Essay Nine Part One -- The Politics Of Metaphysics
Dialectical Materialism: An Alien-Class 'Theory'
Readers should make note of the fact that this Essay does not represent my final views on any of the issues raised. It is merely 'work in progress'.
This Essay should be read in conjunction with Essays Nine Part Two and Ten Part One.
This Essay is just under 46,000 words long; a summary of its main ideas can be found here.
Quick Links
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(1) The Main Thesis Of This Site Seems Impossible To Believe
(b) Unwitting Dupes
(2) Substitutionism
(a) Are Revolutionaries Robots?
(3) Alien Ideas -- Introduced From The 'Outside'
(4) Dialectics: A Deep Mystery Even To Marxists
(a) Have You Read And Fully Understood The Whole Of Hegel's Logic?
(5) A Mystery To Workers, Too?
(6) Historical Materialism Different
(a) Dialectical Marxism A Long-Term Failure
(b) Historical Materialism Introduced From 'The Inside'
(c) The Vernacular: Obstacle Or Resource?
(7) Marx And Dialectical Materialism -- 1
(8) Marx And Dialectical Materialism -- 11
(9) Is Dialectical Materialism The Same As Historical Materialism?
(10) Hegel And Double Meanings
(11) Notes
(12) References
Abbreviations Used At This Site
In this Essay, I hope to examine some of the political implications of the analysis of Metaphysics and DM advanced in Essay Twelve Part One.
[DM = Dialectical Materialism; HM = Historical Materialism; DIM = Dialectical Marxism/Marxist.]
Part One of this Essay will show that unlike HM, DM cannot form a theoretical basis for the "world-view" of the working class, and that this theory has to be imposed on what few workers Dialectical Marxism has attracted to its ranks over the years --, 'against the grain' (as it were) of their materialist good sense. Hence, it will be argued that DM is the ideology of substitutionist elements with Marxism. Moreover, since it is possible to show that DM is a mystery even to its own theorists, it can't provide them with a scientific or philosophical foundation for their politics. The differences between HM and DM will also be underlined.
Part Two will examine the role that dialectics plays, and has played in addressing and satisfying the contingent psychological needs of prominent DIMs. In addition, it will also show how and why Hegel's influence has helped corrupt our movement from top to bottom (helping foment sectarian in-fighting, splits, expulsions, and worse), revealing, too, why DM has had such a narcoleptic effect on militant minds.
In short, it will be shown that this theory has played a key role in making DIM synonymous with political and theoretical impotency and failure --, which, naturally, helps explain its long-term failure. These deleterious effects will be further explored in Essay Ten Part One.
In Essay Twelve it was argued that ancient Greek Metaphysics received its most significant and formative input from ambient ruling-class interests and priorities. In subsequent Modes of Production, traditional metaphysicians have directly or indirectly benefited from and served the power of the State, rationalising class division as 'natural' and/or 'god'-ordained.
While, for example, Theology has always served as a theoretical expression of alienated religious consciousness (among other things), in its different forms Metaphysics has helped systematise and legitimate ruling-class ideology, linking the authority of the State to the 'natural order'. Indeed, Metaphysics has invariably been dressed-up as a Super-Scientific theory, which supposedly uncovers the fundamental principles governing the universe, revealing its underlying rational structure --, and one which, un-coincidentally, often mirrored boss-class interests. Behind the velvet glove of Metaphysics lies the ideologically-mailed fist of class domination, its necessary truths dimly reflecting -- but often justifying --, the iron rule of the State. [That argument is summarised here.]
As Marx and Engels noted:
"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch. For instance, in an age and in a country where royal power, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie are contending for mastery and where, therefore, mastery is shared, the doctrine of the separation of powers proves to be the dominant idea and is expressed as an 'eternal law.'" [Marx and Engels (1970), pp.64-65.]
It was also argued that it was largely through Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and Plekhanov (courtesy of Hegel) that dialecticians succeeded in importing such alien-class concepts into revolutionary politics.
Admittedly, this controversial view faces seemingly insurmountable obstacles, not the least of which is its apparent incapacity to explain how it is even remotely conceivable that the above revolutionaries (and others) could possibly have adopted and disseminated ideas that represent the theoretical interests of the class enemy. On the face of it, it is totally unbelievable that class fighters such as these, comrades of the very highest calibre, could have accepted a theory that supposedly represents the worst form of ideological compromise imaginable.
In addition, it could be argued that revolutionary theory has been refined in struggle for over one hundred and fifty years by the very best theorists and activists in the Marxist tradition. Had there been the slightest hint of contamination from any form of ruling-class ideology this would have emerged long ago, becoming apparent perhaps in a series of disastrous theoretical, strategic and tactical blunders, or in major compromises and accommodations with the class enemy.
It is thus inconceivable that revolutionaries (not to mention countless thousands of militants and socialist workers) -- many of whom are/were prepared to give their lives in furtherance of the class struggle -- would or could have adopted ideas derived from the class they hate, totally vitiating their long-term political aims and life's work.
Furthermore, it might well be wondered how revolutionary classics (such as Marx's Das Kapital, Marx and Engels's The Communist Manifesto, Engels's Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Lenin's What Is To Be Done? and State and Revolution, Trotsky's The Permanent Revolution and The History of the Russian Revolution, Luxembourg's The Mass Strike -- along with countless others) could have been written by comrades who have been portrayed in the Essays at this site as little more than undercover propagandists for the ruling-class.
Nevertheless, the contention made here is -- in all seriousness -- that the above comrades, in so far as they entertained a theory based on concepts drawn from Hegel, succeeded in introducing into the revolutionary movement a world-view that constituted a major theoretical compromise with the class enemy.
Indeed, and in answer to one of the objections rehearsed above, this is part of the reason why Marxism has witnessed disaster after disaster, retreat after retreat, defeat after defeat, and split after split, over the last 100 years or so. If practice tells us anything, it tells us that practice has refuted dialectics, and that Dialectical Marxism is a synonym for long-term failure. [Notice, please, the emphasised word. More on this in Essay Ten Part One, and Part Two of this Essay.]
Furthermore, this also reveals why DIM has been about as successful as religious belief has always been at fostering and hardening sectarianism. Far from presenting a glowing beacon to mankind, DIM has become an object lesson in failure and a byword for corruption and evil.
And, we can't put this down to the malign influence of bourgeois propaganda; time after time we have scored more than out fair share of own goals, presenting the capitalist media with abundant ammunition to use against us.
Moreover, this shameful record is one reason why DIMs cling on to dialectics so fervently (despite the fact that it has been comprehensively refuted by history): it allows them to re-interpret the long-term failure of Marxism as a success in disguise, and then ignore it.
Indeed, those who accept a theory that tells them that "appearances contradict essence/reality" are going to find it easy to re-interpret each and every failure as just such an opposite, as a hidden success (since whatever happens the NON is guaranteed to turn things around eventually) -- and this then allows them to conclude that only those who do not "understand dialectics" will reason otherwise. [More on this in Part Two, and in Essay Ten Part One.]
[NON = Negation of the Negation; DIM = Dialectical Marxism/Marxist.]
Given such a rosy view of things, not only does every such failure have a silver lining, there is in fact only silver lining!
Dialectics thus prevents the serious problems our movement faces from ever being addressed, which guarantees they will keep on recurring. It does this by encouraging those whose brains it has colonised into concluding that 'materialist dialectics' has been tested in practice and has emerged a resounding success --, the exact opposite of the truth.
And that is why, to the DM-faithful, the allegations made in this and other Essays posted at this site will seem so preposterous -- providing sufficient grounds for them to be ignored and never read --, or, failing that, for them to be to misrepresented and/or vilified.
Of course, those lost in such sweet reverie are going to resist all attempts to slap some materialist good sense into them.
Nevertheless, comrades, may I invite you back to the desert of the real?
No, don't turn over and go back to sleep!
|
Heads Out Of The Sand, Comrades; Dialectical Marxism Sucks! |
Having said that, it needs stressing up-front that it is not being maintained here that leading revolutionaries adopted ruling-class ideas knowingly, duplicitously or willingly. What is being alleged is that these comrades did this unwittingly. Again, exactly how and why this happened will be revealed in Part Two.
However, in order to provide an adequate answer to the seemingly insurmountable objections outlined above, we must take a slight detour; strange as it might seem, we need to consider "substitutionism".
It is an odd fact (but it is a fact nonetheless) that the ideological roots of substitutionist thinking have received scant attention from revolutionaries. For example, in his otherwise excellent essay on Trotsky's views on this phenomenon, Tony Cliff does not even mention the ideological roots of substitutionist thinking. The closest he gets to doing so is the following:
"The fact that the working class needs a party or parties is in itself a proof of the cleavages in the working class. The more backward culturally, the weaker the organisation and self-administration of the workers generally, the greater will be the intellectual cleavage between the class and its Marxist party. From this unevenness in the working class flows the great danger of an autonomous development of the party and its machine till it becomes, instead of the servant of the class, its master. This unevenness is a main source of the danger of 'substitutionism'....
"Men make history, and if these men organised in a party have a greater impact on history than their relative number warrants, nevertheless they alone do not make history and, for better or worse, they alone are not the cause of their greater specific weight, neither of the general history of the class nor even of themselves in this class. In the final analysis, the only weapons to fight the 'substitutionism' of the revolutionary party for the class, and hence the transformation of the former into a conservative force, is the activity of the class itself, and its pressure not only against its social enemy, but also against its own agent, its party....
"Because the working class is far from being monolithic, and because the path to socialism is uncharted, wide differences of strategy and tactics can and should exist in the revolutionary party. The alternative is the bureaucratised party or the sect with its 'leader'. Here one cannot but regret Trotsky's sweeping statement that 'any serious factional fight in a party is always in the final analysis a reflection of the class struggle'. [Trotsky (1971), p.77.] This verges on a vulgar materialist interpretation of human thought as growing directly out of material conditions! What class pressures separated Lenin from Luxemburg, or Trotsky from Lenin (1903-17), or what change in class pressures can one see in Plekhanov's zigzags: with Lenin in 1903, against him in 1903, against him in 1905, with him again (and at last breaking, it is true, with Lenin and with the revolutionary movement and joining the class enemy)? Can the differences in the theory of imperialism between Lenin and Luxemburg be derived from an analysis of their position in class society? Scientific socialism must live and thrive on controversy. And scientists who start off with the same basic assumptions, and then use the same method of analysis, do differ in all fields of research." [Cliff (1960), pp.126-30. Here, I have used the version reprinted in Cliff (2001). Quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]
It's almost as if the party were run by automata, or by individuals who had no class-origins themselves, no philosophical baggage that they brought with them into the movement.
But, to suggest that the above stalwarts were human beings, who might just have had alien-class ideas already installed in their brains by their upbringing or class background (ideas that have been invented and disseminated by countless generations of boss-class hacks), and who react just like others to defeat and demoralisation (by looking for some sort of consolation, some sort of explanation to allay the cognitive dissonance that such set-backs must have created in their minds) is by no means "vulgar"; it is to take Marx seriously when he said:
"It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness." [Marx (1859), p.181. A copy is available here.]
Naturally, one must deal with the beliefs of fellow human beings with some sensitivity, but revolutionaries like Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky were not beamed down to the earth from a passing space ship, nor were they born fully-formed, with all their radical beliefs pre-installed.
However, when we find 99.9% of all avowed Marxists, despite their massive differences elsewhere, from Leninists to Trotskyists, Maoists to Stalinists, Libertarian Communists to non-Orthodox Trotskyists, sharing almost exactly the same dialectical doctrines derived from a ruling-class hack like Hegel, that alone is strong prima facie evidence that "social being" might very well be at work here, as Marx indicated, determining the collective dialectical consciousness of generations of Marxists. [More on this in Part Two.]
Of course, this not to suggest that substitutionism has not been discussed at length by Marxists, far from it; but the response so far has often been defensive, uncharacteristically piecemeal and vaguely apologetic. [Cliff's article being Exhibit A in this regard.]
Now, in Cliff's case, and with respect to the revolutionary party itself, substitutionism seems to be portrayed as merely a latent disposition, one that is of little consequence or danger when the wider movement is healthy and on the advance, but which poses a considerable threat when it is weak, in retreat or in its death throws. Hence, substitutionism is depicted in terms that make it look almost inevitable, given the 'right' sort of circumstances.
Indeed, Cliff all but suggests that the party will naturally gravitate in this direction unless it is stopped by an assertive working class.
But, in view of the fact that Marxist parties these days tend to be small (or if large --, as they are in some 'third world' countries --, they openly depend on a passive working class, as election-fodder, etc.), this can only mean that, if Cliff is correct, every Marxist party is actively substitutionist!
Are Revolutionaries Just Robots?
Naturally, this doesn't mean that theorists have failed to consider other aspects or causes of substitutionism, or that different explanations of it do not exist. What is undeniable, though, is that little systematic thought appears to have been devoted to the internal features of this phenomenon, and especially to its ideological roots --, that is, to the theoretical background that provides it with some sort of rationale.
Indeed, even less thought has been devoted to the material, social or philosophical source of substitutionist ideology.
It is undeniable that substitutionism must have an ideological background if it is to have any effect on human beings -- as opposed to, say, simply 'motivating' automata --; but exactly how it achieves this has never been examined.
To be sure, our understanding of the relationship between the revolutionary class and the Party has changed considerably over the last 150 years, yet the specific details of the theoretical (let alone the practical) relationship between the two have remained somewhat imprecise and sketchy all the while. Naturally, this is because few are happy to admit that a serious problem exists in this area, even though this question has presented the movement with intractable difficulties at important historical junctures (for example in Soviet Russia, after 1917 and the subsequent Civil War, with the virtual destruction of the Russian proletariat).
Nevertheless, since the above relationship is central to the success or failure of Marxism --, and in view of the fact that DIM has witnessed little other than long-term failure --, this can only mean that there is something profoundly wrong with our movement and with our ideas.
This more than hints, therefore, that our relationship with the working-class is not all it should be.
However, it is not my intention to address that particular problem in this Essay. [This topic was partially dealt with in Essay Ten.] My aim here will be strictly limited to the connection that is alleged (by me) to exist between important ideological aspects of substitutionism and DM itself.
Clearly, the solution of the former can only benefit from a resolution of the latter.
Alien Ideas -- Introduced From The 'Outside'
In his book Marxism And The Party, John Molyneux attempted to reconcile Marx's claim that the "emancipation of the working class" is the sole "act of the working class" with Lenin's belief that:
"Class political consciousness can be brought to the workers only from without, that is, only from outside the economic struggle, from outside the sphere of the relations between workers and employers." [Lenin (1947), p.78. Quoted in Molyneux (1978), p.45. Italic emphases in the original.]1
I do not wish to take issue with Molyneux's resolution of this apparent but much discussed problem. What is of concern here is that, whatever dialectical relation there in fact exists between workers and the party, it is clear that Molyneux concedes the idea that workers of themselves cannot develop a "revolutionary consciousness", or, at least, one that is even and/or fully-formed -- a fact which is undisputed by most Leninists anyway.
[Of course, as Draper argued many years ago, this is a caricature of Lenin, but the point is that this 'received' view ha, rightly or wrongly, motivated most Leninists since. More recently, Lars Lih has pushed this 'revisionary' idea to its limit (cf., Lih (2005)). More on this later.]
Hence, on this 'received' view, there is a clear need for intervention by the Party to bring revolutionary ideas to workers. To be sure, not only must the Party learn from workers and their struggles, it must have among its ranks revolutionary proletarians themselves (i.e., "advanced" sections of the working class). Indeed, the structure of the Party should be as democratic as the exigencies of the class struggle permit. Granted, too, that even though this Party is "of the working class" it still separate from it, that it represents its "memory" and remains a "tribune" for the oppressed (etc., etc.).2
Despite this, a paradox remains: even though the Party's strategy and tactics have been derived from a series of long-term interventions in workers' struggles, its philosophical ideas have plainly originated elsewhere.
As Lenin himself admitted:
"The history of philosophy and the history of social science show with perfect clarity that there is nothing resembling 'sectarianism' in Marxism, in the sense of its being a hidebound, petrified doctrine, a doctrine which arose away from the high road of the development of world civilisation. On the contrary, the genius of Marx consists precisely in his having furnished answers to questions already raised by the foremost minds of mankind. His doctrine emerged as the direct and immediate continuation of the teachings of the greatest representatives of philosophy, political economy and socialism.
"The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true. It is comprehensive and harmonious, and provides men with an integral world outlook irreconcilable with any form of superstition, reaction, or defence of bourgeois oppression. It is the legitimate successor to the best that man produced in the nineteenth century, as represented by German philosophy, English political economy and French socialism." [Lenin, Three Sources and Component Parts of Marxism. Bold emphases alone added.]
As we will see, these philosophical ideas cannot be derived by workers themselves, so they have to be introduced to them from "the outside". In which case, whatever Lenin really meant in What Is To Be Done?, and despite the 'revisionist' reading put about by Lars Lih, DM has had to be introduced from "the outside"; hence, this comment (quoted earlier) applies to it:
"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch....'" [Marx and Engels (1970), pp.64-65.]
As does this:
"The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life." [Marx and Engels (1970), p.118. Bold emphases added.]
The significance of these comments will become more apparent as this Essay and Part Two unfold.
To be sure, in TAR, John Rees argued that dialectical concepts have arisen partly out of a theoretical analysis of the growth of Capitalism, partly out of an engagement with the long-term resistance mounted by workers -- among other things --, and partly out of the interplay between the two. However, when these concepts are examined (as they will be below), it is clear that this picture of revolutionary theory is far from accurate; in fact it is about as inaccurate as anything could be.
Not only is it impossible to believe that DM-concepts could have been cobbled-together in this way, it is equally impossible to believe they could have been developed by workers themselves. Nor could they have been derived from an interaction between the Party and workers -- nor even from a scientific analysis either of the natural world or of Capitalism -- nor yet from any practice engaged in by Marxists.3
The significance of this observation is as easily missed as its importance has been ignored.
In what follows, I aim to show that while workers are capable of developing ideas consonant with HM (which enables them to connect with revolutionary theory and practice systematised by the revolutionary party), they cannot form from their own experience -- as a matter of fact or of logic -- any notion whatsoever of concepts drawn exclusively from DM, or from Hegel.
Indeed, it will be shown that such concepts lie way beyond the experience that any human could conceivably form.
And that includes dialecticians.
It will be argued, therefore, that workers have had to have this alien-class ideology imposed on them. DM has to be substituted into workers' heads by outside influence, and this has to be done against their materialist inclinations. In fact, DM has to replace many of the ideas that workers might already have formed which could have helped them understand, not only Marxism, but how to transform their own lives by acting for themselves and in their own interests. In short, it will be argued that DM not only cripples workers' comprehension of Marxism, it hinders their self-activity, fatally compromising their capacity to create a socialist society for themselves.
Even worse: it will be maintained that not only does DM put workers off Marxism (because it is incomprehensible), it fosters splits and sectarianism in 'their' Party, encouraging a climate of unreasonableness and systematic personal corruption in and among revolutionaries (for analogous reasons). Worse, it allows DIMs to rationalise various forms of substitutionism, which has helped cripple revolutionary socialism, putting hundreds of millions of workers off Marxism, leading to the death of countless million proletarians and their families. [This will form part of Essay Nine Part Two.]
Plainly, this in no way makes the antics of dialectical revolutionaries appealing to workers.
Furthermore, it will also be shown that despite claims made to the contrary, revolutionaries themselves could not possibly employ -- or have employed -- dialectical concepts either (1) in their own day-to-day activity, or (2) during revolutionary upheavals (such as 1917). [On that, see here.]
This is because it is impossible to use incomprehensible concepts. Since no one (not Engels, not Lenin, not Trotsky, not Plekhanov -- nor anyone else) is capable of understanding dialectics, it cannot feature, nor could it have featured in the practical activity of the Party, despite what we are constantly told. Again, this is not because dialectics is too difficult to grasp, it is because its theses are either non-sensical or are far too confused for anyone to understand, and thus act upon.
Hence, it will be concluded that the concepts found in DM could not have been developed out of -- or in response to -- the class struggle (by any stretch of the imagination), by anyone, ever. In that case, whatever else DM-theses are, they are neither historical nor materialist concepts.
Furthermore, it will also be argued that one of the side-effects of this alien 'theory' is that it chains workers to a passive ideology -- which transforms them into the objects of theory, not the subjects of history. In connection with this it will be maintained that DM encourages in workers a servile notion of themselves as the playthings of mysterious metaphysical forces that neither they nor anyone else understands -- nor ever will, nor ever could understand --, but which they find they have to accept because it forms an integral part of a philosophical tradition they had no part in building.4
Strange as it may seem, traditional DIM-activity has (1) Inadvertently contributed to the theoretical passivity of any workers it has attracted to its ranks, (2) Helped -- directly or indirectly -- put them off Marxism altogether by (a) Attempting to fill their heads with incomprehensible jargon they found they just had to accept, but which no one was allowed to question, (b) Saddling them with undemocratic party and state structures, and (c) Murdering them, or otherwise causing their deaths, in countless millions -- among other things.
The irony is that this 'theory' enslaves workers' minds because it forms part of the promise that only if these alien concepts are adopted will they be capable of freeing themselves from the slavery of Capitalism!
Plainly, that unity of opposites has not worked to the benefit of our movement.
Now, all this is quite remarkable -- not just because it represents another dialectical inversion -- but because no one seems to have spotted it before.
Nevertheless, if all this is correct, it is in fact the self-activity of workers that DM-theorists have turned on its head, not Hegel.
To that end, workers have had to be ideologically knocked off their feet, their material ideas inverted and mystified.
This topsy-turvy approach to revolutionary theory is just one more reason for our side's revolutionary impotence.
DM thus encapsulates, not the "rational core" inside a mystical shell, but the rotten core of a monumental shambles.
In stark contrast, HM provides workers with an analysis of the course of history and of the vital part they must play in overthrowing their exploiters and oppressors -- and one that connects directly with their material experience.
Hence, it does not need to be substituted into their heads, simply introduced to them -- and, as we will see, not from 'the outside', either.
In comparison, once more, DM stands out as an anachronism: an atavistic throw-back to ideas that have motivated ruling-class theorists for thousands of years. In bringing this to workers, revolutionaries have inadvertently substituted obscure metaphysical theses for clear materialist concepts, and imposed on workers (and themselves) a theory that they not only do not understand, no one understands or could understand.
Serious doubts have been raised throughout this site about the philosophical provenance of the concepts found in DM; however, its actual historical origins are not in any doubt. The long and sordid trail is there for all to see (and exposed for those who want to see in Essay Fourteen (summary here)).
