How to awaken my fellow high school students and the teachers?

[JudasMaiden]

How do I awaken people around me, especially my fellow high schoolers? Most of my fellow high schoolers don't give a shit about anything other than television shows, Vine videos, fashion, sports, smartphones, and video games. Also, most of the students around me are more into insulting each other (they like to dehumanize/discriminate freshmen) or in some cases, getting into fights (and almost everyone talks about that but not some important things in the world). My high school friend (I prefer not to state his name) is quite into politics, but even there, he says that we should leave it up to the few/bourgeois, not the masses/proletariat/every human being.

To the teachers, it's not really different even through some of them are into politics. My social studies teacher says that "Anarchism doesn't work", he says that someone always rises to power and cites the French Revolution as an example. He also states that people will always be exploitative of other non-participating human beings due to it being "Human nature", even through if "human nature" exists, it always changes like everything else. I try to counter his argument with Anarchist Catalonia and how it fell due to fascists/nationalists taking it, but he doesn't listen to my example. My biology teacher is more of a leftist/anarchist then anyone I know at the school. He has read some of Emma Goldman's writings and he is quite anti-capitalist. The problem being, is that how he admires that all schools should teach students to be "well-rounded" and by his logic, students must learn how to do boxing or fly a plane just for the sake of being "well-rounded".

Okay, so what are some ways that I could awaken people around me other than taping fliers to a lamppost? Should we make leaflets/pamphlets describing what Anarchism is, what anarchist websites to check out, and what they should read to know about Anarchism? I personally think we should make leaflets/pamphlets (even through I am not really good at creating leaflets/pamphlets and I personally don't know any other software other than Microsoft office to use and I can't even use it because I have Ubuntu) because some right-wing Christian fundamentalists like Jack Chick make leaflets/pamphlets.

Here is the post and the response to it from the thread "Study claims that people are unmoved and apathetic toward bad news" I made a few weeks ago that got me to start thinking of methods to awaken the masses around me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JudasMaiden View Post
The mainstream corporate media(Fox News, CNN, Abc news, NBC news for example) now glorifies celebrities or other stupid shit like some overrated YouTube music video (like "What does the Fox say" or "Gangnam Style") due to people not caring about the world's problems. If you ask most people on what is happening in the world, they would probably be talking about the Oscar awards winners, Fashion, Video games, Sports, Television, Amusement parks, or all that other crap. People tend to talk about that, but they never talk about the workers' riot in Vietnam, the NSA spying, or the embargo against Cuba.

I literally taped pictures of what my friend, William Howard Taft, made around my neighborhood. I taped it when I was scootering because I wanted to awaken the masses around me from their ignorant, apathetic slumber. When I was done putting them, I noticed that 2 of them were already gone (I am not surprised either way that either they ripped it off or they could have gotten it as actual information to look at). Are any of you willing to do the same thing? (You could not only do this in your neighborhood, but at your workplace, school, house of worship like a church or mosque, etc.)

Posted by Ethics Gradient in response to JudasMaiden
This post sounds so earnest it could easily be a troll. People are bombarded with images 24/7, the idea that some simple fliers taped to telephone poles or stapled onto community bulletin boards could be enough to 'awaken the masses' is pretty naive. People know that bad things are happening in their community and everywhere else. We're told that we are powerless to stop it, and most people believe it. If thats the case why even pay attention to it?

[RedMaterialist]

Post copies of the Communist Manifesto around the school.

[Sinister Intents]

I've attempted this by talking to people when I was in high school and it proved futile. Too many people are heavily indoctrinated for it to work, and I went to school in a very conservative town where communism and socialism are completely disregarded as something of bullshit when they have no idea what it is. I tried explaining to a teacher that communism and fascism are direct opposites and she skewed what I said as me saying they're such opposites that they go politically full circle and become the same. I've explained to several students and gave links to online literature, and still they just clung to their indoctrinated and preconceived notions of what communism and anarchism are. I had a former friend also learn from me what communism truly is and he quite literally became the equivalent of a fucking NazBol.

[IBleedRed]

I didn't get "radicalized" until near the end of my high school career, and it was because of a combination of literature/learning as well as problems at home (hard times).

