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Western communists have this weird obsession with purity. You must be the Perfect Communist at all times, or else you aren't a real communist. Org work is still "work" and we can get burnt out, or not have the energy, or have other things going on in our lives.
We all have different limits and struggles. Someone failing to understand the most basic core concept of community outreach is the one failing to be a "real life communist" not someone who needs a break. You're not the PLA on the Long March, you can take time to deal with your own mental and physical health.
We're fucked in the head by lingering christianity-poisoning. Obsessed with worthiness, purity, righteousness and soft sad martyrdom
I literally cannot function anymore without analyzing and dissecting almost everything I see or hear about in Marxist perspective, I cannot hear about any politician or person into that stuff without immediately looking into his/her entire history with anything to do with politics. I cannot enjoy media or random shit on TV without overanalyzing it or getting mad if it has even the slightest bit of liberalism or yankee propaganda, not to mention shitting on almost every country which isn't communist in every possible way unless it's an ally of AES.
tl;dr are we stupid?
getting mad if it has even the slightest bit of liberalism or yankee propaganda
Unless you have lots of communist media to enjoy, you might want to save your anger for the things that matter more, because there's way too much media that is excessive in the liberalism, let alone slightest bit
Be kind to people, cruel to systems. Some communists have been so busy reading theory they forget to read the room.
I'm sorry to hear about how you're struggling. Don't let some individual obnoxious people compromise your values. As long as you're an ally to the working class, you're plenty fine.
No I understand. The people I organize with won't ever be my friends I think. They don't have to be, I have a perfect set of friends myself. It's not that I dislike them but I guess I just tolerate them and we strive for the same thing, which is nice. We just don't share the same interests, humour, whatever.
There are cliques within the party, nepotism, smugness, you make it, we have it. There are also very friendly people though so I guess it just boils down to who you organize with and who is close to you.
At the end of the day I am organizing though. And so are they. And we are getting successes. We just need to keep finding ways to co-operate.
others seem to just grandstand as these "scientific beings" that really are just emotionally bankrupt and care zero about anything but "resolving the next contradiction" which is just fucking ridiculous and cult-like.
These types of nerds are so annoying, they're like 2006 reddit atheists but communist.
Reading theory is for nerds, and sometimes us nerds are... yeah. We all gotta put in the work to be comradely in our orgs and spaces.
You aren't a liberal for being human. It is something to remember that some of us are not the best "people person" types and either need to work on that more, or need to find others who can better do those roles. Using myself as an example, I'm good at being diplomatic, but chatting up strangers has never been one of my strengths; it's possible I could make it one with enough time and motivation, but right now, it's not. Not having that strength will cut off capabilities for me that people who can do that, have. I also have an easier time getting into meta, deep concepts than some, but it does little if I can't present it to others in a way that communicates its value effectively and contributes to the advancement of liberation and the advancement of more compassionate and stable conditions for people.
We have different strengths, in other words, and no matter what an individual works on, they will still lack in some areas. That's one of the reasons organizing together and complementing each other, in both strengths and struggles, is so important.
While I agree entirely, a part of me wishes I didn't.
Not all people are my "fellow" humans, at most they're "humans" (and they are) but that's the most I can give them. And here in the imperial core the bar is so low, and yet so many people fail to meet it. And I'm still kind (unless someone is a ghoul I'll be kind unless given a reason not to be) but I feel nothing positive from it towards such people (not that that's the point), rather I feel silenced, and it eats at me when I have to see the results of the "unjust peace" (not that what's going on in the world or even within the cores can be remotely described as "peace") and live in it, particularly with the Sinophobic sword of Damocles hanging over my head (ethnic Chinese myself), or with literal industrial genocide going on and the west goosestepping towards WW3 and open fascism.
I don't have the emotional availability to deal with all the... microaggressions (that may not even necessarily mean anything or be intended), or the "western-isms" or just plain liberalism. I can be kind and will be (unless given proper reason not to be- it would be so much easier if it were just simple that way) but I only feel I lose something from it. Honestly I feel I need to just insulate myself within (or rather, from) this society and live, or get the hell out (which may be a necessity if things get bad enough).
Sounds depressing, but it's more of a flip of a coin or something (and if politics and all the demagoguery landmines present in the current cultural context don't get brought up it's probably going to be fine). Sometimes there are decent people and I'm reminded of why I like people, other times I'm reminded of just why I'm so utterly repulsed, disgusted, and alienated with this society (even if perhaps my issue is more with the system and context than necessarily individuals who may or may not be so offensive- I can hold my ground if nothing else). Helps that I don't speak too much with just anyone (and intend to become more selective yet, for my own mental health's sake), I suppose.
it eats at me when I have to see the results of the “unjust peace” (not that what’s going on in the world or even within the cores can be remotely described as “peace”) and live in it, particularly with the Sinophobic sword of Damocles hanging over my head (ethnic Chinese myself), or with literal industrial genocide going on and the west goosestepping towards WW3 and open fascism.
