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ravenwings-noyreallyback · 5 years ago

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Emotions and socialist theory

This is long as fuck but I think it's important and it's broken up by topic. Tldr stop telling people they need to read a book, stop shitting on potential allies, and start asking them what they're thinking about, what worries them, and appeal to those feelings with emotionally honest radical wholesomeness of your own.

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I want to do something in the local person to person community that gets to people. Something to get people interested and invested in small ways that can grow legs and develop something good, and isn't bogged down in Party Politics.

People know the world's bad. They know capitalism sucks. They don't need a book or a working theory. They need hope and action.

The situation

People are feeling shock, panic, depression about the news in general. Nothing can be done etc.

People feel a sense of being a burden on others when they express that. People want to tip toe around things so as not to freak everyone out. To avoid the morbid grief and anger and fear. They still have it but nobody wants to talk about it in a personal way.

People have a need to express that fear but not in a therapy kinda way, or rather the therapy way would make it very very difficult to maintain and do appropriately for even skilled activists. Folks talk about not pouring from an empty cup? This is like trying to fill a bathtub with a cup and the tub isn't plugged.

Marx wrote a lot about alienation from daily life, not just economic job alienation. Similar to today?

People like radical compassionate sensitivity. There's a need for that.

People don't want a fuckin art installation theatre play or a communist party paper article thing they won't read. If you're reading this it's a fucking miracle. Nobody wants "here's the economic theory about why you're sad and what to do about it maybe it'll work if literally everyone does it" tbh. They engage in memes, in self destructive self care, hedonistic stress eating, drinking, sex etc. And that's okay. That's honestly probably good. Better than being depressed and doing nothing. But they can't go too hard because they don't have to put much time into because life's busy. Fuck is it busy. And every moment you try to get someone to go do theory based activism that isn't Shock and Awe or Radical Wholesomeness, it's just a dull hell grind.

The dsa in the states and corbynism in the uk is good actually, fuck it, for all their problems the ndp in Canada are worth working with. Leftists saying they're all bad because they're socdem really discount a couple things.

A, the massive political emotional energy behind those movements lately.

B, the people in those movements that are absolutely skeptical at least of capitalism. And many are legitimately radical but sticking with it because it's a structure to organize in.

Some history

Marx wrote during a time where theorists were bogged up in utopian socialism, where there were ideals of the kind of world they wanted to live in, but no means to make it happen. Marx wrote it to apply to everyday life in the industrial revolution, and establish an actionable plan for a better world.

Now today, things are in the rosiest of terms, not looking better in a lot of ways, and not optimistic in any. People are almost crying out for some emotional honesty and vulnerability and wholesomeness and just general heartfelt spirituality and human connection in uncertain times. Do I need to tell you how much the youth of today like games and shows that have this zeal of positivity these days? How much energy there is in queer movements? (oh yeah if you're anti LGBT, or honestly even just passively okay with it but not enthusiastic in your socialism, you will be left in the dust by today's movements tbh.)

Marx of course wrote a bit about that alienation shallowness of society thing in terms of talking about cultural alienation (more than just jobs) and the use of religion to people who have nothing else, etc.

Current responses

Today in response to that alienation, we've got irony poisoned reactionaries who don't want to engage with reality, and when they do, hide behind layers of "just kidding" etc and generally want to distance themselves from their victims. Big focus on nostalgia for when things made more sense, idealistic past worlds that never really existed in the first place. Maga and qanon conspiracies about how it all fits together and there's actually a pattern in the chaos. They end up isolated from all but their echo chambers until the pain of not being able to relate to society in healthy ways makes them go and do terrorism out of their conviction that the world is so broken and their way is right.

Meanwhile, good voices with good spiritually connective ideas like the almost saturday morning shoujo cartoon optimism and heart of Marianne Williamson connects with people, but offers no substance (and is backwards as fuck when it does) and proposes a world where if we hope hard enough, we can stop hurricanes and shootings. All for the benefit of selling self help books and crystals. But people still eat that up because it's hopeful and optimistic and fuckin romantic. People go nuts for that kind of optimism. Why don't we have that with good faith?

