Dialectical materialism is new to me. I think I understand the fundamentals; but I struggle with properly applying it.

  • @afellowkid@lemmygrad.ml
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    2 years ago

    Well, dialectical materialism is a framework of seeing the world and understanding how things develop and change, as well as an active method of practice. As a reply below here states: “There is a two-way dialectic between our engagement in objective reality and our interpretation of that reality. No correct practice without theory and no correct theory without mass practice.”

    Understanding the framework of dialectical materialism is a good place to start with (which is what you seem to be working on right now). I am by no means an expert but I will do my best to explain my own understanding of it.

    As you gain an understanding of dialectical materialism, you can begin to view things through that framework. The more familiar you become with diamat, the more you may begin to do this by default–although you shouldn’t assume your analyses are correct and air-tight in every respect just because you gradually begin to passively think in a framework of dialectical materialism. Actively thinking and applying diamat consciously is where you will begin to be able to have better comprehension of things.

    One important aspect of dialectical materialist analysis is investigation into the particularity of things. This would mean seeking to gain a deep understanding of the inner struggles driving the development of a thing or process (which is more or less what we refer to when we refer to internal contradictions).

    In On Contradiction, Mao talks about how every contradiction has its particularlity, that is to say, every contradiction has its own unique qualities.

    He points out that it is important to observe both similarities and differences between different things, but he emphasizes that understanding the differences between things is especially important because it is what constitutes “the foundation of our knowledge of a thing”. Observing what is particular to each contradiction, observing each contradiction’s unique qualities, is how we are able to distinguish between things and understand their past, present, and possible future developments and potential changes.

    On the topic of increasing knowledge of something, Mao writes:

    As regards the sequence in the movement of man’s knowledge, there is always a gradual growth from the knowledge of individual and particular things to the knowledge of things in general. Only after man knows the particular essence of many different things can he proceed to generalization and know the common essence of things. […] These are the two processes of cognition: one, from the particular to the general, and the other, from the general to the particular. Thus cognition always moves in cycles and (so long as scientific method is strictly adhered to) each cycle advances human knowledge a step higher and so makes it more and more profound.

    What he is saying here is that by studying particular details of things, we can gradually begin to understand larger generalities about the world. And when we understand larger generalities, we can go back into investigating the particularities again with a better understanding, and repeat the process again to improve our understanding of the generalities, and so on.

    In On Contradiction, Mao also discusses the problems of “subjectivity” and “one-sidedness” in our understanding. He says:

    In studying a problem, we must shun subjectivity, one-sidedness and superficiality. To be subjective means not to look at problems objectively, that is, not to use the materialist viewpoint in looking at problems. To be one-sided means not to look at problems all-sidedly, for example, to understand only China but not Japan, only the Communist Party but not the Kuomintang, only the proletariat but not the bourgeoisie, only the peasants but not the landlords, only the favourable conditions but not the difficult ones, only the past but not the future, only individual parts but not the whole, only the defects but not the achievements, only the plaintiff’s case but not the defendant’s, only underground revolutionary work but not open revolutionary work, and so on. In a word, it means not to understand the characteristics of both aspects of a contradiction. This is what we mean by looking at a problem one-sidedly.

    To be superficial means to consider neither the characteristics of a contradiction in its totality nor the characteristics of each of its aspects; it means to deny the necessity for probing deeply into a thing and minutely studying the characteristics of its contradiction, but instead merely to look from afar and, after glimpsing the rough outline, immediately to try to resolve the contradiction (to answer a question, settle a dispute, handle work, or direct a military operation). This way of doing things is bound to lead to trouble. […] To be one-sided and superficial is at the same time to be subjective. For all objective things are actually interconnected and are governed by inner laws, but instead of undertaking the task of reflecting things as they really are some people only look at things one-sidedly or superficially and who know neither their interconnections nor their inner laws, and so their method is subjectivist.

    Mao also quotes Lenin as saying: “…in order really to know an object we must embrace, study, all its sides, all connections and ‘mediations’. We shall never achieve this completely, but the demand for all-sidedness is a safeguard against mistakes and rigidity.

    In other words, we can never completely know all sides of something, but always trying to know more and more about it is what will prevent us from making errors.

    I would say that when we look at a contradiction, we need to zoom in on each side (“aspect”) of the contradiction, and see the contradictions with in each aspect of each contradiction. Like this:

    In On Contradiction, Mao notes that “Nothing in this world develops absolutely evenly.” When we look at the multiple contradictions that exist inside of something, we need to see which ones are “primary” and which are “secondary”. We must look at what is growing and developing, and what is old and dying away, to find out what the actual feasible solution to resolve a contradiction would be. Similarly, we must also determine this when we look at each aspect (side) within contradictions. This can be a somewhat tricky thing to understand, so I will try not to overload you with this point, but it’s something you will encounter as you learn about diamat.

    Also, in regard to that point about “nothing in this world develops absolutely evenly”, you should keep that in mind as you balance between theory and practice. Both theory and practice are important in Marxism. I can see now that you are interested in studying the theory of dialectical materialism. Your understanding of it will develop, and then it will influence and advance your practice, which will develop, and influence and advance your understanding of theory.

    I hope this explanation was clear. If anyone has criticisms of it please let me know.

