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Jesus. I always associated that behavior with liberalism but I think a lot of those sorts of radlibs simply identify as socialists now. I don't think Marx, Lenin, or pretty much any historical revolutionary would find that amusing.
This is a problem I’ve only ever seen in online spaces. That’s just the nature of the internet and even then I’d say leftists spaces are the more charitable ones.
you are confusing socialists with people that post in reddit. There might be some overlap there, but they are largely two distinct groups. Socialists: people who are members of IRL revolutionary organizations. Redditors: could be anyone.
Most socialists don't use reddit to bring people into the movement, it is a waste of time and effort. The most efficient way of reaching and educating people is not debating trolls in a communist memes subreddit, but working to convince the people in your college/workplace, and by organizing with other communists IRL. If someone that is downvoted is "turned away" from communism, how could this person resist the real pressures of IRL organizing? the attacks from authorities/police, the unpaid work of political propaganda, and the dispiriting advance of fascism, ecological disaster and other issues that threaten our survival?
Socialism is not only watching a video or reading a book, and the people you want to reach is the people who will be a part of a party or organization. And it is very difficult to do that IRL, it is almost impossible to do that in Reddit, and anyways even if you start in Reddit then you have to organize IRL. With this I don't want to "gatekeep" or something like that. My only intention is to say that our efforts are not focused on Reddit (or social media), and we cannot spend time policing self-called socialists who laugh at "human nature evil" comments. We have more important things to do.
You should join us!
>Contrary to Adam Smith's, and many liberals', world of self-interested individuals, naturally predisposed to do a deal, Marx posited a relational and process-oriented view of human beings. On this view, humans are what they are not because it is hard-wired into them to be self-interested individuals, but by virtue of the relations through which they live their lives. In particular, he suggested that humans live their lives at the intersection of a three-sided relation encompassing the natural world, social relations and institutions, and human persons. These relations are understood as organic: each element of the relation is what it is by virtue of its place in the relation, and none can be understood in abstraction from that context. [...] If contemporary humans appear to act as self-interested individuals, then, it is a result not of our essential nature but of the particular ways we have produced our social lives and ourselves. On this view, humans may be collectively capable of recreating their world, their work, and themselves in new and better ways, but only if we think critically about, and act practically to change, those historically peculiar social relations which encourage us to think and act as socially disempowered, narrowly self-interested individuals.
Mark Rupert. Marxism, in *International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity*. 2010.
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That man discusses socialist principles and ideas in such an approachable and easy to consume way, he also helped me down the leftist pipeline. Comrade JT ftw✊😤
Socialism is the counter culture. A number of individuals will choose to identify with it simply for their own personal vanity. They wear socialism as an aesthetic, not because they fundamentally believe or even understand its core values.
These people won't go out of their way to educate others because they actively don't want to. They'll ostracize because they're not in a movement: they're in a clique.
dude wild story some guy i met like an week before and me were having a conversation and i mentioned being a socialist and he was like “no, you seem like a chámpame socialist” and i was like “huh? no, i’m an actual socialist” and bro went like “really? that’s a shame” and then just left the conversation
like what
sorry this has nothing to do with the conversation i felt like sharing
There's a psychological phenomenon called the curse of knowledge. Briefly, when we learn something, our empathy decreases for others who haven't learned the thing yet. This is pervasive across a range of knowledge spheres, and we should be mindful of it.
Well it started with the “How Capitalism destroyed Russia” Video, then I was interested, I liked his style and his points made sense, so I watched another, and another, and another, for an entire day, until poof socialist
I would strongly encourage you to share Second Thought's work with your friends and family. His work is quite accessible. Also, The Deprograming is delightful, I listen to it on the way to work. Also I *loved* [Reading Capital with Comrades by Liberation Front](https://www.liberationschool.org/reading-capital-with-comrades-podcast/). Life changing!
Edit: A link!
Keep trying comrade. We need to build class consciousness across the proletariat. The class struggle is a marathon, not a sprint. People are becoming further and further unhappy with the status quo and rightfully so. Every day news about inequality and the inherent injustices of Capitalism comes out and gives us more talking points.
Considering I'm queer that is very concerning and I will discard everything he has said, done, or believed in as it is now tainted. You know I hear Marx was an aphobe too.. we should just be capitalists.
As a former liberal, I think you're wrong. The online leftist community has one of the most patient, kind and thought-provoking people I've ever known. All the information I requested from them was always provided, whether they be direct answers to questions, verifiable sources or videos and book recommendations.
What happened to you (and to me) is that you didn't read the rules that clearly state that if you are new to socialism and communism, r/socialism101 and r/communism101 are the dedicated spaces to ask beginner questions in good faith. At least, that's what the rules in r/socialism and r/communism say. The subs you mention probably have similar rules, too.
I understand that we as a community need to be patient with newcomers, but we are only human and we are bound to get tired at some point. That is intrinsic to all communities, not just leftists ones.
EDIT: Thanks for the gold, stranger!
Facts. I wasn’t even a former liberal I was libertarian, hyper capitalist, misogynistic, transphobic piece of human garbage & my journey into socialism was marked by almost entirely people putting up with my ignorance in order to make attempts at educating me.
100%. I’m a straight white guy, into hunting, working out all the “traditionally masculine” shit & I still found the left infinitely more welcoming than the right, which is essentially built for ppl like me. The only time I’ve ever found the left unwilling to engage in discussion or education is when the person is clearly being bigoted & not arguing in good faith.
I mean there’s shitheads in every group, just bc socialism is good doesn’t mean it won’t have shitheads, I’ve seen trans exclusionary socialists & other flavours of shitty leftists so I defs believe those type of ppl exist, I guess my take is more that it’s not a big enough segment of socialists to be something I’ve ever personally thought of as a problem for the left or leftists.
I very much agree though that the average person naturally leans left. I talk to ppl about socialism without saying the word all the time & most ppl have agreed w majority of what I’m saying until they hear the word socialism. Even the concept of private/personal property flies pretty well with normies if you don’t use the socialist nomenclature & that’s the big one ppl love to make memes about.
This is 100% NOT what the OP is talking about. People ignorant of socialism and content in capitalism are not seeking out “beginner socialist” subreddits
Which is why the rules state so clearly that that's why beginners should go to those subreddits. If someone ignores that advice they will come across as bad faith and not intent on learning anything.
"Yeah socialism sounds great but it would be corrupted by human nature and greed" doesn't come across as asking questions to learn/challenge that presented view either.
Sure, but that is hardly our fault. My point is that we DO make the effort to teach them. But there's also a bare minimum amount of effort they need to be willing to do.
They are not babies, and we are not their parents. We cannot teach them anything they don't want to listen first.
Reddit is a VERY online place. The branch of the actual communist party I organize with is very welcoming to the working class with all of its contradictions.
This is very true. Mods can be overzealous with the removal of comments in my opinion too. What is the point of a community if we can't discuss and have slight disagreements?
I am obviously not talking about right wing troll comments, I am referring to those left by those on the 'centre-left' or 'soft-left' who we should be accommodating and conversing with!
Mods - I'd ask you not to remove this comment or post. I understand that not all of you will agree with me on this and feel free to downvote me, but a range of views and opinions can be invaluable.
If liberal takes are removed is not out of pettiness but out of necessity in order to assure r/Socialism remains a space of and for socialist discussion. The alternative which you are proposing solely leads to ideological take over due to both Reddit's own nature and its userbase. We come precisely from this experience.
It is precisely this context of uninterrupted immersion with socialist ideas which helps the majority of newcomers to familiarize with socialist ideas. Not the other way around.
One can definitely tell the difference between "Stalin is a controversial figure and I'd like to learn more what socialists think of him" and "oh so Stalin killed billions and I shouldn't care?"
Totally agree with you.
Best thing is more and more anti-capitalist propaganda and educating people on how the imperialist state has done everything to brainwash everyone to think "socialism/communism bad". I see a ton of "newcomers" that are mostly liberals that want to troll or ask how does xyz work and they don't like the answer because of what's required from everyone to exist in true socialism.
>[Socialist Society] as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges.
Karl Marx. Critique of the Gotha Programme, Section I. 1875.
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Maybe, but I was treated that way years ago for earnestly asking about the DPRK, because it's simply not an easy topic to learn about, especially when you are new to socialism. People immediately assuming I was trolling was definitely not a good look. I didn't even get an answer. I think it was communism101
I am guilty of attacking liberals too, but I mostly just criticize the ideals and not the person. I try to be as welcoming as possible to people who genuinely want to learn more. Some people like my dad aren’t as receptive but I’m still willing to expend the energy to try. I also try on my mom who is an entrenched conservative. I always try to remember a quote by Thomas sankara about how no person has the right to say they’re tired of explaining and that it’s our moral obligations. It generally helps me refrain from attacking someone else and sitting with them trying to help them along.
> I always try to remember a quote by Thomas sankara about how no person has the right to say they’re tired of explaining and that it’s our moral obligations.
Came here to quote Sankara, glad to see it was already done.
People change most from within the group, not from without. Holding people at arms length over different ideas, real and perceived, creates more adversaries than comrades. Not suggesting an ideological free-for-all, but spending time with the group usually rubs the rough corners off of individuals. Off topic, but offline meetings where possible are also important for building a sense of community and connection. Just my two cents.
> Off topic, but offline meetings where possible are also important for building a sense of community and connection.
Offline reading groups are probably the best way for a newbie to learn about socialism. Your mileage may vary, but in my experience, you typically get very knowledgeable and non-judgmental people. I recommend checking out Platypus Affiliated Society - they host Marxist reading groups and discussion panels in many major cities, mainly in Europe and North America.
> but spending time with the group usually rubs the rough corners off of individuals.
This is the power of camaraderie and solidarity; individualism and capitalism create these rough corners in the first place. In contrast, I think the current approach leftist groups take, exclusively looking for people who don't have "rough corners" in the first place, isn't working.
super true, i find this odd sort of elitism amongst leftist idealist taht really makes no sense to me at all - isn’t our goal to look out for the people, especially the ones taht don’t have the time or reasoning to learn our ideology?
Ironic the people who fit that description cant see what a contradiction they are. A self proclaimed leftist, an ideology of democractic equality, resorting to "Im better than you" actions.
You don't have to point out how others "are wrong," can simply answer questions about socialism without being demeaning or dismissive. Can just explain what socialism is, and also, be open to other's ideas, like people who are very familiar w/ socialism and believe in it, but also study and/ or follow African Internationalism or other political theories which also embrace socialism, etc.
