Brickhead Rides Again

If you are viewing this with Mozilla Firefox, you might not be able to read many of the symbols I have used.

Most ordinary sites on the internet do not need a health warning, but it is sad to report that one of the very best blogs should in fact carry one. This is because the unwary poster will, at some point, stumble across Mr G, a comrade of seemingly inexhaustible stupidity --, to such an extent that I hesitate to use that phrase for fear I might be prosecuted for criminal understatement.

[The reason for my acrid tone will become clear to any reader who checks-out this, this, and this.]

In a debate about the recent UK Prison Workers' Strike (at this blog) I rather rashly posted an ultra-left one-liner (i.e., to the effect that I did not think we supported better pay for ruling-class bully boys, blah, blah) and was rightly taken to task for it. With not one ounce of dialectics, one particular comrade there patiently explained the issues, and won me around.

"So what?" you might ask. Well, another stalwart there accused me of adopting the line I did because of my stance toward dialectics, and because of that I did not understand the 'contradictory' nature of this group of workers (I paraphrase). I then asked him why this was a 'contradiction', and that is where Mr G awoke from his dumbass slumbers.

Now, instead of explaining what dialecticians mean by their obscure use of this word (in response to my not unreasonable request for enlightenment), he asked:

Rosa can you explain what is meant by a contradiction?

To which I replied (with no little over-kill, for reasons that will soon become apparent):

In its simplest form: the conjunction of a proposition with its negation. A more complex example would be this:

~[(P→Q)v(P→R)↔(P→(QvR))]

~[~(Ex)(Fx&~Gx)↔(x)(Fx→Gx)]

[In the above, "E" is the existential quantifier; "↔" is a biconditional sign; "(x)" is the universal quantifier; "&" stands for "and"; "v" is the inclusive "or"; "~" stands for negation; "→" is the conditional sign; "P", "Q", and "R" are propositional variables; "F" and "G" are one-place, first-level predicate letters; and "x" is a second-level predicate-binding variable. More details here and here.]

Of course, you would know all this if you bothered to educate yourself.

The above, by the way, is a snippet from Essay Five, at my site.

Now, Mr G, who is always keen to prove he is quite as logically-challenged as a cheese roll, then responded:

"The conjunction of a proposition with its negation"

This sounds a bit circular to me. In ordinary language isn't this a bit like saying "a contradiction is a statement which is contradictory"?

Mr G failed to notice (perhaps because he is still sporting that fetching bag we have seen him wear before; paparazzi picture below) that I had tried to explain this notion as it is used in logic, not ordinary language. Hence, the characterisation I gave was in no way circular. Now, if I had then proceeded to define negation in terms of contradiction, he might have had a point, but I did not, and would not, so he hasn't. Nor would I even try to do so in ordinary language.

Mr G Gets Another Bright Idea

Careful readers will also note that Mr G ignored the more complex examples I gave (which is why I gave them). Two years ago, he and I engaged in a 'debate' of sorts where I accused him of knowing no logic -- even though he seemed happy to pontificate about it (like all too many other fans of the dialectic). Now, it's no crime to know no logic, but it is surely unwise to pontificate about a subject from a position of total ignorance.

Well, it would be for normal denizens of this planet, but Mr G hails from Planet Bluster, where everyone is required by law to pass expert opinion on things about which they know nothing --, and then to act upon their own unwise words. As one can imagine, this leads to serious problems with the average Blustard foolishly engaging in brain surgery, and the like. This perhaps explains much about Mr G's present cerebrally-challenged condition.

Unfortunately, dear reader, there is more:

I can contradict someone's statements. Can I also have contrary interests to yours? Could it reasonably be said that someone's behaviour was contradictory? Or that someone's interests were contradictory (in relationship perhaps to some goal they had)? Or that my interests contradicted yours? Certainly some data might appear contradictory in relationship to some enquiry we have about it.

Does this not suggest that the notion of a contradiction is not exhausted by what might go on inside a proposition? In ordinary usage?

