The Sloth
20th June 2004, 15:56
Yesterday, I was driven back to the southern tip of New Jersey to visit a few of my friends, considering that I've been back in New York City for over a year now.
Anyway, so one of them was having a party (or, at least, some sort of social gathering)...mostly high school seniors that are graduating this month were attending. Needless to say, I was the youngest person there, which seems to happen wherever I go. In this past year, however, since I have been back in New York City, I've went through serious changes, especially my involvement in politics and intellectual and artistic pursuits. Of course, after some music and some eating, I got into a discussion about socialism and communism....
...wow!
I could not believe how thoroughly these students from A.P. and honors classes have been closed off to everything BUT capitalism! When I was giving facts, the responses were usually lukewarm rebuttals or totally irrelevant proclamations and ideas...the most common "criticism" of socialism was the "profit = incentive" argument. Of course, mentioning the fact that there are lazy bums in capitalism that get paid just as much as individuals that work twelve times as hard generated the response, "this does not happen under capitalism because the individuals will be fired!" Such a response is ignorant.
Of course, when I mentioned that much of Europe has been socialist for over fifty years already, this both generated surprise but, unfortunately, no change of mind. Someone actually said that the "dollar" is worth more than the "euro"! And, unsurprisingly, they constantly pointed to the "immense wealth of America" and attributed it to the "greatness of capitalism." When I informed them that 50% of NYC kids live in poverty, they said...."well, what about the kids in the suburbs, right here?" as if the fact that a bouregois elite cancels out the failings of capitalism in the cities of America! Is a lack of sympathy a product of capitalism, too?!
They also didn't grasp the fact that our wealth is generated at the expense of other nations, and, usually, entire continents. They seem to be misinformed of the fact that Africans are slaving away at gold mines while Americans are being brainwashed into spending all their money on impractical things. When I asked some of them whether they wanted to get rid of the Third World and at least bring about some form of equality, I asked them how the world can eliminate the existence of a Third World without adopting socialist reforms. In other words, how can you get rid of the Third World within the framework of capitalism? Unsurprisingly, my request to make a plan like this went unanswered.
Keep in mind that I was the lone liberal going against a huge number of devoted conservatives that never even attemped to study socialism and Marxism on their own. Their knowledge of the subject goes no further than the garbage in school textbooks and the media. I believe that, when arguing with conservatives, it is important to outnumber them because conservatives don't exactly like the concept of "logic" and "rationale." However, since I didn't have anyone but myself as a liberal, I had to go to it alone. There was a sense of ignorance of politics, and a naive sense of "the government tries to help everyone equally" kinda garbage. What especially frightened me is that the party was thrown by my friend, a black man that previously lived in some housing projects in South Carolina! And since his transfer to the bourgeois environment, it seems as if he forgot that not everyone has such a great life....or maybe he still remembers this, but still doesn't understand that "greater equality" cannot be reached through capitalism.
Everyone that preaches equality but refuses to connect exploitation with capitalism and equality with socialism is a hypocrite, and is illogical!
It was even worse when an immigrant from "communist" Vietnam told me, "yo, trust me, I lived under communism...it's not nice!" When I informed him that he was living under a fascist pig police state, he brushed it off because very few people actually wonder whether a government is really communist or merely holds the name but acts on fascist tendencies. Thus, what I said was foreign to everyone that heard it, and they effectively put it in the back of their minds. When I explained that the failures of "communism" can be attributed to the Leninist paradigm of "professional revolutionaries" and a vanguard party, I wasn't surprised when they refused to even discuss this issue because they were ignorant of anything and everything socialist.
But how do you change this? I almost gave up (haha, not really!!!!) trying to teach others the merits of socialism. I think we need something much more effective than simply discussions with other communists, hoping that an ignorant capitalist just happens to pass by and get interested. We need to hit them individually, one by one, so they could discard whatever bullshit has been given to them by the media and such and such. I was thinking about going door-to-door and establishing a select few relationships with people that I can interest completely...and if someone really gets dedicated, they can go about educating others as well, and those others can do the same, too.
I am happy to always say that there are quite a few closet socialists out there in high schools. The economics and government/law teacher in my school admitted to socialism, one of my history teachers did the same, and so did another history teacher (the latter putting up numerous fights before finally admitting to his socialist tendencies).
Does anyone have any real ideas for organizing? Because I realize that it is rare that anyone, in today's society, would ever just "get into" socialism by reading something because all of the propaganda they have swallowed would be working against them indefinitely. Although it has happened to me, and most of the people here, we are such a small fraction...and why werent we introduced to socialism earlier? Propaganda.