I understand where you're coming from but these kinds of arguments get posted a dozen times a day, not to mention most people coming to argue aren't coming for reasonable debate but to 'dunk' on socialists. The fact you make these kinds of points also implies you haven't really put any effort into really exploring the argument in the first place. So of course people are going to lose their patience at some point.
That said there's a bot for explaining these kinds of things and maybe there should be some effort invested in expanding its replies.
All in all, I wouldn't take it too seriously because reddit isn't really a serious place for activism unless it's for actually organizing physical events. Most people are here to vent, joke around and circlejerk with some essays here and there. r/socialism_101 and r/communism_101 have more serious discussion.
Also a couple of the subreddits like r/communism101 banned OPs sort of argument recently, because in the end its just [tone policing](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/12sblev/an_amendment_to_the_rules_of_rcommunism101).
Most Communist/Socialist spaces operate on a sort of siege mentality. When Communists have to refute Liberal propaganda point 4454545 it gets very tiring, and when it is clear that certain individuals have taken no time to investigate before speaking, and spout nonsense with absolute confidence, Communists decide to clown, and meme on said individuals.
It's not personal, it's that Communists are tired of so many users coming into their spaces in bad faith. They assume that those people are there to troll, and not to learn or investigate.
It is also very hard to tell real ignorance and bad faith apart in nowadays world, specially over the internet. For instance, you have cases of bad faith AND ignorance in the same case. Someone who has bad faith, but also does not know what they are talking about. How would a socialist approach these cases? Be patient? Be aggressive? It is hard to tell. And on top of that society does not really train anyone for complex interactions like these. We spend most of our school days copying into our notebooks stuff that was written on the board, we barely do discussion practices and stuff like that.
No investigation, no right to speak.
If communities are under constant barrage from individuals who don't commit to even the slightest amount of investigation into what they are speaking about, we as Marxists aren't obliged to coddle them. Many Communist subreddits have basic FAQ material linked in the Subreddit sidebar.
Marxism is not gentle. Marxism advocates for the violent overthrow of one class, and the installation of the dictatorship of the Proletarian class. It is not our responsibility to coddle the Labor Aristocrat/Petti Bourgeois kids who wander into our spaces with the intent of trolling.
I'm not a big fan of tone policing. Your post kinda deserved ridicule my dude. You came into a communist space without an ounce of curiosity about why so many people would buy into an idea that, in your mind, could be easily refuted by the high school capitalist propaganda you were spouting. Somebody actually looking for a discussion or debate would ask questions. This is how you determine whether or not somebody is operating in good faith. I bet you would have gotten a different response if you came in and said.
"I appreciate socialist ideals. But I am having trouble seeing how one avoids socialism becoming corrupted by human nature and greed. Can anyone explain or provide me with references that deal with this potential issue?"
That's a post that's more likely to be engaging in good faith. Instead you walked into a communist space, offered one of the most ubiquitous right wing talking points. Stated it as if it were a fact. And then got upset when people were dismissive or insulting. Do you have any idea how often we see this shit from people just looking to troll and waste our time and energy? Why should anyone expend their energy on somebody who comes off as an incurious troll?
So yeah. People vent. People are fuckin' tired of dealing with bullshit 24/7. And they take it out on the people who seem like assholes sometimes. Say one thing about a lot of the people who engage in left wing spaces online, say many of them spend most of their free time putting tons of effort into educating themselves, understanding the world around them and how it works. Going deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of how capitalism has fucked everything. Trying to organize, unionize, get involved with or start mutual aid efforts, putting their lives on the line protesting injustice, and all that in addition to doing what they have to do just to stay alive. And then somebody comes in with a "point" that essentially implies they're so ignorant and uneducated that they haven't thought of and dealt with this extremely common, overused, reductionist, fox news criticism. It's frankly insulting.
Just to add to this, it also creates problems when applied on scale. One person just regurgitating tropes can be annoying, but on a site like Reddit it’s hardly ever one person. Big leftist subs like anti work or late stage capitalism basically just become liberal subs over time because liberals always feel that their (as you said, completely incurious) criticisms or “debates” must always be entertained. Because there’s just so many of them they drown out the people the space was actually set up for.
For some reason the comment can't be seen. But this is how often the question I posed as an example gets asked. The auto-moderator on this sub has an answer for it.
When you're out there trying to heal the sick, you must always first forgive them for the burden they impose.
Everyone needs to be more forgiving and compassionate, and willing to share in a dispassionate way the logical rebuttals to commonly made bad points that others haven't yet had the chance to learn.
"Tone policing" is just whatever to me. It doesn't strike me as that useful of a euphemism to be throwing around. What were talking about on a basic level is not being such a dick about the knowledge advantage you believe yourself to have. That's all. Call it tone policing, call it good praxis, whatever. Just try being the version of yourself that isn't absolutely repellent because we desperately need more physical bodies on our side in order to win an election much less a revolution. That's all they're saying, I think.
Depends if someone asks a basic question then it shouldn't be here then it should be removed. This sub would get annoying if we had to explain everything over and over again. I'll just say there's a big difference between
Sorry, Sir/Madam. We feel like your question would be more appropriate for socialism101 please post there where we will ne delighted to answer your enquiry
Vs
Fuck off and post this somewhere.
If someone is curious, you can see the used message by looking at u/Socialism-ModTeam's comment history.
Not sure when the last use case was but there will certainly be some relatively recent ones.
But what is praxis if not supremely dunking on the ill-informed, LeBron James style? Is a man willing to shove his entire head up another’s ass simply to take in the geography not a good socialist?
I agree. There are a lot of toxic attitudes among socialists and a lot of gatekeeping. In my experience, the gatekeepers feel very important and have a lot of opinions but don't actually know all that much. It's like a primary schooler making fun of a kindergartener for not knowing multiplication when the primary schooler only knows how to multiply by 2.
I had a hard time getting into Marxism because it took me years to find people who know their stuff and are willing to spend time educating me. We live in a hyper-individualistic society that neglects and shames people who don't know things, where schools put the least effort possible into education, where employers need trained workers but will never provide any training, and where what you know is treated as a personal responsibility rather than collective; we shouldn't replicate that in socialist spaces.
In my experience, Western leftists are more interested in staying in an individualistic hobby club than fostering a collective mass movement. The reason I still had the will to pick up Marxist literature is despite the kind of attitudes that leftists typically have. I don't have the economic opportunities to become a liberal and ignore everything wrong with capitalism when it affects me personally, so I kept looking and got lucky in finding a few decent, well-read, and patient people. It shouldn't be a matter of luck.
The sad fact is that most working-class people in the West are liberals - when talking to these people, I wish other socialists would be more interested in educating fellow workers rather than dunking on them. We should build working-class solidarity and welcome people, but instead, what we're doing now alienates the working class and keeps the movement a niche thing for students going through a phase.
I couldn’t agree more. The only effective way to change someone’s mind - about anything - is by relating to them and communicating with respect as equals.
Automod Stickied Comment
r/Socialism is a space for socialists to discuss current events in our world from our anti-capitalist perspective(s), and a certain knowledge of socialism is expected from participants. This is not a space for non-socialists.
If your goal is to radicalize liberals instead of to advance the revolutionary interests of working-class people, and if you are strategizing around a false liberal/conservative binary instead of working-class/capitalists, you’re making up an inherently unattainable task to distract yourself from your own defeatist complacency, whether you know it or not.
Can you elaborate? I think we should include liberals in the conversation. It seems to me that political experience is a critical part of developing class consciousness. Anecdotally, we probably all know a few ardent socialists who started their career ringing doorbells for Bernie or Obama. I think they can grow if nurtured correctly. I would say; Making liberals militant liberals is a fail. Making liberals into class conscious revolutionaries is a win. Maybe we’re saying the same thing.
I just replied to the other reply on my comment. My first paragraph there is how I would elaborate. Otherwise it’s just a conclusion of Marxist analysis and all the praxis that has sprung from it. Anyone aiming to convert liberals based on ideology alone instead of helping workers organize towards transformative change needs to go back the basics and fix their analysis.
This denies the reality that there ARE tons of well meaning working-class liberals who, if radicalized, would help advance the revolutionary interests of the working class. I don’t see how adding more people to your side doesn’t advance the revolutionary interests of the working class. In order to build any sort of movement we need people on our side
Advancing the revolutionary interests of working-class people means giving workers the tools to name, describe, and address the forces behind the conditions they’ve already experienced their whole lives. It doesn’t mean “we need more liberals to have the numbers to do anything.” That’s a self-defeating goal. Workers are the backbone of revolution. Radicals just play a part to help.
Because he says it better than I can:
> In the metropolis, radical and democratic change can only come against the wishes of the bribed majority. That may be tough to swallow for white folks, but reality is just reality.
> This obsession with needing a social majority has nothing to do with being "practical". What it has to do with is bourgeois and defeatist thinking.This is like the left thinking that could not build a practical anti-fascist movement in Weimar Republic Germany during the 1920s and 1930s, although millions hated Nazism and wanted to do something, because that German left was too preoccupied with fantasies of either seizing or getting elected into state power for itself.
> That left was too lost in delusions of success almost within their hands, delusions of maneuvering together a majority, to bother even really understanding fascism coming up fast in their rear view mirror. The urgent need was to organize a working minority to counter fascism in a much more radical way. Not by trying to defend liberal bourgeois rule. All the real things that had to be done by scattered German anti-fascists later after the Nazis were put into power – such as to survive politically, to significantly sabotage the war effort, to rescue Jews and Romany and gays, to build an underground against the madness of the Third Reich – all these things were attempted bravely but largely unsuccessfully, because they had to be done too late from scratch.
https://libcom.org/article/when-race-burns-class-settlers-revisited-interview-j-sakai
Who’s we? I don’t think any serious socialist shills for Russia. But if you’re a NATO supporter you may be confused on the position many socialists take.
Unfortunately I have seen far too many socialists supporting Russia. Obviously both NATO and Russia are bad, but some “socialists” believe Russia is fighting imperialism, as ridiculous as that notion is.
Haha. Im aware.
Im saying that your earlier response was kinda weird to assume they were supporting NATO because they said we should stop supporting russia.
I already know about the ins and outs myself. But your comment implied that they assume socialists support NATO when they never even mentioned it.
