What is dialectical materialism?

[Owen-]

Hi everyone, im just trying to understand this difficult concept (dialectical materialism,) could anyone give me a hand?

Thanks,
Owen.

Edit: just saw the Revolutionary Left Dictionary - sorry, im having a read, but if anyone could expand on it - it would be much appreciated.

Thanks again,
Owen.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I have written a very basic guide to this theory, for absolute beginners (followed by a refutation), here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Anti-D_For_Dummies%2001.htm

You can read part of a longer version of the above, here at RevLeft:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/nti-dialectics-made-t132104/index.html

[The Vegan Marxist]

Here's a tip for you Owen, don't listen to ^ when it comes to "Dialectical Materialism"!

[Broletariat]

Here's a tip for you Owen, don't listen to ^ when it comes to "Dialectical Materialism"!
I don't see why we shouldn't, or at least based off this post.

[MilkmanofHumanKindness]

Hi everyone, im just trying to understand this difficult concept (dialectical materialism,) could anyone give me a hand?

Thanks,
Owen.

Edit: just saw the Revolutionary Left Dictionary - sorry, im having a read, but if anyone could expand on it - it would be much appreciated.

Thanks again,
Owen.

I'd seriously recommend reading independently before looking at Rosa's website. Often times, the website twists Dialectical Materialism to come off as some sort of "Stalinist Religion".

Here's some stuff I'd reccomend:

1. Lenin's Summary of Hegel's Dialectics
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/cons-logic/summary.htm

2. Read the article, "What the heck is a dialectics?" it provides a good summary and basis of Dialectics. (Yes, it is "for kids" but it isn't patronizing.)

3. marxists.com has some excellent material on the importance of metaphysics and an explanation of Dialectics.
http://www.dialectics4kids.com/

[The Vegan Marxist]

I don't see why we shouldn't, or at least based off this post.

Because there's been a lot of discussions of Dialectics & Dialectical Materialism, & Rosa always tends to derail the threads into debates on her rhetoric of how she sees dialectics in a similar sense to religion.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

You'd probably be a lot better off ignoring it for now and instead focusing on historical materialism.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Vegan Marxist:


Here's a tip for you Owen, don't listen to ^ when it comes to "Dialectical Materialism"!

Ah, yet another comrade who can't defend this mystical 'theory', and certainly can't take me on in open debate.

What a huge surprise!


Because there's been a lot of discussions of Dialectics & Dialectical Materialism, & Rosa always tends to derail the threads into debates on her rhetoric of how she sees dialectics in a similar sense to religion

Ok, let's get specific. What is wrong with this criticism of Engels (taken for the Essay I linked to above -- recall that Essay was aimed at novices):


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. Bold emphasis added.]

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.

[It's important to add at this point that I certainly do not believe that the revolutionary transformation of society will be gradual, but then I do not accept this 'law'.]

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.

[References can be found at the bove link.]

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

MilkManOfHumanKindness:


I'd seriously recommend reading independently before looking at Rosa's website. Often times, the website twists Dialectical Materialism to come off as some sort of "Stalinist Religion".

Not so; I spend most of my time demolishing Engels, Lenin and Trotsky.

[That comment of yours shows you have either never visited my site, or have only skim read an essay or two. And you have the cheek to accuse me of distortion! :lol:]


2. Read the article, "What the heck is a dialectics?" it provides a good summary and basis of Dialectics. (Yes, it is "for kids" but it isn't patronizing.)

An absolutely awful site. Check this out:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/dialectics-kids-t60024/index.html

[MilkmanofHumanKindness]

MilkManOfHumanKindness:



Not so; I spend most of my time demolishing Engels, Lenin and Trotsky.

[That comment of yours shows you have either never visited my site, or have only skim read an essay or two. And you have the cheek to accuse me of distortion! :lol:]

Actually, I have been reading your site. The problem I largely have is your twisting of history to blame dialectic materialism directly for Stalinism, without providing the link between the two. Stalin's purposeful misrepresentation of Dialectical Materialism, is about as fair as saying that Nietzsche was responsible for Hitler. Both claims, are absurd.

Not to mention, I feel it is callous, nay dangerous, for Marxists to "throw away philosophy" as you so proudly claim they must.

Philosophy, is our only opportunity to fight against the ruling class ideas of the day. The material reality of Capitalist oppression is supported by the abstractions they create, through Dialectical Materialism and Marxist Philosophy we challenge and work to destroy those abstractions.

This is not to say that a Philosophical revolution is the only one needed. We still will at the end of the day need to fight physically against Capitalism.

Thus, I'm not just mindlessly defending Dialectical Materialism. What I am defending is the importance of philosophy, and good argumentation.



An absolutely awful site. Check this out:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/dialectics-kids-t60024/index.html

All that is, is you just ranting against dialectic materialism. That doesn't make the site poor, or unable to explain Dialectical Materialism. It means you just disagree.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

MilkManofHumanKindness:


Actually, I have been reading your site. The problem I largely have is your twisting of history to blame dialectic materialism directly for Stalinism, without providing the link between the two. Stalin's purposeful misrepresentation of Dialectical Materialism, is about as fair as saying that Nietzsche was responsible for Hitler. Both claims, are absurd.

Where do I blame this 'theory' for Stalinism?

Nowhere that's where!

So much for not distorting what I have written!

In fact, I go out of my way to agree with Trotsky's analysis of the origin of Stalinism.

What I do argue is that this contradictory 'theory' was a 'god'-send to the Stalinists, who were able to use it to 'justify' anything they liked and to rationalise counter-revolutionary strategies and tactics taken for political reasons. And they went on to use it to 'justify' every twist and turn they made in the 1930's, since it can be used to rationalise anything and its opposite, often in the same breath.

This is not blame this theory for Stalinism, but to show how the Stalinists were able to use it to do what they needed to do to consolidate their power.

But you say this in reply:


Stalin's purposeful misrepresentation of Dialectical Materialism,

And yet the Stalinists say this of us Trotskyists. Here are some examples, which you obviously skipped past:


"One reason for the advanced workers to oppose the claim that Trotskyism is the 'Leninism of today', stems from our determination to uphold dialectical logic. Anyone who upholds dialectical reasoning and practice cannot simultaneously argue that Trotskyism represents Leninism, or take Trotsky's side in the theoretical disputes, which divided the communist movement after the death of Lenin. This letter will briefly outline the general features of the two important issues of the immediate post-Lenin period. At the heart of the post-Lenin disputes in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was the question of whether or not to pursue a dialectical or non-dialectical approach regarding the nature of the world revolutionary process.

"Unlike Lenin, Trotsky's theory of the world revolutionary process was of a pseudo-leftist character, having certain similarities with Lenin's position, although a different theory. The simple procedure of applying dialectic logic to the world revolutionary process compels Marxist-Leninists to reject the either world revolution or socialism in one country thesis of Trotsky and his followers....

"Whatever one may think of Trotsky's version of the theory of permanent revolution, it is clear that Trotsky's either/or methodology is a repudiation of dialectics in that it applies an anti-dialectical method to a dialectical process.

"Regardless of the views that some people may have of Stalin, he led the grouping that maintained a Leninist dialectical approach to the world revolutionary process, in which the part, socialism in one country, was never separated from the whole, i.e., international revolution.

"Following the death of Lenin in 1924, Trotsky sought to polarise, or split communists on an anti-dialectical basis. This is to say that the arguments he used were not based on Leninism or dialectics.

"Trotsky wanted communists to take sides, or choose between what he considered two diametrically opposed lines. For Trotsky, this was 'either' you support socialism in one country, or you support world revolution (i.e., Trotsky's permanent revolution theory). Trotsky saw socialism in one country as opposed to world revolution. On this issue, dialectics never came into his thinking at all.

"Later, the whole international Trotskyist movement based itself on a fundamental repudiation of dialectical logic, failing to see that it was never a question of socialism in one country versus world revolution....

"The 'either' socialism in one country 'or' world revolution position was clearly to apply an anti-dialectical approach to a living dialectical process. If matter moves dialectically, how can one apply non-dialectical concepts to it and hope to capture the real movement. It is the dialectical movement itself that should, and does, suggest a dialectical approach.

"I believe that dialectical logic, the dialectical approach, is the foundation of both Marxism and Leninism, and it is clear from his writings that Trotsky only began to study dialectics at a very late date in his political evolution. (See Trotsky's: In Defence of Marxism).

"Although dialectics is the foundation of Marxism and Leninism, this does not preclude communists making mistakes, but we should all be guided by dialectics. This is why it is necessary to oppose Trotsky and those who have been blinded by him to viewing the dialectical world revolutionary process in a non-dialectical way, as socialism in one country or world revolution. Simply put, socialism in one, or several countries and the world revolution are different sides of the same coin. The Trotskyists toss this coin and call out head or tail, but in reality, both sides are inseparably linked.

"It was wrong and counterrevolutionary to needlessly split, or try to split, the international communist movement on an argument based on a repudiation of dialectics. The heads or tails approach cannot be applied to the dialectical process of world revolution.

"For the dialectician it can never be a question of 'socialism in one country or the international revolution'. Thus, only people not versed in elementary Marxist-Leninist dialectics could countenance Trotsky's approach.

"The world revolutionary process unfolds through the particular transforming itself into the universal. Hence arises the possibility of socialism in one country, resulting from uneven development, leading on to the international, or world revolution.

"Without a doubt, Marxism-Leninism has been vindicated as regarding the dialectical nature of the world revolutionary process.

"Only those who reject dialectical logic, or perhaps are unconscious of it, would oppose Lenin, who dialectically viewed socialism in one country as an integral part of the world revolutionary process. The slogan of the CPGB (Weekly Worker) or the SWP, that socialism is 'either' international 'or' is nothing stems from a profound rejection of dialectics. Such slogans have nothing to do with Leninism or dialectics....

"Because for Marxist-Leninists, the world revolutionary process is a dialectical process, whereby the particular, socialism in one country, is transformed into the universal, i.e., world revolution, this dialectical world revolutionary process requires dialectical thinking. Lenin, correctly, had earlier warned against those who neglected dialectics in his remark that:

'Dialectics is the theory of knowledge of (Hegel and) Marxism. This is the "aspect" of the matter (it is not "an aspect" but the essence of the matter) to which Plekhanov, not to speak of other Marxists, paid no attention.' (V. I. Lenin: cw.vol.38; p.362).

"As already pointed out, Trotsky rejected the dialectical nature of the world revolutionary process; demanding communists make a choice between world revolution and socialism in one country. Had the Soviet leadership made such a choice it would have constituted a crass repudiation of both Leninism and dialectical logic and practice....

"The whole essence of Stalin's struggle against Trotskyism in the Soviet Union can be summed up as the struggle to silence Trotskyist/Menshevik defeatism about the possibility of building socialism in the Soviet Union. Certainly, Stalin derived a great deal of Kudos from the fact that Lenin had indicated that it could be done. Who can doubt that all those siren voices protesting against the possibility of building socialism in the Soviet Union were in fact serving the interest of the bourgeois counterrevolution, even if some of them did so unconsciously?

"Stalin defended Leninism, not Trotskyism, and this included the question of the dialectical nature of the world revolutionary process. Stalin was perfectly correct, from the standpoint of dialectics, to oppose Trotsky's either/or methodology. To side with Stalin on this issue was therefore to side with dialectics." [Tony Clark, 2004. Bold emphases added.]

And he's not the only one:


"Trotsky spoke in favour of dialectical materialism, but he frequently made use of undialectical ways of reasoning and judging political events. This is notable among Trotskyists to this day. They replace dialectics with a mechanical way of reasoning, and they replace investigation of the concrete circumstances of a situation with appeals to what's true of the world situation in general.

"Trotsky recognized materialism in theory, but negated it in practice.... Thus, his adherence to materialism was skin-deep, and he pooh-poohed materialism in practice....

"Perhaps the key dialectical aspect of dialectical materialism is that it focuses attention on the internal contradictions that in large part determine the character of a thing or process. For example, a country, a party, a government, and so forth are affected by other countries, parties and governments that oppose them, and this is recognized by mechanical materialists as well as dialectical materialists. But dialectical materialism highlights the internal conflicts and opposing forces that exist inside a country, party and so forth, and that account for why they react to external pressures the way they do. Mechanical materialists often overlook such things, and in a number of crucial situations, so did Trotsky.

"For example, seeing that the old ruling class was overthrown and thus had lost its control over the state sector, Trotsky regarded that the state sector of the Soviet Union was inherently socialist. He didn't see the importance of the internal contradictions in the state sector....

"Trotsky repeatedly denounced the idea of 'democratic dictatorship' of the workers and peasants as an algebraic formula, for example, he might say that it had 'a certain algebraic quality, which had to make way for more precise arithmetical quantities in the process of historical experience', this arithmetic allegedly showing that the idea was wrong. Thus he contrasted algebraic formulas to good old, time-honoured, solid arithmetic.

"It has since become something of a shibboleth of Trotskyist reasoning to refer to certain political terms as 'algebraic formulas'; this is usually meant as a denunciation, but it is also conceded that certain demands must, alas, have an algebraic character for the time being. But the difference between algebra and arithmetic is precisely that algebra is more dialectical than arithmetic. So Trotsky's elevation of arithmetic over algebra is about as close as one can get to seeing someone who claims to be a dialectical materialist attack dialectics." [Joseph Green. Bold emphases added.]

There are several more of the same at my site, where links to these sources can be found:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2009_02.htm

Yes we know these are lies and distortions, but the plain fact is that anything can be 'justified' by this 'theory'.

And fellow Trotskyists use the same theory to denounce one another! Here are a few examples:


"In the transition from one society to another, it is clear that there is not an unbridgeable gulf. It is not a dialectical method to think in finished categories; workers' state or capitalist state and the devil take any transition or motion between the two. It is clear that when Marx spoke of the smashing of the old state form in relation to the Commune, he took it for granted that the economy would be transformed at a greater or lesser pace and would come into consonance with the political forms. We will see later in relation to Eastern Europe that Cliff adopts the same formalistic method....

"Thus, one can only understand class society if one takes into account the many-sided dialectical inter-dependence and antagonisms of all the factors within it. Formalists usually get lost in one or other side of the problem....

"The whole contradiction, a contradiction within the society itself and not imposed arbitrarily -- is in the very concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat. If one considers the problem in the abstract, one can see that this is a contradictory phenomenon: the abolition of capitalism yet the continuation of classes. The proletariat does not disappear. It raises itself to the position of ruling class and abolishes the capitalist class....

"...To abstract one side must lead to error. What is puzzling about the Russian phenomenon is precisely the contradictory character of the economy. This has been further aggravated by the backwardness and isolation of the Soviet Union. This culminates in the totalitarian Stalinist regime and results in the worst features of capitalism coming to the fore -- the relations between managers and men, piece-work, etc. Instead of analysing these contradictions Comrade Cliff endeavours as far as possible to try and fit them into the pattern of the 'normal' laws of capitalist production....

"This whole formalistic method is the fatal weakness of Cliff's case. It would have been impossible for Trotsky in the early stages to deal with the problem in the abstract. He had to deal with the concrete situation and give a concrete answer. But the further degeneration posed the problem in an entirely different way. Once it had been established that it was impossible to reform the Stalinist party, that it was impossible to reform the Soviet state (we assume that Cliff also believes this was the task since up to 1928 since he says Russia was a degenerated workers' state), then the question had to be viewed in a somewhat different light. It is foreign to the Marxist method to search for isolated contradictions, real or apparent. What is required is an examination of a theory in its broad general development, in its movement, and its contradictions...." [Ted Grant. Bold emphases added.]


"The political retreat of the [SLL] from the struggle against opportunism led to a decline in the theoretical level which had been established during the fight against the SWP-Pabloite reunification. Increasingly abstract references to the necessity of a struggle for dialectical materialism became a substitute for the actual development of revolutionary perspectives. Moreover, as the pressure of petty-bourgeois radicalism produced signs of political divisions within the International Committee and the SLL, the formal invocation of dialectical materialism became more and more a means of avoiding concrete issues which confronted the Trotskyist movement. The WRP leaders utilized the phraseology of dialectics while engaging in practices which were inimical to the critical spirit of Marxism. The 'holding fast of opposites', a phrase which Healy had extracted from Lenin's Philosophical Notebooks, was converted into an organizational principle which justified all sorts of rotten compromises within the central leadership. Thus dialectics was converted into a system of sophistries which provided an imposing cover for the evasion of political responsibilities and the betrayal of principles.

"By the early 1970s, the SLL began developing a theory of 'dialectical cognition' which reflected and justified the drift toward opportunism. Healy played a significant role in this enterprise, but the revisionist innovations which led to the 'practice of cognition' were, like the positive work of the previous decade, the outcome of a collaborative effort involving the principal leaders of the [SLL]. As we have previously noted, Slaughter asserted following the split with the OCI that the experiences of party building in Britain had demonstrated 'that a thoroughgoing and difficult struggle against idealist ways of thinking was necessary which went much deeper than questions of agreement on program and policy.' He argued that the 'fight for a deepening of the understanding of dialectical materialism as the theory of knowledge of Marxism' meant that it was necessary 'to redirect the movement towards the fundamental questions involved in the nature of consciousness. of what is meant by a "leap" in consciousness...' (Slaughter (1975b, p.83).

"The content of the consciousness-raising exercise proposed by Slaughter emerged in the polemics produced after Alan Thornett was expelled from the WRP. The party proceeded to mystify the essential political issues underlying the split by presenting the dispute as an epic battle between irreconcilably opposed epistemologies. Banda's magnum opus Whither Thornett? was largely devoted to 'exposing' Thornett's 'total rejection of the Marxist theory of cognition,' as if the Cowley auto worker was a renowned disciple of Bertrand Russell or Ludwig Wittgenstein....

"Anticipating what was to become the standard fare of Healy's future lectures and writings, Whither Thornett? presented abstruse descriptions, weighed down with Hegelian phraseology, of the 'moments' of the cognitive process, starting with 'living perception' of nature and ending with practical action....

"These and other passages of the book were certainly incomprehensible to most members of the [WRP]. The use of pretentious and all but incomprehensible jargon was itself an indication of a shift in the class axis of the WRP. The document was not written to clarify either the membership or the advanced workers who studied the political literature of the WRP. The mystifying language was intended to obscure the really opportunist implications of the new philosophical positions being staked out by the WRP. Few suspected or were in a position to understand that concealed within the pretentious and mystifying jargon employed by Banda, Geoff Pilling and Slaughter was a bitter denunciation of the political priority which the Fourth International has traditionally given to the defense of its program." [North (1990), pp.80-82. Quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here. Bold emphases added.]

