Dialectical Logic in the Soviet Union

[@awesomebearaudiobooks]

I think dialectical materialism is still quite widespread in the Eastern European and Central Asian academia, even after the dissolution of the USSR. It's just that it lost most of its ideological/political connotations, because the academics are strongly discouraged agsint criticizing the ruling elites. Many still view history through the lense of dialectical materialism, but when it comes to more modern events, our academics tend to turn a blind eye and go 100% into idealism (thus many of them are basically robbing themselves of intellectualism).

[@MuradBeybalaev]

There are more political actors than you'd think that operate with dialectical materialism consciously. Granted, much less so in the mainstream, bereft of reason. But also dialectics formalize many valid phenomena of rational analysis that people often engage in unconsciously. Furthermore, there is a positive trend of re-learning dialectical materialism in the society.

[@chunkyPa]

I am a Marxist who arrived back at Dialectical Materialism through Ilyenkov and Boris Groys, and it is very impressive you grasp this. But I think you should study Chinese Marxism-Leninism to see how the logic of totality corresponds to, as with Deng’s reforms (and beginning with Mao’s break with the Soviets), a politically decentralizing tendency (to the point of building a market economy). Stalin’s plans to democratize the State and relegate the Party to an advisory or even spiritual role and his defense of the kolkhoz system against the universalization of sovkhozes is a forerunner to this. This decentralization corresponds to a more concrete totality of the state.

[@mayakovsky8574]

☀️🦍

[@Devdevbruh]

You would never fight a real nazi 1V1

[@ilyatsukanov8707]

Very interesting English-language take on the subject! In Russia today 50s-era textbooks on logic are extremely popular today among parents trying to resist the EGE (brainrot state testing) system borrowed from the West. Dialectical materialism may have been trashed by the state in 1991, but it explains all the horrible things happening to our people since then.

[@ishehaxor]

This video was amazing. Great stuff.

[@OffGridInvestor]

2:25 the beards are slowly disappearing 😅

[@dragonburrito527]

Well-made and informative video. I hope this comment helps the algorithm

[@RackTomRememberance]

fascinating video. Will need to watch twice in order to fully understand.

[@spiritnone2818]

You're not paying actual attention to the sources. Your only actual source is Boris Groys, it seems. This is totally unscientific history of ideas, what he says is really only applicable to a certain _usage_ of dialectics by State power in soviet countries. It doesn't grasp what dialectics was for Marx or Hegel, which was, really, a disjointed series of principles abstracted or distorted from Hegel which are only unified by their counter-intuitive and very general character (most aren't even properly logical principles, like the supposed transformation of quantity into quality). Thus your video reduces dialectics to the idea that A and non-A are both true depending on the ‘perspective’ but that one is to be ‘preferred’. Obviously this is impossible to formalize into a proper logical principle, because of the those concepts of perspective and preference aren't logical (i.e. purely formal) ones. But even assuming dialectics is to be a logic in the broader sense of a ‘method of thinking’, this wasn't the actual point of Marx acknowledgement of contradictions as ‘real’. Marx acknowledge contradictions as real like Hegel did, not as denial of classical, formal logic. That is, he considered contradictions were real _because of the passage of time._ A thing is real and is its negation _in the sense that a thing contains the laws of its transformation into something else._ Classical logic is synchronistic and dialectical materialism was supposed to be diachronistic. It originally had nothing to do with this strange relativism. It's just that it allowed enough verbal sophistry that it could flourish under the pen of shrewd political leaders. You also don't seem to grasp what a paradox is. There is no logical paradox in claiming Jesus was both fully Man and fully God, just like there is no logical paradox in claiming an apple is both fully a fruit and fully green. You just implicitly assume manhood is incompatible with godhood, you're implicitly begging the question. Though indeed the classical conception of the trinity is logically contradictory because it claims Jesus is God, the Father is God, but Jesus isn't the father, and God knows no parts but is absolutely simple. (I'm neither a communist nor christian, by the way.)

