Written anonymously
~~ recommended by newestbeginning ~~
What is it that the "controller class" people—the movers and shakers, the managers and the owners whom they represent—are most afraid of? It is precisely this: when ordinary people begin to understand philosophy.
Let's start with the conclusion: philosophy should never be seen as a self-indulgent game in an ivory tower; rather, it is the sharpest weapon in the hands of ordinary people. It's precisely this weapon that they least want you to touch—the "elites," the controller class, those who make their living from information asymmetry and the power of discourse, those who are trained and paid to defend the interests of the owners.
Have you noticed the pattern? Every time a controversy arises in the public sphere, a group of "experts" jumps out, using incomprehensible jargon and convoluted logic to complicate simple matters, ultimately arriving at a conclusion that just happens to align perfectly with their own stance. When you try to refute them, you find yourself struggling to even understand the meaning of their words.
“You are a fool! Why, my friend, I spent two years in Schlüsselburg for revolutionary activity, when you were still shooting down revolutionists and singing ‘God Save the Tsar!’ My name is Vasili Georgevitch Panyin. Didn’t you ever hear of me?”
“I’m sorry to say I never did,” answered the soldier with humility. “But then, I am not an educated man. You are probably a great hero.”
“I am,” said the student with conviction. “And I am opposed to the Bolsheviki, who are destroying our Russia, our free Revolution. Now how do you account for that?”
The soldier scratched his head. “I can’t account for it at all,” he said, grimacing with the pain of his intellectual processes. “To me it seems perfectly simple, but then, I’m not well educated. It seems like there are only two classes, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and whoever isn’t on one side is on the other…”
— John Reed
This isn't a coincidence; it's a monopoly on cognitive power. Whoever controls the tools for interpreting the world controls the power to define what is right and what is "reasonable." Philosophy, simply put, teaches you how to think about problems, how to dissect an argument, and how to identify the positions and interests hidden behind a statement. These are precisely the abilities that ordinary people lack most and that they most desperately need.
Marx clearly stated, "Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it." Many people only grasp half the weight of this statement. They remember the grand pronouncement about "changing the world," but they ignore the warning that is implicit in the first part: if even the first step, the essential step of interpretation has been done for you, what will you then have, what can you use to change the world? More importantly, whose world will you actually be changing?
True Marxist philosophy is never about memorizing Kant and Hegel's definitions; it's a philosophy of practice. It asks: "Why do you work so hard today, but can't save any money?" What's the logic behind your rent increases? Why does the information you see always make you anxious, drive you to consume, and prevent you from resisting?
"I was talking to my boy Quan. Quan saying he don't do politics like that for real. Quan also said 'damn dawg why the gas price is so high?' You don't do politics like that though. You don't do politics, but your landlord does politics. That's why your rent is going up, right? You don't do politics, but the boys, they keep sending you utility bills. The boys that keep sending you an electricity bill, a heat bill, a water bill, they do politics. Don't worry, they do politics. You don't do politics like that, but they are. Same breath Quanta tell me 'I don't do politics,' then 'damn dawg, why the ground beef so expensive?' At the grocery store, groceries up 30%. Got you thinking about stealing some from the self checkout line. You don't do politics, though. I know, I know. Just make sure you got a extra $200 next time you go grocery grocery shopping cause them boys over there? Charging you? Oh, they do politics. You hear? They doing politics. So they gonna keep running your pockets. Politics is doing you, my boy."
— Joshua Doss
Philosophy provides tools to help you solve these problems: dialectics teaches you to see contradictions and changes, historical materialism teaches you how the economic base determines the superstructure, and ideological critique teaches you to identify who is speaking and whose interests they are serving. This isn't just theoretical; it's a survival skill.
"Marx is key to the development of philosophy as a 'martial art.' Most people I know came to an actual study of Marxism in exactly this way. It sure comes in handy in a union negotiation when the company has lawyers and cash gushing out of their ass and you are by yourself, and the local is demoralized, and you know damn well you can't survive a strike, and so on."
— anaxarchos
What the "elites" fear most isn't that ordinary people are desperately poor, ordinary people who are poor and yet feel it's "reasonable," thinking that they "don't work hard enough." Rather, they fear that once people grasp critical thinking and a historical perspective, they will begin to ask: Who defined this "reasonableness"? Whose interests does this logic serve?
Therefore, enabling ordinary people to master philosophy is essentially a cognitive power grab. It's not about everyone pursuing a PhD in philosophy, but rather it is about empowering people to see through the beautifully packaged rhetoric and understand how capital, power, and discourse operate together.
I'm not a philosophy professor in an academy; I'm just an ordinary Marxist who has diligently read and studied some classic Marxist texts; an ordinary person, as ordinary as can be. This isn't meant to be didactic; it's a genuine belief that philosophy should descend from its pedestal, return to the marketplace, to the factory, to the late nights when everyone struggles with whether or not to quit their jobs.
"So I went back to the working-class, in which I had been born and where I belonged. I care no longer to climb. The imposing edifice of society above my head holds no delights for me. It is the foundation of the edifice that interests me. There I am content to labor, crowbar in hand, shoulder to shoulder with intellectuals, idealists, and class-conscious workingmen, getting a solid pry now and again and setting the whole edifice rocking. Some day, when we get a few more hands and crowbars to work, we'll topple it over, along with all its rotten life and unburied dead, its monstrous selfishness and sodden materialism. Then we'll cleanse the cellar and build a new habitation for mankind, in which there will be no parlor floor, in which all the rooms will be bright and airy, and where the air that is breathed will be clean, noble, and alive."
— Jack London
No comments:
Post a Comment