Links and references to the above sources can be found at the link I posted above.

Just as Trotskyists use the very same 'theory' to denounce the Stalinists and Maoists, who use it too to denounce each other.

And that is because there is no way decide what the 'legitimate' use of this theory might look like.

And, in turn, that is because it makes not one ounce of sense.

Of course, I do not expect you to take my word for this, but it stands nonetheless unless you can show where I go wrong.

But, what about this?


The problem I largely have is your twisting of history to blame dialectic materialism directly for Stalinism, without providing the link between the two.

Again, this shows you either did not read my work, or simply skipped past most of it, for I do just that. Here, for example:


DM/'Materialist Dialectics' was used by the Stalinised Bolshevik Party (after Lenin's death) to 'justify' the imposition of an undemocratic (if not an openly anti-democratic and terror-based) structure on both the Communist Party and the population of the former USSR (and later, elsewhere).

The catastrophic effects of these moves hardly need underlining.

This new and vicious form of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' was justified by Stalin on the grounds that since Marxist theory holds that everything is 'contradictory', increasingly centralised control by the party was compatible with greater democratic freedom. The "withering-away of the state" was in fact confirmed by moves in the opposite direction: the ever-growing concentration of power at the centre. So, and paradoxically: less democracy was in fact more democracy!

Indeed, that very contradiction illustrated the truth of dialectics!

As Stalin himself put it:


"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.]

And, he went on to add this rather ominous note:


"Anyone who fails to understand this peculiar feature and 'contradiction' of our transition period, anyone who fails to understand these dialectics of the historical processes, is dead as far as Marxism is concerned.

"The misfortune of our deviators is that they do not understand, and do not wish to understand, Marx's dialectics." [Ibid. Bold emphases added.

As many leading Bolsheviks were later to find out, Stalin was not joking when he said this.

Taken from the same Essay I linked to above.

[There you will find a similar 'dialectical' argument advanced by Mao to the same end, and to 'justify' class collaboration with the Guomindang.]


Not to mention, I feel it is callous, nay dangerous, for Marxists to "throw away philosophy" as you so proudly claim they must.

Well, I'd like to see you reply to the argument I posted in Philosophy to justify this claim of mine -- or are you content to ignore that too?


Philosophy, is our only opportunity to fight against the ruling class ideas of the day. The material reality of Capitalist oppression is supported by the abstractions they create, through Dialectical Materialism and Marxist Philosophy we challenge and work to destroy those abstractions.

1) Except Marx pointed this out about 'Philosophy':


"We have shown that thoughts and ideas acquire an independent existence in consequence of the personal circumstances and relations of individuals acquiring independent existence. We have shown that exclusive, systematic occupation with these thoughts on the part of ideologists and philosophers, and hence the systematisation of these thoughts, is a consequence of division of labour, and that, in particular, German philosophy is a consequence of German petty-bourgeois conditions. The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life." [Marx and Engels (1970) The German Ideology, p.118. Bold emphasis added.]

And, as I also argue, this is because philosophy encapsulates ruling class ideology:


This traditional way of seeing reality 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", theorists 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 can be ascertained by thought alone, and can therefore be imposed on reality dogmatically.

And this is why all of traditional philosophy is dogmatic, and thus non-sensical. [Why that is so is explained below.]

Now the reason why this traditional approach to 'philosophical truth' has dominated 'western' (and 'eastern') thought for 2500 years was outlined by Marx, too:


The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch. For instance, in an age and in a country where royal power, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie are contending for mastery and where, therefore, mastery is shared, the doctrine of the separation of powers proves to be the dominant idea and is expressed as an 'eternal law.'" [Marx and Engels (1970) The German Ideology, pp.64-65.]

And we can see this form of thought still dominating the thinking of comrades like you, all of whom think it perfectly ordinary/acceptable to try to derive profound a priori theses about 'The self', or 'consciousness' from a few (jargonised/distorted) words, or from a few minutes thought.


All that is, is you just ranting against dialectic materialism. That doesn't make the site poor, or unable to explain Dialectical Materialism. It means you just disagree.

It does if I have in fact demolished all that site's core ideas, which I have.

[MilkmanofHumanKindness]

1. Alright, I misunderstood what you were writing, or actually rather didn't accurately type my opinion on it. I meant that it was unfair to state that the theory was poor simply because it was a justification.

2.

A. The first passage about philosophers, is one of my favorite. Essentially Marx is stating that Philosophers can not be idealists, but rather materialists. You have no disagreement with myself on that.

What is important to remember is that this world is our plane of existence, but how we view it changes with the framework we adopt. A farmer might find dandelions and decide to kill them because they are weeds, where as a little child might find them bright and cheerful and gather them.

If we do not adopt a framework of reality, we are begging for the ruling class to give us one, which ties in nicely to...



B.The passage of Marx that you quote on Philosophy as the ruling ideology, makes no sense at all. That would be the equivalent of saying that Ideology, is the ruling ideas.

Not just a "Ideology" but the Ideology. This is just representative of some deep hate of philosophy, to the level of anti-intellectualism.

I also agree that Idealism, or the idea of a "hidden world" has been used and abused through out history. However, no dialectic materialist would ever deny that. That's the materialism part of dialectic materialism.

Now, someone could claim that the laws put forth by Engels of dialectic materialism are idealistic as none of the laws is inherent in atoms or matter. Of course, then Newton is also a huge idealist for promoting Gravity.

[Zanthorus]

Here's a tip for you Owen, don't listen to ^ when it comes to "Dialectical Materialism"!

Here's a simple task for you:

Find me one instance in any of Marx's writings where he uses the term "dialectical materialism". And that doesn' mean mentioning "dialectics" or "Hegel standing on his head" it means "dialectical materialism".

And if you think that's difficult, an even better one would be to try the same thing with Engels.

Of course you can find the term in neither because "dialectical materialism" is an invention of Georgi Plekhanov and is synonymous with bourgeois materialism. Of course the roots of the theory are to be found in Engels misinterpretations of Marx. But in Marx himself there is not a trace of "dialectical materialism".

[scarletghoul]

How about someone tries answering the OP's question and explains what it is ? Learners dont need all these useless debates, they need to know first what the theory being debated actually is. >_>

[28350]

Woah, Déjà vu.

[S.Artesian]

How about someone tries answering the OP's question and explains what it is ? Learners dont need all these useless debates, they need to know first what the theory being debated actually is. >_>

Word.

[Spawn of Stalin]

In my opinion Stalin wrote the best introduction to Dialectical and Historical Materialism.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch04.htm#2.

I think Lenin wrote something about it in his 'Three Sources and Component Parts' but I haven't read it for ages and don't have my copy to hand.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Milkmanetc:


1. Alright, I misunderstood what you were writing, or actually rather didn't accurately type my opinion on it. I meant that it was unfair to state that the theory was poor simply because it was a justification.

Eh?

2.


A. The first passage about philosophers, is one of my favorite. Essentially Marx is stating that Philosophers can not be idealists, but rather materialists. You have no disagreement with myself on that.

In fact he says they have to distort language to make their ideas seem to work.


"We have shown that thoughts and ideas acquire an independent existence in consequence of the personal circumstances and relations of individuals acquiring independent existence. We have shown that exclusive, systematic occupation with these thoughts on the part of ideologists and philosophers, and hence the systematisation of these thoughts, is a consequence of division of labour, and that, in particular, German philosophy is a consequence of German petty-bourgeois conditions. The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life."

Bold added.

I can't see anything it there that supports what you allege of it.


What is important to remember is that this world is our plane of existence, but how we view it changes with the framework we adopt. A farmer might find dandelions and decide to kill them because they are weeds, where as a little child might find them bright and cheerful and gather them.

If we do not adopt a framework of reality, we are begging for the ruling class to give us one, which ties in nicely to...

Well, we certainly have ended up with one that has been imposed on us -- it's called 'dialectical materialism'.


B.The passage of Marx that you quote on Philosophy as the ruling ideology, makes no sense at all. That would be the equivalent of saying that Ideology, is the ruling ideas.

Not at all, it merely says that the ruling ideas, many of which we find in traditional philosophy, are and always have been the ruling ideas, and those ideas constitute ruling class ideology.


Not just a "Ideology" but the Ideology. This is just representative of some deep hate of philosophy, to the level of anti-intellectualism.

And what is so good about 'intellectualism'?


I also agree that Idealism, or the idea of a "hidden world" has been used and abused through out history. However, no dialectic materialist would ever deny that. That's the materialism part of dialectic materialism [DM].

But, there is no materialism part to DM -- Engels tells us that matter is an 'abstraction' and Lenin tells us that it is just an idea, an epistemological category. And they, and all other dialecticians, impose these views on reality, contrary to what they say they never do. As George Novack notes:


"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) The Origin of Materialism, p.17. Bold emphasis added.]

This makes DM an idealist 'theory'.


Now, someone could claim that the laws put forth by Engels of dialectic materialism are idealistic as none of the laws is inherent in atoms or matter. Of course, then Newton is also a huge idealist for promoting Gravity.

Indeed, he was an outright mystic, and his ideas about the nature of the force of gravity were based on his theological and Hermetic beliefs.

[Spawn of Stalin]

A good way to understand it is to take each characteristic and reduce it to a few descriptive words that are easily remembered and understood. Once this is achieved you can apply dialectical materialism to almost anything.

1) The principal features of the Marxist dialectical method are as follows:
a) Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics does not regard nature as an accidental agglomeration of things, of phenomena, unconnected with, isolated from, and independent of, each other, but as a connected and integral whole, in which things, phenomena, are organically connected with, dependent on, and determined by, each other.
The dialectical method therefore holds that no phenomenon in nature can be understood if taken by itself, isolated from surrounding phenomena, inasmuch as any phenomenon in any realm of nature may become meaningless to us if it is not considered in connection with the surrounding conditions, but divorced from them; and that, vice versa, any phenomenon can be understood and explained if considered in its inseparable connection with surrounding phenomena, as one conditioned by surrounding phenomena.


Everything is connected, and everything that occurs affects something else. Have you seen a film called 'Butterfly Effect'? It's like that only without Ashton Kutcher.


b) Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics holds that nature is not a state of rest and immobility, stagnation and immutability, but a state of continuous movement and change, of continuous renewal and development, where something is always arising and developing, and something always disintegrating and dying away.
The dialectical method therefore requires that phenomena should be considered not only from the standpoint of their interconnection and interdependence, but also from the standpoint of their movement, their change, their development, their coming into being and going out of being.
The dialectical method regards as important primarily not that which at the given moment seems to be durable and yet is already beginning to die away, but that which is arising and developing, even though at the given moment it may appear to be not durable, for the dialectical method considers invincible only that which is arising and developing.
"All nature," says Engels, "from the smallest thing to the biggest, from a grain of sand to the sun, from the protista (the primary living cell—Ed.) to man, is in a constant state of coming into being and going out of being, in a constant flux, in a ceaseless state of movement and change." (F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature.)
Therefore, dialectics, Engels says, "takes things and their perceptual images essentially in their inter-connection, in their concatenation, in their movement, in their rise and disappearance." (Ibid.)



Nature is in state of change and flux, nothing stands still.



c) Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics does not regard the process of development as a simple process of growth, where quantitative changes do not lead to qualitative changes, but as a development which passes from insignificant and imperceptible quantitative changes to open, fundamental changes, to qualitative changes; a development in which the qualitative changes occur not gradually, but rapidly and abruptly, taking the form of a leap from one state to another; they occur not accidentally but as the natural result of an accumulation of imperceptible and gradual quantitative changes.
The dialectical method therefore holds that the process of development should be understood not as movement in a circle, not as a simple repetition of what has already occurred, but as an onward and upward movement, as a transition from an old qualitative state to a new qualitative state, as a development from the simple to the complex, from the lower to the higher:
"Nature," says Engels, "is the test of dialectics, and it must be said for modern natural science that it has furnished extremely rich and daily increasing materials for this test, and has thus proved that in the last analysis nature's process is dialectical and not metaphysical, that it does not move in an eternally uniform and constantly repeated circle, but passes through a real history. Here prime mention should be made of Darwin, who dealt a severe blow to the metaphysical conception of nature by proving that the organic world of today, plants and animals, and consequently man too, is all a product of a process of development that has been in progress for millions of years." (F. Engels, Anti-Duhring.)
Describing dialectical development as a transition from quantitative changes to qualitative changes, Engels says:
"In physics . . . every change is a passing of quantity into quality, as a result of quantitative change of some form of movement either inherent in a body or imparted to it. For example, the temperature of water has at first no effect on its liquid state; but as the temperature of liquid water rises or falls, a moment arrives when this state of cohesion changes and the water is converted in one case into steam and in the other into ice. . . . A definite minimum current is required to make a platinum wire glow; every metal has its melting temperature; every liquid has a definite freezing point and boiling point at a given pressure, as far as we are able with the means at our disposal to attain the required temperatures; finally, every gas has its critical point at which, by proper pressure and cooling, it can be converted into a liquid state. . . . What are known as the constants of physics (the point at which one state passes into another—Ed.) are in most cases nothing but designations for the nodal points at which a quantitative (change) increase or decrease of movement causes a qualitative change in the state of the given body, and at which, consequently, quantity is transformed into quality." (Dialectics of Nature?)
Passing to chemistry, Engels continues:
"Chemistry may be called the science of the qualitative changes which take place in bodies as the effect of changes of quantitative composition. This was already known to Hegel. . . . Take oxygen: if the molecule contains three atoms instead of the customary two, we get ozone, a body definitely distinct in odour and reaction from ordinary oxygen. And what shall we say of the different proportions in which oxygen combines with nitrogen or sulphur, and each of which produces a body qualitatively different from all other bodies!" (Ibid.)
Finally, criticizing Duhring, who scolded Hegel for all he was worth, but surreptitiously borrowed from him the well-known thesis that the transition from the insentient world to the sentient world, from the kingdom of inorganic matter to the kingdom of organic life, is a leap to a new state, Engels says:
"This is precisely the Hegelian nodal line of measure relations, in which, at certain definite nodal points, the purely quantitative increase or decrease gives rise to a qualitative leap for example, in the case of water which is heated or cooled, where boiling-point and freezing-point are the nodes at which—under normal pressure—the leap to a new aggregate state takes place, and where consequently quantity is transformed into quality." (F. Engels, Anti-Duhring.)


This one is easy, qualitative change leads to quantative change.




d) Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics holds that internal contradictions are inherent in all things and phenomena of nature, for they all have their negative and positive sides, a past and a future, something dying away and something developing; and that the struggle between these opposites, the struggle between the old and the new, between that which is dying away and that which is being born, between that which is disappearing and that which is developing, constitutes the internal content of the process of development, the internal content of the transformation of quantitative changes into qualitative changes.
The dialectical method therefore holds that the process of development from the lower to the higher takes place not as a harmonious unfolding of phenomena, but as a disclosure of the contradictions inherent in things and phenomena, as a "struggle" of opposite tendencies which operate on the basis of these contradictions.
"In its proper meaning," Lenin says, "dialectics is the study of the contradiction within the very essence of things." (Lenin, Philosophical Notebooks, Russ. ed., p. 263.)
And further:
"Development is the 'struggle' of opposites." (Lenin, Selected Works, Vol. XI, pp. 81-2.)
Such, in brief, are the principal features of the Marxist dialectical method.


Something dies, something else is born, of course due to both internal and external contradictions.

This is a VERY basic way of looking at things, read the whole chapter and you'll get the hang of it

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Scarlet:


How about someone tries answering the OP's question and explains what it is ? Learners dont need all these useless debates, they need to know first what the theory being debated actually is. >_>

I did.:)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Motionless:


In my opinion Stalin wrote the best introduction to Dialectical and Historical Materialism.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/ar...x01/ch04.htm#2.

I think Lenin wrote something about it in his 'Three Sources and Component Parts' but I haven't read it for ages and don't have my copy to hand.

Unfortunately, both of them make all the usual mistakes, exposed here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/nti-dialectics-made-t132104/index.html

and more extensively at my site -- link in my signature.

And thank you for the quotations in your second post, but these are all dogmatic and a priori theses, imposed on nature and society -- making them eminently idealist (even if we could figure out what the hell they meant!), as Communist theorist Maurice Cornforth noted:


"Marxism, therefore, seeks to base our ideas of things on nothing but the actual investigation of them, arising from and tested by experience and practice. It does not invent a 'system' as previous philosophers have done, and then try to make everything fit into it…." [Cornforth (1976) Materialism and the Dialectical Method, pp.14-15. Bold emphases added.]

But, that is exactly what Hegel did, and it's also what Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin, Stalin and Mao did.

[Jolly Red Giant]

In all honesty Rosa - posters on here should adopt the same attitude towards you on this issue as Dawkins does towards creationists. :thumbup1:

[Zanthorus]

In all honesty Rosa - posters on here should adopt the same attitude towards you on this issue as Dawkins does towards creationists.

Yeah right, find me a real scientist who endorses dialectical materialism and I'll eat a hardback copy of Das Kapital. Those who endorse the theory of "dialectical materialism" are the creationists in the real world. The only reason this stuff gets defended so heatedly on here is because unfortunately most "Marxists" upon seeing the horrors of capitalism stumble upon it and see it as the only methodology which can critique capitalism adequately, which leaves them blind to Marx's real method.

In fact, in the Paris Manuscripts Marx explicitly tells us that he rejects Hegel's dialectical method and praises Feuerbach as the only one who has taken a seriously critical attitude to the Hegelian dialectic:


But even now - now that Feuerbach both in his Thesen in the Anekdota and, in detail, in the Philosophie der Zukunft has in principle overthrown the old dialectic and philosophy... even now, after all these delightful antics of idealism (i.e., of Young Hegelianism) expiring in the guise of criticism – even now it has not expressed the suspicion that the time was ripe for a critical settling of accounts with the mother of Young Hegelianism – the Hegelian dialectic – and even had nothing to say about its critical attitude towards the Feuerbachian dialectic. This shows a completely uncritical attitude to itself.

Feuerbach is the only one who has a serious, critical attitude to the Hegelian dialectic and who has made genuine discoveries in this field. He is in fact the true conqueror of the old philosophy.

Marx even tells us in the manuscript that Feuerbach's great achievment is the proof that "philosophy" is like religion a product of alienation:


Feuerbach’s great achievement is the proof that philosophy is nothing else but religion rendered into thought and expounded by thought, i.e., another form and manner of existence of the estrangement of the essence of man; hence equally to be condemned;

Something which he repeats again in the German Ideology:


...when we conceive things thus, as they really are and happened, every profound philosophical problem is resolved, as will be seen even more clearly later, quite simply into an empirical fact.

