[lbo-talk] Memory and Marxism

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

> 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>