this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024
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It really depends who you're talking to. That's the big problem with political buzz words. If Jordan Peterson called me a leftist it basically means that I don't think dominating others is good. If someone on lemmy.ml called me a leftist, they're probably assuming I agree with a bunch of theory I've never even heard of.
Words have meaning and we dont let people arguing in bad faith determine that meaning. Most republicans would call Biden socialist, but is he by any measure?
I agree. Thanks to conservatism worldwide, leftist has become not a set definition but a term denoting relative ideological standing. Anything other than far-right is proclaimed as "extremist Communist socialism", which is on its face hilarious but also letting idiots dictate the manner in which we communicate.
We really have to wrench these terms back and I believe holding fast to and explaining their actual definitions is the foundation of accomplishing this.
Full agreement, if we describe positions as vibe-based and not based on what they attempt to accomplish and how, nothing can be reasonably discussed without first defining terms.
Sure, but the point is that you don't know how your audience is going to interpret the word leftist when you use it on the internet. Better to use words that have clear meaning or to clarify what you mean when using words that have multiple understandings.