I’m struggling with people around me (in the US) being so politically disengaged and just apathetic towards very serious things.
I don’t want to be the stereotypical obnoxious commie who injects politics into everything, but at the same time, basically everything political and we have very different understandings of the world so its hard to just sit back and be like everyone else.
Everyone around me just doesn’t seem to care and I don’t know what to do. I’m getting involved with a party again soon once I get back on my feet but I don’t know how to approach people who are just chilling and galloping through, y’know?
Maybe this is a useless or dumb post but I’m just kind of lost
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Ohhh yeah, been there, comrade. It can feel draining to see everyone ignore issues that you’re so passionate about.
I had initially typed up a hype speech for you, with some literature recommendations for radicalization, but let’s take a step back for a moment because our movement is only strong when you’re passionate and confident in your beliefs. No homework this time, I’ll try to reassure you with my own experiences radicalizing people.
I’m not a psychologist, take this with a grain of salt, but it’s my experience that someone is not open to radicalization if they’re satisfied. It usually takes some kind of event, like George Floyd’s murder, to make people militant and open to our radicalization as a solution to their frustration. It can even be on an individual level, like their landlord illegally raising their rent, or frustration with nepotism in their workplace. They will ask why, you answer with your Marxist knowledge you have acquired through literature and discussions with other communists.
Capitalism fails everyone in the proletariat, eventually it will fail your friends or family and you’ll be ready to help them understand why.
So are you saying we should wait and prepare for the right moment instead of constantly trying to create engagement?
At the individual level, as in how you interact with your friends and family, yes, absolutely wait. Something will happen to them personally where they feel betrayed by capitalism, or we could have another global capitalism failure like the handling of COVID-19.
As a collective, absolutely not, we don’t have to wait to join parties and coordinate political actions in our communities. I hope that makes sense.
Again, this is all the opinion of one comrade.
Personally, I try to avoid bringing politics up with friends, even though it’s temping and every aspect of personal life is touched by the base of capitalism.
Instead, I just insert criticisms about everyday things and how it could be better. Within limits, of course. But, for example, I think it really helps people wake up to realize both major political parties in the US do the same things, but use different words.
Slowly, slowly your friends will wake up and one day you’ll find them ranting about the illegal and unjust land theft in Palestine.
I talk about it constantly. It’s no doubt annoying for some, but I see it as a way to normalize the usually underrepresented political goals I have. If I can talk about this stuff nonstop and still get by, surely others can as well.
I’m not a good barometer for this stuff, though. I have a smaller friend group and extremely tolerant family.
good for you!
In the US, as far as information and communication goes, we live in a burning forest with no air to breath. Personally, I can’t get too invested in what other people think. I am more interested in understanding how discourse develops so I can survive this environment and live to contribute to whatever solutions. Convincing others of my so-believed “better” politics is secondary.
Most of the political discourse in the US is harvested from both the “left” and “right” to create outrage and to muddy the waters. If I get caught up in conversations about politics, I always resent the game that has to be played because I simply do not buy into the political spectrum/compass because it is either a failure of a model for understanding politics, or political discourse as we know it is itself actually the absence of political discourse, a simulation of political understanding that ultimately serves various Americanist/Euro, capitalist ventures, sensibilities, identities, and affectations. The left and right are merely a unity and struggle of opposites that develops colonial discourse. Rather than challenge it, the left actually is a feature of it and contributes massively to it.
Whether or not this is the best way to describe it (others might try to rescue the left and that is ok but Im not convinced this is the best understanding) remains to be seen. Of course, understanding dialectical development makes it a lot easier to understand the ideological twists and turns we see. But most people are not interested in that. They want the digestible civil religious enterprise because the dialectic does not provide a means for righteousness and outrage. This goes for everyone. Self-proclaimed Marxists are guilty of this as well, certainly those that can’t get past Vladimir Putin, or Islam in Iran, or market forces in the PRC etc.
I think that politics in the US is synonymous with civil religion. It is highly antagonistic and deeply moralized. IMO the opposite of how healthy, genuine “democratic” politics should be. This is why there is no ability to disagree with the one side without also agreeing with its counterpart. For example, if you talk shit about Biden, you might be called a MAGAt or something. It’s not just that there is no room for alternative discourses or better politics. It’s that “better” or relevant politics only drives the system to adapt. Politics is a moral, and not a practical enterprise in the US. I think this is simultaneously a natural development, and yet is also maintained by power.
