historical materialism vs historical idealism

[abbielives!]

im going to argue that that it is the material conditions that bring foward the leaders/ideology that cause change so they both contribute to change and it is not one orthe other

thoughts?

[Dimentio]

Is it not what Marx already have done? "Solved" the conflict between Feuerbach and Hegel's disciples?

[abbielives!]

hmm, i understood marx was pretty solidly in Hegel's camp

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Abbie, a lot less than tradition would have you believe.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 11, 2007 03:43 am
Abbie, a lot less than tradition would have you believe.
I don't think he even understands what "Hegel's camp" was.

He is one of this "Marx was too materialist, let's spice him with some idealism" guys; so, from his last comment, I would guess that he believes Hegel was some kind of materialist.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by abbielives!@June 10, 2007 04:43 am
im going to argue that that it is the material conditions that bring foward the leaders/ideology that cause change so they both contribute to change and it is not one orthe other

thoughts?
Abbie, that is not the difference between idealism and materialism.

Idealists support the idea that the material world is a creation of mind (usually the mind of God, though they at times give it some other name - First Motor, Absolute, The Spirit). Materialists suggest that matter predates mind; they don't think that mind does not exist, that ideas do not exist, or that they do not influence reality. Evidently Marxism (or Islam, or Christianism, etc) is an idea, and evidently it has a lot of influence on real world. The point is, those ideas do not sprout from a vacuum, they are related to the pre-existing material reality.

Luís Henrique

[Hit The North]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique+June 11, 2007 03:40 pm--> (Luís Henrique @ June 11, 2007 03:40 pm)
abbielives!@June 10, 2007 04:43 am
im going to argue that that it is the material conditions that bring foward the leaders/ideology that cause change so they both contribute to change and it is not one orthe other

thoughts?
Abbie, that is not the difference between idealism and materialism.

[/b]
I think abbielives! is referring to the difference between materialist and voluntaristic accounts of history.

"Men make their own history but not under circumstances of their own choosing."

Voluntaristic accounts favour the intervention of great men (sic) imposing great ideas on the world.

Materialist accounts favour the idea of underlying patterns of development, often working themselves out behind the backs of human agents.

The task of historical materialism is to demonstrate the dialectic between the material relations and the creative possibilities they foster in human action and thinking - as well as the possibilities those relations rule out.

[abbielives!]

Citizen Zero would be correct.


Can historical materialism be applied in a way that helps us achive our goal?
what relevance does it have for us?
it seems to promote nihilism and inaction

[Hit The North]

it seems to promote nihilism and inaction

Why? According to historical materialism what we do - how we organise and fight the class struggle - is of utmost importance. Nevertheless our best efforts are enabled by or limited by the wider material circumstances in which we fight.

[abbielives!]

Originally posted by Citizen [email protected] 11, 2007 09:18 pm

it seems to promote nihilism and inaction

Why? According to historical materialism what we do - how we organise and fight the class struggle - is of utmost importance. Nevertheless our best efforts are enabled by or limited by the wider material circumstances in which we fight.

but if it will occur anyways wy do anything? why do anything if it wont make a differance?
(apart from the whole moral aspect)

[Rawthentic]

Communism is not an inevitability, it is the future that we must fight for.

Historical materialism teaches that people make history according to material conditions, not otherwise.

So, its not contradictory at all.

[syndicat]

It seems that abbie is really concerned with the inevitablism or determinism that has often been associated with Marx's historical materialism.

The opposite view would want to place more emphasis upon the importance of human self-activity, class struggle, and the development of consciousness. this would be as opposed to those Marxists who prefer to focus on some "inevitable collapse" or or "internal crisis", which then supposedly propels the struggle for something different. The problem with the "internal crisis impels revolution" idea is that people can't liberate themselves from the structures of oppression unless they consciously set out to do so.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z:


The task of historical materialism is to demonstrate the dialectic between the material relations and the creative possibilities they foster in human action and thinking - as well as the possibilities those relations rule out.

