this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2026
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I don't believe you. I mean, I believe that you wrote this with sincerity, but I don't believe that is what actually occurred. This is a view of change that implies it came down to tools everyone has in equal measure and you choosing to use them where others don't, which is easily disproven and looks a lot like individualist willpower view.
Even if this were universally true, which is questionable to begin with, there is still a metric ton of propaganda to turn people astray and there is the existing inertia of the pervasively integrated superstructure across basically all facets of life. It is possible for people to change, but if you expect them to change simply because they view some information that contradicts their worldview, that is unrealistic.
I can say that in my case, having empathy and critical thinking skills may have helped once I started adopting and integrating anti-imperialist, pro-communist information, but those things are not a guarantee of becoming ML at all. For example, critical thinking can be redirected toward getting lost in the weeds of bougie philosophy and individualist intellectual superiority. Empathy can be redirected toward hating AES states because of believing atrocity propaganda. And I don't mean this hypothetically. It's clear that these are active angles the exploiting classes play on to steer people wrong.
I didn't wake up one day and say "this is all bullshit", I had some persistent exposure to information that challenged my worldview and through that, gradually developed. There was a point where I was sympathetic to commies but still believed in Bernie Sanders. I think his colossal failure helped push me past that. Had he succeeded, become president, and pushed through various reforms, I might still be languishing as an underdeveloped vaguely "leftist" right now.
That's fine. I don't need the approval or belief of some random person online. My history and my growth as a person are my own and I don't talk about it lightly. You also seem to be assuming I just like, woke up one day and was a communist or some shit. No, it took a few years, but what I was exposed to was no different the what everyone else was. But to me it was wrong and cruel. I feel shame for what I used to believe, but I changed myself, I learned, and I did it using the same tools everyone else had. And it was much harder to find information back then then it is now. And that's the point I'm making. It's sooo much easier now. The oligarchy has to work so much harder to censors things BECAUSE it's so much more wide spread. I remember saving YouTube videos with like, a couple thousand views that were amazing information. Now we have better produced versions out there with 100 times the views. Not to mention podcasts. When I was having my mind changed about China there wasn't a lick of easy access information about it. They hadn't even really made major progress on the air pollution back then. And don't even mention the DPRK. Now though? It's next to impossible NOT to see it. It's so damn easy.
So no, I won't give them the benefit of the doubt. I won't feel sorry for them. Many of us communists are out there every day trying to change people minds, only for them to dismissively label us tankies like its slur and ignore the facts we present. So fuck em. They have it easy while innocent's across the globe suffer. My empathy has better uses.
These two do not make sense together. One the one hand, you claim everyone has the same information. On the other hand, you claim it was really hard to find the needed information when you were changing as a person. What I hear is "when I was learning to be a communist, I had to walk uphill both ways in a blizzard and people have it easy now and they still don't learn, so fuck em." This is bootstraps individualism hiding under a commie flag.
Having access to a tool, and using it, are different things. I was exposed to all the same media, websites, debates, etc. as everyone else. But anyway this feels like you are cherry picking this and ignoring the actual point is was getting at, which is that I know how hard it was back then to find this stuff out, and that now, it's so much easier. And we make it easier. We spread the knowledge. We send people the data and the facts and the resources to learn. I have whole documents of links I have used to teach people if a chance presents it. I have formed actual groups that meet and talk about communism. And now it's to the point where I barely need any of it cause it's just out there. It's so much easier now for anyone who actually cares to look.
So when I see so many more people out there trying to spread this information. To literally spoon feed it to libs and "leftists." If they still can't see it, then I feel to reason to burden myself with sympathy towards them. I will continue to try and teach people. It's up to them if they want to learn, but I won't like, sit around and feel sorry for them if they don't.
And I really don't care if this comes of as callous or self righteous. It's the only way I can deal with this world. I see innocent people suffering across the globe, real people who actually deserve my empathy, and the suffer because of the empire I can't stop BECAUSE people don't want to listen or learn. And so any "leftist" that refuses to learn when the information is out there, not caring about them is about the best I can do.
It's honestly ironic and a little confusing. I'm usually one of the people on the fence when this site has a post shitting all over western leftists, which it regularly likes to do. And I do so because the term "leftist" is so broad, and contains some that truly are real MLs. And many on here love to point out western leftists failures, and the inability to form any meaningful movement while (those "leftists" this post are about) criticizing international communist movements. And now I'm being harassed cause I admit I don't what? Feel sorry for those same people? I really don't get it.
I had a suspicion it had something to do with this, but didn't want to assume. Best I can gather is you think I'm trying to emotionally blackmail you or something, and tell you that you must feel sympathy for people who are on the wrong side of history.
This is the furthest thing from what I'm saying and it frankly isn't about you, it's about the message you are putting forth and whether it is ideologically correct or misleading. If that is "harassment" to you, then I really don't know what to say. SHOW me where what I have said has the character of harassment. Do not simply say it as if it is a given, which poisons the well on what I'm arguing.
What I'm doing is something I'm pretty sure I'm pretty consistent about on here: pushing back against people who post in favor of selective empathy (or in some cases, selective humanization) and then try to say it is somehow still communist because it's against the baddies. This is the ideology of the empire but with the flag changed, not what communism is about and certainly not what dialectical materialism teaches us about the world.
If you don't want to cry bitter tears over some rabid neoliberal or whatever, I don't think most people are going to care, much less ask you to. That doesn't mean you need to announce that you don't care and insist that this is justified because "it's easier for them to learn now". If China thought in the imperialist way about the world, they would be readily justified in going to town on imperial core states with missiles the moment they thought they could pull it off. People need to be conscious of the fact that the original ideology you grew up with does not evaporate the moment you change alliances.
It is frankly frustrating how often this comes up as an issue and it is very irresponsible. There are fash out there who are shamelessly willing to try to infiltrate communist spaces and steer them in a darker direction, and when people recklessly promote this stuff they are doing a favor for the fascists by normalizing pre-existing imperialist thought as okay, as long as it's semi-coded in working class language. That is part of why I am so staunch about it. And I say to be preemptive, do not confuse this for me being pacifistic about the imperialist threat. It is in fact an act of trying to root out imperialist thought in people who haven't fully unlearned it.
Well said! An important application of the masses, elites and rebels analysis around why people have the beliefs they have, and how to change people's minds and beliefs. Might be worth plugging the essay too as it's a good one and regularly passed along here: https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/
Losurdo likes to bang on about aristocratic ideologies and aristocratic democracy too which is very much in this vein of critique. A good chunk of Liberalism: A Counter History covers it alongside the analysis of Herrenvolk Democracy. I haven't read it but he often footnotes his own work on Nietzsche when covering this stuff too.