Internet
Explorer 11 will no longer play the videos I have posted to this page or
this site. As far as I can determine they play as intended in other browsers.
However, if you have
Privacy Badger [PB] installed, they won't play in Google Chrome unless you
disable PB for this site.
Having said that,
they play in IE11 if you have
upgraded to Windows 10. It looks like the problem is with earlier
versions of that operating system.
If you are using Internet Explorer 10 (or later), you might find some of the
links I have used won't work properly unless you switch to 'Compatibility View'
(in the Tools Menu); for IE11 select 'Compatibility View Settings' and add this
site (anti-dialectics.co.uk). Microsoft's browser,
Edge, automatically
makes these links compatible; Windows 10 does likewise. I haven't been able to check this yet, but I imagine
the same is the case with Windows 11.
However, if you are using Windows 10,
E11 and Edge seem to
colour
links at this site somewhat erratically. They are meant to be mid-blue, but those two browsers render them
intermittently light blue, yellow, purple or even red!
Firefox and Chrome appear to reproduce them as intended.
Readers will find the
Essays published at
this site contain the most detailed and comprehensive demolition of
Dialectical Materialism [DM] in the entire history of revolutionary
socialism.
And that is no exaggeration!
Exactly why I embarked on this
project is explained here.
However, it is important to add that nothing
at this site represents an attack on Historical Materialism [HM] -- a theory I fully accept --, or,
indeed,
revolutionary socialism.
I remain as committed to the
self-emancipation of the working class and the dictatorship of the proletariat
as I was when I first became a revolutionary thirty-five years ago.
That
puts the lie to the
accusation bandied about by DM-supporters that those who abandon their
theory/'method' soon abandon Marxism.
The
difference between
DM
and HM is explained
here.
Two very brief introductions to some
of the main ideas presented this site can be found further down the
page,
here and
here.
A short summary of some of my main
objections to DM -- written with absolute
beginners in mind -- can be accessed
here.
A longer summary of my case against
DM can be found
here.
Some readers have complained about the number
of links I have added to the Essays posted
at this site; they say it makes them difficult
to read. Of course, DM-supporters can hardly lodge that complaint since they
believe everything is interconnected and that must surely apply to
anything that
attempts to debunk that
very idea.
However, to those who find these links do make
these Essays difficult to read I say this: ignore them! Unless, of course, you want to access
further supporting evidence and argument for a particular point or a
specific
topic fires your interest.
Others wonder why I have added links to subjects
or topics that are part of common knowledge (such as the names of recent Presidents of the
USA, UK Prime Ministers, the names of rivers and mountains, films, or certain
words in common use). I have done so for the following reason: my Essays
are read all over the world by people from all 'walks of life', so I can't
assume that topics which are part of common knowledge in 'the west' are equally
well-known across the planet -- or, indeed, by those who haven't had the benefit
of the sort of education that is generally available in the 'advanced economies',
or any at
all. Some of my readers also struggle with English, so any help I can give them
I will continue to provide.
Several of the aforementioned links
connect to
web-pages that regularly change their
URLs,
or which even vanish from the Internet altogether. While I endeavour to update or
remove any such links when it becomes apparent they have changed or have died, I
can't possibly keep on top of
this all the time. I would greatly appreciate it, therefore, if readers
informed me
of any incorrect or dead links they happen to notice.
In general,
Haloscan
links no longer seem to work, so readers needn't tell me about them! Links to
RevForum, RevLeft, Socialist Unity and The North Star also appear to have died.
Finally, I have adjusted the font
size at this site to ensure that even those with impaired vision
can read what I have to say.
If it is still either too
big or too small for you, please adjust your browser settings!
According to sources at
Marxism 2007, in response to a challenge that dialecticians
use obscure jargon concocted by ruling-class hacks over the last 2300
years in order to try to make their theory
work,
John Rees alleged that this site
also uses technical language.
Sure, some technical terminology
has been used at this site, but
this is merely a shorthand device; every such term has been
paraphrased in ordinary language (as
Marx himself enjoined of us). This can't
be said of the obscure jargon employed by dialecticians.
[What was that again about truth being tested in
practice...?]
However,
comrades can read a summary of the above events,
along with the original
intervention at Marxism 2007 (made by a supporter of this site)
--
here.
I recently
had a letter concerning Marx and Hegel published in
Socialist Worker.
Two
comrades replied, but my second response wasn't published.
Read the entire correspondence, and more,
here.
And here is another
letter I sent to the above paper; they didn't publish
that, either.
Here is yet another letter I sent in June 2008, which
they failed to publish, too.
In August
2008, a supporter of this site sent a letter to
Socialist Review, which
the editor
decided not to publish. You can read it
here.
In November 2008, the same
supporter sent another letter to
Socialist Review in response to
an
article on dialectics by John Rees.
The editor chose not to publish it, either. You can read that letter
here.
A comrade replied to my
letter; you can read the original letter, his reply and my response -- Engels
And Mickey Mouse Science --
here.
July 2012: A
supporter of this site sent a letter to Socialist Worker, which they
chose not to print. You can read it
here,
and then try to guess why the editors declined to publish it.
October 2012: The same supporter sent a couple
of letters to the editors of Socialist Review and Socialist Worker
in response to two articles about John Molyneux's new book, The Point Is To
Change It: Introduction To Marxist Philosophy.
They chose not to publish either of them (no
surprise there, then!). They can both be accessed
here.
Anyone trying to view these Essays with
Mozilla Firefox might find that some of the
symbols I have used won't show up on their screens;
in addition, the page formatting might change rather erratically.
The editor I have
used to write this material is Microsoft's FrontPage 2003,
which doesn't seem to 'like' Firefox.
I have spent the last year
completely re-writing and re-structuring Essay Three
Part Two,
Essay Five
and Essay Twelve
Part One, posting the changes as they happen.
They should all be finished by the early autumn.
After that, I aim to publish an
entirely new Essay -- i.e., Twelve Part Four -- DM And Linguistic Idealism --
Is Nature Rational? That should be ready by early 2025, possibly before.
Following that, I hope to be
able to publish Essay Thirteen Part Two (which will be about the nature of
science and its relation to DM) before the end of 2025.
August 2023:
I have finally completed the
systematic re-write of Essay Eleven Part One --
The 'Totality':
WTF Is it? -- which re-write began in June 2022!
It has taken this long because
several illnesses slowed me down and because of the highly unsatisfactory nature
of the original Essay. I have explained the reasons for the latter (defect) in the
Preface.
Approximately 114,000 words of
new material have been added (which is the equivalent of adding a 230
page book to the old Essay!), making it 111% longer than it was. This is now one
of the longest and most substantial Essays published at this site. It also
represents easily the most comprehensive and extensive re-configuration of any
of these Essays in the 25 years I have been writing them.
The Essay itself deals with two
core DM-concepts, about which their proponents have written surprisingly little:
"Totality" and "Universal Inter-connection". It is no exaggeration to
assert that
if everything written about those two topics -- taken from right
across Dialectical Marxism -- were to be gathered together and collated in a
single book, it would contain fewer than five thousand words, most of
which material would be highly superficial, mind-numbingly repetitive
and contain countless quotations from the DM-classics, none of which make
either concept any the clearer!
Why that
is so is hard to fathom given the key role these two concepts are
said to occupy in Dialectical Marxism.
