Why do some people care so much about dialectics?

[scarletghoul]

A lot of people on these forums seem to spend all their time going on and on arguing about dialectics and anti-dialectics.
Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems kinda pointless... shouldnt we be more concerned with practical issues of class struggle?

This is in learning because I'm hoping someone can correct me and explain why dialectics is really relevant and discussing it will help bring about revolution

[benhur]

Why do some people care so much about dialectics?

The very question implies dialectics - people who care and people who don't. That itself is proof that dialectics is all-pervasive, it's everywhere, even in a question about dialectics or in a statement against it. Which is why, it's important to study it. Understanding the opposites, and what role they play in evolution, including social evolution, is extremely important.

[Pogue]

The very question implies dialectics - people who care and people who don't. That itself is proof that dialectics is all-pervasive, it's everywhere, even in a question about dialectics or in a statement against it. Which is why, it's important to study it. Understanding the opposites, and what role they play in evolution, including social evolution, is extremely important.

No its not. Workers oppresed bad, workers not oppresed good.

I came to that one without even touching a book on dialetics. Aren't I clever.

[Charles Xavier]

No its not. Workers oppresed bad, workers not oppresed good.

I came to that one without even touching a book on dialetics. Aren't I clever.


How are workers oppressed in the first place? Is it through struggle that they are liberated or does things just happen?

[Pogue]

How are workers oppressed in the first place?

Capitalism & the state.

[Charles Xavier]

Capitalism & the state.


Workers were oppressed long before capitalism existed and the state is much older than capitalism.

[R_P_A_S]

A lot of people on these forums seem to spend all their time going on and on arguing about dialectics and anti-dialectics.
Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems kinda pointless... shouldnt we be more concerned with practical issues of class struggle?

This is in learning because I'm hoping someone can correct me and explain why dialectics is really relevant and discussing it will help bring about revolution

Don't you know that this is what makes Marx appeal to the everyday common working man? Dialetics! It's imperative that we discuss them on internet forums for the liberation of the working class! :laugh:

[Charles Xavier]

Theres a reason why Marxism has survived the test of time and Fabian socialism didn't

[The Intransigent Faction]

Don't you know that this is what makes Marx appeal to the everyday common working man? Dialetics! It's imperative that we discuss them on internet forums for the liberation of the working class! :laugh:


Generally I would agree with you in the sense that I prefer to be realistic---to come up with a practical plan for revolution rather than relying on what the average worker may see as obscure philosophy (everything has to be done a certain way regardless of the difficulties---i.e. the expectation of going from Capitalism to communism overnight with the immediate overthrow of the state, not to say that I don't share the same goals, I just support a different approach). However, dialectics is important. "Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement". We must understand the basics of class conflict---the contradictions between the working class and bourgeois class, what causes division between workers, and how to resolve those contradictions within the working class to unite them for revolution.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Here is an answer I gave to a roughly similar question:


There are two interconnected reasons, I think.

1) The founders of this quasi-religion (dialectics) weren't workers; they came from a class that educated their children in the classics and in philosophy. This tradition taught that behind appearances there is a hidden world, accessible to thought alone, which is more real than the material universe we see around us.

This way of seeing things was invented by ideologues of the ruling class, who viewed reality this way. They invented it because if you belong to, benefit from or help run a society which is based on gross inequality, oppression and exploitation, you can keep order in several ways.

The first and most obvious way is through violence. This will work for a time, but it is not only fraught with danger, it is costly and it stifles innovation (among other things).

Another way is to persuade the majority (or a significant section of "opinion formers" and administrators, at least) that the present order either works for their benefit, is ordained of the 'gods', or that it is 'natural' and cannot be fought, reformed or negotiated with.

Hence, a world-view is necessary for the ruling-class to carry on ruling in the same old way. While the content of this ruling ideology may have changed with each change in the mode of production, its form has remained largely the same for thousands of years: Ultimate Truth is ascertainable by thought alone, and it can therefore be imposed on reality dogmatically.

So, these non-worker founders of our movement, who had been educated to believe there was this hidden world that governed everything, looked for principles in that invisible world that told them that change was inevitable, and part of the cosmic order. Enter dialectics, courtesy of the dogmatic ideas of a ruling-class mystic called Hegel.

2) That allowed the founders of this quasi-religion to think of themselves as special, as prophets of the new order, which workers, alas, could not quite grasp because of their defective education and reliance on ordinary language and 'common sense'.

Fortunately, history had predisposed these prophets to ascertain the truth about reality for them (the working class), which meant they were their 'naturally-ordained' leaders. That in turn meant these 'leaders' were also teachers of the 'ignorant masses', who could thus legitimately substitute themselves for the unwashed majority -- in 'their own interests', you understand, since the masses were too caught up in 'commodity fetishism' to see the truth for themselves.

And that is why DM is a world-view, as is so important to most Marxists (it confirms their pre-eminent place in history)

It is also why dialecticians cling on to this theory like grim death (and become very emotional (and abusive!) when it is attacked by yours truly), since it provides them with a source of consolation that, despite outward appearances to the contrary, and because this hidden world tells them that dialectical Marxism will one day be a success, everything is in fact peachy, and nothing in the core theory needs changing -- in spite of the fact that that core theory says everything changes! Hence, it is ossified into a dogma, and imposed on reality. A rather nice unity of opposites for you to ponder.

