How is 'dialectical materialism' used to understand stuff?

How do you actually use it in practice? Is there a procedure?
?
?
Can you talk me through an example please?
Thanks

An example in politics could be the US and its stance on the Kyoto agreement.

On the Bush years, US wanted nothing to do with it. Obama promised to change that. Bourgeois media or history books would view that as a proof of Obama being more progressive, in touch with his era and its problems etc.

A materialist would argue that a person's behaviour (or a rulling class' policies and stance on matters) isn't something that exists independently of this world, the material sphere, and the economy, which is the base of everything.Instead, it is born out of it. Also, that it is the outcome of many "collisions" between groups that see they have conflincting interests as they interract with each other.


In that case, Bush acted in a certain manner not because he believed those saying there is no global warming, but because he represented the interests of Big Oil and polluting industries. US dependence on that type of production was what led to the middle east wars.
Obama on the other hand was backed by that part of the bourgeoisie that sees in the so called "green economy" a great profit opportunity. He was also against the war in Iraq as his sponsors, the capitalists that hired him to do their bidding and whom he represented, wouldn't have much to gain from it. This side grew in strength really fast as only recently renewable forms of energy became financially viable and as science is making great leaps.


So, what did change wasn't that a more progressive man walked into office but that the part of the bourgeoisie that sees a bigger chance for profit in "going green" has for the time being the upper hand in the ongoing "struggle".
The procedure to use it seems to be looking at the right place, which is the economy and the social relations that arise from it.

Nice question. But I can almost feel a certain one-line reply being typed with a link. So beware...

tellyonsquared:

Since this theory makes not one ounce of sense, as several of us here have argued more times that the US military has invaded somewhere, it cannot be put into practice, and so it has never been put into practice (except to screw things up, as it did in the former USSR with the theories dreamt up by Lysenko -- link below).

It wasn't even used in 1917 in Russia (proof can be suplied on request).

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

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

There are literally scores of pages at RevLeft where we have demonstrated this; I have collated links to them all here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/RevLeft.htm

The latest place is here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/mao-zedong...84/index5.html

and the next ten pages!

Which explains why Red Cat is so miffed.

FSL:

But this is an example of Historical Materialism, not Dialectical Materialism!

Red Cat:

Well, you were no more right about that than you were about Lenin and Mao (on change).

Good. Let other people have a look at our debate and say whose points make sense.

Red Cat:

And no doubt they will also note that there you support your 'revisionary' claims with not one single quotation from Lenin or Mao, whereas I support everything I allege with many.

We will see. I am waiting for the mass opinion on your posts.

Red Cat:

They have already passed their opinion on Dialectical Marxism -- they ignore it in their billions.

No wonder.

Red Cat:

Indeed, they are right to ignore your useless 'theory'.

After all, it has presided over 150 years of almost total failure.

An example of relative success by any other alternative, please?

Red Cat:

Capitalism and liberal democracy come to mind.

Even though capitalism is an evil system (and should be overthrown), it is way more successful than Dialectical Marxism. Why, even China has embraced it (as have the former USSR, and E Europe).

If truth is tested in practice...

To be precise, an alternative that claims to be proletarian, vividly preaches socio-economic equality, has been able to overthrow a former regime, and has witnessed massive increase in the levels of education, health-care, average life-span etc.

Red Cat:

And yet which has now embraced a far more successful (but evil) system: capitalism.

Socialist:

It has conquered the world, and revolutionised the productive forces -- so much so that the vast majority of the former 'socialist' states have embraced it.

That's about as brainless an argument as "Why don't you lot go live in Russia?" used to be.

I am a socialist since I want it to be successful, hence the need to ditch this ruling-class 'theory' of yours.

In your highly emotional frame of mind, you have clearly lost the ability to read. Where did I say socialism has failed?

This is what I said:

I can enlarge the font for you if that helps...

Indeed, but that doesn't mean that capitalism isn't evil.

[And I'd like to see you define "good" in non-moralistic terms!]

Furthermore, I'm glad you mentioned the working class, since, the larger it gets, the more it ignores your 'theory'.

And yet as we have seen, this theory cannot account for change -- or, alternatively, if it were true, change would be impossible:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/mao-zedong...84/index5.html

But, where was the 'dialectics' in it?

I find your argument interesting Rosa, but it sound like you are picking apart dialectic materialism just to show you can. You take like four or five comments on dialectical materialism as the base of the argument and ignore what it says on the whole.

Nothing is fixed
everything changes
through the interaction of multiple forces new conditions and forces will arise.

boom. DM in 100 words or less. This philosophy is not only true but incredible useful. You do a lot of philosophical waxing but I don't really see its value outside of a nice talk. Okay, so DM is riddled with holes? Okay? So what does your perspective bring to the international revolutionary movement? What is the cash-value of your argument? I haven't seen anything from you positive. Just a tearing down of an incredibly practical philosophy. You act like everyone is against you. Like they are afraid of your ideas because you have so blown everyone’s mind. I don't think that’s it. I think you are talking over everyone’s heads. And if no one understands you, you might as well be putting down your argument in Latin because if no one gets it and no one can use it, your argument is impotent from the get-go. Also I think your harsh and antagonistic tone when talking further alienates yourself. You said on your site that you “generally go for the jugular from the get-go”. You’re not playing Left4Dead, you’re talking to comrades. I am not saying your argument is wholly wrong, although I do think that, I'm saying that it is wholly useless in its current form. I think that if you published a book on this, the only person who would buy it would be college students, and the only person who would like it is Noam Chomsky. If you want anyone to care I would make it more palatable to the general person and I would avoid putting people on the defensive because it does you no credit. Although I suspect that you will not take my criticism with good humor.

Rosa's arguments are based on the following points(she refuses to accept that these facts have always been a part of Marxist dialectics):

Lenin, Mao etc. have stated that opposites struggle. Therefore it is to be assumed that a "struggle" will exist in every place, everywhere. The meaning of "struggle" is the conflict of opposing forces.

Mutually exclusive systems struggle through forces that lead to these systems. These forces co-exist. For example, in a capitalist system, both the bourgeoisie and proletariat co-exist and struggle, for capitalism and socialism, respectively.

As systems change, contradictions change too. So, after a point, reversal to a system identical to a previously existent one becomes impossible. Hence capitalism cannot reverse back to socialism forever, and must proceed to communism.

Rosa asks for passages from dialecticians' works which state these facts, instead of providing examples were they have stated anything near to what she claims are the "faults" of dialectics.

KC this is a verbal warning for spamming, please dont post stupid pictures, and especially please dont do it in Learning.