Any who find that hard to
believe should click on the above link where their qualms will soon be laid to
rest.
July 2023:
Once more, the re-write of Essay
Eleven Part One --
The 'Totality':
WTF Is it? -- is taking far longer than I had imagined. It should be
ready to publish by the end of August.
May 2023:
Once again, I had hoped to complete the
re-write of Essay Eleven Part One --
The 'Totality':
WTF Is it? -- by the end of March, but two serious illnesses
prevented me from doing that.
I now hope to have it published
by the end of June!
January 2023:
I had hoped to complete the
re-write of Essay Eleven Part One --
The 'Totality':
WTF Is it? -- by Xmas, but that hasn't proved possible. It will very
likely take another two months to finish, by which time it will easily be the most
comprehensive and radical re-write that any of my Essays have undergone in the
last twenty
years! That is partly why it is taking so long; in fact I have been re-writing
it now since June 2022!
It will be at least 60,000
words longer that it was a year ago.
In each case, I have clarified
my argument and corrected few errors and typos. Both are about 1% longer.
Over the last five months I have
also been completely re-writing and re-organising Essay Eleven Part One --
The 'Totality':
WTF Is it?
That is taking far longer to
complete than I had hoped, but it should be finished by Xmas.
September 2022:
07/09/22: I have just finished
re-writing Essay One --
Why I Began This Project. I have clarified the
argument, corrected a few errors and typos and added about 1000 words of new
material, making it about 2% longer.
I am also in the process of
completely re-writing and re-organising Essay Eleven Part One --
The 'Totality':
WTF Is it?
It should be ready to publish in
the next week or so.
The above is one of the most
technically complicated and difficult Essays published at this site, and I was
unhappy with my previous attempts to make what I wanted to say crystal clear.
That is why it has taken so long to re-write it. I have corrected many errors
(large and small), greatly clarified the argument and added over 30,000 words of
new material, making it approximately 34% longer.
January 2022:
28/01/22: The Basic Introductory
Essay --
Why I Oppose Dialectical Materialism -- has
just been re-written to make the argument even clearer. I have also corrected a
few errors and typos. It is now just over 1000 words (i.e., approximately 2%)
longer.
16/01/22: I have just spent the last three
months completely re-writing, re-formatting and reorganising Essay Eight Part
Two --
Why Opposing Forces Aren't Contradictions.
I have added 26,300 words of new
material, making it approximately 23% longer I have also greatly clarified and strengthening my
arguments. I have also corrected a few errors and typos.
I have added 8400 words of new
material, making it approximately 17% longer, clarifying and strengthening my
argument. I have also corrected a few errors and typos.
I have clarified the argument, corrected a few errors and typos,
adding just over 4500 words of new material, making it just short of 7% longer.
02/08/21: I have just posted a
complete re-write, re-organisation and re-format of Essay Seven Part One --
Engels's Three 'Laws' Of Dialectics Debunked.
I have added 13,600 words of new material, which makes it 6.9% longer. I have
also clarified my argument, and corrected a few errors and typos.
July 2021
16/07/21: The
Introductory Essay,
which explains why I began this project back in 1998, has just been re-written.
I have added about 2000 words of new material (making it approximated 5%
longer). I have also clarified the argument, and corrected a few errors and
typos.
Incidentally, John Rees, the
author of the book that originally motivated me to begin this project, has just
blocked me on Twitter for daring to question this failed theory of his.
I merely note that Rees, who
has been at the forefront of the campaign to free Julian Assange on the grounds
that his imprisonment threatens press freedom and free speech, can't
tolerate any of it on his Twitter timeline.
An ironic 'Unity of Opposites'
for readers to ponder.
Finally, I am about 3/4s of the
way through a complete re-write and re-format of Essay Seven Part One --
Engels's Three 'Laws' Of Dialectics Debunked-- which should be completed in
the next couple of weeks.
(i) How the ideas that infuse
Dialectical Materialism recapitulate dogmas that have motivated the theories of
ruling-class hacks since Ancient Greek times;
(ii) How and why Hegel's attempt
to derive his theory from a superficial consideration the verb 'to be' -- a
failing that was seriously compounded by
an insecure grasp even of Aristotelian Logic -- led him astray;
(iii) That DM therefore enjoys
zero rational support; and, finally,
I have also clarified the
argument, corrected a few errors and typos and added just under 2500 words of
new material, making this Essay approximately 9% longer.
07/05/21: I have just finished
re-writing Essay Thirteen Part One --Lenin's
Disappearing Definition Of Matter -- which largely concerns
Lenin's attempt of criticise the theories of various Subjective Idealists
and Empiricists in and around the Russian workers' movement of his day, as well
as defend his own theory of knowledge. I show how he fails to do both (without
in any way supporting Subjective Idealism and Empiricism on my part!), and in
the event how he ends up undermining his own commitment to materialism.
I have clarified and
strengthened my arguments, corrected a few errors and typos, and added just
under 5000 words of new material -- which makes the Essay approximately 7%
longer.
I haven't added much new
material, I have just clarified the arguments and corrected a few typos and
minor errors.
October 2020
04/10/20: I have just spent the
last six months (no exaggeration!) completely re-writing and restructuring Essay
Three Part Two --
Abstractionism -- 'Science' On The Cheap
-- which is aimed at
showing that dialecticians' use of traditional theories of abstraction in fact
undermine their entire theory/method.
I have greatly clarified the
argument, corrected several mistakes, errors and typos, and added just over
33,000 words of new material making the Essay 37% longer.
July 2020
02/07/20: Over the last two
months I have been engaged in a long and fruitless debate with a fan of
'Systematic Dialectics' I met on Quora a year or so ago. I'm in the
middle of composing my latest reply to him,
here (which has
now been completed).
April 2020
01/04/20: I have once again
re-written Essay Four Part One -- Formal Logic Can Handle Change,
adding approximately 4300 words of new material, which makes it 3.6%
longer. I have again slightly reorganised the Essay, clarified the argument and corrected several
serious errors and
minor typos.
February 2020
10/02/20:
I have again
re-written Essay Four Part One -- Formal Logic Can Handle Change,
adding approximately 3300 words of new material, which makes it 2.8%
longer. I have also slightly reorganised the Essay, greatly clarified the argument and corrected several
serious errors and
minor typos.
January 2020
13/01/20: A close relative of
mine has spent the last two weeks converting my system to Windows 10,
which is one reason why there has been no activity on this site since late
December.
As noted above, if you are using
Edge, Windows 10 will render the links I have inserted in my
Essays (other than on this page!) several different colours. They should be dark
blue.
Firefox and Chrome
reproduce them correctly.
December 2019
16/12/19: Essay Three Part One
--
How Abstractionism Undermines Dialectics
-- has been completely re-written and re-organised. I have added just over
19,000 words of new material making it approximately 14% longer. I have also
corrected a few errors and typos and made the argument much clearer.
November 2019
10/11/19:
Essay Ten Part One:
Dialectical Materialism:
Refuted By Practice And History
has just been re-written and slightly re-structured. I have added
just short of 3500 words of new material, making it approximately 5%
longer. I have also corrected several errors and typos, and have
clarified my argument.
