No, this is the exact opposite. They haven’t read enough theory. This is categorical ultra-leftism [edit: I meant left-communism, but theyre similar concepts] at best, straight social democracy at worst.

It’s not that they “view the entire world through theory” and that’s a bad thing, it’s that they’re just throwing a general trueism [class consciousness] at a problem to handwave it away because it feels bad to their “common morality.” [That being the idea that “cultural boycotts” are bad because they are bad].

And no offense intended towards you, since I know you’re getting started, but it is extremely important to view the world through a marxist lense and avoid moralism [not saying you can’t oppose things on personal moral grounds, or that the genocide isn’t horrific]. Here it did lead you to the correct analysis, that Palestinians must engage in a violent anti-colonial struggle and liberate themselves from the Israeli genocidal apartheid state. Additionally, actions like boycotts and such can be a way to help palestine by isolating Israel and Israelis.

However, without a Marxist analysis, you might come to incorrect conclusions. I.e, positions on the special military operation in Ukraine, the recent “gen z” protests, etc.

“[With the Marxist-Leninist attitude,] a person applies the theory and method of marxism-leninism to the systematic and thorough investigation and study of the environment. He does not work by enthusiasm alone but, as Stalin says, combines revolutionary sweep with practicalness” - Mao Zedong

Reading all the responses from you guys have made me realise I’m not going crazy. I genuinely appreciate your comments. Currently at work, I’ll respond more when I get home later.

I’ll definitely keep reading theory, as I see now that it was never really about the books. They just can’t let go of their plastic solidarity.

Getting in contact with soc-dem/eurocommunists, for the first time, I see 😅 I’m from Latin America, living in Portugal and we hear some very similar speeches around here. To get theory about that, I’d suggest you get into Lenin’s critique of Kautsky and/or Hoxha’s critique of Eurocommunism.

Now, about the problem at hand. Since you’re in Britain, I think there’s little to be done regarding raising class consciousness of people in Gaza/Israel and little to be done regarding directly stopping the bombs. For me, this sounds like a very idealistic view.

You guys need to do what’s at hand: the banning the of the Israeli soccer fans is pretty good. Also is attending all pro-Palestinians demonstrations that happen near you, distributing leaflets, speaking for the masses in Britain and raising class consciousness around English people so that they pressure their own State on cutting ties with this genocidal state. The general strike in Italy is a good goal to promote, in my opinion.

And in this process, you will gather more people to fight the same fight, towards the final goal which is ending capitalism, the regime that allow genocides like that to happen.

You can’t see class in a vacuum like that, the global context matters and the so called working class of Israel is actively participating in a genocide to get their share of land, very similar as the working class of England during the british empire years.

Theory deepens your solidarity with the oppressed, not whatever happened here.

You have to remember whatever the uniform people decide to wear for themselves, more often than not, their opinions reflect their relative class interests and marxist-leninists (MLs) have moved beyond a simplisitic bourgoisie vs proleteriat framework, understanding for example here that western proletriat and labour aristocrats engage in class collaboration with their bourgoisie against the proleteriat of the global south.

Furthermore, from a marxist-leninist perspective, national liberation struggle will mean collaboration between the oppressed proleteriat and their petite-bourgoisie/bourgoisie against the oppressor including the oppressor’s proleteriat who engaged in this normalised violence.

This whole thing where one postulates proleteriat of the oppressed and the prolteriat of the oppressor unite together like some Benetton advert against the bourgoisie is some idealistic nonsense you will only hear from the Western Marxist (whatever the colour of said western marxist) partly because it ignores the material gains that the oppressor’s proleteriat get from subjugating the proleteriat of the oppressed.

Brainwashing ain’t a thing; people instead seek narratives as license for their bigotry for which they get material gains for:

https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/

Marxism is a science.

https://redsails.org/why-marxism/

What you described is a disease of the Westerner. The cure for which MLs are still working on (click on my username, order by most controversial to find the most relevant topics to get a flavour of different opinions on this).

They sound like they have a profound lack of theory and have spent no time trying to understand settler-colonialism or imperialism or racial capitalism. Their “theory” is actually dogmatism.

Sounds like they have their head in their asses regarding the Maccabi fans as these are the same fans with links to the IDF, with confirmed human rights violators in their presence, who caused riots in Amsterdam. Banning them is the only sensible solution. Nothing ‘oh they are innocent bystanders’ about them. Ffs they chanted to kill all arabs in Amsterdam.

Please forgive me being a little simplistic because I’m about to go to bed, but the answer to

Is this what reading theory does to people?

…is no, that’s what being British does to people. Jokes aside, British socialist/communist parties, at least the ones I’ve heard of, are notoriously awful when it comes to solidarity with the people their governments are oppressing. I’m sure others will come in with more comprehensive answers, but this is all I’ve got right now.

the leader of that meeting to revert to type talking about how this conflict is a crisis of capitalism and how the “working class of Israel” need to attain consciousness as the reason they want Gaza is because the rent in the major cities in Israel are all so expensive which is what is encouraging expansion into newer lands,

That guy is not just a zionist he is probably a police informer put in place to destroy any possible potential of the group. Get out and try to lay low for a bit to get off their radar. Maybe warn some of the other members if you think they can be trusted.

