In my first blog on this topic, I indicated that I was looking for a consistent and practical understanding of social contradiction. Along the way, I've also become interested in whether it is useful for political theorists to think in terms of contradiction and dialectics. In this entry, I'll begin to sum up my thinking on these issues by trying to answer the question: Are the concepts of contradiction and dialectic useful for political analysis?
One common negative response to this question was offered by Herbert Feigl:
"The facts of change, evolutionary or revolutionary, in the world of facts as well as in the realm of thought, are manifest and conspicuous. It is the task of the sciences to find out what changes, in what direction, how fast, and under what conditions and circumstances. The verbal gloss provided by the various process philosophies does not really add any further information to that provided by the sciences..." (Herbert Feigl in Dialogues on the Philosophy of Marxism, J. Somerville and H.L. Parsons, Eds., Greenwood Press, 1974)
Looking at the way many writers in the Marxist tradition have invoked contradiction and dialectical processes, one might be able to agree with Feigl that its mostly just verbal gloss. This is especially so for theoretical efforts that utilize a Hegelian notion of contradiction. In such cases, the dialectical approach can easily drift into modes of speculative philosophy.
On the other hand, modern theories of the physical world (e.g., chaos theory) make good use of concepts analogous to those of social contradiction and dialectical process. I suspect that Feigl would not say that the concept of feedback regulation in biology, for example, is simply a gloss. Although physical and social systems are distinct, I think that modern scientific practice provides additional support for theorizing social systems in dialectical terms. Further, I'd like to suggest that marxist political theory could benefit by critically engaging with these modern physical theories.
However, even if one accepts a materialist dialectic as essential to good political theory, the mere identification of contradiction (or even a complex web of contradictions) in a social system should not be taken as a complete analysis, but only the first step. In this sense, Feigl is correct in saying that we (also) need to know "in what direction, how fast, under what specific conditions, etc." in order to have a really useful understanding of social processes, and to gain some measure of prediction of their dynamics. Otherwise the analysis of contradiction and dialectical process will remain simply an exercise in description.
More specfically, assuming that Althusser's contribution to our understanding of social contradiction is fundamentally sound, we still need to be able to empirically flesh out concepts such as fusion, displacement, structure in dominance, etc.
For example, in any particular social formation such as U.S. society, what are the various categories and social mechanisms of fusion? How does one know what the appropriate level of fusion is, such that social forces will begin to move? What are the processes by which a contradiction may be displaced? How does one tell what contradiction or group of contradictions (economic, racial, political, gender-based, etc.) determines the dominance of the structure?
Much work still needs to be done along these lines in order to come up with a social theory that can deeply inform political practice.
