I have never wanted to shout "Read Theory" more than I do right now
I have never wanted to shout "Read Theory" more than I do right now
I'm in my campus library studying with one of the other students in my program and there's a group of students behind us engaged in conversation. They're far enough away that I can't pick up exactly why they're talking about this (it could be they're disagreeing with a prof or a classmate or they're working on a paper together, idk) but I'm overhearing snippets every now and then. My favorite one so far being "Marxist theory is less about class analysis and more about how to control your subjects."
The wild part is every time someone says something deranged everyone else in the group applauds them for their "great thinking." Like no lmao you're just regurgitating the same propaganda almost everyone else also believes. You're not saying anything worthwhile bruhhh. I can smell the insides of their colons from across the room because of the amount of stuff they're collectively pulling from their asses.
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The "control your subjects" quote is not even that far fetched, because in order to perpetuate itself, the capitalist class must adopt its own version of dialectical materialism so that it can learn how to avoid or defeat revolutions and minimise the damage of economic crises on its end.
The problem with learning this capitalist kind of theory is that it limits its user to the portion of history before a successful revolution occurs. It tells them nothing about the culture and the society of the economy that will follow, nor about their own role in it. They will lie awake pondering the simplest question that any proletarian who has read even just a Marxist leaflet could answer, as if it were an indeterminable enigma such as the shape of the universe. Such a theory may be able to teach calm indifference when Marxism teaches horror and revulsion, but it must be silent in the face of existential dread when Marxism begins teaching hope.