So, I’m currently reading On Contradiction, just got done with Chapter 3

And I came across this banger “The dogmatists do not observe this principle; they do not understand that conditions differ in different kinds of revolution and so do not understand that different methods should be used to resolve different contradictions; on the contrary, they invariably adopt what they imagine to be an unalterable formula and arbitrarily apply it everywhere, which only causes setbacks to the revolution or makes a sorry mess of what was originally well done.”

Mao Zedong in On Authority, Ch. 3, par. 8

Mao Zedong would have completely been against modern-day MLMs and saying stuff like “China is capitalist because they don’t do XYZ”

  • MarxMadness@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    My favorite is when you bring some Mao into a conversation, get “oppose book worship!” thrown back at you, then after further discussion you start to think they haven’t actually read that beyond the quote itself.

    Strangely enough, within the Communist Party there are also people who always say in a discussion, “Show me where it’s written in the book.” When we say that a directive of a higher organ of leadership is correct, that is not just because it comes from “a higher organ of leadership” but because its contents conform with both the objective and subjective circumstances of the struggle and meet its requirements…

    We need books, but we must overcome book worship, which is divorced from the actual situation.

    It’s basically “theory isn’t prophecy; learn from it, but make sure it applies to your actual situation.” It’s certainly not “I don’t need to read anything at all.”

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.ml
      0·
      2 months ago

      Exactly, books provide you with a foundation of knowledge, but they’re not instruction guides. The knowledge has to then be applied to solving problems within the current circumstances one finds themselves in. Furthermore, our understanding evolves over time. The whole idea of dialectics is that it’s a dynamic, living process. People who insist on some absolute truths lack fundamental understanding of what Marxism is.