Rosa Lichtenstein
30th November 2009, 12:46
Gravedigger:
Dialectics has been useful for marxists in getting an understanding that the world is dynamic and always in a state of flux and change. It has also been used to try and understand how small material changes can accumulate to the point where a qualitative leap is made. So a revolution that seems to come from nowhere and elevate a new social class into power (like the French Revolution) can be understood as the accumulation of small changes that allowed the merchants and so on to eventually come to a point where they could not continue to grow and gain power without coming into conflict with the ruling class of landed nobles and so a conflict ensued which didn't just end in another incremental change but radically changed the balance in society.
1) Dialectics can't do this since if it were true, change would be impossible -- as I have shown in the Mao thread.
http://www.revleft.com/vb/mao-zedong-t121784/index5.html
2) We already have countless words in ordinary language that can be used to explain change.
Here is a greatly shortened list of ordinary words (restricted to modern English) that allow speakers to refer to changes of unbounded complexity:
Vary, alter, adjust, amend, make, produce, revise, improve, deteriorate, edit, bend, straighten, weave, dig, plough, sow, twist, turn, tighten, fasten, loosen, relax, tense up, slacken, bind, wrap, pluck, rip, tear, mend, perforate, repair, damage, mutate, metamorphose, transmute, sharpen, modify, develop, expand, contract, constrict, constrain, widen, lock, unlock, swell, flow, differentiate, divide, partition, unite, amalgamate, connect, fast, slow, swift, rapid, hasty, heat up, melt, harden, cool down, flash, shine, glow, drip, cascade, drop, pick up, fade, darken, wind, unwind, meander, peel, scrape, graze, file, scour, dislodge, is, was, will be, will have been, had, will have had, went, go, going, gone, return, lost, age, flood, precipitate, crumble, disintegrate, erode, corrode, rust, flake, shatter, percolate, seep, tumble, mix, separate, cut, chop, crush, grind, shred, slice, dice, saw, sew, knit, spread, coalesce, congeal, fall, climb, rise, ascend, descend, slide, slip, roll, spin, revolve, oscillate, undulate, rotate, wave, conjure, quickly, slowly, instantaneously, suddenly, gradually, rapidly, hastily, inadvertently, accidentally, extremely, snap, chew, digest, ingest, excrete, join, resign, part, sell, buy, acquire, lose, find, search, explore, cover, uncover, reveal, stretch, depress, compress, lift, put down, win, ripen, germinate, conceive, gestate, abort, die, rot, perish, grow, decay, fold, many, more, less, fewer, steady, steadily, jerkily, smoothly, quickly, very, extremely, exceedingly, intermittent, continuous, continual, push, pull, slide, jump, sit, stand, run, chase, walk, swim, drown, immerse, break, charge, retreat, assault, dismantle, pulverise, disintegrate, dismember, replace, undo, reverse, repeal, enact, quash, throw, catch, hour, minute, second, instant, invent, innovate, rescind, destroy, annihilate, extirpate, boil, freeze, thaw, cook, liquefy, solidify, congeal, neutralise, flatten, crimple, evaporate, condense, dissolve, mollify, pacify, calm down, terminate, initiate, instigate, enrage, inflame, protest, challenge, expel, eject, remove, overthrow, expropriate, scatter, gather, assemble, defeat, strike, revolt, riot, march, demonstrate, rebel, campaign, agitate, organise...
Naturally, it would not be difficult to extend this list until it contained literally tens of thousands of words all capable of depicting countless changes in limitless detail (especially if it is augmented with the language of mathematics). It is only a myth put about by Hegel and dialecticians that ordinary language cannot express change. On the contrary, it performs this task far better than the incomprehensible and impenetrably obscure jargon Hegel invented in order to fix something that was not broken.
And we have debated this alleged 'law' (i.e., "quantity passes over into quality") many times before, where I have been able to show that it only seems to work because of the way that its key terms have been left undefined.
As I point out in one of my introductory Essays:
Engels asserted the following:
...[T]he transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa. For our purpose, we could express this by saying that in nature, in a manner exactly fixed for each individual case, qualitative changes can only occur by the quantitative addition or subtraction of matter or motion (so-called energy)…. Hence it is impossible to alter the quality of a body without addition or subtraction of matter or motion, i.e. without quantitative alteration of the body concerned. [Engels (1954), p.63. Emphasis added.]
As we have seen, such change is not smooth or gradual:
It will be understood without difficulty by anyone who is in the least capable of dialectical thinking...[that] quantitative changes, accumulating gradually, lead in the end to changes of quality, and that these changes of quality represent leaps, interruptions in gradualness…. That is how all Nature acts…. [Plekhanov (1956), pp.74-77, 88, 163.]
