You make many good points. I didn’t write this and was looking more for a definition of the phrase “Horizontal Hostility” which dispite your criticism I believe is still something that prevents our efforts.
I’ve been guilty of it myself. I’ve criticized more militant strategies of resistance in the past because it went against my personal principals. And looking back, I wish I hadn’t.
After doing more research and reading, I disagree with the idea that “There is such a thing as someone being ‘on our side’ and being completely wrong and taking actions that damage the movement.” I think that diversity is our greatest strength. And a diversity of tactics, strategy, and principles is important in a resistance.
In my view, the cause of these hostilities is a failure to center the human experience in an analysis of objective conditions, failing to recognize that human experience is in fact itself an objective condition.
We inherited a world where the liberal/bourgeois movement defeated the church and the grip it held over the masses, with rationalism, logic, and science. Since then we’ve been able to make great scientific advancement, but the way we wield “facts” against our opponents is inherently flawed in a number of ways. This flawed methodology is what most often triggers social divisions, though capitalism performs socially to divide every movement into separate, dualist categorizations rationally opposed to one another, rather than education that leads to people understanding the connections that exist between social movements, and even classes. Social movements are often defined by their antagonisms, rather than post hoc rationalizing or inherent traits.
I guess I would ask you to define the sides whose constituent parts, in your opinion, could not be in material contradiction. There are many such examples. In our current situation, you only have to look at the genocide of Palestinians at the hand of the Israelis to see how a regime could intentionally engineer the sides to be in constant and steep contradiction. I have no doubt that the colonist Zionists who founded the state by death, fear, and mass imprisonment have unjustly appropriated the Jewish tradition, BUT ALSO done many good and supportive things for Jewish communities and doing so in the name of an ethnostate. while also acknowledging that real on-the-ground anti semitism is actually increasing, in no small part because neo Nazi antisemites are intentionally coopting the Palestine liberation movement to spread their own insidious propaganda. Which “side” I’m on is incredibly contingent on pre-existing material conditions. There are def bad people in this narrative, people on the “side” of death and hate. But there are a lot in the middle who are pulled in different directions. That’s what keeps us weak and unorganized.
Or a situation like the Khmer Rouge, where Cambodian “communists” were backed by imperialist capitalists in the US, and Denghist communist China, to destabilize the new communist government in Viet Nam, in order to spite the post Stalin USSR. Deeply contradictory and destructive set of circumstances carried out because it was in the best interests of every party, and the rest of us could be easily tricked with nationalism, acting under the guise of patriotism. How do you parse out whose side people are on?
Circumstances emerge and develop through time. There are causes and effects that link everything together. But this does not mean that the world is inherently rational, self consistent, and free of contradiction. There is a kind of rationale going on, but it does not follow the contradiction-free rules of categorical, dualist rationalism. This is what I mean when I say that we must stop being idealists and deal directly with material fact and reality.
For instance, based on my experience, you and I are on the same side against oppression, but there’s some disagreement between us on some issues. This can bring us together, forcing us to improve our own perspectives, or it can drive us apart. IMO its brought us together! But this does not eliminate all disagreements, its just that disagreement on one or both of our parts are more intellectual than material. But once those circumstances become material, or reified through fear, then differences appear much more stark where we won’t ever agree. We will begin to be defined in different or reflective ways, and both become more idealist and detached from the actual struggle for liberation.
In order to break this cycle we need to think differently. And yes this definitely includes me too, because I’ve known many people who could correctly identify the problems, but could not escape the consequences. Paolo Friere is imo one of the all time masters of this new humanistic way of accurately defining our roles within this immense and complicated struggle, through education. which is why it kind of irks me it was included in the article, which you did not write.
I’m mostly in agreement. However I think the issue that started this discussion is this idea of a united front and that we should follow a shared strategy. Personally, I saw the comments just trying to dunk on eachother when discussing what each feels is a good way yo move forward. I just simply don’t believe it’s possible achieve that unified movement when it is truly grassroots. We are not a hivemind, we all have our own opinions even if they are based on incomplete or factually wrong information. Ideally, we would not need to spend the required time trying to make everyone in the movement think the same or even agree on the same strategies. The time that we have to plan or engage in a fight against oppression would be better used actually planning or fighting oppressors.
Again, I think our strength is our diversity of opinion, philosophy, strategy, and tactics. Perhaps rather than trying to control which strategies are used, we should add each as a tool in a wide arsonal of resistance strategy. We shouldn’t be belittling strategies that we benefit from. We should try to keep goal in mind.