And in the quote which Rosa posted earlier from the same work.

There is really nothing in Marx to suggest that "dialectical materialism" forms any part of his work.

[x371322]

Though I cannot understand what dialecticians mean when they say:
What is the opposite of a table for instance?

It's not saying that every thing has another object for it's opposite. It's saying that every thing is made of opposites. A table must be held together by opposing forces, or else the molecules would fly apart.

Taken from the previously linked site, Dialectics for Kids.


Here's how it works -

1) Everything is made of opposites.

No object could hold together without an opposing force to keep it from flying apart. The earth tries to fly away from the sun, but gravity holds it in orbit. Electrons try to fly away from the nucleus of an atom, but electromagnetism holds the atom together. Ligaments and tendons provide the ties that hold bones together and muscles to bones.

Like material objects, the process of change needs opposing forces. Change needs a driving force to push it ahead, otherwise everything stays put. A billiard ball only moves when hit with a pool cue or another ball. We eat when our hunger tells us to. A car won't move if it's engine won't start. To win in fair elections candidates need more votes than their opponents.

Engels, drawing from the philosopher, Hegel, called this law the "interpenetration of opposites"; Hegel often referred to the "unity of opposites." This may sound contradictory, but it is easy to understand. It's like the saying, "It takes two to tango." There is no game if one side quits. There is no atom if the electrons fly away. The whole needs all of its parts to be a whole.

[DaringMehring]

The summary Rosa linked to is good.

Dialectics contains some useful things to think about, like the fact that all things are dynamic, the difference between and relationship of quantity and quality, but to call it a system of logic is to go overboard.

Rosa really draws out the mystic aspects of it. Because of gems like the unity and interpenetration of opposites, it becomes like a religion. The dialecticians you follow are like the Church you subscribe to. Like religion, dialectics is an excuse to stop thinking, because some deep, mystical dialectician has already figured things out far better than you ever could hope to.

Another measure of how valid dialectics is, is its currency in academia. Marx is well-respected as a sociologist, and is taught in a variety of courses, and used by a number of scholars, including plenty of non-Marxist scholars. Marxist theory is legit in a variety of fields - sociology, anthropology, history, archaeology, etc. But when it comes to philosophy, dialectical materialism is a laughing stock as is Hegel.

The reason for the differential is that historical materialism is a powerful tool, while dialectical materialism is not. It's the offspring of the mind of a long-dead deeply religious sycophant of the Prussian monarchy.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

JRG:


In all honesty Rosa - posters on here should adopt the same attitude towards you on this issue as Dawkins does towards creationists.

Still incapable of defending the faith, I see...:lol:

And as far as Dawkins is concerned, he at least defends his ideas, and has written books and articles attacking creationism.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

GracchusB:


My advice to the OP and others would be to put Rosa on the "Ignore List" and learn dialectics on your own like I am doing.

Ah, now we have here the Dialectical Mystics' version of the old Roman Catholic Index of Censored Books, Ideas and Writers.

Their tender eyes make not look upon my heathen words for fear they may be struck blind...

As I have argued in Philosophy, and as the above comrades are amply confirming, Dialectical Materialism is indeed like a religion.

Cheers comrades!:thumbup1:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

CZAD:


It's not saying that every thing has another object for it's opposite. It's saying that every thing is made of opposites. A table must be held together by opposing forces, or else the molecules would fly apart

But, as I have shown, this cannot work.

Here's that demonstration again (followed in my next post by quotations from the Dialectical Classics that support what I allege about this 'theory'):


Surprisingly, DM-theorists are decidedly unclear as to whether objects/processes change because of (1) a contradictory relationship between their internal opposites, or because (2) they change into these opposites, or even whether (3) change itself creates such opposites.

As we are about to see, this idea -- that there are such things as "dialectical contradictions" and "unities of opposites" (etc.), which cause change -- presents DM-theorists with some rather nasty dialectical headaches, if interpreted along the lines expressed in the DM-classics (quoted in the next post).

[DM = Dialectical Materialism/ist; NON = Negation of the Negation; FL = Formal Logic.]

To see this, let us suppose that object/process A is comprised of two "internal contradictory opposites" O* and O**, and it thus changes as a result.

[The same problems arise if these are viewed as 'external' contradictions.]

But, O* cannot itself change into O** since O** already exists! If O** didn't already exist then, according to this theory, O* could not change at all, for there would be no opposite to bring that about.

Hence, it is no good propelling O** into the future so that it is now said to be what O* will change into, since O* will do no such thing unless O** is already there, in the present, to make that happen!

So, if object/process A is already composed of a 'dialectical union' of O* and not-O* (interpreting O** now as not-O*), how can O* possibly change into not-O* when not-O* already exists?

Several alternatives now suggest themselves which might allow dialecticians to dig themselves out of this hermetic hole. Either:

(1) O* 'changes' into not-O*, meaning there would now be two not-O*s where once there was one (unless, of course, one of these not-O*s just vanishes into thin air -- see below); or:

(2) O* does not change, or it disappears. Plainly, O* cannot change into what already exists -- that is, O* cannot change into its opposite, not-O* without there being two of them (see above). But even then, one of these will not be not-O* just a copy of it. In that case, O* either disappears, does not change at all, or changes into something else; or:

(3) Not-O* itself disappears to allow a new (but copy) not-O* to emerge that O* can and does change into. If so, questions would naturally arise as to how the original not-O* could possibly cause O* to change if is has just vanished. Of course, this option merely postpones the evil day, for the same difficulties will afflict the new not-O* that afflicted the old. If it exists in order to allow O* to change, then we are back where we were to begin with.

Anyway, as should seem obvious, among other things already mentioned, alternative (2) plainly means that O* does not in fact change into not-O*, it is just replaced by it. Option (1), on the other hand, has the original not-O* remaining the same (when it was supposed to turn into its own opposite -- O* -- according to the DM-classics), and options (2) and (3) will only work if matter and/or energy can either be destroyed or created from nowhere!

Naturally, these problems will simply re-appear at the next stage as not-O* readies itself to change into whatever it changes into. But, in this case there is an added twist, for there is as yet no not-not-O* in existence to make this happen. This means that the dialectical process will grind to a halt, unless a not-not-O* pops into existence to start things up again.

But what could possibly engineer that?

Indeed, at the very least, this 'theory' of change leaves it entirely mysterious how not-O* itself came about in the first place. It seems to have popped into existence from nowhere, too. [Gollobin (above) sort of half recognises this without realising either his error or the serious problems this creates.]

But, not-O* cannot have come from O* itself, since O* can only change because of the operation of not-O*, which does not yet exist! And pushing the process into the past (via a 'reversed' version of the NON) will merely reduplicate the above problems.

[However, on the NON, see below.]

Now, it could be objected that all this seems to place objects and/or processes in fixed categories, which is one of the main criticisms dialecticians make of FL. Hence, on that basis, it could be maintained that the above argument is entirely misguided.

Fortunately, repairs are easy to make: let us now suppose that object/process A is comprised of two changing "internal/external opposites" O* and O**, (the latter once again interpreted as not-O*) and it thus develops as a result.

The rest still follows as before: if object/process A is already composed of a changing dialectical union of O* and not-O*, and O* 'develops' into not-O* as a result, how is it possible for O* to change into not-O* when not-O* already exists?

Of course, it could be argued that not-O* 'develops' into O* while not-O* 'develops' into O*.

[This objection might even incorporate that eminently obscure Hegelian term-of-art: "sublation". More on that presently.]

But, if this were so, while it was happening these two would no longer be 'opposites' of one another --, not unless we widen the term "opposite" to mean "anything that an object/process turns into, and/or any intermediate object/process while that is happening". Naturally, that would make this 'Law' work by definitional fiat, rendering it eminently 'subjective', once more.

But, if we ignore that 'difficulty' for now, and even supposing it were the case that not-O* 'developed' into O* while not-O* 'developed' into O*, and such process were governed by the obscure term "sublation", this alternative will still not work (as we are about to see).

Indeed, developing this option further before it is demolished, it could be argued that Engels had himself anticipated the above objections when he said:


"[RL: Negation of the negation is] a very simple process which is taking place everywhere and every day, which any child can understand as soon as it is stripped of the veil of mystery in which it was enveloped by the old idealist philosophy and in which it is to the advantage of helpless metaphysicians of Herr Dühring's calibre to keep it enveloped. Let us take a grain of barley. Billions of such grains of barley are milled, boiled and brewed and then consumed. But if such a grain of barley meets with conditions which are normal for it, if it falls on suitable soil, then under the influence of heat and moisture it undergoes a specific change, it germinates; the grain as such ceases to exist, it is negated, and in its place appears the plant which has arisen from it, the negation of the grain. But what is the normal life-process of this plant? It grows, flowers, is fertilised and finally once more produces grains of barley, and as soon as these have ripened the stalk dies, is in its turn negated. As a result of this negation of the negation we have once again the original grain of barley, but not as a single unit, but ten-, twenty- or thirtyfold. Species of grain change extremely slowly, and so the barley of today is almost the same as it-was a century ago. But if we take a plastic ornamental plant, for example a dahlia or an orchid, and treat the seed and the plant which grows from it according to the gardener's art, we get as a result of this negation of the negation not only more seeds, but also qualitatively improved seeds, which produce more beautiful flowers, and each repetition of this process, each fresh negation of the negation, enhances this process of perfection. [Engels (1976) Anti-Dühring, pp.172-73.]

"But someone may object: the negation that has taken place in this case is not a real negation: I negate a grain of barley also when I grind it, an insect when I crush it underfoot, or the positive quantity a when I cancel it, and so on. Or I negate the sentence: the rose is a rose, when I say: the rose is not a rose; and what do I get if I then negate this negation and say: but after all the rose is a rose? -- These objections are in fact the chief arguments put forward by the metaphysicians against dialectics, and they are wholly worthy of the narrow-mindedness of this mode of thought. Negation in dialectics does not mean simply saying no, or declaring that something does not exist, or destroying it in any way one likes. Long ago Spinoza said: Omnis determinatio est negatio -- every limitation or determination is at the same time a negation. And further: the kind of negation is here determined, firstly, by the general and, secondly, by the particular nature of the process. I must not only negate, but also sublate the negation. I must therefore so arrange the first negation that the second remains or becomes possible. How? This depends on the particular nature of each individual case. If I grind a grain of barley, or crush an insect, I have carried out the first part of the action, but have made the second part impossible. Every kind of thing therefore has a peculiar way of being negated in such manner that it gives rise to a development, and it is just the same with every kind of conception or idea....

"But it is clear that from a negation of the negation which consists in the childish pastime of alternately writing and cancelling a, or in alternately declaring that a rose is a rose and that it is not a rose, nothing eventuates but the silliness of the person who adopts such a tedious procedure. And yet the metaphysicians try to make us believe that this is the right way to carry out a negation of the negation, if we ever should want to do such a thing. [Ibid., pp.180-81.]
Engels's argument seems to be that "dialectical negation" is not the same as ordinary negation in that it is not simple destruction. Dialectical negation "sublates"; that is, it both destroys and preserves, so that something new or 'higher' emerges as a result. Nevertheless, we have already seen here , that Hegel's use of this word (i.e., "sublate") is highly suspect, and we will also see below [again, this 'below' refers to a later section of the essay from which this was extracted] that this 'Law' (i.e., the NON) is even more dubious still (partly because Hegel confused ordinary negation with 'cancelling out', or with destruction, as did Engels).

Well, despite all this, is it the case that the above comments neutralise the argument presented in this part of this post? Is the argument here guilty of the following:


"These objections are in fact the chief arguments put forward by the metaphysicians against dialectics, and they are wholly worthy of the narrow-mindedness of this mode of thought." [Ibid.]
To answer this, let us once again suppose that object/process A is comprised of two changing "internal opposites" O* and not-O*, and thus develops as a result. On this scenario, O* would change/develop into a "sublated" intermediary, but not into not-O* -- incidentally, contradicting the DM-worthies quoted earlier. O* should, of course, change into not-O*, not into some intermediary.

Putting this minor quibble to one side, too, on this 'revised' view, let us suppose that O* does indeed change into that intermediary. To that end, let us call the latter, "O*(1)" (which can be interpreted as a combination of the old and the new; a 'negation' which also 'preserves'/'sublates').

If so, then O*(1) must remain forever in that state, unchanged, for there is as yet no not-O*(1) in existence to make it develop any further.

[Recall that on this 'theory', everything (and that must include O*(1)) changes because of a 'struggle' with its opposite.]

So, there must be a not-O*(1) to make O*(1) change further. To be sure, we could try to exempt O*(1) from this essential requirement on an ad hoc basis (arguing, perhaps, that O*(1) changes spontaneously with nothing actually causing it), and yet if we do that, there would seem to be no reason to accept the version of events contained in the DM-classics, which tells us that every thing/process changes because of the operation of opposites (and O*(1) is certainly a thing/process). Furthermore, if we make an exemption here, then the whole point of the exercise would be lost, for if some things do and some things do not change according this dialectical 'Law', we would be left with no way of telling which changes were and which were not subject to it.

[This would also mean that the second 'Law' (discussed here) was not a 'law' either, just like the first.]

This is, of course, quite apart from the fact that such a subjectively applied exemption certificate (issued to O*(1)) would mean that nothing at all could change, for everything in the universe is in the process of change, and is thus already a 'sublated' version of whatever it used to be.

Ignoring this, too, even if O*(1) were to change into not-O*(1) (as we suppose it must, given the doctrine laid down by the DM-prophets), then all the earlier problems simply reappear, for this could only take place if not-O*(1) already existed to make it happen! But not-O*(1) cannot already exist, for O*(1) has not changed into it yet!

Once more, it could be objected that the dialectical negation of O* to produce not-O* is not ordinary negation, as the above seems to assume.

In that case, let us say that O* turns into its 'sublated' opposite not-O*(s), but if that is to happen, according to the Dialectical Gospels, not-O*(s) must already exist! If so, and yet again, O* cannot turn into not-O*(s), for it already exists! On the other hand, if not-O*(s) does not already exist, then O* cannot change, for O* can only change if it struggles with what it changes into, i.e., not-O*(s).

Once more we hit the same non-dialectical brick wall.

It could be objected that the above abstract argument misses the point; in the real world things manifestly change. For example, it might be the case that John is a boy, but in a few years time it will be the case that John is a man. Now, the fact that other individuals are already men, does not stop John changing into a man (his opposite), as the above argues. So, John can change into his opposite even though that opposite already exists.

Or so it could be claimed.

But, this theory tells us that things/processes change because of a struggle with their opposites, and with what they become. Are we now to assume that John has to struggle with all the individuals that are already men if he is to become a man himself (if we now treat all these other men as John's opposites)? And are we to suppose that John struggles with what he is to become, even before it exists? If not, then the above response is beside the point. And, in view of the fact that John must turn into his opposite, does that mean he has to turn into these other men, or even into one of them? But he must do so if the Dialectical Holy Books are to be believed.

Anyway, according to the DM-worthies quoted above, John can only change because of a struggle between opposites taking place in the here-and-now. Are we now really supposed to believe that "John is a man" is struggling with "John is a boy" -- or that manhood is struggling with boyhood?

Some might be tempted to reply that this is precisely what adolescence is, and yet, in that case, John-as-boy and John-as-a-man would have to be locked in struggle in the present. [Of course, adolescence cannot struggle with anything, since it is an abstraction.] But, John-as-a-man does not yet exist, and so 'he' cannot struggle with John-as-boy. On the other hand, if John-as-a-man does exist, so that 'he' can struggle with his youthful self, then John-as-boy cannot change into 'him', for John-as-a-man already exists!

To be sure, John's 'opposite' is whatever he will become (if he is allowed to develop naturally), but, as noted above, that opposite cannot now exist otherwise John would not need to become him!

Looking at this more concretely, in ten or fifteen years time, John will not become just any man, he will become a particular man. In that case, let us call the man that John becomes "Man-J". But, once again, Man-J must exist now or John cannot change into him (if the DM-worthies quoted earlier are to be believed), for John can only become a man if he is locked in struggle with his own opposite, Man-J. But, if that is so, John cannot become Man-J since Man-J already exists!

[This, of course, is simply a more concrete version of the argument outlined above.]

Consider another hackneyed example: water turning into steam at 100oC (under normal conditions). Are we really supposed to believe that the opposite that water becomes (i.e., steam) makes water turn into steam? This must be so if the Dialectical Saints are to be believed.

Hence, while you might think it is the heat/energy you are putting into the water that turns it into steam, what really happens, according to these wise old dialecticians, is that steam makes water turn into steam!

In that case, save energy and turn the gas off!

In fact, let us track a water molecule to see what happens to it. To identify it, we shall call it "W1", and the steam molecule it turns into "S1". But, if the DM-Worthies above are correct, S1 must already exist, otherwise W1 could not change into it! Again, if that is so, where does S1 disappear to if W1 changes into it?

In fact, according to the Dialectical Magi, since opposites turn into one another, S1 must change into W1 at the same time as W1 is turning into S1! So while you are boiling a kettle, according to this Superscientific 'theory', steam must be turning back into the water you are boiling, and it must do so at the same rate!

One wonders, therefore, how dialectical kettles manage to boil dry.

This must be so, otherwise when W1 turns into S1 -- which already exists, or W1 could not change into it -- there would have to be two S1s where there used to be one! Matter created from nowhere!

Of course, the same argument applies to water freezing (and to any and all other alleged examples of DM-change).

It could be objected that the opposite that liquid water turns into is a gas; so the dialectical classicists are correct. However, if we take them at their word, then that gas must 'struggle' with liquid water in the here-and-now if water is to change. But that gas does not yet exist; in which case, water would never boil if this 'theory' were true. But even if it did, it is heat that causes the change not the gas! However we try and slice it, this 'theory' is totally useless -- that is, what little sense can be made of it.
This, of course, does not deny that change occurs, only that DM cannot account for it.

Alternatively, if DM were true, change would be impossible.

Let us now consider that table; let us suppose it has internal opposites which cause it to change, say into a pile of dust.
But the dialectical classics tell us that everything in the entire universe changes into its opposite, [i]and it does so by struggling with that opposite.

In that case, a table must struggle with the pile of dust it is to become! But, it can't do that, since that pile of dust does not yet exist!

But, it could be replied that tables change because of their internal opposites. In that case, let us suppose a table has at least two internal opposites, call them T* and T**.

Now, and once more, the dialectical classics tell us that everything in the entire universe changes into its opposite, and it does so by struggling with that opposite.

In that case T* must both struggle with and change into T**. But it can't do that since T** already exists! If it didn't, T* could not struggle with it.

