No disrespect meant.
By armchair socialists I mean: like you won’t go out to protests, wont try to talk to your neighbors about organizing etc. Just slacktivism like changing your profile picture to pride during pride week and posting on lemmy at best.
Yeah I get that a bunch of netizens probably have mental health problems, but I bet my life that other activists over history have had severe mental/physical health problems but still went out, at least sometimes.
You assume we haven’t, or aren’t trying to? Or assume anyone is doing more in that regard? Some of are kids and you can’t really expect them, no matter how right, to be taken seriously or not be doing other things, like focusing on school, internships, or having a tough time on life. This does not exclude them from protests mind you, and I myself have participated in protests and the BLM movements (although few, they aren’t that active in Hawaii, sadly). We also see slacktivism as useless, used mostly by people trying to get something extra out of those people (mainly money), and permanent support as all that is necessary.
I am surrounded by liberals, and thus can’t do communist organization with my neighbors, just liberal activism (which is inherently useless) although I will try in the future, once I have more theory and a plan for what to do (don’t do this shit half-assed, gain friends, gain a vision). I also want to develop my experience in environmental conservation and Marxism Leninism before organizing it.
Some may be afraid. Liberals are completely and utterly hostile to us, and its very rare to find even another communist to work with, and Marxist Leninists are quite rare in the west (although growing in power). Although this should not prevent them from continuing, it does for some.
Why are you assuming we don’t do things? The west is very dry of communists, and very hostile to them, so of course you’re not going to see them all over, nor even waving a USSR flag or whatever in a normal protest, just blending in for the most part.
Reading is also important, we cannot have ill-read leaders of half-baked movements. You can’t just start a union, or branch a political party, or start a community garden without basic understanding of Marxist theory (or do it well). You can’t just go off into the world and do things, no Marxist has ever done that. MLs of even the revolutionary kind were expanding their understanding and critique of economics most of the time, and that is how you truly overcome. You must know the enemy and yourself to defeat the enemy, as they say. please ask for any elaborations.
Specifically on this, an employer can fire you if they find out you’re a communist. You can lose the respect of family and friends. Support structures can be torn away from people. The police have been used against communists in the past too. To be an open communist in the US, especially during these hard times and in this climate, is political suicide. The Marxist movement simply isn’t big or popular enough in the US to make being a communist in public a safe option for many people.
I, for instance, am a very loud communist. I’ve organized at scale and have become known in certain circles as a principled Marxist-Leninist. In doing this, I’ve received loads of death threats and harassment from people who would claim to be “to the left of the left”. For a lot of people, even in atmospheres with a general leftwing attitude - like a community soup kitchen or garden for instance - being openly Marxist will result in harassment, death threats, and the occasional use of physical force. You really can’t expect people to welcome that, especially minorities and the people who benefit the most from Marxism, who get the worst of the harassment when they’re openly communist. I have a black comrade, great friend of mine, a good person through and through. He was harassed with racist death threats for years, because a single anarchist (who became a fascist, btw) saw him being openly communist while black, and took offence to that.
Of course, you can’t be afraid to be a communist. But, as long as we don’t have strong parties that can ensure that people won’t lose work, or support structures, or what have you for publically supporting Marxism, being too afraid to announce one’s belief in Marxism is valid.
slow, unstoppable buildup
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Isnt the best way around this to just pretend to be socialist instead of communist? Or socdem or similar
If you’re dishonest about where you stand, you can only bring people to where to claim to be. If you claim to be a social-democrat, everything you do for your community will be attributed to social-democracy, and you’d be helping the liberals far more than you’d be helping Marxism.
If people find out you’re actually a Marxist-Leninist while you’re claiming to be a social-democrat, you’ll be labelled an infiltrator and that will only hurt people’s willingness to accept Marxism. Talking about optics is usually a pointless discussion, but the way the ‘on-the-fence-ers’ see our ideology matters. If they think we’re trying to sneak into their organisations to steer them towards what they see as ‘red fascism’, they’re only going to become more hostile.
In this circumstance, it is better to simply stay home and drive Marxism forwards via the keyboard, in the hopes that your efforts are noticed by those who can leave their homes, and are able to organize in their communities. These homebody comrades are just as valuable to the movement as the activists, as long as they actually dedicate their time to progressing the aims.
then you have to deal with pretending to be what you aren’t, which is also lying to the people you want to help, that is bad.
By definition doesn’t this make you not an armchair socialist?
well, I do not want to leave my fellow less active comrades in the dust