Do you understand dialectical materialism?
       |           

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
March 28, 2024, 05:17:53 PM
News: Election Simulator 2.0 Released. Senate/Gubernatorial maps, proportional electoral votes, and more - Read more

  Talk Elections
  Forum Community
  Forum Community (Moderators: The Dowager Mod, YE, KoopaDaQuick 🇵🇸)
  Do you understand dialectical materialism?
« previous next »
Pages: [1] 2
Poll
Question: Do you understand dialectical materialism?
#1
Yes
 
#2
No, but I've heard of it (before today)
 
#3
No, and I've never heard of it before today.
 
Show Pie Chart
Partisan results

Total Voters: 41

Author Topic: Do you understand dialectical materialism?  (Read 1466 times)
Simfan34
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 15,744
United States


Political Matrix
E: 0.90, S: 4.17

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« on: September 21, 2014, 07:29:18 PM »

I know it's a Marxist thing, but that is the complete and utter limit of my knowledge. I'd speculate something about man being driven solely by material goals, but then you have "dialectical" thrown in.
Logged
Simfan34
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 15,744
United States


Political Matrix
E: 0.90, S: 4.17

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #1 on: September 21, 2014, 07:30:19 PM »

Also, I don't know why dialectical materialism is now a thing.
Logged
Atlas Has Shrugged
ChairmanSanchez
Atlas Superstar
*****
Posts: 38,096
United States


Political Matrix
E: 5.29, S: -5.04


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #2 on: September 21, 2014, 07:52:07 PM »

I am the Senator of it. And I understood it this morning, but now I forgot. Bomb bomb bomb Iran.
Logged
Arturo Belano
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,471


Political Matrix
E: -8.65, S: -6.43

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #3 on: September 21, 2014, 07:57:01 PM »

Is this an epic new meme, now?
Logged
they don't love you like i love you
BRTD
Atlas Prophet
*****
Posts: 112,704
Ukraine


Political Matrix
E: -6.50, S: -6.67

P P
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4 on: September 21, 2014, 08:09:59 PM »
« Edited: September 21, 2014, 08:11:54 PM by black and white band photos »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism

STILL don't know what it is after reading that. Can someone explain it in layman's terms?

Well according to this it's a combination of dialectics and materialism. Gee thanks, very helpful.
Logged
bedstuy
YaBB God
*****
Posts: 4,526


Political Matrix
E: -1.16, S: -4.35

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #5 on: September 21, 2014, 08:28:53 PM »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism

STILL don't know what it is after reading that. Can someone explain it in layman's terms?

Well according to this it's a combination of dialectics and materialism. Gee thanks, very helpful.

I think a critical part of the far left is that ideas can only be expressed in dense, convoluted text. 

Here's my reader's digest take:

Basically, it refers to one take on Hegel's theory of history.   Hegel thought that history progresses from one major era to another through this process where a new idea comes on the scene, then there's chaos as society struggles to deal with it and then society reaches a stable point until a new major era begins. 

Marx took that idea, but refined it with a "materialist" or economic foundation based analysis.  Basically, the stages of history are defined by the economic relations.  So, feudalism was defined by the agriculture of the middle ages, the industrial revolution period was defined by factory labor, etc.  So, within that theory one might say, the industrial revolution was the key inciting event, the labor clashes and unionism were the resulting chaos and the stasis was the building of the welfare state. 

Marxist probably have 10 million problems with that quick dirty explanation, but there you go.
Logged
They put it to a vote and they just kept lying
20RP12
Atlas Superstar
*****
Posts: 38,236
United States


Political Matrix
E: -5.29, S: -7.13

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #6 on: September 21, 2014, 08:30:26 PM »

No (liberal)
Logged
Lief 🗽
Lief
Atlas Legend
*****
Posts: 44,876


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #7 on: September 21, 2014, 08:30:52 PM »

