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?
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.