Dialectics for Kids website
By Jack Lucero Fleck
REVIEW BY DAVE RILEY
At the mere mention of dialectical materialism there's sure to be some groans. Diamat is that part of Marxism that is supposedly the most difficult to comprehend and is usually left off the course guide. You can get into Marxism without grappling with dialectics and you could pass muster as a bona fide afficionado, but something would be missing from your tool box: The materialism part may be straightforward for any newbie atheist but the dialectical part is not.
The core problem for most people is understanding the basic fact that dialectics is a tool that only really makes sense when it is being put to use. If I was to summarise the international system of capitalism in one word, that defining word would be to call capitalism a "relationship". "Oh", you ask, "How can capitalism be a relationship?" But then, to make matters worse for you I could describe anything on earth — animal, vegetable or mineral — or the universe by the very same name: relationships — every one of them. This is why Karl Marx referred to dialectical materialism as the one science. This may leave God and the hosts seraphim out of the picture but it does draw our thinking to the core business of how things relate to one another.
How do things relate to one another? Through change. The essence of dialectics is comprehending how things change and in so doing, begin to understand what things are.
If that sounds like mumbo jumbo I suggest you think again and maybe do some homework. Consider what are the ABCs of change, and if you want to start your journey into dialectics at the base level, check out this great website, Dialectics for Kids, which has been put together by Jack Lucero Fleck. Starting with simple exercise for the under fives, this site takes you on an imaginative journey through dialectical thinking. There's even a musical dedicated to dialectics with on-site MP3 downloads.
So much of what we are taught as self-evident truths relies on rigid thinking. A lot of science is like that and politics rests on the core mantra that nothing essential changes or should change. But the reality is that everything does change. Yes, everything. As Fleck outlines in his discussion for teachers on the dialectical principle that everything is made up of opposites: "Can your students think of anything that isn't made of opposites? Remember that any object has to have a force holding its parts together; otherwise they fly apart (second law of thermodynamics). Also, any process only moves forward if a force causes it to move (Newton's laws of motion). Also, concepts are not things, so they aren't 'made of opposites', but they do need opposites to be understood — eg. good/bad, fast/slow, etc."
Or to put it all in a nutshell, you can contemplate the chorus to one of the great songs on the site: "Everything changes bit by bit ... Then all at once, you have its opposite."
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, July 28, 2004.
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