- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
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- [email protected]
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/39087939
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Illiterate Vietnamese, Chinese, Russian, Cuban, Lao (etc.) peasants who were born into a level of poverty which Americans not only will never experience but will never even witness were able to learn theory while being murdered by the west and by domestic bourgeois. There is nothing that can excuse someone, especially a leftist, from trying to understand their conditions. If American “leftists” refuse to learn theory, it’s because they know that it won’t confirm their biases.
If you won’t read it, then consume it in a different format (as this video says). However, you’ll have to accept that when someone who knows better than you because they did read theory corrects you, you should listen to them. Funny enough, the people (not this video, in general) who complain about being told to “read theory” usually aren’t willing to listen to the explanations of people who have (don’t make me link the article again).
I think the classic “literacy was the most basic tool of communist propaganda” tweet unintentionally really hit something deep in the Amerikkkan psyche. The amount of pride people have in their functional illiteracy is because they don’t want to know the truth, because they know what it means for them (consult once again the linked article in the first paragraph). Giving them the truth in a different format misses the point that they don’t want it, and that’s what they mean when they say “stop telling me to read theory”.
I get that it’s not the intention, but this post reads like praising one set of peoples as innately good and scolding another as innately bad.
Illiterate Vietnamese, Chinese, Russian, Cuban, Laotian (etc.) peasants who were born into a level of poverty which Americans not only will never experience but will never even witness were able to learn theory while being murdered by the west and by domestic bourgeois.
I think this might indicate that they were shown or convinced in some way that reading was important for their survival. I think that’s a little stronger of an understood incentive than anything we have in America.
However, you’ll have to accept that when someone who knows better than you because they did read theory corrects you, you should listen to them.
My intuition is that giving the impression that “you should defer to someone who has read more theory than you/read X amount of theory” is a belief people who read theory have is extremely counterproductive towards building this understood incentive. I think it’s an idea worth letting go of.
My intuition is that giving the impression that “you should defer to someone who has read more theory than you/read X amount of theory” is a belief people who read theory have is extremely counterproductive towards building this understood incentive.
The point isn’t that you should blindly defer to people, the point is that when people try to teach you something, you should listen to them. This isn’t to say that someone saying “well I read, so i’m smarter and XYZ” is correct, it’s to say that someone saying “actually, this point you made is an incorrect understanding of Lenin - when he wrote XYZ it was in the context of ABC, meaning DEF” might be worth listening to and learning from. If someone comes in with citations and disagrees with you, you have to either prove them wrong by checking the text yourself, or accept that they might be right. There’s no arguing with research using vibes, which is extremely common in general (not just leftist spaces).
A related thing: I personally often do learn things from secondary sources (summaries of theory, discussions, etc.), as do many other people, which is fine. However, I accept that I probably don’t understand those concepts as well as people who have studied them more closely, and when someone corrects me on them I look up the corrections in more detail in order to fill those gaps in my knowledge/understanding.
I think this might indicate that they were shown or convinced in some way that reading was important for their survival. I think that’s a little stronger of an understood incentive than anything we have in America.
Yes, of course. The point is that “I don’t like reading” isn’t much a barrier considering people who couldn’t read managed to learn the theory.
I get that it’s not the intention, but this post reads like praising one set of peoples as innately good and scolding another as innately bad.
Reading/not reading theory doesn’t make someone inherently good or bad, but I would argue that refusing to read is a harmful choice.
The point is that “I don’t like reading” isn’t much a barrier considering people who couldn’t read managed to learn the theory.
My point is that not being convinced that it is necessary for survival is vastly more of a hindrance than anything else we’re discussing. People only have so many free hours to allocate outside of what’s necessary to survive, they are not going to put a lot into something unless they’ve been convinced it will pay dividends. There is nothing wrong with lamenting that people don’t invest time into it, but doing that with open condescension rather than with empathy for the value of their time is also a harmful choice.
There is nothing wrong with lamenting that people don’t invest time into it, but doing that with open condescension rather than with empathy for the value of their time is also a harmful choice.
I’m talking about leftists here, not random people. I wouldn’t expect any random American to even know what theory is, much less read it. However, leftists refusing to read are a completely different case. They know better.
I’m saying this on a forum for leftists, to other leftists. Leftists usually get told to read theory because they’re wrong about something, and the theory can correct that. I wouldn’t say this to random people at a community event, obviously.
when someone who knows better than you because they did read theory corrects you, you should listen to them
there are a significant number of people, not all western, who at least claim to have read theory but use “bourgeois” and “proletarian” entirely incorrectly
if this hypothetical person who has not read any theory at all is “corrected” by one of these people how are they to know that what they are being told is incorrect?A good tipoff is when the alleged theory-enjoyer starts out with, “so first of all, wiping your ass is bourgeois, so write that one down…”
…but yeah, there’s some really fucking bad signal-to-noise ratio out there once you factor in social media (e.g., Twitch streamers, a good chunk of BreadTube, etc.) and people who consume it as gospel.