So, this 'theory' insulates the militant mind from the facts.

In that case:

Dialectics is the sigh of the depressed dialectician, the heart of a heartless world. It is the opiate of the party. The abolition of dialectics as the illusory happiness of the party hack is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.

Unfortunately, these sad characters will need (materialist) workers to rescue them from themselves.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BenHur:


The very question implies dialectics - people who care and people who don't. That itself is proof that dialectics is all-pervasive, it's everywhere, even in a question about dialectics or in a statement against it. Which is why, it's important to study it. Understanding the opposites, and what role they play in evolution, including social evolution, is extremely important.

Ah, yet more a priori dogmatics, foisted onto reality contrary to what we are always being told:


"Finally, for me there could be no question of superimposing the laws of dialectics on nature but of discovering them in it and developing them from it." [Engels (1976), p.13. Bold emphasis added.]

"All three are developed by Hegel in his idealist fashion as mere laws of thought: the first, in the first part of his Logic, in the Doctrine of Being; the second fills the whole of the second and by far the most important part of his Logic, the Doctrine of Essence; finally the third figures as the fundamental law for the construction of the whole system. The mistake lies in the fact that these laws are foisted on nature and history as laws of thought, and not deduced from them. This is the source of the whole forced and often outrageous treatment; the universe, willy-nilly, is made out to be arranged in accordance with a system of thought which itself is only the product of a definite stage of evolution of human thought." [Engels (1954), p.62. Bold emphasis added.]

"The dialectic does not liberate the investigator from painstaking study of the facts, quite the contrary: it requires it." [Trotsky (1986), p.92. Bold emphasis added]

"Dialectics and materialism are the basic elements in the Marxist cognition of the world. But this does not mean at all that they can be applied to any sphere of knowledge, like an ever ready master key. Dialectics cannot be imposed on facts; it has to be deduced from facts, from their nature and development…." [Trotsky (1973), p.233. Bold emphasis added.]

"Whenever any Marxist attempted to transmute the theory of Marx into a universal master key and ignore all other spheres of learning, Vladimir Ilyich would rebuke him with the expressive phrase 'Komchvanstvo' ('communist swagger')." [Ibid., p.221.]

"A consistent materialism cannot proceed from principles which are validated by appeal to abstract reason, intuition, self-evidence or some other subjective or purely theoretical source. Idealisms may do this. But the materialist philosophy has to be based upon evidence taken from objective material sources and verified by demonstration in practice...." [Novack (1965), p.17. Bold emphasis added.]

References, and more such quotations, alongside scores of others that show that dialecticians are always imposing this theory on the facts, can be found here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2002.htm

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Tupac:


Theres a reason why Marxism has survived the test of time and Fabian socialism didn't

And yet, Dialectical Marxism is a by-word for failure. So, if truth is tested in practice, this can only mean that history has refuted dialectics.:)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Brad:


However, dialectics is important. "Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement". We must understand the basics of class conflict---the contradictions between the working class and bourgeois class, what causes division between workers, and how to resolve those contradictions within the working class to unite them for revolution.

All we need is Historical Materialism [HM]; dialectics adds nothing. In fact, it detracts from and ruins HM, since, if dialectics were true, change would be impossible.

Proof here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1350764&postcount=23

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1350765&postcount=24

[Random Precision]

I've trashed the one-liners by Túpac Amaru II, Rosa Lichtenstein and red resistance. If you persist I'll be happy to start handing out verbal warnings, and we'll see where it goes from there.

[Das war einmal]

Dialectic materialism is in my view simply the correct scientifically approach of materialism. It counters the metaphysical approach that is commonly used by anti-communist 'look communism doesnt work, just look at Stalin, case closed'. Instead of looking at all the facts connected to a particular subject (like the rule of Stalin) they just look at one point 'Stalin was evil, Stalin was a communist so communism must be evil'.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

RR:


Dialectic materialism is in my view simply the correct scientifically approach of materialism. It counters the metaphysical approach that is commonly used by anti-communist 'look communism doesnt work, just look at Stalin, case closed'. Instead of looking at all the facts connected to a particular subject (like the rule of Stalin) they just look at one point 'Stalin was evil, Stalin was a communist so communism must be evil'.

Unfortunately for you, every major dialectical thesis, and many of the minor ones have been systematically demolished at this site, by me and several others.

I have listed these threads here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/RevLeft.htm

For example, the following two are among the most devastating, since they show that dialectics cannot account for change --, or alternatively, if dialectics were true, change would be impossible:

Quotes:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1350764&postcount=23

Argument:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1350765&postcount=24

The first lists dozens of quotations from the dialectical classics in order to set-up the argument in the second.

[Das war einmal]

RR:



Unfortunately for you, every major dialectical thesis, and many of the minor ones have been systematically demolished at this site, by me and several others.

I have listed these threads here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/RevLeft.htm

For example, the following two are among the most devastating, since they show that dialectics cannot account for change --, or alternatively, if dialectics were true, change would be impossible:


Not only dont I understand one bit of what you are trying to proof in your posts (maybe its because my english vocabulary isnt that big or just that you are being really vague) But I think you are being very arrogant stating that you have proven dialectics to be false while its actually being used on by non-marxist in science everywhere.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

RR:


Not only dont I understand one bit of what you are trying to proof in your posts (maybe its because my english vocabulary isnt that big or just that you are being really vague).

