Tfw can't even get through the bread book

Thanks. It's getting better though so it isn't that big of a deal anymore. Just a shame I still can't read books and concentrate on that kind of stuff

No need to hurry, comrade, just read consistently, like at least 5 pages every day, and soon you will get the rhythm of it.

Do audiobooks help?

...

Pirate a fucking text to speech software if you're this lazy and digitize your library.

I have the same problem pls help

Got one for *nix that isn't Gspeak tier garbage?

a-at least my mom thinks I read a lot

this is literally me

Mommy's handsome little boy.

I'm not even handsome

Oh yes you are. You're mommy's handsome little sweety.

Thanks

You know what instead of a regular reading group when we discuss thing after reading them, i propose we use out time here to better purpose. I hereby decide to post several pages of a book per day. We'll discuss it in the eantime.
What book would you like storytimed comrades?

The Next Revolution by Bookchin.

Some user did that with Armed Joy and it didn't work.

David Harvey's Limits to Capital.

try 60+100s of PDFs

Well fuck it, if that do not make other people read, at least it will makes me.

iktf

Got it from the other thread, but Epub really sucks for storytime. How can i convert in pdf?

By downloading this handy .pdf I already have for you.

Thanks based Bookchin!

not sure of either .jpeg or .png is the best for this

Unless it's a picture book, probably png

Will remember it

Twice the size fam.

What did he mean by this?

HERE TO HELP

If you find books hard to get through, try beginning with some pamphlets or letters. In length they can range from as short as 1 page to maybe 30. I've uploaded some.
These help, as it sets you on a positive feedback loop. You'll feel good about yourself for actually finishing something, and feel encouraged to read more because it wasn't an absolute shitshow. This is how I got into reading more.
Once you get through a few short things, try a short book (Origin of the Family, state and private property is only 100 pages). You should have a sort of "rhythm" to reading by this point, as in trying to finish something like 20 pages a day or so (which isn't too hard once you get there). From then on out, reading can feel like a breeze.

Would you like some ice cubes with that?

Here's some more because I love you and everyone deserves to read theory

...

Is it me or does doubling the size creates weird artifacts?

Relax, I only included them because they're short. Besides, it's not bad to look at other perspectives. One-sidedness gets us nowhere, we should aim to understand one another. Here's some pro-USSR and Anarchist stuff to show you I'm not kidding.
I included a joke book, it reminds me of you :^)

oops, here it is

Alright, afterthat the book really start. Tomorrow i'll upload "The communalist project".
I hope i'll find a way to make both clean and big pictures in the meantime.

I know that feel. So damn much stuff to read that I end up never starting, because I'm afraid I'll miss out if I fuck up the philosophical chain order or some shit.

:(

Don't worry so much about that. Read who you want, and fill in the gaps as you go. Even looking at a wiki page while reading something as reference is better than nothing.

if you can't into Kropotkin try Graeber purely because hes way more contemporary and east to access

Who /brainlet/ here? Everything is confusing.

...

same, I still say it all the time tho lmao

tell me what confuses you and ill try to explain

you dont understand the concept of dialectic reasoning?

Explaining Dialectics:

Orange is fruit

Apple is also a fruit

Orange is not Apple, and Apple is not Orange

But both Apples and Oranges are both fruit.

Happy tailings on your quest to knowledge.

a dialectic is basically the process of two forces pushing against each other

hot and cold seem to be more analogous to dialectics

this is one of the least helpful things I've ever seen, you have not improved my understanding in the slightest

me
(not dumb just keep putting it off

Dont listen to them, tell me exactly what you dont understand and ill try to explain

Audiobooks my friend
I always listen to them while embalming the corpses

its like a conversation but only with material forces

The communist ugly barnacle.
It didn't helped at all.

i'm just having a really hard time understanding what dialectics is and what makes something dialectical

yes

Let me try.
If I understood it correctly, it means.
Two people with opposing views try to find the truth through reasoned arguments.
There can be only one truth, and if both are serious and honest about their endeavour they will find it along the way.

I have awful OCD and read best when I'm drunk and blasting white noise through my headphones.

It's pretty simple.

There's cause and effect. Now just understand that the effect itself can also be a cause, which will repeat on and on.

Dialectics is the process in which one thing becomes another, typically through changes back and forth, waddling its way to another point through cause and effect. It never ends. It's typically waddling because of opposing forces having an effect on whatever cause triggered their own effect.

That's way less complicated than all the economic babbling.

That's because like all beginner Marxists you try to straightaway try to understand the absolute truth, namely that material conditions determine reality.

BUT

this is but the first step, you have only begun pealing away the veil of reality, ergo the veil of Isis, by which nature hides itself.

Let me explain it to you as simple as I can.

Dialectics is process, it is related to language, metaphysics and history.

Dialectics comes from the greek word DIALOGOS, the "DIA" part means "two", namel it means a engagement between two interlocutors, since LOGOS means to speak, or more commonly understood as "Language" or "meaning".

The first dialectician is Heracleitus, who with his famous contradictory statements proposes that even though contradiction in nature, there is ONE reality and ONE truth.

