In a recent conversation we came to think about the relation of two different types of conversation, which might at first sight seem similar to each other, or might even be confused in some way with each other, since the difference really is subtle and not even obvious to the people employing them. Thus, to see and to value this difference, and the ways this difference can have an effect on the way we try to talk about ideas, is an important addition to the internal reflections on our thoughts and on the expressive qualities of language. This text is, in some sense, therefore an addition to the description we wrote of various kinds of theoretical desire and their qualities for knowledge; a supplement in practical respect. - Where should we begin here?
Dialectics has its core the aspiration for universal truth, of a truth reachable not by any side positioning their opinion as right, but as a result from the conversation, as that what was impossible to reach by each side as limiting the other, and limited by itself. Its truth is a truth behind thought, of which our ideas are but a dim image. To reach it, we would have to connect to that truth, and transcend our own thoughts, which is impossible. In this sense, dialectics, as finding a truth beyond our own position, is in the direct sense always doomed to fail; it only works as an abstract aspiration for each of us, that we still know is fundamentally impossible. I may only think my thoughts; but I must believe, that in expressing them, others may also see it, not just their own thoughts reflected back to them, and similarly, that in reading other peoples' work, I don't just see reflections of my own prejudice, that thinking isn't exhausted in self-identity. Yet I know that that's mostly impossible, that my own thinking limits me, and seems for the others to do the same. The only relief I have from it is that this very limit is such a prejudice too; it is also something that appears. That doesn't disprove it either; but it means that I may have the possibility to disprove it by a kind of contradiction, and however much I fail, still a duty to not give completely up on that, to not let this impossibility ever be a self-fulfilling prophecy, but a bruise of actually done speech acts, of the continuous failure of trying to connect to positions irredeemably disconnected. This consistent effort is the dialectical speech, the real dialogue. Its main limit is the capacity to actually understand, rather than overhear and trying to suppress, a differen element into our thinking.
Organizing, activism, political speech or however else you want to call it, has a quite different goal. Here, the main goal of speaking is to have an effect outside of speech. It is about changing other people's actions, not their thoughts; about challenging apathy, not prejudice. That is not to say that in the context of organizational speech there is no search for truth; but that, for example, when talking about events, the nature of these events, as in their truth behind appearance, the real meaning of history etc., is not into question, and the question is about how to react to them. In this way, a whole lot of ideas are simply accepted, such as all of physics and mathematics, most of historical knowledge, and almost all practical presuppositions (such as that I now exist as a person being able to act in some ways, that communication is possible, that I act as if I have free will etc.). The questioning begins at the _goals_ of the decided action, not at the question of acting as such. The ultimate purpose is to find a way of acting that would be just. In this sense, while the speech of dialectics tries to achieve the virtue of speech itself - truth - political speech tries to achieve the virtue of action - justice - in speech; and thus is not preoccupied with speech acts, but with the acts done in response to speech. Does it want to be truthful? Sure. But it often can't. Being too honest, too skeptical, can get it in hot water, and can push people away from action. Thus, it is in this constant inner struggle of wanting to be more honest than it can allow itself to be; that it yet always tries to find honesty, truth, real connection etc, but has to limit that effort as either only instrumental, or at least not detrimental, to the practical goals. Ultimately, the truth and truthfulness sought for in political speech is that of action itself; not of saying the right thing, but of acting right, of producing something good out in the world, not merely in language.
The obvious question now however is, are these efforts really incompatible? Or is there maybe not also a political aspect of dialectics, and a dialectical aspect of political speech? - I think that so principally asked we can admit, that it seems to us as if there _must_ be a connection point; but that at the same time, one aspect always seems to dominate the other in practice; that it is either the truth of justice or the justice of truth, never both of them in equal apposition. And that thus we can see the compatibility of these efforts, but still must maintain their incommensurability, their quite different _fundamental_ goals, even if they may, in the way of achieving them, incorporate the other sides goal as a noble effort to also achieve.
