How do you do it?
I stopped participating in a group chat with some long-time friends about a year ago, mostly due in part to the exhausting conversations over politics. Ironically, after Trump was shot, the group decided to silo the conversations into two groups, one for non-politics, and one for politics, and pinged me. We’re that kind of group where we go long periods of time not seeing each other in person due to life and kids, but it was nice to have them reach out.
But oh, that politics channel has not changed. Meanwhile, my worldview has shifted dramatically to the left of theirs (and beyond, really). The spectrum is:
- Center Leaning Republican (a Rogan, Pool, Peterson enjoyer),
- A Center leaning Dem
- A Vote Blue Democrat (they are also the only queer person in our group)
- A 3rd Party guy (basically a libertarian but refuses to adopt a label, and doesn’t vote, but also a Peterson enjoyer, rabid anticommunist, they always know a guy, or have a family member, you know what I mean).
- All white, all male
Something interesting happened when I returned, though. The topic that started this isn’t relevant, but it prompted the Center Dem friend to ask me where I get my views from. I sat on that question for an evening and then just wrote out a summary of the Marxist-Leninists view on capitalism and imperialism, without ever using “capitalism” or “imperialism”, without referencing Marx or Lenin.
It was long, but, his response was, basically, “Ok, that makes a lot of sense, actually.” I then told him that Marx and Lenin would be happy to know you agree because that’s their analysis in my own words, as I understand it.
Usually after bringing up someone like Marx, I’ll get dunked on with a barrage of anticommunist brainrot, but that didn’t happen this time.
So it got me thinking about the title of this post. How do you talk to your lib friends about their distorted world view?
One thing I’m trying to figure out is, how do I talk about “libs” without using the word “lib”? In this setting, it is the pejorative “lib” in the classical American Political Conservative sense, and sometimes “Liberal” in the American Political Progressive sense. Using Neoliberal, I feel would fly over their heads.
I use terms like “average American voter”, “mainstream views” or something similar. Like you mention I have found pretty much anyone can agree with the concepts of anticapitalism and communist ideals, so long as you avoid any terms that have been completely distorted. Instead of bourgeoisie you can say the rich elite, billionaires, political class or whatever. I think there is a lot more agreement between sections of the proletariat than it would appear at first, they just have their knee-jerk responses to buzzwords.
I use Neolib and it works great I think. If you google it the results talk about Reagan and Thatcher a lot which drives home that it isn’t what a usian republican means when they say “liberal”.
I generally don’t use a frontal approach instead trying to get them to partake in radical media. Anything by Boots Riley( The Coup, Sorry to Bother You, I’m a Virgo), Damnation (which is no longer on netflix), and a bunch of other stuff. It often lays the groundwork for Yellow Parenti, and other docs. It’s a long process.
I should really watch Andor. Also, I’ve seen “Sorry to bother you”, I’ll look into the other stuff Boots Riley has done. Man, I really need to pull the trigger on a home NAS, so I can start downloading and archiving my own media again.
I have a jellyfin/arr setup and it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. Highly recommend. Looking into using it for IPTV as well so we can get rid of our cable boxes.
I need to put this on my list this year. Just gotta save up the money. I have a bunch of nice 2TB HD just looking for a home.
Currently on hiatus because “you are participating in genocide!” Doesn’t seem to get through to the no matter how i phrase it and i keep having panic attacks from realizing that.
I try to simplify it for them. “Killing people to steal their homes and land is wrong, and I’m not budging on that.”
It doesn’t work, but I don’t get high blood pressure trying to think of other things to say. And now I just don’t talk to my liberal friends. I don’t have time to deal with people who think killing people and stealing their homes and land is okay.
Usually I just do similar to what you do, I analyze using Marxism but don’t specifically label anything.
In a similar vein, I find going back to the root of “where does profit come from?” is useful. Once you establish that workers create value and profit only exists because workers don’t receive the full value of that, it becomes much easier to get them to see that owners have an interest in keeping wages as low as possible. Everything else fits neatly in that framework: bourgeois democracy, regulatory capture, exploitation of the “underdeveloped” world, convergence of traditional hierarchies and capitalism, etc.
