My very basic illustration of dialectical materialism

[Lee Van Cleef]

Hello Revleft,

I created this graphic as a handout for an anthropology class I'm currently taking. We spent a week doing a brief overview of Marx, and a lot of people didn't seem to understand what the dialectic was. This was my attempt at teaching people who have had no prior exposure. Hopefully someone here might find it useful.

Warning, large image:
http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/3289/dialectics.png

EDIT2: Alternative link - resized image may not be adequate for print:
http://s18.postimage.org/skp3n4beh/Dialectics.png

EDIT: Feel free to critique it if you feel there are any mistakes!

[ckaihatsu]

Hey, I'd be interested in seeing it -- it's not coming up, though....

You might try the site I use, postimage.org.

I've done some illustrations that are at a thread here at RevLeft -- just do a web search for 'political educational diagrams', or try this link:

tinyurl.com/ckaihatsu-diagrams-revleft

[Lobotomy]

The image is blocked, could you try uploading it again?

[Prometeo liberado]

Oh man the shit is gonna hit the fan with this. If you put up a diagram on the path that a pencil will generally take as it falls straight down it would cause a shit storm. Whatever, at first glance I think you did a fine job.

[Lee Van Cleef]

Added a second link for those who can't view Imageshack.
http://s18.postimage.org/skp3n4beh/Dialectics.png

[ckaihatsu]

Thanks for adding the link -- it looks good.

I'd like to suggest introducing the concept of 'cognitive dissonance' as well, and perhaps invite your students to think of examples of this from their own lives, so that they can familiarize themselves with the concept of the dialectic.





Cognitive dissonance is a discomfort caused by holding conflicting cognitions (e.g., ideas, beliefs, values, emotional reactions) simultaneously. In a state of dissonance, people may feel surprise, dread, guilt, anger, or embarrassment.[1] The theory of cognitive dissonance in social psychology proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by altering existing cognitions or adding new ones to create consistency.[1]

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


History, Macro-Micro -- Political (Cognitive) Dissonance

http://postimage.org/image/35rsjgh0k/

[Lee Van Cleef]

Thanks for adding the link -- it looks good.

I'd like to suggest introducing the concept of 'cognitive dissonance' as well, and perhaps invite your students to think of examples of this from their own lives, so that they can familiarize themselves with the concept of the dialectic.

Unfortunately I'm not the teacher. If I were, we'd be spending more time on Marx then just a cursory glance at German Ideology and the Manifesto. :)

Thank you for relating this to cognitive dissonance. It's a term probably much better understood these days than Marx's analogy of a camera obscura.

I must say I always enjoy taking a look at your graphics. You usually think outside the realm of convention and put things together in clever ways. People normally wouldn't think about how Marx, Maslow, and a communications theory like cognitive dissonance could all be considered together.

[ckaihatsu]

I must say I always enjoy taking a look at your graphics. You usually think outside the realm of convention and put things together in clever ways. People normally wouldn't think about how Marx, Maslow, and a communications theory like cognitive dissonance could all be considered together.


Hey, thanks for the thanks -- I think I had similar motivations and just wanted to get some understandings across as concisely as possible, using some new 3-D skills along the way....





Unfortunately I'm not the teacher.


Well, not *yet* anyway -- looks like you fooled me...(!) (grin)

And, in the future, just send 'em here, anyway -- I got it covered...!





If I were, we'd be spending more time on Marx then just a cursory glance at German Ideology and the Manifesto. :)

Thank you for relating this to cognitive dissonance. It's a term probably much better understood these days than Marx's analogy of a camera obscura.


Yeah....

[ckaihatsu]

Since we just became long-time buds now, I *would* actually like to put forth a *little* critique on your diagram....

The red vertical arrow, indicating historical progression -- You may want to use *4* separate columns of different-type labels, for the categories of 'modes of production' (feudalism, capitalism, socialism), 'economics' (mercantile nation-state, global market economy), 'politics' (guild system, liberalism, socialism), and 'technology' (ocean-going ships and compass, cottage industry, steam engine, interchangeable parts, film...).

You may also want to "clean up" some of the ordering in there -- maybe look at existing timelines on the web to see how to arrange the different sizes of type for better visual organization and readability / understandability.

Hope this helps....

[Ostrinski]

This is great, really. I wish comrades would do more of these for different topics, to help out our visually inclined learners. You guys are a big help.

[ckaihatsu]

This is great, really. I wish comrades would do more of these for different topics, to help out our visually inclined learners. You guys are a big help.


Well, you know the unwritten rule -- you just volunteered yourself -- !


= )


Really, though, it's a good idea and I'm always open to this -- all I / we would need is a sketch (scanned / photographed into a jpg file and posted here).

I'd be glad to collaborate and make it a group project, with rounds of critiques and revisions.


