I figure this is a common ask but I haven’t seen a post anywhere in the recent past, so…What is the VERY first book on theory that I need to read?
I haven’t read any theory yet, besides a short excerpt from the Communist Manifesto a long time ago. I have read some Parenti and Blackshirts & Reds is definitely on my list. I’m also interested in history books, biographies, autobiographies, anything socialist/marxist really.
I am also very interested in recommendations from non-white folks, as well as any literature about non-white socialist movements/people/history/theory etc.
Lmao so read Kapital and the Communist Manifesto, then read Caliban and The Witch by Silvia Federici.
ah yes, starting off with 2000+ pages of super dense theory as my first dive into it sounds awesome, thanks lol
Exactly! How better to make you feel part of the gang than making you as confused as half of us.
Edit: but like jokes aside, caliban and the witch is a good read imo. It helps articulate the need for intersectionality within our understanding of working class struggle by highlighting how women’s oppression can be erased even within just bare economic theory like Marx’s primative accumulation. In caliban the author articulates how women’s Labour was exploited long before men’s and in much more violent forms and without understanding of this we are doomed to repeat it. Like chapter one and it’s like Phwoooaaarrr. Fr fr.
Edit 2: my initial comment was a joke like getting you to read marx and then immediately read why he fucked up on women’s labour if ya get me
haha, well as long as we’re all in it together I’m for it! Thanks for the explanation about the other read though, that sounds right up my alley tbh. One day I’ll grow the attention span to read through and annotate Kapital. When that day comes I know I will have transformed myself as a person
I use it for voice training by reading it out loud 🥰
I will never have the attention span to be an academic
I don’t know whether it was the sheer amount of college itself or the mass amount of internet access and drinking that completely ruined my motivation to read dense texts, but it happened. Maybe the combination of them all because after college I called it quits HARD. Being an academic is overrated, praxis is the move (when ya got the spoonz)
Mine is a fat bag of adhd and trauma 😎
Fr praxis makes the world change 💪
I feel it, friend, there’s a heap of mental factors here too. We do the best we can with the cards we’ve been dealt! Honestly reading it out loud is probably really effective though
Reading out loud helps me so much! Top recommend!
CatW is critical reading, can’t recommend it enough.