This does not need inverting; it just needs airing: DM was developed out of the most all-embracing version of AIDS ever invented -- a theory situated in an age-old tradition of philosophical and mystical thought that stretches back into ancient Greece and Egypt -- and arguably beyond that to the origins of class society itself. as even Lenin admitted.5
This means that DM has had to be brought to workers from 'the outside', from traditions and ways of thinking that are inimical to their interests and foreign to their materialist view of the world --, which concepts, too, lie beyond anybody's grasp, and which are alien both to their experience and to their language.
[AIDS = Absolute Idealism.]
Oddly enough, these claims are nearly as easy to substantiate as they are to make; the rest of this Essay is aimed at showing this is not just an empty boast.
DM: A Deep Mystery Even To Marxists
It could be objected to the above that while many scientific theories lie way beyond the grasp of the majority -- given the poor education they receive in class society -- that does not automatically brand them as inimical to their interests. Most of modern science transcends ordinary experience; since this presents no problems for scientists, it presents none for DM. So, the fact that workers do not understand dialectics (if they don't) does not imply that it represents alien-class interests.
Or so it could be maintained.
However, with respect to understanding genuine scientific theories, only an inadequate education and insufficient leisure time stands in the way of ordinary individuals. With regard to DM, on the other hand, things are completely different. We have seen on numerous occasions that even DM-classicists find it impossible to explain DM's core ideas to one another -- or anyone else, for that matter (let alone to workers) -- in a comprehensible form. Not only have we witnessed DM-theses repeatedly collapse into incoherence at the slightest encouragement, we have also seen how impenetrably vague and equivocal they are. In fact, even now, well over one hundred and twenty years since Engels, Dietzgen and Plekhanov first invented DM, none of its core ideas have been explicated in anything other than a terminally obscure form.6
Indeed, DM-theses remain in the same confused state that DM-classicists originally left them. From the beginning, dialecticians have relied largely on merely repeating, generation after generation, the same vague notions and confused ideas they inherited from Engels, Plekhanov and Lenin -- the dialectical needle stuck well and truly in that Ideal groove.
Hence, what we find in DM-writings are the same erroneous assertions made about FL (which is repeatedly conflated with Aristotelian Syllogistic), the same confused references to the LOI, the LEM, the LOC and change, the same repetition of vague reformulations of Engels's "three laws of Dialectics",7 the same appeal to an epistemology that is as implausible as it is unworkable, the same unimaginative examples repackaged as if they were either brand new or relevant (e.g., those involving water and steam, Mendeleyev's table, John's manhood, a character from a French novel (Molière's Monsieur Jourdain) discovering he has been speaking prose all his life, plants negating seeds, Mamelukes out-fighting French soldiers (or otherwise), "yea, yea", and "nay, nay" (this one is highly popular), and so on, ad nauseam). In tandem with all this we encounter the same old bluster, hand waving, sweeping generalisations, snide remarks and diversionary tactics whenever DM encounters any serious criticism.8 DM, the erstwhile philosophy of change, has remained stuck in a 19th century time-warp; little sign here of the Heraclitean Flux.
[LOI = Law Of Identity; LEM = Law of Excluded Middle; LOC = Law of Non-Contradiction.]
It is pertinent to ask, therefore: How is it possible for DM to be "brought to workers" (as a part of revolutionary theory) if even its best theorists appear to be incapable of bringing it to themselves after over 120 years of not trying all that hard?
Well: Have You Read And Fully Understood The Whole Of Hegel's Logic?
The alarming facts upon which the above allegations supervene are thrown into even starker relief by Lenin's surprising and oft-quoted remark that not a single Marxist up until his day -- which must have included Engels, Dietzgen, Kautsky, Luxemburg, and Plekhanov -- actually understood Marx's Capital, since none of them had fully mastered Hegel's Logic!
"It is impossible to understand Marx's Capital, and especially its first chapter, without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel's Logic. Consequently, half a century later none of the Marxists understood Marx!!" [Lenin (1961), p.180. Bold emphases added.]9
Clearly, Lenin's aside raises serious questions of its own. If professional revolutionaries find Hegel's work impossibly difficult to comprehend (few in my experience bother to consult much of what Hegel wrote, let alone attempt to study the entire Logic -- but, which Logic (there were in fact two!)?9a -- is it credible that workers themselves can understand the whole of it in its entirety? In which case -- if Lenin is correct --, what chance is there that anyone (revolutionary or worker) will ever make head or tail of Das Kapital?10
Even worse, Lenin's comments suggest that only a tiny fraction (if that!) of revolutionaries have ever fully understood Marxism (or, at least Das Kapital). Lenin is quite clear: only those Marxists who have "thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel's Logic" (emphasis added) can claim to comprehend Das Kapital; short of that they can't. Again, how many revolutionaries have thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel's Logic (let alone read it) since Lenin's day? Even professional philosophers find that work daunting, and of those who claim to understand it, the presumption must be that that is an empty boast until they succeed in explaining it clearly to the rest of us.11
Nevertheless, a far more serious and damaging question is the following: How would it be possible to decide if anyone has ever actually understood all of Hegel's Logic?
Plainly, we can't enquire of Hegel what the correct interpretation of his work is. Even Lenin himself failed to provide us with a comprehensive (or comprehensible) account of all of Hegel's Logic. And, as we know with regard to the interpretation of that other (but far less) obscure book -- The Bible --, it is always open for someone to claim that their interpretation is the correct one, while all the rest aren't, with no empirically viable way of deciding between them.
Of course, as we will see, this is precisely what allows revolutionary sectarians to impose their own brand orthodoxy on their corner of the militant market.12
Indeed, buried in here somewhere is one of the main reasons for the sectarianism that appears endemic in DIM; Hegel's Logic is to DM as the Bible is to Theology. In relation to both of these books, a 'correct' interpretation functions as a test of orthodoxy; their use is a source of mystification as much as it is a guarantee of righteousness.
Moreover, it is relatively easy to demonstrate that this helps DIMs find whatever post hoc rationalisation they require to 'justify' inconsistent, undemocratic tactical manoeuvrings, and/or counter-revolutionary activity, as and when the need arises. Furthermore, as is the case with other sacred texts -- where priests, theologians and assorted 'holy men' claim exclusive interpretive rights --, only a few self-selected Dialectical Magi can 'rightly' claim to 'understand' Hegel's Logic (and thus "dialectics", and thus Marxism), even if they find it impossible to prove this by explaining it clearly to anyone this side of the Kuiper Belt.
This being so, few among the rank-and-file will feel confident (or foolish) enough to question the theoretical deliverances made on their behalf by the likes of Stalin, Mao, Mandel, Healy, Pablo, Grant, North, Avakian -- or whoever.13
Another analogy (drawn once more with the numinous) springs to mind here: there would be little point in anyone complaining that the pronouncements and tactical zigzags mentioned above were "inconsistent" in themselves, or with whatever passed for orthodoxy just days earlier; that would only show that the said complainer had failed to "understand dialectics". Consistency is no more to be expected of dialecticians than it is of Doctors of Divinity -- perhaps less so. The Deity and The Dialectic move in mysterious and contradictory ways; the Divine Mind is no less baffling than is DM. This makes DM a handy ideological cover for our 'leaders' in the justification of whatever they like -- for saying one thing one day, the exact opposite the next. Which is, of course, one reason why they are loathe to abandon this 'theory'.14
Few scientists would be foolish enough to make similar claims for any of the classics of science -- not even of Darwin's Origin or Newton's Principia --, i.e., that only if the latter were studied from end to end, and thoroughly understood, could an aspiring researcher/student claim to comprehend modern science. One guesses that only a minority of scientists have actually read (let alone studied) all or most of the classics in their field, but that does not materially affect their work.15
Now, even though revolutionary theory is different from other scientific disciplines, that doesn't mean that incomprehensible philosophical texts must be treated in such a theological way, with every word regarded as required reading, and every syllable understood, before initiation can begin. And yet, Lenin's aside indicates that this is exactly how Hegel's Logic should be viewed by the DM-faithful: only the correct understanding of this intractably obscure work -- in its entirety -- is sufficient to allow novice socialists to proceed to the next level, and try to understand Marx's classic, before they too can presume to spread the Good News.
Of course, this is all rather puzzling since Marx himself never claimed this of his own work.16
DM: Beyond A Worker's Ken?
It was asserted above that DM is unconnected with workers' experience. But, this seems to contradict the following observation of Trotsky's:
"[A] worker who has gone through the school of class struggle gains from his own experience an inclination toward dialectical thinking…. Every worker knows that it is impossible to make two completely equal objects…. Every individual is a dialectician to some extent or other, in most cases, unconsciously. A housewife knows that a certain amount of salt flavours soup agreeably, but that added salt makes the soup unpalatable. Consequently, an illiterate peasant woman guides herself in cooking soup by the Hegelian law of the transformation of quantity into quality…. Even animals arrive at their practical conclusions…on the basis of the Hegelian dialectic. Thus a fox is aware that quadrupeds and birds are nutritious and tasty…. When the same fox, however, encounters the first animal which exceeds it in size, for example, a wolf, it quickly concludes that quantity passes into quality, and turns to flee. Clearly, the legs of a fox are equipped with Hegelian tendencies, even if not fully conscious ones. All this demonstrates, in passing, that our methods of thought, both formal logic and the dialectic, are not arbitrary constructions of our reason but rather expressions of the actual inter-relationships in nature itself. In this sense the universe is permeated with ‘unconscious’ dialectics." [Trotsky (1971), pp.58, 65, 106-07. Bold emphases added.]17
One of the more revealing parts of the above passage is Trotsky's assertion that human beings obey the laws of dialectics for the most part "unconsciously", and that the actual law they observe is the "Hegelian law", not (note!) its alleged 'materialist inversion' --, i.e., the full-blooded version derived from AIDS.18
[AIDS = Absolute Idealism.]
Trotsky thus claimed that workers "obey" DM-laws "unconsciously" ("in most cases"). To be sure, if workers are themselves largely unaware of these 'laws', then, ex hypothesi, they would need to be informed of them from 'the outside', since it would not be possible to learn about them from their own experience, left to their own devices.
This poses a problem, however, since the above quotation appears to indicate that workers can form rudimentary dialectical concepts left to themselves. Hence, it would seem important for dialecticians to show that workers can form a rudimentary grasp of dialectics, as Trotsky argued. But, if this is indeed so, then dialectics does not need to be introduced to workers from 'the outside'.
To that end, it could be argued that workers might become aware of these 'laws' to some extent when they encounter them as part of their day-to-day activity. Indeed, it could even be maintained that while most workers do not always think dialectically, certain advanced sections of the proletariat might gain a limited dialectical view of the world because of their experience of the class struggle.
In that case, there appear to be several alternatives Trotsky might have had in mind in connection with such workers (or with human beings in general). Consider, therefore, the following:
[1] Some individuals might gain a vague or rudimentary grasp of DM as a result of their experiences in the class struggle.
[2] Some might gain a vague or rudimentary grasp of DM as a result of their practical activity in the labour process.
[3] Others might gain a vague or rudimentary grasp of DM as a result of their reflection on their own unconscious compliance with dialectical laws.
[4] Still others might gain a vague or rudimentary grasp of DM as a result of reading Hegel, and/or the DM-classics.
While Trotsky might have assented to [1], [2] and [3], he certainly would not have disagreed with [4]. Nevertheless, his general point seems to be that workers (and human beings in general) could attain a vague or rudimentary grasp of DM, and that they could comprehend certain aspects of change, the concrete inapplicability of the LOI, the truth perhaps even of the 'three laws of dialectics', the need to appeal to the "Totality" and universal inter-connectedness in an attempt to account for some of the many changes there are in nature and/or society (etc.), as a result of their general life experiences.
I shall consider each of these in turn, beginning however with [2].
To recapitulate, Trotsky argued as follows:
"Every worker knows that it is impossible to make two completely equal objects. In the elaboration of a bearing-brass into cone bearings, a certain deviation is allowed for the cones which should not, however, go beyond certain limits…. By observing the norms of tolerance, the cones are considered as being equal. ('A' is equal to 'A')…. Every individual is a dialectician to some extent or other, in most cases, unconsciously." [Ibid., pp.65, 106.]
This passage was analysed in Essay Six as follows:
From this it is clear that Trotsky misconstrued his own version of the LOI! If he had wanted to direct our attention to the lack of identity between two different objects (two "cone bearings", in the above example) he should have used the following schema:
W1: A is equal to B.
But not:
W2: A is equal to A.
In the quotation above, Trotsky referred to the manufacture of "cone bearings" as part of his argument against the unrestricted application of his own simplified version of the LOI. In this, he was clearly interpreting the two "A"s of W2 as standing for different (even if similar) "cone bearings", that is, he was in fact employing W1. Naturally, this throws into serious doubt Trotsky's ability to spot when something is or is not an instance even of his own garbled version of the LOI.19
[LOI = Law of Identity.]
Some might regard this as unfair. Surely, Trotsky's point was to argue that just as cone bearings look very similar (but are nevertheless distinct), the two "A"'s are equally similar but distinguishable (in some way). So, he was right to use W2 -- or so it could be maintained.
This objection has some force -- but not much. This is because Trotsky began with the following assertion:
W3: Every worker knows that it is impossible to make two completely equal objects.
The idea seems to be that workers often (invariably?) realise that the LOI is of limited (or zero) applicability when they make things. However, even if this were correct, Trotsky's main point would be irrelevant; his avowed target had been the LOI ("A is equal to A", not "A is equal to B"), since he hoped to show that workers in their practical activity implicitly or explicitly reject that 'law', and that they are aware of its limitations. In order to do this, he advanced the claim that workers in general know that it is impossible to make two objects exactly alike. But, one of his criticisms of the LOI involved the belief that all objects change continually and hence are never equal to themselves. Now, even if we accept Trotsky's version of the LOI, it does not refer to two separate objects being the same; in its classical form (and sometimes in Trotsky's version, too) it is manifestly about an object's relation to itself.
If, on the other hand, Trotsky had written:
W4: Every worker knows that it is impossible to make an object completely equal to itself.
the absurdity of what he was claiming would have been clear to all; no worker (or anyone else for that matter) would entertain such a crazy idea.
However, in W1, Trotsky's point is completely different; there he was arguing that different objects are not identical, and that workers know this. In this particular case, he was not saying that any one specific object is not self-identical, but that of any two objects, not only can workers see that they are not the same, they also know they cannot make two that are. He did not say that workers are aware that they cannot make one object the same as itself. But, that is precisely what Trotsky needed to show, that no worker believes that one object can be made the same as itself -- that it is impossible to make an item which is self-identical. He manifestly failed to do this....
Put like this, it is reasonably clear that few workers (if any) would understand such a claim (does anyone understand it?), but, even if they did, no worker would draw such an odd conclusion from their own activity.20
In any case, Trotsky's point (in W3) cannot even be derived from his own criticism of the LOI. W3 is not even a DM-thesis! And this is quite independent of whether or not workers conclude all he said they should. As seems clear, it is not relevant to claim that workers are automatic dialecticians because they assent to a banal truth that is not actually part of DM. It is not a DM-thesis that two objects are different -- only that no object is self-identical. What was wanted here was an example taken from DM that workers could assent to before they were talked into it by a fast-talking Dialectical Missionary. What we actually have here is a truism that any card-carrying member of the ruling-class could accept; even George W Bush knows that two apples are not one apple!
Nevertheless, and contrary to what Trotsky said, workers can make countless identical things. Given the fact that certain sub-atomic particles are identical in every respect with every other particle of the same type, any worker can easily 'produce' two or more identical objects. For example, every time anyone throws a light switch countless identical photons stream out of the bulb. And this occurs even if they are unaware of it. Based on Trotsky's argument therefore, this must mean that any worker who uses a light is an "unconscious" anti-dialectician!21
Despite this, it could be argued that Trotsky's point is that all workers are aware of change, since they know that the same machines they use, for example, produce seemingly alike but different objects.
If this is what Trotsky meant then it is certainly unexceptionable, but it's not what he said. And even if he had have said it, it would not have distinguished a DM-description of reality from one available to anyone using ordinary language or anyone cognizant of 'bourgeois' science -- or, indeed, anyone with an ounce of dreaded 'commonsense'. Indeed, we can go further: no sane Capitalist believes that all commodities are identical or that things do not change.
In fact, workers themselves are aware of change long before they arrive at their first job. They learn to talk about and understand change as they learn to use ordinary language and gain practical experience in life -- as, indeed, do members of the ruling-class and their ideologues. Hence, workers (at least) do not need to be informed "from the outside" about change -- and neither are they "unconscious" of it. Clearly, a failure to learn about change -- or a lack of awareness of it -- would threaten the survival of any organism so afflicted, let alone that of workers. This means that DM's enlightenment of workers about this type of change would be about as informative as telling them that water is wet, grass is green or that fire burns.
Again, it could be objected that this admission simply confirms that DM is integral to workers' consciousness, after all, since it acknowledges that they are aware of change almost from birth.
Of course, this is something that was underlined in an earlier Essay: that ordinary language contains countless words capable of describing and depicting every sort of change far beyond the limited capacity possessed of technical jargon -- and way in excess of that expressible in the obscure terminology found in Hegel and the writings of his DM-proselytisers. Furthermore, ordinary human beings are highly proficient at recognising change. In fact, our ancestors would have left no progeny behind to ponder this question had they not possessed this capacity and passed it on.
The only point at issue therefore is whether or not we should call this facility a sort of 'dialectical' awareness of the nature of reality. If this is what DM-theorists mean by such a skill, it is worth asking: What happened to the general DM-claim that ordinary language and 'commonsense' are super-glued to a static view of reality? The latter was underlined in TAR itself with the patently false assertion that all that ordinary humans are able to do when they speak about the world is pathetically mutter words like "this" and "that":
"Ordinary language assumes that things and ideas are stable, that they are either 'this' or 'that'…." [Rees (1998), p.45.]22
As was argued in an earlier Essay, it is ordinary language and common sense that lend even to DM-theorists what little facility they have to talk about change -- not the other way round! Again, if this is what Trotsky meant then there would be no problem because it concedes the point (defended here) that ordinary language is all right as it is. It does not need assistance of dialecticians in this area.
However, this is almost certainly not what Trotsky meant -- that is, of course, if we could decide what he meant by what he said on this score.
In addition, members of the ruling-class and their hangers-on are also aware of these issues (as much as workers are) when they use the vernacular. Even they are able to refer to change -- and, it must be said, in a vastly superior way to dialecticians, if the latter insist on using only the impoverished and severely limited logico-linguistic resources they lifted from Hegel. That would, of course, make members of the ruling-class superior 'dialecticians', at least in this respect!
Anyway, this is very different from showing that workers are capable of gaining even a hazy grasp of DM from their life experiences. Workers understand change as a result of their interaction with nature and with one another -- and because of the sophistication ordinary language makes available to them, partly by means of which they had been socialised. This does not mean that the rest of DM can be lumped in as a job lot.
This is so for three reasons:
(1) Everyone (not just workers and their families) learns about change in this way -- including the most reactionary and conservative elements in society. Are we to now to say that the latter are "unconscious" dialecticians, too?
(2) Ordinary language is incomparably richer in its capacity to express change, identity, difference, negation, inference, movement, stability, instability, opposition, struggle, development, resistance (etc., etc.), than the obscure jargon found in DM. Indeed, that is why ordinary language is used by most revolutionary papers. In which case, a switch to DM by workers would be detrimental to their ability to think clearly; if they subsequently wanted to comprehend change any better they would have to unlearn DM.
(3) The type of change referred to in DM is change through 'internal contradiction'. Not only is this sort of change incomprehensible (to one and all, as was demonstrated in Essay Eight Parts One, Two and Three -- but more specifically here), and as we will see below, workers would never think of using such mystical language to depict anything whatsoever.23
It could be argued in response that the labour process in fact teaches workers more about the deeper aspects of change than does ordinary language and 'commonsense', something DM later hooks onto and greatly amplifies.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to assess the validity of this particular claim until it is made clear what these "deeper aspects of change" actually are. And that is by no means easy.
Presumably, these are related to the 'appearance/reality' distinction, the notion that change occurs through 'internal contradiction', the 'mediated nature of the Totality', and so on. But, even if sense could be made of these notions (and we have seen that none has been so far), it is clear that workers could make little of them -- especially if the best minds in the DM-tradition have yet to attain to this blessed state themselves (as earlier Essays have shown).
It's worth remembering that workers are supposed to be able to conclude such things simply from watching items roll off the production line, or from engaging in collective activity, or attending strike meetings (etc.) -- if this interpretation of Trotsky's meaning is correct. But, are we really supposed to believe that as the 1000th Widget for the day is packed into the 100th crate, worker NN thinks to herself: "Well, that's another nail in the coffin of the LOI"? Or: "So, that's what the deeper aspects of change really are"? Or: "How amazing, the Totality has just mediated another 1000 Widgets!" Or even: "Now I understand why Being is at the same time identical with, but different from, Nothing!"?
Naturally, this does not mean that workers do not reflect on their experiences, or learn from them; far from it. But, if 2500 years of philosophical speculation, mountains of obscure Hegel-speak -- coupled with DM-theorists' own best efforts over the last 140 years -- cannot produce a single clear description of "deeper change", never mind other items found in the Dialectical Midden, it's a pretty safe bet that workers can't either. Or even that they could make sense of the question.
Or more significantly: whether there is actually anything substantive here for anyone to make sense of.
This means, once again, that we find Trotsky's claims are either completely misguided or they are far too vague to evaluate. Hence, it is not credible to suppose that workers can raise themselves up by their conceptual bootstraps in order to gain a DM-understanding of their own experience, howsoever vague, attenuated and rudimentary this attempt is deemed to be.
This is not because workers are incapable of doing this, but because there is as yet nothing here that they can aim toward achieving. DM-theorists have still to provide us with a clear goal for anyone -- let alone workers -- to aim for; they have yet to say what the options before us actually are.
Indeed, we might as well be asked to suppose that workers could understand the Incarnation of Christ, of their own efforts.
If this is so, then not only must workers have DM imposed on them (since it is alien to their experience), we should also expect them to become confused in the process. This is because they would have to have an incoherent doctrine foisted on them, one which runs counter to their experience and their language, and one that even DM-experts can't fathom.
Finally, it's worth noting that since workers already understand change (i.e., they know how to use language connected with real material change in everyday life), even if DM provided the bootstraps, workers would not need them.24
In this sub-section, consideration will be given to option [1], which was:
[1] Some individuals might gain a vague or rudimentary grasp of DM as a result of their experiences in the class struggle.