Of course, contraries are not contradictions. As indicated elsewhere at this site, concerning two contrary propositions, both cannot be true (i.e., they are inconsistent with one another), but they could both be false. For example, these contraries, "All swans are white" and "No swan is white", cannot both be true (in a non-empty domain), but they could both be false -- for instance, if 'Some swan is not white' or "Some swan is white", respectively, were themselves true. But, two contradictory propositions cannot both be true and they cannot both be false, at once. Dialecticians invariably ignore such 'pedantic' details.

True to dialectical form, Mr G knows nothing of this -- despite the fact that semantic details like this were basic even to Aristotelian Logic, 2400 years ago!

As I have alleged several times in my Essays, dialecticians almost invariably confuse contradictions with contraries (and with a host of other things, to boot). Mr G therefore seems well-placed in this nescient tradition.

And, what is more, they refuse to be told. I know;  have banged my head against this brick wall for nigh on a generation. Mr G is just another Brickhead in that particular wall.

Indeed, dialecticians, if nothing more, like to wear this badge of ignorance with pride, for they all respond to such attempts at correction with impressive consistency -- the liberal use of "pedantry" seems to be their favourite, if only, line of defence. But, why they fail to accuse Marx of this heinous crime (for his attempt to distinguish, say, the relative from the equivalent form of value in Das Kapital) is an issue we should perhaps leave to the head doctors to fathom.

Now, Mr G vainly tries to defend the employment of this obscure notion (i.e., "dialectical contradiction") by appealing to an everyday use of "contradiction": in connection with contradictory behaviour. But, what does he mean by this? Perhaps someone who stands and sits all at once? Or maybe someone who strikes and refuses to strike at the same time?

Who can say what murky thoughts wind their way through that surgically-compromised brain of his?

However, in relation to the August 2007 UK Prison Officers' strike, he seems to have meant workers who support the state one minute, but act against it the next (or who hold odd beliefs about one or both). In fact, there is a rather good example of this sort of confusion in Simon Basketter's recent article in Socialist Worker:

However, there are contradictions in the role of prison officers.

It is summed up by Cardiff prisoners chanting "you're breaking the law" to the strikers....

Prison officers' work, upholding law and order, frequently pushes them to accept the most right wing ideas and actions of the system. One of their main jobs is to control prisoners –- and throughout the prison system, many officers have a proven record of racism and violence.

Some of the contradictions can be seen in the strike. In Liverpool the POA shop steward Steve Baines responded to the high court injunction by telling fellow strikers, "Tell them to shove it up their arse, we're sitting it out."

Yet when prisoners in the jail protested against their treatment, the POA members rushed back in to control the situation and end a roof top protest.

Once more, what is the "contradiction" here? Maybe it has something to do with the following:

P1: Prison officers uphold the law.

P2: This either results from, or leads them into, holding right-wing ideas.

P3: But, this strike has forced some to defy and/or disrespect the law.

P4: However, later, when some prisoners protested, the same officers rushed back to work to control them.

Now, I have already commented on the loose and indeterminate way that dialecticians like to use the offending word (i.e., "contradiction"), but even in the midst of such a conceptual morass, what precisely is the contradiction here?

Let us try once again to find out (using "NN" this time to stand for the name of any randomly-chosen prison guard who thinks or acts along the above lines):

P5: NN upholds the law.

P6: NN has adopted a number of right-wing ideas.

P7: One day, as a result of the strike, NN says "Screw law L₁!"

P8: Later that day he acts in support of a totally different law.

Again, where is the contradiction?

Now, if NN had said, "Screw all laws!" we might be able to cobble-together an inconsistency here (such as "Screw all laws!" and "No laws ought to be screwed!"), but not even that is implied by the above story.

In fact, a contradiction here would be something like "All laws should be screwed" and "There is at least one law that should not be screwed." Or, perhaps, "No laws should be screwed" and "There is at least one law that should be screwed."

To be sure, people say all manner of odd things, and it is relatively easy to utter contradictions. Who has ever denied that! Look, I have just posted two in the previous paragraph. The question is, can both be held true, or false (or in this case, advocated and repudiated as a moral or political code), at the same time? Well, did anyone from Socialist Worker try to ascertain from the aforementioned prison guards if any of them would have assented to and rejected either of these at the same time: "All laws should be screwed" and "There is at least one law that should not be screwed", "No laws should be screwed" and "There is at least one law that should be screwed"? Apparently not.

