I normally give people https://web.archive.org/web/20250129205319/https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/education/study-guide/ if they seem open to it. It’s fine, but I feel like we should have our own version with our favorite redsails essays no? I also don’t love hitting people with 19th century primary sources as the first things they encounter lol. Is that revisionist? People don’t like big words and they’re gonna bounce after 10 minutes if they get confused…
Thanks comrade!
For anyone taking a peak, I am planning a rev 3 down the line.
Maybe one should publish the work it has done.
Or… the work could just sit
08 Nov 2024… for a bit on the computer.
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Oh, awesome! That’s another banger!
Finished Adoratsky’s work by the way, I really enjoyed it but I’m unsure if it will replace Politzer. Politzer makes some minor errors, but is better at explaining dialectical materialism overall.
Yeah, I skimmed it while making the EPUB and I kinda had the feeling it wasn’t a good replacement.
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Yep, will probably have to add Anti-Dühring and Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, then split the guide into “Basic” and “Advanced.” I’m unsatisfied with the level of philosophy in the current guide, but just dropping those in when the guide itself is already ballooned means it’s no intro guide.
Better to have a true intro section that covers the basics as simply and quickly as possible, and a true advanced section where I can put everything I want.
Sounds great.
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Thanks!
Have you read the translated Vietnamese text books on Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism from the folks at Non-Compete? I’m working through the Historical Materialism book now, and I find them both to be great resources.
Have em on my shelf, unfortunately I intend on reading all of the major works of Marx and Engels I haven’t read yet first but I do intend on getting there!
What are Politzer’s errors? I only read a little bit of his work but the closest thing to an error that I saw was that (so far) it didn’t seem to explain that there are very different meanings of “idealism” that are relevant to Marxism.
Politzer makes minor misunderstandings of internal contradictions. This is rectified in my list by adding On Contradiction right after, but taken as a single source of dialectical materialism, it can lead to errors in how we view contradiction itself, resulting in vulgar dialectics. An example is when Politzer characterizes the crushing of a flea as not an example of autodynamism, instead characterizing it as external and mechanical, while Mao more accurately shows that the winner and loser of a battle is determined by their internal characteristics.
This is a decent thread going over it, along with debate around Politzer’s understanding and dialectics in general. It’s actually what’s prompting me to take a detour from Capital Volume 3 and revisit dialectical materialism to patch up holes I may have.
Thanks, the link is helpful.
No problem!