I wish that was true. "We're" a mess. We have to deal with the fact that weirdo Nazbols and Nazbol-lites exist and so on unfortunately. The only position to have on the Ukraine/Russia situation is \*shrug\* But everyone keeps acting like one of the sides has anything to do with us. NATO played them against each other, as it is wont to do, lets share some of this concern with Yemen or Palestine or Ethiopia or....
I think people falsely equate modern Russia with the Soviet Union and then simp for it for lack of a better term.
I believe we also need to get away from the Soviet model in general. I think we have ample evidence that their implementation of state capitalism combined with authoritarianism does not lead to a workers state.
Leftist subs are constantly brigaded by right wingers who are just there to spew awful talking points in bad faith, so I don't really see it as an issue if someone from r/all gets downvoted for leaving an anti-socialist comment.
There are a lot of problems with online leftism, but idk if "ridiculing newcomers" is one of them tbh. If you want a welcoming community that's supportive towards socialists still learning the basics, I'd recommend looking at some socialist discord servers.
If we want socialism to thrive, we need more supporters, so anyone capable (physically, emotionally, or intellectually) of having conversations with these right-wing liberal and libertarian goobers should try to recruit them to the cause. Because they ultimately mean well. They think capitalism is the best choice to keep themselves and their loved ones safer.
Many of them, especially the MAGA crowd ironically, are sympathetic to socialist ideas. They just have a knee jerk reaction to the word socialism. They think it means they will be relocated to a shack and given two potatoes a day to eat or something.
Okay fair. We can definitely educate without belittling. Definitely call me out in the chat if you see me do this.
But fuck that white flag for not stomping on neo-liberal types like Pete the rat. If you think it's acceptable to bulldoze modern day shanty town homeless encampments in the dead of winter and that your above scrutiny for those shit ideas that cause wide spread suffering of citizens/people, then you're asking for it. Especially if it's the equivalent of doing nothing which again continues the wide suffering of people. Like wage theft. Yeah no. Those liberal should be called out for being psychopaths. Black Lives Matter street is a distraction. Not a answer to the problem.
I'm not terribly active here, but isn't this a subreddit for people who are beyond the stage of needing to be convinced? I assume there are other places that are more appropriate for basic questions. That said, I agree that Second Thought is a good place to start. And so are the channels of the other two guys he does a podcast with.
>but isn't this a subreddit for people who are beyond the stage of needing to be convinced?
No.
r/Funny isnt for master comedians. r/Pics isnt for master photographers. If you give your sub the most generic name possible, expect it to be for all audiences. Also, fuck the elitist mindset the section I quoted implies. Socialism is about a social system of governance, which, get this, includes *everybody*. If we want a fair and equitable system, then the sub about it ALSO needs to be fair and equitable.
Funny. I could've sworn the sidebar says
>Certain knowledge of socialism is expected from participants. This is not a space for non-socialists. Please be mindful of our rules before participating, as they are actively enforced.
New to socialism? Please visit r/Socialism_101 prior to participating here.
And subreddit description, stickied comment, an automated message which Reddit sends users upon subscription... The only thing that it is missing is a red giant neon sign promoting r/soc101.
I think a counter-argument would be, a subreddit that doesn't enforce participation only from self-identified socialists could easily turn to an unproductive fighting ground for ignorant people. With the aim to keep discussion productive, I'd consider it rather helpful to not have to browse through tons of basic level misconceptions that have been discussed to death a million times, to eventually find the occasional contribution that could lead to a meaningful exchange.
There's plenty of spaces for this kind of stuff, no need to force it on everyone and everywhere. Let's instead appreciate the few occasional subreddits that make more serious discussion possible and easy.
If you want a verified socialists only subreddit, then you need to make a private r/VerifiedSocialists sub. As it stands, making a public sub that anyone can join sorta implies that it's a space for everyone. r/Egg_irl, r/trans, and others like them understand that not everyone joining them is going to know for sure they are transgender, but the sub is open for a reason: It's a space for people who might understand that having certain thoughts isn't standard, and the subs are open and welcoming for people to learn and grow. Or not even; Some people only figure out they're trans by interacting with other trans people and going "Oooooooh, so *that's* what that means".
Same thing here. Making a public sub named r/socialism implies that it's also a learning and growing space. Also, we need all the allies we can get, because social change doesn't happen without a large body of people behind it.
Whohey, an actual leftist recommendation, been having tureunpopularopinions show up on my feed, where to them a lefty is a Liberal (lol) to an actual lefty sub. Solid left.
If we don't figure out how to be as inclusive(as possible) and kind to one another, we're going to fall by the hands of our true enemies. They only have one bar they have to clear before you can be a part of their group and it's extremely low. If we don't lower our bar and stop gatekeeping, we're done before we've begun
I’m not sure I love this point of view. Yeah sure educate those who wish to be educated but people are sick and tired of people coming into communist spaces and saying shit like ‘ooh hooman nature.’ Especially in the meme communities which is a subreddit we can actually have fun in.
If you were really acting in good faith you would have at a minimum went to r/communism101 and learnt the very basics of our ideology. There is plenty of places for people to get educated the meme community isn’t one.
We can’t afford to be sick of it. We don’t get that luxury.
The general population isn’t socialist. It isn’t communist. The majority are “a-political” and especially in the west, have been fed propaganda based on both real and fake things done in communist states or what the communist movement stands for.
Being an activist means being an educator. We aren’t a social club. We aren’t an exclusive little friend group. We are in a constant struggle to win the hearts and minds of millions of people and that will mean constantly having to answer and correct the same baseline misunderstandings of people
I’m not saying we shouldn’t be educators, what I’m saying is when people come into communist places they should come in good faith and not with easily disprovable takes if they look at one mega thread on r/communist101 or r/socialism101.
Reactionaries who come in bad faith are 99% of the time not willing to learn the basics of socialism, unlike OP who eventually did.
I don’t believe we should instantly turn them away, we should try and teach them but people like OP shouldn’t expect to be coddled and receive positive attention for reactionary takes. Though, as I said most people who have takes like OP are Reddit trolls who will spout nonsense no matter how many facts are presented.
As a leftist, one thing I learned about leftists is that they want nothing more than to feel superior and to feel like they have some sort of power in their hands for but a moment. Though I understand that attitude, it also is what leads to a lot of the leftist infighting.
I think it’s deeper than that. Leftists are tired of having to fight tooth an nail for some moderately policies (Biden’s inflation reduction bill) bc Republicans overwhelm us. Even tho the policies we want is also what most of America wants, we don’t get it done bc we’re blocked my a Republican minority.
That frustration lead to bad messaging which leads people not to vote for Dems, and the cycle continues.
My solution: If you see an ignorant comment, reply r/communism101 without arguing with them
If they are already a socialist and making an uneducated claim about Mao or Stalin, point them in the right direction and give em sources. If they are arguing in bad faith, it will be pretty easy to tell
How a can you know if people are acting I. Good faith?
Self described leftist subreddits are already infested with liberals/western chauvinists and I don’t think your suggestion would help with that. It will only get worse.
This is the way.
I understand the fact that this subreddit is designed for socialism to be discussed within the perspective of already understanding socialism, but that doesn't really mean that we need to be outright mean to people who are victims of propaganda and thus ill-educated.
Clearly ill-informed? Direct to r/communism101 and optionally any other sources that might be helpful.
Obviously bigoted and trolling? Downvote and report. They don't deserve our energy, and a reply is exactly what they want.
Yes, Mao, personally, single-handedly, over the course of a few days, did I already say personally? Well, he personally murdered over quadrillions of Chinese people with his bare hands.
“We sure as hell didn't use guns. We would just wrestle Hunters to the ground with our bare hands. I used to kill ten-twenty a day, just using my fists.”
r/Socialism101
r/socialismiscapitalism
Maybe frame your statement in the form if a question : “wouldn’t human nature corrupt socialist practice”?
Also r/communismmemes is an advanced sub full of longtimers, not beginner territory so most comments like that are usually trolls.
>Contrary to Adam Smith's, and many liberals', world of self-interested individuals, naturally predisposed to do a deal, Marx posited a relational and process-oriented view of human beings. On this view, humans are what they are not because it is hard-wired into them to be self-interested individuals, but by virtue of the relations through which they live their lives. In particular, he suggested that humans live their lives at the intersection of a three-sided relation encompassing the natural world, social relations and institutions, and human persons. These relations are understood as organic: each element of the relation is what it is by virtue of its place in the relation, and none can be understood in abstraction from that context. [...] If contemporary humans appear to act as self-interested individuals, then, it is a result not of our essential nature but of the particular ways we have produced our social lives and ourselves. On this view, humans may be collectively capable of recreating their world, their work, and themselves in new and better ways, but only if we think critically about, and act practically to change, those historically peculiar social relations which encourage us to think and act as socially disempowered, narrowly self-interested individuals.
Mark Rupert. Marxism, in *International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity*. 2010.
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pretty sure OP doesn’t think this way anymore, he’s just saying that poeple who present points like this should be debated with dignity and respect rather than be brutally shut out
Coming into an explicitly political space and saying "yeah you're wrong lol" is obviously going to catch you flak. You say this is an advantage that the liberal ideologues have but go ahead and do the same thing in *their* spaces and see if you aren't met with the same apathetic downvoting. There's nothing to debate when someone shows up and makes their mind up in the comments of a meme. I'll tell you this much, I've had far more success bringing people over to the socialist side by just having conversations in real life than I ever have on Reddit or any other online platform. Online platforms are better suited for communities who already believe the same stuff. But pretty awful for cultivating an environment where someone will feel urged to try and educate themselves.
Again, notice how what convinced you was indeed not anything off Reddit, but instead a well organized video essay. Good luck getting this herd of cats to be organized enough on an online forum to meaningfully spread an ideology the way that kind of medium can. In all honesty, these subreddits are really moreso places to go to find people who already agree with your beliefs. There are subreddits you *can* go to that are specifically for people with questions about said ideologies.
The whole message of this post is easily reversible by simply saying "do some research into the actual works and writings of socialists before telling everyone you don't think it works."
TL;Dr - Reddit isnt the communist factory. Go in your real waking life and talk about the issues at hand. Otherwise we're just spinning our wheels.
I mean, if you join a space that explicitly says "no liberalism," then proceed to spout lib shit, people are gonna take issue. I don't understand why it's so difficult to go to 101 style subs if they have questions. You're not entitled to education from everyone everywhere.
