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16-02 -- Summary Of Essay Two -- DM: imposed On Reality
These are Introductory Essays, which have been written for those who find the main Essays either too long, or too difficult. They do not pretend to be comprehensive since they are simply summaries of the core ideas presented at this site. Most of the supporting evidence and argument found in each of the main Essays has been omitted. Anyone wanting more details, or who would like to examine my arguments and evidence in full, should consult the Essay for which each is a précis. [In this particular case, that can be found here.]
It's worth underling that my main objection to DM is not that it has reproduced important aspects of ruling class ideology, but that it makes no sense. This serious allegation is substantiated in Essays Three through Thirteen.
Moreover, it is also worth pointing out that in what follows the truth or falsity of any and all of these allegedly dogmatic DM-theses is not the main issue, merely whether DM-theorists are consistent in their claim not to have imposed their ideas on reality. Why this is important in itself will also be explained below.
Of course, in other Essays posted at this site (especially Essays Four through Thirteen), the truth or falsehood of DM-theses will be the issue.
Throughout this Essay, readers will find me continually asking the following rhetorical question: "How could theorist A, B or C possibly know X, Y or Z?"
The answer is clear in each case: they couldn't possibly know these things by any ordinary means, which implies they must have been imposed on nature.
This question is asked continually in order to underline the fact that dialecticians en masse propound theses that cannot possibly be substantiated by any conceivable body of evidence, no matter how large -- since they are universal, necessary and eternally true.
Hard to believe? Then read on...
Quick Links
Anyone using these links must remember that they will be skipping past supporting argument and evidence set out in earlier sections. [If your Firewall has a pop-up blocker, you will need to press the "Ctrl" key at the same time or these and the other links here won't work!]
1) Ruling-Class Forms Of Thought
2) Radical Talk -- Conservative Walk
3) A Priori Dogmatics -- The Only Game In Town
5) Linguistic Idealism -- The Original Lie
Abbreviations Used At This Site
For over two thousand years traditional Philosophers have been playing on themselves and their audiences what can only be described as a series of complex verbal tricks. Since Greek times, metaphysicians have occupied themselves with deriving a priori theses solely from the meaning of a few specially-chosen (and suitably doctored) words. These philosophical gems were skilfully polished and then peddled to the rest of humanity dressed-up as profound-looking truths about fundamental aspects of reality, peremptorily imposed on nature almost invariably without the benefit of a single supporting experiment. Not that these would have mattered anyway:
"Empirical, contingent truths have always struck philosophers as being, in some sense, ultimately unintelligible. It is not that none can be known with certainty…; nor is it that some cannot be explained…. Rather is it that all explanation of empirical truths rests ultimately on brute contingency -- that is how the world is! Where science comes to rest in explaining empirical facts varies from epoch to epoch, but it is in the nature of empirical explanation that it will hit the bedrock of contingency somewhere, e.g., in atomic theory in the nineteenth century or in quantum mechanics today. One feature that explains philosophers' fascination with truths of Reason is that they seem, in a deep sense, to be fully intelligible. To understand a necessary proposition is to see why things must be so, it is to gain an insight into the nature of things and to apprehend not only how things are, but also why they cannot be otherwise. It is striking how pervasive visual metaphors are in philosophical discussions of these issues. We see the universal in the particular (by Aristotelian intuitive induction); by the Light of Reason we see the essential relations of Simple Natures; mathematical truths are apprehended by Intellectual Intuition, or by a priori insight. Yet instead of examining the use of these arresting pictures or metaphors to determine their aptness as pictures, we build upon them mythological structures.
