Argue or provide evidence that capitalism or anticommunism have caused far more damage
“WHATABOUTISM”
Attribute the killings or other extreme measures to something other than communism
“LOLOL NOT REAL COMMUNISM U SAY”
Say that the tolls are massively inflated or provide evidence that they are
“LITERALLY HOLOCAUST DENIAL ONLY WORSE”
Provide evidence of communists helping and benefiting other people, or attribute historical disasters to natural or external factors
“TANKIE PROPAGANDA”
Screw it, concede that communist revolutionaries have had to violently suppress millions of counterrevolutionaries and probably caused substantial collateral damage while doing so
“YOUR IDEALOGY DOESNT WORK IF U HAVE TO USE VIOLENCE OR GET FAMINES OR ANYTHING BAD EVER HAPPENS FOR ANY RESON AT ALL…EPIC FAIL!!!”
Yawn.
No wonder it’s usually the leftoid noobs who waste their time trying to reason with these types. They just haven’t accumulated enough experience to realize that anticommies never wanted to have a conversation in the first place.
As far as I’m concerned, anticommunists are only good for trolling and nothing else. Prove me wrong, if you wish.
Yes! We need to stop wasting energy talking to reactionaries and do propaganda and agitation with the working class. The ones not brainwashed, just living their lives.
We can move a non politically active person to the left, but can’t do the same to a anti-communist.
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Nah. Mostly pointless arguing about communism with people that understand neither capitalism nor communism and haven’t read a word of Marx or any Marxist.
Had someone tell me Das Kapital is a work of linguistics and an opinionpiece void of empiricism. Naturally they hadn’t read a word of it or any political/economic theory ever for that matter, but were completely adamant about their position.
You can’t argue with someone like that. Most libs are like this. They’ll just nod it off or go on anticommunist tirades they’ve picked up somewhere from someone.
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The most anti-intellectual intellect in the world.
Man I wish lol. I’d be surprised if they know who Chomsky is. The lingustics part probably came from their lack of knowledge of any philosophy and thus equating philosophy and semantics (“lingustics”). Then they picked up somewhere that Marx was a philosopher and as such assumed Kapital is a work of philosophy (and thus being void of empiricism).
It’s just crazy how bourgeois propaganda managed to give people this insane confidence about schools of thought and works they evidently haven’t got the slightest clue about. That person wouldn’t dare making such broad claims about any work else. But Marx - haven’t read a word of his, but can confidently say exactly what it is and isn’t and even the contents of a 3 part tomb of a work. How? Well one just knows.
It’s why, before the world Left got defanged, Communists just used to help those people answer the ages-old question: “Is there a god?” - if you know what I mean.
Now a lot of people who call themselves communists or socialists want to do things ‘right’, even if it means being nothing more than doomed moral victors and this allowed the rise of these people.
I really hope that most liberals aren’t like this in real life
Afaik most are just “uh huh” and changing the topic.
I’ll take that over a rabid anticommunist
I wish I knew the liberals you’ve experienced. All the ones I meet ARE the rotten kind.
Irl guys. Just ordinary proletariat plus some petty burgies, latter tend to be like this in rather dismissive manner. Some rabit anticommunists too, but those are usually no libs, you can recognize PiS fan after single sentence.
It often surprise people about Poland, we live in 300% anticommunist propaganda which is everywhere, but it rarily come out in casual talk, unless you talk with aforementioned PiS fans or young libertarians (older libertarians, which is 1/100 of them, unlike young ones, usually can at least talk about it and not be extremely rude about it).
Fair play, just highlights the levels of angloid chauvinism in the UK that communism is a no go in conversation for the most part 😭
Undecided people are generally the most willing to really listen.
Once people begin down a path of having an opinion on something, it becomes harder to change their view. This is because of mechanisms in the brain that automatically activate when we make difficult choices, mechanisms that serve to resolve cognitive dissonance. As the abstract of this study states: “A choice between two similarly valued alternatives creates psychological tension (cognitive dissonance) that is reduced by a post-decisional reevaluation of the alternatives.” In other words, when we see two options that both seem somewhat reasonable, but must choose only one, we experience cognitive dissonance. The brain kicks in to resolve this dissonance, creating positive associations with the choice we made and creating negative associations with the choice we rejected.
