i think half of people are obtuse on purpose. like it doesnt matter the context, if you tell Americans to educate themselves on anything they will take it as a personal attack and use any justification to defend their ignorance. especially people familiar with progressive sounding language.
[me sending a Black leftist reading list to my white liberal and supposedly progressive ex-right-libertarian friend]
Friend: "I'm not reading this."
Me: "Well, why not?"
Friend: "Because I'm not a leftist."
Me: "That is not a good reason but very well."
Friend: "Yeah, I know, I guess I'm just stubborn. It's just that I worry that I wouldn't get anything out of it."
Me: "Yeah, when I first read Wretched of the Earth I had to look up what 'lumpenproletariat' meant since I read it before Marx, but I honestly feel like needing to look up a few things here and there doesn't make it not worthwhile to challenge one's worldviews and listen to the perspectives of some of the most influential Black thinkers and activists of the past century."
[friend still does not want to look at the Black leftist reading list]
is it wrong to want to throw books at white people? screams "you will never understand the black perspective and history without reading black authors and that always includes lefist" throws the wretched of the earth then sister outsider and many more at head / joking
reorder the list and title it "books for liberals to be better liberals"
Americans are violently opposed to the practice of reading
I've talked to so many people who proud themselves on not having read a book since leaving school.
School does a good job of teaching people to hate reading.
one of the ways i got motivated into reading as a little kid is one of my teachers would hand out candy whenever i finished reading a book and took a short quiz on it. very effective! my grandma would also do story time over the phone and stuff
We had a program at our school that would give you a coupon for a free pizza every 10 or so books that you read (this was grade school so they weren't really too long, think beginners level chapter books), which worked pretty well for me. Now as a grown adult, I wish I still had a way to get free pizza.
the most incurious people on the planet, even worse than the br*ts
Then let them ~~eat cake~~ listen to audiobooks
Commuting almost an hour one way means almost 2 hours "reading" a day, so long as you're wired for it. I understand some aren't able to digest books in that form.
this is only tangentially related but a hexbear posting warrior told some lemmyverse liberal they should really read some books about the subject being discussed and suggested some specific books, the lemmyverse liberal got very mad and said basically 'fuck you, YOU should read a book", so I asked them what book they felt would be good and they recommended fucking "Ulysses" by Joyce.
Telling someone to read a book is actually the gravest insult in American culture
Pretty much this, though tbh telling someone to do anything in American culture is a bad idea. An American on fire would rather burn to death than be told to stop drop and roll. I present it as something I did and what I learned/or whatever, generally that works better.
I've had the following conversation at least a dozen times:
Them: I know everything I need to know about Marxism vuvuzela no iphone
Me: Tell me one thing, any thing, Marx said in his life. No google.
I have never gotten an answer.
Gutentag.
To his wife, then her gave her a little peck on the cheek, pawned his pants for liquor money, and banged out a book whose first line was 'no iPhone'
You have to meet people where they're at. In my experience no one will ever read any book you recommend unless they specifically ask you for recommendations. They might click a link to a short video. Otherwise try to summarize the specific point you want them to understand with relevant quotes or examples and avoid scary words like socialism or Marx unless you want to shock them.
Hopefully if its someone you care about enough to put in repeated efforts enough of what you're saying sinks in they start doing their own research, then they might ask for advice. I've had this work on coworkers a few times but its rare. Remember your working against years of conditioning here, it won't happen overnight
I sometimes try to lead with an interesting fact, make them go "oh I didn't know that" themself, then frame the conversation as "most people aren't taught about this".
10 facts business guys (derogatory) don't want you to know about wage labor
Only labour-chads know these three things...
Agitprop idea?
There's a reason why anti-intellectualism is such a prominent thing in the U.S.
It's hard to fight and it makes people think they're smart for not learning about stuff
Personally, this is why I kind of want to start up a media project about educating people but with a down-to-earth nature so it doesn't seem like they're being insulted
You'll never break a dyed-in-the-wool reactionary type, but I can at least make some positive effort forwards
(I mean, I consider my podcast, Talker, Rexas Wanger to be a positive effort, but it's not exactly educational)
Damn, that's a good name for a podcast.
