At what point does someone who is mostly reasonable, with a few bad takes become someone not worth listening to? Also, can we separate the art from the artist? For example with Badempanada, he has a couple bad China takes and is kind of toxic online, but he’s well researched, so it really depends whether ML’s I’ve met listen to him. Do you listen to Maoists who are good 95% of the time, but might have a bad Gonzalo take from time to time? Or is there enough agreeable content on the internet that you can just listen to those you agree with? Are certain bad takes just too bad? Will you stop listening to someone after they say something transphobic, even if they’re good the rest of the time like Paul Cockshott? Or if someone is willing to talk with someone like a Larouchite, are they automatically a right deviationist with nothing worthwhile to say, or are the just forming a United front on a specific issue?
Even if it was possible just to engage with people you agree with, I would strongly discourage it. Listen to any Michael Parenti lecture, for instance, and you will hear him quoting presidents and the owners of multinationals. You’ve got to analyse them to know what they’re doing. Many liberals think Marxists are conspiracy theorists, but that doesn’t stand up when the Marxists are literally citing the monster saying ‘yes, I’m the monster’.
I think it helps to clarify why you’re listening to or reading someone. I’ll happily read right wing sources to better understand them. For example, Keynes, Smith, Hayek, Rawls, Nozick, Popper, Berlin, Weber. I don’t really concern myself with the trendy people or topics. I don’t bother reading or watching most news. I’m quite out the loop. I have no idea who Andrew Tate is, for example, other than a hazy notion of some kind of podcaster. But if I want or need to know what someone is about, the only way is to go direct to the source. But I don’t purposely engage except on a need to know basis.
As for deciding who is worth reading in a positive sense, even the good guys have problematic takes. David Harvey is fantastic but he’s shit on China, for example. The trick is to read everyone critically. Even Marx, Engel’s, and Lenin. As Mao put it: avoid book worship. Everyone makes mistakes. Some more than others.
Then again, there’s not enough time to read or hear everything, and there must be a tipping point. So be as discerning as possible. This means two things. First, if e.g. Bad Empenada is useful to you, notwithstanding some bad takes, keep listening (critically). Second, if someone gives nothing but bad takes (e.g. Jordan Peterbob), spend your time with someone more productive. For me, I don’t have much time to watch YouTubers, but when I do it’s at x2 speed. I prefer to read, and that way, I can just skim over the rubbish bits.
I’m not sure if I’ve just rambled on unhelpfully, here. Tell me straight up if I missed the point of what you were asking!
Absolutely. We have to apply scientific rigor and analysis to whatever the given topic is at hand. We shouldn’t assume that because someone has bad ideas in one area, that they don’t have something worthwhile to say in others.
Paul Cockshott is a great modern example: reactionary when it comes to many topics like gender and unequal exchange, but has worthwhile things to say on a variety of other topics, and applies a materialist analysis lacking in many other supposed marxists.
An even larger number of MLs have notorious blind spots when it comes to things like the sex trade, animal liberation / veganism, settler-colonialism, and unequal exchange.
You’re right to reference Mao in avoiding book and hero worship: no person, not even Marx, Engels or Lenin should be considered outside of revolutionary critique.
Modern students of sciences like physics, chemistry, or psychology, often rarely study the original founders or texts, except to passingly place them in a historical context, or to quickly reference their still-standing theories and axioms, quickly moving on to more recent updates and additions to those theories. They mostly study what is new, on the forefront, and of immediate use. As students of scientific socialism we should do the same.
Not too rambly, that’s basically what my position is, I was just wondering if I shouldn’t have to feel weird about listening to people who are known for certain bad takes. On the book worship point, of course, when I read Engels I don’t think “he says protoplasm is what makes up a cell, so he’s most likely correct, not like research into biology has advanced since then.”
Don’t feel too bad. We’re conditioned to think like that. Due to that conditioning, I refused to read Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, etc. It was all far too seditious. I had to let others tell me what they were about. Good job my liberal education was filled with such rigorous textbooks and summaries. (Sarcasm voice.)
As Kwame Ture advises, revolutionaries must read everything. Pick up Mein Kampf if you can stomach such shit writing. And don’t feel bad about it (unless it leaves you feeling inspired – unlikely, I admit).
I know this still isn’t quite what you’re asking. To that end, don’t feel bad about listening to YouTubers or podcasters for one or two bad takes. Once they tip over into mostly-reactionary, you could still listen, but at that point, while it’s not a matter of cancelling them, it’s just more fruitful to spend your time on something else. Until then, take what you can, grow, and keep listening.
It’s not just Engels on the odd bit of outdated science. Search for ‘Irish’ in The Condition of the Working Class in England or read the final part of Marx’s ‘On the Jewish Question’. And whatever you do, don’t quote those passages in polite company (or at all, maybe). They both, erm, dropped the ball a bit there.