i think half of people are obtuse on purpose. like it doesnt matter the context, if you tell Americans to educate themselves on anything they will take it as a personal attack and use any justification to defend their ignorance. especially people familiar with progressive sounding language.
[me sending a Black leftist reading list to my white liberal and supposedly progressive ex-right-libertarian friend]
Friend: "I'm not reading this."
Me: "Well, why not?"
Friend: "Because I'm not a leftist."
Me: "That is not a good reason but very well."
Friend: "Yeah, I know, I guess I'm just stubborn. It's just that I worry that I wouldn't get anything out of it."
Me: "Yeah, when I first read Wretched of the Earth I had to look up what 'lumpenproletariat' meant since I read it before Marx, but I honestly feel like needing to look up a few things here and there doesn't make it not worthwhile to challenge one's worldviews and listen to the perspectives of some of the most influential Black thinkers and activists of the past century."
[friend still does not want to look at the Black leftist reading list]
is it wrong to want to throw books at white people?
screams
"you will never understand the black perspective and history without reading black authors and that always includes lefist"
throws the wretched of the earth then sister outsider and many more at head
/ joking
Commuting almost an hour one way means almost 2 hours "reading" a day, so long as you're wired for it. I understand some aren't able to digest books in that form.
Is also why like most people came here to begin with, they listened to a podcast. Really wish literal printed words weren't privileged so much, you can get through a shitload of books as audiobooks since you do not have to avoid doing anything else. Chores, your job, cooking, playing a relaxing game, you can basically just breathe books without your life being put on hold.
Pretty much this, though tbh telling someone to do anything in American culture is a bad idea. An American on fire would rather burn to death than be told to stop drop and roll. I present it as something I did and what I learned/or whatever, generally that works better.
this is only tangentially related but a hexbear posting warrior told some lemmyverse liberal they should really read some books about the subject being discussed and suggested some specific books, the lemmyverse liberal got very mad and said basically 'fuck you, YOU should read a book", so I asked them what book they felt would be good and they recommended fucking "Ulysses" by Joyce.
Ever since noticing that their version of history is completely vibes based, stuff like this doesn't shock me at all anymore. OBVIOUSLY, the best way to understand the modern world is to read some lofty Irish musings that parallel ancient Greek poetry. The thing is, they probably didn't even read it for literatures sake. They read it for the status of having said "I've read Ulysses "
I kind of suspect they hadn't even read it, they just googled "best classic literature list" and picked the book at the top so they could sound well read and smart
You have to meet people where they're at. In my experience no one will ever read any book you recommend unless they specifically ask you for recommendations. They might click a link to a short video. Otherwise try to summarize the specific point you want them to understand with relevant quotes or examples and avoid scary words like socialism or Marx unless you want to shock them.
Hopefully if its someone you care about enough to put in repeated efforts enough of what you're saying sinks in they start doing their own research, then they might ask for advice. I've had this work on coworkers a few times but its rare. Remember your working against years of conditioning here, it won't happen overnight
I sometimes try to lead with an interesting fact, make them go "oh I didn't know that" themself, then frame the conversation as "most people aren't taught about this".
Its the same sentiment through the lens of western academia. When you've ingested enough eugenics, the idea that you don't understand something because you lack the formal learning to process it and that you physically can't understand it because your brain don't work good are the same.
Understanding isn't a product of hard work or a consequential legacy of accumulated knowledge gleaned from prior generations, its a consequence of superior genes and natural genius.
Incidentally, the understanding of accumulated wealth and power flows along similar lines. You're rich because you're a superior deal maker. You're a "natural" leader with innate charisma. You're a savant who derives all worldly knowledge from first principles. None of these things are granted through family status or political intrigues or insights gleaned from hard work of others. Its always just you being a uniquely special wonderkin.
One person claiming that they understand or possess information another doesn't isn't just a challenge to their priors, its a challenge to their inherent brilliant nature.
I really appreciate this comment, particularly the last clause. Would you say many folks have a kind of inflated sense of self (what you called inherent brilliant nature) due to say, unearned prestige?
