i am trying to parse marx’s ideas, yes, though i’m not reading him at the moment. the way i heard of the word “dialectical” was in the phrase “dialectical materialism.” the way i heard that was when i was told after a talk i disagreed with by another person that my lived experience of oppression as a woman of color didn’t matter and i’d understand if i’d read marx that “class is the only thing that matters because of dialectical materialism, and if we work on the class issues then everything else (racism, sexism) will follow, and that’s why i agree with the speaker when he said we shouldn’t waste our time making white men feel bad when they make mistakes at meetings and if we have to spend time sitting around talking about racism and that which divides us then we’ll never have the mass movement of our dreams”
i was rly mad
i am pretty sure those people wrong about a lot of things, but it left a lasting impression on me. the impression was that i disliked and mistrusted every person who ever told me to shut up about racism because i didn’t understand dialectical materialism.
all of that was just to say i really appreciate your other examples of “dialectics” and “dialectic analysis” in history, @trashHeap, because it helps me situate the concepts and because i am jon snow and i know nothing.
i still don’t understand dialectical anything despite @evergreen’s best efforts at complying with my wishes by using it several times in different ways. actually my experience of @evergreen’s reply is dialectical because i both understand that it is a funny meta-joke and don’t understand at the same time. no, that’s just cognitive dissonance.
actually, is cognitive dissonance a requisite part of dialectical analysis? by its very nature of thesis and antithesis, you have to hold opposing-in-some-way ideas (or materials (fuck me)) in your head and that produces cognitive dissonance, does it not?