I too dislike Marx, but I find myself thinking about rhetoric and sophistry and discourses and a whole other bunch of critical theory in a good light, specifically for how it seems to produce much more descriptive theories of how we come to believe things.

Aligned with linear logic, I find it productive to think in the abstract about the dialogues I'm having, in terms of what I would have to say to refute a claim given the opposing claim's form. I have found this oddly more productive at coming up with things to check or validate than asking purely, "what is the truth of the matter?"