this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2026
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I don't think that's accurate, though. How do you explain dialectical materialism, historical materialism, imperialism, why capitalism is fundamentally unsustainable, revolutionary strategy, and more in under an hour?
You can definitely explain most of those in a way a 5 year old could understand in under 20 minutes.
Not dialectical materialism though. I've read about it and had it explained to me more time than I can count, and my brain refuses to hold on to what it means.
From a Marxist-Leninist: there are some Marxist authors contesting the emphasis on the "dialectics" part of dialectical materialism. Paul Cockshott is a good example, you can search for Cockshott's criticism of dialectical materialism, maybe if the concepts don't stick to you you could have a more Newtonian materialist view
I wrote a basic guide on dialectical materialism. It's missing a ton, but should be enough to hopefully make it make sense to start off with.
Thanks. I'll try it, but I have zero faith it'll stick this time 😅
Haha, no worries! Really, it's about materialism in outlook, dialectics in method. The rest follows from there!
I read it. I've been reading a lot of complex systems science lately, and it seems to have a lot of overlap, so perhaps it will stick a bit harder this time. Thanks :)
No problem, glad it helped!
However else you explain any other concept, these are very simple ideas.
How so? How can you simplify them to take less than an hour?
Explaining it to them without the fluff?
Elaborate, how do you explain all of them in under an hour, even without fluff?
What are you asking for? Like my method of teaching?
I'm asking how you can fit the sheer quantity of raw information, effectively, into an hour. I'm entirely unconvinced that you could do so.
Well okay thats not something I could describe for you without actually doing it, and I’m not finna make an hour long course for you bro
Cringe
Pick any of the core parts then, and try to accurately break it down into a small enough chunk. Explain dialectical materialism (not even historical materialism) in 5 minutes.
Too lazy
Cool, my latest effort to do so takes around 5-10 minutes to read, but I feel that I'm missing a lot of important factors.