How you came into the Left Side of the Spectrum?

[Guardia Rossa]

I have seen in the political evolution thread many persons (including me) entered the left side of the spectrum through social-democracy and came in contact with more "extremist" ideologies and then became socialists (anarchists, libertarians, marxists, leninists, anything in between), so I decided to make a pool.

Sorry for bad english, and also I forgot to add a "Other" so please comment here if you differ from the 3 options.

[Sinister Intents]

I pretty much came out of a very religious and right wing background and sympathized with fascist ideas. A very confused Nazi/white supremacist introduced me to the CPUSA website, and then I read their crap and became more of a liberal, then I kept reading and came to a weird weak Marxist position then went to liberal anarchism, then became more of an anarchist communist, and now I'm a libertarian Marxist I guess. I'm still growing and learning. Pretty much I started out "far right" and now I'm in communist left and I think I get better politically speaking by the day.

[Armchair Partisan]

I was always on the left-wing, pretty much, it's just that communism was the first political idea that really 'clicked' for me. I read up on it one day and realized that it's exactly my kind of thing. I guess it was because I always ahd an affinity for noticing all the bullshit behind the ways the world worked, and getting to know the communist ideology finally let me form all of it into a coherent worldview.

[Puzzled Left]

Why did a Nazi introduce you the website of the CPUSA?

[Mr. Piccolo]

Oddly, my journey to the Left started with reading Pat Buchanan. I used to be a typical Republican conservative, but when I started to read Buchanan's articles about how outsourcing ruined many working-class communities in the United States, I felt I could not longer support free-market capitalism. After spending some time as a national conservative (supporting a protectionist form of capitalism), I started reading socialist works and then came to the conclusion that protectionism and reformism were unable to resolve the contradictions and negative aspects of capitalism.

[#FF0000]

I think my sentiments since I was a kid made me kind of sympathetic to leftism, even when I didn't recognize it. My parents were military and taught me a lot of American history and sort of raised me to be patriotic cuz America = freedom, fair play, all that.

So I ended up thinking I was conservative as a kid since they pay so much lip service to "American values". As a teenager I noticed that conservatives seemed to have very different opinions than I did on things like racism, poverty, equality, fairness, and freedom. I was very poor as a small child and slightly less poor as a teenager, and I could never make sense of how someone could be "free" if they were poor.

So yeah, I started reading a lot as a teenager, settled on leftism. Dabbled in Anarchism and Marxism. Here I am.

[sixdollarchampagne]

As a high schooler and then an undergraduate, it was an easy choice for me: the liberals/Democrats and the Republicans were both gaga about the war in Vietnam and about the draft, from what I could see – i.e., both big parties wanted young men to be sent to Vietnam, while I was determined to survive, rather than dying face down in a rice paddy at a very young age, in a war that the US population was beginning to repudiate. The antiwar movement, which was filled with leftists, was the only place I could find people who were against my being sent to die in southeast Asia, while Democrats/liberals like Lyndon Johnson and his Vice President Hubert Horatio H., as well as the right wingers in the GOP, were keen to send me and a lot of other young men, off to the war.

[hexaune]

I grew up with a dad that thought Thatcher was god's gift to the earth and still reads the Daily Mail thinking it is the only objective news paper :laugh:.

I moved out when I was 18 and got involved in the free party/squatter/punk scene and got exposed to anarchism through a couple of people that became good friends and were into the more political side of things and since then I've been reading up on rev left and formulating/adjusting my view on things.

[hexaune]

I would also say that my experiences in the working world further radicalised my politics.

[Dylan]

When i first heard of socialism when i was about 6 or 7 i thought that it was an amazing thing. But when i asked other people about it they said that a society like that was impossible. Year's of being told that everything is fine, follow the path, everything will be fine, let the big guys up top worry about the economy, there more experienced they know what there doing. Yes they do know what they are doing, but what they are doing is not for us, they go through loop holes, doge TAXES and keep the nations wealth. When we hear of the capitalist way we are told its a great game, but what they don't say is that its rigged from the start. Being free and free enterprise are two different things. It is sick that someone who does nothing for the people, are given money by the people. So if we let the people have the power, like they should through this great way called socialism, we can do what american dream really is, FOR the people, BY the people. We can all have this new era, were we are all truly equal, like it says in our dream, that will become a reality. We have the hopes and dreams of the american people in our hands, and we will do something with them. Not for one of us at the top, but for all of us where ever we may be. This is the TRUE american Dream. This is why i joined.

[RA89]

Most my views were always left. Became interested more when I kept discovering that everyone I knew in real life who I considered intelligent or very intelligent were left leaning in one way or another (not that I blindly followed, it was just the spark).

