Terrarium [none/use name]

In the funny pope thread, “maybe we should at least consider cultural sensitivity re: the pope and be more kind to one anothet” was responded to with a slew of unfounded accusations, seemingly deliberate misreadings, and pushback from a defensive posturing.

And now this has spawned at least two major threads whose premise is, “Christianity us reactionary and we must explicitly and openly reject it to be a good communist”.

I’m not sure what the actual goal would be. Is it to berate any and all Christians on this website into disavowing a bunch of things they already don’t believe and apologizing for things done by other people? Is it to ban the dead Christianity comm? Socially police anyone from admitting to being part of the most popular religion regardless of their direct views on the topics where you note Christianity having reactionary sentiments?

Personally I don’t think there is a goal in mind. Just people getting in between a Hexbear user and their treats: a false catharsis because the pope died. And getting between the Hexbear and those treats in any capacity, you must be tarred a reactionary object of hate.

People are talking about state atheism and the church-monarchy feudal system and the USSR. Comrade, you (most likely) aren’t even in an organization. We are not the inklings of Chinese national liberation but in [X Western country]. We’re in a lost Redditor pro-trans vaguely commie site full of yt people eager to weaponize their marginalization to verbally kill each other and I’m suggesting you be slightly less reactive and escalatory towards comrades.

Removed by mod

I wrote a very long comment. Which “it” is bigotry?

Absolutely nothing I’m saying is anti-trans apologia, that is absolutely absurd. I have no control over your threats, of course, and you are free to escalate and lie about me to your heart’s content.

How is calling Mohammad a pedophile islamophobic? His marriage to Aisha is indisputable and far more direct than being (an unstated) part if an institutional cover-up. But we can understand that this is culturally insensitive, counter-productive in many contexts, and is used to feed imperialist/fascist violence.

Re: Netanyahu, I’m not sure if that statistic would even be true, but he is not a religious figure at the top of the chain. There is no route to equating an attack on Netanyahu with an attack on Judaism and an insult to all Jews outside of either or both the accuser and reacting parties being actually antisemitic. Which does actually happen, of course - many Zionists, including Jewish ones, make (usually implicitly) antisemitic remarks.

It is true that just because many people are offended, it doesn’t mean the claim is false or non-strategic. But what I’m trying to draw attention to is basic cultural sensitivity and treating each other like comrades, which is not how parent is - or now I am - being treated.

What level of insensitivity to catholics is the appropriate line for Hexbear? Perhaps we should add it to the sidebar.

Pure tone policing that achieves nothing.

I am hopeful that at least one person will try to be less edgy and escalatory as a result of this thread.

The only group I described myself as organizing is an immigrant BIPOC community that tolerates relatives with arranged adult-child marriages. You told me to have good luck organizing pedophiles.

Like I said, please don’t call the immigrant community I organize pedophiles.

I want to take a step back from this conversation, because you are reading something deeply upsetting at my criticism of the original posts’ framing of this place as anything but a niche communist forum.

I am not sure that I understand what you mean by, “take a step back”. You have written a five paragraph response. Do you want to continue having a conversation or by, “step back” do you mean you want to take a different angle?

I also don’t understand what you found deeply upsetting because so far as I can tell, you didn’t tell me. But I do think what I said holds, that you were justifying flippant anti-catholic sentiment by the obscurity and unseriousness of this forum. That is a logic that works for any sentiment no matter how reactionary. This is what I mean when I say this forum only selectively takes itself seriously. It’s well-aware that, for example, supporting trans people is actually a serious topic with deadly consequences and a need for a movement to forward trans rights and protection. But it is also full of Anericans that do not understand the violent legacy, and even modern-day violences, of anti-catholic sentiment, and so it does not get anything but insulting dismissal even when people are simply noting the necessity of cultural sensitivity.

Hexbear is not a vanguard party, the off-shoot to a socialist union or organization, the haven for all thought leaders in American or World Communism. So being concerned on whether we stay on message, or we provide respect for anything, is a fine thought, but worth jack.

Hexbear is an offshoot of a subreddit for a podcast by not-particularly-funny white guys in New York. It doesn’t really know what it is, it inconsistently wavers between a shitpost site for lefty jokes and a principled organization rooting out reactionary sentiment that is against a proper socialist line. And it’s a small forum. It is a marginal place.