What I mean is, here in the imperial core I have peers who constantly trash on goods made in China. They say they can make something better, not only are the working conditions poor, the quality of the goods are bad too (as though good products could justify any kind of poor conditions; in this case they have no evidence of the conditions there in any form) and products like iPhones and MacBooks are only due to the brilliance of people in the West.
Here it's like they believe they are superior, their way of life is not due to their harder or better work. In the US, they skim off stolen land 'earned' by a near complete genocide. Really in what way are they superior?
products like iPhones and MacBooks are only due to the brilliance of people in the West.
Apple products all suck. They're interfaces are simplified to the point of being glorified Speak-And-Say machines, and the company hasn't put out anything particularly novel since the iPad (which was already just a malformed iPhone).
Nothing in the engineering of these products outperforms any other device on the market, from Dell to Samsung to Huawei.
The only reason Americans think Apple is a good product is the enormous amount of marketing and the dismal state of Microsoft.
In the US, they skim off stolen land 'earned' by a near complete genocide. Really in what way are they superior?
I think it's insane how Americans wiped out native peoples, and the native floura and fauna with them, to impose a meaningful worse agricultural system in its place.
Even setting aside the raw evil of the genocide, wholesale replacement of native buffalo with imported cattle was incredibly foolhardy.
Nevermind the desolation of the Mississippi River Valley, the draining of the Colorado, and the strip mining of the Atlantic Coast interior. Just enormous amounts of waste created so we could put "profit" on our business ledgers.
But the devil is in the accounting. How do you convince people that they're being robbed when Big Line Go Up?
There's a reason why anti-intellectualism is such a prominent thing in the U.S.
It's hard to fight and it makes people think they're smart for not learning about stuff
Personally, this is why I kind of want to start up a media project about educating people but with a down-to-earth nature so it doesn't seem like they're being insulted
You'll never break a dyed-in-the-wool reactionary type, but I can at least make some positive effort forwards
(I mean, I consider my podcast, Talker, Rexas Wanger to be a positive effort, but it's not exactly educational)
people incorporate their liberalism or whatever into their identity and calling that into question is way bigger of a deal than it should be. You get the same thing with religious weirdos if you ever ask them where the bible says something they made up or why god seems to always agree with their own prejudices.
I definitely feel like I am abusive, it leaves me a bit stuck. I know "we won't make excuses for the terror" and all, but do you (or other comrades) have any advice? Is it that the timeframe needs to be longer so they don't feel abused?
I think I'm missing something here and I don't know what. What I consider banal seems to be awfully challenging, I'm very confused :/
People don't change their minds with debates for the same reason Jordan Peterson doesn't change my mind. I'm not some immaculate debate bro, I'm not under the illusion that winning a debate requires one side to be correct, it simply means that the other person's smarter or better researched on something than myself. Unless you've actually gone and read up on flat earthers, odds are if one starts debating you they'll pull this or that nonsense out of their ass that sounds convincing and that you don't have a response for; but you know better than to assume that just because you can't pin down why they're wrong that nobody can, and that if you were foolish enough to just agree with them because you didn't have a rebuttal on hand you'd suddenly be liable the moment someone with more sense than you poked holes in your new position. You probably aren't even going to go look up why they're wrong, you just implicitly trust they are wrong and have no reason to question that. You're not gonna waste a week researching a bunch of bullshit for that guy.
So now some communist, the bad guys in the cold war, is trying to facts and logic you about how communism is better actually and those freedom hating terrorists in the MIddle East are actually the good guys. I'm sure they sound very smart and up their own ass, but you can dismiss them just as easily as the flat earthers because you're not dismissing either of those people based on some college education you could never afford. The world that has provided the life you've lived so far says this thing, so the world is probably right and those other people are wrong.
This is why Huey Newton got assassinated. If you literally feed people's kids, suddenly you are the one providing people a better life, you are the one that actually has their best interests at heart. This is why "struggle sessions" mostly don't work. Changing anyone's mind requires a level of mutual trust that most people don't have with others due to capitalist atomization, just as you trust your friend when they say you're being a dick much more than you trust a stranger making the exact same points. This is why we go on and on about mutual aid all the time, it is literally the prerequisite to making any sort of changes. The moment someone is actually relying on you to live a better life is the moment they actually give a shit what you think.