Btw, on the "visually inclined learners" thing -- it's a misnomer. Here's the d.l.:








Learning modalities




It is currently fashionable to divide education into different learning "modes". The learning modalities[16] are probably the most common:

Visual: learning based on observation and seeing what is being learned.

Auditory: learning based on listening to instructions/information.

Kinesthetic: learning based on hands-on work and engaging in activities.

Although it is claimed that, depending on their preferred learning modality, different teaching techniques have different levels of effectiveness,[17] recent research has argued "there is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning styles assessments into general educational practice."[18]

A consequence of this theory is that effective teaching should present a variety of teaching methods which cover all three learning modalities so that different students have equal opportunities to learn in a way that is effective for them.[19] Guy Claxton has questioned the extent that learning styles such as VAK are helpful, particularly as they can have a tendency to label children and therefore restrict learning.[20][21]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education#Learning_modalities

[Zulu]

Well done, comrade!

[ArrowLance]

I do love triangles.

[ckaihatsu]

I do love triangles.


Got another for you, then.... This is a favorite of mine, too....

It's dialectics at the personal (or organizational) level -- basically two nested triangles that each serve as triple-pairings of dialectical pairs, on the rectilinear plane of scale vs. time.


[conclusions <==> policy, policy <==> practice, and conclusions <==> practice]


-- circumscribed by --


[history <==> theory, theory <==> plan, and history <==> plan]



Consciousness, A Material Definition

http://postimage.org/image/35t4i1jc4/

[Mr. Natural]

Lee Van Cleef, Thanks for the OP, the dialectics graphic, the work you put into this project, and your radical mentality and commitment. You go, comrade!

I became obsessed with dialectics two years ago when I discovered Bertell Ollman, whose works made the Marxist materialist dialectic intelligible to me, and I have some comradely comments to offer. First, though, I need to note that there is no smoking gun that conclusively establishes Marx's use of dialectic, and that this matter of dialectics, so essential to the Marxist project, has now existed for more than a century as a highly controversial, largely unusable muddle.

Thanks again for your graphic representing the dialectical triad Thesis/Antithesis/Synthesis. This triad is the most primitive expression of dialectics, but it is also the form most immediately accessible to the uninitiated.

As regards your graphic, I'm no guru of dialectics, but it seems to me that the Thesis category ought to be "Capitalism," with ruling and working classes contained within, and that the "Antithesis" then becomes a proletariat that is developing revolutionary consciousness and praxis as it butts up against capitalist relations of production. I would also suggest that in "Synthesis" you add that the movement is to a classless society.

I like ckaihatsu's suggestion that the red arrow be revised to include modes of production, economics, politics, and technological advances. Might a spiral then best expess the interrelations and dynamism of the motion and development of the historical process? A spiral's intersections could represent major socio-economic periods. A spiral would also recognize Engels' 4th dialectical law, "spiral form of development" (Dialectics of Nature), which is itself not too important, but the sense of history as a living, material, systemic process it suggests is critical to a dialectic that is the "science of the general laws of motion and development of nature, human society, and thought" (Anti-Duhring). A spiral would provide the "life" a linear arrow misses.

Now to Bertell Ollman, who is still teaching at the age of 76 in New York City. His Dance of the Dialectic (2003) made dialectics intelligible and usable for me. Dance establishes that Marx gained his dialectial understanding of life and society from the Hegelian philosophy of internal relations and the laws and categories it contains. This philosophy of internal relations sees the world as an internally related whole consisting of internally related wholes, and this philosophical take on the nature of existence is in essential agreement with the new sciences of the organizational relations of life and the universe. Thus the dialectic Ollman presents is scientifically valid! For that matter, these new sciences reveal Marx's and Engels' concept of communism to be similar to the universal pattern of organization of the living systems that create and compose the life process and of the life process, itself. Communism is natural!

I'm a red-green Marxist revolutionary, and the preceding remarks express both my red and my green. I'm ready to bring the materialist dialectic to popular awareness and praxis, and I'm encouraged to see that you are pointing in this direction, too, Lee Van Cleef and ckaihatsu.

My red-green, dialectical best.

[Mr. Natural]

Lee Van Cleef, I'm re-visiting this thread as the example you presented of dialectical relations is customary and emphasizes class relations. Your example would be considered to be traditionally correct. Here is what John Rees says on this matter, p. 39, The Algebra of Revolution (1998):

"The terms of this relationship form the characteristic Hegelian triad of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. The lord's dominance is the first term; the bondsman's labor on the object is the mediation between them; and the conflict between the two terms results in the emergence of a new consciousness in the bondsman. Or, to put the same point in another way, the lord and the bondsman form a contradictory totality, a unity of opposites."

So you and Rees agree, while the dialectical relations I emphasized were those of a human species trapped within capitalism. Both examples are dialectical, but yours is the customary one.

