this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2024
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Dialectical Materialism is not a sterile philosophical framework, it's a cart being driven by the horse of stoking revolutionary action. Marx's writings were about how to be a revolutionary, why be a revolutionary, what is fundamentally at issue with capitalism that requires revolution, and how can we address revolution via the "right" epistemological framework. Its most basic statement is to reject (1) the (pejorative of) idealism, of placing a framework of understanding in the driver's seat and conforming material reality to fit within in, and (2) vulgar materialism, which is to say a sterile materialism that says material forces caused X to happen and there ya go, end of story. In rejecting the latter there is a call to action, of recognizing the ability to self-shape and foment revolution through developed class consciousness, through revolutionary class consciousness. One of the reasons Marx spends so much time clarifying proletarians from lumpens and personally pushing to organize and radicalize. Diamat is a philosophy of activism.
Holding hard to this kind of deterministic thinking is a vulgarization that strips the entirety of the activist struggle. You seem to call something diamat if it recognizes mutual shaping of material conditions and society, but if that society and you and your org have no agency then the point is entirely moot. You have merely created a framework of describing a clockwork, not at all what Marx was getting at. The subjectivity addressed, for example, is not just being the subject of an object. As an epistemological endeavor, the whole point of diamat is to use it to explore how to build revolution. What you choose to build, how you advocate, who you fight and argue with, etc.
I'm not surprised that a Western self-labeled Marxist podcaster may be incoherent lol. The thing that characterizes the Western left more than anything is a deep urge to have and share strong opinions, to do insufficient self-criticism, and then call it a day, failing to actually organize anything. But I dunno I don't follow or really care about that one dude.
I know what Marxism is and I know people affect society. I just don't know where you think free will comes from. At this point it just seems like you're mad I used the word "determinism." I'll have you know Breht is not a hot takes kind of guy except when he shows his raw emotions around palestine. He is a nuanced dialectician and the podcast where he mentioned determinism wasn't meant to be widely seen or make anyone mad.
Why do I need to know where free will comes from? This line of pushback makes no sense to me. I do not need to provide a positive alternative for your claims to be contradictory. Contradictory claims are not good and true by default, waiting for a pure and good alternative until they can really properly be contradicted. What would be so bad about saying, "oh I guess this doesn't make sense" and just... leaving it there and probing deeper later?
The hard line incompatibilist determinism you and others are mentioning is basically what liberals hold up as a straw man to criticize Marx's strong emphasis on material conditions (including historical contingency on past human action) shaping all the context in which we operate, including the shape of our thoughts. Something something "like a nightmare".
Re: podcast guy, maybe he's fine who knows but I cannot recommend, "a podcast guy said it" as a supporting argument for why a philosophical position isn't contradictory. Cold takes can also be incoherent and this one is about 150 years old.
Contradictions are within all things including ideas, I'm sure there are contradictions in mine and I try to work through them. However, I don't know what you're pointing to that invalidates my argument. Free will can't exist in a material world. Consciousness arises from the world and acts within it as a part of it. It is not an outside actor as anyone who proposes free will assumes, and it is not simply being acted upon as a non-dialectical determinist would assume. Determinism doesn't mean the world is simple, it means it is knowable and free will doesn't exist. No one individual or society has the capacity to be laplace's demon, so we might as well act like we have free will. I only appealed to authority because you weren't listening to my rational argumentation and I hoped you'd know one of the most principled online figures.
I don't mean contradictions in the dialectical sense. I mean truly incompatible ideas being called compatible. A=B but also A!=B. I am a hippopotamus and also a hummingbird. Category errors. That kind of thing.
I'm not hearing anything in the other statements that clarifies how your position is not a materialist determinism, which was implied by earlier references. Everything said there is consistent with materialist determinism as are the fairly basic criticisms of free will (they are actually the usual arguments for materialist determinant as well lol).
I didn't call referencing a podcast guy an appeal to authority.
If you review our interaction I think you'll see that I've tried very hard to listen to you and explain what I'm talking about in a way that addresses what you are saying, including with references and trying to use both academic and non-academic language. When people take their time to do these things it is a comradely exercise.
OK then, I think I understand your perspective on the argument. My language use may have contradictions, but I have articulated the ideas I subscribe to the best I can.
I know I am using arguments in common with mechanical materialists. My position is they are wrong because they failed to see the complexity of the world as seen through dialectics.
I did not mean to suggest you were calling me fallacious. I was simply admitting it was an attempt at Ethos because my Logos was failing to reach you.
I don't understand what you mean by mechanical materialists being wrong due to the complexity of the world. Mechanical materialism is entirely compatible with an arbitrarily complex world so long as it follows certain ideas of causality.
The key issue is that fatalism is incompatible with Marxism and I see all of the ingredients of fatalism in this post and interaction (though the conclusion is unclear). Will the world work out how it's going to no matter what, or do you have the agency to try and shape it? Or, most importantly, are you spreading a consciousness of inevitability? Diamat is antithetical to that.
My position is whether or not the universe is fatalist it doesn’t have rhyme or reason and we are part of the universe’s movement, not on the sidelines. We don’t know whether there is inevitability or what is inevitable. If the fatalists are right that shouldn’t lead to inaction.
I'm even more confused now as the universe having no rhyme or reason is also incompatible with diamat. Discovering patterns, tendencies, conclusions from the material is core to it and those patterns are rhyme or reason. Capital is a work that is entirely about how the capitalist system follows clear material forces, that it subjugates all classes to its mechanisms, and that its class dynamics prime its downfall at the hands of the working class.
Maybe I phrased that poorly. The universe has no ultimate purpose or intention. The way things worked out seems relatively random, but it is a result of material laws. It is possible to study the world and find patterns.