Post #3304504

2026-06-13 00:58 UTC

A successful meme is generally short and punchy. Most theory is pretty specific and nuanced. We have images with punchy quotes from prominent leftist, socialist, communist, what-have-you theorists or political leaders from the past 100+ years and they almost always end up pulling reactionary pushback in the comments. A political position loses something when distilled down to like 3 sentences and a name with a less than absolutely perfect history to pick at. There is also the fact that moneyed interests can literally just pay propaganda mills to push reactionary talking points and memes for them, such that they outnumber a leftist position 100:1. Slopaganda doesn’t have to be good, it just has to soothe already reactionary sentiment just enough keep people with those views complacent. It’s a very hostile environment especially when the current day Internet allows (and often directly facilitates) people with different beliefs to filter into their respective echo chambers. I’m not immune here or some exception; I don’t particularly enjoy hanging out with bigots or chuds, so often don’t go out of my way to sow seeds unless I get the opportunity to speak with someone who’s not outright hostile to my ideas 1 on 1.

Replies (1)

@Arcanepotato@crazypeople.online 2026-06-13 15:50

Okay I wasn’t going to be too serious but this is a serious reply so I’ll treat it with the same energy. I understand and appreciate that reading a text is important to getting the whole picture. I also understand and appreciate that one should read a variety of texts from different eras and authors. I just think we gotta meet people where they are, ya know? I could be misunderstanding but it feels like the path suggested in the meme and this comment is to give up and write people off. Maybe it’s a vent, and I’m not trying to say I don’t think it’s okay to vent via memes and that I’ve never thought “you need to read some fucking theory” about anyone. Nor do I think it’s wrong to not bother arguing with someone who has an absolute surface level/spoon-fed propaganda level of understanding. However, if the people honestly and truly believe that people who have not read theory should be written off as hopeless, I do think that’s flawed and short sighted. I don’t know you or the OP so the rest of this comment isn’t directed at you all specifically. I have a huge problem with the idea of the lumpenproletariat and specifically when it is applied with ablest implications. There are absolutely people who have no interest in class consciousness and are happy to uphold capitalism for whatever scraps they get. Those people suck. Theory (probably) isn’t going to fix them, as they are addicted to the boot. There are people who may appear to be in that camp but really they just haven’t had any reason to question the status quo and what they have have been told about how the world works. For some people, that questioning comes from a liberal arts education. I get this is a sloppy turn of phrase and this type of education is maybe more rare now but let’s just picture someone who reads theory and philosophy as part of their education or who has family who values and reads/discusses these things. For others it could be life experiences. A lot of this is personal bias from me for sure, but I can’t discount my experience entirely. Both my partner and I come from families with low education and poverty, in “unskilled” trades, although both my parents did go to university and it was the expectation for me as well (about 50% of aunts/uncles/cousins went). I’m not nearly as well read as I would want to be but I don’t think my partner has read any at all? But he’s got class consciousness and it was developed by talking to people, his own life experiences etc. I was radicalized more than a decade before I met him lol. We were in high school (in canada) during 9/11 and every thing that it triggered, including unpopular wars, increased surveillance, the patriot act etc. I lived in a big city and he was rural. I saw the G20 meeting in Montreal and the police sending in undercover agents to cause trouble as something that directly impacted me and my freedoms but people in his part of the province saw it as city people problems. I never liked the cops but this cemented that they were the enemy. I started learning about leftism and reading theory at that time but really lacked the real world experience to understand it as well as I do now. Besides documenting/participating in the G20 protests in Toronto in 2010 and doing FNB earlier that that, I don’t think I really re-engaged with theory until George Floyd/Idle no More when I wanted a better understand of race/colonial issues. I am also disabled. Between special education as child (although I was “gifted”) and in/outpatient mental health programs I have had the opportunity to know and become friends with people who learn and process information much differently than I do, as well as differently than what is considered “normal”. Reading some of the foundational texts is just not accessible to a lot of people who fall into that category, but they could be with appropriate accommodations. Most people aren’t going to come out and say “I’d like to know more but I struggle to understand and engage with these texts”, at least partially because they are used to being treated as “stupid” and incapable. It’s just not worth it and I understand this deeply. Additionally, I’ve worked some of the shittiest and most exploited jobs that people who are in this country with legal status find themselves doing and have experienced food and housing insecurity. Being too tired or hungry or scared about my future to be able to read theory is something I have experienced first hand, so I have a lot of understanding and patience with this situation. I’ve been lucky enough to be able to escape that and perhaps even luckier that my conclusion is that meritocracy is bullshit rather than thinking I earned it (and thus becoming a bootlicker). This is over sharing and pretty off topic but I’ve had to acknowledge and undo a lot of abelism that I didn’t even know I had until recently and it’s been a really wild ride. Because of my experience in growing up poor and having most of my friends having learning or intellectual disabilities it was always been really important to me to value all people inherently and not think of people that couldn’t engage on my level as being “less than”. But my recent personal experiences have made me realize I was writing them off even if I didn’t think they were worthless as I wasn’t even trying to engage with them where they were at/or according to what is most accessable to them. This topic is why I really appreciate groups like the Vegan Theory Club. My abilities have been in the shitter recently but reading groups, audio books, structured (and async) discussion really help me engage when I can. I’ve learned about and read books I would have never heard of otherwise. It’s not a one size fits all solution, and it requires a lot of labour to facilitate but it feels like a part of the solution. I can’t believe it’s been 20 years since I did FNB (😭) but that was a good approach too. Showing people they are cared about, demonstrating how wasteful capitalism is, and being available to discuss with people if they wanted to chat but not proselytizing was super successful. People could get healthy and delicious meals with no strings attached and no hoops to jump though and we served everyone - including the yuppies out walking their dogs lol. I’ve experienced astonishing mutual aid frameworks in some of these poor/rural/disabled/uneducated communities too. Often, a community’s survival depends on them and they understand that, but they might not see the parallels between that and leftist thought. This is mostly old lady yelling at cloud but it felt good to get out lol

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