Rees doesn't mention the philosophy of internal relations in his "old" take on the dialectic. I turn to Ollman to bring dialectics alive in the manner I believe they brought Marx's mind to life: the philosophy of internal relations and its dialectical categories and laws show life, society, communism, and capitalism to be dynamic, organic, systemic processes.

My example of dialectic exposes a theme I've been developing: that traditional proletariat-versus-the ruling-class revolution has not worked and will not work in the future. Class will continue to be a factor, but I see the human species as a broader "class" base that must develop revolutionary awareness and practice.

I find our situation to be quite simple: we kill capitalism or it kills us. Global capitalism means the human species as well as the proletariat now works for the company store--the world is now capitalism's enterprise. These are new conditions that demand we develop our Marxism in response. Marx and Engels would.

[daft punk]

Why is there the word socialism part way up the arrow next to interchangeable parts?
I dont really get the thesis -antithesis bit, is that necessary? I know historically that was one way some people looked at dialectics. But why call capitalism thesis?

On it's own I'm not sure how much this diagram would tell anyone. However if you have been discussing it obviously it could be helpful. Not meaning to sound negative of course.



My favourite bits form Marxism on dialectics:

Trotsky

"in reality ‘A’ is not equal to ‘A’. This is easy to prove if we observe these two letters under a lens—they are quite different from each other."

"Every worker knows that it is impossible to make two completely equal objects. In the elaboration of baring-brass into cone bearings, a certain deviation is allowed for the cones which should not, however, go beyond certain limits (this is called tolerance). By observing the norms of tolerance, the cones are considered as being equal. (‘A’ is equal to ‘A’). When the tolerance is exceeded the quantity goes over into quality; in other words, the cone bearings become inferior or completely worthless."

"Dialectical thinking analyses all things and phenomena in their continuous change, while determining in the material conditions of those changes that critical limit beyond which ‘A’ ceases to be ‘A’, a workers’ state ceases to be a workers’ state."

[Zulu]

...


I clicked that "THANKS" button on the right for that post of yours, as it clearly demonstrates that neither you understand where the Marxian dialectics has its philosophical roots, nor Trotsky had basic understanding of what it was about. This "A isn't equal to A, brass cone isn't equal to brass cone" seems to have more in common with Plato's idealist philosophy, and as such connect with his dialectics, although not in the way Trotsky postulates in this excerpt.

[u.s.red]

well, considering that at least half the posters on this site don't think there really is such a thing as "dialectical materialism", I guess your design is worthwhile.

[daft punk]

I clicked that "THANKS" button on the right for that post of yours, as it clearly demonstrates that neither you understand where the Marxian dialectics has its philosophical roots, nor Trotsky had basic understanding of what it was about. This "A isn't equal to A, brass cone isn't equal to brass cone" seems to have more in common with Plato's idealist philosophy, and as such connect with his dialectics, although not in the way Trotsky postulates in this excerpt.

You seem to have completely failed to grasp this. It is about how small changes in quantity can lead to qualitative change. Marx observed how the gradual buildup of capitalism led to the English Civil War and a new form of society - capitalism. Trotsky is starting with a ball bearing tiny increases in size suddenly exceed tolerance and it is no longer an acceptable one. In a workers state he is talking about what the tolerance is, where do we draw the line between a health one and a deformed one. The English Civil War was the line for capitalism, the defining line in history. Trotsky goes on to say that the USSR is still a workers state, deformed by a dictatorship. He is arguing against those who said it was necessary to get rid of the workers state to get rid of the dictatorship. He argues against those who lumped Stalinism and fascism together. The USSR was still a workers state because the dictatorship was not a separate class. He is arguing against an American Trotskyist who said the USSR is neither a workers state nor a bourgeois one.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Why is there the word socialism part way up the arrow next to interchangeable parts?
I dont really get the thesis -antithesis bit, is that necessary? I know historically that was one way some people looked at dialectics. But why call capitalism thesis?

Capitalism is the thesis because it is the point of departure for anybody in the modern economic system. Feudalism was the Thesis and Capitalism was its Antithesis during the time period of the 1500s-1790s in most of Europe depending on the area.


I clicked that "THANKS" button on the right for that post of yours, as it clearly demonstrates that neither you understand where the Marxian dialectics has its philosophical roots, nor Trotsky had basic understanding of what it was about. This "A isn't equal to A, brass cone isn't equal to brass cone" seems to have more in common with Plato's idealist philosophy, and as such connect with his dialectics, although not in the way Trotsky postulates in this excerpt.

Where did Trotsky talk once in that quote about a "Form" of A or a "Form" of the Brass cone? On the contrary, he is saying that they are similar particulars, he is not affirming any abstract universals. He is saying that workers categorize them together because they fit the same specifications, or they fit the same practical ends. So on the contrary this is quite different from metaphysical idealism of the form of Plato's philosophy, which was positing a realm of forms (something completely different from an engineering, pragmatic end-oriented approach)