Thankyou for that correction Z, and I'd agree with the above comment if you'd remove the meaningless word "dialectic".

And since you openly claim never to have read Hegel, it must be meaningless to you too.

I think "connection" will do in its place.

[Hit The North]

Rosa


Thankyou for that correction Z, and I'd agree with the above comment if you'd remove the meaningless word "dialectic".

I'm using the word in a concrete sense, in the manner of the philosopher Guy Robinson:


A dialectical connection is, for me, simply one in which there is a mutual relation between two things such that development in one will bring about a development in the other which in its turn may reflect back and bring about a further development in the first - and so on.

Which I also think was the way Marx intended it, without all the idealist and metaphysical baggage.

So, no, the word "connection" will not do.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z:


I'm using the word in a concrete sense, in the manner of the philosopher Guy Robinson:

Yes, well I have taken him to task for that, in private correspondence.

So, there is no 'concrete' sense to this word; I suggest we bury it under several tons of the stuff.


Which I also think was the way Marx intended it, without all the idealist and metaphysical baggage.

We have already established on other threads here what Marx meant by this word, he told us himself:


After a quotation from the preface to my “Criticism of Political Economy,” Berlin, 1859, pp. IV-VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on:

“The one thing which is of moment to Marx, is to find the law of the phenomena with whose investigation he is concerned; and not only is that law of moment to him, which governs these phenomena, in so far as they have a definite form and mutual connexion within a given historical period. Of still greater moment to him is the law of their variation, of their development, i.e., of their transition from one form into another, from one series of connexions into a different one. This law once discovered, he investigates in detail the effects in which it manifests itself in social life. Consequently, Marx only troubles himself about one thing: to show, by rigid scientific investigation, the necessity of successive determinate orders of social conditions, and to establish, as impartially as possible, the facts that serve him for fundamental starting-points. For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over; and this all the same, whether men believe or do not believe it, whether they are conscious or unconscious of it. Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence. ... If in the history of civilisation the conscious element plays a part so subordinate, then it is self-evident that a critical inquiry whose subject-matter is civilisation, can, less than anything else, have for its basis any form of, or any result of, consciousness. That is to say, that not the idea, but the material phenomenon alone can serve as its starting-point. Such an inquiry will confine itself to the confrontation and the comparison of a fact, not with ideas, but with another fact. For this inquiry, the one thing of moment is, that both facts be investigated as accurately as possible, and that they actually form, each with respect to the other, different momenta of an evolution; but most important of all is the rigid analysis of the series of successions, of the sequences and concatenations in which the different stages of such an evolution present themselves. But it will be said, the general laws of economic life are one and the same, no matter whether they are applied to the present or the past. This Marx directly denies. According to him, such abstract laws do not exist. On the contrary, in his opinion every historical period has laws of its own. ... As soon as society has outlived a given period of development, and is passing over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject also to other laws. In a word, economic life offers us a phenomenon analogous to the history of evolution in other branches of biology. The old economists misunderstood the nature of economic laws when they likened them to the laws of physics and chemistry. A more thorough analysis of phenomena shows that social organisms differ among themselves as fundamentally as plants or animals. Nay, one and the same phenomenon falls under quite different laws in consequence of the different structure of those organisms as a whole, of the variations of their individual organs, of the different conditions in which those organs function, &c. Marx, e.g., denies that the law of population is the same at all times and in all places. He asserts, on the contrary, that every stage of development has its own law of population. ... With the varying degree of development of productive power, social conditions and the laws governing them vary too. Whilst Marx sets himself the task of following and explaining from this point of view the economic system established by the sway of capital, he is only formulating, in a strictly scientific manner, the aim that every accurate investigation into economic life must have. The scientific value of such an inquiry lies in the disclosing of the special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one. And it is this value that, in point of fact, Marx’s book has.”

Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?

As I went on to point out:


Here, not a single Hegelian idea occurs, and nor do any appear in it that could have come from the writings of later dialecticians which other non-dialecticians (and anti-dialecticians) could not also have used.