Its the same sentiment through the lens of western academia. When you've ingested enough eugenics, the idea that you don't understand something because you lack the formal learning to process it and that you physically can't understand it because your brain don't work good are the same.
Understanding isn't a product of hard work or a consequential legacy of accumulated knowledge gleaned from prior generations, its a consequence of superior genes and natural genius.
Incidentally, the understanding of accumulated wealth and power flows along similar lines. You're rich because you're a superior deal maker. You're a "natural" leader with innate charisma. You're a savant who derives all worldly knowledge from first principles. None of these things are granted through family status or political intrigues or insights gleaned from hard work of others. Its always just you being a uniquely special wonderkin.
One person claiming that they understand or possess information another doesn't isn't just a challenge to their priors, its a challenge to their inherent brilliant nature.
questioning any part of someones ideology is tantamount to mental abuse to the stubborn minded, liberals in particular
people incorporate their liberalism or whatever into their identity and calling that into question is way bigger of a deal than it should be. You get the same thing with religious weirdos if you ever ask them where the bible says something they made up or why god seems to always agree with their own prejudices.
If they are a friend or otherwise convinceable, you do it by being more confident than them and generally being the person they go to for an informed opinion that they will adopt for themselves. Get them into a mindset where they might ask you how you know so many things so you can hit them with a reading rec they'll ignore for the next 4 months (but then they might actually read it!).
If they are combative, you endeavor to not take them seriously (again, confidence) and demonstrate your knowledge with specifics without suggesting that you're actually taking anything they say seriously. Your hope with these people is that they shut the fuck up and slowly internalize on their own timeline so that if they come around like 2 years later, they think it was their own idea. The other goal is that the primary audience for what you're saying is everyone else, who will see you implicitly denigrating the other person's bullshit while having a wealth of facts and confidence.
If someone is particularly bad, you can dunk on them. Some people need to be socially policed right then and there (e.g. people being racist, transphobic, classist) and a decent number will even course-correct shortly after. Keep in mind that a decent number will flip their shit, so prioritize your own safety.
It is very rare that you'll find someone that is both combative and willing to change their opinion in real time through discussion.
you endeavor to not take them seriously (again, confidence)
I recommend demonstrating respect if you want to avoid making someone feel insulted
I suppose it depends on your goal. My advice is indeed based on alienating them to some extent. If you want something from them, you'd want to change your approach accordingly.
I've seen folks go the respect route against combative people speaking from a place of ignorance. When you want something from them and it's in an isolated environment, it can work to get what you want, basically through manipulation. When it's in a more communal space, it seems to usually backfire. The person is "handled" for a while but they will be alienated anyways if your opinion holds sway. If, instead, they get a foothold, they tend to become insufferable bullies.
I've seen good leftists hounded out of spaces by people like this, liberals they were trying to be nice and respectful to. They should be thoroughly opposed unless you're trying to extract something from them.
Obviously bad actors get cast out, and I'm not saying to do civility fetishism or indeed even manipulation. Being a socialist means, to some extent, believing in people, and I think it's a better way to relate to the world to view people as generally being genuinely worthy of respect rather than merely condescending to speak gently to them to lull them to sleep. There is a lot that you can learn from people, and indeed a lot that you must learn from them if you wish to help them. Education is fundamentally a cooperative process between teacher and student wherein they resolve a succession of problems together. Simply dictating someone's new ideology to them is very unlikely to produce anything good in the long run, and viewing yourself as above them and as having the luxury to skate along at a different level while pretending to respect them is liable to get you fucked over as your superficiality and disingenuousness become apparent.
This is relevant because many USians are shockingly illiterate.
idk. It's hard.
I try to be vocally sympathetic. Like "bro you're not dumb, there's just stuff you don't know. There's way too much stuff for anyone to know everything, we all gotta keep learning all the time. Knowledge is power and I want you to be as powerful as possible. And when you tell me there's a gap in my knowledge I'll listen to you."
A lot of it comes down to the person, though. Folks have to be in the right mindset to take critiques in good faith and trust that you're being genuine.