[@discogodfather22]

Have to really get into Ilyenkov to understand why it failed in the USSR, and why it was reborn anew in China where Mao developed it further. It stagnated as an abstraction of itself which lead to historical nihilism.

[@dwwolf4636]

No, it did what it was designed to do.

[@liminalzone909]

Thank you. That was very interesting.

[@kingdm8315]

Please more videos

[@jamesgeorge7579]

How can you argue with someone who claims to hold all positions, including yours?

[@blank_jenkins]

1) claiming to hold all positions is different than claiming to integrate new positions as you're exposed to them 2) maybe arguing isn't the most useful way of approaching such a conversation -- you could expose the person to new ideas, you could expose them to alternate ways of integrating ideas that they had previously integrated differently, and you could explore whether the ways they've previously integrated your ideas appear to have merit

[@kingdm8315]

does anyone have recommendations for channels who make similar videos to this channel?

[@crumblierfob529]

Great channel.

[@TheNavalAviator]

Integrating a superposition of all existing positions into your state action is well and good but the foregone conclusion of communism as a historical necessity is really a non-starter.

[@peternyc]

I majored in philosophy as an undergrad. I have never heard such a clear description of dialectical reasoning. All of the Marxist "experts" on social media do Marxism a great disservice by not clearly understanding that dialectical reasoning contains its own objections, and is therefore at least one step ahead at all times. To not understand how one can object to a claim is to not understand that claim in the first place! Super well done video. Subscribed.

[@Stevie-J]

9th grade debate clubs make students argue for positions that they disagree with. In other words, 14 year old kids in American public schools understand what you're saying. It's really not that deep.

[@evanstronaught]

​@Stevie-J I was in a high-school debate club and I can tell you that the students in it are smarter then 90% of the adult american population.

[@Stevie-J]

@@evanstronaught haha fair enough

[@terencenxumalo1159]

good work

[@segmentsAndCurves]

A disgrace of a video, I recommend having more than one source to diversify the sophistry. Dialectical materialism acknowledge objective truth. The law of physic. Natural selection. Logic and mathematical axioms. Otherwise it would not be materialist, because materialism is the acknowledgement that material, and not any ideal or higher being, form the world. That is an objective assertion. What makes dialectical materialism separated from metaphysical (vulgar) materialism is acknowledging that many observation is relative truth, and it's no point of see this observation in abstract, but to think of what context makes it correct, and what makes the opposite of it correct. (Ex: Human are wage slave. It's only true in capitalism, and not true in feudalism or communism). And more radically, being is also relative (Ex: My ancestors are human. False, because from Darwin we know apes is humanity's ancestors) It is not that both statement are valid because "the totality" (the typical boogyman used by anti-communists) demands unity, but for those who assert that a truth (relavtive as most social truth are) can't one day turns into it's opposite, they are doom to dogmatism.

[@dwwolf4636]

You lost the plot. The Material world is the shadow cast by the mind of the absolute Ideal. We don't live in the Material world. We live in objective reality. Thus We also do not need to Transcend ( dialectically ) the Material world. Sorry, no Socialist Megazord Species Being for you. Objective reality doesn't work that way, regardless of what you may dream up dialectically.

[@andriaabashidze2497]

@@dwwolf4636 ??? material world IS objective reality. tf?

[@GSE1918]

​@@andriaabashidze2497 yes

[@какегоэтот]

@@andriaabashidze2497 to some extent, material world as we perceive it is a subjective reality of our perspective (sensory and mental image, skewerd by human bias/our natural tendencies) Observing reality can never be fully objective as we are technically cannot fully concieve the nature of things. hard boiled logic only can get you as far as to day to day basics, ESPECIALLY in relation to less phisical concepts

[@jasonkinzie8835]

@@какегоэтот Agreed but if you get too subjective and idealistic, (in a metaphysical sense) your representations end up being works of pure fiction. Representations of "real" things are by definition representations of things beyond the representation itself. An underlying reality is needed to explain what the representations and perceptions are representations and perceptions of.

