Hi! I am a new leftist and would like to know what approaches should I use when deprogramming/radicalising people. All my attempts so far at getting rid of the anti-communist/racist/sexist/etc brainworms that my friends/family have, have been completely unsuccessful. I know that not everyone can be radicalised into becoming a leftist, but still, what should I do to at least slightly alter the worldview of the people around me? I’m sorry if this is too generic of a question
the fact that i live in poland probably doesnt help, even saying somehting vaguely positive about socialism here makes people think that you at the very least lost your mind lmao
It’ll always need to be individualized. Everyone has some unique brain worm that’ll make them shut down unless met with good explanations or evidence.
Not sure about Poland specifically, I’m in the US. I usually wait until someone gripes about something or brings up something they take issue with.
Any flowchart would quickly become spaghetti, so just remember:
- Most of the problems in most peoples’ lives are results of capitalism, so it’s pretty easy to connect.
- Generally good not to come on too strong, best not to reveal you’re literally a communist up front.
- Working too much or not having enough work are both conditions of capitalism (keep people busy to prevent organization, or keep them poor as an example to those who might organize).
- The media is all owned by the same capitalists who are driving us off a cliff.
- The system as operating is clearly unsustainable, and if the only brakes applied are forcefully, by climate change, then we’re fucked.
- Capital destroyed the revolutions that did succeed, because they happened in places which had been colonized, whose wealth & resources had been stolen for decades or centuries. That money and the dividends capitalists accumulated were used to besiege revolutionary states. Terrorism inside their borders, arms races, propaganda, sabotage, financing opposition parties and candidates, doing everything possible to illicit authoritarian state organs in these places so that the international, capitalist-owned press can browbeat them, serving as the basis for sanctions & embargoes. Places which did liberalize had collaborator governments installed. Those that resisted were invaded and occupied. It’s a pretty obvious pattern that’s been heavily obfuscated.
It’s a lot easier to get people to go along with critiques of capitalism than with praise of socialism.
What we really need are gulags though
for them
Frontal attacks rarely work and put people on the defensive, instead focus on ways you can manipulate the echo chamber that capitalism feeds them.
Regularly borrow their phones and do a bunch of searches for left wing books and content. Go into their social media advertising preferences and add leftist interests. Send them silly memes that normalize leftist ideas. Put parental locks on right wing tv channels. Add a pihole to their internet or go into their wifi router’s settings and blackhole the dns to right wing websites. Go to their preferred porn sites and search for communist versions of whatever they have in their histories. That sort of thing.
blackhole the dns to right wing websites
This. I would love to do this to my girlfriend’s WiFi so when I’m not around she doesn’t get “Alt-Left” right wing content from reprobates like V*>sh or K^ff*ls or D^st/ny.
youtube lets you block specific accounts, right?💁♂️
How do they tell you things? What do they like to talk about? A lot of right-wingers like history, so if you tell them in a narrative structure an event that happened that they can go look up, it makes sense that way. Some people like human interest stories how how people relate to each other. Some people are youtube junkies. Some people want peer-reviewed research. You have to start from what they’re interested in. Tell them something they didn’t know about something they care about.
You’re never going to sit down and talk a lib into becoming a leftist in a day. When it comes to people around you in normal life, have arguments when they naturally occur, point out peoples’ contradictory opinions when you see them, calmly stand your ground when people look at you like you’re crazy, know that your position is reasoned, and importantly just be an example of good in the world; That’s the best hope for changing others’ minds I think you can usually hope for.
Obviously some people are actually down for long debates, and that’s where studying theory helps. But for most normies, I’ve always felt it’s about being a nice, helpful person who just also points out the bullshit in the world. And changing peoples’ minds is just hard, you’ll be lucky if you seriously change more than a few minds in a lifetime, that’s okay.
Honestly the best way is also the hardest; get involved with leftist community organizing group(s). They will have tools and structures in place specifically to enable you to succeed in this space. They may even offer training. I dunno what sorts of organizations like that might exist in Poland but I have to imagine you can find something good.
in poland? try selling Marx with a Coin figurines
The most fundamental way, with direct friends/family, is to use your own likeability to introduce ideas. When people like you and think you know things, they will tend to think your ideas are more correct. If you introduce your ideas in a way that projects security, confidence, and humility (sounds contradictory but it’s not), the people around you will tend to slowly absorb them whether they realize it or not.
This may take a very long time and some people you know may never radicalize. They might even go the opposite direction. But there’s no perfect path that would convince everyone that currently exists. That wouldn’t be a realistic goal. Set a goal of 1 person. Even that might be a tall order depending on your social circle!
Like others have mentioned, working in an organization can be a great way to radicalize people. You basically get to put out your messaging to a large number of people, many of whom already self-selected to be at your cool lefty event or action. A valuable skill is that of the organizer, a person that can recruit and get people to take on projects requiring a group or mass effort. A good organizer plans strategically for what goals they want to meet and how they will accomplish them, then applies personal skills to recruit people, onboard them, and distribute work. The interpersonal skills you will develop when doing this overlap heavily with ways to radicalize people. Direct conversations. What questions to ask. How to avoid alienating most people and how to carefully alienate highly toxic people so that the group doesn’t suffer. The act of organizing, of creating live campaigns that keep people returning to your group and gaining their own organizing skills, is the core of radicalization. The people you work with will be the people you help radicalize because they trust you, they like you, and they see you as someone that creates results. Some of the actions you organize can also be 100% about radicalization by their nature. Leaflet some PMC trajectory college students about the bad things done by the sponsor of the job fair. Hold a rally for Palestinian liberation and have conversations with anyone you don’t recognize. Screen movies, do book clubs, put up posters, tear down fashy ones, etc etc.
Finally, our task unfortunately includes knowing a lot more about most topics than liberals do. Make sure you do your own readings on history, theory, and media literacy/criticism so that you’re ready for the unfair questions. Though again, being liked and trusted is usually more powerful than being right about everything.