Dialectics: you've probably heard of it, but WTF is it?

mostly a horribly chosen word to describe a pretty simple concept so here's my personal TLDR on Dialectics

so, you know what The Discourse is, right

so basically, Dialectics is this idea that history is kind of one big Discourse

that's where the name comes from, that's why it sounds like dialect, because it's a metaphor to conversations and discussions

its this idea that there's this big Discourse happening constantly, that everyone is participating in by existing in the world and doing stuff

people say something, some other folx respond, there's a third group that responds to the first two, or whatever

that's the metaphorical version. what the conversational turns are, what people are "saying", what the moves are that people make, are not literally talking and responding

i mean they can be, of course, but they can be all sorts of things. all of our actions can count, sorta

Hegel's version of dialectics used the terms Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis, which are horrible words that academic knobs love

what it means tho is:

some one (some group, whatever) has some idea or perspective or action or whatever

and someone else may have a response to that which is a rejection

and there's of course the third option which is a kind of combination of both

the ~dialectical~ view of these things is that, well, any of these three kinds of outcomes to A Dialectic is possible:

the thesis wins out

the anti-thesis wins out

the synthesis wins out

and from a dialectical perspective, its an on going thing: The Discourse never ends, it's literally just how society works

a dialectical view of history is simply one that says it's useful and productive as a tool to analyze history as a kind of Big Neverending Metaphorical Discourse

there are two main kinds of dialectical analysis, represented by their main proponents

Hegel, who is arguably the father of what we call Dialectics, was a Dialectical Idealist

this isn't idealism as in utopianism or romanticism, it's philosophical idealism: Ideas Matter Most

for Hegel, the Big Discourse was a conversation of ideologies

the other big name in Dialectics is Marx, who, like all good philosophers of his time, responded to Idealism with Materialism

Marx gave us Dialectical Materialism, which says no no, ideas and ideology aint it the most important, it's STUFF. the actual things in the world, the events that we engage with, the qualities of life we have, etc

not just IDEAS but like, you know, stuff

its important to note here that "most important thing" is not the same as "only important thing"

hegel didn't deny the effect of material concerns, and marx didn't deny the effect of ideological concerns

for hegel, ideology was more important, and for marx, material concerns

after a fashion, you could say that Hegel was really into the Marketplace of Ideas as a way of thinking about the Whys and Hows of history

while Marx was like nah, bread and guns matter more dude, ideas dont mean shit if you aint got stuff happening in the world

ultimately, a dialectical view of history is just saying

look, shit happens for reasons, because of other shit happening, and you cant understand history without looking at the reasons for things. it's not some straight line towards Utopia or whatever

by analogy to video games, history is not a rail shooter with a tightly scripted plot, it's an open world with emergent gameplay because of how all the stuff interacts

which is not a deep insight into how societies work!

but in the 1800s lots of people were stupid (2020s too)

dialectics as a term is really popular with Marxists, but dialectics as a general attitude towards understanding things isn't all that uncommon

but unfortunately, dialectics is a perspective on social phenomena, and is therefore not exactly the most useful predictive tool

few, if any, models of social phenomena are ever really predictive, this isn't specific to dialectical approaches, it's just.. shits complicated, dude, it's hard to actually predict things about society

it's a great way of looking at history, a nice mindset and set of dispositions toward asking this or that question when looking back, and maybe when trying to develop political frameworks or whatever

but it's not exactly good for _predicting_, because.. shits complicated