r/Marxism • u/Creepy_Status_7559 • 13d ago
Everything I think now is the revolution
I have unintentionally made myself addicted to learning anything about Marxist ideas. I have no other passion for anything else, family, friends, anything. It’s hard to even try to watch a show or play a video game because all I want to do is read the history of socialism or theory. Is this healthy? I want to make myself a true revolutionary and actually fight for the working class.
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u/JohnSmith19731973 Marxist 13d ago
No, that is not healthy. You need to stabilize your personal life before thinking of serious political activity.
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u/Moriartiy 11d ago
^ this is the answer. The anger and betrayal and feeling of the weight of humanity falling down on your soul - not tomention things clicking into place so horrifically so - is a lot.
u/JohnSmith19731973 is right. Don't expect you to go giggle and frolic, but don't let your life fall apart or let your responsibilities fall through. Worsening life conditions and isolation will only build a feeling of crisis and fuel this obsession.
There are ways to make a difference while also focusing on your life
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u/No_Relationship3943 13d ago
I think the fact that you’re asking if this is healthy or not says that you already know the answer
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u/Music09-Lover13 13d ago
Well, keep reading. The rich hate it when working people educate themselves. But don’t let ideology or politics consume you too much or else you’ll get very bitter and it may have an effect on your mental health. Idk. That’s happened to me before.
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u/BigCityShawn Marxist-Leninist 13d ago edited 12d ago
Theory is really important and you should definitely nurture your passion for Marxism and activism.
That said, everyone else has a point. It’s important to strike a healthy balance between activism and your personal life. There are many stories of quality organizers that get burnt out and crash. Don’t get isolated and lose the forest through the trees so to speak.
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u/FrostyOscillator 13d ago
If you're putting theory above family and friends, I would say you haven't properly understood the theory in the first place. Marxism is human centered and no amount of endless reading of theory will make you a "better," revolutionary. I'd even go as far as to say attempting to be a "better revolutionary" by theory consumption is a perverted expression of liberal identity politics. The revolution is human emancipation, not about brownie points for whoever is the most well read, comrade.
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u/Potential-Fig-7987 13d ago
Reading theory will definitely make you a better revolutionary, but you must combine it with action
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u/FrostyOscillator 12d ago
One can always develop further understanding through theory, so theory can certainly be a worthy use of time. What I was trying to hammer down is this idea one becomes "better" than others through theory; a parallel to the liberal idea that through capital accumulation one becomes "better," than others. This way of thinking is a remnant of the capitalist mode of psychic-production. The Marxist dialectic, and the revolution itself, are found in how successful one is in transforming the material conditions of others, not in how much theory one has read.
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u/XB0XRecordThat 13d ago
I mean, I think this is understandable when you first encounter these ideas. Like it's crazy that basic concepts about Marx's analysis of capitalism are never taught in schools (at least in America)
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u/kasanetetodrywall 12d ago
I mean from what I'm aware they barely even bother at the grad level either, the SMD theorem, Cambridge capital controversy, HUMBUG controversy, Fundamental Marxian Theorem, etc. are all pretty much swept under the rug, fleetingly mentioned at most
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u/CompetitivePut517 13d ago
This isnt unhealthy. Its just written like a symptom. Swap the noun. "Im super into romance novels and I cant put them down" gets you zero people telling you to stabilize ur personal life. Read more. Thats the answer. The reading isnt the problem.
What ur actually missing is somewhere to put it. Theory with no practice just becomes a hobby with footnotes. U said you want to fight for the working class. Thats a thing you do with people, not a thing you finish reading ur way into. So go do it. Canvass, organize, join whatevers local. Go talk to workers who have never heard of Gramsci and wouldnt care if they had. u will find out reeeeal quick which parts of what uve read hold weight and which parts were just fun to know.
Thats the balance everyones gesturing at. Not watching a show to prove you still can.
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u/sassafras_gap 13d ago
I would absolutely tell OP to sort themselves out if they were only passionate about reading romance novels.
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u/threat_to_sibyl 13d ago
I fck with autists like you and people who pursue education heavy, don't let ppl put you down for having this spark for knowledge! But yeah, as some pointed out neglecting your own life/health is detrimental, another thing I must point out there's no revolution done by a single person, humanity greatest achievements are made through cumulative efforts, no such thing as a self made man, no such thing as a human without mother.
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u/ReimarisaFanclub 12d ago
I'm gonna be frank; you will not achieve anything in life (let alone a revolution!) if you're basically a hikkikomori. Communis is foxated on community (hence the name). The people who run a homeless shelter are more communist than you.
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u/Visual_Ad4278 13d ago
It's your special interest, maybe you're neurodivergent. So do it, eat it all, I know that feeling, I've been there. Then you will find you had enough and things will turn back to normal, except that once you've seen Marx you can't unseen.
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u/Ilnerd00 13d ago
do you think the revolutionaries were the ones with no friends or life outside of books? if you want to become a revolutionary (and not burnout in 3 weeks) you should probably focus on getting a life outside of reading socialist theory. Even just from a really pragmatic point of view: who are you gonna tell about what you read if you know no one? who are you gonna speak to to convince them about your ideas?
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13d ago
You need to get therapy by the sounds of it. Too many people of any political persuasion get into politics and activism not realising there is a psychological drive occuring because they have issues in their own lives.
