What exactly is dialectical materialism?

[Diello]

Any chance I could get a "for dummies" definition of what dialectical materialism is?

I've inferred a generalized definition from context, but I've never actually read anything specifically on the topic of what dialectical materialism itself is.

[Caj]

You should check out this site: http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/

[Diello]

You should check out this site: http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/

Is it just me or does this website's description of dialectical materialism make it sound like a bunch of nonsense? (I'm not asking rhetorically.)

[Caj]

Is it just me or does this website's description of dialectical materialism make it sound like a bunch of nonsense? (I'm not asking rhetorically.)

It's because dialectics is a bunch of nonesense.

[Robespierre Richard]

Dialectics is the evil thing that made communism suck despite being complete nonsense. Yeah.

[Ismail]

Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Bukharin, Luxemburg, Mao, and basically every notable self-described Communist supported dialectical-materialist analysis until one day a now-banned (for trolling) internet warrior decided that dialectics was really stupid. Thus 150 years or so of dialectics being a tradition of Marxism came to an end.

... on RevLeft.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia has an article on dialectics: http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Dialectics
And it has an article on dialectical materialism: http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/dialectical+materialism
Then you can read chapter 2 of Engels' Socialism: Utopian and Scientific here: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch02.htm

The only problem is certain persons want to turn "the dialectic" into some sort of Marxian superpower and reduce everything to an intricate, never-ending "discovery" of the dialectical forces in play or whatever, which is as much a distortion of dialectics as this claim that it's "a bunch of nonsense." Dialectics is meant primarily to discuss the world in motion and the course of nature. You don't use it to analyze Occupy Wall-Street or whatever, nor do you focus on it as some sort of hidden key towards solving political issues in general.

[Robespierre Richard]

Any chance I could get a "for dummies" definition of what dialectical materialism is?

I've inferred a generalized definition from context, but I've never actually read anything specifically on the topic of what dialectical materialism itself is.

Anyway, a for-dummies definition would be essentially analyzing things in terms of the contradictions that they are composed of, and the contradictions that they themselves compose against other things. An example of this would be Marx's Capital where in the first few chapters he looks at commodities through the duality of their properties and makes a synthesis of those two contradictory properties, which itself has contradictions until he eventually finds what he sees is the end of discourse on commodities and moves onto other things such as money. David Harvey's lectures cover that.

It is also used in Marxist literature to explain theoretical development of certain views on revolution and socialism within that same literary tradition. This lets people with an interest in Marxism see that it is not simply Great Men who make important contributions to the ideas of communism, or abolishing the present state of things as Marx called it, but a large amount of contributors, with the most significant ones (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin) signified because they created irreconcilable divisions in views on communism.

In the Soviet Union dialectical materialism became more significant because after the October Revolution and the Civil War the ideological supremacy of communism was heavily promoted which lead dialectical analysis to be more popular in analyzing things that do not regard politics. Sometimes it led to negative consequences, such as Lysenkoism, when a scientist who was a fraud was using political connections, in part by appealing to officials', many of whom were not very educated, trust of dialectical materialism as scientific, to pitch his theories, which used dialectical materialist language for justification. It should be noted that at the time there was no unitary theory of science, even in fields such as physics, so pseudo-scientific theories could still have resonance. After WWII however, this was clamped down upon and agricultural, environmental, etc. projects were done according to scientific method and not gross oversimplifications justified by philosophical language created for analysis of social phenomena where circumstances are much less rigid than in hard science.

In Western Europe and the Americas dialectical materialism was popularized by the Frankfurt School of Marxism and by the 1970s became a mainstream academic philosophy for social sciences, with Marxist everything from geography to women's literature.

In the communist movement today dialectical materialism is most prominent in Anti-Revisionist circles and groups, where the logic of so-called communists is analyzed to find errors such as eclecticism or right-wing deviationism despite both logical and material (real world) conclusions that have found those ideas and methods that said ideas justify to be erroneous.

I think that about covers it.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Ismail is right. Unfortunately many have used dialectical materialism as a metaphysical fetish, the exact opposite of how it was meant to be used.Some thinkers, perhaps including Freddy Engels himself and the philosopher George Novack, have a reductionist view of DM.

Right now I am reading the "Dance of The Dialectic" by Bertell Ollman. Its an extremely good work on DM in Marxist thought.

http://www.amazon.com/Dance-Dialectic-STEPS-MARXS-METHOD/dp/0252071182

You can find it in pdf format with a bit of hunting.

[Diello]

What exactly does "eclecticism" mean in this context?

[Robespierre Richard]

What exactly does "eclecticism" mean in this context?

