I never get tired of 'em. I know we've discussed this before. I know the process is ongoing, not necessarily based on a single event, and depends a lot on your position in society. If discussing the radicalization of others, don't mention any methods unless people specifically told you that certain things radicalized them.

For me, I was a left-liberal for most of my life. Long story short, I ran in a state senate election trying to be as friendly to everyone as possible. The one thing I really wouldn't budge on was universal health care, since I knew from experience that it worked. I lost my election BADLY to a guy who ran on no platform at all, although he had much better name recognition. I worked so hard on that campaign and really was devastated and had to look for answers. Stupid as it sounds, at around that time I found the r/chapotraphouse subreddit and started listening to the podcast. That led to me listening to much better podcasts (like Revleft Radio), reading actual theory, and giving up on the Chapo podcast entirely once Bernie lost the last primary.

I'm always trying to radicalize others but I just usually get nowhere. George Floyd's death plus coronavirus I think resulted in a lot of people reconsidering things, but it seems like many of them have kind of swung back in the other direction now, at least as far as I can tell from watching my friends on Facebook. I've been arguing with my lib dad for months about all of this shit, with the result that he has actually gotten much better at deflecting Marxist points than the average lib lol. Sometimes I can get him to admit that everything is fucked and that Marxism is the only answer, at other times he'll say that we need to make friends with local business owners (some of the worst fucking people in the universe) and not alienate them.

Anyway, if you feel like writing your radicalization story or the radicalization stories of others, I'm happy to read.

  • lvysaur [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Yeah, I've been working on my video editing skills. I know that I have to be the change I wish to see in this world.

    I meant it as a problem that must be overcome, didn't mean to sound defeatist and say that I'm explicitly not doing it because of that.

    • Reversi [none/use name]
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      4 years ago

      So to look at this a bit more closely:

      It seems like as long as you very clearly delineate the original intent of race science--and point out the certain figures like Charles Darwin and Franz Boas, the gods of their fields, were anti-racist, you'll make headway. Further, if you point out the flaws of popular ideas of race science and re-establish it as something more factual and more 'neutral,' you'll get through to them.

      Liberals love science as an aesthetic already. You're halfway there.

      • lvysaur [he/him]
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        edit-2
        4 years ago

        It seems like as long as you very clearly delineate the original intent of race science–and point out the certain figures like Charles Darwin and Franz Boas, the gods of their fields, were anti-racist

        Charles Darwin wasn't an anti-racist though, unless I'm severly mistaking something. I remember many explicitly racist passages from darwin

        I do believe that a minority of the work done by race "scientists" of the 1800s-1900s may have been legitimate, but it's very hard to tell which those are. Additionally, even if the work was unbiased a huge deal of it is confounded by environmentally changeable variables (for instance just getting proper food causes North Koreans to shoot up from 5'4" to 5'9" in just two generations--even though there's still a huge lack of calcium even in the South Korean diet)

        • Reversi [none/use name]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Not anti-racist, you're right--I was thinking anti-slavery. But you get the idea.