I’ll start with my background and material conditions, because of course that is pretty important.
I grew/am finishing growing up pretty privileged. Still working class, to be sure, but you know. Straight, white, male, and never have had to worry about money issues. Progressive liberal single mother, worked hard to take care of me. She never had the time to really dive into the why and get a great understanding of it all, just meant the best for people and kind of that well-intentioned social Democrat type.
I had always been interested in how we organize our society, though. Liberalism/Social Democracy, which I had subscribed to until the Ukraine/Russia conflict, still left me with so many questions. I really had no understanding of the world around me.
A very small but impactful moment was when I was watching Bo Burnham’s Inside in 2021 and he sang a line about private property being inherently theft and neo-liberal fascists destroying the left and it was like “whoa. I’m a liberal. What’s wrong here?”
It also didn’t help that I didn’t know the difference between personal and private property then, so it caused a lot of anxiety.
That kind of kick-started a little exploration into the real left and sticking my toes into some Second Thought. Watched all his videos, read some of the Manifesto, and got on Lemmygrad.
Since then, I’ve read State and Revolution, Blackshirts and Reds, watched tons of informational videos, and am getting into ‘What is to be Done?’
I am now a developing Marxist.
If anyone made it this far (apologies for taking up so much space, I don’t know how to do the spoiler thing), can you help me understand Dialectical/Historical Materialism a little more or recommend some reading? That’s really the only part of all of this I don’t understand fully, and I’m aware it’s one of the most important.
DiaMat/HiMat can be tough nut to crack. Once it’s cracked, though, Marxists texts, and the problems of liberalism, become a whole lot clearer. I’ll give my summary, but others may have other views.
spoiler
Essentially, it’s the study of change. According to the DiaMat worldview:
there are no ‘things’, isolated from other ‘things’; there exist only relations and processes, and these are all internally connected
from this it follows that every relation is a contradiction, a unity of opposites
these opposites are identical and different at the same time – they are distinct, in a way, but one cannot exist without the other, and they interpenetrate each other
quantitative changes lead to qualitative leaps (progress is not linear), and
change is constant, because contradiction is everywhere, in all things relations, processes.
In sum: DiaMat studies how the struggle of contradictory opposites drives change. If the ‘relations’/‘processes’ bit throws you, try to think of something simple and analyse it in your head. Like a ball. It appears to be a thing, separate from other things.
But zoom in. The air pushes out while the rubber pushes in. Zoom in further, that rubber is imperfect, a mesh of tightly connected chemicals. There are tiny gaps, through which the air inside can slowly escape, meaning the air inside is connected – ‘internally’ related – to the air outside, even if the ball – seen as a ‘thing’ appears to be separate from that outside air.
A good way to understand DiaMat is to take some time to think about the above summary, then to read an example, then come back to the summary to see if you can identify the moves in the example. Then read another example and do the same thing again before delving into some of the theory.
If you want a good, concrete example, take a look at how Marx and Engels discuss the bourgeois and proletariat in the Communist Manifesto or read Marx, ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire’. If you’re up for a challenge, read the first 3 or 4 chapters of Capital to see how Marx applies DiaMat to explain the commodity.
For the theory, you might try:
Lenin, ‘Three Sources and Component Parts of Marxism’,
Engels, ‘Socialism: Utopian and Scientific’ (this includes extracts from his Anti-Duhring, and
the Postface to the second German Edition of Capital, from and including the text ‘The European Messenger of St. Petersburg in an article dealing exclusively with the method of Das Kapital (May number, 1872, pp. 427–436), finds my method of inquiry severely realistic, but my method of presentation, unfortunately, German-dialectical.…’ (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p3.htm)
Mao, ‘On Contradiction’.
If you can find a copy, Bertell Ollman’s Dance of the Dialectic is good (he used to have a copy on his website, but I’ve not been able to find it for a long time; the paperback is easy to find and there a likely other versions on the internet)
– As are Maurice Cornforth’s books on DiaMat and HiMat. These may be a better start. They’re excellent.
