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It’s mind-blowing the excuses people will jump through to justify their lackluster approach to learning. Excuses that they have, in fact, been taught to use. Concepts like “intelligence” and “that’s just not who I am” are two prevalent excuses that play into this restrictive version of learning.

 

My favorite excuse is that a book is too difficult to read because it uses too much academic writing. The inexperienced reader attributes this to their inherent lack of intelligence - “I don’t think I’m smart enough to understand it.” They are both, not an academic and not “smart enough” to get it. Although some academic books are unnecessarily complicated - I’m looking at you, French theorists - the most inaccessible of which can easily be avoided by light research. The asinine complexity of these philosophical and theoretical texts is not due to the author’s intelligence, but to their need to seem intelligent.

 

In an effort to believe the lie of intelligence, we quickly resort to self-deprecation to justify our failure, in the moment, to understanding something.

 

Thanks to our hyper-individualistic culture, we’re led to believe individual ability is built-in. What you have is what you get. You’re either born with it, or you’re not. Etc. No one seems to realize that if you’re only familiar with reading a specific genre, reading level, or barely read at all, you obviously won’t be good at the other stuff. This isn’t something to victim-blame people over, but to encourage them on.

 

We can’t expect ourselves to excel in something we’ve never tried, much less practiced.

 

That’s what reading is: a constant state of practice. There’s always harder books, uncomfortable genres, and off-putting writing styles. There’s always someone who’s better at reading than you.

 

But this isn’t the point of reading. Reading is simultaneously an act of entertainment and learning. If what you’re reading isn’t pushing you, both stylistically and politically (politics in the sense of morals, ideology, philosophy, and social realities that we aren’t familiar with, or purposely mislead about) you should work on incorporating more unfamiliar literature into your list. Diversity and the routine incorporation of new material helps us avoid boredom, complacency, and ignorance.

 

A helpful mental note to keep in mind while reading is to unlearn everything school taught you about reading. School is where we get these fucked up concepts of self-worth and ability in the first place. At every turn, school reminds us we aren’t doing good enough, and probably never will. School props up the “smart kids” as the apex human, who can do everything worthwhile perfectly. Forget why they’re able to get good grades on standardized tests and their homework. Forget why in the hell we even do tests and homework in the first place! Our abilities are compared to theirs, without context, understanding, or recognition of differences. I mean, let's be honest, most “smart kids” I knew were being groomed to enter the professional managerial class since they were born. “I’m gonna be a stock broker, or maybe a super rich entrepreneur!” Yeah, fuck the whole fuck off!

 

We need to realize that intelligence is actually not a real thing, and that most of our abilities are subjective, based on what we’ve chosen to put our time into. These choices don’t exist in a vacuum. They’re rarely innocent: disconnected from overlapping systems of oppression, and the privileged lives we live in conjunction with said systems. Concepts of intelligence more often than not aid in upholding these repressive and oppressive systems. Standardized testing came out of the eugenics movement, for crying out loud.

 

What I’m trying to say is this: we’re not predestined to be one thing or another.

 

Constructive self-learning is one place we actualize ourselves. Purposely unlearning harmful and destructive mindsets and opinions for the benefit of a refined outlook is powerful. By educating ourselves away from the complicit outlooks we were indoctrinated with as children we move ourselves closer to action. This goes doubly for us white people. We must unlearn the values, ticks, perspectives, and bigotries instilled in us by the white supremacist state in the benefit of its continued dominance. We must recognize its idols, iconography, and avenues of violence that defend and strengthen its position. Once we start unlearning white supremacy, and start learning how to be an accomplice with our Black and Indigenous working class peers, we must take care to avoid thinking we’ve learned it all. I can’t tell you how often my whole worldview has been rocked by the latest Black or Indigenous writer I’ve picked up.

 

Learn to love the continuous upending of your world.

 

Learn to kill your idols. Leave no sacred cow alive.
 

How else are you supposed to change but by leaving nothing untouched? This necessitates leaving archaic concepts like “I’m not smart enough” in the dumpster, where it belongs. Intelligence means nothing in the quest to no longer be complicit in pain and suffering. Ignorance is what will get you in trouble, not intelligence. Guess what fixes ignorance? It ain’t a standardized test.

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