[@ElkoJohn]

the opposite of a small truth is false the opposite of a Big Truth is also True

[@dandanovich6729]

Well, diamat has really fallen outta grace here, in post-USSR, but truth be told.... USSR had utterly failed in educating diamat. Soviet philosophers, let alone teachers barely understood the principles of dialectical thought, and general populus had only retained the ideas of absolute and relative truths through two termins (истина и правда). People mostly saw this amazing philosophy as a ritual, or worse, a mandatory, forced insanity. Despite all that, when I crawl outta my CIS-lair into the western web and communicate with the western leftists, it really shocks, how badly they lack any substantial logic at all. In the best cases they are somewhat adequately educated with formal, and communism requires dialectical thinking for it's arguementation. Post-soviet sphere is better philosophically educated in general, and in therms of diamat vastly in particular

[@alfaeco15]

Dialectism in a nutshell Two friends visit a rabbi to solve a dispute. First enters the room, explains his position and the rabbi tell him, yes you are right Second friend enters the room, explains his position, and the rabbi tells him, yes you are right. The rabbi wife tells him, but both can't be right, to which the rabbi replies, and you are right too. And that is why a rabbi is a rabbi, which is what is all about. To remain a rabbi.

[@alfaeco15]

Another way to phrase it. I am not against you because I am with you. But if you are against me, you are against everybody. How dare you be against me?

[@i.willacceptfood9352]

Liked and subscribed. Love to feel like a 20th century peasant being lured to my doom

[@tidypog3272]

What a mess

[@ariebrons7976]

What?

[@NoahSpurrier]

This sounds complicated.

[@janus1140]

that's intentional because its ultimately meaningless

[@kingdm8315]

Damn

[@alikuk6334]

how much effort people make to justify Hegelian schizophrenia!

[@captain-chair]

What does that even mean?

[@bee44569]

Great video. Although I think the totality within politics at least is rather the centralism of democratic centralism, as not all contradictions are to be solved; some are antagonistic. These contradictions reflected class warfare in the USSR and its eventyual corruption towards capitalism as revisionists reintroduced market elements and linked themselves more to IMF etc. Perhaps an interesting topic for another video!

[@koalabear1984]

bla bla bla. fund my party!

[@EmptyCrystal]

It became clear that the soviet experiment failed and the brabble about dialectical materialism became more about power and ordinary people did not really care much. However you can think and try to apply dialectical materialism especially in the field of science. Science is inherently a materialist enterprise (except maybe psychology). And there the dialectical method allows for thinking with contradictions. Why is this great? I do think a great example where non dialectical thinking fails is ecology. When a company produces a fertilizer that kills all plants that dont have a specific gene to protect the crops that have been engineered to have the gene, then this is very reductionist and does not think with contradictions. Instead it sees a problem and a simply solution. However it is clear to everyone that this type of solution for crops is not good. Dialectical materialism provides us with a framework to view processes in nature not only in reductionist terms but tries to synthesize the phenomena to the whole that they are. At least that would be my interpretation of it and Engels even wrote a unfinished work on Dialectical Materialism in Nature/Science To me it is a tragedy of history that this was not developed further

[@segmentsAndCurves]

Lenin wrote Marxism and Empirico-Criticism (quoted somewhat in this video) as a response some idealist in his party, there he dive into a lot of various contemporary physic topics. I found it fascinating that some Marxist has a wide grasp of knowledge in natural science. And if my memory serves me right, Engels wrote somewhere in the vein of "The condition of capitalism freed to the natural sciences from feudalism, and the future socialist revolution will likewise free the social sciences". Capitalist states don't teach dialectical materialism, and it's not hard to see the logic here. You don't teach people what they would use to overthrow you

[@dandanovich6729]

It is particularly ironic, that dialectical materialism in the whole span of sciences, besides philosophy, is now only officially established in psychology in a form of DBT. But it is modern. It was developed in the late 90s and is only booming rn!

