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felipeforte@lemmygrad.ml

I feel like former socialists never believed in socialism that much (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 4 days ago by KrupskayaPraxis@lemmygrad.ml to c/comradeship@lemmygrad.ml

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For former socialists, there's one argument I see them use for why they are not socialist anymore.

That argument is that they felt guilty about wanting to push their ideology onto others and so they started believing in parliamentary politics again where every opinion is valuable. My dad who used to be an anarchist as a teenager used this reasoning, as well as one of my teachers.

But this argument doesn't make sense to me, because it makes politics into something which only revolves around opinions, while we communists and the capitalist class know it's about power.

I feel like these people never learned much about their ideology when they were socialists. I think I will never stop being a communist, I know too much.

Have you seen this reasoning yourself?

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[–] AngeryProle@lemmygrad.ml 20 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Respectfully...

In the case that you describe with your father, and in the case of many compatible-left folks who fizzle out in the imperial core, the truth is so simple it's kind of pedestrian.

Many are pushed left due to having a basic capacity to see and hear the world around them. The injustice and oppression of the system are extremely patent, and when they're young and haven't been exposed to as much propaganda simply by virtue of not being around it long enough, they gravitate towards whatever flavor of "left" is seen as acceptable.

Then, some time goes by. They don't know a lot, but they see what they see. The left failing to gain headway. The discourse being what it is. The propaganda framing everything for them in a way that makes superficial sense. And they drift.

Parliamentary politics are especially attractive to those who have the "politics as a lifestyle" approach, because "all ideas can be heard". Plus, their material interests are more likely to align with the system, the more wealth they have.

Very simply put: it seems to me that your father was unprincipled. Don't get me wrong. He sounds like a genuine, good person. But it really seems that his understanding of the positions he claims to hold were, and are, paper thin. And thus, so is his commitment.

Based on what you're saying, he never learned enough to truly understand the position he claimed to hold. He was an anarchist because he saw the injustice of the system, and the cool kids who had something to say on the topic called themselves anarchists. He didn't learn enough to either move beyond that, or to really entrench himself. He "joined anarchism" based on vibes, and when the vibes changed, he followed them where the machine guided him.

Among a ton of other reasons, this is why we bang on about reading theory so much. For all that our hearts burn with the injustice and cruelty of it all, for all that we are committed to the cause of the working class... If we don't understand what's going on, if we don't keep learning until we have a real grasp on how the system does what it does and why it is what it is, at some point we'll be led astray.