Domenico Losurdo wrote a book about that, “Western Marxism: How it was Born, How it Died, How it can be Reborn”: https://mronline.org/2025/01/11/domenico-losurdo-western-marxism-how-it-was-born-how-it-died-how-it-can-be-reborn/
You can also find an audiobook of this on torrents and youtube.
Im a simple person, i see a losurdo mention so i just instantly upvote.
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What is the origin of that word and it’s particular usage in this context btw?
“Tankie” is a word that originates from British communist circles in the 50s. It was used by communists who opposed the Soviet invasion of Hungary to derisively describe their comrades who supported the invasion. Photos in the British newspapers and such showed a lot of imagery Soviet tanks rolling through Budapest, hence “tankie”.
So, it has its origins as a silly sounding, incredibly niche, bit of British slang. It faded into obscurity after this, but got picked up again by leftists on the internet as a way of poking fun at each other. It’s a funny sounding word and all. At a certain point over the last decade or so, it’s breached containment, and liberals, especially here on Lemmy, love to throw it around without really having a firm idea what they mean by it. I’ve seen everyone from Marxist-Leninists, to Anarchists, to liberal Pro-palestian activists, all called “Tankies”.
OP is using the term here to poke fun at that vague liberal usage. As many liberals, at least here on Lemmy, would look at the calculus of, “US foreign policy is more erratic and dangerous than that of China” and declare it a “tankie” talking point, or “simping for authoritarianism”, as though making an observation about different nation’s foreign policy approaches says anything else about ones opinions of those states other policies or actions.
Okay, so if I’m understanding correctly, it was a term coined by communist pacifists as a dig against more militant communists. However, now it has now evolved so that center leaning liberals are just chucking it towards both right and left so long as either is slightly militant?
Hope I have that right. Thank you very much for the explanation!
Essentially, in its modern context, it’s used against anti-imperialists and those who support existing socialist countries. Those using it as a pejorative have a different view of these countries and thus see “tankies” as defending the indefensible, while “tankies” tend to have more depth of knowledge going against the hegemonic grain.
The people who initially coined it weren’t necessarily pacifists, they just disagreed with how the Soviets conducted themselves in Eastern Europe. But otherwise yeah, you’ve got it.
Tankie mostly gets used by centrist liberal types to punch left, but I’ve seen Tucker Carlson’s weird Russia sycophancy get called Tankie once or twice also ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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And here I thought liberals loved choosing the lesser evil, smh
LOL
Not even sure what this means. Are you carrying over an argument from some other conversation?
I’m making a glib joke about the liberal insistence on utilitarianism when it comes to voting, and how that ethical framework isn’t evenly applied to international relations.
Sometimes I’m thankful for Americans such as yourself. You don’t actively harm American imperialist interests, but you refuse to learn anything about China beyond what the state department of US tells you. So you never even reach a stage where you can critically analyse why your country’s systems are failing while China is rapidly going up, and will soon be the global hegemon (with a track record far better than the US)
You refuse to see the pitfalls of neoliberalism, and that is how you accelerate the US’ implosion. My only hope is it accelerates even further and doesn’t drag down other countries with itself
Do you really think that your arguments are somehow well thought out points and don’t scream propagandist mill?
I think you guys never have a compelling response to them and always, 100% of the time, end up saying some version of “These are the Bad Guy Ideas and I don’t have to entertain them, because you are self-evidently Bad Guys and also mentally ill.”
this makes me so happy you got the orange man, I hope he drags you all to hell ASAP where you belong
That says a lot about you.
that I’m an anti-fascist?
Westoid says what?
