The More They Say "Dialectics," the Less Dialectical They Are

 

 

A good rule of thumb about leftist intellectuals: the more they use the word "dialectics," the less dialectical their thinking is.

I'm thinking of the type of people with whom you might have the following conversation:

You: This economic plan doesn't make sense, because of X, Y, and Z. 

Them: Well, that's because you're failing to consider ~*dialectics*~.

Think about how this sounds to a person who doesn't have the same worldview that you have.  In other words, think about how it sounds to a non-Marxist. It sounds a lot like how Christians sound, when they say things like, "This part of the Bible may not sound historically accurate, or it may sound like it contradicts other parts of the Bible, but what you have to keep in mind is that the Bible has a different epistemological and ontological meaning to the truly faithful.  So pledge yourself fully to this now, and afterwards it will make perfect sense."  Which in turn sounds a bit like Nancy Pelosi's notorious remark that "We need to pass the bill in order to find out what's in it," or like the cryptocurrency huckster's promise that "This coin may be worthless now, but if you pay me $1000 for it, it will be worth $1000."

People often use "dialectics" as a magic wand, with which they wave away all negative thoughts.  They are using the word as if it instantly explains the unexplained and thus renders them immune from all criticism.  It's a protective forcefield, which props up and protects their dogmatism.

What is dialectics?  Etymologically, the word means "conversation" - dialektike techne is the art of discourse.  The "dia" in dialectic means "between," "across," or "through," and is probably derived from an ancient Indo-European root that means "two."  Dialectical materialism could thus be contrasted with monological materialism, in which only one viewpoint is allowed to be expressed or considered.

But people who use the word "dialectics" the way I described above are using it to shut down the conversation - to use a mode of expression so vague as to be impenetrable, and adamantly so.  They use the word as a weapon, to establish a hierarchy, in which some perspectives - the "dialectical" perspectives - are privileged above others, the "undialectical" or "vulgar" perspectives.  (Of course, it just so happens that the privileged perspectives often correspond to those who have access to higher education and/or credentials granted by bourgeois institutions.)  They also may use other pejoratives, such as "mechanical," or "mechanistic," or "scientistic," and so on.  And if you object to their pronouncements with some logical, critical thought, to their minds, this only confirms how "scientistic" you are being - how reliant you are on "instrumental reason," etc..  You're just being a negative nancy!

Those who use the word "dialectics" as a crutch, to explain away every inconsistency in their own ideology, are in effect using it to banish negativity, to use "the power of positive thinking."  Merely saying the word "dialectics" does not actually do the work of synthesizing an apparent contradiction - it merely covers contradictions up and fails to engage with them in any rational way.  In a word, they are merely engaging in the practice of mystification.

The most dialectical thinkers almost never use the word "dialectics."  Among many other laudable qualities, this statement has the virtue of being true. Take Hegel.  Hegel, the paradigmatic dialectical thinker, hardly ever uses the word "dialectics" in all of his writings, and when he did, he had very interesting things to say.

One of the very few times that Hegel uses the term is in Section 9 of the Preface to the first edition of the Science of Logic.  Here he explains that "Reason is negative and dialectical, because it resolves the determinations of the understanding into nothing."  He goes on to explain that "It is the negative, that which constitutes the quality alike of dialectical reason and of understanding; it negates what is simple, thus positing the specific difference of the understanding; it equally resolves it and is thus dialectical.  But it does not stay in the nothingness of this result but in the result is no less positive, and in this way it has restored what at first was simple, but as a universal which is within itself concrete [...] I maintain that it is this self-construing method alone which enables philosophy to be an objective, demonstrated science."

Any time a person claims to be thinking dialectically, one should ask oneself: have they resolved the determinations of the understanding into nothing?  Have they stopped there?  Or have they restored the original determination of the understanding as a universal?  And this universal - is it, within itself, concrete?  Or is it a vague abstraction?  Has it been demonstrated?  Is it objective?  Is it scientific?  If the answer is no to any of these questions, then the person is not thinking dialectically, no matter what they may claim.

In a single word, 99 out of 100 times, such people are failing to think dialectically, because they are being insufficiently negative.

Or, let's turn to Marx.  Like Hegel, Marx hardly ever used the word "dialectics" or "dialectical" in all of the thousands of pages of his theory.  He certainly never used it as a crutch, to explain anything (or, I should say, to refuse to explain anything).  In the main body of his economic and political theory, he doesn't use the term dialectics at all, preferring instead to use his famous examples about yards of linen to explain his formulations of surplus value.

The most important time he does use the term "dialectics," in fact, is in the Afterword to the second German edition of Capital (1873), when he is responding to a critic of the first edition who wrote for the European Messenger of St. Petersburg, who accuses Marx's method of presentation of being "German-dialectical".  Marx gives the now-famous reply:

My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of “the Idea,” he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of “the Idea.” With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.

The mystifying side of Hegelian dialectic I criticised nearly thirty years ago, at a time when it was still the fashion. [...] The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.

Marx goes on: 

In its mystified form, dialectic became the fashion in Germany, because it seemed to transfigure and to glorify the existing state of things. In its rational form it is a scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaire professors, because it includes in its comprehension and affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time also, the recognition of the negation of that state, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary.

The crucial point here is the practice of imminent critique: that is to say, rather than criticism from some external point of view, a critique on the basis of the very presuppositions and criteria of the worldview that is to be critiqued.  Conservative political positions, if they are to be critiqued, must be critiqued from the very perspective of conservatism.  Bourgeois economics must be shown to fail on the very basis of the principles of bourgeois economics.  Religion, if it is to be critiqued, must be shown to fail according to its own religious principles.  And so on.  In each domain, for an effective critique to be performed, it has to be achieved within the domain's own terms.  Adding vague vocabulary words from some other domain, like "dialectics," will not help, and only muddies the waters.

So, if you are tempted to use the word "dialectics," I urge you to pause and think about how else you might express what you have to say.  A dialectical Marxist intellectual is one who writes in a way that will be convincing to a non-Marxist.  To write dialectically is to write in conversation with a viewpoint other than your own.  A dialectician is a person who writes and speaks for the benefit of people who do not think dialectically, and in a manner which will be comprehensible to them.  To think dialectically is, therefore, to learn to think non-dialectically.