The putting of many ideas together in a disorganized fashion. This is one of Enver Hoxha's criticisms of Maoism as he saw its theoretical base as very disordered and difficult to make sense of due to it having many abstract and metaphysical concepts without proper explanation from both other currents of Marxist thought and Mao's own ideas. This made Maoist theory easy prey for revisionism, which did end up happening in just a few years because of the ideology's lack of solid principles.

A good example of this would be Quotations from Mao Zedong, also known as the Little Red Book, which provides quotations for people to read to understand the Maoist ideology but for a large part do not have a solid place in the ideology and are just 'tossed in.' This arbitrary pile of ideas often has many contradictions that can be used to justify things that have been deemed unhelpful to communism, such as Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms, but can be justified because of the ideology's general lack of solid principles and mechanisms for introducing new ones, which was exactly what Deng Xiaoping did.

[o well this is ok I guess]

until one day a now-banned (for trolling) internet warrior decided that dialectics was really stupid Critiques of DM have been thrown around long before Rosa, brosephicles.

[Ismail]

Critiques of DM have been thrown around long before Rosa, brosephicles.You're free to name a notable Marxist who criticized it the way RevLeft Rosa did.

[o well this is ok I guess]

You're free to name a notable Marxist who criticized it the way RevLeft Rosa did. It's silly of you to ask me who did it like Rosa, and that they be explicitly Marxist.

[Ismail]

It's silly of you to ask me who did it like Rosa, and that they be explicitly Marxist.Well this is RevLeft and naturally I don't think anyone particularly cares if some random anti-communist attacked dialectical materialism for their own idealist reasons.

I'm sure some notable anarchists have criticized it, though.

By "criticize" I mean those who fully reject dialectics. The seemingly factual point I made, that no notable Marxist has ever actually denounced dialectics as harmful to Marxism, seems to add weight to the notion that dialectical materialism, whatever fault one may have with it, certainly isn't a "bunch of nonsense."

Speaking of dialectical materialism, Stalin's work on the subject is worth a glance: http://marx2mao.com/Stalin/DHM38.html

[Rooster]

Speaking of dialectical materialism, Stalin's work on the subject is worth a glance: http://marx2mao.com/Stalin/DHM38.html

No it isn't as Stalin doesn't mention the negation of negation.

[Rooster]

Hardly any of your two posts made much sense.


Anyway, a for-dummies definition would be essentially analyzing things in terms of the contradictions that they are composed of, and the contradictions that they themselves compose against other things.

Wow, that's confusing. How does a magnet overcome itself then? Anyway, a better explanation would be that dialectics seeks to explain processes through the overcoming of antagonisms, not through contradictions contradicting each other.


An example of this would be Marx's Capital where in the first few chapters he looks at commodities through the duality of their properties and makes a synthesis of those two contradictory properties,

But he doesn't synthesises the antagonistic qualities of a commodity, that of exchange value and use-value, both of which are meaningless anyway out of context of class society as a whole and of production and consumption.


which itself has contradictions until he eventually finds what he sees is the end of discourse on commodities and moves onto other things such as money. David Harvey's lectures cover that.

Odd way to read Capital, but whatever. I can't be bothered untangling this incoherence.


This lets people with an interest in Marxism see that it is not simply Great Men who make important contributions to the ideas of communism, or abolishing the present state of things as Marx called it, but a large amount of contributors, with the most significant ones (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin) signified because they created irreconcilable divisions in views on communism.

I like how you say here that it helped remove the Great Men theory but then you go on to use it yourself in the next post:


The putting of many ideas together in a disorganized fashion. This is one of Enver Hoxha's criticisms of Maoism as he saw its theoretical base as very disordered and difficult to make sense of due to it having many abstract and metaphysical concepts without proper explanation from both other currents of Marxist thought and Mao's own ideas. This made Maoist theory easy prey for revisionism, which did end up happening in just a few years because of the ideology's lack of solid principles.

Then go on to continue to use a variance of the idea (the removal of the process of history from material conditions to that of thoughts of men), that of great ideology theory, or anti-revisionism, or whatever you people call it.

[Hit The North]

The only problem is certain persons want to turn "the dialectic" into some sort of Marxian superpower and reduce everything to an intricate, never-ending "discovery" of the dialectical forces in play or whatever, which is as much a distortion of dialectics as this claim that it's "a bunch of nonsense." Dialectics is meant primarily to discuss the world in motion and the course of nature. You don't use it to analyze Occupy Wall-Street or whatever, nor do you focus on it as some sort of hidden key towards solving political issues in general.

