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Stupid question
How comes you guys know so much stuff? Talking about liberal bourgeois keynesian economics and shit! Wut?!I'm not really a reader, and I wouldn't know where to start (Leftism for dumbfucks perhaps) I try to read up on stuff on wikipedia etc but I zone out quite quickly, particularly with macro economics or into the realms of philosophy or psychology..
Second part, more serious, without sounding patronising, how can 'we' as leftists, educate the masses about leftism, when there are (believe it or not) people thicker than me out there? No doubt they can grasp the basic principles (if I can, anyone can) ie money bad, equality good (right?)
Anyway if anyone knows what I'm talking about, tell me!
In the end, the ballot must decide, not bullets Jonas Savimbi
Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers Aristotle
I don't think people are stupid, thats a bullshit cop out people use all the time. When you put out perverse incentives all the time and tons of propeganda, if it works, that does'nt mean that people are stupid, its means you have an insane system.
As far as teaching people, its not that difficult, most poeple worldwide are essencially socialist in principle, even in the United States, the biggest obsticle is people realizing that they can do something about it if they get together.
Hello!
For starters:there are no stupid questions.
I will try to answer it.
Don't!Its ok to look at wiki articles for a start,but serious proven information comes from books.
Read Lenin,for starters,read some of his shortened biographies,so you can get a both political and historical info on him and the revolution.
For starters:
Essential Works of Lenin: "What Is to Be Done?"
State and Revolution
Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism
Than you could start reading Marx,other communist thinkers etc etc.
Well,for instance,Vladimir Ilyich Lenin always tried to put the basics of socialism and communism in an easy and simple,but informing and important way,so that all of the people could understand its true meaning and importance.
People wont be interested about 78% of the things we say here,but that 22% could open their eyes.
Skip the threads on revleft about Stalin Vs Trotsky,or,about Anarcho-Juche-what-not-Hell-blah-blah ideologies,you wont learn anything smart.
Honestly most of my knowledge comes from browsing revleft and filtering out the crap with common sense. The rest of what I know comes from random readings and such.
Getting people on board with socialism is pretty easy generally speaking actually, it's getting people to commit that's hard. The basics of why Communism over Capitalism are fairly easy to explain and most people can understand them with little difficulty.
No, don't, you'd be much better off reading more modern and more relevant socialist thinkers.
I would think that most of the people here are university educated. I unfortunately only studied chemistryBut it's not hard to pick up some stuff. Just start off with simple books that help you with the terminology and some of the basic ideas behind the subjects you're wanting to learn. Then, once you get a little used to the language then you can maybe take baby steps into the more complex books (or the actual source books). But if you were to read any book you have to read it carefully. You can maybe take notes of what you think about each paragraph as well. When I started out, I was more interested in history and philosophy, but then I'd read references to other subjects like economics or political figures or even just some stupid stuff I don't know anything about, like language, literature, journalism, Greek philosophers and what not. So I'll be reading a book, it'll make a mention of something else, then I'll go on my usual book hunting tour, see a book on such a subject, get side tracked for ages, go back to my original book (if I haven't gotten further side tracked), forget where I finished off, have to read that book again and so on.
Anyway, I think it's best if you understand a method of inquiry so that you can question everything.
And as to how to educate people? I don't think the concepts that Marx laid out are that difficult to understand. Particularly if you can relate them to examples from the person's work place. Although it's best if you don't preach to them. I think what turns a lot of people off about this sort of thing is the language that's used. Too many difficult words that aren't in common usage. Or sentences that are confusing. As an aside, I quite like this joke: If you think our waiters are rude then you should see the manager.
Well i agree on that,but he needs an foundation,on which he can mount other examples through history,and its always good to know about one of the most important figures in history.Even non-leftist should know a little bit about Vladimir Lenin.
Are you saying Lenin is not relevant?
How can he manage:
Anti-Globalisation
Anti-capitalism
Class struggle
Communism
Dictatorship of the proletariat
Economic planning
History of socialism
Labour movement
Luxemburgism
Market Socialism
Marxism
Nationalisation
Nano socialism
Proletariat
Proletarian revolution
Public ownership
Revolutionary socialism
Social democracy
Socialism (Marxism)
Socialist state
Socialization of production
State ownership
Syndicalism
To each according to his contribution
Worker cooperative
Workers' self-management
Without the knowledge of the greatest revolutionaries.
Among a little number of people who everyone should know about,Lenin is at the very top of the list.
Ignoring Lenin would be like building a house without a foundation.
But again,ignoring Marx would be like building a house without work plans.
You need to know both the theories of Marx,and the ones of Lenin,along side his successful ideas and own doctrines.
So,close the wiki,go to your nearest library and rent out a number of books on Marx,(but,look for the simplified versions,possibly 'For beginners' books.)
Lenin is irrelivant to modern socialism imo, the system he started was a failure, Noam Chomsky is many times more relevant to modern socialism than Lenin is.
I personally got so clever (hah!) by refusing to listen to anybody who told me to read Lenin...
