still fastidiously studying marx. full shrew mode now. i've gone back to literal baby basics, the marxism in a nutshell book by robin goodfellow. i definetely didn't understand much when i first read it because after to trying to read camatte, this is a breeze.<br>
i realized a mistake i was making was trying to cross-reference to come to a "unified" conclusion of a definition waaaaay too early. discourse will always accompany specifics of something, it's better to just work from a general definition by a reccomended resource of someone experienced you trust, and see definitions in the context of their authors first before even trying to do your own synthesis of knowledge on a term. i guess that was the best way i could describe the core of my frustration.<br>
like for example, the other day i was trying to understand the difference between concrete/abstract labor, and i was reading rubin and getting way too deep into the weeds. you can't frustrate yourself trying brute force a "truth" when you're not even sure of a generally agreed upon definition.<br>
it's funny because something similar happens with beginners in observational study-- they focus too much on capturing "details" before they've even properly captured proportion, angle, etc.<br>
you have to work from the general, to the specific. in the specific is where differences in belief, opinion, level of understanding etc. emerge. but i think everyone would agree that if you want to draw an apple from life, you should probably start with drawing a circle, and not by defining the shape of the stem. (actually, i know an artist who still learned to draw this way, it's just a much more difficult way to learn how to represent proportions than i think practical or necessary, and he would agree.)<br>
so i'm trying to teach reading in the same way, haha. if you don't know how to draw a box, you've got no business in challenging the rules of perspective. (klee made fun of perspective and broke it intentionally, but he was a competent draftsman before he did that.)<br>
kinda neat that this idea of learning can be carried over between things. at least, i feel like it's what works for me in a *general* sense.