DM2 vs DM1

Slavoj Žižek, "Dialectical Materialism" (Google translated from Turkish)

Stalin enumerated four features of dialectical materialism:

— Contrary to metaphysics, which regards nature as a disjointed, isolated and independent collection of phenomena and objects, according to dialectics, nature is a connected and unified whole, there are organic links between phenomena and objects, they are interconnected and determine each other.

- Contrary to metaphysics, which assumes that nature is a stagnant, motionless and inanimate state of immutability, according to dialectics, nature is in a constant state of movement and change, it is in a constant state of renewal and development, and while something is always appearing and developing in nature, something is breaking down and dying.

— Contrary to metaphysics, which considers the process of development to be a simple process of growth in which quantitative changes do not lead to qualitative changes, qualitative changes in development according to dialectics are experienced not little by little, but rapidly and suddenly, in the form of a leap from one state to another.

— According to dialectics, as opposed to metaphysics, internal contradictions are peculiar to all phenomena and objects in nature, for in everything there are negative and positive sides, and when things die, something develops; the struggle of these opposing sides also constitutes the content of the development process.

If we put the failed ontology (DM2) that we present as our own dialectical materialism against the general ontology (DM1) that Stalin presented as dialectical materialism, we can put the four features of DM2 against Stalin's four characteristics:

Unlike DM1, which assumes that everything depends on everything through a complex network of relations, SM2 starts from separation, cutting, isolation: to arrive at the truth of a totality, first its key property must be detached from it, it must be isolated, and then it must be looked at from that biased and unique point. Truth is not balanced and objective, it is subjective and "one-sided."

Unlike DM1, which emphasizes sudden jumps and drastic "revolutionary" changes, DM2 focuses on the function of delay and "dead time" in pregnancy: Leaps due to structural causes are either experienced too early, untimely and unsuccessful, or too late, so that everything is already decided. In Hegel's words: A change happens when we realize that it has already happened.

— Unlike DM1, which emphasizes a general progression from the "lower" phases to the "upper" phases, according to DM2 the general situation is a directionless structure: progress always remains local, the general picture is a circular iteration movement, what is "reactionary" today may become the ultimate chance of radical change tomorrow.

Unlike DM1, which interprets conflict as antagonism, as the eternal struggle of opposites, according to DM2 it is the constitutive contradiction between a conflict being and itself: everything comes out of its own impossibility, the external opposition that threatens the stability of something is always the outward projection of its own inherent self-blocking and inconsistency.

From Gender and the Failed Absolute.

Turkish: Işık Barış Fidane