Many of your fellow students might be poor or struggling, but because they feel embarrassed or ostracized, they try to lose themselves in school affairs and "ignore" political struggle. This is not weird or strange. In order to engage them, I would try to focus on local struggles or things that aren't overtly political (like fighting for wages or something). LGBT people and feminists might be more receptive or, at least, more politically minded. Does your college have a Young Democrats chapter? That's one avenue to explore (of course, you'd be there to promote socialism!)

My advice: get away from anarchism and shift towards Marxist currents. Anarchism is great but it doesn't have the same rigorous empirical foundation and extensive historical relevance that Marxist thought has had. I'm sure I've just pissed off some anarchists by saying this.


The problem being, is that how he admires that all schools should teach students to be "well-rounded" and by his logic, students must learn how to do boxing or fly a plane just for the sake of being "well-rounded".

What's wrong with this?

[TheWannabeAnarchist]

What's wrong with this?

There's nothing wrong with trying to get kids involved in diverse activities, but don't you see that trying to carve someone into a "well-rounded" ball isn't a great idea?

[IBleedRed]

There's nothing wrong with trying to get kids involved in diverse activities, but don't you see that trying to carve someone into a "well-rounded" ball isn't a great idea?
Nope, I don't see that. Education necessarily shapes the youth. A good education will shape the youth to be critical, open-minded, and appreciative of the human condition. I don't think encouraging people to be well-rounded prevents any of this.

[JudasMaiden]

Nope, I don't see that. Education necessarily shapes the youth. A good education will shape the youth to be critical, open-minded, and appreciative of the human condition. I don't think encouraging people to be well-rounded prevents any of this.

Have you heard of democratic/anarchist schools like Sudbury school(United States) or Summerhill school(United Kingdom), they have no fixed curriculum.

[IBleedRed]

Have you heard of democratic/anarchist schools like Sudbury school(United States) or Summerhill school(United Kingdom), they have no fixed curriculum.

Alternative schooling is fine, but there needs to be a framework within which education occurs. There's nothing wrong with guidelines and expectations, even if you may feel they are somehow "authoritarian". 5-year olds can't set the curriculum, sorry.

[Sinister Intents]

Have you heard of democratic/anarchist schools like Sudbury school(United States) or Summerhill school(United Kingdom), they have no fixed curriculum.

Could you provide links to these possibly? edit: Oh.... you don't have enough posts, you could just post them as broken links

[JudasMaiden]

Could you provide links to these possibly? edit: Oh.... you don't have enough posts, you could just post them as broken links

http://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/ - Summerhill school

http://www.sudval.org/ - Sudbury school
Edit: We need to discuss how to awaken the masses around us whether at public school, college/university, workplace, etc.

[#FF0000]

There's no better way to turn people off from what you're saying than proselytizing. You're just going to be overbearing and preachy. And then when people don't listen to your weirdo wingbat ranting you'll get all mad and be like "ugh these sheeple" and become even more insufferable than you were when you started preaching the gospel of marx.

so what you do:

Read about marxism/anarchist/whatever it is you're interested in.
Know what you're talking about
Learn to discuss politics without preaching or being insufferable (don't get mad ever, don't call names, don't be a dick)
Don't shove politics in people's faces. Only bring it up when people are talkin about politics or asking about them.

You will not "wake up" your class mates. If they're not interested in politics, they are not interested in your politics.

edit: basically don't ever talk about politics unless you are asked your opinion unless you're part of some organization and doing some campaign or something. there is no way to bring up politics in a regular ol' social situation without being annoying.

[Sinister Intents]

http://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/ - Summerhill school

http://www.sudval.org/ - Sudbury school
Edit: We need to discuss how to awaken the masses around us whether at public school, college/university, workplace, etc.

Thanks. Honestly the best thing I can think to increase class consciousness and education in these places would be to get a group together and produce documents and provide links to those interested. I think one could start a paper perhaps, and a website and provide links and references for people. I've tried at college to spread a bit of anticapitalist rhetoric, but I go to a business college so my idea would fail in reality, and I would have a worse reputation than I already do at business college for being openly anarchist communist despite people being accepting. I've also taken advantage of a sociology class and helped with peoples' questions regarding my views, still I got people who simply say that's your opinion and thanks for sharing. Generally I've dismissed as a conspiracy theorist by many since high school.

[AmilcarCabral]

Judas: Well the thing is that first of all if you live in USA or some other ultra individualist society like in the northern nations of Europe, and many other nations that have the same philosophy of behaviour of USA, with lots of group-narcissism and family-narcissism. I think you will have a very hard time breaking the ice and trying to strike a conversation not only about politics, but about any thing.