Trotsky's probable assent to [1] seems to be much clearer and easier to evaluate. Few (if any) socialists would wish to contest the idea that workers have their lives and their ideas changed in or by struggle.
But, what has [1] got to do with DM?
Recall that the whole point of this part of the Essay is to ascertain if there are any ideas exclusive to DM (not HM) that workers can access on their own as a result of the class struggle.25
Perhaps, the following is an example of one of these?
W5: As a result of the class struggle, worker NN learnt that change occurred through contradiction.
But, it's worth noting here that until Hegel (and perhaps a few other German Idealists/mystics) began to employ this term idiosyncratically approximately 200 years ago, no one had ever thought of using the word "contradiction" in such a way -- or, indeed, in the manner subsequently found in DM.26
In which case, it is pertinent to ask: Who today (outside DM-circles) utilises this term in this rather odd way in ordinary life -- or anywhere else, for that matter? As soon as this question is posed the answer returns: no one. Not a soul on the planet (that is, outside of esoteric Hegelian/DM-coteries and mystical covens) uses this term in this peculiar way, least of all ordinary workers and their families. [Examples of the alleged use of this word in ordinary discourse are examined here.]
In fact, in ordinary discourse, to "contradict" generally means to "gain-say" something that someone else has said. Indeed, the ordinary word "contradiction" is not even synonymous with its typographical twin found in FL, let alone its distant, mutant cousin artificially cloned in DL.
[FL = Formal Logic; DL = Dialectical Logic.]
Now, if any workers were naïve enough to conclude from their experience of the class struggle that change occurs simply by "gainsaying" the boss, the police or even the state, then they are going to lose far more battles than they will ever win. But, this is precisely what the word "contradiction" in W5 would mean to workers (as brought out in W5a, below), based on their own experience -- and not after having read a DM-tract --, that is, that change results from merely arguing with someone:
W5a: As a result of the class struggle, worker NN learnt that change occurred through gainsaying.
W5 would be interpreted this way by anyone unschooled in DM.
Furthermore, as we have seen several times already, DM-theorists themselves (LCDs and HCDs) have an alarmingly insecure grasp of the term "contradiction" as it is actually used in FL -- and even as it is supposedly used in DL. Hence, it is highly unlikely that workers would succeed in comprehending the Hegelian (or even the DM-) use of this otherwise familiar word if generations of the DM-faithful have signally failed to do so themselves -- confusing this word, as they do, with contraries, opposites, paradoxes, puzzles, unexpected events and opposing forces (among other things).
But, why should, or would, workers bother grappling with this obscure Hegelian notion if they already understand (in use) the vernacular version of this term? Indeed, and because of this, few workers would commit the sort of simple-minded mistakes that DM-theorists constantly make, confusing the everyday "gainsaying" of someone with, say, the secret inner dynamic of reality.
To be sure, you have to "understand" dialectics really well to swallow that one...
[LCD = Low Church Dialectician; HCD = High Church Dialectician. These terms are explained in Part Two.]
Well, perhaps this is being unfair to Trotsky and other dialecticians? Maybe the following is what he/they mean?
W6: As a result of the class struggle worker NN learnt that change occurred as a result of opposing class forces.
W6 is clearly unexceptional. Many workers who have never heard of Marxism would agree with W6 (or something equivalent to it). Unfortunately, however, W6 does not express an idea that is exclusive to DM. As noted elsewhere, if this is what Trotsky meant by "dialectics" then it would be perfectly acceptable. But, what we were looking for here are ideas specific to DM that might conceivably pop into workers' heads before they encountered a single DM-evangelist. Clearly, W6 is not relevant since it is a claim taken from HM. What is required on the other hand is an example exclusive to DM that workers might grasp, unaided.27
Are there then any other notions exclusive to DM that workers could discover unaided? Perhaps the following:
W7: As a result of the class struggle worker NN learnt that truth is the Whole.
If W7 is meant to be restricted to DM-type ideas about the Totality (assuming, of course, that we are ever actually told what the Totality is (on this see Essay Eleven Part One)), then it is not easy to see what NN could possibly conclude from the class war that would express this new state of mind.
Perhaps it might imply something about the Andromeda Galaxy, prompted in worker NN by attending a strike meeting? Or, NN could begin to ponder the deep significance of the mass extinction of life at the end of the Permian Age as a result of winning the subsequent dispute? Or, maybe W7 implies something about semi-conductors, or the number of grains of wheat in Texas -- these startling conclusions perhaps prompted in NN by securing an above inflation pay award in another strike? Alternatively, on an anti-war march, NN's thoughts could turn to issues connected with the minimum dimensionality of space required for Superstrings to exist. Or, maybe even whether gravitons and tachyons actually exist -- this query arising perhaps because of that nasty look the foreman just gave her? Or whether Being is identical with but at the same time different from Nothing?
It is not to the point to object that the above examples are ridiculous. This is because such things, and many more, would have to occur to workers if they are to conclude that "truth is the Whole" as a result of the class war. So, if in W7, the Totality is meant to be the DM-Totality (whatever that turns out to be), then one or more of the above thoughts (along with many others) will have to occur to NN as a result of the class struggle alone (if this is what Trotsky meant).
Again, this is not to suppose that workers do not think about such things, but they don't appear to do so as a result of the class war. They do not begin to contemplate universal interconnectedness as a by-product of struggle, nor do they ponder deep metaphysical truths about "Being", "Becoming" and "Nothing" (materially 'inverted', or not), either.
Or, if they do, they have remained rather quiet about it.
In addition, if W7 were correct, workers would have to conclude something about the Whole, not just the parts, as a result of struggle, and what they finally conclude must be exclusive to DM (and not be part of HM) if Trotsky is correct, and option [1] represents what he meant.28
Even so, I do not propose to examine this option any further here -- that would be for me to do the job of DM-theorists for them. As far as I am aware, not a single DM-apologist has attempted to expand on (or develop) Trotsky's ideas (or survey workers to see if he was right) in this area in the intervening years (even though many unthinkingly quote this passage).
Given the insurmountable problems they would have faced had they done so (merely outlined above), this was doubtless wise.
Perhaps Trotsky believed that DM-concepts might occur to workers (or to "peasant women") in a rudimentary sort of way as a result of their post hoc reflections on general features of the world, or as a result of their response to it? Alternatively, DM-thoughts could have arisen because of their unwitting adherence to certain dialectical laws, as indicated in [3]:
[3] Others might gain a vague or rudimentary grasp of DM as a result of their reflection on their own unconscious compliance with dialectical laws.
Hence, in connection with this, Trotsky might have meant something like the following:
W8: Worker/peasant NN realised as a result of his/her life-experiences that a change in quality could only come about through a change in quantity, and vice versa.
Naturally, W8 is far too broad a claim to be evaluated with any ease, since it clearly depends on individual life experiences. However, since Hegel was apparently the first human being in history to 'discover' the alleged 'Law' of the transformation of quantity into quality, and he wasn't a worker, the truth of W8 is somewhat in doubt.
Nevertheless, the veracity of W8 may only be ascertained after it has been decided what on earth it actually means. As we saw in Essay Seven, this so-called "Law" (i.e., Q↔Q) is not only highly questionable, it is irredeemably obscure. Worse still, there is a strong suspicion that Hegel himself might not have intended his 'law' to be as universally applicable as Engels and others believed. [On this, see Note 18.]
[Q↔Q: The Law of the Change of Quantity into Quality, and vice versa.]
Despite these initial worries, it is worth considering the following everyday material scenarios, which illustrate the peculiar nature of W8 -- if indeed it is applicable in such circumstances:
W9: NN drank five times as much tea this week as last week, but found that its quality had not changed.
W10: NN watched ten times as much TV this week as last week, but found that the quality of the programmes had not altered.
W11: The quality of the exercises MM performed improved because she read the keep-fit manual far more carefully this time, even though she spent just as many hours in the gym as she had before.
W12: NM cooked three times as much potato soup today as yesterday, but his children said it tasted no different.
W13: The quality of NP's French homework improved dramatically this week -- even though she spent the same time on it --, because of the superior pen and paper she used.
W14: MN read twice as many books on DM this year as he did last year but found that the quality of the arguments they contained remained depressingly the same.
This list can be extended indefinitely to cover situations with which we are all familiar, and the relevant numbers can be made as large as is practicable in each case, but no obvious dialectical conclusions would be drawn from any of them by ordinary workers or their families.
It could be objected that these examples have been deliberately chosen just to challenge [3], and that because of that they are highly contrived and banal in the extreme, which makes them unsuitable for use in scientific analysis. Anyway, they are not the sort of situation or processes that illustrate Q↔Q.
However, with respect to the first charge, it is worth noting that the whole point of this exercise is to see how ordinary people/workers might conceivably grope their way toward even a rudimentary grasp of DM-concepts from their own life-experiences. Technical examples would clearly be of little relevance, therefore. Anyway, Trotsky himself cited trite instances to make his point. Moreover, other dialecticians also cite allegedly everyday examples (such as water boiling, heads growing bald, and rubber bands snapping).
In addition, the accusation advanced here is that ordinary folk -- except when subject to outside influence -- cannot develop DM-concepts because the latter are either too obscure or they are non-sensical. In their practical -- and hence material -- activity people would find that dialectical notions actually hindered them; indeed, non-sensical ideas could not fail to impede day-to-day affairs. The point, therefore, is not that the prosaic examples listed above were specifically chosen to embarrass DM, whether they are contrived, or even whether they illustrate this obscure 'Law', but whether any day-to-day examples at all can be found to support Trotsky's claims -- if, that is, [3] expresses what he meant.
With respect to the last of the above counter-claims, the standard examples usually wheeled-out to illustrate the 'three laws of dialectics' were be examined in detail in Essay Seven. There it was shown that not only do they not establish what DM-apologists claim for them, there are far more instances where these 'Laws' are abrogated than there are where they seem to be 'obeyed'.
Finally, examples W9-W14 are more likely to teach workers that the opposite of Q↔Q is the case, which was all that was required of them. Recall that Trotsky needed to show that workers could gain a rudimentary grasp of something vaguely DM-specific as a result of some experience or other. The examples listed above (along with countless others) seem to indicate that if anything, the opposite would be true.
Since Q↔Q is the least implausible DM-'Law', it is even less likely that workers would derive any of the others from reflecting on their own experience. Not only have we seen that these 'Laws' make not the slightest sense, dialecticians have yet to tell us clearly what even they think they mean. If 'expert' dialecticians cannot manage this, it is not credible that workers could do much better.
Recall, this is not to put workers down; it is just to remind the reader that DM-theorists have yet to tell us precisely what workers are supposed to be aiming for.
As things stand, dialecticians might just as well suppose that workers could travel through a looking glass.
To be fair, Trotsky does at least try to give a few examples to illustrate his point, but they are highly sketchy and far too fanciful to be of much use. Nevertheless, in order to be thorough, they require consideration:
"Every individual is a dialectician to some extent or other, in most cases, unconsciously. A housewife knows that a certain amount of salt flavours soup agreeably, but that added salt makes the soup unpalatable. Consequently, an illiterate peasant woman guides herself in cooking soup by the Hegelian law of the transformation of quantity into quality…. Even animals arrive at their practical conclusions…on the basis of the Hegelian dialectic. Thus a fox is aware that quadrupeds and birds are nutritious and tasty…. When the same fox, however, encounters the first animal which exceeds it in size, for example, a wolf, it quickly concludes that quantity passes into quality, and turns to flee. Clearly, the legs of a fox are equipped with Hegelian tendencies, even if not fully conscious ones. All this demonstrates, in passing, that our methods of thought, both formal logic and the dialectic, are not arbitrary constructions of our reason but rather expressions of the actual inter-relationships in nature itself. In this sense the universe is permeated with 'unconscious' dialectics." [Trotsky (1971), pp.106-07.]
However, it is not east to take Trotsky's argument here seriously --, even though (amazingly) mega-OTs like Woods and Grant described this passage as "witty"! [Woods and Grant (1995), pp.47-48.]28a My response below is therefore coloured by this fact.
[OT = Orthodox Trotskyist.]
The above passage was analysed in detail in Essay Seven Part One. Here is part of it:
But, what exactly did Trotsky imagine the change of quantity into quality to be, here?
Does an increase in the quantity of salt alter its own quality? Presumably not.
Does the quantity of soup change? Perhaps only marginally; but even so, the quantity of soup is not what allegedly changed the quality of the soup -- that is supposed to have resulted from the quantity of salt added.
In fact, the quantity of the original soup has not actually changed -- merely the quantity of the salt/soup mixture --; and neither has the quality of the salt altered (just its alleged quantity).
What appears to have happened (in this less than half-formed 'thought experiment') is that the addition of too much salt to the soup is supposed to change the taste of the resulting salt/soup mixture perceived by the taster. Hence, at a certain ("nodal") point, a further increase in the quantity of salt alters the quality (i.e., the taste) of the soup, so that its acceptability changes either side of that point.
But once more, even here the increased quantity of the salt has not passed over into any change in its own quality. What has occurred is that one quality (a palatable taste) has morphed into another quality (an unpalatable taste) as a result of a quantitative change made to one ingredient (salt) added to the salt/soup mixture. So, a certain quality of the soup has changed from being acceptable to being unacceptable as a result of the increased quantity of salt the mixture contains.
However, the relevant quality of the added salt remains the same no matter how much is added. Salt is (largely) Sodium Chloride , and it tastes salty whether it is delivered by the spoon, the bucket or the train-load. In that case, neither the quantity nor the quality of the salt has "passed over" into anything in the salt; there does not therefore seem to be anything in the initial part of this story for that particular aspect of the salt to "pass over" into.
Consequently, the first half of this 'Law' is either mis-stated or it does not apply in this case.
As far as the second half is concerned (i.e., the alleged alteration in quality), the postulated change relates to the taste of the soup. But manifestly, the soup remains salty no matter how much salt is poured in, as we saw. What we have here is a batch of soup that becomes increasingly salty as more salt is added.
What qualitative change then is meant to have taken place? Again, it seems that this change relates to the acceptability of the taste of the soup as perceived by the taster. Hence, at -- or slightly beyond -- the alleged "nodal" point, the taste of the soup will become objectionable. But, if so, this particular change is confined to the one doing the tasting. Manifestly, it's not the soup that alters in this respect. On one side of the "nodal" point the soup is objectively salty (i.e., it contains dissolved salt); on the other side it is still objectively salty, but with more salt in it. The difference is that on one side, the taster tolerated the taste and continued to like it, but on the other side the taste became intolerable and she ceased to enjoy what she was eating. So, this means that the soup itself has not actually changed in this respect, merely the taster's appreciation of it that has.
So, it now seems that a change in the quantity (of salt) does not actually affect the soup –- except, perhaps, its volume (very slightly) and its composition as a salt/soup mixture. No matter how much salt is dumped into the soup it remains just that, a salt/soup mixture, only with higher proportions of the former ingredient -– and this is so even at the limit where it perhaps turns into sludge or a semi-solid lump, or whatever. A trillion tons of salt can't change that.28b
Consequently, even with respect to the relevant quality (interpreting the latter as this salt/soup mixture, if it can be so described), the concoction does not change (or, at least, not in a way that is relevant to Trotsky's purposes). Hence, a change in the quantity of salt has not "passed over" into a change in the quality of the soup (as soup), which means that the second part of this 'Law' seems to be defective, too.
If there is a qualitative change anywhere at all (which is relevant to the point Trotsky is making) it seems to occur in the third party -– that is, in the taster. We are forced to interpret things this way unless, of course, we are to suppose that tastes actually reside 'objectively' in soups, as one of their alleged 'primary' qualities. If that were so, qualities like this (that reside in soups, and not solely in tasters) would have to be able to alter 'objectively', even when they are not being tasted! But, it can't mean that; no sane dialectician (one imagines!) believes that tastes reside in the objects we eat. Hence, if this 'Law' is to work in this case, the qualitative change must be said to reside in the soup-taster, not the soup.28c
If so, this qualitative change must have been induced by a quantitative change in the taster, if the 'Law' is to apply to her. But, what quantitative change could have taken place in this taster that might have prompted a corresponding change in (her) quality, or in her changed perception of a quality? Does she grow a new nerve cells, an extra head? Well there's apparently none at all -- or, none that Trotsky mentioned, and certainly none that is obvious.
Plainly here, it was a quantitative change in the salt/soup mixture that altered its quality as it was apparent to that taster, but it had no effect on a quality actually in the soup (as previous comments sought to show -- tastes do not reside in soups!). But, once again, there would now seem to be no quantitative change in the taster that initiated a corresponding qualitative change in her.
In that case, the best that can be made of this half-baked example is that while quantitative change leads to no qualitative change in some things (i.e., soups), it can prompt certain qualitative changes in other things (i.e., tasters), the latter of which were not caused by any quantitative changes in those things themselves, but by something altogether mysterious.
So, the second part of the 'Law' is now doubly defective.
Of course, it could be objected that there is indeed a quantitative change in the said taster, namely the quantitative increase in salt atoms hitting her tongue. But, this just pushes the problem one stage further back, for unless we are to suppose that tastes reside in salt molecules (or in Sodium and Chlorine ions), the qualitative change we seek will still have occurred in the taster and not in the chemicals in her mouth -- and we are back where we were earlier. There seems to be no quantitative change to the taster apparent here; she does not grow another tongue or gain some more taste buds. It is undeniable that there will have been an increase in salt molecules hitting her tongue, and that these will have a causal effect on the change of taste as she perceives it, but even given all that, no change in quantity to the taster herself will have taken place.
Again, it could be objected that there is a material/energetic change here; matter or energy will have been transferred to the taster (and/or her central nervous system) which causes her to experience a qualitative change in her appreciation of the soup.
In fact, what has happened is that the original salt has merged/interacted with the taster's tongue/nervous system upon being ingested. But, it is at precisely that point that the earlier problems associated with the salt/soup mixture now transfer to the salt/nervous system 'mixture'. Since tastes do not exist in nerves any more than they exist in soups, we are no further forward. And as far as changes to the quantity of the taster is concerned, this will depend on how we draw the boundaries between inorganic salt molecules and living cells. Since this is considered in more detail in Essay Seven, no more will be said about it here.
In any case, it seems rather odd to describe a change in taste (or in the appreciation of taste) as a qualitative change to a taster, whatever caused it. As the term "quality" is understood by dialecticians, this cannot in fact be a qualitative change of the sort they require. Qualities, as characterised by dialecticians -- or, rather, by those that bother to say what they mean by this word -- are those properties of bodies/processes that make them what they are, alteration to which will change that body/process into something else. [Cf., Hegel (1975), §85 p.124.] This is an Aristotelian notion (more on this in another Essay). As Kuusinen notes:
"The totality of essential features that make a particular thing or phenomenon what it is and distinguishes it from others, is called its quality.... It is...concept that denotes the inseparable distinguishing features, the inner structure, constituting the definiteness of a phenomenon and without which it cease to be what it is." [Kuusinen (1961), pp.83-84. Italic emphasis in the original.]
But, it is not at all clear that someone's liking/not liking soup defines them as a person -- or as a being of a particular sort. While scientists might decide to classify certain aspects of nature (placing them in whatever categories they see fit), none, as far as I am aware, has so far identified two different sorts of human beings: "soup-likers for n milligrams of salt per m litres of soup versus soup-dislikers for the same or different n or m". And even if they were to do this, that would save this part of DM by mere re-definition, since it is reasonably clear that these two different sorts of human beings do not actually exist -- , or, at least, they didn't until I just invented them. Once again, that would make this part of DM eminently subjective, since it indicates that changes in quality are now relative to a choice of descriptive framework. Plainly, this introduces a fundamental element of arbitrariness into what dialecticians claim is a scientific law.
Moreover, as has also been noted, H2O as ice, water or steam, is still H2O. If so, these changes cannot apply to any of the qualities governed by DM/Hegelian principles (even if we knew what these were, and even if there were any). So, it now seems that these putative examples of Q«Q [i.e., the change of Quantity into Quality] either undermines the meaning of a key DM-concept on which it was apparently based (i.e., "quality"), vitiating its applicability in such instances -- or they aren't even examples of the operation of this 'Law'!
Given this new twist, it now seems that quantitative changes to material bodies (such as salt/soup mixtures) actually cause changes to sensory systems (of a vague and perhaps non-quantitative -- or even non-qualitative -- kind); these in turn bring about some sort of qualitative change in the sensory modalities of some/any of the tasters involved. If this is so, the original 'Law' (applied in this area) was woefully wide of the mark; it should have read something like the following:
E1: Change in quantity merely causes change in quantity to material bodies [no misprint!], but at a certain point this causes qualitative alterations (but these might not be Hegelian, or even neo-Aristotelian, qualities) to the way some human beings perceive the world, even though the latter have not undergone a quantitative change themselves.
Put like this, it is not at all certain that anyone would conclude this (or anything at all like it) from cooking soup (as Trotsky maintained)! And we can be pretty sure about this since not even Engels got close to this more accurate version of his own 'Law'. Nor did Trotsky! It is scarcely credible therefore that non-dialectical cooks, workers, or anyone else for that matter, would advance much further -- or even so far -– based only on their own experience.
Of course, this can only mean that peasant cooks are not "unconscious dialecticians", and neither is anyone else outside the DM-fraternity --, and this is probably because they are not quite so easily conned by notorious Idealists.
Is 'Foxy Dialectics' "Fair And Balanced"?
In view of the fact that Trotsky arguments are ridiculous in the extreme, this section is largely sarcastic. It can be skipped by those who do not like sarcasm; the points raised here are tangential to the main thrust of this Essay. Begin again, here.
Perhaps the oddest part of Trotsky's argument is the following:
"Even animals arrive at their practical conclusions…on the basis of the Hegelian dialectic. Thus a fox is aware that quadrupeds and birds are nutritious and tasty…. When the same fox, however, encounters the first animal which exceeds it in size, for example, a wolf, it quickly concludes that quantity passes into quality, and turns to flee. Clearly the legs of a fox are equipped with Hegelian tendencies…. [T]he universe throughout is permeated with 'unconscious' dialectics." [Trotsky (1971), pp.106-07. Bold emphases added.]
This appears to mean that there are in nature some animals that actually employ (unconsciously or not) the Hegelian 'Law' (that quantity "passes over" into quality (and vice versa)) in their 'reasoning'. One wonders, therefore, why it took human beings so long to 'discover' these 'Laws' if simple beasts are such excellent closet dialecticians.
The fox in the quoted passage apparently concludes that the wolf will vanquish it presumably because the wolf is bigger than the fox. The latter, making a qualitative 'judgement' about the relative size of the wolf, runs away -- these conclusions being forced on the fox by its 'intelligent legs'.