04/09/19: I wasn't too
happy with my last re-write of Essay Eight Part Three --Dialectical 'Logic' And Dialectical 'Contradictions'
Exposed As Incoherent
-- so I have re-written it once more. I have added another 3200 words of new
material, which means it is now about 4% longer. Again, I have corrected
several errors and typos as well as greatly clarifying the argument.
This Essay also contains the first detailed take-down of Michael
Kosok's lamentable attempt to 'formalise' Hegel's 'Logic'.
May 2019
01/05/19: Essay Five -- Motion Isn't
Contradictory -- has just been re-written and completely
re-organised. I have added about 6,000 words of new material (making it about 7%
longer), corrected a few errors and typos and clarified the argument.
February 2019
27/02/19: I have
just finished re-writing Essay Nine Part One --
Why Workers Will Always Reject
'Materialist Dialectics',
adding just over 2,000 words of new material, which makes the Essay about 2.6% longer. I have
also reorganised the Essay a little, clarified the argument and corrected a few errors and typos.
01/02/19:
I have again
re-written Essay Four Part One -- Formal Logic Can Handle Change,
adding approximately 6500 words of new material, which makes it 6%
longer. I have also slightly reorganised the Essay, clarified the argument and corrected several errors and
typos.
October 2018
I am having to move flats
since the owner of my flat defaulted on his mortgage and it was sold under his
feet.
There will be no more
updates for couple of months.
September 2018
03/09/18: I have now
re-written Essay Eleven Part One --
The
'Totality' -- WTF Is It?
I have added
approximately 4,000 words of new material, making it 4% longer. I have also made
my argument clearer and corrected several errors and typos.
July 2018
30/07/18: I have just
re-written and re-organised Essay Four Part One -- Formal Logic Can Handle Change.
I have added just over 5,000 words of new material, making it approximately 5%
longer. I have also made my argument clearer and corrected several errors and
typos.
04/06/18: I have
completely re-written and re-organised Essay Seven Part One --
Engels's Three 'Laws' Of Dialectics Debunked.
I have added 12,500 words of new material, making it approximately
7% longer, clarified the argument and corrected several errors and typos.
April 2018
24/04/18: Essay Ten Part
One -- Dialectical Materialism:
Refuted By Practice And History
-- has just been re-written. I have added approximately 4,200 words
of new material (making it just under 6% longer), and corrected a few errors and
typos.
I have corrected several
errors and typos in both, adding approximately 6300 words of new material to
Essay Two (making it just under 5% longer) and about 5000 words of new material
to Four Part One (making it also about 5% longer).
February 2018
14/02/18: I have just
published two more instalments in my long-running reply to a Confused
Marxist-Leninist, who posted two largely incoherent videos which tried to
respond to an Introductory Essay of mine -- i.e., Refuting a Weak Attempt to
Refute Me 11 & 12. All my replies to this individual, including the latest
two, can be accessed
here.
09/02/18: Essay Thirteen
Part Three -- 'Mind', Language, And 'Cognition'
-- has been completely re-written and reorganised. I have clarified
the argument, corrected several typos and errors and added over 11,000 words of
new material, making it approximately 6% longer.
January 2018
25/01/18: Because it sets
up the other Essays at this site, I have completely re-written and re-organised
Essay Three Part One --
How Abstractionism Undermines
Dialectics.
It shows how core ideas Hegel dreamt up originated in Ancient Greek Metaphysics
and Medieval Theology (connected with the re-configuration of subject-predicate
sentences as identity propositions), and how this abstract approach to knowledge
has totally undermined, not just Dialectical Materialism, but the language used
by dialecticians to explain their theory.
I have reorganised this
Essay, clarified the argument considerably, corrected several serious errors and
annoying typos, and have added approximately 7500 words of new material, making
it about 6% longer.
December 2017
18/12/17: Essay Eight Part
Two --
Why Opposing Forces Aren't Contradictions-- has just been
re-written. I have corrected several errors and typos, clarified the argument
and added approximately 12,000 words of new material, making it about 12%
longer.
04/12/17: I have just
re-written the opening Essay of this site -- Why I Began This
Project. The argument has been clarified, with 800 words of new
material added, making it approximately 2% longer.
November 2017
15/11/17: The second edition of Richard Seymour's excellent book about
Jeremy Corbyn was published last month:
05/11/17: Because of its
complexity, I have just re-written Essay Eleven Part Two: Dialectical Wholism -- Full Of Holes
I have clarified the argument, corrected a few errors and typos, and added 3,400
words of new material (making it approximately 5% longer).
October 2017
05/10/17: I have just re-written two
Essays:
(1) Essay Four Part
One: Formal Logic Can Handle Change.
I have completely re-designed this Essay and have also greatly clarified the
argument; I have also corrected a few errors and typos. Approximately 2,300
words of new material has been added, making it roughly 2.5% longer.
(2) Essay Five:
Why Motion Isn't Contradictory.
The argument has also been greatly clarified, and a few errors and typos
corrected. 3,500 words have been added, making it roughly 4% longer.
I have spent the last two
months re-writing the summaries of all the main Essays at this site, and I have
finished all but three of them. The re-written Essays can be accessed
here.
14/02/17: I have just
re-written Essay Three Part Two --
Abstractionism: 'Science' On The Cheap. I
have added approximately 8000 words of new material, making it about 10% longer.
I have also clarified the argument and corrected several errors and typos.
I have corrected a few
errors and typos and added just under 2000 words of new material, making it
approximately 2% longer.
December 2016
12/12/16:
Essay Five --
Why Motion Isn't Contradictory
has just been
re-written. I have clarified the argument considerably, corrected a few errors
and typos with just over 2500 words of new material, making it approximately 3%
longer.
November 2016
28/11/16: I have just
finished re-writing Essay Nine Part One --
Why Workers Will Always Reject
'Materialist Dialectics',
adding 8,000 words of new material making the Essay just over 12% longer. I have
also clarified the argument and corrected a few errors and typos.
12/11/16:
Essay Ten Part One --
Dialectical Materialism:
Refuted By Practice And History
has just be re-written and re-organised to make the argument clearer and run
more smoothly, adding approximately 6,000 words of new material, making it 8%
longer. I have also corrected a few errors and typos.
I am also in the middle of
replying to another largely incoherent video published by 'The
Finnish Bolshevik'. The first four of my responses can be accessed
here,
here,
here, and
here.
~~~~oOo~~~~
I am in the middle of
reformatting the Essays published at this site, replacing much of the garish red
font with black. I am also having to correct several other serious formatting
glitches mysteriously introduced by the editor I have used, Microsoft's
FrontPage. This should take another two or three weeks to complete.
August 2016
18/08/16: I have just
finished re-writing Essay Eight Part Two -- Why Opposing
Forces Aren't Contradictions --
adding just over 18,000 words of new material, making it approximately 22%
longer. I have also clarified the argument and corrected several errors and
typos.
In addition, I have
added a section on Immanuel Kant's attempt to
introduce 'real opposition'/'negation' into philosophy, which 'concept', we are
told, was integral to Hegel's own invention of 'dialectical contradictions'.
I have also critically
analysed
Tom Weston's attempt to link a throw-away
remark Marx added to Volume One of Das Kapital (about elliptical motion)
to Hegel's confused introduction of 'dialectical contradictions'.
I will say more about
Weston's ill-considered article in a later re-write of
Essay Nine Part
One.
