Essay:Dogmatism, An Anti-Marxist Tendency

Note: This essay is a work in progress. Also, this isn't my first time writing an essay. I may bring my older essays into prolewiki (mostly critiques of ideologies in the American Ba'athist Server before the patsoc takeover)

Every Marxist-Leninist is aware of Dogma at this point, and the consensus is that dogma has no place in Marxist theory. Let us analyse closer as to why that is. Dogmatism is this word, mostly used in the context of insulting others, who accuse them of being as such. But what is Dogma? And why should we oppose it? Also a bigger question to pose is, do Marxist-Leninists have a tendency to go towards Dogma, and are they aware of when it happens?

Dogma in its essence

Dogma may be described liberally as "characterized by or given to the expression of opinions very strongly or positively as if they were facts", but this doesn't fully describe Dogma in its full nature. Sure people may view that some opinions are 'facts', but this definition is lost amongst Marxists as a result of using it, as we can describe that no one within Marxism (apart from a few,) are dogmatic. Dogmatism must be carefully understood, and a simple liberal definition will not outline the conditions of Dogma, and the premises of Dogma.

Dogma Historically

Dogma has been around for long before there was a conception of science to begin with, as the humans had to adapt within nature in some form. This form can be best described into having beliefs, but not yet a religion. They view the nature as something of mysticism, that humans wouldn't be able to grasp its foundations. As a result, Dogma was introduced. This is was the first premise of humans to form some form of logic of what is happening around. This dogma may come from a product of the mind, or the analysis of material conditions. Nonetheless, Dogma was the most common form of reason for many people (and even is to this day albeit less so). During the current mode of production (primitive communism), the product of Dogma is more or less from the product of the mind, and people believe in it as an explanation of nature as a whole. As primitive communism began to regress, as the productive forces were developing in a primitive way, people are beginning to collect their thoughts in order to make sense of the world. The premise built on, eventually collecting into the concept of a 'spiritual being' or multiple of them, which is a 'God' or multiple 'Gods'. This is the creation of Theism and Religion.

There was split between dogmas, but all of them were collected into bigger clusters of religions. The religions antagonised each other, as they fought barbarically, and cannot stray from the foundation of their dogma. The original premise still remains and the religions were founded upon more than two different premises. These premises were in contradiction, antagonistic with each other, and one needed to be superior to another. The productive forces let it develop more weapons, in order to carry out wars and battles. Materialism may not have been conceived fully until the ancient greeks. The Greeks had a long standing battle in philosophy, a philosophy (which still continues to this day) between Materialism and Idealism. There may have been people who conceived of the material conditions or nature, and thus utilised it to a better capacity than the idealists, but the Greeks viewpoint of Materialism was first negation of the idealist philosophy.

The productive forces which are developed, the relations to the means of production changing, however, the negation of idealism has been impacted on the productive forces, as they seem to increase as a rate faster than the mode of production preceding it. This is in result to the view that people perceive, that the people increasingly analyse nature, and are able to develop products such as Swords instead of Spears, Castles with stone rather than Huts with wood. Despite this, Dogma was still dominant, as the Dictatorship of the Aristocracy had been taken over. The productive forces were more subservient to the aristocracy rather than the peasants or serfs who produced the means of production.

In modern times, materialism (however in the metaphysical sense) had replaced Dogma. Dogma was mostly a product of Idealism, and those who followed Idealism were mostly ridiculed with the exception of those who believe in religion. Religion is still prominent, albeit not much so in the Western world.

Describing Dogma

Dogma is not just viewing statements as fact regardless of materialist analysis. It is rather a combination of the previous statement and another. That other is that of "false premises". The dogma that is proposed has a premise, that premise being what ever the person desires. That desire may be a product of the mind or it may come from material conditions. Regardless, if the foundation is material but the way in the person speak it is dogmatic (e.g. argument from authority or argument from popularity), it is a false premise. The original foundation is disconnected from the premise brought on by the person. An example may be arguing about evolution. If a person is arguing about how people evolved, and they do not bring up any evidence to show it is the case, but rather argue from an Authority, it is a false premise. The foundation (Evolution) is scientific, but the person has essentially disconnected themselves from evidence, and instead relies on authority figures as a sort of 'shield' to protect their ideas. Of course we do not analyse every specific detail, we do not need to analyse how the atoms bond together to form molecules, and those molecules form amino acids, and therefore proteins, etc etc. There is no need for unnecessary detail, because it completely deviates from the point originally stated. But rather, we show evidence that correlates with this theory (such as primates having human features), and as such that is applying materialism. As a result of this, dogmatic people have a tendency to remain ignorant about the material conditions, they just say their statement then no further analysis proceeds, there is no analysis of material conditions. Whilst the statement may be true, their source of evidence is null, despite claiming to be 'materialistic'. As such, the people who have dogmatic beliefs (even if they claim otherwise), are idealist.

Dogma may also describe someone following as what I'd like to describe as 'purity fetishism', that is, striving for purity. This 'purity' does not always mean striving for the full substance of it, and leaving any deviations aside, as in having 100% socialism for example (which is a stupid phrase to begin with).

Dogma in the context of Marxism

Should Marxists oppose Dogmatism? Most certainly. It is nothing but a regression or acceptance to only