So, no mention of 'contradictions', 'unity of opposites', 'negation of the negation'...!

Hence, as Marx says: this is his dialectical method – with Hegel completely removed, as I have been arguing.

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=66348&st=25

It is edifying to see you acknowledge at least this:


without all the idealist and metaphysical baggage.

You are already 1/3 of the way toward my ideas. That's a big advance over last year....

So the word 'connection' will do.

[bezdomni]

Originally posted by abbielives!+June 11, 2007 09:26 pm--> (abbielives! @ June 11, 2007 09:26 pm)
Citizen [email protected] 11, 2007 09:18 pm

it seems to promote nihilism and inaction

Why? According to historical materialism what we do - how we organise and fight the class struggle - is of utmost importance. Nevertheless our best efforts are enabled by or limited by the wider material circumstances in which we fight.

but if it will occur anyways wy do anything? why do anything if it wont make a differance?
(apart from the whole moral aspect) [/b]
Because the historical role of communists and the proletariat is to organize and overthrow the bourgeoisie.

It is an historical inevitability that capitalism will collapse...but its the masses of people who determine how and when we get there as material conditions arise.

In response to your question, there are two plausible answers: Capitalism will be overthrown by an active and organized proletariat, but we have to be organizing and agitating right now in order to create the material conditions for a revolution, or the downfall of capitalism is inevitable and so it actually is pointless to be doing any political work at the moment.

Bolshevism vs. menshevism.

[Rawthentic]

It seems that abbie is really concerned with the inevitablism or determinism that has often been associated with Marx's historical materialism.

And this a fallacy for those who think that way.

[abbielives!]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12, 2007 06:34 pm

Capitalism will be overthrown by an active and organized proletariat, but we have to be organizing and agitating right now in order to create the material conditions for a revolution



seems to be a bit a chicken or the egg conundrum

[bezdomni]

No, not at all really.

The communist vanguard agitates among the masses to create a revolutionary situation. A revolutionary situation erupts, socialism is established...etc.

[abbielives!]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13, 2007 05:31 pm
No, not at all really.

The communist vanguard agitates among the masses to create a revolutionary situation. A revolutionary situation erupts, socialism is established...etc.

how does one create a revolutionary situation?

[BobKKKindle$]

how does one create a revolutionary situation?

I would contend that revolutionary situations cannot often be 'created' - or at least do not derive entirely or primarily from the actions of politicla organisations. Rather, they are dependent on what Marx described as 'objective conditions/factors', by which he meant the economic and social conditions in which workers live, which change over time and periodically become intolerable, as a result of Capitalism's inherent instability and tendency to enter crises. In theory, these crises will occur more often and will result in greater destruction and hardship as Capitalism develops.

[gilhyle]

Originally posted by abbielives!@June 10, 2007 04:43 am
im going to argue that that it is the material conditions that bring foward the leaders/ideology that cause change so they both contribute to change and it is not one orthe other

thoughts?
Your statement generalises across different time frames and this is unwise. THe relationships are likely to vary depending on the time period in question. Over 24 hours, material conditions are unlikely to have any significant discrete influence and the role of leaders will be paramount. Over a period of lets say a decade, the kind of holistic interaction you refer to is likely to apply. Over the course of the existence of a mode of production, lets say hundreds of years, the material forces are likely to dominate.

[bezdomni]

Originally posted by abbielives!+June 13, 2007 10:14 pm--> (abbielives! @ June 13, 2007 10:14 pm)
[email protected] 13, 2007 05:31 pm
No, not at all really.

The communist vanguard agitates among the masses to create a revolutionary situation. A revolutionary situation erupts, socialism is established...etc.

how does one create a revolutionary situation? [/b]
Magic. And a little love.

[Herman]

You are already 1/3 of the way toward my ideas. That's a big advance over last year....

