this post was submitted on 21 May 2026
36 points (78.1% liked)
Memes
55838 readers
1141 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 7 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Based on this, Anark makes it seem like authoritarianism is both good and necessary as long as it's the working classes holding the authority. Same with whatever degree of domination is minimally required to prevent capitalists and fascists from overturning this. I don't really think it's "propaganda" so much as the words "authoritarianism" and "domination" are deliberately picked to sound scary.
Edit, responding to your edit: What's with that response? Why brag about blocking me? That's very silly behavior. I don't think I've misunderstood anything, and it's certainly not deliberate. The proletariat monopolizing control is a good thing.
That would be like comparing Marx's definition of "dictatorship" to the modern definition of the same word, complete with all of its societal connotations.
Sort of. Marx had the same concept of authority and dictatorship, in that they belong to classes, and therefore should belong to the working classes. The anarchist critique of authority presented by Anark doesn't make it seem bad at all.
The issue with using language such as "dictatorship" and "authoritarian" is those words have specific negative colloquial connotations.
For example, one of the dictionary (Merriam-Webster) definitions of "authoritarian" is:
This definition specifies a singular "leader or an elite" and would be incompatible with a definition that includes rule by the proletariat.
Similarly, here is one of Merriam-Webster's definitions for "dictatorship":
My point being not that these definitions are absolute and cannot be changed, but currently in western societies, that the definitions describe rule by a singular elite leader or small group of leaders who have absolute, or near absolute power over their populace.
I understand, it's all a part of what we have to deal with in the battle of linguistics to make our ideas clear.
It's nothing new for a society to change their language over time to make it more palettable to a larger group of people. For example, it is no longer considered acceptable to use the r-slur or the f-slur (not "fuck", but the other one), whereas 10-20 years ago, it was considered normal to use those words.