Okay, the dispute has been heated at times and is now something of an inconclusive standoff. My humble suggestion is that both sides of the argument present concrete, historical examples that illustrate their own dialectical or non-dialectical approaches to human history. So, for example, what does dialectics bring to an understanding of the Russian Revolution? How did a dialectical approach undermine the Bolsheviks' understanding of their historical role? How does dialectics help us/hinder us in understanding the Spanish civil war?

As I've stated before dialectics has no resonance with my own thinking but a more concrete debate would be more useful to most of us than an argument about live cats and dead cats.

I'm afraid this is the Philosophy section Louise, so you are going to get philosophical debates here!

Quite apart from that I have no wish to show how anti-dialectics can or cannot deal with concrete issues. Since, anti-dialectics is not a theory (it is in fact an attack on a 'theory'), but dialectics is a theory, the onus is on the mystics here to show how specific dialectical concepts have any practical import.

Now, my sole aim here is to demolish dialectics; when that has been done, I will then consider turning to a more positive approach.

That is why I was invited here three and a half years ago, and it remains my sole purpose today.

Surely the point is to make your views accessible to the greatest number of people.

Both sides argue at a very high level of abstraction which, since we live in a concrete world, make both arguments impossible to assess. If historical materialism minus the dialectical obfuscation is a powerful tool of analysis it should be possible to show this with real examples.

Louise:

My views are boringly like Marx's, since I agree 100% with his view of HM.

The only ideas I have that I want to share at the moment are the negative ones I have of DM.

That's why I always try to give down-to-earth examples when I illustrate the fatal defects of DM.

Now, I could do the same with any concrete example taken from the class struggle, but it would take a familiar line.

For example, consider the struggle to free Mumia. If the protest movement is to succeed, and get Mumia released, or to change his condition from being on death row, to his not being on death row, then, according to the Dialectical Holy Books, these two states (configurations of matter) must 'struggle' with one another, and they must also turn into one another!

In order for that to happen, Mumia must not now be on death row, so that these two states can struggle with one another in the here and now! If this is not the case, then they cannot 'struggle', and so his condition can't change. On the other hand if he is out of death row now, then he cannot change anyway from being on death row to not being on death row, since he is already not on death row!

Either way, we/he cannot change his condition.

But, then if that is so, if he is not now on death row, why the campaign to get him out of death row?

And it is little use pointing to the campaign to get him off death row as the centre of this 'struggle', since the Dialectical Gospels tell us that things that 'struggle' inevitably turn into one another.

In that case, any of the activists now 'struggling' to get Mumia off death row will inevitably change into Mumia on death row, and vice versa!

So, if I were to choose a concrete example, the form of the argument would not change (no pun intended!).

Great, thank you Rosa. Can someone now explain how dialectics adds to or explains what we should do to free Mumia?

The truth is that theories are useful or not in practical politics.

Louise, I wouldn't hold your breath if I were you!

I have been here for three-and-half years, and despite being told countless times how wonderful dialectics is at explaining this or that, or how it is useful in this or that way, we have yet to be given a single example (or one that goes beyond a few vague gestures).

Now, us materialists have been asking for as long as I have been here; all we get from the mystics is abuse (for having the temerity to ask!) followed prolonged bouts of dialectical sulking.

Here is the latest example of the vaguaries these mystics dole out:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?...cussionid=1635

Bottom of the page.

Okay, and now how has DM helped to explain specific historical events?

Louise, first of all in your original post , you confused Dialectical Materialism with Historical Materialism. In order to understand the dialectics behind the Russian Revolution, I will give you some examples.
Even the best idea, with a few changes can turn into its opposite. That happened with the idea of Marxism-Leninism, which turned by the Stalinists to its opposite. (See socialism in one country etc).

Also another application is the way the revolution happened. It did not happen in a linear fashion. If that was the case it would have happened way before 1917. The movement of the proletariat moves in a dialectical manner (ie not linear), therefore we have ups and downs etc. Through dialectical and historical materialist understanding we are able to understand those ups and downs and also predict them, as Trotsky predicted that the proletariat would leave the political arena en masse after the failed revolution of 1905 , even though there was a huge economic recession.

This is how dialectics are applied , if you want some real life examples.
I will not engage in debate with people that don't understand/agree with dialectical materialism as it is too abstract for my tastes .

Trotsky II:

But, as we now know, this would mean that change is impossible:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...4&postcount=23

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...5&postcount=24

But, what do you mean by 'linear'? Dialecticians (like Woods and Grant) use this word all all the time (even though the word is foreign to Hegel, Marx, Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin and Trotsky), but confuse it with linear and non-linear equations in mathematics.

