Perhaps I didn’t communicate this well, but that was kind of central to my point: the work they did has grown enough beyond their initial writings that we don’t really need to fixate so much on the original texts.

For instance, I really liked China Mieville’s “A Specter, Haunting”. He kind of summarized The Communist Manifesto, and I thought it was more readable than the original. It was easier for me to engage with, and he placed it in modern context.

To put my point another way, I think we should focus more on the ideas rather than the thinkers.

I want to clarify my point. I’m definitely not dismissing the importance of these figures or the value of reading them.

What I’m saying is that I think people put too much emphasis on what their opinions were rather than just learning from their ideas and synthesizing them with the ideas of their contemporaries and intellectual progenitors.

To go back to my example, there’s a meme among creationists that Charles Darwin recanted his theory of evolution on his deathbed. It’s baseless, but more importantly it’s irrelevant. The value of his ideas are not dependent on what he believed. He’s notable because he contributed to a framework on which we hang a larger understanding.

Similarly, I think Marx et. al. contributed ideas that are still very useful to our collective discourse. But their opinions are not prophesy, and I think people should focus more on the collective wisdom of the fields that they birthed rather than the specific opinions they personally held.

Frankly, I feel like I’m alone in this take, but I think people shouldn’t spend so much attention basing their politics primarily on references to philosophers who died more than a century prior.

These are important figures for historical study, but we don’t base our modern understanding about genetics on the work of Darwin and Mendel: we base these on the work of Watson, and Crick, and Franklin, and Margulis, and Sanger, and hundreds (or thousands) of people who carried the work forward since.

We still teach starting with the early folks to give context. But they aren’t the basis for our beliefs.

This goes for Marxists AND anarchists (and everyone else): sell your ideas in the modern age.

What’s LMBO?

You’re welcome to your opinion, but what’s funny is that I live in Oakland in a household of three on a joint income of $160k. We live in a two bedroom apartment near Lake Merritt that costs $2500 per month. And we’re pretty comfortable.

It sounds like you and I are neighbors. If you’re having a harder time than I am I don’t want to invalidate your experience. But not everyone who feels financially constrained is poor, imo.

I saw it, and it said that a household of eight living on an income of $200k would be “low income”.

First, “low income” is not poor, either legally or in the informal definition of the word. Even according to the chart you’re referencing, $200k is far above the poverty line. It’s more than twice the cutoff for “extremely low income”.

Second, this is also based on an absurd qualifier: It’s only “low” if you’re trying to support seven dependents.

By this logic, $300k a year is poor too (if you’re supporting a household of 12), and a million a year is also poor (if you’re supporting a household of 40 in San Francisco).

This is silly. If your monthly income is $16k you aren’t poor.

You can still be broke. You can be in debt. But no: you are not poor.

I’m not saying that you can’t run out of money if you make $200k. I’m saying that it’s not poor.

If earning well above average in an area with a high concentration of high earners can be poor, the word means nothing.

$200k is not poor in San Francisco.

It’s still significantly above average, even in San Francisco.

I mean no offense, but I don’t think this is true.

I don’t think anyone who makes $200,000 a year is considered poor under legal definitions or under the casual common use of the term.

You could make $200k and be in debt. You could make $200k and be in a precarious situation. But I don’t think you can make $200k and qualify as in poverty, either legally or in the court of public opinion.

Okay, but that’s not what poor means.

No?

This question makes no sense.

What exactly is in the picture though? Is the scratch-off lottery ticket a liberal fascist who has been scratched off? Is that the metaphor?

I don’t understand what the meme means.

Also, does this have alt text? If so, how do I view it?

I don’t think it’s wishful thinking so much as an analysis. It’s opinion, but I’m not really describing a hope for the future so much as my assessment on the present.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

I assure you that no one who has ever met him has made that mistake.

Also, I feel sad for you. If you’re this unable to conceive of a person who knows something you don’t know I suspect you’re losing out on every opportunity for growth that passes your way.

When I read comments like this I wonder where you live and what your situation is.

Because I see signs of radical change all around me. It’s a long journey, and victory is uncertain. But I’m grateful that I don’t suffer from a lonely sense of doomed isolation.

I live in Oakland, California, and here I feel the longing for radical change in the air. I’m sorry that you don’t. Where do you live? Do you have a local political community?

It’s pay walled.

Okay. That’s what I thought. So can you see where my confusion is coming from? Because I didn’t dismiss the utility of violence.

Did you possibly misread my comment? I described violence and non-violence as synergistic practices and ridiculed people who fail to understand that neither one can function independent of the other.

I mean no disrespect, but you’re perpetuating a myth.

Revolutionary action relies heavily on benign protest for cover and recruitment. Anyone who wants to see a radical overthrow of the government should be thrilled by the No Kings marches.

I have this conversation often with a very experienced, very radical anarchist frequently. He constantly laments the wastefulness and short-sightedness of radicals who shit on the people who cultivate the recruiting pool and create giant, peaceful crowds for the more extreme element to operate concealed within, because they’re too concerned with gatekeeping and value signaling to learn tactics.

Be radical. But also: understand that peaceful protest has a very important role to play.