Kindness

...

i can't trust anyone

i think i'd be useless to the left tbh

No.

Whether we're kind or mean should be a strategic decision. We shouldn't be kind as a matter of course.

Yes, always being assholes is counter-productive, but so is universal kindness. As a general rule, be kind to those you think can be brought over to our side and mean to those who can't.

We shouldn't, for instance, be kind to fascists. It's more productive to treat them as loathsome pariahs than legitimize their views through kindness.

Whoops, forgot to take off shitposting flag.

Same

It's common on my maternal side but I'm still a total hopeless loser

If leftism is the side that seeks universal liberation and freedom for all humans, then as a matter of consistency it'd require you to care about all humans and actions should reflect that, leading to kindness. That doesn't mean niceness should be a priority; sometimes that truly kind thing to do or say isn't nice or polite. Stuff like charity or letting in refugees is the nice thing to do, but ultimate kindness would require you to destroy the circumstances requiring those things; which isn't to say one should never engage in charity or in giving refuge, but it shouldn't been seen as the ultimate goal and it shouldn't be done if it's actually counter-productive and doesn't ultimately help much.

Yet that's not kindness, just manipulation. You also don't know who is or will be on your side; the cost of alienating possible comrades because of their current ignorance is a very large one.
That's nonsense. Not only is "fascist" an essentially meaningless word, often used for "anyone too rightwing for my tastes", but by mistreating them it solidifies that their viewpoints are legitimate, and in the case of violence against them, brings the public onto their side. Treating the kindly as ignorant, misled humans, which is what they are, makes them second guess their stance, possibly turning them into a comrade, or at least making them less willing to engage in direct action, along with making everyone else see you as the better position. Of course that doesn't mean inaction if they start becoming a threat.

That is kind of the whole point of collectivism is caring about others.

I wish I could be as naive as you.

But I think this is getting a bit too close to the humanism meme. Yes, treat people who's political positions you do not know as potential comrades, but there's nothing to be salvaged from the far-right. The more you actually learn about them, the more you'll come to realize that they're not simple ignorants, but a irredeemably repulsive lot, who you cede ground to simply by engaging with them.

And, no, no one is attracted to the far-right save for those who were already fellow travelers. It's better to uphold their status as social pariahs than to engage with them and give them some degree of legitimacy.

And you must have a very low opinion of the Left if you think by simply refusing to engage with the far-right we're somehow imbuing them with legitimacy, like we're the fucking KKK or some shit.

There was a thread yesterday about a former militia member who left the group and denounced his former beliefs because a Muslim treated him kindly and showed him that he was just another human. I've lived my life surrounded by US conservatives, many of them holding bigoted and borderline fascist opinions, but usually decent people regardless and whose opinions stem from ignorance. Most rightists are not malicious, but even the ones who are, their malicious also ultimately stems from ignorance: ignorance in who to blame, in how to respond. I used to hold many opinions I'm now firmly against, but I changed because I saw they were from a position of ignorance. If the side we're on is the one backed up by truth and facts, then the opposite can only be ignorance.
The worst things get in a person's life and in general, the further they drift to radicalism, which side is often dependent on which one is closest to their current position.
Ignoring them might be for the best in some instances but not in others. But debating them and clearly showing why they're wrong does not give them legitimacy.
I never said engage with them, I said don't treat them poorly.

If you're a capitalist it's cruel to be kind, under the current material conditions.

If you're a prole, be a kind a person with a backbone and standards. Don't tolerate the intolerant, don't laugh at anti-union jokes in public, don't class shame and all that.

Once again, humanism meme.

One guy does not a revolution make.

Same with me, but you should realize that we're very much the exception rather than the rule.

It also has a lot to do with if they're an irredeemable shitheel that prefer a "kiss up, kick down" ideology rather than a genuinely radical critique.

Don't you get it? It's not about debates. As a guy that spent the better part of a decade on 4chan, there was never a moment when the fascists stood victorious above the rest in debate. What they do is insert their views in whenever possible to garner, if not sympathy, at least an air of normalcy to their views. Then they use a campaign of outrage and panic to rally the people to their side. Debate doesn't work on demagogues.

They should be treated as lower than shit, so the people who aren't them, the people who we can actually appeal to, will continue to view them that way.

