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This line of thought bugs me. We use labels for a reason. Socialism has a well accepted definition and has for decades. We haven't modified it's meaning. I thin

by zaphar 20d ago

This line of thought bugs me. We use labels for a reason. Socialism has a well accepted definition and has for decades. We haven't modified it's meaning. I think it's fine to take someone at their word if they use a label. It's not on me to interrogate whether they mean something else when they use the label. It's on them to use the label correctly if they want to communicate. Especially if they are a politician where the entire job is to communicate and persuade.

krapp 20d ago
There is no "well accepted definition" for any political term, least of all any political term from the left, each which has been co-opted by the right to the point that most are simply pejoratives and slurs in common parlance. Just look at "woke" for an example. No one using it anymore uses it in good faith, certainly not on the left. What we have with "socialism" is the entire spectrum of what socialists themselves believe (and can't often agree upon) and what their opponents insist upon. A European style social democrat and an anarcho-syndicalist have radically different goals, but both would be considered "socialist" by most people. As would - just to point out the absurdity of it - Joe Biden, to half the country. It is absolutely on you, and all of us, to think beyond "labels," otherwise you just make yourself susceptible to propaganda and misinformation, or at least incapable of fighting it.
- zaphar 20d ago
  Yeah, no. I am neither left or right these days and I see just as many attempts to coopt terms to have a different meaning from each side. My solve is to refuse to participate. If you want to communicate to me then you are going to have use the accepted definition not the definition you want me to believe instead. If you say you are a socialist then I will believe you. If you say you are a christian nationalist then I will believe you. I'm not interested in what your enemies want me to believe the term means. I'm only interested in the fact that you used it and it has real definition. Any other road leads to madness and an absence of shared meaning. I will hold you to the standard of your own language and actions. Use the words correctly or be misunderstood. That's on you not me.
  - krapp 20d ago
    >If you want to communicate to me then you are going to have use the accepted definition not the definition you want me to believe instead. And by "accepted definition" you mean "definition accepted by you." There are few personality traits I find as insufferable as language prescriptivism, it always seems to hide a rigid and doctrinaire worldview. I won't waste your time or mine further. Good night.
    - zaphar 20d ago
      Not by me. By the rest of the world along with me.
      - CursedSilicon 19d ago
        "The rest of the world" you say to a literal thread of people explaining why you're wrong
bjourne 20d ago
Right, the argument is "He is a socialist so when he gets power he will do X which I dislike". But now he is in power so the argument is moot. Instead, you have to list actions by him you dislike.
snowwrestler 20d ago
Forgive me for bluntness, but this is naive. What you think you are doing is holding firm to objective reality. What you are actually doing is willingly putting blinders on yourself about how humans use language. You’ve adopted a certain definition of socialism and decided it’s the correct one. Which is fine, everyone does that with vocabulary. But you are not acknowledging to yourself that it was in fact an act of adoption to do so. Thus you are denying yourself the mental framework for evaluating how and why others might try to use competing definitions. Metaphorically, words are buckets and different people put different things into the bucket. Sometimes it’s just silly like “is a hot dog a sandwich.” Other times there are more serious implications like the fundamental difference between “I have a theory” (about how a lamp got broken) vs “I have a theory” (a mathematical framework for predicting the relationship between genotypes and phenotypes). And sometimes it is used to create shibboleths, whereby looking in people’s buckets communicates how open they are to persuasion of one type or another. So it’s always a power move, and useful, to think “what exactly do they mean by that?” What do people gain and lose by adopting different definitions and words? Understanding that this happens continuously in all use of language helps one do a better job of relating labels to observable objective reality. To come back to “socialism,” you might think Mamdani is doing himself a disservice by misusing (from your perspective) that term, thereby turning you off. But he just easily won a huge election! That’s objective reality: he got what he wanted, he succeeded. This might be a moment to consider other uses of that term, and the degree to which they may be outcompeting your adopted definition.
- zaphar 20d ago
  At no point in this thread have I made a value judgement about Socialism. He got elected claiming to be a socialist which is fine. My point is that getting upset when someone says he's a socialist when he actually claims to be one is silly. It worked for him and he communicated to his electorate what he needed to. New York elected a socialist because they wanted one. They don't get to say "don't label him a socialist" after the fact.
  - snowwrestler 19d ago
    > They don't get to say "don't label him a socialist" after the fact. This is not an accurate quote, what was said was “even if Mamdani calls himself a socialist it's important to ask what he means by that,” and that is what you objected to.

