Hello comrades, I read a comment on a post either on lemmygrad or hexbear talking about how most discourse happening was of poor quality and indicative of a lack of genuine leftist groups in the imperial core. Basically if there were patty’s with some teeth they would enforce party discipline and education and that would lead to higher quality discourse online.
I also read some of Lenins2ndcat’s comments which were very patient when they were interacting with users from other communities.
Is there anyway to work on like, an online party discipline? Or like having users who are very good at discussing with libs have a more concerted approach to their interactions? It really seems that much of us are often too aggressive and meme-y and as fun as that is it really isn’t productive.
I get that this isn’t how praxis or anything happens, it seems more like the way we engage could be more productive and fruitful in the long term and considerations like this might go a long way.
TL;DR Planned economy but for memeposting
You seem to think minds are being changed in twitter comment sections or even on here. I think we should all know by now that’s not the case.
Besides that, anecdotally of course but whatever, before I started taking Marxism seriously and reading more I got yelled at by I can’t even estimate how many people who were a mixture of MLs, anarkiddies, whatever else. Some clown being mean to me, justified or not, had exactly zero impact on my willingness to learn more when the time came. If I’m being honest, my upbringing in the heart of capitalism had already put blinders on to Marxist ideas. They were simply wrong and anyone who believed in them was crazy/evil/stupid, take your pick. It’s not like some guy calling me a lib could lower the bar of consideration below zero, if that makes sense.
Anyway, the only way people are reliably going to come to embrace Marxist critiques of capitalism is if they find it when in a state of mind where they’re already receptive to it. If their material conditions are shit or becoming shit they’re going to be desperately seeking out the reason… I mean I wish I could say we all could help guide these desperate people to the light, but I just do not think that’s true. Sure, post an explanation when something happens that kind of boggles liberals’ brains. Maybe even post when the hogs are especially riled up over something. But overall it’s not going to penetrate deep enough.
Which of course goes to my last point which ties to your first thing. There isn’t just poor discussion from those of us who consider ourselves to be MLs and live in the imperial core… there is NO discussion because there is no real significant amount of us. I don’t think I’d even say 1% of the US have read and understand Capital. Or any other writings for that matter. It’s probably an insanely small amount. Which IS a problem because if you don’t have people who understand the ideology to teach those who won’t go learn on their own (not online, but in settings such as union meetings which is one of the reasons I do advocate for unionization even in the imperial core) then how the hell will you ever have a revolution much less one favorable to principles we’d like to see? You don’t, basically.
On the hand, and this gets a bit doomer/pessimistic so brace yourself, there will no socialist revolution within the imperial core. Not likely in our lifetimes. The way things are, and the way ideologies work, even if material conditions continue to plummet, and who the hell would expect otherwise?, people will become more and more radicalized… towards fascism. I wish it weren’t true, but the US state has all but assured it will happen either on purpose or by completely moronic and evil policies. Thry wiped out any even slightly leftist movements in the country repeatedly and barely or never touched the right wing. Add to that that fascism has no like real driving ideology or core principles. It can be molded to fit the individual racism and hatred of any given person or group. Socialism, done correctly, does require a base level of acceptance of certain principles. A politically uneducated mass of people with falling material conditions… what else is there to expect?
I know this probably comes off as inconsistent or schizophrenic. It does in my mind too. We’re simultaneously faced with the reality that we probably can’t really affect anything, but we must do something. So what do you do? Post nice essays on Twitter? I dunno, maybe. I’d say just about the only really consequential thing to be done is what I said earlier. Try to form or join a union for a profession you work in and find those workers who seem to share your mindset and see where they are in their political educational journey. Maybe you journey together further, I dunno. You could probably do this in other ways too just in the real life local community. The key though to this entire thing is the people you seek to educate in order to “convert” them have to trust you and not just like some sociopath shit where you manipulate them into it. But real, actual trust that you build through genuinely discussing things, helping people, whatever. Sounds like a lot of work. I know. It is. Way more than posting nicely online, for sure. But if you want to be doing something, short of going off and John Browning some shit or offing yourself (can’t recommend either of these), I don’t really know what else there is to be done. We’re just in a weird wait and see period of history right now it appears. The decline of the US and the western EU could take another century, who knows. I dunno. I’d just spend less time worrying about random libbed up, probably a Nazi dude on reddit being butthurt and more time worrying about focusing your power and energy where it can affect change and accepting that your power to do anything is damn near zero. Some people call that being a doomer. I’d call it being realistic.
