personal development

[Red October]

during my ideologoical development, i've gone through many phases of sorts. i started out as a committed liberal democrat until the end of 8th grade. i even volunteered at my local democratic headquarters for john kerry. i honestly believed thatthe democratic party was the way to change things for the better. around the same time, i read the manifesto, but dismissed it as foolish, as i still believed the propaganda i was taught. in 9th grade i got interested in democratic socialism, that seemed like a great idea at the time. wrong again. i became a communist soon after, but i find myself leaning more towards anarchism and libertarian socialism now. my question is, who else has gone through phases like this. and what about great leftist figures? what was their ideological prpgression?

[MrDoom]

Similar story here. In 5th grade (2000) we had an "election" between Bush and Gore, and I was the Democrat campaign leader. I was still under the impression that the Democrats were "for the poor" (and my side won, if I might say. :P). Later I became more interested in socialism, as I had often questioned the actual value of money, a few times asking why we didn't do away with it, and being told "that would be communism".

Towards 7th or 8th grade I was interested in anarchism, though it was more 'heavy liberalism' than actual anarchism, and I was still under the sway of philosophical idealism. Eventually I started reading about democratic socialism, then anarcho-syndicalism, before reading the Manifesto and becoming a committed left communist.

Recently I've become interested in technocracy as well.

[manic expression]

Yeah I went through the same general pattern as you two.

In 8th grade (when officially got into politics after seeing "Bowling for Columbine"), I was very much a liberal democrat, kind of in the Michael Moore camp. I put a lot of trust in the Democratic Party (I thought they cared about poverty, among other things). Although I knew that capitalism "wasn't good", I felt that nothing else was realistic, and I dismissed socialism as "unnecessary" without knowing exactly what it was. I kept the label of "liberal", but I started to see that my ideas were more socialist than anything else. I looked into Democratic Socialism for a bit, but it wasn't what I was looking for. I knew what was wrong, but I didn't know exactly where I stood on changing it. Soon, however, began to see that my ideas were what they are, I researched leftist politics and found that I agreed with it. Just after this point, I read Marx, and further found that I agreed with his writing.

I consider myself a left communist, although I agree with a great deal of anarcho-syndicalism as well as Marxist-Leninism.

[cenv]

Originally posted by Red October [email protected] 04, 2007 10:51 pm
during my ideologoical development, i've gone through many phases of sorts. i started out as a committed liberal democrat until the end of 8th grade. i even volunteered at my local democratic headquarters for john kerry. i honestly believed thatthe democratic party was the way to change things for the better. around the same time, i read the manifesto, but dismissed it as foolish, as i still believed the propaganda i was taught. in 9th grade i got interested in democratic socialism, that seemed like a great idea at the time. wrong again. i became a communist soon after, but i find myself leaning more towards anarchism and libertarian socialism now. my question is, who else has gone through phases like this. and what about great leftist figures? what was their ideological prpgression?
I went through a similar leftward progression. I originally defaulted to the Democratic Party, and went from there to a brief spell of Democratic Socialism and finally to communism.

[Red Menace]

Originally posted by Red October [email protected] 04, 2007 04:51 pm
during my ideologoical development, i've gone through many phases of sorts. i started out as a committed liberal democrat until the end of 8th grade. i even volunteered at my local democratic headquarters for john kerry. i honestly believed thatthe democratic party was the way to change things for the better. around the same time, i read the manifesto, but dismissed it as foolish, as i still believed the propaganda i was taught. in 9th grade i got interested in democratic socialism, that seemed like a great idea at the time. wrong again. i became a communist soon after, but i find myself leaning more towards anarchism and libertarian socialism now. my question is, who else has gone through phases like this. and what about great leftist figures? what was their ideological prpgression?
I certainly have comrade.
I've always been a leftist *democrat*. I was always interested in politics ever since I was in 6th grade and the Gore/Bush Race was going on. For that time I despized communists, like everyone, and I didn't even know what a socialist was. Then about the middle of my 10th grade year teachers inspired me to read socialist material, I did, and then I became a socialist. Along the way some how I became an anarchist, but I dismissed it because of its commercialization and what seemed to me faulty thinking ideal wise. Then I moved more towards communism, beginning of my 11th grade year. But yeah I know what you are talking about. Most of my learning politically wise occured in a years time.

[Janus]

and what about great leftist figures? what was their ideological prpgression?
What you went through is somewhat similar to what many revolutionary figures such as Mao and Che went through. They were all mostly idealistic liberals at first and became more radical as time progressed.