"We think of necessary propositions as being true or false, as objective and independent of our minds or will. We conceive of them as being about various entities, about numbers even about extraordinary numbers that the mind seems barely able to grasp…, or about universals, such as colours, shapes, tones; or about logical entities, such as the truth-functions or (in Frege's case) the truth-values. We naturally think of necessary propositions as describing the features of these entities, their essential characteristics. So we take mathematical propositions to describe mathematical objects…. Hence investigation into the domain of necessary propositions is conceived as a process of discovery. Empirical scientists make discoveries about the empirical domain, uncovering contingent truths; metaphysicians, logicians and mathematicians appear to make discoveries of necessary truths about a supra-empirical domain (a 'third realm'). Mathematics seems to be the 'natural history of mathematical objects' [Wittgenstein (1978), p.137], 'the physics of numbers' [Wittgenstein (1976), p.138; however these authors record this erroneously as p.139, RL] or the 'mineralogy of numbers' [Wittgenstein (1978), p.229]. The mathematician, e.g., Pascal, admires the beauty of a theorem as though it were a kind of crystal. Numbers seem to him to have wonderful properties; it is as if he were confronting a beautiful natural phenomenon [Wittgenstein (1998), p.47; again, these authors have recorded this erroneously as p.41, RL]. Logic seems to investigate the laws governing logical objects…. Metaphysics looks as if it is a description of the essential structure of the world. Hence we think that a reality corresponds to our (true) necessary propositions. Our logic is correct because it corresponds to the laws of logic….
"In our eagerness to ensure the objectivity of truths of reason, their sempiternality and mind-independence, we slowly but surely transform them into truths that are no less 'brutish' than empirical, contingent truths. Why must red exclude being green? To be told that this is the essential nature of red and green merely reiterates the brutish necessity. A proof in arithmetic or geometry seems to provide an explanation, but ultimately the structure of proofs rests on axioms. Their truth is held to be self-evident, something we apprehend by means of our faculty of intuition; we must simply see that they are necessarily true…. We may analyse such ultimate truths into their constituent 'indefinables'. Yet if 'the discussion of indefinables…is the endeavour to see clearly, and to make others see clearly, the entities concerned, in order that the mind may have that kind of acquaintance with them which it has with redness or the taste of a pineapple' [Russell (1937), p.xv; again these authors record this erroneously as p.v, RL], then the mere intellectual vision does not penetrate the logical or metaphysical that to the why or wherefore…. For if we construe necessary propositions as truths about logical, mathematical or metaphysical entities which describe their essential properties, then, of course, the final products of our analyses will be as impenetrable to reason as the final products of physical theorising, such as Planck's constant." [Baker and Hacker (1988), pp.273-75. Referencing conventions in the original have been altered to conform to those adopted at this site.]
In fact, traditional theorists went further; their acts of linguistic legerdemain 'allowed' them to uncover Super-theses in the comfort of their own heads, doctrines they claimed revealed the underlying and essential nature of existence, valid for all of space and time. Unsurprisingly, discursive magic of this order of magnitude meshes rather well with ambient ruling-class forms-of-thought (for reasons that are explored in detail in Essays Twelve and Fourteen (summaries here and here)), chief among which is the belief that reality is rational.
Clearly, the idea that the world is rational must be forced onto nature; it cannot be read from it since nature is not Mind. Plainly, it is much easier to rationalise the imposition of a hierarchical and grossly unequal class system on 'disorderly' workers if ruling-class ideologues can persuade one and all that the 'law-like' order of the natural world actually reflects, and is reflected in turn by, the social order from which their patrons benefit --, the fundamental aspects of which none may question.
Material reality may not be rational, but it is certainly rational for ruling-class "prize-fighters" to claim it is.
Radical talk -- Conservative Walk
Even before the first dialecticians put pen to misuse, they found themselves surrounded on all sides by ideas drawn from this ancient tradition. Clearly, they faced a serious problem: if they imposed their ideas on nature in like manner, they could easily be accused of constructing a comparable form of Idealism. On the other hand, if they didn't do this, they wouldn't have a 'philosophical theory' of their own to lend weight to their claim to lead the revolution. Confronted thus by traditional thought-forms (which they had no hand in creating, but which they were only too happy to appropriate), DM-theorists found there was no easy way out of this minefield -- or at least none that prevented their theory from sliding into Idealism.
Their solution was simple and effective: ignore the problem.
Or, at least, ignore it in favour of issuing a series of disarming denials --, like the following:
"Finally, for me there could be no question of superimposing the laws of dialectics on nature but of discovering them in it and developing them from it." [Engels (1976), p.13. Bold emphasis added.]
This is not to deny that dialecticians were unaware of the Idealism implicit in traditional thought -- as George Novack points out:
"A consistent materialism cannot proceed from principles which are validated by appeal to abstract reason, intuition, self-evidence or some other subjective or purely theoretical source. Idealisms may do this. But the materialist philosophy has to be based upon evidence taken from objective material sources and verified by demonstration in practice...." [Novack (1965), p.17. Bold emphasis added.]
