This would happen with my dad, years ago. We would spend hours talking about politics. I would convince him that we basically live in the Confederacy, that the Confederacy lost the battle but won the war (since slavery is still an important part of the American economy), and he would agree, and then the next time we spoke, within a few days, it would be as though our lengthy conversation had never taken place. He was back to “everything will be fine if we just get rid of Trump” mode.
These days I’m stuck for lengthy periods of time in the company of another lib. This one is younger and much more aggressive, but as usual liberalism just isn’t up for a fair debate with Marxism. I talked about slavery in the USA with this guy recently, and he told me that it’s not a big deal because the USA isn’t “explicitly” about slavery (???). After we had finished talking, I checked to make sure of something I suspected: the OG US constitution never mentions slaves. Even the 3/5 compromise only mentions “other persons” lol. It isn’t mentioned until the passage of the thirteenth amendment—when it creates, in a stroke, jim crow and the prison industrial complex. So actually, before the civil war, slavery was “implicit,” and after the civil war, it became “explicit”! I still managed to hit him with a “the purpose of a thing is what it does” and “we live in a genocidal slave empire” before we finished talking. And he just laughed. He has called my diatribes nihilistic and pessimistic. And I’m like…bro, I’m pessimistic about amerikkka, but optimistic about the world.
Interestingly enough, the Confederate constitution is word-for-word the same as the US constitution, except they threw in a few clauses about how slavery rules and no one should fuck with it. I haven’t broached the topic of politics with this lib since then because I’m worried that it’s going to cost me my job, but I just have the feeling that nearly everything I say to him doesn’t matter anyway, that he forgets every word within minutes of separating from me, and just goes back to thinking about white people music (the only kind he listens to) and how we need to get the orange orangutan out of the damn white house. He got pretty angry when he was talking about how goofy republicans are for voting for politicians who screw them…and I was like, dude, how are democrats any different?
Anyone else have this experience or know what I’m talking about? If liberals had any kind of self-introspection, they wouldn’t be liberals. The thing is, I can remember, when I was a liberal, being embarrassed on multiple occasions by people whose politics were further to the left than mine. Maybe I suppressed some of those memories, but a bunch of them still stuck in my conscious mind. Do they stick with liberals and do they just not talk about it, or was I just a confused Marxist all along?
It’s the “ah well, nevertheless” mentality. Unlike conservatives, who immediately start frothing at the mouth when you argue from a left wing perspective, liberals will entertain discussion from the left as the rules of good liberalism, tangle with a multitude of positions. But taking away anything from that entanglement? Of course not, the discussion is done for discussion’s sake, going through the proper forms is not the means to an end but the end itself. So they can pat themselves on the back for doing things the right way but retain none of the discussion itself.
It’s always them doing this:
Moralists don’t really have beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child’s toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded
and he would agree
People sometimes “agree” in order to end a conversation
Very possible.
I’m starting to truly believe that liberals have a completely different definition of the word “politics”. I think they use it solely as a synonym for matters related to elections. Opinion polls, candidate selection, “voting day”, etc. I don’t think they consider matters of housing and food affordability, civil rights, labour organization, or other actually political matters to be “politics”. So when one of them doesn’t remember talking politics with one of us, they actually believe it, because we weren’t talking about an election.
Doing a highway blockade isn’t politics. It’s just breaking the [physical] law [of the universe].
“Liberals have no object permanence” was a moderately common talking point back when this was still r/CTH or chapo.chat, but i can’t recall why because i’m a lib (actually because that was over 5 years ago and i was basically another person back then).
The number of times I’ve had to correct my mother from her propaganda fueled belief that communism “is a great idea in theory, but in practice it just leads to dictator’s who take everything away from everyone”. And it’s like mum you know that’s what we have now right? But the dictator’s are our bosses and owners so you’re okay with it? And she’s amazed everytime and agrees that capitalism is definitely the problem. But then she blames communism for being mean in the past, while not knowing a damn thing at all about any place outside the west.
Then she visited Yugoslavia finally about 4 years ago, and had actual normal ass people tell her that actually the old system was working way way better, everyone had homes and food it worked. Until business interests took over and it all went to shit. She basically still doesnt get it. She believes Tito has to be a bad guy but everyone else must be under the propaganda. The lib mind is a lost cause I swear.
The irony of people being influenced by propaganda of a country the has been gone nearly 30 years ago.
Don’t get me started. I’m an American, but as a kid I knew people from the Soviet Union and listened to their stories. My parents knew them too but for some reason immediately forgot everything they had to say as soon as they saw the evening news again.
Personal opinions:
People whose views are entirely formed through repetition by the current media hegemony must engage in some form of internal introspection and critique in order to internalise new thoughts and ideas or else they revert. It is a conscious choice to take on a new thought about a topic.
Without engaging this conscious process of internal interrogation to form the new thought nothing happens and they revert back to default as soon as surrounding repetition prompts them to it.
