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Communism

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Diamat exercise: opposing forces in interdependence (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 2 days ago by amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml to c/communism@lemmygrad.ml
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This excellent video on dialectical materialism got me thinking more about the pedagogy of practicing and learning it: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/10142756

Which is a fancy way of saying, I thought, "What if school-like exercises for practicing the components of it to grapple with comprehension and retention of it?" After all, quantitative engagement with its component parts could lead to qualitative change in understanding. :)

In Mao's essay On Contradiction, he gives examples such as:

In mechanics: action and reaction. In physics: positive and negative electricity. In chemistry: the combination and dissociation of atoms. In social science: the class struggle. In war, offence and defence, advance and retreat, victory and defeat are all mutually contradictory phenomena. One cannot exist without the other. The two aspects are at once in conflict and in interdependence, and this constitutes the totality of a war, pushes its development forward and solves its problems.

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_17.htm

The idea is to expand on that with what you can think of.

What I wrote down so far:

hot and cold; growth and decay; strength and weakness; noisy and quiet; action and rest; theory and practice; imagination and sensation; wet and dry; beginning and end; the forest and the trees (e.g. big picture and the details, collective and individual); spiritual and secular; venerated and vulgarized.

So now I put it to you: What are some more examples of this?

Bonus question: What's an example of something that can occur when opposing forces collide?

P.S. Feel free to correct with a why, if you believe something shared is not an example of opposing forces. Just remember to think of it as for teaching and learning.

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[–] Cowbee@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I like both Georges Politzer's Elementary Principles of Philosophy and Vladimir Adoratsky's Dialectical Materialism for beginners. On Contradiction (as well as On Practice) are essential.

For more depth, Anti-Dühring and Materialism and Empirio-Criticism are excellent.

[–] Sanya@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 day ago

Thank you for the reccomandation!