I used to go to a local protestant church around here and the church pastor who has been into other countries of Latin America, Europe, Africa etc. told me that compared with nations where he has been doing his church activities like Haiti, and Panama, most average people of America are totally mute. He claims that when he goes to pump his gas, or waiting in line at any supermarket store people are like scared of each other.

Americans are like the UFO spaceships of the movie Independence Day where humans in jet fighters were trying to shoot down the UFO ships but they couldn't because the UFO spaceships had protective shields. And people in America are like that, too evasive, too avoidant, too protective of their own selves and families.

The majority of Americans are not a piece of cake, the USA is almost a mental hospital of paranoia and all crazy disorders.

So, your first task will be to destroy the protective barriers and shields that most people in USA shield themselves with in order to avoid any eye-contact and social contact

Another thing I think that you will have to wait for the year 2016 to 2020, so that you can really try to talk to regular people out there about the need of socialism in America. Because many economists like Thom Hartmann and others have said that there will be a powerful depression and crash around that year.

Because right now poor americans, oppressed americans are still too happy and too well-fed. You don't have to be psychologist and economists to see with your own eyes how calmed and happy even the poor in USA are (That's coz poor people in USA can still eat from food-banks, food-stamps and get away with all sorts of black market activities, like e-bay, garage sales etc)

But sooner or later even e-bay side-businesses will grind to a halt in America. Because for e-bay to work there has to be a good economic situation with lots of spare cash to buy stuff from e-bay. But around 2016 even e-bay businesses and amazon side-businesses will all collapse, and that's I think the right moment to tell poor americans:
http://suekatz.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c7a9753ef017c382c9a6d970b-800wi

"YOU SEE I TOLD YOU, KARL MARX WAS RIGHT"





How do I awaken people around me, especially my fellow high schoolers? Most of my fellow high schoolers don't give a shit about anything other than television shows, Vine videos, fashion, sports, smartphones, and video games. Also, most of the students around me are more into insulting each other (they like to dehumanize/discriminate freshmen) or in some cases, getting into fights (and almost everyone talks about that but not some important things in the world). My high school friend (I prefer not to state his name) is quite into politics, but even there, he says that we should leave it up to the few/bourgeois, not the masses/proletariat/every human being.

To the teachers, it's not really different even through some of them are into politics. My social studies teacher says that "Anarchism doesn't work", he says that someone always rises to power and cites the French Revolution as an example. He also states that people will always be exploitative of other non-participating human beings due to it being "Human nature", even through if "human nature" exists, it always changes like everything else. I try to counter his argument with Anarchist Catalonia and how it fell due to fascists/nationalists taking it, but he doesn't listen to my example. My biology teacher is more of a leftist/anarchist then anyone I know at the school. He has read some of Emma Goldman's writings and he is quite anti-capitalist. The problem being, is that how he admires that all schools should teach students to be "well-rounded" and by his logic, students must learn how to do boxing or fly a plane just for the sake of being "well-rounded".

Okay, so what are some ways that I could awaken people around me other than taping fliers to a lamppost? Should we make leaflets/pamphlets describing what Anarchism is, what anarchist websites to check out, and what they should read to know about Anarchism? I personally think we should make leaflets/pamphlets (even through I am not really good at creating leaflets/pamphlets and I personally don't know any other software other than Microsoft office to use and I can't even use it because I have Ubuntu) because some right-wing Christian fundamentalists like Jack Chick make leaflets/pamphlets.

Here is the post and the response to it from the thread "Study claims that people are unmoved and apathetic toward bad news" I made a few weeks ago that got me to start thinking of methods to awaken the masses around me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JudasMaiden View Post
The mainstream corporate media(Fox News, CNN, Abc news, NBC news for example) now glorifies celebrities or other stupid shit like some overrated YouTube music video (like "What does the Fox say" or "Gangnam Style") due to people not caring about the world's problems. If you ask most people on what is happening in the world, they would probably be talking about the Oscar awards winners, Fashion, Video games, Sports, Television, Amusement parks, or all that other crap. People tend to talk about that, but they never talk about the workers' riot in Vietnam, the NSA spying, or the embargo against Cuba.

