The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves. – Vladimir Lenin
Long indeed have the people been perplexed by the endless, topsy-turvy movement of life. Therefore, one of subtle virtue dissolves and eliminates the vicious cycle of duality. – Lao Tzu from Tao Teh Ching 58
Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members…Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. – Ralph Waldo Emerson from Self-Reliance
When I was in college I enjoyed the company of a graduate student in English literature who was also a neighbor of mine. I asked him once why is literary theory so important, and he replied “everything is theory.” I’ve thought about his comment for some time now over the years, and after observing much of the world and culture around us today as well as the historical world that precedes us, it is clear my friend is correct. Everything is theory or shall I say everything has a root in a given theory. In order then to actually understand a given event or person of a given time and place one must seek to understand the various theories or ideas that underpin and underlie those given events or people. No man is an island and likewise no action is genuinely random – all things within a given set or creation have cause and effect relations. Understanding those cause and effect relations helps to better understand the actual actions we are observing and experiencing, and perhaps as one more fully understands the causes and the reasons for those causes one can obtain enough agency and awareness to understand the given action and, if it is better, choose a different set of perceptions through updating and improving the set of theories which are being utilized and implemented. By updating any underlying theories held perhaps we can relieve ourselves of any issues, dilemmas, or concerns haraunging and impinging upon us, our actions, decisions, and ways of viewing, understanding, and living in the world around us.
PLATONIC DIALECTIC
Dialectic has been an integral part of philosophical inquiry for thousands of years. Plato was the first philosopher to promote it most persuasively through his use of dialogue in his writings. The dialectic then is rooted in the Socratic method of humble inquiry. Socrates often claimed to know nothing at all and simply asked questions to seek to understand what someone was saying or advancing. Dialogue then is a fundamental component for Plato’s dialectic when seeking knowledge and understanding. Although the term itself is not used that often in everyday life, the dialectic is pervasive throughout culture and society, whether we are aware of it or not, in a myriad of fashions. However unlike the Platonic and Socratic dialectic where the inquiry is genuine, honest, and sincerely seeking for the truth, nearly all dialectics deployed today have specific agendas to advance and further and therefore are not whole and complete as a form of inquiry, and as such necessarily have and hold particular points of view which are systematically furthered simply through the natural engagement of dialogue, conversation, and interaction. It is only when confronted with a more rigorous, dare I say Spartan-like, adherence to a more genuine Platonic and Socratic dialectic one can begin to see and understand the deceptions at play. Dialectics are systems of understanding, and so if that system is corrupted, then the results also stand to be inaccurate, false, and incomplete, and if left unaddressed those falsities can eventually morph, adapt, and imbed themselves into a given culture or set and give the appearance or patina of an actual truth simply for the fact there is nothing else adjacent enough to contrast, counter, or challenge it.
I’m certain that many a philosopher would argue the claim that the dialectic of Plato and Socrates is pure, pristine, and genuine. And it’s possible they are correct for all modes and methods of philosophical inquiry are flawed in various ways to obtain knowledge and understanding. However we can compare the main dialectics deployed today and discover what flaws they all have and then analyze which is the least flawed or the most flawless. My contention is clearly that the Platonic dialectic is the greatest dialectic philosophy has to offer and when utilized pervasively in a given society or culture will have profound and positive effects. And likewise I contend that the dialectics being utilized today in our current culture and society are not Platonic nor Socratic but instead largely Hegelian, Anti-Hegelian, and materialist and as such are deeply altering, upending, and transforming our society and culture in ways that are not beneficial or advantageous let alone good, beautiful, or true.
When reading Plato there are so many aspects and dynamics available for consideration. The purpose of this discussion is less about the content of Plato’s work, which is absolutely extensive and thrilling, but rather about the nature and process of his epistemological approach to seeking knowledge and understanding namely through the dialectic.
And so with dialectic; when a person starts on the discovery of the absolute by the light of reason only, and without any assistance of sense, and perseveres until by pure intelligence he arrives at the perception of the absolute good, he at last finds himself at the end of the intellectual world, as in the case of sight at the end of the visible. – The Republic Book VII
From this quote in Plato’s Republic we can see the dialectic then is a tool for accessing pure intelligence and perceiving that which Socrates and Plato refer to as the “absolute good.” Dialectic is therefore absolutely critical for a given man or city-state to exercise in order to have real and true justice and goodness in the world around them.
