Welcome to the board 'Black Light'.

The reason why Hegel's ideas do not work is explained here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/...mmitted_01.htm

And 'totality' is no better:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2011_01.htm

Rosa, the dynamic "totality" of which I speak is different from the Hegelian concept.

Dynamic materialism (with the far more provocative short-hand "dyna-mat" ) = HM + some dialectics + some other modern philosophy + some modern natural sciences (especially physics, but also analyses of chemical reactions, biological reactions, etc. ) + some modern social sciences (like sociobiology)

Actually, I have taken various examples in terms of that specific timeframe. The most notorious examples, as per my post further down on Belgian social democracy, are ones definitely to be avoided. In today's case, the Belgian liberals would be "social-democrats."

I'd like to hear your thoughts here, even if you're an anarchist:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/sozialdemo...754/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/united-soc...056/index.html

Meh - I'm not a dialectician, for reasons stated in my original post (binary thinking clouded in mystical language).

Indeed, some variant of Maslow's hierarchy of needs to be incorporated, and even then presented as being merely a general rule (as LZ pointed out exceptions).

JR:

I'm glad to hear it.

Don't know why you need to use that term though.

^^^ What's a better word? "Universe" and "scope" don't seem appropriate. "History" is a very specific form of this "thing" of which I speak.

This is wrong, IMO. Dialectics deals with objects only qua things in motion, their logical relationships and interactions.

Trivas:

But, in that case, as I have shown, dialectics cannot explain change --or, alternatively, if dialectics were true, change would be impossible.

JR:

Why do we need a single word? We have many terms in language that allow us to speak of collections, interconnected wholes and the like. 'The economy', 'the working class', 'the relations of production', 'international trade', 'the US war machine', 'the poeple of Burma', etc.etc.

What do you mean by dialectics in this context?

Trivas:

I do not mean anything by it, I merely quote the dialectical prophets and show their ideas cannot work:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...&postcount=249

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...&postcount=250

The full argument can be found here:

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

Then your point is moot.

Trivas:

As 'moot' as yours is unclear.

Once more:

Now, I might not be able to understand the nature of 'god', but that does not stop me pointing out the many incoherences there are in religious belief.

Same here -- with your opiate.

^^^ See, by evoking the word "opiate" in a different context, you are unconsciously applying the materialist conception of dynamics (sorry for the late post).

The dynamic "totality," unlike the dialectical equivalent, raises the subject of multiple opiates of the masses, and the relationships between them. Consumptionism (as opposed to "commodity fetishism," which is not understandable by the average Joe, and as opposed to "consumerism," which is a cheap linguistic attempt by ivory-tower intellectuals to place guilt on the alienated consumer) has become a more potent opiate of the masses than organized religion, so much so that much (not all, but much) of the latter has become part of the former (a dynamic not acknowledged in dialectics).

All the mainstream talk of "decadent materialism" - so lacking amongst the left - demonstrates my point.

IMO the Hegelian concept of totality isn't in Marx's use of the materialist concept of history, as Marx called historical materialism. Neither is it essentially the analysis of the class struggle looked at historically; rather it is looking at history through the lens of certain social categories dialectically, i.e., nature, the labor-movement, social ideas, the productive forces, and politics working themselves out in an evolutionary process.

And the whole point of the dialectic is to militate against reductionistic, logical or causal thinking.

Trivas:

Maybe so, but only if we interpet 'dialectically' in a way that omits all reference to the following: 'dialectical contradictions', 'unity and identity of opposites', 'quantity passing over into quality', 'negation of the negation', 'interconnected totality', and 'universal change'.

And that is because Marx himself rejected these mystical notions, as he indicated in Das Kapital.

Agreed. Nevertheless, he never repudiated dialectics, neither did he make a fetish of opposing them.

Trivas:

I am glad to see you have now abandoned the following: 'dialectical contradictions', 'unity and identity of opposites', 'quantity passing over into quality', 'negation of the negation', 'interconnected totality', and 'universal change'.

What does it mean to 'abandon' concepts that have been the common heritage of political dissent for at least a century? Hegel, too, was aware of contradictions in capitalism. When you abandon history you abandon humanity IMO.

You two just love to have a banter with each other across multiple threads, don't you? Neither of you addressed Post #62 above on opiates.

Trivas:

Then your "Agreed" was entirely insincere.

Quite apart from that, 'abadnoning' these mystical concepts will at the very least allow us revolutionaries to develop Historical Materialism scientifically, and perhaps learn from the mistakes of the last 150 years.

Your excuse is no better than "If it was good enough for my grandfather, it's good enough for me...!"

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Sorry JR, #62 does not seem to exist!

No, Rosa, I deny that dialectics is equivalent to clinging to tradition. Either it is a scientific methodology or it isn't. Either historical materialism is scientific or it isn't, which means either the application of dialectical methodology to history is scientific or it isn't. Historical materialism was first developed by Marx or it wasn't; it's only a matter of carrying on that legacy.