So much for Trotsky's attempt to out-do the Brothers Grimm.
Once again, this 'Law' is misapplied; here, a quantitative change in the wolf -- which is, one presumes, that the wolf is above a certain size -- effects a qualitative change in the fox, which becomes scared as a result. However, all the while, the wolf remains qualitatively the same (it does not change into a sparrow, for example), and the fox does not alter quantitatively (it neither shrinks nor splits into two).
In that case, there is no quantitative change detectable in the wolf, even though some sort of qualitative change has occurred to it (but, as we will see, this is only as the fox perceives it -- the wolf's size has certainly not altered; no one supposes that wolves grow in size when they confront foxes!).
Similarly, even though no quantitative change has taken place in the fox, it seems to have undergone some sort of qualitative change.
Hence, howsoever we try to phrase it, by no stretch of the imagination can this zoological pantomime be adapted to illustrate Engels's quirky 'Law'.
But, the change in the fox cannot have been qualitative -- if by "qualitative" we mean "appertaining to those features of an object or process that determine its nature" (as this vague term seems to mean in DM). Is there a single Zoologist on the planet who thinks that a defining characteristic of foxes is that they either do or do not run away from wolves of a certain size?
But, for the type of change envisioned by Trotsky to apply here, the qualitative change that should have occurred is the following: the fox, when confronted by a wolf that has just grown in size, changes from being defined as a predator that "does not run from away wolves of a certain size" into "one that does if that size increases beyond a certain limit" (this being an 'essential' quality of all foxes, having been encoded perhaps into the DNA of Vulpes vulpes).
In this fanciful (but more consistent) re-description, we would have a change in quantity in the wolf (it having grown on being confronted by the fox) causing a change in quality in that fox (which mutates from brave to cowardly (perhaps, as allowed for by its genes(??)), after having faced this rapidly growing wolf.
However, in this instance we still don't have a quantitative change to a single animal which as a result prompts, or is prompted by, a change in quality in the same animal. Even though the wolf might have changed quantitatively in the above fanciful re-write, it hasn't itself changed qualitatively (except as perceived by the fox). The obverse is true of the fox: it has undergone no quantitative change even though it has altered qualitatively.
Moreover, no relevant matter or energy has entered the fox, nor has any left the wolf, nor has there been an "interruption in gradualness" required by the DM-classics. It is thus not easy to see how Engels's Q↔Q can gain even so much as a paw hold here. No matter what is done to this lame theory it still limps along badly.
Furthermore, if we return to the original example, Trotsky failed to say what the fox's 'inference' amounted to; he merely hinted that it had something to do with nutrition and taste.29 Does the fox, therefore, 'conclude' that wolves of a certain size aren't tasty? Or, does it decide that they are not nutritious? Is that the quantitative change Trotsky was alluding to -- one that results in a qualitative revision to this fox's 'beliefs'?
If so, can this 'Law' be generalised? If it can, does this mean, for example, that all large animals are not nutritious/delicious -- but only if they are perused/pursued by relatively smaller predators/prey? Or does it mean that the contrary view would be taken of the same animals by still other animals that are relatively larger than they are, which larger animals now regard the very same animals (i.e., the ones that these picky foxes turned their noses up at) as nutritious/delicious in return?
Hence, although a mouse might view a larger rat as tasteless/non-nutritious (on this interpretation), the very same rat might seem to be delicious if confronted by a larger cat. Is relative size the "quantity" that is supposed to be operating here? And, is the "quality" here the taste of one organism as perceived by another (which is also dependent on relative size)? If not, what change in quantity or quality did Trotsky mean?
Or, is it that certain animals cease to be delicious when they are above a given size? Perhaps they become less tasty as they grow larger (as a result perhaps of a DM-UO operating here --, in this case, the UO could be: 'both tasty and not tasty' in dialectical tension, causing them to grow)? Maybe animals pass a "nodal" point at a certain body mass or volume (something that is mysteriously scientifically undetectable)?30
But if so, why do some small animals eat larger ones? For example, why do stoats eat rabbits, which are up to three times their size? Why does a liver fluke eat a sheep? Why do some bacteria consume human flesh? Why indeed does a caterpillar eat a leaf?
[Are plants allowed to play this game? Why, for instance, can't a tree scare off a caterpillar? Or is the possession/lack of possession of legs the crucial factor here?]
[UO = Unity of Opposites.]
Looking at this again we might wonder what the intended quantitative change is in Trotsky's parable of the fox. Are we to suppose that the wolf slowly grows in size so that at a "nodal" point, where there is a break in "gradualness", the fox ceases to regard the wolf as appetising? Clearly not. But if so, what quantitative change did Trotsky have in mind? Perhaps, he meant that given an array of animals of increasing size, at an arbitrary point unique to each fox (or is this affectation species-specific?), the said fox will 'conclude' that those one side of the "node" do not taste all that good (or are not nutritious), while those the other side do (are) -- or that they aren't worth the hassle?
If Trotsky was thinking along those lines, he was surely unwise to do so. This is because, even in this case, a quantitative change to some animals (wolves) would not have induced a concomitant qualitative change in that animal, as we have seen.31
Moreover, we are not to suppose that the taste of wolves is actually linked to theirs size. As seems reasonably clear, the alleged qualitative change here is the perceived taste of a prey as that strikes the prospective predator (in this case, the fox), not in the intended prey (the wolf). Once again, tastes do not reside in objects. But, as noted above, the original predator (the fox) itself has undergone no quantitative change (its size has not altered). So, even if it were possible to say which alteration was qualitative and which quantitative, it would still be clear that a change of quantity here had not produced a change of quality in the same animal (nor vice versa).
Even the tenuous link that connects the supposed change in quantity in the wolf with the change in quality of the fox is not all it seems, either. Again, no one supposes that as the fox slopes off into the distance -- having been scared away in the manner supposed -- it reassesses the food value of its former prey, so that as the wolf looks smaller when further away, it seems to the fox to taste better. But, if quantitative changes of this foxy sort always pass over into qualitative ones, we should expect the wolf to look more appetising the more it recedes into the distance, the smaller it looks to the fox -- presuming, of course, that foxes in general have not had lessons in perspectival geometry, and are untutored in the philosophy of perception (even though they seem to know a smattering of dialectics and far more Aristotle than most revolutionaries).
Indeed, the quantitative increase in the number of metres separating the two animals should pass over into a qualitative change in the nutritional value of wolves-as-perceived-by-foxes, one imagines. In that case, separation should make the stomach grow fonder.
Never mind that; can we generalise Trotsky's 'Law' about legs?
"When the same fox, however, encounters the first animal which exceeds it in size, for example, a wolf, it quickly concludes that quantity passes into quality, and turns to flee. Clearly the legs of a fox are equipped with Hegelian tendencies…." [Trotsky (1971), pp.106-07. Bold emphases added.]
Does size really matter when it comes to cowardice? Are all smaller animals practical dialecticians when they encounter larger ones? Do all legs bend the knee to Hegel's law?
But, what about a lion that breaks the 'Law' by killing a larger wildebeest?32 And what are we to say of the small snake that attacks a man (even if that reptile has no legs)? And, why do many insects (and some spiders) bite human beings? Are they unconscious metaphysical rebels, railing against Hegel's iron 'Law'?
Indeed, is it significant here that the leg ratio -- i.e., insect-to-man/woman -- favours the biter over the bitten by a factor of at least three to one (and if we throw in spiders, by a factor of four to one)? Are insect/arachnid legs and/or wings, therefore, law-breakers by sheer force of numbers? If, as a counter-measure, humans grew more legs (or carried, say, five extra limbs about with them as some sort of insect repellent) would that ward off, for instance, midges?
But does this mean that double amputees are therefore more tasty? And what does this tell us about rugby scrums and centipedes?
Figure One: Dialectical Insect Repellent?
But then, why does a horse run away from a small dog (where there seems to be rough parity in the orthopaedic department)? Or, a man swim from a shark (where, orthopaedically, the man wins feet down, every time -- at least, before the first few bites)?
Perhaps these animals/humans do not "understand" dialectics? Could they be inadvertent anti-dialecticians?
They should study chickens.
Finally, it's worth asking whether this 'Law' can be reversed (which is what Engels's 'definition' would have us believe, given the vice versa codicil he attached to it). Does, therefore, "quality pass over into quantity" in such cases? If it does, we should expect a lack of tastiness to have an affect on size, as this qualitative change turns the tables and induces an associated reversed quantitative difference.
Perhaps, then, evolution 'selected' certain animals to be large because they were not nutritious -- indicating, again, that this particular quality (i.e., food value) has not only "passed over", it has descended with modification by natural selection into quantity (i.e., size). If so, does that mean the dinosaurs tasted awful? But, why then do humans still eat whales? On the other hand, this seems to imply that viruses should taste absolutely delicious. Or did their taste mean they were 'selected' to be microscopic?
And yet, if this 'Law' is to work in 'reverse gear', something like the above would have to be true, it would seem.33
However, as whacky as these guesses seem to be, none would occur to workers, even if they knew so much about the antics of foxes, wolves and chickens.
Dialectical Marxism A Long-Term Failure
As noted above, Trotsky admitted that "in most cases" workers and peasants obey dialectical laws "unconsciously"; because of this it could be argued that workers might become aware of some of these 'Laws' at some point in their lives, by some means -- somehow. Indeed, it could also be maintained that the objectivity of such 'Laws' would allow socialists to alert workers to dialectics -- maybe as a result of a long history of successful interventions in their struggles (etc.). Hence, the argument might go: if it hadn't been the case that dialectics has delivered an increasingly objective picture of the world (i.e., if it were "subjective", "idealist", or "mystical"), revolutionaries would not be able to intervene successfully in the class war, and their activities would have failed. In that case, it could be concluded that this shows that in practice (despite the 'academic' points made above), where it has been tested and proven, dialectics has been shown to be objective, and that workers benefit from learning about it.
The question of practicalities is examined in Essay Ten Part One, and will be discussed again presently (and in Part Two of this Essay), where it will be shown that, given its proletarian aim, DIM is just about the most unsuccessful political and social movement in human history.
Historical Materialism Introduced From 'The Inside'
However, the intervention of revolutionaries in workers' struggles will of necessity involve the use of concepts drawn from HM, not DM. The problem with the response volunteered above is that it still leaves it unclear which laws or concepts specific to DM are of any relevance at all to the class struggle, or are consonant with workers' experience. And it is even more difficult to comprehend why workers would need DM if concepts drawn from HM actually speak to that experience and show them how best to fight back. This is especially so if no sense can be made of DM-theses -- even by its most avid fans.
The fact that HM so easily meshes with the lives of workers is, of course, why some of them become revolutionaries. HM relates to ordinary human beings in a way that DM cannot since it speaks to them in terms with which they can readily connect. In this sense HM captures what they in effect "already know", when they encounter it.34
This is because HM is not only consonant with, and dependent upon concepts developed out of material practices that relate to, and underlie human language and communication in general, it speaks to their oppression and exploitation. This is because the central tenets of HM revolve around the self-emancipation of the working class, just as they depend on collective labour and communal organisation. Since HM is predicated on the social nature of language -- that is, how discourse originated in, and arose out of collective labour --, it cannot help but mesh with workers' experience of exploitation and oppression, as well as with aspects of life and alienation that all of us share as members of the same "form of life". Since ordinary language is the language of the working-class, it cannot avoid reflecting a working-class view of life. [This is not to suggest that there are no distorting forces at work here, but this topic will be taken up in Essay Twelve, summary here.]
All of these factors find expression in the language that working people right across the planet have developed over tens of thousands of years out of their material interaction with each other and with the natural and social world. Because of this, HM is capable of explaining to workers, in their own language, the significance of their experience of class society and of how they can fight to win back control over their lives.
This means that HM does not have to be brought to ordinary people from the "outside"; its basic concepts are already present in workers' experience, who, as ordinary human beings, share a collective history and (largely) common class-origin. In that case, all that workers need are reminders.
In this sense -- but now understood more fully -- that the (non-dialectical) revolutionary party can be the memory, not just of the class, but of our entire species. The account given at this site partly explains why this is so. [More details will be added in Essay Twelve, summary here.]
As the context indicates, HM speaks to workers because of their experience of oppression and exploitation (and consequent alienation) -- and because it provides them with a social and political account of how these can be eradicated as a result of their own activity, their own struggles.
This is partly why HM makes immediate sense to most workers (when they are ready to listen), and why it appears so obvious to Marxists -- and to anyone who has had to work for a living under Capitalism. In fact, it is difficult to believe that anyone who has had to work for a living under Capitalism could read, say, Marx's 1844 Paris Manuscripts and fail to appreciate the profound insights into their condition that Marx so brilliantly outlines (if they ignore the Hegelian flourishes). [Marx (1975).]
Marx's analysis (here and elsewhere) speaks to workers' collective experience of alienation, their sense of fragmentation from their "species being", aggravated by the division of labour and compounded by class oppression. It also addresses the connection these have with collective and individual self-development, the relationships we have with other human beings (and with nature itself), and thus with our consequential de-humanisation. These profound truths do not really need to be taught (as would be the case if these were merely empirical facts); most human beings (who have to work for a living) just need to be reminded of them -- or perhaps merely of their significance.
As most revolutionaries know, it is not difficult to convince workers (when they are on strike, say) about the realities of class division, the nature of the class struggle, the role of the Police, or of exploitation -- along with a host of other HM-ideas. All that militants need to add to this (apart from the things listed in the next but one paragraph) is a wider generalisation and a deeper analysis.
This means that revolutionaries are not prophets or visionaries, they are organisers and administrators. Anything else would amount to substituting themselves for the class. HM reminds them of this; DM helps them forget it.
Revolutionary politics actually brings to workers a developed theory (HM) that generalises their experience (relating it to previous generations, and others in similar circumstances), providing the tactics, strategy and organisation necessary to further their struggles, and ultimately terminate Capitalism by overthrowing it. In fact, this is all that needs to be "brought to workers".
Because HM is based on and addresses their experience and their suppressed awareness of their own de-humanised condition, their struggle, and in their language, it is actually introduced to workers, as it were, 'from the inside'.
That is why HM, unlike DM, cannot form the ideological basis for substitutionism.
At a stroke, that solves Lenin's 'problem'.35
DM: Is Ordinary Language An Obstacle Or A Resource?
An emphasis on the limitations of ordinary language appears to be an important issue for some Marxists -- including the author of TAR. Clearly, he believes that everyday understanding -- left to itself -- cannot develop a dialectical conception of reality, which, oddly enough, runs contrary to what Trotsky himself appeared to believe. As Rees sees things:
"…Hegel is also difficult for reasons that are not the result of character and circumstance. His theories use terms and concepts that are unfamiliar because they go beyond the understanding of which everyday thought is capable. Ordinary language assumes that things and ideas are stable, that they are either 'this' or 'that'. And, within strict limits, these are perfectly reasonable assumptions. Yet the fundamental discovery of Hegel's dialectic was that things and ideas do change…. And they change because they embody conflicts which make them unstable…. It is to this end that Hegel deliberately chooses words that can embody dynamic processes…. It is the search to resolve…contradictions that pushes thought past commonsense definitions which see only separate stable entities." [Rees (1998), pp.45, 50. Bold emphasis added.]
Attentive readers will notice that this passage claims that the Hegelian dialectic enabled humanity to discover change!
This is a rather odd thing for a socialist to say. How does Rees think humanity managed to survive for so long if our ancestors failed to spot that things changed? Did they not notice their relatives ageing and dying, the seasons cycling, night becoming day (and vice versa), hot things cooling down, animals chasing other animals, huts, shoes and clothes wearing out, children coming into the world and growing taller as they were fed, crops ripening, and a whole host of other things?
Is Rees seriously telling us that had Hegel not put pen to paper he (Rees) would not have been able to detect, say, the onset of winter?
It seems he must if "the fundamental discovery of Hegel's dialectic was that things and ideas do change."
Perhaps Rees means that humanity would not be able to understand change had Hegel not written about it. That can't be right, for we have seen that Hegel's system itself (upside down or the 'right way up') cannot account for change. [On this see Essays Four through Eight Part Two -- but especially this, and this. On the alleged limitations of language, see here.]
Despite this, Rees further quotes Hegel:
"The battle of reason is the struggle to break up the rigidity to which the understanding has reduced everything…. The double usage of language, which gives to the same word a positive and negative meaning, is not an accident, and gives no ground for reproaching language as a cause of confusion. We should rather recognise in it the speculative spirit of our language rising above the mere Either-or of understanding." [Hegel (1975), The First Attitude Of Thought To Objectivity §32, p.53 and The Doctrine of Being §96, p.142; quoted in Rees (1998), pp.45-46.]
From this we can see that Hegel himself did not openly disparage ordinary language as such, since he saw within it the seeds of his own ideas.36 Contrast this approach with Rees's claim that ordinary language (which he appears to confuse with "everyday thought") "assumes" things are stable.37
However, Hegel in fact blamed an obscure entity he called the "abstract understanding" for the "rigidity" of "ordinary thought" (although the latter phrase is not Hegel's, so far as I can ascertain). Rees himself certainly believes that ordinary language constrains thought, restricting it to a limited range of static forms -- committing it to the LEM, for example (which, one presumes, was the significance of the "Either-or" reference in the first of the two passages above).38 Hence, as noted earlier, Rees appears to believe that ordinary language is defective, restrictive or misleading in some way.
[LEM = Law of Excluded Middle.]
Of course, the vernacular has its limitations, otherwise human beings would not have found it necessary to invent technical, scientific or specialised forms of discourse. But, this does not mean that ordinary language is defective, any more than it is a defect of a DVD recorder that it cannot cure the common cold.
Nevertheless, it is a mistake to think that the invention of new terminology will solve the philosophical problems that are solely the result of a misuse of language. The solution is, of course, to understand (indeed, to use) the vernacular aright --, which most of us manage to do every day when we are not attempting to do a little amateur 'philosophising'.
If, on the other hand, we fail to understand, or we misuse ordinary language, we stand no chance of comprehending the tangled verbal spaghetti churned out by the likes of Hegel.39
An obvious consequence of Rees and other dialecticians' belief that ordinary language operates with fixed categories is the idea that it renders workers incapable of understanding DM without "outside" assistance. Of course, one alternative to this involves agreeing with Trotsky that when workers begin to reflect on their experience they cannot fail to adopt DM-concepts, even if "outside" assistance is necessary for them to be able to grasp these more fully --, that is, once workers appreciate that their own language is inadequate in certain respects --, and for this to appear perhaps as part of their transformation from a "trade union" consciousness into a revolutionary one.
Another, but less popular approach, is to reject both of these options.40
Indeed, and to that end, we have already seen that it is the language of dialectics -- not ordinary language -- that is incapable of depicting change, or anything else, for that matter. By way of contrast, the vernacular contains countless words capable of expressing every conceivable nuance and form of change, in the minutest of detail, in limitless ways. Compared to this, 'Hegel-speak' employs obscure and wooden terminology, much of it predicated on an inept analysis of the verb "to be".
Hence, workers would have to be persuaded to turn their backs on the inexhaustibly rich vocabulary found in ordinary language and then be conned into using unintelligible philosophical jargon that is completely alien to their experience and patterns-of-thought. Indeed, they would have to be bamboozled into accepting an impoverished lexicon (which fails to deliver even what had been touted for it) to help them describe something they encounter and cope with each and every day (i.e., change), which they have hitherto be able to do without such 'assistance'!41
In this way, bringing dialectics to workers "from the outside" would run against the grain of their materialist understanding, and not just their collective experience -- undermining a level of sophistication inherent in the vernacular which enables workers to comprehend change, and incomparably more fully than is catered for by DM.
This, it seems, is the true significance of Hegel's words, quoted above; his elitist philosophy in effect finds fault not with the abstractions he disarmingly blames on "the understanding", but with the language that workers have invented -- that medium which alone allows them (and anyone) to understand material reality and how the world actually changes.
[DIM = Dialectical Marxism/Marxist.]
In that case, it is no wonder that the vernacular has had to be denigrated by dialecticians before 'dialectical' concepts can be substituted into workers' heads.41a Workers attracted into DIM in effect have to endure the equivalent of an intellectual lobotomy in order to have this alien program installed in their skulls. Small wonder then that few of them bother to learn DM and remain monumentally 'un-seized' by Marxism all their lives. Those that DM does "seize" are rendered theoretically passive for their pains, their brains having seized up as a result.42
However, there is a sting in the tail; as we have also seen: any direct or indirect attempt to undermine ordinary language quickly backfires on would-be detractors. Hence, if the ordinary word "change", for example, is inadequate to depict change, then the meaning of that word itself, when used by DM-theorists, must become problematic. This then throws into doubt any attempt to specify exactly how far the ordinary word "change" falls short of the now obscured target of that proposed revision. This means that every sentence containing the word "change" (as used by DM-fans) is thereby rendered senseless -- including any sentence in which these suspicions were first aired.
On the other hand, if we already know what "change" means then we are in no need of assistance from Hermetic mystics like Hegel. In either event, any attempt to augment the word "change" in this way is either pointless or vacuous.
To the annoyance of metaphysicians, ordinary material language buries its own gravediggers. [Perhaps this is the real spectre haunting DM.]
Failure Substituted For Success
But, we have yet to consider the flip side of all this: What has the effect been on militant minds of the importation of all this ruling-class thought? And, how is this connected with the long-term failure of DIM?
More to the point, how and why have leading revolutionaries fallen for this con? How is it possible for such first-rate comrades to have been so easily duped?
These and other questions will be tackled in Part Two.
1. Of course, Lenin's argument is much more involved than this brief quotation suggests, and John Molyneux's analysis of it (which is not questioned here) is admirably clear.
However, much of this might have to be re-written once I have had a chance to study Lih (2005). [Readers should also consult Blackledge (2006), and John Molyneux's own review of Lih's book, here.]
However, as noted in the main body of the Essay, this comment by Lenin shows that he clearly believed that DM had to be brought to workers from "the outside", because of its roots in traditional Philosophy, whatever else he might have meant in What Is To Be Done? [Henceforth, WITBD.]
Now, it's not a matter of opinion or debate where the ideas enshrined in DM came from, it's a matter of historical record, acknowledged by all sides. Nor is it plausible to believe that workers of themselves can re-capitulate the ideas Hegel inflicted on humanity (as this Essay seeks to confirm) -- however, on characters like Joseph Dietzgen, see Note 3 below. On the other hand, it is open to debate what Lenin meant in WITBD. Consequently, whatever Lenin meant in that book (when that is finally sorted out), DM has had to be introduced to workers from "the outside". Indeed, as we will also see, it has had to be substituted into their heads against the materialist grain.
