Contradiction versus dialectical contradiction

A search for the dialectical contradiction is essential for understanding the workings of a particular form of development and predicting its eventual outcome, of course any change in the objective conditions may lead to a significant subjective change and vise versa, which may ultimately forever change the particular form of development.

At this point of time, it becomes necessary to distinguish between contradiction and dialectical contradiction. It is a most dangerous error to identify any contradiction as dialectic, it then leads to a wrong understanding of the basic forces of a particular form of development which in turn leads to the adoption of wrong strategies and which in the last analysis leads to catastrophe. So what distinguishes a dialectical contradiction from a contradiction, indeed what exactly do we mean by the terms contradiction and dialectical contradiction? A clear answer to this question will itself resolve the dilemma of identification between contradiction and dialectical contradiction.

A contradiction is the existence of any and every opposing force in a particular form of development. The forces themselves may be qualitative like two conflicting philosophical viewpoints or purely quantitative, like a difference in the deployment of number of soldiers in opposing troops. When such a difference occurs, we say that there exists a contradiction in the viewpoint of the two philosophers or the two generals as the case may be. A dialectical contradiction is something entirely different. It is the most basic contradiction. It is the contradiction that gives rise to all other contradictions in a particular form of development or system. Indeed all other contradictions are a result, are mere external symptoms of the dialectical contradiction, which is at the base of the two opposing theories or viewpoints. In the examples cited above, the dialectical contradictions involved in the cases would be as follows.

In the case of the philosophical contradictions, it would be necessary to know what impact the two theories would have on the materialistic aspect of man. That will reveal the true opposing forces that have given rise to these two different philosophies. An example is the contradiction between the religious philosophers and bourgeoisie philosophers. The dialectical contradiction is not between church hegemony and the forces ranged against the same.

To understand the real, the basic, the dialectical contradiction it is necessary to understand the material impact each of the two above contradictions have on man. The church hegemony domination would mean a prosperous life for the clergy and the religious men, a life of unquestioned domination by the religious men. The bourgeoisie contradiction is precisely an attempt by the bourgeoisie to deny the same to the church. The bourgeoisie in control of trade and industry realize that they are in control of the most vital and most important aspects of society. It makes no sense to gift the clergy the upper hand under such circumstances. It is the clergy who is dependent on the bourgeoisie trade and industry and not the other way round.

Thus the two opposing philosophical viewpoints are nothing but a desperate attempt by a fading out class to hang on to their once exalted position of dominance and the opposing tendency of the new dominant class to assert their dominance on the basis of the control of the vital material elements that is necessary for the existence of a society. That is the dialectical contradiction involved all other contradictions and there surely are many, are just symptoms, external manifestations of the basic dialectical contradiction governing the development of the bourgeoisie as a dominating class and the withering away of the church-monarchy axis as a dominant class.

How the bourgeoisie came into the possession of the most vital, material aspects of the society can only be understood by understanding the dialectics involved in the production and more importantly the relationship involved between production and the means of production ever since the appearance of the first traders and the first nascent industries upon the world horizon. No class likes to be shoved aside from the position of dominance it once achieves over society but equally no class can stop their own downfall for the very process that builds such dominance also builds the material conditions for the downfall.

It can be shown that under the material conditions and the existing relation of production to the means of production, no force on earth could have changed the course otherwise, no one could have stopped the bourgeoisie from taking over from the clergy one day.

The second case of a discrepancy in the number of opposing troops similarly can only be understood by correctly gauging the material discrepancy in the quantity and quality of the arms available to each of the two troops. How and why should one set of troop come into possession of more superior arms than the other in turn can be explained only by studying the material development of the respective regions of the two opposing troops. The great basic contradiction is not between the differing generals, not even in the difference in material arms available to the two opposing troops, but between the material conditions that were responsible for the different development of the two regions that the opposing troops belong to. That would be the dialectical contradiction between the two generals’ viewpoint.

