But when someone finally does, they think they’ve gone crazy for not agreeing with their politics.
TLDR less than a year ago I decided to get real serious about researching what communism actually is. Now that I’m a communist (Because doing the real research opened my eyes to a better system than capitalism, and ML seemed to be the best way to go about that), my family is questioning whether I’m like, in a cult or not? I dunno, they aren’t saying anything specific, just pushing back hard any time I prove their liberal media bubble lies to them.
I’ve opened up a politics channel on our family chat, and every time I post something about media bias, anything questioning the status quo about China, Cuba, or North Korea, it get’s scrutinized to the level of a pseudo-journalist combing every “media bias” website looking for any reason whatsoever to prove that my source is wrong (Besides, you know, just actually finding the evidence or anything). Last week a family member shared the NK story about censoring jeans… I did push back, and immediately they caved about the story and pivoted to moving the goal posts with “Well North Korea is just a dictatorship so whatever they say can’t be trusted”, then when I asked if they knew anything about NK they said “How can we? It’s so suppressive they won’t tell us anything”, which there are resources out there, they are genuinely hard to find, but I ended with “Welp they are opening up soon so you can see for yourself”. Not a single one of them knows what a politburo or peoples congress is… I have told them too, they seem to have selective memory sometimes.
If anyone posts anything from the BBC, CNN, the guardian, whatever, they give a nod and a “true true”. But second thought? Nah, that’s tankie bullshit, he’s biased, can’t be trusted… Like guys, WE’VE TALKED ABOUT MEDIA BUBBLES, YOU ARE IN ONE RIGHT NOW, I’M SHOWING YOU, I WAS WITH YOU A YEAR AGO, I GOT OUT, YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO ME.
It’s as if “media bubble” to them meant Fox news, or ONLY conservative news. But they watch the “real news” like NPR, CNN, MSNBC, BBC. So they are fine, it’s not their media bubble that was the problem. One of them admits they ONLY READ HEADLINES (Well, 95% headlines anyway), and claim that “reading news is their hobby”. Like… dude, you don’t read the news, you said it yourself, YOU READ HEADLINES. I sent them Second thoughts video about biased headlines and they’re like “But all sources do that”. And I’m like "YES THEY DO, PLEASE BE CONSCIOUS OF THIS FACT AS YOU ONLY READ HEADLINES THEN CLAIM YOU KNOW THE STORY FROM IT. AHHHHHHHH I feel like I’m going crazy :( I even tried offering my ground news subscription. I know it’s baby steps but I figured they would be interested, no bites yet.
I can’t push too hard or I just won’t ever see them again, but at this point, is it worth it? I’m nearing 40 btw, not young. We are all grown adults. I spent so long going through this transition of learning/growing, so I know it’s not fast. The older you are, the harder it is to change, especially your biases. But still, I did it, I hoped they would too. Right now they are truly practicing the backlash effect.
Thanks for listening to my rant comrades. May your propaganda efforts not be in vein!
If you love your family and they are good to you then I suggest not broaching this stuff with them very hard. Reality of the world vs the reality of being a social animal. Your relationships are still the most important thing even though we live in capitalism.
Work slowly on moving them over time. Make sure you’re not actually damaging your relationship to win an argument. You said you’ve only been doing this less than a year and that’s a crazy short amount of time to be engaging so actively with this stuff with your family.
I recommend starting with distrust and more neutrality (ex just say Russia is another country on the other side of the world defending itself, why are you scared? Or why is the US surrounding China if the US is defending itself?)
As for sources to back up this line of questioning, many people are distrustful of “breadtube” sources like secondthought because it’s a young white guy on YouTube so if they need a white guy with a PhD talking to them, I always recommend Jeffrey Sachs for things about China and Russia, Ukraine war etc. Guy was an advisor for Russian shock therapy in the 90s, PhD etc, so there is no possible way any liberal can dismiss his opinions if they’re engaging in good faith.
And don’t press all the time. You don’t want to make communists appear annoying. If you look at it from your family’s point of view, You’ve changed so radically and are always arguing for something so bizarre, of course they’d liken you to joining a cult!
You want to appear like what most people in the world want to do: just someone who wants enough money to put food on the table and relax at the end of the day. Couple that with being well informed and it’s a winning combination.
I think political discourse is going to have to take a back seat. Unfortunately, I used to have lots and lots of hobbies, but I kind of don’t anymore. So I think I need to understand my place in the Imperial Core and just play ball just a little bit more.
I woke up this morning to a bunch of very positive and helpful messages. Thank you everyone for your kind words.
They know they can’t trust the media, yet they trust everything the media publishes that’s convenient to confirm their works views.
People are not logical. We don’t pull all of them to our side at once. The work is hard. But I’m happy we’re here for each other. Everyone is welcome. :)
Thanks comrade!
