The Communist Manifesto? Is that a video game?
Leon Trotsky? What’s his Twitter handle?
Antonio Gramsci? Did he invent Instagram?
me, before federation: “fuck dude, I’ve gotta skim through these books I read way back when, wanna be on my top form during arguments with libs”
me, now: “oh. these people haven’t read books since high school, and even in high school they were ‘the curtains are just blue’ dweebs”
Libs love to flaunt their L’s for some reason.
“I’m actually too important to bother knowing things. Honestly, I’m a little embarrassed for you for taking the time to read something.”
Gramsci? thats like the metric system?
Gramsci is the abbreviation for Gram Science, the study of mass.
Hot take: telling a lib to read State and Revolution probably won’t work or radicalize them.
Agreed. The Lib --> Leftist pipeline for westerners needs to start with youtube videos that seem inoffensive on the surface, like Second Thought, Hakim, etc. Then after the more approachable video content, they might be willing to dig into theory. It’s like trying to convert someone to Christianity by telling them to read the Book of Revelations.
Because they won’t read it anyway?
State and Rev is mostly a DemSoc vs RevSoc debate along with theoretical details on the latter, it’s not a “self-identifying liberal” vs socialist thing.
It’s a common but unproductive habit to wave favored books at people like they are scripture. I think State and Rev is great, but I would never tell someone to read it as a first Marxist work.
https://hexbear.net/comment/3708784
Be nice to them, they’re just not as submerged in these things as we are.
The average non-marxist has probably only read Marx and Engels’ introductory works and maybe a little bit of Lenin.
e: I know there’s nothing that really indicates this but I was joking
The average non-Marxist has heard of the Communist Manifesto and thinks that is the extent of the philosophical canon. The average Liberal has not even read any Liberal philosophy, like Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Paine, etc.
The average non-marxist doesn’t know that “Capital” and “The Communist Manifesto” are different things, much less that the latter is a pamphlet and not a book.
In what country? In the USA, a lot of people don’t read books unless it’s required for school or work. If they do read for pleasure, it’s often young adult, bs ‘self help’ (ie Rich Dad, Poor Dad), or shallow non fiction that reinforces what they already believe.
Relevant xkcd?
i can’t find it now but yeah :p
found it!
