The usefulness of the concept of tankies is in part that it’s so poorly defined that the category can shrink and expand at runtime to prove whatever point you want. Global South brown people aren’t tankies (as long as we’re actively entertaining that brown people exist and have their own subjectivity) because if they are, suddenly 95% of brown people who are leftists disagree with me and that’d make me look racist.
Chomsky isn’t a tankie because he’s said a bunch of things I agree with. But also he is a tankie because he defended the Khmer Rouge and was friends with Epstein. (surprised that the OOP didn’t take advantage of some of Chomsky’s uncharacteristic takes to make that point)
Foucault wasn’t a tankie because he had a nuanced take on Israel (read: he was a zionist) and was very critical of AES. But also if his support of pedophilia is brought up he can become a tankie because he supported the Islamic Revolution in Iran.
These are 2 examples who are real people who have written about their political opinions extensively yet it’s definitely possible for someone to find reasons to put them on either side of the “tankie” divide. If you want to do it with a more nebulous entity like a political community, hypothetical people (like the latter part of the OOP), or a whole country, you have infinite wiggle room. Anything can be used as a data point because the word is meaningless.
I think it’d become a better post with examples of radlibs labeling specific intellectuals and political parties tankies and not simultaneously, but I don’t know how you’d find that.
There’s a reason much of the post modern left received funding and support from the three letter agencies, often without even their knowledge or consent.
The usefulness of the concept of tankies is in part that it’s so poorly defined that the category can shrink and expand at runtime to prove whatever point you want. Global South brown people aren’t tankies (as long as we’re actively entertaining that brown people exist and have their own subjectivity) because if they are, suddenly 95% of brown people who are leftists disagree with me and that’d make me look racist.
Chomsky isn’t a tankie because he’s said a bunch of things I agree with. But also he is a tankie because he defended the Khmer Rouge and was friends with Epstein. (surprised that the OOP didn’t take advantage of some of Chomsky’s uncharacteristic takes to make that point)
Foucault wasn’t a tankie because he had a nuanced take on Israel (read: he was a zionist) and was very critical of AES. But also if his support of pedophilia is brought up he can become a tankie because he supported the Islamic Revolution in Iran.
These are 2 examples who are real people who have written about their political opinions extensively yet it’s definitely possible for someone to find reasons to put them on either side of the “tankie” divide. If you want to do it with a more nebulous entity like a political community, hypothetical people (like the latter part of the OOP), or a whole country, you have infinite wiggle room. Anything can be used as a data point because the word is meaningless.
Good post, they should be redirected to this post whenever these chickens cluck their shit
I think it’d become a better post with examples of radlibs labeling specific intellectuals and political parties tankies and not simultaneously, but I don’t know how you’d find that.
That’s far too much work, you said enough already.
Damn I didn’t know Foucoult was so yikes.
He also was incredibly active in the effort to bring down socialist Poland and was proudly an anticommunist.
Postmodernism is essentially distilled anticommunism and goes against everything we believe tbh
There’s a reason much of the post modern left received funding and support from the three letter agencies, often without even their knowledge or consent.
The declassified CIA document: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp86s00588r000300380001-5
If you’re curious and wanna know more about this chapter in history, the following article may help,
The CIA Reads French Theory: On the Intellectual Labor of Dismantling the Cultural Left
The declassified CIA document: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp86s00588r000300380001-5
Will read. I love learning about CIA projects that, if I tried to explain to a normal person, would make me sound insane.
When I’m on writing forums and “show, don’t tell” comes up all I want is to call that CIA propaganda.