of being anti-socialism and anti-Marxist Leninist. Because do they really think Marx and Lenin would support these dictatorial (and still capitalist) human rights violating countries to be what their utopia is?
In a realistic comparison, Marx and Lenin would support European democracies before they supported trash like modern Russia and China (and don't even get me started on North Korea).
People complaining about “tankies” are exactly like the people that complain about the “woke”. The behaviour is two sides of the same coin, one performed by conservatives-only while the other is performed by both of them in unity against the only anti-capitalists.
Both are functionally meaningless, being undefined in any given situation so they can be thrown around in all places.
I have no time to listen to American liberals wring their hands about China’s authoritarianism while the US jails more people than any other country in the world, employs the death penalty, engages in coups, counterrevolutions, and props up fascist regimes in every continent on the globe. WE live in an authoritarian police state. WE just had a nationwide uprising against it three years ago and observed what was perhaps the most sophisticated counterinsurgency campaign in modern history get waged against it as the entire political establishment, from shitlib to frothing fascist dug in their heels and ensured nothing would be done about these out of control murderpigs.
If you are a leftist, you are an anti-capitalist. If you call yourself a leftist and you aren’t an anti-capitalist, you are a joke. If you are an anti-capitalist, you must recognize that the bourgeois state is illegitimate. If you recognize that the bourgeois state is illegitimate, you don’t carry their water and make the case for them to militarize even further while the growing homeless population gets picked off in the streets by vigilantes and we inch closer and closer to outright pogroms against the LGBT+ community.
The Russian Federation is fucked. A consequence of the 90s shock doctrine, scrapping the Soviet Union and selling everything which wasn’t nailed down to a bunch of gangsters. They are ruled by a right wing, reactionary, socially conservative government. Still, that doesn’t make their crushing defeat a benefit to the world. It won’t be the left filling that vacuum. I am not going to root for the fucking US just because Russia is bad, and I am not going to root for Ukraine which has effectively banned all left-wing opposition parties, media, and labor unions while rehabilitating Nazi collaborators. I hope for an immediate cease-fire, what I have hoped for since the beginning, but for the bloodthirsty liberals this is not enough. They need to make a point, and they care very deeply about where we draw a bunch of lines on a fucking map, no matter how many people need to die for it, and what the social and political ramifications are.
I defend China, and to a much lesser extent, Russia, because I know what the alternatives are. If the US had its way, Western finance would batter down the walls of China, privatize everything in sight, and deliver the biggest increase of poverty in world history. Even bigger than the collapse of the Soviet Union. This would all be in the aftermath of the most lethal war in living memory. Potentially bigger than World War II. It would give the Capitalists the liveblood they need to survive for another century at least. And we WILL NOT SURVIVE another century of Capitalism. The WORLD is fucking dying. Climate change is going to claim the lives of millions. Interstate conflicts resulting from the effects of climate change are going to kill millions more. The turbulence will drive the militarization of police, borders, and surveillance to extremes we cannot even imagine.
You got down voted but you’re right. Tankie is the new form of commie after that fell out of favor. Western “champaign socialists” (another term I hate but it kinda applies here) use it to criticize people from countries that actually have had socialist experiments. Most of the leftists globally are not western and would fit under the standard western definition of tankie. But if you’ve never come close to overthrowing your own government, are you positioned all that well to criticize someone elses revolution while you sit comfortably in the imperial core?
Poor countries face challenges that rich countries can’t imagine often from western interference and revolutions are an ugly business. No Castro was not Santa Claus but he was a marked improvement over Batista.
Did you notice the huge amount of downvotes on any post in here that isn’t outright insults the so called “tankies”?
You got down voted but you’re right. Tankie is the new form of commie after that fell out of favor.
During the Red Scare, calling someone a “communist” was itself a death threat. Red Scare is now over and you have people openly declaring themselves communist, that’s why they had to come up with a new term. Tankie was their first attempt but they messed up by making it too restrictive, now they’re pushing a new term
“Woke.”
Example sentences: “Free healthcare is wokeism”
The above is a natural evolution since “Free healthcare is communism” would have the opposite effect if you keep repeating it over and over. At some point people will declare themselves “woke” and the right will come up with yet another new term.
Sealioning is the constant bad faith, feigning ignorance, asking for evidence of everything under the guise of “just asking questions”. Then ignoring any evidence presented and moving on to the next demand. Used to shut down discourse entirely.
