[lbo-talk] Memory and Marxism

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Mon Jan 16 10:59:58 PST 2006



> It's also completely counterproductive. If you want to make it as
> hard as possible to learn and remember, just make sure the mind
> never has time to rest. Nothing ever has a chance to go into long-
> term memory. A few days later; it's gone, poof!
>
> I experienced this when I was an in intensive Latin workshop at
> U.C.B: class was 9-5; and there was another four hours of homework
> (at least). Starting from nothing, you learned Latin grammar in
> four weeks. The Monday after the grammar final, you'd come in and
> start reading Virgil.
>
> I was working graveyard shift as a security guard so I could work/
> study. I'd go to workshop 9-5, then go home and sleep; then work
> 11- 7. All through the night, I would study vocabulary/grammar or,
> later, translate hundreds of lines of verse. Usually my study was
> interrupted every hour or so by some "guard" duty. But one night, I
> got to study with no interruptions all night long. I was jazzed
> cause I thought I would do really well on the test the next day --
> we had a quiz every day. I went in, took the test, and got a D.
> Usually, I got A's. Not only that, I had no idea I had done so
> badly. Problem? NOTHING had gone into long term memory -- there had
> been no breaks of whatever kind the previous night.
>
> The stupid mind always tells you that more is better. Often wrong.
>
> Joanna

Psychologists say that distributed repetition works much better than massed repetition -- "cramming" of the sort that you describe -- in facilitating long-term retention. But there can be no memory without any repetition, and what doesn't get used repeatedly gets mostly forgotten. This is a fact that Americans on the left -- constitutionally libertarian champions of "creativity" and "originality" who discount the power of repetition -- often, alas, downplay.

Leftists do have something to offer children to help them learn. An ability to recognize patterns helps people remember new items, and persons who are equipped with powerful isms -- such as Marxism -- to help process information probably remember better than apolitical persons. (Unfortunately, isms on the Right -- such as neoclassical economics -- probably do as well as Marxism for this purpose.)

Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>



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