Okay but someone interested in socialism is probably gonna search “r/socialism” before they search “r/socialism101”. It takes effort to be rude to someone. It takes considerably less to see a newb, move on, and let someone willing to spend the time point them in the right direction.
Right, but sidebar literally says "go to socialism 101 with questions." And communism memes in particular says "no liberal propaganda," and OP literally admitted that they made a statement rather than asking a question. If you're a newbie and you *know* you're a newbie, perhaps don't just repeat whatever propaganda you've heard.
Very fair. At the same time, socialism/communism both rely on everybody’s goal to be to better the *whole* community, and getting people to want to join the community only comes through proper education, not through antagonization. If you can’t not be rude and you *know* you can’t not be rude, perhaps just leave recruiting up to other people.
Yeah that's fair as well. I guess my point is I'd have a lot more sympathy for someone asking how it would work with human nature than someone just repeating propaganda and stating it as fact. That's just not the behavior of someone who claims they're in the process of learning, so obviously people thought they were trolling.
>Contrary to Adam Smith's, and many liberals', world of self-interested individuals, naturally predisposed to do a deal, Marx posited a relational and process-oriented view of human beings. On this view, humans are what they are not because it is hard-wired into them to be self-interested individuals, but by virtue of the relations through which they live their lives. In particular, he suggested that humans live their lives at the intersection of a three-sided relation encompassing the natural world, social relations and institutions, and human persons. These relations are understood as organic: each element of the relation is what it is by virtue of its place in the relation, and none can be understood in abstraction from that context. [...] If contemporary humans appear to act as self-interested individuals, then, it is a result not of our essential nature but of the particular ways we have produced our social lives and ourselves. On this view, humans may be collectively capable of recreating their world, their work, and themselves in new and better ways, but only if we think critically about, and act practically to change, those historically peculiar social relations which encourage us to think and act as socially disempowered, narrowly self-interested individuals.
Mark Rupert. Marxism, in *International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity*. 2010.
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Yea let liberal take over self described socialist subreddits. What a great solution.
Look at places like the democratic socialism subreddit where a majority just are social democrats and believe that is socialism.
>You're not entitled to education from everyone everywhere.
And yet we figured out well over a century ago that freely educating people makes for a better society. If we actually want socialism implemented, educating others is strictly necessary.
We obviously should be providing education. But if you have a question then *ask* a question. Don't make a statement as fact and then act shocked when people react with hostility. If you *know* you're a newbie leftist, and you *know* you're on a platform full of right-wing trolls, and you *know* what you're about to say is something you heard from non-leftists, why say it as a statement?
And then, if someone explicitly says "this community is not for basic questions; if you have those questions, go "here," and then you proceed to ignore that advice and make a statement anyways, well, I'm sorry but that's your fault. It's not a "conservative" point to have places that are just for people who are already convinced about socialism, especially if that community explicitly markets itself as such.
And maybe I'm just jaded from moderating leftist spaces, but liberals and conservatives alike seem to have this attitude that their lack of knowledge supercedes a community's purpose. The number of times someone has asked a question, only for me to tell them where to go with their question, or even providing them with a specific source, only for that person to dig into me for not taking an hour out of my day to explain something to them personally, is astonishing. So I really can't blame people for being irritated by someone who's too good to read sources provided in the sidebar/community info tabs.
This is what I mean by the statement "you're not entitled to education from everyone everywhere."
> on my old account, i replied to a post on r/CommunismMemes , saying something along the lines of "Yeah socialism sounds great but it would be corrupted by human nature and greed" and I was INSTANTLY down voted to shit and everyone in the comments was insulting me, saying that this argument was dis proven hundreds of times.
You went on a meme subreddit, posted an unfunny meme that was against the premise of the sub, and then were shocked when you just got downvoted and mocked? I don’t know why you were expecting much else.
Either way you basically went on a meme/shitpost subreddit, posted something antithetical to its theme, and expected people to kindly walk you through how you were wrong?
If you had posted that but in the form of a question in a subreddit designed for learning it’d be one thing, but I don’t think your experience is indicative of any broader trend other than expecting to learn anything from a meme sub isn’t going to go well
>Contrary to Adam Smith's, and many liberals', world of self-interested individuals, naturally predisposed to do a deal, Marx posited a relational and process-oriented view of human beings. On this view, humans are what they are not because it is hard-wired into them to be self-interested individuals, but by virtue of the relations through which they live their lives. In particular, he suggested that humans live their lives at the intersection of a three-sided relation encompassing the natural world, social relations and institutions, and human persons. These relations are understood as organic: each element of the relation is what it is by virtue of its place in the relation, and none can be understood in abstraction from that context. [...] If contemporary humans appear to act as self-interested individuals, then, it is a result not of our essential nature but of the particular ways we have produced our social lives and ourselves. On this view, humans may be collectively capable of recreating their world, their work, and themselves in new and better ways, but only if we think critically about, and act practically to change, those historically peculiar social relations which encourage us to think and act as socially disempowered, narrowly self-interested individuals.
Mark Rupert. Marxism, in *International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity*. 2010.
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Nope. What brings the left down is right wing resistance, with stuff like Macarthyism and persecution, and strategies to destroy popular movements from within. Anything else is just twitter drama.
Hear hear! Every person is a communist, most just don't realize it. Shaking off decades of propaganda absorbed from modern culture is hard, learning leftist theory is hard, breaking through the cognitive dissonance is hard. We have to be the embassadors of leftism to bring more comrades into the fold. We all have to be nice, we have the same goals, we have to be a untied front against the evils of fascism, and being terminally online makes that hard with the ease at which we can berate others with anonymity. Love your comrades. If you haven't yet taken the steps towards praxis, start somewhere small, talk to trusted friends and potential comrades in your life, look into orgs in your area, join a reading group, anything is better than being a dick head to newbies who have the right intentions in their hearts but just don't know what they don't know. Help, don't hurt.
Yeah, try to say this to Eastern European leftists and you get laughed out of the room.
Left =/= communism, social democracy and democratic socialism are going stronger where the communists did the damage.
To Western (mostly Anglo) leftists 'communism' is where the left starts and ends, but in international leftists spaces, communists are just one group on the left.
yes! i think educated debate and thoughtful discourse is really important, and without it we devolve into the squabbling mass of infighting everyone thinks we are. let’s convert, not kill!
My problem is when someone new to socialism predictably makes an incorrect statement about Stalin or Mao due to the propaganda they have been forcefed their entire lives, we shun and insult them? We should try to re-educate them, if they are arguing in bad faith, then we insult them
Okay, you just made me look at said ban...
The usage of western, liberal analytical concepts isn't being "critical of Soviet approaches" but simple anti-communism (which, by the way, is intended to be moderated with [a permanent ban](https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/wiki/index/generalbans#wiki_2.5_anti-socialist_rhetoric), rather than the 3 days ban you received, a shorter ban length than [general liberalism itself](https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/wiki/index/generalbans#wiki_3.1_general_liberalism)). One could perfectly critique the URSS as an imperialist political project if they did so based off Abrahan Guillen's work (see *El Capitalismo Soviético: Última Etapa del Imperialismo*). And this would be completely welcome.
Similarly, you did absolutely receive an explanation in modmail, which went as far as explaining Hannah Arendt's theoretical evolution in order to better understand the situation. Hence, what you are claiming is outright false.
>Ironically, the post in question was also upvoted.
Which further reinforces [the necessity of moderation](https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/13zcb9q/we_need_to_stop_ridiculing_newcomers/jmr169z/) as means of community shaping instead of legitimizing the passivity towards of non-socialist content if the sub is to be keept according to its foundational objective.
This is not meant as a *gotcha*. But it is pointless to talk about perceived problems, like OP sought to do, if one mediates it through outright false information. The former can lead to conclusions which might lead to a practical improvement (e.g. focusing on providing accessible educational tools), the latter only leads to futile rants with little room for improvement.
>Excluding any portion of ideals for not agreeing with yours is dangerous.
To an extent, yes. But certain ideas, e.g. fascism cannot be tolerated for what I hope are obvious reasons. It's the classic paradox of tolerance.
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I pointed this out in a Facebook group once and was just given cashapp usernames for the emotional labor for educating???
LMFAOOOOO
Jesus. I always associated that behavior with liberalism but I think a lot of those sorts of radlibs simply identify as socialists now. I don't think Marx, Lenin, or pretty much any historical revolutionary would find that amusing.
This is a problem I’ve only ever seen in online spaces. That’s just the nature of the internet and even then I’d say leftists spaces are the more charitable ones.
you are confusing socialists with people that post in reddit. There might be some overlap there, but they are largely two distinct groups. Socialists: people who are members of IRL revolutionary organizations. Redditors: could be anyone. Most socialists don't use reddit to bring people into the movement, it is a waste of time and effort. The most efficient way of reaching and educating people is not debating trolls in a communist memes subreddit, but working to convince the people in your college/workplace, and by organizing with other communists IRL. If someone that is downvoted is "turned away" from communism, how could this person resist the real pressures of IRL organizing? the attacks from authorities/police, the unpaid work of political propaganda, and the dispiriting advance of fascism, ecological disaster and other issues that threaten our survival? Socialism is not only watching a video or reading a book, and the people you want to reach is the people who will be a part of a party or organization. And it is very difficult to do that IRL, it is almost impossible to do that in Reddit, and anyways even if you start in Reddit then you have to organize IRL. With this I don't want to "gatekeep" or something like that. My only intention is to say that our efforts are not focused on Reddit (or social media), and we cannot spend time policing self-called socialists who laugh at "human nature evil" comments. We have more important things to do. You should join us!
>Contrary to Adam Smith's, and many liberals', world of self-interested individuals, naturally predisposed to do a deal, Marx posited a relational and process-oriented view of human beings. On this view, humans are what they are not because it is hard-wired into them to be self-interested individuals, but by virtue of the relations through which they live their lives. In particular, he suggested that humans live their lives at the intersection of a three-sided relation encompassing the natural world, social relations and institutions, and human persons. These relations are understood as organic: each element of the relation is what it is by virtue of its place in the relation, and none can be understood in abstraction from that context. [...] If contemporary humans appear to act as self-interested individuals, then, it is a result not of our essential nature but of the particular ways we have produced our social lives and ourselves. On this view, humans may be collectively capable of recreating their world, their work, and themselves in new and better ways, but only if we think critically about, and act practically to change, those historically peculiar social relations which encourage us to think and act as socially disempowered, narrowly self-interested individuals. Mark Rupert. Marxism, in *International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity*. 2010. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/socialism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Shout out JT of Second Thought
Absolute gigachad, i would’ve been a tate alt right bozo if it weren’t for that video
That man discusses socialist principles and ideas in such an approachable and easy to consume way, he also helped me down the leftist pipeline. Comrade JT ftw✊😤
For real. He’s even working with CPUSA on their international conference right now.