And when I speak of the other division of the intelligble, you will understand me to speak of that other sort of knowledge which reason herself attains by the power of the dialectic, using the hypotheses not as first principles, but only as hypotheses — that is to say, as steps and points of departure into a world which is above hypotheses, in order that she may soar beyond them to the first principle of the whole; and clinging to this and then to that which depends on this, by successive steps she descends again without the aid of any sensible object, from ideas, through ideas, and in ideas she ends. – The Republic Book VI
Here the dialectic is a higher order of thinking that transcends the physical world around us and uses hypotheses as a “point of departure” into a series of reasonings that lead one to first principles, that is to say the absolute and essence of a given thing. Dialectic then overshadows and surpasses physical phenomenon, empirical data sets, and sense perceptions, because all of these forms of knowledge and understanding are ephemeral and constantly changing and fluctuating, which also indicates that these forms of knowledge are clearly not absolutes. First principles do not change or fluctuate; they are fixed and solid, reliable and real, and it is through exercising the power of the dialectic that one can obtain and attain awareness of these first principles. Dialectic then is a process of focusing the mind on a given idea with the intention to find the absolute, unchanging truth of a thing, and through this process of dialogue and engagement the mind recollects or remembers the absolute truth. Dialectic is a method to revelatory understanding which emerges organically through a process of honest conversing, recollecting, and remembering. Plato and Socrates explain that this recollection process is only possible thanks to man’s immortal, human soul.
The soul, then, as being immortal, and having been born again many times, and having seen all things that exist, whether in this world or in the world below, has knowledge of them all; and it is no wonder that she should be able to call to remembrance all that she ever knew about virtue, and about everything; for as all nature is akin, and the soul has learned all things; there is no difficulty in her eliciting or as men say learning, out of a single recollection -all the rest, if a man is strenuous and does not faint; for all enquiry and all learning is but recollection. – Meno
Dialectic is a method of natural knowledge that begins with given hypotheses which through the critical aspect of thinking transcends sense perceptions and particulars and proceeds from idea to idea to first principles which ultimately results in a dynamic and spontaneous understanding or vision of the absolute truth through connection to the eternal and immortal nature of our inward, resident soul. Dialectic is not a form of education per say, but rather a method of honing the mind into greater focus to inspire knowledge that inherently already exists within us, within our very soul. Platonic dialectic then is a form of knowledge that is inward focused through the rigors and strain of the mind that eventually catapult one into the living and dynamic nature of our soul that knows all things absolutely. This process of remembrance then begets the fact that truth and absolutes are already innate within us, and so we do not need to explore or dissect a given particular, some empirical, sensory-based evidence like a scientist examining a leaf through a microscope or a planet through a telescope for example. Empirical observations are of the particular, changing world around us, a world of phenomenon. Such phenomenon can be the source for a given hypotheses for example, which the dialectic can then use to gain knowledge, but in and of themselves sense objects and particulars cannot rise to the occasion of absolute truth. Dialectic then is a secondary form of study or epistemology that springboards from the more basic fields of study that are the empirical sciences. Only with dialectic, through remembrance of the truth already resident within us, are we able to understand and know anything absolutely and truly. Platonic dialectic then is an inner journey through rigorous and genuine inquiry and honest conversation seeking the highest possible truths that result in a flash of understanding, like lightning in the sky – a realization into the truth of things. There is no sophistry, no deception, no distraction, or incompleteness in the Platonic dialectic. It hinges upon the genuine and honest pursuit of truth among like minded souls to obtain and gain absolute understanding and knowledge. There are few more lofty goals or aspirations.