13/08/16: A couple of
months ago I re-wrote Essay Six --
Trotsky And Hegel -- Or, How To Misconstrue The 'Law' Of Identity,
but on re-reading it, it was apparent that the argument wasn't as clear as it
could or should be.
I have now re-written it again, adding just under 3,000 words of new material, making it approximately
5%
longer still, greatly clarifying the argument and correcting several errors and
typos.
I have also clarified the argument and corrected several errors and
typos.
12/06/16: Last year, a
self-styled 'Marxist-Leninist' (who calls himself 'The Finnish Bolshevik' [TFB])
published a video at YouTube criticising an Essay I wrote some time ago
at the behest of one or two younger comrades who wanted a basic introduction to
my criticisms of DM. I subsequently published a reply to this video, but TFB has
now posted a second video at YouTube attempting to respond to a few of my
replies to him.
[Links to the first video
and my replies to it can be found at the above link.]
04/06/16: I have just finished re-writing Essay Four Part One -- Formal Logic And
Change.
I have added approximately 13,500 words of new material, making it roughly 17%
longer. I have also clarified the argument and corrected several errors and
typos.
May 2016
04/05/16: I have just finished re-writing Essay Six --
Trotsky And Hegel -- Or, How To Misconstrue The 'Law' Of Identity.
I have added just over 5,000 words of new material, making it approximately 11%
longer. I have also clarified the argument and corrected several errors and
typos.
04/05/16: Here's a new
book by Richard Seymour I can heartily recommend:
Up-to-date
analysis of how Corbyn rose to the head of the Labour Party, and
his prospects for staying there.
Jeremy
Corbyn, the 'dark horse' candidate for the Labour leadership,
won and won big. With a landslide in the first round, this
unassuming antiwar socialist crushed the opposition,
particularly the Blairite opposition.
For the first time in decades, socialism is back on the agenda
-- and for the first time in Labour’s history, it controls the
leadership. The party machine couldn't stop him. An almost
unanimous media campaign couldn't stop him. It is as if their
power, like that of the Wizard of Oz, was always mostly
illusion. Now Corbyn has one chance to convince the public to
support his reforming ambitions.
Where did he come from, and what chance does he have? This book
tells the story of how Corbyn's rise was made possible by the
long decline of Labour and a deep crisis of British democracy.
It surveys the makeshift coalition of trade unionists, young and
precarious workers, and students, who rallied to Corbyn. It
shows how a novel social media campaign turned the media's
'Project Fear' on its head, making a virtue of every accusation
they threw at him. And finally it asks, with all the artillery
that is still ranged against Corbyn, and given the crisis-ridden
Labour Party that he has inherited, what it would mean for him
to succeed.
April 2016
24/04/16:
I have just finished re-writing Essay Eleven Part Two --
Dialectical Wholism -- Full Of Holes.
I have added just over 3,000 words of new material, making it approximately 5%
longer. I have also clarified the argument and corrected several errors and
typos.
17/04/16: Having
re-written Essay Three Part One, I thought it wise to do the same to its sequel,
Essay Three Part Two --
Abstractionism: 'Science' On The Cheap. I
have added approximately 4000 words of new material, making it about 5% longer.
I have also clarified the argument and corrected several errors and typos.
02/04/16:
I have just finished re-writing Essay Three Part One --
How Abstractionism Undermines Language And Science. I have added just over
25,000 words of new
material, making it approximately 26% longer. I have also clarified the argument
and corrected several errors and typos.
However, the biggest
change is that I have added an Appendix which contains a detailed criticism of
an attempt to defend Hegel against criticisms advanced by
Bertrand Russell.
February 2016
10/02/16:
Essay Thirteen Part One --
Lenin's Disappearing Definition Of Matter
-- has just been re-written. I have added just over 3,000 words of new material,
making it approximate Ely 4% longer. I have also clarified the argument and
corrected several errors and typos.
02/02/16:
I have just finished re-writing Essay One -- Why I Began This
Project. I have added approximately 3,000 words of new
material, making it roughly 10% longer. I have also clarified the argument
and corrected several errors and typos.
January 2016
22/01/16:
I have just finished re-writing Essay Seven Part One -- Engels's
Three 'Laws' Debunked. I have added just over 15,000 words of new
material, making it approximately 10% longer. I have also clarified the argument
and corrected several errors and typos.
I have added just over 1000 words
of new material, making it approximately 2% longer. I have also made the argument
clearer and have corrected several errors and typos.
November 2015
27/11/15: I have just
finished yet another re-write of Essay Eleven Part One -- The 'Totality'
-- WTF Is It?
I have added just short of 14,000 words
of new material, making it approximately 12% longer. I have also made the argument
clearer and have corrected several errors and typos.
I have re-written this
Essay again so soon after the last re-write because, as I say in the preamble, I wasn't happy with the way I had approached this topic.
This means that it
will have to be re-jigged many more times before I am content with the end
product.
I have added 11,000 words
of new material, making it just over 10% longer. I have also made the argument
clearer and have corrected several errors and typos.
10/08/15: I recently
spotted an article in Weekly Worker written by Jack Conrad that attempted
to defend both DM and the traditional view that Marx and Engels were of one mind
when it came to that theory/method.
I wrote a 2000 word reply
which they published in edited form
as a letter.
I have added just over 6000 words of new material, making the Essay approximately
8% longer. I have
also clarified the argument, and corrected several mistakes and typos.
18/06/15: Over the last
three or four months my time has largely been occupied correcting the formatting
problems at this site (mentioned
above). That onerous task is now nearly complete.
The next Essay to be
published at this site -- devoted to DM and Science -- should appear before the
end of the year.
I have added just under 4000 words of new material, making the Essay approximately
6% longer. I have
clarified the argument, and corrected several mistakes and typos.
I have made the
argument clearer and added about 3000 words of new material, making the Essay
approximately 7% longer.
20/12/14: A few years ago
(and long before their
disastrous handling of rape allegations made
against a former leading member of the UK-SWP) I wrote a letter to Socialist
Worker about, would you believe, Gödel's theorem.
I made the point that
the results of that theorem should only be accepted by Platonists.
They chose not to publish
it.
Since then, I have been
regularly adding new material to a series of addendums to that letter. I have
now added the
latest batch of new material (which largely relates to a paper I have
just read that was written by a Professor of Mathematics concerning the
incoherence of the idea that there are, or could be, infinite sets).
I have added just over
5000 words of new material, making the Essay approximately 7% longer. I have
clarified the argument, and corrected several mistakes and typos.
November 2014
15/11/14: I have just
received a copy of
Henri Wald's seriously mis-titled
Introduction To Dialectical Logic. I would have obtained this work long ago,
but copies on the Internet were far too expensive. However, a few weeks ago, one
became available in my price range.
This book is, however, a
classic example of how not to introduce a topic, since it is full of
technical jargon and seems to have been written by someone who believes that if
a complicated and incomprehensible sentence can be substituted for simpler
words, then that on its own somehow elevates any thought it attempts to
communicate into a superior form of philosophy. This is typical of Traditional
Thought in this area, and, as several Essays published at this site show,
dialecticians are only
too keen to demonstrate how traditional and
conservative they are in
this respect.