    • @donaloc
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      52 years ago

      Think it’s important to say that Diamat - it is probably incorrect to label it thus but we know whatwe are taking about - is not just an ideological framework but an active method. There is a two-way dialectic between our engagement in objective reality and our interpretation of that reality. No correct practice without theory and no correct theory without mass practice.

      • @afellowkid@lemmygrad.ml
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        2 years ago

        True, that’s what I was trying to get at with my last paragraph, but re-reading it I can see the emphasis was not really strong enough and the point wasn’t quite clear as I didn’t explain it fully. I’ll edit my first paragraph to include this to forefront the idea. Thanks for the feedback!

  • @redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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    32 years ago

    Some good responses, here, already, but I may be able to add something useful.

    To apply dialectical materialism, it helps to consider everything in the world as a relation or a process rather than a static thing. Each ‘thing’ comprises a series of relationships.

    A country, for example, is its government, its people, its laws, its economy, its international trade deals, its agriculture, geography, and climate. DiaMat requires us to see the country as all these relations combined. We cannot fully understand, e.g. a country, by isolating just one of these parts. Of course, we do not all have the time to consider every side of a relation (afellowkid’s response gives some excellent on this point), so we may, for convenience, have to pick a particular ‘moment’.

    In a ‘moment’, we kind of pause time and focus on one or two relations. Then we can look at a couple more relations in the same time period. And eventually we build up a fuller picture of what is really going on. As you have discussed in other posts, you also know that DiaMat involves internal contradictions. It may be helpful to look at a couple of examples.

    1. Capital, Vol 1

    In Capital, Marx begins his presentation with an explanation of the ‘commodity’, which is a value. Next, he explains value is a combination of use-value (a coat to be worn, for example) and exchange-value (a coat to be sold). One cannot wear a coat and sell it to someone else. Thus, every commodity involves a contradiction.

    Marx then proceeds to consider the commodity from different perspectives. He looks at the different relations involved in their production and circulation. This includes, in later chapters, an analysis of workers struggling over the working day (as it is workers who create commodities; the more they work, the more they create; but the more they work, the more exhausted they become (another contradiction: exhausted workers are less productive). It is only when we get to the end of Capital (volume 1, at the least) that we see fully understand what a commodity is, what commodity production (capitalism) entails, and what it may lead to (revolution or barbarism, although this is not necessarily explicit in Capital).

    1. A Modern example of a strike

    Bourgeois methods of thinking tend to treat the world as a collection of neatly defined topics / places / events, with clear boundaries, starting points, and end-points. Frequently time is even isolated from space (it’s a diversion for now, but if you’re interested, see Henri Lefebvre or David Harvey for a Marxist view on the connection between time and space). According to DiaMat, this is wrong.

    For example, a strike is not an isolated event, but a culmination of poor working conditions, and an organised workforce. The ‘strike’ days, on which the workers put down their tools is a clearly identifiable event, but to fully understand it, we must ask, why did the workers call for industrial action? What actions of the employer (or in the wider economy) tipped the workers over the edge? Why now and not last year or in ten days or a month’s time?

    Referring back to Marx, workers go on strike because capital involves paying the worker less than the value they produce, and the workers want a bigger portion of the fruits of their labour while the capitalist wants a bigger portion of that surplus as profit. Once we see this struggle between labour and capital as based in commodity production, we can see that a strike is not an isolated event, but the bubbling up of tensions that are always present in capitalism.

    DiaMat involves prediction, too. Here’s one: unless we resolve the contradictions of capitalism (by revolution), there will continue to be strikes.

    Mainstream media will often isolate a strike from the working process, from the political economy (of commodity production), and from time itself, as if a strike just happens and finishes in a defined period. But the underlying tensions between employees and their employer existed before, during, and will exist after the strike because the employee and employer have competing interests.

    Reporters, etc, will claim that the workers in this instant are being greedy or disrupting ‘ordinary workers’. But a strike is a response to the employer’s greed. A successful strike now will have on affect on wages in the future for the strikers and for other workers. (Also, what are striking workers but ‘ordinary workers’? – bourgeois thinkers like to separate certain workers from others because this is necessary for treating the one group of workers as an isolated group.)

    By isolating a strike and striking workers from other workers and capitalism, the journalist, for example, can imply or argue that strikes are an aberration of capitalism. Seeing a strike as a relation (between worker, employer, capitalism, etc) reveals that strikes are a feature of capitalism.

    Applying DiaMat means looking backwards to consider, e.g. what relations led to the strike, and looking forwards to see, e.g. where it might lead.

    Quantity and Quality

    Another aspect of DiaMat is the ‘transformation of quantity into quality’. As afellowkid wrote, following Mao, development is not even. For example, one person or ten people stood outside the factory is not industrial action. But at some point, the addition of individual workers (increasing in quantity) entails a transformative leap in quality – an organised workforce on strike. Then, when lots of industries go on strike (increasing in quantity), at some point there appears a general strike (a qualitative change).

    Helpful Sources

    Bertell Ollman’s, Dance of the Dialectic: Steps in Marx’s Method is a good book on this topic. It is written for students so it explains DiaMat and how to apply it.

    This short video by Richard Wolff may be useful: https://youtu.be/bGPSKZgFH70.

    And the first lecture in David Harvey’s series on reading Capital explains how Marx used DiaMat to analyse political economy. I think it’s this video: https://youtu.be/gBazR59SZXk.