Actually, this town has more than enough room for the two of us
Marxist-Leninist ☭
Interested in Marxism-Leninism, but don’t know where to start? Check out my “Read Theory, Darn it!” introductory reading list!
Since you have a programming background, think of it like recursion. A function that runs, then calls itself has fundamentally changed inputs. Dialectics proceeds as spirals, this recursive loop is a cycle that always progresses quantitatively until the character qualitatively changes.
In practical example, as Capitalism decays, conditions quantitatively weaken for workers, which will eventually result in a qualitative shift in perspective and openness to new ideas.
100%. The good news is that this process seems to ease over time as conditions change.
You’re pretty close to what Roderic Day asserts in Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of “Brainwashing.” People believe what they license themselves to, and reject that which shakes that frame due to the absolute cacophany of information available on the internet. Everyone says everything, so it’s easy to find information pointing to whatever you want it to, so this charade keeps going.
I think over time terms like “Socialism” and “Communism” are less scary in the West, but what those words mean is what’s at stake, as Socialism gets taken over by the Social Democrats and other apologists for Imperialism. Agitation should be tied to real experiences of the working class and speak to simple logical truths about why we should collectively plan the economy, rather than leaving it up to a decreasing number of powerful individuals. Combatting the overwhelming negativity of the modern era with revolutionary optimism seems quite potent.
It’s largely no use trying to convince those who aren’t willing to be, so focus your efforts on those who are. More comrades is a good thing, you don’t have to pick the hardest fights to get more comrades, you can pick the easy ones and social pressures and material conditions changing will make the more against easier to convert in the future. Trust that the dialectic is always in motion, they may not be open now, but might in the future as conditions change.
I think this is the best approach. I’m still wary, but this is the viewpoint I’ve been coming to understand.