>> Indeed, the way that Marxism-Leninism was institutionalized and taught, it was turned into this sort of vacuous metaphysical position that can be arbitrarily mapped onto any given phenomenon. This, however, was not Marx's practice. And Engels, while writing some confused passages on the dialectic, did not nevertheless set his musings on dialectics of nature in stone, though Marxism was soon frozen into a system. Lenin too, though in part guilty for establishing these regrettable precedents, was also cautious in deploying dialectical notions to nature in a detailed, positive fashion; rather, he was engaged in critique of positivism, as was Engels engaged in critique of the bad philosophy of his time. Most of Soviet philosophy, to the extent that it was useful, was in critique of bourgeois philosophy; positively, it contributed thematically to psychology, but the myriad textbooks of diamat mandated for widespread instruction did a great deal of harm. << Reply Seems to me we are on the same page, same paragraph and same sentence. I am not sure if there was a different way to try and teach Marx approach in 1930s Soviet Union - 1939. A Textbook of Marxist Philosophy (1939) is extremely political and contains a number of historical limitations. Yet, it introduced millions to Marx method. The result was dogmatism. Dogmatism or a lack of "creativity" is pretty much the inevitable consequence of trying to teach science - any science, to a mass of more than less illiterate folks. The Soviets face this really tough task. With assimilation of more knowledge one does not have to remain dogmatic. The harm of "Textbook" in the hands of anyone today is taking this exposition to be the final word on method. The Hegelian form of dialectics - as I understand things, and Engels exposition based on this form, is old hat. But, Engels desire was to teach the workers and create the legacy of Marx. I of course claim no new form of presentation, although every time I hear "quantity becomes quality" or "quantitative changes" lead to "qualitative changes", as an explanation for anything, I now-a-days, cringe. There are some pretty complex problems concerning the "principles" of Marxism and Marxism-Leninism. The tendency to make "struggle" absolute and rising and falling as dominating in the formula "unity and struggle of opposites;" and then . . . THEN, make "unity" conditional or to conceive "struggle" as flow and "unity" as "stability" or relative is fraught with controversy. And contrary to modes of "non-European" thinking and conceptualization, where a political and social environment demanding conformity, approaches "unity" different. I agree that exploration of the properties of emergence - raised to a level of generalizations, is useful and in urgent need. This will in turn create its own problems. I have convinced myself a long time ago that all philosophy is by definition a form of insanity; an extreme breach between knowing and doing or alienation. Who but an insane man, horribly alienated from nature, can conceive the impossible like, "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there, does it create a sound?" "I think therefore I am." What insanity. WL. **************A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1215855013x1201028747/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072%26hmpgID=62%26bcd=De cemailfooterNO62)
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