Dialectical,… indeed?!

Let’s say you got a guy, some guy, a fellow who’s pretty well educated. He’s spent a lot of money on his education. And he’s a good student, worked really hard followed all the rules recommendations, didn’t take the lazy way out. Then say there’s this other guy, equally well-educated and has common interests with the first guy, right? So the second guy wants to associate with the first guy, but not in quite the same way as the first guy wants. For instance, instead of finding a common ground for both on which to agree, the second guy wants the first guy to always see the flaws in his logic. Or better yet, the second guy wants the first guy to always see the multitude, or dynamic interplay of interpretations of the common ground they share. There is no dogma, there is no reductionism. There can only EVER be the dialectic.

So now, the second guy, the dialectician, he gets annoyed when the first guy makes a grand sweeping, dogmatic, reductionist observation now, about anything. Doesn’t matter whether or not the first guy is in the common ground the guys share even. It could be anything, and the second guy is there loyal to his mission of spreading the gospel of dialectic discourse. And yet, the first guy still resists, he doesn’t play along, he will not concede to the first guy. He will not see the reason inherent in the second guy’s argument. As David Byrne was wont to say, “Well, how did we get here?” My guess is a highly educated individual can have things they like to do, and don’t like to do. Strange as it may seem to the second guy, one of those things the first guy may not like to do is constantly be schooled by the second guy. In dialectics there always this guest and host relationship, a pointing and counterpointing, a teacher and a student, a master and a slave. Well the first guy says, “I’m not going to play any of your reindeer games”. And that’s the end of the story. Without the first guy, the second guy is this raving lunatic, sitting by himself pointing at things and there’s no response. If a dialectic occurs in the forest, does anybody hear it? What is the sound of one hand clapping?