The Amazing Dialectical Circus
An explanation and some examples of the mechanism driving clown world
A month before joining Substack, I wrote an article titled Synthesis on the subject of the dialectical method. I’ve referenced it several times since, but it has some issues, so consider this something of an update.
One of my favourite things to say is “when bad people embrace good ideas, they do not become better people, they give those ideas a bad name.” Little did I know there is an old Turkish proverb that illustrates this point far better:
When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a sultan. The palace becomes a circus.
The palace has been a circus for as long as I can remember, and by “palace,” I really mean “the halls of academia and government.” The reason is quite simple: right and wrong were defenestrated long ago in favour of dialectics. A dialectic is, in essence, a debate. The issues arise when people choose not to stand on conviction, and instead try to reconcile contradictory positions so that no-one need be wrong. If no-one is wrong, but everyone thinks differently, then no-one is right, either. As concepts, right and wrong are dead, and considering how long dialectics have held sway, no-one can really tell how long this has been the case. However, using a fairly simple set of tools, perhaps we can figure it out, and get back to a reasonable starting point.
Whenever two contradictory ideas exist, there are four possible ways to reconcile the contradiction: one is right and the other is wrong, both are wrong, reality is somewhere in between, or both ideas are components of the real truth. Throughout history, each dialectical solution has worked at some point, and I will provide some examples, but for now, let’s use something simple to show how this whole process works. I call this “dialectical mathematics,” and while I’m using it purely for illustrative purposes, I regret to inform you that it is a real thing:
Our thesis is 2+2=4, and our antithesis is 2+2=5. Clearly, one is correct and the other is incorrect. However, in a society governed by dialectics, no-one is wrong, everyone is right, therefore some other solution is needed to reconcile these differences. Negation is rarely entertained (because that would mean everyone is wrong), so competition of ideas is limited to compromise (centre) and synthesis (third position). The former position is 2+2=(halfway between 4 and 5) the latter is either 2+2=(both 4 and 5) or 2+2=4+5. For simplicity’s sake, I’m going to use addition for the synthetic position, ergo the centrist position is 2+2=4.5, and the third position is 2+2=9. The fourth position is 2+2=(neither 4 nor 5), which, in this particular instance, is incorrect, however the fourth position, i.e. negation, is perfectly valid once the dialectical process manifests a wrong answer. Bear in mind that the dialectic does not stop when 2+2=(something other than 4).
Let us say, for the sake of argument, that our society is an absolute democracy, i.e. one in which everything, even math facts, are determined via popular vote. To make this dystopian nightmare even more disturbing, let us also assume that dialectics, rather than objective reasoning, are the prevailing way of thinking in this society. Therefore, when the issue of 2+2 is brought before the general assembly, the prevailing factions are the compromisers and the synthetics. Thus, the vote is held, and it is determined that 2+2=4.5 because compromise won out. Now then, you may think that we’ve already achieved peak…
…but no, dialectical movement does not stop there. 2+2=4.5 has become the new thesis, i.e. the new conservative position, thus when the issue of 2+2 is brought up before our hypothetical general assembly in our hypothetical absolute democracy steeped in dialectical thought, the new debate is between the old centrist and third positions, i.e. the antithesis is 2+2=9. The centre has moved, as the new compromise is 2+2=6.75, and the new third position is 2+2=13.5. The only faction that is actually correct in all of this is the fourth position, which asserts that 2+2=(neither 4.5 nor 9), which is the correct position. Unfortunately, the fourth positionists are dismissed as “regressives” or “reactionaries” (both of which are technically correct on some level) who need to “catch up to the current year,” and thus the dialectic marches on, despite having left reality behind. I’ve already ranted about the progressive monopoly on discourse, and this is its root. Dialectical thinkers overwhelmingly believe in progress, hence heavily weighting the entire process in favour of one particular direction, even if their road takes us into looney land. Negation is unthinkable, hence the broader, centuries-old dialectical movement being a series of triads, best represented by the following images:
So, on one hand, the cult of dialectics believes in endless progress, but they also want to get back to some kind of “beginning” in order to complete the cycle of history. The idea that history is cyclical seems to originate with Plato, who believed in five stages of history corresponding to differing political systems: aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny, in that order. The exact stages changed over time, and there is a rival theory that history exists in three stages, hence the “middle” ages being the period between ancient and modern times. Even mediaeval people entertained this idea, such as Joachim of Fiore, who mapped history onto the Holy Trinity, making antiquity correspond to the Father, the middle ages correspond to the Son, and the modern era, which he said would begin in 1260, correspond to the Holy Spirit. Karl Marx entertained both the three-stage and five-stage theory, and even came up with a six-stage theory of historical materialism, but it is the five-stage version that largely prevails, hence:
Five modes of production are known to history: primitive communal, slave, feudalist, capitalist, and socialist. - Iosif Stalin, On Dialectical and Historical Materialism
This hardly unique to the left, incidentally. Not only is there a dialectical movement within Hegelian thought, with Marxism as its left wing and fascism as its right wing, but the broader trend exists outside of Hegelian thought and in eschatology of the classical religions as well. There is one particular sect of Christianity that, as far as I know, is virtually unheard of outside of the United States, and that is the evangelical doomsday movement calling itself “fundamentalist.” In my most recent rant spitting fireballs against both progs and fundies (something I do a lot, incidentally), there is one thing I forgot to mention, and that is their view of history as cyclical, i.e. that we started out in paradise - primitive communism or Eden - then fell because of sin, became slaves, and have slowly, incrementally freed ourselves over time. In one of my earliest articles (please don’t point out the problems with it, I already know about them and have corrected myself elsewhere) I also mentioned that veganism is something these two seemingly opposite sides share; there is a sect of Christianity that believes there could have been no death prior to the fall of man (conveniently forgetting about the Tree of Life), and therefore, no animals ate meat. Well, the “end of history,” i.e. the completion of the cycle, will be a restoration of the paradise lost.