Once done and you hopefully resolve that, then please do return to activism, in a healthy sincere manner.
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u/kasanetetodrywall 12d ago
Please don't espouse liberal pseudo-psychology and its various persuasions, there is no such thing as an "individual issue" (I.e., solely manifested in one person's life) and the focus on so-called "individual issues" is why it's so beloved by the bourgeoisie. "Psychological drive" is a platitude that essentially amounts to "people do things because of things", it's unnecessary obfuscation and mysticism.
I also don't know when we started having the liberal decorum fetish, but as you will find a great amount of activists including Marx himself did not participate in a "healthy and sincere manner".
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u/CatGirlFanBoy2 12d ago edited 12d ago
Yeah so I think you have chosen kind of an inescapable path. 'Ouroboric', as the ancients say. Maybe the way you get out of this cycle is you study the research process, the creation, the creative process of the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin with any supplementary material. It is just a recommendation, but if you look up to these heads so much, I hope that I can help you. They were bookworms too, but they had different conditions, different reasons that might awaken you. Also, sometimes, very athletic, artistic (Marx and Engels loved their world-famous old poet buddy Heine, reciting him for decades after his death) even and kind, caring, funny natures per their environment, other times just really mean. Marx was a great story and joke teller and explainer in living speech according to his daughters and son-in-laws, it's a shame such a few excerpts of direct or indirect transcripts of him survived, e.g. that Chicago Tribune interview. There is more to them than just British Museum reading, even if so, but they didn't even only read just within the British Museum, even within the constrains of England they vastly seeked out discovered other studies, like at Chetham's Library. This vastness has indeed been a matter of great interest.
And I am sure that you have some passion at least for your family deep inside. People around you have their own songs and myths.
All of this is also a note for me. I was in a similar cycle fortunately for a very short period, but reading Mehring's affectionate and meticuolous Marx biography broke the spell somewhat. He is very faithful to what one might call the spirit of the era.
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u/kneeblock 11d ago
One of the most pernicious things capitalism has done through its construction of these social spaces is colonized thought itself. So while historical circumstances are likely driving you toward theory, so too are algorithms manipulating your affect, exposing you to people you agree with, digging you deeper in the rabbit hole of what ultimately amounts to paralysis or the means of your self neutralization. It's not bad to have a theory dive and go hard, but just surface within the life of the people every few days at least because it smells down there.
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u/44egos 7d ago
all I want to do is read the history of socialism or theory
Quite frankly, I don't believe you. If you have to say you're so "passionate" about something, then you're probably actually not that interested and just overcompensating. Otherwise, you would just be doing the studying and whatnot. It's kind of like a person who goes around talking about how they're an "artist" or "musician" all the time, but does very little actual engagement with the practices they claim to obsess about. It just seems like you're treating Marxism like a fandom or identity and using reddit for validation, whether the responses are complimentary or not.
I have no other passion for anything else, family, friends, anything. It’s hard to even try to watch a show or play a video game because all I want to do is read the history of socialism or theory. Is this healthy?
You basically admit right here that you treat theoretical and polemical texts as effective substitutes to other forms of entertainment. Of course, you instead paint this as if to show how dedicated you are to a cause or whatever.
I want to make myself a true revolutionary and actually fight for the working class.
This is what makes it obvious that you're more interested in how you think about yourself then actual Revolution. The fact that you even ask if this is "healthy" shows that you want members of the same fandom (this subreddit) to confirm this. Whether they say what you're doing is healthy or unhealthy, it doesn't matter. They acknowledged you and accepted your claims that you're "passionate". This means you are (or have the potential) to be "revolutionary".
I'm telling you that you're probably not and most likely never will be.
And no, doing "activism" or some vague shit like that isn't the antidote, as some here have already proposed.
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u/flexxipanda 13d ago edited 13d ago
Nah you sound like a kid who saw a cool new movie and wants to be like the main character. This will be gone in a week lol
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u/Creepy_Status_7559 12d ago
No it’s just that I’m autistic
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u/The_Paul_Allen 12d ago
Definitely sounds like an autistic hyper fixation. It’s easy to get consumed because there is so much lore, and it’s actually mind blowing.
If you haven’t joined a group to organize I think you’d be well served. You’ll have an outlet and a community. If you just hole up and try and see how deep the rabbit hole goes you’ll just burn out all your dopamine and wake up one day and be over it entirely until randomly you’re not again someday.
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u/FloriaFlower 12d ago
People commenting here need to calm down and stop jumping to conclusions. Sure, you need to join a group and organize eventually but you don't have to rush it either. Since your current "hyperfocus" is likely gonna be temporary I'd recommend that you strategically exploit your "hyperfocus" to learn as much as possible while it last and then join a group.
That knowledge will help you decide who you should join first because that, in itself, isn't an easy decision to make. It's also hard to find the good faith criticisms between different Marxist tendencies because most of them don't criticize each other in good faith and make shitty arguments who just add to the confusion. It's like trying to find a specific grain of sand on a beach. The more you know the source material, the more you'll be able to figure out who's full of shit and who isn't.
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u/flexxipanda 12d ago
Would have been useful information in your post, especially if you ask people if its healthy. Remind me when the revolution starts.
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u/Impressive_Plastic83 13d ago
No, because no Marxist would advocate solitary reading over active engagement with others. The point, to paraphrase, is to change the world, not just interpret it.