I have a simplified argument here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1382950&postcount=56

If you can't follow it, let me know and I'll try harder to get the idea across.

And far from being 'vague', it's the dialectical classics which are hopelessly unclear.


But I think you are being very arrogant stating that you have proven dialectics to be false while its actually being used on by non-marxist in science everywhere

1) I haven't claimed to have shown dialectics to be false; what I have done is to show that it is far too confused for anyone to be able to say whether or not it is true or false. It doesn't make it that far.

2) Which scientists use 'dialectics'?

[Das war einmal]

For me, evolution has proven that dialectics are real. We allready have seen the fact that a microbe that causes certain diseases has become resistant to penicillin or anti-biotics. It has adjusted to survive. It wasnt resistant in the first place, because penicillin and anti-biotics are, as far as I know, products made by human scientists. In short, dialectic materialism is to me that a situation (like for instance the rise of fascism) stands not on its own. It is the result of multiple factors. A cat that dies did so because it became old or sick or got run over by a car. In fact Marx did agree on the science of Darwin, but he does have critisism on this evolution-theory , change is indeed a slow process but you have a real fast turning point, a bottleneck at one point, like the sudden extermination of all dinosaurs

The only institution who counters the evolution-theory is religion. They believe everything is as it always was and will stay the same forever. God created men, men did not evolve from ape and ape did not evolve for instance fish. All natural products are in their teachings, the work of God. God is eternal and everlasting.

[Hit The North]

A lot of people on these forums seem to spend all their time going on and on arguing about dialectics and anti-dialectics.
Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems kinda pointless... shouldnt we be more concerned with practical issues of class struggle?


LP, the reason there is so much discussion on RevLeft about dialectics is that we're "lucky" enough to have Rosa amongst us and she is literally obsessed with the subject and cannot but help to launch thread after thread in order vent her obsession. You can see this just by reading this thread which, unwittingly, has become yet another platform for her near trolling.

But you are right: particularly when capitalism in on the ropes, we need to concentrate more on the practical class struggle and less on obscure matters of philosophy.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

RR:


For me, evolution has proven that dialectics are real. We allready have seen the fact that a microbe that causes certain diseases has become resistant to penicillin or anti-biotics. It has adjusted to survive. It wasnt resistant in the first place, because penicillin and anti-biotics are, as far as I know, products made by human scientists. In short, dialectic materialism is to me that a situation (like for instance the rise of fascism) stands not on its own. It is the result of multiple factors. A cat that dies did so because it became old or sick or got run over by a car. In fact Marx did agree on the science of Darwin, but he does have critisism on this evolution-theory , change is indeed a slow process but you have a real fast turning point, a bottleneck at one point, like the sudden extermination of all dinosaurs

I do not see how evolution is dialectical; you just assume it is without proof.

Moreover, this is what Engels had to say about Darwinism:


"1) Of the Darwinian doctrine I accept the theory of evolution, but Darwin's method of proof (struggle for life, natural selection) I consider only a first, provisional, imperfect expression of a newly discovered fact. Until Darwin's time the very people who now see everywhere only struggle for existence (Vogt, Büchner, Moleschott, etc.) emphasized precisely cooperation in organic nature, the fact that the vegetable kingdom supplies oxygen and nutriment to the animal kingdom and conversely the animal kingdom supplies plants with carbonic acid and manure, which was particularly stressed by Liebig. Both conceptions are justified within certain limits, but the one is as one-sided and narrow-minded as the other. The interaction of bodies in nature -- inanimate as well as animate -- includes both harmony and collision, struggle and cooperation. When therefore a self-styled natural scientist takes the liberty of reducing the whole of historical development with all its wealth and variety to the one-sided and meagre phrase 'struggle for existence,' a phrase which even in the sphere of nature can be accepted only cum grano salis [with a grain of salt -- RL], such a procedure really contains its own condemnation.

"...I should therefore attack -- and perhaps will when the time comes -- these bourgeois Darwinists in about the following manner:

"The whole Darwinists teaching of the struggle for existence is simply a transference from society to living nature of Hobbes's doctrine of bellum omnium contra omnes [from Hobbes's De Cive and Leviathan, chapter 13-14] and of the bourgeois-economic doctrine of competition together with Malthus's theory of population. When this conjurer's trick has been performed (and I questioned its absolute permissibility, as I have indicated in point 1, particularly as far as the Malthusian theory is concerned), the same theories are transferred back again from organic nature into history and it is now claimed that their validity as eternal laws of human society has been proved. The puerility of this procedure is so obvious that not a word need be said about it. But if I wanted to go into the matter more thoroughly I should do so by depicting them in the first place as bad economists and only in the second place as bad naturalists and philosophers.

"4) The essential difference between human and animal society consists in the fact that animals at most collect while men produce. This sole but cardinal difference alone makes it impossible simply to transfer laws of animal societies to human societies....

