I’ll be meeting lots of conservative family members and some of them love to get into debates. What I usually did in the past was just stay away from them as my ideas weren’t fully formed yet and I didn’t want to make my points look weak.
So is there like some guide on how to debate or a list of some of the most effective talking points that I should use ?
engaging the debate me bro crowd is a complete waste of time for numerous reasons, life isn’t a greek agora where the best argument wins the hearts and minds.
but to not leave you empty handed, these sorts of debates are won by who talk loudest, doesn’t matter if the argument is solid or not. if you are already openly communist, just know they will strike at strawmens 100 million dead, stalinism, hunger snd etc
Spend some time on Reddit and you’ll learn through practice.
IMO, it’s a waste of time
I agree with Ronin_5 that it is a waste of time if they ‘love to get into debates’. If they are actually interested in your thoughts and ask questions, you should just answer the best way you can. If they want to debate and not actually learn, no amount of talking points will change their mind.
I don’t agree with ppl saying it’s a waste of time to debate others. Depending on the person ure talking with, it may be very possible that you help them move into the right difection. Or maybe the ppl listening. That’s partially how i got here.
I have a friend who continuously asks questions abt communism, but will then counter my answers with an assumptions of his, but in a friendly, devil’s advocate kinda way. That’s pretty much a debate, I think and so far I could help him understand certain concepts. When I’m outta answers I simply say that I have no clue atm and know that I have to look up that certain topic and learn more abt it. So it’s helpful to myself as well.
While I don’t have anything to recommend for forming better arguments, in my experience, the better you understand a topic the better you are at arguing for it. Very often it’s simply abt not falling for the usually false, misinformed premise ur ‘opponent’ presents u with. I’ve also found that it’s best not to engage people at all who are just looking for a fight. Hope this helped.
Consider if it’s worth having these conversations in the first place. Realize the best you can accomplish is to razz your conservative relatives a bit. If you think they can take it without it becoming a significant issue, the communist manifesto has brought more people around to socialism than anything else so start there. Don’t cite anything specific as that’ll just cause them to shutoff completely in most cases, play the rhetorical game foremost. If they act like they’re already super familiar with Marxism, ask them about their thoughts on historical materialism or maybe the tendency of the rate of profit to fall in capitalist economies—asking about specific core Marxist concepts is rhetorically useful since it’s impossible to learn about Marx and not have encountered these phrases, making it a good way to reveal their actual knowledge. Don’t take the debates too seriously and if people start to lose their cool consider just letting it go.
