How to bring up Karl Marx in every class
By Caroline Ho, Web Editor
As a proud humanities kid, I can tell you that the one constant of my post-secondary education wasn’t stressing over exams or forgetting the name of that person who’s been sitting next to you for weeks—no, the one recurring theme of every college class is everyone’s favourite philosopher-economist-revolutionary, Karl Marx. Despite what one might assume, Marx’s relevance isn’t just limited to the humanities. The trick to school is that you can bring Marx up in literally every single class, for every single subject! Awe all of your instructors and show them you truly understand course material by tying each new concept you learn back to Marx. Seize the means of producing the highest grades with the help of our beloved Father of Communism!
Philosophy 101
This one’s really easy because he’s literally on the syllabus for this class. Don’t be afraid to just keep bringing him up in every discussion, even though he was only relevant for that one reading you did three weeks ago. When your professor tries to tell you “No, you can’t write your final essay as a critical comparison of Marxism and Confucianism because you already did your last two essays comparing Machiavelli and Socrates to Marx,” just tell them they’re too alienated from their own labour to recognize your metaphysical genius.
Invertebrate Biology
Invertebrate organisms and human civilizations basically go through the same evolutionary processes. Every time the professor discusses the life cycle stages of an insect, casually mention the parallels to society’s stages of development from hunter-gatherer to feudalism to capitalism and so on. Now, just wait for your GPA to metamorphose into its final form.
World Geography
World capital? Bugger that, we hate capital! Anyway, all sociopolitical divisions and arbitrary national borders arise from economic circumstances and the political superstructures underlining the conversion of raw materials into labour, so once we overthrow the bourgeoisie it’s all a wash anyway.
Music Theory
I mean, you could go the legit route and argue for a critical analysis about Marx’s influence on early twentieth century expressionism, especially with the atonality of composers like Schoenberg as a reaction against classical hierarchical structures… or just write a catchy song about the impending communist revolution. Now, what rhymes with “dialectical materialism?”
Marketing
Oh boy, have I got a Communist Manifesto to sell to you! All for the low price of your individual property rights and the shackles of classist oppression.
Business Management
Normally doing group work sucks, but this time you can employ your Marxian expertise to pawn off all work to your group members, take all the credit for the work, then explain to them that you’re simply illustrating the alienating effects of the divide between labourer and capitalist. Now get back to that PowerPoint, prole.
Modern Languages: Basic Japanese
“Konnichiwa, watashi wa proletariat revolution.”
