The Revolution Eats its Own

Bhaskar Sunkara is, in practical terms, the nation’s most effective defender of 21st century neoliberalism.

That harsh repression and pervasive censorship characterized life in the East is a given. But reducing the GDR to the Wall and the secret police does little to help us understand how and why it came about, and obscures everything else that happened within its borders. Millions of people in East Germany and other socialist countries actively supported and identified with the system, albeit to varying extents, for decades. Angela Davis even completed her doctorate at the Humboldt University in East Berlin. Are we really to believe that they were all brainwashed? Or were there perhaps redeeming elements about the society and their lives in it that led to such support?

But East Germany might have survived if Honecker had devoted more resources to inventing a socialist Tinder:

Don’t we want to understand how this crucial aspect of our experience is being shaped? And shouldn’t we have some say in how it’s shaped? If you think so, then we should work toward socializing the dating apps: bringing them under collective, democratic ownership.

Let this serve as a Sunday evening open thread.