I have too, and I’ve tried it both ways. Openly being a Communist and explaining clearly and exactly why I hold the views I do has netted me more acceptance and respect. I even made a Marxist-Leninist introductory reading guide, which has netted several new comrades and still gets new upvotes even months after originally posting it.
And I greatly appreciate work like yours. I believe we need to do both. There are people who will be easier to convince if you use those magic words because that’s what works for them. There are others who will be easier to convince if use more maga-friendly terms. The important part is that bills like that need to be introduced in the correct way.
It is possible, as an American citizen to draft and propose a bill to your senator with a petition to your fellow man. We need to go convince people, in whichever works for that particular individual, to sign these petitions for bills that will help them. We need to convince them to vote for them in whatever ways will get them to do so. But we need to draft those bills carefully and ensure they get shot down if they get twisted in the chambers.
The “magic words” bit generally isn’t true, though. I recommend reading “Brainwashing” followed by Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of “Brainwashing.” My strategy entirely changed after reading these, people will not side with you truly if they already license themselves to believe something else. This coincides with the real experience of Communists and other Leftists historically, Liu Shaoqi’s How to be a Good Communist talks about maintaining this honesty in dealing with the rest of the Working Class who may not be radicalized yet. This keeps us in touch with their needs and desires, preventing commandism or tailism.
Further, signing petitions and trying to force the ruling parties into action generally doesn’t work without millitant labor organizing.
I’ll have to look into those. My reasoning behind the “magic words” thing is two-part and quite likely outdated: research and anecdote.
Quick side note before the meat: Also, I appreciate that we’re keeping two lines of thought going across these two comment chains. Not a skill I see in others often, but one I enjoy having in my friends for moments like this.
The basis comes from my understanding of how propaganda works, but honestly mostly comes from my memory on the classes in school. Granted, I paid a lot more attention in school than a lot of my peers but I haven’t done as much research since then as I should/probably you and other more theory-oriented communists have done so I can probably get schooled a bit. Basically, I like to make use of emotion-provoking terms a lot. In person, I do so by trying to befriend people from across the aisle to observe them and listen to them. They’ll use the words that matter to them, “egg/gas prices” or “housing crisis” or whatnot. Then, I find ways that their “team” has hurt the things that matter to them, and I’ll go and talk to them about those bills. Usually along the lines of “Hey did you see this? It’s got these great benefits for us but those rat bastards snuck in x/y/z” and over the course of a few months I’ve gotten a good handful to start noticing the pattern (this is where the anecdote comes in).
I’ve convinced a traditional “good ol boy” from Oklahoma (I learned so many slurs from him in the first few months) in the past to argue for communism against one of his classmates just because he didn’t like that classmate at the time. After about 2 years of knowing this guy, he was the type of ally who would stand up and knock a motherfucker out if he heard you say something homophobic in passing. And the best part was that I never even tried for that bit, I only ever tried with economic strategies with him and he figured out the humanitarian aspect on his own
Thanks for the compliments, though you’ve probably seen by now that I ended the other comment thread, haha. I feel that this one is consolidated enough so I linked it over here.
Either way, I don’t actually think you’re wrong from a rhetorical point of view, but I do think that you would see more lasting success by being more open, at least online where you aren’t in (as much) danger if you’re found out. In personal terms, I usually just recommend friends and potential allies to listen to Blowback. It’s very effective for radicalizing against the US Empire, and promotes sympathy for AES states and the Global South in general. Online, however, I find that it’s better to openly state that I’m a Marxist-Leninist, and explain my views on those grounds.
As a side-note, I do recommend diving into theory if you haven’t. The more theory you read, the more effective your arguments can be, and while it isn’t a linear scale this has certainly helped me the most.
Hobo Johnson is an incredible artist, and as far as I can tell a modern day Renaissance man. In this particular piece he does an exceptional job of literally reading the writing to you without making you think he is. He uses commentary, humor, a melody and a chorus to make learning more fun. I was thinking about this while walking just now and I actually might send him a letter of appreciation to follow the best practices of empowering and positively reinforcing that behavior.
“Positive Reinforcement” is an ideal I get a lot of pushback on because people think I’m treating them like an animal. They’re right. Because humans are animals and I’m just as trainable as my dog if you do it right
I’ve had a lot of negative experiences with some people who are overly theory-oriented (theory is great but you should form opinions on it, not let it dictate them to you) which has definitely pushed me away from reading it. I’m at a point in my life now where I think I could probably start dipping my toes into that without going off the deep end, and this conversation was a particularly good motivator to start doing so. Always more to learn
You might find it fitting to start with Oppose Book Worship, which deals with just the problem of overly-dogmatic comrades that only ever read theory. You must read theory and test it via practice, each informs the other.
I’ll also shamlessly plug my own Marxist-Leninist reading list again as it’s designed for people to go from knowing no theory to having a solid grasp of the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism, as well as its historical context.
