Look I understand a lot of where you’re coming from given your background, however:
Basically everything you “know” about politics and political economy is seemingly somewhere between wildly exaggerated and outright fairytale, and you don’t yet grasp the scale or sophistication of the narrative control you’re actually living under.
You say you prefer to know you’re being lied to, but in the West you usually don’t. That’s the point. Through ownership, framing, omission, and repetition, discourse is managed in the boardroom long before anything reaches you. I already linked you Inventing Reality by Michael Parenti for a reason: every story shown or not shown, every angle chosen, exists to shape what feels “normal” or “thinkable.” That ideological hegemony is deeper and more effective than the cartoon version of censorship projected onto China and socialist states in general.
Your second paragraph still rests on the same misunderstanding, communism isn’t about silencing people to “keep the peace,” it’s about suppressing reactionary and bourgeois forces so they can’t sabotage collective development as they have repeatedly proven themselves to do historically as their class interest is diametrically opposed to the interests of the masses.
Finally, this rise of conservatism(fascism) you’re talking about isn’t some temporary cultural mood swing, it’s capitalism in decay. When imperialism can’t externalize crisis anymore, its violence turns inward. That’s why you’re feeling it now. The teeth of empire always come home eventually. If you’re serious about understanding any of this, you need to move past liberal intuitions and actually study political economy. Hope without analysis just leaves you disarmed. You really should read the books/articles I linked in the last reply.
Look I understand a lot of where you’re coming from given your background, however:
Basically everything you “know” about politics and political economy is seemingly somewhere between wildly exaggerated and outright fairytale, and you don’t yet grasp the scale or sophistication of the narrative control you’re actually living under.
You say you prefer to know you’re being lied to, but in the West you usually don’t. That’s the point. Through ownership, framing, omission, and repetition, discourse is managed in the boardroom long before anything reaches you. I already linked you Inventing Reality by Michael Parenti for a reason: every story shown or not shown, every angle chosen, exists to shape what feels “normal” or “thinkable.” That ideological hegemony is deeper and more effective than the cartoon version of censorship projected onto China and socialist states in general.
Your second paragraph still rests on the same misunderstanding, communism isn’t about silencing people to “keep the peace,” it’s about suppressing reactionary and bourgeois forces so they can’t sabotage collective development as they have repeatedly proven themselves to do historically as their class interest is diametrically opposed to the interests of the masses.
Finally, this rise of conservatism(fascism) you’re talking about isn’t some temporary cultural mood swing, it’s capitalism in decay. When imperialism can’t externalize crisis anymore, its violence turns inward. That’s why you’re feeling it now. The teeth of empire always come home eventually. If you’re serious about understanding any of this, you need to move past liberal intuitions and actually study political economy. Hope without analysis just leaves you disarmed. You really should read the books/articles I linked in the last reply.
I like your reply. It is generally constructive and reasonable, and shows an understanding of the many sides in this discussion.
Your last paragraph articulates a feeling I hear shared across my friends and colleagues, that Western life is imploding and has been for a long time.
I clearly need to read more.