The semi-recent migrant caravan for example was largely a spectacle that fueled both left and right wing sentiments. It was heavily covered by the media. Activists from both sides had major roles. BLM was largely coopted by Dems and used to rile up Republicans. Virtually every other headline functions in this way, and virtually every movement gets quickly enfranchised into civil religion. Not just because power demanded it and made it happen, but also because this is the most natural thing that could happen in the US’s political environment. It is also something that has been going on for centuries on this continent.
We don’t really need the CIA to fill us with sinophobic bullshit because we are structurally, materially, and historically, sinophobic already, but this in turn makes propaganda intuitive for US propagandists, activists, and laypersons. Further, we know that the left is heavily associated with state department connections. Activists also routinely seek the spotlight and switch to different causes based on the moral value that can be extracted. It should be no surprise with USAID or some equivalent is involved and it should be no surprise that so many are willing to play these games.
We also know that climate change is both a perilous issue, and a perfect problem to weaponize. Climate change concerns have been used to legitimize imperialist international institutions while also conveniently hindering development in the periphery, which is instrumental to capital, especially as wages rise in Asia. The rhetoric around climate change is used to legitimize jingoist russiaphobia and sinophobia, problematic population concerns, and as a major part of fueling moral outrage. This makes it difficult to be both anti-imperialist while staying oriented with popular discourse on climate change.
Apathy is difficult because it is actually a reasonable reaction, but it is also part of imperial melancholia. A lot of politics in the North is directly related to loss of privilege, loss of the golden years, and a nostalgia for the good old days combined with tireless bemoaning of structural problems, make the soil ripe for opportunists and propagandists to come along. These are not problems that can be solved with rhetoric alone.
I do not think rhetoric alone is able to deliver anyone from our situation, or from any one feature of it. I would ask nothing of you personally in terms of addressing pervasive civil righteousness, sophistry, outrage baiting, apathy etc., because it would be asking far, far too much of you. I do not mean to add to the difficulty of the matter, but I think in many ways we are trudging through a swamp. Just as we can’t easily go back to communal subsistence because of the apocalypse of modernity, we cannot assume we will make an impact on these problems by looking at past successes or without critical vigor of our approach. There is no social infrastructure that can enable what need to be done. In many ways we need help from the developing countries of the world, and we need the patience and courage to face the unknown head-on.
The saying in China used to be that they must cross the brook by feeling for the rocks, but nowadays the water is too deep to touch the bottom.
So what do you suggest I do? What should we as Marxists in America do? That was a God-tier comment but I still just am not sure on whether I should engage and try to get others to engage or just leave it.
My apologies if I misunderstood, it was a very long comment and my brain is still recovering from the copious amount of drugs I did
Understand the difficulties of our time and focus on concrete problems that are recognized by your community. Don’t worry too much about what people think because it can’t be changed through rhetoric. Worry more about how to meet needs of your community and if you can, use the dialectic to navigate the unknown and to avoid falling into the traps.
Its not all on you. We will likely stand little chance without action from around the world, regardless of how well considered our approach is. So don’t pressure yourself too much and learn to appreciate the little progress that might be possible in spite of our challenges.
Very well said comrade, in both of your comments here. However, I can’t help but feel this line of thinking could lead passionate Marxists to feel defeated and lose their spark.
I disagree that people cannot be changed through rhetoric, we aren’t inherently Marxist, we had friends, families, online comrades help us along our journey to where we are now.
The same can be said for fascists, they too were frustrated by capitalism but they were swayed by fascist rhetoric before ours reached them. I do agree that we as individuals should not feel burdened to come up with the solution to every problem and tear ourselves apart trying to put it into place, but I believe the power of Marxist rhetoric is too powerful to dismiss. At the very least we can grow our numbers while we bide our time.
Very curious to hear more of your thoughts, thank you for participating in the community.
Basically rhetoric doesn’t work in that it leaves everyone vulnerable to dogma, which in turn is easily weaponized. I agree with you that some people can be swayed. But being swayed is not the same as concrete enfranchisment into a socialist or anticolonial process of history.
