What the fuck is the dialectic?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > What the fuck is the dialectic?

BrutalistMcDonalds: Oct 4, 2012; Lipstick Apathy

quote:

The most ambitious accounts of history in the 19th century were Hegel�s and Marx�s, which described the structure in terms of �dialectics,� or opposites that were reconciled at a higher level in the next phase: conflicting cultures or classes or spirits of the age that were merged and transcended at the dawn of the next period, which in turn generated a new conflict or tension.

For example, Marx described the feudal economy as generating a conflict between lord and serf that was finally overcome by the rise of bourgeois capitalism, which in turn gave rise to a conflict between owners and workers that would inevitably lead to communism. Hegel looked on the Romantic art of his time as a synthesis and transcendence of symbolist or iconic art (Egyptian, for example) and classical Greek and Renaissance styles, overcoming the apparent opposition between reason and passion or reason and subjectivity. Both of them, like Fukuyama, thought that the whole thing was leading toward some kind of ecstatic or at least satisfactory end-state.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/19/opinion/how-would-you-draw-history.html

# ¿ Apr 8, 2019 12:19

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 15:40

BrutalistMcDonalds: Oct 4, 2012; Lipstick Apathy

applying it to more current events, i'd look at something like the cold war. the U.S. "won" the cold war and 20th century state planning was defeated, but the capitalism that emerged from that conflict is different than the kind that entered it. it's almost like a kind of "planned capitalism" nowadays, operating on an enormous scales and with predictable orders between the same buyers and sellers, with large corporations knowing what people will buy before they even buy it, with just-in-time delivery made possible by algorithms that were originally developed to guide ICBMs over the north pole. now they're guiding amazon's drone motherships.

so there's a new dialectical conflict emerging out of that. this guy should've been happy the U.S. came out on top, but he isn't:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj12LaDvwKA

i've got more thoughts on this as babby tries to apply dialectical materialism to today.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2019 12:25

BrutalistMcDonalds: Oct 4, 2012; Lipstick Apathy

dialectical analysis time!

i think a lot of people here see that the madness of U.S. politics is because both political parties are bought by big business and that serves to obscure class divisions, but they have a hard time putting it into words. i would start by looking at the parties as not just being bought by big business, but by fractions of big business rooted in different economic sectors that are co-dependent (they need each other) but have a different interests that conflict.

the modern capitalist economy is a value chain in which resources are pulled out of the ground, turned into commodities (manufacturing), and then bought and sold on the marketplace and then serviced after they are sold. this goes from agriculture to mining, oil and gas drilling, up to manufacturing and logistics to move the stuff from A to Z, to the large corporate office towers to manage and provide the finance to everything including the advertising and the "human resources" involved to make production more efficient. as in material production, so as in intellectual production as well as with schools and universities, and research and development for new products and services -- all of this creates new wants and desires, and as products move up the value chain, they become more valuable.

the democrats used to be the party of organized labor, but have over the course of decades moved away from that and have become concentrated in cities and represented by service-sector industries including education, "creative class" types, technology, government workers, media, entertainment, technology in silicon valley, etc. the republicans' base of support is in extractive industries: coal and steel, oil and gas, logging, large-scale ranching interests (here in texas) and rural landowners, real estate, and increasingly manufacturing. there's a lot of overlap in some sectors (finance). but one difference is that services often operate on global scales. primary sector industries are often rooted in particular places. oil can only come out of the ground in specific places. these industries can also face greater risks on the global marketplace.

now there's also a distinction in marxism between the "base" and "superstructure." the material base shapes and is maintained by the cultural, social and political superstructure (but the base is dominant).

