Socialism and the Hegelian Dialectic

A thought has been tumbling around in my head for quite some time and it wasn’t until a posting by one of our resident liberal friends that the picture became clear.

Have you ever wondered why, exactly, there is such depth and magnitude of conflict politically? My first instinct was to attribute it simply to people’s varied opinions on issues and leave it at that. But then, I noticed a trend. That is, that when a conflict seemed to resolve itself, it soon became the flash point for another conflict to develop. And on certain issues, this has continued on for years and even decades.

Examples of such issues are, but not limited to; -Environmental issues -Taxation -Gun control -Certain “rights” -Aspects of the Constitution On those issues, within certain arguments, or debates, two sides argue, an agreement is reached, and eventually the agreement becomes the focal point of furthering the argument and reaching a new agreement. The fact that such agreements seem to be increasingly restrictive upon freedom and liberty should not be overlooked.

So, what can we attribute this to? In a phrase, the Hegelian dialectic. What is the Hegelian dialectic? It is, simply, a series of theses (accepted idea) opposed by antitheses (opposing idea), resulting in a syntheses (new idea). This synthesis then becomes the thesis that is opposed by an antithesis, resulting in a new synthesis, and on and on until a final, ultimate, “perfect” synthesis is realized. Now, to understand where Hegel was coming from, it is important to note that Hegel was a devout socialist. So much so, in fact, that his work, his dialectic, was put into practice by such well-known socialists as Marx and Engels.

Hegel envisioned the same control over people, by the state, that Marx and Engels were guilty of. So, how does this “dialectic” apply to now, today?

Think about an issue. Any issue that people are concerned about. Then think about the history of that issue, as in, the evolution of the issue into today’s specific arguments. Take gun control, for instance. Over 200 years ago, the Framers of the Constitution drafted the Second Amendment. The idea of gun ownership, namely the freedom to do so, went largely unchallenged in America until the 1900′s when New York passed the Sullivan Act, requiring small firearms to be registered. In the 1930′s, gun control became a national issue with two laws, both signed into law by FDR. While the regulations involved were uncontroversial by today’s standards, involving gun dealer licensing and regulating machine gun ownership, it introduced the concept of national gun control. Fast forward to the 1960′s, and we see gun control becoming a national issue with two prominent sides on the debate, particularly in 1968 with the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and MLK, jr. Continue on to the Reagan attempted assassination and on up to today’s restrictive gun control laws.

At each point, there were a theses, or accepted idea of the limitation on gun control, and an antithesis, proposing ever more restrictive control over firearms. The syntheses from these conflicts are seen in the laws passed at those points. Neither being as liberal as the theses, nor as restrictive as the antitheses, but an accepted position somewhere in the middle. And each new law, or syntheses, became the starting point, or theses, for the next round of debate on the issue. And at every point, those syntheses further eroded the rights of gun ownership in America.

Gnoticism teaches that human spirit was God, is now trapped in the evil matierial and only through the sufficient knowledge, can we return to be God. The process of being removed from God is called “alienation”, a theme that should be familiar to students of Marx, even as he put a secular interpretation on it. Humanity could return to God when it achieved the perfect socialist condition. The foundational ideas of Gnosticism go back to the time of Plato.

“To understand [alienation] we have to go back behind Hegel, the immediate source of Marx’s ideas, to Hegel’s own ultimate source: viz. Gnosticism. For alienation is the central theme of Gnosticism, along with the saving knowledge of how we became alienated, and from what, and of
how we can escape from it. That theme is summarized in the Valentinian formula:

‘What liberates is the knowledge of who we were, what we became; where we were, whereinto we came; what birth is and what rebirth.’

All the Gnostic texts, though they differ in details, declare that we are strangers, aliens, sparks of Light or Spirit trapped in evil matter. They recount the cosmic process whereby the circles of the world have been
created, by ignorant or evil creators and not by the Light, and whereby we have become entrapped in the midmost or deepest dungeon. Finally they impart the knowledge needed to escape back to the one Light whence we have come and which is our real home.