On the contrary, their excuse for disregarding the pernicious influence of traditional thought on their own ideas is that the materialist flip they say they inflicted on Hegel was deemed capable of transforming theoretical dirt into philosophical gold.
However, flip or no flip, their own thought is thoroughly traditional -- it is dogmatic, a priori, and expressed in specialised jargon lifted straight from the Philosophers' Phrase Book. While few DM-theorists will deny that traditional Philosophy itself is predominantly Idealist, not one of them has failed to emulate its approach to a priori knowledge.
So, despite the fact that dialecticians constantly claim that DM has not been imposed on nature -- for that would surely brand their theory "Idealist" -- they invariably end up doing just that, imposing their theory on reality. In so doing, they simply confirm the allegation that traditional thought has found a new batch of converts among erstwhile radicals.
Hence, in spite of frequent claims to the contrary, Marxist Philosophy has from its inception been remarkably conservative. Instead of trying to bury traditional theory, dialecticians have in fact done the opposite, they have emulated it.
Indeed, they have gone out of their way to ensure that our movement has been dominated by "ruling ideas" from the very beginning.
A Priori Dogmatics -- The Only Game In Town
This style-of-thought was invented by ancient Greek theorists who wrote and thought as if reality was in fact rational and linguistically based -- i.e., the product of Logos. Since then, every branch of traditional Philosophy has carried on in more or less the same way, but in its own idiom as each Mode of Production dictated the content but not the form of this ancient world-view. This approach to a priori 'knowledge' helped set the limits to, and fixed the parameters of, 'acceptable thought'. On that basis, if a theory wasn't founded on some form of word-juggling -- the more baroque the better --, it wasn't 'proper' Philosophy.
Dialecticians have swallowed this ancient marketing ploy. This is why so many of them express genuine incredulity, if not hostility, when it is suggested to them that Marxism does not need a philosophy of any sort, shape or kind -- never mind the one they lifted from Hegel. DM-fans are so neck-deep in this tradition that they can't help but defend it against radical attacks (like those mounted at this site). Indeed, such comrades can be counted among the most enthusiastic and emphatic champions of Philosophy -- the archetypical ruling-class thought-form.
Small wonder then that Marx declared that the ruling ideas are always those of the ruling-class:
"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 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, quoted from here.]
While dialecticians openly accept the truth of the above comments, they point the finger at everyone else for being conned in this way, scarcely noticing where their own a priori theses originated: traditional Philosophy and Hermetic mysticism.
For example, Lenin concluded that the principles he had uncovered while reading Hegel's Logic governed the "eternal development of the world." [Lenin (1961), p.110.] Furthermore, and despite the fact that dialecticians repeatedly tell us that their theory is not a "master key", Lenin let the metaphysical cat out of the linguistic bag when he declared that:
"[t]he identity of opposites…alone furnishes the key to the self-movement of everything existing." [Lenin (1961), p.358. Bold emphasis added.]
One minute DM is not the key, the next, it is.
"Dialectics and materialism are the basic elements in the Marxist cognition of the world. But this does not mean at all that they can be applied to any sphere of knowledge, like an ever ready master key. Dialectics cannot be imposed on facts; it has to be deduced from facts, from their nature and development…." [Trotsky (1973), p.233.]
"Whenever any Marxist attempted to transmute the theory of Marx into a universal master key...Vladimir Ilyich would rebuke him with the expressive phrase 'Komchvanstvo' ('communist swagger')." [Ibid., p.221. Bold emphases added.]
One minute, too, we are told dialectics must not be imposed on reality, next, we find it has been.
All DM-theorists indulge in this pragmatic contradiction: first they disarm the reader with an open declaration that dialectics has not been imposed on reality, then, sometimes on the same page, or in the next paragraph -- or even in the very next sentence --, they proceed to do the exact opposite, claiming that this or that DM-thesis is universally true for all of space and time.
For instance, Engels claimed the following:
"Never anywhere has there been matter without motion, nor can there be…. Matter without motion is just as inconceivable as motion without matter. Motion is therefore as uncreatable and indestructible as matter itself." [Engels (1976), p.74. Bold emphasis added.]
