(Thread IKs:
dead gay comedy forums)
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Raskolnikov38 posted:he's talking about gazi and "being normal". if theres something beyond 2-3 minutes you wanted listened to, i missed it I don't think you actually listened to 2-3 of the clip if that is what you got from it.
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Aug 10, 2022 15:18
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| # ? May 25, 2024 20:58 |
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"be normal" is advice I can broadly agree with in organizing (you are free to be weird in weird spaces) but I don't think that relates in any way to how much theory you read, just in how you relay it
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Aug 10, 2022 15:29
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I'm in the "read theory" camp because the hard part is translating class consciousness to political action and if you don't have the theoretical backbone that gets all hosed up in innumerable ways. nearly all workers realize they're getting hosed but right now in the US Marxism is one of the least popular solutions to it and an organizer's understanding of it is the difference between something useful and half-assed trade unionism
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Aug 10, 2022 15:35
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BRAKE FOR MOOSE posted:I'm in the "read theory" camp because the hard part is translating class consciousness to political action and if you don't have the theoretical backbone that gets all hosed up in innumerable ways. nearly all workers realize they're getting hosed but right now in the US Marxism is one of the least popular solutions to it and an organizer's understanding of it is the difference between something useful and half-assed trade unionism Agreed, reading Lenin's works really helped solidify a lot of concepts for me. At the very least people can at least read the communist manifesto which is around 90 pages. Mao and Stalin's works are also incredible easy and short to read.
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Aug 10, 2022 15:40
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My hot take is that reading, itself, is a skill that people need to learn or be taught to. Sitting your rear end down and absorbing multiple pages of a book at a time, is a discipline that requires development.
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Aug 10, 2022 15:45
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I applied dynamical systems and cybernetics theory to behavioral science until people started telling me that I was basically just advancing marxism, which up to that point I had believed was a failed economic theory. then I started reading marxist theory instead of continuing to reinvent the wheel. 
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Aug 10, 2022 15:45
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the thing is that everyone who lives in or even adjacent to capital has the marks of capital all over their body. being a manual laborer as opposed to a programmer or even a CEO gives you no special insight into what's happening to you or how to stop it. indeed, pretty much every layer of capitalist society comes with its own liberal obfuscation of the class dynamics at work. some of these people have been subject to more formal indoctrination than others and so might find theory easier or harder to grasp, but all of them need it
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Aug 10, 2022 15:55
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Also Brace doesn't say to not read theory. He doesn't mention theory at all. He just says "be normal". Who's going to appear more normal, someone who can intelligently answer questions about their world-view, or someone who resorts to platitudes to cover their own lack of knowledge?
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Aug 10, 2022 16:06
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gradenko_2000 posted:My hot take is that reading, itself, is a skill that people need to learn or be taught to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn22UlVdpw0
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Aug 10, 2022 17:07
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From the first chapter of capital. What, in plain terms, is the relative value vs equivalent value? I kind of get what Marx is saying, he's building up to a bigger point about the role of money as the universal equivalent value. But I just fail to see what makes the left side of the linen-coat equation any different from the right side.
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Aug 10, 2022 18:26
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unwantedplatypus posted:From the first chapter of capital. What, in plain terms, is the relative value vs equivalent value? I kind of get what Marx is saying, he's building up to a bigger point about the role of money as the universal equivalent value. But I just fail to see what makes the left side of the linen-coat equation any different from the right side. this is something you either have to realize from repeated examples or notice in a footnote: when marx writes an equal sign he's using it to stand for the phrase/concept "is worth" or "sells for". the commutative property is not in play. so like, i could say that a video game is worth $60. i could also say that $60 is worth a video game, but it'd be kind of weird to go to a deli and be told that a sandwich costs 1/12th of a video game, right?
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Aug 10, 2022 18:36
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unwantedplatypus posted:Also Brace doesn't say to not read theory. He doesn't mention theory at all. He just says "be normal". Who's going to appear more normal, someone who can intelligently answer questions about their world-view, or someone who resorts to platitudes to cover their own lack of knowledge? Resorting to platitudes to cover your lack of knowledge seems pretty normal to me.
