How do you do it?
I stopped participating in a group chat with some long-time friends about a year ago, mostly due in part to the exhausting conversations over politics. Ironically, after Trump was shot, the group decided to silo the conversations into two groups, one for non-politics, and one for politics, and pinged me. We’re that kind of group where we go long periods of time not seeing each other in person due to life and kids, but it was nice to have them reach out.
But oh, that politics channel has not changed. Meanwhile, my worldview has shifted dramatically to the left of theirs (and beyond, really). The spectrum is:
- Center Leaning Republican (a Rogan, Pool, Peterson enjoyer),
- A Center leaning Dem
- A Vote Blue Democrat (they are also the only queer person in our group)
- A 3rd Party guy (basically a libertarian but refuses to adopt a label, and doesn’t vote, but also a Peterson enjoyer, rabid anticommunist, they always know a guy, or have a family member, you know what I mean).
- All white, all male
Something interesting happened when I returned, though. The topic that started this isn’t relevant, but it prompted the Center Dem friend to ask me where I get my views from. I sat on that question for an evening and then just wrote out a summary of the Marxist-Leninists view on capitalism and imperialism, without ever using “capitalism” or “imperialism”, without referencing Marx or Lenin.
It was long, but, his response was, basically, “Ok, that makes a lot of sense, actually.” I then told him that Marx and Lenin would be happy to know you agree because that’s their analysis in my own words, as I understand it.
Usually after bringing up someone like Marx, I’ll get dunked on with a barrage of anticommunist brainrot, but that didn’t happen this time.
So it got me thinking about the title of this post. How do you talk to your lib friends about their distorted world view?
Biggest thing I find, biggest difference early on, biggest headache preventer: Emphasize early on that there’s nothing personal about it, that this isn’t an attack on them, only an examination of their ideas. If you’re talking to them about this, it’s probably because you’ve decided that their heart is in the right place, so let that be the pleasant bedrock of the conversation. If you can keep the vibe collaborative, ask engaging questions and avoid triggering any defenses they’ll often do a lot of the work for you- just gotta not make them feel morally judged. You can still morally judge them, just don’t let it show. Socratic method works best as long as you’re not super obvious about it. Question, listen, discuss, break tension with a joke, flow into next question.
If they start voicing leftist thoughts, validate them of course. If they ask something like “Hey, did we (the US) coup (insert country here)?” Don’t say yeah they did weve known since 1972, say “You know, I’ve long suspected it myself. Let’s look it up right now.” The dopamine of considering the possibility of a real conspiracy and then being immediately proven right will be a powerful reward that they’ll remember. I mean shit, the ease with which materialist thinking allows you to sniff things out; mystical phantasms of omnipotent Russian hackers and shadowy transgender cabals just cannot compete.
I also do something I suspect a lot of people here do, I call it “unpausing time”. Ours is the only political/economic worldview “in play” right now that accounts for the future instead of just trying to claw back the past, and when you put dialectical materialist ideas alongside say, libertarian ones in a live test, the comparison always favors us. Compare China to Argentina and you can easily say, politely even: “Well, these ideas may sound good on paper (you may have to lie about this), but as we can clearly now see, they just don’t work in practice.” I’m being kind of snarky but seriously, any time they point to some ideological mind palace shit you can just point to the scoreboard.
Our ideas and methods stand the acid test of reality at a rate that the various liberalisms have never, ever been able to match.
Actually since most anticommunist arguments are capitalist projection, you can have a lot of fun making them make sense. My favorite is “eventually you run out of other people’s money.”
Comrade, I bet collectively we could develop a play book like this, and it would be very effective and useful. I mean, even just now (before reading your comment) I engaged in a discussion with one of them on the virtues of the 3rd party, framing it around the idea that it’s simply “fringe capture” and an extension of the “Compatible Left” operations the CIA engages in, and instead of it blowing out into an argument, they just said “Yeah that’s fair honestly.” I had to do a lot of tailoring the message, make it about “People with your point of view” and not “People like you”, but it was a very civil discussion, one that has historically been rare. It was also useful because it defused a conversation that runs on a loop in our group about how “You could just vote 3rd party, you know!”. Drove a wedge right, straight through it.
honestly, I think this is a good teaching technique in general, at least in informal settings. people generally don’t like to be talked down to and especially not by a peer (even if that peer does in fact know a LOT more than they do). making the pursuit of knowledge collaborative, even if you have to fake it a little and hide your power levels, has served me much better than just spouting a bunch of well-educated text at somebody and hope they read it. you have to make them think it was their idea, as much as possible. obviously that’s not always possible but the ideas you can make them think that they independently discovered will stick with them more. it’s like an even more tame version of the socratic method.
other than that, I think the key tenets in political arguments between peers are 1) be initially kind to gauge whether they’re unintentionally misinformed or intentionally harmful on sensitive topics, and if it’s the latter, then go for the kill; 2) pick your battles and don’t try and convince people whose material interests align overly with the status quo; and 3) have a sense of humor about things so that tense moments in conversations can be dissipated without exhausting the interlocutor(s). an optional 4th condition, though it can be pretty helpful, is to be known in the community/friend group as a well-meaning, pleasant, laid-back, reliable, knowledgable person. cynicism has its place but being a communist in an age of capitalism is all about having hope and believing in people, and nobody wants to talk to you and listen to you if you’re an asshole, even if you’ve read a hundred books on history and economics and politics.