What happens when we encounter dissonance-generating information about the choice we now prefer, our brain once again tries to solve the dissonance, by becoming less responsive to information that doesn’t conform to one’s already held beliefs, with certain areas of our brain failing to activate when we encounter dissonance-inducing information (such as disagreement or facts that go against our position). To put it simply, we respond very actively and positively when something confirms our beliefs (resolving dissonance), and respond somewhat negatively or impassively when something contradicts our beliefs, or even double-down and tune out dissonant information, to a degree that is measurable on brain scans. (Here is a thread I made about this a while back.)
I am not an expert on psychology or neurology, I just decided recently to study up on experimental psychology and neurology regarding things like decision-making, confirmation bias, forming opinions, etc. and soon I want to do some study into what happens to people psychologically/neurologically while in cults, as well as other organizations such as religions or political parties. My reason for doing this is to become better at communicating with people who have really entrenched themselves in a certain stance and have a fact-repellant mechanism going on. So far the main thing I have seen mentioned alongside studies into this kind of thing, is that because people are more responsive at a neurological level, to agreement, it is a decent strategy to begin such arguments by agreeing with them in some way, and I imagine it’s also a good strategy to give people room to deal with their cognitive dissonance as it is generally a subconscious mechanism that actually makes it measurably harder for them to respond to facts. However, I know from experience it’s very hard to be patient enough to do this, especially when the person is being combative or holds a very bad position, so I understand simply not engaging with ideologically entrenched people and focusing more on undecided people (which is generally what I do, and I think it is worthwhile and effective for people to do so).
However I hope that in the future, through a scientific understanding, I can develop a strategy for reaching people who are not just the middle, “undecided” types but that can also reach toward more ideologically entrenched people when I do run into them and have the time and energy needed to deal with their dissonance response on a case-by-case basis.
Very interesting read, much appreciated comrade.
From your point of view, how do you argue with people which position is:
Old people, people with cancer or AIDS should not receive medical care and should just die and do not waste resources
that’s easy! a bullet fired from a rifle :)
I’m not exactly sure what you mean by “my point of view”. My point of view in the post above is just the point of view of someone who is trying to investigate scientifically into the problem of confirmation bias causing people to become unresponsive to facts, with the hope that a strategy can become clear through scientific investigation into the material qualities of the human brain and contradictions/processes of the mind on that basis. I’m far from being at a stage of knowledge where I could propose such solutions.
Specifically in response to someone who makes an argument like the one you quoted? It would, according to my current speculation, be a matter for investigation. When I said “case-by-case” I was referring to the particular information that would be needed to make a decision in such cases.
For example, is that person somebody who is debating online for fun and to feel smart? Is it your grandma who usually is a thoughtful person but recently has passively absorbed some horrendous beliefs injected into her by mainstream media and begun to regurgitate them? Is it a person who is nihilistic and hopeless and has “accepted” this grim belief even though deep down they don’t want to think that way? Is it a person who genuinely wants to engage in good faith on that belief, or a person who is just looking to argue for fun/prestige? etc. With the scientific information about cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias, I would also think that it would be important to assess the degree to which their brain is in a stage of alleviating cognitive dissonance and able to absorb dissonance-inducing facts or not (most of the time, people will struggle to absorb dissonance-inducing facts and arguments and reject or ignore them, or not comprehend them).
There are many factors in when it would be an option to attempt to struggle with a person who says such a thing and have a potential successful outcome, which is why it would be case-by-case, determined by an assessment of that person’s readiness to argue in good faith and their reasons for holding that position and the level to which their cognitive dissonance is dampening their ability to evaluate factual information, along with one’s own ability to address the specific circumstances of that person’s state. Through this assessment you might find that there is no likelihood to argue with them successfully, and then the course of action would be to do something other than argue with them about facts.
The post I made above is to add scientific information to this question and to promote the idea of understanding more about the material basis of the formation of thoughts and opinions and the mechanisms behind confirmation bias and denial of facts, while also hoping that such knowledge could become useful eventually in struggling with people ideologically. I was not trying to offer a catch-all plan for how to argue with specific positions.
Edit: Also, if it’s not clear, I’m not disagreeing with OP. If anything, the information I shared strengthens OP’s point.
Damn, now I feel like I just insulted someone. Sorry for that.
It’s okay, I didn’t know what you meant so I thought I should explain since I felt that your question fell outside of what I was trying to say. No worries
Don’t argue with anticommunists on the internet with the aim to change their minds. Argue with anticommunists on the internet for the consideration of the silent stranger on the internet who’s watching the exchange, and who is still forming or reconsidering their ideas and ideology.
Point out the stupidity/inconsistency/lie in the anticommunist take; leave links to evidence and resources not to prove anything to the dickhead dropping the take, but as further reading for the potential new comrade who’s silently watching.