Exactly how Engels knew this was be true of all matter and motion in the entire universe, for all of time, he kept to himself.
Similarly, Lenin "demanded" that nature be regarded dialectically:
"Dialectical logic demands that we go further…. [It] requires that an object should be taken in development, in 'self-movement'." [Lenin (1921), p.90. Bold emphases added.]
But, how is a "demand" any different from an "imposed"?
Similarly he went on to claim:
"Flexibility, applied objectively, i.e., reflecting the all-sidedness of the material process and its unity, is dialectics, is the correct reflection of the eternal development of the world." [Lenin (1961), p.110.]
"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…." [ibid., pp.357-58. Bold emphases added.]
Lenin could not possibly have derived any of the above from the science of his day; indeed no amount of evidence could substantiate claims about "the eternal development of the world".
Quite the contrary, we know precisely where these originated: they weren't derived from scientists, but were lifted from Hegel, who similarly pinched them from earlier mystics and a priori dogmatists.
Indeed, Hegel was fond of saying things like this:
"Instead of speaking by the maxim of Excluded Middle (which is the maxim of abstract understanding) we should rather say: Everything is opposite. Neither in heaven nor in Earth, neither in the world of mind nor of nature, is there anywhere such an abstract 'either-or' as the understanding maintains. Whatever exists is concrete, with difference and opposition in itself." [Hegel (1975), p.174; Essence as Ground of Existence, §119. Bold emphasis added.]
DM-theorists quote this passage with approval, never once asking how Hegel could possibly have known any of this.
[Q«Q: The Law of the Transformation of Quantity into Quality, and vice versa.]
DM-theorists tell us that nature is a contradictory, unified whole, subject to the operation of Engels's Q«Q, but their evidence in support of these a priori claims is alarmingly thin at best, non-existent at worst (on that, see here).
For instance, Engels's thesis that all motion is contradictory is based solely on a verbal trick he copied from Hegel --, a doctrine he had latter lifted from that ancient Idealist, Zeno --, and which has been dutifully echoed by subsequent dialecticians, almost word for word, ever since:
"[A]s soon as we consider things in their motion, their change, their life, their reciprocal influence…[t]hen we immediately become involved in contradictions. Motion itself is a contradiction; even simple mechanical change of place can only come about through a body being both in one place and in another place at one and the same moment of time, being in one and the same place and also not in it. And the continual assertion and simultaneous solution of this contradiction is precisely what motion is." [Engels (1976), p.152.]
No experimental evidence is adduced in support of this 'analysis' -- nor could there be. No matter how accurate the instrument, or how careful the observation, no object could be shown to be in two places at the same instant, merely in two places during the same interval. Indeed, all that Engels presented us with was an unbelievably thin 'conceptual' argument about what bodies must do when they move, in a series of claims predicated on an extremely narrow and idiosyncratic interpretation of what words like "move", "place", "same time", and prepositions like "in" must mean. [More on this here.]
Once again, from the alleged meaning of a few words universal and eternally true 'scientific' theses have been 'derived' by generations of dialecticians. On a similar basis, of course, Darwin could have extracted his entire theory from the meaning of the word "evolution", and saved himself the bother of having to find any supporting evidence.
Incidentally, it's not easy for dialecticians to accept this criticism because of the seemingly obvious nature of this Hegelian 'argument' about the contradictory nature of moving bodies. So here we are presented with a 'truth' that appears to follow either from the alleged definition of motion or from its 'concept'. Because traditional Philosophers have always argued this way, it seems quite natural to accept the derivation of a priori truths like this from a handful of words/'concepts'.
Hence, as noted above, these dialectical conservatives happily accept philosophical tradition.
[However, this dialectical complacency will be severely bruised in Essay Five, where it will be shown that these Hegelian moves fall apart alarmingly rapidly.]
Not to be outdone, Trotsky attempted to criticise the universal applicability of the LOI on the basis of a brief consideration of his own mis-description of it -- having confused it with the principle of equality -- and on a perfunctory thought experiment involving imaginary bags of sugar!
[LOI = Law Of Identity.]
