what replaced dialectical materialism in academia?

[Lobotomy]

I am wondering about newer theories or methods of historical analysis which may have evolved from dialectical materialism, or which have seen a surge in popularity compared to dialectical materialism. what do people in academia usually think of dialectical materialism? what kind of criticisms do bourgeois academics make of dialectical materialism?

[Tim Finnegan]

What do you mean by "dialectical materialism"? The term as such is generally associated with the Stalinist dogma of "diamat", which has never been popular in academia on account of being shit, and while a lot of postwar academics employed dialectical methods within a materialist framework, they represented no single mode of analysis. Would you be able to outline in more detail what strains of thought you're talking about, in which fields, and when you see them as having been "replaced"?



(Also, "bourgeois academics" is a stupid term.)

[Deicide]

I think the OP is thinking about Historical Materialism. If that's the case, there's definitely people in academia that believe it's correct. However, I doubt they teach it in any serious capacity, for obvious ideological reasons, excluding the general overview of Marxism that's done in Sociology courses, for example. There was a group of anthropologists that adopted historical materialism, I don't know if they still exist, though. Jurgen Habermas believes it's currently useless and needs to be reformulated. It's definitely still used in Literary theory. Academia isn't a homogenous group, it's an insanely hard question to answer. I'm sure someone else will know more.


what kind of criticisms do bourgeois academics make of dialectical materialism?

The usual criticism that's thrown at Historical Materialism is that it's unfalsifiable.


Stalinist dogma of ''diamat"

I feel sorry for the academics in the USSR, they had to be subjected to such nonsense.

[Hit The North]

I think the OP is thinking about Historical Materialism. If that's the case, there's definitely people in academia that believe it's correct. However, I doubt they teach it in any serious capacity, excluding the general overview of Marxism that's done in Sociology courses, for example.

Why not, then, just direct our attention to the rise and fall of Marxism in the academy?

[Mr. Natural]

Yes, capitalism has triumphed in the academy as elsewhere. Its institutions and values rule, and its negation, Marxism, has either disappeared or been severely degraded.

Western "Marxists" generally disavow the materialist dialectic or confine it to cultural criticism. The Frankfurt School is an example of the latter condition, and I find its current exemplar, Jurgen Habermas, to be both difficult and perhaps worthless.

My outstanding exception to the preceding negativity is Bertell Ollman, who is still teaching at NYU in his mid-70s. He has made it his lifework to bring Marx's and the materialist dialectic's roots in Hegelian philosophy and dialectics to light. His comprehensive, definitely readable work is Dance of the Dialectic (2003).

The materialist dialectic has been abandoned, and Marxism has become an effete academic exercise. This is not coincidence: the dialectic brings Marxism to life. A scientifically and philosophically developed materialist dialectic can then bring the human future to life.

My red-green, dialectical best.

[Rafiq]

The problem in regards, in general, has to do with the fact that unlike Marxism in the early 1900's, Marxism was heavily tied to the Left-Proletarian movement. That means, when the influence held by the proletariat was rendered obsolete, so was Marxism in the academic field, in the universiities, and so on.

Because in Truth, when you look at it's demise, it had absolutely nothing to do with Marxism being rendered obsolete by some academics. As a matter of fact, it's demise was not even open, as the generations came in, it was ignored and replaced by postmodern nonsense.

Though, not for long, especially with the growing economic crises. In time, Marxism will triumph in Academia across the Western World, if not, the whole world itself. After all, a lot of advances in Western Thought were due to either Marxism itself, or responding to what Marxism has put forward. It, unlike 20th century ideologies (Communism) can't be swepped away.

[Tim Finnegan]

Marxism will triumph
Bah, idealism.

[Rafiq]

Bah, idealism.

I don't quite catch this. How? Marxism will indeed triumph - though in correlation with material developments. Meaning that the proletarian class will triumph in different ways, and therefore, Marxism will.

It's quite unfortunate, or fortunate, if you will, the fact that Marxism has become so intertwined. Before it was, as Kautsky mentioned, something of the Bourgeois intelligentisa. Science works in a different way than Ideology does. And Marxism definitely isn't the latter.

[Rafiq]

*Triumph theoretically and academically, of course.

