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What does ultra mean to you? (vis-a-vis leftism) (hexbear.net)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by JustSo@hexbear.net to c/chat@hexbear.net

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I'm curious whether calling someone an ultra has a generally agreed upon meaning here.

Not to defend any accused ultras or whatever. Recent post got me thinking about it though. It feels like a very loaded word and using it seems like in-group/out-group differentiation signalling or .. I dunno.

Maybe another way to put it is often when I see the term being used it feels like its serves a similar purpose to the "tankie" label's utility for anarchists and liberals.

I might just be running up against tone parsing issues or something, and so maybe this is just me or a figment of my imagination, but it often seems to limit or shape discussion when it pops up early in a discussion.

Again I'm sure I'm just Wrong about this, but it almost feels like a mild thought terminating cliche at least some of the time.

Not trying to fight with anyone, I'm just curious about the nuances (if there are any) with the term.

What does it mean to you and do you have any thoughts you feel like sharing regarding the role it plays in online leftist spaces?

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[–] JustSo@hexbear.net 3 points 1 month ago

That more or less matches some of my very cursory research outside of hexbear, though in more specific detail than I've explored yet. Further reading might contradict my current understanding but it seems that self-styled (and self-serious) ultra-leftist groups pop up in a few places and points in time.

I would (or will) have to do a bit more digging to satisfy my curiousity about to what degree historic instances might have embodied the more general ideal of ultras as ideological dogmatists.

I've been meaning to read more about Hoxha and Hoxhaism so that dovetails nicely.

Do you have much of an opinion or observation of online ultras as distinct from the "original" ultras (for want of a better term)?

I understand if you don't pay attention to them, that would be normal and reasonable, but if you do happen to have opinions on online ultras, I'm wondering- do you get the impression online ultras broadly subscribe to the same school of thought or "true tendency"?

I hope I worded that coherently. Appreciate your post, I was just doing some very general reading about offline/historical ultra-leftism and your post dovetailed with that nicely.