Indeed, if NN in fact assented to "No laws should be screwed", then we could safely infer from his later strike action that he no longer held it true, for by his actions he must have advocated this in its place: "There is at least one law (namely, law L₁) that should be screwed". [And this could be the case even if tomorrow NN went back to believing the former again. Dialecticians, least of all, should not need reminding that people and things change!]

Unless, that is, we actually think NN holds to this odd idea: "I do not believe that there is at least one law that should be screwed and I also believe there is at least one law that should be screwed." Or, perhaps "Screw law L₁ and do not screw it!" Even so, it is reasonably clear that we could only attribute schizoid beliefs like this to NN if he were about to go insane. We certainly could not rely on such a confused character to help win a strike -- nor report his genuine beliefs to us with any accuracy.

Elsewhere in my Essays, I allege that dialectics is based not just on Hegel's egregious logical blunders (either on their feet, the 'right way' up --, or upside down --, it matters not), but I also added that DM-fans often base their assertions on half-formed thoughts, seriously garbled caricatures of logic (formal and discursive) and laughably thin evidence (which is why I branded it Mickey Mouse science). Simon Basketter's obscure claims (and those of Mr G) amply confirm those allegations.

Mr G also argued as follows:

Could it reasonably be said that...someone's interests were contradictory (in relationship perhaps to some goal they had)? Or that my interests contradicted yours? Certainly some data might appear contradictory in relationship to some enquiry we have about it.

Well, who can blame theorists for wanting to use old words in new ways? But the above examples seem to be framed in ordinary language already. So why then the following claim?

Does this not suggest that the notion of a contradiction is not exhausted by what might go on inside a proposition? In ordinary usage?

Now Mr G might not have noticed (but it was staring him in the face in the example I gave, and in the ones he listed) that contradictions can be intra- and extra-propositional (in the sense that they can relate to the inner workings of one proposition and to those between several propositions at once), both in ordinary language and in logic. In which case, neither the complexities of logic nor the confused state of his logically-challenged brain can be used to defend Mr G from his crass mistakes -- for he himself provided his own counterexamples!

But, let us examine what this benighted comrade had to say to see if anything useful can be extracted from it. Is it possible, therefore, for an individual to have contradictory interests in a relationship, say? Perhaps Mr G meant the following:

B1: NN has interest (A in relationship R).

B2: It is not the case that NN has interest (A in relationship R).

[The brackets have been inserted in the above to ensure the same scope is operating here for the negative particle -- another "pedantic" detail our superfine 'dialectical logicians' also ignore.]

Now, this seems to be a genuine contradiction (if the two are conjoined). But, did Mr G mean this?

Apparently not. Well, what about this?

B3: NN has interest (A in relationship R).

B4: NN has interest (B in relationship R).

B5: Interest (A in relationship R) contradicts interest (B in relationship R).

But, if we are talking about literal contradictions here (and not those unexplained 'dialectical contradictions') then A and B (in relationship R) can only contradict one another if they are expressed in propositions (or, at the very least, in clauses), as B5-B7 below indicate.

Hence, A and B (in relationship R) would contradict each other if they were expressed in something like this form (if, in B5a, we ignore for the moment the "pedantic" detail included above):

B5a: Interest A contradicts interest B.

B6: "A" stands for "I must love my partner".

B7: "B stands for "It is not the case that I must love my partner".

Can anyone assent to such beliefs all at once? Well, as we saw with NN above, people can hold all manner of odd ideas in their heads, so there is nothing to suggest that B6 and B7 could not form the content of someone's overall belief system/emotional make-up. But, and unfortunately, this just tells us that contradictions in ordinary language and in logic are built around the content of propositions, and the logical links we hold between them -- thus, destroying his point.

The question now is, has anyone ever held the quoted propositions in B6 and B7 both true and both false at the same time? Or anything like them? Perhaps they have (who can say?), but how that shows that there are in fact 'true contradictions' in nature and society is still somewhat unclear. [As should seem obvious, the fact that some individuals believe something does not make it true!]

