I'll continue the thread from yesterday:

When I said you couldn't just condemn the capitalist system, I meant to emphasize the just part. If I don't go around shouting "Revolution now!", that doesn't mean I've made my peace with capitalism. I'm not a liberal.

It means I want to connect with how people understand society first. Rather than revolution, I'll talk about health care, war, workplace drudgery - the ways people experience capitalism. I won't bang on about an abstract concept called capitalism (has anyone ever seen a capitalism?) I'll move to generalizations, once people have grasped the concrete details.


It's not anarchy if he doesn't cross the 'A'.

How to lose friends & alienate people

Much of the far left takes for granted that people understand terms like 'revolutionary', 'communist' and 'ideology'. This amazes me, given how much un-common sense it takes to be a revolutionary these days.

Sure, in the hothouse of basement meetings, or in your group's contingent in the demonstration, or in your favourite bar - everyone agrees with you. You can say George W. Bush is racist without going into the history of American foreign policy. You can say capitalism sucks without explaining how social phenomena are rooted in a material system of exploitation.

But outside it? How do you communicate your ideas? Some leftists barely try, except to repeat the right slogans. If you're not well-versed in the lingo, or if you're not wearing the appropriate patch, or drinking the right coffee, you might miss it. Worse, if you don't 'get it', you'll be written off as reactionary, rather than uninformed.

I can imagine many leftists scoffing, "If you try to talk to people in their language, you won't say anything at all. These ideas are revolutionary: they're outside most people's frame of reference. You have to talk about revolution, if you want to make revolutionaries."

Reality is, once again, more complex. Most people don't share our language. And unless we're willing to start from where they're at, we won't reach them.

It's all taking and no giving

I reached this conclusion through 6 years of full-time work, and years of part-time work before that. Unlike my student comrades, I can't have conversations about Leninism in the hallway. I have to talk about the weather, the lottery, movies - all the approved topics of everyday banter that people allow.

Many leftists have similar experiences and assume that's all that's going on. They write off workers altogether. Then they substitute someone else as a social agent (usually themselves). I remember one demonstration when this young, black-clad punk was shouting at people in cars, "You're all sheep!" Which is like telling a tomato, "You're all red!" The point is not their outside appearance, but that, sometimes, tomatoes get chopped up and made into wonderful salads. (Sorry, it's lunchtime, I'm hungry.)


Mmmm... socialism...

Underneath the conservatism of workplace routine, workers are asking the same questions we did when we became radicals. But they're using the tools at hand (surprise surprise): the media, and common sense. For example, I've had long conversations with another coworker, in which he kept trying to convince me that radical change was impossible, repeating everything he'd learnt from a lifetime of capitalist society: people are greedy; people are lazy; the rich will keep everything for themselves, etc.

But there were contradictions, which I pointed out by referring to the rich history of social struggles, the world over, in which people successfully challenged that logic (Bolivia being the most current example). By the end of the conversation he was telling me we had to take the money from rich people, because they'd never give it up on their own.


Demonstrators for nationalization of the gas industry in Bolivia. Note the sunny weather, cool hats and lack of scruffiness.

I can't take credit for this revolutionary sentiment. His own life experience taught him that, because life for workers is never what it appears to be. If you ask them about work ethic, they'll dutifully repeat how important it is to work hard, that lazy people don't deserve work - but they'll be the first tell you "T.G.I.F." and joke about how the weekend's too short. The life experience of working people teaches them that work sucks, that the boss is a jerk, that rich people are greedy and poor people are generous - exactly what socialists keep going on about.

But life doesn't teach those lessons to everyone at the same time. A black female hairdresser in the Bronx is going to learn that cops are racist, well before a white male parts assembler in Decatur. That same white guy will learn the drudgery of automated production before her. It's the job of socialists to generalize those experiences. It's not to condemn them for their ignorance of the whole picture.


Black women enjoy the assembly line too!

Which is what gives me hope. Because even among the most reactionary group of coworkers (and I've had loads), there's always some way that the capitalist system is screwing them. If socialists can connect with them, on that bad experience - be it getting laid off, having a sexually harassing manager, etc. - then we're in. We can tell them, "The system that does X to you, is doing Y to someone else. You have more in common with a black man/white woman/transgendered person than you do in separation."

This probably sounds utopian. Well, it's a generalization. Forming a critical consciousness is a complex process: you have to understand the circumstances you're working in, and connect with people's real concerns. Otherwise your socialist propaganda sounds abstract.

When I was a secretary for a union Local, I used to sell socialist papers to my fellow members. They bought them, not because they agreed with everything I said, but because they respected me, and I showed through my actions that I was on their side. I didn't treat them as if they were ignoramuses without their own thoughts & experiences. My proudest moment came when my local president, a committed social democrat, told me, "That revolution you want: it's not going to happen in my generation, your generation, or your children's. But their children's generation - that's when it's going to happen."

Depressing? Conservative? Keep fighting and wait till you die? Not at all. This white, straight, working guy, who'd never been to a socialist meeting but who'd spent his working life fighting incompetent managers, had drawn the conclusion that a revolution was necessary. We had a different timeline for it, and had I stayed at that job we could've argued about it. But the point is, my presence helped him make some links between his experience and my politics. It proved to me that socialism isn't about reedy students: that, as a politic, it has the potential to transcend boundaries.*


Farm workers in the U.S.

Today I visited the office of the guy who distributes the mail. He had a copy of a socialist newspaper on his desk; I asked him if he was one and he answered, "Je suis un socialiste toujours!" We talked about imperialism, and he gave me the newspaper. One finds comrades in the strangest of places.

*In academic-speak, it can universalize our particularities, transcending rather than erasing them. But I'm not in school yet, so I don't have to talk like that.