[@spiritnone2818]

DBT has nothing to do with diamat. Dialectical, dialectics are old philosophical words. Here they're just used to refer to a rational exchange of ideas in dialogue.

[@dandanovich6729]

@@spiritnone2818 if you read what Linehan wrote, it has to do with the post-Hegelian dialectical idea. It is not strictly diamaterialistc, but it adheres to an idea that the world itself is dialectical, and so are all humans

[@yawnandjokeoh]

Dialectical materialism is not anything, it has no real content. There are lengthy works on the subject. But non of those works have any relevance to real world matters. It’s a specific word salad philosophy that the non-working class leadership of Marxist groups or states use as a means of shutting down really rivals and their political ideas. Engels basically lifted a bunch of text from Hegel and shoehorned some Victorian day science writing around those stolen Hegelian ideas. Plekhanov coined the term dialectical materialism and imported the idea into the Russian middle class revolutionary circles he was part of. Lenin took Plekhanov’s words about dialectical materialism as an unquestionable truth. The majority of works on dialectical materialism came about during periods following massive failures in the movement, it acts a bit like a comfort device (like how Marx viewed religious ideas). Contemporary Marxist groups still follow Lenin’s example of using dialectical materialism to shut up rivals or to comfort cadre after a defeat/split etc. Leninist groups nearly all operate as small businesses, often their self perpetuating leadership are actually owners of the LLC etc in which the organizations’ cash flows through. Following the Stalinist model of a slate system of ‘election’, even the Trotsky wing of Leninism follows this model, small business owners conduct a cadre organization of not only free labor but charge regular dues and purchases of merchandise. The pantheon:Marx Engels Lenin (then decide if: Stalin, Trotsky, Mao etc ) the elected slate of leaders for life (or until a split) are the earthly divinations here to interpret the gods and the Dialectic for the subject proletariat.

[@alexyoung6371]

What

[@EnverHalilHoxha1917]

​@@alexyoung6371bro uses word salad to divide marxists. Ignore this comment. If you wanna learn about dialectical materialism read from a marxist source.

[@xibalbalon8668]

What no material analysis does to a mf

[@yawnandjokeoh]

@@EnverHalilHoxha1917 you find my comment incomprehensible?

[@sypherthe297th2]

​@@yawnandjokeohYou're largely dealing with tankies (i.ie red fascists) who think the USSR, DPRK, and PRC are or were communist paradises. And even using the word "think" in association with their ilk is way too generous. DM is a lense through which one can analyze the world and make evaluations but, unlike an actual lense which simply bends light, the brain has to act as the sense and perform an analysis which is subjective. It'd be nice if communists like them stopped trying to skip to end game and actually put in the work to better society in their lifetimes. But no. They scream about incrementally and how all their enemies will be less alive after the glorious people's revolution. . . which just installs another dictator to tell the masses how stupid they are. It's. . . exhausting because Marx had a lot of useful insights without people utterly twisting his writings.

[@richardsims5158]

............ Makes no sense to me. Just word salad

[@Notrusbot]

because you are uneducated😂

[@bjorkzhukov3638]

Your brain is salad.

[@donovanallen]

It is indeed, by design. It is spaghetti logic created to make marginal intelligence seem like genius, which is why it becomes so popular with mediocre leaders, so so academics, and angry, drunk writers and artists.

[@Notrusbot]

@@donovanallen just admit that you don't have the strength to understand the information. saying that information is incorrect because you cannot understand it does not mean that it is incorrect

[@donovanallen]

@@Notrusbot ad hominem. One can understand something and still think it is wrong and stupid.

