https://twitter.com/ThoughtSlime/status/1627029198245359618
Twitter thread continued:
Sometimes people will say "You made me an anarchist" and like... buddy, I don't even think it matters that I myself am an anarchist.
And I regret that that sort of "we're fighting the good fight" mentality has allowed some of the worst grifters on the platform to flourish by manipulating people's passions for their own weird petty reasons.
I think what I do has a lot of value, I'm just saying that what I perceive that value to BE is a lot different than what I thought a few years ago.
That's fine for you to challenge that sense, but I remember what movements, even flash-in-the-pan ones, 'actually' look like. And I can see what they look like in other countries. What we have is a big wet fart that doesn't even disturb the water.
My point is that if the propoganda and ideological work is not attached to an actual, real, existing and operating political movement or apparatus, it does little to actually advance revolution.
To paraphrase Disco Elysium, all the education does outside of a party context is make you sad. And sad people don't stick with political work, they primarily seek escape.
:doomjak:
i'm in this picture and don't like it.
there's no party for me to join and i don't have the rizz to start one or the money to escape.
It's almost as if I say things sometimes because I see them occuring or something.
What party though? In most of the west, especially the big imperial core states, there are absolutely no leftist parties or even orgs with a single iota of political power. As an individual working-class person who also has to work and survive within capitalism I genuinely feel like the best thing I can really do is plant seeds in other people to change their opinions, so maybe in 100 years if we aren't all dead maybe we'll reach a critical mass of leftists and something revolutionary might spark that I had one one-millionth of a hand in causing. Feels unfair to ask even e-celeb lefties to somehow create a political power where one isn't.
Correct! That is exactly my point. It is THE major problem and contradiction that must be solved prior to any 'actual' political work getting done in the west.
It's a very classic chicken-egg problem. Most YouTubers or podcasters don't even bother trying to address it as it removes the unintentional obfuscation of what their efforts actually are. Some have tried, such as Haz, but his was a project of ego rather than a connection to any real political movement (and that is besides the ideological idiocy and incoherency of his movement).
Perhaps that is the 'best' thing you can do. But it is important not to mistake what the 'best' ideological thing is for 'praxis'. I'd argue there is more 'praxis' in becoming a part of a church than in posting online, no matter how correct your theory of change is.
I am not asking leftist e-celebs to create political power where there is none. In fact, I am asking for the opposite! I am asking them to acknowledge and be aware that what they are doing does not generate political power.
Ah I was replying to your previous comment to me, but then I glanced here. I think you are right here. It's not praxis, but I guess I think they can be doing something parallel to praxis if they are also calling to join specific goods orgs. idk if they do that tho. I do know people who joined orgs after having watched similar youtube vids that got them out of liberal ideas. If they will be effective in revolution, i have no idea
It remains to be seen. Imo watching YouTube videos can be a good start, but without a follow-up community organization that also has some level of labor or volunteer organizing (i.e. not just a book club), it just doesn't add up to much. We can complain and be right, but those actions a theory of organization and change does not make.
It is so interesting to me how people seem to imagine a working-class party with considerable power and influence appearing out of thin air and without any work. … Like, yeah, that would be great, but it isn’t the world we live in yet. But the reality is that building a meaningful “left” means being highly committed to doing the work of actually building it. That is the whole point of a vanguard (if that is your thing) anyway, that people who reach a certain level of ideological advancement begin to do the work, and apply it to the real work, collectively, and begin the arduous task of winning over the masses of people. They treat it something like a second job, and do everything they can to build a real institution of working class power that has integrated, or build ties, into whatever organic efforts the working class has made to self-organize.
If you read the guidelines and expectations from the Black Panther Party, for instance, it sounds incredibly intense. They were expected to do work every day organizing, to report their work daily as well, to read theory for an hour a day, as well as the news. The BPP started off with just two college friends who read a lot of theory, they only had any meaningful impact, and could punch way a ove their weight because thousands of people joined and made a commitment to build it. If you are discouraged because it doesn’t exist yet, or seems anemic, maybe the problem is that too many people have a liberal attitude, that they see that the work needs to be done but expect others to do it for them.
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Yup, you have to look at other countries and how they do things. Zero American Excellence.
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