This is why I stress the discursive nature of politics in the US and its ostensibly civil religious form. It functions to disrupt rhetoric and enfranchise it into it’s own colonial, capitalist project. There is no rhetorical way out of this and those of us who have been swayed are actually still quite vulnerable. There must be something concrete to attach it all to and unfortunately I’m afraid we do not have this in the US and we likley will not in the near future. This is why I say there is no social infrastructure to accomplish what we need, or hope to gain through rhetoric. Without such an infrastructure we may plant seeds that will be harvested by the empire.
Fascists have it incrediblely easy. Their rhetoric synergizes well with a nation of colonizers and an environment of perpetual outrage. The “rise” (is it rising or is it just status quo) of fascism is not entirely because of rhetoric but because of history. The same history that includes a range of communist action that ranges from semi-effective, ineffectual, and even outright colonial outcomes. Fascism is politically natural here. Communism or anticolonialism, on the other hand has little to cling to beyond it’s unity and struggle with capital. This makes our rhetoric potentially dangerous. I think of the Maoist community in my area and how absolutely out of touch they are. They uphold their favorite white saviors and intentionally neglect local Indigenous voices. It’s not unlike how communists of the 19th century were often guilty of exploiting free Black labor for organizing, only to occasionally leave them high and dry when threatened by bosses. Both of these parties are saturated in rhetoric and discourse (dogma really) but what have they achieved? Colonialism.
This is why I want to direct people to more concrete issues. I would expect that by addressing real community needs a number of advantages would emerge. First, building relationships and engaging with the community will illuminate a more concrete politic that can hopefully develop into a line that the community is on board with, and a line that doesn’t align with colonial discourse. Next, you have an emerging infrastructure of information that makes it easier for the politic to grow on it’d own terms, discover it’s own vulnerabilies and weaknesses. This can bring about more awareness of the dangers of American political discourse because there is a community that it’s own collective understanding of it’s needs and can compare it to popular discourse.
Of course none of this happen seamlessly or without setbacks. The union I am in, for example, never goes hard enough with our demands and is usually unable to realize it’s potential, and the real power it has. But if we were more forceful with our demands we could alienate current and prospective members which we cannot afford to do. If we let dogma get in the way we would rip ourselves apart. Sometimes you have to live with that kind of stuff because we can’t lose what we have built up.
As for hope, it’s a tough problem and be warned I am rather callous on this issue because I think it is easily problematized. IMO it is part of the corrosive discourse. Hope is not self evident, it is not to be found, it is made. If it is not made, and if it is not yours, it is capable of betraying you. Our problems are not all always death sentances, and not as dire as those abroad. Our problems should be seen as opportunities to assess the contradictions and move forward. Americans have had it pretty damn good for a long time, and regards of current difficulties this is largely still the case. If we chase hope for its own sake, or to keep us going, we will end up harvested by colonial discourse. Hope in the US has its own imperial affectation and we must be aware of this.
Ya know, in school the hope question comes up a lot. I will notice students are frustrated to learn things aren’t looking so good. I bring this up to the professor as the TA and it gets addressed in the most awful way with techno optimism, green (or stakeholder) capitalism, sustainablility etc. One section of students will buy it, the other will descend further into melancholy. Both sections further lost in the discourse. IMO hope chasing is dangerous. If we want help we have to do it ourselves. If people aren’t willing to build it, then truly our hopelessness is merely an imperial melancholy resulting from losing privilege and is a feature of colonial discourse.
CountryBreakfast is right about rhetoric being less important than material action, but I think you should still try to sway people. Don’t waste your time on hyper-idealists or people that are too comfortable to see any problem with the current system.
I mean, read the room a little. Handing out fliers for a socialist get together outside of Dicks Sporting Goods might not work out.
Well yeah, but like I said below/above, it’s just never brought up by others and I don’t know when the right time is
One should not bring up politics. Test the waters, sprinkle some mildly leftist comments here and there but don’t overdo it. Let the obnoxious one be them.
Can you elaborate why? I have trouble understanding how bringing it up is not a good thing. Especially when it’s literally never brought up by others
You’ll be seen as a crank. People will disregard everything you say if they know you are a full on Marxist. If you bring it up to people close to you, they’ll laugh at you and it will be uncomfortable. I wouldn’t say don’t do it to those close to you, but there are consequences for being out and out known as someone with views completely different than the status quo.
You cannot practically keep up with the volume of propaganda that most people consume. At most you can push back against bigotry and chauvinism when you see it, but this won’t necessarily give you lasting results.