I went in with an open mind. Any time I came across what I thought were good arguments from the right they were thoroughly debunked by the left.

[Thirsty Crow]

I think my sentiments since I was a kid made me kind of sympathetic to leftism, even when I didn't recognize it.Pretty much this even tho your following sentence is like completely the opposite of what I'd have to say


My parents were military and taught me a lot of American history and sort of raised me to be patriotic cuz America = freedom, fair play, all that.


One of the best things about growing up with my folks was the almost rabid anti-nationalist sentiment, with my mother performing the ritual of shredding the constiitutional, nation-founding party's card to little bits (still remember that day); not without its own contradictions though as all of them, apart from ex-"socialist" bureaucrat grandma and grandpa, exhibited some weak kind of chauvinism. But always in relation to a more or less well based, and as I said almost rabid, opposition to mainstream nationalism and all it entails.

They also and at all times emphasized some basic human decency and fairness in relations with other people; like "never EVER pick a fight or disrespect someone without reason UNLESS..." and the list after the "unless" did its thing. After a relatively short detour via some idiosyncratic form of Nietzsche thing :lol:

Though, when I think about it now, I still think ol' Fred taught me valuable lessons. Still have a soft spot fort that Polish aristocrat (bits of Human all too Human vividly come to mind). Anyway, I've been on the social democrat side of things since my early teens; what really pushed me over the edge was the 2009 student occupation of universities. I was much to engrossed in assorted poetic and philosophical ramblings on its own so a lightning bolt of real action was what shocked me out of that quasi-solipsisitic stupor (never actually solipsisitic, but now when I reflect back it seems much of my life revolved around elaborate ways of both embracing social connection and shunning it if that makes sense).

Nothing ever made sense apart from the political-theoretical tradition of the ultraleft (with a brief pause re traditional anarcho-syndicalism).

[John Nada]

They also and at all times emphasized some basic human decency and fairness in relations with other people; like "never EVER pick a fight or disrespect someone without reason UNLESS..." and the list after the "unless" did its thing.The same. Though my family is mostly progressive-liberal, what would be social democrat in other countries.

I didn't like authority figures as a kid(still don't). I thought somethings wrong with this world. Then Marx had me at "religion is the opiate of the masses" and the state withering away.:wub:

I find, contrary to that whole "you start out left, then move right as you get older", age only reaffirms my hatred of capitalism.

[mushroompizza]

My mom made me a Liberal at 8. I evolved to become a social democrat, then thru reading: later a socialist, and now a left communist.

[Comrade Jacob]

I actually came across MaoistRebel's old skool video on surplus value and it was an epiphany

[RedSonRising]

Basically as soon as I became aware and conscious of gross inequalities in power and wealth within and between countries, my instinct was to advocate for a revolution of some sort. I had a very vague idea of what it meant to be on the radical left but the basic premises seemed like the most ready solution. I don't think I ever considered putting my faith in reformist efforts.

[Comunero]

I come from a fairly wealthy family in Ecuador. This lead to pretty much everyone I interacted with being wealthy. I remember that the first time I ever heard my friends ever talk about politics was in 2006 (I was 12). This was in the context of the election which propelled Rafael Correa to power. I knew next to nothing about any of the candidates or politics in general, but I remember some of my friends advocating for León Roldós (the brother of Jaime Roldós, a center-left politician who was president of Ecuador from 1979 to 1981 -he died in a plane crash-). I imagine they themselves knew nothing about Roldós and were just repeating what they had heard from their parents.

The election went to a second round, with Rafael Correa and Álvaro Noboa (an appalling crook, the richest man in Ecuador, and a neoliberal "populist" in the vein of Fujimori in Perú). When it came to these two, pretty much everyone I knew was in favor of Noboa.

In the summer of 2007 I moved to the United States. It was not due to the election of Correa, though, as my father did not uproot any of his business and continues to extract surplus value from his workers.

In any case, following that brief brush with politics, I did not begin to think about politics until 2010 or so, when I became a capital-L Libertarian, until which I was a liberal Democrat not because of any conviction, but simply because most of my friends were too and I had a sense that Democrats were somehow more just than Republicans.

My short Libertarian phase was born out of the idea that the state should not interfere with the free interaction of people, as I saw it often doing. However, I had no opinion on economics, and I didn't affirm private property because I had never though about it.

When I did start thinking about economics I veered left. It just immediately clicked to me, given my general anti-authoritarian stance, that private property was an aberration and an impediment to the the free association of people I held so dear.

I should also mention that during my liberal Democrat and Libertarian phase I was a militant New Atheist, this actually played a role in moving me forwards.

