I don’t really think he knows this site’s culture at all. No one is dissuading people from reading theory lol
this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
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I think this reply perfectly justifies Roderic's position on seriousness. You just strawman his argument to mean "100% seriousness all the time, no fun allowed at all" and then proceed to write some nonsense against it.
Do you really think the western left is serious enough? What has it accomplished? Do you think others will take us seriously if we don't take ourselves seriously, and how can we accomplish anything at all, let alone revolution, if we're not serious about it?
Perhaps I misunderstood him, and I absolutely was using a lot of hyperbole, but the western left is obsessed with purity and finding "revisionism". As if being more "pure" will somehow make us more successful, instead of just leading to empty idealism. I'm not saying we shouldn't be serious about our goals, but to act like we should be serious all the time and aren't allowed to joke around or vent or be people is not something that wins the people over to our cause. Purity tests don't help our cause.
Winning over the people helps our cause. We are a people's movement and need to act like people, not stodgy "academics" obsessed with taking theory 100% seriously all the time. I've never managed to get someone to read theory by insisting that they must because it is a Very Serious and Important Topic and they are a Bad Person for not reading it. I have gotten plenty of people to read theory (quite a few completely of their own volition) after joking with them about it, and showing them that is isn't some unaccessable academic jargon, but just ideas, ideas similar to those they've probably already had about our system. Treating it like a sacred holy rite doesn't make it compelling and ultimately hurts us, it doesn't help us.
I can also attest, from my early days, that telling people to read theory is more likely to put them off and set them back.
Can't be bothered with a serious social scientist who thinks too many jokes is why the American left can't gain traction. Or that someone being silly online (which being online makes everyone silly) is some kind of attempt at sabotaging the western leftist project.
The left has a problem because it is materially opposed, not because individuals aren't taking themselves seriously. We can be serious all day and not a damn thing will happen because we have no real power and can't seem to take any. I mean the also conspicuously online scolds will be happier until they decide it's our haircuts or dresscode that is a problem.
What does being serious have to do with anything? The Western left sucks because:
refusal to learn from history
lack of veteran revolutionaries to pass the torch to the younger generation (a big part of this is the feds jailing and assassinating the effective revolutionaries while sparing the useless and compromised ones)
general incompetence like the recent case of a DSA delegation snubbing the Cuban president
active refusal to see Western imperialism as the primary contradiction
a completely undeserved air of arrogance despite accomplishing fuck all (being serious would only make this even more obnoxious)
lack of anything resembling a communal or self-sacrificing spirit for the greater good
over representation of college students that comes with petty bourgeois baggage
not able to socialize with normal people like a normal person (being able to crack a joke and not give off the vibes of a always-serious cultist does much to alleviate this)
being optimistic of the intellect and pessimistic of the will
I could go on and on. And not one of them would have anything to do with not being serious. If anything, I could think of at least two points where being serious all the time would make it even worse.