this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2026
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Will I ever stop having cringe takes? (hexbear.net)
submitted 2 days 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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[–] RedWizard@hexbear.net 14 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Never changing your world view is dogmatism and dogmatism is counter to leftism and it's principals. As a Marxist I except that my world view will be challenged and changed, since life is an ever unfolding process of change. Conditions change, and your analysis of those conditions will change your view of the world. The material world shapes your consciousness. The more you learn the more your consciousness becomes aligned with the material world. It is inescapable.

What you recognize as cringe was your false consciousness. That false consciousness was developed by the material world as well. Through the narrow window built for you by the ruling ideas of the ruling class.

This is the class struggle.