I feel like one of the big contributors to the present glut of "left-sounding" nonsense (like "landback for hong kong") that we see among Western "leftists" is the heavy reliance on sloganeering in the place of proper engagement with theory. It is very easy to get people agitated, and agitation is a useful tool for organizing, but if we don't have any structure beyond agitation and people aren't being given consistent messaging backed in proper theory, then it's no surprise they're going to come up with their own idiosyncratic and bourgeois-ified interpretations of the slogans they here and go on to apply them in ways that hinder rather than help.
In "What Is To Be Done?", Lenin identifies three categories of socialist messaging: theoretical treatises, propaganda pamphlets, and agitational speech. As I see it, those of us in the imperial core have a glut of the latter, a jumbled scattering of the former, and a dearth of propaganda that is crucial to bridging the gap between the other two. We are in desperate need of knowledgable people who can cut through the chaff and identify what is useful and accurate in modern theory, of people who can produce higher-quality modern theory, and of propagandists who can bridge that gap between slogan and theory and produce material for the masses who are more and more being agitated but are lacking quality propaganda to satisfy their demands for radical education. We have more than enough sloganeers, and we could do with losing a few of the less-capable sloganeers among us.
tangentwithtanner
blakekathryn
gracieabrams
areudirty
romaincrisis
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