Were I not so jaded, I would think the people trying to immanentise the eschaton are forgetting that paradise existed for only two people according the Bible. However, being the cynic that I am, it seems more likely that these people are lying unless they admit that they wish to exterminate humanity… like Greg Laxative has done. BTW, this is why I’m on the fence about chemtrails. While, on one hand, poisoning the atmosphere is possibly the stupidest thing that the elites can do in order to reduce the population, I cannot say for certain that the elites do not wish to wipe themselves out along with the rest of us. After all, they aren’t exactly breeding.
So, now that I’ve prattled on about how negation can help us get to the truth from two contradictory positions, there are indeed instances in which the other two dialectical methods actually prove useful. Part of the reason that not many people know about this dialectical insanity is because it normally isn’t used for matters of simple fact, e.g. mathematics, but instead for much more advanced topics, e.g. history and science.
When it comes to history, every nation has this nasty habit of making itself look better than it actually is, and its enemies look worse than they actually are. Thus, when looking at two historical narratives, there is a general trend of the truth being somewhere in between two opposing narratives. One fairly simple and somewhat well-known example concerns the Allied Powers in World War II. The prevailing American narrative is that the United States won the war all by themselves and were it not for American involvement, the Allies would have been destroyed. The prevailing Russian narrative is that the Soviet Union won the war with no help whatsoever, and the capitalist pigs in America started the Cold War out of spite and envy. I am, of course, grossly oversimplifying, but setting aside the fact that the Axis Powers started a war they could never have possibly won, the truth is that the Allies won primarily due to a combination of American industry and Soviet manpower. Again, it is a gross oversimplification, and this is not the time to elaborate (but feel free to fight me in the comments section), but the gist is that the Russian government is wrong to say that the Lend-Lease Act had no impact, and the US government is wrong to say that military involvement was necessary. This is an example of compromise being most consistent with reality.
For an example of synthesis being most consistent with reality, we must turn to science, specifically evolutionary biology. The primary debate as to the mechanism of evolution has always been environmental constructivism versus genetic determinism. Both the environmentalists and determinists are half-correct, as the mechanism of biological evolution is best summed up as “natural selection working in concert with genetic drift.” This debate was raging among scientists throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and among non-scientists, is still raging to this day. People who believe in social equity latch on to environmental constructivism because the idea of inherent differences horrifies them. Despite the fact that we’re all a bunch of mutants (a human zygote has an average of 128 mutations), we’re only different because of differing circumstances, apparently. The determinists, on the other hand, accept the inherent differences, but refuse to acknowledge the environmental factors that resulted in the formation of different populations whose differences are more than skin deep. So, while the determinists aren’t put off by talk of IQ distributions like the environmentalists are…
…what they fail to take into account is why this is the case. Two words: time preferences. Nearly all cultures have moved away from hunter-gatherers to farmers at some point, but in tropical climates, the natives remained agrarian, whereas only the natives of more temperate, seasonal climates ever industrialised. The seeds were sown long ago out of the need to produce more food than immediately necessary and then store the excess for long periods when harvesting was out of the question. These societies developed a low time preference culture before they even developed writing, and people evolved to plan ahead instead of acting only on immediate needs. Meanwhile, in environments where there is never any worry about finding food, human societies remained high time preference. If it seems like humanity is “devolving,” that’s because industrial society has produced such material abundance that people can indulge in high time preference behaviour and be largely insulated from negative consequences. Smart people thus can spend every waking minute entertaining the absolute dumbest ideas and never have to worry about being bitten in the arse. This was the case in Ancient Greece, and it’s the case today in most nations. If you’ve ever wondered why the people who are most down-to-Earth are the people getting their hands dirty to make civilised life possible, wonder no more.
I will elaborate when I finally get into the subject of alchemy and eschatology, but for today, I’ll wrap it up here. Bear in mind that for dialectical thinkers, the debate is all that matters, so it can never be over. At all times, they are deconstructing and reconstructing, because perfection is perpetually just outside their grasp. Thus, even if their methods only occasionally bear fruit, no amount of failure will ever dissuade them. Do not let them control the debate, learn to recognise how they steer everything in their direction, and reject it.