I see letterkenny, I upvote letterkenny. I am a simple man.
Anti interlectualism is for losers
would you also try to cure cancer while ignoring all the research published on it?
Yhea, it’s easy! If a patient asks you for help: you help them
With actual medicines, or horse dewormer?
You know, the communist nations, whatever their faults, have moved more people out of poverty than the rest of the world combined, helped many colonies achieve independence, and sent the first man and woman to space.
Whereas anarchist nations have- oh wait they don’t even exist.
Maybe they should have read them books.
Username is kinda on the money.
Look at you cashing in for some easy puns
When you’re given the layup, you take it.
Counterpoint, you can understand the core points of socialism very quickly. One need not read 50 books before joining the conversation.
Counterpoint, you can understand the core points of socialism very quickly
Disagree. We have been subjected to 100 years of anticommunist propaganda, you need a lot of study of theory and history to overcome that
Right, but then you need to know how to make a proper analysis grounded in material reality, identify the main contradiction and organize effectively. All of this can’t be taught instantaneously. Especially when someone isn’t class conscious and has no background in leftist struggle. How do you explain to some sheltered worker that’s doing more or less well what imperialism is, what it does, why it should matter to them even if they’ve been trained to think exploitation abroad is justified, how do you help them become effective in their organizing?
I come from a leftist background, I grew up hearing words like neocolonialism and understanding what they meant, I worked with a leftist (but not communist) org in the past, and even then there’s a whole lot I didn’t know or understand, and what helped me was to sit down to read and listen to my comrades. We can’t build socialism just with vibes and ideals, we need to be grounded in reality.
Firstly, by not intimidating them with a book list
Maybe if we give them short form content, that’ll motivate them to do something instead of loafing around
If someone can’t bother to read a single Parenti book, or even just listen to their comrades, I believe the main issue is a lack of motivation and commitment, not accessibility. No one expects you to read das Kapital before getting involved.
Some people aren’t readers for reasons other than lack of commitment. This isn’t welcoming.
That’s why I said:
or even just listen to their comrades
But those of us who can read should so we can be as effective as possible.
Wrong
they teach it in person, then in practice in good organizations. you can also find it in audiobook, video, lecture form… probably many more mediums, in every language for free. i get great explanations and resources when i ask here.
leftists go out of their way to make theory very accessible, you just have to want to know. are you not even curious about how we have achieved and built the stuff we did?
I posted the meme as a lighthearted joke, but if I can be serious for a moment, the joke isn’t that reading isn’t useful. It’s ridiculing the practice of approaching Marxist texts in a way similar to religious or academic study. It’s also (lovingly) ridiculing mutual aid radicals with an overly simplistic worldview.
Reading is good. Although I recommend people read the things that they’re interested in and that they think would help them in their goals, and not fall into the practice of assigning other people reading or falling into a mentality of chasing after a complete understanding of subjects no one can ever understand to completion.
Marxist texts should be studied academically and scientifically, but not dogmatically and inflexibly. Marxism is a science, not a dogma. Not everyone needs to read theory and be a revolutionary, such would mean revolution is impossible. However, if one is to be a revolutionary, they must read theory so as to guide their practice.
Why wouldn’t learning about politics in depth be like academic study, though? Learning about basically anything in depth is academic study. Sure, there are valid forms of investigation or knowledge which have been shut out from academia, but even if your preferred version of knowledge is more intuitive and experience based, eventually you’ve still got to share it with people and writing is much more efficient in reaching people than one-on-one.
What did you say? I can’t read
My motto is similar:
Be kind.
Cocks gun
I’m done asking.
My motto: Rhetorically cocks gun
ICE Officer: Actually cocks gun
:-/
So many keyboard commandos. Vanishingly few actual leftist militants.
You can help. There is still time to be an actual leftist militant.
i like this one
it feels like “tolerate me or die”
More hands make less work. Pitter patter.
Lets get at ‘er
The US military is always asking for recruits. If you don’t read, you won’t know that “helping them” means killing civilians.
Putting on my D.A.R.E. T-shirt and clutching my state issued copy of the Ten Commandments and snapping an Amazon Ring Camera on my front door, so I help the state identify any of those nasty, America hating Antifa I’ve been hearing so much about.
I’m helping!
I’m in this meme and I like it.
Knowledge is important, but values and character are more so, IMO. Many complex ideas are founded on the belief of/are distilled from basic humanity.
You can’t read a revolution into existence, but you can’t have a successful revolution without properly preparing for it and studying revolution. You wouldn’t want someone to perform surgery just because they want to help, they will almost certainly end up doing more harm than good. Revolution is the same way, we stand against the most brutal global system of imperialism, we must be prepared for it!
If anyone wants a place to start with theory, I wrote a new basic Marxist-Leninist study guide. Give it a look!
This is again part of the problem. You can understand the fundamentals of ML in like an hour or less. A quick start guide being like 12 hours long is insane.
I don’t think that’s accurate, though. How do you explain dialectical materialism, historical materialism, imperialism, why capitalism is fundamentally unsustainable, revolutionary strategy, and more in under an hour?
You can definitely explain most of those in a way a 5 year old could understand in under 20 minutes.