No, but it proves that you can't predict where anyone will go and whether someone is irredeemable.
It's not humans vs orcs, there's not much different between us and them except what conclusions we came to.
When you think there's only two sides, one of which is the mainstream which includes insane idpolers and liberals, and the only are Fascists, usually the Fascists look pretty reasonable and usually any debates, which were rare since it's mostly circlejerking, were those two sides.
If the only thing preventing people from accepting something is normalcy, then that says more about the people then the thing.
And then you show either that the outrage and panic is irrelevant or how to properly deal with the issues.
Not with genuine demagogues who are only interested in power, but for the people following them, they're following them for a reason.
People have a tendency to sympathize with the underdog, and if being outcasts or hated kept people from appointing an ideology, then radicalism wouldn't exist.

That's up for the individual to decide, and socialism can be a purely selfish desire.
That being said, of course I empathize with others in poverty across the world.

The point of the materialist rejection of morality is a matter of reals>feels, in that something like a fascist government with a strict moral code would still collapse due to economic factors; and from another perspective, causes separation from the world and (hypothetically/temporarily) creates an unchangeable morality outside of your control, or, alienation from the world.

Listen, fam.

I've been on this board for three years. We've had right-wingers shitposting on here pretty much every day since the board started. I started out believing what you do. I'm dismissing the far-right, not out of prejudice, but out of experience. when you try to educate them, that's percisely when the jackboots come out. They'll take any explanation for the sorry state of our society except for the organization of society itself and will gleefully blame it on anyone they perceive as having lower status than their own. They openly fantasize about having us all killed and have no qualms with demonizing us and making us look like loathsome pariahs.

Maybe you need to experience for yourself that most of them are genuinely rotten. Go post on Holla Forums or Stormfront for a bit and show them kindness. See what that gets you.

inclined to agree with spurdo here, but you made some good points. some of the people following the right are open to patient explanation, but imo it's a small minority. also, experience is often more powerful in changing minds than rational discussion.

I think you're going to be getting a certain type of people here, mostly ones who like shitposting and trolling, who aren't really indicative of otherwise normal far-rightists irl. Same with Holla Forums or stormfront; regular people, even Fascists, usually don't spend a lot of time in online communities.
Exactly why I want to be as different from them as possible. What really matters in any movement is not what the people in it believe, but in how they act.
Considering I've known plenty who share opinions with Fascists, I'd say that's not the case. Even the worst of the worst, the truly irredeemable and malicious are just the most ignorant of them all, which again necessitates pity at most, not vitriol.

Indeed, that's why I believe in kindness in trying to change an enemy into a comrade, while there's still time for those things.

That's a pathetic misapprehension of how Stormfront operates.

I've never been there, so I wouldn't know. I do they're extremely heavily moderated so there are no dissenting opinions to debate, only an echo chamber to reaffirm themselves. As far as how Holla Forums works, usually they create a thread about some issue typically related to SJWs or liberals and circlejerk about how insane they are, also no real debate. Of course, since most of them are teenagers they're not looking to debate anyway, just a way to be edgy and shitpost while thinking they have intelligent views. I'm talking about debating and interacting with real life far-rightists.

So real life ends where Stormfront and social media begins.

I preferred it when they hated everything.

I wish I could be kind.

Then transgender rights became a bigger issue than war on the news and I decided to hate everything.

The 90's was a terrible time to be a leftist, Gen-X is the only generation that might be worse than boomers. Smug ironic detachment was the death of political action in the youth for far too fucking long.

Gen-X are fully aware, give it time. Boomers are sedated with television still.

And the 90's was a great time to be left, because you could call people faggots without anyone fucking giving a shit.

No? Not worth the consideration that the relationship between the two is more complex?

Yes. Be as nice and kind as Stalin and as caring as comrade Vasily Blokhin, though few are as caring in their lives as he was.

Stalin was a true gentle soul.

Rappers and metal artists were critiqued for homophobia all the time.

It's because they didn't give a fuck.
Then this liberal agenda went full 1984 on us because princesses and faggots couldn't handle any bullying.

Blame cobain for fucking with people.

Get rid of the thought police and the left is cool again.

*gentile

One thing to understand about our far-right friends is that their ideology is based on irrationalism (specifically of the turn of 20th century) - rational arguments will never convince them. If a person believes in race magic, race hivemind and the omnipresent and nigh-omnipotent Jew, their whole worldview is so perverse it is hard or even impossible to have an actual debate or meaningful, engaging conversation. Of course, most line members of these far-right organisations aren't true believers in this sense. For them perhaps consistent rational opposition and some cult-deprogramming efforts are the correct course of action.

After visiting places like /r9k/, and Holla Forums for long enough I think the majority of them are just reprehensible human beings, not people who were misguided in life, but were always just ass holes who got pushed over the edge.