"At a certain stage the production of man attains such a high-level that not only necessaries but also luxuries, at first, true enough, only for a minority, are produced. The struggle for existence -- if we permit this category for the moment to be valid -- is thus transformed into a struggle for pleasures, no longer for mere means of subsistence but for means of development, socially produced means of development, and to this stage the categories derived from the animal kingdom are no longer applicable. But if, as has now happened, production in its capitalist form produces a far greater quantity of means of subsistence and development than capitalist society can consume because it keeps the great mass of real producers artificially away from these means of subsistence and development; if this society is forced by its own law of life constantly to increase this output which is already too big for it and therefore periodically, every 10 years, reaches the point where it destroys not only a mass of products but even productive forces -- what sense is their left in all this talk of 'struggle for existence'? The struggle for existence can then consist only in this: that the producing class takes over the management of production and distribution from the class that was hitherto entrusted with it but has now become incompetent to handle it, and there you have the socialist revolution.

"...Even the mere contemplation of previous history as a series of class struggles suffices to make clear the utter shallowness of the conception of this history as a feeble variety of the 'struggle for existence.' I would therefore never do this favour to these false naturalists....

"6) On the other hand I cannot agree with you that the 'bellum omnium contra omnes' was the first phase of human development. In my opinion, the social instinct was one of the most essential levers of the evolution of man from the ape. The first man must have lived in bands and as far as we can peer into the past we find that this was the case...." [Engels to Lavrov, 17/11/1875. Spelling altered to conform to UK English.]

And this is what Steven Jay Gould had to say about Marx's dwindling respect for Darwin (first of all referrring to biologist Ray Lankester, who attended Marx's funeral):


"If Lankester showed so little affinity for Marx's worldview, perhaps we should try the opposite route and ask if Marx had any intellectual or philosophical reason to seek Lankester's company. Again, after debunking some persistent mythology, we can find no evident basis for their friendship.

"The mythology centres upon a notorious, if understandable, scholarly error that once suggested far more affinity between Marx and Darwin (or at least a one-way hero worshiping of Darwin by Marx) than corrected evidence can validate. Marx did admire Darwin, and he did send an autographed copy of Das Kapital to the great naturalist; Darwin, in the only recorded contact between the two men, sent a short, polite, and basically contentless letter of thanks. We do know that Darwin (who read German poorly and professed little interest in political science) never spent much time with Marx's magnum opus. All but the first 105 pages in Darwin's copy of Marx's 822-page book remain uncut (as does the table of contents), and Darwin, contrary to his custom when reading books carefully, made no marginal annotations. In fact, we have no evidence that Darwin ever read a word of Das Kapital.

"The legend of greater contact began with one of the few errors ever made by one of the finest scholars of this, or any other, century -- Isaiah Berlin, in his 1939 biography of Marx. Based on a dubious inference from Darwin's short letter of thanks to Marx, Berlin concluded that Marx had offered to dedicate volume 2 of Kapital to Darwin and that Darwin had politely refused.

"This tale of Marx's proffered dedication then gained credence when a second letter, ostensibly from Darwin to Marx but addressed only to 'Dear Sir,' turned up among Marx's papers in the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. This letter, written on October 13, 1880, does politely decline a suggested dedication: 'I Shd. prefer the Part or Volume not be dedicated to me (though I thank you for the intended honour) as it implies to a certain extent my approval of the general publication, about which I know nothing.' This second find seemed to seal Isaiah Berlin's case, and the story achieved general currency....

"To shorten a long story, two scholars, working independently and simultaneously in the mid-1970s, discovered the almost comical basis of the error (see Margaret A. Fay, 'Did Marx offer to dedicate Capital to Darwin?' Journal of the History of Ideas 39, 1978, and Lewis S. Feuer, 'Is the "Darwin-Marx correspondence" authentic?' Annals of Science 32, 1975). Marx's daughter Eleanor became the common-law wife of the British socialist Edward Aveling. The couple safeguarded Marx's papers for several years, and the 1880 letter, evidently sent by Darwin to Aveling himself, must have strayed into the Marxian collection.

"Aveling belonged to a group of radical atheists. He sought Darwin's official approval, and status as dedicatee, for a volume he had edited on Darwin's work and his (that is, Aveling's, not necessarily Darwin's) view of its broader social meaning (published in 1881 as The Student's Darwin, volume 2 in the International Library of Science and Free-thought). Darwin, who understood Aveling's opportunism and cared little for his antireligious militancy, refused with his customary politeness but with no lack of firmness. Darwin ended his letter to Aveling (and not to Marx, who did not treat religion as a primary subject in Das Kapital) by writing:


"'It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public; and freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds which follows from the advance of science. It has, therefore, been always my object to avoid writing on religion, and I have confined myself to science.'

"Nonetheless, despite this correction, Marx might still have regarded himself as a disciple of Darwin and might have sought the company of a key Darwinian in the younger generation -- a position rendered more plausible by Engels's famous comparison (quoted earlier) in his funerary oration. But this interpretation must also be rejected. Engels maintained far more interest in the natural sciences than Marx ever did (as best expressed in two books, Anti-Dühring and Dialectics of Nature). Marx, as stated above, certainly admired Darwin as a liberator of knowledge from social prejudice and as a useful ally, at least by analogy. In a famous letter of 1869, Marx wrote to Engels about Darwin's Origin of Species: 'Although it is developed in the crude English style, this is the book which contains the basis in natural history for our view.'

But Marx also criticized the social biases in Darwin's formulation, again writing to Engels, and with keen insight:


"'It is remarkable how Darwin recognizes among beasts and plants his English society with its division pf labour, competition, opening up of new markets, invention and the Malthusian 'struggle for existence.' It is Hobbes's bellum omnium contra omnes [the war of all against all].' [Marx to Engels, 18/06/1862.]