Be this as it may, Wald
has made some attempt to respond to several criticisms I have levelled against
this ruling-class import into the workers' movement (clearly without any
knowledge of my work, since Wald's book was published long before I began to
write these Essays!). That being the case, over the next few months I will be
adding (to several of my Essays) a series of rebuttals to Wald's rather weak
attempt to defend this indefensible theory [DM].
I have made numerous small
changes, corrected several errors and typos -- as well as adding about 5000 words of new
material, making the Essay approximately 10% longer.
Nearly 5,000 words of new material
have been added (making the Essay approximately 7% longer), several
errors and typos have been corrected, and the argument has been clarified
throughout.
I have added just over
10,000 words of new material (making the Essay approximately 10% longer),
corrected several
errors and typos, and clarified the argument considerably.
I have added over
13,000 words of new material (making the Essay approximately 7% longer),
corrected several
errors and typos, and clarified the argument.
I have added just under
21,000
words of new material (making it approximately 28% longer), corrected several
errors and typos, and have made the argument much clearer.
I have added about 6500
words of new material (making it approximately 7% longer), corrected several
errors and typos, and have made the argument much clearer.
March 2014
23/03/2014: A
new book by a friend of mine has just been
published:
Here is the blurb from the
publishers website:
"Five years into
capitalism's deepest crisis, which has led to cuts and economic pain across the
world, Against Austerity addresses a puzzling aspect of the current
conjuncture: why are the rich still getting away with it? Why is
protest so ephemeral? Why does the left appear to be marginal to political life?
"In an analysis which challenges our understanding of capitalism, class and
ideology, Richard Seymour shows how 'austerity' is just one part of a wider
elite plan to radically re-engineer society and everyday life in the interests
of profit, consumerism and speculative finance.
"But Against Austerity is not a gospel of despair. Seymour argues that
once we turn to face the headwinds of this new reality, dispensing with
reassuring dogmas, we can forge new collective resistance and alternatives to
the current system. Following Brecht, Against Austerity argues that the
good old things are over, it's time to confront the bad new ones."
The following Essays
will be published at this site over the coming months and years; those inblue have already been published, those in crimson haven't:
These are
articles written by other anti-dialecticians who have developed some of
the ideas published at this site. Visitors shouldn't assume, however, that I
agree with everything they contain.
The above page contains links to forums on the web where I have 'debated' this creed
with other comrades.
For anyone interested: check out the desperate
'debating' tactics used by Dialectical Marxists in their attempt to respond to my ideas.
You
will no doubt notice that the vast majority all say the same sorts of things, and
most of them pepper their remarks with scatological and abusive language. They
all like to make things up, too, about me and my beliefs. [Here
is a particularly egregious recent example of the lies they spin.]
30+
years (!!) of this from the DM-fraternity has meant that I now take an
aggressive stance toward them every time. I soon learnt back in the 1980s that
being pleasant or restrained with them (my initial tactic) didn't alter in any
way their abusive tone,
their propensity to fabricate, nor reduce the amount of scatological language
they threw at me.
So,
these days, I generally go for the
jugular from the
get-go.
Apparently, they expect me to take their lies and abuse lying down, and regularly
complain about my "bullying" tactics.
Apparently, these DM-fans are
allowed to dish it out, but they
plainly can't take it.
[Several of the above sites/blogs are no
longer being updated!]
It is worth adding that I do not necessarily agree with everything
published at the above sites; indeed, John Molyneux's otherwise excellent
blog
endorses the very theory under attack here!
Unfortunately, that link is now dead
(since I think that magazine has folded), so I have re-posted
the interview
here. Someone else has also posted it
here.
Contrary to a widely held view on the
left, the above Essay shows that Wittgenstein wasn't a
conservative mystic. Hence, there is now no good reason why his ideas
shouldn't be given a fair hearing by revolutionaries.
However, readers would be wrong conclude from
its title that the above Essay is all about 'dialectics' and
its effect on Marxism.
It is just as much about the class origin of
the founders of our movement (as well as the class position of those who
currently control its ideas), as it is about that
theory.
As such it breaks entirely new ground -- as anyone who reads
it will soon
see -- providing for the first timeanywhere a historical materialist explanation why
our movement so often fails and why almost everything that we on the
Revolutionary Left touch sooner or later becomes corrupted, falls apart, and then turns to dust.
A much shorter version of the above Essay
can be accessed
here.
Ex-SWP members, who left the organisation
because of its disastrous handling of this crisis have set up their
own
website.
Unfortunately, the creeping Stalinism of
the SWP seems to have carried over into this new site, for my posts
there are now being
deleted.
[I was allowed one post, but my reply to
Andy Wilson (follow the above link) was deleted. In fact, I am now being
told: "You do not have permission to post in this thread",
even when I am not banging on about 'dialectics'!]
It seems that any old material
concerning the
thoughts of assorted latter-days
Neo-Platonists,
Hermeticists and bourgeois apriorists -- such as
Raya Dunayevskaya, Zizek, Freud,
Lacan,
Heidegger, or the Lenin of the Philosophical Notebooks
-- is welcome, but the comments of a comrade who challenges such
mysticism, aren't.
Another SWP break-away group have set up
their own much more successful website,
here.
~~~~oOo~~~~
July 2012: A supporter of this site sent a letter to Socialist Worker,
which they chose not to publish. You can read it
here.
October 2012: The same supporter sent a couple
of letters to the editors of Socialist Review and Socialist Worker
in response to two articles about John Molyneux's new book, The Point Is To
Change It: Introduction To Marxist Philosophy.
They chose not to publish either of them (no
surprise there!). Both can be accessed
here.
I have posted a few comments about John's book,
here. I will add
several more later this year.
Back in 2007, a
leading member of the CPGB (Jack Conrad) wrote an article in
Weekly Worker criticising a few of the ideas found at this
site, and expressed in an earlier
article of mine.
Initially, I was quite shocked at how superficial this important comrade's response was.
I was in fact banned for censuring a
handful of male comrades who seemed quite happy to use the 'c'
word -- which is ironic since Socialist Unity
at least pretends to be a supporter of feminism.
Neutral observers can, of course, draw their
own conclusions!
Apparently, Andy Newman, the big cheese over
there, doesn't want anyone to be reminded he was/is a
supporter of this mystical theory (Dialectical Materialism)
now that he is trying to cosy up to the Labour Party.
So, before I was banned, he regularly
deleted any comments of mine that alluded to his former
'philosophical' allegiances, no matter how mild or nuanced
they were.
Looks like Stalinism is
the default position of most DM-fans!
Unfortunately, all links to
Socialist Unity are now dead.
However, the first two
links above have preserved much of the aforementioned
'debate'.
Those who would like a
relatively short (but
very basic) introduction to the aims of this site should
read
the Introductory Essay: Why I Oppose
Dialectical Materialism.
I have now written this
much shorter, and even more basic, summary of some of my main objections to
Dialectical Materialism:
Anti-Dialectics
For Absolute Beginners.
There is also a
single
page précis
of some of my main objections to DM,
here.
That was in fact an
article I wrote for Weekly Worker (published in September 2007).
Those who would like
a more
detailed summary of my main
objections to Dialectical Materialism should begin
here.
The
Main Index to my
extended Essays can be found
here.