But of course you do. The Occupy movement needs to be understood in terms of its relationship within the class struggle, taking into account the real historical movement of class forces as they have developed and been expressed. Rather than seeing it as a spontaneous and isolated movement, it should be seen as a link in a chain of events. That, in essence, would be a materialist dialectical analysis.

EDIT: in fact, if we buy into Ismail's definition, dialectic would only be employed to describe general historical and natural patterns of development. It would therefore be a thoroughly scholastic enterprise and of no use to the class struggle. Certainly nothing in common with the way in which Marx or Lenin or Trotsky employed it.

[Robespierre Richard]

Wow, that's confusing. How does a magnet overcome itself then? Anyway, a better explanation would be that dialectics seeks to explain processes through the overcoming of antagonisms, not through contradictions contradicting each other

I don't see where there is confusion. A magnet is composed of the contradiction of having similarly charged particles concentrated strongly at opposite sides that cannot converge, creating a magnetic field. This magnetic field then causes the magnet to be attracted to be attracted to particles with the opposite charge while repelling those of the same charge, thereby creating contradictions greater than the magnet itself, that is the contradiction of the magnet with the world around it. (While a magnet is already a sum of contradictions.)


But he doesn't synthesises the antagonistic qualities of a commodity, that of exchange value and use-value, both of which are meaningless anyway out of context of class society as a whole and of production and consumption.


I don't know if you read Capital, but the first few chapters are in a made-up world where everyone owns their own means of production and there are no other social forces, making it a classless society.


I like how you say here that it helped remove the Great Men theory but then you go on to use it yourself in the next post:

Then go on to continue to use a variance of the idea (the removal of the process of history from material conditions to that of thoughts of men), that of great ideology theory, or anti-revisionism, or whatever you people call it.

Maoism is called Maoism because of the incorporation of Mao Zedong Thought into Marxism-Leninism, if you are not aware. This created a very eclectic ideology which with other contributions (in the United States most notably, Bob Avakian's) ended up being called Maoism. I don't understand where there is a conflict.

[Ismail]

But of course you do. The Occupy movement needs to be understood in terms of its relationship within the class struggle, taking into account the real historical movement of class forces as they have developed and been expressed. Rather than seeing it as a spontaneous and isolated movement, it should be seen as a link in a chain of events. That, in essence, would be a materialist dialectical analysis.Yes, general phenomena. Obviously I wouldn't be asking people to read Stalin's work on the subject (which deals mostly with dialectics as applied to the questions of industry, etc.) if I didn't feel dialectics had an obvious relationship with analyzing class forces and movements.

Of course dialectics has been abused by no greater movement than the Trotskyist movement. Gerry Healy being a prominent example of using dialectics to create a personality cult and to "theoretically" beat down any criticism of his policies.

[cenv]

Any chance I could get a "for dummies" definition of what dialectical materialism is?

I've inferred a generalized definition from context, but I've never actually read anything specifically on the topic of what dialectical materialism itself is.

To understand the significance of dialectical materialism you have to compare it to bourgeois rationalism. Bourgeois rationalism understands systems by breaking them down into isolated components Dialectical materialism, on the other hand, conceptualizes systems by looking at interdependencies between components. Because bourgeois rationalism sees systems in terms of separate pieces, it tends to see them as static; dialectical materialism looks at how the parts of a system act on each other and define each other, so it is more concerned with the movement of systems.

Bourgeois rationalism and dialectical materialism are both tools of abstraction, so both provide useful insights while also leaving something out. Bourgeois rationalism paved the way for scientific and technological progress, and it knocked religion off its pedestal, but its static and fragmentary analysis doesn't provide a framework for understanding some important aspects of reality -- especially social reality.

For instance, take a fundamental social question: how do we understand class? What is the "working class"? From the standpoint of bourgeois rationalism, we could define the working class as an isolated component within the system of capitalism: we could say that everyone who has an annual income between X and Y is working-class. If we adopt this perspective, then the logical conclusion is that the emancipation of the working class must consist of adopting various reforms to raise the mean annual income for the general population.

From the viewpoint of dialectical materialism, on the other hand, we can only define the working class by understanding how it relates to, depends on, and interacts with other components of the system (capitalism) -- especially its "opposite," the bourgeoisie. If you represent the internal structure of capitalism in terms of class as a relation (instead of as a matrix of isolated components) and follow the implications to their logical conclusion, you end up realizing that the emancipation of the working class can only be the destruction of capitalism itself.