"Marx remained a committed evolutionist, of course, but his interest in Darwin clearly diminished through the years. An extensive scholarly literature treats this subject, and I think that Margaret Fay speaks for a consensus when she writes (in her previously cited article):


"'Marx...though he was initially excited by the publication of Darwin's Origin...developed a much more critical stance toward Darwinism, and in his private correspondence of the 1860s poked gentle fun at Darwin's ideological biases. Marx's Ethnological Notebooks, compiled circa 1879-81, in which Darwin is cited only once, provide no evidence that he reverted to his earlier enthusiasm.'" [Gould (2002b), pp.123-25. Spelling altered to conform to UK English; formatting and quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here. I have not been able to check the articles Gould cites. I have added references to Marx's correspondence.]

Gould, S. (2002a), I Have Landed. Splashes And Reflections In Natural History (Jonathan Cape).

--------, (2002b), 'The Darwinian Gentleman At Marx's Funeral: Resolving Evolution's Oddest Coupling', in Gould (2002a), pp.113-29; reprinted in Gould (2006a), pp.166-81.

--------, (2006a), The Richness Of Life. The Essential Stephen Jay Gould, edited by Paul McGarr; Introduction by Steven Rose (Jonathan Cape).

More details here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page_13_03.htm

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


LP, the reason there is so much discussion on RevLeft about dialectics is that we're "lucky" enough to have Rosa amongst us and she is literally obsessed with the subject and cannot but help to launch thread after thread in order vent her obsession. You can see this just by reading this thread which, unwittingly, has become yet another platform for her near trolling.

1) As I have pointed out to you before, had you been around in the 1860s or 1870s, you'd have said that Marx was an "obsessive anti-capitalist", his having written tens of millions of words on the subject.

2) Truth be told, you are obsessed with me, and by the fact that you can't answer my criticisms of your 'theory'.

[Charles Xavier]

The best way you are going to learn about dialectics is by reading it. There are no short cuts. Its like asking for a cheat sheet what caused the bolshevik revolution and not understanding it yourself.

What marx, lenin, engels and many others wrote were the conclusions of Dialectical Materialism. And dialectics cannot be divorced from materialism as they stand hand in hand. To understand the Dialectic you need to understand materialism first.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/spirkin/works/dialectical-materialism/index.html

I like how this book is divided out so I would recommend reading it.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

^^^I see, Tupac, recommending a book that is full of the most basic errors, as I have pointed out to you before.

In fact, it is not possible to understand this 'theory' by reading about it; proof of that is your incapacity to explain and/or defend it here, just as other cannot defend/explain it.

[Das war einmal]

RR:



I do not see how evolution is dialectical; you just assume it is without proof.

Moreover, this is what Engels had to say about Darwinism:



And this is what Steven Jay Gould had to say about Marx's dwindling respect for Darwin (first of all referrring to biologist Ray Lankester, who attended Marx's funeral):



Gould, S. (2002a), I Have Landed. Splashes And Reflections In Natural History (Jonathan Cape).

--------, (2002b), 'The Darwinian Gentleman At Marx's Funeral: Resolving Evolution's Oddest Coupling', in Gould (2002a), pp.113-29; reprinted in Gould (2006a), pp.166-81.

--------, (2006a), The Richness Of Life. The Essential Stephen Jay Gould, edited by Paul McGarr; Introduction by Steven Rose (Jonathan Cape).

More details here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page_13_03.htm


And know in your own words? I dont see how evolution is NOT dialectical and all the things you just sited dont make things anymore clear. If you dont believe in dialectical materialism, than what, if I may ask?

Georges Politzer wrote a very clear book about dialectical materialism, called 'the foundations of the philosophy' but unfortunately I cant find it on marx.org (it is available on the site at the dutch section however)

[Pogue]

The best way you are going to learn about dialectics is by reading it. There are no short cuts. Its like asking for a cheat sheet what caused the bolshevik revolution and not understanding it yourself.

What marx, lenin, engels and many others wrote were the conclusions of Dialectical Materialism. And dialectics cannot be divorced from materialism as they stand hand in hand. To understand the Dialectic you need to understand materialism first.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/spirkin/works/dialectical-materialism/index.html

I like how this book is divided out so I would recommend reading it.

I wouldn't sya an obscure philosophical belief system caused the revolution, I'd say it was more to do with dicontent with Russian capitalism, Tsardom and the war, and this leaidng into an overthrow of the government and it being replaced with another.

[Holden Caulfield]

I dont think most people are obsessed with it (apart from Rosa).
Its just a thing most Marxists support, which is clearly a pile of bollocks and so discussion rages when we are bored and on internet forums.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

RR:


I dont see how evolution is NOT dialectical and all the things you just sited dont make things anymore clear. If you dont believe in dialectical materialism, than what, if I may ask?

Historical Materialism with the Hegelian rubbish removed.


Georges Politzer wrote a very clear book about dialectical materialism, called 'the foundations of the philosophy' but unfortunately I cant find it on marx.org (it is available on the site at the dutch section however)

If you have a look at my site, you will see I have read, studied and made detailed notes on practically every book and article published in the English language (and a few more besides) over the last 150 years on this theory.