So, we hit the same non-dialectical brick wall here -- dialectical tables can never change!

Buy one now before the bourgeoisie find out and snap up all these indestructible tables!

Quotations to follow.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Here are a few quotations from a wide selection of theorists that support the above demolition:



"If, for instance, the Sophists claimed to be teachers, Socrates by a series of questions forced the Sophist Protagoras to confess that all learning is only recollection. In his more strictly scientific dialogues, Plato employs the dialectical method to show the finitude of all hard and fast terms of understanding. Thus in the Parmenides he deduces the many from the one. In this grand style did Plato treat Dialectic. In modern times it was, more than any other, Kant who resuscitated the name of Dialectic, and restored it to its post of honour. He did it, as we have seen, by working out the Antinomies of the reason. The problem of these Antinomies is no mere subjective piece of work oscillating between one set of grounds and another; it really serves to show that every abstract proposition of understanding, taken precisely as it is given, naturally veers round to its opposite.

"However reluctant Understanding may be to admit the action of Dialectic, we must not suppose that the recognition of its existence is peculiarly confined to the philosopher. It would be truer to say that Dialectic gives expression to a law which is felt in all other grades of consciousness, and in general experience. Everything that surrounds us may be viewed as an instance of Dialectic. We are aware that everything finite, instead of being stable and ultimate, is rather changeable and transient; and this is exactly what we mean by that Dialectic of the finite, by which the finite, as implicitly other than what it is, is forced beyond its own immediate or natural being to turn suddenly into its opposite." [Hegel (1975), pp.117-18.]

"Everything is opposite. Neither in heaven nor in earth, neither in the world of mind nor nature, is there anywhere an abstract 'either-or' as the understanding maintains. Whatever exists is concrete, with difference and opposition in itself. The finitude of things with then lie in the want of correspondence between their immediate being and what they essentially are. Thus, in inorganic nature, the acid is implicitly at the same time the base: in other words its only being consists in its relation to its other. Hence the acid persists quietly in the contrast: it is always in effort to realize what it potentially is. Contradiction is the very moving principle of the world." [Ibid., p.174.]

"The law of the interpenetration of opposites.... Mutual penetration of polar opposites and transformation into each other when carried to extremes...." [Engels (1954), pp.17, 62.]

"Dialectics, so-called objective dialectics, prevails throughout nature, and so-called subjective dialectics, dialectical thought, is only the reflection of the motion through opposites which asserts itself everywhere in nature, and which by the continual conflict of the opposites and their final passage into one another, or into higher forms, determines the life of nature. Attraction and repulsion. Polarity begins with magnetism, it is exhibited in one and the same body; in the case of electricity it distributes itself over two or more bodies which become oppositely charged. All chemical processes reduce themselves -- to processes of chemical attraction and repulsion. Finally, in organic life the formation of the cell nucleus is likewise to be regarded as a polarisation of the living protein material, and from the simple cell -- onwards the theory of evolution demonstrates how each advance up to the most complicated plant on the one side, and up to man on the other, is effected by the continual conflict between heredity and adaptation. In this connection it becomes evident how little applicable to such forms of evolution are categories like 'positive' and 'negative.' One can conceive of heredity as the positive, conservative side, adaptation as the negative side that continually destroys what has been inherited, but one can just as well take adaptation as the creative, active, positive activity, and heredity as the resisting, passive, negative activity." [Ibid., p.211.]

"For a stage in the outlook on nature where all differences become merged in intermediate steps, and all opposites pass into one another through intermediate links, the old metaphysical method of thought no longer suffices. Dialectics, which likewise knows no hard and fast lines, no unconditional, universally valid 'either-or' and which bridges the fixed metaphysical differences, and besides 'either-or' recognises also in the right place 'both this-and that' and reconciles the opposites, is the sole method of thought appropriate in the highest degree to this stage. Of course, for everyday use, for the small change of science, the metaphysical categories retain their validity." [Ibid., pp.212-13.]

"Further, we find upon closer investigation that the two poles of an antithesis positive and negative, e.g., are as inseparable as they are opposed and that despite all their opposition, they mutually interpenetrate. And we find, in like manner, that cause and effect are conceptions which only hold good in their application to individual cases; but as soon as we consider the individual cases in their general connection with the universe as a whole, they run into each other, and they become confounded when we contemplate that universal action and reaction in which causes and effects are eternally changing places, so that what is effect here and now will be cause there and then, and vice versa." [Engels (1976), p.27.]

"Already in Rousseau, therefore, we find not only a line of thought which corresponds exactly to the one developed in Marx's Capital, but also, in details, a whole series of the same dialectical turns of speech as Marx used: processes which in their nature are antagonistic, contain a contradiction; transformation of one extreme into its opposite; and finally, as the kernel of the whole thing, the negation of the negation. [Ibid., p.179.]

"...but the theory of Essence is the main thing: the resolution of the abstract contradictions into their own instability, where one no sooner tries to hold on to one side alone than it is transformed unnoticed into the other, etc." [Engels (1891), p.414.]

"And so every phenomenon, by the action of those same forces which condition its existence, sooner or later, but inevitably, is transformed into its own opposite…." [Plekhanov (1956), p.77.]

"[Among the elements of dialectics are the following:] [I]nternally contradictory tendencies…in [a thing]…as the sum and unity of opposites…. [This involves] not only the unity of opposites, but the transitions of every determination, quality, feature, side, property into every other [into its opposite?]….

"In brief, dialectics can be defined as the doctrine of the unity of opposites. This embodies the essence of dialectics….

"The splitting of the whole and the cognition of its contradictory parts…is the essence (one of the 'essentials', one of the principal, if not the principal, characteristic features) of dialectics….

"The identity of opposites…is the recognition…of the contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature…. The condition for the knowledge of all processes of the world in their 'self-movement', in their spontaneous development, in their real life, is the knowledge of them as a unity of opposites. Development is the 'struggle' of opposites…. [This] alone furnishes the key to the self-movement of everything existing….

"The unity…of opposites is conditional, temporary, transitory, relative. The struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute, just as development and motion are absolute…." [Lenin (1961), pp.221-22, 357-58.]

"Hegel brilliantly divined the dialectics of things (phenomena, the world, nature) in the dialectics of concepts…. This aphorism should be expressed more popularly, without the word dialectics: approximately as follows: In the alternation, reciprocal dependence of all notions, in the identity of their opposites, in the transitions of one notion into another, in the eternal change, movement of notions, Hegel brilliantly divined precisely this relation of things to nature…. [W]hat constitutes dialectics?…. [M]utual dependence of notions all without exception…. Every notion occurs in a certain relation, in a certain connection with all the others." [Lenin (1961), pp.196-97.]

"'This harmony is precisely absolute Becoming change, -- not becoming other, now this and then another. The essential thing is that each different thing, each particular, is different from another, not abstractly so from any other, but from its other. Each particular only is, insofar as its other is implicitly contained in its Notion...' Quite right and important: the 'other' as its other, development into its opposite." [Ibid., p.260. Lenin is here commenting on Hegel (1995), pp.278-98; this particular quotation coming from p.285.]

"Dialectics is the teaching which shows how Opposites can be and how they happen to be (how they become) identical, -- under what conditions they are identical, becoming transformed into one another, -- why the human mind should grasp these opposites not as dead, rigid, but as living, conditional, mobile, becoming transformed into one another." [Ibid., p.109.]

"Development is the 'struggle' of opposites." [Lenin, Collected Works, Volume XIII, p.301.]

"Why is it that '...the human mind should take these opposites not as dead, rigid, but as living, conditional, mobile, transforming themselves into one another'? Because that is just how things are in objective reality. The fact is that the unity or identity of opposites in objective things is not dead or rigid, but is living, conditional, mobile, temporary and relative; in given conditions, every contradictory aspect transforms itself into its opposite....

"In speaking of the identity of opposites in given conditions, what we are referring to is real and concrete opposites and the real and concrete transformations of opposites into one another....

"All processes have a beginning and an end, all processes transform themselves into their opposites. The constancy of all processes is relative, but the mutability manifested in the transformation of one process into another is absolute." [Mao (1961b), pp.340-42.]

"The law of contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the basic law of materialist dialectics....

"As opposed to the metaphysical world outlook, the world outlook of materialist dialectics holds that in order to understand the development of a thing we should study it internally and in its relations with other things; in other words, the development of things should be seen as their internal and necessary self-movement, while each thing in its movement is interrelated with and interacts on the things around it. The fundamental cause of the development of a thing is not external but internal; it lies in the contradictoriness within the thing. There is internal contradiction in every single thing, hence its motion and development....

"The universality or absoluteness of contradiction has a twofold meaning. One is that contradiction exists in the process of development of all things, and the other is that in the process of development of each thing a movement of opposites exists from beginning to end.... [Ibid., pp.311-18.]

"Second, and just as unconditionally valid, that all things are at the same time absolutely different and absolutely or unqualifiedly opposed. The law may also be referred to as the law of the polar unity of opposites. This law applies to every single thing, every phenomenon, and to the world as a whole. Viewing thought and its method alone, it can be put this way: The human mind is capable of infinite condensation of things into unities, even the sharpest contradictions and opposites, and, on the other hand, it is capable of infinite differentiation and analysis of things into opposites. The human mind can establish this unlimited unity and unlimited differentiation because this unlimited unity and differentiation is present in reality." [Thalheimer (1936), p.161.]

"So far we have discussed the most general and most fundamental law of dialectics, namely, the law of the permeation of opposites, or the law of polar unity. We shall now take up the second main proposition of dialectics, the law of the negation of the negation, or the law of development through opposites. This is the most general law of the process of thought. I will first state the law itself and support it with examples, and then I will show on what it is based and how it is related to the first law of the permeation of opposites. There is already a presentiment of this law in the oldest Chinese philosophy, in the of Transformations, as well as in Lao-tse and his disciples -- and likewise in the oldest Greek philosophy, especially in Heraclitus. Not until Hegel, however, was this law developed.

"This law applies to all motion and changes of things, to real things as well as to their images in our minds, i.e., concepts. It states first of all that things and concepts move, change, and develop; all things are processes. All fixity of individual things is only relative, limited; their motion, change, or development is absolute, unlimited. For the world as a whole absolute motion and absolute rest coincide. The proof of this part of the proposition, namely, that all things are in flux, we have already given in our discussion of Heraclitus.

"The law of the negation of the negation has a special sense beyond the mere proposition that all things are processes and change. It also states something about the most general form of these changes, motions, or developments. It states, in the first place, that all motion, development, or change, takes place through opposites or contradictions, or through the negation of a thing.

"Conceptually the actual movement of things appears as a negation. In other words, negation is the most general way in which motion or change of things is represented in the mind. This is the first stage of this process. The negation of a thing from which the change proceeds, however, is in turn subject to the law of the transformation of things into their opposites." [Ibid., pp.170-71.]

"The second dialectical law, that of the 'unity, interpenetration or identity of opposites'…asserts the essentially contradictory character of reality -– at the same time asserts that these 'opposites' which are everywhere to be found do not remain in stark, metaphysical opposition, but also exist in unity. This law was known to the early Greeks. It was classically expressed by Hegel over a hundred years ago….

"[F]rom the standpoint of the developing universe as a whole, what is vital is…motion and change which follows from the conflict of the opposite." [Guest (1963), pp.31, 32.]

"The negative electrical pole…cannot exist without the simultaneous presence of the positive electrical pole…. This 'unity of opposites' is therefore found in the core of all material things and events." [Conze (1944), pp.35-36.]

"This dialectical activity is universal. There is no escaping from its unremitting and relentless embrace. 'Dialectics gives expression to a law which is felt in all grades of consciousness and in general experience. Everything that surrounds us may be viewed as an instance of dialectic. We are aware that everything finite, instead of being inflexible and ultimate, is rather changeable and transient; and this is exactly what we mean by the dialectic of the finite, by which the finite, as implicitly other than it is, is forced to surrender its own immediate or natural being, and to turn suddenly into its opposite.' (Encyclopedia, p.120)." [Novack (1971), 94-95; quoting Hegel (1975), p.118, although in a different translation from the one used here.]

"Contradiction is an essential feature of all being. It lies at the heart of matter itself. It is the source of all motion, change, life and development. The dialectical law which expresses this idea is the law of the unity and interpenetration of opposites….

"In dialectics, sooner or later, things change into their opposite. In the words of the Bible, 'the first shall be last and the last shall be first.' We have seen this many times, not least in the history of great revolutions. Formerly backward and inert layers can catch up with a bang. Consciousness develops in sudden leaps. This can be seen in any strike. And in any strike we can see the elements of a revolution in an undeveloped, embryonic form. In such situations, the presence of a conscious and audacious minority can play a role quite similar to that of a catalyst in a chemical reaction. In certain instances, even a single individual can play an absolutely decisive role....

"This universal phenomenon of the unity of opposites is, in reality the motor-force of all motion and development in nature…. Movement which itself involves a contradiction, is only possible as a result of the conflicting tendencies and inner tensions which lie at the heart of all forms of matter....

"Contradictions are found at all levels of nature, and woe betide the logic that denies it. Not only can an electron be in two or more places at the same time, but it can move simultaneously in different directions. We are sadly left with no alternative but to agree with Hegel: they are and are not. Things change into their opposite. Negatively-charged electrons become transformed into positively-charged positrons. An electron that unites with a proton is not destroyed, as one might expect, but produces a new particle, a neutron, with a neutral charge.

"This is an extension of the law of the unity and interpenetration of opposites. It is a law which permeates the whole of nature, from the smallest phenomena to the largest...." [Woods and Grant (1995), pp.43-47, 63-71.]

"This struggle is not external and accidental…. The struggle is internal and necessary, for it arises and follows from the nature of the process as a whole. The opposite tendencies are not independent the one of the other, but are inseparably connected as parts or aspects of a single whole. And they operate and come into conflict on the basis of the contradiction inherent in the process as a whole….

"Movement and change result from causes inherent in things and processes, from internal contradictions….

"Contradiction is a universal feature of all processes….

"The importance of the [developmental] conception of the negation of the negation does not lie in its supposedly expressing the necessary pattern of all development. All development takes place through the working out of contradictions -– that is a necessary universal law…." [Cornforth (1976), pp.14-15, 46-48, 53, 65-66, 72, 77, 82, 86, 90, 95, 117; quoting Hegel (1975), pp.172 and 160, respectively.]

"Opposites in a thing are not only mutually exclusive, polar, repelling, each other; they also attract and interpenetrate each other. They begin and cease to exist together.... These dual aspects of opposites -- conflict and unity -- are like scissor blades in cutting, jaws in mastication, and two legs in walking. Where there is only one, the process as such is impossible: 'all polar opposites are in general determined by the mutual action of two opposite poles on one another, the separation and opposition of these poles exists only within their unity and interconnection, and, conversely, their interconnection exists only in their separation and their unity only in their opposition.' in fact, 'where one no sooner tries to hold on to one side alone then it is transformed unnoticed into the other....'" [Gollobin (1986), p.115; quoting Engels (1891), p.414.]

"The unity of opposites and contradiction.... The scientific world-view does not seek causes of the motion of the universe beyond its boundaries. It finds them in the universe itself, in its contradictions. The scientific approach to an object of research involves skill in perceiving a dynamic essence, a combination in one and the same object of mutually incompatible elements, which negate each other and yet at the same time belong to each other.

"It is even more important to remember this point when we are talking about connections between phenomena that are in the process of development. In the whole world there is no developing object in which one cannot find opposite sides, elements or tendencies: stability and change, old and new, and so on. The dialectical principle of contradiction reflects a dualistic relationship within the whole: the unity of opposites and their struggle. Opposites may come into conflict only to the extent that they form a whole in which one element is as necessary as another. This necessity for opposing elements is what constitutes the life of the whole. Moreover, the unity of opposites, expressing the stability of an object, is relative and transient, while the struggle of opposites is absolute, ex pressing the infinity of the process of development. This is because contradiction is not only a relationship between opposite tendencies in an object or between opposite objects, but also the relationship of the object to itself, that is to say, its constant self-negation. The fabric of all life is woven out of two kinds of thread, positive and negative, new and old, progressive and reactionary. They are constantly in conflict, fighting each other....

"The opposite sides, elements and tendencies of a whole whose interaction forms a contradiction are not given in some eternally ready-made form. At the initial stage, while existing only as a possibility, contradiction appears as a unity containing an inessential difference. The next stage is an essential difference within this unity. Though possessing a common basis, certain essential properties or tendencies in the object do not correspond to each other. The essential difference produces opposites, which in negating each other grow into a contradiction. The extreme case of contradiction is an acute conflict. Opposites do not stand around in dismal inactivity; they are not something static, like two wrestlers in a photograph. They interact and are more like a live wrestling match. Every development produces contradictions, resolves them and at the same time gives birth to new ones. Life is an eternal overcoming of obstacles. Everything is interwoven in a network of contradictions." [Spirkin (1983), pp.143-46.]

"'The contradiction, however, is the source of all movement and life; only in so far as it contains a contradiction can anything have movement, power, and effect.' (Hegel). 'In brief', states Lenin, 'dialectics can be defined as the doctrine of the unity of opposites. This embodies the essence of dialectics…'

"The world in which we live is a unity of contradictions or a unity of opposites: cold-heat, light-darkness, Capital-Labour, birth-death, riches-poverty, positive-negative, boom-slump, thinking-being, finite-infinite, repulsion-attraction, left-right, above- below, evolution-revolution, chance-necessity, sale-purchase, and so on.

"The fact that two poles of a contradictory antithesis can manage to coexist as a whole is regarded in popular wisdom as a paradox. The paradox is a recognition that two contradictory, or opposite, considerations may both be true. This is a reflection in thought of a unity of opposites in the material world.

"Motion, space and time are nothing else but the mode of existence of matter. Motion, as we have explained is a contradiction, -- being in one place and another at the same time. It is a unity of opposites. 'Movement means to be in this place and not to be in it; this is the continuity of space and time -- and it is this which first makes motion possible.' (Hegel)

"To understand something, its essence, it is necessary to seek out these internal contradictions. Under certain circumstances, the universal is the individual, and the individual is the universal. That things turn into their opposites, -- cause can become effect and effect can become cause -- is because they are merely links in the never-ending chain in the development of matter.

"Lenin explains this self-movement in a note when he says, 'Dialectics is the teaching which shows how opposites can be and how they become identical -- under what conditions they are identical, becoming transformed into one another -- why the human mind should grasp these opposites not as dead, rigid, but living, conditional, mobile, becoming transformed into one another.'" [Rob Sewell, quoted from here.]

Bold emphases added.

