I go back and forth on Hasan. But in general I think he occupies an important part of the pipeline that isn’t an actual dead end ala destiny/vaush. And whilst he has criticised China, the last time I heard him do that it was honestly rather feeble or felt like stock criticism (“they could loosen up censorship”). Then he’s got gigachad Xi/China emojis that you’ll see in his chat all the time. This is obviously the beginning of normalizing China for many watchers, not unlike the memes that many of us saw on GenZedong before reddit shut it down (although GZ was way more radical).
This, with his connections to the deprogram, who directly interface with non-MLM Marxist theory, is a pipeline. From there you’re a hop away from Professor Wolf, who isn’t far from Geopolitical Economy Report/Hudson/Prashad etc. I’d like to see a bit more direct interface between creators at the level of the deprogram etc make an effort to lead to Wolf/GER a bit more but I’m so out of the loop with “breadtube” maybe that’s already happening.
Hasan (and the deprogram, but especially Hasan as a giant “influencer” ) does have to work within a capitalist framework which makes him petty bgz but it feels wrong to group him with the rest.
There absolutely can be a contradiction between his material interest of keeping his followers vs keeping the valve to the pipeline open. Maybe he could make more an effort to lead his followers to unknowingly allow themselves to fall further down the pipeline, but again Ive moved beyond that area of the pipeline (as you’re supposed to) and haven’t made an effort to monitor it so I can’t offer much more than just giving an outline of how this works and what problems can arise.
The important question is: Once you reach the end of the pipeline, do you stop making memes and only read theory, or do you still make memes for those that are below the pipeline (or I guess above the pipeline since pipelines go down)?
If making memes is what you like to do, ideally you read some theory to help make memes that better convey ML ideas. Only reading theory is not enough by itself.
Also I kinda will walk back, or maybe clarify, a little of what I said, specifically about Hasan “occupying an important niche”. Whilst he occupies that niche, that’s not to say that he’s the only person in that niche nor that there’s only room for one person in there. Also not saying that someone else cant come along and do better.
But the real world results matter and I know there are a lot of people here who might not be here without Hasan, myself included. And remember not everyone is going to become a Marxist when you’re that high up on the pipeline.
You’re trying to get as many people introduced to Marxist ideas as possible. And whilst you will get some people to explore further down and eventually some will become Marxists, others will reject it or stay aligned on only certain issues. That’s just how it is.
This kind of applies to every level of radicalization to be honest, bar like once someone grasps the historical materialist/scientific interpretation of history. But that is much further down the pipeline than someone like Hasan is.
So for example he will have some viewers who become Marxists after hearing the deprogram podcast and then checking out Hakim, and then falling even further down (Hasan has been on the deprogram), whilst some viewers might stay and watch Hasan only for info about Palestine, or some may stay social democrats.
I go back and forth on Hasan. But in general I think he occupies an important part of the pipeline that isn’t an actual dead end ala destiny/vaush. And whilst he has criticised China, the last time I heard him do that it was honestly rather feeble or felt like stock criticism (“they could loosen up censorship”). Then he’s got gigachad Xi/China emojis that you’ll see in his chat all the time. This is obviously the beginning of normalizing China for many watchers, not unlike the memes that many of us saw on GenZedong before reddit shut it down (although GZ was way more radical).
This, with his connections to the deprogram, who directly interface with non-MLM Marxist theory, is a pipeline. From there you’re a hop away from Professor Wolf, who isn’t far from Geopolitical Economy Report/Hudson/Prashad etc. I’d like to see a bit more direct interface between creators at the level of the deprogram etc make an effort to lead to Wolf/GER a bit more but I’m so out of the loop with “breadtube” maybe that’s already happening.
Hasan (and the deprogram, but especially Hasan as a giant “influencer” ) does have to work within a capitalist framework which makes him petty bgz but it feels wrong to group him with the rest.
There absolutely can be a contradiction between his material interest of keeping his followers vs keeping the valve to the pipeline open. Maybe he could make more an effort to lead his followers to unknowingly allow themselves to fall further down the pipeline, but again Ive moved beyond that area of the pipeline (as you’re supposed to) and haven’t made an effort to monitor it so I can’t offer much more than just giving an outline of how this works and what problems can arise.
The important question is: Once you reach the end of the pipeline, do you stop making memes and only read theory, or do you still make memes for those that are below the pipeline (or I guess above the pipeline since pipelines go down)?
If making memes is what you like to do, ideally you read some theory to help make memes that better convey ML ideas. Only reading theory is not enough by itself.
Also I kinda will walk back, or maybe clarify, a little of what I said, specifically about Hasan “occupying an important niche”. Whilst he occupies that niche, that’s not to say that he’s the only person in that niche nor that there’s only room for one person in there. Also not saying that someone else cant come along and do better.
But the real world results matter and I know there are a lot of people here who might not be here without Hasan, myself included. And remember not everyone is going to become a Marxist when you’re that high up on the pipeline.
Can you please elaborate a bit more on this last part?
You’re trying to get as many people introduced to Marxist ideas as possible. And whilst you will get some people to explore further down and eventually some will become Marxists, others will reject it or stay aligned on only certain issues. That’s just how it is.
This kind of applies to every level of radicalization to be honest, bar like once someone grasps the historical materialist/scientific interpretation of history. But that is much further down the pipeline than someone like Hasan is.
So for example he will have some viewers who become Marxists after hearing the deprogram podcast and then checking out Hakim, and then falling even further down (Hasan has been on the deprogram), whilst some viewers might stay and watch Hasan only for info about Palestine, or some may stay social democrats.