So, thanks for that; if it's in English I will try to read it. If it's only in Dutch, then I won't be able to.

But if it's like the many hundreds of books and articles I have read on this theory (the vast majority of which are highly repetitive, and do not explain a single thing), then I cannot see it doing much good.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

HC:


I dont think most people are obsessed with it (apart from Rosa).

Hey, I'll slap your little legs for you...:)

[Das war einmal]

RR:



Historical Materialism with the Hegelian rubbish removed.



If you have a look at my site, you will see I have read, studied and made detailed notes on practically every book and article published in the English language (and a few more besides) over the last 150 years on this theory.

So, thanks for that; if it's in English I will try to read it. If it's only in Dutch, then I won't be able to.

But if it's like the many hundreds of books and articles I have read on this theory (the vast majority of which are highly repetitive, and do not explain a single thing), then I cannot see it doing much good.


Ok seems like you spend some research at this subject, more than the average anticommunist idiot who claims Marxism is a pseudo-science , although I dont think you are right to blame communist movements following dialectic materialism are small only because of them following these teachings. By doing so you completly ignore all other internal and external effort of the capitalist movement to destroy marxists movements and they are plentyfull

I have read a few books and articles about dialectic materialism and I can relate to this, giving me a better view on lots of societies problems. I also dont agree that the workers movement is further away from a communist society than 150 years ago: the social programs that are available in the Netherlands are the work of labour unions and left movements which would have been beaten the crap out of them 150 years ago (also think about such things as child labour for instance). The living conditions of the people worldwide have improved a lot in these two centuries. Not because of capitalism but because of the rights, freedoms and laws the labour unions and left have so hard fought for. The role of religion has also been greatly abused.

[Das war einmal]

Rosa since you are so passionately anti DM and state that DM is to blame for the failure of marxism and stained it I have to know: how do you think marxism should be imposed in the class struggle? Are you a member of a certain organisation that is not, as you call it, marginal or sectarian? Even if your only goal is to clear marxism of dialectics, could you name one thing for marxists to do, to achieve communism the best way possible?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

RR:


Ok seems like you spend some research at this subject, more than the average anticommunist idiot who claims Marxism is a pseudo-science , although I dont think you are right to blame communist movements following dialectic materialism are small only because of them following these teachings. By doing so you completly ignore all other internal and external effort of the capitalist movement to destroy marxists movements and they are plentyfull

I do not in fact say what you think I say; I recognise other factors (such as the attacks on our side by the ruling-class, alienation, work, health and family pressures, as well as the petty-bourgeois origin of most leading Marxists).

What I do say is that this 'theory' has made a bad situation worse.


I have read a few books and articles about dialectic materialism and I can relate to this, giving me a better view on lots of societies problems. I also dont agree that the workers movement is further away from a communist society than 150 years ago: the social programs that are available in the Netherlands are the work of labour unions and left movements which would have been beaten the crap out of them 150 years ago (also think about such things as child labour for instance). The living conditions of the people worldwide have improved a lot in these two centuries. Not because of capitalism but because of the rights, freedoms and laws the labour unions and left have so hard fought for. The role of religion has also been greatly abused.

I do not deny that there has been progress, but set against the massive defeats our side has suffered over the last 100 or so years, these small gains are insignificant.

And the gains workers have made over the last 150 years have nothing to do with dialectics, and little to do with Marxism. I wish the latter were otherwise.

The truth is that as the working class gets larger, the influence on it of Dialectical Marxism gets smaller and smaller.


Rosa since you are so passionately anti DM and state that DM is to blame for the failure of marxism and stained it I have to know: how do you think marxism should be imposed in the class struggle? Are you a member of a certain organisation that is not, as you call it, marginal or sectarian? Even if your only goal is to clear marxism of dialectics, could you name one thing for marxists to do, to achieve communism the best way possible?

I nowhere state that the failure of Dialectical Marxism is due to dialectics. In fact, at my site I repeatedly say things like this:


(1) It is important to emphasise from the outset that I am not blaming the long-term failure of Marxism solely on the acceptance of the Hermetic ideas dialecticians inherited from Hegel.

It is worth repeating this since I still encounter comments on Internet discussion boards, and still receive e-mails from those who claim to have read the above words, who still think I am blaming all our woes on dialectics. I am not.

However, no matter how many times I repeat this, the message will not sink in (and this is after several years of continually making this very point!).

It seems that this is one part of the universe over which the Heraclitean Flux has no power!

What is being claimed, however, is that adherence to this 'theory' is one of the subjective reasons why Dialectical Marxism has become a bye-word for failure.

There are other, objective reasons why the class enemy still runs this planet, but since revolutions require revolutionaries with ideas in their heads, this 'theory' must take some of the blame.

So, it is alleged here that dialectics has been an important contributory factor.

This is from the opening page:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/


I have to know: how do you think marxism should be imposed in the class struggle? Are you a member of a certain organisation that is not, as you call it, marginal or sectarian? Even if your only goal is to clear marxism of dialectics, could you name one thing for marxists to do, to achieve communism the best way possible?

I used to belong to the UK-SWP, and when my project is complete, I hope to re-join them (but I suspect they won't have me back! They are nearly all dialecticians, especially at the top).

If you want to know what I stand for, check out Socialist Worker:

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/

[Hit The North]

The truth is that as the working class gets larger, the influence on it of Dialectical Marxism gets smaller and smaller.