If a particular form of development is to be understood in its entirety in the last instance, in the final analysis, the basic dialectical contradiction must be correctly identified. To decide proletarian strategy it is most essential to understand the dialectical contradiction between the classes which themselves are nothing but a result of the dialectical contradiction between the production and the means of production. It may and most certainly will vary from industry to industry. The tactics employed must vary from region to region even in similar industries because in the last analysis the tactics are fully dependent on the material available in each region. Understand from what material available in a particular region, in a particular industry can the proletarians most benefit. This will be the arm of proletarian dialectical contradiction. The greatest danger lies in taking any contradiction, any opposing viewpoint to be the general dialectical contradiction involved and deducing the wrong strategy form therein, which can yield nothing but catastrophe for the proletarians.

Flexibility is the most fundamental demand of Marxist strategy. It is not important to understand what strategy Stalin applied or what strategy Fidel applied. It is of utmost importance to know under what circumstances, under what dialectical contradiction were the above strategies applied. The thing to learn is how the great basic dialectical contradiction was identified by successful proletarian campaigns and how the choice of suitable strategies strengthened the proletarian dialectical arm. Conditions will never ever clone any given epoch in history. At best, they can resemble but never be identical. Mere application of erstwhile successful strategies as set formulae can only result in an unprecedented annihilation of proletarian forces. That is the greatest danger that faces us today from a band of rote Marxists.

Only that movement is destined to succeed whose leaders are able to see beyond the simple contradictions into the actual dialectical contradictions, which give rise to these contradictions. That is most important today. The future of the movement is at stake.

Dogma can only lead us to extinction and a correct understanding of material dialectical contradiction to victory.

Have you considered using paragraph breaks?

sorry it is my first post..i copied from word and posted ..somwhow paragraph breaks got merged.....

Nothing's stopping you from going back and editing. That's assuming you want anybody to actually read all that without their eyes exploding.

Jerk.

Miles

Give him time, he probably spent countless sleepless nights producing this magnificent essay!

Severian, is there any reason why your sig says Homage to Caledonia instead of Homage to Catalonia?

i have applied paragraph breaks...hope it is sufficient..sorry once again

Apologies to sukirti...I did the same thing. :P

This seems to be a kind of built-in "escape clause" for "dialectics".

That is, the failures of a Leninist party can always be "excused" by the incorrect identification of the "dialectical contradiction".

And likewise, if a "dialectician" turns out to be wrong about something, that again must "result" from incorrect identification.

On the other hand, any successes that turn up must be "because" the "real dialectical contradiction" was "successfully identified".

Why couldn't the High Priestess of Apollo at Delphi make the same argument? If things work out successfully, it's because you "correctly understood the prophesy". And if things don't work out, it's because you "misinterpreted what the god actually said".

How is a "real dialectical contradiction" to be "successfully identified"? What are the objective criteria?

Ok, that's what it "is".

But how do we know we've "found it"?

How is this to be determined...particularly ahead of time?

Apparently, it depends on "material"...but this term goes undefined and who could say what it actually consists of?

Not me.

Unfortunately, they don't tell us...except afterwards if they win.

And as you admit yourself, we can't just "copy them" because conditions are always different.

Suppose we have two Leninist parties and each one offers us a different identification of the "real dialectical contradiction".

How do we tell which one is right?

Do we just wait and see who wins???

If both lose, does that mean that neither one of them correctly identified the "real dialectical contradiction"?

Or, once again, suppose they both identify the same contradiction as the "real dialectical contradiction"...but they propose different strategies.

Which one is right? How do we decide?

So the rest of us have to guess which of our rival leaders is "really seeing beyond" and which ones are just befuddled by "superficial contradictions"?

Do we "flip a coin" or what?

Your post illustrates, I think, what happens when someone tries to take "dialectics" seriously.

It sounds like you're talking about something "real"...but when one tries to grasp it, it just melts into air.