References and links can be found at my site, here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2007.htm

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

GB:


Yes. All formal logicians will be burnt at the stake.

Hey, I thought you had me on your 'ignore' list!

Have you any idea what that does to my credibilty in anti-mystical circles???!!!

Put that right immediatetly....http://www.myemoticons.com/emoticons/images/msn/moods/angry.gif

[mikelepore]

It's not saying that every thing has another object for it's opposite. It's saying that every thing is made of opposites. A table must be held together by opposing forces, or else the molecules would fly apart.

I think the scientific way to express this is: We have discovered several kinds of problems where such interactions as forces, change rates, and flow rates occur in magnitudes that are proportional to the gradients between opposites. For example, in electrical problems, opposite charges are responsible for attraction and repulsion (Coulomb's law), and the potential difference between two points causes a proportional current to flow (Ohm's law). The rate of heat conduction is proportional to a temperature gradient (Fourier's law of heat conduction), and the net heat radiation by electromagnetic waves is also proportional to a temperature gradient (the Stefan-Boltzmann law). The rate of diffusion is proportional to the concentration gradient (Fick's law.) The flow rate of a fluid is proportional to a pressure gradient (one of the terms in Bernoulli's equation).

There's no problem establishing that. The problem is whether it extends to anything beyond physics problems. A pattern found in physics doesn't necessarily apply to a discussion about human society. For example, just because there are three quarks in a proton and three quarks in a neutron, we can't say that in a human society groupings occur in threes. We are in danger of making false assertions by means of analogies.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


I think the scientific way to express this is: We have discovered several kinds of problems where such interactions as forces, change rates, and flow rates occur in magnitudes that are proportional to the gradients between opposites. For example, in electrical problems, opposite charges are responsible for attraction and repulsion (Coulomb's law), and the potential difference between two points causes a proportional current to flow (Ohm's law). The rate of heat conduction is proportional to a temperature gradient (Fourier's law of heat conduction), and the net heat radiation by electromagnetic waves is also proportional to a temperature gradient (the Stefan-Boltzmann law). The rate of diffusion is proportional to the concentration gradient (Fick's law.) The flow rate of a fluid is proportional to a pressure gradient (one of the terms in Bernoulli's equation).

However, this will not work in multivariate systems. So, it can't be a 'law'.

But, even if it were, the DM-way of expressing this would make change impossble, as I have shown.

[superborys]

I feel this thread is nothing more than a justification of what MilkManofHumanKindness said earlier about Rosa derailing threads on how everyone around her is stupid and then letting herself be ravenously aggressive apparently just to show off her intellectual prowess. Instead of educating the RevLeft community she has done nothing more in this thread than attack people who disagree with her. She could more easily PM these people to settle her dispute and kindly provide the OP with links to learn about it.

Honestly, even though it's strictly moderated and disputed for credibility, I suggest reading Wikipedia's article on dialectical materialism. It's actually how I've learned most of what I know about the intricacies of Communism. Of course I always come back here to confirm what I've learned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism

It's a little wordy as Wikipedia always is, but it should be understandable enough.

[this is an invasion]

I feel this thread is nothing more than a justification of what MilkManofHumanKindness said earlier about Rosa derailing threads on how everyone around her is stupid and then letting herself be ravenously aggressive apparently just to show off her intellectual prowess. Instead of educating the RevLeft community she has done nothing more in this thread than attack people who disagree with her. She could more easily PM these people to settle her dispute and kindly provide the OP with links to learn about it.

Honestly, even though it's strictly moderated and disputed for credibility, I suggest reading Wikipedia's article on dialectical materialism. It's actually how I've learned most of what I know about the intricacies of Communism. Of course I always come back here to confirm what I've learned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism

It's a little wordy as Wikipedia always is, but it should be understandable enough.
You're kidding right? Rosa is the only one that has provided anything to support her arguments. Everyone else is just like "LOL IGNORE HER."

I personally don't know or care about dialectics. Maybe I should. Dunno. But at least Rosa is able to defend her shit.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Superboring:


I feel this thread is nothing more than a justification of what MilkManofHumanKindness said earlier about Rosa derailing threads on how everyone around her is stupid and then letting herself be ravenously aggressive apparently just to show off her intellectual prowess. Instead of educating the RevLeft community she has done nothing more in this thread than attack people who disagree with her. She could more easily PM these people to settle her dispute and kindly provide the OP with links to learn about it.

Ah, yet another comrade who can't defend his/her ideas, but has to make personal attacks on me to disguise that fact.

Well, at least you mystics are consistent...


Honestly, even though it's strictly moderated and disputed for credibility, I suggest reading Wikipedia's article on dialectical materialism. It's actually how I've learned most of what I know about the intricacies of Communism. Of course I always come back here to confirm what I've learned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism

It's a little wordy as Wikipedia always is, but it should be understandable enough.

Have a look at the comments pages over at Wikipedia; you will see I trash this 'theory' there as well. [I'd have continued to do so, too, but they began to delete my comments.]

And, we had to fight tooth and nail for them to add a link to my site at the foot of the main page. As you will also see from the comments section, the mystics kept deleting it -- so scared were they.

[superborys]

Namely because you cannot just comment on Wikipedia articles. It's not a debate room.

I want to understand your view point, so allow me to fully read through the Wiki article, then I will read the links in this thread, and then your site, just so I fully understand the nature of your hostility toward dialectics.

I assure you, I will be back.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

superborys:


Namely because you cannot just comment on Wikipedia articles. It's not a debate room.

But others were allowed to do so -- but mine were the comments which were deleted.


I want to understand your view point, so allow me to fully read through the Wiki article, then I will read the links in this thread, and then your site, just so I fully understand the nature of your hostility toward dialectics.

I assure you, I will be back.

I look forward to it.

[S.Artesian]

Let's review, Rosa;

When your request to "move on" was agreed to, and the move was identified to the concrete analysis of the relations of capital and labor, you demur.

When you, espousing your alleged fidelity to historical materialism, are challenged as to what actually constitutes historical materialism, you demur.

When your abstract dispute of material existence "essence" and "appearance" is challenged with concrete examples from Marx's analysis of capitalism, you refuse to engage the challenge.

When your claim that Marx essentially wasted time in his infatuation with Hegel is challenged on the basis of Marx's concrete analysis, investigation and research into capitalism, you don't, won't or can't respond to the challenge.

When your claim that prior to vol 1 of Capital, Marx's analysis of capitalism was hampered, was diverted from the path established by Kant, Smith, the Scottish materialists is challenged, and the challenge is to provide a single example of a mistake, an error, an inconsistency, an inaccuracy in the earlier works which can be attributed to "Hegelian influence," which Marx then corrects in his "purified" vol 1, you refuse the challenge.

So... whenever a material question is raised about relations between capital and labor, you have nothing to say, even in defense of your own unsubstantiated assertions.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

The above spam has been reported to the mods.

[RedAnarchist]

Let's review, Rosa;

When your request to "move on" was agreed to, and the move was identified to the concrete analysis of the relations of capital and labor, you demur.

When you, espousing your alleged fidelity to historical materialism, are challenged as to what actually constitutes historical materialism, you demur.

When your abstract dispute of material existence "essence" and "appearance" is challenged with concrete examples from Marx's analysis of capitalism, you refuse to engage the challenge.

When your claim that Marx essentially wasted time in his infatuation with Hegel is challenged on the basis of Marx's concrete analysis, investigation and research into capitalism, you don't, won't or can't respond to the challenge.

When your claim that prior to vol 1 of Capital, Marx's analysis of capitalism was hampered, was diverted from the path established by Kant, Smith, the Scottish materialists is challenged, and the challenge is to provide a single example of a mistake, an error, an inconsistency, an inaccuracy in the earlier works which can be attributed to "Hegelian influence," which Marx then corrects in his "purified" vol 1, you refuse the challenge.

So... whenever a material question is raised about relations between capital and labor, you have nothing to say, even in defense of your own unsubstantiated assertions.

This is a verbal warning for spamming. Stop posting the exact same comment in different threads.

[S.Artesian]

This is a verbal warning for spamming. Stop posting the exact same comment in different threads.


Sure. Will such a warning be provided to Rosa as she attempts to manipulate every thread on dialectics with exactly the same comments and distortions?

Just a question.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


Will such a warning be provided to Rosa as she attempts to manipulate every thread on dialectics with exactly the same comments and distortions?

Only when you say the same things am I forced to reply in like manner.

[S.Artesian]

S Artesian:



Only when you say the same things am I forced to reply in like manner.


I didn't know RedAnarchist appointed you as his mouthpiece. I thought he might be able to answer for himself--

and that by the way, your inability to let anyone answer a question without you attempting to manipulate both question and answer into another platform for self-aggrandizing advertisements.

[chegitz guevara]

What is the opposite of a table for instance?

The opposites of the table are the forces acting upon it to change it from a table into something else: time, gravity, chemical reactions etc., aka, entropy. Overtime, these "contradictions" will transform the table into something other than a table.


Hi everyone, im just trying to understand this difficult concept (dialectical materialism,) could anyone give me a hand?

Thanks,
Owen.

Dialectical materialism needs to be understood in context. In the 19th Century, the world was understood in very mechanical terms, everything was understood to be like a clockwork machine. We call this mechanical materialism. Although Marx and Engel's themselves never proposed a name for their world view, they were among several co-founders of the idea that the material world is constantly in motion, changing, dynamic. Later Marxists called this idea, dialectical materialism, to oppose it to the mechanical materialism then extent.

Since the seventies, the old mechanical view of reality has fallen away as more and more fields of study have accepted a dynamic view of reality.

Some people, the religiously anti-dialectics crowd, get hung up on specifics of Hegel or Engels. One supposes they also reject the entirety of psychology, because Freud was so very wrong about the human mind. They must reject gravity as well, because Newton was wrong about it, and atoms, because Democratis was wrong about them.

Why is dialectics still important for Marxism? Because there's a tendency among people to see the world as either unchanging (socialism will never work because of human nature) or that progress occurs linearly (we don't have to fight for socialism, we'll just get there). Dialectics argues that one, the world is constantly in motion, constantly changing, and that we can't sit back on our laurels and "let" change happen. We have to actively intervene in the world to make the change we want.

In addition, dialectics teaches us that something can be its own opposite. For example, the USSR was both a workers state and not a workers state at the same time. It was both progressive and reactionary. Rather than seeing the world and the things in it as one-sided, dialectics teaches us to look beyond the surface of things, to accept that things have multiple facets, aren't simply one thing or another.

[ZeroNowhere]

In addition, dialectics teaches us that something can be its own opposite. For example, the USSR was both a workers state and not a workers state at the same time.What does this mean, then?

[S.Artesian]

The opposites of the table are the forces acting upon it to change it from a table into something else: time, gravity, chemical reactions etc., aka, entropy. Overtime, these "contradictions" will transform the table into something other than a table.

What makes those things "opposites" to tables? What you identify are simply natural forces that have no specific relationship to the table as a table; natural forces that exist independent of the table; independent of the fact that a table is not just an object, but an object of social production.

An opposite, as Marx extracting the rational kernel from Hegel, has a specific, unique, essential, relationship with the original object or proposition. It, the opposite, is the determinant of the object, proposition, or in Marx's case, the social organization of labor.

To say "over time" these "contradictions" will transform the table into something other than a table doesn't explain an opposition because anything can transform a table into something else a non-table, without 1) changing, or negating the forces you list as the driving forces 2) without creating a thing that is an anti-table.


The dialectic for Marx is historical [and I would personally argue, that it was also historical for Hegel, who gave it, the dialectic its comprehensive, but alienated exposition as an alienated history, culminating in the capitulation of reason to the state despite the material reality of the irrationality of the state-- see Marx's Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right], and the material of history is the social labor process. This sets Marx on the path to the critique of political economy and toward his analysis of capitalism as a social relation where labor and the conditions of labor confront each other as opposites; with the apex, apotheosis of that opposition coming at the point where the means of production accrued through the enhanced productivity of wage-labor, outgrow the relations of production-- the organization of labor itself as wage-labor for the purpose of accumulating value.

[chegitz guevara]

While time, gravity, chemical reactions exist independently of the table, the table does not exist independently of them. They are intimately bound up in the existence of the table, and their action upon the table eventually overcomes the table's resistance, and it ceases to be a table.

And while a table is a table only in its relationship to human beings, that is historical materialism. Dialectical materialism explains reality beyond human relationships, understanding the thing in its relationship to the rest of objective reality.

[S.Artesian]

While time, gravity, chemical reactions exist independently of the table, the table does not exist independently of them. They are intimately bound up in the existence of the table, and their action upon the table eventually overcomes the table's resistance, and it ceases to be a table.

And while a table is a table only in its relationship to human beings, that is historical materialism. Dialectical materialism explains reality beyond human relationships, understanding the thing in its relationship to the rest of objective reality.

Technically, maybe.

Of course the table does not exist independently of gravity etc., but neither does gravity, chemistry cause the table to come into existence; neither can time, chemistry, gravity etc. banish the class of tables, the category of tables. Those forces are not the determinations of the table, and they do not produce its negation.

I know my view is more than a bit different in that I don't think Marx's work is dialectical materialism; I think Marx's dialectic is specifically historical and not "natural."

My point in bringing this up is that I think "dialectical materialism" confuses nature and society, "things" and "relationships" to the detriment of Marx's dialectic.

[Zanthorus]

The opposites of the table are the forces acting upon it to change it from a table into something else: time, gravity, chemical reactions etc., aka, entropy. Overtime, these "contradictions" will transform the table into something other than a table.

None of those things are what is commonly understood as the "opposite" of a table, they're merely forces acting on the table that turn into something that isn't a table. Further, none of those "opposites" are contained within the table, they are external forces to it. So it's still not clear how exactly you can justify the phrase "everything is made of opposites".


Dialectical materialism needs to be understood in context. In the 19th Century, the world was understood in very mechanical terms, everything was understood to be like a clockwork machine. We call this mechanical materialism. Although Marx and Engel's themselves never proposed a name for their world view, they were among several co-founders of the idea that the material world is constantly in motion, changing, dynamic. Later Marxists called this idea, dialectical materialism, to oppose it to the mechanical materialism then extent.

If dialectical materialism was just the assertion that things are dynamic, then there wouldn't be any problems. However it's clear that for Engels, "dialectics" meant more than just the existence of Heraclitean flux but the so-called "laws" of the changing of quality into quantity, interpenetration of opposites and the negation of the negation. Engels then tried to demonstrate these laws by being very careful to leave his terms undefined and picking a few "just-so" stories, a technique later picked up by most defenders of dialectics.

If you want to defend the view that reality works through dynamic processes that's fine, but given the negative associations of dialectical materialism with attempts to force "laws" derived from Hegelian philosophy onto nature it's difficult to see why you'd want to keep the term.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


I didn't know RedAnarchist appointed you as his mouthpiece. I thought he might be able to answer for himself--

And what, exactly, in my post suggested this latest fanatasy to you?


and that by the way, your inability to let anyone answer a question without you attempting to manipulate both question and answer into another platform for self-aggrandizing advertisements.

Eh?:confused:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Chegitz:


Dialectical materialism needs to be understood in context. In the 19th Century, the world was understood in very mechanical terms, everything was understood to be like a clockwork machine. We call this mechanical materialism. Although Marx and Engel's themselves never proposed a name for their world view, they were among several co-founders of the idea that the material world is constantly in motion, changing, dynamic. Later Marxists called this idea, dialectical materialism, to oppose it to the mechanical materialism then extent.

Not so, there was a very strong organicist tradition in science all through the 19th century. You have been reading far too many biased, 'dialectical' accounts of the history of science.

I can supply you with a more balanced reading list, should you wish to up-grade your view of history.


Since the seventies, the old mechanical view of reality has fallen away as more and more fields of study have accepted a dynamic view of reality.

But, that 'dynamic view' has been around since the Renaissance philosophers and scientists re-discovered Plato and the Neo-Platonists.

Moreover, if we needed a dynamic theory, dialectics would not even make the bottom of the reserve list of likely candidates, so confused and vague is it.

Indeed, as I have shown (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1761299&postcount=30), if dialectics were true, change would be impossible.

So dialectical materialism is not even a dynamic theory!


Some people, the religiously anti-dialectics crowd, get hung up on specifics of Hegel or Engels. One supposes they also reject the entirety of psychology, because Freud was so very wrong about the human mind. They must reject gravity as well, because Newton was wrong about it, and atoms, because Democratis was wrong about them.

Freud made all his 'evidence' up, genuine psychologists do not. Psychologists do not in general try to impose an a priori theory on their subject matter -- which is what Freud did. All dialecticians try to impose an a priori 'theory' (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2002.htm) on what little 'evidence' they have scraped together to support their theses. So, your comparison is inapt.


Why is dialectics still important for Marxism? Because there's a tendency among people to see the world as either unchanging (socialism will never work because of human nature) or that progress occurs linearly (we don't have to fight for socialism, we'll just get there). Dialectics argues that one, the world is constantly in motion, constantly changing, and that we can't sit back on our laurels and "let" change happen. We have to actively intervene in the world to make the change we want.

This is pure fantasy. You really need to stop believing everything your dialectical guru tells you.


Dialectics argues that one, the world is constantly in motion, constantly changing, and that we can't sit back on our laurels and "let" change happen. We have to actively intervene in the world to make the change we want

And yet, if true it would make change impossible.


In addition, dialectics teaches us that something can be its own opposite. For example, the USSR was both a workers state and not a workers state at the same time. It was both progressive and reactionary. Rather than seeing the world and the things in it as one-sided, dialectics teaches us to look beyond the surface of things, to accept that things have multiple facets, aren't simply one thing or another

Thanks for posting this, since it supports the contention I have been making here for some time that dialecticians cling on to this theory since it allows them to argue for one thing one minute, and the exact opposite the next (or, like you, in the same breath).

Here is why you lot cling on to this world-view, like drunks do to lampposts, and refuse to abandon it despite the many demolitions it has received at RevLeft:


There are two interconnected reasons:

1) The founders of this quasi-religion [Dialectical Marxism] 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", administrators and theorists, 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 (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2002.htm).

So, these non-worker founders of our movement, who had been educated before they became revolutionaries to believe there was just such a hidden world that governed everything, when they became revolutionaries would naturally look 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 their reliance on ordinary language and 'common sense'.

Fortunately, history has predisposed these prophets to ascertain the truth about reality for the rest of us, which means that they must be our 'naturally-ordained' leaders. That in turn meant these 'leaders' were also Teachers of the 'ignorant masses', who could 'legitimately' substitute themselves for the unwashed majority -- in 'their own interests', you understand. This is because the masses are too caught up in 'commodity fetishism' to see the truth for themselves.