The leader seems like a zionist plant. Ask him if he’d excuse a current nazi guard from spitting on jews while he was on vacation. Would he just try to get him to see the light?

Then spit in his face

Britain is a black hole from which no good thing can emerge. Although this type of dogmatism from leading figures is not unique to them; I instantly smiled at the chapter leader coming in clutch with the worst take possible and suddenly changing everyone’s mind. We wouldn’t want to get too radical now would we lol.

They have simplistic takes because their understanding is simplistic. Unfortunately it’s not just a problem in Britain but across Europe and North America whole. When I was starting to get into marxism I asked the chapter leader, a philosophy teacher, that I didn’t understand dialectics and he said “I’ll let you know” (we never ended up talking about it). He probably didn’t understand dialectics either, he wasn’t even a communist lol.

They get left to their own devices and never progress and then run around in circles. The solution to ‘Israel’ is pretty simple, give the resistance tanks and missiles for one thing. The entity is a settler-colony and this is perfectly in line with marxist theory it’s just that they don’t understand anything beyond proletariat and bourgeoisie so they start to hallucinate things like an ‘israeli proletariat’ lol.

theory is important because it gives us tools in our arsenal to get to the bottom of things and pull on the actual thread that will unravel the entire machine, but it’s not magic either (and dialectics teaches us that with contradictions) and there’s a possibility to ‘overcorrect’ in either direction, either focusing too much on praxis without theory or theory without praxis.

Raising class consciousness is not necessarily wrong (it’s also a pretty basic thing to say), it’s just, how do you want to do that? Life’s not a video game where you click buttons to increment variables. So if he meant anything other than go agitate people in the streets of London to demand lower rent in “Tel Aviv” he needs to specify lol otherwise it’s just empty posturing. Theory helps find how to effectively agitate but theory is best consumed with comrades, unfortunately it’s often an individual responsibility in western orgs.

A lot of these orgs only exist to justify their existence and good comrades end up either folding and losing all the revolutionary light in their eyes or leave and become disillusioned with organizing.

These people could put you in danger with law enforcement. Get the hell away from the british lib left immediately. These are messy, nasty people, whenever I read about their drama I just want to nuke them

the one people I expected total solidarity from are talking exactly like liberals but with Marxist language

You are completely right about this, and unfortunately this liberal garbage is probably something you will run into a lot. Anything and everything that has genuine revolutionary potential is constantly being coopted by liberals, either through literal covert infiltration with intention, or unintentionally by useful fools who have fallen for the radlib lines and mistaken them as socialism. You may still be a relatively new socialist without much theory under your belt yet, but you already hold a more principled and revolutionary position than the leader of the meeting you described, who is carrying water for the zionists whether that person realizes it or not.

Is this what reading theory does to people?

No, it’s what failing to engage with or refusing to understand theory does to people. Any of the good theorists make it clear that theory is nothing without praxis (and praxis is just blind flailing without theory).

I am fully aware that ultimately, they’re kind of right; class consciousness is vital to kicking out imperialism and uprooting capitalism, but for fk’s sake what are we doing for the people currently dying or being starved to death right now through the evils of the system?

Depending on which particulars of your post you’re referring to, I would say that no, those who were disagreeing with you were not kind of right. Yes, class consciousness is vital to eventually being able to smash capitalism and end imperialism, but playing nice with fascists will never benefit the spreading of class consciousness. Class consciousness is not the “be all and end all” of socialist organizing, it is something that comes as a result of hard work and actions taken, and people seeing what that really means. Like… What was the better method to raise class consciousness in people concerned with the situation in Gaza, was it passing out pamphlets to the Zionists who like you said are gleeful to watch Palestinians die, or was it seeing working class people become heroes on a flotilla trying to bring food and medical aid to starving masses of children, then getting illegally kidnapped at gunpoint off their boats and held in torture-detention centers because of their efforts to bring aid? That is what helps radicalize people which in turn is a major fount of class consciousness. Tell your dipshit meeting leader that if they want to spread class consciousness, they need to take some action that has a genuine material chance to help the Palestinian people, or at the very least express solidarity with them especially in ways that show some smidgen of willingness to make personal sacrifices. Tell them that no matter how much you try to get Zionists to read Marx, it is going to do fuckall so long as those Zionists want to eradicate the most systemically oppressed people on earth and steal the now empty homes of the mass murdered. We will never get anywhere trying to appeal to the last shreds of humanity (the “better angels”) of settler-colonialists, let alone the genocidaires. Ask your meeting leader, Why did the communists fight to liberate the concentration camps in 1945 when they could have been appealing to the Nazi’s sense of worker solidarity?

Surely, we can do more than telling them to sit down and listen to theory.

Anyone who would say that’s what we should be doing has not understood the fucking purpose of theory in the first place.

This is what class reductionism does.