Not what you asked, but if you want a deep dive into dialectical materialism, with comparisons to the predominant systems of thought, you might try Elementary principles of philosophy. It was written for a working class audience, but doesn’t underestimate their intelligence.
this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2024
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Thank you
Thanks. Can you refer to any texts that provide a sort of retrospective on what happened?
Dialectical Materialism is more for analyzing problems correctly, not solving them outright. It's useful for conflict analysis, such as Israel/Palestine. Israel is an Imperialist tool employed by the US to maintain pressure in the Middle East, which is why the US invests so heavily in it. In turn, there is a material basis for exceptionalism and nationalism among Israelis, along with a drive for more land via settler-colonialism. This results in a dehumanizing effort against Palestinians, resulting in genocide, and in turn conflict.
Solving this means undoing the Imperialism and going with a One-State solution, eliminating the base of the problems represented through the Superstructure.
Politzer's Elementary Principles of Philosophy is a great intro to DiaMat.
Dialectical Materialism is more for analyzing problems correctly, not solving them outright.
I don’t take Mao literally in his saying, “when you have investigated the problem thoroughly, you will know how to solve it.” More accurately might be: until you have thoroughly investigated a problem, you’re not likely to find a solution.
Yep, that's more what I'm getting at. Dialectical Materialism helps frame the variables at play, and might help show what variables can actually be tweaked, but makes no description of how to tweak.
Imo it's only a tool to understand and explain situations, not so much a tool to solve problems. Definitely understanding the forces that make up the conflict might help you solve a problem, but the solution will depend on what kind of forces are involved.
Aah. Are there examples on how it was applied to expose the causes of social issues in a normal/small-scale scenario?