Indeed, he was quite open about his apparently semi-divine knowledge of reality:
"[A]ll bodies change uninterruptedly in size, weight, colour etc. They are never equal to themselves…. [T]he axiom 'A' is equal to 'A' signifies that a thing is equal to itself if it does not change, that is, if it does not exist…. [This] is established not by formal logic…, but by the dialectical logic issuing from the axiom that everything is always changing…." [Trotsky (1971), pp.64-65. Bold emphases added.]
Once again, exactly how Trotsky knew that all bodies are never equal to themselves he left his readers to guess. Nevertheless, he inadvertently gave the dialectical game away when he called this an "axiom"; clearly an axiom cannot be read from nature, but has to be foisted on it. Manifestly, axioms are linguistic expressions; if they were to exist in mind-independent reality (for the mind to 'reflect'), that would imply reality was Ideal. [More on that, here.]
Here now is Plekhanov:
"According to Hegel, dialectics is the principle of all life…. [M]an has two qualities: first being alive, and secondly of also being mortal. But on closer examination it turns out that life itself bears in itself the germ of death, and that in general any phenomenon is contradictory, in the sense that it develops out of itself the elements which, sooner or later, will put an end to its existence and will transform it into its opposite. Everything flows, everything changes; and there is no force capable of holding back this constant flux, or arresting its eternal movement. There is no force capable of resisting the dialectics of phenomena….
"At a particular moment a moving body is at a particular spot, but at the same time it is outside it as well because, if it were only in that spot, it would, at least for that moment, become motionless. Every motion is a dialectical process, a living contradiction, and as there is not a single phenomenon of nature in explaining which we do not have in the long run to appeal to motion, we have to agree with Hegel, who said that dialectics is the soul of any scientific cognition. And this applies not only to cognition of nature….
"And so every phenomenon, by the action of those same forces which condition its existence, sooner or later, but inevitably, is transformed into its own opposite….
"When you apply the dialectical method to the study of phenomena, you need to remember that forms change eternally in consequence of the 'higher development of their content….'"[Plekhanov (1956), pp.74-77. Bold emphases alone added.]
Plekhanov was plainly happy to impose this theory on nature, for all of space and time.
Here, too, is Mao:
"As opposed to the metaphysical world outlook, the world outlook of materialist dialectics holds that in order to understand the development of a thing we should study it internally and in its relations with other things; in other words, the development of things should be seen as their internal and necessary self-movement, while each thing in its movement is interrelated with and interacts on the things around it. The fundamental cause of the development of a thing is not external but internal; it lies in the contradictoriness within the thing. There is internal contradiction in every single thing, hence its motion and development....
"The universality or absoluteness of contradiction has a twofold meaning. One is that contradiction exists in the process of development of all things, and the other is that in the process of development of each thing a movement of opposites exists from beginning to end....
"...There is nothing that does not contain contradictions; without contradiction nothing would exist....
"Thus it is already clear that contradiction exists universally and is in all processes, whether in the simple or in the complex forms of motion, whether in objective phenomena or ideological phenomena....
"...Contradiction is universal and absolute, it is present in the process of the development of all things and permeates every process from beginning to end...." [Mao (1961b), pp.311-18. Bold emphases added.]
Again, all dialecticians (both classicists and lesser figures) do likewise. [The evidence for that assertion can be found in Essay Two itself.]
Not one of these comrades carried out any experiments in support of their hyper-bold claims. Not only is the evidence collected so far by humanity insufficient to substantiate such eternal and universally true theses, when examined more closely what little DM-theorists have managed to scrape together fails to justify even their local application, let alone their universal validity. [On that, see Essays Three through Eleven.]
But, that has not prevented DM-theorists from continuing to impose their ideas on nature -- just like previous generations of traditional metaphysicians.
Linguistic Idealism -- The Original LIE
This time-honoured approach to theory I call "Linguistic Idealism" (LIE). LIE is a highly fertile thought-form, having given birth to centuries of superscientific theses conjured from less than thin air.
This family of doctrines is based on the unsupported (often implicit, unacknowledged or even unrecognised) idea that substantive truths about the world -- about the "essences" that lie below the 'surface of reality' -- can be derived form language alone, and which are thus accessible to thought alone.