Carlos L Garrido recently put together a collection of texts on DiaMat for Midwestern Marx. It looks good. Could be worth a read. There’s also a good ‘Marx, Engels, Lenin, Historical Materialism’ collection from the Soviet Era. It’s rare in physical form, I think, but there are PDFs.
I would also add a book that helped me quite a bit with understanding diamat along side the things already mentioned, although I don’t know how valuable the examples are if you’re not familiar with some biology.
Specifically the last chapter “Conclusion: Dialectics” is great because they go through the various aspects of dialectics with various biological (and some other) examples. A critical reading of this chapter with me analyzing the examples given and also trying to come up with my own really helped me.
Funnily enough, I just started The Ecological Rift by Foster, Clark, and York (MR Press), and I thought, this would be a good example of dialectical materialism. The preface states,
We have also benefited from the support of Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin, and from their dialectical approach to biology.
It sounds like others have found Lewis and Lewontin helpful, too. Might have to add them to my list after working through Foster and Burnett.
Sometimes I like to work forwards, starting with the oldest author and reading chronologically. There’s nothing quite like seeing the debate unfold like that. But when I’m shorter on time or the subject is less familiar, I like to work backwards as the examples of more modern writers can be easier to get on with; and reading the previous work with some background knowledge can make the task a bit easier.
I think Levins and Lewontin are definitely worth checking out, especially for dialectical views of biology but also other related natural sciences and their applications. They also contrast their dialectical view to the traditional reductionist views and conceptions of the discussed topics but the focus is still on the dialectics.
Yes, in my experience, the level of previous background knowledge is the key in determining which strategy (chronological or not) is better suited to the study of a subject. Without knowing the historical and social context of an author or work it can be difficult to properly analyze and contextualize it. That’s when reading some secondary sources from more modern writers can serve as a great starting point. Once I have a better understanding of the context, reading the oldest or primary sources is much more productive. Knowing where that threshold lies just takes some experience.
One thing I find very useful is when the more modern authors directly cite and include paragraphs or explanations from the older authors (which is quite common is Marxist writing). It helps directly with the contextualization and provides a list of works for further reading.
You know what, I remember now, listening to Rev Left Radio and Proles of the Round Table. Both have some great stuff on dialectics that really helped me get my head around some of the trickier concepts.
I’ll start with my background and material conditions, because of course that is pretty important.
I grew/am finishing growing up pretty privileged. Still working class, to be sure, but you know. Straight, white, male, and never have had to worry about money issues. Progressive liberal single mother, worked hard to take care of me. She never had the time to really dive into the why and get a great understanding of it all, just meant the best for people and kind of that well-intentioned social Democrat type.
I had always been interested in how we organize our society, though. Liberalism/Social Democracy, which I had subscribed to until the Ukraine/Russia conflict, still left me with so many questions. I really had no understanding of the world around me.
A very small but impactful moment was when I was watching Bo Burnham’s Inside in 2021 and he sang a line about private property being inherently theft and neo-liberal fascists destroying the left and it was like “whoa. I’m a liberal. What’s wrong here?” It also didn’t help that I didn’t know the difference between personal and private property then, so it caused a lot of anxiety.
That kind of kick-started a little exploration into the real left and sticking my toes into some Second Thought. Watched all his videos, read some of the Manifesto, and got on Lemmygrad.
Since then, I’ve read State and Revolution, Blackshirts and Reds, watched tons of informational videos, and am getting into ‘What is to be Done?’
I am now a developing Marxist.
If anyone made it this far (apologies for taking up so much space, I don’t know how to do the spoiler thing), can you help me understand Dialectical/Historical Materialism a little more or recommend some reading? That’s really the only part of all of this I don’t understand fully, and I’m aware it’s one of the most important.
