I’m not saying I won’t, but I don’t know that it would change much. I know Marx is likely fundamentally sound ideology, but ultimately it won’t change the basic, almost animalistic / survivalistic if you will, priorities that I have to focus on as voter in the middle of the U.S. - namely, stopping the growing fascism movement.
It’s this mindset of treading water that I was complaining about. Treading water is important, but if you are so absorbed in the task that you can’t be bothered to search for the shore, then you are just delaying your drowning. Fascism is not something you can vote out, fascism is the thing that festers unabated while people channel all of their political will into “reducing” harm without even developing a notion of how to “stop” harm or ask why they are getting so invested in the spectator sport of an institution where – by their own admission – either team winning means that they lose.
Since a lot of voting is a form of game theory, perhaps you will appreciate the thesis that you can’t just spend time trying not to lose, you also need to attempt to win – even if that means taking risks – because delaying the descent into fascism will not in itself save you and Dems have been playing the game of “this election is too urgent, let’s worry about actual progress later” for literally more than 50 years running now.
Until then, I would just be sitting there reading and agreeing with everything, saying “yeah I know that makes sense… yes that’s exactly right, etc.”… and it would inevitably change nothing and most probably just make me more frustrated about the shit situation we’re in.
I really shouldn’t go on for much longer as the barest matter of courtesy, but you agreed before that the Panthers are a good and helpful example of dual power, right? So things that they wrote may very well be helpful, right? Have you wondered where they got their ideas from? That’s a complex question, but part of the answer is that they studied Marx, Lenin, and the rest! They learned about the theory for conducting revolutionary struggle and used it to guide their own praxis.
Yeah, lots of people sit around all day driving themselves insane by developing an ever-more elaborate understanding of the monstrosity that they are seated in the belly of, but key to that madness is that they don’t do very much about it! Just as faith without works is dead, theory without praxis is psychosis.
Actually, your comment reminds me very acutely of a remote conference I attended where a labor organizer recounted her then-boyfriend teasing her “How can you be a labor organizer and not read Marx?” to which she replied “How could reading Marx help me?” Here’s a link to the segment that contained that story. Though theoretically the subject is broader than Marxism but also somewhat narrowed to philosophy and climate activism (hopefully you can see how your kids’ future has a stake in that too!), I think you might find a lot of it interesting. Since you are busy, I’d recommend skipping to 22 minutes in, because that presentation and the one after it (with the facilitator’s discussion after each) are really the most compelling parts.
Lastly, since I fully sympathize with finding study a bit onerous, I would like to let you know that most major marxist works have audiobooks that have been made in recent years for them! One of my very favorite is Engels’s Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, which I cannot recommend strongly enough for beginning to develop a historical perspective on the issues of labor, class struggle, and political theory. Just listen to it while you’re on a walk or driving somewhere, and rewind as needed.
2/2
It’s this mindset of treading water that I was complaining about. Treading water is important, but if you are so absorbed in the task that you can’t be bothered to search for the shore, then you are just delaying your drowning. Fascism is not something you can vote out, fascism is the thing that festers unabated while people channel all of their political will into “reducing” harm without even developing a notion of how to “stop” harm or ask why they are getting so invested in the spectator sport of an institution where – by their own admission – either team winning means that they lose.
Since a lot of voting is a form of game theory, perhaps you will appreciate the thesis that you can’t just spend time trying not to lose, you also need to attempt to win – even if that means taking risks – because delaying the descent into fascism will not in itself save you and Dems have been playing the game of “this election is too urgent, let’s worry about actual progress later” for literally more than 50 years running now.
I really shouldn’t go on for much longer as the barest matter of courtesy, but you agreed before that the Panthers are a good and helpful example of dual power, right? So things that they wrote may very well be helpful, right? Have you wondered where they got their ideas from? That’s a complex question, but part of the answer is that they studied Marx, Lenin, and the rest! They learned about the theory for conducting revolutionary struggle and used it to guide their own praxis.
Yeah, lots of people sit around all day driving themselves insane by developing an ever-more elaborate understanding of the monstrosity that they are seated in the belly of, but key to that madness is that they don’t do very much about it! Just as faith without works is dead, theory without praxis is psychosis.
Actually, your comment reminds me very acutely of a remote conference I attended where a labor organizer recounted her then-boyfriend teasing her “How can you be a labor organizer and not read Marx?” to which she replied “How could reading Marx help me?” Here’s a link to the segment that contained that story. Though theoretically the subject is broader than Marxism but also somewhat narrowed to philosophy and climate activism (hopefully you can see how your kids’ future has a stake in that too!), I think you might find a lot of it interesting. Since you are busy, I’d recommend skipping to 22 minutes in, because that presentation and the one after it (with the facilitator’s discussion after each) are really the most compelling parts.
Lastly, since I fully sympathize with finding study a bit onerous, I would like to let you know that most major marxist works have audiobooks that have been made in recent years for them! One of my very favorite is Engels’s Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, which I cannot recommend strongly enough for beginning to develop a historical perspective on the issues of labor, class struggle, and political theory. Just listen to it while you’re on a walk or driving somewhere, and rewind as needed.
Obligatory mention of the State and Revolution by Lenin audiobook, though the quality is not quite as high.
New information will not hurt you. At worst, it can inform your discussion with Marxists, but it can potentially do much more.