I do suggest you calm your responses. Telling someone that he is an idiot and is 'advancing' just because 'he is 1/3 of the way' to your ideas seems somewhat arrogant to me. Remember that you may have good ideas, but assuming that you are always correct, and that people should think like you do, will not get you anywhere.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Red, thanks for that correction, but I will continue to treat this comrade that way until he shows the slightest willingness to engage in fair debate.

[You will note I am nice to the vast majority of other comrades.]

[Hit The North]

Red, thanks for that correction, but I will continue to treat this comrade that way until he shows the slightest willingness to engage in fair debate.

And by "fair" I assume you mean capitulate completely to your position :rolleyes:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z:


And by "fair" I assume you mean capitulate completely to your position

Not at all.

Just to give one example of the many over the last year: back in 2006 you challenged me to demonstrate that formal logic can handle change.

I directed you to the evidence; you made a joke about going to the pub, and dropped the subject.

You are not serious about engaging on this topic, and never have been.

I could quote dozens of other examples, but won't since you know what they are.

You even had the cheek to defend this Stalinist idiot:

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic...entry1292317866 (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=66348&st=50&#entry1292317866)

[Hit The North]

Rosa


You even had the cheek to defend this Stalinist idiot:

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic...entry1292317866


On the contrary, I questioned your "fair debating" method of deleting the posts of those comrades you argue with. I also pointed out that this demonstrates a fair degree of hypocrisy on your part given your notoriety for spamming during debate.

As for the rest, I read the article you directed me to and still maintain that formal logic cannot account for change within a phenomenon, only differences between phenomena.

Also I would suggest that it is you who does not seriously wish to debate these matters as:
1. You offer up only philosophical abstractions
2. Refuse to offer an alternative to dialectical analysis
3. Slur all your opponents with the epithet of 'mystic'
4. Display only arrogance in all your dealings with any members of this board who have the temerity to disagree with you.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z:


On the contrary, I questioned your "fair debating" method of deleting the posts of those comrades you argue with. I also pointed out that this demonstrates a fair degree of hypocrisy on your part given your notoriety for spamming during debate

You alleged this, but your allegations were, as usual, baseless.

And this incoherent Stalinist, who has been saying the same thing (with little change) for over a year, despite my having answered him several times, was warned not to continue, or I would delete his spam.

You, though are happy to take the side of those who support the murderers of Trotsky.


As for the rest, I read the article you directed me to and still maintain that formal logic cannot account for , only differences between phenomena.

Well, that shows how much attention you pay to arguments whose conclusions you do not like.

It also shows how little you know of Formal Logic. Given the right premisses, a sufficiently powerful set of rules, and a well-defined domain, Formal Logic can derive almost anything it likes 'in phenomena' and between them.

And what, for goodness sake, is 'change within a phenomenon'? Are you talking about mirages, visions, mental images, illusions, spectacles, events, objects, processes, relations....???

I doubt even you know.

Formal logic governs the 'phenomena' in your computer (so much for not being able to cope with change --, indeed, it has helped change the entire world of technology) -- dialectical logic merely screws with your head. It has no other practical achievements to its name.

In fact, history has refuted it.

And when you add to this the fact that dialectical logic cannot account for anything whatsoever, your response is risible, to put it in its most flattering light.

[Finally, it's not what you alleged originally.]


1. You offer up only philosophical abstractions
2. Refuse to offer an alternative to dialectical analysis
3. Slur all your opponents with the epithet of 'mystic'
4. Display only arrogance in all your dealings with any members of this board who have the temerity to disagree with you.

Not so:

Lie 1. I use everyday/political/social examples wherever I can, and in literally scores of cases.

Lie 2. I point comrades to historical materialism as a superior way of accounting for social change, and have done so from the beginning (so much so, it pisses you off).

Distortion 3. Only those who appeal to mystical concepts drawn from Hermetic Philosophy. However, I am now happy to qualify this descriptor in your case: you are an ignorant mystic, since you do not know where these ancient ideas originated, and do not care.

Whimper 4. Translated, this 'point' reads: Poor little Z does not like it when a female gives him a hard time. Under mumsy's skirts he goes.

