Title basically. He has multiple times sent me anti-communist propaganda, hes leftist but he doesnt know enough about capitalism to hate it, nor marxism to understand it. He just goes with the western mainstream left of hoping things will change by voting, even living in one of the most corrupt western governments. And just like that he hates communism with the typical 8 morbillion dead argument. I think sending him any response about this is gonna make him mad. How do I deal with this situation?
Cut him off. He has to come to the water and drink of his own volition. You’ll just break his neck if you try to drag him to the water yourself. If he’s a western white, you’re looking at 98% odds he’s a weak link anyway.
This is defeatism and counter productive. Simply cutting out the people you see teetering on the edge of communism will only isolate the movement. Free exchange of knowledge is the way forward comrade.
That’s the thing, homie doesn’t sound like they’re describing an acquaintance who’s teetering, it sounds like they’re describing an entirely propaganda-poisoned settler-- and you’re assuming that Amerika is ‘fertile’ ground for flipping in the first place. I see this landmass’s settlers as nothing more than a lost cause in almost 100% of encounters.
As a result, I don’t do shit for the settlers-- my only focus is on the colonized. If you want to deal with the settlers at the State Department’s pig trough, be my guest-- but that’ll never be my mandate or focus given I have always believed my community, the Afrikan diaspora, will never know peace, or the ability to build ourselves back up from the sociocultural oubliette we got hurled into without separating from the settlers and constructing New Afrika in their guts.
EDIT: for the pronouns
Everyone I’ve brought to the left originally had anti-communist views that needed to be debunked. It’s possible and not worth giving up in the first day. What is worth giving up is if they’re absolutely refusing to hear anything you say.
I think he might change, but he has to take the steps to learn, I hope with time he realizes that its propaganda, he has a neolib friend which I suspect is influencing him. Im afraid that simply sending him reading material might make him close up to me. And no, I don’t want to cut him off.
You’re walking a tightrope. All I know is every settler I’ve tried to make read ended up blocking me; and I’ve moved on from trying. Always figured there were more worthwhile, less wasteful places to put my energy among my own.
Thanks for the advice, I hope for the best.
To let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong, and refrain from principled argument because he is an old acquaintance, a fellow townsman, a schoolmate, a close friend, a loved one, an old colleague or old subordinate. Or to touch on the matter lightly instead of going into it thoroughly, so as to keep on good terms. The result is that both the organization and the individual are harmed. This is one type of liberalism.
The points from combat liberalism were made with regard to handling members of a party or some other revolutionary org doing a liberalism. It’s nonsensical to apply this to someone who isn’t even a communist yet.
But why should we stop explaining to people outside of communism? Is it nonsensical to expect a principled communist to not give up on explaining the theory to a fellow worker? Should we just give up because we get frustrated?
People only have so much time and patience. Bashing your head into a wall trying to explain to someone who you make no progress with is ultimately taking away time and energy that could be used explaining to more receptive people.
It’s not letting things slide, is the thing there. ‘Letting things slide’ is keeping him around despite his sending anticom propaganda. It is utter and entire condemnation to be disfellowshipped, on the other hand; and that is how I advocate for handling the lost cause.
Why won’t you reply with procom propaganda? It’s our responsibility to refute and prove wrong the anticom propaganda
Because all it’s doing is wasting time chasing up a link that even if it does get read, will only provoke them to dig their heels in. People don’t do even the potential for being wrong anymore, and as someone who’s very prone to wasting entire days arguing if left to their own devices, it’s better for my not having a fucking stroke to stop engaging.
Yeah, I feel like just throwing books or videos at your friend is not really productive. You should understand the contents of the materials you want them, to engage with, and instead, explain it yourself. You can then reference those materials as a starting point for him to learn more. This is a lot more tedious of course, but if you, as his friend, are making an honest effort to explain your view in your own words it comes off as a lot more genuine, than if you just throw stuff that other people made at him. This makes it seem as though you don’t really believe in the stuff yourself and also gives them an easy cop-out along the lines of “yeah this video/book/podcast etc. is just commie propaganda and I will not even look at it”. If you rephrase the arguments they are more likely to actually think about them, and also more likely to subsequently look at the sources you provided.
Not only that, but anyone looking to convince anyone of communist arguments needs to actually be doing some form of community work. People are more likely to actually entertain our ideas if they know we are active in our organizing. Not saying this characterizes OP, but too many people in this movement are armchair communists.
Yeah, I have to work with him on this, not against him.
Exactly! Refer to the other comment I made in this thread to get a more concrete example of how that would look like. Also, I have been using this tactic with a lot of my friends and it I’ve seen some pretty good results so far. Of course not everyone will engage in good faith, nothing you can do about that. But for those that do, this strategy has proven pretty effective in my personal experience.
I don’t expect America to have a revolution anytime soon nor do I think it’s the place where the global revolution will begin but spreading class consciousness, through whatever means, will always be a good thing. Yes many people are lost causes, it happens, but socdems are left enough that just a little deprogramming can drag them into the fold. This particular point is personal to me because I was that person. I was a Berniebro socdem who thought Scandinavian was pretty cool actually and also communism will never work because human nature and 80 morbillion deaths etc etc. I got better because I was confronted with my own contradictions. Had no one forced that interaction I would not be here.
I understand your pessimism but it will get us no where