[Someone] = Stereotypical leftist adjacent person who (semi)frequents the mainstream web. Curious in this whole socialism thing, has very little theoretical knowledge.
Scenario: They’ve come to you complaining about the quality of their time online worsening and how they’re looking for what they say is a “Open-Minded Community” They have already tried places like r/socialism and say: “They’re way too snobby and book heavy.”
You ask them what they think about socialism and they say: “Well I don’t really know, but Zahran seems pretty cool, maybe it’s possible to have a good version of it.” “I know the Soviet Union failed, but given how tyrannical Stalin was, maybe it’s because they had bad leaders.”
What would be your approach be?
I’m genuinely glad that happened for you and I appreciate the intellectual integrity of identifying the misrepresentation of a group that you independently already disliked, but I can’t tell if you’re saying we should generalize from that experience.
I don’t think I’m saying that. Just saying some people who seem too far gone might still make their way to the socialist side. I love this community (mostly) the way it is. It’s silly, and the people who make it out to be super scary and evil are just lying about it.
To be clear, I meant it as being something genuinely unclear to me because people do a survivor’s bias thing all the time where “it worked for me, so it must work in general”. Sorry if I sounded accusing.
I agree with you that lots of people can be reformed, I think it’s practically possible for most people and we as socialists should seek it out, though that’s of course different from saying every socialist needs to devote all their energy to arguing with every reactionary they see (which some others, not you, use to make a false dichotomy in the other direction). I don’t think it’s helpful to try to evaluate who is somehow morally worthy or unworthy of help, we have a better future with more comrades regardless of who “deserves” it or not.
Ye. I like restorative justice and redemption where possible. It may not always be possible, I’ll reluctantly admit, but when it is. And I don’t think you sounded accusing. My brain interpreted the comment as “should we act more appealing to the general audience,” and I wasn’t in favor of that. We have a unique culture that isn’t for everybody, but that’s what grad and .ml are for.
Oh yeah, that’s understandable. I disagree with some of the things that also make us less appealing to a general audience (I tend to be anti murder fantasy) but only on the grounds that it’s bad for the mental health and social adjustment of the people doing it and, insofar as it has a political character, is reactionary. But my original comment wasn’t about it changing or not changing, just that things like that make us generally bad as a radicalization pipeline for naive moderates, so OP shouldn’t direct their friends to us (yet?)
Anyway, I think I’m just talking in circles.