this is the main reason why the succdems prefer technocratic solutions which derive from their respective material base. not redistribution, but "innovation" in the delivery of services. healthcare is still a commodity, but you are required to buy health insurance. instead of a job guarantee, wage improvements, or strengthening of organized labor in terms of collective bargaining, you have "job training." instead of univeral higher education, your student loans are deferred if you create a tech startup. schools are also privatized and turned into "charter schools."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rMVNC5l4IM

regrettably, one of the outcomes of this structure is people resorting to the subjective (social) prejudices that arise from their respective material bases to explain what has gone wrong. they look for scapegoats as "neoliberal shill, coastal elitist, technocrat dandy" bob chipman does here, locating the problem in people who are not "innovative" like him:

https://twitter.com/the_moviebob/status/1113673760790523904
he senses that there is a division in society, but he has a whiggish and linear view of history -- we're always marching toward progress. the "deplorables" in the countryside are just holding it back. but he doesn't see how the people who are "creating" new tastes in the cities are dependent on the resources and manufacturing in trump country. this is because he has no material analysis, and is basically just another bigot.

the same resorting to prejudices also goes for the right, with its focus on exclusion of those "not round 'round here" such as immigrants and perceived threats to the patriarchal and ethnic social order (gender also plays an important role here). americans working in "rooted" industries tied to particular places resort to scapegoating people who are different. immigrants should be deported or their subordination intensified. gender roles should be reinforced, not weakened by this ocean of threats ranging from "soyboys" to trans people. instead of expanding "access to" resources through "innovation," they will literally wall off "access to" resources. like their succdem counterparts, redistribution is never discussed. racial / cultural nationalism binds them (subjectively) to the owners of large industries that dominate rural and exurban america.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4RKH3DRmr0

but without the people in the cities adding value to all this stuff, their industries would stagnate and decline. this is the contradiction.

i should note that this is very simplified and i'm also still trying to understand it. i'd note that a lot of working class people simply do not vote *ever* and that voters are disproportionately comprised of the managerial sectors of these industries. it's not necessarily the worker but the assistant manager of the propane company in amarillo, texas who loves trump. it's the HR manager at the tech office who will donate to beto o'rourke. that's my impression, although i think a lot of working-class people are basically aligning behind these subjective interests / identities and not their objective class interests because they have no class consciousness, because there is a lot of money and powerful interests -- including the police -- working to keep it that way in a bourgeois republic "where humbug reigns supreme" as marx put it.

BrutalistMcDonalds has issued a correction as of 14:17 on Apr 8, 2019

# ¿ Apr 8, 2019 13:27

BrutalistMcDonalds: Oct 4, 2012; Lipstick Apathy

someone else should do this vis-a-vis brexit because i'm not british and haven't followed it closely enough, but the contradictions trapping theresa may are deliciously dialectical. supremacy of the subjective interests of particular social formations (and privileging the "nation") over the objective interests of the market which likewise destroys the united kingdom as a country by fragmenting it internally... a renewed drive for scottish independence and a potential ignition of hostilities in northern ireland... this is an analytical snack

# ¿ Apr 8, 2019 14:26

BrutalistMcDonalds: Oct 4, 2012; Lipstick Apathy

Victory Position posted:

sticky the thread, immediately

BrutalistMcDonalds continues to be the poster of our times

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SN0pSMsvpM

# ¿ Apr 8, 2019 19:45

BrutalistMcDonalds: Oct 4, 2012; Lipstick Apathy

dr. rummel = thesis

mr. snuff = antithesis

rummelsnuff = synthesis

https://twitter.com/Rummelsnuff/status/946218002852261888

# ¿ Apr 8, 2019 19:50

BrutalistMcDonalds: Oct 4, 2012; Lipstick Apathy

# ¿ Apr 8, 2019 19:51

BrutalistMcDonalds: Oct 4, 2012; Lipstick Apathy

animist posted:

A dialectic is when you slam two terrible ideas together to create something even Worse

it's something failsons like me made up to sound smart!

# ¿ Apr 8, 2019 21:57

BrutalistMcDonalds: Oct 4, 2012; Lipstick Apathy

Finicums Wake posted:

the thesis/antithesis/synthesis schema never comes up in hegel (or marx iirc) and isnt, imo, the best way to try to simplify dialectical thinking. or, at least, i always found that framing of it more confusing than just reading marx and trying to apply his conceptual categories and their relations to other stuff i read about

yeah i'm just kinda making it up as i go along tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4sEcIHG0Yc

# ¿ Apr 9, 2019 02:48