I don’t know if that’s the best term to describe them but they seem pretty anti-capitalist and anti-colonialism. Has anyone tried talking to them about communism? How did it go?
Only off the cuff in seminars and art exhibits because they brought it up first. Of the dozens I’ve talked to they’ve been universally abhorrent people who only care for their immediate concerns and will gladly kill you if given the chance. Their aligning with leftists movements seems to be a coincidence, if not outright opportunistic. They’ll appropriate terms and ideas and bastardize them in their own ideologically inconsistent way (like “lived experiences”, “bodies”, “dialogues”) while refusing all historical precedents (USSR, East Germany, DPRK, PRC, Vietnam … but for some reason never Cuba?*), and subscribing to racist ideas of blood purity and enlightenment race science like IQ, propensity for violence, “creativity gene”, the proportion of black athletes in basketball (??), penis size, “care-giving gene” of Asian women, phrenology, and a bunch of other mind-numbing nonsense. Like, they’re so obsessed with this shit while also wanting a minimum wage increase or something, and suddenly that makes them O.K.? It’s so strange. Maybe I’m just living in a so-called shit hole? They’ll always ask if I studied history in a condescendingly bewildered way. Yes, I majored in it, this is exactly why I’m saying it.
Never met a more closeted racist bunch in my life; at least the conservatives are open about their hate. Somehow the conservatives I’ve met are more knowledgeable about Israel’s fuckery, which is just about the only thing I agree with them on, whereas these SJW types will cry about antisemitism for the nth time, and will always mention the Doctor’s Plot and some forced connection to the Holocaust, as if they’re going through a mental checklist. Yes I am bitter about my university experience. Hopefully that changes post-COVID when they realize their idealist visions are impossible.
The one thing I realized is that debates (formal or otherwise) are useless and serves as an exhibit in rhetoric and sophistry. I believe Plato or Aristotle said something akin to it, but I never thought to put two and two together until recently. If you want to convince someone, they have to be the one to approach you, in earnest, and you have to tread very carefully. The Socratic method works best when it’s an apolitical topic, and when both parties are neutral and intellectually honest with themselves. I’d rather just tell them off and give resources than baby someone like that.
*My pet theory for Cuba is that they come from privileged backgrounds, and have some memories of vacationing at their resort beaches.
Your input conversations don’t sound like SJW types. They sound like just normal libs.
Very true. I’d consider all the SJW types I’ve met to be liberals, though. That’s so far at least. Even the BLM co-founder in my area is a godawful liberal.
This is horrible. I expected they were “progressive” liberals, but your acquaintances sound much more sinister!
I’m an SJW, probably. Some of us are anti-capitalist. But some are the bourgeois, blue-checkmark, more-brown-drone-pilots types. It all comes down to class position. People paid to write for the imperialist media are going to represent bourgeois interests.
Years ago I used to hang out on ShitRedditSays. They were mostly liberal imperialists. The anti-capitalists were mostly anarchists who repeated US imperialist propaganda without much thought. I think I got through to some of them with idealistic arguments like, shouldn’t we listen to oppressed people? If we want less authoritarian forms of socialism, shouldn’t we do that by opposing US overthrows of people like Allende, rather than supporting US overthrows of communists?
But for the most part, minds don’t change until conditions change. It’ll take much more than words to convince any large segment of college-educated professionals to betray their class.
Well put, and bless you for joining us here comrade! don’t forget to organize your workplace 💝
You mean people that might be described as “race reductionist” or “identity reductionist”?
I’d describe myself as an SJW in some ways, and also as a communist. I mean, SJW-ism, insofar as it is a real ideology and not just a meme, is very compatible with communism and other leftist ideologies. There is a strong focus in both on fighting oppression. It’s an odd question that you’ve posed, I think.
