AR Amistad:
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Lets define our terms. What is a religion? My personal belief is anything that gives an credence to an outside idealistic force explaining why and how things are. So obviously we have everything from Christianity to Zen that is obviously a religion. But lets take for example objectivity, which I believe is a religion. It is a religion because it stipulates that for the individual to achieve true 'individuality,' to understand the "why" and "how" of their life potential, it must focus on things that are without, not within. When an individual fetishizes any outside entity, God or not, as being ones only key to a fulfilling life, or the only thing that can give purpose to life, it becomes a religion.
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I prefer Marx's characterisation.
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Say what you want about the "mysticism" of dialectical materialism, it does none of this. First, you'd have to assert that materialism is a religion. This is very possible because when one depends on the interaction of atoms and sub-atomic particles to give purpose to life it becomes a religion. But most scientific materialists are able to ask the right question. If you don't know something about something, don't ask "why" ask "how?" No matter how "mystical" dialectics are or are not, the same can be said about them. Dialectical Materialism doesn't answer the "why" question, it answers the "how question." Religions always seek to first answer the "why" and supplement it with the how. The authentic person seeks to understand the how and then supplement a subjective "why?"
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And yet, as I have shown, Dialectical Materialism [DM] is a source of consolation for its acolytes. In that sense, it functions in a way that makes it analogous to religious belief, as I alleged.
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Dialectical Materialism doesn't answer the "why" question, it answers the "how question."
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But it doesn't answer 'how' questions. For example, it's supposed to be the theory of change, but if it were true, change would be impossible, as I have shown.
In fact, from a set of dogmas that no one is allowed to alter (which is odd, given their commitment to universal change), dialecticians have developed a world-view that does what I allege above, and in my first two posts. And it does provide them with a "why" -- in that it puts each of its novitiates right at the centre of the meaning universe, in contact with a process that governs everything in reality, for all of time, and of which they can become a part. Each dialectical disciple can become one with a cosmic process that has only one outcome (via the 'negation of the negation'), as I argue in one of my essays:
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The Opiate Of The Party
Method -- Or Methadone?
It is maintained here that DM satisfies the contingent psychological needs of certain sections of the revolutionary movement: those comrades who, because of their class origin/position, and because of the constant failure of Dialectical Marxism, cling to DM in ways that make a drowning man look positively indifferent toward any straws that might randomly drift his way.
[Any who doubt this should try arguing with comrades who are in thrall to this theory. On that, see here.]
As noted earlier, this is because dialectics provides consolation in a way that is analogous to the comfort and reassurance that religious dogma supplies believers: that is, DM provides solace for unrealised hopes, supplies both a psychological defence against disillusion and a handy way of re-configuring defeat as its exact opposite. This is again similar to the way that theists manage to persuade themselves that despite appearances to the contrary, death, disease and suffering is not only beneficial, it confirms the goodness of 'God'! Each system provides its acolytes with a convenient excuse for denying the facts.
In other words, DM is the "opiate" of the Party, the heart of a seemingly hopeless cause.
For the Dialectical Classicists, who lived in a world that is divorced from the day-to-day life and struggle of ordinary workers -- i.e., professional revolutionaries who are not involved in the material world of toil --, HM was clearly not fundamental enough. In fact, such individuals, who (for whatever reason) were cut-off from the world of labour, clearly required their own distinctive world-view, one that has itself been abstracted (cut-off) from the world of 'appearances', and thus from material reality, too.
This world-view must be a theory that adequately represents the (now) alienated experience of these erstwhile 'radicals': it must not only be divorced from ordinary language and common experience, it must be distinguished from working class and/or materialist forms-of-thought. In addition, it must rationalise and confirm the pre-eminent position such individuals arrogate to themselves -- that is, it must ratify their status as leaders of the class.
To that end, it must be a theory that they alone "understand".
Even then, they use this theory to 'prove' that the leaders of other Marxist groups either (1) do not "understand" dialectics or (2) they misuse it. [On that, see here.]
What better theory, then, to fit the bill than the incomprehensible system Hegel concocted (upside down or 'the right way up)?
DM is thus beyond workers' experience -- not by accident --, but because it's meant to be that way.