Ready for another year of bruising to your oh so sensitive male ego???

Plenty more of that ahead for an ignorant mystic like you.

[Hit The North]

R:



Lie 1. I use everyday/political/social examples wherever I can, and in literally scores of cases.

No, you usually engage in scholastic philosophical and linguistic argument - as if the way we talk about things is the only measure of truth.

For example: http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php...pic=66945&st=50 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=66945&st=50)


ie 2. I point comrades to historical materialism as a superior way of accounting for social change, and have done so from the beginning (so much so, it pisses you off).


Is this the dialectical historical materialism of Marx or the undialectical, deterministic historical materialism of GH Cohen or some other variety of HM?



Distortion 3. Only those who appeal to mystical concepts drawn from Hermetic Philosophy. However, I am now happy to qualify this descriptor in your case: you are an ignorant mystic, since you do not know where these ancient ideas originated, and do not care.


You seem to miss the point that 'dialectics' can be employed without recourse to either Hegel's system or Engels mystification of dialectics within nature. It matters little to you if your opponents disavow themselves of these two trends, you still resort to the slur.

Your inability to leave Hegel behind is truly ironic given your self-professed historical mission to rid us of the influence of this philosopher. Why can't you leave him behind and still maintain a critical dialectical analysis like Marx did?


Whimper 4. Translated, this 'point' reads: Poor little Z does not like it when a female gives him a hard time. Under mumsy's skirts he goes.


Your gender is irrelevant, as you well know. This is really beneath you. How about you accuse me of anti-semitism as well. :rolleyes:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z now:


No, you usually engage in scholastic philosophical and linguistic argument - as if the way we talk about things is the only measure of truth.

Z before he was rumbled:


1. You offer up only philosophical abstractions

So an "only" has now become a "usually".

Well, the only 'usual' here is that under pressure you 'usually' have to back-track, and/or ignore the point.

Here the former is the case.

But where have I ever said anything remotely like this (or suggested or implied I believe it):


as if the way we talk about things is the only measure of truth.

You have taken me to task before now for saying that I was happy with more and better science (as our best guide to genuine knowledge).

So, even you know this is BS.

On the other hand, I certainly believe in looking at language to expose the sloppy logic and reasoning you mystics dote on, since it's the only way you can make your ideas seem to work.

And now, the latter is the case in this next example (i.e., ignoring what you do not like, or cannot answer):


Is this the dialectical historical materialism of Marx or the undialectical, deterministic historical materialism of GH Cohen or some other variety of HM?

You have had the proof given to you several times, but still your brain refuses to process the information. Hence, I refer you back to the threads where we have 'debated' this before.

If you have any new arguments to offer, or can show where I am wrong, let's hear them -- or stop saying the same old things as if repetition were proof.

And I have criticised Cohen for his sloppy logic, technological determinism and functionalism, and I was doing so before you even heard of Marxism.


You seem to miss the point that 'dialectics' can be employed without recourse to either Hegel's system or Engels mystification of dialectics within nature. It matters little to you if your opponents disavow themselves of these two trends, you still resort to the slur.

With or without Hegel, it can account for nothing. That is why history has refuted it.

And I note that since you know no Hegel, Logic and precious little philosophy of logic, you would not know whether dialectics can or cannot be applied without Hegel.

So, the alleged 'slur' I resort to is not something upon which you can pass an informed comment.


Your inability to leave Hegel behind is truly ironic given your self-professed historical mission to rid us of the influence of this philosopher. Why can't you leave him behind and still maintain a critical dialectical analysis like Marx did?

Well, Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin and the vast majority of dialecticians since then could not leave him alone either.

In that case, since you know no Hegel, this is a neat way of exposing your nescience -- even though you still like to pontificate about dialectics, a subject I have at least taken the trouble to study, when you can only parade your ignorance, and seem proud of it.


Your gender is irrelevant, as you well know. This is really beneath you.

