Dialectical Materialism Study Group

Good explanation, would be of help to new members I reckon, but it needs something into HM - where Marxism really applies dialectics.

Would you be able to use a proper method of citation too? It aches my face through frowning to see something without proper sources.

Quote:

Good explanation, would be of help to new members I reckon, but it needs something into HM - where Marxism really applies dialectics.

Uh, why don't you just write that yourself then?

Quote:

Would you be able to use a proper method of citation too? It aches my face through frowning to see something without proper sources.

Yeah because page numbers of my German edition will be of so~ much use to you. It's all in the first couple pages, you can look it up by yourself.

It could be of use to me, never dare to presume otherwise.
I don't need to write any explanation like that - as I wasn't asked, you were, and I don't have an inclination to explain anything as detailed other than in person or over the phone - and neither does anyone really, it's all there and doesn't need to come up at all in 99% of conversations that us on the left ought to be having (unless mental wangsturbation is desired).
Anyway, the only bits of Capital that really matter are the actual consequences of industrialisation at the time, anybody who has or hasn't read Capital and with half a brain knows full well there's a great element of exploitation through many formalised social interactions

Finished reading. Awesome awesome awesome.

Also I like how I finally understand most of what's being said in that other thread you linked to. Especially this quote from gRed:

Quote:

just like every object in the universe and every stage of production that has gone before it, capitalism is in the process of coming in and out of existence. The energy used against it is that of the class struggle. Dialectics helps point the way as to what it turns into (socialism).

^Ultimate antithesis (lol pun) to people who call you out as a silly doomsayer if you say capitalism will not last.

Anyway, cheers, I'm off to introduce my pizza to my oven to create lunchsynthesis. I fuϲking love this

Quote:

I don't need to write any explanation like that - as I wasn't asked, you were, and I don't have an inclination to explain anything as detailed other than in person or over the phone - and neither does anyone really, it's all there and doesn't need to come up at all in 99% of conversations that us on the left ought to be having (unless mental wangsturbation is desired).

lol I refuse to see this thread as "ask mabool" or anything as ridiculous as that, and fortunately, that's not its purpose anyways. I just gave an explanation of dialectics as well as I could. Just saying "there needs to be more histomat in there" is utterly stupid, then - since you obviously don't need an explanation of histomat, your motivation for saying that is obviously mere destructive criticism, for if you actually cared about others understanding histomat, you'd have provided an explanation of your own. Also it's obviously stupid to say that "it's all there" since it being there obviously didn't help JB (or me, for that matter) understand it. Knowledge is made by discussions, that's the original meaning of dialectics anyway.

Quote:

the only bits of Capital that really matter are the actual consequences of industrialisation at the time

lol no, for how are you going to convince those with less than half a brain?

Just a question that arose my mind. If I understand correctly, contradictions exist in everything: Lenin said, in maths it is + and -, in physics action and reaction, and in social sciences it is the class struggle. Without up there is no down. So how is it then dialectically possible that classless society can exist?

It's dialectical opposite is non-society. Human-free nature. Outer space.

Wait, the antithesis of classless society is non-society? Isn't that class society?

Depends on the "route" of abstraction. Either you regard society in itself, disregarding the historical aspect and looking at it spacially-materially, then the opposite is obviously everything that's not society.

Or you regard it historically, then the opposite is class society, of course, but my actual point is that you can't give clear definitions here. Consider capitalism - what is its opposite, feudalism or socialism? It's all a matter of perspective and the direction in which you're looking. When people in communist society apprehend their society, the first thing they''ll think about obviously won't be "hey, it's different from class society" but rather "hey, we're humans as opposed to the inhabitants of this alien planet", for example.

But actually as a concept is defined by its inherent contradictions and communist society has none, maybe the concept of "society" will disappear in itself - I mean today, when we talk about societies, we always distinguish them from other societies, but that won't apply under communism of course, because communism encompasses all people.

I suppose dialectical materialism should be the only principle communists should have. It is the only truth we should hold eternal; everything else just depends on the time and circumstances. Other than this we should have no other principles.

I would tentatively agree with that ... because diamat just proves itself every day. It's like a thesis that requires no proof because it is its own proof.

And above all, of course, Marxism has never been a set of principles (though certain Leninists of course think that way, exalting "the teachings of Marx-Engels-Lenin(-Stalin(-Mao))") - merely a method of analysis which necessarily leads to certain conclusions.

thanks mabool, this cleared my thoughts about dialectics up a lot ... or rather, helped me on my way to understand them (better) :'D

I find it odd that Mao rejects the negation of the negation:

Mao wrote:

There is no such thing as the negation of the negation. Affirmation, negation, affirmation, negation in the development of things, every link in the chain of events is both affirmation and negation. Slave-holding society negated primitive society, but with reference to feudal society it constituted, in turn, the affirmation. Feudal society constituted the negation in relation to slave-holding society but it was in turn the affirmation with reference to capitalist society. Capitalist society was the negation in relation to feudal society, but it is, in turn, the affirmation in relation to socialist society.

Eh. Mao has what I think is an overly schematic approach to dialectics. But here I really don't get what he's saying; as he's correctly saying, everything can be seen as negation and affirmation, so obviously that means that negations of negations are EVERYWHERE?

"Slave-holding society negated primitive society" -> Slave holding society was the negation of primitive society
"Feudal society constituted the negation in relation to slave-holding society"

-> "Feudal society constituted the negation" of the negation of "primitive society"

voilà.

I get it, would socialism then be the negation of the negation of feudal society? Also, this:

Mao wrote:

What is synthesis? You have all witnessed how the two opposites, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, were synthesized on the mainland. The synthesis took place like this: their armies came, and we devoured them, we ate them bite by bite.

Thread has been cleaned up and merged with the Dialectical Materialism study group as I am not seeing the logic in having two separate threads about the same general study-171

http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=102&t=108129

This is a post written by Fallen Raptor for the Leftist Blog on PoFo. It helps me out a bit and I suggest Engel's Dialectics of Nature as a book to acquire.