And you offer something more persuasive?

Let's face it, when challenged you have nothing to say.

[Hit The North]

I nowhere state that the failure of Dialectical Marxism is due to dialectics. In fact, at my site I repeatedly say things like this:

You nowhere state anything positive at all.

[Hit The North]

What is being claimed, however, is that adherence to this 'theory' is one of the subjective reasons why Dialectical Marxism has become a bye-word for failure.

What does this even mean?

[Hit The North]

So, it is alleged here that dialectics has been an important contributory factor.

In what sense is it a contributory factor?

[RedAnarchist]

Bob, why have you made four consecutive posts when one would have been sufficient?

[PRC-UTE]

Bob, why have you made four consecutive posts when one would have been sufficient?

He's in the zone.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


You nowhere state anything positive at all.

How do you know? You haven't read my work.


And you offer something more persuasive?

Let's face it, when challenged you have nothing to say.

Whether or not I have anything to say, it's you mystics that workers in their billions ignore.

Deal with that, not my alleged irrelevance.


What does this even mean?

Which word is causing you problems? "The" perhaps, or is it "that"?


In what sense is it a contributory factor?

In your particular case, it appears to have affected your short- and long-term memory -- since you have had this explained to you before.

[Das war einmal]

RR:



I do not in fact say what you think I say; I recognise other factors (such as the attacks on our side by the ruling-class, alienation, work, health and family pressures, as well as the petty-bourgeois origin of most leading Marxists).

What I do say is that this 'theory' has made a bad situation worse.



I do not deny that there has been progress, but set against the massive defeats our side has suffered over the last 100 or so years, these small gains are insignificant.

And the gains workers have made over the last 150 years have nothing to do with dialectics, and little to do with Marxism. I wish the latter were otherwise.

The truth is that as the working class gets larger, the influence on it of Dialectical Marxism gets smaller and smaller.



I nowhere state that the failure of Dialectical Marxism is due to dialectics. In fact, at my site I repeatedly say things like this:



This is from the opening page:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/



I used to belong to the UK-SWP, and when my project is complete, I hope to re-join them (but I suspect they won't have me back! They are nearly all dialecticians, especially at the top).

If you want to know what I stand for, check out Socialist Worker:

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/


Hmm I think you are overreacting on the whole matter to be honest. Except from the cadres, I dont think the most members of the communist party are really busy with actively practicing dialectics in politics. Nor do I think that it has even the smallest thing to do why we are currently insignificant. The workers movement isnt thrashing dialectics, I dont even think the majority know what dialectics are.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

RR:


Hmm I think you are overreacting on the whole matter to be honest. Except from the cadres, I dont think the most members of the communist party are really busy with actively practicing dialectics in politics. Nor do I think that it has even the smallest thing to do why we are currently insignificant. The workers movement isnt thrashing dialectics, I dont even think the majority know what dialectics are.

The point is that those who 'lead' our movement are avid dialecticians, and it is relatively easy to show what damage they have done to Marxism with their opportunistic manoeuvring.

The details can be found here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2009_02.htm#CaseStudies

[You will need to copy and paste this into your address bar since the anonymiser RevLeft uses ignores '#' sub-links.]

[scarletghoul]

Wow, this thread's grown... most of it however was just arguing about dialectics, which is not what I was looking for lol but thanks for all the posts that were relevant

It seems most marxist leaders have used dialectical thinking so it must have some significance. Though I still think practical side of things is more important, I'll try and understand what dialectics is, then if it seems to actually be relevent maybe I'll read some of Rosa's anti writing.

Also I have read Mao's writing on contradictions,which I understood. this is to do with dialectics right?

Anyway, overall, marxism has so far been a highly successful movement and rocked the world a hell of a lot, and there are still marxists in power and marxist movements all around the world, so to say that dialectics is responsable for the failure of marxism is not true because it hasnt failed. And where it isnt a very significant movement, it happens to be in places where there is a lot of anticommunist propaganda around, not the places where the marxist leaders like dialectics the most.

Thanks everyone

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LP, begin here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Why%20I%20Oppose%20DM.htm

[scarletghoul]

ok thanks. I'll read that after I've read the A Spirkin thing Tupac linked to

[Das war einmal]

RR:



The point is that those who 'lead' our movement are avid dialecticians, and it is relatively easy to show what damage they have done to Marxism with their opportunistic manoeuvring.

The details can be found here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2009_02.htm#CaseStudies

[You will need to copy and paste this into your address bar since the anonymiser RevLeft uses ignores '#' sub-links.]

Hmm I dont have the time yet to read all of this but lets just pick one subject you described. According to what you wrote, you said that DM was the reason why the central committee centralized the USSR further, quoting Stalin himself. Wether or not he used this as an excuse is debatable. Fact is that the chanses are high that the USSR would not have met the conditions to battle the fascist forces, if it indeed did not centralize the state further.

Later you state that it was due to DM theory that a new class diferences emerged in the USSR. I dissagree as the great purge was initialized to prosecute this new bureaucracy, which did not form because of the politics at that time. It happened because it could not really be prevented.

I am irritated at the fact that you use "-symbols when you are talking about internal and external factors like you are suggesting that these were lies made up by the supporters of the USSR, while these really are undeniable factors that did play a huge role in the decissions made by the party

[Charles Xavier]

Don't let anyone tell you how to think don't be a follower, just learn for yourself and come to your own conclusions.