^^^Right, that's what I thought it was, but then I read the Wikipedia article and it sounds like they're talking about a completely different (and totally unintelligible) other thing.
Logged
Chancellor Tanterterg
Mr. X
Moderators
Atlas Star
*****
Posts: 26,201
United States


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #8 on: September 21, 2014, 08:33:09 PM »

For some reason it always makes me think of these guys:

Logged
Clarko95 📚💰📈
Clarko95
YaBB God
*****
Posts: 3,590
Sweden


Political Matrix
E: -5.61, S: -1.96

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #9 on: September 21, 2014, 08:51:48 PM »

Don't understand it, but heard of it. My mom is from India, and had to read a small pamphlet on it in her high school economics class in the early-1980s when India was trying a balancing act between the US and the USSR, and thus the system exposed students to both capitalist and communist ideology to promote understanding.

The thing is still in one of the bookcases in our basement. It's like 60 pages long and typed in a really weird font.
Logged
FEMA Camp Administrator
Cathcon
Atlas Star
*****
Posts: 27,284
United States


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #10 on: September 21, 2014, 09:00:56 PM »

The thing is still in one of the bookcases in our basement. It's like 60 pages long and typed in a really weird font.

Are you sure that weird font isn't just a different language (Indian, perhaps)?
Logged
Vosem
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 15,624
United States


Political Matrix
E: 8.13, S: -6.09

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #11 on: September 21, 2014, 09:02:12 PM »

I thought I did until I followed a link to that Wikipedia article.
Logged
ElectionsGuy
Atlas Star
*****
Posts: 21,107
United States


Political Matrix
E: 7.10, S: -7.65

P P
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #12 on: September 21, 2014, 10:18:21 PM »

Option 3 (normal)
Logged
Snowstalker Mk. II
Snowstalker
Atlas Star
*****
Posts: 20,414
Palestinian Territory, Occupied


Political Matrix
E: -7.10, S: -4.35

P P P
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #13 on: September 21, 2014, 10:47:09 PM »

Bedstuy's come the closest in this thread (never thought I'd say that!) but yeah, still very (and understandably) simplified. Admittedly I started doing heavy reading of key Marxist text a couple months ago.
Logged
IceSpear
Atlas Superstar
*****
Posts: 31,841
United States


Political Matrix
E: -6.19, S: -6.43

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #14 on: September 22, 2014, 12:38:08 AM »

No (normal)
Logged
anvi
anvikshiki
YaBB God
*****
Posts: 4,400
Netherlands


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #15 on: September 22, 2014, 05:53:35 AM »
« Edited: September 22, 2014, 06:05:41 AM by anvi »

Wow, that wiki article really does suck.

Bedstuy's formulation is right.  I'll take my own crack at it.  First tackling dialectics and then dialectical materialism.  

Hegel invents a modern (19th century) conception of dialectics in order to explain the development of philosophy through history.  Dialectics in Hegel's sense basically means how one set of ideas or philosophical worldview necessarily follows from an earlier one, in an effort to resolve the contradictions or encapsulate the perspective of the latter.  By necessity, too, the social forms, religion, art, culture, political society ect. of every age are shaped by the ideas that give rise to them.  But, as history proceeds, the foregoing philosophical worldview, or its predominant grounding assumptions, are always supplanted (though partly preserved too) by the new set of ideas that envelopes them.  From this ongoing development of ideas, new social and political forms develop.  This is Hegel's dialectics of history, in which human beings are primarily Geist, "mind," "spirit," and it is their ideas, and a kind of necessary logical development of those ideas, that give rise to the kinds of social and political lives they live.

