I didn't join the revolution to read

I like the anarchist tendency to encourage thinking for yourself because I think outsourcing political opinions and generally the narrative that politics is too complicated for the layman to fully grasp goes a long way in enabling a world where everything is treated as sophistry leaving gaps for people to blindly follow ideologues. Something similar happened with science and now we have folks ‘debating’ things that are clear as day if you just look. Encouraging each person to think for themselves isn’t to say everyone should live in a private conspiracy. I think everyone should take a course in propositional logic or higher because it truly helps your brain sort through information more clearly and quicker, and makes you much sharper at catching sophistry. In ourselves we should try to note when we hit that point in an argument when we are arguing just to win. At that point we should (potentially apologize) and bow out. Arguing just to win is unhelpful. Theory is much more helpful once you have your feet under you. You are committed to dignity for all. That is a strong position to assess the world from. The categories are quite clear. Once you are here reading theory, especially examples of successful revolutionary projects, helps you understand the types of tools and approaches you might use (or avoid) to bring about change. It also saves lives to avoid strategies that commonly fail.

Neither theory nor science should be gatekept, but that doesn’t mean studying both aren’t still necessary.