But the logic you presented is still invalid and is an easy vehicle by which to justify anything, including wrong or detrimental things. And it was not couched in language that prioritizes comeraderie or understanding, it was dismissive, which is the other tendency of this forum: to pick fights, to escalate, to invest very little in trying to understand one another and reach synthesis. This is also a consequence of this site’s origins and context. Its members dunk on reactionaries so much that they use the same social approach for all disagreements.

Fewer than half of the replies to my comments in this thread don’t mischaracterize my basic statements and one of them implied that an immigrant community that I help organize is just pedophiles.

If it was Bernie, or a Union member, getting themselves on the news, saying “good riddance” fuck that pedophile. I’d have serious criticism. But what do internet randoms have to do with it?

Right, this is a catch-all justification. It can justify right or wrong or mediocre things.

As a reminder, I am suggesting that responses to the OP are too dismissive and non-comradely and that calling the pope a pedophile is agitational for catholics. See the responses.

I have seen nothing in this thread that is an outright lie.

I mean, I don’t call these things lies because I don’t know what base understanding we all share. They don’t even need to be lies per se, just culturally insensitive or uncomradely. I could point out at least 1 fairly inaccurate thing but responses are already highly agitational and emotional so I am decreasingly interested in trying to explain.

Criticisms about its framing of the Catholic Church Child Abuse Scandal. The ways he had antiquated and advanced, or maintained, harmful misunderstanding of gender and trans issues. The way the Church and its Pope have a really low bar to clear for it to be deemed “progressive”.

I read this as you processing your own logic out loud. That’s 100% okay and valid but it really doesn’t get at what I’m saying.

I think people are allowed to vent. I think refusing to acknowledge the anger and harmful effects that religion forces upon people. Our comrades, and telling them to shut it down, because…what? Some non-existent audience? Some needed solidarity, at the backs of us?

If you don’t know someone with dead or abused family members citing anti-catholicism then you don’t work with Irish communists. I don’t expect many people to have done that. I understand the highly US-centric nature of this forum. Even those not in the US end up being US-centric due to all the other Americans in the space. But I do think comrades should try to listen to one another before the knives come out and dismissals start flying.

I know people who are very scared that their family finds out they were sexually active before marriage. One of them us currently being blackmailed using this and their blackmailer uses left and psychologizing language to do it. They come from a muslim community. Do I or they tolerate, “Mohammed was a pedophile” statements? No, we don’t, because we share the understanding that this is culturally insensitive and counterproductive and amounts to a “we don’t accept muslims” sign. There are people from that same community that process their experience differently, they embrace islamophobic statements and logic. I think my and my comerade’s approach is better. And every person in this story is negatively affected by reactionary islamic beliefs.

I want to emphasize as well that “venting” is often a license for toxicity in left spaces, including irl. And you can see the vitriol in this thread. I strongly disagree with, “people are allowed to vent”. Many times it’s a very good thing, often it’s a destructive thing. It really depends on what is said and where and to whom.

I’m not queer and even I can understand the absolute horror and rage that they feel when you are bombarded the message that God hates you. That you are made wrong, or even worse, “chose to be and act wrong”. You understands what does to people?

Yes.

I haven’t been uncaring or disrespectful towards my trans comrades whatsoever.

Please don’t call entire BIPOC immigrant communities pedophiles.

By what logic does covering up for pedophiles make that person a pedophile? This logic is actually more strained than that of islamophobes that call Mohammed a pedophile, as Hadith is fairly clear on this among all tendencies. This is not consistent or culturally sensitive logic, and it is easy to see why parent saw echoes of New Atheist logic in this thread, as it’s really just about which religions are deserving of flippant dismissal and disrespect and which are not. New Atheists differ in that their logic was amplified by imperialism as islamophobia served a purpose to dehumanize the victims of imperial war. Bits and pieces merged with overt Western reactionaries who rolled it into their race hate.

But let me tell you, this is a bubble for Americans of a certain age, as sweeping anti-catholic sentiments and violence are with us today, they just don’t have obvious material impact in some cities. My Belfast comrades could tell you about it if you were interested, or you could get some of your own.