(This also explains the weird middle position philosophy takes between these approaches; it must be methodologically dialectical, but has ethics as its main subject; thus it has at its core the question of true justice, _not_ of just truth, that is, it does not ask for the ethical justification for truth itself, for the reason as to why we would even like to know say mathematical truth, but assumes truth is what we wants to achieve, and then searches for the truth of a particular topic like virtue. Its self reflection of that, in seeing truth itself as an ethical term, does not contradict that; it merely reflects the way in which ethics, as the question of what to do, as the search for virtue, is not identical with the political and with practical action, and includes theoretical virtues too. - The other side, that of _just truth_, is the main topic of political epistemology, which should, if properly radicalized, be not really concerned with the truthfulness of certain positions due to stereotypes (as that is already the philosophical-dialectical position), but with the _justice_ of searching for truth itself. One of the most obvious examples of such a kind of political epistemology is the discussion about the ethical justification for technology and science, be it about nuclear technology, weapons systems or fossile fuel reserves; here, the question is not about whether say a particular insight in nuclear physics is true, but about whether finding out that truth, and potentially detroying life itself, is and could ever be just, or if it were better for us to remain ignorant of it. - The common element of both is the situations they start with; the concrete reality, of a conflict of the aspirations of truth and justice; the difference between the two is then, whether to focus on the truth defects in our ethical judgement, or on the ethical defects in our truth judgement. If, at the end, they might converge, is a completely different question, yet out of field, as it appears now as if both sides stand at a kind of impass, impossible to reach each other, only really hoping that this impass in turn might turn out to be wrong, as described before.)
The difference between these two types of speech becomes most pronounced in the different ways they handle controversy and the conflict between affects and realities of history. From the dialectical view, the goal is to find the truth _through_ disagreement and in discussion; that is, it must favor disagreement and plurality, disunity, must invite controversy. From the political view however, the goal is to find justice through _agreement_, so against the disuniting and dispowering aspects of apathy. In this sense, although having shared methodology and parts (like how the results from discussion can be the basis for political organizing, or how the factual methodology of politics can be discussed), they are, not in content, but in form absolutely opposed. The only way they unite is not theoretically, but practically: when they actually achieve their goal, or absolutely fail at it, so they can, in hindsight, discuss it. (This is in some way a reinterpretation of Hegel's bonmot, that "the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk", that we only really know later what happend - not because the situation is to difficult to understand, but because part of what needs to be understood are the aspects of how it is to act in that situation, the contingencies etc, which can only be seen from a practical view, that is fully accessible to theory only as history, not presence.)
So how can they be confused? Precisely at the point of their articulation. Because each can serve as a method or element for the other, it is too easy to mistake a conversation held in one register for one in the other. I may be discussing what is true about a historical event, or present situation, in order to improve my idea of history as such, but the other may view it as practical, for the purpose to learn from it for a future act, etc. And also, we ourselves do partake in both registers. It's not as if we only talk practically, or only theoretically. There are definitely practical choices, be they in politics or the economy, where we can't just view it as a detached kind of experiment, and there are also definitely theoretical questions, that have nothing to do with practical questions directly, such as moral hypotheticals, aesthetic or mathematical questions. In these cases it is very obvious. In others it is not. But we can try to see in what relation a certain act is, if we ask ourselves, what would satisfy us: truth or justice? and in the opposite, what we would find more abhorrent: ignorance or injustice? and we can try to see what kind of way of thinking we are in. This is not a perfect way of determination, especially in blurry modes of thinking, or forms of denial (be they enthusiastic or doomering), but to even see this question as relevant, to see our speech acts as living in some kind of super-position of dialectical and political, and maybe other, yet not by us noticed methologies of speaking, can give light to the various and somtimes difficult to spot ways they are connected to the different kinds of desires and interests for theory and the search of something like knowledge of and closeness to reality.