That said, there's a grain of truth to the claims that dialectics is a pile of nonsense. Not because dialectical materialism itself doesn't yield valuable insights, but because its history has been one of constant misunderstanding and misapplication. The important thing to understand is that dialectical materialism is a mode of thought and abstract, not an ideology or fixed system. Attempts to condense dialectical materialism into a set of rigid principles (laws of dialectics, thesis-antithesis-synthesis) tend to fundamentally misinterpret dialectical materialism. In fact, they almost always end up neutralizing dialectical materialism by structuring it in terms of a bourgeois rationalistic framework.

Anyone who understands Marxism is taking a dialectical materialist perspective, whether they know it or not. The problems start when people try to abstract it into a one-size-fits-all set of principles that will magically reveal the internal structure of any situation. This approach ultimately mystifies the world further by superimposing another ideological structure on it (instead of using the very real insights of dialectical materialism to reveal its actual movement) because dialectical materialism can only be understand in terms of its opposition to (and dependence on) bourgeois rationalism.

In other words, to understand dialectics, ya gotta do it dialectically. ;)

[Hit The North]

Yes, general phenomena. Obviously I wouldn't be asking people to read Stalin's work on the subject (which deals mostly with dialectics as applied to the questions of industry, etc.) if I didn't feel dialectics had an obvious relationship with analyzing class forces and movements.

Of course dialectics has been abused by no greater movement than the Trotskyist movement. Gerry Healy being a prominent example of using dialectics to create a personality cult and to "theoretically" beat down any criticism of his policies.

Hmm, whether Healy used dialectics in any meaningful sense to attain those goals is open to serious question, but it's amusing to hear a Stalinist complain about the creation of "a personality cult and to "theoretically" beat down any criticism of his policies." :lol: I'm not sure how often Healy sent his political opponents to labour camps or execution, for instance.

But back to the point: You began by arguing that dialectics could not help us to analyse the Occupy movement. Are you sticking with that?

[Ismail]

I'm not sure how often Healy sent his political opponents to labour camps or execution, for instance.I don't think dialectics factored into anything people were accused of during the Great Purge.


But back to the point: You began by arguing that dialectics could not help us to analyse the Occupy movement. Are you sticking with that?I didn't mean it literally. I said, "Dialectics is meant primarily to discuss the world in motion and the course of nature. You don't use it to analyze Occupy Wall-Street or whatever, nor do you focus on it as some sort of hidden key towards solving political issues in general."

I should have been clearer. Obviously dialectics plays an important role in analyzing the relationship between OWS and other events, hence why I said "the world in motion," but someone sitting around going "WE MUST ANALYZE THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY AND THE DIALECTICAL RELATIONS BETWEEN ITS MEMBERS" or something is probably not going to be productive.

[Hit The North]

I don't think dialectics factored into anything people were accused of during the Great Purge.



I think you missed my essential point. :(



I should have been clearer. Obviously dialectics plays an important role in analyzing the relationship between OWS and other events, hence why I said "the world in motion," As long as we are clear. :)


but someone sitting around going "WE MUST ANALYZE THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY AND THE DIALECTICAL RELATIONS BETWEEN ITS MEMBERS" or something is probably not going to be productive.Why not, if it was necessary to analyse it? How, as a Marxist, would you therefore go about analysing the general assembly? Wouldn't you be interested in the conflicts and contradictions between members; analysing what these personages represent in terms of wider material interests and social forces; be interested in mapping the flows of power between shifting coalitions and tracing them to the unfolding class struggle? Wouldn't this be a materialist and dialectical approach to its study suitable to a Marxist?

[Ismail]

You have a good point.

Edit: Here's a recent article on dialectical materialism that might be informative to newcomers: http://theredphoenixapl.org/2012/01/01/on-dialectics/

[Strannik]

What's this:

1. Take some scientific data.
2. Formulate an argument or theory based on them.
3. Listen to what your opponents say.
4. Expand your argument, taking into account scientific or rational criticism.

[Sixiang]

I would recommend reading this: http://marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/09.htm

and this: http://marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_17.htm

I found that those were simple enough to read and understand and that they covered the basics. Also, if you want to sort of see the basics of where Marx was coming from in his dialectical method, check out this: http://www.amazon.com/Marx-Beginners-Rius/dp/0375714618/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325632195&sr=8-1

[Diello]

To understand the significance of dialectical materialism you have to compare it to bourgeois rationalism. Bourgeois rationalism understands systems by breaking them down into isolated components Dialectical materialism, on the other hand, conceptualizes systems by looking at interdependencies between components. Because bourgeois rationalism sees systems in terms of separate pieces, it tends to see them as static; dialectical materialism looks at how the parts of a system act on each other and define each other, so it is more concerned with the movement of systems.

