Wasn't sure if you were joking. But after 3 minutes of research I see you weren't. Thanks for that info.
.. turns out they don't euphemize their euthanize.
I don't know of a starter guide. I guess because it depends a lot on where you live and what kind of activism/political work goes with your opinion and, well, your life.
I guess the common approaches to increase one's political agency are
tumble into/ join a social movement
This can be almost anything. Eco stuff, feminism, labour, city planning, community solidarity networks, antifa, antira, whatever floats your boat kind of.
having a job and getting in touch with your union
being a nerd, have a lot more theory going on then praxis so you search for groups matching your specific opinion
Basically no matter wich one it is, from there on you will meet people, meet ideas, discuss, get (even) more specific ideas of who is doing what and why and if you agree. Orientation comes with praxis, as in all fields I guess.
Maybe 2 starter guide like points:
Don't go apocalypse mode. Yes, shit is hitting the fan more aggressively every minute and it's beyond reason, empathy, humanity. Still, changing social order is a long term project. Make it sustainable, don't burn out.
Get started. All that dooomscrolling, theorizing, accumulating frustration, anger, fear without any praxis just makes you either depressive or indifferent.
All thinking no doing doesn't work. Having people around you that aknowlede the problems you see and fight on your side makes all the difference.
you may choose your form of epic. "Fighting" might sound weird to you. "I'm a revolutionary" sounds weird to me. Transforming society as good as you can without becoming unhappy af is what counts.
The Zapatistas say "preguntando caminamos" - "asking we walk" or "proceeding while questioning". I think thats a good epic and the best advice a have for you.
Ok imma try to get my point across one more time:
There are two different layers of reality about the war.
Both layers contain meaningful information.
A bit of info in layer 1: The war is bad.
A bit of info in layer 2: Not all people see that.
We agree on both. Now my point is: We should understand the nuances on layer 2.
Your answer is: "Layer 1 has no nuances"
The war is not the same thing as the opinions about the war.
To influence the discourse, i.e. opinions, it's better to understand the opinions specifically ("in nuances").
To close the discrapancy between misguided public opinion and actual reality, we need to understand the opinions, not confuse its object with its (ideologically structured) representation.
Have you read that I said "of course they should condemn putin ..."?
What I'm doing is not relativizing the invasion, but the opinions about it.
It's a meta level. I'm not talking about nuances of the war, but nuances of political views. The article and the discussion is on that level.
I agree with your call for clear (and plain coherent/realistic) condemnation of the war. Nevertheless this should not be confused with analyzing how many and how and why people don't see it that way.
Otherwise we give up a better understanding of what people think, which we need in order to find strategies to influence the discours on realities terms. (Reality meaning the reality of conciousness(es) about the war, not the war. That part we already agree on)
To answer that: political view has more options than condemn and support.
Of course, imo, they should condemn putin, his supporters, trum, biden, scholz, macron and the whole idea of those beeing the options of development of our societies.
But its not helpfull for us to tune in on 2 dimensional, under-complex concepts of social development/politics
Support seems to plainly be the wrong word. "Not as an enemy, as a competitor" is definetly not "support". In my opinion calling it that is more than misleading
Wasn't sure if you were joking. But after 3 minutes of research I see you weren't. Thanks for that info. .. turns out they don't euphemize their euthanize.
I'll see myself out