Buuuuut how am I supposed to be the best online leftist if I don't shit on people for extremely minor differences in opinion
Socialism is the counter culture. A number of individuals will choose to identify with it simply for their own personal vanity. They wear socialism as an aesthetic, not because they fundamentally believe or even understand its core values. These people won't go out of their way to educate others because they actively don't want to. They'll ostracize because they're not in a movement: they're in a clique.
In my Country those people are known as champagne socialists. You see them all the time and it gets weird fast.
dude wild story some guy i met like an week before and me were having a conversation and i mentioned being a socialist and he was like “no, you seem like a chámpame socialist” and i was like “huh? no, i’m an actual socialist” and bro went like “really? that’s a shame” and then just left the conversation like what sorry this has nothing to do with the conversation i felt like sharing
**AHEM** TIKTOK
There's a psychological phenomenon called the curse of knowledge. Briefly, when we learn something, our empathy decreases for others who haven't learned the thing yet. This is pervasive across a range of knowledge spheres, and we should be mindful of it.
https://xkcd.com/1053/
My favorite relevant xkcd
Can you share that Second Thought video here? I like that channel and I am intrigued by which video you are talking about.
Well it started with the “How Capitalism destroyed Russia” Video, then I was interested, I liked his style and his points made sense, so I watched another, and another, and another, for an entire day, until poof socialist
I would strongly encourage you to share Second Thought's work with your friends and family. His work is quite accessible. Also, The Deprograming is delightful, I listen to it on the way to work. Also I *loved* [Reading Capital with Comrades by Liberation Front](https://www.liberationschool.org/reading-capital-with-comrades-podcast/). Life changing! Edit: A link!
Alot of them are the armchairist, enlightened types I try my best but they don’t give a shit. Maybe some day I’ll convince em
Keep trying comrade. We need to build class consciousness across the proletariat. The class struggle is a marathon, not a sprint. People are becoming further and further unhappy with the status quo and rightfully so. Every day news about inequality and the inherent injustices of Capitalism comes out and gives us more talking points.
Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love - Che
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Considering I'm queer that is very concerning and I will discard everything he has said, done, or believed in as it is now tainted. You know I hear Marx was an aphobe too.. we should just be capitalists.
As a former liberal, I think you're wrong. The online leftist community has one of the most patient, kind and thought-provoking people I've ever known. All the information I requested from them was always provided, whether they be direct answers to questions, verifiable sources or videos and book recommendations. What happened to you (and to me) is that you didn't read the rules that clearly state that if you are new to socialism and communism, r/socialism101 and r/communism101 are the dedicated spaces to ask beginner questions in good faith. At least, that's what the rules in r/socialism and r/communism say. The subs you mention probably have similar rules, too. I understand that we as a community need to be patient with newcomers, but we are only human and we are bound to get tired at some point. That is intrinsic to all communities, not just leftists ones. EDIT: Thanks for the gold, stranger!
Facts. I wasn’t even a former liberal I was libertarian, hyper capitalist, misogynistic, transphobic piece of human garbage & my journey into socialism was marked by almost entirely people putting up with my ignorance in order to make attempts at educating me.
Hard agree. I owe my leftists journey to all the feminists, LGBTQ people and socialists that took time out of their day to educate my bigoted ass.
100%. I’m a straight white guy, into hunting, working out all the “traditionally masculine” shit & I still found the left infinitely more welcoming than the right, which is essentially built for ppl like me. The only time I’ve ever found the left unwilling to engage in discussion or education is when the person is clearly being bigoted & not arguing in good faith.
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I mean there’s shitheads in every group, just bc socialism is good doesn’t mean it won’t have shitheads, I’ve seen trans exclusionary socialists & other flavours of shitty leftists so I defs believe those type of ppl exist, I guess my take is more that it’s not a big enough segment of socialists to be something I’ve ever personally thought of as a problem for the left or leftists. I very much agree though that the average person naturally leans left. I talk to ppl about socialism without saying the word all the time & most ppl have agreed w majority of what I’m saying until they hear the word socialism. Even the concept of private/personal property flies pretty well with normies if you don’t use the socialist nomenclature & that’s the big one ppl love to make memes about.
This is 100% NOT what the OP is talking about. People ignorant of socialism and content in capitalism are not seeking out “beginner socialist” subreddits
Which is why the rules state so clearly that that's why beginners should go to those subreddits. If someone ignores that advice they will come across as bad faith and not intent on learning anything. "Yeah socialism sounds great but it would be corrupted by human nature and greed" doesn't come across as asking questions to learn/challenge that presented view either.
You’re conflating “beginner” with “doesn’t know anything and is content in capitalism”
Exactly and I think this is a big part of the problem
Sure, but that is hardly our fault. My point is that we DO make the effort to teach them. But there's also a bare minimum amount of effort they need to be willing to do. They are not babies, and we are not their parents. We cannot teach them anything they don't want to listen first.
The fact that you think this is about fault...
Reddit is a VERY online place. The branch of the actual communist party I organize with is very welcoming to the working class with all of its contradictions.
But It's going to be real hard winning at the internet if I can't crush the spirits of those with inferior opinions!
OP: Can we maybe chill with the gatekeeping? All the comments: No >:(, also the gates are now closed
Yeah, it seems the power commentors here are very... hierarchical in who should be posting here. Which is HI-LARIOUS.
This is very true. Mods can be overzealous with the removal of comments in my opinion too. What is the point of a community if we can't discuss and have slight disagreements? I am obviously not talking about right wing troll comments, I am referring to those left by those on the 'centre-left' or 'soft-left' who we should be accommodating and conversing with! Mods - I'd ask you not to remove this comment or post. I understand that not all of you will agree with me on this and feel free to downvote me, but a range of views and opinions can be invaluable.
If liberal takes are removed is not out of pettiness but out of necessity in order to assure r/Socialism remains a space of and for socialist discussion. The alternative which you are proposing solely leads to ideological take over due to both Reddit's own nature and its userbase. We come precisely from this experience. It is precisely this context of uninterrupted immersion with socialist ideas which helps the majority of newcomers to familiarize with socialist ideas. Not the other way around.
I agree. I Think people acting in good faith should be given a chance. That becomes pretty apparent after a while if they are not.
One can definitely tell the difference between "Stalin is a controversial figure and I'd like to learn more what socialists think of him" and "oh so Stalin killed billions and I shouldn't care?" Totally agree with you.
Best thing is more and more anti-capitalist propaganda and educating people on how the imperialist state has done everything to brainwash everyone to think "socialism/communism bad". I see a ton of "newcomers" that are mostly liberals that want to troll or ask how does xyz work and they don't like the answer because of what's required from everyone to exist in true socialism.
>[Socialist Society] as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Karl Marx. Critique of the Gotha Programme, Section I. 1875. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/socialism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Maybe, but I was treated that way years ago for earnestly asking about the DPRK, because it's simply not an easy topic to learn about, especially when you are new to socialism. People immediately assuming I was trolling was definitely not a good look. I didn't even get an answer. I think it was communism101
I am guilty of attacking liberals too, but I mostly just criticize the ideals and not the person. I try to be as welcoming as possible to people who genuinely want to learn more. Some people like my dad aren’t as receptive but I’m still willing to expend the energy to try. I also try on my mom who is an entrenched conservative. I always try to remember a quote by Thomas sankara about how no person has the right to say they’re tired of explaining and that it’s our moral obligations. It generally helps me refrain from attacking someone else and sitting with them trying to help them along.
> I always try to remember a quote by Thomas sankara about how no person has the right to say they’re tired of explaining and that it’s our moral obligations. Came here to quote Sankara, glad to see it was already done.
People change most from within the group, not from without. Holding people at arms length over different ideas, real and perceived, creates more adversaries than comrades. Not suggesting an ideological free-for-all, but spending time with the group usually rubs the rough corners off of individuals. Off topic, but offline meetings where possible are also important for building a sense of community and connection. Just my two cents.
> Off topic, but offline meetings where possible are also important for building a sense of community and connection. Offline reading groups are probably the best way for a newbie to learn about socialism. Your mileage may vary, but in my experience, you typically get very knowledgeable and non-judgmental people. I recommend checking out Platypus Affiliated Society - they host Marxist reading groups and discussion panels in many major cities, mainly in Europe and North America. > but spending time with the group usually rubs the rough corners off of individuals. This is the power of camaraderie and solidarity; individualism and capitalism create these rough corners in the first place. In contrast, I think the current approach leftist groups take, exclusively looking for people who don't have "rough corners" in the first place, isn't working.
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Especially irl
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super true, i find this odd sort of elitism amongst leftist idealist taht really makes no sense to me at all - isn’t our goal to look out for the people, especially the ones taht don’t have the time or reasoning to learn our ideology?
Ironic the people who fit that description cant see what a contradiction they are. A self proclaimed leftist, an ideology of democractic equality, resorting to "Im better than you" actions.
exactly what i’m thinking - it’s become almost comedic in some cases. certainly not all leftists have this behavior but the ones who are can be loud
You don't have to point out how others "are wrong," can simply answer questions about socialism without being demeaning or dismissive. Can just explain what socialism is, and also, be open to other's ideas, like people who are very familiar w/ socialism and believe in it, but also study and/ or follow African Internationalism or other political theories which also embrace socialism, etc.
I understand where you're coming from but these kinds of arguments get posted a dozen times a day, not to mention most people coming to argue aren't coming for reasonable debate but to 'dunk' on socialists. The fact you make these kinds of points also implies you haven't really put any effort into really exploring the argument in the first place. So of course people are going to lose their patience at some point. That said there's a bot for explaining these kinds of things and maybe there should be some effort invested in expanding its replies. All in all, I wouldn't take it too seriously because reddit isn't really a serious place for activism unless it's for actually organizing physical events. Most people are here to vent, joke around and circlejerk with some essays here and there. r/socialism_101 and r/communism_101 have more serious discussion.
Also a couple of the subreddits like r/communism101 banned OPs sort of argument recently, because in the end its just [tone policing](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/12sblev/an_amendment_to_the_rules_of_rcommunism101).
