I almost forgot that we’re not allowed to do or think anything without first running it past a Beardy McDeadguy that hasn’t been around for almost a hundred years.
You must read the originator to practice something. You aren’t a real capitalist if you haven’t read Adam Smith and you aren’t a real sadist if you haven’t read the 120 days of Sodom. /s
Fr though, theory is great and more people should read it, but also we must burn our bookshelves to be free as it were. Theory is just ideas, both vital to our ability to imagine and build a better world, but ultimately something that should be willing to build on, challenge, and eventually make even the most important thinkers academic.
So yeah read Marx, Proudhon, Kropotkin, Stirner, Goldman, Lenin, Mao, Huey Newton, Angela Davis, Graeber… but not like how a Christian would read the Bible. Read them as one reads philosophers (and a biologist and anthropologist who also did philosophy). Read them critically and see what they got right, ask what they might have gotten wrong and why. Ask what you can learn from their ideas and the effects of different people’s approaches to building on their ideas. When we treat them as secular prophets we do a disservice to them, ourselves, and those who will come after us.
Also like, do more than just read them. You actually have to try to meet people where they are. Talk about the ideas in ways that people are receptive to then eventually drop in where you got them. Convince ordinary people about this stuff as you organize to make more of it happen. Not through smugness but by sympathizing with their actual problems and building a dialog. Practice what you preach, both because it enhances credibility and is the right thing to do, but also because what we on the left preach is difficult to do and we need the practice.
I almost forgot that we’re not allowed to do or think anything without first running it past a Beardy McDeadguy that hasn’t been around for almost a hundred years.
You must read the originator to practice something. You aren’t a real capitalist if you haven’t read Adam Smith and you aren’t a real sadist if you haven’t read the 120 days of Sodom. /s
Fr though, theory is great and more people should read it, but also we must burn our bookshelves to be free as it were. Theory is just ideas, both vital to our ability to imagine and build a better world, but ultimately something that should be willing to build on, challenge, and eventually make even the most important thinkers academic.
So yeah read Marx, Proudhon, Kropotkin, Stirner, Goldman, Lenin, Mao, Huey Newton, Angela Davis, Graeber… but not like how a Christian would read the Bible. Read them as one reads philosophers (and a biologist and anthropologist who also did philosophy). Read them critically and see what they got right, ask what they might have gotten wrong and why. Ask what you can learn from their ideas and the effects of different people’s approaches to building on their ideas. When we treat them as secular prophets we do a disservice to them, ourselves, and those who will come after us.
Also like, do more than just read them. You actually have to try to meet people where they are. Talk about the ideas in ways that people are receptive to then eventually drop in where you got them. Convince ordinary people about this stuff as you organize to make more of it happen. Not through smugness but by sympathizing with their actual problems and building a dialog. Practice what you preach, both because it enhances credibility and is the right thing to do, but also because what we on the left preach is difficult to do and we need the practice.