Then you go to Plato who proposes that one can arrive at truth only through this exchange of two interlocutors. That is with Socrates extracting the truth from contradictions (the thesis) the interlocutor posits, from him. Since I don't have the space to explain all of Plato here, what you need o understand is that for Plato contradiction is an illusion as well. There is but one reality governed by spirit and the good.

Then we go to Hegel. Hegel synthesised many of these ideas with German Idealism. The gist of it is this.

There is the world spirit (Geist), the world spirit is consciousness, by which knowledge of objects and reason become possible. It is the unitary state of being.

The world spirit incarnates in many different societies, people, events, institutions, books etc.

However, if things are all one, how can contradiction exist?

For example take A and -A

Or take the I and thou relationship.

If all is one how can seperation exist?

That is because the World Spirit always moves , it eternal change itself, and while it moves it fixes and balances out its contradictions.

So you have a thesis (Apples) and antithesis (oranges), the result in a contradiction.

Eventually the two "cancel each other out", by "negation". The end result is a synthesis (fruit) which transcends the particularities of the prior categories, it becomes its own thing. Out synthesis new laws arise, change continues , and concepts are formed.

This is merely a sketch and things are certainly more complex than that.

Lecture by some random tankie

youtube.com/watch?v=eOmPewjgO48

Stalins introduction, easy to read
marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/09.htm

Lenin for advanced read
marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/mec/

Otherwise just read through some of Marx and Engels works and you pick it up on the way as it's a guiding thread through all of them and it eventually becomes repetition. one year of "leftism" isn't really that much, just keep studying and you'll get it, no worries.

in addition:

don't bother with the half arsed attempts of explanations given here. have a real conversation with someone or study it for yourself without pressure and nothing but honest intellectual curiosity.

Some of the shit written here is so much dumbed down it's beyond me that the same guys will probably shitpost their "stalinism is vulgarisation of marxism hurrrhurrrr" sperg comments.
On second thought, it's hardly suprising these guys are capable of such idiotism as they've just proven how it's their element.

Did you get this from Stalin who thought dialectics was 19th century reactionary german thought and who said it was a "waste of time", because he was too bored to study it, and had his book a ghost written about historical materialism?

top kek

I bet wikipedia is interested on your input on this one, apparently all the rest of your historian collegues just missed this one to mention.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_and_Historical_Materialism

However i find it always quaint how people throw accusations that evidently apply on themself as exposed by their own words.

Audiobooks, bro. Listen to them whenever you exercise or do any sort of menial work that you don't have to concentrate on. It's great for commutes if you're walking or riding a bus, though theory can often demand too much attention to safely listen to while driving/biking.

Don't feel bad. That shit is drier than Ann Coulter's snatch. You might need to work your way up to it by way of more modern books and/or things directed at more casual, working class audiences.

You said it with "work your way up to it", but i feel like this needs to be stated more clearly and explicitly to remind that it's not studying unless they're using more comprehensive works merely as a diving board to then get deep into the original works.
You can then use these as reference.

And whether you're working with an e-book or physical one, it's best to work with the text, not to only read it. Mark significant things that you need to remind, write things down.

It's true that Stalins tutor for dialectics was arrested and killed during the purges for practicing "german idealism".

Sure it is.
Tutoring Stalin or a tutor in the Stalin era party?

Name? Full opinion of the court?

What is it with everyone but me delivering nothing but vague bullshit every fucking time and then getting all pissed because i'm asking for anything substential?
Read this as an >inb4 because you'd be the first one to just give answers instead of bitching for being asked to back things up.

POSTING LOUD AND PROUD JUST HAD MY WIFE FUCKED BY THE TOWN JESTER YESTERDAY!

is khrushchev filtered?

Someone put me out of my misery

It's okay to admit that you don't have all the answers. In my experience it tends to make people respect you more because you're admitting you don't know rather than bullshitting them.

I bet you thought i had given up.

How do you make these?

Screencap my pdf reader, edit size on Paint.

You can open PDF files in GIMP, it will probably result in better quality and smaller size.

GIMP being very slow to download for some reason, i may finish this chapter keeping my patchworked method.
Still thanks for the advice comrade!

...

This basically. I had terrible trouble with maintaining focus on reading. But I started reading 5 pages a day and after a couple month I can do 30 pages a day. Start small and things will build up.

Finally.
Let's see what GIMP have in its guts.

How did i live wihout that?
Anywy, tomorrow's episode shall be "The Ecological Crisis and the Need to remake Society"

Look it up.
As far as I know, Jan Sten was his private tutor.

I can't find a lot of sources not in Russian, but here's one: books.google.ca/books?id=P-y-DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA222&lpg=PA222&dq=Jan sten stalin&source=bl&ots=ufYRWSSnnl&sig=2lB2EnkXspWZdAY9WZghSnjz5QY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj0_6jRqe3RAhWKrFQKHSVKDp0Q6AEIUTAM#v=onepage&q=Jan sten stalin&f=false

There we go again

Rather short chapter today. Shouldn't be to hard keeping with such pace.
Next one will be "A pollitics for te XXI century"

So what is the purpose of doing this instead of reading the PDF?