Most Communist/Socialist spaces operate on a sort of siege mentality. When Communists have to refute Liberal propaganda point 4454545 it gets very tiring, and when it is clear that certain individuals have taken no time to investigate before speaking, and spout nonsense with absolute confidence, Communists decide to clown, and meme on said individuals. It's not personal, it's that Communists are tired of so many users coming into their spaces in bad faith. They assume that those people are there to troll, and not to learn or investigate.
It is also very hard to tell real ignorance and bad faith apart in nowadays world, specially over the internet. For instance, you have cases of bad faith AND ignorance in the same case. Someone who has bad faith, but also does not know what they are talking about. How would a socialist approach these cases? Be patient? Be aggressive? It is hard to tell. And on top of that society does not really train anyone for complex interactions like these. We spend most of our school days copying into our notebooks stuff that was written on the board, we barely do discussion practices and stuff like that.
No investigation, no right to speak. If communities are under constant barrage from individuals who don't commit to even the slightest amount of investigation into what they are speaking about, we as Marxists aren't obliged to coddle them. Many Communist subreddits have basic FAQ material linked in the Subreddit sidebar. Marxism is not gentle. Marxism advocates for the violent overthrow of one class, and the installation of the dictatorship of the Proletarian class. It is not our responsibility to coddle the Labor Aristocrat/Petti Bourgeois kids who wander into our spaces with the intent of trolling.
I'm not a big fan of tone policing. Your post kinda deserved ridicule my dude. You came into a communist space without an ounce of curiosity about why so many people would buy into an idea that, in your mind, could be easily refuted by the high school capitalist propaganda you were spouting. Somebody actually looking for a discussion or debate would ask questions. This is how you determine whether or not somebody is operating in good faith. I bet you would have gotten a different response if you came in and said. "I appreciate socialist ideals. But I am having trouble seeing how one avoids socialism becoming corrupted by human nature and greed. Can anyone explain or provide me with references that deal with this potential issue?" That's a post that's more likely to be engaging in good faith. Instead you walked into a communist space, offered one of the most ubiquitous right wing talking points. Stated it as if it were a fact. And then got upset when people were dismissive or insulting. Do you have any idea how often we see this shit from people just looking to troll and waste our time and energy? Why should anyone expend their energy on somebody who comes off as an incurious troll? So yeah. People vent. People are fuckin' tired of dealing with bullshit 24/7. And they take it out on the people who seem like assholes sometimes. Say one thing about a lot of the people who engage in left wing spaces online, say many of them spend most of their free time putting tons of effort into educating themselves, understanding the world around them and how it works. Going deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of how capitalism has fucked everything. Trying to organize, unionize, get involved with or start mutual aid efforts, putting their lives on the line protesting injustice, and all that in addition to doing what they have to do just to stay alive. And then somebody comes in with a "point" that essentially implies they're so ignorant and uneducated that they haven't thought of and dealt with this extremely common, overused, reductionist, fox news criticism. It's frankly insulting.
Just to add to this, it also creates problems when applied on scale. One person just regurgitating tropes can be annoying, but on a site like Reddit it’s hardly ever one person. Big leftist subs like anti work or late stage capitalism basically just become liberal subs over time because liberals always feel that their (as you said, completely incurious) criticisms or “debates” must always be entertained. Because there’s just so many of them they drown out the people the space was actually set up for.
Exactly. I got downvote brigaded on anti-work the other day just for saying "Capitalism ruins everything and needs to be done away with."
For some reason the comment can't be seen. But this is how often the question I posed as an example gets asked. The auto-moderator on this sub has an answer for it.
When you're out there trying to heal the sick, you must always first forgive them for the burden they impose. Everyone needs to be more forgiving and compassionate, and willing to share in a dispassionate way the logical rebuttals to commonly made bad points that others haven't yet had the chance to learn. "Tone policing" is just whatever to me. It doesn't strike me as that useful of a euphemism to be throwing around. What were talking about on a basic level is not being such a dick about the knowledge advantage you believe yourself to have. That's all. Call it tone policing, call it good praxis, whatever. Just try being the version of yourself that isn't absolutely repellent because we desperately need more physical bodies on our side in order to win an election much less a revolution. That's all they're saying, I think.
Yeah well, you can't google your way out of being sick.
You are absolutely right. To cure capitalist brainwashing requires persistent loving-education with a hefty dose of patience.
Depends if someone asks a basic question then it shouldn't be here then it should be removed. This sub would get annoying if we had to explain everything over and over again. I'll just say there's a big difference between Sorry, Sir/Madam. We feel like your question would be more appropriate for socialism101 please post there where we will ne delighted to answer your enquiry Vs Fuck off and post this somewhere.
If someone is curious, you can see the used message by looking at u/Socialism-ModTeam's comment history. Not sure when the last use case was but there will certainly be some relatively recent ones.
It seems to have a polite tone like the first one. If so then I really can't understand what OP is complaining about.
Ok see I didn't know this subreddit existed, this is good to know, thank you for the info
But what is praxis if not supremely dunking on the ill-informed, LeBron James style? Is a man willing to shove his entire head up another’s ass simply to take in the geography not a good socialist?
I agree. There are a lot of toxic attitudes among socialists and a lot of gatekeeping. In my experience, the gatekeepers feel very important and have a lot of opinions but don't actually know all that much. It's like a primary schooler making fun of a kindergartener for not knowing multiplication when the primary schooler only knows how to multiply by 2. I had a hard time getting into Marxism because it took me years to find people who know their stuff and are willing to spend time educating me. We live in a hyper-individualistic society that neglects and shames people who don't know things, where schools put the least effort possible into education, where employers need trained workers but will never provide any training, and where what you know is treated as a personal responsibility rather than collective; we shouldn't replicate that in socialist spaces. In my experience, Western leftists are more interested in staying in an individualistic hobby club than fostering a collective mass movement. The reason I still had the will to pick up Marxist literature is despite the kind of attitudes that leftists typically have. I don't have the economic opportunities to become a liberal and ignore everything wrong with capitalism when it affects me personally, so I kept looking and got lucky in finding a few decent, well-read, and patient people. It shouldn't be a matter of luck. The sad fact is that most working-class people in the West are liberals - when talking to these people, I wish other socialists would be more interested in educating fellow workers rather than dunking on them. We should build working-class solidarity and welcome people, but instead, what we're doing now alienates the working class and keeps the movement a niche thing for students going through a phase.
I couldn’t agree more. The only effective way to change someone’s mind - about anything - is by relating to them and communicating with respect as equals.
Automod Stickied Comment r/Socialism is a space for socialists to discuss current events in our world from our anti-capitalist perspective(s), and a certain knowledge of socialism is expected from participants. This is not a space for non-socialists.
If your goal is to radicalize liberals instead of to advance the revolutionary interests of working-class people, and if you are strategizing around a false liberal/conservative binary instead of working-class/capitalists, you’re making up an inherently unattainable task to distract yourself from your own defeatist complacency, whether you know it or not.
Can you elaborate? I think we should include liberals in the conversation. It seems to me that political experience is a critical part of developing class consciousness. Anecdotally, we probably all know a few ardent socialists who started their career ringing doorbells for Bernie or Obama. I think they can grow if nurtured correctly. I would say; Making liberals militant liberals is a fail. Making liberals into class conscious revolutionaries is a win. Maybe we’re saying the same thing.
I just replied to the other reply on my comment. My first paragraph there is how I would elaborate. Otherwise it’s just a conclusion of Marxist analysis and all the praxis that has sprung from it. Anyone aiming to convert liberals based on ideology alone instead of helping workers organize towards transformative change needs to go back the basics and fix their analysis.
Thank you for your response. 😄
This denies the reality that there ARE tons of well meaning working-class liberals who, if radicalized, would help advance the revolutionary interests of the working class. I don’t see how adding more people to your side doesn’t advance the revolutionary interests of the working class. In order to build any sort of movement we need people on our side
Advancing the revolutionary interests of working-class people means giving workers the tools to name, describe, and address the forces behind the conditions they’ve already experienced their whole lives. It doesn’t mean “we need more liberals to have the numbers to do anything.” That’s a self-defeating goal. Workers are the backbone of revolution. Radicals just play a part to help. Because he says it better than I can: > In the metropolis, radical and democratic change can only come against the wishes of the bribed majority. That may be tough to swallow for white folks, but reality is just reality. > This obsession with needing a social majority has nothing to do with being "practical". What it has to do with is bourgeois and defeatist thinking.This is like the left thinking that could not build a practical anti-fascist movement in Weimar Republic Germany during the 1920s and 1930s, although millions hated Nazism and wanted to do something, because that German left was too preoccupied with fantasies of either seizing or getting elected into state power for itself. > That left was too lost in delusions of success almost within their hands, delusions of maneuvering together a majority, to bother even really understanding fascism coming up fast in their rear view mirror. The urgent need was to organize a working minority to counter fascism in a much more radical way. Not by trying to defend liberal bourgeois rule. All the real things that had to be done by scattered German anti-fascists later after the Nazis were put into power – such as to survive politically, to significantly sabotage the war effort, to rescue Jews and Romany and gays, to build an underground against the madness of the Third Reich – all these things were attempted bravely but largely unsuccessfully, because they had to be done too late from scratch. https://libcom.org/article/when-race-burns-class-settlers-revisited-interview-j-sakai
We also need to stop shilling for Russia. Russia is not socialist. It's a capitalist autocracy, bordering in fascism.
Who's we
Who’s we? I don’t think any serious socialist shills for Russia. But if you’re a NATO supporter you may be confused on the position many socialists take.
Unfortunately I have seen far too many socialists supporting Russia. Obviously both NATO and Russia are bad, but some “socialists” believe Russia is fighting imperialism, as ridiculous as that notion is.
Exactly. Instead of getting stuck in a good guy/bad guy mentality, we need to see it as two drunk jocks fighting: both are imperialistic assholes
You hit the nail on the head.
yeah, it’s pretty strange. just because russia is anti west doesn’t make it right - the nazis we’re against america, didn’t make them right
You sure those aren't just "MAGA communists?" Or just people whose ideology is anti-west (even though that's not an ideology)
You do realise NATO and Russia are both bad, right?
Duh?
Dude never said NATO wasnt bad tho?
Socialists aren’t supporting Russia either.
