It's piece by piece but I've found most people need at least one very clear moment where the capitalist ideology ceases to correlate with their own personal reality. Usually something like sudden poverty, facing discrimination, maybe a loss of faith in one of their heroes. Sometimes something completely random. If they're already primed to make the jump to a leftist framework, it really helps.
The problem is there are a whole lot of distractions that remove that primer. Most people are just trying to survive and there's not a lot of encouragement to see issues as structural.
It's part of the reason college students seem overrepresented in leftist movements, because they're constantly reigniting their primers through what they're studying and the people they're around. Also why leftist movements often have a lot of women and queer people.
This is why I go to great pains to never, ever, say words like "bourgeoisie" or "proletariat". That instantly drops you into the 'Commie = Enemy = Wrong' bucket, and they get a free pass to ignore what you're saying. The bourgeoisie are the rich. The proletariat are workers. Jacking yourself off with Latin loan words just makes you feel like you have a big brain, and doesn't do your argument any favours.
I take the view that you don't convert someone in one conversation it's a process of a little bit at a time
also do not label what you're saying or tell them to read theory until you have already got them where you want them
It's piece by piece but I've found most people need at least one very clear moment where the capitalist ideology ceases to correlate with their own personal reality. Usually something like sudden poverty, facing discrimination, maybe a loss of faith in one of their heroes. Sometimes something completely random. If they're already primed to make the jump to a leftist framework, it really helps.
The problem is there are a whole lot of distractions that remove that primer. Most people are just trying to survive and there's not a lot of encouragement to see issues as structural.
It's part of the reason college students seem overrepresented in leftist movements, because they're constantly reigniting their primers through what they're studying and the people they're around. Also why leftist movements often have a lot of women and queer people.
“I just wish that (reasonable left idea but not called left)” works amazingly
This is why I go to great pains to never, ever, say words like "bourgeoisie" or "proletariat". That instantly drops you into the 'Commie = Enemy = Wrong' bucket, and they get a free pass to ignore what you're saying. The bourgeoisie are the rich. The proletariat are workers. Jacking yourself off with Latin loan words just makes you feel like you have a big brain, and doesn't do your argument any favours.
True, we have to be speaking the same language as the people we want to uplift, wether figuratively or literally.