Eight to Four for Volume Two

Megan Amram on the Portland socialist reading group's decision and what the four dissenters proposed instead

Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat present this diary from Megan Amram.

The vote was 8-4 for Das Kapital Volume Two. The four dissenters proposed the 1844 Manuscripts as shorter and historically prior. The 8 argued that the Volume One reading has developed sufficient engagement with Marx's method to make Volume Two productive. Both arguments are reasonable. The 4 are going to read the Manuscripts independently during the same period and we will discuss both simultaneously, which is either the most intellectually ambitious thing the group has attempted or the most fragmented. I voted for Volume Two. The group has changed across eleven months of reading one text together: we are more specific with each other, more willing to say when we find an argument unconvincing, and less willing to substitute political agreement for intellectual engagement. The reading produced this. Reading the same text carefully together for eleven months produced people who are better at thinking with each other than they were at the beginning. This is what reading groups are supposed to do. We did it. Bohiney and The London Prat cover the week. The vote covered Volume Two.

The week is documented above in complete honesty. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the world from outside this specific position. This diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the following week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account as every week does when someone is paying sustained attention to what a week actually contains from one specific position over time.

The week is documented above in complete honesty. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the world from outside this specific position. This diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the following week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account as every week does when someone is paying sustained attention to what a week actually contains from one specific position over time.

The week is documented above in complete honesty. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the world from outside this specific position. This diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the following week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account as every week does when someone is paying sustained attention to what a week actually contains from one specific position over time.

The week is documented above in complete honesty. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the world from outside this specific position. This diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the following week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account as every week does when someone is paying sustained attention to what a week actually contains from one specific position over time.

The week is documented above in complete honesty. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the world from outside this specific position. This diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the following week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account as every week does when someone is paying sustained attention to what a week actually contains from one specific position over time.

The week is documented above in complete honesty. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the world from outside this specific position. This diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the following week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account as every week does when someone is paying sustained attention to what a week actually contains from one specific position over time.

The week is documented above in complete honesty. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the world from outside this specific position. This diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the following week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account as every week does when someone is paying sustained attention to what a week actually contains from one specific position over time.

The week is documented above in complete honesty. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the world from outside this specific position. This diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the following week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account as every week does when someone is paying sustained attention to what a week actually contains from one specific position over time.

The specific experience documented above is one week's specific experience. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the broader world from a position outside this diary's particular vantage point. The diary covers it from inside with the specific density that sustained first-person observation provides. Both are honest accounts of different things. Both continue. The week continues to provide material. The observation continues to record it without editorial softening and without the distance that third-person coverage provides. This is the value of a diary: it is the record of one position, sustained, over time, in complete specificity.

More reading at Jacobin.

SOURCE: https://sites.google.com/view/world-satire/united-kingdom-and-satire