My only issue is, being raised in the projects, roaches and rats, hustlers on the corner sellin they mamas sofas, I've always found the class conundrum frustrating that Marxist theory always seems least accessible to the people who need it most.
I was reading some Verso book on communism where they spend 2 pages spilling high fallutin, academic jargon just to ask the simple question of "what does the term "we" refer to?"
It seems that in the world of academia, writing in the most esoteric jargon playing with sentence structure like a Houston DJ gets you likes or retweets or whatever but it seems counter productive towards breaking the ideological spell that the Spectacle has on the masses.
Instead of getting too far deep into the weeds on which style of Russian or Chinese socialist is better in theory, I try to stick to the base, on how to explain, wake up, and flip our sleeping neighbors who work themselves to the bone, gleefully slitting their wrists for the approval of their vampire overlords.
Many academic elitists write them off, say it can't be done, which I find ugly and fundamentally contrary to principles of liberation politics.
My question for y'all, is how do you go about sharing the Good News of communism with working class conservatives?
Thomas Frank tried to answer this by blaming it on religion which I find whack, as I am a Loud and Proud Christian, which I feel fully supports and reinforces my left wing views.
Living in a deeply Red place, I truly feel like the only guy around here with They Live shades, and my political views being quite perpendicular to the local zeitgeist causes me a bit of stress.
Please share your stories of reaching out to working class conservatives, materials that may be useful, help connect with others who try this same thing.
My approach is to avoid spooking them with trigger words like Marx or socialism for a while, and use a Socratic style method of teaching them he basics of labor theory.
I'll ask: " why does a shirt always cost more than the equivalent amount of cotton, or a table vs wood, etc.?"
I lead them to see that what you atually pay for, is for someone else's labor, and that's my hinge point in explaining the difference between use value and exchange value, leading to the conclusion that all exchange value represents labor.
Then I'll ask them how profit is made, since already agree that labor is the source of value, they must concede that profit is only possible by not paying workers the value which they produce.
This makes it easy to prove that capitalist profit is inherently exploitative.
Now when they try to use the "well the worker agreed to it" contract theory, I have a Trump card for that one: Rape.
I ask them, do you think it should be illegal for a 40 year old man to have sex with a 14 year, even if she "consents"?
99% of the time, they say of course, that's wrong, you can help explain that the reason for statutory rape laws is because consent given under duress or within the context of a sharp power imbalance isn't fair or true consent. If we agree that a teenager cannot realistically consent to sex with an adult because of the power dynamic, then we can see the analogy in the worker/owner relationship where the worker is coerced into consent by threat of destitution, making wage labor exploitation as legitimate as statutory rape.
This can blow minds, if done properly. It might take some practice with the slight of hand moves and Chris Angel finisher, but you can logically lasso rednecks, even Libertarians! Into seeing the truth of Marxism.
swampman posted:I'm finding it a lot easier to just force communism on people and let them witness the results
What if that's what went wrong in Really Existing Socialism?
c_man posted:fuck off dpimpjedi
Well with this kind of solidarity who needs an imperialist capitalist hegemony? 
c_man posted:fuck off dpimpjedi
glomper_stomper posted:i think the academic obscurantist strain of marxism should be eradicated completely but i don't think you're going to be able to convince anyone much of anything if you merely argue in a clever way. sure, that might help but if no one takes you seriously or if they're unwilling to concede even an hour of economic or political discussion with you, much less pursue any sort of correspondence, there's not much chance of getting through to someone.
anyway, tpaine is en route to this thread with a 12-pack of steel reserve. i hope you're ready to get owned
I'm not saying assault random strangers with a Marxism quiz, I'm saying like when chatting up right wing coworkers over coffee or over some drinks at the bar with someone you know , I feel too many leftists like to play self-defeatist games of "inner-circle" which really undermines the core idea of emancipatory politics.
I really believe Marxist theory could benefit from the kind spreading ethics of evangelical Christianity. Winning over hearts and minds , with a side threat of force, has kept the faith growing for two thousand years while Marxism has been reduced to a few hermit kingdoms, some Maoists in India and a bunch of white guys on the Internet.
Make it grow, with proven methods.
EmanuelaBrolandi posted:“The shock troops of fascism on the mass political level are drawn from members of the lower-middle class who feel the upward thrust of the lower classes more acutely. These classes feel that any dislocation of the present economy resulting from the upward thrust of the masses would affect their status first. They are joined by that sector of the working class which is backward enough to be affected by nationalistic trappings and loyalty syndrome that sociologists have termed the Authoritarian Personality.’ One primary aim of the fascist arrangement is to extend and develop this new pig class, to degenerate and diffuse working-class consciousness with a psycho-social appeal to man’s herd instincts. Development and exploitation of the authoritarian syndrome is at the center of ‘totalitarian’ capitalism (fascism). It feeds .on a small but false sense of class consciousness and the need for community.”
Give them church and Christ instead of fascism, show how Christ's teachings are in line with Marxism.
