Welcome again to everybody. Make yourself at home. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is the weekly discussion thread.
☭ Matrix homeserver and space
☭ Theory reading group on hiatus, will move to Lemmygrad later this year
☭ Find theory on ProleWiki, marxists.org, Anna’s Archive, libgen
I had forgotten how exhausting it is to hear libs go on about Trump after a few days like they’re just discovering what “decisions against their interests” are. I don’t think I was as aware the first time around either, it feels somehow more painful this time, like having spent years on and off trying to tell people a car is crashing and them mostly brushing it off or not taking it all that seriously and then Trump is in power and suddenly they’re like “omg car crash incoming, are you seeing this?!?”
It would be one thing if they were like “I see what you meant now”. But the Trump narrative isn’t like that. The Trump narrative says that he is somehow uniquely bad and different from the rest of the system, not of it.
And I think the most aggravating part to me, within that, is the “blame voters” narrative. Seriously gets under my skin. Guy is trying to wreck things and your priority is “hate on your fellow regular person”??? We (in the US) were presented with “genocidal top cop without a primary to vote on” vs. “genocidal shitty mob boss”. There was nothing voting could have done to fundamentally improve that short of being able to someone get millions to switch to a third party and then they probably would have declared it illegitimate somehow.
Recently I find myself thinking of Mao’s oft-quoted concept that one has no right to speak if they have not investigated the subject matter. I find so many liberals commenting on the affairs who, quite simply, lack even a cursory understanding of history. I’ve come to see most liberals as egoists at this point: everyone thinks they have something to say even when their education and knowledge on the matter is limited to an extreme degree. Having thoughts are one thing, but if you do not know what the Nullification Crisis is, or your historical understanding precludes any thought from before 1900 than I quite simply do not wish to hear what you have to say.
Yesss, so much this. That’s one of the things I’ve tried to address in my own thinking in becoming more communist and less liberal, is if I don’t know enough about something, I don’t need to have a “take” on it. Especially I try to apply this with countries I don’t live in. Most of the time, if I’m being honest with myself, I know little about the realities of them. And it’s one of the things that motivates me to learn Mandarin, so that I can learn about China from the perspective of China and Chinese people living there, not through a western imperialist “endless lies” filter.
Absolutely. For example, I have played baseball when I was very little and have watched professional baseball games a few times. But I am not qualified to give advice to professional ball players based on this very limited experience. Likewise, an individual who has not educated themselves on history and read extensively on philosophy, economics, politics etc etc is not qualified to be speaking on this matter. I find many liberals wish to speak about everything under the sun even when their own knowledge of the matter is very limited. I see this tendency often in leftist circles as well unfortunately when it comes to even portraying one’s own views of something as what was intended by an author. I think this tendency is foolish and must be avoided and corrected. Equally as this tendency can come about as a result of not reading at all, it can also come from just placing theory on a pedestal and ignoring actual material conditions.
Mao said “A Communist Party’s correct and unswerving tactics of struggle can in no circumstance be created by a few people sitting in an office; they emerge in the course of mass struggle, that is, through actual experience. Therefore, we must at all times study social conditions and make practical investigations. Those comrades who are inflexible, conservative, formalistic and groundlessly optimistic think that the present tactics of struggle are perfect, that the ‘book of documents’ of the Party’s Sixth National Congress guarantees lasting victory, and that one can always be victorious merely by adhering to the established methods.“ I think that this issues come about both from ignorance of the world around individuals but also on neglecting the duty to study history and culture. I like what you are saying about trying to avoid this in personal life and I think everyone (myself included) would do well by keeping this in mind as well.
I think perhaps the best summery of what I saying also came from Mao, who said, “Only a blockhead cudgels his brains on his own, or together with a group, to ‘find solution’ or ‘evolve an idea’ without making any investigation.” (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-6/mswv6_11.htm)
Liberals have main character syndrome. and its fucking annoying.
Also, I got on Redbook recently to see what the hype is all about. It’s been a really good, mostly wholesome experience. As a Westerner it’s been cool to talk with people from China about daily life and run into the odd culture clash.