Like I won’t say that absolutely everything about the USA was bad, necessarily, and I of course have my own biases at play here… But the point sparing the details is really just like, I’ve spent the past month thinking practically every day about how every single US-based communist really must be working in incredibly trying circumstances, if even just visiting had me feeling lethargic and kinda wanting to go home within a week. Now that I’m back home again, that time in the USA is already starting to feel like a strange dream again.
So, uhh, what are your secrets, basically? Like I’m sure that all the nonsense of the USA feels like less of a burden to put up with if you grew up with it and have spent little to no time in other parts of the world, but still. I honestly do not think I could live in the USA until it is decolonized, but when that happens, it wouldn’t be called the USA anymore, anyways.
To mirror @Ithorian@hexbear.net, rage, continuous varied education (both self and institutional), weed, and the fact that when I talk to people they usually agree with me, even if it doesn’t always stick for them or proceed towards a greater understanding and comprehension of the material world for them.
The incoherence of the average American’s politics chiefly lies in the fact that the inescapable propaganda (it literally starts from before school) around them constantly lies and obfuscates reality, something that cannot be avoided, as even if you personally do not watch it, that would also mean cutting out every person in your life that is susceptible to propaganda who then repeats it as if it is fact.
Specifically the incoherence comes from that fact that despite this bedrock and ocean of propaganda we live in, lived reality cannot help but assert itself for the majority of people, and the contradictions between what we are told we will experience v.s. what we experience and how we are told to process those experiences v.s. how we actually process those experiences are quite large. However, because most people do not have any experience or knowledge of critical theory, for them there is no formalized way of making sense of those contradictions, leading to an incoherence and contradictions within their own grab-bag explanations. Ultimately what this means that you can cut through it, but it is incredibly difficult to make it stick. They have to be interested in doing it themselves. My usual social goal is to encourage that formalized exploration.
Someone made a mistake turning “paw patrol is copaganda” into a joke. Kids cartoons today can’t go five fucking minutes without
It is FUCKING INSANE. I used to watch Sesame Street and sure, they’d have some cop trot up to talk to Elmo or whatever, but very occasionally. Now it’s literally a given that children’s programming is OBSESSED with police arresting and punishing people. People really really believe that cops are a basic element of childhood itself, I mean on the level of eating your vegetables, share, woof woof look at the dog, ooples and banoonoos, ABC 123, shit like that. Cops throwing people in jail is right in there.
we are a deeply sick country
Interesting. I wonder what the best pedagogy is for encouraging this kind of formalized exploration of the experienced incoherence. List flaws in propaganda narratives? Share some background facts about social structures? Point out material contradictions? Assist in analysis of class interests? Explain dialectical thinking? Explore how we got here with historic materialism? Give them space to share limit-situations and encourage limit-acts (like Paolo Freire)?
I didn’t try all that, but what kind of worked for me in the context of Palestine is to give very good friends theory home work. But this needs a lot of good will from their side and they have to be leftish leaning all ready.
I mostly point out material contradictions, discuss the idea of class analysis, discuss history generally, and talk about dialectical thinking. I usually let their interests direct the conversation.
Edit: Also, people are receptive to Marxist thought, just don’t immediately pit them against their boss, especially if they work in tech or at bars. It’s gotta be more esoteric, like in terms of financial crap.