I'm trying to give myself some schedule mostly. In hope it will eventually turn into a reading habit.

If you have trouble with reading, try watching some youtube videos. I like this guy, although some of you may get a bitter taste because he does touch on identity politics in some of his videos. His channel is just general philosophy, so it is bound to happen. I think his videos on marxism are normally free of that for you fiercely anti-idpol people except one where he shits on the term cultural marxism. also, he's clearly an anarkiddie on the left to some extent, so be aware of his bias.

youtube.com/watch?v=CWF_0lkBhjY

Read more, it's an acquired skill.
That doesn't mean dive headfirst into A Critique of Pure Reason though, you should start with simpler writing, ie. popular novels, and work your way up from there.

Protip: Commit yourself to doable small things, like reading only 1 chapter per day, to get things done.

use David Harvey's lectures on Capital. It helped immensely for me. youtube.com/watch?v=gBazR59SZXk

ur supposed to eat bread not read it use ur grains XD

For myself and the two and half lurkers 'round here:
A Politics for the XXI century

Gonna go read now, thanks OP.

Don't worry about it. It's just the USSR state religion. It's not supposed to make sense.

...

Convince me that dialectics have any none meme value to the left.

Things change due to social interaction and conflict - how profound. I sure needed some tankie to tell me something anyone with any sociological knowledge knows.

...

Done for today. Coming soon, thre meaning of confederalism.

So why are people meming this book so hard? It doesn't seem that groundbreaking.

We still have 5 chapters to find out.

Me. I can only read about 4 pages a day from Varoufakis's The Global Minotaur.

i have obsessive-compulsive disorder as well which hinders my ability to read.
i'll read something very quickly just by glancing at it and it registers but i feel a need to read it over and over again and register each word individually repeatedly.
on top of OCD, i have ADHD-PI (formerly known as ADD) which make reading difficult.. i get so distracted by my own thoughts and can even after reading something multiple times it often fails to fully register. i'm autistic as well.. i don't drink but i can imagine how alcohol would make it easier to read because you're less inclined to focus on compulsions (and obsessions lol) and whatnot

The State and Revolution or Wage Labor for people new to theory and need to get into the habit of reading more (essential material for Marxist)

Das Kapital for people who already are well versed in theory

The meaning of confederalism. Go!

...

So the main thing i got from this is: Capitalism would come back with avengeance if a network of communes seek independence rather than interdependency.
And you comrades, did you learn anything?

Next one is called "Libertarian Municipalism: A politics of direct democracy"

I learned that Bookchin is a meme.

Daily Bookchin dose, "Libertarian Municipalism: A politics of direct democracy".

Reading this chapter, i think Rojava probably won't try to proclaim independence immediatly.

I'd really like someone to expend on the distincion between Policy and administration.
And this part:
Interested me quite a bit. Is this an adequate response to the tyranny of the minority?

Cities: The unfolding of reason in history shall come next.

Cities: the unfolding of reason is a go.

Sounds like ye olde "make a state and don't call it one" to me. Free to govern yourself as long as you don't disobey the demands of the "confederal council."

Next one will be "Nationalism and the national question".

You mean Marxism and The National Question? Or is there another thing called Nationalism and The National Question?

That's because you know it wouldn't make a difference anyway.

i bought phenomenology of spirit today how do I into it? supplemental reading? prerequisite reading?

Seems to be an history of the Left's relationship with the idea f nation and the historyof Nation itself.

I find Bordiga to be a good distillation of Leninist type thinking because of brevity. It's a historical document that helps you understand the mindset at the time. He at least created some interesting discussion here, whereas ML's mostly appear happy to recite literally Stalin's doctines verbatim as if eternally relevant or interesting (except his naughty nationalism, perhaps his one and only flaw!), contributing nothing else.

So apparently anarchists on general tended to oppose the idea of nation while Marxist supported or not nationalistic movements for tactical reasons.

...

...

...

That's all for today.

Anarchism and Power in the Spanish Revolution tommorow

A short chapter, where Bookchin explain you can't destroy power and you need to put it in the hand of the masses rather than trying to abolish it

Try reading a textbook on biology.

Always good to recognize that if you don't seize power, someone else will fill that void.

Last chapter, what future for the left?

What marxists considered to be capitalism's swan song during the first half of XX century was actually the shredding of the last remnants of feudalism;

I'm in the process of making a 20-30 minute video explaining and talking about Wage-Labour and Capital, and if its any good I want to do other books as well. Hopefully it'll help some people.

...

...

...

...

Almost there

Good on you for sticking with it, user. I'm also reading it presently.

Why is everyone drawing these poverty sweaters?

This was the Next Revolution by Murray Bookchin.

Hope you comrades liked it.

I might doing that again in the future. That schedule thing made me read more in the last week than in three month.

Verdict on the book or Bookmeme in general?

curtain call

meme. Just like the fad of tortleneck one year or so ago.

Pretty interesting so far.
What he's saying about identity left and modern protests seems quite spot on giving what i saw in the last years, but anti idpolism is hardly something groundbreaking for the average Holla Forumsack.
Still I want to dig into this distinction between policy and administration. Also need to look at his history work about previous revolutions.