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felipeforte@lemmygrad.ml

I suck at converting liberals (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 2 weeks ago by SovietReporter@lemmygrad.ml to c/comradeship@lemmygrad.ml

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I was talking to a friend yesterday who is also a coder. His parents are Chinese from the region where Hong Kong is, but he was raised in America. And he kept saying that capitalism is not perfect, but is the best that we got and that there is not real freedom on socialism because you cannot vote the poliburo out and that Marxism has been tried and didn’t work out but that capitalism adapts to the real world with trial and error and blah blah.

No matter what I said, he wouldn’t yield. We spent an hour and a half on a discussion about it. It ended up with him saying “We are not going to convince each other so let’s stop”. Mind you that he was the one who kept asking me question but barely let me speak.

He was like “I read about Marxism, and I just realized that it doesn’t apply to the real world”

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[–] AnarchoBolshevik@lemmygrad.ml 14 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I gave up on trying to persuade anticommunists long ago. You can benefit lurkers by deconstructing anticommunists’ arguments, but your chances of actually getting anticommunists to question their own politics are quite low.

Your time would be better spent assisting strikers, helping the homeless, donating a dollar to a good cause, or simply studying more. You cannot help those who won’t help theirselves. Capitalism’s increasing pressure on lower-class people like us is what is mainly going to drive many into questioning anticommunism, not conversation.

If you still think that attempting to persuade casual anticommunists is worthwhile then you would do well to borrow the classic rabbinic tradition of discouraging an interested party three times. Just don’t actively seek out recruits, especially if they are upper-class or petty bourgeois. There are better things that you could be doing.

[–] MarxMadness@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 2 weeks ago

don’t actively seek out recruits

Seems pretty contrary to building a mass movement.

I think the better approach is to talk about leftist approaches to political issues whenever those issues pop up, just don't push too hard/get into struggle sessions. That doesn't convince anyone and it only exhausts you. Put another perspective on the table besides capitalist realism and talk to people to the extent they're interested.