I have a half-written effortpost about this but it’s not coherent enough yet. Basically I think that, in the same way capitalism makes it so we can only relate to leftist theory through the lens of consumption and consumer identity, we can only sculpt culture in ways that are fundamentally about competition for attention or liberal morality politics. Would appreciate feedback
Idk how controversial this is, but in my opinion you will almost never be able to change anyones' mind by just talking. People watch FOX or CNN to be reinforced in their views. People listen to NPR to do the same. The material base--your living and working conditions--is what sways opinions. One can be very propagandized to not notice/be able to justify/blame on someone else/or themselves their sorry lot in life, and that's where talking can be useful, but if someone is sitting tight, with an upper-middle class job in the suburbia--that's a steep wall to climb.
I think there’s a big difference between talking privately with a long-time friend and talking publicly online. And we’re obviously seeing the extents to which propaganda and reality curation can be pushed. But yeah I hope it’s not controversial to say that material conditions are the hardest barriers to someone’s worldview
a big difference between talking privately with a long-time friend and talking publicly online
you are so right. i still have some high school friends left, who never changed their views and I did 360, and on the one hand, they're just staring at me blankly when I say certain things they find difficult to comprehend hearing from me (or in general), but on the other, perhaps because we knew each other so long, in our further conversations I hear echoes of them having actually though about what I said, and that's very encouraging
the online left is overwhelmingly yankee, so it's just them imposing and enforcing their social norms on everyone else
however it has no teeth for anyone that regularly leaves their house
i am not in the mood to get yelled at tonight so i'll pass lmao
Feel free to DM me. I’m trying to get a bunch of perspectives for this essay. I wouldn’t quote you or anything
I think that the PCUSA/Alaskaball critique of left book is a useful starting place for understanding this phenomenon called the "online left". My two cents - it's possible to have informed discussions and to learn from others online, but it's not how most social media is designed. I think Hexbear can flip the script with good moderation but it will never be as revolutionary as a real party organization.
I think social norms run into very simple issue online: if you talk with friends who you know, you can make wildly, eh, not-pc comparisons about types of people you invented in your head. However, if you translate same offensive language into online platform with say 100 audience, you very likely will offend 2-4 lgbt comrades, 10 neurodiverse and so on, depending on what you shorthanding. If your audience is thousands, you should basically skip all the shorthand stereotyping and actually think what you write. It’s more like curious self-examination of your own brainworms, when you rewrite stuff, then anything else. On the other hand I think people like dunking a lot, but that’s neither here nor there, just shrug and become better
I think that the goal is to create social norms that don't alienate anyone, and support class solidarity. This is achievable. Your social group should be pointing out and working together to eliminate these not so pc comparisons
I don’t think that is achievable. It’s not a zero sum game, but it’s not a perfectly optimizable one either, at least not without a cultural revolution. The very act of insisting on examining social norms will alienate a lot of people. This almost always makes for a more enjoyable experience imo, but it doesn’t make it less true. And then the negotiation over which social norms to deconstruct and what to replace them with is another set of compromises
I don't think I understand what you're talking about.
You appear to be saying that it's not possible to discuss social norms without being offensive to some groups - to me that's one of the main goals of communism.
Work towards being good to your comrades, don't punch down, don't alienate, it can be done.
It’s not that it’s not possible ever. It’s that it’s not currently possible. It can be done in small groups who make it their goal and work at it. It’s a beautiful thing. But bringing that to scale and convincing larger groups to adopt those same goals hasn’t been fruitful so far
That compounds with the fact that people seem to be bad at estimating exactly how many people are in their “audience” online. One thing I’ve noticed is that lurkers are way more likely to participate in surveys and we often got nearly 1000 votes on site surveys. Same with image views. Someone will post a private image to Imgur to link here. The comment linking it will have 3 upvotes but the pic will have 80 views.
Yeah that’s basically why my writing so far hasn’t been coherent. I tried to explain what I meant and address specific cases where I do think it works as you mentioned, but as of right now I haven’t quite nailed down how to explain what I’m thinking.
On the topic of inclusive spaces, I think that’s a valid project that the internet is uniquely positioned to address for many marginalized groups. When it’s done right, it’s a beautiful and empowering thing. There’s a weird contradiction here, though. Marginalized groups could really use more private spaces online to discuss their own issues without having to constantly hedge and explain what they’re saying to the dominant group. At the same time, you can have all the hard conversations behind closed doors and it still gets you no closer to achieving the goals that you set during those conversations. So I guess this particular issue for me centers around allyship and how dogshit a lot of self-appointed allies are at creating those spaces in the first place. And I think the way those spaces are created is by enforcing norms on an individual basis because we have no centralized power online.
