On Jul 23, 7:33 am, tom.2... at (no spam) hotmail.com wrote:

It was the theoretical clarity
which Lenin attained through his dialectical understanding of
materialism which gave him clarity about the economic, political, and
history problems of Russian society and the working class
internationally early in the 20th century.

You know this cause-effect, how?

srd

On 23 Jul, 18:13, stephen <srdiam... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:

On Jul 23, 7:33 am, tom.2... at (no spam) hotmail.com wrote:

It was the theoretical clarity
which Lenin attained through his dialectical understanding of
materialism which gave him clarity about the economic, political, and
history problems of Russian society and the working class
internationally early in the 20th century.

You know this cause-effect, how?

srd

Are you trying to say that after a lifetime of studying Marxism
(especially dialectics), developing Marxism, and defending Marxism and
using the knowledge gained to build the Bolshevik Party that
dialectics was only 'incidental' in the Bolshevik victory in 1917?

I too found struggling with the Phenomenology to be useful for
figuring out stuff. But there is the obvious danger of *reifying*
dialectics itself, which is the Healyite tradition.

Holmes has yet to provide a single example of how Healyism reified

During the second half of the 20th century there have been a number of
organizations claiming to be Trotskyist which have imploded. I haven’t
done a detailed study of all of them, but the ones I am familiar with
all seem to have initially broken up in ideological fights about
Marxism, but later it was learned that their practice when they
imploded had nothing to do with working class politics. Marxism is a
dynamic, evolving world view developed through testing theory in
practice in order to attain an objective view of our place in space
and time. When theory becomes separated from practice (which is very
common in times of reaction and pessimism about the possibility of
socialism) it eventually becomes an idealist rational for
misleadership instead of leadership.

On Jul 29, 9:49 am, tom.2... at (no spam) hotmail.com wrote:

During the second half of the 20th century there have been a number of
organizations claiming to be Trotskyist which have imploded. I haven’t
done a detailed study of all of them, but the ones I am familiar with
all seem to have initially broken up in ideological fights about
Marxism, but later it was learned that their practice when they
imploded had nothing to do with working class politics. Marxism is a
dynamic, evolving world view developed through testing theory in
practice in order to attain an objective view of our place in space
and time. When theory becomes separated from practice (which is very
common in times of reaction and pessimism about the possibility of
socialism) it eventually becomes an idealist rational for
misleadership instead of leadership.

You should distribute the Trotsky Notebooks freely over the Internet,
now that this is possible.

What you say about imploding tendencies is all very nice, except for
being a smokescreen for the fact that among these tendencies were the
U.S. Workers League, forerunner of SEP. You string along your claims
without any indication of their inter-relation (rather sad, for a
"dialectician"), so I don't know what you point is. But if dialectics
is supposed to help develop Marxism and avoid this fate, it tells
against SEPs view of dialectics.

Your citation of the Lenin essay on revisionism shows how your
cognitive methods are really too "formal" to adumbrate any semblance
of truth. There are at least two reasons for a Marxist to study Hegel,
related yet distinct. One is to sharpen cognitive tools--which again,
has various interpretations, but most current posters refuse to
endorse any concretely. The second is to help defend Marxism as an
integrated world view. Now, a serious reading would tell you that
Lenin's essay is directed to the second purpose.

srd

I happen to believe that all organizations claiming to be Marxist in
this period are defunct as genuinely Marxist organizations, including
the SEP, or a least on life support (a life support which does not
come from the working class), so I'm not sure what you think I am
creating a "smokescreen" for. I was making a generalization about the
course of Marxism in this period. My point is that the separation of
theory from practice leads to a dead end. This fate for these parties
was not inevitable. People at all times are free to make a choice. In
this situation, dialectics can objectively show us what happened, and
we can choose to learn from it or not.

"...shows how your cognitive methods are really too "formal" to
adumbrate any semblance of truth." A perfect example of the method I
was talking about. This has nothing to do with dialects, it's just
simple name calling in postmodernist garb.

If I'm in postmodernist garb, I would be cross-dressing.

We Marxists also have an expression and that is: the ruling ideology
is the ideology of the ruling class, ie. the ruling ideas are nothing
more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relations.
And your 'American' expression like pretty much all 'American'
expressions is a bourgeois one.

David North started opposing the ICFI's development of dialectical
materialism long before the WL split with Healy.  Whilst I would agree
that Healy made mistakes nevertheless it is the North group that has
taken the path of revisionism and this is clearly shown by its
policies towards the trade unions and its assessment of class
relations in Russia to name just 2 instances of SEP revisionism.  As
for 'true dialecticians' dialectical materialism is not a religion and
everyone makes mistakes in the development of Marxist theory and the
struggle to build a revolutionary party.  Of course, the armchair
theorists aren't guilty of these mistakes are they?

Roger

I too found struggling with the Phenomenology to be useful for
figuring out stuff. But there is the obvious danger of *reifying*
dialectics itself, which is the Healyite tradition.

On Jul 28, 11:10 am, John Holmes <jhol... at (no spam) OCF.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:

I too found struggling with the Phenomenology to be useful for
figuring out stuff. But there is the obvious danger of *reifying*
dialectics itself, which is the Healyite tradition.

This comment should be marked as an example of the worst variety of
discussion concerning dialectics. "Struggling with the Phenomenology"
is "useful" for "figurng stuff out." For Holmes to write this way, he
must be dissembling, confabulating, or prevaricating. Whether Holmes
thinks dialectics provides mental exercise or powerful propositions,
even that much is ambiguous. Any reader must ask, is Holmes UNABLE to
give an example (because there is none?) or is he UNWILLING to provide
an example (because it would prove so unconvincing?).

Same goes for the boilerplate accusations that he Healyites "reify"
dialectics. "Reifying" dialectics historically has meant forcing
reality into the thesis--antithesis--synthesis formula. That Holmes
has not meaningfully departed from this definition is shown by the
only example he provides of a "reification"--Fichte's version of the
dialectic. Since Healy never reified dialectics in this sense, and
Holmes supplies no other sense, we are left without any idea of what
Holmes might be accusing Healy and his followers.

srd

Healy's disciples on this thread may not be aware of it, but they are
showing how reactionary his methods were. It is a method which badgers
anyone who raises contradiction, an essential component of dialects,
with obtuse and empty verbiage in order to shut down debate. It is the
grossest sophistry interested only in "winning" an argument, not
finding the truth. This is not dialectics!

When you say "Logically, if dialectical materialism IS so correct and
powerful..." here you are using formal logic and not dialectics and
you are demanding that dialectics be explained within the framework of
formal logic but the contradiction cannot be eliminated because the
problems of the class struggle penetrates our discourse as well
whether we like it or not and whilst these arguments are taking place
on a remote newsgroup they still cannot escape this content that comes
from the class struggle itself.

Roger

When you say "Logically, if dialectical materialism IS so correct and
powerful..." here you are using formal logic and not dialectics and
you are demanding that dialectics be explained within the framework of
formal logic but the contradiction cannot be eliminated because the
problems of the class struggle penetrates our discourse as well
whether we like it or not and whilst these arguments are taking place
on a remote newsgroup they still cannot escape this content that comes
from the class struggle itself.

Why is "if dialectical materialism IS so correct and