[Das war einmal]

Now a bit more personal question, if you dont mind, besides this discussion. If you did put the same effort in practical class struggle as you did in demolishing DM thought, dont you think you could have achieved much more for the working class?

[pastradamus]

Ouch.....Damn. Reading about Dialectics is a great way to give yourself a headache. Though I have read and understand dialectical Materialism I hate talking and going on about it because it is (in my opinion) plain boring.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

RR:


Hmm I dont have the time yet to read all of this but lets just pick one subject you described. According to what you wrote, you said that DM was the reason why the central committee centralized the USSR further, quoting Stalin himself. Wether or not he used this as an excuse is debatable. Fact is that the chanses are high that the USSR would not have met the conditions to battle the fascist forces, if it indeed did not centralize the state further.

You need to recall what I said at the beginning of that Essay:


Please note that this Essay deals with very basic issues -- even at the risk of over-simplification.

It has only been ventured upon because a handful of comrades (who were not well-versed in Philosophy) wanted a very simple guide to my principle arguments against DM.

Hence, it is not aimed at experts!

Anyone who objects to the apparently superficial nature of the material below must take these warnings into account or navigate away from this page. It is not intended for them.

Now, I deal with the point you make more thoroughly in Essay Nine Part Two.

There I note that the CPSU did in fact take hard-headed decisions (like the one you mentioned) for political reasons, but they appealed to this contradictory theory to justify serious about-turns like this. And that is precisely what we find Stalin doing:


"It may be said that such a presentation of the question is 'contradictory.' But is there not the same 'contradictoriness' in our presentation of the question of the state? We stand for the withering away of the state. At the same time we stand for the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is the mightiest and strongest state power that has ever existed. The highest development of state power with the object of preparing the conditions for the withering away of state power -- such is the Marxist formula. Is this 'contradictory'? Yes, it is 'contradictory.' But this contradiction us bound up with life, and it fully reflects Marx's dialectics." [Political Report of the Central Committee to the Sixteenth Congress of the CPSU(B), June 27,1930. Bold emphasis added.]

Then I say:


Later on, 'Materialist Dialectics' was used to justify/rationalise the catastrophic and reckless class-collaborationist tactics imposed on both the Chinese and Spanish revolutions, just as they were employed to rationalise/justify the ultra-left, "social fascist" post-1929 about-turn by the communist movement. This crippled the fight against the Nazis by suicidally splitting the left in Germany, pitting communist against socialist, while Hitler laughed all the way to the Reichstag.

This 'theory' then helped 'excuse' the rotation of the Communist Party through another 180 degrees in its next class-collaborationist phase, the "Popular Front" --, and then through another 180 (in order to 'justify' the unforgivable Hitler-Stalin pact) as part of the newly re-discovered 'revolutionary defeatist' stage --, and through yet another 180 two years later in the shape of 'The Great Patriotic War', following upon Hitler's predictable invasion of the "Mother Land" -- "Holy Russia".

This is from here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2009_02.htm

Now all of these moves were taken for hard-headed political reasons, but they were sold to puzzled cadres the world over by the use of dialectics, since no other theory (except perhaps Zen Buddhism) can be used in this way to justify anything you like and then its opposite in the very next breath.

RR:


Later you state that it was due to DM theory that a new class diferences emerged in the USSR. I dissagree as the great purge was initialized to prosecute this new bureaucracy, which did not form because of the politics at that time. It happened because it could not really be prevented.

I state no such thing.

Do you have the quote?

RR:


I am irritated at the fact that you use "-symbols when you are talking about internal and external factors like you are suggesting that these were lies made up by the supporters of the USSR, while these really are undeniable factors that did play a huge role in the decissions made by the party

What precisely are you referring to?

If you want me to correct your misapprehensions, you will need to be more precise.

RR:


Now a bit more personal question, if you dont mind, besides this discussion. If you did put the same effort in practical class struggle as you did in demolishing DM thought, dont you think you could have achieved much more for the working class?

Look, if I am right (and I might not be) then this theory has played a serious role in ruining Marxism.

Hence, in order to stop any more poison seeping into our movement someone has to demolish this theory. I can have very little impact on the class war by joining a party, but I can have a much bigger impact on it if I help destroy DM.

However, it is highly likey I will fail (you can see that from the irrational reponse to my ideas here from the dialecticians among us -- this is reproduced everywhere my ideas appear; the vast majority of such comrades respond irrationally and/or emotionally to my arguments). But this will not deter me. I will stop attacking this theory when one of two things happen: this theory is destroyed, or I stop breathing.

Why comrades react this way to my ideas is explained in that Essay I suggested you read -- section ten.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

TAII:


Don't let anyone tell you how to think don't be a follower, just learn for yourself and come to your own conclusions.

Something which you plainly haven't done.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Pastradamus:


Though I have read and understand dialectical Materialism I hate talking and going on about it because it is (in my opinion) plain boring.

I agree with you; but I have had to read this stuff now for nearly 30 years, over and over. I have had read carefully everything I can lay my hands on, on this theory (the vast majority of which is highly repetitive) -- just to make sure I haven't missed something.

So, much of my reading for the last 30 odd years has been about as interesting as reading the entire New York telephone directory -- except at least the latter has a use!