I had some pretty brutal discussions with my dad who is a hardcore liberal of the “the answer lies somewhere between the middle of left and right” type. He agrees with a lot of socialist stances and class war but refuses to acknowledge that a revolution is needed to achieve socialism, that killing people wouldn’t make us better than the owning class and that violence is bad and that we should try to change the system by voting that voting will bring lasting change and not a revolution…all this kind of crap. He thinks that i got too “radicalized” and that im stuck in a bubble of propaganda and now he wants to have more control of the media i consume and that when he sees me watching or reading an article that i show him the sources of these articles. He really wants me to “keep an open-mind” which to him literally just means returning to being a liberal. The more of these discussions i have with my father the more i feel a distance between us and i would love if we just ignored our political opinions and kept living our lives how we always did but he insists that i am being groomed by some megalomaniac organization or a goofy ah evil person to join some kind of leftist jihad: “Yes you are entitled to have your opinion but you should also keep an open mind but the problem is that your opinion is not correct” that all i hear from him.
I just never discuss politics with my parents because they are nips deep in fascism and I can do nothing to change their views because they have zero interest in listening to anyone.
If your dad agrees with everything from socialism to class war and the only difference between you is about the necessity of physical violence, then he’s hardly a “hardcore liberal”, he just sounds like a leftist with different ideas thab yours imo
A “leftist” who believes there’s an electoral solution to class war is functionally a liberal.
A “leftist” that thinks the violent overthrow of the majority is the solution to class war is functionally a fascist.
A “leftist” that thinks the violent overthrow of the majority is the solution to class war is functionally a fascist.
That doesn’t track with my understanding. What’s your definition of fascism?
Edit: to be clear, a socialist revolution is the triumph of the worker majority over the oppressive owner class. Not “overthrow of the majority”.
Your dad sounds like a wise dude.
Hey homie, that does sound pretty frustrating.
If you’re young, there may be some some legit parental concern wrapped up in there that’s worth assuaging - he’s seeing his kid rapidly change in ways he doesn’t really understand, and he’s heard vague stories about people getting “radicalized” online.
The bit about controlling your media consumption would really frustrate me, though.
It might be worthwhile to step back a bit from trying to directly argue points (because it’s probably not going to change his mind anyway), and show that his concerns about you are unfounded through what you do.
You’re not radicalized in some propaganda bubble - mainstream media shows the evils of capitalism & the ineffectuality of electoralism on a daily basis. You don’t need a grayzone article to see that the Dems don’t do what they say.
I don’t know if that’s helpful. I avoid arguing politics with my parents anymore (I’ll just say something like “as a communist you know how I feel about that” and push past it). I don’t have to depend on my parents now, though, so maybe that’s different.
You know there is a whole spectrum of actions between voting and violence.
i know but me and my father always return to the same question: “then why dont we just vote away the negatives of capitalism” whose negatives are so tightly connected to the pillars that make up capitalism that you simply cannot just vote away some bad aspect of it without getting rid of it entirely