The complete
irrelevance of 'Materialist Dialectics' to the class struggle
is underlined in
these
dialogues (written and contributed by my
collaborator, 'Babeuf').
Unfortunately,
Babeuf has written no more dialogues, but a new blog posting similar
dialogues has just started up.
I regularly
check the internet to see if thesenumpties have had
another go at my ideas; sure enough they have. My
response is however PG-rated; sensitive souls might like to
avert their eyes. In fact, I am presumptuous enough to emulate
Lenin's approach to critics.
[Soon after, the individual
concerned resigned from the UK-SWP. I wonder if he still thinks
'truth is tested in practice'?]
This is a site which is
also devoted to
anti-dialectics, and which is well worth visiting -- if you speak
French -- although Google Translator should be able to
render it into English.
And
here's a Blog which argues
along lines similar to those explored at this site. While I
do not agree with everything this author says, much of it
strikes me as excellent.
Once again, please note that nothingposted at this site is intended to undermine Historical Materialism [HM] -- a theory I fully
accept -- or, indeed, revolutionary socialism. I remain as committed
to the self-emancipation of the working class and the dictatorship of the
proletariat as I was when I first became a revolutionary over thirty years
ago.
Dialectical Materialism
[DM] and 'Materialist
Dialectics' [MD] have been the official philosophies of active
revolutionary socialists for over a hundred and forty
years.
During that time
Dialectical Marxism has 'enjoyed' spectacularlack
of success.
[Note my use of the
term 'Dialectical Marxism' -- the non-dialectical version hasn't been road
tested yet. On the difference between HM and DM, see
here.]
Given the fact that
dialecticians assure us that truth is tested in practice, and that DM is the
main-spring of all they do, this can only mean that this 'theory' has been
tested and shown to fail.
However, not only is it virtually impossible for most
Dialectical Marxists to accept this negative picture of their own
disastrous history, it is more difficult still for them to blame it
even so much as partially on the
misbegotten theory they have inherited from Hegel (upside down or 'the right way
up').
In fact, it doesn't even make the
bottom of the reserve list of reasons.
This
must mean that
in a world where dialecticians claim that everything is inter-connected, the only
two things in the entire universe that are not inter-linked are the long-term
failure of Dialectical Marxism and its core theory, DM!
Unfortunately, such a denial means that
Dialectical Marxists never seem to learn from theirmistakes, they just blame their long-term failure on anything and everything else.
Naturally, that just leads
to
yet more failures and this abysmal cycle repeats year-after-year.
This site has been set up to
substantiate the above allegations, as well as to advance
several more -- among which are the following:
To avoid misunderstanding, my argument isn't as follows:
Dialectical Marxism has failed, therefore DM is false.
My argument is:
(1) DM makes
no sense whatsoever, so (2) No wonder it has failed us for so long.
This site is also aimed at establishing
point (1) so that (2) may safely be inferred from it.
Of course, highly
controversial claims like these require solid proof; that is why
the Essays posted at this site enter into such unprecedented detail.
Unfortunately, when I write short articles, dialecticians complain about their
"superficiality". Then, in response to my greatly extended Essays,
they moan these are too long!
The
plain fact is, of course, that dialecticians already have the truth, and despite what
Lenin said (about no theory being final), they treat DM as if it had been
delivered to them from on high, written on tablets of stone.
However, despite their belief that all change is the result of contradiction,
dialecticians do not like to be contradicted.
Nevertheless,
those who like their Internet articles short and to the point can access
brief summaries of all the main Essays
here.
In August 2006, I added an 'Absolute Beginners'
page, and in the summer of 2007
I published an even shorter Essay, 'Anti-Dialectics
For Absolute Beginners' -- aimed at those who find even the Summary
Essays either too long or too difficult.
In
fact, there is now a one page précis of my main objections,
here.
As predicted, several DM-fans
have already complained about their superficiality, too!
Great care
has been taken with these Essays; they have been distilled from work I
have been doing for the last twenty-five years, even
though I have been mulling over these ideas
for well over thirty. Literally thousands of hours have gone into
writing, re-writing and re-thinking this material. In addition, I have spent
more money than I care to mention obtaining literally
thousands of obscure books, PhD theses, articles and papers on a whole range
of topics directly or indirectly connected with DM.
In that case, anyone who
can't bring to this discussion the seriousness it deserves
is encouraged to go and waste their time elsewhere. I am not interested in
engaging with clowns.
Essay One
expands on the above comments, and explains:
(i) Why I
began this project,
(ii) Why the tone I have adopted is unremittingly
hostile toward this theory, and,
(iii) Why
I have gone into such unprecedented detail.
(1) It is important to
emphasise from the outset that I am notblaming the
long-term failure of Dialectical Marxism solely on the acceptance of
the
Hermetic ideas dialecticians
have importedinto our movement from Hegel.
It is worth repeating that since I still
encounter comments on Internet Discussion Boards, and still receive e-mails from
those who claim to have read the above words, but who still think I am blaming all
our woes on dialectics.
I am not.
However, no matter how many times I
repeat the above the message it refuses to sink in, and that is after
several years of continually making this
very point!
It seems this is one part of the
universe over which the
Heraclitean Flux
has no hold!
And
here are even more recent instances (in the comments section at the bottom).
What
is being claimed,
however, is that
adherence to this 'theory' is one of the subjective reasonswhy
Dialectical Marxism has become a bye-word for failure.
There are other, objective reasons why the class enemy still runs the planet,
but since revolutions require revolutionaries with ideas in their heads, this
'theory' must take some of the blame.
So, it is argued at this sitethat dialectics has
been an important contributoryfactor.
It
certainly helps
explain why
revolutionary groups are
in general vanishingly small,
neurotically sectarian, studiously unreasonable, consistently conservative,
inconsistently deferential to 'tradition' and almost invariably
lean toward some form
of
substitutionism.
Naturally, this has had a direct bearing on
ourlack of impact on the working class over the last
seventy years or so -- and probably
for
much longer still -- and hence on the continuing success of Capitalism.
The following 'Unity of Opposites'
is difficult to explain in any other way:
The
larger the proletariat the smaller the impact that Dialectical Marxism has on it.
Sadly, this will continue while comrades cling to this regressive doctrine.
Any who doubt this are encouraged to
read on, where those
doubts will be severely bruised, if not completely laid to
rest.
(2) However, I have few illusions that hard-core dialecticians will be swayed by
anything they
find at this site.
I
sincerely hope I'm wrong about this, but bitter experience over the last
thirty years 'debating' with the DM-faithful tells me I am talking to
comrades with stoppered ears and
closed minds. Countless internet 'discussions' have merely confirmed (if not
greatly amplified) this
negative impression.
Someone has to try to
prevent younger
comrades from catching this intellectual virus.
(3) If Dialectical Marxism were a ringing success,
it is I who would be on the defensive, and dialecticianscould
rightly ignore these Essays.
However, it
is over one hundred and seventy years since the Communist Manifesto
was first published and we still do not have a Workers' State
anywhere
on the planet --, despite the fact
that the working class can now be
numbered in the billions and is now
the largest class on earth.
Indeed, we seem to be
further away from that goal than the Bolsheviks were in 1917!
[The fact that openly
fascist and right-wing parties led the revolt in the Ukraine is irrelevant to
the point I am making: if they can fight armed police on the streets, why
couldn't Russian workers do the same to defend 'their state' back in 1991? The
question answers itself: it wasn't 'their state' and hadn't been since the early
1920s.]
