It is, as of yet, unclear to me how a Marxist that grows up in Capitalism can confidently call themselves and indefatigably hold the Marxist label, when all too often their very livelihoods have so entirely been formed by a system which operates with an antagonistic logic.
In effect, they must suspend their active participation in what they are doing or merely withhold judgment until the fated day (if it ever comes) of judgment, of Capitalism’s overthrow, which seems as much like Jesus’ coming as anything else in its mythical proportions and prophetic qualities.
The Capitalist overthrow
Is like the judgment day
We who waited for it
Will continue waiting for it
This is the unfortunate logic of
prediction, the logic of prophecy
In the meantime, in the in-betweens
The difference is material
And our subscription is indispensable
(we have to believe something, right?)
But we must hold belief not to
a doctrine, but to a sense of how
What we think meets what we are doing
(forgive the theory-practice trope for now)
Instead, ideas are like tools, fashioned by
and for a purpose and a use
If they fail to hammer, to dig, to cultivate
Then they have fallen into disuse
So
If what we feel and see and hear
Validates or ignores or even jeers
And if our daily life tells us That the
edge has been lost from our shears
It means then that we should not seek
to revolutionize with our philosophies
but instead to avoid grandiose locutions and
revolutionize our philosophies themselves
Bearer of Pity 