“Dialectics is one that I’ve never understood,...

"Dialectics is one that I’ve never understood, actually—I’ve just never understood what the word means. Marx doesn’t use it, incidentally, it’s used by Engels. And if anybody can tell me what it is, I’ll be happy. I mean, I’ve read all kinds of things which talk about ‘dialectics’—I haven’t the foggiest idea what it is. It seems to mean something about complexity, or alternative positions, or change, or something. I don’t know…
I’m not saying that it doesn’t have any meaning-you observe people using the term and they look like they’re communicating. But it’s like when I watch people talking Turkish: something’s going on, but I’m not part of it.

… when I look at a page of Marxist philosophy or literary theory, I have the feeling that I could stare at it for the rest of my life and I’d never understand it—and I don’t know how to proceed to get to understand it any better, I don’t even know what steps I could take. “
"

Noam Chomsky

(source: noamisright, via marxandsparks)

This is patently untrue, he addresses and uses the phrase in his preface to Das Kapital in a letter signed London, 24 January 1873. However in a way Noam’s right,

The problem here is, however, that Marx never wrote a tract on dialectics, and he never explicated his dialectical method (although there are, as we shall see, plenty of hints here and there). So we have an apparent paradox. To understand Marx’s dialectical method, you have to read Capital, because that is the source for its actual practice; but in order to understand Capital you have to understand dialectical method. A careful reading of Capital gradually yields a sense of how his method works, and the more you read, the better you’ll understand Capital as a book. (Harvey)

This is why Noam should have forked over $17 for David Harvey’s A Companion to Marx’s Capital where he mentions dialectics at least 79 times and utilizes visual aids in the process.

I understand what Noam’s saying and it’s probably very confusing for people unfamiliar with dialectics who want to read about it via Marx but it’s very lazy to simply dismiss it and subsequent thinkers of a field because they utilize it. Also you can be a Marxist and not adhere to dialectics, I’m sorry to break it you Noam.

Sources
Karl Marx. Capital: An Abridged Edition (Oxford World’s Classics) (p. 12)
Harvey, David (2010-03-01). A Companion to Marx’s Capital. Verso.

(via thenoobyorker)

For folks struggling with Marx’s method, I found Bertell Ollman’s explanation in part one of Alienation extremely helpful. Folks interested in using dialectics may also be interested in a collection that Ollman and Tony Smith edited, which I’ve also found helpful.

(via e-schatology)

20 yards of linen