If I were to say "Marxism will triumph" in the sense that it will triumph across the world (and stomp through material developments), that would indeed be Idealist nonsense.

[Luís Henrique]

Western "Marxists" generally disavow the materialist dialectic or confine it to cultural criticism.

For instance?

I have read this claim many times, but with the glorious exceptions of "analytic Marxists", that usually aren't actually Marxists at all, I have never seen examples of actual Marxists actively rejecting dialectics.


The Frankfurt School is an example of the latter condition, and I find its current exemplar, Jurgen Habermas, to be both difficult and perhaps worthless.

I would say that the Frankfurt School, as some other variants of Western Marxism, refrained from politics, given the difficult circumstances in which its members had to live. I wouldn't say that they "confine the materialist dialectic to cultural criticism", I would say they confine themselves to that.

Luís Henrique

[Thirsty Crow]

I
The usual criticism that's thrown at Historical Materialism is that it's unfalsifiable.

Is it even possible to falsify a set of rules - i.e. an method - of examining concrete material, in this case, historical development?

As far as my knowledge goes, you can falsify a thesis by means of experiment. Any empirical proposition, in fact, is falsifiable. While, on the other hand, methodologies are not empirical propositions but rather a meta-theory (if we borrow the term from physical sciences where it denotes a systematic exposition, verified, of the existing state of things), or a set of rules. Sure, you can theorize on the usefulness of a methodology, but in the strict sense of the term, you cannot falsify it.

Am I on the right track here?

[Hiero]

Historical and dialectical materialism has generally been replaced by "postist" theories influenced by "the end of history" logic. That the fundemental changes in history that Marx identified as revolutions have concluded with the last capitalist revolution. There are right-wing, conservative and neo-conservative ideas who focus on Francis Fukuyam's ideas that capitalist and democracy are the end of history and more third world nations will come into line with Western politics. Then there are left-wing post modern strands that will focus on gender issues, redstribution (in a social-democratic sense), fair cultural representation of migrants, indigenous and minority ethnic groups and sexuality issues. That there is alot of quantatives changes that need to ocurr, but they don't conceive of this in a Marxist dialectial sense that these quantative changes lead to larger qualatitive changes as the ecnomic base can't deal with changes in the super structure (contradiction, overdetermination).

So alot of academics, even pro-socialist and radicl academics, generally don't imagine a large scale collective emancipatory project based on class. That history has ended, and we need to work within the confides. You have to look at the history that these ideas were created in, primarily the failure of West European revolutions in the earlier 1900s up to and after WW1 (predominantly Germany), the problems attributed to Stalinism in the Russian revolution, the rise of Nazism, the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the USSR, and the end result of Paris 1968 all lead to this acaedmic melancholy.

Here is a passge from Aijaz Ahmad's article Post Colonial Theory and the Post condition. He begans by talking about Adorno and the Franfurt School's focus on art and cultural reproduction:


In this version, the Third Reich, and the pervading technological Reason of which the Reich is seen to be the chief embodiment,
spells out the end of History, then, not as its realization, as Nazi apologists would have it, but as its final negation, spelling out the impossibility of either the thinking or the making of History as an emancipatory project in any foreseeable future.

Let us be more precise, though. For much of the leftwing philosophy that came of age in Western Europe between Petrograd and Munich, especially around the years that brought the Depression and the Hitlerite triumph, political reality was grim three times over: Nazi barbarism, surely, but also the dashing of Bolshevik possibilities and revolutionary hopes in
Stalin's USSR, and the descent of what one knew as 'liberal capitalism' into the Depression on the one hand, great intensification of consumerist fetishism on the other. Faced with such a history, and even though he probably did not quite comprehend the extent of Stalinist revision of Bolshevism, Gramsci, in the loneliness of a fascist prison, did remain attached to the formula he had made his own, 'optimism of the will, pessimism of the intellect'. In contrast, Adorno, who himself seems never to have been intrinsically part of a mass movement, even a defeated one, could identify 'optimism' only with the aesthetic intensities and narrow plenitudes of avant-garde Art; History, in the older philosophical sense of
a project in which the emancipation of some was inextricably linked with the emancipation of all, seemed now to have virtually no prospects.

