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Will I ever stop having cringe takes? (hexbear.net)

submitted 1 day ago by dil@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net

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Over the past few years, I've been sliding left ideologically, and as I move further left my old positions seem cringy.

That's expected when you change your worldview and realize you were parroting (e.g.) CIA propaganda, but it's left me feeling a bit ungrounded. I'm worried that in another year I'll look back and think my current views are dumb. Tbh, they almost certainly are.

Does this go away eventually? Or are y'all constantly refining your understanding, so you always dislike your views from a year ago?

Also:

If folks leave, where do they go from here? Are they just picking their preferred flavor of communism/anarchism? Are there other categories of leftism that they're heading to? I'm sure some backslide, but I mean heading somewhere new - like I didn't know people actually liked DPRK until I heard about "tankies." I saw a group that doesn't believe in objective reality?

I'm not really expecting to look at anything new and not be a Marxist, but I'd like to know what's out there to be sure.

I just wanna pick one goddamn worldview, never change it, and still be right about everything all the time. Is that so much to ask?

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[–] purpleworm@hexbear.net 5 points 1 day ago

I think it's much healthier to take pride in having grown from old errors and to seek to keep growing such that you'll look back at now the same way. I've had periods of my life where I consistently felt that way about how I viewed things like three months ago, and now I miss being able to say that, because I think I've stalled out lately.

It's not generally about hopping around to different labels imo but having a better understanding, which might mostly fit under the same label, though what you call Marxism now you might have a less charitable name for in the future. If you think that having an overwhelmingly thorough view of Marxism and an ability to analyze new situations with preeminent accuracy is a low ceiling such that you have any business being concerned with your intellectual development after you reach that point, then I can only say that I hope you're right and you're really that brilliant.