Why Don't I Like Reading Theory?
And how am I supposed to understand the world without it?
Hi everyone, hope you are thriving under capitalism rn fr!! Today I respond to a question about difficulty comprehending theory with my own experience of not being good at reading high level texts, and how, despite this, I have come to navigate my desire to understand the world.
Dear Lithium,
I often feel like I know nothing. I don't know big words, I don't know much about philosophical and political terminology, and I don't understand most of it. I feel like a simpleton, especially when I'm trying to learn. I just can't grasp these complicated concepts and I don't know what to do about it.
I really want to learn, to read, and to understand things, but I've felt kind of stupid for asking things to be dumbed down for me. I simply can't find information presented in a way I'll understand.
I've seen some people talk about how suggesting theory and philosophical writing is too complicated for the average person is being anti-intellectual or something, but here I am, the average person, and I can't understand shit. Everyone says something different about reading theory and philosophical writing, but I feel like I need to read things or else I won't understand the concepts, yet I already don't understand the concepts AND theory because they are written in such a confusing way.
What would you do if you were me?
Dear Theory Struggler,
I’m in a similar boat to you. Every time I open a book of theory it feels like I’m trying to walk up a down escalator. No matter how I try I can’t understand enough of the first concept to even make my way onto the second, let alone to read a whole book of the stuff. So I understand your struggles, they were once my struggles too.
In my mind, reading theory is an intellectual entry way into understanding the world. It’s an intellectual entry way into finding comfort amidst the chaos of what our world is and has become. But I don’t think intellectualism is the only way to make sense of the world, or the only way to find comfort within the landscape of how messed up everything is all the time. I don’t want to focus too much on why theory and the intellectual approach works for some people or even how they make their brains do that, because honestly I don’t know. So instead let’s focus on what I can tell you about an alternative. If philosophy is an intellectual pursuit to help us understand the world, and if theory is an intellectual pursuit to help us become better activists, then surely there must be non-intellectual approaches to these things too.
When we find ourselves in specific spaces of activism, and we find ourselves challenged with very real world issues that we don’t know how to navigate, I imagine it’s pretty dang cool to pull out some big ass book and be like “well Kropotkin said that we can conceptualize this exact problem by blah blah blah.” I’m sure that has its uses. But personally, I don’t find myself in situations where I need access to the ideas of Kropotkin, Marx, Deleuze, or whoever else is trending right now. I feel like I don’t need them because I have my own ideas that I find faith and comfort in. I know some folks who are working on building a series of off-the-grid houses out of literal mud, and honestly I’d be shocked if even a fraction of them have read the anarchist theory that surrounds the actions they’re taking. Instead they use the experiences of their lives to inform their decisions, and then they just go for it.
When I am looking to make sense of the world, or to find comfort, I typically look to Buddhism to help give me context. When I was 18 I found a lot of comfort in the writings within “The Joseph Campbell Companion”, a Christian-mythos inspired text, and one that really reached out to me despite my hatred of what the Catholic religion did to me as a child. Religion has a really bad reputation these days, something it’s largely deserved, but (stick with me here) there are a subset of ethical and contemplative religious practices that seek to do the same things that reading philosophy and theory seek to do for us.
Instead of an intellectual gateway to understanding and comfort I have found that a contemplative meditation practice provides me with these same things. When I am faced with certain ethical dilemmas, I remember the ethical tenants of Zen. When I feel disconnected from my world I meditate. When I find myself aching for missing pieces of my life I read poetry written by priests from hundreds or even a thousand years ago. Similar to how academics can seek out intellectual philosophical conversations in universities all around the world, I can do the same exact thing, except with heart conversations in temples.
After so many years of contemplative practice, I have no desire to approach the world using my mind; I don’t think how fucked everything is will ever make sense to me on an intellectual level. Yet, on a heart level, I feel quite clear about many things. Our society doesn’t teach us how to use our hearts to think, to act, or to exist. Largely we believe in the power of muscle, logic, and capital. But humans didn’t always live like this. There are other modes of living that the most ancient parts of our society are actually still in touch with.
I’m not trying to tell you that you need to become a Buddhist or that there’s only the two options: academia or religion. All I’m getting at is that you have options. So instead of beating yourself up over not understanding some dude who writes like he’s been on uppers for the last decade, perhaps you can focus instead on what’s important to you in this situation. Perhaps you’re trying to understand the world, to find comfort, to become a better activist, or maybe even to fit in with your peers.
Listen, stop trying to be somebody else
Don't try to be someone else
Be yourself and know that that's good enough.
Don't try to be someone else
Don't try to be like someone else, don't try to act like someone else
Be yourself, be secure with yourself
Rely and trust upon your own decisions
On your own beliefs- Rosie Watson on Be Yourself by Frank Ocean
It’s okay to not have the type of mind that comprehends very complex written words. Just as I am not going to understand molecular biology, I also don’t think I’ll be understanding the works of Heidegger anytime soon. These are highly specific skills of which the primary applications are in academia and the careers that stem from it. These reading comprehension skills are not things that I think matter for 99% of people. They’re certainly not skills that I possess, and yet I spend a very large portion of my free time reading about reality and writing about the world. For the bulk of human existence we have had other ways of helping us come to terms with the world that did not include academia.
So I can’t read Kant, but I’m great in the kitchen and I can even code little apps and websites. I don’t know anything about Marx, but I do know a lot about organizing people in my community because I’ve been organized by others. I know about worker exploitation because I have been exploited. I know about the type of future I want to live in because I dream every night. And I know about the type of future that’s possible because I am a realist who sees the boot of capitalism on the necks of everyone that I love.
You don’t need to read theory to see these things, they are right in front of us. All it requires is for us to think about the systems of power that surround us, and to think about how those systems have shaped the world into what it is today. Nothing is a mystery, it’s all plainly laid out for us in the interactions in our day to day lives. You don’t have to be an academic or whatever to tap into the same ways of thinking that all these famous writers did, you have access to that too.
Give yourself time to grow. Go live your life to the fullest without any complicated tomes of philosophy. If you have the genuine itch of curiosity about the world that theory and philosophy typically scratches, then I wholeheartedly believe that you will find a way to satisfy that curiosity whether or not you’re reading at a graduate level.
P.S. If you are convinced that you want to take the academic route with all this, you’re allowed to hire a tutor. You don’t need anyone’s permission. You can just do stuff.