It wasn’t a hostile discussion or anything, i didn’t even go full “the kulaks deserved it” (although the mod that single-handedly banned me did go full “the kulaks did not deserve it”). I just laid out plainly and calmly that revolutions are inherently authoritarian, that Luxemburg said “the revolution will be as violent as the ruling class makes it necessary” and that there’s one Trotzki quote i 100% agree with: “If the October Revolution hadn’t succeeded, the world would have known a Russian word for fascism 10 years before Mussolini’s March on Rome”. Basically the whole “Jakarta Method” train of thought laid out clearly and without calling anybody names.
Note that this was on an explicitly left-leaning server that does not allow cops and troops to join. Also after several days of another poster starting destructive, aggressive bad faith arguments in the politics channel until a number of users went “disengage” on her and the channel had to be frozen until recently, when she immediately started being hostile and arguing in bad faith again, which got her not one, but two warnings from the same mod without further consequences. Meanwhile, when i defend AES without attacking anybody, that’s apparently too much for her to handle. No advance warning, no “sis, you’re talking to me as a mod here”, not even a notification that i got banned.
The best part is that according to screenshots a friend just sent me, she’s now completely going off about “authoritarians”. The nerve some people have.
Sorry for posting pointless internet drama here, i just needed to vent.
I don’t think anti-authoritarianism (as you describe it) can be separated from leftism (anarchism is right there), nor should it be (it’s largely correct in many cases and also a powerful organizing tool). Rather, I think anyone who digs in on that front should be asked two questions:
Either they will have practical answers that lead naturally into discussions like “when is authority justified, and what actions can a justified authority take?” or they’ll show their ass with some “abolish bedtimes” baby anarchist stuff.
Anti-authoritarianism is distinguishable from anarchism because anarchists do not oppose use of authority for revolution nor to maintain post-revolution, they support authoritarian means in those cases.
Anything that opposes revolution upholds the status quo.
The anti-authoritarians might be a pipeline into the left, but are not yet among the left in that their ideology literally upholds neoliberalism by opposing all use of authority to change it. You could view them in the same way that belief in alternative medicines isn’t right wing but is a pipeline into right wing conspiracy thought. Distinguished from the right but you can see how it leads into it. Anti-authoritarians are distinguishable from the left in that they oppose all the things we need to bring about any real change, but they can be a pipeline into the left by making them realise this.
This is also why the anti-tankie rhetoric is so necessary for liberals. It makes it harder to do the work to pipeline the anti-authoritarians into the left by aiming to kick all real leftists out of the anti-authoritarian spaces and shut down all thought-processes of anti-authoritarians if/when they speak to people that are part of the proper left.
This seems to be the case mainly because the principal authorities in capitalist society are ones that should be opposed and destroyed. That doesn’t make it a coherent political position. See Gramsci’s letter to anarchists.