by zaphar 20d ago

krapp 20d ago

There is no "well accepted definition" for any political term, least of all any political term from the left, each which has been co-opted by the right to the point that most are simply pejoratives and slurs in common parlance. Just look at "woke" for an example. No one using it anymore uses it in good faith, certainly not on the left. What we have with "socialism" is the entire spectrum of what socialists themselves believe (and can't often agree upon) and what their opponents insist upon. A European style social democrat and an anarcho-syndicalist have radically different goals, but both would be considered "socialist" by most people. As would - just to point out the absurdity of it - Joe Biden, to half the country. It is absolutely on you, and all of us, to think beyond "labels," otherwise you just make yourself susceptible to propaganda and misinformation, or at least incapable of fighting it.

zaphar 20d ago
Yeah, no. I am neither left or right these days and I see just as many attempts to coopt terms to have a different meaning from each side. My solve is to refuse to participate. If you want to communicate to me then you are going to have use the accepted definition not the definition you want me to believe instead. If you say you are a socialist then I will believe you. If you say you are a christian nationalist then I will believe you. I'm not interested in what your enemies want me to believe the term means. I'm only interested in the fact that you used it and it has real definition. Any other road leads to madness and an absence of shared meaning. I will hold you to the standard of your own language and actions. Use the words correctly or be misunderstood. That's on you not me.
- krapp 20d ago
  >If you want to communicate to me then you are going to have use the accepted definition not the definition you want me to believe instead. And by "accepted definition" you mean "definition accepted by you." There are few personality traits I find as insufferable as language prescriptivism, it always seems to hide a rigid and doctrinaire worldview. I won't waste your time or mine further. Good night.
  - zaphar 20d ago
    Not by me. By the rest of the world along with me.
    - CursedSilicon 19d ago
      "The rest of the world" you say to a literal thread of people explaining why you're wrong

bjourne 20d ago

Right, the argument is "He is a socialist so when he gets power he will do X which I dislike". But now he is in power so the argument is moot. Instead, you have to list actions by him you dislike.

snowwrestler 20d ago

Forgive me for bluntness, but this is naive. What you think you are doing is holding firm to objective reality. What you are actually doing is willingly putting blinders on yourself about how humans use language. You’ve adopted a certain definition of socialism and decided it’s the correct one. Which is fine, everyone does that with vocabulary. But you are not acknowledging to yourself that it was in fact an act of adoption to do so. Thus you are denying yourself the mental framework for evaluating how and why others might try to use competing definitions. Metaphorically, words are buckets and different people put different things into the bucket. Sometimes it’s just silly like “is a hot dog a sandwich.” Other times there are more serious implications like the fundamental difference between “I have a theory” (about how a lamp got broken) vs “I have a theory” (a mathematical framework for predicting the relationship between genotypes and phenotypes). And sometimes it is used to create shibboleths, whereby looking in people’s buckets communicates how open they are to persuasion of one type or another. So it’s always a power move, and useful, to think “what exactly do they mean by that?” What do people gain and lose by adopting different definitions and words? Understanding that this happens continuously in all use of language helps one do a better job of relating labels to observable objective reality. To come back to “socialism,” you might think Mamdani is doing himself a disservice by misusing (from your perspective) that term, thereby turning you off. But he just easily won a huge election! That’s objective reality: he got what he wanted, he succeeded. This might be a moment to consider other uses of that term, and the degree to which they may be outcompeting your adopted definition.

zaphar 20d ago
At no point in this thread have I made a value judgement about Socialism. He got elected claiming to be a socialist which is fine. My point is that getting upset when someone says he's a socialist when he actually claims to be one is silly. It worked for him and he communicated to his electorate what he needed to. New York elected a socialist because they wanted one. They don't get to say "don't label him a socialist" after the fact.
- snowwrestler 19d ago
  > They don't get to say "don't label him a socialist" after the fact. This is not an accurate quote, what was said was “even if Mamdani calls himself a socialist it's important to ask what he means by that,” and that is what you objected to.