I really enjoyed reading Kerry's response to Will on the relationship between materialism and idealism.  IMV this discussion goes to the heart of any left regeneration project - not that it’s on the cards anytime in the foreseeable future - but nevertheless, I thought I'd contribute some thoughts in that direction.

For me, what's important about Hegel is that his ideas are the precursor of a thorough-going materialist dialectics.  His work is the link between idealism and materialism in the development of thought and if we reflect on Hegel’s philosophy we can grasp how, and why there is materialist idealism, and also idealist materialism.  

Idealism continues as a large scale force because it continues to change, as it’s defeated at one level it comes back at a different level.   Just as the Catholic Church still exists but the inquisition is no longer feared because both have been changed by struggle.

The scientific method, and dialectics, provides the nails for the coffin, but idealism is not yet dead, and won’t be for a long, long time, because it’s preserved in class ideas.  Classes exist, so there remains a need for idealism, but physical progress for all classes is now overwhelmingly based on science.   

It is the task of dialectical materialists to expose those class ideas, and consequentially end class society.  Then there would be no need for idealism, no need to conceal the contradictions, no need for ideology.   But there’d still be plenty of muddle-headed thinking, and always the new to replace the old.

Acknowledging the interconnectedness of the two schools of thought also demonstrates how things turn into their opposites; and shows that the seed of the new must exist within the old. In terms of grasping the importance of this dialectical approach, I think that Engels in his essay on Feuerbach and idealism (Theses on Feuerbach) is the gem to familiarise oneself with. 

Mao, on Contradiction, and On Practice are also very useful to read in order to extend ones understanding of materialist- dialectics.  I have just re-read both, and they are more difficult to get through than I remembered them.  But the trick is to persist.

Mao; 

According to materialist dialectics, changes in nature are due chiefly to the development of the internal contradictions in nature. Changes in society are due chiefly to the development of the internal contradictions in society, that is, the contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production, the contradiction between classes and the contradiction between the old and the new; it is the development of these contradictions that pushes society forward and gives the impetus for the supersession of the old society by the new.

A failure to recognise that the future is bright, but the road is tortuous damages what remains of any left.  The disorder, over time, manifesting as the negative politics of doom; gloom; and hate produces the anti’s, of the pseudo left.  This failure of optimism turns its sufferers into their opposite and they become the pseudo left- left in form, but right in essence.   

People with a green perspective are particularly a problem.  So too, are the class-war grouplets. Fortunately, we don't see too much of the out-right, class-war proponents in Australia, but even those who would reject this so-called hard-line, class-war model are often still on the slippery slope, if at the same time they are indicating that they must always oppose ruling-class ideas, or initiatives.  Only the leftist form remains but the content has become right wing rubbish.

A failure to think dialectically, or in other words a dogmatic, or mechanical approach, is what Engels is on about when he criticises the British and French, utopian, and 'true' socialists.  Unfortunately, the passage of time has not led to a more flexible approach by these elements.   They still subjectively think of themselves as of the 'left', but have objectively passed over to the right of politics, and in the process, have utterly confused the masses, (to the great joy of the ruling classes). 

There are some current ‘left’s’, with a variation of this approach, who won't necessarily say they ought to be actively opposing the Iraq war, but who sort of stay neutral with the position that you can't trust the ruling-class/George Bush/, so you can't take their side. 

Of course you can trust the ruling-class.  You can trust them to act in their interests, and if they happen to analyse this intersest incorrectly, to be quickly denounced by their political opposition for it, and to pay the ultimate political price which is being voted out of office.  

At the very least, you can trust them to do their best to act in their own political interests.  The point is, in the case of Iraq the interests of the ruling-class, and the proletariat actually coincide rather than clash.  Trust is an important factor when thinking about personal matters, but just isn't a particularly useful political measure. 

Mao wrote; 

Our dogmatists are lazy-bones. They refuse to undertake any painstaking study of concrete things, they regard general truths as emerging out of the void, they turn them into purely abstract unfathomable formulas, and thereby completely deny and reverse the normal sequence by which man comes to know truth.  Nor do they understand the interconnection of the two processes in cognition-- from the particular to the general and then from the general to the particular. They understand nothing of the Marxist theory of knowledge...

and this

...Qualitatively different contradictions can only be resolved by qualitatively different methods. For instance, the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is resolved by the method of socialist revolution; the contradiction between the great masses of the people and the feudal system is resolved by the method of democratic revolution; the contradiction between the colonies and imperialism is resolved by the method of national revolutionary war; the contradiction between the working class and the peasant class in socialist society is resolved by the method of collectivization and mechanization in agriculture; contradiction within the Communist Party is resolved by the method of criticism and self-criticism; the contradiction between society and nature is resolved by the method of developing the productive forces.