HEGELIAN DIALECTIC
Let us now turn our attention to the more modern dialectics being utilized today and compare the modes, methods, and operations against the Platonic form. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, a German philosopher alive from 1770 to 1831, is arguably the next most notable philosopher to develop a dialectic after Plato. One can speak extensively upon the wide expanse of Hegel’s works and ideas, they are quite significant and impactful in the history of philosophy. For our humble efforts here we would like to focus upon his dialectic, though much of his work is quite interesting to consider and review. Hegel was a German Idealist and in particular an absolute idealist. What does this mean exactly? The German Idealists, very basically, agreed with Plato that the world of ideas and ideal forms are more real than the empirical and measurable particulars in the world around us. For example, the idea or ideal form of a chair is more real or of a higher essence than particular and specific chairs. Hegel, being an absolute idealist as well, also considered that the absolute truth ultimately had to fully encompass and include all the various ideas, particulars, and positions within the whole even if they contradicted each other. The truth then for Hegel was the composite conglomeration of all things. And already the contrast to Plato is apparent and problematic, for Hegel’s philosophy and his dialectic do not elevate or recognize an absolute truth of a given thing to exist beyond the particulars, for the only absolute is the inclusion of all things, including the particular, the phenomenon, and the ideal. Here is a quote from Hegel’s Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences Part One to illustrate this distinction from Plato’s dialectic. Please note Hegel is both a verbose as well as abstract writer which can make for a rather bewildering experience attempting to understand precisely and specifically what is being articulated.
Becoming is the first concrete thought, and therefore the first notion: whereas Being and Nought are empty abstractions. The notion of Being, therefore, of which we sometimes speak, must mean Becoming; not the mere point of Being, which is empty Nothing, any more than Nothing, which is empty Being> in Being then we have Nothing, and in Nothing, Being; but this Being which does not lose itself in Nothing is Becoming. Nor must we omit the distinction, while we emphasise the unity of Becoming; without that distinction we should once more return to abstract Being. Becoming is only the explicit statement of what Being is in its truth.
Hegel then is relegating being and not being as “empty abstractions” and instead arguing that only the “becoming” is “the first concrete” and therefore the only real truth. This is of course most problematic, for the process of becoming is an intermittent state of both being and not being and as such it is inherently contradictory. And yet for Hegel it is this very contradictory nature of becoming that he finds and establishes his dialectic. Absolutes as Plato conceives of them, do not exist for Hegel because such an absolute would be a being and to Hegel being is equivalent to non-being and both are mere abstractions, not true or real. It is only the process of becoming that Hegel recognizes truth and reality and absolute and even then further admits the becoming itself is rampant with contradiction. Hegel’s dialectic, unlike Plato’s, is focused not on an absolute ideal truth of things beyond particulars but rather upon the ephemeral and ever-changing state of the truth of given phenomenon and particulars. For Hegel then there is no real transcendence above or beyond particulars. The full and complete being of a chair, for example, is really equivalent, for Hegel, as the complete non-being of a chair, because neither of them are “real” or “concrete.” In other words Hegel’s dialectic can only travel horizontally across the ever-changing phenomenon of particulars and cannot transcend above or beyond those particulars into ideal forms or being. Hegel’s dialectic then traps one within the endless loop of particulars becoming other particulars becoming other particulars, etc. For Hegel, as an absolute idealist, it is only when all of these becomings, these contradictions of all of the particulars and ideas, have exhausted themselves such that no other contradiction can arise that one has fully comprehended the truth.