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Aug 10, 2022 18:42
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Taking out my knife to carve some video game slices to pay for my lunch
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Aug 10, 2022 18:44
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unwantedplatypus posted:. But I just fail to see what makes the left side of the linen-coat equation any different from the right side. its just the roles they play in relation to other, hence why they move from left to right and vice versa as they play the role of equivalent. viewing capital as a formal proof where every little thing has to be spelled out to reach a valid conclusion has helped with the tediousness of parts for me at least so that i stop screaming at the book about how children know the identity property these days
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Aug 10, 2022 19:26
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lots of capital is just marx predicting and debunking a liberal rejoinder to some extremely basic point he's making, so a helpful way to understand sections that seem to come out of nowhere is to ask yourself what disingenuous bullshit must have made marx mad enough to spend five paragraphs on this
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Aug 10, 2022 19:27
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Ferrinus posted:lots of capital is just marx predicting and debunking a liberal rejoinder to some extremely basic point he's making, so a helpful way to understand sections that seem to come out of nowhere is to ask yourself what disingenuous bullshit must have made marx mad enough to spend five paragraphs on this i like the three page attack on owen's labor-money lol
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Aug 10, 2022 19:29
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Ferrinus posted:lots of capital is just marx predicting and debunking a liberal rejoinder to some extremely basic point he's making, so a helpful way to understand sections that seem to come out of nowhere is to ask yourself what disingenuous bullshit must have made marx mad enough to spend five paragraphs on this
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Aug 10, 2022 19:38
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In my experience both Marx and Lenin do a good job of calling out who they’re responding to and giving a synopsis of the idea they wish to refute. I just think that Marx’s writing shows it’s age a bit. Lenin is a lot more readable.
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Aug 10, 2022 19:55
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Is it feasible to skip around to later works if you’re say, continuously starting and getting stuck on the beginning of Capital? Or do you really need to knuckle down and go more or less chronologically?
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Aug 10, 2022 22:24
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marx and lenin were both filled with ferocious posting energy
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Aug 10, 2022 22:30
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unwantedplatypus posted:Wait is the Losurdo book considered good? I assumed a book about an Italian calling a Georgian a black legend was being mentioned as a joke it's a good book. verso are cowards for not publishing it Ferrinus posted:lots of capital is just marx predicting and debunking a liberal rejoinder to some extremely basic point he's making, so a helpful way to understand sections that seem to come out of nowhere is to ask yourself what disingenuous bullshit must have made marx mad enough to spend five paragraphs on this most of marx's work is him bitching about his stupid contemporaries.
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Aug 10, 2022 22:34
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can you imagine having to deal with the SDP
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Aug 10, 2022 22:35
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PopZeus posted:Is it feasible to skip around to later works if you’re say, continuously starting and getting stuck on the beginning of Capital? Or do you really need to knuckle down and go more or less chronologically? keep at it. find a companion piece or a reading group. you'll be glad you did.
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Aug 10, 2022 22:35
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reading theory is less reading and more work. block out a period of time, get a highlighter and a notebook or whatever you find useful for study and go at it for that block of time then stop, no matter how far you got. spend a bit of time reviewing what you went over, then think about it for a while, then go at it again later or whatever routine works for you in engaging in intellectual work but that's what it is, if you've bounced off it before you're not gonna get anywhere trying to just read capital like a normal book
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Aug 10, 2022 22:42
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PopZeus posted:Is it feasible to skip around to later works if you’re say, continuously starting and getting stuck on the beginning of Capital? Or do you really need to knuckle down and go more or less chronologically? If you're talking later works of Marx, Capital is a fairly late work. Obviously only Vol. 1 was ready for publication in his lifetime, but Vols. 2 and 3 are taken from manuscripts written up to about 1870 or '71 iirc. Personally I think it's more worthwhile studying "late" Marx because, not to be flippant about it, more history happened and consequently his thinking is more developed than his earlier work. You could always read stuff like The Civil War in France especially because it was very influential on Lenin in State and Revolution. But it's similar to 18th Brumaire in that it was written for a contemporary audience and you would want to brush up on the period to get the most out of it. It might be better to just post about what wall you're hitting in Vol. 1 and try to work through it that way. Ymmv but I took Vols 1-3 pretty slowly, like 10-20 pages per day. Imo part 1 of Vol 2 is Marx at his most dry and repetitive so even the roughest parts of Vol 1 are fine by comparison. There are long chapters in Vol 1 that aren't as analytically dense and read more journalistically so those parts are a more breezy read that don't require as much strict attention so that helps too. MeatwadIsGod has issued a correction as of 22:48 on Aug 10, 2022 |
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Aug 10, 2022 22:44
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The original writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc are important in the same way that budding film directors might benefit from watching Hitchcock films or writers can benefit from reading iconic literature - it is going to the source of important developments in your field and understanding the ways they delivered them the very first time they were able to can allow you to get familiar with their insight, how they used the tools they had to change their medium. But how essential is it for aeronautical engineers to study the particulars of the Wright Brothers plane, rather than understand the principles of flight and thrust, etc and apply that knowledge to modern day engineering and material science? The continued relevance of Marxism is because it has principles that outlived the Prussian state and the Second French Empire and so how we apply those principles changes with the material circumstances including the texts and language used to relate the principles to our struggle. There's plenty to be gained from the original texts but the way to demonstrate their value is to have equally valid, more relevant material being produced for people to absorb and use based upon them, rather than concluding everything was said the first time around and that's all that's needed.
