why is it a Weltanschauung? (yeh that's what the greek-english dictionary popped) .

edit: i accidentally posted it in philosophy, could a mod move it to learning? thnx

There are two interconnected reasons, I think.

1) The founders of this quasi-religion weren't workers; they came from a class that educated their children in the classics and in philosophy. This tradition taught that behind appearances there is a hidden world, accessible to thought alone, which is more real than the material universe we see around us.

This way of seeing things was invented by ideologues of the ruling class, who viewed reality this way. They invented it because if you belong to, benefit from or help run a society which is based on gross inequality, oppression and exploitation, you can keep order in several ways.

The first and most obvious way is through violence. This will work for a time, but it is not only fraught with danger, it is costly and it stifles innovation (among other things).

Another way is to persuade the majority (or a significant section of "opinion formers" and administrators, at least) that the present order either works for their benefit, is ordained of the 'gods', or that it is 'natural' and cannot be fought, reformed or negotiated with.

Hence, a world-view is necessary for the ruling-class to carry on ruling in the same old way. While the content of this ruling ideology may have changed with each change in the mode of production, its form has remained largely the same for thousands of years: Ultimate Truth is ascertainable by thought alone, and it can therefore be imposed on reality dogmatically.

So, these non-worker founders of our movement, who had been educated to believe there was this hidden world that governed everything, looked for principles in that invisible world that told them that change was inevitable, and part of the cosmic order. Enter dialectics, courtesy of the dogmatic ideas of a ruling-class mystic called Hegel.

2) That allowed the founders of this quasi-religion to think of themselves as special, as prophets of the new order, which workers, alas, could not quite grasp because of their defective education and reliance on ordinary language and 'common sense'.

Fortunately, history had predisposed these prophets to ascertain the truth about reality for them, which meant they were their 'naturally-ordained' leaders. That in turn meant these 'leaders' were also teachers of the 'ignorant masses', who could thus legitimately substitute themselves for the unwashed majority -- in 'their own interests', you understand, since the masses were too caught up in 'commodity fetishism' to see the truth for themselves.

And that is why DM is a world-view.

It is also why dialecticians cling on to this theory like grim death (and become very emotional (and abusive!) when it is attacked by yours truly), since it provides them with a source of consolation that, despite outward appearances to the contrary, and because this hidden world tells them that dialectical Marxism will one day be a success, everything is in fact peachy, and nothing in the core theory needs changing -- in spite of the fact that that core theory says everything changes! Hence, it is ossified into a dogma, and imposed on reality. A rather nice unity of opposites for you to ponder.

So, this 'theory' insulates the militant mind from the facts.

In that case:

Dialectics is the sigh of the depressed dialectician, the heart of a heartless world. It is the opiate of the party. The abolition of dialectics as the illusory happiness of the party hack is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.

Unfortunately, these sad characters will need (materialist) workers to rescue them from themselves.

Dialectical Materialism is not easily understood but it is deadly important to understand, it can be used to argue out things with your boss and his management team who spent years in university.

Basically settles two matters, and I will explain this in a vulgar way

1. The materialism versus Idealism debate, IE matter is primary, there is no higher consciousness or higher force. 2. Everything is interconnected.

And it will explain this.

Its something that once you get it everything will make sense. But its not something that is easy to read, it can be quite a lot to take in some sitting, you have to make an effort to read it. But spend a week reading a Dialectical Materialism book.

Because when you read Marx, Lenin, Engels' other works you are getting the conclusion on Dialectical Material, not the method.

GDII:

!) Bulk Sheep did not request an explanation of this mystical theory, he asked why it's a world-view.

2) It is not possible to understand this 'theory', anyway, since it is a dogmatic system and is based on the mystical musings and logical blunders of Hegel.

Here is yet more dogma, for example:

GD:

What a waste of a week!

Of course, Marx was not a dialectical materialist, as has been shown here many times.

Isn't the answer self-evident? All life is a process of change, a movement, an evolution, and DM helps us understand the intricacies of such evolution. To us Marxists, it's terribly important that we study DM, or how else are we going to understand social evolution? Without DM to aid us in the study of history, history would be just a list of dates and figures, who did what in which century, and nothing more. With DM, we see history for what it is: a subject that traces the evolution of societies, and the direction in which things are moving, and so forth.

BenHur:

But we don't need dialectics in order to do this: Historical Materialism, which is not an all-embracing, universal 'superscientific theory', as is the case with DM, is quite enough.

another Q, not so off topic..

Does DM itself and its being a world theory has a connection with the democratic centralist structure and organization in the communist party?

Dialectical Materialism is a science, a methodology of examination and analysis, you can use dialectical materialism to ask whether Democratic Centralism is the best form of organization, is it flexible? Does it evolve and stuff like thats what is can be used for in this case. Its like saying what does chemistry have to do with being a electrician. Well it will explain why electricity conducts and the chemical reactions which occur, but it will not help you wire a house any better.

Dialectical Materialism cannot be a science as it cannot follow the scientific method.

Not only is this completely incoherent, but it also contains little, to no, content what-so-ever. Why is a theory needed to ask the question "is it flexible?"