Virtually all of so-called BreadTube is trash and the remainder that isn’t doesn’t really deal all that much with political theory in any unified manner (e.g. Shaun).
It’s an expected result of using a capitalist media platform to criticize capitalism and capitalist media
…but yeah, there’s some really fucking bad signal-to-noise ratio out there once you factor in social media (e.g., Twitch streamers, a good chunk of BreadTube, etc.) and people who consume it as gospel.
Which is another reason that people need to READ for themselves, lol.
Also lol @ OOP with the “I studied law and I don’t read, and telling AmeriKKKan$ to read is undeconstructed ivory tower elitism ackshually” schtick. If my unmedicated ADHD multiple-time-college-dropout ass can handle Graeber and Cockshott, I don’t have all that much sympathy. Obviously no one (well, maybe one or two posters here) means “go out and read all three volumes of Capital in the original German in one sitting,” but good fucking God, outside of a very small handful of internet personalities (Luna Oi! comes to mind), there aren’t that many trustworthy content creators/presenters/whatever you want to call them.
Also lol @ OOP with the “I studied law and I don’t read, and telling AmeriKKKan$ to read is undeconstructed ivory tower elitism ackshually” schtick.
I often wonder why people feel comfortable saying such things out loud, lol. Bordering on “literacy is bourgeois” here.
Cockshott
UwU?
OwO *notices How the World Works*
Thank you!
I’m gonna co…ntinue reading
Yeah, this is why people should read theory.
Eye-opening read, thanks! I’m way too ignorant to comment on the main thrust, so -
I found it useful (if a big bummer, far from my first) to learn about Orwell. I only read him as a kid, could never have noticed all that, and honestly would have likely just reread uncritically, given the impact those books made on me as a youth. Cryptofascist pig, and that’s just for starters, neat!
And then the stuff summed up by this pair of lines, woof. Finally helped me understand something I’ve noticed forever, seen discussed plenty too, but could never quite put my finger on, causally (and I certainly attributed the phenomena and my confusion to some vague, hand-wavy “brainwashing”, as per the essay). Probably needs the preceding material to be impactful/explanatory:
“Every death under socialism is a failure of the government, because it dared to try to solve problems collectively. Under capitalism, deaths are due to the individual’s failures, and therefore no one’s responsibility.”
Can’t wait to hammer friends and family with that shit at Thanksgiving! (tongue-in-cheek, I promise, I didn’t entirely miss the point lol)
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I just thought it was superfluous with the other responses you received.
Still interested in your thoughts.
I don’t know anyone that thinks theory can exclusively be learned by literally reading a book. There’s countless ways to learn, the key is self education of the proletariat is necessary.
Even if that wasn’t true I don’t find “Americans don’t read” to be a very compelling argument. Americans are the most lazy, stupid and propagandised population perhaps in human history. I think they could stand to learn how to enjoy reading tbh.
Americans are the most lazy, stupid and propagandised population perhaps in human history. I think they could stand to learn how to enjoy reading tbh.
However true, calling people dumbfucks and telling them to do something they don’t want to do is not effective.
Not everyone needs to be a thought leader of the vanguard. Instill basic principles, encourage further exploration, provide resources. Some people will get curious/interested enough to read theory.
Exactly, we need a pipeline, an infrastructure, an ecosystem, that gets our basic ideas out to essentially the whole population, and then draws people in to engage more deeply, one tiny step at a time, until a few become a cadre of real theory nerds, and then actual thought-leaders and contemporary theorists. (And note that the theory nerds and theorists are not necessarily “the vanguard” but can/do overlap.) It’s up to us to find the best way to reach different audiences who are at different levels. And as a movement we’re not nearly good enough at this but we are gradually improving. I think the original video is basically correct, but arguing against a bit of a strawman, we’ve mostly moved beyond that point at least.
I mean, I’m a “dumb, lazy, stupid, and propagandized” American, and I actually enjoy reading theory. This is from somebody who used to tell people, “I’m not a reader”. Most of that stems from the fact that I went nearly 28 years without knowing I had treatable ADHD, and then another 10 years to realize America is built to keep people like me from getting the help I needed.
Lazy is a word I also can’t fucking stand, because it’s a whesel word; it’s not a real description of the reasons why people behave how they do, and it allows you to avoid doing the real work of actually getting to the root of people’s behavior, be it an individual or a group.
