It’s really disappointing seeing someone getting upbears for saying that if you don’t read theory, you’re a counterrevolutionary liberal.

I can’t even get out of bed in the morning for like 3 hours, let alone make time in my day to read after the pile of stuff I have backed up that I need to do.

Am I the only one that feels this way?

  • dave297 [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    One problem I've noticed is that Marx is a very bad writer he's a good economist but one of the worst writers ever

      • ThatsNotPraxis [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        I think there’s a lot to this, because I study math, which similarly has this quality of being “exceptionally specific and hard to read”, but because it gives my brain happy juice I’ve found myself consuming all of it as quickly as possible. Now that isn’t so easy, because of how math requires a lot of practice, but I haven’t stepped away from it yet. But I do find that less applied things are not as fun, whereas things like Chaos Theory

        I think I’ll try to trigger this “letting theory sink its claws into me” thing and hopefully I’ll still have time for at least some things (like math!)

        • AMWB [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          I would recommend to try to draw schematics or diagrams of the different actors and how they interact like so. One of the things I really enjoy about Marx was trying to imagine these systems myself and drawing out these diagrams out and getting those aha! moments.

      • boooo [any]
        ·
        3 years ago

        things that give a historical or event based lens to set the mood and the setting and develop interest before they really get into the super heavy theory and formal logic based stuff.

        You know, I'm sure a lot of comrades with ADHD would love if there was a reading/listening/watch list for theory that fits this description. I'm not saying this to you specifically but in general.

          • The_Jewish_Cuban [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            https://youtu.be/oYodY6o172A I think this guys videos are pretty engaging. I think it's very approachable but still cover some very major and important topics. One of his videos is just dedicated to examining the marxist conception of class.

      • dave297 [none/use name]
        ·
        3 years ago

        I read some books by Blatchford who while having many horrific ideas was also a professional writer and able to lay out the merits of socialism quite well

    • leftofleft [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Marx is not a terrible writer. He is very precise and has an incredible economy with words. He's also not an economist, he basically said economics is an ideology. In Capital he showed how the categories of political economy like money, profit, wages, value etc all arise from social relations between people, while economics studies these as though they are facts of nature.

      I would really suggest putting in the effort to read Marx, it is entirely worthwhile IF you are genuinely interested in communism. It's really not that difficult. It may be boring, but you need to put effort into it and engage with the text.