Seriously, I'm just happy that I'm in the suburbs, so it takes a while on the train to get to uni. Gives me plenty of time to read books on the way in (I should mention that I don't have an mp3 player, so reading is all I can do the pass the time), and I read a pretty broad array of books on a variety of topics. Mainly because I walk past a bookshop every day, on the way to university, where they have a few boxes of books, £1 or 5 for £4. That means that I just pick interesting seeming titles from the box, but I can't really think 'oh, I want this exact book'. I guess that gives a broader knowledge base than it would if I just cherry-picked books about those particular topics I'd already decided I wanted to know about. So one day it's about education, another day it's 70's oil policy, another day it's couple therapy. Anything, really, whatever takes my fancy, and I don't know what kind of ideas will be put forward. I'd rather that than just reading endless books, 'education in the writings of Lenin', '70's oil policy from a Marxist-Leninist perspective', 'why couple therapy? And other questions about the damage of the nuclear family in a communist society', all from the same viewpoint, not challenging anybody to think in different ways. I think there's nothing more damaging to intelligence than having a narrow-minded viewpoint stemming from self-brainwashing, that is to say, only reading books that are known to conform to the view of the world you've decided to adopt from your ideology, so I much prefer the system of reading books unaware of what perspective they have, to give myself the opportunity to actually weigh stuff up and decide on an opinion, rather than thinking something like 'I'm a Marxist-Leninist, Book A tells the Marxist-Leninist interpretation of Subject X, therefore Book A must be correct, and I now understand Subject X as it really is. Therefore, if anybody asks about Subject X, I will tell them what I read in Book A'. That, of course, isn't intelligence. That's having a good memory. The two are often confused, though
In any case,an individual who considers himself to be a leftist,must know at least a little about the creator of the Soviet Union,and the man who led the revolution.
That was part because of his successors,although the system was not flawless.
How can he understand even the half of things Chomsky is talking about without reading Marx or Lenin,and gaining basic information about socialism and communism.
It would be hard for him to start reading on modern socialist ideas without knowing the older ones.
I compleatly disagree, Chomsky is not an extention of Marx or lenin.
Audio books. Sounds like you have attention deficient disorder. I do too. I have a very hard time focusing. But I have a other problems too. I am speech delayed and dyslexic. I get more frustrated I think than ADD.
On the other end of the spectrum, I am a chess master.
By having no family … I inherited the family of humanity.
By having no possessions … I have possessed all.
By rejecting the love of one … I received the love of all.
By surrendering my life to the revolution … I found eternal life.
“Revolutionary Suicide”
-Huey P. Newton
As i know,he is critical of Marxist/Maoist branches of socialism.And to understand why,you must know something about both of them,so you can truly understand his opinion on them.
Or,you could just say: Noam criticizes it i criticize it.Which is wrong.
Knowing about Marxism and other branches of socialism is general knowledge.(it should be even to the non-leftists)
@loyal4life:be sure to visit: http://www.marxists.org/ - you can find a lot of information here.
The best way I think to teach yourself on leftist ideology is through autodidacticism, rather than being swayed by sectarian politics that can come with being taught on online forums and through various organisations, where there would be an obvious agenda or interest that serves only a certain ideology.
The internet is full of biased and historically selective sources and using wiki is ok for the basics only if the sources cited are reliable.
The language of Marxism/Leftism can be off-putting to an observer .... maybe a thesaurus and a dictionary should be close at hand ....
Capitalisms failures, corruption and exploitation needs to be taken advantage of through enhanced class propaganda and protests to gain the attention of the masses which should include the basic highlighting of the inherent hypocrisies and constant contradictions within capitalism for even the less educated to be attracted to.
Also look through the many 'beginners books' threads on here as a good starter.
ps, L3Nin rulz
Thanks everyone!I ordered the Communist Manifesto as a starting point, its not arrived yet though. I don't have a lot of good book shops near me, even the second hand oxfam books is quite expensive, though they do have some good stuff. I guess I'll just keep an eye out, and read into what interests me, particularly history. I would like to start reading a newspaper as well to keep up with current affairs, I'm not sure which one to go for though.
What about newspapers? Some of the views of the Socialist Worker here put me off them, I would maybe veer towards a more centrist publication like the Guardian, Independent or Observer.
In the end, the ballot must decide, not bullets Jonas Savimbi
Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers Aristotle
ah thats a good read, was my first leftist book, its actually easy to read as well compared to other books that is.
thats a good idea, read stuff that you are interested about. what times of history interest you? maybe we could give you some good history books.
guardian would be a good choice to start with(if you have the financial basis of buying newspapers everyday), they're mainstream but on the british market probally the most left of the mainstream.
All i want is a Marxist Hunk.
It is true that labor produces for the rich wonderful things – but for the worker it produces privation. It produces palaces – but for the worker, hovels. It produces beauty – but for the worker, deformity. It replaces labor by machines, but it throws one section of the workers back into barbarous types of labor and it turns the other section into a machine. It produces intelligence – but for the worker, stupidity, cretinism.
Wer hat uns verraten? Sozialdemokraten!
Go to YouTube and look up brendanmcooney. (?)
Ive read mostly books on history, physics, philosophy, and religion. I've never read the manifesto, capital, or anything like that.
Just think about it... .that's really all you need to do. If you are being honest with yourself, the answer to the question is quite apparent; worker's democracy
Tho I do admit I have a piss poor understanding of econ-speak, which I have been tyring to work on recently.
I just talk to people about politics. Debate and stuff...
If you have a tough time like reading and stuff, documentaries are always good...
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YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/RATMagainstbush8
[FONT=Arial]“While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” - Eugene Debs[/FONT]