Anyway, so one of them was having a party (or, at least, some sort of social gathering)...mostly high school seniors that are graduating this month were attending. Needless to say, I was the youngest person there, which seems to happen wherever I go. In this past year, however, since I have been back in New York City, I've went through serious changes, especially my involvement in politics and intellectual and artistic pursuits. Of course, after some music and some eating, I got into a discussion about socialism and communism....
...wow!
I could not believe how thoroughly these students from A.P. and honors classes have been closed off to everything BUT capitalism! When I was giving facts, the responses were usually lukewarm rebuttals or totally irrelevant proclamations and ideas...the most common "criticism" of socialism was the "profit = incentive" argument. Of course, mentioning the fact that there are lazy bums in capitalism that get paid just as much as individuals that work twelve times as hard generated the response, "this does not happen under capitalism because the individuals will be fired!" Such a response is ignorant.
Of course, when I mentioned that much of Europe has been socialist for over fifty years already, this both generated surprise but, unfortunately, no change of mind. Someone actually said that the "dollar" is worth more than the "euro"! And, unsurprisingly, they constantly pointed to the "immense wealth of America" and attributed it to the "greatness of capitalism." When I informed them that 50% of NYC kids live in poverty, they said...."well, what about the kids in the suburbs, right here?" as if the fact that a bouregois elite cancels out the failings of capitalism in the cities of America! Is a lack of sympathy a product of capitalism, too?!
They also didn't grasp the fact that our wealth is generated at the expense of other nations, and, usually, entire continents. They seem to be misinformed of the fact that Africans are slaving away at gold mines while Americans are being brainwashed into spending all their money on impractical things. When I asked some of them whether they wanted to get rid of the Third World and at least bring about some form of equality, I asked them how the world can eliminate the existence of a Third World without adopting socialist reforms. In other words, how can you get rid of the Third World within the framework of capitalism? Unsurprisingly, my request to make a plan like this went unanswered.
Keep in mind that I was the lone liberal going against a huge number of devoted conservatives that never even attemped to study socialism and Marxism on their own. Their knowledge of the subject goes no further than the garbage in school textbooks and the media. I believe that, when arguing with conservatives, it is important to outnumber them because conservatives don't exactly like the concept of "logic" and "rationale." However, since I didn't have anyone but myself as a liberal, I had to go to it alone. There was a sense of ignorance of politics, and a naive sense of "the government tries to help everyone equally" kinda garbage. What especially frightened me is that the party was thrown by my friend, a black man that previously lived in some housing projects in South Carolina! And since his transfer to the bourgeois environment, it seems as if he forgot that not everyone has such a great life....or maybe he still remembers this, but still doesn't understand that "greater equality" cannot be reached through capitalism.
Everyone that preaches equality but refuses to connect exploitation with capitalism and equality with socialism is a hypocrite, and is illogical!
It was even worse when an immigrant from "communist" Vietnam told me, "yo, trust me, I lived under communism...it's not nice!" When I informed him that he was living under a fascist pig police state, he brushed it off because very few people actually wonder whether a government is really communist or merely holds the name but acts on fascist tendencies. Thus, what I said was foreign to everyone that heard it, and they effectively put it in the back of their minds. When I explained that the failures of "communism" can be attributed to the Leninist paradigm of "professional revolutionaries" and a vanguard party, I wasn't surprised when they refused to even discuss this issue because they were ignorant of anything and everything socialist.
But how do you change this? I almost gave up (haha, not really!!!!) trying to teach others the merits of socialism. I think we need something much more effective than simply discussions with other communists, hoping that an ignorant capitalist just happens to pass by and get interested. We need to hit them individually, one by one, so they could discard whatever bullshit has been given to them by the media and such and such. I was thinking about going door-to-door and establishing a select few relationships with people that I can interest completely...and if someone really gets dedicated, they can go about educating others as well, and those others can do the same, too.
I am happy to always say that there are quite a few closet socialists out there in high schools. The economics and government/law teacher in my school admitted to socialism, one of my history teachers did the same, and so did another history teacher (the latter putting up numerous fights before finally admitting to his socialist tendencies).
Does anyone have any real ideas for organizing? Because I realize that it is rare that anyone, in today's society, would ever just "get into" socialism by reading something because all of the propaganda they have swallowed would be working against them indefinitely. Although it has happened to me, and most of the people here, we are such a small fraction...and why werent we introduced to socialism earlier? Propaganda.