As time goes on I have seen, both in person and online, an increasing hostility towards reading literature, especially Marxist literature, on your own. Why read it yourself when your favorite influencer/streamer/youtuber has summarized it for you? Why read it yourself when you have lived experience to draw upon? This is anti-intellectualism. It is what leaves us susceptible to fascism. It is born of the perverse marriage of the liberal notion of living “outside of ideology” and the conservative notion of “using common sense”. In practice, it means that when the time comes for you to express your beliefs militantly you are left in a lurch, with the sickening realization that beneath it all you have no foundation. You are just as ignorant as they said you were…
When I was in highschool I was a bit of a smart-ass, and one day a friend of mine who was a much smarter-ass than me told me after an argument, “You keep repeating other people’s words, don’t you have your own ideas?” Needless to say, that humbled me quite a bit, he had a good point. I would only be able to repeat prior arguments, I couldn’t utilize metaphor, or bring in outside examples, if he brought up a counter that was not addressed I would only be able to repeat priors. I was forced to reckon with the fact that they were not arguing with me, they were arging with Wikipedia.
We live in a world of increasing degradation, a game of telephone where we parrot summarizations without engaging in the thing-itself. It’s important to remember that the best way to internalize knowledge, to make it your own, isn’t just memorizing the raw bullet-point information and snippy quotes to throw at people like a Yu-Gi-Oh trap card. The most integral part of learning is clearly thinking through our praises and criticisms of that information. But you’re not done, the final part is taking what you know and expressing it. Writing it down in a complete manner, so that we, in our turn, can be criticized.
It’s not about being right, it’s about learning.
The cornerstone of Marxism, of engaging in Marxist analysis, is having a deep understanding of, not just Marx, but the entire corpus of literature: Lenin, Mao, Ho-Chih-Min, etc. This deep understanding has a two-fold use: The first is so that when we are forced to defend our ideology from those who would seek to misinform we can do so without hesitation. The second is so that when anyone requires or desires guidance it can be given at the moment of questioning. We learn to teach, and we teach to to elevate social consciousness, to set fire to the wool Capitalism tries to pull over our eyes. If we do not do—or cannot do—these things we are not Marxists.
So this blog is for me to practice what I preach. My hope is from now on, when I read, to take these ideas and practice expressing them in my own way, to apply the experience of those who sacrificed before us to my own current historical moment. I hope you will join me here, and do me the honor of criticizing me or using my notes and thoughts and feelings to supplement your own readings of these works.
With all of that that in mind here are some great quotes (I know what I said about quotes, but these are good, I swear) on the importance of studying literature:
There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.
—Karl Marx, Capital Vol. I, Preface to the French Edition (1887)
The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true. It is comprehensive and harmonious, and provides men with an integral world outlook irreconcilable with any form of superstition, reaction, or defence of bourgeois oppression.
—V. I. Lenin, The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism (1913)
Generally speaking, all Communist Party members who can do so should study the theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, study our national history and study current movements and trends; moreover, they should help to educate members with less schooling.
—Mao Zedong, The Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War, Study (1938)
There were political terms difficult to understand in this [Lenin’s “Thesis on the National and Colonial Questions”]. But by dint of reading it again and again, finally I could grasp the main part of it. What emotion, enthusiasm, clear-sightedness and confidence it instilled into me!
—Ho Chih Minh, The Path Which Led Me To Leninism (1960)