They’ll talk for half an hour about university reform but the moment you ask “who owns the coal mines” or “where does the lithium come from” they say they haven’t thought about it then they get mad at me when I say the Nordic model is fascist
I can bait the ADHD ones into reading theory by simply using enticing vocab words but idk how to deal with everyone else
That seems like two different angles of attack, like should I focus on the internal failings of neoliberalism or the external failings of imperialism? I feel like imperialism is the primary contradiction and must be centered or you end up with Western Marxists and National Bolsheviks. I guess that does ask people to do a complete 180 of their worldview up front, the conversation might last longer if I try to lead them through neoliberalism or whatever. But young people are very online and likely to start talking about Georgism or something and then you get bogged down in weird internet fringe theories.
In general my approach would be to start where they’re at, find those areas where you mostly agree, but not completely, and keep a long-term dialogue open. Anyone you convince in one conversation is going to be un-convinced by their next conversation with some crank or whatever. They need to do a certain amount of intellectual work for themselves, you should be encouraging that instead of giving ready-made answers.
I think it also really depends on who you’re talking to and what the context is. Is this someone you work with in local activism? A friend of a friend? Someone you want to recruit to your org? Someone you literally just met and want to figure out their current politics?
It is two angles of attack, and it can get convoluted. I guess my goal is to throw out a couple of “bumpers” on the Nordic model like I pointed out above, and then get back to a topic that we have common ground on. Kinda like:
You can’t demolish somebody’s worldview, they’ll need to do that themselves. Your best shot is to open the doors and windows for them to “look outside” and figure it out for themselves. This can take many conversations over many months (depends on their class standing, intellectual aptitude, etc…).