I agree most stuff is slop (as with most of the media produced in bourgeois society)

The issue i’m talking about is when instead of investigating the slop, its claims, criticising it, etc (as past marxists have), many online leftists beeline to google a reason not to do this work. “My google search said the author is a liberal bourgeois academic” should be the starting point of the investigation, but too often this is where peoples investigation ends, with an excuse not to read or criticise.

I will admit some people go after reading a bit “ok its definitely slop, i’ll read something else instead” and this is fine, but ime the vast majority go “the thought leader said its slop, i dont have to read it” and go back on youtube or tiktok.

I slightly disagree on all history being entertainment, at least of some aspects of the 20th and maybe 19th centuries. Before then I agree that reading about it is generally for entertainment with no real applicability to the struggle.

But the 19th and 20th centuries laid the whole foundations for where we find ourselves today, which I find useful in agitation, particularly around the imperialist nature of NATO and the origins of world economy. Also the 1848 revolutions, paris commune, russian revolution and soviet project, chinese revolution and their projects, socialist revolutions and experiements’ histories in general, are extremely useful and relevant to us as we look to replicate their successes and avoid their failures.

That isnt to say i think all histories of the 19th and 20th centuries are useful for the struggle; a lotta it is still entertainment stuff. But unlike the previous centuries, imo theres stuff in the 19th and 20th we still really gotta understand today to be effective revolutionaries