Of course this is only one man’s opinion…
I disagree that content in places like this can’t help change people’s minds. The old /r/communism and /r/genzedong were an important part of dispelling anticommunist propaganda for me, and while deprogramming people doesn’t have a lot of material significance by itself, at least part of the people who are convinced are going to end up doing praxis
If I hadn’t found genzedong I might still be a vaushite.
It do be like that. GenZedong radicalized me and I joined the party afterwards. Without GenZedong I may not have gotten that far.
Same honestly. At the very least it would’ve taken longer or gone via very different routes. I was already very far in radicalization before I found that sub, but it did play a big part in transfering that radical energy into praxis. But GZD was explicitly not about discussing with libs, it was dunking and meming on them. It was the discussions among comrades that I found most valuable to me. Comrades talking about their organizing efforts in the real world that got me motivated. That was something I had not experienced in real-life before and that’s what I sought and found in real organizing.
Yes, to reach people we need to be where the people are, and nowadays a lot of people are online. Of course, this shouldn’t and can’t replace real life organizing, but it should supplement it.
From Roderic Day’s ‘The Virtual Factory’:
GOOD quote
Nice! This is so much more eloquently put. This is more of what I had in mind.
It also helps that a lot of leftist are often ostracised from their own communities/families and have no other place than the internet to connect with other people. I deeply believe that online communities can be great gateways to “not thinking you’re insane” when it comes to having sensible politics nowadays.
Yeah no. There’s too many settlers, the internal colonies are too dispersed and too well-raided by the settlers to ever foment the kinds of leaders we used to have before the aforementioned settlers had them all assassinated except the sellouts-- the only way revolution comes to the imperial core is if it comes from outside. Why I’m hoping against hope there’s a way for me to escape to Cuba, DPRK, or China before a pig can murder me.
Sorry, to clarify, is the idea that the geographic region will not experience revolution? Or that it will and a distinction is necessary to be made by external forces engaging in some sort of ops to induce revolution? I am having trouble understanding as there will always be some internal resistance, and building upon that resistance and calling it occurring from the outside seems strange since that is one part but not the only part. Unless there is some threshold of external influence and its effects which need to be passed before one can say it is external and without following such a path there is no reason to believe there will be revolution.
I hope I understood you correctly, please feel free to tell me where I may have misunderstood.
More like “the only way I believe it possible is if it comes from without”. I am utterly zeroed out as far as faith in settler-left organizations is concerned; I do not believe any of them capable of holding ‘vanguard’ status or ever coming close enough to an intersectional, decolonially-focused line for their revolution to truly address this nation’s conditions.
would this not imply that a indigenous led party would be capable of revolution?
i personally do not subscribe to the idea that revolution is impossible in the imperial core
it’s impossible (or very difficult) in the United States because the military apparatus is extremely extensive.
It is not the fault of moral failing or lack of commitment.
It would, if not for the seeming inability of the settler-left organizations currently in the picture to step back. No, in Amerika, all the likes of Vaush have to do is link Land Back to spurious claims of belief in ethnic cleansing and all the white “leftists” hike their hems and clutch their pearls. The military apparatus is a point to raise, yes; but there is a deliberate unwillingness to understand on the part of the settlers; “leftist” or not.
Then I would agree with you in principle, but I don’t think a revolution is impossible in the imperial core, then. White people just make it significantly harder.
Thanks for your response, I don’t disagree with your comments and agree with them. I suppose I don’t see how a dialectical approach cannot be entertained where there is determined through experiment a preferable or even formalized approach(es) are one of the mechanisms the energy already spent online is taken. I was not thinking of Twitter as a platform. Only the degree of aimlessness seems to be something which can be moderated through intentional engagement which would do much for the morale of comrades.
The other thing I want to ask, do you consider the internet to be material? You mention the real world as distinct, if so what is the distinguishing difference, as it seems to be the chief mechanism of propaganda of the modern era and paramount to changing minds by capitalists.