“breaking new liberals are ignorant” i know this isnt new to us but i couldnt resist and entered a political discord server and debated with someone on why Lenin wasnt anti-semite? and why Marx wasnt anti-semite either especially considering how his father is jewish himself…and then the guy switched to how the soviet union was anti-semitic because they seized synagogues belongings? and i tried to explain why this wasnt directed at jews but rather religious institutions as a whole because of the power they held in the russian empire…he also used the “muh authoritarianism, vanguard party authoritarian” which ofcourse he would mention not knowing that reactionary movements would have eleminated the revolutionary progress made if it werent for the vanguard party protecting it. He then proceeded to compare the vanguard party to israel because i said the vanguard party and with it the people need to hold all power to protect the revolution which he translated into “yuh but if you are anti-israel that means that israel should also protect itself from the palestinians for its survival” (him being pro-israel). Funny thing is that he considered himself a socialist eventhough he admitted to not like marx and called himself a pre-marxist socialist? He also admitted to never have read theory and this is the part that annoys me the most: He called himself a socialist…
Everytime i try to be reasonable with these people they pull out the most randome take out of their asses and i try to educate them but they mock me. All i can hope for is that they will become class-conscious and be enlightened about the all the trash propaganda they have been fed…but aslong as this isnt the case if fear they will need to face the wall if they keep being the enemies of the people
I honestly think those kinds of debates are useless. They tire you, make you sad and despondent, and accomplish nothing. We don’t bring people over with angry arguments with liberals about how Marx felt about jews. We don’t make progress on the revolution by dunking on liberals online on minutia about the history of the USSR.
Let’s take a look at how it played out in the past we could have some pointers on what is an useful controversy.
When Lenin debates Kautsky in writing, does that resemble what we do in online debates? When Marx debates Proudhon, is it the same thing we are doing? I would argue that it isn’t at all.
First of all, Marx and Lenin are engaging with people they perceive to be in the same camp as they are. They are not debating hostile outsiders. They are addressing what they perceive to be errors within the same movement. They also do, of course, address theoretically and practically the actual enemies of their camp. But they rarely do so nominally and point by point. They do so more generally, when building their own theory.
Second of all, they are doing so in long form writing. Not point by point argument with immediate response. This is important. It allows you to build an actual argument, enriched with data, enriched with a thorough reading of the thesis of the person you’re addressing. It also doesn’t have the same dynamics where the other person can move goal posts freely.
Third, were them hoping to convince their opponents? Was mit directly addressed to the other side in hopes of bringing them over? They weren’t.They were writing to an audience that will read both texts and hope to make that audience see the problems with the thesis the other side is defending and propose alternatives. The audience is the target to be convinced, not the opponent. If they see the error of their thinking, good! But that’s not likely to happen by the very nature of debate.
I think we should emulate this. And this is what I see, for example, online agitators doing (for example on YouTube). They don’t engage directly with the liberals. They collect the liberal thought they see online and respond in long form, with a thorough take down, well supported by data and theory, aimed at the audience, not at the people they’re responding to.
Also, we need to remember that liberals are not on our camp. Addressing them is not a weeding out of errors by our comrades that we hope to prevent from spreading. They are our enemies. Remember they are the ones that will side with the bourgeois state to kill us, like they did with Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht.
I understand that it’s difficult to resist when you see people saying shit online and not respond. I do it all the time myself. It’s also not without value to not allow the shit to stand there to be read by people without response. But I would advise you to only do so if you have the time and fortitude to engage non-emotionally with it, without any hopes of convincing the other person, but only of not allowing the record to go on without correction. Remember: you’re not talking with that person. You’re talking to someone reading that thread. Disconnect emotionally from the process because this will take a toll on you.
Repeating: online angry debate have never and will never bring anyone over to our side. Nobody ever became a socialist after being “convinced with facts and logic” in an angry online debate. As I said, if it has a function, it’s only function is to not allow the other side to have full control of the online record.
But where and how do we actually convince people? I’d argue that it is one-on-one conversations and with a lot of love and patience. Spend your energy talking one-on-one with people. Listen to them, understand their problems, and discuss the problems they bring to you. Stick to topics they care about. Don’t dump a bunch of theory and history of the USSR on their head. Patiently listen and use theory to guide you on how to address the things they complain about and show them that there’s an alternative world that is possible. Point their anger towards the real problems that prevents this world from existing. Do this and this person will naturally come towards socialism. And do it out of love and care. With a patient attitude. It’s not a debate anymore. You’re talking to a fellow worker about making their life better. You’re not trying to win a debate. You’re trying to win a person.
And most important of all: don’t sacrifice your mental health in the process. Burning yourself down trying to debate liberals online will not accelerate the revolution. It serves no purpose but wearing a motivated comrade down. And that’s to their advantage.