Now Mr G might like to try to resurrect his moribund idea, but in order to do so he will need to learn more logic first. [I informed him of that fact over two years ago; he has clearly spent his time unwisely in the meantime.]

But, wait! Mr G has a powerful ally: none other than that charlatan Freud:

Perhaps someone is in the midst of an unhappy love affair and says "I love him but I also hate him". Its not just the statement but the feeling which is a contradiction surely? If Freud is held to describe the human individual not as a unified subject but a bundle of contradictory drives and desires, might one not imagine contradictory drives (if not desires) in a particular social system?

Can I not have contradictory emotions about a subject, situation or person (I know I do about all sorts of things!).

So, on the back of some notorious pseudo-science, Mr G has built his 'case'.

But, is there anything in such fraudulent Freudian fancies anyway (even if we put to one side all the lies, deceit, client abuse, intellectual bullying, cocaine addiction, paranoia, and fabrication of evidence that marked Freud's career)?

Well, once more, can people have contradictory emotions? Perhaps these examples will suffice:

B8: NN hates Blair.

B9: It is not the case that NN hates Blair.

However, I rather think that Mr G did not mean a contradiction like this. Perhaps he intended then the following?

B10: NN both hates and loves Blair.

This is entirely possible, if unusual. However, it is worth noting that love and hate are not contradictory (when put in a propositional context) unless, say, hating someone implies not loving them; but, as the above quotation concedes, it does not imply this here (for NN still loves Blair while hating him!).

Nevertheless, (1) the reader will need to re-read the caveats posted here, and (2) note that in order to give content to this idea (if it is what was meant, or if these ideas mean anything at all), we had to use a proposition once more. This rather makes a mess then of the following rash assertion:

I'm just very puzzled about what it means to restrict the meaning of the term contradiction to a rule of formal logic. Its always been the least compelling of your arguments it seems to me. I don't understand the linguistic scandal that is supposed to be involved in talking about the human subject as a 'bundle of contradictory drives and desires' or talking about the capitalist system as encompassing contradictory tendencies (how TRPF [the tendency of the rate of profit to fall -- RL] is held to operate inside a concrete capitalist social formation for example)....

I don't see how there can be anything ipso facto absurd or meaningless about such statements to anyone familiar with ordinary language.

No "scandal"; Mr G's badly thought-out examples themselves imply the above conclusions -- that is, if we are to make sense of them.

[The alleged 'contradictions' in capitalism are dealt with here, and here.]

Even so, it is reasonably clear that DM-fans rarely think about what they say.

You want further proof?

Check-out the following wise words of the G-man:

Perhaps Marxists have used the term contradiction to describe the relationship between labour and capital because that relationship simply in terms of an opposition does not adequately capture the relationship.

So if Capitalism as a system both requires labour and at the same time is threatened by it, and this combination of dependency and threat is not contingent but built into the relationship itself, does not the idea of this relationship being a contradictory one just seem a fairly straightforward way of talking about it?

But, what relevance is all this?

Well, let us briefly look at the dialectical 'theory' of change. Here is what the DM-classics tell us (and those who object to the presence of Stalin and Mao's thoughts here can console themselves with the additional thought that these two mass murderers were avid DM-fans, too  -- and, anyone who thinks these traditions cannot be compared with Trotskyism in this one respect should read this, and then think again):

(1) The law of the interpenetration of opposites.... [M]utual penetration of polar opposites and transformation into each other when carried to extremes...." [Engels (1954), pp.17, 62.]

Dialectics…prevails throughout nature…. [T]he motion through opposites which asserts itself everywhere in nature, and which by the continual conflict of the opposites…determines the life of nature." [Engels (1954), p.211.]

(2) [Among the elements of dialectics are the following:] [I]nternally contradictory tendencies…in [a thing]…as the sum and unity of opposites…. [This involves] not only the unity of opposites, but the transitions of every determination, quality, feature, side, property into every other [into its opposite?]….