This theoretical view of philosophical knowledge goes back (at least in the West) to the Ancient Greeks (although, ideologically, the doctrine is embryonically Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Hebraic -- indeed, similar moves can be found in Ancient Chinese and Indian thought). Greek Philosophers, who thought the universe was 'rational' and the product of 'Mind', were quite happy to derive substantive truths about nature from a handful of linguistic abstractions. To be sure, the only way that peremptory Metaphysics like this can be justified is if reality is assumed to be fundamentally linguistic and called into existence by the word of some 'god' or other.
However, as we shall see in later Essays, the material world resists theoretical impertinences of this sort -- as does ordinary language, which is the social form upon which human interaction with reality has historically been mediated, and through which it has been appropriated most fully.
[In Essays Nine Parts One and Two, Twelve and Fourteen (summaries here, here, here and here) the political implications of the traditional approach to knowledge will be examined in detail.]
However, at least one comrade unwittingly gave the Ideal game away:
"Nature cannot be unreasonable or reason contrary to nature. Everything that exists must have a necessary and sufficient reason for existence…. If everything that exists has a necessary and sufficient reason for existence, that means it had to come into being. It was pushed into existence and forced its way into existence by natural necessity…. Reality, rationality and necessity are intimately associated at all times…. If everything actual is necessarily rational, this means that every item of the real world has a sufficient reason for existing and must find a rational explanation…." [Novack (1971), pp.78-80. Bold emphases added.]
Exactly how Novack knew all this to be so he sadly took to his grave.
Indeed, as we will see, dialecticians have been only too happy to copy this approach to knowledge.
DM-classicists weren't workers; they came from a class that
educated their children in the classics and traditional Philosophy. For well
over two thousand years this tradition taught that behind appearances there lies
a hidden world, accessible to thought alone, which is more real than the
material universe we see around us.
Ruling-class ideologues invented this world-view because if you belong to, benefit from
or help run a society which is based on gross inequality, oppression and
exploitation, you can keep order in several ways.
The first and most obvious way is through violence. This will work for a time,
but it is not only fraught with danger, it is costly and stifles innovation
(among other things).
Another way is to persuade the majority (or a significant section of 'opinion
formers', administrators, 'intellectuals' editors, philosophers and theorists) that the present order either
works for their benefit, is ordained of the 'gods', or that it is 'natural' --
these days, it's in our genes -- and
thus cannot be fought, reformed or negotiated with.
Hence, an a priori world-view is necessary for the ruling-class to carry on ruling in the same old way. While the content of this ruling ideology may have changed with each change in the mode of production, its form has remained largely the same for thousands of years: Ultimate Truth can be ascertained by thought alone, and can therefore be imposed on reality.
So, these non-worker founders of our movement, were educated (long before they became revolutionaries) to believe there was just such a hidden world that governed everything. Hence, when they became revolutionaries they would naturally look for principles in that invisible world that told them that change was inevitable and part of the cosmic order. Enter dialectics, courtesy of the dogmatic ideas of that ruling-class mystic, Hegel. [Which explains why they all so rapidly seized upon these ideas, and still do.]
This 'allowed' the DM-classicists to think of themselves as
special, as prophets of the new order, which workers, alas, could not quite
grasp because of their defective education and their reliance on ordinary
language and 'common sense'.
Fortunately, history has predisposed these dialectical prophets to ascertain
(from thought alone) such ultimate truths about reality -- or, to be more
honest, merely by appropriating Hegel's
a priori theses (upside down or 'the right way up'). This meant that these
'intellectuals' must the our
'naturally-ordained' leaders. That in turn implied these 'leaders' were teachers of the 'ignorant masses', who could
thus 'legitimately' substitute
themselves for the unwashed majority whenever necessary.
And that is why Dialectical Materialism is the world-view and
ideology of the substitutionist wing of Marxism -- and why it has been
consistently imposed on reality.
----------oOo----------
In the Summary of Essay Three Part One, we will examine a classic example of linguistic legerdemain, one that is associated with the traditional idea that the 'mind' is able to abstract certain truths about nature into existence by the operation of thought alone. This ancient verbal trick, also employed by Hegel, Engels, Lenin (and all subsequent dialecticians) in order to kick-start the DM-sideshow, will be exposed for the Idealist fraud it is.
In fact, as we will also see, such 'word-magic' in fact stalls this Hermetic juggernaut on the starting grid.
Latest Update: 29/12/10
Word Count: 5,140
© Rosa Lichtenstein 2010
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