Tankies are leftists that defend or deny the atrocities committed by authoritarian communist regimes like the Soviet Union or the CCP. It was first used to describe communists in Great Britain that defended the Soviet Union for using tanks to crush anti-communist revolutions.
Tankies are leftists that defend or deny the atrocities committed by authoritarian communist regimes like the Soviet Union or the CCP. It was first used to describe communists in Great Britain that defended the Soviet Union for using tanks to crush anti-communist revolutions.
Ironically history has proven that decision to have been the correct one and even the soft-left here in Britain today acknowledges that the people who were called “tankies” originally when that happened were all completely correct.
Edit: Downvoters literally defending against the stopping of what were literal actual fascist-led uprisings because they know absolutely nothing about european history.
Nope, if you do (after Deng for China, after Stalin for USSR, for other time periods you could be a leftist) and have extensively learned about it you probably think you’re a leftist but you’re actually a rightist. Think about how exactly the sum of their policies align with left values more than right values.
Nope, if you do (after Deng for China, after Stalin for USSR, for other time periods you could be a leftist) and have extensively learned about it you probably think you’re a leftist but you’re actually a rightist.
So you think Jeremy Corbyn isn’t left? Lmao. What about Lula? Every Cuban politician?
Think about how exactly the sum of their policies align with left values more than right values.
This is you trying to re-align left vs right as culture instead of economic. It’s seriously america-brained bollocks and is not how anyone in the rest of the world views left vs right.
He’s not saying they’re right wing governments, just that they’re highly authoritarian, which is something that leftists, on average, tend to be against, so if someone claims to be “left” but supports Russia, they likely have a poor understanding of one of those things.
Idk if I like this “left means anti authoritarian” thing I’ve seen floating around recently. By that interpretation right wing individualist anarchism is actually left wing, because though it is called right wing in the traditional sense of individualism v collectivism where collectivism is left wing, it is certainly against authority.
Rather, I’m fine with this interpretation, but can we all get together and figure out whether or not “left” means “anarchism” or “collectivism?” This “it means either one of the two and people will just decide one is correct and deny the existence of the other definition and which one that is depends on who you’re talking to at that moment, and I won’t define it when askef, I’ll just act like you’re stupid for not knowing which one I choose to use today” shit is getting old and I’m like 99% sure it’s intentional as a technique to appear to win an argument without having any argument to speak of.
Like @shit (from shitjustworks, nice one) said, these don’t conflict. While I didn’t say anything about authoritarian (communism especially vanguardism is authoritarian and it never works out), I personally believe that modern China is right wing. For example, their current government wants to merge traditional values with law.
I mean it’s more of an up down issue and not a left right issue right? Most authoritarianism stuff ends up sounding the same. They both hate liberalism and want to stomp it out before they fight it out over the left right divide.
This is a major example of why I despise the left/right "spectrum" that is so universal in political discourse these days. These views are not simple enough to be defined along a one-dimensional axis like this.
I'm increasingly fond of the 8 values test, which splits things up along four distinct axes. Still too few, but definitely far better than just one.
50.6% on the economic axis towards equality, 59.4% on the diplomatic axis, towards nation. 50.4% on the civil axis, towards liberty 55.8% on the societal axis, towards tradition.
Makes sense that I get called a Nazi multiple times on this god forsaken tankie-filled site.
May I introduce you to the Far Right in America? They are often keen to downplay any Russian acts of aggression. ETA: Not saying that they would fit the definition of tankies, just that you don't have to be a leftist to (overtly or tacitly) support Russia.
G.O.P.’s Far Right Seeks to Use Defense Bill to Defund Ukraine War Effort
The group’s proposals have no chance of passage, but they have further mired the military spending bill in a partisan fight and highlighted Republican divisions over the war.
“Tankies” is slang for communists who align with the philosophy of authoritarian rule, like the Soviet Union who used violence to keep countries under their control in check.
Sealioning is something I saw a lot on Reddit, but not so much here - it is when someone responds continuously asking questions, trying to seem like they are engaged, but in reality they are trolling you. Like when you say something like “The sky is so blue today” and the come back with “That is interesting, do you have a link to some information that I can learn more about that?”