As this Essay seeks to show, the fact that workers cannot attain a dialectical view of reality as a result of their own efforts is not to question their intellectual capacities, it is because no one (not even Hegel) is capable of attaining such a view. There is no such thing as a dialectical view of anything.
What dialecticians have in fact developed are impenetrably obscure dogmas which they cannot explain to anyone (including one another), let alone workers. There is thus no dialectical view of reality any more than there is a Trinitarian view of 'god'. There is Trinitarian jargon and there are those who mouth it at one another, just as there is dialectical jargon and those who mouth it. But neither makes any sense, so neither can be a view of anything.
2. I have included these commonplace remarks about the Party here only to indicate my agreement with them and to forestall any suggestion that the comments in the text might suggest otherwise -- which they don't. Where I part company is over the importation of ruling-class ideas from Hegel and other boss-class hacks.
3. It could be argued that the revolutionary career of Joseph Dietzgen, among others, refutes the assertion that workers cannot develop a dialectical view of nature and society for themselves. This widespread belief will be examined and shown to be false, later; cf., Note 25, below.
4. Worse still, it manoeuvres Marxist theoreticians into defending the indefensible, including: (1) Hegel's loopy logic (as we saw, for example, in Essay Eight Part Three); (2) mass oppression in the former 'socialist states'; (3) domination by an undemocratic elite; (4) various forms of substitutionism.
The first of these prompts comrades into writing incomprehensible books and articles about empty Idealist/'dialectical' concepts, which not a single worker will ever understand -- or, mercifully, ever read. Examples of some of these will be examined in Essay Twelve. The others will be analysed in Part Two of this Essay.
5. This sorry tale is outlined in Essay Twelve (summary here); it will be more fully substantiated in Essay Fourteen (summary here).
In order to short-circuit accusations that this commits the so-called 'genetic fallacy' (i.e., that I am claiming that DM is false because it's a ruling-class theory), it's worth pointing out that I am not claiming that the provenance of this mystical theory is sufficient to invalidate it. What has been established in these Essays is that DM is far too confused for anyone to be able to say whether it is correct or not, wherever it came from.
My purpose in Essay Nine Parts One and Two, Essay Twelve Part One and Essay Fourteen Parts One and Two is simply to trace DM back to its mystical roots, exposing the role it has played, and still plays, in ruining Marxism.
Hence, it is no surprise that DM had helped turn DIM into a synonym for long-term failure.
I do not propose to enter into the debate whether or not Marx himself agreed with Engels that there is a dialectic at work in nature. The few scattered remarks that are usually dredged up to suggest that he did are far from conclusive, especially since most of them occur in prefaces, footnotes, asides and afterthoughts (etc.) -- as Terrell Carver notes:
"It is interesting that the major texts by Marx that are cited in conjunction with Engels' claims are often footnotes and tangential remarks. The 1859 preface, for example, contains a 'guiding thread,' which Engels re-voiced as a lapidary doctrine, beginning with his book review of the same year. Marx himself consigned these few sentences of text to a footnote to Capital, volume 1, surely not the place for one of the scientific discoveries of the age. Originally it came from a hastily drafted preface and was intended merely to guide the reader; as a footnote to another text it seems exactly that, a footnote…. There may be a highly ironic authorial strategy in Marx that reverses footnotes to texts in terms of speaking to the reader, but as a way of reading Marx, in my view, this focus on footnotes and odd sentences tends toward the cabalistic.
"References to Hegel are similarly cast by Marx himself in a prefatory and comparative vein, typically in the second preface to Capital, volume 1, in which he comments at length on someone else's (a Russian reviewer's) comparison of his (Marx's) method to the one employed by 'that mighty thinker' (Hegel). There are few references indeed to 'dialectic' in Marx, and none to its centrality to explaining anything and everything (Carver 1981, ch.5). Marx merely comments that he 'coquetted' with Hegelian terminology in the opening chapters of Capital, volume 1, and makes a limited number of qualified comparisons elsewhere in the text. My point here with respect to commentators is that these remarks and passages are not so much 'taken out of context' as put into a context supplied by the Engelsian tradition…." [Carver (1999), pp.25-26.]
This whole issue has been debated at length many times. The case against the 'received' view can be found in Carver (1980, 1981, 1983, 1984a, 1984b, 1989, 1998a, 1998b, 1999). See also Jordan (1967), Levine (1975, 1984, 2006).
The 'orthodox' view (that Marx and Engels were in total agreement on everything, possibly even their favourite colour!) can be found in Novack (1978), pp.85-115, Rees (1994), pp.48-56, and Sheehan (1993), pp.48-64. Cf., also Stanley and Zimmerman (1984) and Welty (1983).
A thorough survey of the entire matter can be found in Rigby (1992, 1998), with a brief overview in Rigby (1999). In fact, Rigby argues rather forcefully in favour of the 'orthodox' interpretation, but he does this only so that he can then use it as a stick with which to beat HM. Nevertheless, Rigby's arguments are far from conclusive themselves since he manifestly relies on the aforementioned scattered remarks, footnotes, asides and peripheral comments to make his case.
However, as far as can be ascertained, Rigby does not appeal to Marx's Mathematical Manuscripts [i.e., Marx (1983)] to provide additional support for his case. This is puzzling since they would have greatly strengthened his argument. As we saw in Essay Seven, Marx employed some rather dubious reasoning (which he adapted from Hegel) to try to provide a 'dialectical solution' to the vexed question of the nature of the derivative in the Differential Calculus. But, even this aspect of Marx's work is not as clear-cut as it might seem. This is because mathematics is a human invention, which means, of course, that Marx's analysis might well form part of HM (even if erroneously so); hence these ideas might not be applicable to nature. Careful readers of Marx's comments will notice, too, that he speaks exclusively of the movement of variables, not objects in nature (even if the former are supposed to depict the latter). More on this here.
Admittedly, it would greatly assist the case being presented in this Essay if it could be shown that Marx did not accept DM; it would at least absolve him of any connection with what are manifestly non-sensical theses. It is difficult to believe that a first-rate revolutionary and thinker of genius, like Marx, assented to doctrines that would give the phrase "fourth-rate" a bad name. However, since there seems to be no conclusive evidence either way, it would be unwise to draw any firm opinions on this matter. [However, see Note 16, below.]
Fortunately, the case against DM is not affected by an answer to the above question. The truth of DM is no less unbelievable if Marx had accepted it. It's just that Marx's stature would suffer somewhat if that were the case.
7. The so-called "three Laws" of DM were examined in Essay Seven.
8. This is an all too common experience on the Internet. In the Introductory Essay, I have given links to sites where I have tried to 'debate' this topic with DM-fans. More can be found here. With one or two rare exceptions, almost every single DM-acolyte with whom I have 'debated' these issues has, (1) invented things to put in my mouth that I do not believe, nor have said, nor could reasonably have been inferred from what I have said, (2) misread even the simplest of sentences I have written, (3) demanded of me levels of proof they have strangely not required of the DM-classicists, (4) used the hackneyed tried-and-not-tested standard examples to support their 'theory' (these are listed in the main body of this Essay), (5) pontificated about logic when it is obvious they know less about it than the average cat, (6) ignored things they do not like, or could not answer, and (7) claimed that my ideas are not new (when most are), or are based on 'bourgeois' learning (when, as we all know, Hegel was a coal miner).
While these comrades have been considerably less polite than Trotsky was to Burnham (but no less arrogant and cock-sure), the reception the former gave the latter has clearly served as a model for DM-adepts to copy: ignore what you do not like, misrepresent where you can, and under no circumstances address your opponent's arguments. Engels, of course, set the tone in Anti-Dühring, as did Lenin in Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. Other DM-theorists (quoted in these Essays) have merely marched lock-step with them in this regard.
9. Of course, it's entirely possible that Lenin was merely commenting on contemporaneous Marxists, thus absolving Engels. However, what he actually says fails to support this interpretation:
"It is impossible to understand Marx's Capital, and especially its first chapter, without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel's Logic. Consequently, half a century later none of the Marxists understood Marx!!" [Lenin (1961), p.180. Bold emphases added.]
This looks pretty clear: in the last fifty years prior to Lenin, "none of the Marxists understood Marx!!" (emphasis added) --, not (note!) "some of the Marxists". In TAR, John Rees suggests that the above comment was aimed at Plekhanov and/or Second International Marxism; this is also possible, but once again, Lenin's use of the word "none" here does not support that interpretation.
Nevertheless, as Rees also says:
"In these fragmentary notes, Lenin formulates some of the most precise definitions of key concepts in Marxist philosophy available anywhere. The dialectic itself, for instance, has never been better explained…." [Rees (1998), p.185.]
High praise like this can only mean that Engels's account (to say nothing of other theorists, like Plekhanov) was deficient in some way.
But, in what way could that be?
Answer: Engels's version of DM was not aligned closely enough to Hegel's Logic.
And that can only mean that Engels did not understand Das Kapital!
On the other hand, if the dialectic has never been better explained, and Lenin's book is full of incomprehensible sentences, with little attempt to explain what Hegel meant, what does this say about the dialectic? Can anyone explain it in comprehensible terms? Has anyone?
In order to counter such ridiculous consequences, two comrades -- i.e., Woods and Grant [in Woods and Grant (1995), p.76] -- have argued that Lenin was deliberately exaggerating here. Again, that's entirely possible, but it's certainly not the way that Lenin has been interpreted by subsequent Marxists. [Indeed, Woods and Grant quote this passage here with no qualifications attached to it.]
On this, note Andy Blunden's comments:
"Hegel is the philosophical predecessor of Marx, and we have Lenin's word for it that Marx cannot be understood without first understanding Hegel." [Empson (2005), p.166.]
Naturally, this passage of Lenin's helps account for something that would otherwise be inexplicable: the fascination that Hegel's Logic has exercised on prominent revolutionaries -- including STDs and OTs -- ever since. If Lenin were merely exaggerating --, or if that is how he has always been perceived --, plainly, this would not have happened.
[STD = Stalinist Dialectician; OT = Orthodox Trotskyist.]
For example, not only do we find a Trotskyist of the stature of Raya Dunayevskaya writing several books in the futile attempt to show that a mortal being is capable of comprehending Hegel's Logic, we witness her also reiterating this famous claim (albeit watered-down a tad):
"Here, specifically, we see the case of Lenin, who had gone back to Hegel, and had stressed that it was impossible to understand Capital, especially its first chapter, without reading the whole of the Science…." [Dunayevskaya (2002), p.328.]
And, this is what Bertell Ollman had to say:
"Even from this brief outline, it is apparent that Marx's Hegelian heritage is too complex to allow simple characterization. Hegel never ceased being important for Marx, as Lenin, for example, perceived when he wrote in his notebook in 1914, 'It is impossible completely to understand Marx's Capital, and especially its first chapters, without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel's Logic. Consequently, half a century later none of the Marxists understood Marx'" [Ollman (1976), p.35; a copy of this can be found here.]
There is a list of other prominent Marxists who agree with Lenin -- as well as another list of those who do not -- in Burns (2000), p.99, notes 2 and 4.
Nevertheless, if this is the only way that these remarks of Lenin's can be defused by Woods and Grant (i.e., by claiming that Lenin was indulging in hyperbole), the question naturally arises as to why they took other (even more absurd) statements of his in PN literally.
Furthermore, it's worth noting that Lenin himself admitted that he found certain parts of Hegel's Logic impossibly obscure, or just plain nonsense. [Cf., Lenin (1961), pp.103, 108, 117, 229.]
Hence, if correct, this would mean that even Lenin did not understand Das Kapital!
"It is impossible to understand Marx's Capital, and especially its first chapter, without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel's Logic. Consequently, half a century later none of the Marxists understood Marx!!" [Lenin (1961), p.180. Bold emphases added.]
Notice that Lenin did not refer to just 99.9% of Hegel's Logic, but the "whole" of it.
Is this yet another internal contradiction that forces us to change our view of Hegel? Surely, it must be if Lenin is correct in insisting that "everything existing" (including the existing passage above) is a UO.
"[Among the elements of dialectics are the following:]…[I]nternally contradictory tendencies…in [a thing]… as the sum and unity of opposites…. [E]ach thing (phenomenon, process, etc.)…is connected with every other…. [This involves] not only the unity of opposites, but the transitions of every determination, quality, feature, side, property into every other….
"In brief, dialectics can be defined as the doctrine of the unity of opposites. This embodies the essence of dialectics….
"The splitting of the whole and the cognition of its contradictory parts…is the essence (one of the 'essentials', one of the principal, if not the principal, characteristic features) of dialectics….
"The identity of opposites…is the recognition…of the contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature…. The condition for the knowledge of all processes of the world in their 'self-movement', in their spontaneous development, in their real life, is the knowledge of them as a unity of opposites. Development is the 'struggle' of opposites…. [This] alone furnishes the key to the self-movement of everything existing…." [Lenin (1961), pp.221-22, 357-60. Bold emphasis added.]
Or is this just another "exaggeration"?
Finally, there is no evidence that Marx himself made even a remotely similar claim about his own work -- nor is there any evidence that he had ever thoroughly studied and thoroughly understood Hegel's 'Logic'. This either means that the Logic is largely irrelevant to any and all students of Kapital, or Marx did not understand his own book! [However, on this, see Note 16, below.]
9a. On this see Note 10.
10. While there are two different works commonly called Hegel's Logic (one of which Hegel was in the process of revising when he died -- on this see Carver (2000)), Lenin's notes relate to the Science Of Logic (i.e., Hegel (1999)).
Nevertheless, Lenin was unaware of the important changes Hegel had made to this book. So was Marx. Does this mean that one or both (Lenin and/or Marx) did not understand Das Kapital? It seems they must if Lenin is right. [Again, on this, see Carver (2000).]
This does not, of course, mean that workers cannot understand Das Kapital, but if Lenin were right it would be remarkable if anyone could!
11. I, for one, will not be holding my breath on this. We have already seen one attempt fail badly here and here. More on this in Essay Twelve.
However, the best book I have read so far on this, which attempts to make Hegel comprehensible, is Beiser (2005). Even so, Beiser has to paper over the serious problems that face anyone attempting to interpret Hegel, and even he has to translate the latter's impenetrable prose into ordinary-ish sort of English to complete the job. [On that problem, see here.]
Naturally, this just raises the question whether Beiser's Hegel is Hegel's Hegel, or Beiser's Hegel. And that, like all such questions, is unanswerable, especially with regard to Hegel.
12. Again, this is not to suggest that the roots of sectarianism are merely ideological, just that it helps considerably if the faithful have an obscure book (or set of books) on which to base their ideas and thus differences.
For example, such a 'holy book' merely encourages a call for 'orthodoxy', and that in turn fosters the idea that only certain 'leaders' are 'authorised' to impose the 'right sort' and correct amount of it.
To that end, of course, the more obscure the book, the better. Without doubt then Hegel's Logic gets the Gold Medal in this event.
As TV cop Kojak once said (but of something else!), "It sure beats the hell out of whatever's in second place!"
13. Lest this comment appears to associate me with certain well-known anti-Marxists (who seem to say somewhat similar things), it is worth noting that the points made here are specifically aimed at the ideological use of mystification -- whosoever indulges in it, and that includes such anti-Marxist critics themselves.
As will be agued in Part Two of this Essay, if Lenin was guilty of doing this he did so unwittingly; he was clearly unaware of the significance of the ideas that Engels had imported into the movement. The same goes for other great revolutionaries (including Engels himself). My argument is thus not with their sincerity -- nor yet with their revolutionary fervour -- but with their philosophical judgement and their psychological susceptibilities.
14. Once more, the comments in the main body of this Essay might appear to some to be a re-hash of the hackneyed idea that Marxism is a quasi-religion. Nothing could be further from the truth. As will be argued in more detail in Part Two: only in so far as DM induces revolutionaries into adopting a dogmatic metaphysic is the analogy with Theology at all apt.
[In fact, as we will see in Part Two, the motivation to accept dialectics is not unlike that which motivates commitment to religious belief.]
So, while Marxism itself is not a religion, DIM is all too uncannily like one.
15. Even if this is incorrect, and it should turn out that most scientists have studied the classics in their field, their practice is certainly not now informed by this fact, and only this fact. The opposite is true of dialecticians.
In fact, upon learning of the aims of my site, rarely does a dialectically-distracted comrade (mainly those drawn from the HCD-tendency) fail to quote this passage of Lenin's at me, so influential has it become.
[HCD = High Church Dialectician.]
Nevertheless, Marx certainly laid down no such preconditions for understanding his work. In fact, if anything, he tended to play down Hegel's influence. However, so deep has Lenin's myth sunk into the collective Dialectical Mind that this particular comment will elicit immediate disbelief. But it is nonetheless true for all that. And here is why:
Marx himself pointed out (again, in a side remark) that the relevance of Hegel's Philosophy could be summarised in a few printers' sheets:
"What was of great use to me as regards method of treatment was Hegel's Logic at which I had taken another look by mere accident, Freiligrath having found and made me a present of several volumes of Hegel, originally the property of Bakunin. If ever the time comes when such work is again possible, I should very much like to write 2 or 3 sheets making accessible to the common reader the rational aspect of the method which Hegel not only discovered but also mystified." [Marx to Engels, 16/01/1858; MECW, Volume 40, p.248; copy here. Bold emphasis in the original.]
Needless to say, Marx never supplied his readers with such a précis. From this we may perhaps draw the conclusion that in the end Marx did not really think Hegel's method was all that significant. So, despite all the millions of words he committed to paper, he did not consider it important enough to write out these relatively few pages.
Meanwhile, and in contrast, Marx spent a whole year of his life banging on about Karl Vogt -- but still he could not be bothered with this 'vitally important' summary.
Even had Marx published this summary, it would still have meant that only a tiny fraction of Hegel's work is relevant to understanding Capital: a few pages!
Contrast that with what Lenin said.
Attentive readers, too, will no doubt have noticed that Marx says he encountered Hegel's Logic by "accident"; this hardly suggests he was a constant or avid reader of that work. Indeed, he did not even possess his own copy of Hegel's Logic and had to be given one as a present by Freiligrath!
Much has been made of certain references to Hegel in Marx's later work. However, a close reading of these reveals a picture that is different from the standard line retailed by dialecticians. The scattered remarks about Hegelian Philosophy (that is, other than his analysis of Hegel's political ideas in his early studies) in Marx's later published work are inconclusive. Cf., Carver's remarks noted above, in Note 6.
Marx himself declared:
"...I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even, here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the mode of expression peculiar to him." [Marx (1976), p.103. Bold emphasis added. I have used the punctuation found in MECW here.]
His use of the word "coquetted" suggests Hegel's Logic had only a superficial influence, merely confined to certain "modes of expression", and limited to just a few sections of his great work. And as far as Marx "openly" avowing himself a pupil of Hegel, he pointedly put that in the past tense:
"I criticised the mystificatory side of the Hegelian dialectic nearly thirty years ago, at a time when is was still the fashion. But just when I was working on the first volume of Capital, the ill-humoured, arrogant and mediocre epigones who now talk large in educated German circles began to take pleasure in treating Hegel in the same way as the good Moses Mendelssohn treated Spinoza in Lessing's time, namely as a 'dead dog'. I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even, here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the mode of expression peculiar to him." [Ibid., pp.102-03. Bold emphases added. Once more, I have used the punctuation found in MECW.]
This is hardly a ringing endorsement, and is equivocal at best; Marx does not say he is now a pupil of Hegel, but that he once was. Of course, it might still have been the case that he was such when the above was written (and this letter tends to support that view), but there is nothing here to suggest that Marx viewed the link between his own and Hegel's work as Lenin did.
[Of course, one can call a theorist a "mighty thinker", and claim to have learn much from the latter, even while disagreeing with everything he or she says. For example, I think Plato is a "mighty thinker", and I have learnt much from him, but I disagree with him almost completely.]
Now, John Rees has attempted to neutralise this devastating admission (that the extent of the influence on Marx of Hegel's Logic was no more than a few jargonised expressions, used only in places, and with which Marx merely "coquetted"), by arguing as follows:
"Remarkably, this last quotation is sometimes cited as evidence that Marx was not serious about his debt to Hegel and that he only or merely 'coquetted' with Hegel's phraseology, and that he really did not make any further use of the dialectic. That this interpretation is false should be obvious from this sentence alone. The meaning is clearly that Marx was so keen to identify with Hegel that he 'even' went so far as to use the same terms as 'that mighty thinker' not that he 'only' used those terms." [Rees (1998), p.100.]
Well, if this is so, why did Marx put his praise of Hegel in the past tense, and why did he say that:
"...even, here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, [he had, RL] coquetted with the mode of expression peculiar to him." [Marx (1976), p.103. Bold emphasis added. Once more, I have used the punctuation found in MECW.]
This is quite clear, Marx himself (not me, not Peter Struve, not James Burnham, not Max Eastman...), Marx himself says that he "coquetted" (hardly a serious use of the Logic!) with Hegelian phraseology, and only in certain places ("here and there"). So, far from "using" such terms, as Rees suggests, he merely "coquetted" with them. Indeed, had this alleged "debt" to Hegel been plain for all to see, Marx would surely not have expressed this so equivocally.
[As will become clear later, it's much easier to attribute core HM ideas in Das Kapital to Aristotle, Kant and the Scottish Historical Materialists than it is to Hegel. On the latter, see Meek (1954). On Kant, see Wood (1998, 1999). On Marx and Aristotle, see McCarthy (1992), Meikle (1995). See also my comments at RevLeft, here and here.]
It is now apparent that this (coupled with the long passage quoted below) is the "rational kernel" of that mystical theory: the non-serious use of Hegelian jargon, here and there, and confined to a few sections of Marx's most important work! Hence, for Marx, to rotate Hegel and put him on his feet, is to crush his head.
Some have pointed to Marx's own words where he refers to his "dialectical method", in order to counter the above allegations. But, what did Marx mean by this phrase?
