See this is what mean.
Some things aren't able to be said in span of a catchphrase. That isn't self-aggrandising or insufferable, It's just the way the world is. Some subjects are complicated and sometimes condensing things down to a soundbite simply isn't possible.
I disagree. Slogans have worked in the past, but when it comes to leftist theory and the materialist reality of 2021, capitalist propaganda has done too good of a job of brainwashing people.
With only the most basic concept of these things and all context stripped out, people fill in the rest with the nonstop propaganda they constantly absorb, and boom - you come out the other side with Gommunism killed billions and Gulags were exactly the same as Nazi concentration camps.
Last year when I was being radicalized, I sent my wife what I thought was relatively harmless positive info on the USSR (it was really mostly just pastoral images that were meant to combat the "in communist Russia, everything was gray and everyone wore the same clothes" narrative) and she had a breakdown because she knew I was a good person and didn’t understand why I was sympathetic to the USSR. It scared her because she thought Stalin killed millions and the Gulags were death camps. And that’s from a (at the time) progressive DemSoc liberal.
It took a couple long phone calls (I was away with my family because a family member had terminal cancer) to give her the context and talk through some of the propaganda and systems in place to uphold capitalism and multiple long articles being sent to her (including the CIA reports) about the Gulags being mostly full of ordinary criminals, the amount of food they got, the expectations of work in them, etc. before she was able to wrap her head around it all, and even then she was still shook.
A Koan wouldn't have changed her mind. Long-form discussion and writing did.
That's not to say you need to jump to throwing every volume of Das Kapital at people on the street. You can start from a basic place of anti-capitalism, and slogans and whatever else might get people to agree but without taking the time to go beyond that, there will be a limit to their class consciousness and revolutionary participation.
There's a reason that literacy is always one of the first things emphasized and achieved in communist societies.
btw I just experienced the perfect counter to this - try talking about communism in the comments on a leftist or anti-capitalist tiktok with a 100 character limit and you'll very quickly see the limits.
"Oh so you just want everything stolen from people then."
"Capitalism is more fair than socialism and Communism"
Please counter those statements in a meaningful way in 100 characters.
I would say left ideas persist because there are many, many, many examples of well-constructed, long-form writing that you can point people to if they actually show interest in learning from short word count interactions.
I know people aren't stupid.
See this is what mean. Some things aren't able to be said in span of a catchphrase. That isn't self-aggrandising or insufferable, It's just the way the world is. Some subjects are complicated and sometimes condensing things down to a soundbite simply isn't possible.
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I disagree. Slogans have worked in the past, but when it comes to leftist theory and the materialist reality of 2021, capitalist propaganda has done too good of a job of brainwashing people.
With only the most basic concept of these things and all context stripped out, people fill in the rest with the nonstop propaganda they constantly absorb, and boom - you come out the other side with Gommunism killed billions and Gulags were exactly the same as Nazi concentration camps.
Last year when I was being radicalized, I sent my wife what I thought was relatively harmless positive info on the USSR (it was really mostly just pastoral images that were meant to combat the "in communist Russia, everything was gray and everyone wore the same clothes" narrative) and she had a breakdown because she knew I was a good person and didn’t understand why I was sympathetic to the USSR. It scared her because she thought Stalin killed millions and the Gulags were death camps. And that’s from a (at the time) progressive DemSoc liberal.
It took a couple long phone calls (I was away with my family because a family member had terminal cancer) to give her the context and talk through some of the propaganda and systems in place to uphold capitalism and multiple long articles being sent to her (including the CIA reports) about the Gulags being mostly full of ordinary criminals, the amount of food they got, the expectations of work in them, etc. before she was able to wrap her head around it all, and even then she was still shook.
A Koan wouldn't have changed her mind. Long-form discussion and writing did.
That's not to say you need to jump to throwing every volume of Das Kapital at people on the street. You can start from a basic place of anti-capitalism, and slogans and whatever else might get people to agree but without taking the time to go beyond that, there will be a limit to their class consciousness and revolutionary participation.
There's a reason that literacy is always one of the first things emphasized and achieved in communist societies.
(inb4 I get hit with the TL;DR)
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:wat:
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btw I just experienced the perfect counter to this - try talking about communism in the comments on a leftist or anti-capitalist tiktok with a 100 character limit and you'll very quickly see the limits.
"Oh so you just want everything stolen from people then."
"Capitalism is more fair than socialism and Communism"
Please counter those statements in a meaningful way in 100 characters.
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"I don't know what that means"
"They deserve it because they create jobs"
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Well they gave me the job, the business needs to make money too, or else I won't have a job anymore.
His money isn't liquid, if he cashed it all in the entire economy would collapse.
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I do get the idea, I just don't think you'll convince anyone because their propaganda-riddled brains just move to the next excuse.
"Yeah but the owners won't have an incentive to keep the business open if they don't make money"
"My retirement is in the stock market so if Bezos cashes out then other people will and I'll lose everything"
This is shit I see again and again when I try to argue the same points your making. It doesn't work in short form.
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I would say left ideas persist because there are many, many, many examples of well-constructed, long-form writing that you can point people to if they actually show interest in learning from short word count interactions.
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Whatever dude we don't agree so we can stop
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tldr