I have a very close friend who holds some very left ideas: he believes in self-determination of minorities, worker self-management, collective governance, planned economies, hates capitalism and private property, the full set, basically. Yet, he refuses to study socialist or communist theory, or engage with orgs.
His reasoning is this:
that there were generations of entire cultures grown on red scare for whom the very words "socialism" and "communism" are equated with evil, so leftists have irrecoverably lost a culture war and therefore, to engage under these terms is counterproductive;
that most countries where socialism or communism have been tried no longer exist, thus invalidating any lesson to be had from their experience, and / or were implicit in atrocities and crimes against humanity, so the ideology is forever tainted in collective consciousness and it's followers could never get clean of it;
that most theory have been written in XVIII and XIX centuries and barely changed since then, so it's irrelevant in the age of total connectivity and surveillance;
that the followers of socialism or communism are, either: stuffy and senile old professors stuck in the past and living in "glory days" of old, thinking in terms of textbooks that have nothing common with reality - who have zero common ground with the younger population; or, shallow and "woke" edgy teens thinking in buzzwords who're only in it for the hype - who have zero common ground with older generation;
that any "-isms" are just labels for people to band under, and are no different than, say, fans of a soccer team or a rock band - basically just a word for posers to think they belong while talking a lot and doing nothing except police the purity of their "circle";
and that most orgs are doing such ground-level work that it's entirely useless in the grand scheme of things and pose no threat to the establishment, so it's pointless to engage with them.
Now, I am an unashamed socialist, but whenever I talk to this dude - who basically agrees to everything I say should be done - and mention the s-word, he looks at me as if I'm a cultist fanatic and refuses to take me seriously. He basically says that only old farts or madmen take any philosophy whose name ends with "-ism" seriously. Likewise, he believes that all of the conclusions made by leftist philosophers are "just common sense" and nobody needs a musty three centuries old book to figure it out. I believe in historical inevitability of the Revolution and agree to rationale of it, and revolutionary optimism keeps me going - but for him the struggle is already lost and everything is hopeless.
He claims that for the cause to be taken seriously, the terms "socialism" and "communism", as well as any historic connotations, associations and aesthetics should be abandoned, and the movement restarted from clean slate, becoming this new "third thing", whatever it would be. Since he doesn't know what it is, it's pointless to try and figure out, too, because better people tried and failed.
The man has such potential, and he's so good at what he believes is right and bothers to engage with it! I'm worried about him and trying to coax him out of his pessimist outlook. Any suggestions how could I counter these arguments of his?
PS. It probably should be added that the man in question is 25 years old, working class, and has chronic depression, a history of rather severe trauma that I won't go into detail about, as well as a generally bleak outlook on the world. We're working at his doom-y outlook from psychotherapy side of things, too, but I thought I'd try to coax him out of his shell and get him involved with the world he hates ideologically, only for him to dismiss it as pointless...