I have never wanted to shout "Read Theory" more than I do right now
I have never wanted to shout "Read Theory" more than I do right now
I'm in my campus library studying with one of the other students in my program and there's a group of students behind us engaged in conversation. They're far enough away that I can't pick up exactly why they're talking about this (it could be they're disagreeing with a prof or a classmate or they're working on a paper together, idk) but I'm overhearing snippets every now and then. My favorite one so far being "Marxist theory is less about class analysis and more about how to control your subjects."
The wild part is every time someone says something deranged everyone else in the group applauds them for their "great thinking." Like no lmao you're just regurgitating the same propaganda almost everyone else also believes. You're not saying anything worthwhile bruhhh. I can smell the insides of their colons from across the room because of the amount of stuff they're collectively pulling from their asses.
It's so much easier - and feels smarter - to just come up with your own opinion on a subject. If you're a reasonably intelligent person otherwise you might even produce a consistent idea. But this consistent idea is not original. Everyone is informed by the ideology they grew up in and our specific neoliberal ideology grooms critical thought in a specific way.
It's not their fault, though. The only way they could possibly be cognizant of this is if they read political theory - oh wait.
I'm talking based on my interpretation of my own journey. Even when I started absorbing marxist talking points from youtube videos and shit I still told myself I didn't need to ready the theory. I assumed any sufficiently good idea can be summarized. So when I ran against barriers in my thinking, I just assumed Marxism was too outdated to be applied, or that they were just bad ideas.
It was years until I actually picked up Marx's works, dusted off the notes section, and spent the time actually reading it. It was only then that I realized I had no actual understanding of Marxism before. I just had buzzwords and talking points. It would have been so easy for me to manipulate those buzzwords and talking points to serve whatever worldview I pleased. Like, for example, that Marxism is about controlling subjects and not class analysis.
I probably would have even seemed really smart doing it.
I get what you're saying, but I feel like for any given thing, you should have at the very least a basic understanding before trying to give an analysis of it. Maybe I'm just finding it difficult to empathise with people who know exactly 0 about something that's become a core part of who I am.
I guess the issue is that to them they already have a lot of information about the subject and are unaware that it's incorrect, which is fair. I'm sure I do the same thing when I talk about physics, seeing as how I'm not a physicist.
Don't get me wrong, that's pretty much my take away from it too. They want to have an opinion on political theory without reading political theory. It's intellectual incuriosity at its best.
I just think it's an extremely common approach to Marxism from people based in western countries, specifically because they get to dismiss a contradictory worldview and feel smart at the same time.
The "control your subjects" quote is not even that far fetched, because in order to perpetuate itself, the capitalist class must adopt its own version of dialectical materialism so that it can learn how to avoid or defeat revolutions and minimise the damage of economic crises on its end.
The problem with learning this capitalist kind of theory is that it limits its user to the portion of history before a successful revolution occurs. It tells them nothing about the culture and the society of the economy that will follow, nor about their own role in it. They will lie awake pondering the simplest question that any proletarian who has read even just a Marxist leaflet could answer, as if it were an indeterminable enigma such as the shape of the universe. Such a theory may be able to teach calm indifference when Marxism teaches horror and revulsion, but it must be silent in the face of existential dread when Marxism begins teaching hope.
I can smell the insides of their colons from across the room because of the amount of stuff they're collectively pulling from their asses.
I'm going to have to appropriate this one for the masses. It's too good not to keep in my back pocket. Also, I know it wouldn't help, but I enjoy imagining you saying all of this to them.
If you didn't go over there and argue with them you did a Liberalism. Ooh, if it's a library you could literally go get some theory from the very shelves of the library you're in and then dump them on their table along with a note saying 'read theory, loser' and leave.