How do you get it through people's heads that you're not calling them unintelligent, youre calling them uneducated on a particular subject?

i think half of people are obtuse on purpose. like it doesnt matter the context, if you tell Americans to educate themselves on anything they will take it as a personal attack and use any justification to defend their ignorance. especially people familiar with progressive sounding language.

Americans are violently opposed to the practice of reading

Telling someone to read a book is actually the gravest insult in American culture

this is only tangentially related but a hexbear posting warrior told some lemmyverse liberal they should really read some books about the subject being discussed and suggested some specific books, the lemmyverse liberal got very mad and said basically 'fuck you, YOU should read a book", so I asked them what book they felt would be good and they recommended fucking "Ulysses" by Joyce.

I've had the following conversation at least a dozen times:

Them: I know everything I need to know about Marxism vuvuzela no iphone
Me: Tell me one thing, any thing, Marx said in his life. No google.

I have never gotten an answer.

You have to meet people where they're at. In my experience no one will ever read any book you recommend unless they specifically ask you for recommendations. They might click a link to a short video. Otherwise try to summarize the specific point you want them to understand with relevant quotes or examples and avoid scary words like socialism or Marx unless you want to shock them.

Hopefully if its someone you care about enough to put in repeated efforts enough of what you're saying sinks in they start doing their own research, then they might ask for advice. I've had this work on coworkers a few times but its rare. Remember your working against years of conditioning here, it won't happen overnight

I sometimes try to lead with an interesting fact, make them go "oh I didn't know that" themself, then frame the conversation as "most people aren't taught about this".

Its the same sentiment through the lens of western academia. When you've ingested enough eugenics, the idea that you don't understand something because you lack the formal learning to process it and that you physically can't understand it because your brain don't work good are the same.

Understanding isn't a product of hard work or a consequential legacy of accumulated knowledge gleaned from prior generations, its a consequence of superior genes and natural genius.

Incidentally, the understanding of accumulated wealth and power flows along similar lines. You're rich because you're a superior deal maker. You're a "natural" leader with innate charisma. You're a savant who derives all worldly knowledge from first principles. None of these things are granted through family status or political intrigues or insights gleaned from hard work of others. Its always just you being a uniquely special wonderkin.

One person claiming that they understand or possess information another doesn't isn't just a challenge to their priors, its a challenge to their inherent brilliant nature.

There's a reason why anti-intellectualism is such a prominent thing in the U.S.

It's hard to fight and it makes people think they're smart for not learning about stuff

Personally, this is why I kind of want to start up a media project about educating people but with a down-to-earth nature so it doesn't seem like they're being insulted

You'll never break a dyed-in-the-wool reactionary type, but I can at least make some positive effort forwards

(I mean, I consider my podcast, Talker, Rexas Wanger to be a positive effort, but it's not exactly educational)

questioning any part of someones ideology is tantamount to mental abuse to the stubborn minded, liberals in particular

If they are a friend or otherwise convinceable, you do it by being more confident than them and generally being the person they go to for an informed opinion that they will adopt for themselves. Get them into a mindset where they might ask you how you know so many things so you can hit them with a reading rec they'll ignore for the next 4 months (but then they might actually read it!).

If they are combative, you endeavor to not take them seriously (again, confidence) and demonstrate your knowledge with specifics without suggesting that you're actually taking anything they say seriously. Your hope with these people is that they shut the fuck up and slowly internalize on their own timeline so that if they come around like 2 years later, they think it was their own idea. The other goal is that the primary audience for what you're saying is everyone else, who will see you implicitly denigrating the other person's bullshit while having a wealth of facts and confidence.

If someone is particularly bad, you can dunk on them. Some people need to be socially policed right then and there (e.g. people being racist, transphobic, classist) and a decent number will even course-correct shortly after. Keep in mind that a decent number will flip their shit, so prioritize your own safety.

It is very rare that you'll find someone that is both combative and willing to change their opinion in real time through discussion.

This is relevant because many USians are shockingly illiterate.

idk. It's hard.

I try to be vocally sympathetic. Like "bro you're not dumb, there's just stuff you don't know. There's way too much stuff for anyone to know everything, we all gotta keep learning all the time. Knowledge is power and I want you to be as powerful as possible. And when you tell me there's a gap in my knowledge I'll listen to you."

A lot of it comes down to the person, though. Folks have to be in the right mindset to take critiques in good faith and trust that you're being genuine.

You can also try to be like "Hey sib, so, I get what you're saying and I know this book/article/paper that talks about that, and I think you'd find it really interesting because it talks about what you're saying from a different perspective. Even if you don't agree with it you can use it to sharpen up your arguments and get a better understanding of what your opponents think"

No investigation no right to speak

I went as far as even making a SpongeBob gif that says "read theory" before realizing that the average Westerner doesn't care to understand anything beyond their tiny western state-opperated media bubble.

I had told someone on lemmy.ml that they should read a bit about Marxism because they were sounding like a bot and it resulted in a total meltdown by them so I just went to lurking mostly on that account.

However in leftist spaces I will continue to suggest things I think are appropriate to whatever the discussion is and will continue to grab up epubs that I see suggested.

In short, the average schmuck doesn't care so I won't try to help anymore.

You don't

we need way less of everybody on this site (including me) and way more Bill "i haven't read marx's capital but i have the marks of capital all over my body" Haywood

If someone takes that as an insult then maybe they are unintelligent

Einstein was a committed socialist, Johnny Von Neumann spent half his life as the Mycroft Homes of the Mutually Assured Destruction-Industrial Complex because of his anti-communist ideology. So far as raw intelligence is a concept which even exists, it doesn't remotely align with neatly political views.

If it's in anyway confrontational it's a safe bet you're not gonna get through to them. You kinda just gotta let them be wrong and then be like, "oh dude you'd love (insert book movie, etc here)"

One circle I'm trying to square (square I'm trying to circle? Concept I'm trying to reconcile) is that every revolution in history has been comprised of largely uneducated, illiterate masses. But the forms of illiteracy and ignorance we see in the US at least seem insurmountably backward/reactionary.

In the past my efforts have mostly been about turning everyday people into ardent, well-read revolutionaries, which for most people is probably wasted effort. Especially since revolution within the imperial core is so far in the future. Although if revolution is so far off, perhaps creation of ardent revolutionaries should be the primary goal anyway, regardless of a low success rate. People to start organizing and building dual power structures that later can be used to enact a strategic mass line as the US nation state shrinks and leaves larger and larger demographics without representation (thus ripe for organizing). Don't remember if it was deprogram or trueanon, but a recent episode talked about the already-existing state structures that the Chinese communists set up before the revolution even succeeded, entire territories that were under communist control, which were able to function as industrial and strategic bases for revolutionary development, and actually take and maintain power as the revolution advanced.

Give an example focused on yourself:

• It was only when I started reading this that I realise how much I didn't know about ti...

• I get it, not everyone's as obsessive as me about this, but I think you'd find it really interesting...

• I don't know shit about X probably, I mean I kind of think I know enough not to be totally ignorant I hope, but if I was going to talk about it to more people I'd have to read about it too

I usually go with explaining a time I was ignorant of something, and then really focus on the "ignorant" part and explain what ignorance is, and how systems intentionally develop ignorance in their subjects, and THEN i hit em with "youre ignorant, get educated"

I just call them 'ignorant fucks' and assume they aren't worth my time worrying about whether they're capable of understanding.

This should work. “Hey, I’m not trying to call you stupid, but do you ever read books?”

That Simpsons clip where Homer has to look up the definition of "Ignoramous" https://youtu.be/MnQTDht2ato?si=tp5Xggml0NOlP5B9