Late September 2014 witnessed the streets of
Hong Kong being blocked by tens of thousands of
protesters demanding "free and fair elections", and in June 2015, we
saw
tens of thousands of protesters in Yerevan,
the capital city of Armenia, succeed in preventing an electricity price hike!
So, ordinary workers in Lebanon will protest rubbish collection, and
confront riot police, but the tens of millions of workers in the former
Soviet Union (fSU) and Eastern Europe, supposedly the most powerful working class in
history, allegedly in control of the state, the police, the military, the courts,
the unions,
and the media, couldn't be bothered to lift one finger in defence of 'socialism'.
The fact that this was led by Buddhist monks
is also irrelevant to the point I am making -- which is the same as the one
above
in relation to the Ukraine.
If monks can summon up the courage to
protest, why not Russian workers in 1991?
Figure Five: Kyrgyzstan,
April 2010
Figure Six: Tunisia, January 2011
Figure Seven: Cairo, January 2011
Figure Eight: Cairo, January 2011
Figure Nine: Bahrain, February 2011
Figure Ten: Syria, 2011
Figure Eleven: Cairo Again, November 2012
Figures Twelve, Thirteen, And Fourteen: Istanbul, June 2013
Figure Fifteen: Twelve Cities
Erupt In Brazil, June 2013
Figure Sixteen: Rio De Janeiro, June 20th 2013
Figures Seventeen And Eighteen: Bosnia,
February
2014
Figures Nineteen And Twenty: Kiev, 2013-14
Figure Twenty-One: Yerevan, Armenia, June 2015
Figure Twenty-Two: Hundreds Of Thousands
Protest In Seoul.
South Korea, November 2016
Figure Twenty-Three: Mass Demonstrations
Right Across The USA
Figure Twenty-Seven: 1991 --
Dramatic Scenes From The Former USSR
As Massed Ranks Of Workers
Defend 'Their' State
[Yes, it's supposed to be deserted -- since it
was!]
The above events are all
the more ironic when we witnessed (in
December 2011) tens of thousands of Russian workers protesting
against vote-rigging, facing down Vladimir Putin's uniformed bully-boys.
Figures Twenty-Eight And Twenty-Nine: Moscow
--
Not
1991 -- 2011
Clearly, the current population of Russia is
prepared to defend even limited forms of bourgeois democracy, but apparently not
their "workers' state" back in 1991!
Compare the passivity of workers across
the Communist Bloc in 1989-91 with the above, or with way that ordinary citizens responded to
the
attempted coup in Turkey in July 2016. Workers
in their tens of thousands poured on to the streets, lying down in front of tanks, to defend even
this fractured and corrupt bourgeois democracy --
with more than 200 killed and over 2000 wounded.
Video Three: Not
Soviet Russia In 1953, 1956, Or Even 1991,
But Turkey, July 2016
In the following video, a
Turkish citizen lies down in front of
two tanks (warning,
graphic imagery -- the man suffered a damaged right arm in the end, but he
survived and was later interviewed on
BBC News):
Video Four: Are Turkish Workers Braver
Than Soviet
Workers?
In
the first eleven months of 2019 we witnessed mass protests across the
globe in the following countries, among others:
In February 2021 there was a military
coup in Myanmar. Tens of thousands of unarmed citizens rose in opposition to
this usurpation of their democracy (severely limited though it was).
Over two months
of
fighting on the streets saw
more than 500 killed (including over 40 children)
and many more wounded. Once again, all this was in defence of limited forms
of bourgeois democracy.
What do the people of Myanmar have
that Russian workers didn't have in 1991?
Or workers in E Europe in 1989?
Given the
above, the
only two possible conclusions appear to be the following:
(i) Russian workers,
despite being the most powerful and well-organised working class in human
history, allegedly in control not only of one of the mightiest military forces
on the planet, but the unions, the police, the party, the state bureaucracy, the
courts and the media (etc., etc.), were in fact the most cowardly, diffident and
pusillanimous working class in human history; or,
(ii) The former Soviet Union
wasn't socialist and workers were glad to see the back of it. More-or-less the same can be
said about workers in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria,
East Germany, Yugoslavia, and Albania.
On top of all this, communist partiesthe world overhave adopted
market forms of
capitalism,
and despite
the rhetoric most have embraced openly
reformist
politics.
[I have responded to an attempt by a
Stalinophile to criticise the above remarks,
here.]
Trotskyism is,
if anything, in even worseshape. It is riddled
with deep divisions and warring
sects. With few exceptions, its
numerous parties are
vanishingly small, constantly at each other's
throats and
rabidly
sectarian.
Hence, Dialectical Trotskyism iseven less successful than
Maoism and Stalinism have been. Well, is
there a Trotskyist Workers' State anywhere on earth? Has there ever been?
And I say that as a
Trotskyist!
Sure, we could point to Russia in
October 1917,
but even that revolution has been reversed!
[The claim that DM was of central importance to
the Bolsheviks in 1917 has been debunked,
here.]
Unfortunately, because of its propensity to provoke
endless
splits (its one genuine 'success'), Trotskyism
isnow a standing
joke:
Video Six: 'The Life Of Brian'
Libertarian Communism, too, is almost non-existent,
and is thus politically impotent -- but, for all their
chest
beating you'd be forgiven for thinking the opposite.
Furthermore, Marxist (revolutionary)
parties have not noticeably benefited from theworld-wide radicalisation created by the
Anti-Globalisation
Movement, the
unprecedented world-wide opposition to
the 'allied' invasions of Iraq and
Afghanistan, workers' opposition to 'austerity' (post-2007/08), the determined resistance
mounted against Sore-Loser-in-Chief (President Trump), or the global protests against
anthropogenic global warming.
Comparethat
with the way many
of the above parties grew
in the first half of the 20th century, or in the 1960s and
1970s.
Compare it, too, with the way
that non-Marxist, anarchist, anti-capitalist (and thus largely
non-dialectical), autonomist and single-issue groups
have grown since 1999. In the UK, for example, widespread radicalisation
only seems to have (temporarily) affected the
UK Labour Party, between 2015 and 2019.
Rightly or wrongly,
for most people, Dialectical Marxism has become a by-word for
sectarianism, petty in-fighting, bureaucratic authoritarianism,
mindless inertia,
systematic oppression, brutal mass murder, widespread denial of freedom,
corruption and
murderous dictatorship.
That shouldn't be taken to mean I think this shameful record can't
be changed for
the better. That is, after all, one of the reasons why I began this project!
And yet, there are comrades who
will still tell youwith a straight facethat
Dialectical Marxism isaringing
success, since it has been 'tested in practice'!
Such benighted souls won't respond to anything I have to say (even if they were listening); pathological
myopia of this level of intensity clearly requires professional help.
Figure Thirty-One: Dialectical
Marxism
--
'Tested In Practice'
Dialecticians claim that
their theory/method lies at the heart of Marxist
politics and material reality -- that it is the guiding light of all
they do.
If revolutionary practice has dialectics stamped all over it,
and if 'truth is indeed tested in practice' --
and if the vast bulk of that practice has failed -- the inescapable conclusion is that
practice has refuted dialectics.