In brief, dialectics can be defined as the doctrine of the unity of opposites. This embodies the essence of dialectics….

The splitting of the whole and the cognition of its contradictory parts…is the essence (one of the 'essentials', one of the principal, if not the principal, characteristic features) of dialectics….

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….

The unity…of opposites is conditional, temporary, transitory, relative. The struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute, just as development and motion are absolute…." [Lenin (1961), pp.221-22, 357-58.]

Hegel brilliantly divined the dialectics of things (phenomena, the world, nature) in the dialectics of concepts…. This aphorism should be expressed more popularly, without the word dialectics: approximately as follows: In the alternation, reciprocal dependence of all notions, in the identity of their opposites, in the transitions of one notion into another, in the eternal change, movement of notions, Hegel brilliantly divined precisely this relation of things to nature…. [W]hat constitutes dialectics?…. [M]utual dependence of notions all without exception…. Every notion occurs in a certain relation, in a certain connection with all the others." [Ibid., pp.196-97.]

Development is the 'struggle' of opposites." (Lenin, Vol. XIII, p. 301.)

(3) 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…." [Plekhanov (1956), p.77.]

(4) Why is it that '...the human mind should take these opposites not as dead, rigid, but as living, conditional, mobile, transforming themselves into one another'? Because that is just how things are in objective reality. The fact is that the unity or identity of opposites in objective things is not dead or rigid, but is living, conditional, mobile, temporary and relative; in given conditions, every contradictory aspect transforms itself into its opposite....

In speaking of the identity of opposites in given conditions, what we are referring to is real and concrete opposites and the real and concrete transformations of opposites into one another....

All processes have a beginning and an end, all processes transform themselves into their opposites. The constancy of all processes is relative, but the mutability manifested in the transformation of one process into another is absolute."  [Mao (1961), pp.340-42.]

The law of contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the basic law of materialist dialectics....

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....[Ibid, pp.311-18.]

(5) Everything is opposite. Neither in heaven nor in earth, neither in the world of mind nor nature, is there anywhere an abstract 'either-or' as the understanding maintains. Whatever exists is concrete, with difference and opposition in itself. The finitude of things with then lie in the want of correspondence between their immediate being and what they essentially are. Thus, in inorganic nature, the acid is implicitly at the same time the base: in other words its only being consists in its relation to its other. Hence the acid persists quietly in the contrast: it is always in effort to realize what it potentially is. Contradiction is the very moving principle of the world." [Hegel (1975), p.174.]

(6) Dialectics comes from the Greek dialego, to discourse, to debate. In ancient times dialectics was the art of arriving at the truth by disclosing the contradictions in the argument of an opponent and overcoming these contradictions. There were philosophers in ancient times who believed that the disclosure of contradictions in thought and the clash of opposite opinions was the best method of arriving at the truth. This dialectical method of thought, later extended to the phenomena of nature, developed into the dialectical method of apprehending nature, which regards the phenomena of nature as being in constant movement and undergoing constant change, and the development of nature as the result of the development of the contradictions in nature, as the result of the interaction of opposed forces in nature….

Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics holds that internal contradictions are inherent in all things and phenomena of nature, for they all have their negative and positive sides, a past and a future, something dying away and something developing; and that the struggle between these opposites, the struggle between the old and the new, between that which is dying away and that which is being born, between that which is disappearing and that which is developing, constitutes the internal content of the process of development, the internal content of the transformation of quantitative changes into qualitative changes.

The dialectical method therefore holds that the process of development from the lower to the higher takes place not as a harmonious unfolding of phenomena, but as a disclosure of the contradictions inherent in things and phenomena, as a "struggle" of opposite tendencies which operate on the basis of these contradictions…. [Stalin (1976b).]

[There are many more such quotations listed here.]

From the above it is easy to see that dialecticians are hopelessly unclear as to whether things change because of (1) a "struggle" between internal contradictions (and/or opposites), or (2) whether they change into these opposites, or, indeed, (3) whether they create such opposites when they change.

Of course, if the third option were the case, the alleged opposites could not cause change, since they would be produced by it, not the other way round. And they could scarcely be "internal opposites" if they were produced by change.

