Hello comrades. In the interest of upholding our code of conduct - specifically, rule 1 (providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all) - we felt it appropriate to make a statement regarding the lionization of Luigi Mangione, the alleged United Healthcare CEO shooter, also known as “The Adjuster.”

In the day or so since the alleged shooter’s identity became known to the public, the whole world has had the chance to dig though his personal social media accounts and attempt to decipher his political ideology and motives. What we have learned may shock you. He is not one of us. He is a “typical” American with largely incoherent, and in many cases reactionary politics. For the most part, what is remarkable about the man himself is that he chose to take out his anger on a genuine enemy of the proletariat, instead of an elementary school.

This is a situation where the art must be separated from the artist. We do not condemn the attack, but as a role model, Luigi Mangione falls short. We do not expect perfection from revolutionary figures either, but we expect a modicum of revolutionary discipline. We expect them not simply to identify an unpopular element of society hitler-detector , but to clearly illuminate the causes of oppression and the means by which they are overcome. When we canonize revolutionary figures, we are holding them up as an example to be followed.

This is where things come back to rule 1. Mangione has a long social media history bearing a spectrum of reactionary viewpoints, and interacting positively with many powerful reactionary figures. While some commenters have referred to this as “nothing malicious,” by lionizing this man we effectively deem this behavior acceptable, or at the very least, safe to ignore. This is the type of tailism which opens the door to making a space unsafe for marginalized people.

We’re going to be more strict on moderating posts which do little more than lionize the shooter. There is plenty to be said about the unfolding events, the remarkably positive public reaction, how public reactions to “propaganda of the deed” may have changed since the historical epoch of its conception (and how the strategic hazards might not have), and many other aspects of the news without canonizing this man specifically. We can still dance on the graves of our enemies and celebrate their rediscovered fear and vulnerability without the vulgar revisionism needed to pretend this man is some sort of example of Marxist or Anarchist practice.

  • SixthSunOfASixthSun@lemmy.ml
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    11 days ago

    Cuz mods don’t care, don’t have time to ideologically sort people, and don’t have time to sort people by sincerity, simple as.

    I’ve seen someone get banned on hexbear for doing Astartes posting (Warhammer 40k Space Marines start every other sentance with “Brother,”) and get banned for misgendering for doing it to a femme mod.

    At the end of the day it’s a shit posting site so who care?

    • Dirt_Possum [any, undecided]@hexbear.net
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      11 days ago

      mods don’t have time to ideologically sort people

      But that’s exactly what they did in this case and why the comment was removed.

      and don’t have time to sort people by sincerity

      Yes they do. They do it all the time (and that is a good thing). If given mods don’t have time to do the job they volunteered to do, then they shouldn’t be mods. I don’t think lack of time is the problem here.

      and get banned for misgendering for doing it to a femme mod.

      If the person you saw misgendered someone and refused to correct themselves or apologize, that is a very good and legitimate reason to ban them.

      At the end of the day it’s a shit posting site so who care?

      It is that, a shitposting site, but it is also more than that. There are many of us here who, for better or worse, spend a lot of time and energy on this site. We care about the community that makes it up and we care about the direction it’s headed. The mods do too obviously, and problems arise when there is disagreement over what that direction should be.

      • SixthSunOfASixthSun@lemmy.ml
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        11 days ago

        It is that, a shitposting site, but it is also more than that. There are many of us here who, for better or worse, spend a lot of time and energy on this site. We care about the community that makes it up and we care about the direction it’s headed.

        This is your actual argument. This all boils down to a “No Exit” argument. You are mad that the mods are “the look” in the Camus sense. You want the mods to recognize the subjectivity in your person, rather than seeing you as an objective collection of posts. That is an unrealistic demand for an online site. Given the history of philosophy and general human history it’s a bit of an unrealistic demand on real-life people too.

        Time is a limited resource, at the end of the day your only real option in any community is to care about the community in an egoless way otherwise you’ll only feel burned and be jaded.

        • Dirt_Possum [any, undecided]@hexbear.net
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          11 days ago

          So your pseudo-philosophical position is that no one should ever expect to be recognized or treated as the individual sentient human being that they in fact are, but only as an “objective collection of posts.” Strange, because I have no problem recognizing that people are, well, people. And even though I may disagree with them, I am certain that most of the mods are just as capable of that as I am.

          • SixthSunOfASixthSun@lemmy.ml
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            11 days ago

            In this case you should write a retort to Being and Nothingness. There’s no further point to this discussion, you’ve thoroughly defeated all the practical concerns of online moderation and all the “pseudo-philosophical” ones as well with a well rounded argument of “nuh uhhhh cuz I can ;)”.

            • Dirt_Possum [any, undecided]@hexbear.net
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              11 days ago

              you’ve thoroughly defeated all the practical concerns of online moderation

              Unfortunately, I have to concede defeat to you, for you have clearly won through sheer nonsensical blathering and the sophomoric name-dropping of philosophical works in the place of any kind of reasoning (and to show off how you’re ever so smart!) In other words, waaow you’ve red Sartre! I give up!