But there are many things in nature that change smoothly; think of melting metal, glass, plastic, butter, toffee and chocolate. Sure, some things change 'nodally' (i.e., in "leaps"), but many do not. So, the 'nodal' aspect of this law is defective.
Unfortunately, this means that this law cannot be used to argue that the transformation from capitalism to socialism must be 'nodal' (i.e., sudden) too, for we have as yet no idea whether or not this transformation will be one of these exceptions. Plainly, we could only use this law if it had no exceptions at all.
This means that the whole point of adopting this law in the first place has now vanished.
What about the 'quantity into quality' part? Undeniably, many material things change qualitatively, and they do so as a result of the addition or subtraction of matter and/or energy.
But not all qualitative differences are caused this way. The order in which events take place can effect quality, too. For example, try crossing a busy main road first and looking second -- now try it the other way round! And anyone who tries pouring half a litre of water slowly into a litre of concentrated sulphuric acid will face a long and painful stay in hospital, whereas the reverse action is perfectly safe.
When confronted with examples like these, dialecticians largely ignore them, but the few who don't often tell us that these aren't objections to this law, since Engels (and other DM-theorists) did not mean it to be interpreted this way. But, how they know this they have so far kept to themselves.
Now, it turns out that this Law is so vaguely worded that dialecticians can use it in whatever way they please. If this is difficult to believe then ask the very next dialectician you meet precisely how long a "nodal point" is supposed to last. You will receive no answer. But, if no one knows, then anything from a Geological Age to an instantaneous quantum leap could be "nodal"!
And, it really isn't good enough for dialecticians to dismiss this as mere pedantry. Can you imagine a genuine scientist refusing to say how long a crucially important interval in her theory is supposed to be, and accusing you of "pedantry" for even thinking to ask?
Next, enquire what a "quality" is. If your respondent knows his/her theory, you might be told it is a property the change of which alters a process/object into something new. For example, in evolution numerous small variations in organisms accumulate until a new species arises.
Unfortunately, given this explanation of "quality" many of the examples DM-theorists themselves use to illustrate their theory actually fail.
For instance: the most hackneyed example they refer to is water turning to ice or steam, when cooled or heated. Given the above 'definition', this wouldn't be an example of qualitative change, since water (as ice, liquid or steam) is still water (i.e., H2O). Quantitative addition or subtraction of energy does not result in a qualitative change of the required sort; nothing substantially new emerges. This substance stays H2O throughout.
Faced with that, dialecticians may be tempted to relax the definition of a quality, so that in solid, liquid or gaseous form, water could be said to exhibit different qualities.
Unfortunately, this would rescue the above example but sink the theory. If we relax "quality" so that it applies to any qualitative difference, then we would have to include the relational properties of bodies. In that case we could easily have qualitative change with no extra matter or energy added to the system. For instance, consider three animals in a row: a mouse, a pony, and an elephant. In relation to the mouse, the pony is big, but in relation to the elephant it is small. Change in quality, but no matter or energy has been added or subtracted.
Finally, there are substances studied in Chemistry called isomers. These are molecules with exactly the same atoms, but their geometrical orientation is different, which lends to each their different properties. So, here we have a change in quality caused by a change in geometry, but with the addition of no new matter or energy -- contradicting Engels:
...[Q]ualitative changes can only occur by the quantitative addition or subtraction of matter or motion (so-called energy)…. Hence it is impossible to alter the quality of a body without addition or subtraction of matter or motion, i.e. without quantitative alteration of the body concerned. [Engels (1954), p.63. Emphasis added.]
So, at the very best, this law is merely a quaint rule of thumb (a bit like: "A stitch in time saves nine"). At worst, it is like a stopped clock: totally useless, even if twice a day it tells the 'right time'.
Engels's First 'Law' is thus of no use in developing revolutionary theory, and so it has no role to play in helping change society.
Gravedigger:
A materialist dialectical method has also helped shed light on big leaps in evolution. Many evolutionists believed that evolution was a small series of steps slowly leading to new developments and new species. But often in the fossil record there are huge explosions of new life or huge extinctions. One example of a burst of new life is called the Cambrian explosion where simple life seems to have evolved into complex organisms in a short amount of time. I read that one of the theories about this now is that some simple predators developed rudimentary eyes for the first time (photosensitive cells grouped together) and suddenly they had a huge advantage over the rock-clinging sightless organisms. This caused new evolutionary pressures that favored organisms that developed ways to cope with predators that could see them: animals that developed flight (i.e. could swim away) or camouflage or increase their size or so on were now the survivors. In turn predators that could adapt to the new defences multiplied and so on.
In fact, it is useless even here, as I have suggested above.
This has been debated at RevLeft many times, so I will merely re-direct comrades to those discussions; I have listed them here:
http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/RevLeft.htm
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