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Principles for doing effective analysis (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 1 week ago by to c/genzedong@lemmygrad.ml
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  1. Effective analysis should strive to be based in evidence and the most up-to-date scientific paradigm (currently, dialectical and historical materialism).

  2. Effective analysis should serve action. Analysis without action is sort of like figuring out that a hurricane is going to hit your home and doing nothing in response.

  3. Effective analysis should strive to limit speculation and assumptions, while also being realistic about limitations of information; some amount of speculation and extrapolation is unavoidable due to us always working with incomplete information, but is risky and error-prone as the driving force of an analysis and is not a replacement for investigation.

  4. An accurate paradigm can sometimes make up for a limited array of facts. Knowing the principles that govern how an entity behaves and why can tell you things about it that direct research may not. However, it is nevertheless critical to investigate whenever possible. A paradigm and facts together will tell you more than either one alone.

  5. Neutrality isn't real, aka: nothing exists without bias. Any entity that speaks as if it is neutral and unbiased is being dishonest, whether intentionally or through naivete. Being aware of this is not an excuse to be recklessly and intentionally biased in an exaggerated manner, as in lying, but rather a recognition of the nature of entities being motivated to do behaviors that reproduce themselves.

Thoughts?

Recommended reading instead of this post, or in addition to it: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-6/mswv6_11.htm

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[–] 9 points 1 week ago* (2 children)

Adding to point 2 and 5, I think communists should -- when writing their analyses:

  1. know their goals and their audience
  2. present their analysis with good structure and presentation
  3. maybe present it like a story.

I don't think any text can be divorced from how it's presented.

Like, if you write a jargon-filled text, it will be comprehensible for other communists, but not for the masses. It doesn't matter how accurate it is, if your goal was to agitate the proletariat, it won't be effective. Or if you present the median income of a population vs. the wealth of the richest using raw figures, it won't be as effective as using a plot.

By structure and presentation, I mean like avoid writing a stream of consciousness text, and properly identify actors and causes. Use paragraphs, lists, examples, sections, and good grammar. There's a reason why the bourgeois press uses passive voice when reporting on Zionist crimes.

As for presenting it as a story, humans are storytellers by nature, we like stories. So, we can literally start our analysis with an anecdote (like Frantz Fanon does in Settlers), or by starting with a simple, known thing and then unravel it (like Marx does with the commodity in The Capital).

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