You can also try to be like "Hey sib, so, I get what you're saying and I know this book/article/paper that talks about that, and I think you'd find it really interesting because it talks about what you're saying from a different perspective. Even if you don't agree with it you can use it to sharpen up your arguments and get a better understanding of what your opponents think"
No investigation no right to speak
we need way less of everybody on this site (including me) and way more Bill "i haven't read marx's capital but i have the marks of capital all over my body" Haywood
I went as far as even making a SpongeBob gif that says "read theory" before realizing that the average Westerner doesn't care to understand anything beyond their tiny western state-opperated media bubble.
I had told someone on lemmy.ml that they should read a bit about Marxism because they were sounding like a bot and it resulted in a total meltdown by them so I just went to lurking mostly on that account.
However in leftist spaces I will continue to suggest things I think are appropriate to whatever the discussion is and will continue to grab up epubs that I see suggested.
In short, the average schmuck doesn't care so I won't try to help anymore.
You don't
Einstein was a committed socialist, Johnny Von Neumann spent half his life as the Mycroft Homes of the Mutually Assured Destruction-Industrial Complex because of his anti-communist ideology. So far as raw intelligence is a concept which even exists, it doesn't remotely align with neatly political views.
If it's in anyway confrontational it's a safe bet you're not gonna get through to them. You kinda just gotta let them be wrong and then be like, "oh dude you'd love (insert book movie, etc here)"
One circle I'm trying to square (square I'm trying to circle? Concept I'm trying to reconcile) is that every revolution in history has been comprised of largely uneducated, illiterate masses. But the forms of illiteracy and ignorance we see in the US at least seem insurmountably backward/reactionary.
In the past my efforts have mostly been about turning everyday people into ardent, well-read revolutionaries, which for most people is probably wasted effort. Especially since revolution within the imperial core is so far in the future. Although if revolution is so far off, perhaps creation of ardent revolutionaries should be the primary goal anyway, regardless of a low success rate. People to start organizing and building dual power structures that later can be used to enact a strategic mass line as the US nation state shrinks and leaves larger and larger demographics without representation (thus ripe for organizing). Don't remember if it was deprogram or trueanon, but a recent episode talked about the already-existing state structures that the Chinese communists set up before the revolution even succeeded, entire territories that were under communist control, which were able to function as industrial and strategic bases for revolutionary development, and actually take and maintain power as the revolution advanced.
Idk if it's so far off. Life expectancy dropping is a big indicator
One of the first things the Soviets did under the Tsars was unionize and start up electrical and telecom companies, since they control so much industry and police communications it's a no brainer for agitation, and it came in handy later (after the tsar and republic ordered strikers and protesters be killed) when they did operations like robbing banks because they could cut communications lines. dual power had a pretty literal meaning
essentially if you are a communist you should pursue becoming an electrician if you have no idea what job you want
Hmm from what I've heard the IBEW is pretty reactionary, but I wonder if it's possible to focus on specific chapters and start shifting them leftward. Trade union entryism lol. The reactionary nature of the trades and "skilled" work is a difficult hurdle. Although that definitely seems to be shifting.
I think this will be a decade of retraction for the US nation state, both internally and externally, and by the '30s the federal retraction will leave significant voids that a party can work with and from. "Voids" as in demographics of people no longer served or protected by the state, as in places where the reach of the domestic control apparatus no longer effectively extends.
One circle I'm trying to square (square I'm trying to circle? Concept I'm trying to reconcile) is that every revolution in history has been comprised of largely uneducated, illiterate masses. But the forms of illiteracy and ignorance we see in the US at least seem insurmountably backward/reactionary.
There is a difference between being uneducated and miseducated. People in the US are much more miseducated than the semi-feudal peasantries that were the popular basis of revolutions in the past.
Give an example focused on yourself:
It was only when I started reading this that I realise how much I didn't know about ti...
I get it, not everyone's as obsessive as me about this, but I think you'd find it really interesting...
I don't know shit about X probably, I mean I kind of think I know enough not to be totally ignorant I hope, but if I was going to talk about it to more people I'd have to read about it too
Ask Hexbear is the place to ask and answer ~~thought-provoking~~ questions.
Rules:
Posts must ask a question.
If the question asked is serious, answer seriously.
Questions where you want to learn more about socialism are allowed, but questions in bad faith are not.
Try !feedback@hexbear.net if you're having questions about regarding moderation, site policy, the site itself, development, volunteering or the mod team.