Okay halfway through and I gotta say this stuff is written in an obscurantist way. Folks need to stop getting up their own asses trying to sound academic while saying things that are actually fairly simple and are more accurately described through common language.
Also everything that talked about science has the vibes of someone who only kinda-sorta knows things about the philosophy of science from an academic reading of a few books and lacks a visceral sense of the way science proceeds and, most importantly, deals with exploring complex alternative hypotheses the more it develops. Like 1/3 of the way through, the author was literally going with logic like, "the Bolsheviks won so their theory was proven correct" and "the Spanish anarchists lost so they were proven wrong". What's the point of spending so much time hyping up the notion that you're the Marxism-as-science defender and then announcing simplistic conclusions that contradict half of the rest of what they say, including a rejection ofdogmatism?
In reality, we have to tease apart the conditions vs. the actions of the social movements, such as the revolution carried out via the Bolsheviks, and recognize the extent to which they positioned themselves to win vs. inherited a situation produced by multitudes (it's not just one or the other) that elevated them at an opportune moment. That kind of thing is our basic task in a scientific approach to revolution and of course the author knows this because they don't stop at the Bolsheviks and they recognize that theory must be developed through the meeting of historical knowledge and present conditions.
But they confuse themselves and others by writing in an odd, obscurantist, and repetitive way. Not a fan of the writing itself, though I do enjoy the topic and will finish it. Thanks for the rec!
The author has a background in academic philosophy, which is why the writing is the way it is. Tbh, I thought his previous book on Maoism, Continuity and Rupture was better written, but I digress. There's an Episode of Revolutionary Left Radio with him about the book though, if you'd prefer that. It's a decent summary and more accessible.
I encourage comrades to read Critique of Maoist Reason for a decent overview of the different strains of thought within Maoism
Nice!
Okay halfway through and I gotta say this stuff is written in an obscurantist way. Folks need to stop getting up their own asses trying to sound academic while saying things that are actually fairly simple and are more accurately described through common language.
Also everything that talked about science has the vibes of someone who only kinda-sorta knows things about the philosophy of science from an academic reading of a few books and lacks a visceral sense of the way science proceeds and, most importantly, deals with exploring complex alternative hypotheses the more it develops. Like 1/3 of the way through, the author was literally going with logic like, "the Bolsheviks won so their theory was proven correct" and "the Spanish anarchists lost so they were proven wrong". What's the point of spending so much time hyping up the notion that you're the Marxism-as-science defender and then announcing simplistic conclusions that contradict half of the rest of what they say, including a rejection ofdogmatism?
In reality, we have to tease apart the conditions vs. the actions of the social movements, such as the revolution carried out via the Bolsheviks, and recognize the extent to which they positioned themselves to win vs. inherited a situation produced by multitudes (it's not just one or the other) that elevated them at an opportune moment. That kind of thing is our basic task in a scientific approach to revolution and of course the author knows this because they don't stop at the Bolsheviks and they recognize that theory must be developed through the meeting of historical knowledge and present conditions.
But they confuse themselves and others by writing in an odd, obscurantist, and repetitive way. Not a fan of the writing itself, though I do enjoy the topic and will finish it. Thanks for the rec!
The author has a background in academic philosophy, which is why the writing is the way it is. Tbh, I thought his previous book on Maoism, Continuity and Rupture was better written, but I digress. There's an Episode of Revolutionary Left Radio with him about the book though, if you'd prefer that. It's a decent summary and more accessible.
https://podcastaddict.com/revolutionary-left-radio/episode/109071462