Well, we needn't speculate; Marx himself tells us what he means in the same Postface to the Second Edition; there he quotes a reviewer of Das Kapital in the following terms:
"After a quotation from the preface to my 'Criticism of Political Economy,' Berlin, 1859, pp. IV-VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on:
'The one thing which is of moment to Marx, is to find the law of the phenomena with whose investigation he is concerned; and not only is that law of moment to him, which governs these phenomena, in so far as they have a definite form and mutual connexion within a given historical period. Of still greater moment to him is the law of their variation, of their development, i.e., of their transition from one form into another, from one series of connexions into a different one. This law once discovered, he investigates in detail the effects in which it manifests itself in social life. Consequently, Marx only troubles himself about one thing: to show, by rigid scientific investigation, the necessity of successive determinate orders of social conditions, and to establish, as impartially as possible, the facts that serve him for fundamental starting-points. For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over; and this all the same, whether men believe or do not believe it, whether they are conscious or unconscious of it. Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence. ... If in the history of civilisation the conscious element plays a part so subordinate, then it is self-evident that a critical inquiry whose subject-matter is civilisation, can, less than anything else, have for its basis any form of, or any result of, consciousness. That is to say, that not the idea, but the material phenomenon alone can serve as its starting-point. Such an inquiry will confine itself to the confrontation and the comparison of a fact, not with ideas, but with another fact. For this inquiry, the one thing of moment is, that both facts be investigated as accurately as possible, and that they actually form, each with respect to the other, different momenta of an evolution; but most important of all is the rigid analysis of the series of successions, of the sequences and concatenations in which the different stages of such an evolution present themselves. But it will be said, the general laws of economic life are one and the same, no matter whether they are applied to the present or the past. This Marx directly denies. According to him, such abstract laws do not exist. On the contrary, in his opinion every historical period has laws of its own.... As soon as society has outlived a given period of development, and is passing over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject also to other laws. In a word, economic life offers us a phenomenon analogous to the history of evolution in other branches of biology. The old economists misunderstood the nature of economic laws when they likened them to the laws of physics and chemistry. A more thorough analysis of phenomena shows that social organisms differ among themselves as fundamentally as plants or animals. Nay, one and the same phenomenon falls under quite different laws in consequence of the different structure of those organisms as a whole, of the variations of their individual organs, of the different conditions in which those organs function, &c. Marx, e.g., denies that the law of population is the same at all times and in all places. He asserts, on the contrary, that every stage of development has its own law of population. ... With the varying degree of development of productive power, social conditions and the laws governing them vary too. Whilst Marx sets himself the task of following and explaining from this point of view the economic system established by the sway of capital, he is only formulating, in a strictly scientific manner, the aim that every accurate investigation into economic life must have. The scientific value of such an inquiry lies in the disclosing of the special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one. And it is this value that, in point of fact, Marx's book has.'
"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]
In the passage that Marx quotes not a single Hegelian concept is to be found -- no "contradictions", no change of "quantity into quality", no "negation of the negation", no "unity and identity of opposites", no "interconnected Totality" --, and yet Marx calls this the "dialectic method", and says of it that it is "my method". So, Marx's "method" has had Hegel completely excised --, except for the odd phrase or two here and there with which he merely "coquetted". In that case once more, Marx's "dialectic method" more closely resembles that of Aristotle and Kant. This is, of course, the version of HM I have been advocating all along.
[It is thus pleasing to see Marx and Rosa are in total agreement here.]
Naturally, DM-fans are guaranteed not like this, but they should pick a fight with Marx for destroying their illusions, not me.
[Indeed they do not like this, witness the reception an earlier version of this part of the present Essay received here, here, here and again here. Reality is one thing dialectically-distracted comrades are not used to confronting. Witness, too, the latest attempt to foist Hegel on Das Kapital, here.]
Woods and Grant, however, note that Lenin argued that Marx did leave behind his own version of Hegel's Logic, namely Das Kapital [Woods and Grant (1995), p.76.]. But, Marx's own words (i.e., that he merely "coquetted" with Hegelian terminology, and only in a few, isolated places) shows that this is more than an "exaggeration" on Lenin's part -- it's a fabrication.
However Terrell Carver, a noted critic of the 'orthodox' view (that Engels and Marx saw eye-to-eye on everything, and that Hegel exerted a profound influence on Marx), has back-tracked somewhat, as far as I can see (in Carver (2000)). Even so, Carver's reasoning in this case is uncharacteristically obscure. Fortunately, John Rosenthal has neutralised this argument; for more details, see Rosenthal (1998).
Finally, it could be argued that the Grundrisse (i.e., Marx (1973)) is living disproof of much of the above. Well, it would have been had Marx seen fit to publish it, but he didn't --, and so it isn't.
But he did publish this:
"...I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even, here and there in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the mode of expression peculiar to him." [Marx (1976), p.103. Bold emphasis added.]
So, whatever it was that happened to Marx's thinking between the writing of the Grundrisse and the publishing of Das Kapital, it clearly changed his view of Hegel's Logic -- to such an extent that its phraseology became something with which he merely wished to "coquette".
In that case, Lenin should have said:
"It is possible to understand Marx's Capital, and especially its first chapter, merely by coquetting with the phraseology of Hegel's Logic. Consequently, half a century later anyone who is capable of coquetting will understand Marx!!" [Edited misquotation of Lenin (1961), p.180.]
[Support for this reading of the relation between Marx, Lenin and Hegel can be found in Louis Althusser's 'Lenin Before Hegel', in Althusser (2001). I hasten to add that I do not agree with everything Althusser says in that essay (for example, I do not accept the "epistemological" break Althusser foists on Marx). It is also worth noting that, as far as I can determine, I push the argument much further than Althusser.]
17. Comrades who are still impressed with Trotsky's arguments might like to reflect on the fact that he used dialectics to 'prove' that the former USSR of his day was a degenerated Workers' State, and that it should therefore be defended by revolutionaries. He even argued (again, on the basis of DL) that only the enemies of Marxism would resist such a conclusion.
[DL = Dialectical Logic; OT = Orthodox Trotskyist.]
[Knowledgeable comrades are already aware of the above facts, but they either ignore them, explain them away or fail to note their significance.
Of course, OTs openly accept the validity of such dialectical 'reasoning', but then they also fail to ask themselves why Trotskyism is by far and away the most unsuccessful branch of revolutionary Marxism. On that, see Part Two of this Essay, here, and Essay Ten Part One.]
Fans of DM might also like to peruse the actual arguments Trotsky used to justify the indefensible Stalinist military aggression against Finland -- once again supported by an appeal to 'dialectics', and little else. Oddly enough, John Rees neglected to mention any of these salient facts in TAR. So much for testing theory against reality!
Although it is not part of the argument advanced here that from contradictions "anything follows" (the so-called Ex Falso Quodlibet argument), the history of DL illustrates that almost anything can and does 'follow' from DL-'contradictions', and that these consequences have been defended solely because of this. [Again, more details and references substantiating these serious allegations will be given in Part Two of this Essay.]
18. It is important to note that Trotsky's universal extrapolation of "Hegel's Law" is excessive -- Hegel certainly did not see this 'Law' as applicable everywhere, but only in certain prescribed areas, as indeed Trotsky himself noted:
"Hegel himself did not give the law of the transition of quantity into quality the paramount importance it fully deserves." [Trotsky (1986), pp.88-89.]
On this, see Levine (1984), pp.111-13.
19. Since none of Trotsky's epigones appear to have spotted this serious error, this must mean that this inability (i.e., to tell whether or not a counter-example applies to the same law) is not confined merely to Trotsky. In this respect, at least, one follower of Trotsky seems to be equally in the dark as any other. Ironically, this means that Trotsky's attack on the LOI has inadvertently created many such logically-challenged clones, and ones that bear such identical defects. Hence, there seem to be countless epigones identical in their inability to spot a correct application of the LOI, and indeed in their ability to misconstrue it along identical lines. Since Trotsky is responsible for making them this way, then he, at least, succeeded in making more than two followers who are equally confused.
Naturally, it could be objected that the above argument is farcical since the aforementioned 'followers' are not identical in all respects, and so Trotsky has not created more than two identical copies of confused comrades.
Now this is, of course, where our use of words for identity becomes rather complicated; hence in order to make the above counter-objection work, a hypothetical objector will have to use words for identity exactly as the rest of us do (and there is no room for approximation here, or this counterclaim will itself fail), transferring this objection from the individual or objects mentioned onto the application of identically the same words to exactly the same examples. In that case, I am quite willing to withdraw the above criticism of Trotsky in exchange for an admission that at least here, over our use of words for identity, we all do exactly the same thing.
Either way, the DM-criticism of the LOI takes another body blow.
[Anyway, this objection was dealt with in Essay Six.]
Independently of this, there is another serious difficulty thrown up by Trotsky's 'argument':
"Every worker knows that it is impossible to make two completely equal objects. In the elaboration of a bearing-brass into cone bearings, a certain deviation is allowed for the cones which should not, however, go beyond certain limits…. By observing the norms of tolerance, the cones are considered as being equal. ('A' is equal to 'A')…. Every individual is a dialectician to some extent or other, in most cases, unconsciously." [Trotsky (1971), pp.65, 106.]
Trotsky failed to notice that the alleged limitation he thought he noticed in the making of two identical items does not appear to affect whoever it is that is responsible for applying these "norms of tolerance". According to Trotsky's own description, such workers are at least able to determine what constitutes the same application of these norms to different cone bearings. But, that surely means that such workers would have to use a norm encapsulating the dread LOI in order to apply that norm equally between cases. That is, they would have to know (in practice) what constituted an identical application of that norm over time, since an approximate application to two very similar cones might very well pass them off as identical!
Hence, in order for a worker to do what Trotsky says, he or she would have to know precisely what constitutes the correct application of the same norm to at least two different cone bearings. Even if these workers rejected the LOI (which is doubtful), they would still have to use a norm that encapsulated it in order to be able to agree with Trotsky that this 'Law' fails to apply to cone bearings! In fact, they could only concur with Trotsky after completing a practical refutation of what he declared they all implicitly knew! [We saw this happen repeatedly in Essay Six.]
20. It is worth noting that in view of the fact that Trotsky misconstrued his own version of the LOI -- and he is supposed to be a consummate dialectician --, few workers should be expected to draw the suggested 'dialectical conclusion' from their own productive activity.
Not even Trotsky got this right!
Despite this, what Trotsky actually said is patently incorrect. His comments clearly ruled out the possibility that two different objects could become the same, that a worker could make two distinct objects into one and the same thing, and that workers know this. In fact, ordinary language and common experience allows for both eventualities (of which workers will be well aware already).
Examples of two things becoming one include the following:
(1) Two streams can flow into the same river.
(2) Two items of cloth can be combined in the same garment.
(3) Two cricketers/baseball players can become the same fielder (at the same time in different matches, or at different times in the same match), or two soldiers/union officials could be promoted to the same rank (with similar provisos).
(4) Two scabs could become the same target of the one brick; or two bricks could form part of the same defence against a police attack.
(5) Two workers could form the same small picket in the same or different strikes.
(6) Two copies of The Daily Mail could become the lining of the same pigsty -- but, only after suitable apologies have been made to the pigs, of course.
Examples of two items being made into one include the following:
(1) Two rivets can be made into the same seal between two plates of metal.
(2) Two buckets of paint can be mixed to form the same colour (i.e., green and red making brown).
(3) Two wooden posts can form the same support in a mine.
(4) Two ropes can form the same towline.
(5) Two plastic pipes can comprise the same outlet.
(6) Two miscounted Widgets can create the same excuse for a strike.
(7) Two sentences can form the same paragraph of the same or different strike leaflets.
(8) Two (or more) of the above can form the same excuse for dialecticians to ignore them.
Of course, if we are no longer restricted to considering only two items then it is possible to multiply the above examples indefinitely. For instance, one hundred thousand workers could form the same revolutionary column, or two million people could form the same march against the war in Iraq. Or even: two thousand police officers could constitute the same panic-stricken retreat from either of the former.
It could be objected here that these 'counterexamples' beg the question since, if Trotsky is right about the defects of the LOI, none of the above would be genuine identity statements.
However, as was argued in Essay Six, our ordinary use of words for identity (i.e., "the same as", "exact", "similar", "identical", "not different", "precisely", etc.) is highly complex. It is far more involved and nuanced than Trotsky imagined in his 'theoretical' deliberations -- although in his everyday speech he could not have been unaware of this, and he would have used sentences employing terms like the above countless times throughout his life.
The vernacular --, which, it is worth reminding ourselves yet again, is derived from everyday material practice -- allows for the expression of all manner of complex identities; the lists given above outline only a few of these (there are more given here).
Anyone who could not recognise these as examples of sameness and identity (etc.) would be deemed not to understand their own language (since they would be incapable of recognising and using and comprehending the same words from that language in the same way as anyone else); indeed, they could in some circumstances become a danger to themselves. In which case, they would hardly be in a position to criticise the 'law' that supposedly operates behind such words.
Indeed, the employment of these words in contexts like the above tells us more about their meaning than could be learnt from reading the same comments in Hegel an indefinite number of times (irony intended). His narrow metaphysical use of a few of our words for identity and change shares nothing with their ordinary employment; as such his use is devoid of meaning. [Why this is so will be explained in Essay Twelve Part One.]
If, on the other hand, these examples do not tell us what our words for identity (etc.) mean, if they are defective in some way, then even those who criticise the use of such terms must fail to grasp what they themselves are criticising (i.e., the ordinary use of a word they have just failed to grasp), since they will not be able to put into words what constitutes the same use of either that word or its associated terms. [An appeal to 'approximate' identity here would be of no use, as we saw in Essay Six.]
Furthermore, as we also saw in Essay Six, it is in fact impossible to decide what (if anything) Trotsky actually meant by his attack on the LOI. All this suggests that the above examples represent a far more legitimate use of words for identity than the severely limited range found in Hegel, Trotsky or his latter-day clones. Hence, as far as ordinary language is concerned, it is quite easy to speak about making two or more things exactly the same -- which is all that us non-Idealists need.
It is certainly all that workers need.
Finally, as was noted in Essay Six, too: it is not to the point to object to the examples given above on the grounds that the objects/processes listed are all subject to change, for even if that were the case, any such object/process will change at a rate equal to anything with which it is identical -- in this case, itself. Hence, the LOI is no enemy of change.
21. Here is some material devoted to this topic, copied from another Essay posted at this site:
Physicists tell us that every photon, for example, is identical to every other photon. This how Steven French puts things:
"It should be emphasised, first of all, that quantal particles are indistinguishable in a much stronger sense than classical particles. It is not just that two or more electrons, say, possess all intrinsic properties in common but that -- on the standard understanding -- no measurement whatsoever could in principle determine which one is which." [French (2006), available here. Accessed 13/11/06.]
And Nobel Laureate, Paul Dirac made the same point this way:
"If a system in atomic physics contains a number of particles of the same kind, e.g., a number of electrons, the particles are absolutely indistinguishable. No observable change is made when two of them are interchanged…." [Dirac (1967), p.207.]
In that case, each time a worker turns on a light, he or she makes countless trillion identical objects -- which must mean that such workers are "unconscious" anti-dialecticians!
Naturally, contentious claims like these can only be neutralised by an a priori stipulation to the effect that every photon in existence (past, present and future) must be non-identical -- despite what scientists tell us, and in abeyance of the almost infinite amount of data that would be needed to support such an ambitious claim. At this point, perhaps, even hardnosed dialecticians might just be able to see in this a blatant attempt to impose DM on reality.
A recent discussion of these issues can be found in Brading and Castellani (2003), and Castellani (1998). An even more recent discussion can be found in Saunders (2006).
See also the Wikipedia entry here. [Accessed 15/11/06.]
It could objected that Trotsky would surely have been unaware of these recent developments in physics, but as the references above show, such facts were largely true of classical particles, too; quantum objects merely present a more extreme form of strict identity. And Lenin it was who reminded us that science is ever revisable; hence no dialectician (who agrees with Lenin) could consistently rule out the possibility that scientists would one day discover identical particles -- as indeed they have.
22. And Rees is not alone in so arguing. Compare his comments with Engels's view of ordinary 'commonsense':
"To the metaphysician, things and their mental reflexes, ideas, are isolated, are to be considered one after the other and apart from each other, are objects fixed, rigid, given once for all. He thinks in absolutely irreconcilable antitheses…a thing either exists or does not exist; a thing cannot at the same time be itself and something else. Positive and negative absolutely exclude one another; cause and effect stand in rigid antithesis one to the other.
"At first sight this mode of thinking seems to us very luminous, because it is that of sound common sense. Only sound common sense, respectable fellow that he is, in the homely realm of his own four walls, has very wonderful adventures directly he ventures out into the wild world of research. And the metaphysical mode of thought, justifiable and necessary as it is in a number of domains whose extent varies according to the nature of the particular object of investigation, sooner or later reaches a limit, beyond which it becomes one-sided, restricted, abstract, lost in insoluble contradictions. In the contemplation of individual things, it forgets the connection between them; in the contemplation of their existence, it forgets the beginning and the end of that existence; of their repose it forgets their motion…. Nature works dialectically and not metaphysically…." [Engels (1892), pp.406-07. Bold emphasis added.]
If Trotsky maintains that workers know about change, and reject the LOI in practice, are we now to conclude that "sound common sense" is not "metaphysical" after all?
Note that in this passage Engels all but says that ordinary people cannot attain a dialectical view of things on their own, contradicting Trotsky. As far as the alleged "insoluble contradictions" of metaphysics are concerned, one wonders what Engels would have said if metaphysicians simply decided they were going to 'Nixon' them? What if they declared they were just going to "grasp" both halves, DM-style? What could he have possibly said to that? And yet, dialecticians do this all the time with the many contradictions that lie at the heart of their theory, the universal existence of which it predicts.
In that case, I suspect we would have here an excellent example of the dialectical-kettle calling the metaphysical-frying pan "sooty".
["Nixon" refers to the following: In the run-up to the 1968 presidential election in the USA, Richard Nixon announced that he had secret plan to bring the war in Vietnam to a 'successful' close. When pressed he refused to go into details, for "security" reasons. Hence, this 'problem' (how to end that war) was solved just by saying it was; it had been "Nixoned". DM-fans do the same when they encounter a contradiction in their own theory, they just "grasp" it, claiming that that 'solves' the problem (but they somehow cannot say exactly how), and then they ignore it. They Nixon it. More on this here.]
Not to be outdone, Comrades Woods and Grant add their own ha'penny worth:
"The most common method of formal logic is that of deduction, which attempts to establish the truth of its conclusions by meeting two distinct conditions a) the conclusion must really flow from the premises; and b) the premises themselves must be true. If both conditions are met, the argument is said to be valid. This is all very comforting. We are here in the familiar and reassuring realm of common sense. "True or false?" "Yes or no?" Our feet are firmly on the ground. We appear to be in possession of "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." There is not a lot more to be said. Or is there?
"...Formal logic (which has acquired the force of popular prejudice in the form of "common sense") equally holds good for a whole series of everyday experiences. However, the laws of formal logic, which set out from an essentially static view of things, inevitably break down when dealing with more complex, changing and contradictory phenomena. To use the language of chaos theory, the "linear" equations of formal logic cannot cope with the turbulent processes which can be observed throughout nature, society and history. Only the dialectical method will suffice for this purpose." [Woods and Grant (1995), pp.90, 94; a copy is available here.]
[These two have clearly confused a sound argument (often called a proof) with valid one; the latter can proceed from false premisses, the former cannot.]
Exactly what Formal Logic has to do with 'commonsense' these two neglected to say; in fact, anyone who studies even Aristotle (let alone more recent logicians) will be surprised at many of his results, which, of course, they wouldn't be if his logic were identical with 'commonsense'. The mis-match between the two is even more pronounced if 'commonsense' is compared with the more sophisticated results derivable in MFL.
But this is just par for the course for Woods and Grant, whose book is so full of errors of fact and logic (as we have seen many times) it might just as well be called "Reason in Reverse".
[On the denigration of ordinary language and "common sense", see Note 41a. On the difference between common sense and ordinary language, see Note 23.]
[MFL = Modern Formal Logic.]
23. Nevertheless, it could be objected that workers in general have all manner of confused and superstitious ideas in their heads. Dialectics surely replaces these with scientific conceptions.
First of all, DM-theses make no sense at all (as earlier Essays have shown), so even if this objection were correct, it would represent no advance at all to proselytise workers with the Good News from the DM-Gospel.
Second, common sense and ordinary language are not identical; any of the deliverances of the former can be contradicted in the latter. This was argued in more detail here.
Finally, the propensity ordinary folk have for adopting superstitious beliefs and/or for forming crude metaphysical theories should no more impress us than their tendency to adopt religious belief does. Anyway, all of these are challengeable in the vernacular; for every superstitious belief, every ideologically-compromised sentence capable of being uttered by the most backward elements imaginable, its negation can be formed in ordinary language. [This topic will be dealt with in more detail in Essay Twelve.]
24. This is not to suggest that workers have a scientific grasp of change, only that, whatever we mean by "change" in ordinary life is available to any worker who grasps the vernacular. Moreover, scientists themselves wouldn't be able to understand the complex changes in nature without a prior grasp of the vernacular. [More on this in Essay Three Part Two, and here.]
Moreover, as we have seen, the language and concepts DM-theorists use actually prevent them from understanding change.
It's worth pointing out at this stage that the comments in the main body of this Essay do not mean that workers have no need of revolutionary theory. [That caveat will be discussed presently.]
In addition, this does not imply that workers have access to a special source of knowledge unavailable to others. Anyone who is able to use the vernacular (and who is not intellectually-challenged in some way) can access and thus employ the countless words it contains for things like change, identity, the material constitution of the world, and so on. That being so, they are in the same position as workers, which, of course, means that they are capable of grasping the ideas encapsulated in HM. The latter more naturally makes it the 'world-view' of the proletariat, since it is (1) couched in their language and (2) systematises their experience.
Finally, once more, this is not to belittle the achievements of scientists, but since the word "change" is an ordinary language term, they can no more tell us how to use it aright than they can tell us how to use "table", "garage" or "inadvertently". On this, see here.
[HM = Historical Materialism.]
25. It is worth pointing out that issues connected with the class-consciousness (or otherwise) of workers are not under scrutiny here -- and neither is any other topic exclusive to HM. Nor is it assumed that all or most workers have encountered Marxist concepts. The issue here is solely whether workers can attain to a single classical DM-notion on the basis of the class struggle alone, even if only at a rudimentary level.
Of course, it is pretty clear that DM-advocates have never attempted to survey workers to see if there are any "natural dialecticians" among them. Certainly, Trotsky did not do this; and it is reasonably clear why: few workers would be able comprehend the basics of DM even if they were communicated to them. This is not to put workers down; DM-experts are themselves incapable of explaining DM-theses clearly to one another, let alone to workers.
In that case, if DM-theorists were to collect data on the comprehension of their theses in society, they would fail their own survey!
For example, standard SWP-analyses of workers' views invariably (but not unsurprisingly) concern themselves with concepts drawn exclusively from HM.