I have too, and I’ve tried it both ways. Openly being a Communist and explaining clearly and exactly why I hold the views I do has netted me more acceptance and respect. I even made a Marxist-Leninist introductory reading guide, which has netted several new comrades and still gets new upvotes even months after originally posting it.
And I greatly appreciate work like yours. I believe we need to do both. There are people who will be easier to convince if you use those magic words because that’s what works for them. There are others who will be easier to convince if use more maga-friendly terms. The important part is that bills like that need to be introduced in the correct way.
It is possible, as an American citizen to draft and propose a bill to your senator with a petition to your fellow man. We need to go convince people, in whichever works for that particular individual, to sign these petitions for bills that will help them. We need to convince them to vote for them in whatever ways will get them to do so. But we need to draft those bills carefully and ensure they get shot down if they get twisted in the chambers.
The “magic words” bit generally isn’t true, though. I recommend reading “Brainwashing” followed by Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of “Brainwashing.” My strategy entirely changed after reading these, people will not side with you truly if they already license themselves to believe something else. This coincides with the real experience of Communists and other Leftists historically, Liu Shaoqi’s How to be a Good Communist talks about maintaining this honesty in dealing with the rest of the Working Class who may not be radicalized yet. This keeps us in touch with their needs and desires, preventing commandism or tailism.
Further, signing petitions and trying to force the ruling parties into action generally doesn’t work without millitant labor organizing.
I’ll have to look into those. My reasoning behind the “magic words” thing is two-part and quite likely outdated: research and anecdote.
Quick side note before the meat: Also, I appreciate that we’re keeping two lines of thought going across these two comment chains. Not a skill I see in others often, but one I enjoy having in my friends for moments like this.
The basis comes from my understanding of how propaganda works, but honestly mostly comes from my memory on the classes in school. Granted, I paid a lot more attention in school than a lot of my peers but I haven’t done as much research since then as I should/probably you and other more theory-oriented communists have done so I can probably get schooled a bit. Basically, I like to make use of emotion-provoking terms a lot. In person, I do so by trying to befriend people from across the aisle to observe them and listen to them. They’ll use the words that matter to them, “egg/gas prices” or “housing crisis” or whatnot. Then, I find ways that their “team” has hurt the things that matter to them, and I’ll go and talk to them about those bills. Usually along the lines of “Hey did you see this? It’s got these great benefits for us but those rat bastards snuck in x/y/z” and over the course of a few months I’ve gotten a good handful to start noticing the pattern (this is where the anecdote comes in).
I’ve convinced a traditional “good ol boy” from Oklahoma (I learned so many slurs from him in the first few months) in the past to argue for communism against one of his classmates just because he didn’t like that classmate at the time. After about 2 years of knowing this guy, he was the type of ally who would stand up and knock a motherfucker out if he heard you say something homophobic in passing. And the best part was that I never even tried for that bit, I only ever tried with economic strategies with him and he figured out the humanitarian aspect on his own
Thanks for the compliments, though you’ve probably seen by now that I ended the other comment thread, haha. I feel that this one is consolidated enough so I linked it over here.
Either way, I don’t actually think you’re wrong from a rhetorical point of view, but I do think that you would see more lasting success by being more open, at least online where you aren’t in (as much) danger if you’re found out. In personal terms, I usually just recommend friends and potential allies to listen to Blowback. It’s very effective for radicalizing against the US Empire, and promotes sympathy for AES states and the Global South in general. Online, however, I find that it’s better to openly state that I’m a Marxist-Leninist, and explain my views on those grounds.
As a side-note, I do recommend diving into theory if you haven’t. The more theory you read, the more effective your arguments can be, and while it isn’t a linear scale this has certainly helped me the most.
You might also try putting people on Why Socialism by Albert Einstein by Hobo Johnson (Spotify Link)
Hobo Johnson is an incredible artist, and as far as I can tell a modern day Renaissance man. In this particular piece he does an exceptional job of literally reading the writing to you without making you think he is. He uses commentary, humor, a melody and a chorus to make learning more fun. I was thinking about this while walking just now and I actually might send him a letter of appreciation to follow the best practices of empowering and positively reinforcing that behavior.
“Positive Reinforcement” is an ideal I get a lot of pushback on because people think I’m treating them like an animal. They’re right. Because humans are animals and I’m just as trainable as my dog if you do it right
He’s great! I do think Blowback goes way farther though, while being entertaining and heart-wrenching.
I’ve had a lot of negative experiences with some people who are overly theory-oriented (theory is great but you should form opinions on it, not let it dictate them to you) which has definitely pushed me away from reading it. I’m at a point in my life now where I think I could probably start dipping my toes into that without going off the deep end, and this conversation was a particularly good motivator to start doing so. Always more to learn
You might find it fitting to start with Oppose Book Worship, which deals with just the problem of overly-dogmatic comrades that only ever read theory. You must read theory and test it via practice, each informs the other.
I’ll also shamlessly plug my own Marxist-Leninist reading list again as it’s designed for people to go from knowing no theory to having a solid grasp of the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism, as well as its historical context.