If the second alternative were correct, then we would see things like males naturally turning into females, the working class into the capitalist class, electrons into protons, left hands into right hands, and vice versa, and a host of other oddities.

And as far as the first option is concerned, it is worth making the following points:

[A] If objects/processes change because of already existing internal opposites, and they also change into these opposites, then they cannot in fact change into them since those opposites already exist.

So, if object/process A is already composed of a dialectical union of A and not-A, and it 'changes' into not-A, how can this happen if not-A already exists? In fact, all that seems to happen here is that A disappears. [And do not ask where it disappears to!] Hence, given this 'theory', A does not change into not-A, it is just replaced by an already existing not-A.

At the very least, this account of change leaves it entirely mysterious how not-A itself came about. It seems to have popped into existence from nowhere.

[It cannot have come from A, since A can only change because of the operation of not-A, which does not yet exist! And pushing the process into the past will merely reduplicate the above problems.]

[B] Exactly how an (internal) opposite is capable of making anything change is somewhat unclear, too. Given the above, not-A does not actually alter A, it merely replaces it!

[This argument is worked-out in extensive detail here, where several obvious objections are neutralised.]

Now, it could be argued that certain brain states and/or underlying psychological or social forces are what lie behind these contradictory emotions, and it is here that the contradiction lies.

However, the thesis that there are such things as 'contradictory forces' has been laid to rest in Essay Eight Part Two, but the overall idea is susceptible to the next series of objections, anyway.

[The argument below also applies to the claim that there might be certain brain states/process and/or psychological and social forces at work, of which we are as yet unaware, that constitute such 'material contradictions'.]

Let us, therefore, call "F*" the brain state/process and/or psychological and social force that results in, or from which "emerges", the following:

B15: NN loves Tony Blair,

and label that which 'opposes' or "mediates" the following "F**":

B16: NN hates Tony Blair.

So "F*" stands for the social force (etc.) that mediates, or from which "emerges", "NN loves Tony Blair" and "F**" stands for that which mediates (etc.) "NN hates Tony Blair".

Let us further assume that F* 'contradicts' F**, i.e., that they are 'dialectically-united opposites'. Now, given these assumptions, even this will not work.

[Of course, if they are not 'dialectically-united opposites', then the above comrade's objection falls by default.]

According to the DM-classics, where we are told that all things change into their opposites, and because of their opposites, F* must change into F**. But, F* cannot itself change into F** since F** already exists! If it didn't already exist, according to this theory, F* could not change, for there would be no opposite to make it do so!

And, once more, it is no good propelling F** into the future so that it now becomes what F* will change into, since F* will do no such thing unless F** is already there to make it happen!

Now, it could be objected that love can turn into hate, and vice versa; sure enough, but the whole point of introducing F* and F** was to show that if and when this happens, dialectics could not account for it!

The same must be said for the connection between, say, capitalism and communism (or better, Capitalist Relations of Production [CRAP]), and Socialist Relations of Production [SORP]) --, and the connection between the forces and relations of production (where it is patently obvious that neither of these change into the other (their opposites)!).

For the purposes of argument, let us assume that SORP does not actually exist in the here and now. But, given these DM-theses, if CRAP is to change into SORP, SORP must already exist in the here-and-now for CRAP to change into it, and for that change to be produced by it.

But, if that opposite (SORP) already exists it cannot have come from CRAP (its 'opposite') since CRAP can only change because of the action of its own opposite (namely -- SORP!) -- unless SORP exists before it exists!

[The same comments would apply to 'potential SORP' (or even to some sort of 'tendency' to produce SORP, be this a 'sublated' tendency or actuality, it matters not), but the reader is left to work the details out for herself.]

So, this opposite (SORP) must have popped into existence from nowhere --, or it must always have been in existence, if DM is correct.

Now, this is not to deny change, nor is it to suggest that the present author does not want to see the back of CRAP, and the establishment of SORP; but if DM were correct, this will never happen.

Or, if it does, DM could not explain it.