This is why, in my opinion, making people uncomfortable and bullying liberals is often more effective than friendlier conversation at actually changing views. Liberals that are made uncomfortable by a conversation find that they dwell on it internally afterwards and this causes some element of internalising new thoughts.
This is not much use when discussing with people you have to see everyday in your life though when you can’t use it.
People whose views are entirely formed through repetition by the current media hegemony must engage in some form of internal introspection and critique in order to internalise new thoughts and ideas or else they revert.
This is very evident when talking with random L*dditors. They still cling to MSM like the BBC. You see the same with people’s brains melting when they start watching Fox news or reading tabloids like the Daily Mail. IMHO, as long as they still watch those news media and passively absorb liberalism, it’s a complete uphill battle. This is why I always stress that politically apathetic people are more reachable than nominally progressive people. And much of the reason is because they don’t get brainwashed by Western news media. There’s still the issue of other forms of media like movies and videogames of course, but that’s different from news directly telling them what to think.
For those other media, they still have to succeed through the framework of their media, meaning you don’t necessarily have to dissuade people by going over their trash politics. For example, both the BBC and COD push Western imperialism, but you don’t have to say that COD pushes Western imperialism in order to persuade someone to stop playing COD. COD has shitty shooter mechanics, COD singleplayer is a glorified railroading cover shooter, COD multiplayer is just teens calling each other slurs, and so on. You can give a variety of reasons about why COD sucks, but you really can’t give a reason the BBC sucks outside of saying that it’s British state media.
This is why I always stress that politically apathetic people are more reachable than nominally progressive people. And much of the reason is because they don’t get brainwashed by Western news media. There’s still the issue of other forms of media like movies and videogames of course, but that’s different from news directly telling them what to think.
Agree. A prerequisite for pulling people away from liberalism is that those people have to make the conscious choice to dismiss that media and start actually thinking and engaging their brains. Only through conscious and deliberate choice does a new thought form that isn’t dictated to them via passively absorbing whatever is the current bourgeois-line being pressed by the entirety of media.
This goes for both conservatives and liberals too, they’re captured by two different media ecosystems and only conscious choice by both groups drags them out of it.
Once they’ve made that conscious choice to start thinking about shit for themselves you get the beginnings of a leftist who just needs to go on a journey where they learn a whole lotta things. People develop leftwards over time once you hit a few prerequisites that break them out of the mind manipulation system, some faster than others depending on their total access and engagement with real leftist content.
I have found that being condescending and discriminatory gets liberals to take pause if they’ve dismissed your opinions as “woke”.
I hate ableist language, but the power of calling a condescending lib “r*tard” to their face is something that is hard to resist.
When your entire world view hinges on your intellectual supremacy (and even your genuinely superior level of education compared to conservatives), and your “realist” worldview compared to “idealistic woke communists” - having someone just straight up call you stupid - in a reactionary way - is hard for them to dismiss.
I do something similar but by being wordier. By genuinely coming across as intelligent and well-read but also insulting them at the same time the intellectual high ground they build their superiority on crumbles. They then start making demands about civility and rudeness in the conversation, I only reward people with civility when they open up to some level of intellectual curiosity and openness. Stick then carrot.
Does not always work, when it doesn’t work I just double down and hope to create such an uncomfortable interaction that they don’t do the same thing to the next communist they talk to. That way that person might have a better setup to get somewhere reasonable with them. None of our interactions happen in a vacuum, if an interaction isn’t working out you can at least set things up for the next communist on a luckier day.
Hmm yea. Maybe my problem is that I’ve practiced simpler speaking to try to communicate complex ideas to uneducated audiences.
The libs really don’t like my super simple reductions.
You don’t need to simplify for libs that have a belief in their intellectual superiority, you can tickle their “i want a discussion with a smart person” emotional response and then be rude and insulting until they mold themselves into a shape that’s easier to influence. They do this willingly if you press the right buttons because feeling intellectual is more important to them than anything else. Step one to achieving that is making them see a smart person in the first place then perforating your smartness with being rude to them for the bullshit they do/say until they adjust the way they are.
Finkelstein does this too but he does it in person directly to people’s faces which impresses me every single time because honestly you have to be really highly regarded by the other person for them to allow you to be rude to their face and still want to talk to him because they know how smart he is. It’s an impressive balancing act he pulls off.
I don’t want to break my habit and practice of simple-speaking for the sake of arguing with libs.
Liberals don’t have any beliefs other than performatively alleviating their guilt for upholding the current system.
They don’t actually give a shit about anything other than appearing morally superior and scolding others for not being as “enlightened” as they think they are.
They forget or suppress all the time. But one thing that I notice a lot is outright unable to see the proof right in front of them. Like they were a robot from Westworld going “doesn’t look like anything to me” when you show it to them. Instead always hyperfocusing on one tiny bit of your paragraphs worth of discussion, to relentlessly attack that. If not that, they will instead just keep moving the goalposts, asking more and more on the same thing, prodding until finally they see something they “know” about and will just attack that and use it to dismiss EVERYTHING else said. Fucking unbearable. I hate liberals so much.