DiaMat/HiMat can be tough nut to crack. Once it’s cracked, though, Marxists texts, and the problems of liberalism, become a whole lot clearer. I’ll give my summary, but others may have other views.
spoiler
Essentially, it’s the study of change. According to the DiaMat worldview:
thingsrelations, processes.In sum: DiaMat studies how the struggle of contradictory opposites drives change. If the ‘relations’/‘processes’ bit throws you, try to think of something simple and analyse it in your head. Like a ball. It appears to be a thing, separate from other things.
But zoom in. The air pushes out while the rubber pushes in. Zoom in further, that rubber is imperfect, a mesh of tightly connected chemicals. There are tiny gaps, through which the air inside can slowly escape, meaning the air inside is connected – ‘internally’ related – to the air outside, even if the ball – seen as a ‘thing’ appears to be separate from that outside air.
A good way to understand DiaMat is to take some time to think about the above summary, then to read an example, then come back to the summary to see if you can identify the moves in the example. Then read another example and do the same thing again before delving into some of the theory.
If you want a good, concrete example, take a look at how Marx and Engels discuss the bourgeois and proletariat in the Communist Manifesto or read Marx, ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire’. If you’re up for a challenge, read the first 3 or 4 chapters of Capital to see how Marx applies DiaMat to explain the commodity.
For the theory, you might try:
Carlos L Garrido recently put together a collection of texts on DiaMat for Midwestern Marx. It looks good. Could be worth a read. There’s also a good ‘Marx, Engels, Lenin, Historical Materialism’ collection from the Soviet Era. It’s rare in physical form, I think, but there are PDFs.
I would also add a book that helped me quite a bit with understanding diamat along side the things already mentioned, although I don’t know how valuable the examples are if you’re not familiar with some biology.
The Dialectical Biologist by Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin
Specifically the last chapter “Conclusion: Dialectics” is great because they go through the various aspects of dialectics with various biological (and some other) examples. A critical reading of this chapter with me analyzing the examples given and also trying to come up with my own really helped me.
Some essays like this one were also quite useful: https://redsails.org/what-is-dialectics/
Funnily enough, I just started The Ecological Rift by Foster, Clark, and York (MR Press), and I thought, this would be a good example of dialectical materialism. The preface states,
It sounds like others have found Lewis and Lewontin helpful, too. Might have to add them to my list after working through Foster and Burnett.
Sometimes I like to work forwards, starting with the oldest author and reading chronologically. There’s nothing quite like seeing the debate unfold like that. But when I’m shorter on time or the subject is less familiar, I like to work backwards as the examples of more modern writers can be easier to get on with; and reading the previous work with some background knowledge can make the task a bit easier.
I’ll have to check out The Ecological Rift then.
I think Levins and Lewontin are definitely worth checking out, especially for dialectical views of biology but also other related natural sciences and their applications. They also contrast their dialectical view to the traditional reductionist views and conceptions of the discussed topics but the focus is still on the dialectics.
Yes, in my experience, the level of previous background knowledge is the key in determining which strategy (chronological or not) is better suited to the study of a subject. Without knowing the historical and social context of an author or work it can be difficult to properly analyze and contextualize it. That’s when reading some secondary sources from more modern writers can serve as a great starting point. Once I have a better understanding of the context, reading the oldest or primary sources is much more productive. Knowing where that threshold lies just takes some experience.
One thing I find very useful is when the more modern authors directly cite and include paragraphs or explanations from the older authors (which is quite common is Marxist writing). It helps directly with the contextualization and provides a list of works for further reading.
In addition to what redtea said, you can read Stalin’s dialectical and historical materialism, and 5 essays of mao’s on philosophy (collection by flpress). If you feel like a deep dive into dialectics in general and are willing to listen to a lot of podcasts, go through the backlogs of revolutionary left radio, and you’ll find a lot of dialectics stuff.
You know what, I remember now, listening to Rev Left Radio and Proles of the Round Table. Both have some great stuff on dialectics that really helped me get my head around some of the trickier concepts.