this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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I guess it's one of the ways in which capital maintains its own checks and balances, but it's very hard how, as contradictions heighten, your family that at some point might have ignored what you say, now will ostracize you for your views.

My parents have called me saying that me supporting Petro (a socdem at best) is akin to supporting murderers and thieves and they won't support me with that (which ofc I think the same about the people they support, but I won't antagonize them over it cause I know they won't change their views).

Now it's a sister of mine, married to an american, that considers that my criticisms of gringos also applies to her husband (which, to a point but not really).

I'm now understanding that there is a non zero chance that I will end up shunned out of my family altogether at some point.

Some friends and acquaintances have also cut contact from their end and some from my end.

Basically, being a communist means you will very likely lose a good percentage of your initial social network. It's probably one of the ways that capital maintains its control on society, forcing you to choose between community or your ideals, while you build a new leftist community (which is likely to be ostracized from their families as well).

And I'm not alone, my comrades in the area in which I organize are basically in the same position. In most of their families they don't know they are in the communist party for fear of their reactions. Or in the case of one of them, they consider it will be a phase they grow out of.

It's exhausting but enlightening to see how the left continues to be attacked through so many mechanisms.

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[–] Alisu@hexbear.net 10 points 11 hours ago

Not if I cut them off first

[–] magpie@hexbear.net 39 points 14 hours ago

I got cut off by my family when I came out, and my dad told me that he would kill me if I ever interacted with them again. I just got out of a long stint of homelessness after losing my job due to my workplace organizing - disappointingly received no support from the union.

It can be painful to reconcile that this is what the rest of my life will look like, and that there's little the left can do to help me.

[–] Frogmanfromlake@hexbear.net 16 points 12 hours ago

It’s always the one that marries an American. Every single time.

[–] SevenSkalls@hexbear.net 38 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

It's also how cults maintain control, once all your friends and family are in them.

[–] SkingradGuard@hexbear.net 13 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

It's heavily ironic because chuds think believing in anything vaguely to the left of them is cultish. Meanwhile look at what they do!

[–] ColombianLenin@hexbear.net 20 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

I'm actually thinking about how this kind of social isolationism can also foment radicalism of the kinds of ISIS and the such.

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 16 points 14 hours ago

And maga and the manosphere*, neonazi clubs, etc.

*A pox on autocorrect

[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 29 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

are you me? lol

Basically, being a communist means you will very likely lose a good percentage of your initial social network. It’s probably one of the ways that capital maintains its control on society, forcing you to choose between community or your ideals, while you build a new leftist community (which is likely to be ostracized from their families as well).

i think i'm fortunate on this point in two regards:

first: an overwhelming majority of my extended family is further left leaning that my immediate family due to the fact that they're not white passing like my immediate family is nor did they marry maga-white people like my siblings did. also my extended family is deeply ingrained within a latin american political frame of reference so they already seem radical to my trump-tolerant immediately family.

second: my autism prevents me from ever building a large enough social circle to impact me if i lost access to them; so an individual shunning me has no impact. unfortunately this is a bit of a double edged sword since my autism also gives leftists pause to associate with me, but my anecodotal experience with leftist groups over the last 5-ish decades informs me that most are ephemeral relationships anyways.

[–] magpie@hexbear.net 14 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I had a very difficult time with workplace organizing as an autistic person. I had to really work on not falling into misanthropy.

[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 7 points 13 hours ago

Speaking for myself only: I'm unable to keep away from the misanthropy, especially considering that such an overwhelming majority of human beings treat me as they do.

If it weren't for the years of talk therapy, I would have become a completely angry shutin.

[–] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 18 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (2 children)

Hellyea I too enjoy the +5 Social Pressure Resistance/-5 Social Energy buff of the creature playerclass

[–] machiabelly@hexbear.net 8 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

this is a great analogy. But, I might do +5 Social Pressure Resistance/ -5 Social intuition instead. For me the hardest part about being on the spectrum is how different my social needs are and how differently I explain or express things. I have low social energy because I'm constantly translating between a ND brain and a NT world. Or because I'm trying to decide how many things I should do that feel unimportant or inauthentic to me in order to maintain a relationship.

[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 14 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

the best autism jokes are self deprecating. lol

[–] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 10 points 14 hours ago

Yknow what fair I'm undeleting it

[–] VaqueroRed@lemmygrad.ml 26 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

I’m a Communist but my family very much supports my activities because I focus on protecting immigrants.