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Aug 10, 2022 22:46
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namesake posted:The original writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc are important in the same way that budding film directors might benefit from watching Hitchcock films or writers can benefit from reading iconic literature - it is going to the source of important developments in your field and understanding the ways they delivered them the very first time they were able to can allow you to get familiar with their insight, how they used the tools they had to change their medium. But how essential is it for aeronautical engineers to study the particulars of the Wright Brothers plane, rather than understand the principles of flight and thrust, etc and apply that knowledge to modern day engineering and material science? The continued relevance of Marxism is because it has principles that outlived the Prussian state and the Second French Empire and so how we apply those principles changes with the material circumstances including the texts and language used to relate the principles to our struggle. There's plenty to be gained from the original texts but the way to demonstrate their value is to have equally valid, more relevant material being produced for people to absorb and use based upon them, rather than concluding everything was said the first time around and that's all that's needed. tahnk you
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Aug 10, 2022 22:51
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tristeham posted:most of marx's work is him bitching about his stupid contemporaries. I relate to this heavily as an American After State and Revolution I lol'd, lmao'd even
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Aug 10, 2022 23:10
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i found it helpful to read "wage-labor and capital" before reading capital proper. it's a fairly short pamphlet and among other things made it immediately clear to me that "labor" and "labor-power" are different things, and capitalists only purchase the latter, not the former
Ferrinus has issued a correction as of 23:23 on Aug 10, 2022 |
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Aug 10, 2022 23:21
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PopZeus posted:Is it feasible to skip around to later works if you’re say, continuously starting and getting stuck on the beginning of Capital? Or do you really need to knuckle down and go more or less chronologically? I found reading Lenin and other later works helped in my understanding of Marx's concepts. I bounced off Capital many times over the years but finally feel better equipped to not only read, but understand Capital. I can't say exactly which helped the most, I read Lenin, Stalin, Nkrumah, Fanon, and others. I think exposing yourself to Marxism through theorists and those who attempted to put it into practice will help expand your knowledge of Marxism in general. Which then makes it easier to understand parts that were previously incomprehensible.
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Aug 10, 2022 23:27
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marx's op-ed texts are well worth reading because there's a method that can be gleaned from e.g. herr schmidt or the 18th brumaire, while the texts themselves are also very entertaining and good. re: "be normal", a typical sign of not being normal is bemoaning stalin's bad rep with relative strangers. dude was very happy to resort to terror to control the party. i get the point that there's been a big smear campaign, but he's also an easy guy to smear.
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Aug 10, 2022 23:39
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euphronius posted:can you imagine having to deal with the SDP
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Aug 10, 2022 23:48
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V. Illych L. posted:re: "be normal", a typical sign of not being normal is bemoaning stalin's bad rep with relative strangers. dude was very happy to resort to terror to control the party. i get the point that there's been a big smear campaign, but he's also an easy guy to smear. I don't think it would hurt to normalize the understanding that where stalin is, hitler is not and where hitler is, stalin is not. the fourth reich would absolutely have been victorious had it not been for stalin. like, people don't need to like him or think the gulags were cool and good, just realize that's how history played out and that had things been different, they would've been different in an unimaginably worse and more nazi way. the people carrying out that smear campaign are the ones who are most bummed out that hitler lost and the end of that smear campaign is to get more people to also be bummed out that hitler lost
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Aug 11, 2022 01:11
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The Voice of Labor posted:I don't think it would hurt to normalize the understanding that where stalin is, hitler is not and where hitler is, stalin is not. the fourth reich would absolutely have been victorious had it not been for stalin. like, people don't need to like him or think the gulags were cool and good, just realize that's how history played out and that had things been different, they would've been different in an unimaginably worse and more nazi way. the people carrying out that smear campaign are the ones who are most bummed out that hitler lost and the end of that smear campaign is to get more people to also be bummed out that hitler lost america became the dominant superpower despite stalin
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Aug 11, 2022 01:13
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I know people say the Manifesto has issues and Capital is where it's at but drat if " oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another that each time ended, either in the revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes." doesn't stick in my brain like nothing else
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Aug 11, 2022 01:20
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redneck nazgul posted:america became the dominant superpower despite stalin yeah but we're lazy. we haven't even heimatized canada
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Aug 11, 2022 01:22
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Nothing to lose but your chains is also a great slogan. Good work my main man.
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Aug 11, 2022 01:22
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Dreylad posted:I know people say the Manifesto has issues and Capital is where it's at but drat if " oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another that each time ended, either in the revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes." doesn't stick in my brain like nothing else I like this one, I always quote it when people ask me about my politics quote:In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!
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Aug 11, 2022 01:22
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Dreylad posted:I know people say the Manifesto has issues and Capital is where it's at but drat if " oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another that each time ended, either in the revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes." doesn't stick in my brain like nothing else
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Aug 11, 2022 01:24
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| # ? May 25, 2024 20:58 |
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Zodium posted:I applied dynamical systems and cybernetics theory to behavioral science until people started telling me that I was basically just advancing marxism, which up to that point I had believed was a failed economic theory. then I started reading marxist theory instead of continuing to reinvent the wheel. What the gently caress is dynamical systems Please do an effort post (srs)
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Aug 11, 2022 01:30
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