One was actively protecting pedophiles this decade (flippantly?), one is from over a thousand years ago. I think the comparison breaks down.

How so? What position does the pope hold in Catholicism?

And arranged marriages between adults and children still happen today among a variety of religious and ethnic backgrounds. Among some of those that are muslim, they cite Mohammed and Aisha. This is something you will personally know about if you organize in diverse communities, there will be an uncle from [country] with a 13 year old wife and they are not excluded from community. It is a modern concern, not simply an artifact of “older” times. And yet I don’t go around calling Mohammed a pedophile. I understand the intent of the statement, the impact it has, and that it would cut me off from that community, i.e. it would be antisocial.

I also think you’re tone policing people who are condemned to hell by the logic of Catholicism and should step off

This would also apply to most forms of Islam and many other religious and social tendencies. This is not a rational way of thinking about this topic and does not address what I said, but it is trying to emotionally escalate, which is part of the tendency that I am mildly criticizing from this position: be kind and respectful to your comrades and try to understand them.

You don’t see the comparison between flippantly calling major religious figures pedophiles? What position does the pope hold in Catholicism, religiously?

And please do your best to be kind and respectful to comrades. The “hurt your feelings” sarcasm is dishonest and uncalled for.

It is not bigoted to call Francis out for his sanctioning of the pedophile cover ups, and his refusal to even allow the punishment of known child abusers (Nevermind punishing them himself, he sanctioned the intervention on their behalf to get them out of punishment). […]

What I actually referenced: calling the recently deceased pope a pedophile.

Actually it was calling the recently deceased Pope a pedophile.

The only examples I’ve seen of this are people saying it’s antisocial and counterproductive behavior to crab dance this pope’s death. It definitely is antisocial, it’s only something a small group would enjoy and most would be very alienated by it.

This is just a fact of what it is. For some it makes sense to embrace the antisocial, often creating and preferring a new in-group. Unfortunately this tends to mean cloistering oneself and failing to actually build anything, and adopting habits that prevent it.

This forum’s name was originally from a podcast by not-particularly-funny white guys in New York. They have not actually built anything. They are not of an organization. They don’t mobilize anyone to do anything. They make snarky jokes poking fun at the liberal political establishment and electoral politics and are increasingly irrelevant. That is the inevitable trajectory of seeking conflict and infighting and being eagerly disrespectful to your comrades.

How do you think calling the recently deceased pope a pedophile would go over with the vast majority of Catholics? This is like the edgy “how old was Aisha when Mohammed married her?” digs, just reformulated for a context where anti-Christian sentiment is acceptable.

Only a few of those comments say, “I’m trans and this is my trauma” but I think a forum of communists should be wary of accepting bigotry so long as it is done by people of a given identity. For example, have you ever met a liberal justifying war crimes by shared identity? Hell, I’ve met self-described communists in communist parties that did that. Thankfully with the latter it blew back on them.

While this is a confused forum that selectively takes itself seriously, I do think it is a good idea to consistently consider the approach you’d want to take when doing irl organizing. If you had an irl audience, would you include the “the Pope is a pedophilr” dig? Would it actually be funny? Would you be self-conscious about alienating members or prospective members? You don’t have to be a Very Serious Communist all of the time, but I do think flippant dismissals and disrespect blesd into offline socialization. And the replies here are far from kind to the parent, who is sharing a concern about irl organizing because they had the impression this was a communist space by people trying to build communism and this thread is discordant with that.

With our luck we’ll get Tortellinimalo, though.

By that same logic it means absolutely nothing whether a niche communist forum celebrates or mocks trans people.

This thread is full of complete inconsistency and a lack of basic care and respect for comrades.

I would say that one should model good and productive behavior as best they can, even in a “venting” or “shitposting” forum, because in my experience a person’s online behavior is not really compartmentalized. We’ve all had to deal with the annoying Redditor who just joined the org, for example.

So let’s do our best to understand and share, including examining our own posts for inconsistencies before writing each other off. Writing each other off early is, actually, a toxic tendency of this forum.

On the contrary, there is plenty of anti-Christian sentiment in this thread and it has even spilled over into an anti-c/christisnity post on the front page.

This response is exxagerating and not actually engaging with what the comrade said. Please apologize to the comrade.