This is correct; sealioning is characterised by asking questions in bad faith. If you ask a question, get an answer, and reply with the same question as though you did not get an answer, that is sealioning.
Personally, I always assume questions are asked in good faith and answer accordingly; it’s only when I get the same question in reply, or one that addresses precisely nothing I said, or one that egregiously twists my argument and/or words, that I view it as a troll and disengage.
Dealing with sealioning can be utterly exhausting (which is the point, whether they fully realize that or not) especially when done by someone with experience.
The best way to beat a sealion is classic trolling, funny enough. They just can't stop, and they need to pretend to take the high road, so you can just keep insulting them. Call it out, and then call them names until they stop or you get bored.
A related fallacy is the Gish gallop, in which an endless stream of bogus arguments are spewed out faster than any of them can be refuted. Even if it's really easy to refute each one individually, the constant stream is overwhelming and then eventually the user can go "aha, you couldn't refute X!"
They’re not really communists tho, because (like you said) they defend the use of violence by a ruling class
A ruling class just wouldn’t exist under actual communism. Which is the main reason communism won’t work for any group more than like ~200 people in size.
They’re fans of fake communism like the Soviet Union or China
Dictatorship at the time didn’t mean necessarily authoritarian, it just meant government. Someone always dictates however they may be elected. He felt the people dictating should be the working class.
Yeah and as smart as anyone is, they aren’t right all the time. As much as you can agree with his messaging, it’s important to critically assess everything said, regardless of who is saying it.
Agree totally. Communism is one of those things that cannot work in the real world. Someone above said it well - you go so far left that you end devolving into fascism and that is apparent with what is going on in Russia right now. Money begets power begets more money and on and on…
Out of curiosity what makes you think 2023 Russia is left wing? They weren’t even the last of the countries to leave the USSR. They privatized Soviet holdings in the 90s. Putin is former KGB sure, but he’s been very pro capital his entire reign.
Oh, I don’t think they are leftist at all. My point was that Russia dominated the Soviet Union (do you agree with that?) and the fall of communism has resulted in what we see now, and it is not pretty, with business, money and politics very much intertwined.
Yeah the dictatorship of the proletariat shouldn’t be thought of as like the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein but rather as forceful removal of hierarchy from society. “We will learn to live as equals no matter how difficult it is and those who refuse to join in the work will be punished.” If you’re just getting rid of the people who held power before the revolution and not fighting the desire for power you’re just gonna wind up with a red czar.
i’d figure tankies by strictest definition to be garden variety MLs, though yeah this typically includes support for mao.
my experience of trots has been old trade union guys trying to hawk papers/do book clubs linking everything somehow to permanent revolution, with a side of turning up to pickets. idk if i’d call them fanatical, they tend to spend too much time bickering about organisation amongst themselves. definitely agree with the weirdly nostalgic part though
Tankies aren't exactly left wing. They claim to support communism but they actually support authoritarianism as long as it's vaguely communist associated. China and Russia mostly. But they use the symbolism of communism, so they're vaguely left wing.
Much like right wing fascists, a hallmark is blatant cognitive dissonance and/or hypocrisy.
Correct, calling China a communist country is laughable. Just like it is laughable when people call any US senator a socialist. People don't know the actual definitions of the words they are using.
China and Russia have authoritarian regimes.
And it is sad to see people who call themselves communist, support regimes like China. They refuse to admit their shit sticks. At least I will happily admit where my country falls so far short of my leftist ideals.
Tankies are the cringe “communists”, authoritarians that beleave that no one but them (definitely not rich people) should have power. You can generally spot them because they often idolize the Soviet Union and CCP, despite the fact that both were/are authoritarian shitholes.
Sealioning is when you repeatedly ask someone basic questions in an attempt to annoy them or make it look like they don’t have any. Often sealioners pretend they just want to engage in debate, but in reality ignore or deny any evidence or arguments presented.
“Sealioning” here refers to a way of trolling by asking ill-intended questions, usually disguising it in innocence. When other members try to explain and help, they’d try to lure them into hours of discussion upon it, usually by knowingly misinterpreting what they heard.
Or worse, just directly disrespect and reject all the suggestions the commenters provided. The essence is being a waste of time for everyone.
That would depend a lot on the context. What catches a moderator’s attention on an issue like this wouldn’t be seeing the individual post, rather seeing the reports about it. A mod usually acts on the consensus of the community and tries to determine if the members are correct in reporting things. They may be correct or wrong, but most of the time it’ll be correct. And we’d of course step back and apologize if we thought we were wrong.
