141
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2025
141 points (100.0% liked)
news
24519 readers
597 users here now
Welcome to c/news! We aim to foster a book-club type environment for discussion and critical analysis of the news. Our policy objectives are:
-
To learn about and discuss meaningful news, analysis and perspectives from around the world, with a focus on news outside the Anglosphere and beyond what is normally seen in corporate media (e.g. anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist, Marxist, Indigenous, LGBTQ, people of colour).
-
To encourage community members to contribute commentary and for others to thoughtfully engage with this material.
-
To support healthy and good faith discussion as comrades, sharpening our analytical skills and helping one another better understand geopolitics.
We ask community members to appreciate the uncertainty inherent in critical analysis of current events, the need to constantly learn, and take part in the community with humility. None of us are the One True Leftist, not even you, the reader.
Newcomm and Newsmega Rules:
The Hexbear Code of Conduct and Terms of Service apply here.
-
Link titles: Please use informative link titles. Overly editorialized titles, particularly if they link to opinion pieces, may get your post removed.
-
Content warnings: Posts on the newscomm and top-level replies on the newsmega should use content warnings appropriately. Please be thoughtful about wording and triggers when describing awful things in post titles.
-
Fake news: No fake news posts ever, including April 1st. Deliberate fake news posting is a bannable offense. If you mistakenly post fake news the mod team may ask you to delete/modify the post or we may delete it ourselves.
-
Link sources: All posts must include a link to their source. Screenshots are fine IF you include the link in the post body. If you are citing a Twitter post as news, please include the Xcancel.com (or another Nitter instance) or at least strip out identifier information from the twitter link. There is also a Firefox extension that can redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance, such as Libredirect or archive them as you would any other reactionary source.
-
Archive sites: We highly encourage use of non-paywalled archive sites (i.e. archive.is, web.archive.org, ghostarchive.org) so that links are widely accessible to the community and so that reactionary sources don’t derive data/ad revenue from Hexbear users. If you see a link without an archive link, please archive it yourself and add it to the thread, ask the OP to fix it, or report to mods. Including text of articles in threads is welcome.
-
Low effort material: Avoid memes/jokes/shitposts in newscomm posts and top-level replies to the newsmega. This kind of content is OK in post replies and in newsmega sub-threads. We encourage the community to balance their contribution of low effort material with effort posts, links to real news/analysis, and meaningful engagement with material posted in the community.
-
American politics: Discussion and effort posts on the (potential) material impacts of American electoral politics is welcome, but the never-ending circus of American Politics© Brought to You by Mountain Dew™ is not welcome. This refers to polling, pundit reactions, electoral horse races, rumors of who might run, etc.
-
Electoralism: Please try to avoid struggle sessions about the value of voting/taking part in the electoral system in the West. c/electoralism is right over there.
-
AI Slop: Don't post AI generated content. Posts about AI race/chip wars/data centers are fine.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
If it actually worked that way the US would have already had a revolution. People don't work like that, it is much more likely that depictions of that kind push them to see themselves as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires". Whereas if you depict working class people and their struggles accurately that is much more likely to lead to an increase in class consciousness.
Is there any evidence of this actually happening? Because all of the places that have socialist realist art have socialist governments prior to that being the case.
The socialist realism art policies of the USSR are not the only examples of art foregrounding the experiences and values of workers, and you can find such art in many countries that never even got close to socialist, from the USA (e.g. Grapes of Wrath) to Japan (e.g. Kani Kosen), along with of course there being such art movements in societies that would later have socialist revolutions (e.g. The Lower Depths, written by Gorky in 1902, 15 years before the revolution)
But the point that I would emphasize more is that opulent fantasies in media generally don't radicalize people (though perhaps stories of real opulent people profiting from their poverty do), it just produces something on the spectrum from escapist fantasy to a carrot-on-a-stick motivation to live "like that." The first is a hyper-literalization of the Freire quote about "the dream of the oppressed is to become the oppressor," i.e. not an aspiration but literally just a private fantasy, and the second is what he actually meant.
Socialist realism is directly descended from pre-revolution art movements like Peredvizhniki.
To be fair. US doesn't allow for dissemination of art that has radical values. Unless we are to consider color revolutions, adventurism and pro-militarism to be radical.
Edit: Yeah there are a lot of satirical critiques aimed at the flaws of the system, but that's not really radical art. That just promotes ironically participating in the system. "Well shit sucks, but at least I'm aware of it, what can you do? haha"