And that is why Dialectical Materialism is a world-view.

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 OK, 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; it tells such comrades that reality 'contradicts' outward appearances. Hence, even if Dialectical Marxism appears to be a long-term failure, those with the equivalent of a dialectical 'third eye' can see that the opposite is in fact the case: Dialectical Marxism is a ringing success!

In that case, awkward facts can either be ignored or they can be re-configured into their opposites.

Hence:

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.

I stand no chance...

[chegitz guevara]

What I've learned over the years, Comrade Lichtenstein, is that when we say, "an orange," you say, "You are a fool to think a fish is a fruit."

[S.Artesian]

What I've learned over the years, Comrade Lichtenstein, is that when we say, "an orange," you say, "You are a fool to think a fish is a fruit."


Word.

[superborys]

I have one question about it in its entirety:

Why are they important to Communism now. Dialectics, that is?
Aren't people on-average intelligent enough to understand the nature of the universe and to understand that change is brought about by action, whether or not they participate in it? It doesn't matter if you think 'oh, we'll get there eventually somehow', because not everyone thinks like you; there's someone who says 'we cannot get there without action' and thus both your and his theories are proven because you got there by doing nothing, and he got there through action. The world is self-solving so long as we maintain intellectual diversity.

Speaking again my first thought: Why does this archaic, controversial set of primitive 'laws' matter to Communism itself? Why does it matter to the eventual downfall of Capitalism and the rise of Communism and equality? Why does it matter? If no one can supply me with a reason that it's necessary to further Communism, why do we waste our time on such a trivial thought, as opposed to actually helping the movement?
If it's just a 'my dad can beat up your dad' of philosophers and theorists, then why are we bickering over a bunch of old, dead men and women who were probably less intelligent than we are in here now?

Why? I do not see use in worrying myself over this set of 'general laws' about the world, they're useless as far as I can see, and until someone proves me wrong, I see no reason in bothering with them!

[4 Leaf Clover]

most shortly said , phylosophical concept that is kind of , back-uping Marxism , which was derived from Dialectics of Hegel , and Materialism from Freuerbach

difference is , the dialectics of Hegel were turned upside-down , so Marx say that human mind is moving , as material world around us is moving , and that that improving of our Material life , is reflected onto human mind , while Hegel said otherwise , that material world around us is moving and reflecting our mind

dialectical-materialism is basicly said , we change our psychology as we change the matter around us

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Chegitz:


What I've learned over the years, Comrade Lichtenstein, is that when we say, "an orange," you say, "You are a fool to think a fish is a fruit."

I see, yet another comrade who can't defend the faith, but who finds he has to pass comments about me in order to distract attention from that fact.:lol:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Superborys:


I have one question about it in its entirety:

Why are they important to Communism now. Dialectics, that is?

Aren't people on-average intelligent enough to understand the nature of the universe and to understand that change is brought about by action, whether or not they participate in it? It doesn't matter if you think 'oh, we'll get there eventually somehow', because not everyone thinks like you; there's someone who says 'we cannot get there without action' and thus both your and his theories are proven because you got there by doing nothing, and he got there through action. The world is self-solving so long as we maintain intellectual diversity.

Speaking again my first thought: Why does this archaic, controversial set of primitive 'laws' matter to Communism itself? Why does it matter to the eventual downfall of Capitalism and the rise of Communism and equality? Why does it matter? If no one can supply me with a reason that it's necessary to further Communism, why do we waste our time on such a trivial thought, as opposed to actually helping the movement?

If it's just a 'my dad can beat up your dad' of philosophers and theorists, then why are we bickering over a bunch of old, dead men and women who were probably less intelligent than we are in here now?

Why? I do not see use in worrying myself over this set of 'general laws' about the world, they're useless as far as I can see, and until someone proves me wrong, I see no reason in bothering with them!

In fact, there are no practical applications of dialectics (any more than there are practical applications of Edward Lear (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Lear) poems). For the last five years, us genuine materialists have been asking the dialectical mystics here for just one example of the practical application (other than negative, that is) of this 'theory, but they all go mysteriously quiet.

[S.Artesian]

I have one question about it in its entirety:

Why are they important to Communism now. Dialectics, that is?
Aren't people on-average intelligent enough to understand the nature of the universe and to understand that change is brought about by action, whether or not they participate in it? It doesn't matter if you think 'oh, we'll get there eventually somehow', because not everyone thinks like you; there's someone who says 'we cannot get there without action' and thus both your and his theories are proven because you got there by doing nothing, and he got there through action. The world is self-solving so long as we maintain intellectual diversity.

Speaking again my first thought: Why does this archaic, controversial set of primitive 'laws' matter to Communism itself? Why does it matter to the eventual downfall of Capitalism and the rise of Communism and equality? Why does it matter? If no one can supply me with a reason that it's necessary to further Communism, why do we waste our time on such a trivial thought, as opposed to actually helping the movement?
If it's just a 'my dad can beat up your dad' of philosophers and theorists, then why are we bickering over a bunch of old, dead men and women who were probably less intelligent than we are in here now?

Why? I do not see use in worrying myself over this set of 'general laws' about the world, they're useless as far as I can see, and until someone proves me wrong, I see no reason in bothering with them!


The practical, critical application is not in nature, or in physical science; the practical critical application is in the labor process-- in the history of the social organization of labor. This is the transposition Marx executes, taking Hegel through the "brook of fire" [Feuerbach] and bringing out on the other side the conflict between labor and the condition of labor; the contradiction between the means and relations of production.

The task, the "impulse" so to speak of dialectics, is social. It is the analysis of capitalism and the immanent critique of capitalism. It is the history of capitalist accumulation and development of the conditions for the overthrow of capitalism.

[superborys]

So dialectics here were the discovery of how exactly capitalism presents us with unfair conditions and how it is possible through these unfair conditions to topple the system?

They may have been useful at first, but they appear to have spawned several independent theories that explain these sections on their own, such as each sect of Communism's theories on how the society would be organized, how jobs would be assigned, et cetera. It seems now that they are unnecessary because we know what we're fighting for, and how we get there is merely a matter of details. It appears to me that Communism as a whole idea has progressed far enough that it does not require these guiding laws, that with the intelligence and maturity of the ideas behind it it is able to survive on its own.

This is at least how it seems to me. We no longer need the analysis of our conditions because everyone has taken them and made them practical and understandable and everyone knows about their conditions, so the dialectics are antiquated and unnecessary.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian;


The practical, critical application is not in nature, or in physical science; the practical critical application is in the labor process-- in the history of the social organization of labor. This is the transposition Marx executes, taking Hegel through the "brook of fire" [Feuerbach] and bringing out on the other side the conflict between labor and the condition of labor; the contradiction between the means and relations of production.

The task, the "impulse" so to speak of dialectics, is social. It is the analysis of capitalism and the immanent critique of capitalism. It is the history of capitalist accumulation and development of the conditions for the overthrow of capitalism.

Except, we already know that Marx had abandoned this mystical method by the time he wrote Das Kapital.

So, it's no use even there!

[S.Artesian]

So dialectics here were the discovery of how exactly capitalism presents us with unfair conditions and how it is possible through these unfair conditions to topple the system?

They may have been useful at first, but they appear to have spawned several independent theories that explain these sections on their own, such as each sect of Communism's theories on how the society would be organized, how jobs would be assigned, et cetera. It seems now that they are unnecessary because we know what we're fighting for, and how we get there is merely a matter of details. It appears to me that Communism as a whole idea has progressed far enough that it does not require these guiding laws, that with the intelligence and maturity of the ideas behind it it is able to survive on its own.

This is at least how it seems to me. We no longer need the analysis of our conditions because everyone has taken them and made them practical and understandable and everyone knows about their conditions, so the dialectics are antiquated and unnecessary.

If that were the case, if everyone had "taken them and made them practical," appropriated those material conditions, we would not still have capitalism as the dominant mode of production. Socialism would be the dominant mode of production.

The point of Marx's dialectic is not to "be more dialectical than the next person," not to understand more about star-death, big bang theory, and entropy than anyone, but where capitalism is going and how we stop it from getting there.

[superborys]

So it's not directly required, but highly recommended unless we manage to start a revolution tomorrow? In a freeze-frame society it would be unnecessary, but since we are in no such thing, we cannot ignore it?

If it's so necessary to the overthrow of capitalism and 'knowing your enemy' then why have I not seen anything that's analyzing where it's going? The only dialectical materialism threads I've seen are just disputing it and not using it.

[S.Artesian]

So it's not directly required, but highly recommended unless we manage to start a revolution tomorrow? In a freeze-frame society it would be unnecessary, but since we are in no such thing, we cannot ignore it?

If it's so necessary to the overthrow of capitalism and 'knowing your enemy' then why have I not seen anything that's analyzing where it's going? The only dialectical materialism threads I've seen are just disputing it and not using it.


Obviously, you don't have to study dialectics to be a revolutionist. You can even think dialectics are archaic, obsolete, inconsequential etc. etc. What counts is practical analysis, and the analysis of practice, in the opposition to capitalism.

As for knowing, not knowing, what's going on with capitalism... RevLeft is not the sum total of all that's going in Marxist analysis. RevLeft is actually a very tiny portion, and as a list-serv is going to be the location for a good bit of speculation, ultra-abstract theorizing, ideological posturing etc.

[superborys]

I have another thing to say after reading Rosa's website 'for dummies' about dialectical materialism and then her repudiations: She at one point states that because Marx drew his ideas from Hegel, and Hegel is an idealist, and that idealism is the thought of the ruling class, that dialectical materialism is the thought of the ruling class, just re-manifested. I see this is as preposterous. Marx purportedly took the rational part of Hegel's dialectics that were idealist and re-made them into something good. Every theory has its own true parts, even Time Cube's absurd claims have a grain of truth in them (the part where 4 times of day are persistent, they are, it's not evening in Japan when it's evening here, is it?).
It appears that a large part of her refutations are based on observing the changes from Hegel's dialectic to Marx's, and how ultimately Marx's are wrong because of Hegel.
She at one point takes the integral argument for Quality-Quantity (water) and argues that even though it changes state, it's still water.

Sure it's still water, but that doesn't mean it's not different. Basic physical science tells us that most matter we can get our hands on has 3 easily attainable states with each state possessing distinct and measurable qualities. Ice can not flow, water can't change volume to fill a container, and steam can't be seen. Those are just simple qualities, and regardless that H2O is still water when changed physically, it is not the same state-to-state, which constitutes, at least partially, the Unity of Opposites law, even if not fully.

[4 Leaf Clover]

if you just spent as much energy , to explain this guy the topic

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Superborys:


I have another thing to say after reading Rosa's website 'for dummies' about dialectical materialism and then her repudiations: She at one point states that because Marx drew his ideas from Hegel, and Hegel is an idealist, and that idealism is the thought of the ruling class, that dialectical materialism is the thought of the ruling class, just re-manifested. I see this is as preposterous. Marx purportedly took the rational part of Hegel's dialectics that were idealist and re-made them into something good. Every theory has its own true parts, even Time Cube's absurd claims have a grain of truth in them (the part where 4 times of day are persistent, they are, it's not evening in Japan when it's evening here, is it?).

You have to recall that the essay you read is very basics, so i can't defend there everything I allege -- I support it more fully in the longer summary, here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/nti-dialectics-made-t132104/index.html

But, was Hegel a ruling-class hack or not?

Is the following an accurate depiction of this world-view (shared by those who try to sell dialectical materialism [DM] to us) -- this was posted here a few years ago in answer to the question "Why is DM a world-view?":


There are two interconnected reasons, I think.

1) The founders of this quasi-religion [Dialectical Marxism] 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", administrators and theorists, 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 (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2002.htm).

So, these non-worker founders of our movement, who had been educated before they became revolutionaries to believe there was just such a hidden world that governed everything, when they became revolutionaries would naturally look 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 their reliance on ordinary language and 'common sense'.

Fortunately, history has predisposed these prophets to ascertain the truth about reality for the rest of us, which means that they must be our 'naturally-ordained' leaders. That in turn meant these 'leaders' were also Teachers of the 'ignorant masses', who could 'legitimately' substitute themselves for the unwashed majority -- in 'their own interests', you understand. This is because the masses are too caught up in 'commodity fetishism' to see the truth for themselves.

And that is why Dialectical Materialism is a world-view.

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 OK, 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; it tells such comrades that reality 'contradicts' outward appearances. Hence, even if Dialectical Marxism appears to be a long-term failure, those with the equivalent of a dialectical 'third eye' can see that the opposite is in fact the case: Dialectical Marxism is a ringing success!

In that case, awkward facts can either be ignored or they can be re-configured into their opposites.

Hence:

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.

But, what about the following?


Marx purportedly took the rational part of Hegel's dialectics that were idealist and re-made them into something good. Every theory has its own true parts, even Time Cube's absurd claims have a grain of truth in them (the part where 4 times of day are persistent, they are, it's not evening in Japan when it's evening here, is it?).

And yet, Marx published a summary of 'the dialectic method' in the Postface to the second edition of Das Kapital which contained no Hegel at all -- no 'contractions', no 'unity of opposites', no 'negation of the negation', no 'quantity passing over into quality'...

So, Marx's 'dialectic' contains no Hegel whatsoever, and thus more closely resembles the dialectic of Aristotle, Kant and the Scottish Historical School. On that, see here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1693775&postcount=260

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1693776&postcount=261


She at one point takes the integral argument for Quality-Quantity (water) and argues that even though it changes state, it's still water.

Sure it's still water, but that doesn't mean it's not different. Basic physical science tells us that most matter we can get our hands on has 3 easily attainable states with each state possessing distinct and measurable qualities. Ice can not flow, water can't change volume to fill a container, and steam can't be seen. Those are just simple qualities, and regardless that H2O is still water when changed physically, it is not the same state-to-state, which constitutes, at least partially, the Unity of Opposites law, even if not fully.

Sure there is a difference, but is this what a change in 'quality' means? The point of my argument is that, as I say in that Essay, the definition of 'quality' given by dialecticians would rule this example out. I did not go into details since that would have made that Essay too long and complicated, defeating its purpose (I did make that point at the beginning of that Essay!). But here is a fuller argument:


As the term "quality" is understood by dialecticians, this cannot in fact be a qualitative change of the sort they require. Qualities, as characterised by dialecticians -- or, rather, by those that bother to say what they mean by this word -- are those properties of bodies/processes that make them what they are, alteration to which will change that body/process into something else:


"Each of the three spheres of the logical idea proves to be a systematic whole of thought-terms, and a phase of the Absolute. This is the case with Being, containing the three grades of quality, quantity and measure.

"Quality is, in the first place, the character identical with being: so identical that a thing ceases to be what it is, if it loses its quality. Quantity, on the contrary, is the character external to being, and does not affect the being at all. Thus, e.g. a house remains what it is, whether it be greater or smaller; and red remains red, whether it be brighter or darker." [Hegel (1975), p.124, §85.]

As the Glossary at the Marx Internet Archive notes:


"Quality is an aspect of something by which it is what it is and not something else and reflects that which is stable amidst variation. Quantity is an aspect of something which may change (become more or less) without the thing thereby becoming something else.

"Thus, if something changes to an extent that it is no longer the same kind of thing, this is a 'qualitative change', whereas a change in something by which it still the same thing, though more or less, bigger or smaller, is a 'quantitative change'.

"In Hegel's Logic, Quality is the first division of Being, when the world is just one thing after another, so to speak, while Quantity is the second division, where perception has progressed to the point of recognising what is stable within the ups and downs of things. The third and final stage, Measure, the unity of quality and quantity, denotes the knowledge of just when quantitative change becomes qualitative change." [Quoted from here (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/help/glossary.htm#quality).]

This is an Aristotelian notion.

Cornforth also tries gamely to tell us what a 'dialectical quality' is:


"For instance, if a piece of iron is painted black and instead we paint it red, that is merely and external alteration..., but it is not a qualitative change in the sense we are here defining. On the other hand, if the iron is heated to melting point, then this is such a qualitative change. And it comes about precisely as a change in the attraction-repulsion relationship characteristic of the internal molecular state of the metal. The metal passes from the solid to liquid state, its internal character and laws of motion become different in certain ways, it undergoes a qualitative change." [Cornforth (1976), p.99.]

And yet, as we have seen, no new substance emerges as a result; liquid iron, gold and aluminium is still gold, iron and aluminium. [Worse, metals melt slowly, not nodally, or in 'leaps'!]

Kuusinen's book is one of the few other DM-texts that seems to make any note of this difficulty:


"The totality of essential features that make a particular thing or phenomenon what it is and distinguishes it from others, is called its quality.... It is...[a] concept that denotes the inseparable distinguishing features, the inner structure, constituting the definiteness of a phenomenon and without which it cease to be what it is." [Kuusinen (1961), pp.83-84.]

However, as has also been noted, H2O as ice, water or steam, is still H2O. If so, these changes cannot apply to any of the qualities governed by DM/Hegelian principles (even if we knew what these were, and even if there were any). So, it now seems that these putative examples of Q/Q [i.e., the change of Quantity into Quality] either undermines the meaning of a key DM-concept on which it was apparently based (i.e., "quality"), vitiating its applicability in such instances -- or they aren't even examples of the operation of this 'Law'!

References, links and much more detail can be found here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2007.htm


Those are just simple qualities, and regardless that H2O is still water when changed physically, it is not the same state-to-state, which constitutes, at least partially, the Unity of Opposites law, even if not fully

But they aren't the sort of qualities dialecticians define as such.

And the unity of opposites 'law' is no less confused. For example, as I have shown, if it were true, change would be impossible:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1761299&postcount=30

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1761300&postcount=31

[chegitz guevara]

Chegitz:

I see, yet another comrade who can't defend the faith, but who finds he has to pass comments about me in order to distract attention from that fact.:lol:

We defend it quite well. We just don't defend what you're attacking. Your argument is, in essence, one very large straw man. Excuse us for not playing your game but our own.

[chegitz guevara]

So it's not directly required, but highly recommended unless we manage to start a revolution tomorrow? In a freeze-frame society it would be unnecessary, but since we are in no such thing, we cannot ignore it?

If it's so necessary to the overthrow of capitalism and 'knowing your enemy' then why have I not seen anything that's analyzing where it's going? The only dialectical materialism threads I've seen are just disputing it and not using it.

Dialectics also helps us to understand that real world phenomenon contain contradictory aspects. Rosa is a from a tendency (as are you) that rejects the experience of the USSR as simply monstrous and anti-worker, and invented an thoroughly unMarxist ideology to cover for it, state capitalism. Those of us with some understanding of dialectics are able to understand that the USSR was both anti-worker and pro-worker at the same time, a workers state which repressed the workers. From this, certainly political conclusions flow, i.e., whether or not to defend the USSR in the event of imperialist attack.

