issue 17// vol 46 humour // no. 17

Marx for marks

» How to bring up Karl Marx in every class

  

Caroline Ho
Web Editor

 

A a proud humanities kid, I can tell
you that the one constant of my
post-secondary education wasn‘ 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

Photo illustration by Lauren Kelly

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.”

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