Win win win
How can a religious authoritarian argue against helping the poor and giving the working man the fair products of his own labor?
chickeon posted:
sorry, is there a ted talks of this? Thanks.
so there are two big issues there: you need to show them how collective action can improve their lives (so they aren't cynical) and you need to show them how the things they tend to worry about aren't the real attacks on their dignity. the first part of that can really only be built through successful examples of direct action and political organizing. but the second half is much easier because you can find common ground. like first people do tend to have a lot of grievances and they talk about the ones that are reinforced by their relations. someone might "sound" right-wing on a lot of things but then talking to them you find out they have problem with their landlord. if you figure out a way to be useful on that, even in terms of framing the problem, that encourages them to grow in that direction. and it encourages you to listen and grow in that direction, too! that's the point of the mass line. there are lots of people you'll never "convince" of anything but it's not all or nothing. i have one right-wing person i know who complains endlessly about government waste in an aggressive, i've found that pointing out waste in the police budget in a sympathetic way sort of puts him off balance and he calms down.
anyway obviously i don't know much about this but 1) everything we do is for the lurkers, 2) never use a lack of knowledge to stop yourself from speaking on this forum.
elias posted:I have a Trump card for that one: Rape.
I don't think he's actually played that one yet, no one has had a hand strong enough to beat his Racism deck
getfiscal posted:2) never use a lack of knowledge to stop yourself from speaking on this forum.
No. Let the unwieldly, hapazhard smashings of the autocratative ban hammer do that.
tpaine posted:you think you're going to save this by going to talk some trash that probably can't even spell communism, let alone actually consider its truth?
yes. read -> comprehend -> post.
but if i can try and do eco-conscious things for my hypothetical grandkids' benefit, why not make babysteps toward proselytization (or w/e) even though it won't do much good in my own lifetime?
i wrote a really shitty undergrad thesis on the "effectiveness" of films with an explicit leftist message at getting thru to an unwilling audience (via experimental vs Hollywood-Aesthetic-narrative styles), so i have a lot of feelings about this, but that was also like 7 years ago so i don't have much to say that's super insightful
i ♥ Godard tho, obviously. just look at my name and av
- don't lecture, argue, or point out novel factoids. most people hated school, hate teachers, hate know-it-alls and don't really enjoy arguing or being taught things. what university people see as mild little debate to have over dinner is more likely to be interpreted as a direct attack or insult
- find some common ground and agree with the good ideas they come up with. ignore the bad ones, or steer the conversation in another direction rather than trying to directly refute.
- the best thing you can do is reframe the issue of who the real parasites in society are (instead of people on welfare or goverment workers). just go for the most extreme examples. rather than even talk about bosses who show up to an office everyday, point out the existence of the rentier class who do not ever even pretend to work. people hate the idea of inherited wealth in a strong way.
- "fuck these rich fuckers" or "we should kill all the rich people" are generally winning lines
-they already hate bourgeois liberal culture for the exact same reasons you do, they just might not be aware that there's an alternative camp besides conservatism
- don't come across like you really care what they think. just say "well i think(x) for (y) reason", insinuating "you can think whatever you want", and leave it at that. if you made a good point you'll find them later repeating the same thing to other people in their own words as their own idea. if they see a few people they know and relate to taking a certain position it sends a signal that it's just common sense.
i guess my main point is that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink
Petrol posted:Not exactly what the OP is asking, but I find it helps to know just enough about the ideology of the enemy to attack its weak spots, so if you are unfortunate enough to find yourself talking about economics with some dickhead libertarian nerd at a party or whatever, you can gain their trust by speaking knowledgeably about free market theory, and then drop a bomb like "but even Adam Smith admitted the invisible hand is bullshit", and enjoy watching their face as they have a 'damn, maybe this commie is onto something' moment. They won;t change their mind but it's fun anyway.
libertarian nerds are not everyday working class people. they are middle class liberals with nothing better to do. much like us*
* most of
getfiscal posted:i don't think the 'academic left' (in the sense of like contemporary continental theory or whatever) of that sort is actually all that big or even influential, even in radical organizations. at least not in canadian organizations. the student groups i interact with are often outright hostile to the more traditional 'lefty' professor because of the reasons you suggested. i got to a school with a relatively big share of radical professors and they tend to have eclectic views that don't fit well into actual organizations, so the organizations are almost all dogmatic legacy organizations of defunct 20th Century movements, like the remnants of our equivalent of Militant or something. there are also a lot of little sects with just straightforward weird views (like the impossiblists). this all just suggests to me that the repression was successful for a time and that a new global wave of struggles will have to change it, not that academics are particularly to blame. (even if they were, marxism isn't about whining about others hindering you.) i mean in countries like the US and france, maoist groups suffered many hundreds of political imprisonments designed to crush them.
yeah I hear a lot about capital T theory being a problem, but I think this is limited somewhat to intellectuals or at least the sea change in academic knowledge production since Reagan or so which also leaks into the media from time to time. it's a real problem though, and left types in the academy are pretty worried about that kind of thing not least because it went hand in hand with the rise of neoliberalism
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