Practically nothing is beneath me in order to expose this mystical 'theory' for what it is, and its supporters for what they are.

I note that you have now dropped the comments you tried to make about logic.

I cannot think why.....

But it does confirm my assessment of you a few posts back.

My humble thanks are due to you, for that at least.

[Hit The North]

R:


In that case, since you know no Hegel, this is a neat way of exposing your nescience -- even though you still like to pontificate about dialectics, a subject I have at least taken the trouble to study, when you can only parade your ignorance, and seem proud of it.


The fact that you think that these things can only be learned through academic study, through the circuitous route of examining discredited philosophers, rather than through working within the Marxist movement (something you cannot properly do, due to your assertion that the majority of Marxists are mystics) says everything about your bourgeois prejudices.

But to bring this thread back to some semblance of its original theme, answer the question: if all attempts to produce an undialectical version of HM has resulted in unworkable, empirically dodgy versions of one-sided determinism, what is your version of an undialectical historical materialism?


And I have criticised Cohen for his sloppy logic, technological determinism and functionalism, and I was doing so before you even heard of Marxism.


Yes, but you still haven't come up with an alternative.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z, reverting once more to type, and ignoring what he does not like, or cannot answer, now tries this desperate move:


The fact that you think that these things can only be learned through academic study, through the circuitous route of examining discredited philosophers, rather than through working within the Marxist movement (something you cannot properly do, due to your assertion that the majority of Marxists are mystics) says everything about your bourgeois prejudices.

And who said these things can only be learnt this way? Find a quote of mine that suggests this.

Make yourself useful for a change; off you go, find one.

However, we have already seem you back-track from an 'only' in your last but one post to a 'usually'; perhaps we will see some more of this here, too

What is clear, however, is that Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Plekhanov, Gramsci and a host of lesser luminaries certainly learnt from this 'dead philosopher', so even if I thought as you say I do (with no proof), which I do not, then I'd be in pretty good company as opposed to that kept by your ignorant self.

And given that these guys did as I sometimes do (i.e., learn from others, a virtue you seem to think beneath you), then your parting snide remark must mean they too were 'bourgeois' and prejudiced.

But, as seems clear, this is the best defence you can mount to excuse your own self-imposed ignorance -- i.e., moan about the fact that I do know what I am talking about, and have done my homework.

As I have said to you before, and no doubt will again: stay ignorant if that keeps you happy. If you do not want to learn, that is your loss and our gain.

And ignorant Z is in fact less danger to the working class.


Yes, but you still haven't come up with an alternative.

No need to; Marx did this for me/us 140 odd years ago.

Don't tell me you are unaware of that too??? :o

----------------------------------------------------

Anyone bored enough to read these exchanges between me and Z-face here (which have gone on for a year or so) will note several common themes:

(1) Z makes numerous bold but no less baseless assertions, and then has to back-track when hit with uncomfortable facts;

(2) He ignores anything he either cannot answer or does not like (there are several examples in this thread alone);

(3) He makes the same points over and over, but ignores the responses I have given him;

4) He displays an almost monomaniacal desire to pontificate about things of which he is clearly almost 100% ignorant, but then moans when this ignorant but semi-papal trait is unmasked.

And that is why I treat him with unmitigated contempt in such discussions.

[Elsewhere we see eye-to-eye on about 95% of issues!! So much for my 'bourgeois prejudice'!]

And I will continue to so treat him, no matter how many times he volunteers himself for another public humiliation like this.

Even single-celled organisms have steeper learning curves than this sad, mystical, nescient soul.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 16, 2007 04:09 pm
No need to; Marx did this for me/us 140 odd years ago.
So let's listen to the man:

My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but it is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life-process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of "the Idea" he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurge of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of "the Idea". With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.

The mystifying side of Hegelian dialectic I criticised nearly thirty years ago, at a time when it was still the fashion. But just as I was working at the first volume of Das Kapital, it was the good pleasure of the peevish, arrogant, mediocre epilogoi who now talk large in cultured Germany, to treat Hegel in the same way as the brave Moses Mendelssohn in Lessing's time treated Spinoza, i.e., as a "dead dog". I, therefore, openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him. The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel's hands by no means prevent him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.

