Capitalists can just be like “dude look at this NPR article socialism is bad”
Meanwhile I have to have an extensive understanding of philosophy, history, science, economics and politics in order to justify my worldview.
Sometimes I forget that people don’t have comprehensive world views, and accidentally say something’s CIA propaganda, then have to go through that whole process of explaining how the CIA having fronts and interfering in global affairs isn’t a conspiracy, it’s just reality, and that finding sources about it isn’t the same as finding sources for an 8th grade book report, because it’s the goddamn CIA! Shits exhausting and sucks balls, I just want to be dumb I know I’m right removed, get off my dick
I was getting a tattoo stylised in the art style of old soviet propaganda posters and had to listen one of the artists tell me how Stalin killed a bajillion gazillion people, communism = when gubment do thing, and just the same old shit, man. I had time because I couldn’t go anywhere so I started arguing with them. Same old talking points I’ve heard a hundred times and I’ve read enough to be able to thoroughly respond to any of these but it just doesn’t matter. Like, why even bother knowing anything lol. These people don’t care.
It’s like cool, I’ve read idk how many fucking books and consumed so much information on this, spent fucking years formulating a coherent world view, and they just come in with “nuh uh communism no food” and that’s just it. Goddamn it’s tiring.
I remain unconvinced that most people change their minds through anything like this, for good reason too. They’re only going to be willing to have an internal change of heart when something about their own personal lived experiences contradicts the worldview imbued within them. They can’t simply be told they’re incorrect. They have to experience being incorrect. They have to see their worldview disintegrate from external pressure, as in, becoming a social pariah, experiencing poverty, anything that shows them that standard conventional “western” liberal values are illusory.
After experiencing something like that, then they can start piecing the dots together, because you can offer a more focused lens with a better explanation. That’s how I’ve made people into leftists, focus on what they’ve already felt. Focus on the alienation that’s already there.
I’m willing to bet 95% of you folk did it this way. You felt a greater than average amount of alienation from general society (maybe you had social anxiety, you directly experienced racism, maybe you’re trans, maybe you went through devastating poverty, maybe all of the above). Then after a period of disorientation, something introduced you or reminded you of leftist frameworks, then it all tumbled into place