I think you should reevaluate your approach to some of these problems. But often people, even other Marxists, tend to mischaracterize PotO out of hand. Tbh the wiki isn’t very good.
To (poorly) demonstrate the method, I’ll pose a problem. How do you solve a specific problem without a general understanding?
Would having me fill in the middle work, between the very general and very specific, convince you of my methods? You already seem very skeptical, which is good, but it can make poor soil to grow understanding. Skepticism isn’t criticism, bit its IMO a good quality to have to be a critical thinker. Another, is curiosity or a self directed desire for finding truth.
I don’t believe I can (or even attempt to) deposit the info into you in a couple Lemmy comments. I am willing to demonstrate my own understanding honestly, if you are willing/able to to be critical of not just my ideas but your own as well. I absolutely try and do this at every step, in fact I would say that learning to be critical of my own ideas was a prerequisite for understanding Marxism, rather than just adopting this or that belief system.
My one major criticism so far is that you don’t seem to have a theory of mind or change when referring to leftists. Its gonna be hard to good faith work together if you have like prejudged me. And vice versa! Which is why I ask for clarity. Honestly, there’s a lot of this prejudgement baked into general discourse, so its def not all on you or me.
Leftists fall into it as well. But that’s why I like PotO so much, its demanding. The method itself is completely against the very concept of just memorizing rote statements, or delivering them to be memorized. Friere literally defines this kind of teaching as oppression, and criticizes the left for adopting it often. To Friere, “authority must always be on the side of freedom,” which conceptually, handles the “Stalin factor.”
I can recommend many books, for example I think that Socialism: Utopian and Scientific is a better “beginner” text for your purposes. The manifesto is great but it doesn’t speak to me the way it speaks to others. I def needed to get some other understanding, theoretical and historic, before coming back to the manifesto and really seeing why it was such an important doc at the time
I think you should reevaluate your approach to some of these problems. But often people, even other Marxists, tend to mischaracterize PotO out of hand. Tbh the wiki isn’t very good.
To (poorly) demonstrate the method, I’ll pose a problem. How do you solve a specific problem without a general understanding?
Would having me fill in the middle work, between the very general and very specific, convince you of my methods? You already seem very skeptical, which is good, but it can make poor soil to grow understanding. Skepticism isn’t criticism, bit its IMO a good quality to have to be a critical thinker. Another, is curiosity or a self directed desire for finding truth.
I don’t believe I can (or even attempt to) deposit the info into you in a couple Lemmy comments. I am willing to demonstrate my own understanding honestly, if you are willing/able to to be critical of not just my ideas but your own as well. I absolutely try and do this at every step, in fact I would say that learning to be critical of my own ideas was a prerequisite for understanding Marxism, rather than just adopting this or that belief system.
My one major criticism so far is that you don’t seem to have a theory of mind or change when referring to leftists. Its gonna be hard to good faith work together if you have like prejudged me. And vice versa! Which is why I ask for clarity. Honestly, there’s a lot of this prejudgement baked into general discourse, so its def not all on you or me.
Leftists fall into it as well. But that’s why I like PotO so much, its demanding. The method itself is completely against the very concept of just memorizing rote statements, or delivering them to be memorized. Friere literally defines this kind of teaching as oppression, and criticizes the left for adopting it often. To Friere, “authority must always be on the side of freedom,” which conceptually, handles the “Stalin factor.”
I can recommend many books, for example I think that Socialism: Utopian and Scientific is a better “beginner” text for your purposes. The manifesto is great but it doesn’t speak to me the way it speaks to others. I def needed to get some other understanding, theoretical and historic, before coming back to the manifesto and really seeing why it was such an important doc at the time