This is the pattern of thought that Hegel took over. But, rejecting all other-worldliness, he sought to reconcile men to this world, of nature and society, from which they had become estranged. We are the vehicles of a self-creating Geist which, in order to become and to know itself, has gone out into what is most alien to itself—the merely physical world of Newtonian science—and is progressively coming thence to its full self-realization and self-knowledge in and through human life and
history. With this knowledge, given by Hegel’s own philosophy, man’s alienation from the world is in principle, overcome although Geist has not yet fully realized itself in the world.

Marx took from Hegel two basic themes of Gnosticism, which Hegel had secularized, and re-interpreted them in his own way: viz. the cosmic drama of a fall into alienation from nature and one’s fellow men, and the saving knowledge, Marxism, which explains this and the way out of alienation back to an unalienated existence. But in one central
respect Marx did not fully learn the lesson that Hegel had to teach him about modifying ancient Gnosticism.

The Gnostic texts state that we are sparks of Light or fragments of Spirit (pneuma), and imply that we are distinct from each other and from the Light or Spirit only because of our fall or seduction into the circles of the world. As we fell through each circle, we were clothed
with an outer covering. The return to the Light will be a reversal of that process, so that, as we pass back through each circle we shall strip off each coating. Consequently, but this is never stated, as far as I know, at the end of that process each spark or fragment will cease to be distinct and will merge back into the One Light or Spirit. Hence the End will be the same as the Beginning.”

From Flew, Marx and Gnosticism, by R.T. Allen,
Philosophy Vol 68, No 263, (Jan, 1993),
pp. 94-98

(”Flew” is Antony Flew, 1923-2010, a British philosopher)

So, yes, socialism is a “religion” that is the modern vestige of Gnosticism. Further, author Alan Knight in his book AntiChrist, shows that Valentinian Gnosticism can be traced back to Hellenism, which can be traced to Platonism, which is traced to Babylon.

I suspect that we'd all agree that we no longer teach our young about the founding of the nation or the Scottish Enlightenment that inspired it. But we probably should also teach them in some detail about Marxism and the dialectic.

Start the study, say, in Junior year, with a semester on Plato followed by a semester on Aristotle. Thesis and antithesis. And resume in Senior year with a semester on Marx and Hegel followed up by a semester on Hume, Adam Smith, and Ricardo. Thesis and antithesis.

It's all in the presentation.

OK. I know. There aren't enough hours in the day after the little beggars have ~~stuffed down~~ thrown away three Moochelle-approved, taxpayer-funded meals and practiced putting condoms on each other.

Nonetheless. Very good post.

Except the synthesis is accepted precisely because it is seen as the moderating center. That center is temporary. It then shifts to the left or right depending on how the cultural and social norms play out in the larger body politic. There was a time when vulgar profanity and overt scenes of homosexuality were taboo on primetime television. Bedroom scenes were allowed so long as nudity was absent. That was the center, the Hegelian synthesis.

Today scenes of partial nudity and homosexuality are allowed. This again will change in time into more explicit forms of pornography until it is mainstreamed.

In short, the center is determined by what the “governed” think is the middle-ground. Compromise becomes virtue.

Socialism and the Hegelian Dialectic

The Hegelian Dialectic is defeated at the level of First Principles.

Did you ever wonder where the Dialectic comes from in the first place? It comes from someone, or some group, who has worked out definitions of first principles to support their position, and then engages argument through the dialectic method.

Why? Because as long as you own First Principles, you own the vector of the dialectic.

It's not a bad thing - it's a functional thing.

The Founders knew this, too. That's why they first worked out the discovery - for it is far more than a theory - of the truth of natural rights, of Divinely given rights to human beings that pre-exist any government or declaration.

That is the genius of the Founders. Stick with that, you can protect freedom. Lose it, and it doesn't matter what is attached to the Dialectic - you get slavery.

That's why the Enemy came up with the 14th Amendment, and wrapped Civil Rights around it as a Dialectic - to sell the fact that they'd gotten rid of natural rights. Ever since then, every dialectical argument has been merely part of the slow slide into total slavery, because the First Principles of the Natural Rights of the Constitution are negated and replaced by the First Principles of government sovereignty over the people by the 14th Amendment.

As long as the 14th Amendment stands, socialists will occupy the high ground. And the only thing necessary to reverse this is for people to understand it.

Judges and politicians and lawyers and a lot of cops and federal and state authorities understand it. But for the most part, the people simply do not - nor do they care to learn. And that is the pity.

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