this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2025
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How to "deprogram" people? (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 2 weeks ago by borschtisgarbo@lemmygrad.ml to c/asklemmygrad@lemmygrad.ml
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It just feels so hard. People constantly complain about their material conditions, yet when someone comes to them with Marx-Engels, they immediately brush it off. They are more keen on falling to mysticism and far-right ideology, in regards to "solutions". I know you cannot convince people by debating them, you can only make yourself feel good when you "win", but otherwise you are likely only making them less likely to latch on to socialism. Still, I don't know how to approach this. How do I convince them? Do I constantly, in every conversation about how the grocery prices are too high, mention the theories of Marx? Do I just sit around until they, on their own accord, pick up Capital or even just the Manifesto?

Whaddoido?

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[–] MasterBlaster@lemmygrad.ml 14 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I don't think you can. All the effort and energy you poured into educating yourself is nearly impossibly to extend to someone else. They have to want to learn, and most people don't. People aren't stupid or ignorant, they are overwhelmingly incurious, and incuriosity is much more devastating to the mind than simply being ignorant.

If you could tell people where they went wrong, and have them accept it, the world would be a smoother place.

You pick your battles, convince the people you know you can convince, and further down the road we look to systemic solutions for undoing imperial programming.

[–] QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 2 weeks ago

Definitely gotta accept most people won’t dedicate years of free time to political theory. Just gotta nudge their thinking enough so they fall for less bullshit and are more likely to unionize, organize, voot, etc closer to your vision.