In any case, I discovered Bakunin and read a little from God and the State. What he said just made sense to me, so I immediately took the mantle of "libertarian socialist."

Since then I have undergone a slow process of learning which moved me from vague "libertarian socialism" to a more grounded Anarcho-Communism. Recently however I have began to move away from the label anarchist. Today I would say I am definitely a revolutionary socialist that finds Marxian analysis of capitalism, history, and social structures to be incredibly useful and insightful but is hesitant to call himself a Marxist. I do retain a fundamental distrust for parties and using the state apparatus to dismantle class rule but I do not have a problem with working alongside Marxists of all kinds -unless of course they shun me first-.


PS: In regards to my New Atheist, I am still an atheist but I find Hitchens, Harris, and company to be appalling apologists for US imperialism and have realized that religion as such is not the problem as the forms it takes are a result of material conditions.

[Grue]

I copy-paste from myself elsewhere here because I've discussed it before:


I wasn’t raised in an explicitly political setting family-wise so I had to rely on my own devices (i.e. looking to the Internet as my source of knowledge) in order to gain any political awareness. That sort of led to a very disjointed political understanding in which I mostly just parroted truisms I heard on message boards up until 2008 when the presidential election encouraged me to look more into it. Luckily I had the benefit of common sense and a trace of compassion to lead me away from falling into the Republican camp early on, and I cast my tally for Obama in the junior high school’s mock election that year.

My New Atheist phase early in my high school years was probably the low point in this whole process with all the terrible imperialist opinions it entails but that died down over time. As I said I discovered the Green Party’s platform in 2011 or so and thought it made a lot of salient points re. ecological responsibility, grassroots democracy, and anti-imperialism. I ended up voting for Jill Stein in 2012 on my 18th birthday (convenient how that worked out). I remained that sort of quiet progressive across the next couple years but through late 2013 and early 2014 increasing frustration with the hopeless political situation in the USA made me appreciate radical narratives a bit more. I guess I was some kind of watermelon (i.e. green on the outside and red on the inside)

What really pushed me toward radical politics for good was happening upon some good histories of the Spanish Civil War. The struggles of the anti-fascist fighters were something I hadn’t really been exposed to before, and I found myself admiring many of the Marxists and anarchists I read about. Not very long after that I chanced on the /r/socialism subreddit which opened the door to studying the stuff properly, and that was that.

[QuestionableMarxist]

Meeting a conservative MP. He repulsed me so much on his ideas on cutting social services that I started reading more around the left. Further reading led to me here now.

[oli]

I was a libertarian anti-feminist right-wing capitalist (because youtubers, redditors and anti-SJW online personalities of this sort offered what I then found to be humorous analyses of radical feminist blog posts), but as soon as I actually started actually reading about politics, history and various political theories I immediately engaged with Marxism. I began as a somewhat ignorant Marxist-Leninist(ish) through reading Marx, Engels, Trotsky, Lenin and Mao, but soon drifted towards the more libertarian western Marxists like Gramsci, Debord, Luxemburg, Pannekoek and others (Frankfurt school, Lukacs, Althusser etc) as I began to understand more and more. I now am a libertarian Marxist with strong anarchist sympathies.

[Left-Wing Nutjob]

I came out of an upper-middle class background (both parents have post-graduate degrees, lived in affluent suburbia, etc.) so I am very, intimately familiar with the attitudes and the ideologies and the worldviews of the educated, professional upper-middle classes. I never felt like I really "fit in" in the sense that I didn't like the constant putting on airs, the hypocrisy, the two-faced "niceness", the manipulative personalities and worst of all, the elitism and class snobbery.

Part of the issue was that my own intellectual and educational development led me to Political Theory, and that's where I was really introduced to Marxism. From that, I started to look at everything that didn't make sense to me (that I alluded to in the previous paragraph) with a new appreciation. Basically, I was able to synthesize Marx's thoughts with some of my own observations, and conclude, "Oh...it makes sense now that educated upper-middle class people would call themselves 'tolerant" or even "liberal", while at the same time, being capable of adopting a very reactionary stance whenever the subject of class struggle came up!"

So yeah....for me it was the intellectual side of Marxism, along with being tired of the constant "fakeness" of the class which I had come from, and recognizing that I would be better off (not literally...) being on the side of the working class - contrary to the majority of those with similar backgrounds to mine.

Anyway, not a very exciting story...but whatever.