It is customary to treat Dialectic as an adventitious art, which for very wantonness introduces confusion
and a mere semblance of contradiction into definite notions. And in that light, the semblance is the nonentity, while the true reality is supposed to belong to the original dicta of understanding. Often, indeed, Dialectic is nothing more than a subjective seesaw of arguments pro and con, where the absence of sterling thought is disguised by the subtlety which gives birth to such arguments. But in its true and proper character, Dialectic is the very nature and essence of everything predicated by mere understanding −− the law of things and of the finite as a whole. Dialectic is different from ‘Reflection’. In the first instance, Reflection is that movement out beyond the isolated predicate of a thing which gives it some reference, and brings out its relativity, while still in other respects leaving it its isolated validity. But by Dialectic is meant the indwelling tendency outwards by which the one−sidedness and limitation of the predicates of understanding is seen in its true light, and shown to be the negation of them. For anything to be finite is just to suppress itself and put itself aside. Thus understood the Dialectical principle constitutes the life and soul of scientific progress, the dynamic which alone gives immanent connection and necessity to the body of science; and, in a word, is seen to constitute the real and true, as opposed to the external, exaltation above the finite. It is of the highest importance to ascertain and understand rightly the nature of Dialectics. Wherever there is movement, wherever there is life, wherever anything is carried into effect in the actual world, there Dialectic is at work. It is also the soul of all knowledge which is truly scientific. – Hegel from Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences Part One
There is much to digest, unpack, and understand in this quote from Hegel to be sure. First Hegel is rather tritely describing the Platonic dialectic where a genuine conversation takes place and travels towards the truth and essence of a given particular. Hegel is claiming that this stream of conversation through the Socratic method is not genuine or conclusive, but instead is inherently fraught with contradictions even once the Platonic dialectic claims to have finally arrived or achieved or transcended into the greater ideal form or essence of the particular. Hegel contends that in fact dialectic is far more mechanistic, much like the mechanistic laws of the universe which Newton had expounded upon in great detail some 100 years earlier, such that each given idea or particular can be contradicted again, affirmed again, negated again, and sublated again into a new thing which itself can be contradicted, affirmed, negated, and sublated again ad infinitum. For Hegel a process oriented, all encompassing dialectic, in contrast to Plato’s goal oriented and transcendent dialectic, is what constitutes science, knowledge, progress as well as what is “real and true.” For Hegel then it would appear the only way to transcend the particulars and phenomenon of the world around us is through a dialectic process of amalgamating the contradictions inherent within all things until all things are exhausted and there is nothing else left to amalgamate at which point one perceives the complete absolute truth of all things. Metaphyically this is a rather pantheistic view of the cosmos and is therefore limited in its transcendental nature and ability. Per the quote above, Hegel does not want dialectic to travel into the realm of the infinite, the absolute, the unchanging truths of things. He does not want dialectic to function as “exaltation above the finite” and therefore constrains dialectic into the finite, the incomplete, the ephemeral.
Clearly Hegel’s dialectic is in opposition to both Plato’s dialectic and metaphysics, for Hegel is essentially constraining himself to the lower, base, sense particulars and phenomenon of the world while Plato strives to ascend to the highest perceptions of the essence of all things, which for Plato is an inward process of recollection through the indwelling and all knowing soul, the real truth and essence of things, while Hegel seeks to struggle with inherent contradictions of particulars and ultimately only able to find respite in a pantheistic embrace of those same contradictions. Both dialectics have a method or process of operations, but they each hold distinctly different final destinations or teleologies as well as oppositional underlying metaphsyical assumptions regarding the nature of things, of truth, and of being which hold grave and severe philosophical implications when implemented.
MARXIST DIALECTIC
Karl Marx is a controversial figure to say the least who did in fact create a powerful, although utterly flawed, dialectic which is widely applied across a range of discplines still to this day. As a young man Marx himself was a Young Hegelian. The Young Hegelians were a philosophical and political movement that utilized Hegel’s works to promote a more radical left-leaning movement in Prussia and Germany. Interestingly Hegelian philosophy was first used and promoted by more conservative right-leaning political thinkers to promote and maintain the existence of the current Prussian state, government, and authority. The use and relation of Hegel’s work in politics is a vast and complicated discussion separate from our purposes here, but suffice it to say that Hegel’s influence is traced through a wide range of political movements from Italian fascism, both Russian and Chinese communism, as well as the civil rights movement in the United States. Conversely the Nazi’s for example resolutely rejected Hegel. Suffice it to say Hegelian philosophy had a massive impact on both the 19th and 20th century across the political spectrum, and that influence, for or against, can be largely attributed to Karl Marx and how Marx advanced and furtherd Hegel’s philosophy particularly his dialectic. Although Marx himself was a Young Hegelian early in his life and career, Marx’s dialectic is actually most famous for upending Hegel’s dialectic. In 1873 in the Afterward to the Second German Edition of his most famous work Das Kapital, Marx wrote the following:
My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of “the Idea,” he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of “the Idea.” With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.