Even if this were how you are using this term, this would not make this explanation of yours (which is vague as I predicted it would be) uniquely 'dialectical'. Idealists can and do use this word, where it means little too.

And as far as this is concerned:

Good job Engels did not take this view with Duhring, or Trotsky with Burnham.

But, in my experience, dialecticians who say things like this do not understand the theory themselves.

Of course, you can always prove me wrong...

So why are you debating with me? Either DM helps to understand reality or it's a religion.What other possibilities are there?

haha! Trotsky and Engels had nothing else to do but engage in theoretical discussions and revolutionary activity. When I become a professional revolutionary and when anti-dialectics become relevant I will engage discussions with you. Or who knows I might get a factory like Engels . Seriously I have better things to do than debate dialectics on the internet.

Wait a couple of years till I become a full-timer for an organization

I am not debating with you. I gave examples to you about how dialectics is applied.
Read Trotsky's ABC of dialectical materialism on marxists.org he can explain it better than I can do.

Dialectics is not a religion, as there is no dialectician "God" haha. Really dialectics is a method, not a religion.

It's like saying, Oh shit I can't understand communism, then communism must be a religion!! This is obviously not the case.

Trotsky II:

You have a very odd understanding of Engels's very busy political life, and that of Trotsky too. And yet they took time out to try to defend this theory (unsuccessfully, but at least they tried).

Anyway, you are just like the scores of other dialecticians here who refuse to explain this rather odd theory of yours, which, if it were true, it would mean that change is impossible.

In your predicament, I would run away too...

Just because something can turn into its opposite, that doesn't negate motion through contradiction
Your scope is a bit formalistic and static.

Trotsky !!:

I'm afraid it does.

According to the Dialectical Classicists, qoted here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...4&postcount=23

objects and process change because of a 'struggle of opposites', and they also inevitably turn into those opposites.

So, consider an object or process like a living cat (and what it does). In order for it to become a dead cat one day (its opposite), it has to 'struggle' with that opposite, if we are to believe the Dialectical Classics.

But, that can only mean that a living cat must 'struggle' with the dead cat it will one day become.

Again, this must mean that the dead cat that a living cat one day becomes must exist at the same time as the living cat from which it supposedly arose!

But, if the dead cat already exists, then that living cat cannot turn into it, for it already exists. If it did not already exist, the living cat could not 'struggle' with it.

In that case, if the Dialectical Classics are right, living cats cannot change into dead cats!

And what is true of cats is also true of all living things.

So, this 'wonderful' theory, this 'world-view of the proletariat' implies that nothing can die!

Not so, since I refer to objects and processes in change, as you will note.

You just can't answer my argument!

There is a synthesis .... What the hell are you talking about ?

I said an idea with some change can turn into its opposite, not something struggling with something else will turn to its opposite. Of course this idea does not just turn into its opposite without motion.

Trotsky:

As you would know if you read the Dialectical Holy Books more carefully, I am merely working out the absurd consequences of this rather odd 'theory' of yours.

And what do you mean 'synthesis'?

Once more you need to read the Dialectical Gospels.

Clearly you haven't. Here they are:

Bold emphases added.

References and links can be found at my site, here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2007.htm

There are dozens more dialecticians I could have quoted who say more or less the same.

Now, this 'theory' is not workable, for the reasons I indicated.

You need to deal with that, or abandon this whacko 'theory'.

It's as absurd to seek an explanation of how to "free Mumia" by using a general and abstract theory such as dialectical materialism as to expect the special theory of relativity to explain it.

Needless to say, Rosa has also failed to "explain how to free Mumia" using a non dialectical version of historical materialism.

BTB:

Which just goes to show that dialectics is useless when used abstractly or concretely.

Needless to say, you have too, except with your mystical version of HM.

But how do you show that Stalinism was the opposite of Leninism? There were aspects that were opposite (or opposed) - nationalism vs internationalism - but there were also overlaps such as industrialisation and a centralized state. If you are talking about Leninism as embodied in Lenin it's impossible to say how his specific world view would have developed had he lived another 20 years under circumstances nobody anticipated.

Also if Leninism produced its true opposite in Stalinism doesn't DM then imply that no other outcome was possible? How can an idea or a social class have more than one possible opposite?

Put another way, is DM just a tool of analysis that you use retrospectively or is DM a hidden process directing and controling reality through the constant production and resolution of opposites.

Maybe, but would it not be better to focus the debate (which I don't think will go away) on a well-known set of events such as Russia from 1905 to 1917 or maybe 1921 to 1940 where we have Trotsky's analysis to refer to?

It's just a suggestion but I think a lot of educational possibilities are getting lost in the form the debate has assumed - not simply that it's abstract (as Rosa says this is philosophy) but because there's too much sniping going on.