You need to understand this changes in context of the historical conditions which they were created. Ahmad's article can be found here: http://thesocialistregister.com/index.php/srv/article/view/5695

[Raúl Duke]

Historical materialism serves the basis of Marxist historiography, which still exists and has had quite an influence in academia. Many historians account for class, class differences, and class tensions/struggles as an important part of understanding history to some degree. In my university, historians are the most likely to be influenced by marxian ideas (followed by sociologists and anthropologists).

Now whether they're viewing it "dialectically" and see the potential of a "synthesis" to arise out of the tension of classes (am I doing it right? IDK, whatever); no, not really in particular when referring to this current epoch. The term dialectics is mostly confined to (continental) philosophy. Supposedly my university in this regards I've heard is different than the rest, allegedly being dominated by continental philosophers instead of analytic, etc. ones.

Also, I don't think dialectical materialism was ever much pervasive in academia during the 20th century and especially 21th century outside of the soviet bloc.

[Luís Henrique]

There is a trend to separate "historical materialism" which would be Marx's method from "dialectical materialism" which would refer to Engels' musings in Anti-Duehring and assorted philosophical contributions that stem from there, culminating in the extremely schematic and empty "diamat" of Stalin's time in the Soviet Union. Naturally, this simplification disregards the differences between Engels and the Stalinist counterfactions of his thought, and more importantly, it seems to be unable to explain what Marx's "historical materialism" is, how it differs from "dialectical materialism" and how it is not "dialectical".

I think we do wrong to accept such simplification, which is not to be found anywhere in Marx, in an acritical way. If it is possible to put up the thesis that there is a Marxist "historical materialism" counterposed to an Engelsian "dialectical materialism", then it is absolutely necessary to make clear what exactly the differences are, and to do so it is necessary to understand and be able to explain what "historical materialism" is and is not. What I have seen in this forum is completely different; Marx's method is not analysed nor discussed and it is recast in ways ("basically Aristotelic method", "scientific method as generally accepted", "Scottish empirism", etc) that don't seem convincing at all, and that can not be confirmed by what Marx effectively wrote about his own methodology.

Such a task is made impossible by a "scientist" approach that naïvely assumes that "science" does not rely on philosophical assumptions and probably is mutually exclusive to philosophy. For when you start researching some subject you ignore, you cannot assume acritically that you have a pre-existing method that suits that subject; instead, you have to find the appropriate method, which is only possible if you have some kind of previous idea of what that subject is. Of course you can assume that a pre-existing method will work - but this is a preconceived idea that the subject is similar to other subjects regarding which the pre-existing method proved sound, and has to be assumed critically as an working hypothesis that may be have to be abandoned during the investigation.

That said, and to get back to the OP, I don't think that "dialectical materialism" either in Engelsian or Stalinist variants (ie, as a philosophical all-encompassing system) has ever been important in any level at the academia (and I doubt it was ever important in the workers movement either, except, in its Stalinist variant, as a shibboleth to spot out and purge oppositionists). Conversely, Marxist method proper - which is both "materialist" and "dialectical", so that we don't delude ourselves that it is just "traditional Marxism without the dialectics part" - has been and probably still is important in the academy, but I doubt you would find it in the Philosophy departments, or at least that its importance there is decisive. If we are going to look for the Marxist method in the academy, we should look to the departments were it can be usefully applied - History, Sociology, Anthropology (as Raúl Duke hints above), Economy, Political Science, perhaps Law.

Now we should be also able to distinguish the situation within the American academy and the situation in the academy elsewhere in the world; just because some trend is irrelevant in the US, it doesn't mean that it is unimportant in the academy elsewhere. Of course the American academy is important, and many of its counterparts elsewhere look toward it for guidance and new ideas - but the economic dependence of a country towards the US does not translate automatically into academic following. To give an example close to me, Brazil is certainly much more dependent, economically, to the US than to Europe, but the Brazilian academy certainly looks (or used to look until recently) more to the French academy than to the US when looking for intellectual breakthroughs - or intellectual fads for what is worth.

In the precise case of the American academy, we should be able to factor the intense repression it has been victim of, particularly in the McCarthist period, which probably dislodged any semblance of Marxist methodology from the relevant departments for decades - being one reason that it survived best in departments less obviously correlated to political activity.