Like they were a robot from Westworld going “doesn’t look like anything to me”
1000% this, that was their exact response to seeing thousands of dead Palestinian children under Genocide Joe
Liberals don’t concieve of politics as a system for maintaining/challenging class dominance. They’re ideology only recognizes individuals. As a consequence, nothing ever makes sense and every solution to every problem always fails because politics focused entirely on empowering individuals without acknowledging class always reaffirms bourgeois power.
I see libs driving around with bumper stickers saying we need another French revolution. Why? Our bourgeois revolution never failed. Same deal with the No Kings protests. It doesn’t make any fucking sense. We don’t have a king. We have capitalist president.
I think there are some truths that are just too painful, embarrassing, upsetting to handle, and even though we see evidence of these truths regularly, daily, we do Jedi mind tricks on ourselves and hide them from ourselves, again.
And sometimes people agree to end a conversation politely.
I’ve only once ever had a liberal remember anything political that I had discussed with them. It was the general concept of FALGSC which they were describing back to me as something they had heard from a friend who they couldn’t recall.
as far as I can tell a good memory is a curse
My family regularly complains that I can’t remember anything.
tell me more about this white people music
He is actually a successful musician and listens to lots of celtic music and movie soundtracks. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, but it’s all he listens to. I have never seen him play any music that wasn’t white. He was embarrassed when a track from hamilton came on lol. And maybe that’s the only relatively nonwhite thing he ever played even though it’s actually super white…?
He was embarrassed when a track from hamilton came on lol.
Tbf anyone should be embarrassed by Hamilton coming on. It’s both historically revisionist and deeply tacky.
i think that’s what The Youths call co-worker music
He’s not choosing it for me. His phone is just set on random. He’ll also sing along to the music, whistle, drum, etc.
I would argue that Hamilton is the white music. Celtic music pre-dates the idea of whiteness.
I agree with you but have you ever seen anyone who wasn’t white listening to celtic music?
Life is a Highway
I experience this with my dad all the time. My guess is that many libs are able to engage in good faith discussions and some are even able to concede when they’re wrong, however as soon as the conversation ends they’re dumped right back into the msnbc/reddit/facebook/bluesky echo chamber.
The only time I’ve ever got lasting concessions from my dad is when my arguments get backed up by something like the new york crimes
I remember talking to my dad about defund the police. His first objection was “well, what would we do instead for emergencies?” And I talked about the other types of responses you could have for emergencies. All well and good right?
His second objection, naturally, was “well, what would we do instead for emergencies.” Weird, but I talked about how they don’t need all the military equipment and its maintenance.
His third objection… “I just don’t see anyone offering any alternatives.”
??? Don’t pmo
But that’s also on me because I can’t go 3 words into anything related to business, politics, or fantasy without people frothing at the mouth about how complex it is to listen to me. I haven’t been asked a follow up question in years and I hear “that’s above my head” dozens of times. I spend a great deal of effort trying to simplify myself everyday but I think it’s exceedingly rare to find anyone open to listen about anything.
And I say that to assert that your experience may not just be liberals listening to a leftist the same way being a loser isn’t just men <-> women, it may just be people in general. They absolutely loathe listening. They’d much rather you appear on their favorite TV show in a suit, bowtie, and thick glasses to make the same point so that they know, through proxy, that you’re a Smart Person Worth Listening To ™️ as you make the point “you know how you don’t like this thing? But you don’t want to replace it with a different thing that sucks? there is an alternative to this thing that sucks. It has been functional elsewhere. That’s why it would be… le good!”
They’d much rather you appear on their favorite TV show in a suit, bowtie, and thick glasses to make the same point so that they know, through proxy, that you’re a Smart Person Worth Listening To
Very true.
I remember talking to my dad about defund the police.
This guy has also, on his own, discussed this topic with me and asked what we would replace the police with. Odd how capitalists didn’t ask how they would replace kings and queens when they were destroying feudalism 🤔. He also complained about how bad the messaging is here. I agreed and said that the message should be “destroy the police” or “elect socialists who order the police to the bottom of the ocean.” He also cited black people who don’t want to defund the police, neglecting to mention that these same people don’t like being murdered, harassed, or enslaved by the police, i.e., that the police should be funded only when they are no longer the police.
I recognize those points. You’re arguing against the news. The person is little more than a proxy at that point. I don’t know what to do about it because I struggle to do sales at that level, but I know it has to be some form of pathos. To change hearts and minds you’re not going to win via conversation about the point. There’s some kind of meta-point. There are people for whom this is quite natural, but I’m not them. I’ll debate that point with dogged determination, look up, and see that everyone else has moved on.
It has to be like “Do you feel safe when the police are around?” And then if they offer up their gooey core (which is a massive if) then undoubtedly, because of their good nature, it’s going to be something like “I don’t feel comfortable gambling with the safety of these minorities who spoke out on the news in support of the police.” At which point you’d actually have a ball game to be played. That’s the arena where you could use your theory and change someone’s mind.