[S.Artesian]

Dialectics also helps us to understand that real world phenomenon contain contradictory aspects. Rosa is a from a tendency (as are you) that rejects the experience of the USSR as simply monstrous and anti-worker, and invented an thoroughly unMarxist ideology to cover for it, state capitalism. Those of us with some understanding of dialectics are able to understand that the USSR was both anti-worker and pro-worker at the same time, a workers state which repressed the workers. From this, certainly political conclusions flow, i.e., whether or not to defend the USSR in the event of imperialist attack.

I would be a bit cautious in connecting Rosa's position on anti-dialectics with her views of the nature of the fSU. There are plenty of "dialecticians" whose analysis of the fSU is identical to Rosa's. There are plenty of "dialecticians" whose views parallel your own. There are other "dialecticians" with views on the fSU that have nothing in common with either one of you. Some or all of these might link their views to their "dialectics" or "anti-dialectics," which only shows that linear 1:1 correspondences, like market exchanges create no value, and are a zero sum game.

[superborys]

So, Rosa, you are not against the principles behind dialectics (i.e. a set of laws that can be used to determine the political future of the world and how to make it change in our favor), you're just against how dialectical matieralism is defended so fiercely without any sort of proof?

It is hinted at in your post that you are not entirely against Marx's dialectics that he posed after 'Das Kapital', but you are against dialectical materialism, which makes me ask my first question above.


I am beginning to understand your position on dialectical materialism here, and I think we are all on a little shaky ground. I feel as if we all are taking some elements of it, but not adhereing to it like a 'religion' as Rosa notes. I doubt if we were all doing such we could possibly have intelligent conversations.


It also is apparent to me that dialectical materialism was founded in order to help the masses understand. It fits perfectly with a tendency that advocates a vanguard party, as it's supposed that the average Joe will neither have the required brainpower nor time to understand the intricacies of socialist/communist theory, not to mention the convoluted thinking of Marx and Engels. It's there to aid the people in understanding things they can't with guidance of the leaders - it is a religion, which I abhor, but in theory it was at least one that was invented to help us and not the capitalists, you see.

I think most of this arguing we do today over dialectical materialism is largely for naught, as we are probably all in agreeance that contemporary science and logic far outclasses dialectical materialism, and that is should mostly be studied as a hobby, not as a real application to our cause.
Now, this is certainly not to say that I don't think a series of socio-political laws, or 'dialectics', if it so pleases you, are not necessary. I definitely think that we need to analyze the past and form patterns in order to predict the future of capitalism. We need to have all bases covered, even if this one can never be perfectly covered.
I think if we were to found a new series of dialectics that are absolute, that are easily applicable, we would find ourselves able to dedicate much more of our time to other things.
As I have said before, it's folly to argue over things which don't further our cause, so I do believe we should, at least over time, take the rational and logical things posed by Marx, Engels, Lenin, et al. and compound them into our own dialectics. Make them good again, as they were once perceived as good when they were constructed the first time. Of course our dialectics would be without the religious statements, and would be merely a series of laws that helps to understand socio-political processes, and would likely be more sociological than scientific, as we can just use modern science to supplement it.


So, let me get this straight:

It is believed that the ruling class is idealist because they are able to invent whatever fancy they think necessary to keep down the working class because they can just claim that it came from thought, and must predate matter, and therefore is absolute and true?

And, before I embarass myself further, dialectics are laws intended to describe one thing and understand it? If this is so, we could we not modernize dialectics and remake them, as I have suggested? Perhaps it would be a good first step to legitimize communist thought again: show people how it's reasonable and logical.


Thanks again for being understanding of a novice in this field.

[Proletarian Ultra]

Can we have some of these threads without Rosa? It's as bad as Trots in the national liberation threads.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

^^^No chance! Get used to it -- or don't.

In fact, the mystics here set up their own group, and will not let me join it, so they can feel safe while they share dialectical mantras:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=62

The only problem is that they never use it, but post here or in Philosophy, where what they say is just open season to us mystic-hunters.

And, what little they post in the Dialectical Mausoleum, is refuted here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=63

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Chegitz:


We defend it quite well. We just don't defend what you're attacking. Your argument is, in essence, one very large straw man. .

1) Which parts, specifically, are 'straw men'? I have often asked this, and all I get in reply is dead silence. I predict the same with you -- please prove me wrong.

2) Defended where?


Excuse us for not playing your game but our own

Head still in the sand, I see.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


I would be a bit cautious in connecting Rosa's position on anti-dialectics with her views of the nature of the fSU. There are plenty of "dialecticians" whose analysis of the fSU is identical to Rosa's. There are plenty of "dialecticians" whose views parallel your own. There are other "dialecticians" with views on the fSU that have nothing in common with either one of you. Some or all of these might link their views to their "dialectics" or "anti-dialectics," which only shows that linear 1:1 correspondences, like market exchanges create no value, and are a zero sum game.

In fact, what this shows is that this 'theory' can be used to 'defend' anything you like, and its opposite, sometimes in the same breath.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Chegitz:


Dialectics also helps us to understand that real world phenomenon contain contradictory aspects. Rosa is a from a tendency (as are you) that rejects the experience of the USSR as simply monstrous and anti-worker, and invented an thoroughly unMarxist ideology to cover for it, state capitalism. Those of us with some understanding of dialectics are able to understand that the USSR was both anti-worker and pro-worker at the same time, a workers state which repressed the workers. From this, certainly political conclusions flow, i.e., whether or not to defend the USSR in the event of imperialist attack.

But the very same 'theory' is used by the Stalinists to 'prove' their view of the former USSR is correct, and that us Trotskyists are wrong. They also use it to 'prove' the Maoist analysis of the former USSR is wrong, too. And the Maoists do likewise with us Trotskyists and with the Stalinists. Even worse, it is used by various strands of Trotskyism to 'prove' they are wrong in return, and that each other Trotskyist Tendency is wrong, too.

As I pointed out above, that is because it can be used to 'prove' anything you like, and its opposite, sometimes in the same breath.

But, because of that it explains nothing at all.

And please do not use the 'they use the dialectic incorrectly' defence (since the Stalinists and the Maoists also argue this, as do the various warring Trotskyist sects about one another).

There is in fact no question-begging way to decide how to use a contradictory 'theory' like this correctly.

That is, where any sense can be made of it...:confused:

More details here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2009_02.htm

[S.Artesian]

Chegitz:



But the very same 'theory' is used by the Stalinists to 'prove' their view of the former USSR is correct, and that us Trotskyists are wrong. They also use it to 'prove' the Maoist analysis of the former USSR is wrong, too. And the Maoists do likewise with us Trotskyists and with the Stalinists. Even worse, it is used by various strands of Trotskyism to 'prove' they are wrong in return, and that each other Trotskyist Tendency is wrong, too.

As I pointed out above, that is because it can be used to 'prove' anything you like, and its opposite, sometimes in the same breath.

But, because of that it explains nothing at all.

And please do not use the 'they use the dialectic incorrectly' defence (since the Stalinists and the Maoists also argue this, as do the various warring Trotskyist sects about one another).

There is in fact no question-begging way to decide how to use a contradictory 'theory' like this correctly.

That is, where any sense can be made of it...:confused:

And because the fSU ideologists called themselves Marxists, and because Mao, Che, even Allende called themselves Marxists, because everybody from Bordiga to Molotov can and did call himself a Marxist, should we consign Marxism to the garbage can also?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Superborys:


So, Rosa, you are not against the principles behind dialectics (i.e. a set of laws that can be used to determine the political future of the world and how to make it change in our favor), you're just against how dialectical matieralism is defended so fiercely without any sort of proof?

In fact, I'm against any and all philosophical theories, and not just those found in dialectics.


It is hinted at in your post that you are not entirely against Marx's dialectics that he posed after 'Das Kapital', but you are against dialectical materialism, which makes me ask my first question above.

As I pointed out, I fully accept Historical Materialism, since it's a scientific theory -- providing the Hegelian material is completely excised.


It also is apparent to me that dialectical materialism was founded in order to help the masses understand. It fits perfectly with a tendency that advocates a vanguard party, as it's supposed that the average Joe will neither have the required brainpower nor time to understand the intricacies of socialist/communist theory, not to mention the convoluted thinking of Marx and Engels. It's there to aid the people in understanding things they can't with guidance of the leaders - it is a religion, which I abhor, but in theory it was at least one that was invented to help us and not the capitalists, you see

Well, workers can certainly grasp Historical Materialism -- largely because many already know, or have learnt in struggle, some of its basic tenets. However, the concepts of Dialectical Materialism are a mystery to many who post here, let alone to workers! Even those who claim to accept this theory find it impossible to explain to the rest of us. So, this theory was most certainly not designed to help workers!


Now, this is certainly not to say that I don't think a series of socio-political laws, or 'dialectics', if it so pleases you, are not necessary. I definitely think that we need to analyze the past and form patterns in order to predict the future of capitalism. We need to have all bases covered, even if this one can never be perfectly covered.
I think if we were to found a new series of dialectics that are absolute, that are easily applicable, we would find ourselves able to dedicate much more of our time to other things.

But, this is Historical Materialism not Dialectical Materialism [DM].


It is believed that the ruling class is idealist because they are able to invent whatever fancy they think necessary to keep down the working class because they can just claim that it came from thought, and must predate matter, and therefore is absolute and true?

Well, here is why they are idealists (and their ideolgues are too) -- and why DM-fans are too:


1) The founders of this quasi-religion 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", administrators, 'intellectuals' and theorists, 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 before they became revolutionaries to believe there was just such a hidden world that governed everything. Hence, when they became revolutionaries they would naturally look 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 their reliance on ordinary language and 'common sense'.

Fortunately, history has predisposed these prophets to ascertain the truth about reality for the rest of us, which means that they must be our 'naturally-ordained' leaders. That in turn meant these 'leaders' were also Teachers of the 'ignorant masses', who could 'legitimately' substitute themselves for the unwashed majority -- in 'their own interests', you understand. This is because the masses are too caught up in 'commodity fetishism' to see the truth for themselves.

And that is why Dialectical Materialism is a world-view.

You:


And, before I embarass myself further, dialectics are laws intended to describe one thing and understand it? If this is so, we could we not modernize dialectics and remake them, as I have suggested? Perhaps it would be a good first step to legitimize communist thought again: show people how it's reasonable and logical.

In fact, we'd be wise to flush this 'theory' down the pan.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


And because the fSU ideologists called themselves Marxists, and because Mao, Che, even Allende called themselves Marxists, because everybody from Bordiga to Molotov can and did call himself a Marxist, should we consign Marxism to the garbage can also?

Well, the point is that any theory that glories in 'contradiction' should be. Since, as we already know, Historical Materialism [HM] does not do this, then any Marxism based on HM, and not on 'dialectics', shouldn't.

Alas, every Marxist Tendency has relied on 'dialectics' -- so, yes, Dialectical Marxism should be flushed down the pan.

[S.Artesian]

S Artesian:



Well, the point is that any theory that glories in 'contradiction' should be. Since, as we already know, Historical Materialism [HM] does not do this, then any Marxism based on HM, and not on 'dialectics', shouldn't.

Alas, every Marxist Tendency has relied on 'dialectics' -- so, yes, Dialectical Marxism should be flushed down the pan.

Nope, that's not the point. You claimed that everyone and anyone claimed dialectical materialism as the "reason" for the any and every view, dialectical materialism was rubbish. All those same everyones make the same claims for Marxism, for being Marxists themselves. Does that make Marxism rubbish?

The point is anyone can claim anything he or she wants to about Marx's critique of capitalism, and that hardly reflects on the validity of the critique itself. Substituting the term historical materialism for dialectical materialism is not a remedy. Historical materialism is not an amulet, automatically warding off specious claims made for it, or misuse of its method and subject.

Nothing spares us the work of concrete, critical analysis of the content of those proclaiming to be the "real" historical, or dialectical, materialists, or the "real" Marxists.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


Nope, that's not the point. You claimed that everyone and anyone claimed dialectical materialism as the "reason" for the any and every view, dialectical materialism was rubbish. All those same everyones make the same claims for Marxism, for being Marxists themselves. Does that make Marxism rubbish?

Where did I claim this?

I see you are back in your 'don't quote Rosa, just summarise some other argument, and then attribute that to her' mode again.

What I have claimed is that this theory makes no sense at all, so no wonder it has failed for so long. I then go on to show that it has been used by substitutionist and counter-revolutionary elements within Marxism to justify anything they like, and its opposite, since it glories in 'contradiction'.

At no point have I argued that because it has been 'mis-used', or has failed, it must be in error.

And, of course, the 'Marxists' you mention were all Dialectical Marxists -- you keep omitting that salient fact.


The point is anyone can claim anything he or she wants to about Marx's critique of capitalism, and that hardly reflects on the validity of the critique itself. Substituting the term historical materialism for dialectical materialism is not a remedy. Historical materialism is not an amulet, automatically warding off specious claims made for it, or misuse of its method and subject.

Indeed, they can, but no other theory (except perhaps Zen Buddhism) so easily allows for those in its thrall to argue for anything they like, and its opposite in the same breath. Hence, it's a handy tool for 'justifying' opportunism, substitutionism, inner party autocracy, class collaboration, over-night about-turns in strategy and tactics, alliances with Hitler...

Of course, many of the above were taken, and are still taken, for hard-headed political reasons, but this 'theory' allows anything whatsoever to be sold to cadres (since they already accept it as gospel -- like rather too many here), who, if they disagree, can all be shot, jailed, expelled or ignored on the grounds that they do not 'understand dialectics'.


Nothing spares us the work of concrete, critical analysis of the content of those proclaiming to be the "real" historical, or dialectical, materialists, or the "real" Marxists.

I agree, and that is why all that Hegelian guff needs excising. After all, do astronomers appeal to/use astrology?

Finally, I see you are back to 'feeding the troll', eh?

[S.Artesian]

But the very same 'theory' is used by the Stalinists to 'prove' their view of the former USSR is correct, and that us Trotskyists are wrong. They also use it to 'prove' the Maoist analysis of the former USSR is wrong, too. And the Maoists do likewise with us Trotskyists and with the Stalinists. Even worse, it is used by various strands of Trotskyism to 'prove' they are wrong in return, and that each other Trotskyist Tendency is wrong, too.

As I pointed out above, that is because it can be used to 'prove' anything you like, and its opposite, sometimes in the same breath.




That, the above, is where you "claim that." Perhaps you forgot.

Nope, not feeding you. Feeding you would be continuing to engage in your distortions of your limited readings of Marx [which appear to be confined to the afterword to the 2nd edition of vol 1].

This is only about your false criteria for measuring the "validity" of a theory.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian before he was rumbled:


You claimed that everyone and anyone claimed dialectical materialism as the "reason" for the any and every view, dialectical materialism was rubbish. All those same everyones make the same claims for Marxism, for being Marxists themselves. Does that make Marxism rubbish?

After:


Originally Posted by Rosa Lichtenstein


But the very same 'theory' is used by the Stalinists to 'prove' their view of the former USSR is correct, and that us Trotskyists are wrong. They also use it to 'prove' the Maoist analysis of the former USSR is wrong, too. And the Maoists do likewise with us Trotskyists and with the Stalinists. Even worse, it is used by various strands of Trotskyism to 'prove' they are wrong in return, and that each other Trotskyist Tendency is wrong, too.

As I pointed out above, that is because it can be used to 'prove' anything you like, and its opposite, sometimes in the same breath.

That, the above, is where you "claim that." Perhaps you forgot.

But where in the above did I argue that:


everyone and anyone claimed dialectical materialism as the "reason" for the any and every view, dialectical materialism was rubbish.

Nowhere, that's where. To repeat, my argument is that on independent grounds it is quite easy to show that DM is rubbish, so no wonder it has failed. I then raise a totally separate argument that this 'theory' can be used to 'rationalise' anything you like, and its opposite.

I even make this point at my site:


It is important to underline what I am not doing here: I am not arguing that 'Materialist Dialectics' has helped ruin Marxism and therefore it is an incorrect theory. The reason this Essay is well down the list of those I have so far published is that my argument is in fact the reverse: because 'Materialist Dialectics' makes not one ounce of sense, it's no wonder it has helped cripple our movement. Nor am I blaming all our woes on this theory (note the italicised word "helped" in the previous sentence!) -- anyway, that is the topic of Essay Ten Part One.

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2009_02.htm

But you have been told this several times, so, you still prefer to make stuff up about my ideas rather than confront what I actually say.


Nope, not feeding you. Feeding you would be continuing to engage in your distortions of your limited readings of Marx [which appear to be confined to the afterword to the 2nd edition of vol 1].

Yes, sure -- I believe you even though thousands wouldn't.:rolleyes:


This is only about your false criteria for measuring the "validity" of a theory.

Even so, you still can't find a source published by Marx (that is contemporaneous with or subsequent to Das Kapital) that supports your equally fanciful interpretation of that book.

I can.

And that still burns you up...:lol:

[S.Artesian]

Again, I am not stating, nor have I stated, that your argument is that dialectical materialism is invalid simply because anyone can use the words "dialectical materialism" to justify anything.

You are stating that the "meaningless-ness" of dialectical materialism is manifested in the fact that everybody can use it to justify practically anything.

Marxism is subject to the same use and misuse by everybody and anybody, "dialecticians" and "anti-dialecticians" alike. By your measures then is that practice an index to Marxism's "meaningless-ness"?

Bourgeois ideologists love to point out how all the Marxists in the world agree that they, separately, are real Marxists, and that none agrees that the others are "real" Marxists.

Your claim is not any different than that type of sophomoric "observation."

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


Again, I am not stating, nor have I stated, that your argument is that dialectical materialism is invalid simply because anyone can use the words "dialectical materialism" to justify anything.

And where have I said you have?

In fact, here is what I said:


You:


Nope, that's not the point. You claimed that everyone and anyone claimed dialectical materialism as the "reason" for the any and every view, dialectical materialism was rubbish. All those same everyones make the same claims for Marxism, for being Marxists themselves. Does that make Marxism rubbish?

Where did I claim this?

Have I used the word 'invalid'?

Again, no. Here is what I argued:


Nowhere, that's where. To repeat, my argument is that on independent grounds it is quite easy to show that DM is rubbish, so no wonder it has failed. I then raise a totally separate argument that this 'theory' can be used to 'rationalise' anything you like, and its opposite.

