Like a moment that seemed insignificant and unimportant at the time, but looking back was in fact a pivotal moment in pushing you towards radicalization.

For me probably being introduced to Guitar Hero at my friend's house in like summer 2007. At the time it was just another day, but looking back I ended up falling in love with those games, I ended up being introduced to The Ramones and even more importantly the Dead Kennedys through them, which caused me to get into punk music and resulted in me adopting very critical attitudes towards larger American society, attitudes which later grew into anarchism and then Marxism

  • mathemachristian [he/him]
    ·
    3 months ago

    Probably when I stopped regarding the bible as the literal word of god, but as stories by men about god. Suddenly a lot of stuff made more sense, granted this was more due to the contradictions becoming insurmountable, but this approach of thinking, where you find the position that marries the most contradictions helped me a lot. Also is very satisfying.

    • miz [any, any]
      ·
      3 months ago

      it was exhausting being a liberal, every time Lucy pulled the football it required lots of mental gymnastics.

      it's exhausting being a marxist but in an entirely different way— your predictions turn out correct

        • quarrk [he/him]
          ·
          3 months ago

          idk being a liberal was extremely frustrating for me. Anxiously following polls and election results, volunteering time and money, and even when your person wins seeing nothing change anyway — I don’t like the word but cuck is really the only way to describe it.

          At least as a Marxist I can be disappointed but also understand wtf is going on

    • sOlitude24k@lemmy.myserv.one
      ·
      3 months ago

      I thought I was a liberal, but it turns out I didn't know what words even mean, apparently. Because it's not what I thought it was! This post made me Google things.

      Probably not a popular take in this community, but apparently I fall in somewhere between Democratic Socialism and Centrist Marxism, with a sprinkle of Social Democracy thrown in. Big props to LeftValues for giving me a start on that. Marxism-Leninism score of 0%, though, so that's odd to me. I thought there works be at least some shared values, but my fondness for decentralization means probably not. Seems like there's a lot to learn. At the very least, it seems like everyone wants things to get better.

      • mathemachristian [he/him]
        ·
        3 months ago

        I can recommend https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Category:Crit%27s_absolute_beginner_reading_list for more about Marxism-Leninism. There is also the sidebar in https://hexbear.net/c/anarchism for more about that, if that makes more sense to you maybe.

        Anyway I am not big on labels as I have

        a) read too little theory to be calling myself this or that
        b) the debate about whether I am more x or y is pointless hairsplitting which does not serve any meaningful purpose

        • sOlitude24k@lemmy.myserv.one
          ·
          3 months ago

          Right on! I made a post in communism for some resources as well, although that community looks like it might be mildly dead. I appreciate the links!

          • mathemachristian [he/him]
            ·
            3 months ago

            I don't know what instance you're talking about, about hexbear is probably the most active explicitly left-wing instance in the lemmyverse. There is hexbear.net/c/askchapo or hexbear.net/c/lib_rehab if you want to ask a bit more spicy questions. Or pick any other comm that semi-fits what you want, it doesn't matter too much.

            hexbear.net/c/theory is probably where you want to go if you want to read more theory and there is also

            https://bulletins.hexbear.net/posts/readinglist/

            There probably are also very valuable comms on lemmygrad.ml but I don't know about that instance too well unfortunately.