Like how the do you “do” historical materialism? Or dialectical materialism? How the fuck do I look at a problem and then apply this method? What are the steps? Why is it so difficult to learn left theory? I feel like I have to fight people to learn because the first thing anyone will do is throw jargon at me. Like imagine you're trying to learn physics and everyone says you start by reading Einstein as if a beginner would even be able to understand what Einstein is saying, who he is responding to, what the concepts in his work are.

At some point once you think you understand a concept you actually try your hand at it. If you're studying calculus you'll do a bunch of problem sets and that actually helps you understand what it is that you're doing, how mistakes happen, and how to get better. How do I practice this skill? Every suggestion I see basically amounts to: read lots of stuff. And I don't see how this is different than just being a lib and reading a bunch of stuff and popping off with hot takes

Edit: kind of confused that there are lots of responses but no answer.

    • ABigguhPizzahPieh [none/use name,any]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Yea I guess my question boils down to: How do you move past the reading and into producing an analysis? How do you practice that skill? Are there "exercises" you can do to hone the skill? I'm trying to relate learning about this to other things I've learned and I've never ever gotten good at something by simply reading about it. You have to do it to really understand it.

      • Spinoza [any]
        ·
        4 years ago

        try writing it out or summarizing it to a friend. re-read sections that gave you difficulty. read outside the box - try to find tangentially related stuff that gives you context on the issue from a different perspective

      • KantNeverCould [any]
        ·
        4 years ago

        The fundamental thing about "dialectical" thinking that separates it from more "analytical" schools is the idea that objects and events don't have an "essence" or a "true nature" that can be abstracted away. Objects and events are always in a process of being what they are and becoming something new, and they only have meaning in terms of their relations with other real world objects, which are also always in a state of being and becoming.

        You can't practice it like a problem set of logical proofs because there is no right answer like a logic problem set. The problems you're analyzing don't have the same neat answers.

        "Dialectical" methods have been used pretty extensively in scientific discovery, though. Engels wrote a lot about this on the "Dialectics of Nature"

        • ABigguhPizzahPieh [none/use name,any]
          ·
          4 years ago

          How can I "do" it if I can't practice it? How can I tell if someone's analysis makes sense or if it's just an ad hoc explanation? How do I judge good analysis from bad?

          • KantNeverCould [any]
            ·
            4 years ago

            Start with Engels' 3 rules

            1. The law of the unity and conflict of opposites

            2. The law of the passage of quantitative changes into qualitative changes

            3. The law of the negation of the negation

            "Good" dialectical analysis is based on the conflict of opposites as opposed to using formal logical rules like the transitive property or the law of identity.