Good friend, I'll be spending all day with him tomorrow just the two of us.
He's smart and well-intentioned, but not necessarily politically coherent. He's been YouTube-brained and likes Rogan and the IDW dorks. I think he lost friends on the left through FB posting about Jordan Peterson a few years ago and maybe I'm one of his only remaining left friends.
I'm going to see if he is interested in joining a radlib bud and I in a couple of weeks to discuss State and Revolution, as the rad lib bud started reading it and likes it and wants to talk to me about it.
Best bet is to probably chase down the source of the problem they have with democracy. They've probably realized that liberal democracies as states are neither, watching movement after movement break against the great spectacular rocks of public arrogance and anti-empathy. Helping them work through the contradictions they see by providing better historical and theoretical context is often the best move when dealing with well-intentioned friends. Collaborative, guided thinking.
Good concise post with a fun visualisation at the end of it that I'm very fond of.
Ironically the meme that this comment was made in response to is EXACTLY what this friend of yours is currently thinking.
I wouldn't if my buddy was deadass going around saying "I'm a monarchist now btw!"
He just has no material analysis. Like he's trying to figure out why shit is all fucked up, but he doesn't quite have the tools.
Deciding that bougie "democracy" can't work is the first step, you just gotta make sure they leave it in the direction of the people's power
Idk, I see people as more than just the half-baked shit they spew due to exposure to an intense and omnipresent propaganda machine.
I'd say about 99% of people in an English speaking country have political stances about as coherent as this person.
We are the weird ones.
I've decided democracy is bad for humans, so brace for impact.
Is your friend an edgy anime villain?
a loose set of half reasoned ideas based on incomplete information and a fine misunderstanding of reality. a monarchist I believe.
well at least theyre self aware about it lol
A democracy is only good as the people who participate. The material conditions of the society determine who participates, how intelligent they are, and their material interests. A vanguard is not some small oligarchic or technocratic governing body, but rather the body which raises the masses towards better thought and higher forms of struggle to prepare them for democracy and to lead them in their struggle towards it. I have no idea why one would identify as a monarchist when it is such an obviously flawed social system though.
This person simply has no idea what he's talking about, as long as you've got a decent grasp of the very basic theory yourself it should be very easy to pick out the brainworms and help him come to some kind of coherent set of views, even if those views end up not being strictly communist.