Bourgeois rationalism and dialectical materialism are both tools of abstraction, so both provide useful insights while also leaving something out. Bourgeois rationalism paved the way for scientific and technological progress, and it knocked religion off its pedestal, but its static and fragmentary analysis doesn't provide a framework for understanding some important aspects of reality -- especially social reality.

For instance, take a fundamental social question: how do we understand class? What is the "working class"? From the standpoint of bourgeois rationalism, we could define the working class as an isolated component within the system of capitalism: we could say that everyone who has an annual income between X and Y is working-class. If we adopt this perspective, then the logical conclusion is that the emancipation of the working class must consist of adopting various reforms to raise the mean annual income for the general population.

From the viewpoint of dialectical materialism, on the other hand, we can only define the working class by understanding how it relates to, depends on, and interacts with other components of the system (capitalism) -- especially its "opposite," the bourgeoisie. If you represent the internal structure of capitalism in terms of class as a relation (instead of as a matrix of isolated components) and follow the implications to their logical conclusion, you end up realizing that the emancipation of the working class can only be the destruction of capitalism itself.

That said, there's a grain of truth to the claims that dialectics is a pile of nonsense. Not because dialectical materialism itself doesn't yield valuable insights, but because its history has been one of constant misunderstanding and misapplication. The important thing to understand is that dialectical materialism is a mode of thought and abstract, not an ideology or fixed system. Attempts to condense dialectical materialism into a set of rigid principles (laws of dialectics, thesis-antithesis-synthesis) tend to fundamentally misinterpret dialectical materialism. In fact, they almost always end up neutralizing dialectical materialism by structuring it in terms of a bourgeois rationalistic framework.

Anyone who understands Marxism is taking a dialectical materialist perspective, whether they know it or not. The problems start when people try to abstract it into a one-size-fits-all set of principles that will magically reveal the internal structure of any situation. This approach ultimately mystifies the world further by superimposing another ideological structure on it (instead of using the very real insights of dialectical materialism to reveal its actual movement) because dialectical materialism can only be understand in terms of its opposition to (and dependence on) bourgeois rationalism.

In other words, to understand dialectics, ya gotta do it dialectically. ;)

This is a very clear- and complete-seeming answer; thanks for going through the trouble of writing it out.

[Mr. Natural]

Diello,That the materialist dialectic is so controversial is a measure of the current conservatism and passivity of Western Marxism.

The Marxist materialist dialectic works with the motion, change, and interaction of existence and understands life and society to be organic, systemic processes, which they are. The materialist dialectic brings Marxism to life, but Western Marxists kill the dialectic in various ways.

Marx gained his organic understanding of the world from Hegel's philosophy of internal relations (world as internally related whole) with its abstraction process, and from the various Hegelian dialectical categories, laws, relations, etc. The dialectic is integral to Marxism: it is the manner in which Marx and Engels saw, investigated, and explained life, society, capitalism, and socialism/communism. Bertell Ollman's Dance of the Dialectic (2003), which Lenina Rosenweg is reading and recommends, is the definitive work on this matter.

Hegelian philosophy and dialectic revealed a world of living relations to the young Marx and blew his mind. Marx then rooted Hegel's idealism in real, living, material relations, went on to study classic economics, and birthed Marxism from this matrix.

Here is Marx's account of his dramatic encounter with Hegel, expressed in a letter written to his father when Marx was 19. This letter and much else fundamental to Marxism is found in Robert Tucker's Marx-Engels Reader (1978).

"I had read fragments of Hegel's philosophy, the grotesque craggy melody of which did not appeal to me. Once more I wanted to dive into the sea ...to bring genuine pearls into the light of day....My last proposition was the beginning of the Hegelian system.
"For some days my vexation made me quite incapable of thinking; I ran about madly in the garden by the dirty water of the Spree ... I even joined my landlord in a hunting excursion, rushed off to Berlin and wanted to embrace every street-corner loafer.
"As the result of nagging annoyance at having had to make an idol of a view that I hated, I became ill ...
"While I was ill, I got to know Hegel from beginning to end, together with most of his disciples ... and I became ever more firmly bound to the modern world philosophy from which I had thought to escape."

Marx mentally internalized his materialist dialectic, which is always present in his thinking. It is seldom made explicit, but Marx and Engels defined dialectics as "the science of the general laws of the motion and development of nature, human society, and thought." (Anti-Duhring, Marx's and Engels' most explicit presentation of dialectic)

Astoundingly, Diello, I have yet to encounter a single other Marxist on any of the left forums who subscribes to Marx's and Engels' definition of dialectic as presented in the preceding paragraph. I sure would like to know of any Marxist materialist dialecticians I have missed.

My red-green best.