Forgive me if this is a silly question, but if there is one thing I have learned over the years is how important marketing is. This even includes politics as well, and the right weaponizes this to a scarily efficient degree. Politics becomes more than politics, but a form fashion itself. Think of how much of a selling point of "be one of us and you'll be cool and you'll get laid." CHUDs use.
So that leaves the question, what should we organize our optics around. What is the impression we want to leave on others?
Personally, I kind of like the Soviet aesthetic: Extremely cultured (as befitting of a largely internationalist ideology), hyper-rational, future-minded, egalitarian, hard working people. It implies that despite all the snobbery of fascists; they are the true decadents. Leftists are optimistic about the future, and know that no race or gender is superior to the other because that is simply common sense. Cuban aesthetic is nice too because of how fun and inviting the country looks too. Say what you will about cars, but there is a lovely aesthetic with the classic cars of Cuba. Also, Havana has nice paint jobs on buildings and the cars alike. (Please Hexbear create a Havana theme), especially in a world where corporations are embracing minimalism en masse, and shit like 4chan is around telling the world "conform to inoffensive conservatism or else". It's nice to see some color happily shown. If there was a way to combine the two, I would nut.
We get one of these threads every couple months, huh. The left already has an aesthetic, it's just not an aesthetic that's going to appeal to labor aristocrats until the collapse of capitalism tears their aristocratic status away from them.
Left Aesthetic is:
The future movement will be proletarian, and the proletariat, precariat, and lumpens will define its aesthetic. Reaching back into the past and creating awkward anachronisms won't draw in people. Stealing from cultures that aren't yours without understanding their relationship to material reality won't draw in people. You have to understand the people in your own country, what their aesthetics already are, how they already feel, and who they already want to be.
I think that, rather than a single unified aesthetic, there could be hundreds, thousands even. It would give us an excuse to pay small-time artists to work in their own style and appeal to multiple demographics. As long as the same symbols and messages are consistent. Which is, incidentally, a factor in marketing.
Yeah, people think superficialities are keeping imperial-coreletariat from becoming communists. It's not. The material conditions aren't here yet, that's why. Communists should be looking towards being helpful to others, not being attractive ideologically.
This presupposes that communism is the only alternative to those suffering under worsening material conditions. The fact of the matter is that we're all swimming in nonstop propaganda that's directing people towards fascism as their alternative. And on many people out there, it is working. For the rest? Libs are happily hiring more cops.
It doesn't. We're just aware that Karen Copcaller was gonna end up being fash regardless what your poster says. Decaying material conditions just bring the referee out for the coinflip.
Material conditions don't just mean your bank account, cultural hegemony holds a lot of sway as well. We know Manufacturing Consent works and it applies to far more than just wars overseas.
edit: to expand on this a bit, there's a saying in the neurosciences: The eyes can't see what the brain doesn't know. Leftists often end up doomers while also having this weird survivorship bias where they assume that because they reached leftism that surely everyone else will as well. As the book club recently covered with Andrea's Malm's How to Blow Up a Pipeline, our history is largely whitewashed of accomplished leftist revolutionary movements and replaced by non-violent versions that libs have largely turned into their religion. If you assume that shit's going to get so bad that everyone is gonna turn anti-capitalist eventually, you're gonna be disappointed.