You make many good points. I didn’t write this and was looking more for a definition of the phrase “Horizontal Hostility” which dispite your criticism I believe is still something that prevents our efforts.
I’ve been guilty of it myself. I’ve criticized more militant strategies of resistance in the past because it went against my personal principals. And looking back, I wish I hadn’t.
After doing more research and reading, I disagree with the idea that “There is such a thing as someone being ‘on our side’ and being completely wrong and taking actions that damage the movement.” I think that diversity is our greatest strength. And a diversity of tactics, strategy, and principles is important in a resistance.
In my view, the cause of these hostilities is a failure to center the human experience in an analysis of objective conditions, failing to recognize that human experience is in fact itself an objective condition.
We inherited a world where the liberal/bourgeois movement defeated the church and the grip it held over the masses, with rationalism, logic, and science. Since then we’ve been able to make great scientific advancement, but the way we wield “facts” against our opponents is inherently flawed in a number of ways. This flawed methodology is what most often triggers social divisions, though capitalism performs socially to divide every movement into separate, dualist categorizations rationally opposed to one another, rather than education that leads to people understanding the connections that exist between social movements, and even classes. Social movements are often defined by their antagonisms, rather than post hoc rationalizing or inherent traits.
I guess I would ask you to define the sides whose constituent parts, in your opinion, could not be in material contradiction. There are many such examples. In our current situation, you only have to look at the genocide of Palestinians at the hand of the Israelis to see how a regime could intentionally engineer the sides to be in constant and steep contradiction. I have no doubt that the colonist Zionists who founded the state by death, fear, and mass imprisonment have unjustly appropriated the Jewish tradition, BUT ALSO done many good and supportive things for Jewish communities and doing so in the name of an ethnostate. while also acknowledging that real on-the-ground anti semitism is actually increasing, in no small part because neo Nazi antisemites are intentionally coopting the Palestine liberation movement to spread their own insidious propaganda. Which “side” I’m on is incredibly contingent on pre-existing material conditions. There are def bad people in this narrative, people on the “side” of death and hate. But there are a lot in the middle who are pulled in different directions. That’s what keeps us weak and unorganized.
Or a situation like the Khmer Rouge, where Cambodian “communists” were backed by imperialist capitalists in the US, and Denghist communist China, to destabilize the new communist government in Viet Nam, in order to spite the post Stalin USSR. Deeply contradictory and destructive set of circumstances carried out because it was in the best interests of every party, and the rest of us could be easily tricked with nationalism, acting under the guise of patriotism. How do you parse out whose side people are on?
Circumstances emerge and develop through time. There are causes and effects that link everything together. But this does not mean that the world is inherently rational, self consistent, and free of contradiction. There is a kind of rationale going on, but it does not follow the contradiction-free rules of categorical, dualist rationalism. This is what I mean when I say that we must stop being idealists and deal directly with material fact and reality.
For instance, based on my experience, you and I are on the same side against oppression, but there’s some disagreement between us on some issues. This can bring us together, forcing us to improve our own perspectives, or it can drive us apart. IMO its brought us together! But this does not eliminate all disagreements, its just that disagreement on one or both of our parts are more intellectual than material. But once those circumstances become material, or reified through fear, then differences appear much more stark where we won’t ever agree. We will begin to be defined in different or reflective ways, and both become more idealist and detached from the actual struggle for liberation.
In order to break this cycle we need to think differently. And yes this definitely includes me too, because I’ve known many people who could correctly identify the problems, but could not escape the consequences. Paolo Friere is imo one of the all time masters of this new humanistic way of accurately defining our roles within this immense and complicated struggle, through education. which is why it kind of irks me it was included in the article, which you did not write.
I’m mostly in agreement. However I think the issue that started this discussion is this idea of a united front and that we should follow a shared strategy. Personally, I saw the comments just trying to dunk on eachother when discussing what each feels is a good way yo move forward. I just simply don’t believe it’s possible achieve that unified movement when it is truly grassroots. We are not a hivemind, we all have our own opinions even if they are based on incomplete or factually wrong information. Ideally, we would not need to spend the required time trying to make everyone in the movement think the same or even agree on the same strategies. The time that we have to plan or engage in a fight against oppression would be better used actually planning or fighting oppressors.
Again, I think our strength is our diversity of opinion, philosophy, strategy, and tactics. Perhaps rather than trying to control which strategies are used, we should add each as a tool in a wide arsonal of resistance strategy. We shouldn’t be belittling strategies that we benefit from. We should try to keep goal in mind.
I am going to prioritize reading Paolo Friere.