“Well what’s the alternative?”
tell them the alternative
“Well, everyone thinks their political opinion is the correct one, what gives you the right to say yours is correct”
passionately appeal to their human empathy and tell them why socialism is indeed correct
“Wow stop being so aggressive, you’re trying to force your beliefs on me, this is why people don’t like talking about politics”
sooner or later politics will become relevant to your life, capitalism is killing our species, do you not want to maybe do something about that…?
“Well if we’re all doomed anyway what’s the point, might as well just be blissfully ignorant”
Fucking end my life. This is almost verbatim a conversation I just had. This is a person who came from a working family who has worked and rented their whole life. Convo started when I called landlords parasites and tried to explain why, lol. How are we meant to convince a critical mass of these people to leave their false consciousness behind before capitalism fucking kills us all :doomer:
Oh believe me I tried all that too. “Why shouldn’t they be allowed to do that, they had to work to afford the house in the first place”
😑🔫
That’s not how you turn people communist. The first thing you gotta do is look at their level of wealth. If that person is well-off, you may as well try to climb the Everest while blind. If that person isn’t well-off, then your work begins. You need to figure out what this person is into in terms of issues : environment, poverty, anti-racism, anti-interventionism, etc… That kind of things. When you choose an angle from which to attack, you gotta fetch some pretty “cool bug facts”, and show them. If it’s a guy living paycheck to paycheck who is attracted towards populist policies, then show him his idols are linked with what he hates (media-billionaire ties for example). If it’s a middle class college student who’s into reformism, then show him the corruption and how deep the lobbies rabbithole goes.
Also, I’ll say this : Krobuttkin is right here. You can never, NEVER appeal to empathy from those who are well-off. Unless you have a deep, personal connection to them, you simply will not convince them. Hell, you might not convince them even with a personal connection. The guy here doesn’t seem to have a problem with rent, or at least not enough to care, so attacking through the poverty angle will not work. If you can’t find anything else to challenge the ideals of said relative on, then you may as well wait a little bit longer or dig some more. Or move on, up to you.
But damn, you’re right about the doomer vibes, for real. People are fucking stupid, and can’t fucking help it until they’re directly affected by capitalism.
Convo started when I called landlords parasites
That was your big mistake. Common language on the left is alienating to “normies”. You gotta hide your power level. Start real slow and branch from there.
I recently didn’t hide my power level and suggested that what we’re taught about the DPRK probably isn’t 100% accurate, and oh boy, did I get major backlash. 😂 Like, I don’t know why it’s so controversial? No one I know has ever been there. How can you claim to know anything about a country you haven’t been to?
You people have to learn better how to talk with others about this.
Everybody has a wedge issue you can use to break through, you just have to press it RELENTLESSLY.
It’s simple:
- Identify this issue with who you’re speaking to.
- sympathize with them, without yet bringing up communism,
- you have to let them know that nothing is broken, this is a system working as it’s intended to
- guide them through the contradictions, it only works if their own reasoning leads them there.
- you dont bring it up until you sense that you’ve reached a bottom in the conversation. At some point they have to wonder what kind of system allows people to live in either squalor, or poor health, poverty, etc.
these people are blissfully aware of the failing of capitalism, but look away, you have to get them to stop looking away. A better world is possible.
