• Dengalicious@lemmygrad.ml
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    11 hours ago

    Absolutely. For example, I have played baseball when I was very little and have watched professional baseball games a few times. But I am not qualified to give advice to professional ball players based on this very limited experience. Likewise, an individual who has not educated themselves on history and read extensively on philosophy, economics, politics etc etc is not qualified to be speaking on this matter. I find many liberals wish to speak about everything under the sun even when their own knowledge of the matter is very limited. I see this tendency often in leftist circles as well unfortunately when it comes to even portraying one’s own views of something as what was intended by an author. I think this tendency is foolish and must be avoided and corrected. Equally as this tendency can come about as a result of not reading at all, it can also come from just placing theory on a pedestal and ignoring actual material conditions.

    Mao said “A Communist Party’s correct and unswerving tactics of struggle can in no circumstance be created by a few people sitting in an office; they emerge in the course of mass struggle, that is, through actual experience. Therefore, we must at all times study social conditions and make practical investigations. Those comrades who are inflexible, conservative, formalistic and groundlessly optimistic think that the present tactics of struggle are perfect, that the ‘book of documents’ of the Party’s Sixth National Congress guarantees lasting victory, and that one can always be victorious merely by adhering to the established methods.“ I think that this issues come about both from ignorance of the world around individuals but also on neglecting the duty to study history and culture. I like what you are saying about trying to avoid this in personal life and I think everyone (myself included) would do well by keeping this in mind as well.

    I think perhaps the best summery of what I saying also came from Mao, who said, “Only a blockhead cudgels his brains on his own, or together with a group, to ‘find solution’ or ‘evolve an idea’ without making any investigation.” (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-6/mswv6_11.htm)