Lazy is a word I also can’t fucking stand, because it’s a whesel word; it’s not a real description of the reasons why people behave how they do, and it allows you to avoid doing the real work of actually getting to the root of people’s behavior, be it an individual or a group.
This is true, I think “laziness” (in the sense of an ongoing aspect of someone’s character) doesn’t really exist. People can be unmotivated or unable to do certain things due to many factors (ideology, personal feelings/situation, mental health, etc.), none of which are “laziness”.
No one wakes up in the morning and thinks “hmm, now I will choose to live my life as uselessly as possible because I am lazy” outside of liberal propaganda. People are ideologically motivated to avoid things, or overworked and burnt out, or depressed, etc.
Americans read plenty. There’s still millions of books being sold. Americans will read pages worth of social media slop.
It’s just those books are young adult fiction, romantacy and other forms of entertainment. A stressed out full time worker with kids at home and stress over paying the bills, who might be doordashing at night to make ends meet, isn’t gonna want to curl up with Capital when they finally have some time to relax.
I know it’s cathartic to complain, but as organizers our job is to find solutions and meet people where they are, not hope they will come to us. So what do you suggest we do about this?
I’m crawling on my hands and knees begging college educated, white people to read Paulo Freire. Education doesn’t have to look like homework or instruction, and education is an integral part of building revolutionary consciousness.
I’ve read Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and I barely have a high school education.
I have a deep affection for a number of theses in the book but as far as I got in it, it just felt like some of the worst, most obtuse mode of communication in a flowery continental style. Maybe it gets better in other parts or I was reading a poor translation (I think it’s still the most recent one to get printed).
It may be just the way he writes. Hispanophone and Lusophone writers are with that style.
Sometimes I forage mushrooms and I’m very skilled at it so I know how to avoid the poisonous ones. Other people are scared and I’ve had to convince them to eat the mushroom, what’s the most successful way I’ve found to make them trust me? It’s to eat the mushroom myself, in front of them.
Doesn’t matter how I explain it to them, doesn’t matter how much I try to rebrand myself, without praxis it doesn’t work.
And what’s being done about that? Nothing really. We are fighting ideological battles, that’s why there’s 100 sects of political beliefs. Welp I tried to do it this way and it didn’t work, let’s try to rebrand into 101’s way. This time it will do it, trust me.
There’s no solidarity, people are terrible at handling critique, no self-reflection, we just bury it and march forward in some protest. But I still need to somehow make them aware of this and idk how
fine if you won’t read your biosphere will die fuck you
Who is this guy? Is he somebody worth listening to? Is there anything that would suggest that this isn’t just a white boy who got pissy when they were told to read theory?
Just discovered that my workplace blocks tankie.tube lmao
The gist of the video is that he is saying most people don’t enjoy reading so use different avenues to engage in radical education with others on the left, like podcasts and videos.
Picturing a podcast version of Capital that’s basically just an audiobook with three mediocre white bros interrupting each other to joke around every 40 seconds or so
Yeah that’s Marx Madness, I listened to their series on Capital while working a shitty job ~5 years ago. No replacement for reading the actual thing but a good introduction to the basic concepts
“So they measure the linen in yards? Aren’t they like, European, bro? Wouldn’t they use like metric or some shit?”
“Yeah bro, but like, it’s a translation and shit, bro”
“Oh, OK bro. But like, they wear the coats, too? Aren’t they worried about looking like a bunch of [REMOVED]?”
“Yeah, but like, they’re European, bro – that’s just the style over there.”
“Oh, OK.”
“So yeah, like, the classical method for estimating a commodity’s ideal sale price derives from the cumulative value of all of the labor required to produce it, from harvesting and refining raw materials to manufacturing the finished good–”
“Bro?”
“Yeah, bro?”
“I love you, bro.”
“I love you too, bro.”
thank you for your service, i would have been mad if id opened that dead dove bag myself
I just searched “just read theory” on bluesky and read every post using the phrase made in the last year, and not a single post was earnestly telling people to just go read some theory. What is there to “rebrand”?
TBH, this guy seems to be arguing with a person he made up in his head.
The longest, densest, and most rigorous theory I’ve ever read included the assertion that people are not intuitively good at understanding what a good sample size is, and even statisticians are bad at interpreting one. In the same volume the author eviscerates the justification for hedge fund managers and even many HR functions.
I don’t have a well-formulated opinion about OP but I wanted to leave this here.
If your political project hinges on millions of people getting the equivalent of a master’s degree in Marxist philosophy, then just give up now. Most people are never going to get a serious political or economic education (at least pre-revolution). If you love reading theory that’s great! You are needed, but you need to translate the gist of it into relatable and easily digestable propaganda for the masses. The cool part is that many of you are doing that already (meme-ing)! Organize, propagandize, but don’t moralize about reading.
