I grew up in a conservative American family and was indoctrinated with chauvinistic beliefs from the beginning. It took me years of studying political science and economics just to warm up to leftist ideas, let alone embrace them.
Finally, I decided to read “Dialectical and Historical Materialism” by Stalin off a recommendation from one of my professors and it really changed my entire interpretation of the world. That started me down a path of reading any Marxist literature I could find.
I’m curious about the path that the rest of you took to get here!
and there are others who have it worse that i do, so i don’t think it’s entirely about hardship.
for me: i think it’s about experiencing being a stranger to the “tribes” that the people who were close to me belong to. eg. my white-passing family members discluding me from the families they’ve started with maga-white people; or the leftists groups being wary of me because autism-affected socialization makes them suspect that i’m an infiltrator of some type; or autism support groups that think that i’m not “autistic enough”.
don’t get me wrong: hardship is definitely part of it; if i had a thousand dollars for every time a manager or interviewer suspected that i was incapable of doing a job because of how i look and/or how i think, i would be a millionaire who wouldn’t need to work.
i think it’s understanding (or atleast being aware) that social and political hierarchies exist and are perpetually on-guard for outsiders. after all: there are maga brown/black people and gay republicans who are clueless about their places within these hierarchies.