[I choose the SWP-UK since they (and their spin-offs) represent the largest and most influential revolutionary tendency in the UK and Europe, and possibly the world.]
By default, perhaps, it is assumed that DM-categories either do not matter or do not register with the working class.
To be honest, who really wants to know if a strike has taught workers that two objects cannot be identical? Or whether the whole is greater than the sum of the parts? Or whether freedom 'emerges' from necessity? Or, for goodness sake, whether Being is identical with but at the same time different from Nothing?
Will a single DM-concept help the working class in their endeavour to overthrow Capitalism?
[Cf., for example, Callinicos (1987), pp.178-233; Rees (1988), pp.89-104, and Callinicos (1988), pp.162-71. See also Callinicos and Harman (1987), and German (1996).]
Notwithstanding this, it could be argued that as a matter of fact the idea that workers cannot comprehend DM is factually incorrect: consider the case of Joseph Dietzgen. Dietzgen, it could be maintained, is a clear example of a proletarian who became a philosopher, and one who was respected to some extent by Marx, Engels and Lenin. Indeed, Dietzgen it was who independently discovered/invented DM -- allegedly.
Now, while Dietzgen's working-class credentials are (shall we say) highly dubious (see below), his revolutionary sincerity is not open to question. He was clearly a fellow comrade and nothing said here should be interpreted as detracting from that fact. But, that does not mean we should appropriate his work uncritically. That would be to turn him into an icon.
Unfortunately, Dietzgen's 'proletarian' credentials are far from convincing. According to the account given by his son [E. Dietzgen (1906), pp.7-33], Dietzgen senior was a "master tanner", who, after having worked in his father's shop, turned his hand to various different occupations. These included opening a grocery store, running a bakery and a tannery business; after this, he finally assumed control of the family firm in Germany. This means that Dietzgen's proletarian credentials are only marginally more 'convincing' than those of Engels himself!
However, even if it were true that he was a genuine "horny-handed proletarian", this would still not refute the claim made earlier that workers cannot form a single DM-idea on their own this side of being 'converted' to the faith by one of the dialectical-elect. This is so for two reasons:
First: Dietzgen's philosophical writings are thoroughly confused, and are vastly inferior even to those of Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. [An example of this confusion can be found here.] Now, the Essays published at this site have shown that the philosophical ideas of DM-classicists make little sense; if that is so, the inferior work of Dietzgen stands no chance of holding together. Hence, if Dietzgen was a worker, the claim made here that no worker can comprehend DM finds ready confirmation in this case: he clearly did not understand it!
Second, but more importantly: irrespective of whether or not his ideas are comprehensible (or even whether he understood them), Dietzgen did not actually derive DM-concepts from his own experience; according to his son he learnt them by reading the works of Philosophers. [Cf., E. Dietzgen (1906), p.8.] Hence, if anything this further substantiates the point made here: DM-theses may only be obtained (directly or indirectly) from ruling-class sources, and they have to be imported into the working-class movement in this manner -- from the "outside".
The same comments are equally applicable to the other alleged examples of 'Proletarian Philosophers' (such as Tommy Jackson and Gerry Healy).
Jackson, unlike Dietzgen, was a genuine working-class Marxist, but he 'caught dialectics' from Hegel (and also from Dietzgen -- so, he did not work DM out for himself), and his own classic book on the subject [Jackson (1936)] shows that he, too, did not understand a word of it (not because it was too difficult, but because, like the Trinity and the Jabberwocky, it is incomprehensible). In that work, where Jackson touches on DM, his account is as clear as mud. [Proof? See the long quotation from Jackson's book given in Essay Three, Part One.]
Healy also came from petty-bourgeois stock; he drifted in and out of the working class for a while, only to 'catch dialectics' from reading Lenin's MEC -- a condition that was later seriously compounded by a lethal strain he picked up from a prolonged exposure to PN.
Proof? Just open a copy of, say, Healy (1990) at any randomly selected page; it will then be readily apparent that no sane individual could possibly 'understand' dialectics. [Read more, if you dare -- or you are into self harm --, here and here.]
[MEC = Materialism And Empirio-Criticism -- i.e., Lenin (1972); PN = Lenin's Philosophical Notebooks -- i.e., Lenin (1961).]
For the background to this, see Easton (1958), Emmett (1928), MacIntyre (1980), Reé (1984) and Werskey (1988). See also Steele and Taylor (2004).
At this point, it could be objected that the dice have been heavily loaded against DM and spuriously in favour of HM at this site. Hence, while it is maintained here that workers cannot arrive at DM solely as a result of their own experience -- meaning that it has to be foisted on them "from the outside" -- no such strictures have been placed on HM. But, if HM cannot itself be learned by workers as a result of their own experience, then the alleged contrast between the two is unsustainable. Not only that, the phrase "from their own experience" is interpreted in this work rather narrowly in order to rule out workers learning about DM from books. When this constraint is applied to HM, the same conclusions would surely follow -- or so it could be claimed.
It is worth recalling that the assertion that workers cannot learn about DM from their own experience was not an empirical claim on my part -- it was an a priori observation based on the fact that, if DM makes no sense, no one (not Engels, not Lenin, not Trotsky, not even Gerry Healy) could arrive at a DM-view of the world by any means whatsoever -- including 'divine intervention'.
This is because there is no such thing as a DM-view of anything, let alone of reality. DM is far too confused for it to be described as a "view", still less a "theory". The other considerations were introduced solely to illustrate this contention. These strictures, of course, also apply to Theology and the fictional works of Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear -- but they do not apply to HM.
Moreover, reference was made to "workers' experience" simply because this is a phrase in common use among Marxists. However, it is not to be assumed that the present author endorses the use of this phrase in philosophical contexts. It is deployed here strictly ad hominem -- that is, reference is made to the phrase "workers' experience" in order to undermine several other ideas that DM-theorists accept.
[Of course, the ordinary language use of this phrase is not in doubt; indeed, it has been used in this Essay several times. Any who take exception to my use of an ad hominem argument might to well to reflect on the fact that much that is written about this argument form is misguided in the extreme. Indeed, on the internet it has come to be synonymous with "abuse". Ad hominem arguments are perfectly acceptable if they expose the inconsistencies in another's position; and that is how I have used one here.]
In a more usual sense, it is clear that workers' understanding is naturally pre-disposed toward HM. Few workers need to be informed of class division in society, or of the great disparity of wealth between the classes, or of the havoc caused by the relentless pursuit of profit, or of the de-humanising effect of work, or of the poor education, housing and healthcare they and their families receive (without their having to fight for improvements), or of the partiality of the Government, the Police, the press, and the Judiciary, or of the need for unions, and so on and so forth. Survey after survey shows this. Anyone who knows workers knows this.
[This is not to suggest that this awareness is evenly distributed, or that it does not change; but only the most backward sections of the working-class are ignorant of most of the above (whatever other explanations they might have for them). Nor is it to suggest that workers do not possess any number of regressive ideas, ones that socialists must challenge -- but the fact is that these can all be challenged in ordinary language.]
On this, see Callinicos and Harman (1987), Callinicos (1987, 1988), German (1996), and Rees (1988).
[Note, this has nothing to do with the so-called "Dominant Ideology Thesis". More on that in Essay Three Part Three.]
However, in contrast, every single worker would need to be 'informed' that, for example, change occurs as a result of contradictions (even then they'd fail to comprehend how the mere "gainsaying" of someone/something actually helped a cat to move off a mat, let alone how it could possibly have led to the demise of, say, feudalism); that flowers negate seeds (in fact, they would probably have a good laugh at that one, recalling, say, several prize stories about UK Prince Charles talking to his plants, or the childish conversation between the Weed and Bill and Ben, in the Flower Pot Men); that truth is the Totality (they'd perhaps view this as some sort of New Age nostrum); that things are the same and not-the-same, as well as being not-not-the-same (they'd assume that care in the community had badly failed whoever invented that gem); that "John is a man" contains the secret of the essential nature of everything in existence, as Lenin believed (that might make them suggest to whoever asserted this that they should share out the drugs they are on a little more generously in future); or that Being is at the same time identical with, but different from, Nothing, the contradiction resolved in Becoming (they'd definitely agree with Lenin that whoever "divined" that pearl of wisdom was a genius; in fact, they'll probably associate nothing with dialectics from then on).
So, while HM need not be learned from books (but it can be), DM ultimately cannot be 'learnt' any other way (but shouldn't be).
26. Vaguely analogous ideas were, however, employed by assorted mystics. On this see Essay Fourteen (summary here). See also, here.
Inwood notes that in the ancient world Heraclitus used somewhat similar concepts, and more recently, that the arch-mystic Jakob Böhme employed comparable terms -- as, indeed, did Novalis (who was Böhme's populariser in 18th century Germany). Cf., Inwood (1992), pp.63-64.
Della Volpe records the employment of somewhat similar language in Semën Frank's work, who was a follower of Nicholas of Cusa (whose ideas we will be examining in detail in Essay Fourteen), which is uncannily similar to Hegel's own use. [Della Volpe (1980), p.72, note 52.] But since Frank lived from 1877-1950, he is not an example of the ancient use of these vague notions; indeed he might have lifted them Hegel -- who in turn leant much from Cusa himself.
The truth is, of course, that Hegel had to change the meaning of a perfectly good, ordinary German word ("Widersprechen" -- "to speak against") to make his point. Ordinary Germans -- that is, those who had not already been initiated into Böhmean mysticism, and those not yet corrupted by the Idealism prevalent in German intellectual circles of the day -- would not have been able to understand Hegel's use of this term.
To be sure, one online dictionary lists the following as a definition of the word "contradiction":
"contradiction, n 1: opposition between two conflicting forces or ideas...."
However, it is worth recalling that dictionaries are repositories of usage, and are neither normative nor prescriptive. Here, this dictionary is clearly recording the dialectical use of this word, by DIMs. That does not imply that this word means anything when used this way (certainly dialecticians cannot tell us what it means). It also defines the word "Nirvana" --, but which materialist wants to admit that that word actually means anything (that is, apart from its emotional import)?
Indeed, dictionaries 'define' many things
dialecticians would disagree with.
For example:
"God: A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.
"The force, effect, or a manifestation or aspect of this being.
"A being of supernatural powers or attributes, believed in and worshiped by a
people, especially a male deity thought to control some part of nature or
reality.
"An image of a supernatural being; an idol.
"One that is worshiped, idealized, or followed: Money was their god...."
And:
"negation n 1: a negative statement; a statement that is a refusal or denial of some other statement 2: the speech act of negating 3: (logic) a proposition that is true if and only if another proposition is false."
No mention here of "sublation" or of the NON, but does that force dialecticians into accepting this 'definition'? Of course not; they pick and choose when it suits them.
[NON = Negation of the Negation.]
Consider the definition of "wage":
"1. Payment for labour or services to a worker, especially remuneration on an hourly, daily, or weekly basis or by the piece.
"2. wages Economics The portion of the national product that represents the aggregate paid for all contributing labour and services as distinguished from the portion retained by management or reinvested in capital goods.
"3. A fitting return; a recompense." [Quoted from here; spelling altered to conform to UK English.]
"An amount of money paid to a worker for a specified quantity of work, usually expressed on an hourly basis." [Quoted from here; spelling altered to conform to UK English.]
Are there any Marxists who would accept this definition of what wages really are? Hence, dictionaries record ideology as much as they record use or meaning.
In that case, with respect to "contradiction", the writers of the above dictionary have plainly recorded the animistic use of this word employed by DM-fans themselves.
There is a useful analysis of Hegel's language in Inwood (1992), pp.5-18, and a more extensive one in Cook (1973). [This topic is examined in much more detail in Essays Twelve and Fourteen.]
It could be objected that the distinction between DM and HM drawn in this Essay is completely spurious; hence, the claims made at this site are hopelessly misguided.
However, as will be argued in Essay Fourteen Part Two, HM contains ideas that are non-sensical only when they are dressed up in DM-clothing. The eminent good sense made by HM -- even as perceived by workers when they encounter it (often in times of struggle) --, testifies to this fact.
But, few militants would ever attempt to agitate strikers with the conundrums found in DM. On a picket line the alleged contradictory nature of motion or the limitations of the LOI do not often crop up. Moreover, no Marxist of any intelligence would use slogans drawn exclusively from DM to communicate with workers. Consider, for example, the following: "The Law of Identity is true only within certain limits and the struggle against the occupation of Iraq!" Or "Change in quantity leads to change in quality (and vice versa) and the campaign to keep hospital HH open!" Or even, "Being is at the same time identical with but different from Nothing, the contradiction resolved by Becoming, and the fight against the Nazis!"
Slogans like these would only be employed by militants of uncommon stupidity and of legendary ineffectiveness. In contrast, active revolutionaries employ ideas drawn exclusively from HM to communicate with workers. Socialist Worker, for instance, uses ordinary, material language, coupled with concepts drawn from HM, to agitate and propagandise; rarely does it employ DM-phraseology. The same is true of other revolutionary socialist papers.
Only deeply sectarian rags of exemplary unpopularity and impressive lack of impact use ideas lifted from DM to try to educate and agitate workers. Newsline (the daily paper of the old WRP) used to do this, but like the Dinosaurs it resembled, it is no more. [The NON, it seems, took appropriate revenge.]
It could be objected that no one would actually use slogans drawn from certain areas of HM to agitate workers. Since that does not mean HM is of no use, the same must be true of DM. For example, who shouts slogans about "Base and Superstructure", or "Relative Surplus Value" on paper sales? Who tries to agitate workers with facts about the role of the peasantry in the decline of feudalism? This means the distinction drawn in this Essay is bogus.
To be sure, while it is true that no one shouts slogans about the relation between "Base and Superstructure" on a paper sale, or prints strike leaflets reminding militants of the role of the peasantry in the decline of feudalism, they still use slogans drawn exclusively from HM --, or which connect with HM and as it relates to current events in the class war.
In contrast, none at all are used from DM.
Admittedly, most revolutionary papers use some terminology drawn from DM (like "contradiction"), but this forms only a very minor part of their output. Anyway, as will be shown in Part Two of this Essay, the use of such words is merely a traditionalist affectation -- indeed, we have to say this since no sense can be given to this use (as we saw here, here, here and here) --, that is, as a sign of 'orthodoxy', or as an 'in-group'/'out-group' marker (as noted here).
Like Marx in Das Kapital, such papers "coquette" with Hegelian jargon, and only "here and there".
Hence, at least at the level of practice -- where the party interfaces with the working class and material reality --, DM is totally useless.
[Indeed, we will see here that there is no evidence that DM was used by the Bolsheviks in October 1917, or for years after.]
Consequently, tested in practice (or, rather, tested by being left out of practice), the status of DM is plain for all to see: at best it would be a hindrance; at worst, it would totally isolate revolutionaries and make them look ridiculous.
This shows that the distinction between DM and HM which has been drawn here is not spurious -- in communicating with workers, militants make it all the time.
Nevertheless, it could be argued in response that this attempt to separate HM and DM implies that our knowledge of the natural and social world will become fragmented and compartmentalised, meaning that it would thus exist in separate spheres. This approach to knowledge has Idealist implications, making human beings unique, or implying that mind is independent of matter. If mind is dependent on matter (howsoever that is conceived) there must be laws that span both realms. And this is where DM comes is.
This is not so. Because DM is so confused, it cannot account for anything, social or natural. Hence, even if there were natural laws that governed these two spheres (and I pass no opinion on that topic here), DM would not just be at the bottom of the list of viable alternatives theories capable of accounting for this connection, it would not even make the list.
[The other allegations will be tackled in Essay Thirteen Part Three.]
28. Again, this is not meant to question the fact that workers in struggle often learn to see things more clearly -- for example, that the social, political and economic structures in Capitalism are interconnected (etc.). As noted in Essay Eleven Part One, the interconnected nature of Capitalism is not being questioned here since it is an idea drawn from HM. In that context, sense can be made of the inter-relatedness of human history and its diverse Modes of Production (etc.).
Naturally, since we have all originated from the same ancestors -- and have lived on the same planet all the while, and have experienced an interlocking series of historical developments --, only a rather benighted (post-modern, perhaps?), or ideologically-motivated 'scientist' would try to explain human history in a fragmented way.
The immediacy of HM is not only reflected in the fact that it is possible to express its ideas in all forms of ordinary language with relative ease (even if this can be done more succinctly using the specialist vocabulary of HM itself), it is also confirmed by the way that children above a certain age can be taught HM. This also explains why HM seems so plausible to workers (when they are ready to listen to it).
28a. Woods and Grant also refer us to another passage of Trotsky's:
"The chicken knows that grain is in general useful, necessary and tasty. It recognises a given piece of grain as that grain -- of the wheat -- with which it is acquainted and hence draws a logical conclusion by means of its beak. The syllogism of Aristotle is only an articulated expression of those elementary mental conclusions which we observe at every step among animals." [Trotsky quoted in Woods and Grant (1995), p.89. A copy is available here (near the bottom of the page).]
Unfortunately, Trotsky failed to say how he knew so much about the logical skills of these Aristotles of the bird world -- or why, if animals have known about these thing for so long, it took a genius like Aristotle to 'discover' them about 1 million years after we left the 'animal kingdom', and countless million since 'we' separated from the ancestor of the birds!
Moreover, if chickens are such natural logicians, then perhaps among them there is a Feathered Frege or a Rooster Russell?
Figure Two: A Feathered Aristotle, Frege, And Russell?
28b. It could be objected that in the transition from a liquid to a sludge --, and then to a semi-solid, and subsequently perhaps to a full-blown solid, as more salt is dumped into the soup --, we would have a clear example of change of quantity into quality. But even then, that change would be gradual, and non-"nodal". And solid soups are still soups, so there's no change in that quality here.
28c. Even if tastes are a relational features of our sensory modalities --, so that it is in fact the reaction of a taster to the chemicals in the soup which constitutes the taste --, the experienced taste is still in the taster, not the soup.
And dialecticians cannot afford to allow the relational properties of objects and/or processes to be counted as 'qualities', for while that might save this example, it refutes this 'Law' elsewhere.
Hence, if the relational properties of bodies are included as part of an object's qualities, then many things would change qualitatively with no increase or decrease in matter or energy. Several such have already been listed; here are a few more:
NN is watching her friend, MM, walk away from her. As MM recedes into the distance, she seems to NN to get smaller. At some point she disappears. Here we have a change in quality prompted by no increase in quantity. And it is to no avail appealing to the quantity of metres that separate the two, for Engels was quite specific:
"...the transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa. For our purpose, we could express this by saying that in nature, in a manner exactly fixed for each individual case, qualitative changes can only occur by the quantitative addition or subtraction of matter or motion (so-called energy)…. Hence it is impossible to alter the quality of a body without addition or subtraction of matter or motion, i.e. without quantitative alteration of the body concerned." [Engels (1954), p.63. Emphasis added.]
"Matter or motion" -- not separation distance.
Still less help would it be appealing to Engels's reference to "motion" here, since he was also clear that he meant the addition of "energy". Now it could be argued that it takes energy to make MM move. Maybe so, but unless MM is at a different height than NN, no energy will have been added to MM in the process.
And, of course, no energy has been added to NN in whom these changes in quality are perceived. [No one supposes, I hope(!), that even if MM were to walk up a hill, adding potential energy to her body, she grows smaller as a result!]
Take another example, consider three animals in a row: a mouse, a pony, and an elephant. In relation to the mouse, the pony is big, but in relation to the elephant it is small. Change in quality, with no matter or energy added or subtracted. There are countless examples of this sort -- with respect to the relations that hold between any object, or set of objects, and the rest of the local (or remote) universe -- here alone.
Someone could object that the mouse-pony-elephant example really relates to the perception of an observer, and so it is not a genuine counter-example.
This can't be correct for it is surely the case, independently of any and all observers, that a pony is bigger than a mouse while it is smaller than an elephant.
But even if this objection were valid, the qualitative change in perception of the alleged observer is not the result of any change in quantity in her. So, this is a genuine counter-example, after all.
29. The way that Trotsky words things suggests that foxes actually understand parts of Hegel's Logic (at least implicitly).
This is odd since it is more that Lenin attributed to some Marxists!
"Even animals arrive at their practical conclusions…on the basis of the Hegelian dialectic. Thus a fox is aware that quadrupeds and birds are nutritious and tasty…. When the same fox, however, encounters the first animal which exceeds it in size, for example, a wolf, it quickly concludes that quantity passes into quality, and turns to flee. Clearly the legs of a fox are equipped with Hegelian tendencies…. [T]he universe throughout is permeated with 'unconscious' dialectics." [Trotsky (1971), pp 106-07. Bold emphases added.]
So, if Marxists/workers cannot teach themselves dialectics, foxes clearly can!
30. As we saw in Essay Seven Part One, we are still waiting for a clear definition of a dialectical 'node'/'leap'.
31. But, it is not even that; here we have just an array of various animals of relatively stable but different sizes stood in a metaphorical/imaginary line -- no one supposes (surely?) that prey actually line up for inspection, smallest to largest, waiting to be selected by their predators, as part of a sort of crazy Zoological line up:
Figure Three: Law Of Identity Parade?
32. Again, it could be argued that the example of the lion attacking a larger wildebeest actually illustrates the 'reverse law' that quality can pass over into quantity (in that the superior qualitative nature of the lion is equal to a quantitatively larger but qualitatively inferior prey).
But, nothing "passes over" here, and nothing relevant changes. Both animals are quantitatively and qualitatively the same as they were before they met.
Anyway, what 'quality' should we assume to be at work here: the ability to hunt and kill wildebeest? That would make this 'reverse law' tautologious.
33. As will readily be appreciated from the facetious tone of many of the comments in this section, it is not easy to take Trotsky's argument here at all seriously.
In which case, it might be wondered why the members of his personal and political entourage thought it wise not to bring a little good sense to Trotsky "from the outside" -- from the non-dialectical natural world -- and alert him to the risible nature of his own argument.
On the other hand, considering the reception Burnham and Eastman got, perhaps the size of that particular task adversely affected the quality of their thinking and their intellectual courage -- or vice versa.
34. This is an allusion to an idea found in Plato, which features in his work as a mystical doctrine in, for example, the Phaedo, the Meno and the Republic. There, Plato argues that all knowledge is in fact recollection.
Oddly enough, this notion resurfaces in Wittgenstein's work in an anthropological, non-mystical form as part of the idea that we are capable of accessing knowledge only in so far as we have been socialised into a speech community. Recollection (in this sense) therefore becomes part of the possibilities that socialisation opens up, something that allows all such members to appropriate the collective knowledge of that community, to a greater or lesser extent (distorted, of course, by class division, etc.). More importantly such individuals have access to the full range of distinctions that have been built into the use of language in that community --, and even more significantly, most of them will have shared with the majority collective oppression and exploitation, and they will thus have access to the memory of their class.
