How do you know that you understand motivations of political articles better? Are you able to predict anything politically relevant that you couldn't have predicted beforehand?
Concretely, I can often tell if the article writer is coming from a particular school of thought or referencing a specific thesis, then interpret jargon, fill in unstated assumptions, see where they're deviating or conforming to that overarching school of thought. This directly enhances my ability to extrapolate to what other political views they might have and understand what they are attempting to write, and who their intended audience is.
As far as predicting the real world, that's tough. These frameworks of thought are in constant competition with one another. They are more about making normative judgments than predictive ones. The political theories that I believe have the most concrete usefulness are probably those that analyze world affairs in terms of neocolonialism, in part because those theories directly influence a ton of intellectuals but also in part because they provide a coherent explanation of how the US has managed its global influence in the past and (I predict) how it will do so in the future.
I can also do things like more fully analyze the factors behind US police and African-American relations, or how a film will influence a young girl.
These frameworks of thought are in constant competition with one another.
That reminds me of the Marxist who can explain everything with the struggle of the workers against the capitalists.
I can also do things like more fully analyze the factors behind US police and African-American relations, or how a film will influence a young girl.
The sentence looks like your study did damage. You shouldn't come out of learning about politics believing that you can fully understand the factors of anything political.
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