I am sorry that I wasn't able to put the word "epilogoi" in Greek characters, as it undisputedly deserves; such is the fate of the e-gnorant. :(

It seems that Marx's criticism of Hegel is slightly different from yours; can you extend yourself on such differences between your thought and Marx's?

Luís Henrique

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH, this has been debated here many times on many threads and extensively; here is one of the latest of these, from here:

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=66348&st=25




Z:


Comrades like NYA should read it and ask themselves whether Marx is really arguing that his use of dialectics is a mere parody of Hegel, or whether Marx is arguing that his method is a material dialectic.

And they should, unlike Z here (who is afraid to look upon my essays), read the full argument at my site -- Essay Nine Part One:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2009_01.htm


Comrades should also ask themselves why Rosa insists that she is on the same side as Marx on this issue, when Marx's own words refute her claim.

And they should do this just before they read Marx's own words, that his dialectical method (his 'materialist dialectics’) amounted to his merely "coquetting" with a few bits of Hegelian jargon, and then only in a few places in Capital.

Then they might also make a note of the fact that Marx put his praise for Hegel in the past tense (a theorist Z himself has admitted to never having read, so unimportant is he, even to Z!)

And then they should read this sentence:


Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?

which Marx wrote in response to this passage, which Z (‘accidentally’) left out:


After a quotation from the preface to my “Criticism of Political Economy,” Berlin, 1859, pp. IV-VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on:

“The one thing which is of moment to Marx, is to find the law of the phenomena with whose investigation he is concerned; and not only is that law of moment to him, which governs these phenomena, in so far as they have a definite form and mutual connexion within a given historical period. Of still greater moment to him is the law of their variation, of their development, i.e., of their transition from one form into another, from one series of connexions into a different one. This law once discovered, he investigates in detail the effects in which it manifests itself in social life. Consequently, Marx only troubles himself about one thing: to show, by rigid scientific investigation, the necessity of successive determinate orders of social conditions, and to establish, as impartially as possible, the facts that serve him for fundamental starting-points. For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over; and this all the same, whether men believe or do not believe it, whether they are conscious or unconscious of it. Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence. ... If in the history of civilisation the conscious element plays a part so subordinate, then it is self-evident that a critical inquiry whose subject-matter is civilisation, can, less than anything else, have for its basis any form of, or any result of, consciousness. That is to say, that not the idea, but the material phenomenon alone can serve as its starting-point. Such an inquiry will confine itself to the confrontation and the comparison of a fact, not with ideas, but with another fact. For this inquiry, the one thing of moment is, that both facts be investigated as accurately as possible, and that they actually form, each with respect to the other, different momenta of an evolution; but most important of all is the rigid analysis of the series of successions, of the sequences and concatenations in which the different stages of such an evolution present themselves. But it will be said, the general laws of economic life are one and the same, no matter whether they are applied to the present or the past. This Marx directly denies. According to him, such abstract laws do not exist. On the contrary, in his opinion every historical period has laws of its own. ... As soon as society has outlived a given period of development, and is passing over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject also to other laws. In a word, economic life offers us a phenomenon analogous to the history of evolution in other branches of biology. The old economists misunderstood the nature of economic laws when they likened them to the laws of physics and chemistry. A more thorough analysis of phenomena shows that social organisms differ among themselves as fundamentally as plants or animals. Nay, one and the same phenomenon falls under quite different laws in consequence of the different structure of those organisms as a whole, of the variations of their individual organs, of the different conditions in which those organs function, &c. Marx, e.g., denies that the law of population is the same at all times and in all places. He asserts, on the contrary, that every stage of development has its own law of population. ... With the varying degree of development of productive power, social conditions and the laws governing them vary too. Whilst Marx sets himself the task of following and explaining from this point of view the economic system established by the sway of capital, he is only formulating, in a strictly scientific manner, the aim that every accurate investigation into economic life must have. The scientific value of such an inquiry lies in the disclosing of the special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one. And it is this value that, in point of fact, Marx’s book has.”