Marx, though he admired the basic idea of dialectics as necessary development through history, believed, in contrast to Hegel, that human beings are not essentially thinkers, but producers.  Before anything else, in order to survive at all, human beings need to fulfill material needs.  And so, any analysis of history must begin with an understanding of what human beings make to survive and thrive, how they make what they need, and how they organize their societies in order to achieve the desired production.  A historical age's or given society's philosophical worldview develops out of their material needs, out of the ways that they manage their material production and how they organize their society to make what they need and then want.  In Hegel, dialectics begins with ideas, but for Marx, it begins with material needs.  For Marx, then, there is a necessary (dialectical) relation between social forms and ideas, but that relation starts from the material conditions of production, which in turn give rise to social structures, and only then are ideas and philosophies formulated that rationalize or explain that production. This is dialectical materialism.
Logged
dead0man
Atlas Legend
*****
Posts: 46,080
United States


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #16 on: September 22, 2014, 06:16:10 AM »

The "talks" page at the wiki for it is HILARIOUS!  Full of veryseriouspeople bickering about, well, everything and nothing at the same time.
Logged
RR1997
Sr. Member
****
Posts: 2,997
United States


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #17 on: September 22, 2014, 06:44:37 AM »
« Edited: September 22, 2014, 10:29:26 PM by RR1997 »

The thing is still in one of the bookcases in our basement. It's like 60 pages long and typed in a really weird font.

Are you sure that weird font isn't just a different language (Indian, perhaps)?

"Indian" isn't a language. There are plenty of languages that are spoken in different regions of India (Hindi,the official language,Tamil, Telegu, etc.), but there is no one unified language of India called "Indian".

Sorry for going off topic, but I just felt the need to correct you.
Logged
Antonio the Sixth
Antonio V
Atlas Institution
*****
Posts: 57,964
United States


Political Matrix
E: -7.87, S: -3.83

P P
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #18 on: September 22, 2014, 09:56:11 AM »

In broad strokes, yes. I've always preferred dialectical idealism though.
Logged
Filuwaúrdjan
Realpolitik
Atlas Institution
*****
Posts: 67,609
United Kingdom


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #19 on: September 22, 2014, 10:10:52 AM »

I know it's a Marxist thing, but that is the complete and utter limit of my knowledge. I'd speculate something about man being driven solely by material goals, but then you have "dialectical" thrown in.

It basically means 'abracadabra'.
Logged
traininthedistance
YaBB God
*****
Posts: 4,547


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #20 on: September 22, 2014, 10:15:36 AM »

Foucault and Derrida are not only more relevant to the human condition, they're easier to understand.
Logged
Paul Kemp
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 6,230
United States
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #21 on: September 22, 2014, 10:17:26 AM »

I don't really have any desire to.
Logged
Filuwaúrdjan
Realpolitik
Atlas Institution
*****
Posts: 67,609
United Kingdom


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #22 on: September 22, 2014, 11:20:29 AM »

To elaborate: 'dialectical materialism' is infamous for meaning absolutely fyck all. It was essentially a magical incantation used by Communists to 'prove' that all of human history pointed towards the inevitable triumph of their beloved Soviet Union. As a theoretical term it is basically gibberish. Marx did not use the term himself (his understand of history, whatever can be said against it, was never that crude), and neither even did Engels.
Logged
TNF
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 13,440


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #23 on: September 22, 2014, 12:39:52 PM »

Yes (abnormal)
Logged
anvi
anvikshiki
YaBB God
*****
Posts: 4,400
Netherlands


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #24 on: September 22, 2014, 02:03:24 PM »

To elaborate: 'dialectical materialism' is infamous for meaning absolutely fyck all. It was essentially a magical incantation used by Communists to 'prove' that all of human history pointed towards the inevitable triumph of their beloved Soviet Union. As a theoretical term it is basically gibberish. Marx did not use the term himself (his understand of history, whatever can be said against it, was never that crude), and neither even did Engels.

Certainly true regarding how the Soviets used the expression.  Also true that Marx never employed the whole expression, and his view of history is not deterministic to nearly the degree that it's been portrayed.  He did talk about his "dialectical method" and its "materialistic basis" though, and this in contrast to Hegel.  Anyway, I don't really care about it.  The fact that there are three threads up about it now is ...well...Atlas.
Logged
Pages: [1] 2  
« previous next »
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Terms of Service - DMCA Agent and Policy - Privacy Policy and Cookies

Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Page created in 0.06 seconds with 14 queries.