Naturally, this not only renders DM immune from refutation, it also transforms it into an ideal intellectual device for getting things the wrong way round (or, indeed, upside down). It is indeed an ideal tool for keeping 'reality' Ideal. Moreover, this 'theory' helps insulate militant minds from the setbacks revolutionaries constantly face.
DM is thus not just the opiate of the party, it expresses the soul of the professional revolutionary. Abstracted not just from the class, but also from humanity itself, this faction within the labour movement naturally finds abstraction conducive to the way it sees the material world, and to the way it regards the working class: as an abstract object of theory, not the subject of history.
That explains, at least, the motivation underlying the belief that DM is the "world-view" of the proletariat -- plainly these 'workers' are now members of an abstract class of proletarians (most of whom, in the concrete world, have never of this theory, and never will)!
Of course, this accounts for its long-term lack of impact on workers.
Fragmentation And The Petty-Bourgeois Personality
The above frame of mind is connected with the way that such individuals find their way into the revolutionary movement.
Unlike most worker-revolutionaries, 'professional' revolutionaries have joined, or have been recruited into the socialist movement (by-and-large) as an expression of their rebellious personality, as a result of their own personal commitment, because of individual alienation from the system, from reading books, or for some other contingent psychological or biographical reason --, but not as a direct result of the class war. That is, they become revolutionaries through their own individual efforts, or those of some other individual (such as a parent, partner or friend) and not (in general) through participation in collective action, or in strikes (etc.) at their own places of work -- if they work.
This means that from the beginning (again, by-and-large), because of their class position and non-working class upbringing, such comrades act and think like individuals. This (1) affects the ideas they form, (2) colours their attitude toward such ideas, (3) affects their activity inside the movement/party, and (4) slants the relationships they form with other revolutionaries.
Indeed, no less an authority than Lenin quotes Kautsky to this effect:
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"The problem...that again interests us so keenly today is the antagonism between the intelligentsia and the proletariat. My colleagues [Kautsky is himself an intellectual, a writer and editor] will mostly be indignant that I admit this antagonism. But it actually exists, and, as in other cases, it would be the most inexpedient tactics to try to overcome the fact by denying it. This antagonism is a social one, it relates to classes, not to individuals. The individual intellectual, like the individual capitalist, may identify himself with the proletariat in its class struggle. When he does, he changes his character too. It is not this type of intellectual, who is still an exception among his class, that we shall mainly speak of in what follows. Unless otherwise stated, I shall use the word intellectual to mean only the common run of intellectual who takes the stand of bourgeois society, and who is characteristic of the intelligentsia as a class. This class stands in a certain antagonism to the proletariat.
"This antagonism differs, however, from the antagonism between labour and capital. The intellectual is not a capitalist. True, his standard of life is bourgeois, and he must maintain it if he is not to become a pauper; but at the same time he is compelled to sell the product of his labour, and often his labour-power, and is himself often enough exploited and humiliated by the capitalist. Hence the intellectual does not stand in any economic antagonism to the proletariat. But his status of life and his conditions of labour are not proletarian, and this gives rise to a certain antagonism in sentiments and ideas.
"...Quite different is the case of the intellectual. He does not fight by means of power, but by argument. His weapons are his personal knowledge, his personal ability, his personal convictions. He can attain to any position at all only through his personal qualities. Hence the freest play for his individuality seems to him the prime condition for successful activity. It is only with difficulty that he submits to being a part subordinate to a whole, and then only from necessity, not from inclination. He recognises the need of discipline only for the mass, not for the elect minds. And of course he counts himself among the latter...." [Kautsky quoted in Lenin (1947) One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward, pp.121-23.]
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To be sure, Lenin is describing hostile intellectuals, but much of what he says applies to those who become revolutionaries; indeed, this class analysis also applies to Lenin himself, and other petty-bourgeois Dialectical Marxists.
Such comrades thus enter the movement committed to the revolution as an idea, as an expression of their own personal integrity, idiosyncratic alienation and individual goals in life. They are not revolutionaries for proletarian/materialist reasons --, that is, as a result of their direct experience of collective action, or as a direct consequence of working class response to exploitation --, but for individualist (albeit, often very noble) reasons.
