How The Next Financial Crisis Happens► Get 20% off DeleteMe US consumer plans when you go to http://joindeleteme.com/Andrei20 and use promo code ANDREI20 at ...
While I’m optimistic about overall geopolitical developments and the collapse of the western hegemony that we’re seeing, I feel equally bleak about the prospects for those of us in the imperial core.
It really is a strange feeling isn’t it? Feeling giddy at the death of empire, while dreading it’s effects on you and your community…
The left is still incredibly disorganized, and it’s largely bickering about irrelevant things.
I think this issue stems from the wider disorganization of the working class as a whole. How can the tip of the spear be anyway effective, if the stick it’s placed on is but a bundle of straw loosely wrapper together.
The key problem is that people simply reject proven ideas out of hand, and retreat into reactionary tendencies instead. We have to get past this whole AES states are scary and authoritarian nonsense to even begin organizing in a meaningful way.
Although I agree, my question follows, how do you get people to understand this? We can complain about capitalist propaganda and the nature of how capitlism blunts potential revolutionaries, yet how do we grapple with it? If it’s against the labor aristocrat/petty bourgeois blunted reformist’s interest to question these things, how do we overcome this reality and directly dismantle this narrative to the masses?
Again, we can complain about this tendency all we like, but it exists due to material factors. It’s something we have to contend with regardless of how illogical we make it out to be.
Yet, so much discourse on the left is poisoned by anarchists running around screeching about hierarchies and evils of authority.
I’m going to be honest, I see anarchist as bringing little to nothing when it comes to this struggle, beyond perhaps local mutual aid networks. Their agitprop is, imo, less effective towards the masses, and honestly I believe the ML agitprop has largely superceded them outside niche internet leftist circles. I say this not to discredit their potential conflict with revolutionaries, but to provide my experience with public perceptions of anarchism.
Not to mention all the libs pretending to be on the left and peddling reformism.
I choose to include them in the “left” of the US. Not because they are revolutionary, or even really because they have any revolutionary potential, but because, against our vexing agitation, they are perceived as the left within western societies. We can be upset with this, but it does not change the fact that they occupy the supermajority of political “space” of what is considered left.
Again, I posit, regardless of our dislike of the reformists, we must admit that they are a result of the Western worlds position in global class relations. Their existence is the rational result of imperialist superprofits creating a labor aristrocy, as well as the imperialist world system advantages western workers through the dollar system. With this understanding, what is the solution to carving out a space for revolutionaries in the political landscape in such conditions.
We can be furious about to the hand dealt, at the fact that reformism dominating the mainstream left is the logical outcome of our conditions, but that doesn’t provide a tactical guide on how to wrest control of the narritive.
Most people on the left fail to even to spend the time to learn the substance of what socialism is, or the historical and material conditions we find ourselves in. And that’s a prerequisite to having any meaningful discussion on the subject. As Mao put it, no investigation, no right to speak.
Why are they not learning is the question I want to ask here? Is it because they are materially biased against the implementation of socialism due to imperialism or is it because we revolutionaries are failing to educate properly?
In the former case that’s, once again, not a battle we can will our way to victory to, as it’s the logical outcome of our conditions that produces the mental block. It’s not feasible to try and trick those benifetimh from imperialism to break with it, as they are acting in a materially rational manner.
If it’s the latter case, then what is it we are doing wrong? What’s the best course of action to amending out flaws in this regard? Who must we target to produce a revolutionary consciousness and are the conditions such that there are enough of those people to awaken that consciousness in, so that a revolution can be seized upon?
For case 1, you can’t convince someone whose paid to be ignorant, and in case 2, there’s obviously so kind of discussion that needs to be happen rapidly.
So, in my view, we’re not even at a point where we can actually organize or build any kind of movement. For that to happen, people have to start learning and understanding both the historical context and the theory to build a common understanding of the problems and the necessary solutions. It means building a shared mental model for how capitalism works, and what can be done about it. Unfortunately, I just don’t see how that happens before the west descends into open fascism.
This is the thing that churns my gut the most. If the conditions don’t yet exist to allow us to save ourselves, what are the lives lost in the struggle to establish socialism in the West?
Are they simply martyrs? Sacrifices upon the alter of history for the sake of societal progress? Fated to die struggling against a world that did not care for them when it mattered?
Am I cowardly for wanting to avoid that fate, choosing to try and flee to the socialist haven across the sea? Most don’t have that luxury, but what is being called a coward compared to actually getting to live. That’s where it gets personal for me.