Well, arguing is an action of supporting two different worldviews, and one deconstructing the other. You must win, but be gentle, this is their world.
Something like that. Methods differ from person to person, but I see the best way to convince people is propaganda of the deed. Once you find like minded people and agitate, you'll start slow, but as the contradictions sharped people will begin to 'wake up' and choose socialism. Its a very slow buildup that changes into a very frantic political battle.
If they are a friend or otherwise convinceable, you do it by being more confident than them and generally being the person they go to for an informed opinion that they will adopt for themselves. Get them into a mindset where they might ask you how you know so many things so you can hit them with a reading rec they'll ignore for the next 4 months (but then they might actually read it!).
If they are combative, you endeavor to not take them seriously (again, confidence) and demonstrate your knowledge with specifics without suggesting that you're actually taking anything they say seriously. Your hope with these people is that they shut the fuck up and slowly internalize on their own timeline so that if they come around like 2 years later, they think it was their own idea. The other goal is that the primary audience for what you're saying is everyone else, who will see you implicitly denigrating the other person's bullshit while having a wealth of facts and confidence.
If someone is particularly bad, you can dunk on them. Some people need to be socially policed right then and there (e.g. people being racist, transphobic, classist) and a decent number will even course-correct shortly after. Keep in mind that a decent number will flip their shit, so prioritize your own safety.
It is very rare that you'll find someone that is both combative and willing to change their opinion in real time through discussion.
I suppose it depends on your goal. My advice is indeed based on alienating them to some extent. If you want something from them, you'd want to change your approach accordingly.
I've seen folks go the respect route against combative people speaking from a place of ignorance. When you want something from them and it's in an isolated environment, it can work to get what you want, basically through manipulation. When it's in a more communal space, it seems to usually backfire. The person is "handled" for a while but they will be alienated anyways if your opinion holds sway. If, instead, they get a foothold, they tend to become insufferable bullies.
I've seen good leftists hounded out of spaces by people like this, liberals they were trying to be nice and respectful to. They should be thoroughly opposed unless you're trying to extract something from them.
Hmm, I think I took Maoo to mean confident in a flippant way, I suppose that makes it disrespectful. The situation I thought it would be appropriate is like, for a person who is unaccustomed to being challenged or who very gassed up. But I think you're right generally, only in the instances where you can't be respectful it might work to not take them too seriously.
I try to be vocally sympathetic. Like "bro you're not dumb, there's just stuff you don't know. There's way too much stuff for anyone to know everything, we all gotta keep learning all the time. Knowledge is power and I want you to be as powerful as possible. And when you tell me there's a gap in my knowledge I'll listen to you."
A lot of it comes down to the person, though. Folks have to be in the right mindset to take critiques in good faith and trust that you're being genuine.
You can also try to be like "Hey sib, so, I get what you're saying and I know this book/article/paper that talks about that, and I think you'd find it really interesting because it talks about what you're saying from a different perspective. Even if you don't agree with it you can use it to sharpen up your arguments and get a better understanding of what your opponents think"
I went as far as even making a SpongeBob gif that says "read theory" before realizing that the average Westerner doesn't care to understand anything beyond their tiny western state-opperated media bubble.
I had told someone on lemmy.ml that they should read a bit about Marxism because they were sounding like a bot and it resulted in a total meltdown by them so I just went to lurking mostly on that account.
However in leftist spaces I will continue to suggest things I think are appropriate to whatever the discussion is and will continue to grab up epubs that I see suggested.
In short, the average schmuck doesn't care so I won't try to help anymore.
we need way less of everybody on this site (including me) and way more Bill "i haven't read marx's capital but i have the marks of capital all over my body" Haywood
I love this quote too, and I reference it often in these types of discussions. If your plan for revolution requires everyone to read a master's degree worth of leftist writing, it doesn't have any hope (or precedence). Propaganda is what works on the masses, not dusty tomes of theory. I think music is a great medium for spreading the message. I know it's very dated, but I've actually made headway raising class consciousness with the music of Woody Guthrie. YMMV.
If that is true, is that something that the other person needs to feel? As well, is it preferable to act deliberately knowing it is a likely effect? Maybe I've internalized too much christian-purity, it doesn't feel right and it also seems inefficient.
