Why You Should Read Theory
Reading theory transforms how you engage with the world—making movies, art, politics, and literature more interesting by teaching you to analyze ideology and question what appears natural. Theory is a world-building exercise that connects you to a vast intellectual tradition, combats passivity and despair, and opens doors to deeper understanding of reality. Start with texts that intrigue you, embrace confusion as part of learning, and consider reading with others to build community.
The Case for Theory
Theory Makes Everything More Interesting
Reading theory transforms how you experience the world. Movies, art, politics, literature, and philosophy all become richer and more engaging once you learn to analyze ideology and question what appears natural or given. This shift from passive consumption to active interpretation makes life feel less like doom and more like discovery.
Theory as an Antidote to Despair
Remaining actively interested in the world—having a stake in learning and discovering—is one of the best defenses against depression, anxiety, and a sense of pervading doom. Theory provides a framework and lens that keeps you engaged rather than passive, making you feel more alive.
Personal Gateway: From Disengagement to Discovery
The speaker never enjoyed reading, art, politics, or cinema until encountering theory. His first transformative experience was reading Foucault's analysis of a Borges story, which revealed how meaning and taxonomy are ideological constructs. This moment showed him that theory invites readers into critical discourse rather than passive admiration.
What Theory Actually Is
Theory as Ideological Critique
Theory rests on the insight that literature, culture, and reality itself are not neutral but ideological. The world is a text to be read critically. Theory asks: what power structures and ideologies make things appear natural or common sense, and who benefits from those appearances? This is called a hermeneutics of suspicion—casting a suspicious glance at how the world is presented to us.
Philosophy's Totalizing Project
From Plato through Aristotle to Kant and Hegel, philosophy sought grand systems explaining everything. Plato pursued idealism (essence beyond phenomena), while Aristotle focused on the observable world. This binary between idealism and empiricism runs through all Western thought and shapes how we understand reality.
Hegel's Paradox: System and Anti-System
Hegel's breakthrough was realizing that a truly complete philosophical system must include everything—even that which cannot be included within it. This paradox (determinate negation) both wraps up philosophy and blows it open, creating space for post-Hegelian thought like Marxism, psychoanalysis, and modern theory.
Historical Branches of Theory
Post-Hegelian Explosion: Marxism and Psychoanalysis
After Hegel's dialectical system, philosophy fractured into anti-philosophical movements. Marx took Hegel's logic and applied it to political economy and history, rejecting pure philosophy. Freud developed psychoanalysis as a theory of the unconscious. Both were enabled by Hegel's implosion and represented theory as the continuation of philosophy by other means.
Critical Theory and the Frankfurt School
Critical theory emerged in post-war Europe and America as a response to disillusionment with orthodox Marxism and Soviet communism. Thinkers like Adorno and Horkheimer critiqued ideology and power relations in supposedly non-fascist life, moving beyond simple Marxist application to analyze how ideology operates in everyday culture and consciousness.
French Theory: Existentialism, Phenomenology, Deconstruction
French post-war thought developed through existentialism (Sartre), phenomenology, and Lacanian psychoanalysis. Deconstruction, derived from Derrida's work on binary opposites, revolutionized theory by showing how meaning is constructed through difference and deferral. However, deconstruction was later professionalized and narrowed into a formulaic method applied to everything.
Explosion of Specialized Theories
After deconstruction opened new possibilities, theory exploded into multiple directions: feminist theory, race theory, postcolonial theory, literary theory, film theory, art theory, terrorism theory, and legal theory. This expansion moved theory out of philosophy departments into every academic discipline, making ideology critique and textual analysis tools across all fields.
The Problem of Peak Theory
Theory Becomes Professionalized and Watered Down
By the mid-2000s to 2010s, theory had become so widespread that it was sometimes reduced to buzzwords and formulaic applications. Terms like discourse analysis lost their original theoretical meaning when applied in different disciplines. Theory became tied to professional identity and university power structures, turning it into a territorial, defensive practice rather than an open intellectual exercise.
The Theory Bro Stereotype
The negative stereotype of the insufferable theory person who mansplains jargon-laden concepts stems partly from a lack of community around theory. Theory should be a shared, exciting discovery, not a hierarchical display of knowledge. The speaker suggests building communities where people can discuss theory together rather than using it to assert intellectual superiority.
How to Get Into Theory
Theory as World-Building, Not Passive Consumption
Unlike mainstream books designed for easy consumption, theory texts raise questions and introduce concepts that challenge you to learn more. They create a world-building exercise where each text opens new avenues, sparks connections, and makes you want to read more. This addictive quality comes from active engagement rather than passive reception.
Reconcile Theory with Philosophy
Rather than applying theory as a formula, use it to return to fundamental philosophical questions. Thinkers like Žižek and Alain Badiou show how theory can be fused with old-school metaphysical philosophy. Reading can bifurcate: forward into contemporary theory and cultural analysis, backward into Hegel, Kant, Schelling, and earlier philosophers. This dual movement generates richer insights.
Embrace Confusion as Part of Learning
Don't expect to understand everything on a first read. Think of theory like a video game where you acquire new powers over time, then return to earlier levels to unlock doors you couldn't open before. Each re-reading with new knowledge reveals connections you missed. Confusion is the opening to a world-building exercise, not a sign of failure.
Read Theory in Community
Theory is best experienced with others who share the interest. Form a book group, meet weekly for coffee or beer, take notes together, and discuss your thoughts. Specialized interests like theory can feel isolating without community. The speaker started his channel during the pandemic specifically to discuss theory with others and maintain intellectual engagement.
Why Theory Matters Now
You Are Lucky to Be Alive
Hegel's insight is that the problems of your current reality can only be analyzed and thought by you. Historical figures like Hegel could only think what was happening in their time; they couldn't anticipate the present. By reading and applying thought to the world around you, you are living the richest possible life, thinking things and making connections that even the brightest minds of the past could not.
Theory as Active Engagement, Not Passivity
When you feel interested in the world through theory, you are not passive or impotent. You have a lens and framework to engage with reality. This active engagement is what makes life feel meaningful and alive, transforming despair into curiosity and connection.
Notable quotes
Reading theory is a way to make everything more interesting. — Julian de Medeiros
Theory is essentially a world-building exercise. — Julian de Medeiros
You are lucky to be alive because the problems of our current reality can only be analyzed and thought by you. — Julian de Medeiros
Action items
- Start reading theory by picking a text that genuinely interests you (check publishers like Verso for recommendations).
- Allow yourself to be confused on first read; treat it as the opening of a world-building exercise, not a failure.
- Form or join a theory reading group to discuss texts weekly with others who share the interest.
- Read in two directions simultaneously: forward into contemporary theory and backward into foundational philosophy (Hegel, Kant, Schelling).
- Return to theory texts you didn't fully understand after acquiring more knowledge; make new connections on re-reading.
- Apply theory to your daily life—watch movies, visit galleries, or observe everyday activities through the lens of what you've read.