I would also argue that few people have made a very good case connecting peoples concerns to capitalism. So to many it has a Southpark-ish ring to it: capitalism is bad. Don’t do capitalism. It’s an abstract thing, and abstract opponents make people feel despair and impotence.
The most persuasive people I’ve seen don’t use that word often. They directly link peoples concerns to inequality (unfair taxation and employment laws), climate ( fossil fuel companies) and unregulated abusive businesses such as big tech.
Those are not faceless, abstract entities, so people can organise their (justified) anger better.
Has anybody else heard good approaches for helping people understand ?
The most persuasive people I’ve seen don’t use that word often. They directly link peoples concerns to inequality (unfair taxation and employment laws), climate ( fossil fuel companies) and unregulated abusive businesses such as big tech.
This is the way. Lefty movements have rightly been criticized for being too academic. Expressing people’s concerns in a more relatable and practical way gets more people on board.
totally. my latest ex is pretty socialist and anticapitalist, and i agreed with them on pretty much everything they said, but they drank the coolaid on using classical communist jargon to talk about stuff. half the time they would use definitions for words that were, to be generous, at odds with commonly accepted definitions. then they would get pissy and the discussion would devolve into semantics because they would only accept those definitions, while i was trying to use the normal definitions because of fucking course i would. so would almost everyone else. so in order to talk to them about government or politics without causing some kind of misunderstanding i would have to read a bunch of communist literature from the 1800s. i confronted them with the fact that this is a problem for the movement in general and they should be more straight forward with their words, but they just got pissy again.
it really sucks as a situation because theyre right, they just cant fathom that you cant expect people to read a bunch of old ass books in order to understand wtf theyre saying. add to that the jargon has been coopted and memed to death so every conservative gets triggered like a sleeper agent hearing the code word to execute their mission, we should probably abandon it and just talk in simple practical terms people can understand.
every conservative gets triggered like a sleeper agent hearing the code word to execute their mission, we should probably abandon it and just talk in simple practical terms people can understand.
Exactly. We don’t need “socialism”. It’s just a word, one that has been deeply tainted through generations of propoganda. We can discard the label if it doesn’t help good outcomes… Material conditions are what matter, no matter what you call them
I love to fight someone forced to directly defend unaffordable housing and medical care. Please, tell me more about how you hate the common people and want us all to die. Speak up for the camera
If you’re willing to go “you’re absolutely right! What a good point!” every time the person you’re talking to aligns with you even a little bit like “you’re absolutely right, you work so hard it’s completely unfair you’re taxes are so high… and the taxes of the wealthy are so low in comparison!” they feel smart and validated and might not even notice you tacked on your own commentary and also avoid buzz words it’s actually not that difficult to talk to people in an effective way.
Presenting as a truck driving blue collar good ole boy before subtly bringing up how much we lose to income tax while the wealthy pay next to nothing is my technique. If they defend the wealthy they’re lost to the boot polish, but that’s pretty uncommon in my experience.
I’ve found “You work all day and get a small salary. The business owner sits around, and gets a huge payout. Does that seem fair?” is moderately effective.
You often get “they risk their money!” (so is gambling now something financially good?) or “they worked very hard to get there” (so why aren’t they as burned out as the rest of the “less hard working” workers?)
Hah, I had written something specifically about “they took on risk!” and a retort of “are we a slot machine and lotto driven society then?” but didn’t polish and post it.
For the latter, I might zero in on “they worked hard, maybe. Now they don’t. Should a freeloader get more than someone who works?” to see what happens.
IMO the challenge isn’t convincing them about socialistic policies, it’s convincing them to vote for less exciting candidates with low chances of winning in the immediate future.
FPTP is the real issue imo, it only allows the most bland and diluted policies through very slowly while market conditions change things rapidly.
That’s a good point. I’ve been voting for a party for years that started on 2-3% electoral preference. The general consensus at the time was that it would be nice to see them grow, but they’re a wasted vote. They’re now around 10-11% and even as opposition have impact.
