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*BOOK REVIEW*
Hey, friends! Now, for today's book review, I think it is very important to keep an open mind. If we want to defeat capitalism and organize the working class, we need to learn from people we disagree with and challenge our previous notions about different things...
Hey, friends! Now, for today's book review, I think it is very important to keep an open mind. If we want to defeat capitalism and organize the working class, we need to learn from people we disagree with and challenge our previous notions about different things...
...so I would give Mao Tse-Tung's "Four Essays on Philosophy" a solid 8/10. I'm not a Maoist, but this collection of essays is a good introduction to the "dialectical method," which Marxists have traditionally preferred as an *alternative* to "philosophy." What's the difference?
Well, historically, philosophers (who have mostly focused on *things* or *concepts* + what they *are*) have interpreted the world, but "dialectics" is a method of thinking that is better suited for a revolutionary who seeks to *change* it. So why not just read a book about that?
Well, for one thing, dialectics is as broad as "logic," "reason" or "pragmatism." Books have been written on these topics, for sure, but that's not how most of us learn to think logically or practically. We know that logic can be applied toward various ends. Same with dialectics.
That's why many Marxists prefer to learn dialectics by watching people put it into action, reading works by successful revolutionaries writing about specific political questions *dialectically* and having comrades point out specific dialectical techniques in a study group.
Some Marxists go the other route + read intros by authors like Plekhanov or Politzer, but Mao's writing style is very accessible. He deliberately wrote so that peasants could understand, who were illiterate, brand new to politics or even unaware of urban life in their own country
This collection contains classics like "On Practice," "On Contradiction," "Where Do Correct Ideas Come From" (hint, not the sky), and the longest piece "On The Correct Handling Of Contradictions Among the People." That last one is interesting because it focuses on statecraft.
It is not directly related to practice, but helps us think about politics and critique our current government dialectically. Because "Maoism" has this reputation in the US as being somehow edgy or taboo, even in socialist circles, many readers will be surprised to find that much
of Mao's writing comes across as quite conservative by today's standards. Many of his views just seem like common sense, and most reasonable people would agree with it. "Ideas should come from practice," "learn from your mistakes," "there are contradictions." But the thing about
common sense is that everyone agrees with it when it's presented to them, but few people are disciplined in practicing common sense 24/7, much less so in service of class-struggle. If any of Mao's writing comes across as trite or banal or even liberal, it is because an extremely
disciplined and militant movement of revolutionaries in the US have been able to force these ideas into the cultural milieu and make their antithesis politically unviable in progressive circles. I think we would all benefit from going to the source and engaging with these ideas
in their original context. Especially if reading Mao alongside reading *about* Mao and *about* the Chinese Revolution. Because that's the whole point really. He was a revolutionary writing about the ideas that guided the revolution. Not a pundit or a philosopher!