[@FreedomofspeechSensor-zu8ip]

*Let's see if you can tell which view is from a National Socialist, "Nazi", "Facsist", ect. and which is from a International Socialist, "Marxist", "Neo-Liberal", "progressive", ect* *1:* "Equal liability of all to work." *2:* "The first obligation of every citizen must be to work both spiritually and physically." *3:* "We demand the nationalisation of all associated industries." *4:* "Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State." *5:* "We demand legal opposition to known lies and their promulgation through the press." *6:* "We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood and way of life for the citizens." Abolition of unearned incomes. *7:* "Breaking of debt (interest)-slavery." *8:* "We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare" *9:* "The men of the New Republic will not be squeamish, either, in facing or inflicting death, because they will have a fuller sense of the possibilities of life than we possess. They will have an ideal that will make killing worth while." *10:* "I think it would be a good thing to make everybody come before a properly appointed board just as he might come before the income tax commissioner and say every 5 years or every 7 years… Just put them there and say, ‘Sir or madam will you be kind enough to justify your existence… if you’re not producing as much as you consume or perhaps a little bit more then clearly we cannot use the big organization of our society for the purpose of keeping you alive. Because your life does not benefit us and it can’t be of very much use to yourself.'" Aside from the National Socialists, "Nazi's" being obsessed with race, their political programs were quite similar. A fact that J. Goebbels even acknowledge in a 1920's speech. Yes, the National Socialists "Nazi" beat up on the Marxist International Socialists. But all Socialists have their infighting! We see some of the same fault lines in the Democratic Party today, with one part sticking to its traditional race-based victimization theory, while the other side is fighting for a class-warfare argument. This is a classic dichotomy. Answers: -25 Point National Socialist (Nazi) Program: 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 -The Communist Manifesto: 1, 4 -H.G. Wells: 9 -George Bernard Shaw: 10

[@Pioneer_DE]

Funny, I guessed all but two right, it is almost like they are distinguishable if you actually know about these ideologies. Anyway Pa, it is time to go back to watch Fox News, blame immigrants and say that the Democrats are literally every part of the worst ideologies combined.

[@nektariosorfanoudakis2270]

Marxism and liberalism are diametrically opposed, and one does expect a fascist to have trouble differentiating them from one another. But Neo-liberalism in place of Liberalism is new to me, that's Pinochet's, Thatcher's and Reagan's system and has little to do with old Liberalism and even less with Marxism. As for the Nazi program all of them were easy to find, except the part they claimed that they wanted nationalisation of key industries. This is because they did the exact opposite anyway, the term "Privatization" was invented to describe Hitler's economic policies. 😂😂

[@Pioneer_DE]

Wow, I managed to assign all but 2, correctly. It is almost as if you can distinguish between them if you know enough about them 🤯

[@glorytoamerica6332]

@@nektariosorfanoudakis2270the party was the state and when key people in the main industries were forced out and replaced by party members those industries became on extension of the party

[@george1la]

More people should watch this so as to better understand Russian thinking well engrained long before Lenin. They do not know anything else just like the Chinese.

[@waltonsmith7210]

Before Lenin it was a Tsarist state. Wtf are you talking about?

[@misanek007]

​@@waltonsmith7210 I would say this to help clarify your confusion. The Tsarist state, which we could understand as oppresive towards the Russian people. And, in general, for that matter, in any state, there always exists a tension (contradiction) between the state and the people this state is supposed to represent. Therefore, we could say this way of thinking was always present in the people, but was merely surpressed by the Tsarist state, Lenin gave a voice to this way of thinking to the Russian people already present, but hidden in the people. We could also argue, that that is not the case, that Lenin got his thinking and ideas from mostly German thinking, which would include both Hegel and Marx.

[@flyingmonkey3822]

Soviets and logic now THERES a thesis/antithesis.

[@VictorDiaz-rt3ve]

I agree, especially since they were the leading force in theoretical physics and mathematics during their existence.

[@zalmyt.1845]

How to think like a Soviet Step 1: don’t Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk

[@ricban1950]

A Communist is someone who reads Marx and Engels. A Capitalist is someone who understands Marx and Engels.

[@bjorkzhukov3638]

No, a capitalist is someone who employs capital, it’s an economic category, not something you identify as. Identifying with your master and advocating their interests is incredibly cucked. Read Marx and Engels.