I really do hate the attitude that some people have that you’re not a “real Marxist” unless you work 18 hours a day slaving away in a factory somewhere, with no education, barely able to read and write. Like, what do they think the vanguard party is for? Not everyone has the luxury of education, and some people get an education and are well off, but understand that it is a great injustice that so many people are deprived of that, and try to make a difference.
I had a second paragraph talking about the idea of “if education is not liberating, the dream of the oppressed is to become the oppressor.” but I couldn’t really quite connect it back to the first paragraph, but I’d say “no education” is just about the least liberating it could possibly be.
Anecdotal, but I’ve been in or around a lot of different radical orgs over the years, and the core members tend to be over-educated downwardly-mobile, semi-proletarianized, precarious semi-professionals. Like adjunct professors or lab techs or anything-medical-tech or semi-permanent substitute teachers or etc. All these positions that either didn’t exist, or used to be much better, before neoliberalism. Just existing in that social layer really makes you deeply hostile to the entire system.
So yeah I guess my advice to young people is go ahead and get that PhD in environmental science you’re considering, and then work at the local water department for a few years until they sell the whole thing to Nestle or whatever, and then just see where your politics land.
I really do hate the attitude that some people have that you’re not a “real Marxist” unless you work 18 hours a day slaving away in a factory somewhere, with no education, barely able to read and write. Like, what do they think the vanguard party is for? Not everyone has the luxury of education, and some people get an education and are well off, but understand that it is a great injustice that so many people are deprived of that, and try to make a difference.
Back breaking hard labor does not equal a communist. My dad is a butcher and it tore his body up and he’s a reactionary.
I had a second paragraph talking about the idea of “if education is not liberating, the dream of the oppressed is to become the oppressor.” but I couldn’t really quite connect it back to the first paragraph, but I’d say “no education” is just about the least liberating it could possibly be.
With no education, it is difficult to even conceive that a different world is possible, and extremely easy to fall prey to word or number games.
Anecdotal, but I’ve been in or around a lot of different radical orgs over the years, and the core members tend to be over-educated downwardly-mobile, semi-proletarianized, precarious semi-professionals. Like adjunct professors or lab techs or anything-medical-tech or semi-permanent substitute teachers or etc. All these positions that either didn’t exist, or used to be much better, before neoliberalism. Just existing in that social layer really makes you deeply hostile to the entire system.
So yeah I guess my advice to young people is go ahead and get that PhD in environmental science you’re considering, and then work at the local water department for a few years until they sell the whole thing to Nestle or whatever, and then just see where your politics land.