They don’t care too much about Communism, but undocumented immigrants in particular have been thrown away like trash by every major political party in the USA, so they have to accept the help of Communists.

In my opinion, I don’t think most people will arrive to Communism directly through class struggle, but rather through a particular manifestation of it. The struggle we as Communists have in our mass work is to connect the universal with the particular to help them connect the dots.

I feel like Communists in the USA are still subject to liberal biases and this overemphasis on “winning the battle of ideas” is one of them. We should demonstrate to people the scientific nature of Marxism through our practice rather than by lecturing them.

Lest we become like liberals where we’re all talk and no action.

[–] MLRL_Commie@hexbear.net 11 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

Love what you're saying, but I have to nitpick because it's important for our messaging and strategy.

Is there any 'class struggle' which isn't a 'particular manifestation of class struggle'? Trotskyists, Ultras, marx-only-marxists like to talk about class struggle as if it's only meaningful manifestation is that of the Bourg-Prole struggle. We must struggle against that. Losurdo's "Class Struggle" is a great book on this subject. It's about why national liberation is a class struggle, and why internally colonized liberation is class struggle, and why international strategic China-US struggles are class struggle. We must act in support of all progressive positions in all struggles (collectively), but of course don't waste all your energy on too many. So your focus is very good; you're taking part in class struggle very well

Not everything is a class struggle, but we must understand that Marxism has always had and definitively needs to understand class struggle as more than wage conflicts between 2 particular classes.

[–] Belly_Beanis@hexbear.net 11 points 14 hours ago

Not if I cut them off first mwhahahahaha!

[–] SnakeEyes@hexbear.net 15 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (2 children)

Are they uribistas? It sounds like my family lmao

Also on the topic of murder, what do they think of Venezuelans and what should be done with them? Same with people of the caribe

Oh oh and what were their opinions on the ESMAD and the DAS?

[–] ColombianLenin@hexbear.net 12 points 15 hours ago

They were openly but now they say they aren't but yeah, they probably still are.

I think they have fake pity for venezuelans, just like westerners have fake pity for the people of Iran and China.

On the topic of Caribbeans? I haven't ever seen bad regionalisms against people from the coast, in my family or in general. At worst it's against the paisas in Medellin, but it's not bad.

[–] ColombianLenin@hexbear.net 5 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Ah and about your edit on ESMAD? They support protesters getting bashed because of muh walls and windows lol.

[–] SnakeEyes@hexbear.net 5 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Thank you for answering, yeah it sounds a lot like my family but slightly less ghoulish

My family are just concerned citizens saying crap like "something needs to be done about the Venezuelan problem" (Rounding them up)

Same with the "costeño invasion"

[–] ColombianLenin@hexbear.net 3 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

Uff que gonorrea, camarada :/

[–] TraschcanOfIdeology@hexbear.net 5 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Oh is this the Colombian toxicity corner? My extended family thinks that every time I don't spit on the ground and curse Petro's name is akin to me joining the FARC.

My poor mom knows I'm a communist, and hasn't cut me off, she even agrees with me when we talk about social justice and what is to be done. But then she'll turn around and repeat the latest Caracol "petro is the worst president in Colombian history" rhetoric.

[–] ColombianLenin@hexbear.net 4 points 8 hours ago
[–] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 15 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

lose [...] your initial social network.

i did this before becoming annoying about political economy by never developing one and then moving a bunch and not using facebook

[–] ColombianLenin@hexbear.net 8 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

When I said social network there it's not about Facebook or Instagram but about your community, but yeah your point still stands

Social circle could be a better concept?

[–] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 6 points 13 hours ago

i understood what you meant, to be clear: i don't have the irl group and largely never did.

[–] aqwxcvbnji@hexbear.net 13 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

Try to prevent that from happening by not engaging in talks about politics with them. It's hard to convince your family, harder than convincing anyone else perhaps, try not to lose them by engaging in a futile activity.

[–] ColombianLenin@hexbear.net 11 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

I don't, they give me shit because of what I post in my social media.

In the case of my parents, they don't even have SM accounts but their friends send them snips.

[–] plinky@hexbear.net 12 points 15 hours ago

their choice to support their ideological project over familty ties shrug-outta-hecks