I guess I’ve grown up in a world dominated by the US, where in which my community has been demonized for my entire life in one way or the other. And from that circumstance, I have not a single ounce of loyalty to the US and it’s global order by any metric. I would simply rather hide from it somewhere else if fighting it means certain pointless death for me, my community, and those I love.
I guess that really shows the true USian in me.
A selfishness that persists regardless of circumstance…
Ultimately what it all comes down to is that revolutionary conditions don’t exist in the west. And being materialists we know that you can’t just manifest things into existence the way libs or anarchists imagine. So, the current period has to be accepted for what it is, and communists have to prepare for the likely outcome. which will be naked fascism as best we can.
In terms of libs being treated as the left in the west, I see that as a major problem because they managed to hijack the term and divert it away from the class struggle. In my opinion, this has to be denounced at every possible opportunity in the strongest terms. There is also no point trying to reason with people who are still in the liberal mainstream, the target audience has to be people who become disillusioned with liberalism and start falling out of it. These are the people who have not yet formed strong opinions, and who are starting to realize that the status quo is not working. They are the most receptive audience.
And the question of why people aren’t learning isn’t actually difficult to answer. What it comes down to is whether holding a particular view has a tangible perceived impact on the person. Situations where people see direct cause and effect are easy for people to reason about. However, when the connection is not clear then it’s much harder for people to tell whether one set of beliefs is more correct than another. In these scenarios people will default to ideas that fit closer with their overall world view.
There’s a thermodynamics aspect to this too. Each idea that a person holds is part of an intricate web of other ideas and concepts that they’ve internalized. Invalidating an idea means reworking the whole graph of ideas associated with it. That takes a lot more energy than simply discarding the idea that doesn’t fit. In absence of some external pressure forcing the person to do this work, the existing beliefs will be generally preferred.
So, unless there is a clear and direct pressure forcing the person to reconsider their world view, they will continue to cling to it. This goes back to material conditions having to be right for people to start thinking in a different way from one they’ve been conditioned to.
Personally, I don’t see it as cowardice to want to escape all this if you have the means. Especially by moving to a socialist state where you can put your skills toward good use.
But then there are heavily disabled people who are highly vulnerable and whose ability to contribute to revolution or socialist development are limited.
I go through the same train of thought probably most days of the week
-empire is crumbling
-how tf does no one care or see this
-it will get very bad, and potentially on the turn of a heel
-I need a contigency plan
-wait but is that selfish?
-fuck it, I don’t owe my (lack of) community anything -one less white person in North america if I leave
-wait I’m abandoning the inevitable victims to fend for themselves then
-I need to read more
-no I need to buy beans and medicine ect
*gives up
The only thing else I’ll add is to not undermine the propaganda value of leaving (specifically to China for your case). Although personally I want to go to Russia. Part of my family comes from Russia (doukhobor) so it just feel less… Idk, passport bro like.
Anyhow there is great value in being the communist person who went to China and is now living a much more desirable life. As opposed to getting arrested by palantir. But that’s probably cope. Idk
It really is a strange feeling isn’t it? Feeling giddy at the death of empire, while dreading it’s effects on you and your community…
I think this issue stems from the wider disorganization of the working class as a whole. How can the tip of the spear be anyway effective, if the stick it’s placed on is but a bundle of straw loosely wrapper together.
Although I agree, my question follows, how do you get people to understand this? We can complain about capitalist propaganda and the nature of how capitlism blunts potential revolutionaries, yet how do we grapple with it? If it’s against the labor aristocrat/petty bourgeois blunted reformist’s interest to question these things, how do we overcome this reality and directly dismantle this narrative to the masses?
Again, we can complain about this tendency all we like, but it exists due to material factors. It’s something we have to contend with regardless of how illogical we make it out to be.
I’m going to be honest, I see anarchist as bringing little to nothing when it comes to this struggle, beyond perhaps local mutual aid networks. Their agitprop is, imo, less effective towards the masses, and honestly I believe the ML agitprop has largely superceded them outside niche internet leftist circles. I say this not to discredit their potential conflict with revolutionaries, but to provide my experience with public perceptions of anarchism.
I choose to include them in the “left” of the US. Not because they are revolutionary, or even really because they have any revolutionary potential, but because, against our vexing agitation, they are perceived as the left within western societies. We can be upset with this, but it does not change the fact that they occupy the supermajority of political “space” of what is considered left.
Again, I posit, regardless of our dislike of the reformists, we must admit that they are a result of the Western worlds position in global class relations. Their existence is the rational result of imperialist superprofits creating a labor aristrocy, as well as the imperialist world system advantages western workers through the dollar system. With this understanding, what is the solution to carving out a space for revolutionaries in the political landscape in such conditions.
