People have other biases, etc, to play on. Most people have empathy and an instinct for justice. Most people don’t want to be evicted but know what it’s like. They don’t want to be made redundant but they know what it’s like. They know that the North exploits the South. They don’t like to be sat in rush hour traffic day in, day out. Or living off rushed microwave meals. They know they make money for the boss but don’t know why they can’t persuade the boss for a slightly larger cut. Even those who blame immigrants for everything are starting with real problems, they’re just distracted to hate the wrong people; in part because, as you say, the right head a monopoly on visual spaces.
I know maybe six people IRL, all over 60, who are sceptical about climate change. Everyone else accepts it and wants to do something. They want their gran to be warm in winter but they’re kinda glad that gran is burning less fossil fuel and they feel bad about being glad. Liberalism does not provide answers, only alienation and guilt. And liberal media makes ‘politics’ impenetrable.
There’s a lot of common ground. The problem is that most people are only exposed to liberalism and due to that they do not know there’s an alternative with solutions. The left will lose if it doesn’t use all the tools available to change hearts and minds. Memes are a part of it. When it comes to it, only a few revolutionaries will emerge. The bulk of the population will either be happy that someone is doing something or get in the way. Memes can help to sway people towards agreeing with the revolutionaries. There’s a reason that reactionaries do almost everything they can to shut down all forms of radical media, memes included.
By their nature, they take very little commitment by the audience. Where they might not read a persuasive tract, they might glimpse a funny meme and think, maybe XYZ wasn’t so bad.
I was radical before I saw any Marxist memes. But mine was the Marxism that’s palatable in the West: seen as interesting but outdated, leaning towards Trotskyism, and other ‘Western Marxism’ traits. ML memes encouraged me to question Trotsky/ists and Zizek, et al, and to look into Lenin, Mao, Stalin, Furr, Losurdo, etc. Memes were my inroad to the ML community. They helped me to gain an initial foothold on the key themes, ideas, and arguments.
I’ve also used memes with friends/group chats to broach certain topics that are otherwise hard to bring up. Memes make it easier to keep those topics current. And they provide an easy way for Marxists to remind people that Marxism exists and that you’re a Marxist – without being preachy.
People have other biases, etc, to play on. Most people have empathy and an instinct for justice. Most people don’t want to be evicted but know what it’s like. They don’t want to be made redundant but they know what it’s like. They know that the North exploits the South. They don’t like to be sat in rush hour traffic day in, day out. Or living off rushed microwave meals. They know they make money for the boss but don’t know why they can’t persuade the boss for a slightly larger cut. Even those who blame immigrants for everything are starting with real problems, they’re just distracted to hate the wrong people; in part because, as you say, the right head a monopoly on visual spaces.
I know maybe six people IRL, all over 60, who are sceptical about climate change. Everyone else accepts it and wants to do something. They want their gran to be warm in winter but they’re kinda glad that gran is burning less fossil fuel and they feel bad about being glad. Liberalism does not provide answers, only alienation and guilt. And liberal media makes ‘politics’ impenetrable.
There’s a lot of common ground. The problem is that most people are only exposed to liberalism and due to that they do not know there’s an alternative with solutions. The left will lose if it doesn’t use all the tools available to change hearts and minds. Memes are a part of it. When it comes to it, only a few revolutionaries will emerge. The bulk of the population will either be happy that someone is doing something or get in the way. Memes can help to sway people towards agreeing with the revolutionaries. There’s a reason that reactionaries do almost everything they can to shut down all forms of radical media, memes included.
By their nature, they take very little commitment by the audience. Where they might not read a persuasive tract, they might glimpse a funny meme and think, maybe XYZ wasn’t so bad.
I was radical before I saw any Marxist memes. But mine was the Marxism that’s palatable in the West: seen as interesting but outdated, leaning towards Trotskyism, and other ‘Western Marxism’ traits. ML memes encouraged me to question Trotsky/ists and Zizek, et al, and to look into Lenin, Mao, Stalin, Furr, Losurdo, etc. Memes were my inroad to the ML community. They helped me to gain an initial foothold on the key themes, ideas, and arguments.
I’ve also used memes with friends/group chats to broach certain topics that are otherwise hard to bring up. Memes make it easier to keep those topics current. And they provide an easy way for Marxists to remind people that Marxism exists and that you’re a Marxist – without being preachy.