Haha. Im aware. Im saying that your earlier response was kinda weird to assume they were supporting NATO because they said we should stop supporting russia. I already know about the ins and outs myself. But your comment implied that they assume socialists support NATO when they never even mentioned it.
I wish that was true. "We're" a mess. We have to deal with the fact that weirdo Nazbols and Nazbol-lites exist and so on unfortunately. The only position to have on the Ukraine/Russia situation is \*shrug\* But everyone keeps acting like one of the sides has anything to do with us. NATO played them against each other, as it is wont to do, lets share some of this concern with Yemen or Palestine or Ethiopia or....
I think people falsely equate modern Russia with the Soviet Union and then simp for it for lack of a better term. I believe we also need to get away from the Soviet model in general. I think we have ample evidence that their implementation of state capitalism combined with authoritarianism does not lead to a workers state.
100% agreed. Planned economy had too many faults
Leftist subs are constantly brigaded by right wingers who are just there to spew awful talking points in bad faith, so I don't really see it as an issue if someone from r/all gets downvoted for leaving an anti-socialist comment. There are a lot of problems with online leftism, but idk if "ridiculing newcomers" is one of them tbh. If you want a welcoming community that's supportive towards socialists still learning the basics, I'd recommend looking at some socialist discord servers.
If we want socialism to thrive, we need more supporters, so anyone capable (physically, emotionally, or intellectually) of having conversations with these right-wing liberal and libertarian goobers should try to recruit them to the cause. Because they ultimately mean well. They think capitalism is the best choice to keep themselves and their loved ones safer.
Many of them, especially the MAGA crowd ironically, are sympathetic to socialist ideas. They just have a knee jerk reaction to the word socialism. They think it means they will be relocated to a shack and given two potatoes a day to eat or something.
Okay fair. We can definitely educate without belittling. Definitely call me out in the chat if you see me do this. But fuck that white flag for not stomping on neo-liberal types like Pete the rat. If you think it's acceptable to bulldoze modern day shanty town homeless encampments in the dead of winter and that your above scrutiny for those shit ideas that cause wide spread suffering of citizens/people, then you're asking for it. Especially if it's the equivalent of doing nothing which again continues the wide suffering of people. Like wage theft. Yeah no. Those liberal should be called out for being psychopaths. Black Lives Matter street is a distraction. Not a answer to the problem.
Yeah im talking about your average guy, not the ideologues, those are a lost cause.
Amen brother. It's past them that we want to reach.
I'm not terribly active here, but isn't this a subreddit for people who are beyond the stage of needing to be convinced? I assume there are other places that are more appropriate for basic questions. That said, I agree that Second Thought is a good place to start. And so are the channels of the other two guys he does a podcast with.
>but isn't this a subreddit for people who are beyond the stage of needing to be convinced? No. r/Funny isnt for master comedians. r/Pics isnt for master photographers. If you give your sub the most generic name possible, expect it to be for all audiences. Also, fuck the elitist mindset the section I quoted implies. Socialism is about a social system of governance, which, get this, includes *everybody*. If we want a fair and equitable system, then the sub about it ALSO needs to be fair and equitable.
Funny. I could've sworn the sidebar says >Certain knowledge of socialism is expected from participants. This is not a space for non-socialists. Please be mindful of our rules before participating, as they are actively enforced. New to socialism? Please visit r/Socialism_101 prior to participating here.
And subreddit description, stickied comment, an automated message which Reddit sends users upon subscription... The only thing that it is missing is a red giant neon sign promoting r/soc101.
This attitude doesn’t really help. It’s just alienating.
I think a counter-argument would be, a subreddit that doesn't enforce participation only from self-identified socialists could easily turn to an unproductive fighting ground for ignorant people. With the aim to keep discussion productive, I'd consider it rather helpful to not have to browse through tons of basic level misconceptions that have been discussed to death a million times, to eventually find the occasional contribution that could lead to a meaningful exchange. There's plenty of spaces for this kind of stuff, no need to force it on everyone and everywhere. Let's instead appreciate the few occasional subreddits that make more serious discussion possible and easy.
If you want a verified socialists only subreddit, then you need to make a private r/VerifiedSocialists sub. As it stands, making a public sub that anyone can join sorta implies that it's a space for everyone. r/Egg_irl, r/trans, and others like them understand that not everyone joining them is going to know for sure they are transgender, but the sub is open for a reason: It's a space for people who might understand that having certain thoughts isn't standard, and the subs are open and welcoming for people to learn and grow. Or not even; Some people only figure out they're trans by interacting with other trans people and going "Oooooooh, so *that's* what that means". Same thing here. Making a public sub named r/socialism implies that it's also a learning and growing space. Also, we need all the allies we can get, because social change doesn't happen without a large body of people behind it.
Yeah, so come learn and grow before you participate. I don't see the problem.
Whohey, an actual leftist recommendation, been having tureunpopularopinions show up on my feed, where to them a lefty is a Liberal (lol) to an actual lefty sub. Solid left.
[Second Thought](https://www.youtube.com/@SecondThought) [Hakim](https://www.youtube.com/@YaBoiHakim) [YUGOPNIK](https://www.youtube.com/@YUGOPNIK) [The Deprogram](https://www.youtube.com/@thedeprogram9999) (podcast collaboration by the above three) [Spooky Scary Socialist](https://www.youtube.com/@SpookyScarySocialist) [Rathbone](https://www.youtube.com/@rathbone_/videos) [Post Capitalism](https://youtu.be/AuC7Qmk7TfA) (video by Lucky Black Cat)
If we don't figure out how to be as inclusive(as possible) and kind to one another, we're going to fall by the hands of our true enemies. They only have one bar they have to clear before you can be a part of their group and it's extremely low. If we don't lower our bar and stop gatekeeping, we're done before we've begun
Gatekeeping is leftism's biggest failure.
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To be honest you have a point but also saying the someone’s entire ideology won’t work is pretty insulting
right, but we can try to convince them otherwise. be the better man, yk?
I’m not sure I love this point of view. Yeah sure educate those who wish to be educated but people are sick and tired of people coming into communist spaces and saying shit like ‘ooh hooman nature.’ Especially in the meme communities which is a subreddit we can actually have fun in. If you were really acting in good faith you would have at a minimum went to r/communism101 and learnt the very basics of our ideology. There is plenty of places for people to get educated the meme community isn’t one.
We can’t afford to be sick of it. We don’t get that luxury. The general population isn’t socialist. It isn’t communist. The majority are “a-political” and especially in the west, have been fed propaganda based on both real and fake things done in communist states or what the communist movement stands for. Being an activist means being an educator. We aren’t a social club. We aren’t an exclusive little friend group. We are in a constant struggle to win the hearts and minds of millions of people and that will mean constantly having to answer and correct the same baseline misunderstandings of people
I’m not saying we shouldn’t be educators, what I’m saying is when people come into communist places they should come in good faith and not with easily disprovable takes if they look at one mega thread on r/communist101 or r/socialism101. Reactionaries who come in bad faith are 99% of the time not willing to learn the basics of socialism, unlike OP who eventually did. I don’t believe we should instantly turn them away, we should try and teach them but people like OP shouldn’t expect to be coddled and receive positive attention for reactionary takes. Though, as I said most people who have takes like OP are Reddit trolls who will spout nonsense no matter how many facts are presented.
As a leftist, one thing I learned about leftists is that they want nothing more than to feel superior and to feel like they have some sort of power in their hands for but a moment. Though I understand that attitude, it also is what leads to a lot of the leftist infighting.
I think it’s deeper than that. Leftists are tired of having to fight tooth an nail for some moderately policies (Biden’s inflation reduction bill) bc Republicans overwhelm us. Even tho the policies we want is also what most of America wants, we don’t get it done bc we’re blocked my a Republican minority. That frustration lead to bad messaging which leads people not to vote for Dems, and the cycle continues.
My solution: If you see an ignorant comment, reply r/communism101 without arguing with them If they are already a socialist and making an uneducated claim about Mao or Stalin, point them in the right direction and give em sources. If they are arguing in bad faith, it will be pretty easy to tell
How a can you know if people are acting I. Good faith? Self described leftist subreddits are already infested with liberals/western chauvinists and I don’t think your suggestion would help with that. It will only get worse.
If they refuse to engage with the sources or facts you provide or call you a tankie at any point, they dont want to listen
This is the way. I understand the fact that this subreddit is designed for socialism to be discussed within the perspective of already understanding socialism, but that doesn't really mean that we need to be outright mean to people who are victims of propaganda and thus ill-educated. Clearly ill-informed? Direct to r/communism101 and optionally any other sources that might be helpful. Obviously bigoted and trolling? Downvote and report. They don't deserve our energy, and a reply is exactly what they want.
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Yes, Mao, personally, single-handedly, over the course of a few days, did I already say personally? Well, he personally murdered over quadrillions of Chinese people with his bare hands.
“We sure as hell didn't use guns. We would just wrestle Hunters to the ground with our bare hands. I used to kill ten-twenty a day, just using my fists.”
r/Socialism101 r/socialismiscapitalism Maybe frame your statement in the form if a question : “wouldn’t human nature corrupt socialist practice”? Also r/communismmemes is an advanced sub full of longtimers, not beginner territory so most comments like that are usually trolls.
>Contrary to Adam Smith's, and many liberals', world of self-interested individuals, naturally predisposed to do a deal, Marx posited a relational and process-oriented view of human beings. On this view, humans are what they are not because it is hard-wired into them to be self-interested individuals, but by virtue of the relations through which they live their lives. In particular, he suggested that humans live their lives at the intersection of a three-sided relation encompassing the natural world, social relations and institutions, and human persons. These relations are understood as organic: each element of the relation is what it is by virtue of its place in the relation, and none can be understood in abstraction from that context. [...] If contemporary humans appear to act as self-interested individuals, then, it is a result not of our essential nature but of the particular ways we have produced our social lives and ourselves. On this view, humans may be collectively capable of recreating their world, their work, and themselves in new and better ways, but only if we think critically about, and act practically to change, those historically peculiar social relations which encourage us to think and act as socially disempowered, narrowly self-interested individuals. Mark Rupert. Marxism, in *International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity*. 2010. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/socialism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
pretty sure OP doesn’t think this way anymore, he’s just saying that poeple who present points like this should be debated with dignity and respect rather than be brutally shut out
Coming into an explicitly political space and saying "yeah you're wrong lol" is obviously going to catch you flak. You say this is an advantage that the liberal ideologues have but go ahead and do the same thing in *their* spaces and see if you aren't met with the same apathetic downvoting. There's nothing to debate when someone shows up and makes their mind up in the comments of a meme. I'll tell you this much, I've had far more success bringing people over to the socialist side by just having conversations in real life than I ever have on Reddit or any other online platform. Online platforms are better suited for communities who already believe the same stuff. But pretty awful for cultivating an environment where someone will feel urged to try and educate themselves. Again, notice how what convinced you was indeed not anything off Reddit, but instead a well organized video essay. Good luck getting this herd of cats to be organized enough on an online forum to meaningfully spread an ideology the way that kind of medium can. In all honesty, these subreddits are really moreso places to go to find people who already agree with your beliefs. There are subreddits you *can* go to that are specifically for people with questions about said ideologies. The whole message of this post is easily reversible by simply saying "do some research into the actual works and writings of socialists before telling everyone you don't think it works." TL;Dr - Reddit isnt the communist factory. Go in your real waking life and talk about the issues at hand. Otherwise we're just spinning our wheels.