Because
its supporters claim such a prominent role for
DM thefailure of the subjective side ofDialectical Marxism (i.e., practice) points nowhere else but
there.
Clearly, only those who reject the idea that 'truth is tested in practice'
should feel confident enough
to repudiate that
particular conclusion.
To those who think this is
an Idealist explanation for the failure of Dialectical Marxism, I say the
following:
In fact, I
advance historical and materialist reasons
(based on ideas floated by Marx and Lenin) why dialectics has had this negative
effect on our movement.
And to those who have read
the above, and who think I am claiming that Marxism is a failure: please re-read it
and note that I am referring to "Dialectical Marxism".
As noted earlier: the non-dialectical
version hasn't been road tested
yet.
Hence, it is dialecticians who should be on the defensive.
They are
the ones who still cling to a theory that has presided over 150+ years of almost
total failure.
In
that case, we
have no alternative but to re-think our ideas from
scratch, like the radicals we claim to be.
To that end,
I propose a suitably
radical starting point: the rejection of the theory that
history has already refuted: DM.
We can't keep blaming our failure on
workers' "false consciousness"
(a term, incidentally, unknown to Marx).
Dialectics isn't the "world-view of the proletariat",
since they know nothing of it, never have, and
never will.
Indeed, for several generations,
workers have returned a
very clear message: they aren't the least bit interested in
Dialectical Mysticism, in
those who peddle it, or in any version of it that has been put the
'right way up'.
So, if
change is indeed caused by "internal contradictions"
-- as dialecticians
claim --, let it begin here, at this site, with
the many I have exposed in their theory.
(4) Some might wonder how I can count myself as both a Leninist and a Trotskyist
while advancing such profound criticisms of ideas that the
founders of both those two traditions regarded as fundamental to Marxism.
Well, we can surely recognise Newton's genius while rejecting his
confused and obscure
Alchemical and
Kabbalisticramblings, just as we can be
severely critical of him for wasting
so much time and effort on such worthless
rubbish.
The sameapplies to the
dialectical
musings of Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Plekhanov, Stalin and Mao. Hence, even though
I hold the work (inpolitics, history, and revolutionary theory) of the
first three of the abovein the highest esteem, I am
no less dismissive of the mystical gobbledygook all six
brought
with them into our movement.
[Why I have left Marx out
has been
explained
here and
here.]
In fact, and on the contrary, a slavish acceptance of everything they had to say
about
dialectics -- just because they said it, or just because the vast
majority of comrades think highly of it --, would be to spit on their graves.
Marxism isn't a personality cult. If it
were, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky would have been
the first to reject it.
The radical movement was built on a lack of respect for mindlesstradition like this.
Anyone who still prefers
the safe confines of unquestioned dogma is encouraged instead to join the Roman Catholic
Church.
(5) Those who think this is
"just another attack on dialectics" -- something the enemies of Marxism are
always attempting, since 'the dialectic' is "an abomination to the bourgeoisie",
etc., etc. -- need only
reflect on the fact that revolutionaries like me attack dialectics
because it is by far and away the weakest part of
Marxist theory (as
the Essays posted at this site amply demonstrate), and this we do in order to strengthen,
not weaken,
Revolutionary Socialism.
On the other hand, our enemies attack dialectics simply because it is
such an easy target
--, and they do so for the opposite reason.
We have presented them with such a'gift' for far too long.
We need to stop leading
with our chins.
(6) Much of
Academic Marxism has
largely been ignored in these Essays.
Rightly or wrongly, this site is aimed at impacting on the class war by
seeking to influence those actually involved in it. Since active revolutionaries still accept
-- to a greater or lesser extent --
classical forms of DM, they alone are being addressed in what follows.
Very little
attempt has been made, therefore, to engage
in detail with that theoretical and revolutionary dead end.
It is also worth pointing out that I am not just attacking 'Diamat' (i.e.,
the 'orthodox', Soviet Russian incarnation of DM), but every aspect and
version of 'dialectics' -- even the sanitised forms peddled by academics
(for example, again, 'Systematic
Dialectics'), which has supposedly been cleansed of all its Engelsian
'crudities'.
Figure Thirty-Two: Academic Marxism
-- The Movie
Of course, there are notable exceptions to the above sweeping
generalisations, but they are just
that: exceptions.Some Academic Marxists have fought,
and still fight,
alongside workers in the class war.
However, I can think of no work published by an Academic
Marxist that has ever impacted on the class struggle (except perhaps negatively).
Such comrades, who spare no effort telling us that 'praxis' is a core
principle of Marxism, are clearly living on a different planet to the rest of
us, for their work has had no discernible impact on the class war!
(7) These Essays represent work in progress; hence they do not
necessarily reflect my final view on any of the topics covered.
I am only publishing this material on the Internet
because several comrades whose opinions I respect urged me to do so back in 2005
-- even though
the work you see before you is less than half complete. Many of my ideas are still in
the formative stage and need
considerable
attention devoted to them to
mature.
I estimate this project will
take another ten or twenty years to complete before it is fit to publish, either here,
in its final form, or in hard copy.
All of these Essays will have
been radically
changed by then.
This work
is being updated regularly -- edited and re-edited --, its arguments clarified andprogressivelystrengthened as my
research continues (and particularly as my 'understanding' of Hegel
and DM develop).
So, visitors are encouraged to check back often.
As of July 2024,
I have
now published
Essaysand other material at this
site
totalling
in excess of 5.8 million words.
This is
approximately 70% of all the material I have.
Indeed, far more will be added as my researches continue.
Having said that, much of the
'second half' of this project
still only exists in note form, so the
next set of
Essays will appear here far more slowly than the first.
Anyone who
objects to the length of any of my Essays should rather pick a fight with Marx,
Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin
and Trotsky -- and, indeed, Hegel --whose
collectedwork easily dwarfs my own.
Even one of Zizek's latest books --
for example,
Less Than Nothing -- is far longer
than any of
my Essays!
Figure
Thirty-Three: Exhibit A For The Defence --
Das Kapital
However, when I post short summaries of my ideas, DM-fans
complain about their superficiality!
When
I enter into greater detail, they moan
even louder about their length!
(8)
Finally, and perhaps most importantly: I can't emphasise strongly enough (once
again) that
nothing written here is intended to undermine Revolutionary
Socialism or HM
-- a scientific theory I fully accept -- provided
that the
pernicious influence of Hegel has been totally
excised.
HM will therefore be taken for granted.
This means that any non-Marxists
who visit this site are advised to go no further; this material
isn't intended for them.
Finally, Finally:
Several
critics have taken the above comments as definitive of my entire case
against DM, and
have therefore read no further, when they are merely opening remarks that represent
about 0.001% of the material published at this site!
This page
is meant to be provocative; it isn't meant to present a water-tight case.
It is therefore largely a statement of intent.
In contrast, the
long
Essays posted at this
site
are meant to be definitive. Whether
they succeed in achieving
that end is, of course, another matter.
However, to date, no one has been able to
respond effectively to my Essays (including
thisposeur
and
this fan of 'Systematic Dialectics').
Clearly, a superficially dismissive approachto my work, based solely on this page, makes about as much sense as
someone who reads the opening page
of the Preface to the First Edition ofDas Kapital and judges all that Marx
ever wrote on the basis of
that!