Comradeship // Freechat

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…