The Obsolescence of Political Definitions (1991)

Context and Accessibility of the Essay

• Several readers find the essay intellectually compelling but context-heavy and hard to approach without background in 1991 Soviet politics and political theory.
• Some note that younger readers lack historical grounding in the August Coup, Gorbachev/Yeltsin, and Cold War ideologies, making the intro feel opaque.
• Others say it’s readable if you already know the late‑Soviet and European political landscape and see it as a precursor to “end of history” narratives.

Shifting and Collapsing Political Labels

• Many comments echo the essay’s claim: traditional left/right, conservative/liberal, socialist/communist labels have blurred or inverted.
• In the US, “conservative” and “liberal” are seen as brands attached to party coalitions, not coherent ideologies; both parties are said to have morphed repeatedly.
• European vs US meanings of “liberal” are contrasted: classical free‑market, small‑state liberalism vs US “liberal” as culturally left.
• Some argue left/right still track attitudes toward hierarchy and state power; others see those axes as hopelessly entangled with authoritarian/libertarian and tribal identity.

Battles Over Definitions: Socialism, Fascism, Woke, etc.

• Long subthread on “socialism”:
  • One side stretches it to almost any collective or state action (“when government does stuff”).
  • Others insist on the classical “social ownership of the means of production.”
  • Disagreement over whether markets can be “socialist” and whether communist theory reserved “socialism” vs “communism” as stages.
• Similar definitional fights occur over “fascism,” “Nazi,” and “woke,” with repeated claims that these words are now primarily slurs or empty tribal markers.
• Some think this semantic decay is exactly what Kondylis described: terms become propaganda tools rather than analytical categories.

Populism, Party Dynamics, and Tribal Psychology

• Commenters link the essay to the rise of populism and party realignments since ~2009, claiming parties are “unmoored” from historical platforms.
• US politics is compared to Roman chariot factions: team loyalty eclipses coherent ideology; “true conservative” often just means “what I liked when I was young.”
• Several emphasize temperament and personality (conformism, contrarianism, need for tribe) as more stable than ideology in predicting alignments.

Alternative Frameworks and Meta-Reflections

• Suggestions to replace left/right with other axes: open vs closed, hierarchy vs equality, or focus on localist models like communalism and democratic confederalism.
• Some extend the essay’s point to language in general: as political and social stakes rise, terms become more arbitrary and weaponized, drifting toward meaninglessness.