This is not to malign them, but to remind readers that this is a class issue.
So, when these comrades encounter DM, it is quite 'natural' for them to latch on to its a priori theses. This is because, as Lenin noted, their class position has already delivered them up as atomised, isolated individuals with no collective identity. This non-negotiable fact is further compounded by the additional fact that these individuals have had their heads filled with "ruling ideas" -- which is plainly the result of the 'superior education' they receive because of their class origin. Hence, ruling ideas dominate their thought almost from the beginning:
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"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch." [Marx and Engels (1970) The German Ideology, pp.64-65.]
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As we will see in Essay Twelve Part One, and the rest of Essay Twelve (summary here), a common thread that runs through the diverse world-views that are conducive to, and patronised by the various ruling-classes that have parasitized humanity over the last five or six thousand years, is the idea that there is an invisible world anterior to experience, underlying 'appearances', which is more real that the world we see around us, and which is accessible to thought alone. Because of this, such ideas have had to be imposed on reality in a dogmatic and a priori manner ever since (plainly because they cannot be read from reality, not least because the world is not a book).
In which case, when these individuals -- who have already been educated to see the world this way before they've even heard of Marxism -- encounter DM, they appropriate its dogmatic a priori theses with ease. The thought-forms this theory encapsulates appear to them to be at once both philosophical and certain (i.e., a priori, and thus self-certifying), in the traditional manner. Moreover, because DM-theses originate from within what seems to them to be a radical philosophical/political tradition they also seem radical -- alas, here they are quite happy to accept appearances at face value!
Manifestly, dialectical concepts could only have arisen from traditional sources (workers do not dream up such nostrums), which sources had already been tainted by countless centuries of ruling-class thought-forms (as Marx noted). This is plainly because traditional thought the only source of developed 'high theory', and these individuals are attracted to this way of seeing things since it promotes the sort of ideas to which these erstwhile radicals are most susceptible. The class background and education such individuals receive mean that ruling-class ideas have already been inserted into their heads, "from the outside", even before they reach their late teens. In that case, this new, Dialectical/Hermetic batch hardly raises an eyebrow. Indeed, it alights on ready soil.
Initially, very little specialist knowledge is needed to 'comprehend' this theory; indeed, no expensive equipment or time-consuming experiments are required. And yet, within hours this superscientific 'world-view' can be grasped by most eager novices (once more, since it relies on thought alone, and thus appears to be 'self-evident'). Literally, in an afternoon, an initiate can study and learn a handful of theses that purport to explain all of reality for all of time.
Just try learning Quantum (or even Newtonian) Mechanics that quickly!
One only has to look at most revolutionary internet sites, for example, to see how they claim to be able to reveal nature's deepest secrets (which are true for all of reality, for all of time) in page or two of homespun 'logic', loose phraseology, and Mickey Mouse Science.
Contrast that with the many months, or even years of hard work it takes to grasp the genuine science of Marxist economics, for example. Contrast it too with the detailed knowledge one requires in order to understand, say, the class structure and development of the ancient world, or medieval society. No 'self-evident' truths here!
Moreover, because this 'theory' is connected with wider historic, or even romantic aims (explored briefly below), such comrades soon become wedded (nay, super-glued) to this doctrine. They become converts. True Believers.
This subjective response to such an easily accessible 'door of perception' now connects dialectics with the revolutionary ego, for it is this theory which guarantees for each of these individuals that their anger at injustice and all the hard work they devote to the cause are not in vain.
On the contrary, this theory guarantees that the life of each of its adepts is capable of assuming cosmic significance. Dialectics places the militant mind at the very centre of the meaning universe -- for it seems to give such social atoms universal meaning, with a set of eternal 'truths'/'laws' to prove it. We might even call this the "Ptolemisation of The Militant Mind" [PTMM], since around this 'theory' all of reality now revolves, put into neat logical order by a few trite a priori theses.
The heady romance of being both a revolutionary and an active participant in the cosmic drift of the entire universe now takes over. Indeed, for all the world, these comrades seem to fall in love with this 'theory'! [This surfaces in the irrational and emotional way they all defend it, when it's attacked -- see below, and here.]