Briefly, in Iraq, the contradictions currently being resolved, cover the three main areas of struggle of the modern era.  

Nations want liberation, thus the struggle of the Kurds, Shia, Turkmen, Marsh Arabs and so on.  This means specifically “Securing federalism for Iraqi Kurdistan, and national and cultural rights for all the constituents of the Iraqi people, including Turkomans, ChaldeoAssyrians, Faili Kurds, Armenians, Azedians, Sabians, Shabak, Christians, Jews.”

Countries want independence, thus the desire for a fully independent government, and an end to the presence of foreign troops as soon as is reasonable.  

While the people want revolution, thus the struggle for democracy; free speech; economic development; and freedom from tribalism; and remnant feudal systems.  The people also want freedom from the privations caused by capitalisms unique contribution to humanity: unemployment.  

What is important here is not so much the specifics of the contradictions and the primary contradictions, but the fact that in order to better understand the situation there are interesting multiple, and interactive aspects to consider. 

Mao talks not only about the underlying contradictions which are easier to identify, but also of aspects of a contradiction and whether it is currently a primary or secondary contradiction requiring resolution.  So, in Iraq today there is contradiction between the modern classes, (the bourgeoisie, and the proletariat), but this is not the primary contradiction needing to be resolved.  It is a contradiction that:  

Mao; 

 In studying the particularities of the contradictions at each stage in the process of development of a thing, we must not only observe them in their interconnections or their totality, we must also examine the two aspects of each contradiction.

 

… Since the particular is united with the universal and since the universality as well as the particularity of contradiction is inherent in everything, universality residing in particularity, we should, when studying an object, try to discover both the particular and the universal and their interconnection, to discover both particularity and universality and also their interconnection within the object itself, and to discover the interconnections of this object with the many objects outside it.

 

In studying a problem, we must shun subjectivity, one-sidedness and superficiality. To be subjective means not to look at problems objectively, that is, not to use the materialist viewpoint in looking at problems. I have discussed this in my essay "On Practice". To be one-sided means not to look at problems all-sidedly, for example, to understand only China but not Japan, only the Communist Party but not the Kuomintang, only the proletariat but not the bourgeoisie, only the peasants but not the landlords, only the favourable conditions but not the difficult ones, only the past but not the future, only individual parts but not the whole, only the defects but not the achievements, only the plaintiff's case but not the defendant's, only underground revolutionary work but not open revolutionary work, and so on.

So, what we learn from Mao is the complexity of examining the forces operating within countries, and what strikes me the most is the lack of universality.   The beauty of the Chinese experience, and Mao's contribution to Marxist ideas comes from articulating the differences between the concrete conditions in China, and the then Soviet Union.  Demonstrating that there is no universal recipe for creating, or carrying out revolutions, and that Marxism is about establishing the concrete conditions examining the contradictions and taking it from there. 

In the struggle for China, there were significant differences between that revolution and the Soviet experience, and Mao and his comrades often had to struggle against the Soviet model.   In China, it was necessary to wage a class struggle, within a war of national liberation against Japanese imperialism.  

Mao recognised that in order to pursue this goal, that there would be times when class interests would coincide, and it would be necessary to form a united-front with the bourgeoisie under certain circumstances.

Mao;

 The principle of using different methods to resolve different contradictions is one which Marxist-Leninists must strictly observe. The dogmatists do not observe this principle; they do not understand that conditions differ in different kinds of revolution and so do not understand that different methods should be used to resolve different contradictions; on the contrary, they invariably adopt what they imagine to be an unalterable formula and arbitrarily apply it everywhere, which only causes setbacks to the revolution or makes a sorry mess of what was originally well done. 

I was led to re-examine this point, because with the Iraq war as there has been some interesting debates, and some serious re/thinking of what it means to be left.  Saddam and his fascists have been removed, and bourgeois democracy is spreading throughout the region, yet most of the world assumes that the left opposed this war. 

The question of what is in any genuine left tradition ought to be back at the top of the pile if we are to understand the new world, because something great is happening that is “Not in a lot of people’s names”.  The word left appears to be heading for a big shake out.

While there is no indication of a broad unity developing, there has been a useful sharpening of the contradictions between left views; and more generally, a leap in the level of thinking about these issues.  In some cases, people are also beginning to admit errors, and this is an extremely good thing! 

I have also been reflecting on the idea of left principles, and I will publish those further thoughts (soon) in the Dialectics thread.   

Anita Hood