Sukriti, you should know before going further that RedStar2000 is a purveyor of bourgeois ideology, primarily pragmatism, who tries to present himself as a communist. Caveat emptor.

Miles

So you say.

But how about a substantive response to sukirti's post?

Is he "out of your league"?

Communist League

Who appointed you Doctrinal Purity Police?

Or did you catch some pompous blowhardry
working with World Can't Wait.

To both RedStar and Red Powers: Tell me what it is that I wrote that is false or one-sided.

RedStar, you yourself said in the first thread on dialectical materialism that you advocate pragmatism. Remember? And do you not try to present yourself as a communist? Maybe it was the "caveat emptor" at the end of my comment that rubbed you the wrong way. Fair enough.

Perhaps I should have just acted like Rosa Lichtenstein and spew ad hominems? Would that have made you more comfortable?

And finally, Red Powers, no one appointed me "Doctrinal Purity Police". And besides, where did I say something, beyond "caveat emptor", that passed judgment on RedStar's politics?

For the two of you, I'm sorry if you think I'm giving you hell about this. But that's your problem. I am only telling the truth. If not, point it out.

Miles

dear all i will reply to the queries raised by redstar..may i request us all not to become personal and instead focus on issues that are raised?
lets have a spirit of healthy debate..come on

There are two definitions of pragmatism. One is a particularly american political flare, the other is the act of being pragmatic; that is, being practical. While I may be wrong, I'm assuming redstar claims adherence to the latter definition rather than the former.

A good theory is a theory that scientifically describes current affairs as well as accurately predicts future events before those events come to pass. While many adherents are quite adept at superimposing a dialectical explanation after the fact, it's another thing to say that dialectics has predicted anything in a practical fashion; that is, something we can use.

Maybe it would sound better if I called it "proletarian pragmatism" or even "revolutionary pragmatism".

I'm interested in theories that work...that generate reasonable explanations for historical events and on which one can rely to make reasonable short-term predictions.

"Dialectics" doesn't meet my minimum standards of workability...as I indicated by my questions to sukirti.

That does not make me "bourgeois", does it?

Well, in your eyes perhaps it does...but I don't think you're going to get a whole lot of takers on the proposition here.

What you would have to demonstrate to people is that my renunciation of "dialectical" mysticism has political consequences -- that, for example, I would consistently show up on the "more rightest" side of every political controversy on the board.

I don't think you can do that.

Want to try?

You've already done it for me in many of the discussions on this board. But, if I have the time this coming week, I'll pull out some of the articles from your vanity website and reinforce my point.

Miles

I have read Redstar2000's anti dialectical essay, and i don't understand what he has against.

To my current understanding, dialectics is just looking at objects in all their relations rather then thinking the object is abstract. I don't see why Redstar would be against.

Then again i believe redstar is against this because he is a anarchist. So he has the political reason why he is against Communist, he just needs the theoritical. He found his theoritical reason, being dialetcics.