We can be furious about to the hand dealt, at the fact that reformism dominating the mainstream left is the logical outcome of our conditions, but that doesn’t provide a tactical guide on how to wrest control of the narritive.
Why are they not learning is the question I want to ask here? Is it because they are materially biased against the implementation of socialism due to imperialism or is it because we revolutionaries are failing to educate properly?
In the former case that’s, once again, not a battle we can will our way to victory to, as it’s the logical outcome of our conditions that produces the mental block. It’s not feasible to try and trick those benifetimh from imperialism to break with it, as they are acting in a materially rational manner.
If it’s the latter case, then what is it we are doing wrong? What’s the best course of action to amending out flaws in this regard? Who must we target to produce a revolutionary consciousness and are the conditions such that there are enough of those people to awaken that consciousness in, so that a revolution can be seized upon?
For case 1, you can’t convince someone whose paid to be ignorant, and in case 2, there’s obviously so kind of discussion that needs to be happen rapidly.
This is the thing that churns my gut the most. If the conditions don’t yet exist to allow us to save ourselves, what are the lives lost in the struggle to establish socialism in the West?
Are they simply martyrs? Sacrifices upon the alter of history for the sake of societal progress? Fated to die struggling against a world that did not care for them when it mattered?
Am I cowardly for wanting to avoid that fate, choosing to try and flee to the socialist haven across the sea? Most don’t have that luxury, but what is being called a coward compared to actually getting to live. That’s where it gets personal for me.
I guess I’ve grown up in a world dominated by the US, where in which my community has been demonized for my entire life in one way or the other. And from that circumstance, I have not a single ounce of loyalty to the US and it’s global order by any metric. I would simply rather hide from it somewhere else if fighting it means certain pointless death for me, my community, and those I love.
I guess that really shows the true USian in me.
A selfishness that persists regardless of circumstance…
Ultimately what it all comes down to is that revolutionary conditions don’t exist in the west. And being materialists we know that you can’t just manifest things into existence the way libs or anarchists imagine. So, the current period has to be accepted for what it is, and communists have to prepare for the likely outcome. which will be naked fascism as best we can.
In terms of libs being treated as the left in the west, I see that as a major problem because they managed to hijack the term and divert it away from the class struggle. In my opinion, this has to be denounced at every possible opportunity in the strongest terms. There is also no point trying to reason with people who are still in the liberal mainstream, the target audience has to be people who become disillusioned with liberalism and start falling out of it. These are the people who have not yet formed strong opinions, and who are starting to realize that the status quo is not working. They are the most receptive audience.
And the question of why people aren’t learning isn’t actually difficult to answer. What it comes down to is whether holding a particular view has a tangible perceived impact on the person. Situations where people see direct cause and effect are easy for people to reason about. However, when the connection is not clear then it’s much harder for people to tell whether one set of beliefs is more correct than another. In these scenarios people will default to ideas that fit closer with their overall world view.
There’s a thermodynamics aspect to this too. Each idea that a person holds is part of an intricate web of other ideas and concepts that they’ve internalized. Invalidating an idea means reworking the whole graph of ideas associated with it. That takes a lot more energy than simply discarding the idea that doesn’t fit. In absence of some external pressure forcing the person to do this work, the existing beliefs will be generally preferred.
So, unless there is a clear and direct pressure forcing the person to reconsider their world view, they will continue to cling to it. This goes back to material conditions having to be right for people to start thinking in a different way from one they’ve been conditioned to.
Personally, I don’t see it as cowardice to want to escape all this if you have the means. Especially by moving to a socialist state where you can put your skills toward good use.
But then there are heavily disabled people who are highly vulnerable and whose ability to contribute to revolution or socialist development are limited.
That’s the whole from each according to their ability part of communism though. Everyone contributes at the level they are able to do.
deleted by creator
I go through the same train of thought probably most days of the week
-empire is crumbling
-how tf does no one care or see this
-it will get very bad, and potentially on the turn of a heel
-I need a contigency plan
-wait but is that selfish?
-fuck it, I don’t owe my (lack of) community anything -one less white person in North america if I leave
-wait I’m abandoning the inevitable victims to fend for themselves then
-I need to read more
-no I need to buy beans and medicine ect
*gives up
The only thing else I’ll add is to not undermine the propaganda value of leaving (specifically to China for your case). Although personally I want to go to Russia. Part of my family comes from Russia (doukhobor) so it just feel less… Idk, passport bro like.
Anyhow there is great value in being the communist person who went to China and is now living a much more desirable life. As opposed to getting arrested by palantir. But that’s probably cope. Idk