the anti-radlib reader
(formerly known as shit radlibs don't say)
Adapted from Base and Superstructure: “A radlib is someone who uses radical or leftist language to advance or defend non-radical, non-leftist ideas,” particularly ideas aligned with liberal politics, which includes:
- Classical liberalism, which capitalistically ties liberty to private property rights,
- Modern liberalism, which emphasizes liberty in the form of civil rights and state economic regulations, and
- Neoliberalism, which, like classical liberalism, supports a capitalist liberty in the form of a free market, but unlike modern liberalism, supports liberty in the form of freedom from arbitrary government interference.
the anti-radlib reader compiles readings and original essays designed to target those who have primarily been introduced to “leftist” or “progressive” politics (or politics of “social justice”) through social media, to help them better understand and go beyond the limits of their current frameworks of political thinking in a more radical or revolutionary way.
organization system
- #primers are introductory materials that explain basic positions and counterpositions
- #compilations are collections of readings on one topic
- #readings are standalone educational articles
- #responses are essays written in reponse to other people's posts
some additional notes...
My goal isn't to get people to "the most radical" or "the most revolutionary" political position or to discipline people into agreeing with some ideology that is allegedly "the most radical" or "the most revolutionary," or to serve as a vanguardist / specialist / exceptional model for radical or revolutionary thinking that people should follow or emulate. You are not going to become "less problematic" if you follow this account, and nothing this account posts can promise to be "completely unproblematic." You have to decide what you what your problematics to be and who you want to be a problem to.
My goal is to get people to specifically understand the problematics of liberalism, to understand how variants of liberalism as popularized by social media have limited their political thinking, and then to get people to think for themselves. The goal is to get people to understand the limits of liberal variants as politics of liberation, and then to choose where they want to go from there.
Obviously, the critiques I've chosen to curate and present here have their own ideas about where to go, and as an ultraleftist I'm biased towards anarchist and antistate communist views. But I am open to posting from certain strands of anarchism I don't affiliate myself with but have their uses (e.g. egoism) and posting communist takes from statist communists that I can agree with (even though those communists will generally condemn ultraleftism / antistate communism as "not real communism"). Which ideology you ultimately affiliate yourself with is less important than what you're saying, doing, and asking people to do. If I subjectively feel like it's a useful starting point for breaking out of liberal limits of liberation, I'll post it.
While I may respond in disagreement to (neo)liberal or radlib takes from time to time, the purpose of engagement is solely to give an anti-liberal counterargument, not to engage in debate or discussion. It's to draw a line against an enemy, and to share with other comrades how the line might be drawn. I'm not here to be tolerant--I'm here to be militant.