[Left Voice]

Given my background, I've always been somewhat left. My mother grew up in a region of Yorkshire where the trade unions were extremely strong as was an opposition to Thatcher. She was already in her late 20s by time Thatcher's wrath against the miners really struck, but that shaped her politics. She's not actually particularly political, she's much more 'organic' than that - shaped by experiences more than anything else. My father was a punk in the early 80s, a member of a relatively major UK punk band and his politics were shaped thus. The Tories and in particularly Thatcher weren't allowed in our household. My father self-describes as a socialist and 'almost communist', although in action he much closely resembles a social democrat. In spite of his punk background, his background is much more 'middle class' (if there is such a thing).

My own politics were shaped thus, although I'm much more to the left of my father and mother. This is more to do with the fact that their background isn't particularly political in a theorietical sense - they've not read massive amounts of socialist literature and have the most basic understandings of the key concepts. They are shaped by experience, as are most working class people.

It took me a while to reach the point I eventually reached now. Coming from a background that put a lot of faith in the Labour Party (although my parents grew disillusioned during the New Labour era, they still voted Labour), it took me a while to break away from the representative democracy system and realise that they ballot box might actually the least effective method of actualising change. I attended an Access to Higher Education course and one of the teachers introduced me to Marxism. This was mindblowing for me, like a whole new understanding of the world had opened up. Everything flowed from there.

I think very few people start out as far left. It's not the natural starting point in our society. Like many people, I started from a social democratic/democratic socialist position on Labour Party lines before becoming disillusioned with the idea that any kind of change can come from a political system controlled for and maintained by vested interests.

[G4b3n]

As a high schooler and then an undergraduate, it was an easy choice for me: the liberals/Democrats and the Republicans were both gaga about the war in Vietnam and about the draft, from what I could see – i.e., both big parties wanted young men to be sent to Vietnam, while I was determined to survive, rather than dying face down in a rice paddy at a very young age, in a war that the US population was beginning to repudiate. The antiwar movement, which was filled with leftists, was the only place I could find people who were against my being sent to die in southeast Asia, while Democrats/liberals like Lyndon Johnson and his Vice President Hubert Horatio H., as well as the right wingers in the GOP, were keen to send me and a lot of other young men, off to the war.

But why didn't you just "get clean for Gene" or join the YAF for that matter? What was it about the radical wing of the movement that was attractive?

[Culicarius]

Well, I was mostly apolitical until I wanna say age fifteen or so? I never cared about politics (my family seldom spoke of their beliefs) and it wasn't until I learned gay marriage wasn't legal on a federal level that I had a big "what the fuck?" moment. I might've been completely disinterested in politics, but hearing that two people who loved each other would be denied the right to marry (and basically because of religion - and I was agnostic too) helped root me in the left because I saw injustices everywhere.

I was a liberal, though also disenchanted with capitalism. I knew people died by the thousands in my country because the USA doesn't have universal healthcare, which is one of the many things I thought was seriously fucked up. Paper and the economy being considered more important than human lives.

For the longest time I focused mainly on social issues, and didn't touch anything on the economy other than waving it off with "free healthcare, more taxes, etc. etc." I can't quite remember when it reached the point where I just said fuck capitalism, but roughly a year ago is when I began to start reading books and talking to people on the far left about their beliefs and moved towards that.

[The Modern Prometheus]

I grew up in a rural working class area during a time when some of the worst strikes that had ever gone on here where happening. It was a period of economic collapse here more or less and leftist and union mentality ran rather strong. So i guess i was born a leftist but because a Communist.

[red-winter]

Back in like 8th grade I became very interested in the history of the Soviet Union as well as of my own country (ex-Yugoslavia). Upon doing tons of research on the countries I eventually ended up doing research on Socialism. At this point I wasn't too politically involved, but identified as a Democrat because that's how my parents voted and I also hated Republicans and what they stood for. But then was the first time I actually did some of my own research and found something that made sense to me. I eventually ended up being a Marxist-Leninist tankie for a bit (mostly due to USSR fanboyism) and a couple years back I converted to being a simple orthodox Marxist after reading more of Marx's works. What also helped was getting into the punk scene, which gave me a more revolutionary mindset and helped me think more about the injustices of Capitalism. Now here I am on RevLeft, gravitating a bit towards Trotsky :grin:

[sev1988]

I was 9 when I first found out about communism. My Dace teacher, his wife, and my parents and I were on a hike in the bay area, and I asked him "Why do we need money?" I can't remember exactly what he said, but I believe he told me at least about the basics of communism. I remember being thrilled at the prospect of a world without the need for money, and all the problems that came with it. But I didn't pursue the ideas any further until I was 16, and in a study group which was also led by my dance teacher.

In between that time and when I was 9. I got caught up in social democratic efforts to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and pretty much remained a social democrat/U.S. liberal until I was 16.