To be sure, in the real world very material workers struggle against equally material Capitalists, but neither of these turn into one another, and they cannot help change CRAP into SORP, since neither of these is the opposite of CRAP or SORP, nor vice versa, either.

[On the 'contradictions' Marx speaks about in Das Kapital, see here. On 'real material contradictions', see here.]

And, as should seem obvious, similar comments apply to the obscure 'contradictions' to which Mr G refers:

Perhaps Marxists have used the term contradiction to describe the relationship between labour and capital because that relationship simply in terms of an opposition does not adequately capture the relationship.

So if Capitalism as a system both requires labour and at the same time is threatened by it, and this combination of dependency and threat is not contingent but built into the relationship itself, does not the idea of this relationship being a contradictory one just seem a fairly straightforward way of talking about it?

Now, if labour (L, or labour power, LP) and capital (C) are indeed 'dialectical opposites' then they must either cause one another to change, change into each other, or be produced by one another, and they must do so as a result of some sort of "struggle" between them.

Of course, in Marxist economics we have LP (or, perhaps, Variable Capital) and C cycles, and the like, but does LP actually struggle against C? Not obviously so, it would seem. As we have already noted, very material workers struggle against their equally material bosses, but how is it possible for LP to struggle against C?

Once more, it is undeniable that class division causes struggle, but how can this abstraction itself (LP) struggle against C?

Someone might object that the inherent contradiction between capital and labour causes this struggle, but we have yet to be told what this 'contradiction' is. Mr G refers us to "contradictory" interests, but we have already seen that these can only be given expression propositionally, and propositions cannot struggle (so far as I am aware -- but Mr G might know differently).

Again, someone might object that the contradiction between L and C (understood this time as classes) causes (or makes manifest) such contradictory interests. That could be so, but in order to make sense of that claim, we would need to be told what the 'contradiction' between L and C is, or why we should call the relation between them "contradictory", to begin with.

We still await such an explanation -- and we have only been waiting for 150 years.

Now, it may be that DM-fans are using "contradiction" in a new, and as yet unexplained sense. Fine -- but what is that sense? I have been asking this question of our Hermetically-compromised comrades for nigh on 25 years, and still no satisfactory response has been forthcoming --, or indeed any at all. In fact, comrades actually object to being made to think about these core ideas, and often respond with a few home-spun vagaries of their own! [On that, for example, see this exchange.]

At best, when I ask what 'dialectical contradictions' are, I get prevarication -- but more usually plain abuse for even daring to ask (and for refusing to accept the usual dialectical blarney), hence my aggressive response of late. After 25 years of this sort of thing one tends to get a little tetchy.

Even the best account (of this obscure notion) I have ever read also failed rather badly.

Now, Mr G finishes with this:

I don't see how there can be anything ipso facto absurd or meaningless about such statements to anyone familiar with ordinary language.

"He's a bundle of contradictions that lad".

Or to relate it to this discussion. Some people might be thought to have a contradictory class location. Are they workers or are they screws? Well the answer is both isn't it. And the two roles, both integral to the job pull them in different directions.

Mr G, as we have seen, often fails to see much; but the rest of us have seen that no sense can be made of such claims except we use propositions, and that limits contradictions therefore to language, and not extra-linguistic reality.

Nice try dunderhead; now buzz off back to Planet Bluster, and do humanity a huge favour.

References

Engels, F. (1954), Dialectics Of Nature (Progress Publishers).

Hegel, G. (1975), Logic, translated by William Wallace (Oxford University Press, 3^rd ed.).

Lenin, V. (1961), Philosophical Notebooks, Collected Works Volume 38 (Progress Publishers). A partial copy of this can be found here.

Mao Tse-Tung, (1964), Selected Works Volume One (Foreign Languages Press).

--------, (1961), 'On Contradiction', in Mao (1964), pp.311-47.

Plekhanov, G. (1956), The Development Of The Monist View Of History (Progress Publishers).

Stalin, J. (1976a), Problems Of Leninism (Foreign Languages Press).

-------- (1976b), 'Dialectical And Historical Materialism', in Stalin (1976a), pp.835-73.

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Latest Update 27/05/08

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