Einstein was a committed socialist, Johnny Von Neumann spent half his life as the Mycroft Homes of the Mutually Assured Destruction-Industrial Complex because of his anti-communist ideology. So far as raw intelligence is a concept which even exists, it doesn't remotely align with neatly political views.
A shame about Neumann. I greatly admire his work (Computer and the brain is worth a read!) and think he could've had interesting contributions to socialist and communist ideas. Particularly creating analogies between dialectical materialism and computer architecture.
If it's in anyway confrontational it's a safe bet you're not gonna get through to them. You kinda just gotta let them be wrong and then be like, "oh dude you'd love (insert book movie, etc here)"
One circle I'm trying to square (square I'm trying to circle? Concept I'm trying to reconcile) is that every revolution in history has been comprised of largely uneducated, illiterate masses. But the forms of illiteracy and ignorance we see in the US at least seem insurmountably backward/reactionary.
In the past my efforts have mostly been about turning everyday people into ardent, well-read revolutionaries, which for most people is probably wasted effort. Especially since revolution within the imperial core is so far in the future. Although if revolution is so far off, perhaps creation of ardent revolutionaries should be the primary goal anyway, regardless of a low success rate. People to start organizing and building dual power structures that later can be used to enact a strategic mass line as the US nation state shrinks and leaves larger and larger demographics without representation (thus ripe for organizing). Don't remember if it was deprogram or trueanon, but a recent episode talked about the already-existing state structures that the Chinese communists set up before the revolution even succeeded, entire territories that were under communist control, which were able to function as industrial and strategic bases for revolutionary development, and actually take and maintain power as the revolution advanced.
Idk if it's so far off. Life expectancy dropping is a big indicator
One of the first things the Soviets did under the Tsars was unionize and start up electrical and telecom companies, since they control so much industry and police communications it's a no brainer for agitation, and it came in handy later (after the tsar and republic ordered strikers and protesters be killed) when they did operations like robbing banks because they could cut communications lines. dual power had a pretty literal meaning
essentially if you are a communist you should pursue becoming an electrician if you have no idea what job you want
Hmm from what I've heard the IBEW is pretty reactionary, but I wonder if it's possible to focus on specific chapters and start shifting them leftward. Trade union entryism lol. The reactionary nature of the trades and "skilled" work is a difficult hurdle. Although that definitely seems to be shifting.
I think this will be a decade of retraction for the US nation state, both internally and externally, and by the '30s the federal retraction will leave significant voids that a party can work with and from. "Voids" as in demographics of people no longer served or protected by the state, as in places where the reach of the domestic control apparatus no longer effectively extends.
One circle I'm trying to square (square I'm trying to circle? Concept I'm trying to reconcile) is that every revolution in history has been comprised of largely uneducated, illiterate masses. But the forms of illiteracy and ignorance we see in the US at least seem insurmountably backward/reactionary.
There is a difference between being uneducated and miseducated. People in the US are much more miseducated than the semi-feudal peasantries that were the popular basis of revolutions in the past.
Good point. I wonder if the breakdown of trust in institutions will change this dynamic, or if it will just be a constant churn of faux "counter" information sources arising to fill the void. A party with resources and local presence could become a key source of counternarratives and agitprop.
i think the historical context of the US as a settler-colonial state is important to include into this reconciliation. whitened people are conditioned to act in ways that propagate the white supremacist project. "the resistance" in the us is former slaves, targets of ethnic cleansing, and low-class immigrants. the US is currently majority white and they're terrified of losing that status around 2070. the closer we get to that line the more interesting things will be imo.
It was only when I started reading this that I realise how much I didn't know about ti...
I get it, not everyone's as obsessive as me about this, but I think you'd find it really interesting...
I don't know shit about X probably, I mean I kind of think I know enough not to be totally ignorant I hope, but if I was going to talk about it to more people I'd have to read about it too
I usually go with explaining a time I was ignorant of something, and then really focus on the "ignorant" part and explain what ignorance is, and how systems intentionally develop ignorance in their subjects, and THEN i hit em with "youre ignorant, get educated"