I’d consider it a form of praxis but quite possibly the least efficient form of it. I only say this because y’all radicalized me. I even started reading theory because of this place. The propaganda does work its just limited and as such there are better ways to exert your political will.
In my opinion, not in itself…
I consider praxis a conscious direct action towards an objective, mediated by theory and practice in constant reformulation.
What is the main objective in arguing with liberals? Are you using any method to do it? If not, do you develop it?
Most of the times, you may not convince them, but you are letting lurkers formulate different opinions. In terms of ideological struggle, yes, can be a form of praxis, albeit in a primtive, isolated form. A superior form of online praxis could be organized “arguing”, or ideological struggle in several different places of the internet.
Imagine using our personal or fake accounts in several different online spaces and bourgeois social media to collective respond and criticize ideologues, interact with each other comments, like them and exploit the algorithm to make our comments rank higher and higher. (Nothing prevents anyone from creating a community in Lemmygrad for that end, by the way 😎)
This is why organized action is always the superior form of praxis. But even this ideological struggle is not in itself revolutionary praxis. Revolutionary praxis can only be done through organization, both online and personally, with a political line established through incessant internal criticism. It will require organic woking class leaderships, Marxist theorists, military strategists, weapons and well defined tactics and strategy
Well said. I think I’m of a similar mind about it, but I feel like you worded it better than I did.
It’s very low effort and low reward praxis. Kinda like reposting stuff about rallies or from organisations to your friends, it is useful and probably not detrimental, but be careful not to fall into “consumer praxis” pitfall of liking, sharing and subscribing to Second Thought and being satisfied with only that.
No. But not everything you do in life has to be praxis, so you do you.
I’ve learned a lot from Lemmygrad/Hexbear posts!
I would consider political education to be praxis.
Education and propaganda are praxis. Though I do recommend joining an org IRL because the skills of organizing aren’t taught here.
No.
If you’re not on pickets, if you’re not putting money in political prisoner’s bail funds, if you’re not putting money on the books for the carcerally enslaved, if you’re not really outside with it Ion’t consider you on any motion.
In the rare instances that the lib you are talking to truly doesn’t know any better and is only a lib because of upbringing/political illiteracy it can be, depending on how constructively you go about it. If you are arguing with a clear turbolib then no that isn’t praxis.
I would contend that publicly shaming/humiliating unrepentant libs for the sake of highlighting their flaws to libs more on the fence could be considered praxis. I’m curious to see if others might agree with that sentiment.
There are a lot more lurkers on any forum than active members who comment. Everyone here has read a thousand more posts/comments than they’ve made. Getting lurkers to consider what you say is a very real thing, and people do change their political beliefs based on what they read online.
Agreed, and there’s a social component too. The ability to form communities around ideology and common ground is the biggest gift the Internet gave to leftist thought (and the ability to dismantle liberal thought in the open).
This was also why it was so important to capital to dismantle leftist spaces on Reddit like Chapo Trap House and imply an equivalence between it and fascism by simultaneously removing the Donald (which should have been purged long before).
Not to oversell the utility of arguing with libs, but usually it’s the bystanders who get something out of the conversation, not the lib you’re conversing with directly. There’s no point in conversing in old posts, and little point in continuing a conversation beyond the “X more replies →” fold, because there’s usually no audience.
In general, this sounds like it could lead to sort of “gatekeeping” what counts as “praxis”, depending on how it’s answered. But I want to say, it kind of depends on how you go about it and why. First, I would say, anything can be a help if it’s persuasive in an anti-imperialist and/or communist direction. The less rabid imperialists and fascists, the less for those efforts to recruit from. In that sense, it obviously matters somehow, provided you’re reaching actual real people and not just arguing with astroturf bots or something.
But, there are probably ways that are more effective than others. For example, are you assessing and re-assessing your approach as you go, based on what you can glean about its effectiveness and what it does toward your goals. Or are you just doing what I might call “reaction-posting”, where it’s more about venting among people who feel similarly w/ regards to whatever the latest thing is; which is a valid thing to do, but may not be persuading anyone about these things.
Anything organized is probably way more effective than random attempts, but it can be hard to do that on the internet. I would compare a lot of the more random internet stuff as being similar to, if you’re talking in a group at a party and someone says something super racist and nobody is calling it out, which sends the message that it’s okay for that person to be racist. Whereas if you do call it out and you make it clear it’s not okay, you are at the very least challenging the narrative on what is considered normal and acceptable to say in public. This is not in itself eradicating racism, but if the person didn’t mean to be racist or is more likely to lean into it from peer support, that rejection might cause them to reflect on their views.
So is it gonna do a revolution without grass-touching? No. But can it have an impact of a kind, along with other forms of effort in-person? For sure. Otherwise, imperialists and their ilk wouldn’t do astroturfing to manipulate social media. Like what happened in Myanmar, I think it was, with Facebook manipulation (don’t quote me on that, may be recalling the names incorrectly somehow).
Arguing online is only for fun. It’s too alienated from the personal to ever convince anyone of anything. We’re just strings of text here - random encounters in the posting RPG.
Damn, you have fun arguing online? To me that is a pain that I only do because I feel that I am morally obligated to.
No
No, real praxis is found only in the real world