I literally taped pictures of what my friend, William Howard Taft, made around my neighborhood. I taped it when I was scootering because I wanted to awaken the masses around me from their ignorant, apathetic slumber. When I was done putting them, I noticed that 2 of them were already gone (I am not surprised either way that either they ripped it off or they could have gotten it as actual information to look at). Are any of you willing to do the same thing? (You could not only do this in your neighborhood, but at your workplace, school, house of worship like a church or mosque, etc.)

Posted by Ethics Gradient in response to JudasMaiden
This post sounds so earnest it could easily be a troll. People are bombarded with images 24/7, the idea that some simple fliers taped to telephone poles or stapled onto community bulletin boards could be enough to 'awaken the masses' is pretty naive. People know that bad things are happening in their community and everywhere else. We're told that we are powerless to stop it, and most people believe it. If thats the case why even pay attention to it?

[Fourth Internationalist]

I'd recommend laying off trying to preach to people. As a high school student myself, I have found that it's only useful to talk about it when it is warranted (for example, when my friend asked me what I was reading, and I told her and we talked about it for a bit). Only other times I have really talked about it is when something similar like that has occurred, or debating a civics teacher on such issues (he was talking about how everything such as TV's and personal space like in a personal home will be shared). So yeah, that's my thoughts on it.

[Five Year Plan]

Unless you want to awaken them to the IS-brand of student socialism, the only "awakening" that is likely to occur will be when these well-heeled colleagues of yours venture out into the capitalist economy to get a job working 50 hours a week, at low pay, for some lazy repulsive schmuck. Then I think your message of overturning capitalism will make a lot more sense.

[bluemangroup]

How do I awaken people around me, especially my fellow high schoolers? Most of my fellow high schoolers don't give a shit about anything other than television shows, Vine videos, fashion, sports, smartphones, and video games.I was in your shoes several years ago, as a junior in high school. I first got interested in Marxism after reading The Communist Manifesto before moving on to other works which I delved into heavily overtime. I saw apathy at my school, how students couldn't care less about what was going on in the world. I tried preaching, first to my parents and then to friends, and needless to say it didn't work - rather, it backfired.

Now I'm in college.


Should we make leaflets/pamphlets describing what Anarchism is, what anarchist websites to check out, and what they should read to know about Anarchism?I'd highly recommend not putting up any offensive and/or misleading posters, or, no posters/leaflets/etc. at all. Plastering the school hallways with posters and passing out leaflets to random students passing by is going to come off as preachy. It won't work IMHO, and you should focus on what matters - succeeding at school instead of preaching anarchism or whatever it is you believe in to teachers and other students who frankly won't care.

I've seen apathy first hand in high school, and it showed me a lot when looking back.

[Comrade Jacob]

I had a former friend also learn from me what communism truly is and he quite literally became the equivalent of a fucking NazBol.

Damn dude, that must've sucked.

[AmilcarCabral]

I read in the book "The Politics" by Aristotle, that an excess of sports activities, an excess of exhausting physical exercises is an impediment for knowledge. What Aristotle meant that when students devote lots of their physical energies to athletic activities, they won't be able to have reading stamina and enjoy intellectual labor. And I think that one of the main goals of the education system in America in high schools and universities of putting too much emphasis in athletic activities a lot more than intellectual activities, in their carreers is to sort of dumb down students. So instead of great students of math, algebra, history, and in college, great lawyers, great architects, great doctors, what they become is great jocks. I have never understood why high school and colleges in USA waste so much money, resources, physical and mental energies on athletic activities and sports like baseball, basketball, soccer.

I think that there should be universities and institutions specifically devoted to learn how to play baseball and other sports. But I don't think is rational to go to any university to become a basketball player. People should go to universities to learn professions not sports


.




I was in your shoes several years ago, as a junior in high school. I first got interested in Marxism after reading The Communist Manifesto before moving on to other works which I delved into heavily overtime. I saw apathy at my school, how students couldn't care less about what was going on in the world. I tried preaching, first to my parents and then to friends, and needless to say it didn't work - rather, it backfired.

Now I'm in college.

I'd highly recommend not putting up any offensive and/or misleading posters, or, no posters/leaflets/etc. at all. Plastering the school hallways with posters and passing out leaflets to random students passing by is going to come off as preachy. It won't work IMHO, and you should focus on what matters - succeeding at school instead of preaching anarchism or whatever it is you believe in to teachers and other students who frankly won't care.

I've seen apathy first hand in high school, and it showed me a lot when looking back.