Sealioning is a sort of evolution of JAQing off. It’s the JAQ coupled with feigned innocence and indignance when people actually stop putting up with BS.
Actually after thinking a bit deeper about it, it mirrors Socratic Questioning, but with the opposite intended end goal of muddying the waters instead of gaining clarity.
But y’know, if someone walks up and makes disparaging racist remarks about how they don’t like your kind, following them round and demanding they explain themselves out loud is about the most appropriate response that exists.
It’s related but it differs on the form. Concern trolling is derailing online discussions and debates by simulating concern over a seemingly valid counterpoint, making all participants waste time and effort arguing a previously settled matter, or pretending to just be playing devil’s advocate. Acting as if, although you support the cause or discussion at hand, you somehow still have some valid concerns to oppose.
I don’t think so. As far as I’m aware, concern trolling is an act to lower morale and place distrust among the opposing side. A person who’s on side B pretends to be on side A.
Let’s say you’re an admin on this site, and you have made a post asking for server donations.
Then just when all was going well, another member comes to the comments, who seems to support you and praise you really well at first. The rest of their comment is then telling everyone that they “appreciate your work”, but “you can’t handle it”, because this or that. Causing some of your genuine members to question you with their “concerns”
I’m on your side, so you should take my bullshit concerns seriously!
Concern trolling is acting like you’re concerned about the consequences of something.
Like,
If we let people wear masks during COVID, we’ll see more bank robberies because masks are normalized!
Sea Lioning would be if I just kept asking you questions about why masks help, often while asking you to link sources. I don’t actually want to see any sources tho. I’m just going to keep asking new questions and for more sources until you get tired and stop replying.
Because the more time you waste on me, they less you help people who are genuinely asking for it. Plus when you stop replying, I can claim that as a victory because that must mean there aren’t any sources that agree with you.
Concern trolling is “raising concerns” about certain issues that have little to no basis in reality and only serves to inject bigotry and bad ideas. For example, people were concerned about “the gays™” spreading their immoral gay AIDS virus all over innocent children during the 80s and into the 90s, only to learn that AIDS is spread through contact with broken mucosa membranes, which then shifted to “the gays™ are pedos” argument.
Everyone points to the comic in regards to sealioning, but I have always equated it to posters who are incapable of having an actual debate and keep saying “Why? Why? Why? Why?” until they get tired and fall asleep under the pier (but then their friend wakes up and takes over).
But why, specifically, is the term “Sealioning”? Is it referencing some behavior exhibited by sealions? Is it an aggregate of or wordplay on other slang?
I’ve seen Sealioning used quite a bit in a particular Lemmy instance that would self describe themselves as Pro-Russia & Pro-China, as a way of shutting down discourse between people who disagree with them. There are people who disagree with a particular narrative, and they’re discounted immediately for wanting to know how someone would arrive at a pro-Russian & pro-China position.
Also they’ll just “whatabout!” and change the subject whenever unassailable critiques of these regimes come up. As if its is only possible to hold outrage in a single direction at a time.
I’ll have you know I’m capable of disliking EVERYONE mentioned in a given conversation.
Thank you for responding. I have boiled down the aggregate of answers as basically a tankie supports authoritarianism, or use of violence to deal with opposition. If this take is incorrect, someone please correct where I have it wrong. Btw, I have deliberately ignored references to left/right as meaningless in my quest for information.
Blue-haired white college kids from high-income families going through the commie phase that many go through due to academia’s fascination with at least the theory of it and the fact that such students start out spending most of what little free time they have online
The stereotypical basement-dwelling, probable-chomo neckbeards with BO who moderate large subreddits, unironically believe that work should be abolished and never socially matured past high school. Examples include Doreen Ford and awkwardtheturtle.
Edgy American 13-year-olds from high-income families who just discovered politics and chose (their idea of) communism over nazism and unironically stan Putin because they think he’s fighting something something gay/pronouns (which totally aren’t despised in Ukraine too)- as well as many other free and fair governments like North Korea and the Chinese Communist Party.
And sealioning is a type of internet trolling where you repeatedly make incessant, bad-faith attempts to “just have a debate” and then ignoring all responses unread.
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