We don’t have FPTP where I am, but I can see from our neighbours the kinds of problems it creates. Still, once you progress beyond FPTP, the kinds of attitude problems we have here still persist. I guess you’ll have a better idea of the next steps once you have proportional representation, because then you have a better idea of the government people really want.
I would also argue that few people have made a very good case connecting peoples concerns to capitalism. So to many it has a Southpark-ish ring to it: capitalism is bad. Don’t do capitalism. It’s an abstract thing, and abstract opponents make people feel despair and impotence.
The most persuasive people I’ve seen don’t use that word often. They directly link peoples concerns to inequality (unfair taxation and employment laws), climate ( fossil fuel companies) and unregulated abusive businesses such as big tech.
Those are not faceless, abstract entities, so people can organise their (justified) anger better.
Has anybody else heard good approaches for helping people understand ?
This is the way. Lefty movements have rightly been criticized for being too academic. Expressing people’s concerns in a more relatable and practical way gets more people on board.
totally. my latest ex is pretty socialist and anticapitalist, and i agreed with them on pretty much everything they said, but they drank the coolaid on using classical communist jargon to talk about stuff. half the time they would use definitions for words that were, to be generous, at odds with commonly accepted definitions. then they would get pissy and the discussion would devolve into semantics because they would only accept those definitions, while i was trying to use the normal definitions because of fucking course i would. so would almost everyone else. so in order to talk to them about government or politics without causing some kind of misunderstanding i would have to read a bunch of communist literature from the 1800s. i confronted them with the fact that this is a problem for the movement in general and they should be more straight forward with their words, but they just got pissy again.
it really sucks as a situation because theyre right, they just cant fathom that you cant expect people to read a bunch of old ass books in order to understand wtf theyre saying. add to that the jargon has been coopted and memed to death so every conservative gets triggered like a sleeper agent hearing the code word to execute their mission, we should probably abandon it and just talk in simple practical terms people can understand.
I can see why they’re your ex.
Hard agree.
Exactly. We don’t need “socialism”. It’s just a word, one that has been deeply tainted through generations of propoganda. We can discard the label if it doesn’t help good outcomes… Material conditions are what matter, no matter what you call them
I love to fight someone forced to directly defend unaffordable housing and medical care. Please, tell me more about how you hate the common people and want us all to die. Speak up for the camera
If you’re willing to go “you’re absolutely right! What a good point!” every time the person you’re talking to aligns with you even a little bit like “you’re absolutely right, you work so hard it’s completely unfair you’re taxes are so high… and the taxes of the wealthy are so low in comparison!” they feel smart and validated and might not even notice you tacked on your own commentary and also avoid buzz words it’s actually not that difficult to talk to people in an effective way.
Presenting as a truck driving blue collar good ole boy before subtly bringing up how much we lose to income tax while the wealthy pay next to nothing is my technique. If they defend the wealthy they’re lost to the boot polish, but that’s pretty uncommon in my experience.
I’ve found “You work all day and get a small salary. The business owner sits around, and gets a huge payout. Does that seem fair?” is moderately effective.
You often get “they risk their money!” (so is gambling now something financially good?) or “they worked very hard to get there” (so why aren’t they as burned out as the rest of the “less hard working” workers?)
Hah, I had written something specifically about “they took on risk!” and a retort of “are we a slot machine and lotto driven society then?” but didn’t polish and post it.
For the latter, I might zero in on “they worked hard, maybe. Now they don’t. Should a freeloader get more than someone who works?” to see what happens.
IMO the challenge isn’t convincing them about socialistic policies, it’s convincing them to vote for less exciting candidates with low chances of winning in the immediate future.
FPTP is the real issue imo, it only allows the most bland and diluted policies through very slowly while market conditions change things rapidly.
That’s a good point. I’ve been voting for a party for years that started on 2-3% electoral preference. The general consensus at the time was that it would be nice to see them grow, but they’re a wasted vote. They’re now around 10-11% and even as opposition have impact.
We don’t have FPTP where I am, but I can see from our neighbours the kinds of problems it creates. Still, once you progress beyond FPTP, the kinds of attitude problems we have here still persist. I guess you’ll have a better idea of the next steps once you have proportional representation, because then you have a better idea of the government people really want.