We do, but not enough of it. Artists and people who are out there pouring their hearts out are doing that good shit. But we need more of that. Hell the dsa is better at inspiring people to get involved with it than the left is.

Voices combining hope and reason and sincerity like AOC and the squad bring what people need, but tearing them down for not being radical enough is kind of stupid. The far left isn't organizing to connect this message of hope to people. We've got cynical takes and hell world worst timeline jokes. We've got theory as dry as Lenin's preserved corpse. We're right about the world being this awful, but God damn that's depressing.

Good responses in the past and today

I think the black panthers got this. They knew this and spoke to it. It was community solidarity first and foremost. People joined up and felt good about it being the right thing to do. It threatened the government in ways no internal western movement ever has, except probably the IRA but I'm not that spicy.

Regardless black panthers good. Standing rock good. Ferguson good. Unist'ot'en good. Antifa good. Soup kitchens and food banks good. Unions good when they actually stand up and challenge unfairness beyond their immediate industry connections. But throwing books by musty ass old men (and Rosa) hasn't worked. Even when they're right and relevant is still an implicit way of just saying "read more and maybe once enough people understand the theory, the revolution will come".

Still read, but don't tell other people to read unless they ask is all. Reading won't inspire revolution. Newspapers and blogs won't either. Informative podcasts aren't.

It's not gonna come that way. People don't respond to theory. Fuck, people barely care about facts.

Idea

Anti theory Theory: peoples' desires for emotionally honest and sensitive narratives isn't reflected in our theory at present. Potentially in part due to the materialist foundations of marxism, and certainly in the often dry motivations and spurs to resistance and revolution, which seems far off and at odds with the timeline of climate change that is weighing on peoples minds. Yes making good differences isn't a timeline thing, but people feel pressure to do it, which makes them even less effective at doing community action. Fear of collapse replaces will to revolt. People want to do something certainly, but lack the emotional connection to revolution. You could say something about base and superstructure being at odds, but I'm not as fluent in those ideas as I'd have to be to articulate.

Regardless, people want hope. Not as a slogan or buzzword, but as an action and a personal connection. They know society's in a bad place. They know there's something deeply wrong with capitalism, if not in general then at least with how it's being used right now. But when theory speaks mostly of society, or our place in it, but never asks "hey, you seem kinda hurt... how are you doing? What's on your mind? Can I listen?", people feel disenfranchised.

So on that hopeless emotional raw angst? Maybe folks just want to be heard and given permission to talk about the things they're told not to talk about? Climate anxiety, job stress, wanting someone to just talk to because social media is alienating and brief and temporal. Like, I'm not gonna interview them, but the right wing reactionaries are scared too. That's why they do what they do. Or at least that's what leads them into the irony poisoned spaces they go to.

Maybe some kind of local project of interviews in a humans of new york kinda way, or a postsecret way, or some other kind of way to ask and get people to tell us "here's what I'm thinking about that I'm afraid to tell even my best friend or my wife" "here's what scares me" "here's what I care about".

Maybe take some time to map out the things people are talking about? Use that as a source of identifying needs. Any excuse to get out there and listen to people instead of telling them things, which they won't always be ready for anyway.

Dunno how much solidarity it would build or who it would reach but it can open up conversations, not to radicalize but just to build a sense of human compassion and connection? Because really, if there's gonna be a left movement that takes off and gets things done, it's not coming from the communist parties, it's not coming from existing anarchist movements, it's gonna be something new and multilateral. People don't respond to theory they respond to emotions and passion projects and stories that get to them and tell them they're not alone. Hell, people say populism is bad? No, it's been used by bad people, but it's just another tool to get people on your side. And thinly veiled racism is only one direction it can take. Populism can help us if we're just straight up about compassion and empathy and listening.

Just fucking close your mouth and open your ears I guess is the point. If we want to be vanguards, we want to know where the movements are, facilitating them, not creating them ourselves.

And that takes listening.

#Socialism #Communism #Dsa #Marx and shit #Sorry this is long but like #Just care about people more and stop listening in order to speak #But in a structural sense

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