The construct you have been peddling here is a figment of your own over-heated brain. That's why you do not quote me, but instead attempt yet another of your summaries of another argument you imagine is mine, when it isn't.


You are stating that the "meaningless-ness" of dialectical materialism is manifested in the fact that everybody can use it to justify practically anything.

Again, not my argument. I nowhere say that DM is 'meaningless', nor do I even imply it. I challenge you to show otherwise.

Once more (and please put your glasses on to read this, for a change!), my argument is that DM is of use to Dialectical Marxists (of every stripe) since it can be used to 'justify' anything they like and its opposite. Nowhere do I connect this with 'meaningless-ness'.

Again, you prefer invention to fact.


Marxism is subject to the same use and misuse by everybody and anybody, "dialecticians" and "anti-dialecticians" alike. By your measures then is that practice an index to Marxism's "meaningless-ness"?

Once more, the use of 'meaningless' is your own invention. It has nothing to do with my argument.


Bourgeois ideologists love to point out how all the Marxists in the world agree that they, separately, are real Marxists, and that none agrees that the others are "real" Marxists.

My argument is not based on the fact that Dialectical Marxists disagree, or that they claim everyone else is wrong. My argument is that there is no question-begging way to decide what the correct application of DM is (if there is).


Your claim is not any different than that type of sophomoric "observation."

Since the argument you have dreamt up is your own invention, it is you, my beleaguered friend, who is the sophomore here -- and a sophomoric fantasist, at that.

[S.Artesian]

Again, here's what you said:


But the very same 'theory' is used by the Stalinists to 'prove' their view of the former USSR is correct, and that us Trotskyists are wrong. They also use it to 'prove' the Maoist analysis of the former USSR is wrong, too. And the Maoists do likewise with us Trotskyists and with the Stalinists. Even worse, it is used by various strands of Trotskyism to 'prove' they are wrong in return, and that each other Trotskyist Tendency is wrong, too.

As I pointed out above, that is because it can be used to 'prove' anything you like, and its opposite, sometimes in the same breath.

And that is one of your criticisms. The same criticism is made by equally sophomoric critiques of Marx. And so what? Such criticisms are meaningless.

I get to use my own words in describing your arguments Rosa. I don't have to use your words. I just have to be able to link my interpretation to your own words, which has been done numerous times. You can posture all you want about those aren't your exact words, when what you mean is that those are not the words identical to the words you used. But the bottom line doesn't change-- that those words do capture the exact meaning, or meaningless-ness, of what you pose as an argument.

[ZeroNowhere]

"Reading the Socratic dialogues one has the feeling: what a frightful waste of time! What's the point of these arguments that prove nothing and clarify nothing?"

[S.Artesian]

Where's the quote from? Quite agree by the way. This is all too tedious.

[Atlee]

Hi everyone, im just trying to understand this difficult concept (dialectical materialism,) could anyone give me a hand?

Thanks,
Owen.

Edit: just saw the Revolutionary Left Dictionary - sorry, im having a read, but if anyone could expand on it - it would be much appreciated.

Thanks again,
Owen.

dia = two
lect = conversation

two ideas in conversation.

first idea is a "thesis", the second idea is an "anti-thesis" (basically a pro/con argument).

thesis + antithesis = synthesis (combined and worked out concept)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


And that is one of your criticisms. The same criticism is made by equally sophomoric critiques of Marx. And so what? Such criticisms are meaningless.

So:

1) You have failed to show that I have argued this:


You claimed that everyone and anyone claimed dialectical materialism as the "reason" for the any and every view, dialectical materialism was rubbish. All those same everyones make the same claims for Marxism, for being Marxists themselves. Does that make Marxism rubbish?

2) Same with this:


You are stating that the "meaningless-ness" of dialectical materialism is manifested in the fact that everybody can use it to justify practically anything.

And yet you expect to be taken seriously.:lol:


I get to use my own words in describing your arguments Rosa. I don't have to use your words. I just have to be able to link my interpretation to your own words, which has been done numerous times. You can posture all you want about those aren't your exact words, when what you mean is that those are not the words identical to the words you used. But the bottom line doesn't change-- that those words do capture the exact meaning, or meaningless-ness, of what you pose as an argument.

Once more, not my argument.

You plainly wish to argue with someone called 'Rosa', a figment of your imagination, and not me -- which is why you prefer to summarise what you take to be my arguments, but which aren't, and which do not resemble them even remotely.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Atlee:


dia = two
lect = conversation

two ideas in conversation.

first idea is a "thesis", the second idea is an "anti-thesis" (basically a pro/con argument).

thesis + antithesis = synthesis (combined and worked out concept)

As has been pointed out several times here, this is not even Hegel's dialectic (let alone Marxist dialectics), but Fichte's (and possibly Schlegel's); on that, see here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=707195&postcount=7

[Proletarian Ultra]

dia = two

What Rosa said (!!!) plus dia is 'through' - or as a prefix, often 'thoroughly'.

[infraxotl]

An old closed thread entitled "dialectics made easy" posted Dialectical Materialism by A. Spirkin, I used to think I knew what dm was, but after reading the first chapter I am thoroughly confused. Can someone who's read the entire thing explain if it's a worthwhile read or not because I don't feel like I'm learning anything new at all.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I've summarised it for absolute beginners here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Anti-D_For_Dummies%2001.htm

And outlined a few of its major flaws.

[Proletarian Ultra]

An old closed thread entitled "dialectics made easy" posted Dialectical Materialism by A. Spirkin, I used to think I knew what dm was, but after reading the first chapter I am thoroughly confused. Can someone who's read the entire thing explain if it's a worthwhile read or not because I don't feel like I'm learning anything new at all.


Don't read anything produced by academics under the soviet union. None of it is any good. (Exaggeration but not by much).

'Dialectical materialism' is like 'Marxism-Leninism' - it means more than it should mean. 'Marxism-Leninism' in practice doesn't just mean upholding Marx and Lenin - it means 'Stalinism'. So too 'dialectical materialism' doesn't just mean materialist dialectics - it means a particular, rather disappointing and mechanical, style of philosophical sociology developed in the Soviet Union from Stalin onwards.

[4 Leaf Clover]

so far i was able to work out marxism-leninism without knowing a thing about DM , now im just confused

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

^^^Then, you'll be even more confused if you try to understand dialectics.

This is not to put you down, it's just that no one understands this 'theory' -- or if they do, they've kept that secret well hidden for 150 years.

[Jolly Red Giant]

And outlined a few of its major flaws.
I am sure anyone with a few spare hours, plucking quotes out of context, could do a far more comprehensive job than your strenuous efforts.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

JRG:


I am sure anyone with a few spare hours, plucking quotes out of context, could do a far more comprehensive job than your strenuous efforts.

Ok, smarty pants, find me one example where I have done this.

Or are you content just to advance baseless allegations concerning something you seem to know little about?

[Jolly Red Giant]

Or are you content just to advance baseless allegations concerning something you seem to know little about?
I view this nonsesne in much the same way as Dawkins views creationists. I have no interest in engaging with someone who believes that they have single-handedly exposed the philosophical base of Marxism as bunkum, to do so would be to give your 'analysis' a credibility that it does not warrant.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

JRG:


I view this nonsesne in much the same way as Dawkins views creationists. I have no interest in engaging with someone who believes that they have single-handedly exposed the philosophical base of Marxism as bunkum, to do so would be to give your 'analysis' a credibility that it does not warrant.

1) Dawkins at least argues with creationsts; you just sulk.

2) This comment of yours is a but rich anyway, in view of the fact that your 'theory' depends on the mystical ideas of that logical incompetent, Hegel (upside down or 'the right way up'), just as creationists base their ideas on similar irrationalities. In which case, Dawkins would regard you lot as the equivalent of flat earthers.

Then you have the cheek to direct a grubby finger at me for pointing this out, and for showing where your 'theory' falls flat.

And I'm still waiting for this:


Ok, smarty pants, find me one example where I have done this.

If you can't, at least have the courage to withdraw it.

Or are you a coward in this respect, too?

[el_chavista]

Consider the situation of psychoanalysis: regardless of Freud's fiasco, still his terminology and "concepts" (like de "Oedipus complex") make possible that a lot of psychologists communicate successfully among themselves.

Likely, dialectics is a leftist jargon we, commies, have agreed to use :rolleyes:

[maskerade]

is understanding dialectical materialism necessary for world revolution? Does every worker need to know what it is?

I'm very skeptical about complex theory...

[Zanthorus]

is understanding dialectical materialism necessary for world revolution? Does every worker need to know what it is?

Short answer: no. You only need to be able to understand the development of the working-class movement and it's necessary end, that is, historical materialism.

[maskerade]

Short answer: no. You only need to be able to understand the development of the working-class movement and it's necessary end, that is, historical materialism.

Yes I agree, it was a rhetorical question :)

[Jolly Red Giant]

1) Dawkins at least argues with creationsts
Actually - he refuses point blank to argue with creationists.


2) This comment of yours is a but rich anyway, in view of the fact that your 'theory' depends on the mystical ideas of that logical incompetent, Hegel
Actually it doesn't - which actually demonstrates that you really don't know what you are talking about - just like the creationists.


for showing where your 'theory' falls flat.
All you demonstrate is your own verbosity.


And I'm still waiting for this:

Yawn

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

JRG:


Actually - he refuses point blank to argue with creationists.

In fact, I've seen him on TV (in the UK) doing just that.


Actually it doesn't - which actually demonstrates that you really don't know what you are talking about - just like the creationists.

Ah, but it does. On that, see here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2002.htm

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2003_01.htm

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2008_01.htm

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2008_03.htm

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2009_01.htm

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2011_01.htm

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2012_01.htm


All you demonstrate is your own verbosity.

Yet more personal abuse in place of evidence and argument. No surprise there then.


Yawn

Your best argument yet...:lol:

[ChrisK]

All you demonstrate is your own verbosity.


You say this while all you demonstrate is your inability to support your beliefs... like a creationist.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

In fact, here he is debating with a creationist:

http://howgoodisthat.wordpress.com/2009/01/19/prof-richard-dawkins-debates-creationist-dr-john-lennox/

This video might explain why he runs shy of debating with creationists:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2270758/richard_dawkins_stumped_by_creationists_question_r aw_ftge/

So, he's a bit like the Jolly Red Coward, here.

[ReVoLuTiOnArY-BrOtHeR]

I just saw this post and will try to answer the original question, which is "What is dialectical materialism?" As a dialectical materialist, I can tell you it is definitely a way of interpreting concrete reality, i.e a philosophy. Stalin once said in one of his most famous works, "Dialectical and Historical Materialism that, "It is called dialectical materialism because its approach to the phenomena of nature, its method of studying and apprehending them, is dialectical, while its interpretation of the phenomena of nature, its conception of these phenomena, its theory, is materialistic." That is basically a sum up of this magnificent philosophical conception.

[S.Artesian]

I just saw this post and will try to answer the original question, which is "What is dialectical materialism?" As a dialectical materialist, I can tell you it is definitely a way of interpreting concrete reality, i.e a philosophy. Stalin once said in one of his most famous works, "Dialectical and Historical Materialism that, "It is called dialectical materialism because its approach to the phenomena of nature, its method of studying and apprehending them, is dialectical, while its interpretation of the phenomena of nature, its conception of these phenomena, its theory, is materialistic." That is basically a sum up of this magnificent philosophical conception.


That's a wonderful quote and merely proves how little "dialectical materialism" has to do with Marxism; Marxism being the analysis not of the phenomena of nature, but of the material reproduction of human society, i.e. history.


What part of the "dialectical interpretation" of the phenomena of nature do you find in any of Marx's works? Where do you find that interpretation of the "phenomena of nature" in Marx's works? NONE and NOWHERE are the answers.

[ReVoLuTiOnArY-BrOtHeR]

That's a wonderful quote and merely proves how little "dialectical materialism" has to do with Marxism; Marxism being the analysis not of the phenomena of nature, but of the material reproduction of human society, i.e. history.


What part of the "dialectical interpretation" of the phenomena of nature do you find in any of Marx's works? Where do you find that interpretation of the "phenomena of nature" in Marx's works? NONE and NOWHERE are the answers.


Such an educated way to reply. I really appreciate it. Well to the point, when you said "NONE and NOWHERE are the answers" you were obviously taking Stalin's words literally. Dialectical materialism is indeed a way at looking at reality, it is a philosophy and that can't be denied.

Marx never used Stalin's words but his writings show what Stalin is saying.

[ReVoLuTiOnArY-BrOtHeR]

That's a wonderful quote and merely proves how little "dialectical materialism" has to do with Marxism; Marxism being the analysis not of the phenomena of nature, but of the material reproduction of human society, i.e. history.


What part of the "dialectical interpretation" of the phenomena of nature do you find in any of Marx's works? Where do you find that interpretation of the "phenomena of nature" in Marx's works? NONE and NOWHERE are the answers.

Oh yes I forgot, I agree with you, dialectical materialism is also indeed the analysis of history, i.e historical materialism.
:thumbup1:

[ChrisK]

Oh yes I forgot, I agree with you, dialectical materialism is also indeed the analysis of history, i.e historical materialism.
:thumbup1:

S.Artesian doesn't agree with dialectical materialism.

[Jolly Red Giant]

In fact, here he is debating with a creationist:
Lennox is not a creationist (or at least wasn't considered one when the debates were organised three years ago).



This video might explain why he runs shy of debating with creationists:

Creationists consistantly attempt to trick Dawkins into debates (and clearly creationists aren't the only ones who try this stuff).

By the way - from the tone of your posts - are you are actually suggesting that Dawkins doesn't know what he is taking about? - and maybe that the creationists have a plausible argument?

(I could see where that comes from in an attempt to defend your own self-delusions about 'exposing' dialectical materialism).


You say this while all you demonstrate is your inability to support your beliefs... like a creationist.
I am well capable of defending my own beliefs - but I don't have to - read the writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin

By classing me as a creationist, then you are also classing the founders of marxism and leninism as creationists - is this what you are suggesting?

[ChrisK]

I am well capable of defending my own beliefs - but I don't have to - read the writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin

By classing me as a creationist, then you are also classing the founders of marxism and leninism as creationists - is this what you are suggesting?

I'm not classing you as one. I'm comparing you to one, due to being unable to defend your beliefs. They could defend their beliefs and are, thus, not like creationists.

[Zanthorus]

I am well capable of defending my own beliefs - but I don't have to - read the writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin

Yes, he should indeed read the writings of Marx. Because if he does he'll find that Marx criticises the Hegelian method as "logical pantheistic mysticism", "uncritical positivism" and "equally uncritical idealism" and rejects any notion of a contradiction between Hegel's "radical method" and "conservative system" which was developed by the Left-Hegelians and kept alive in bastardised form via Engels half-formed writings and polemics towards the end of his life.


By classing me as a creationist, then you are also classing the founders of marxism and leninism as creationists - is this what you are suggesting?

Considering how the "three laws" of dialectics were derived from the writings of a Hermetic and then crudely "flipped upside down" and suddenly declared to be free of all Idealism then yes Engels and Lenin, despite how good their politics may have been, were the philosophical equivalent of creationists.

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

My advice to the OP and others would be to put Rosa on the "Ignore List" and learn dialectics on your own like I am doing.

I'd be interested to know what it is about her that so annoys you?

[Zanthorus]

Well although she makes good points RE: Dialectical Materialism she seems to throw the self-estranged baby out with the bathwater and has a bad habit of twisting Marx's words to fit her interpretation. Check the "is dialectical materialism a religion?" thread in philosophy where we've been dancing around the correct interpretation of the postface to the second german edition of Das Kapital for days now.

[Thirsty Crow]

I just saw this post and will try to answer the original question, which is "What is dialectical materialism?" As a dialectical materialist, I can tell you it is definitely a way of interpreting concrete reality, i.e a philosophy. Stalin once said in one of his most famous works, "Dialectical and Historical Materialism that, "It is called dialectical materialism because its approach to the phenomena of nature, its method of studying and apprehending them, is dialectical, while its interpretation of the phenomena of nature, its conception of these phenomena, its theory, is materialistic." That is basically a sum up of this magnificent philosophical conception.
Ok, are you kidding??
That's not a definition, that's not even an explanation. It amounts to "Dialectical Materialism is a philosphy whose method is dialectic and materialistic".

If dialectical materialism falls under the category of "great philosophical systems", (speculative systems which function as a framework for understanding everything, from nature to human behaviour) as your "definition" implies, then we are better off without it, in my opinion, since no one has ever managed to prove how exactly do natural laws correspond to "social laws" (in my understanding, Stalin's histomat and diamat did exactly the same thing - equated economic and social development guided by certain "laws" with the "iron fist" of inextricable natural laws).

[Jolly Red Giant]

I'm not classing you as one. I'm comparing you to one, due to being unable to defend your beliefs. They could defend their beliefs and are, thus, not like creationists.
So you are suggesting that evolutionists should defend evolution in debates with creationists?

[S.Artesian]

Such an educated way to reply. I really appreciate it. Well to the point, when you said "NONE and NOWHERE are the answers" you were obviously taking Stalin's words literally. Dialectical materialism is indeed a way at looking at reality, it is a philosophy and that can't be denied.

Marx never used Stalin's words but his writings show what Stalin is saying.

What other way is their to take words other than as words, as literally? The words you produce don't say Stalin meant X Y Z "metaphorically."

But let's move to your next claim. "Marx's writings show what Stalin is saying"-- Where do Marx's writings show that?

You're literally making the same assertion you made in your first post. And the answer, and the challenge, are the same:

Literally, NOWHERE. Nowhere do Marx's writing show that he, Marx, is analyzing nature "dialectically."


PS-- Don't know how you can thing you agree with me because as I'm stating that "dialectical materialism" is not historical materialism; dialectical materialism is a distortion of historical materialism; dialectical materialism is NOT an analysis of history period.

[S.Artesian]

So you are suggesting that evolutionists should defend evolution in debates with creationists?


Of course they should. The creationists have organized political forces and programs. Should everybody just roll over and not oppose those forces and programs because creationism is garbage?

Creationists want "equal time," if not exclusive time, in schools and textbooks based on a claim to being science. Don't you think scientists should confront that and show exactly how creationism is anti-science?


There were and are those who argue that intelligence is linked genetically to "race." Should scientists who know 1) race is a social, not a genetic construct and 2) intelligence is a social product NOT engage in a debate with these "eugenicists."

[ChrisK]

So you are suggesting that evolutionists should defend evolution in debates with creationists?

You are twisting words around to try to make your lack of engagement appear rational. The reality is, you have no argument to support your side, while Rosa has, literally, books (in terms of length measured by words written) of arguments supporting her side. Either argue or don't post anything.