Woke: from civil right movement, someone who is weary of loyalty to the state and instead examines society/policy/politics himself. - in modern times used as slur against progressive and ecological conscious people by right wing people.
Tankie: Someone who is authoritarian to a degree he sees using the army (tanks) against the own civilian population as a valid and legitimate action.
Sometimes used as slur by people against those measures (or generally highly authoritarian top down approaches of state theory) or as (positive) self reference by people in favor of such measures (or generally highly authoritarian top down approaches of state theory)
Don't know what your problem is defining both.
EDIT: Not to be confused with "I know exactly who a tankie is and who isn't - my definition is 100% correct" or even "there are exact boundaries and conditions to what a tankie is"
Its like "peace", " progressive", "right-wing", different people will give you different definitions, my point is, that there is a concept to which the word refers and different interpretations/ambiguities don't render the term useless simply by existing.
Tankie: Someone who is authoritarian to a degree he sees using the army (tanks) against the own civilian population as a valid and legitimate action.
Sometimes used as slur by people against those measures (or generally highly authoritarian top down approaches of state theory) or as (positive) self reference by people in favor of such measures (or generally highly authoritarian top down approaches of state theory)
Same, never experinced problems with misusage of the term (in real life).
When i mentioned this in another thread, someone chimed in and stayed they were experiencing it constantly for no reason and also leftist around him would be called that. Later that discussion it was revealed that he thinks everyone who doesn't agree with Stalins policy is not (true) left....
I hear waaaaayyy more complaining about the term tankie from actual tankies than I hear people using it as a general slur against left people.
You are not making a point by asking those questions...
If you think those where legitimate actions but generally think of yourself not as an authoritarian kind of person and in your book you don't fall under the definition of tankie, you may very well think so.
I believe many people would argue that if you are in favor of any kind of violence against the own civil populations with the army this brings you over the edge. But even if so, this doesn't make you as as person atankie, no questions asked, case done.
You can be generally against nuclear power except in one very specific case, scientific long time submarines for example, this doesn't make you a nuclear enthusiast.
In my oppinion its the same with tankie, but if you find an excuse for every or nearly all instances (by socialist/left/eastern block) it paints a picture that suggests you may be generally in favor of such measures if they are done by an entity you sympathise with, which would make the term fitting in my opinion
If you believe the term can refer to entities who are not on the left wing side of the political spectrum, you may be in a minority. But one could of course take those positions... I would strongly disagree with this one personally though, and I don't think this is how a lot of people use the term. I think most people use it to describe a portion of the socialist/communist spectrum, again the boundary is blurry but the direction is quite clear. (which gives you the answer for most of your questiom btw.)
Now let's turn the table:
Do you think the terms "left-wing" and "right-wing" are meangless/useless?
If not could you please define them for me?
Edit: some typos
Also: you keep referring to states, which of course helps some ways of your argumentation but I think its mostly used for people, not nations
Cool that that's your opinion, I have the opinion that one can generally judge actions by their nature. In my opinion raping someone is bad, Using nuclear warheads is bad, using the military against (any) civilians is bad, and especially if it is against your own people they are supposed to protect.
This doesnt mean I have to have a black and white opinion which will never under any circumstances change, but I generally condemned such actions. The goal in my opinion must always be to move towards a peacefull and just society without oppression, if the outcome is the killing/opressing of your own people there is something fundamentally flawed with the system which needs to be addressed.
To play the game:
I have seen people call capitalists "left" because they wanna make "social democracy" capitalism, I have seen people called right wing who literally wanted a dictatorship without markets.
Those terms can refer to anything an are meaningless in today's discourse.
What would you do when the "doppelte ausrufung der republic" happens in Germany? Would you say the socialists there where right wing because a lot of them were in favor of (deeply controlled) capitalistic markets?
--> you see, those ways of argumenting simply don't actually make a point.
HM... Are you defending (authoriatharian) policys of historical socialism a lot? Because i am in the the left side of the political spectrum too, and didn't have this experience on Lemmy. Maybe its because I frequent European. Communities more often, where there is not so much red scare as in America.
I have also beend called a communist, also in real life, but this wasn't meant as an insult but as a description. I argument in favor of a democracy without capitalism, maybe with councils (strange that there seems to be no English word for "rätesystem" which doesn't involve worker or soldiers, which is to exclusive IMO), so calling me a communist/socialist is understandable and (apart from some very rare instances) wasn't meant to discredit me.
I have never been called a tankie though, and have never (even online) seen someone get called a tankie who had undogmatic views. People will defend dictators like Stalin, then define everyone who doesn't agree with Stalin as "libtards" and then get upset when undogmatic socialist who get mislabled that way call them tankies.
Sure, as with every buzzword misuse cases will exist, but most peoples argument is that they use the term for "everyone on the left spectrum" so its is meaningless, but for them the left spectrum only includes tankies, and they just define everyone else as not left.
Hm seems like the local discourse seems kinda f up. I can imagine the same for conservative parts of Europe. Still IMHO we should not let terms (mostly used in interleft discussions) get destroyed by the far rights low insight in the details of left politcs
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