Is my shirt flexible? Whoa... be careful there you dialectical materialist, you might stumble onto the meaning of existence!

Wrong.

Chemistry actually explains things - it is observable, repeatedly, by any independent observer.
Dialectical materialism, on the other hand, isn't observable at all! It explains absolutely nothing, in fact, it unnecessarily complicates most-all-things.

- August

Not sure exactly what you mean... could you elaborate a bit?

- August

Read it and come to your own conclusions these people will just say wrong wrong wrong without it making any sense to you or me. So your best bet is reading it to understand for yourself and come to your own conclusions.

I meant if democ. centralism is an outcome of dialectic processing.

Any recommendations?

But what is "it?" You see, there's no book on "dialectical materialism' as though it was 'biology.' And furthermore, if you were able to find a book on dialectical materialism, wouldn't it none-the-less be an opinion? For we already know it isn't a fact...

Your posts are so vague and unclear it's tough to extract any sort of actual meaning...

- August

First, what do you mean by "democratic centralism."
Second, no, it is not an "outcome of dialectic processing" because such a thing is non-existent.

- August

GDII:

No, it's a dogmatic system that is completely divorced from the material world (that is, what little sense can be made of it) -- and that is because it was invented by one of the all-time champion a priori dogmatists, Hegel.

-------------------------

Bulk Sheep:

No, it's a direct consequence of Historical Materialism -- which, as we both know, is a scientific theory (once the dialectical gobbledygook has been removed).

Nice try AW, but as I noted in my first reply to Bulk Sheep here, dialectics is a quasi-religion to these comrades, so they will either totally ignore you attacking their source of opiates, or they will become abusive.

One thing they won't do, because they can't, is defend it.

After all, that why they retreated into their cozy little coven -- the DM group -- and won't let me join.

I think the simplest defination of the dialectic is this:

The Marxian interpretation of reality that views matter as the sole subject of change and all change as the product of a constant conflict between opposites arising from the internal contradictions inherent in all events, ideas, and movements.


The Dialectic is like this, two opposites, for example bourgeioisie and Proletariat they struggle both ways against each other, in the final struggle it is either the victory of socialism or the decay of society into fascism. The new will eventually overcome the old. Or you can take it on a cellular level if you want in biology

So recommendations

Depends on your reading Level, if you want to buy a book or read it online. Trotsky wrote some good articles on Dialectical Materialism and so did Engels. If you're from Greece I know for certain the Greek Communist Party will be selling/ lending out a variety of books on the subject. The best option is this if you can.




Anti-Duhring is a good read.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...ring/index.htm


so is Dialectics of Nature, which is an unfinished work.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx.../don/index.htm


This is probably one of the bigger and better works but its hard to get through

http://www.marxists.org/archive/leni.../mec/index.htm

I also have a copy of the Book Dialectical Materialism by V.G. Afanasyev, its neatly laid out into different parts of the theory. If you can get a book like that type I would certainly take it over reading Engels on a beginners understanding of the subject.


And if you want something really simple

Dialectics for kids!

http://www.dialectics4kids.com/

GDII:

Unfortunately, this is yet more a priori dogmatics!

But this cannot work, since Hegel, Engels, Plekhanov and Lenin (among others) told us that these opposites must all change into one another.

In that case, the proletariat must change into the bourgeoisie, the forces of production must change into the relations of production, and vice versa!

But this is ridiculous.

Naturally, this does not mean that change cannot happen, only that if dialectics were true, it couldn't.

A more general and longer version of this argument can be found here:

http://z11.invisionfree.com/Kasama_T...?showtopic=460

[A few posts down the page.]

An appallingly awful site!!

http://www.revleft.com/vb/dialectics...21/index2.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/dialectics...024/index.html

One of the worst books ever written by a Marxist:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/anti-duhri...412/index.html

Good heavens, what a simplistic view! Either you're trying to be funny, or you've no idea what you're talking about. I'll give you a simple example, so you can understand without difficulty. Imagine the color white and its opposite black. What comes out of them-gray-is a new color. It's not white, it's not black, yet it contains both. Likewise, a system that evolves out of opposites will be different from the opposites, and yet retain some of the elements. This is what evolution is all about. The opposites are transcended, and yet some of the elements are also retained.

That's just the thing; no it doesn't, not in the scientific sense.

It doesn't make predictions. Being able to make falsifiable predictions is the criterion for something to be considered a scientific theory.

It's purely the result of inductive reasoning from a bunch of examples (usually picked out of a hat) of things that "change" in some sense.

Every source I've looked at on DM has tried to make it look like an empirical, scientific theory (even while calling it a "form of logic", strangely). But it isn't, because it doesn't make predictions. At least, I've never seen it do so.

And bear in mind something doesn't even have to make true predictions to be a theory; just falsifiable ones. If every single prediction it makes turns out to be false, then it may be a crappy scientific theory, but it would still be a scientific one, because the predictions it made were testable and falsifiable (they must have been falsifiable if they "turned out to be false", right?). But DM doesn't make falsifiable predictions, hence isn't scientific, or a theory in the scientific sense.