New Left, Local Control, and Fascism

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assumptions which are absolutely mutually-irreconcil- more profound reality in which the contradictory
able. The attempt to construct a logical system of any concepts are put on a coherent footing and the contrakind
along these lines depends upon at least two funda- diction itself is put on that same coherent footing.
mental postulational assumptions. First, it is necessary
to assume that certain "particles" or "existences" To illustrate this on a broad scale. The concept of
have a kind of self-evident existence. That is, that their living processes is contradictory to a prevailing, emexistence
does not depend on their relationship to pirically validated conception of non-living mechanical
existences external to themselves. If such a construc- processes. E.g. neg-entropy versus entropy. Both are
tion is to fulfill the requirements of a logic, it must also true and the contradiction between them is also true.
assume relationship among such existences. Now, the Then, there must exist a more profound set of concepts
introduction of the notion of effective relationship in which neg-entropy and entropy are reduced to a
nullifies the elementarity of the entities participating in common concept and from which standpoint the contrathe
relationship. This applies even if the only assump- diction between living neg-entropic and mechanical
tion of relationship is comparison.(14) entropic phenomena is also necessary.
This general method can be applied in two obvious
Kant's attempt to solve the problem of both religion ways. One may attempt to maintain the postulates of
and classical materialism failed precisely because he elementarity, such as Kant's thing-in.ltself, and atdid
not free himself from the notion of elementarity tempt to attain a definition of the relations among such
lodged in his Ding an sich. Nonetheless, he accom- existences by a dialectical process. Or, one may regard
plished several things which are of historic importance the thing-in-ilself as simply a derived concept. In the
to the advancement of the human race. First, he latter case one ends up with fundamental conceptions
at least paralleling those of Hegel.
exposed the fatal particular fallacies of British and
French materialism to the extent that only an ignoramus
can be an empiricist today. Second, he demon- Admittedly, we have enormously simplified the
strated by the rigorous procedures employed in his own matter of Kant versus Hegel, out of respect for the
failure the impossibility of any logical positivism, the specific focus of our inquiry here, and the positive
implicit goal of the old metaphysical materialism, solution to this problem we have yet to present. What is
Thirdly, and most important, he put the dlaleetical essential to our purpose from the Kant-Hegel developmethod
on a more rigorous basis, ment is the following. Hegel carried the dialectical
method, first put on a rigorous footing by Kant, to its
It is necessary to clear away the rubbish which many ultimate formal implications. That is, instead of imaginreaders
have been led to associate with the term ing that the real universe is an aggregation of elemen-
"dialectical method." The dialectical method has tary"particles" or "existences," and attempting, from
nothing to do with the sophistry of "thesis-antithesis- that viewpoint, to build up a picture of the universe as a
synthesis" as those terms are ordinarily presented in whole, we start with the universe as a whole, and work
either academic courses taught by charlatans or the downward, so to speak, treating the apparently-ele-
"blab"-school indoctrination courses of certain sects, mentary particular things as events created by a uni-
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis are terms with definite versal process.
connotations in the Kantian dialectic, but in no wise the
connotations put into more popular currency by the The devastating fallacy in Hegel's dialectic was his
cited blabbers, attempt to define a formal solution to the problem of
human knowledge. As Marx acknowledges, Ludwig
The problem which gives rise to a dialectical method Feuerbach was the first to discover the major flaw in
is this.(15) Human knowledge develops as collections of Hegel's system: "the negation of the negation." We
specialized knowledge respecting narrow domains of shall not explore here the formal errors incurred in
practice, specialists discovering working-principles employing Hegel's mistaken "negation of the negawhich
are more or less irrefutable from the standpoint tion," but merely illustrate the problems to which this
_f that narrowly-defined practice. Yet, the concepts fallacy leads in practice.(16)
arising in this way from collective human practice seem
usually mutually contradictory, irreconcilable. A formal logical determinism leads to such fatalistic
conceptions, actually adopted and illustrated by Lenin's
If the universe is coherent, the only axiomatic as- philosophy teacher, Plekhanov, as that if Napoleon had
sumption of the dialectical method as such, then we not existed, French history would have created a Napohave
these realities to resolve. First, provided that each leon like him to fill the historical need. In politics, this
concept is empirically-validated, then the concepts are obviously leads to such fatalistic conceptions as revoreal
and the apparent contradiction in concepts is also lutions inevitably occurring when they are ripe.
real. Second, since it is proper to regard all these
immediate realities as if they were products of some To save his system, Hegel resorted to the fantastic
coherent common basis, then there exists another, device of declaring the Roman (Hellenistic) slavery-