I have been discussing my beliefs with a set of close knit friends I've acquired over the years, practically they participated in community building and aren't against my beliefs. With the elephant in the room being that they think it's simply not feasible, due to our various life experiences.
Their main argument that I can't get through is the fact that, at the end of the day, we all will justify one life over another. Which inevitably causes hierarchical divide. They believe that all of us come up with our own way to cope with this reality of the world, with our own individual set of beliefs and reasoning.
And it's difficult for me to argue against them. I can't deny the fact that in order for many people to survive they're forced to fawn, they're forced to give up their individuality and study your behavior, study what kind of things you react to well and what you react to poorly. I have to intentionally hide my needs, my flaws, develop a connection with you and then I have to trickly in the things I actually care about, which now because I've built a connection with you, will make you empathize with me and might encourage you to keep me alive.
Am I wrong to prioritize my own survival? And how do you define survival: is it just the fulfillment of biological function and living under no threat of violence?
I have an incredibly difficult time figuring out how would socialism immerge in a world full of hypocrisy. Everyone wants me to contribute to their cause, they have their own set of priorities, their own families and friends, are they more important than my friends, my family? That's who I've been fighting for.
If the only people willing to help me are your enemy and you're unwilling to do anything, should my family suffer for your sake?
I see Anarchists and Left Wing Nationalists constantly being shit on, yet they're the only people who helped me despite our disagreements. Socialists who I interact with treat me like an automaton who is to obey their order.
How can I convince the most vulnerable people to have faith in a project that doesn't even acknowledge their worth or existence? They have lost all faith in socialism not because they haven't read the books. Marx was mandatory in school for my parents generation still, they made thousands upon thousands of people read this great theory of yours so why did it fail?
But that's not what this is about. I am just genuinely lost for how to convince people, they won't budge because they can immediately see though the hypocrisy and call it out. I can't do anything but to agree with them. What am I supposed to tell them? I have already overcome so much of my personal desires for the sake of the people and there's just more problems and more problems every year. The more I sacrifice the more of a fool I look like. Everyone is literally begging me to stop helping people at this point and call me weird for not treating myself. And I have been wanting to stop so badly I wish I had the time to read the fun books or do something exciting.
And that's why I struggle to convince anyone. They know that you will walk right past me and consider me a fool for not doing the same to you. Seriously how is this possible when the only choices I have is either devour myself for the sake of people who watch it happen and don't do anything or watch on how other people perish in front of my own eyes and I choose to value the people I care about over them.
I really want to believe socialism is possible, but I don't see the experience to back it up. Somebody please change my mind.
There's a word to describe what's been happening and it's: Corruption. Words have a lot of power, however, a single action can ruin a century of lies. Which then causes cognitive dissonance, a fight or flight response. This is when the subject, who has been invaded by contradictory words, has to either let the synthesis happen or stop it.
I myself am guilty of this. I have noticed this phenomenon in a lot of isolated, principled people. We don't like to talk about ourselves, but we talk a lot about how insignificant we are. Unfortunately the global class consciousness levels are very low, as such I remain buried and lacking the support of a revolutionary movement.
These are personally the major contradictions my own family has had to deal with and my own history:
a young woman being forced into marriage flees to the countryside, where she finds my great-grandfather, someone from a long line of peasantry. At least that's the story I was told, they never opened up about their past in details.
a hard working peasant seeks work in a newly constructed socialist town, this is where he meets my grandmother, her family has a complex history where they've lost property to Auxiliary Police seizing their housing materials, then the Nazi advancement took away men, some volunteered, my grandmother's father decided to sacrifice his leg in order to stay with his family, anxious they wouldn't make it without him.
The newly constructed town has a big factory, huge, maybe even the biggest around, but nobody has put on a smoke filter on the big chimney and health issues start happening, the leadership however does address it relatively quickly for the time being and health improved drastically. People are hopeful and looking forward to a bright future, earned through hard work.
