How can we write the best socialist fanfiction possible?
How can we write the best socialist fanfiction possible?
Not in the general writing way, but in writing fics that best portray socialist values and messages (although I do think we should try and do writing workshops to improve the general quality of our writing as well!)
I've seen socialists express concerns before about the idea of fanfiction, in that many stories enforce the ideas of liberalism, like great man theory, and if you're going to change the story enough to follow socialist messaging, you might as well write your own stories with new IP.
I disagree, I like the idea of co-opting ideas that have captured the public's imagination (and honestly, a lot of fandoms mean a lot to me. I don't want to give it up to liberals lol). Also, I do think a little liberalism can still be ok, like great man theory, if the original story permits it. Naruto, for instance, as a story the power levels of ninjas who can use chakra vs those who can't means they can have an outsized influence on politics. So a question would be, could we balance that? Is it possible, or do we need to depower the characters?
Do y'all think we could come up with some guidelines to help people write socialist/socialist fanfiction that doesn't fall into this trap? Like, how best to analyze the world the original author has set up, and how to best describe the class relations, etc.
Let the Dialectics guide you Lenin. - Karl Marx in A New Hope
I thought the same thing as you before, especially when I started to watch Andor. As long as you keep in mind that the ideas the characters have come from their material conditions and avoid the trope of the benevolent ruler, I don't see much that could go wrong. Really interested in what others here have to say about it.
As long as you keep in mind that the ideas the characters have come from their material conditions and avoid the trope of the benevolent ruler,
...?
Could you please elaborate on what you meant here? I didn't quite get this, as a writer myself.
Well, the conditions for communism to exist must be there. In our world, we have experience with slavery and wage-labour, as well as philosophers (Marx) that built on the ideas of previous ones (Hegel) to radically change society. The proletariat needs certain precarious conditions to achieve class consciousness and needs a vanguard. You can start your story without the vanguard though (maybe the protagonist will build the vanguard?). But to actually formulate it precisely: For the proletariat to rise up it actually needs to be exploited in the first place. Most fantasy societies will have people with different power levels, so you would need to think of an in-universe way of how they would resolve this too.
The benevolent ruler is just a trope that is loved by liberals, it's at it's core just the old reform vs. revolution argument
It's pretty hard to write anything concrete that works for all possible works of fiction, but I'd say most of them are ill-suited to a character suddenly spouting ML-rhetoric. There needs to be some basis for the character's radicalization that is rooted in their material conditions. Harry Potter for example has almost no chance of achieving class consciousness, as he's quite privileged (and later on joins the wizard cops).
The benevolent ruler trope is just something I see often in fantasy, even if they mean well, it's just the reform vs. revolution argument.
Really interested in what others here have to say about it
Me too! I'm still a really new marxist ime, I would like to hear opinions from more educated comrades
From my experience people tend to have very negative prejudices towards socialism. Therefore if you are trying to convert people, you should avoid being overt about it.
For example my first method is to simply rename terms, if possible according to the world you're writing in. Show socialist concepts as they are in practice, without using any specific term.
For added effect you should portray capitalist media, or whatever is their equivalent in your world, as constantly waging a propaganda war against your socialist movement. Show how they distord terms to the point that no one knows what they're talking about, and how that constant barrage of misinformation renders people unknowing of what socialism truly worked in practice. (I'm precising that last point because many leftists understand theory and all that, but are completely incapable of brushing aside capitalist propaganda when it comes to AES.)
You should also explain why those medias have an incentive to behave in such a way, that's it's not just a few bad apples.
Another way to do it is to focus on the thought process necessary to become a ML. Fight against the great man of history myth. Oppose idealism and put forth materialism to explain why your world works as it does. Reiterate my earlier point about the medias.
Some works are very hard to de-great-man-ise, and I honestly don't have a good idea on how to deal with those. Those aren't really my kind of fiction anyway, I prefer when there is larger world beyond the protagonist(s).-
That's all I can think of right now, but I hope this still helped you.
Thanks for the contribution comrade! I think this is some great advice, this is was the kind of thing I was looking for!
My only real disagreement is that it's ok to outright advocate for socialism using all the same terms, I think we just need both if that makes sense