Here, not a single Hegelian idea occurs, and nor do any appear in it that could have come from the writings of later dialecticians which other non-dialecticians (and anti-dialecticians) could not also have used.

So, no mention of 'contradictions', 'unity of opposites', 'negation of the negation'...!

Hence, as Marx says: this is his dialectical method – with Hegel completely removed, as I have been arguing.

Then right after that, comrades might like to ask Z himself why he has been dodging all the difficult questions I have been posing to him now for nearly a year (the ones he ignores here are just the latest), not a single one of which he has responded to successfully, but still he clings to this non-Marxist 'method'.

And then, I suspect, it will become apparent to one and all that he is responding in the same irrational way to my arguments that these idiots do to sceptics and scientists who question the existence of 'God':

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=3148940&page=1

The parallels between the way dialecticians handle my objections to them are uncannily like the responses of the above creationists/fundamentalist Christians to science and reason.

In short, we have here in Z exactly what I alleged in my last post but one: a dishonest quasi-religious nut, who clings to this mystical creed because it provides him with some form of consolation for the fact that this 'theory' has helped make Dialectical Marxism the long-term failure we see today.

So can we drop this canard??

[Hit The North]

Luis,

As Rosa points out above, she is utterly incapable of reading Marx when he writes, "My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but it is its direct opposite" without substituting the words "My dialectic method" with "My parody of the dialectic method".

It will never cease to amaze me how someone so obviously intelligent and learned as Rosa, is, in the final analysis, unable to actually read.

I can only think that she has purchased the Talking Novel version of Capital and that someone mischievous has deliberately subverted the recording by placing misleading words in strategic areas of the narrative. :D

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z:


As Rosa points out above, she is utterly incapable of reading Marx when he writes, "My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but it is its direct opposite" without substituting the words "My dialectic method" with "My parody of the dialectic method".

Fortunately, the facts once more do not support your fantasies.

As Marx says, his method is different from Hegel's, the 'direct opposite', and how much more opposite can you get than by leaving Hegel out altogether?

How do I know this? Is it guesswork? Am I making it up?

No: Marx quotes the summary of this reviewer, calls that summary 'his method', and, you will note, there are no Hegelian terms, concepts or ideas anywhere to be found in it.


It will never cease to amaze me how someone so obviously intelligent and learned as Rosa, is, in the final analysis, unable to actually read

So it is you, my ignorant mystical friend, who can't read.

[Hit The North]

Yes, but the question isn't whether Marx employs the Hegelian dialectic, but whether he employs his own dialectic method. He clearly believes he does.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z:


Yes, but the question isn't whether Marx employs the Hegelian dialectic, but whether he employs his own dialectic method. He clearly believes he does.

Well, as he says, 'his method' was helpfully summarised for us by that reviewer, in which not an atom of Hegel is to be found -- and there is nothing in that summary with which I would want to take issue -- but there are no 'contradictions' there, no 'negation of the negation', no 'unity of opposites'.

So, all you need do to catch Marx up is drop your own use of 'contradiction', a concept you signally cannot explain anyway.

[Hit The North]

Well Marx continues, after this point in Capital, to write about the "contradictions inherent in the movement of capital", and in later work, continues to use the term, so maybe you should take issue with Marx before you take issue with me on this score.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z (exhibit A for the prosecution case that Z cannot read):


Well Marx continues, after this point in Capital, to write about the "contradictions inherent in the movement of capital", and in later work, continues to use the term, so maybe you should take issue with Marx before you take issue with me on this score.

Perhaps you forgot Marx also said this:


and even here and there...coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

So, he was not using this term seriously, as he himself said.

I am happy if you too do not use it seriously.

I just go one further, and refuse to 'coquette' in any way at all.

I invite you to do the same.