• GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    10 months ago

    I think it’s probably better to simply say that “authoritarian” is a buzzword, though your implied argument that all states work by exerting authority on (at least some portion of) their population is certainly true. Anyone who uses a term like “authoritarian” rather than even a marginally more-descriptive negative term like, idk, “bureaucratic” or “state capitalist” (which gets misused, but I digress) is immediately demonstrating themselves to have untrustworthy judgement on the topic

    • IzyaKatzmann [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      10 months ago

      maybe bring back totalitarian and use it against countries like the US? have a word that, like Huey P. Newton said regarding coining the term ‘pig’ for police, “highlights the contradiction”, in this case, between the selective usage of a word and it’s inherent meaning, none of which is understandable without contradictions from a prescriptive linguistic context