I can't pretend to understand the part about being ethnically Chinese in the imperial core, as I definitely qualify as "white" myself, but the part about "unjust peace" resonates with me in some way. I don't know if my mind is going to quite the same places, but there's something about the normalcy of things in the US that def eats at me. One expression of this where I notice it is, of all places, dating apps. I don't know what it is about it, but seeing profile after profile that has all this individualistic language about a personal lifestyle, while perhaps the most documented-in-real-time and widely publicized genocide in history is being funded and enabled by the US, is such a disorienting feeling. There's the odd profile here and there that mentions it, maybe some of it's my locale, but it's like overall, this juxtaposition of liberal individualism against the realities of what is happening in the world. Like the implied assumption is that the current system works and will keep working and everybody will sort of get to do their own thing if they try hard enough for it, and it's like, are many of these people putting on a face but don't believe the system is going to last, or are they sleepwalking through it in a political education sense of things.
And I'll be honest, I don't think I'm doing the best I could be doing in my own case, with regards to these things. I might be doing the best I can manage right now, but I can probably work to do better going forward. And I think that's part of the disorienting feeling for me too. Like having one feet in and one foot out. But I can never unsee everything I've seen and I can't ever feel normal going back what it felt like before I was more aware of what's going on in the world beyond the imperialist bubble of propaganda. And the fact that I can't means it's all the harder to relate to a lot of people. So I can put on a face and do the individualist lifestyle dance to a point, but sometimes it feels like putting on a brave face for a kid. I know that would probably sound demeaning to people and places it applies to, but it's the best analogy I can think of at the moment. It's like this thing of pretending things are normal when they aren't because it's too upsetting to others if you don't at least try to, to a degree. That doesn't mean I never bring up the issues I care about, but it's like, trying to find the right balance of being able to meet people where they are at in order to have any chance of moving the needle and taking a principled stand. That is hard, when the default position for so many in the US is confident spew that contains various levels of barely-contained vile; and I'm not even talking about people who are openly fascist or whatever. More just the stomach-turning nature of liberalism.
but the part about "unjust peace" resonates with me in some way.
I used it because it resonated with me as well (it's a term described by MLK, lambasting "white moderates.")
Personally you nailed it- everyone knows (for the right or wrong reasons- hell, nowadays most can recognize at least some of the right reasons) that the system is wholly unsustainable, and wholly unjustifiable. Anyone with the decency to recognize it (sadly this is less common) can recognize the sheer and utter horror of the system- something that has always been present, but which now has reached such intolerable levels once again not seen in a century. And people are sleepwalking, or even if they are aware, trying to look the other way, and it's like living in an upside-down, bizzaro world.
So I can put on a face and do the individualist lifestyle dance to a point, but sometimes it feels like putting on a brave face for a kid. I know that would probably sound demeaning to people and places it applies to
Maybe it sounds demeaning. In truth (while I'm aware sometimes there are good reasons- maybe even "oftentimes" depending on context) it's both accurate and deserved IMO. We're doing the song-and-dance while modern-day Hitlers like Genocide Joe, Holocaust Harris, and the mean orange man (and the league of western fascists- equally irredeemable ghouls ranging from Macron to Trudeau or Scholz, etc) march us all to armageddon (and compared to what else is on the table, that may be an optimistic outcome- a quick death). And as you said, the default position- even if it's not fascist, or even has some awareness and criticism of liberalism, is still just poisoned, biased, or will happily look the other way (for "peace," after all) as all of the above trample over any notion of basic human decency.
leftists are the vegans of the political world; they're right but they're so annoying that a majority will have a double cheeseburger out of pure spite, even if it's harmful.
My own experience with local organizing in the Imperial Corps is similar but different in important ways.
The local communist group is trying to be active in impactful wats, especially around Palestine, which is awesome. At the end of the day, we work with a ton of people that are not communists, which is great! We're trying to bring people in, and after all, the group that we are directly participating in is a pro-Palestine group, not communist directly.
But many of the core members seem to have a lot more emphasis on building "us", instead of helping Palestine. And that has rubbed a bunch of people, including me, the wrong way. In fact, they aren't necessarily ultra-communists that are armchair theorists, but unfortunately they just aren't seemingly doing the work that the public actually wants.
To be fair, organizing around my area is really tough. There's a ton of anarchists who would rather just light fires and walk away than do what we would call principled work, communist or not.
Don't feel bad about not wanting to participate in the purists or the ones that maybe don't have their heart in the right place. It's totally fine, and it doesn't make you a liberal, and I don't think anybody on here is gonna think less of you for it.