But, the revolutionary ego can only ascend to the next blessed level if it becomes a willing vehicle for the tide of history, a slave to 'the dialectic'.
The dialectic now expresses in its earthly incarnation cosmic forces that have governed material reality from the beginning of time and which are thus written into the fabric of nature, like the word of 'God'.
A Dialectical Logos, if you will.
Or, at least, that's how the DM-Faithful picture it to themselves (on that, see here).
Indeed, the dialectic governs the nature of everything in existence, including even the thoughts of these, the 'least' of its servants -- a process otherwise known as "subjective dialectics".
By becoming slaves to the mysterious 'mediations' that emanate forth from the "Totality" (which, like 'God', cannot be defined, and which works in mysterious ways), through revolutionary 'good works' ("activity") and pure thoughts ("non-Revisionism"), by joining a movement that cannot fail to alter fundamentally the course of human history, the petty-bourgeois ego is 'born again' to a higher purpose, and with a cosmic mandate.
The dialectical novitiate now emerges as a professional revolutionary --, sometimes even with a shiny new name to prove it. But, certainly with a new persona.
The scales now drop from its eyes.
The Hermetic virus has found another victim.
There is now no way back...
As Max Eastman noted:
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"Hegelism is like a mental disease -- you cannot know what it is until you get it, and then you can't know because you have got it."
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This now provides such comrades with well-known social psychological motivations, inducements and reinforcements. These, in turn, help convince these Hermetic victims that:
(1) They as individuals can become key figures in history -- actually helping to determine the next direction social evolution will take.
(2) Their personal existence is, after all, not meaningless or for nought.
(3) Whatever it was that caused their alienation from bourgeois society can be rectified, reversed or redeemed through the right sort of acts, thoughts and deeds -- reminiscent of the way that Pelagian forms of 'muscular Christianity' taught that salvation might be had through pure thoughts, good works, and severe treatment of the body.
Dialectics now takes on a role analogous to that which religion assumes in the minds of the masses, giving cosmic significance and consolation to these, its very own petty-bourgeois victims. Same social cause, similar palliative drug.
However, because they have not been recruited from the working class, these social atoms need an internally-generated unifying force -- one provided by a set of self-certifying ideas -- to bind them to the international workers' movement, and the Party. As such, they need a Cosmic Whole to make sense of their social fragmentation. This is where the mysterious "Totality" comes into its own -- but, just like 'God', so mysterious is this "Totality" that not a single one of its slaves can tell us of its nature, even though they all gladly bend the knee to its Contradictory Will.
In stark contrast, workers involved in collective labour have unity forced on them by well-known, external material forces. These compel workers to combine; they do not persuade them to unite as a result of some theory or other. Workers are thus forced to combine out of material necessity, with unity externally-imposed upon them, since this unifying force is a material, not an Ideal force.
In contrast, once more, while history shows that the class war forces workers to unite, it also reveals that it drives these petty-bourgeois revolutionaries apart. In that case, dialectical theory has to replace material struggle as their sole unifying principle; petty-bourgeois/de-classé Marxists are thus supposedly united by a set of ideas. The forces that operate on them are thus quintessentially individualistic, unquestionably ideal and dangerously centrifugal (as Lenin noted earlier, and as we will soon see). But, without this 'theory', the rationale underlying the romantic idea that these comrades stand right at the philosophical centre of the dialectical universe [PTMM] would disappear.
Moreover, because dialectics provides such comrades with an apparently coherent, but paradigmatically traditional picture of reality (i.e., as an a priori theory, dogmatically imposed on reality), it supplies each one with a unique set of motivating factors. Indeed, because this theory is represented individualistically inside each brain, it helps further divide each 'dialectical disciple', one from the next (for reasons explored below).
Militant Martinets
Dialectics, the theory of universal opposites, goes to work on militant minds and helps turn each into a dedicated sectarian and fanatical faction fiend.
Collective discipline is paramount inside Bolshevik-style parties. But, the strong-willed, petty-bourgeois militant that this style of politics attracts is not used to this form of externally-imposed regimentation (since, as Lenin noted, these comrades are attracted by internally-processed and self-certifying ideas), and so fights soon break out, often over minor, even personal issues.
