What are we talking about
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We are an infititesimal speck. Workers don’t even know we are “Working Class” any more. We have no sense of “Self”. No sense of anything. Just trying to survive in this System. Somethings got to give right? Well nothing so far…
The workers are not going to make the revolution through any understanding of historical materialism. Only a tiny minority know what that is, and I am mocked for my pleas on the importance of books and knowledge of history, and am told by socialists we don’t need people to read in order for them to make socialism. If that is so, we must hope for them to make it without any historical understanding of their role; just make it intuitively, out of the self-preservation instinct.
TM
I don’t think it was suggested “we don’t need people to read in order for them to make socialism”, only that we don’t necessarily depend on physical books for that to happen. I would imagine that most people these days acquire the bulk of their information over the internet. How reliable that information is is another matter.
I like books myself but I don’t think we should get too hung about them. I have small library of them but I find when researching stuff for articles etc the great bulk of the information comes via the internet in the form of pdf articles, etc
Very few are researching historical materialism. Many more than that are researching flat earth, or Taylor Swift.
Btw, do you see socialism as a bookless society, like in H.G. Wells’ Time Machine, where former libraries are full of dust, and books crumble like cookies when touched?
We can hardly hope Shelley’s knowledgeable, well-read, coherent, eloquent and enlightened “rising lions” are still to be found anywhere, as we once hopefully saw heroic proletarians abolishing the wages system. That’s a Godwinian and Marxian fiction, you have to admit. And Rosa Luxemburg is long gone.
The vocabulary of Marxism, or any extensive vocabulary, has no place in most people’s lives, and they have no interest in it.
It’s certainly much easier these days to just jump on the Internet Archive or have your own pdf book collection, not to mention ebook readers. I’ve switched between physical and digital over the years, but lately I’ve been gravitating more towards physical books again. I don’t really like messing with ereaders, and reading everything in front a computer screen can get a bit dull after a while. I still think it’s important and helpful to have books and other materials archived though, making them accessible to people who might not be able to purchase them.
I’ve been ridiculed as a book reader all my life, long before the internet. Book readers for pleasure are not valued, especially not when they are male.
And you can bet those dismissing books in favour of the digital are NOT, for the most part, going online to read Marx and Engels. Nor to read anything of substance.
Money-making, gambling, porn, zombie games, jobs and sport are about all, plus conspiracies (for those of that bent).
TM – I have had the reverse experience with people when they learnt of my ‘extensive’ reading habits (not so much now as I tend to fall asleep quickly these days when reading or watching TV) – especially from those who regard themselves as ‘uneducated’. Of course it’s all dependent on how you speak with people and the ‘dialectical’ approach wins out every time against the ‘didactic’ preaching that always turns people away. I know of many who are highly educated and intelligent but who come across as elitist and arrogant. Not implying that you are one of these TM but perhaps your conversational approach might need modifying?
Even when I mention things in passing, whilst having a normal small talk conversation, I am rendered speechless. For instance, the news that dinosaurs did not co-exist with humans has people reply, “Are you sure? How do you know that?”
And I constantly have to dumb down my vocabulary.
I also hate snobbery, and it comes because, as I am not an academic, I am asked “How would YOU know? You’re not a professor.”I’ve had doors closed on me whilst a friend was allowed through, because she had an academic title and I’m just a bum.
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