Not dialectical materialism though. I’ve read about it and had it explained to me more time than I can count, and my brain refuses to hold on to what it means.
I wrote a basic guide on dialectical materialism. It’s missing a ton, but should be enough to hopefully make it make sense to start off with.
Thanks. I’ll try it, but I have zero faith it’ll stick this time 😅
Haha, no worries! Really, it’s about materialism in outlook, dialectics in method. The rest follows from there!
I read it. I’ve been reading a lot of complex systems science lately, and it seems to have a lot of overlap, so perhaps it will stick a bit harder this time. Thanks :)
From a Marxist-Leninist: there are some Marxist authors contesting the emphasis on the “dialectics” part of dialectical materialism. Paul Cockshott is a good example, you can search for Cockshott’s criticism of dialectical materialism, maybe if the concepts don’t stick to you you could have a more Newtonian materialist view
I’ve read about it and had it explained to me more time than I can count, and my brain refuses to hold on to what it means.
I had the same problem up in until I had Stalin explain it to me:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/09.htm
(It’s short, to the point and when one “hence” paragraph after the other comes, you will start to understand)
Alternativly if you’re not the reading type:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HAEgTPK-oiU
(Taken from a vietnamese schoolbook)
However else you explain any other concept, these are very simple ideas.
How so? How can you simplify them to take less than an hour?
Explaining it to them without the fluff?
Elaborate, how do you explain all of them in under an hour, even without fluff?
What are you asking for? Like my method of teaching?
I’m starting to think you’re a fed. The dedication with which you’re telling people not to study Marxism is very unusual. I’ve never seen any leftist so militantly defend not educating oneself
I appreciate the effort and I will check it out. However imo the original works (ie Marx, Engels, Lenin) are too dense for a begginer, I feel there has to be a softer learning curve, with more digested content. For example I’m reading the Vietnamese textbook and I think it does a very good job at explaining excerpts of the originals in accessible language. Denser doesn’t mean more accurate or better in all cases, just generally harder to read.
Hey, I’m having the same issue with the denser works — what’s the name of the vietnamese textbook?
0·12 days agoPresumably “The Worldview and Philosophical Methodology of Marxism-Leninism”
https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Curriculum_of_the_Basic_Principles_of_Marxism-Leninism_Part_1
Thanks.
The Vietnamese textbook is phenomenal! It doesn’t touch the areas my list goes into though, and just focuses on dialectical materialism, historical materialism, and political economy.
We need good analysis to guide good praxis, but you can literally learn a lot of more advanced stuff from just listening to comrades, even if reading with comrades is even better.
“Wait a second…is that from the ‘83 tour?!”
This is me. Not into all the political theory, just want my fellow human beings to be treated with dignity and for everyone to have a comfortable existence.
Reading theory helps teach us how to best make that a reality.
Yeah, but so does just doing it. And talking to people about how to do it. The point isn’t that people shouldn’t read, it’s that the should do (and shouldn’t be prevented from doing because they can’t or won’t read).
One could say the same of surgery, that you can learn by doing, but like surgery, without studying what has already been discovered, you’ll be hurting a lot of people unnecessarily to get there, taking a lot longer too. We need to do both.
Eh. That’s the difference between a complex system (politics) and a complicated system (the part of a human body where surgery is relevant). It’s easier to write a manual for a complicated system and have it be correct and valuable. Complex systems not so much, not lease because every context is different and local knowledge is extremely valuable.
I agree that theory is often useful. I don’t think it always is though, and I think it can be misleading and wrong for a long time without anyone really noticing. I mean… Neoliberal economics also has a lot of theory…
Theory is written with a purpose. Neoliberalism is wrong, but useful for maintaining capitalist hegemony. Correct theory is very useful.
Anarchists wrote books too ya know, you can’t just escape reading by changing your allegiance.
The only real problem with the people who don’t want to read theory is they just love talking over the people who did. The Dunning Kruger effect exists in revolutionary spaces.
The all theory and no action crowd are definitely more annoying and proficient at taking over spaces and killing the vibe, in my experience (e.g. socialist alternative here in Aus)
Reading theory ≠ being highly competent, though. Dunning Kruger states that people with low competence (in specific areas) overestimate themselves, and highly competent people underestimate themselves.
Reading doesnt necessarily make you better at things (though obviously it can help). A community organizer that’s been feeding the hungry for 40 years but has never read a political book will be more competent than someone who’s read hundreds of books but never gone out and done stuff.
Both will be less effective than someone that balances both. It isn’t either-or, but both/and.
Food pantries and soup kitckens have been feeding the hungry for more than 40 years and yet none of those places brought about political revolution. This is why theory is not negligible. If you wanna simply help the poor then a soup kitchen is fine, if you want a revolution you’re going to need more than that.
Food pantries and soup kitckens have been feeding the hungry for more than 40 years and yet none of those places brought about political revolution
You, uh, might want to consider how that argument applies to reading theory. I’m all for people getting well-read, but if there is one thing that I’ve picked up from successful movements that bring change, it’s that diversity of tactics is required because there are no golden roads to getting the work done, and you need many people all working in the ways they can towards the results the collective desires.
Depends what yah read though, doesn’t it
Remember kids, you can’t be a good communist if you don’t have any skills. We already have people well practised at arguing on the internet.
