this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2024
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When you're discussing politics you have two choices. You can avoid highly specific terms and focus on real world problems, or you can parse out the meaning of every single word and win a meaningless argument.
99% of the people in America know exactly what I mean when I say 'middle class.' Maybe 5% know what 'petite bourgeoisie' means. Probably less. You don't win elections by arguing the difference between the Social Democrats and the socialists, you win them by talkign to people about how much a gallon of gas costs.
I think the argument is that creating these definitions ruins class solidarity. You are working class if you have to go to work every day to live period.
Or you can present people with actual plans written in terms they understand and are comfortable with.
I used to work in public health. One of the first things I learned is that a patient needs to be approached on their own level. Some people can handle exact medical terms, and others blank out when they hear terms they don't understand.
If you have someone's ear for five minutes, are you going to waste three of them trying to bring them up to your level, or do you change your terms to fit their point of view?
Depends on how much distortion is required to get the concept to their level. If the concept doesn’t map to there, then giving them the impression that they understand is misleading them.
In those case middle class is just fine for petty bourgeoisie. But there’s always a distortion in swapping out terms for similar terms, and that needs to be paid attention to and recognized as a potential source of misunderstanding and trouble.
Read 'The Autobiography of Malcolm X.' Malcolm came from the streets and had been in prison. He could break down complex idea into terms the people could understand. Don't assume that because someone lacks your vocabulary they are ignorant. Like I siad, it's on the leader to reach out.
Well, there’s the concept of group consciousness, and that definitely depends on a good working set of definitions.
Yes, but at the same time, this is just an argument for using terms incorrectly and perpetuating bourgeois terminology. The idea of a "Middle Class" was invented in order to give the Proletariat a realistic goal (in their eyes) to work towards, in order to divide the Proletariat against itself.
If more people understand class dynamics, they will also understand more about their surroundings, and will also be able to better think for themselves, instead of you trying to do all of the thinking for them.
Education is important.
Education is important, but not all knowledge is equally important.
I liken it to a carpenter who uses Imperial units instead of metric. You can argue that metric is more exact, but if the carpenter can do the work why 'correct' them?
It's not the job of the people to be better educated, it's the job of the leaders to find a way to speak to them that they understand.
I disagree. It is the job of leaders to push for education, so that the people can be trusted to make correct decisions on their own. We currently have an issue with rising fascism at the hands of an under-educated working class, which is resulting in a violent backlash against academia and science, because education is being strategically cut by fascists.
"Tax the rich." Anyone can understand that.
"Tax the rich" is woefully insufficient. A good start, but that's it.
And what's your starting point?
Education, and building up parallel structures like networks of Mutual Aid, and mass unionization. Increasing taxation helps, but without parallel structures and an increasingly educated populace taxes are just money spent to continue fueling the Military Industrial Complex. Taxing with no real direction doesn't actually help, you need both cause and action.
A lot of generalities. How about something specific? Something people can do right now? You didn't even mention getting people registered to vote.
I already gave you specifics, like unionization. Voting is important, yes, but are you genuinely asking me for an entire actionable platform for you to implement in your daily life?
You happy now?
Vague calls to 'organize' and 'read' aren't specifics.
You talk about 'organizing' and don't include anything like a link or a phone number. No training for people to create a Union.
Got it, you're just trolling now.
The original point of this convo was that you thought that it's okay to use incorrect terms as long as it gets people to move, and my point is that it's better to educate people so they can come to the correct conclusions by themselves, and can better make decisions in the future without relying on a benevolent party of individuals to tell them exactly what to think.
You then proceed to squirrel away and dodge every single point I make.
I can't give you a phone number or a link without knowing where you work and what your workplace and position is. If you want the next best thing, the Industrial Workers of the World has resources for you: https://www.iww.org/. You can also go to the Anarchist Library: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/special/index and the Marxist Internet Archive: https://www.marxists.org/ if you want theoretical texts.
What's your new way to squirrel out? Either admit that using the correct terms and educating people to be able to come to correct conclusions themselves is better than using incorrect terms deliberately, or answer why you think it's better to try to guide people at each and every step, even if it puts way more work on the activists and results in a population out of touch with what is going on around them.
It took you however many tries to post something that someone could actually use, and you're still going on about how correct you are.
And no, you still haven't proven to me that using 'correct terms' matters in the least.
But you're right about one thing, this is pointless.