What does it mean then for Marx to have a dialectic that is the “direct opposite” of Hegel’s? Recall that Hegel was an idealist which is to say that he, like Plato, recognized that ideas were transcendent or of a higher nature and order than the particular, physical things we can sense and see. As Hegel’s dialectic is centered upon states of oscillating contradictions between Being, Non-Being, and Becoming, Hegel ultimately views any particular contradictions and oscillations as resolving themselves eventually into a grand absolute truth that is also an idealistic truth or a truth that is an idea, not a material particular. Hegel then seeks to find the one absolute Idea through the oscillating contradictions of the particulars. In contrast, Plato seeks to find the absolute Idea by first transcending the oscillating contradictions of the particulars altogether and to then philosophize from idea to idea until ultimately achieving the one absolute idea. Although Hegel’s dialectic fundamentally alters and debases Plato’s dialectic by focusing upon phenomenon, both Hegel and Plato ultimately seek an absolute Idea. Marx, by taking the “direct opposite” of the Hegelian dialectic, is then reversing Hegel’s process and instead focuses on ideas as the forms of contradiction and that ideas are themselves solely and directly related to materiality, particulars, and sense objects. Marxist dialectic then ultimately results not in an absolute idea or truth like Hegel but rather in an absolute material form as truth. This is why Marx’s dialectic is often rebranded and renanmed as the Materialist dialectic, because Marx is a complete materialist which is to say that ideas are completely limited and tied to material forms and therefore no idea can exist outside of or beyond materiality. This is what Marx means when he says in the quote above, “With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind.” For Marx then the ideal is not an idea or a form transcendent from the material world, but rather is itself the material world. In this way Marx’s dialectic has a decidedly un-transcendent nature and trajectory. Rather than attempting to elevate man’s philosophical mind to something beyond or greater than sense particulars or materiality, Marx rather redirects the philosophical effort precisely and solely into materiality, attempting to make the material itself transcendent. From this vantage point it is clear to see how such a materialist dialectic can be easily utilized and manipulated in politics to further a particular material, geographic, and economic agenda for example.
And in the years after Marx’s dialectic, this is exactly what occurs. Within a few decades, Vladimir Lenin, being very well read in both Hegel and Marx among many others, further implements the Marxist, Materialist dialectic and overthrows the Russian monarchy creating the world’s first socialist state. He then further advanced politically within that new state and crushed his own internal, socialist opponents to gain complete authoritative and political control, in precisely the manner described in the dialectic. The materialist dialectic then has a very clear and observable telelogy, namely absolute control. Hegel’s teleology lies in an absolute idea, pantheistic absolute truth of all things, while Marx’s teleology, reversing Hegel, culminates is an absolute materiality which politically corresponds to authoritarianism. Marx simply reverses Hegel and makes the absolute material while Lenin then furthers Marx’s dialectic into actual, physical, political, and economic practice through an authoritarian state. It is the same with Stalin who created an official Soviet dialectic in the book he wrote entitled Dialectical and Historical Materialism. Ironically Stalin’s official, Soviet dialectic is itself conservative in nature as it seeks to preserve and maintain the current Soviet order. Just like the Old Hegelians who used Hegel’s dialectic to entrench their current Prussian state and monarchy, so too does Stalin utilize dialectic to entrench his own state and authority. Even more ironically it is those very same Old Hegelians whom Marx originally rejected and opposed as a Young Hegelian himself and sought to use Hegel’s dialectic to further radical transformation of the Prussian state. Lenin, like both Marx and Stalin, implemented dialectic to first overthrow the Russian monarchy and then to solidify his own position of power and authority, thereby exemplifying Hegel’s notion of inherent contradiction within particulars. Ironically enough Lenin himself is inconsistent and lacks any real absolute truth to his pursuits for he exemplifies the being, non-being, becoming contradictory process of Hegel’s dialectic. The more one focuses and insists upon the material particulars so too does one become more like them and their contradictory, oscillating, inconsistent nature.
The very reason Plato rejects images and particulars is because they are ever-changing, contradictory, and illusory. It is this very reason that such material things cannot be true or final harbingers of the absolute truth, and why any legitimate philosophy must by its very nature seek to transcend and overcome such ephemerals in order to attain any higher realizations of absolute truth. Hegel unfortunately rejected such a notion though still held to some form of an ideal like Plato. Marx took Hegel’s work and flipped it upside down to now fully reject any possibility of achieving, accessing, or even recognizing any absolute truth that is beyond materiality and particulars, even if those particulars are ever-changing and contradictory. Although Marx reverses Hegel’s dialectic, he does hold and maintain much of Hegel’s work. In the same Afterward already quoted above, Marx up-ends and critiques Hegel’s dialectic while also still praising him and his work.
