1w ago

why does this community not have regular theory discussion threads?

No, seriously! If we want communist spaces on lemmygrad to grow, shouldn't the communities engage in regular discussions threads on marxist theory and contemporary politics that will invite/attract users to the communities and help them clear their doubts and misunderstandings about different schools of Marxism? Even a weekly/ bi-weekly bookclub will be good.

18 comments

You people can't have real discussions because you will censor anyone who disagrees with you.
- We're not here sitting around waiting for the 12,000th person to say the same low-effort unresearched simpleton shit we've heard for years. We're here to talk to each other, sometimes we talk about people like you. But this isn't a debate club and it isn't a space where people who don't care enough to read are owed an education.
- Lulz! How are you here then?😜
- What do you mean ‘anyone who disagrees’ with us? You mean the boring dullards who repeat tired arguments like ‘commulism kill 100 million’, ‘xi putin is literally genociding a buncha ukrianian ughyurs rn’ and ‘hamas throws human shields off of rooftops’ that we have all seen umpteen thousand times already? Seriously, we don’t need more of those.
  
  No, worse. They mean them personally who hasn't put any effort into anything regarding the topics and expects to be engaged in rigorous discourse for it.
There is a reading group on /c/theory@lemmygrad.ml. It's been off for a few weeks due to very limited engagement, but with the new users, I'm making another attempt. This week we're just collecting suggestions.
Our active members have been relatively the same for many years and we've already done that so it doesn't get much engagement. We mostly discuss current geopolitical events.
Everyone is welcome to discuss whatever they're reading and ask for our thoughts but organizing a weekly reading group has not been very effective, every person is reading their own stuff so its hard to ask for people to drop whatever they're interested right now to read something they mightve already read years ago.
- We can do a weekly/monthly book recommendation and review thread where members will comment what they had been reading or had read and articulate their thoughts about the said literature. We can do it with other forms of media as well.
There was one, I believe it stalled out due to lack of participation. Over on Hexbear we have a mostly stalled-out Capital reading thread that just started volume 3 (I'm catching up from the last third of volume 2) and a currently very successful reading thread centering imperialism, currently mid-way through Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.
Perhaps it might be worth revisiting Grad's reading group now that there's an influx from the Deprogram.
At a personal level, I do share this intro ML reading list I made over on Lemmy.ml, but there's no reading thread for it, it's just my own thing.
- That's great! I think we should have regular study threads on every Communist/ML communities on lemmygrad.
  
  One thing about Lemmy is that instances are more like subreddits, and communities are more like hashtags. Having one or two study threads per week is about the max an instance can realistically field while maintaining active discussion.
Yeah, there was a community created as theory reading on this sub: https://lemmygrad.ml/c/theory
However, it was paused. Maybe, it will be a great push for the organizers if you try to open a post there asking to see if there are plans to resume it. 🤔
- Thank you. I'll try.
I just posted a couple of days ago on Genzhou which i understood to be the dedicated theory com: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/9127572
I was hoping there would be at least a little discussion around that topic but alas...
If you think that another com would be more appropriate for initiating discussions about theory, i would love to know what you had in mind. I for one definitely support having more and regular discussions on theory.
There is only so much you can learn by yourself, and i think if we really want to develop a good grasp on the theory we need to engage with it collaboratively in study groups, as communists have historically always done.
- I think we should have reading and studying threads in all political communities. And if that sounds too theoretical or boring for meme/shitposting communities like 'TheDeprogram', then we should make new communities for readers. Communities that will not only be reserved for Marxist-leninist theory but also books on world History, socialist history, labor movement, anti-imperialism, anti-capitalism, anti-colonialism, indigenous history, biographies, culture, and sometimes even anti-capitalist/ pro-labor fiction.
  
  The more education the better. We just have to make sure that people actually actively engage with it and don't just read the title, leave a like and scroll by.

18 comments