[But this is not to suggest that this is how Wittgenstein saw things! The precise connections this aspect of Wittgenstein's work has with HM will become a little clearer in other Essays posted here. On Wittgenstein's left-wing sympathies, see here.]
The following passage from Wittgenstein's later work is relevant to this and other themes explored at this site:
"Our investigation is therefore a grammatical one. Such an investigation sheds light on our problem by clearing misunderstandings away. Misunderstandings concerning the use of words, caused, among other things, by certain analogies between the forms of expression in different regions of language….
"[Philosophical problems] are not empirical problems; they are solved, rather, by looking into the workings of our language, and that in such a way as to make us recognise those workings: in despite of an urge to misunderstand them. The problems are solved, not by giving new information, but by arranging what we have always known. Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language….
"What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use…. The results of philosophy are the uncovering of one or another piece of plain nonsense and of bumps that the understanding has got by running its head up against the limits of language….
"Philosophy simply puts everything before us, and neither explains nor deduces anything. -- Since everything lies open to view there is nothing to explain…. The work of the philosopher consists in assembling reminders for a particular purpose. If one tried to advance theses in philosophy, it would never be possible to debate them, because everyone would agree with them." [Wittgenstein (1958), pp.43-50. Bold emphases added.]
Of course, my Essays have been aimed (partially) at making these gnomic sayings a little more accessible.
[The relevance of all this will be explained here.]
35. How it does this will be explored in Part Two of this Essay.
It is also worth pointing out here (once more!) that this part of Essay Nine does not represent a capitulation to naïve humanism, nor to a simple-minded faith in workers. Again, more will be said about this in Essay Twelve.
Hegel claimed the following:
"...Apropos of this, we should note the double meaning of the German word aufheben (to put by or set aside). We mean by it (1) to clear away, or annul: thus, we say, a law or regulation is set aside; (2) to keep, or preserve: in which sense we use it when we say: something is well put by. This double usage of language, which gives to the same word a positive and negative meaning, is not an accident, and gives no ground for reproaching language as a cause of confusion. We should rather recognise in it the speculative spirit of our language rising above the me ‘either-or’ of understanding." [Hegel (1975), The Doctrine of Being §96, pp.141-42.]
In the above passage Hegel specifically refers to the German word "aufheben", which he says has a "double meaning", but this depends on how we count words and/or meanings. In that case, do we have two words with different meanings here, or one word with two? [More on this presently.]
Moreover, it is not clear why the uses of these two typographically identical words are 'opposites' (they seem to be about totally different subject matters, at least as Hegel explicates them). [On this, see below.]
And yet, is this the only instance? Or do all words exhibit this duality? One would expect they should if the "speculative spirit" of language is a general feature of discourse and not an insignificant or intermittent aspect of thought applied to a tiny fraction of the lexicon. In that case, what, for example, is the negative meaning of the following: "table", "chair", "broom", "hot", "up", "on", "the", "middle", "opposite", "positive", "neutral", "word", "Hegel"...?
Admittedly, some of the above words may be prefixed with a negative particle, but Hegel specifically spoke about "the double usage of language, which gives to the same word a positive and a negative meaning" (emphasis added). He did not say that additional words would have to be co-opted in order for them to be able to do this.
Perhaps Hegel meant that several of the above words could be paired with their antonyms? For example, "up" can be linked with "down", "hot" with "cold", "on" with "off", and so on. This is undeniable, but unfortunately it is not what Hegel said. He did not indicate that other words had to be paired with any given word so that these alleged "double meanings" might become apparent; he merely indicated that it was "the double usage of language, which gives to the same word a positive and a negative meaning" (emphasis added, again). In that case, it is still unclear what the negative meanings of the above words (and countless others) are.
Not only that, the whole idea (called "enantiosemy", these days) seems to imply that language enjoys something of a life of its own, independent of the agents who use it. If words had 'their own meanings', which they carried about with them like so much baggage, that would imply they were agents of some sort, which dictate to us what their own 'correct' meanings should be, transforming speakers into passive vehicles for words to use for their own ends. [Compare this to Dawkins's 'Memes' -- criticised effectively in McGrath (2005).] Clearly, this fetishises language.
Of course, that might very well suite Hegel's ends, wherein not only words, but also concepts act as quasi-agents of some sort, and which seem capable of driving human thought in certain directions. But, it is not easy to see how a materialist spin could be put on this idea, that words can act on their own behalf, determining what we are to make of them.
In that case, regardless of the magnitude of the angle through which Hegel is rotated, words cannot be viewed as agents by materialists -- nor could the latter regard them as possessing opposite meanings that users do not collectively give them. Admittedly, we might use certain symbols in opposite ways, but if we do, that would mean that we are the source of such contrary meanings (should there be any), not words.
In response, it could be argued that Hegel actually said: "The double usage of language, which gives to the same word a positive and a negative meaning…" (emphasis added, once more). Hence, it could be maintained that the accusations above are misguided, and do not apply to Hegel since he explicitly says that it is our usage that gives such words a double meaning.
However, Hegel also went on to say: "We should rather recognise in it the speculative spirit of our language rising above the mere Either-or of understanding" (emphasis added, again). If anything, this is worse; it seems to attribute to "language" (i.e., words) an intelligence that elevates it above that disembodied entity he calls the "understanding". Clearly, language would not possess such powers this side of the application of some reasonably powerful magic.
Be this as it may, as far as Hegel's actual words are concerned, he conspicuously failed to say what the negative senses of such familiar terms are, and how 'our' usage of them supplies positive and negative meanings simultaneously (or serially?) to each. Hence, in view of the unfortunate anthropomorphisation of "language" obvious in the latter part of the above passage, it is not easy to absolve Hegel of fetishising discourse.
In a recent book, an old friend of mine, Ben Watson [Watson (1998), pp.292-300], attempted to outline what he thought Hegel might have meant by this odd Hegelian assertion.
Unfortunately, in doing so, Ben forgot to say which of the alleged antithetical meanings of words were positive and which were negative -- or why this antithesis was at all interesting or relevant to 'dialectics' (or to anything whatsoever).
In support of his argument, Ben quoted another passage from Hegel, as follows:
"It is much more important that in a language the categories should appear in the form of substantives and verbs and thus be stamped with the form of objectivity. In this respect German has many advantages over other modern languages; some of its words even possess the further peculiarity of having not only different but opposite meanings so that one cannot fail to recognise a speculative spirit of the language in them: it can delight a thinker to come across such words and to find the union of opposites naively shown in the dictionary as one word with opposite meanings, although this result of speculative thinking is nonsensical to the understanding." [Hegel (1999), pp.31-32, Preface to the Second Edition, §14, quoted in Watson (1998), pp.294-95. Bold emphasis added.]
Add to that the following:
"'To sublate' has a twofold meaning in the language: on the one hand it means to preserve, to maintain, and equally it also means to cause to cease, to put an end to. Even 'to preserve' includes a negative elements, namely, that something is removed from its influences, in order to preserve it. Thus what is sublated is at the same time preserved; it has only lost its immediacy but is not on that account annihilated.
"The two definitions of 'to sublate' which we have given can be quoted as two dictionary meanings of this word. But it is certainly remarkable to find that a language has come to use one and the same word for two opposite meanings. It is a delight to speculative thought to find in the language words which have in themselves a speculative meaning; the German language has a number of such. The double meaning of the Latin tollere (which has become famous through the Ciceronian pun: tollendum est Octavium) does not go so far; its affirmative determination signifies only a lifting-up. Something is sublated only in so far as it has entered into unity with its opposite; in this more particular signification as something reflected, it may fittingly be called a moment." [Hegel (1999), p.107, §185-186. Bold emphasis added.]
Now, Ben further illustrated what he considered was Hegel's meaning by listing examples borrowed from Freud, Lenin and Trotsky, among others. For example, he quoted Freud as follows:
"Man has not been able to acquire even his boldest and simplest conceptions otherwise than in contrast with their opposite; he only gradually learnt to separate the two sides of the antithesis and think of the one without conscious comparison with the other." [Freud, quoted in Watson (1998), p.293.]
But, Ben failed to say how Freud could possibly have known all this, or, indeed, how Freud himself was able to translate this particular fable into modern German.
The point of that comment becomes a little clearer when it is recalled that if, say, only twenty words are chosen at random -- and each had just two meanings -- then from this rather diminutive set alone at least 220 possible overall meanings can be generated [220 = 1048576] for any twenty-word sentence in which they feature.
Hence, if words in general had only two meanings it would be impossible to interpret any of Freud's writings, since for each group of twenty words there would be over a million different possible interpretations ascertainable from it. Clearly, the same point applies to the passages written in medieval German to which Freud himself referred. In that case, we would not know which sub-set of the many 'possible meanings' in any book (let alone ones written by Freud or Ben) were the 'correct' ones (if any were).
[And it is no use appealing to context to help discriminate among these possibilities; except in highly clichéd contexts, or in a minority of cases, meaning is not sensitive to context. Why this is so is detailed in Essay Thirteen Part Three.
Anyway, context is certainly no help here, for the context of the original Medieval German is no longer available to us, to say nothing of that surrounding Freud and Hegel's works.]
Moreover, we would also want to know how Ben is so sure he has succeeded in interpreting Freud correctly, and has avoided reading an opposite sense into Freud's words to that which had been intended -- given the fact that if Hegel were right, Freud, Hegel and Ben's words would be susceptible to just such conflicting and indefinite meanings.
Perhaps this is unfair; it could be that Hegel (and Ben) meant that only a few words had such an equivocal nature, not every word we ever encounter. But, this is rather odd; if, according to Hegel, everything is contradictory, and a union of opposites, then every word should have its own "other".
Perhaps the Absolute does not "understand" dialectics?
There is, however, a substantive point to all this, illustrated by Ben's next quotation from Freud:
"To our bös (bad) corresponds a bass (good); in Old Saxon compare bat (good) with English bad; in English to lock with German Lücke, Loch (hole); German kleben (to stick, to cleave to) English to cleave (divide)." [Freud, in ibid., p.293.]
Ben then added the following:
"Freud cites examples of antithetical meanings in Latin (altus means both 'high' and 'deep'; sacer means both 'holy' and 'accursed') and in German (Boden means both 'attic' and 'ground floor')." [Watson (1998), p.293.]
Clearly, Ben regarded this as an important insight, with each dual word signalling the presence of a hidden DM-style UO, perhaps. But, why only these words have had some dialectics inflicted on them by the 'speculative spirit' of our ancestors, and not others, Ben forgot to say.
[UO = Unity of Opposites.]
Nevertheless, and in support, Ben also quoted Trotsky:
"The identity of opposites. Little Paul says 'donne!' both when he wants to take, and when he wants to give." [Trotsky (1986), p.103; quoted in ibid., p.300.]
But, putting to one side the fact that Freud had to use words drawn from different languages (in some cases) to make his point, the problem with all this is that even in DM-terms none of it makes any sense.
Surely Ben is not suggesting that "attics" and "ground floors" (as 'opposites' -- but, they are not even that; the opposite of an attic, if it has one, is a cellar) are dialectically united, and that at some point in the future -- because they are in logical tension with one another -- one of them will turn into the other as a result of some sort of architectural struggle, with a contradiction in play between basement and superstructure, here? Or that the conflict between attics and ground floors will find some sort of resolution ("sublated" -- or is it perhaps "sublet"?) in the shape of a first floor, as middle term? And, are we seriously meant to conclude that there is development here, arising from a dynamic internal to buildings?
Indeed, is the phrase "a flat contradiction" testimony to the fact that language contains a secret dialectical message, indicative of the forces for change operating in apartment blocks behind the backs of tenants and builders alike?
[Perhaps, like the Evil One (or at least Judas Priest), the dialectic has programmed into language a secret message? But, in that case, should we not be reading Hegel backwards?]
Moreover, but worse: is Trotsky's reference to the child ("little Paul") really meant to show that "giving" and "taking" are united opposites? But, surely, one can take without giving, and vice versa. If I take the A2 to Dover, am I given something in return? If you give first aid, who or what takes anything? If a robber takes your car while you are in Tesco's, did you subconsciously give it to him/her?
Anyway, what dialectical sense does this have even if all giving were taking, and all taking were giving? Does this imply that one of these activities is in struggle with the other and will thus change either into that other or into something else -- or somehow cause other incidental changes, as the dialectical classics tell us? Or that there is an ongoing struggle between them in this child's mind?
And, is Trotsky really serious in trying to draw a scientific conclusion about fundamental aspects of reality based on a child's defective understanding of language?
One wonders what profound truths might have been extracted from this domestic scene had the infant called its mother "Daddy" by mistake.
More to the point: did Trotsky (does anyone as an adult) ever mean "give" when he (they) say "take"? If Trotsky did, we might well wonder how the Red Army managed to win the civil war in Russia, if it had been led by so confused an adult. Did Trotsky ever say to sections of the Red Army: "Take that town from the Whites!", when he really meant "Give that town to the Whites!" Or, worse, "Both take and do not take that town!"? If not, then what exactly is the point of all this? Why emphasise antithetical meanings if they fail to relate to real material change -- or even to the intelligent use of language?
As usual in DM-writings (this is Mickey Mouse Superscience, after all!) we are confronted with less than half-formed 'thoughts' that are impossible to make sense of even in DM-terms.
Another question worth asking (one that was hinted at earlier): what makes Freud or Ben think that any of the words to which they refer are antithetical uses of the same word? Admittedly, they look similar when paired in the way they have been, even though several are typographically very different from their alleged semantic twins (where they have one).
Why should we conclude that any of these is an example of one word with supposedly opposite senses instead of (and what is more likely) several different words with distinct meanings? What is the criterion of identity for the phrase "same word" these authors are using here?
In fact, given Trotsky's strictures on the LOI, and his comments on the word "equal", no DM-theorist should agree with Ben that in any of the above examples the same word occurs with at least two different meanings. If Trotsky is correct that no single "A" ever equals any other "A", how could "altus" (meaning "high") equal "altus" (meaning "deep")? Surely, we have here not one word with two opposite meanings but two words with different senses. [In many cases, this is indeed the case; on that, see below.]
[LOI = Law of Identity.]
Would Ben conclude the same about, say, the word "bank"? Here the same four letters in the same order can mean one of the following: a system of institutionalised credit/theft, the side of a river, the way that aeroplanes turn, an expression of trust (which could be a dead metaphor). Do we have one word with several meanings here or several different words with distinct senses? Clearly, the word "bank" is formed from a set of typographically identical letters, but by the way we use that set, these can operate as several identifiably different words, even ones that look exactly the same.
However, it could be argued that even though these four words all have the same spelling, they aren't antithetical; hence, the above comments are beside the point.
But why is that decisive? Why is it that we can easily tell the difference between these four typographically identical sets of letters ("bank", "bank", "bank" and "bank") because their different meanings indicate the presence of four words, not one, when on the other hand we are supposed to believe that there is only one word signified by the occurrence of two typographically identical signs ("Boden" and "Boden") just because they have seemingly opposite meanings? To be consistent, why don't we argue that we have two words here? Or, failing that, argue that "bank" illustrates the:
"The quadruple usage of language, which gives to the same word a host of meanings…. We should…recognise…the speculative spirit of our language rising above the mere Either-or-or-or of understanding." [Deliberate misquotation of Hegel.]
We could then set about investigating the 'quadrialectical' link that must exist in reality between a bank (source of finance, etc.), a bank (side of a river), to bank (trust) and to bank (to turn an aircraft) -- or, indeed, stretching the point, that which must exist between Banks (the ex-England goalie), Banks (the late Labour MP) and Banks (the fashion designer).
Transcending thus the "not-either-or" of Hegelianism (as in "Either there are two words here with one meaning, or one word with two opposite meanings"), we ought now to say that any word can have any number of non-opposite meanings, rising above the 'either-or-or-or' of anyone's understanding of English.
Indeed, we could argue that because the word "sheep" is both singular and plural, the 'speculative spirit' of language suggests that parts of nature are suffering from a sort of multiple personality disorder.
Or that the present tense of "read" (as in "Hegel's Logic is not a book one can read with pleasure") is the same as the past tense of "read" (as in "I read Hegel's Logic yesterday, and threw it across the room") and the future tense (as in "Tomorrow I will read that execrable book on then dump it in the trash") hints at the four dimensionality of space and time, as each here and now is linked to every where and when.
Or that because the word "dresses" can refer to items of female apparel (as in "A lorry load of dresses went up in smoke"), the act of putting clothes on (as in "She dresses quickly"), one's style (as in "He dresses well"), or even to how men 'hang' (as in "He dresses to the right"), this suggests that clothing secretly 'hangs' one way, wears women's clothes, possesses an expensive couture and girds itself unaided.
Or even that, because the word "spell" can mean any one of:
"Etymology: Middle English, to mean, signify, read by spelling out letters, from Anglo-French espeleir, of Germanic origin; akin to Old English spellian to relate, spell talk
Transitive verb:
1: to read slowly and with difficulty -- often used with out
2: to find out by study: come to understand -- often used with
out <it requires some pains to spell out those decorations -- F. J.
Mather>
3a (1): to name the letters of in order; also : to
write or print the letters of in order (2) : to write or print the
letters of in a particular way b : to make up (a word) <what word
do these letters spell> c: Write
1b <catnip is spelled as one word>
4: to add up to: mean
<crop failure was likely to spell
stark famine -- Stringfellow Barr>
Intransitive verb: to form words with letters <teach children to
spell>; also : to spell words in a certain way <spells
the way he speaks>
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, talk, tale, from Old English; akin to Old High German
spel talk, tale
1a: a spoken word or form of words held to have magic power b:
a state of enchantment
2: a strong compelling influence or attraction
Function: noun
Etymology: probably alteration of Middle English spale substitute, from
Old English spala
1a: archaic: a shift of workers b: one's
turn at work
2a: a period spent in a job or occupation b chiefly Australian: a period of rest from work, activity, or use
3a: an indeterminate period of time <waited a spell before
advancing>; also : a continuous period of time <did a spell
in prison> b: a stretch of a specified type of weather
4: a period of bodily or mental distress or disorder <a spell of
coughing> <fainting spells>" [Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.]
that periods of time work not only for a living, know how to form words and can perform feats of magic.
The fact that we do not conclude such crazy things suggests that there is no secret code built into language that reveals the presence of hidden forces controlling nature and the development of our concepts (nor any of the other things that seemingly type-identical words appear to suggest).
As far as several of Ben's examples are concerned, this is what Quine had to say:
"A distant kin of [this appeal to alteriety] is occasionally encountered in an owlish allusion to 'identity of opposites.' [With respect to an earlier example of this] we have seen that each [half] is accounted for without appealing to any mystical principle. A case for identity of opposites that is invariably cited is altus, Latin for both 'high' and 'deep'. What we actually have here, however, is a case rather of parochial outlook on our part. What is objective about height and depth is distance from top to bottom. We call it height or depth according to our point of view; Latin simply tells us how it is with no thought of opposites.
"Another tempting case for the identity of opposites is cleave: 1. adhere, 2. sever. However, Skeat argues that this is a convergence of two words, independent in origin....
"May identity of opposites be manifested not only by sameness of word for opposite senses, but also for sameness of sense for opposite words? Well there is fast...and its opposite loose: there are fast women, I am told, and loose women, and no clear distinction between them. A little and a lot are opposites, but quite a little is quite a lot." [Quine (1990), pp.51-52. On this, see Skeat (1993), p.84.]
Hence, it is worth asking: Are Quine's last two examples instances of the non-speculative spirit in language which combines opposite words into the same meaning? Or is this an example of the belated revenge of the LOI?
Moreover, an on-line etymological dictionary has these two separate origins of "cleave" (which is somewhat similar to Skeat):
"cleave (1): strong verb, past tense cleaf, past participle clofen), from P.Gmc. *kleubanan, from PIE base *gleubh -- 'to cut, slice.' The old, strong p.t. clave was still alive at the time of the King James Bible; and the p.p. cloven survives, though mostly in compounds. Cleavage in geology is from 1816. The sense of 'cleft between a woman's breasts in low-cut clothing' is first recorded 1946, when it was defined in a 'Time' magazine article as the 'Johnston Office trade term for the shadowed depression dividing an actress' bosom into two distinct sections' [Aug. 5].
"cleave (2): 'to adhere,' O.E. clifian, from W.Gmc. *klibajanan, from PIE *gloi- 'to stick.' The confusion was less in O.E. when cleave (1) was a class 2 strong verb and cleave (2) a class 1 verb; but it has grown since cleave (1) weakened, which may be why both are largely superseded by stick and split. Cleaver 'butcher's chopper' is from 1483."
So it looks like we have here a case where two different words have merged, not an example of one word with two opposite meanings.
[Freud's own examples are shown not to work, here (the linked page is in German).]
And here is what Larry Horn had to say:
"Date: Fri, 24 Mar 95 21:12:19 EST From: Larry Horn. Subject: Re: 6.430 Words that are their own opposites; Jane Edwards calls our attention to Abel's and Freud's contributions to our topic, citing this passage from Lepschy (1982) on Carl Abel's Gegensinn der Urworte (1884) inter alia:
"'His [i.e., Abel's] theory on the importance and interest of words with opposite meanings (which were, he suggested, particularly frequent in the early stages of languages) finds its place in a long tradition of studies, from the Stoic's grammar and the etymologies e contrario [...], to the chapter in Arab linguistic tradition devoted to the [...] contraries, or words of opposite meanings [...] to the medieval Jewish grammarians' discussions on parallel phenomena in Hebrew [...] to Christian biblical scholars who at least since the 17th century examine cases of 'enantiosemy' in the Sacred, classical, and modern languages, commenting on words like Hebrew berekh 'he blessed' and 'he cursed', Greek argo's 'swift' and 'slow', Latin altus 'high' and 'deep' [...] Nearer to Abel, in the first part of the 19th century, we find the German romantics meditating on opposite meanings [...] and it is impossible not to remember Hegel's comments on a key term in his logic, aufheben, which means both 'to eliminate' and 'to preserve', illustrating a coexistence in language of opposite meanings which has great speculative import.' Lepschy also writes that Abel's ideas 'were taken seriously by people of the calibre of Pott, Steinthal, and Schuchardt', and that Freud repeatedly quoted Abel's work, viewing it 'as a linguistic confirmation' of his own theory that 'for the unconscious, opposites are equivalent to each other.' (pp.28-29)
"I also delve into Abel and Freud in the 'Negation East and West' section of my book, A Natural History of Neg