Since childhood, these comrades have been socialised think like social atoms, but in a revolutionary party they have to act like social molecules (which is a psychological feat that lies way beyond their class position). Hence, personal disputes quickly break out and are soon re-configured as political differences -- once more, these are differences over ideas --, which require, and are soon given, theoretical 'justification'.
Unfortunately, these individuals are socially-conditioned egocentrics who, in their own eyes, have a hot-line to dialectical truth (hard-wired into each brain by those self-certifying Hegelian ideas, once more) -- and they cannot help exploiting that fact since this is what defines them as a revolutionary.
In such an ideal environment, the DM-classics, just like the Bible and other assorted Holy Books, soon come into their own.
Again, as Lenin points out, ruling-class theorists, 'intellectuals', have always made a name for themselves by criticising the ideas of other, rival theorists. This is, after all, part of establishing a reputation, and is an essential component in promoting each career -- or, indeed, for defending a patron or some other beneficent section of the ruling-class. Petty-bourgeois capitalists have to rely on their individual skills in order to survive in the face of Big Capital. In like manner, these unfortunate characters have to ply their trade as individual theorists, armed only with ideas. Petty-bourgeois dialecticians thus trade in similarly soiled goods.
So, it was that the dialectical classicists, when they joined the revolutionary movement brought with them this divisive, individualist ruling-class trait. In the market for 'Marxist' ideas, those with the best critical and inventive skills often floated to the top.
The fact that such individuals have very strong characters (otherwise they'd not survive) merely compounds the problem. In order to make their name, and advance their 'revolutionary careers', it becomes important for them to disagree with every other theorist, which they then almost invariably proceed to do. Sectarianism is thus caused by such petty-bourgeois 'atoms'.
But the situation is aggravated by dialectics. What better theory is there then (other than Zen Buddhism, perhaps) that is capable of initiating endless disputation than one that is as contradictory and incomprehensible all in one go, as is the case with 'Materialist Dialectics'? Or, indeed, one that informs all who fall under its hypnotic spell that progress (even in ideas) may only be had through "internal contradiction"?
For Dialectical Marxists, the drive to impose one's views on others becomes irresistible, too. Doctrinal control (i.e., the control of all those inner, privatised ideas lodged in every other atomised party skull) now acts as a surrogate for external control by material forces. Indeed, this desire to control has even been given the grandiloquent name: "democratic centralism" -- a nice 'contradiction-in-terms' for you to ponder.
But, just as genuine religionists soon discovered, mind-control is much easier to secure if appeal is made to impenetrably mysterious doctrines that no one understands, which all must accept and which all must repeat constantly to dull the critical faculties.
Hence, because the party cannot reproduce the class struggle inside its walls, and thus force materialist unity on its cadres externally, it can only control political thought internally (in each head) by turning it into a mind-numbing mantra, insisting on doctrinal purity, and then accusing all those who do not conform to such ideal standards of not "understanding" dialectics.
In this milieu, an Authoritarian Personality type soon emerges in the revolutionary movement to enforce ideological orthodoxy (disguised as part of an endeavour to keep faith with "tradition", which is, un-coincidentally, a noxious trait shared by all known religions). "Tradition" now becomes a watch-word to test the doctrinal purity of party cadres -- especially those who might stray too far from the narrow path which alone leads the select few toward revolutionary salvation.
This naturally leads to more disputes and thus more splits.
[History has indeed shown that the inter-atomic forces of fragmentation that operate between dialectically-distracted comrades far out-weigh their frequent calls for unity.]
All this explains why, to each DM-acolyte, the dialectic is so personal, and so intimately their own possession, and why you can almost feel their hurt when it is comprehensively trashed, as it has been at my site, and at RevLeft.
Hence, any attack on this 'precious jewel' is an attack on the revolutionary ego itself, and must be resisted with all the bile at its command.
And that explains, too, all the abuse you will get if you think to challenge the dialectical doctrines of a single one of these Hermetic Head Cases.
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More details here:
http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2009_02.htm
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Donation Goal
9th April 2010, 15:10
"It is not enough to possess the sword, one must give it an edge it is not enough to give the sword an edge, one must know how to wield it."-L. Trotsky 
