Well said. It is unfortunately something that seems to plague the western english-speaking internet in particular (I can’t speak to whether similar happens elsewhere). Countless “takes” that are nothing more than an off-the-cuff bunch of thoughts thrown together on a whim. I don’t think this is inherently a bad thing, to exchange casual thoughts, but when it is mixed with arrogance, stubbornness, projection, dogmatic thinking, and just a general bad attitude, as is often the case in arguments online, it creates more needless hostility than it does clarify anything. And as you helpfully call attention to, you cannot “evolve an idea” without any investigation into the matter; that’s the stuff of philosophers who pretend reality doesn’t exist, so they can cosplay understanding it from outside.

And none of this is meant to be criticism that can’t find its way back around to me at times. There are definitely times I would do better to spend the time I do on responding to an internet post reading more theory or doing more direct investigation of things instead.

Another point that occurs to me relates to a piece I read today on Hasan the streamer: https://loloverruled.substack.com/p/waiting-for-hasan

The part I’m thinking of was about marketing and presentation, and how some on “the left” undervalue that. And I know I’m one of them who struggles with marketing as a whole, whether it’s explicitly about politics or not. And I see it plenty beyond myself too. As an example, people who adopt something like a wannabe version of the US empire “mafia intimidation” mindset when trying to persuade others about ideology, rather than finding other means. Of course the working class and/or colonized peoples will not liberate through hugs, but neither will they gain popular support through condescending bad faith takes that disrespect the very people they’re trying to win over.

So there is agreeing with communism, or anti-imperialism, and then there is practicing it, and we are always in a process on that. Agreeing doesn’t immediately unlearn the bad habits of liberalism or the arrogance of western chauvinism, for example.