The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.
Marx then does credit him for being the first philosopher to provide a dyanmic map and matrix of how his dialectic functions in “its general form of working in a comprehensive and consious manner” even if Marx also reverses his dialectic upside down. Marx then takes Hegel’s dialectic matrix and by turning it “right side up again” creates an unbelievably powerful and persuasive theoritical machine for instilling change and transformation in a given society, political body, or economic system. Anything that relies upon material things can now be transformed through a process of highlighting material contradictions, which are inherent in particulars, and through such contradictions oscillate the given society or structure from itself to its non-self and back again to a new self altogether. And as Hegel describes thoroughly in his dialectic, the process of transforming being into non-being into becoming is the catalyst for transforming the original being into a new being that is neither its original being nor its original non-being. It is now a new being that has emerged out of the becoming which itself is ladden with inherent contradiction, allowing this dialectic process to continue and carry on again and again until power and control are ultimately consolidated into one absolute authority or truth. In the example of Russia, it was first a monarchy and then in 1917 it became a socialist state, now years later it has emerged out of that Soviet Union into a new form that is neither full monarchy nor full socialist, but in all cases it was, has always been, and still is Russian. Both Hegel’s and Marx’s dialectics then are powerful forms of mutation and transformation, but unlike Plato’s dialectic, these fail to actually elevate or transcend the material phenomenon. Their mutations then are lateral and horizontal perhaps even infinite, and in the case of Marx completely trapped within the material, while Plato, alternatively, seeks for a vertical transformation through a process of genuine conversation, dialogue, and recollection through the dynamics of man’s resident, divine, and all knowing soul ultimately resting upon the laurels of absolute truth. The justice of the city-state being analogous to the justice of a man being analogous to the justice and order of the cosmos, but all forms still reliant ultimately upon the absolute truth of what is Justice. These differences in approach and process highlight how vital dialectic truly is, for it can radically alter and restructure the nature of life, agent, and ethics in a given society. The ethics of a materialist being largely justified by basic materiality and control versus ethics being justified by what is actually and absolutely true beyond all materiality into man’s divine soul.
Dialectic is an extremely powerful tool that depending on its philosophical structure and nature can be utilized for extremely powerful and effective transformation, whether that be philosophical, social, or even political and economic. And since my old neighbor rightly states, “Everything is theory,” it is vitally important to understand and recognize what theories underlie the various forms, movements, and agendas in the world around us and within us. In all dialectics there is a dialogue, a conversation occuring, one of the differences lies in how those varying sides interplay and relate to each other. For Plato contradictory positions regarding what is justice, what is truth, or anything else are to be engaged genuinely together, peacefully, and in good faith to seek and pursue what larger, more absolute truth overshadows them, leading them to greater awareness of themselves, the world around them, and the all knowing divinity of the soul within them. Hegel refuses the ability to resolve contradictions in this Platonic manner and instead insists that all things remain contradictory in a fluctuating state of becoming, being, and non-being with the state of becoming the only real true aspect. Marx accepts Hegel’s perpetual contradiction and process dialectic but instead of pursuing any larger ultimate absolute meta-material truth, instead contends that the only truth or reality lies in the material, physical forms themselves. Looking upon the world around us and within us it is clear we can find oppposing views, contradictions, and states of change. The question for all us, and often being conveniently answered for us in various ways by institutions, governments, and agencies the world over, is precisely how do we relate to these phenomenon. How do we resolve ourselves to them? What is in fact the actual truth of things and does that look, behave, or form itself in more particular ways than not? Are there greater and lesser ways of expressing and communicating ourselves and if so what is the science, mechanism, and relation for implementing those ways? These are questions of the dialectic that span the ages now for thousands of years and still are an incredible point of struggle today. I will close with quoting from Plato’s Phaedrus that we may look to ourselves, to each other, and to the great absolute for our true and wondrous divine, dialectic communion.
But nobler far is the serious pursuit of the dialectician, who, finding a congenial soul, by the help of science sows and plants therein words which are able to help themselves and him who planted them, and are not unfruitful, but have in them a seed which others brought up in different soils render immortal, making the possessors of it happy to the utmost extent of human happiness. – Phaedrus