With the present crisis of capitalism, and if it doesn't result in another wave of obscurantist repression like in the 50's, we should expect Marxist methodology to attract renewed interest in the academy, in the US and elsewhere. But evidently it is unlikely that fossilised forms of "Marxism" such as those favoured by Stalin and his successors will be the focus of such interest.

Luís Henrique

[Rafiq]

With the present crisis of capitalism, and if it doesn't result in another wave of obscurantist repression like in the 50's, we should expect Marxist methodology to attract renewed interest in the academy, in the US and elsewhere. But evidently it is unlikely that fossilised forms of "Marxism" such as those favoured by Stalin and his successors will be the focus of such interest.

Luís Henrique

This is almost identical to what I typed on the first page... It's interesting how Tim calls me an "Idealist" (Obviously because he has no understanding of the term) and then proceeds to thank Luis's post.... That strikes me as somewhat pathetic.

[Hiero]

This is almost identical to what I typed on the first page... It's interesting how Tim calls me an "Idealist" (Obviously because he has no understanding of the term) and then proceeds to thank Luis's post.... That strikes me as somewhat pathetic.

That is secterianism for you.

[Luís Henrique]

That is secterianism for you.

I wasn't aware that Tim Finnegan was in the same sect as me...

But never mind, we shall fix that in the event of our next incoming purge. (mbwhahah, etc.)

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

This is almost identical to what I typed on the first page... It's interesting how Tim calls me an "Idealist" (Obviously because he has no understanding of the term) and then proceeds to thank Luis's post.... That strikes me as somewhat pathetic.

Great minds think alike...

... but only the greatest ones manage to be recognised during their lifetimes.

Luís Henrique

[Tim Finnegan]

This is almost identical to what I typed on the first page... It's interesting how Tim calls me an "Idealist" (Obviously because he has no understanding of the term) and then proceeds to thank Luis's post.... That strikes me as somewhat pathetic.
I thanked Luís' post because it was a considered and insightful discussion of the topic, not because I agreed with all of his conclusions, while your post was a wholly speculative claim that the South shall rise again. It is possible, dear Rafiq, to use the "thanks" function without expressing an unconditional endorsement of everything that was posted.

[Revolution starts with U]

We never discussed dialectical/historical materialism in my anthropology program, but class was always a major feature of any construction of history. V Gordon Childe is still considered a foundation of modern anthropological thinking, and was quite the Marxist from what I understand.

We have good friends in MODERN anthropology (let's leave early anthro out of the discussion plz :lol: ), who tend to come down on the side of the oppressed and look forward to a day when we can merge modern technology with pre-civilized relational models.

For example, all of my profs came down in the "what is the state" debate on the side of the state as intrinsic to class society. Weber's "state as territorial monopoly on violence" was seen as to constrictive and outdated.

[Mr. Natural]

Luis Henrique, I take any potential disagreement with you quite seriously, as I take my Marxism most seriously and, as I've expressed previously, I find you to be a highly conscientious, well-informed poster.

You wrote, "With the glorious exception of 'analytic Marxists', that aren't actually Marxists at all, I have never seen examples of actual Marxists actively rejecting dialectics."

Perhaps some of the confusion arises from my dismissal of the socio-historical (cultural) dialectic employed by various Marxists as a genuine materialist dialectic. "My" Marxist/Engelsian materialist dialectic is the "science of the general laws of the motion and development of nature, human society, and thought." (Anti-Duhring) This is a natural dialectic that philosophically managed to capture the essence and many of the actual relations of life and society as systemic processes emerging from the self-organization of matter.

So I'm embracing the new sciences of the organization of matter as accurately revealing the organizational relations of the "philosophical" Marxist materialist dialectic, and I'm rejecting the confinement of the materialist dialectic to socio-historical matters as an anthropocentric, academic headtrip.

In the latter camp are the analytic "Marxists" we both reject, the anti-dialecticians, and the Althusserians. Who is left? At Revleft and other forums, dialectics are either rejected or relegated to socio-historical matters. It seems to me from my perch in the belly of the beast and its beastly academia that almost no one is currently working with dialectics in the spirit of Marx and Engels.