USSR collapses and all that work goes down the drain. Given the size of the town and if I conservatively assume that people are slackers and only work for 1000 hours a year we lost about 30.000 years of human development. (In working hours, and this does not include reproductive labor) (Of course a lot of it isn't lost, rather appropriated by oligarchs)
Due to return of reactionary sentiments my mother is neglected and my family focuses on her brother, my mom marries into a failson who's jubilant and exited for the bright future him and his forest brothers were pushed into ruining us into (My paternal grandpa was so eager to share his exploitations at work, so I have had a decent understanding of what freedom means, from a very young age), he also carried the Mormon bible (likely a link of where they got their funding from)
Of course as we all know when capital booms, there must be a bust, ironically forcing my now free father work extra hard, makes his life precarious, pushes him into alcoholism and abusive tendencies etc. Eventually this leads to divorce, my mother running into a really bad person who for my own privacy sake i can't talk about in detail.
I'm born in this wacky family, who has no time for me and I just end up watching soviet cartoons all day and mostly raised by my grandparents, who still teach me to be upright and just, which is really sweet, but such a mindset is unsustainable in our world. But then later I am also raised by my paternal grandparents who are selfishly petite bourgeoise which ends up giving me a personality disorder.
I get sent to school where I stick out like a sore thumb, also get like low-key xenophobia for speaking Russian, my paternal fam never liked us very much sometimes in anger we'd get called dirty Russians, which my family isn't even from Russia they're Belarussian
but honestly it was relatively minor inconvenience compared to the issues I faced from my neurological disability, which made raising me extra hard for my family.
My family did look for support at the doctors, they were recommended to check me out for ADHD, but the doctor who tested for it found nothing amiss and simply recommended behavioral therapy, my family did send me to a private specialized kindergarten as per recommendations. (Private school was too expensive) The stereotypical "gifted child" scenario happens leading into burnout.
As puberty hits I start experiencing severe bouts of dysphoria and this leads me to questions what's up with that. This is when I find out about transgender people and I'm relieved there's a fix, but then I find out how much people hate me and it makes me fall into a pitfall where I've given up completely.
My close childhood friends group eventually finds out and disbands, leaving me completely alone. This is when i decide to give it my all and start looking for an exit route and eventually I find one in another country, someone is willing to help out. I end up flying to Geneva thinking I'd finally see a doctor, a professional who can help me.
The kind friend turns out didn't listen to a word I said, they just wanted to help me and acted emotionally, they didn't even look for if there's a doctor avaiable I can go to, instead they expected me to be 100% able to do all the things I need help with and then, eventually send me back home. (Btw this is a multi millionaire family, they could have easily afforded to just take me to a doc, if they so cared.) This also illustrates how arrogant and ignorant the petty bourgeoise are.
Eventually, through the support of kind strangers who kept me afloat and my one friend who chose to stick around I do get the ADHD diagnosis with 20 years of delay and I've been transitioning somewhat okay, although I face a lot of legal challenges.
Now I've read a lot of theory and my history makes sense, why I am the way I am and what to do.
Despite all my efforts, no matter what I do by myself or with a ragtag team of strangers, society just doesn't seem ready to pull my hand. It would take very little effort for a group of well organized people to completely re-habilitate me and we could accomplish a lot together, but everyone's judgment is too clouded, they are incapable for seeing the potential. And I know that my contributions will probably end up buried in the shadows of history, but I will still try to build even if just a little path for the people who come after me. And I'm honestly terrified, what if the fascist spot me and decide to get rid of me? They're far more powerful than I am and I'm almost completely alone.
Ironic isn't it? I've repeatedly been called a narcissist, sometimes psychopath, a monster, but my deeds show otherwise. I've accomplished all of what I have with so incredibly little. Imagine how much a well oiled machine organized machine could accomplish. I don't see why something wonderful isn't going to happen and it might be quite soon with the recent events going on. I am just a human being. I really wish someone was game enough to place their trust in me.
I still take the blame for being unable to come up with the right words to convince people.
An Addendum:
I still think it can be a good thing to censor specific words because it teaches people to switch them out and it removes power from the words. I draw my line at thought crimes, but nothing stops me from using different languages with different individuals. This is a private platform, not a public organization. Hexbear is like walking into a strangers house, it's not a government and has no aspirations to become one. if this house is not comfy for someone they can find a new one for themselves, if they want to change society then they have to do politics, policing without a government is just syndicalism, policing without power is even more silly it's just harassment and you either need to conform with the statue quo to do it or you will be squashed.