I’ve experienced similar. There is this very distinctive character of the liberal who views themself as a discerning, well-informed individual, but takes imperialist news for granted as true while only applying the discerning and skeptical part to things that fall outside of that framework. I can still remember to an extent, in my own learning, the stark difference that it made understanding imperialism vs. not.
And I mean imperialism as we talk about it in these spaces and as defined through observation by communists, rather than the empty colloquial meaning people throw about that means something like “a nation that has a lot of territory and/or power/influence and wants more.” Under that meaningless other definition, you get people saying China is imperialist because it’s influential and powerful or something. And it’s like, no, we are talking about a very specific development of systems, interests, and power here.
I find this to be the case with multiple terms. “Authoritarian” is another one. I try to get people to read On Authority sometimes, in those moments. As is “dictatorship”. In communist theory and practice, we distinguish between a dictatorship of capital and a dictatorship of the proletariat. To many liberals, dictator simply means “person who makes everyone do what they say” and “democracy” is contrasted against that. Or how about capitalism vs. business and the people who think that capitalism just means having any kind of commerce.
We could probably compile a whole list of terms like this that are oversimplifications or outright distortions, and contribute to the binary thinking liberals tend to be spinning on.
Edit: slight change on wording
When I was a teenager, I remember being explicitly taught “critical thinking” at school and to read the news using lenses.
Who was speaking? What is their motivation? How do they want me to feel after reading what they wrote? Etc those “the medium is the message” questions that should come before you even read the news itself.
Now I’m called insane because I don’t believe the New York Times and if I point out the entire news media is controlled by billionaires I’m a conspiracist.
Yeah, it’s funny, I bet if I linked an NPR article that said the exact same things, they would be fine with it.
Except for the pro palestinian edge that second thought has. One person took issue with that the most.
I was talking with them one time and I said, do you really read about imperialism at all? And they said, nope, just in talking with you.
That was one point recently where I said, you know what, I’m not going to be able to teach them everything. They’re going to have to learn this on their own too.
I started listening to Chapo and hanging out on r/CTH back in 2018. It took literal years of chipping away at Western media narratives to push my family left.
Honestly one of the bigger things was introducing Means Morning News (it’s a 4-day-a-week news program offerered by the leftist co-op subscription service Means.tv, which costs $10/mo, but the Friday show is posted free most weeks) and getting them to watch it regularly, but it took a lot of pointing out the BS in Western media to get to that point. As I’m sure you know, the slant of Western media is very obvious once you’re aware of it, but your family, like most people, has been very effectively trained not to see it, and it will take time to break through that.
MMN is a fav of mine! Yeah, I’m not sure they’re ready for that. But if they only see it once a week it might not be overwhelming haha.
Point out that the reason we know so little about NK isn’t because of NK but because of the wests censorship and travel bans etc. it’s like when an abusive parent locks their kid up whenever there is a family event, and the rest of the family just believes the parents when they tell them it’s just because the kid is reclusive and doesn’t like people or some shit.
The power of propaganda under liberalism is how it absorbs critics rather than rejecting them
People start saying that the media is lying and unreliable? The created the notions of media bubble? Ok that could be bad except if you spread it hard enough through the same media that lies and distorts everything.
Then most people hear about media criticism and get a completely wrong approach that serves the media. They are taught that being critical is asking if the article from a reputable source, and then define reputable source by “the biggest media conglomerate that isn’t explicitly conservative”. Boom. Now people are even more trustful of mass media because even the “criticizing” part is in fact about trusting them
This is exactly how I feel most people are criticizing the media. I’ve been dumping liberal news sources left and right over the last year, and one of them I dumped explicitly because they said, hey, you need to become more informed about media, and the first step is trusting good sources, and this list is the best source. And of course, it was all entirely imperial core stuff.
I don’t propagate propaganda too hard, but I try to plant a seed in their minds that they are being deceived
I feel like I used to be able to do that better as a liberal ha ha. I think planting the seeds of communism just takes a lot longer, so I need to be patient.
I feel your pain. Reading and understanding ML theory while growing up in the Imperial Core is a uniquely painful experience. Thank God for spaces like Lenmygrad, where we can actually communicate and realize we’re not going insane.
Thank you, this space ha really helped a lot.
I feel you. I have one friend who is exactly like this, says stuff like “I think you need to check your sources”. The trick with these people is to literally use western sources to prove your point. Shit is getting so bad in the west wrt Ukraine, Palestine, that their own media is often telling on these people, you don’t even need to use stuff from CGTN or whatever.
The hyper pro-Western bias is like sandpaper that smooths people’s brains. Even in an academic environment speaking about forced voting, when the example was Peru, Americans will shit on it but mention they do it in Australia and suddenly people are more receptive to it. The brainwash is so deep.
Yes, I think from now on I’m gonna try to do that. I actually have been reading more controversial stuff in western sources lately, so just pointing that out to them might help.