Perhaps matters are somewhat different in Brazil. But who is working with a NATURAL materialist dialectic--a dialectic that does not separate humanity from natural relations? A natural, materialist dialectic as envisioned by Marx and Engels that engages nature, human society, and thought as organized, systemic processes? A natural, materialist dialectic that could be scientifically developed into a mental tool that would enable regular persons to see natural relations and organize their lives out of capitalism into communism?

You are way ahead of me in many Marxist matters, Luis, but have you read Ollman's Dance of the Dialectic? Despite its complete lack of any science, this work showed me how Marx's and Engels' scientific socialism and its materialist dialectic anticipated and model the new scientific revelations of the organization of life.

I'm saying we human beings must organize our communities in the pattern of the other communities of life, and that the materialist dialectic's current clumsy, largely unusable reflection of these relations can be scientifically developed to popularly, effectively model the organization of the systemic processes of life, community, and revolution. I'm also saying that Marx and Engels would have done this and that it is well past time for their descendents to get started. That's us.

My red-green best.

[Raúl Duke]

We never discussed dialectical/historical materialism in my anthropology program, but class was always a major feature of any construction of history. V Gordon Childe is still considered a foundation of modern anthropological thinking, and was quite the Marxist from what I understand.

We have good friends in MODERN anthropology (let's leave early anthro out of the discussion plz :lol: ), who tend to come down on the side of the oppressed and look forward to a day when we can merge modern technology with pre-civilized relational models.

For example, all of my profs came down in the "what is the state" debate on the side of the state as intrinsic to class society. Weber's "state as territorial monopoly on violence" was seen as to constrictive and outdated.

It's similar in my university...in fact I think the anthropology department has the most (unspecified) radical-leaning people (out of the history, sociology, and philosophy department) since the materiel encourages to adopt a perception of society that is fertile to radical conclusions.

[Revolution starts with U]

It's similar in my university...in fact I think the anthropology department has the most (unspecified) radical-leaning people (out of the history, sociology, and philosophy department) since the materiel encourages to adopt a perception of society that is fertile to radical conclusions.

All you have to see is; 20hr work week (tops) + far less social drama + copious amounts of drug use, to see that there is something wrong with civilization, no matter how much you increase living standards and populations, or create shiny new toys and gadgets. :lol: This is a pretty romanticized generalization, but it's not too far off from the truth.

1; All your intro classes are going to flat out show you that for at least 30k years we witness humans existing in rapidly innovative and geographically vast egalitarian social relations. eg 30k bce development of arts, atl atls, archery, etc all the way to pre-sumerian (I never remember the specific names :lol: Natufian or something...) pastoral urbanization.

2: Most of your archaeology classes will focus a lot on the development of proper civilization as we know it (class society), which means you are now introduced to the broad social nature of property and surplus.
In Kent particularly we do a lot of work in mesoamerica, so you get a good sense of what imperialism really means.

3: Modern ethnology, (again, it used to be different) exists as a direct witness to Capitalism's effects on indigenous populations, the destructiveness of which cannot be denied (tho obviously not as much as the actual populations).

It's a healthy breeding ground for leftism, I do say. This is why, in the other DM thread (in theory) I think it might be prudent to discuss a holistic HM account of real history (as far as we know it), or in another thread... something we can concise up and use for propaganda.

[Deicide]

Slightly off topic... has anyone here studied Literary theory?

[Hiero]

We have good friends in MODERN anthropology (let's leave early anthro out of the discussion plz :lol: ), who tend to come down on the side of the oppressed and look forward to a day when we can merge modern technology with pre-civilized relational models.

What do you mean by "merge modern technology with pre-civilized relational models"?

[revolt]

(Also, "bourgeois academics" is a stupid term.)agreed, that's a terrible term for people who want to actually deal with reality in a way where they don't only confine themselves to their own to use.

[blake 3:17]

Slightly off topic... has anyone here studied Literary theory?

Yep.

[Revolution starts with U]

What do you mean by "merge modern technology with pre-civilized relational models"?

To have a modern industrialized and technological society based on social access to the means of production (your own hands) in a gift economy.