Agree. I was a liberal once. Not just a pro-capitalist with shitty values. But someone who read the theory, did the homework, and accepted (a) the limits of human social possibility and (b) that capitalism was the only option to improve the world. But because I was so invested and so critical, I saw the flaws and the contradictions.

The problem is that liberalism offers zero tools to cope with or resolve those contradictions except for curious philosophical thought experiments. Then someone patiently explained a way of thinking that engages with and resolves those contradictions i.e. historical and dialectical materialism.

Another problem for western ‘progressive’ liberals is that they live in an echo chamber and have no awareness of it because they are convinced that freedom of expression is a thing capable of existing. It isn’t, because the ruling class control intellectual production and distribution.

The thing with online discussion is that you don’t have to convince the person you’re talking to, or you don’t have to convince them there and then. It creates a public record that others will see and come across. Simply by providing a counter narrative, the spell can be broken.

It’s like when we try to engage with libs here or elsewhere and they all gang up on you with their ill-considered ideas. They don’t make an argument because they think that everyone will agree that any unorthodox ideas will be treated with disdain ab initio. They can’t make an argument because that requires logic and evidence, neither of which are on their side.

By providing a counter narrative, we highlight this and show to those who see the cracks in liberalism that there are sensible, reasonable, well-read, and rigorous thinkers who don’t accept the liberal bullshit. By engaging with liberals, we create the possibility of escaping the liberal mind trap.

but I feel we ought to engage, just a little.

I agree with pretty much everything you said; I think where we differ is in how engaging just a little should be done.

We each of us has a finite amount of effort to give, and in my view one of the biggest factors in how fruitful that effort will be is who you spend that effort on.

I think that Liberals who have taken it upon themselves to troll, sealion, castigate or enlighten us are one of the worst kinds of people you can spend that effort on. The Liberal mindset has a staggering amount of inherent arrogance, and when that’s paired with a determination to either vex or ‘save’ you, you’re better off sowing seeds on concrete than trying to turn them around. They already decided they were right long ago. And they’re certainly not going to give any credence to a list of sources or an FAQ, if they even bother to look at it.

I don’t disagree that we have a responsibility to educate, rather I think we have an additional responsibility to be discerning about who, when, and how to reach out with that education. It’d be interesting to see how many of us that converted from liberalism were set down that path by arguing with a Marxist compared to how many of us were prompted by questions, doubts and contradictions raised from reflecting on our material conditions.

Between the core and the periphery, each individual communist should work within where they can dialecticaly change things most effectively. The core needs to take the boot off the periphery, and the periphery needs to seize the means of production from the most exploitive industries of global capitalism (imperialism).