Since then I've felt called more towards Anarchism, due to my experiences as a Quaker (Religious Society of Friends). The more "churchy" aspects of straight-line communism/Marxism tend to clash with my Quaker sensibilities.

[ckaihatsu]

The more "churchy" aspects of straight-line communism/Marxism tend to clash with my Quaker sensibilities.


By any chance would you mind indulging me and elaborating on this...?

[BIXX]

I too would like to be less confused. I font know shit about Quakers tbh

[Zoop]

I was a liberal for a long time, then I flirted with "libertarianism" (shame be upon me), and then eventually became aware of libertarian socialism.

[cyu]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quakers
"The central unifying doctrine of these movements is the priesthood of all believers"

Almost what you'd get if you crossed anarchists with Christians. You don't have one person who preaches to everyone else, instead anybody who feels inspired to preach, does it. If you want to see how an "anarchist-like" organization would function, you might check them out, even though they're not focused on the same things as political anarchists, but there are probably many structural things about organization and the spread of ideas that can be studied.

[BTW, I first took notice of them when doing a college project on the internment of Japanese Americans. Turns out the Quakers were one of the few organizations that opposed the internment.]

[Sewer Socialist]

How is Marxism too "churchy", especially for a Quaker?

[cyu]

How is Marxism too "churchy", especially for a Quaker?

I'm not him, so this is just conjecture, but by "churchy" I assume he's not talking about religion or God, but rather how things are organized. If you go to a Marxist meeting, is it one where so-called leaders and spokespeople get up and speak? Or is it one where anybody can speak, and be accorded the same respect as anyone else, even if it's their first time there?

[Sewer Socialist]

It's about the same range as an anarchist meeting. Some events are more like speeches, some are more of a discussion, some are more formal, others are less.

Neither are really like church. As far as I can tell, Quakers are full of the same sort of unscientific platitudes that Catholics are.

[sev1988]

I'm not him, so this is just conjecture, but by "churchy" I assume he's not talking about religion or God, but rather how things are organized. If you go to a Marxist meeting, is it one where so-called leaders and spokespeople get up and speak? Or is it one where anybody can speak, and be accorded the same respect as anyone else, even if it's their first time there?

I was actually referring more to the philosophical/theoretical underpinnings of Marxism. I get the sense, though I could be wrong, that there's this cannon of Marxist writing that most Marxists hold somewhat "sacred." I remember trying to read Lenin's "The Revolution and the State" and being largely confused and frustrated by the dated terminology. I also got the sense that Lenin had this kind of Holier the thou attitude in his writing which rubbed me the wrong way.

When I started getting into Anarchist writings. I found them much more in tune with my sense of being a Quaker. Quakers are non-hierarchical and although some do read The Bible, they would not say it's the be all and end all of our faith. We believe in continuing revelation, and that each person has the ability to have a direct experience of God/The Light. That being said, we also hold community to be very important, at our meetings on Sunday's we wait in expectant silence for God's/The Light to speak through our vocal ministry. Anyone in meeting for Worship can stand up and speak. Although anyone can speak we tend to give more "weight" to members with more experience. I Hope this helps people in understanding my faith.

[ckaihatsu]

Churchier.


= D

[cyu]

Depending on the group, I suspect even some anarchist groups may be "less anarchist" - giving more respect to those they believe have a "better grasp" of anarchist theory, as opposed to some guy who may either be a suspected government agent, or a clueless dabbler.

This isn't to say Quakers are ideal examples of non-hierarchical organization, but challenges faced by anarchists in establishing non-hierarchical organization probably have parallel experiences among Quakers as well. The "theory" among Quakers though appears to be that anyone may be inspired by God, and as such, even those you expect nothing out of, may at times speak with "the voice of God" and should be respected in the same way they would respect God.

On the other hand, that may be different from anarchists - while some anarchists may in theory respect everyone equally, others may disrespect everyone equally xD

[Guardia Rossa]

Since then I have undergone a slow process of learning which moved me from vague "libertarian socialism" to a more grounded Anarcho-Communism. Recently however I have began to move away from the label anarchist. Today I would say I am definitely a revolutionary socialist that finds Marxian analysis of capitalism, history, and social structures to be incredibly useful and insightful but is hesitant to call himself a Marxist. I do retain a fundamental distrust for parties and using the state apparatus to dismantle class rule but I do not have a problem with working alongside Marxists of all kinds -unless of course they shun me first-.

We are same in regards to this, I don't like to put myself into any label, even an invented one, anymore. I went through other path thoug: sozi -> Leftcom -> neoleninist -> rev. soc.

Rev. Soc. at least least until I buy the books I still need (damn low salary :lol: )