in defense of dilaectics
I would like to answer the points raised by redstar in his article.
1) That dialectics has a built in escape clause, namely all failures are attributed to the failure in the identification of the dialectical contradiction and all successes result because the dialectical contradiction was correctly identified.
Dialectics is a science, which when applied correctly never produces the wrong results. Let us take an example. Mechanics is something that is commonly taught in advanced science courses. Mechanics is science. Yet, given the same numerical problem some students come up with the wrong solutions in spite of attending the same classes or referring to the same text books, why? Off course because they did some mistake in applying the basic fundamentals of mechanics. The students who solve the problem correctly do so because they apply the principles right. We can extend this argument to all science, especially mathematical sciences. The point is this. If a student solves a problem wrongly by improper application of a mechanical principle is that principle in mechanics invalid? If the statement is made by an instructor to students thus: apply the fundamental principles (may be say, the force diagram acting on a system) correctly, failing which you will get the wrong answer, does that amount to an escape clause for mechanics? The failure here lies on part of the student, not on part of the basic theory of forces; exactly same is the argument on application of dialectics. Even the crash of a spaceship due to improper application of say, air friction principles will never invalidate that air friction is a theory that is correct. Same is the case with application of dialectics.
2) How to know when we have actually found the main dialectical contradiction and what are the objective criteria to identify the same?
To know that you have reached the correct dialectical contradiction you must satisfy one condition, that you have correctly identified the material forces representing the two opposing views. The objective criterion is the two different material forces that are in opposition to each other and the dialectical contradiction is represented in the two forces formed by the two forces.
Since redstar talks of examples I offer one:
Why is Islamic terrorism spreading?
Let us apply dialectics to this.
Objective criteria:
The material wealth and prospects of the Islamic religious clergy dominating the scene in such nations in opposition to the material forces of the business organizations (typically western) that are trying to remove the Islamic clergy from this exalted position.
Dialectical contradiction:
Material wealth of religious Islamic forces gives rise to the class hegemony of the religious Islamic clergy in opposition to the class forces represented by the western imperialist forces (western military intervention is merely a representation of the greater class aims of the western business class)
3) What is material?
Any such commodity that increases the economic domination of one class over another.
In the above example, it is to be noted that most Islamic terrorist organizations are built on wealth of people who feel threatened by the western companies trying to barge in. the larger aim is to thwart the entry of foreign business. All foreign intervention will eventually lead to foreign domination of business.
4) That identification of the correct dialectical contradiction happens only after a Leninist party has actually won.
Again coming back to my example of science. Until a spaceship is launched can one definitely say that all principles involved in the science of gravity and or thrust have been correctly applied? The answer is no mission till date can claim to be hundred percent scientifically correct pre launch. It is only after the mission is successful that one can successfully say that all basic principles were correctly applied. Is that a case of retrospective validation of the broader scientific principles concerned? No, they merely indicate human errors and human limitations in applying science, which if applied with precision will prevent catastrophe.
Similar is the case with dialectics. Some men are exceptional at applying dialectics; in much the same way as some men are excellent scientists only because they are more clearer in understanding the basic concepts of the concerned science. Just because we can not grasp the theory of relativity as finely as brilliant scientists do, it does not become unreal, it does not ‘melt into air’.
Men like Lenin were master dialecticians in much the same way as Einstein was a master in space- time theories. But both had limitations. Both were wrong more than once. The difference lies in the fact they were right on more occasions than most men and on more complex situations in their field.
Their errors do not mean the negation of the scientific bases they developed.
Dialectics appears to melt into thin air when it is tried to be applied without perfect understanding of the science. I dare say if we talk about relativity to the lay man on the street he will also find it to ‘sound like something but melting into thin air’.
Dialectics is not a star gazing ball, rather it is a science that dictates how your actions and strategies should be in the future, a strategy that requires constant monitoring at all times because situations change rapidly.
Still to react to encephalon, one example of a correct prediction of future events before they happen to pass as he calls it would be this:
In 1904 Lenin advocated revolutionary defeatism; in 1917 he advocated power seizure, why?
Because by a correct application of dialectics he realized that the material in his disposal (popular support in numbers) was insufficient to wage a full blown seizure campaign in 1904. In 1917 he realized that it was the other way round.
How did he know that? Definitely because of field reports from underground Bolsheviks about the growth in the numbers of the masses in support of a change in regime in 1917. The point at which he realizes that a majority want and are willing to participate in a regime change is the moment Lenin realizes that in the given dialectical contradiction his arm is stringer (an objective criteria, number of supporters).
Much as in sciences like physics, dialectics can only be mastered through constant practice and familiarity, reading and efforts dedicated truly to understanding the laws of dialectics. It can not be mastered by discussion or wishing for a magic formula, in the event it will only appear to ‘sound like something real but when one tries to grasp it, it just melts into air’