If you’re not ready to die for your ideology then may be its not really your ideology after all, and you’ve simply been tempted by the utopian fantasies of a bunch of dreamers?

First, there are people who are out there fighting who are risking their livelihood or even lives. Second, this is sort of a bizarre litmus test for ideological commitment outside of context and sounds more like a cult than something based around effectiveness; although there are situations when being willing to sacrifice everything makes sense, it’s not something you do for dear leader (which again, sounds like a cult), it’s something you do for the people as a whole and an organized and righteous cause of liberation. It’s also not something you seek out like a badge of honor, but rather something that historically, the people have no choice on at times in order to achieve liberation.

The spirit of the quote needs to be understood in the context of communism being first and foremost a movement for the people’s collective self determination and liberation and with a great love for the people. Not in a vague populist sense of “whatever the people want, we’ll do it” (which depending on context, could just reinforce existing systems of oppression) but in terms of liberating from imperialism, from the capitalist class, and as part of that process, uplifting people and helping them get their needs met in a more consistent and systemic way. Part of this has to do with bridging the gap between splits that occur in class and caste of “intellectual” and “worker”, educating the working class in general where necessary or specifically in terms of communist principles, such that the difference between the two becomes less pronounced. You might be surprised just how much material there is already existing on theory and practice. I emphasize this because when I speak of educating, I’m not talking about giving someone an elevator pitch on something pie in the sky and hoping they go for it, I’m talking about a lot of historical context and detail you can get into, as well as learning to use dialectical and historical materialism for analysis (which can involve extensive detail analysis by situation).

I’m not sure where you get the idea that this process would have no hierarchy or structure to the organizing involved. But it is also easier said than done. In the US, for example, there is a certain amount of what I’d call ideological splintering, where people have some vague agreement and overlap on philosophies such as “being nice to other people”, but in the actual details, you could have distinctive variation based on what podcast or streamer someone listens to. There are also unique challenges geographically, with the layout of things, the way suburban implementation has made people more isolated and cagey. None of this is to say these challenges can’t be overcome, but that it’s helpful to examine the specifics of the situation and figure out how to go from there. We can’t superimpose vague answers alone or do structureless experimentation alone, and get where we need to be. The combination of theory and practice is important here.

That’s a fair point and something I will try to be conscious of. It sounds like what you’re saying, and correct me if I’m wrong, is we need to have more of a mindset of connecting with the people than preaching to them from on high. And that once we, well to put it one way… once we investigate why it is they think the way they do and investigate what it is they want and the reasons they want it, then we can communicate from there. But without that, we are just guessing and that can go very poorly. What I think of is some people, for example, are in a more comfy position economically, so they may not see the rich/poor issue as being very pressing. While for some others, it may be that the security of their next paycheck is their most pressing concern. When we know, we can empathize, truly care, and show them how these things relate to a broader system. If we don’t know, we can sound like we’re expecting them to be something they aren’t.

Hope that makes sense. Might sound like a lot to extrapolate from it, but kind of thinking it through as I type, to make sure we’re roughly on the same page.

That’s a helpful reminder, thanks. If I try to put it in an analogy (metaphor?) it sounds kind of like there’s this alluring light leading the people into the swamp and part of our fight is to convince them to move away from it, to recognize it for what it is, as an illusion put together to drag them under. When I think of it this way, it seems to me that a large part of the fight is dismantling imperialist propaganda first. In other words, rather than trying to prove a positive first to someone who is bent on viewing communism as evil, it may be more effective to focus on finding ways to show them what is dissonant about the things they believe in. After all, for all the accusations of communism or other expressions of anti-imperialism being “cult-like” (one of those “every accusation is a confession” things) the way some people view it as a good/evil dichotomy of “freedom” on one side and “tyranny” on the other is itself cult-like in its thinking; if you are viewed as an outsider to that, you can be vilified really easily. But there’s also a lot of dissonance required to believe in that dichotomy, such as how in the US, some people will simultaneously believe the US is a bastion of democracy while also never being satisfied with who is president or being very cynical (and rightfully so) about how politicians behave.

Not that we can’t do some of both, but it may be that helping people reach the point of anti-imperialism is far more important than preaching communism. Which would be in line with how, if I’m not mistaken, global efforts are more centered right now on an alliance against imperialism than an alliance in favor of socialist states (my impression is, BRICS is a core of that?).

Edit: wording

I struggle with this a lot online and don’t know how to get better results. It seems to me that how it often goes is that if I reveal my position to be one of sympathy toward socialism or communism, and there is often an immediate and visceral resistance to it, as if I had said that I want to commit atrocities or that I live in a fantasy. I don’t know how to gain ground from that.

It’s possible I come off as too arrogant at times, I don’t really know. I do my best to stick to a respectful line even when I’m being mocked or insulted for the position I’m taking, but it can be very difficult not to return it in kind.

I can tell with some of it that it has little to do with me as a person and everything to do with pre-existing prejudices. For example, I can recall a time where someone framed it as if I was in a position of desiring purity from others simply because of the position of support I had expressed for working class power over that of rich people. I had not even said anything specifically to this person on the matter, they just read the conversation and put me in a certain kind of box. I’m proud of myself for the restraint I showed in that particular conversation, but nevertheless, it felt like I got nowhere with anyone. It is possible I did and don’t know it, but I can’t judge effectiveness on speculation and that makes it very difficult to know what is working with anyone, especially considering it may take a long time for some people to come around.

Some of it may be a weakness of mine in being more information-minded than personable. I’m not the kind of person who has a “how was your fishing trip” type of relationship with lots of other people. I can be friendly, but I have trouble forming the kind of connections that would make it clear to them I’m talking from a place of respect. Many online seem primed to assume that if someone talks with a tone of authority on a subject, their desire is to “put someone in their place” and that’s something I’ve tried hard to consciously move away from. But I still run into situations where people seem to assume that is the de facto intent, even if I’m using a plain tone of talking about information and accuracy of it.

Curious what others think on this. It is tempting to simply write a lot of people off as not worth the effort, but that doesn’t raise political consciousness. I know I can’t work miracles, but I don’t want to keep feeling like my efforts are being wasted either (or keep dealing with little more than snideness simply for stating my position).

Oh yeah, I’m sure there’s a whole discussion to be had about capitalist media that depicts anti-capitalist themes, but does it in such a watered down way, it’s more of an aesthetic than an actual criticism of what’s happening. I’m not sure if it’s always meddling or if it’s more that the people writing it are too liberal to have a clue how to represent such a thing. I mean, I admit that even with what I know, it is a challenge to write a fictional representation of such matters because there is always some element of it being divorced from the realities, but I’m sure if I was writing a cyberpunk-esque story, it’d be one that involves people being organized against the source of the problems and contending with the unique technological challenges involved in opposing it.

Been into Civ 6 lately. Sometimes I kind of have to go like “ok, this is a strategy game and that’s what I’m treating it as” because the way they portray civilization can be a bit… I think maybe colonial-centric is the phrasing I’m looking for. I feel it’s very in need of a win condition that comes from deep alliances and not just faux forced diplomacy “only one person can be the winner” kind of thing. But if I treat it as a competitive strategy game with a civilization-based outfit on and don’t take the cultural influences too seriously, it’s fun enough and has a lot of depth to it for improving at the strategic elements over time. So I can really sink a lot of hours into it, if I let myself.