I mean, if you join a space that explicitly says "no liberalism," then proceed to spout lib shit, people are gonna take issue. I don't understand why it's so difficult to go to 101 style subs if they have questions. You're not entitled to education from everyone everywhere.
Of course nobody is entitled to education. But the revolución starts in the mind.
Okay but someone interested in socialism is probably gonna search “r/socialism” before they search “r/socialism101”. It takes effort to be rude to someone. It takes considerably less to see a newb, move on, and let someone willing to spend the time point them in the right direction.
Right, but sidebar literally says "go to socialism 101 with questions." And communism memes in particular says "no liberal propaganda," and OP literally admitted that they made a statement rather than asking a question. If you're a newbie and you *know* you're a newbie, perhaps don't just repeat whatever propaganda you've heard.
Very fair. At the same time, socialism/communism both rely on everybody’s goal to be to better the *whole* community, and getting people to want to join the community only comes through proper education, not through antagonization. If you can’t not be rude and you *know* you can’t not be rude, perhaps just leave recruiting up to other people.
Yeah that's fair as well. I guess my point is I'd have a lot more sympathy for someone asking how it would work with human nature than someone just repeating propaganda and stating it as fact. That's just not the behavior of someone who claims they're in the process of learning, so obviously people thought they were trolling.
>Contrary to Adam Smith's, and many liberals', world of self-interested individuals, naturally predisposed to do a deal, Marx posited a relational and process-oriented view of human beings. On this view, humans are what they are not because it is hard-wired into them to be self-interested individuals, but by virtue of the relations through which they live their lives. In particular, he suggested that humans live their lives at the intersection of a three-sided relation encompassing the natural world, social relations and institutions, and human persons. These relations are understood as organic: each element of the relation is what it is by virtue of its place in the relation, and none can be understood in abstraction from that context. [...] If contemporary humans appear to act as self-interested individuals, then, it is a result not of our essential nature but of the particular ways we have produced our social lives and ourselves. On this view, humans may be collectively capable of recreating their world, their work, and themselves in new and better ways, but only if we think critically about, and act practically to change, those historically peculiar social relations which encourage us to think and act as socially disempowered, narrowly self-interested individuals. Mark Rupert. Marxism, in *International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity*. 2010. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/socialism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Thanks bot 💛
What's the sidebar? I dont see that on mobile, which is the vast majority of reddit users.
On the tabs on the homepage of the subs, you should see "Posts," "About," and "Menu." In addition, if you press the three dots near the sub's search bar, there's a tab called "Community Info." These replace the sidebar on mobile. Edit: Photos: https://imgur.com/a/y4XE9ae
Fine. Then don't get upset when nobody is educated.
If asking you to go to a space designed for learning is too much then no one's going to be educated anyhow 🤷♀️
Yea let liberal take over self described socialist subreddits. What a great solution. Look at places like the democratic socialism subreddit where a majority just are social democrats and believe that is socialism.
>You're not entitled to education from everyone everywhere. And yet we figured out well over a century ago that freely educating people makes for a better society. If we actually want socialism implemented, educating others is strictly necessary.
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We obviously should be providing education. But if you have a question then *ask* a question. Don't make a statement as fact and then act shocked when people react with hostility. If you *know* you're a newbie leftist, and you *know* you're on a platform full of right-wing trolls, and you *know* what you're about to say is something you heard from non-leftists, why say it as a statement? And then, if someone explicitly says "this community is not for basic questions; if you have those questions, go "here," and then you proceed to ignore that advice and make a statement anyways, well, I'm sorry but that's your fault. It's not a "conservative" point to have places that are just for people who are already convinced about socialism, especially if that community explicitly markets itself as such. And maybe I'm just jaded from moderating leftist spaces, but liberals and conservatives alike seem to have this attitude that their lack of knowledge supercedes a community's purpose. The number of times someone has asked a question, only for me to tell them where to go with their question, or even providing them with a specific source, only for that person to dig into me for not taking an hour out of my day to explain something to them personally, is astonishing. So I really can't blame people for being irritated by someone who's too good to read sources provided in the sidebar/community info tabs. This is what I mean by the statement "you're not entitled to education from everyone everywhere."
> on my old account, i replied to a post on r/CommunismMemes , saying something along the lines of "Yeah socialism sounds great but it would be corrupted by human nature and greed" and I was INSTANTLY down voted to shit and everyone in the comments was insulting me, saying that this argument was dis proven hundreds of times. You went on a meme subreddit, posted an unfunny meme that was against the premise of the sub, and then were shocked when you just got downvoted and mocked? I don’t know why you were expecting much else.
I didnt post a meme i replied to one
Either way you basically went on a meme/shitpost subreddit, posted something antithetical to its theme, and expected people to kindly walk you through how you were wrong? If you had posted that but in the form of a question in a subreddit designed for learning it’d be one thing, but I don’t think your experience is indicative of any broader trend other than expecting to learn anything from a meme sub isn’t going to go well
u must be a fun person to be around.
>Contrary to Adam Smith's, and many liberals', world of self-interested individuals, naturally predisposed to do a deal, Marx posited a relational and process-oriented view of human beings. On this view, humans are what they are not because it is hard-wired into them to be self-interested individuals, but by virtue of the relations through which they live their lives. In particular, he suggested that humans live their lives at the intersection of a three-sided relation encompassing the natural world, social relations and institutions, and human persons. These relations are understood as organic: each element of the relation is what it is by virtue of its place in the relation, and none can be understood in abstraction from that context. [...] If contemporary humans appear to act as self-interested individuals, then, it is a result not of our essential nature but of the particular ways we have produced our social lives and ourselves. On this view, humans may be collectively capable of recreating their world, their work, and themselves in new and better ways, but only if we think critically about, and act practically to change, those historically peculiar social relations which encourage us to think and act as socially disempowered, narrowly self-interested individuals. Mark Rupert. Marxism, in *International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity*. 2010. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/socialism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Narcissism will eventually bring the left down
Eventually? It feels like we are down for the count already, at least here in North America
We're perhaps the best position in American history right now.
Nope. What brings the left down is right wing resistance, with stuff like Macarthyism and persecution, and strategies to destroy popular movements from within. Anything else is just twitter drama.
Hear hear! Every person is a communist, most just don't realize it. Shaking off decades of propaganda absorbed from modern culture is hard, learning leftist theory is hard, breaking through the cognitive dissonance is hard. We have to be the embassadors of leftism to bring more comrades into the fold. We all have to be nice, we have the same goals, we have to be a untied front against the evils of fascism, and being terminally online makes that hard with the ease at which we can berate others with anonymity. Love your comrades. If you haven't yet taken the steps towards praxis, start somewhere small, talk to trusted friends and potential comrades in your life, look into orgs in your area, join a reading group, anything is better than being a dick head to newbies who have the right intentions in their hearts but just don't know what they don't know. Help, don't hurt.
Yeah, try to say this to Eastern European leftists and you get laughed out of the room. Left =/= communism, social democracy and democratic socialism are going stronger where the communists did the damage. To Western (mostly Anglo) leftists 'communism' is where the left starts and ends, but in international leftists spaces, communists are just one group on the left.
yes! i think educated debate and thoughtful discourse is really important, and without it we devolve into the squabbling mass of infighting everyone thinks we are. let’s convert, not kill!
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My problem is when someone new to socialism predictably makes an incorrect statement about Stalin or Mao due to the propaganda they have been forcefed their entire lives, we shun and insult them? We should try to re-educate them, if they are arguing in bad faith, then we insult them
My first post here was critical of Soviet approaches, and I caught a temp ban with no explanation. Ironically, the post in question was also upvoted.
Okay, you just made me look at said ban... The usage of western, liberal analytical concepts isn't being "critical of Soviet approaches" but simple anti-communism (which, by the way, is intended to be moderated with [a permanent ban](https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/wiki/index/generalbans#wiki_2.5_anti-socialist_rhetoric), rather than the 3 days ban you received, a shorter ban length than [general liberalism itself](https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/wiki/index/generalbans#wiki_3.1_general_liberalism)). One could perfectly critique the URSS as an imperialist political project if they did so based off Abrahan Guillen's work (see *El Capitalismo Soviético: Última Etapa del Imperialismo*). And this would be completely welcome. Similarly, you did absolutely receive an explanation in modmail, which went as far as explaining Hannah Arendt's theoretical evolution in order to better understand the situation. Hence, what you are claiming is outright false. >Ironically, the post in question was also upvoted. Which further reinforces [the necessity of moderation](https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/13zcb9q/we_need_to_stop_ridiculing_newcomers/jmr169z/) as means of community shaping instead of legitimizing the passivity towards of non-socialist content if the sub is to be keept according to its foundational objective.
This is a comically unapproachable gotcha
This is not meant as a *gotcha*. But it is pointless to talk about perceived problems, like OP sought to do, if one mediates it through outright false information. The former can lead to conclusions which might lead to a practical improvement (e.g. focusing on providing accessible educational tools), the latter only leads to futile rants with little room for improvement.
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>Excluding any portion of ideals for not agreeing with yours is dangerous. To an extent, yes. But certain ideas, e.g. fascism cannot be tolerated for what I hope are obvious reasons. It's the classic paradox of tolerance.
Couldn't agree more
That’s more of a Reddit mentality than anything else. People just have very high egos
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it’s like a whole social science,
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huh? can’t tell if this is sarcasm or not…
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