Many people are no longer able to follow a line of thought. They focus
on particulars, tangents and "rabbit trails" rather than on the main ideas
that are presented.
Even if they are "spoon fed" a line of thought, they still may not be
able to follow it. In spoon feeding a baby, the mother may pick up bits of food
the baby has spit out and put it back in its mouth. The person who cannot
understand a line of thought may "spit some it out."
Responding to a line of thought by use of the dialectic
may be partly a result - in our dialectic culture - of the person not having the attention
span to follow it or the willingness to take the time to understand it.
However, the dialectic is also used quite often when the line of thought opposed is
understood, in order to try to change the
attitude and belief of the person who brought up that line of thought,and/or
that of others in a group.
To learn to identify the use of the dialectic in discourse, you need verbatim records of conversations illustrating its use. When one person presents an opinion, idea or piece of information, this is the "thesis." Another person may want to change that other person's position. This is then the second person's "antithesis" to the "thesis," an "anti-thesis." Or the antithesis is brought up in an effort to change a group's position by using the person who presented the thesis as an example.
Usually, with the dialectic, the "facilitator" who tries to change an opinion, perception, idea or bit of information will not immediately challenge the thesis head on. The facilitator may even begin by appearing to agree with the thesis, or will claim he agrees with it in part. Then, the facilitator side steps a head on challenge of the thesis based on fact, and challenges the thesis from the side. Sometimes this is where using one particular point, not the main point, of the thesis comes it. The facilitator will focus on one point and make it the focus of attention, in part, changing the thesis to that one point. Or, the facilitator will bring up a point that appears to be somewhat irrelevant to the thesis. Or, the facilitator will misrepresent the thesis slightly or in big way. There are other methods of using the dialectic.
Dean Gotcher emphasizes the role of acceptance by the group which the person who brings up a thesis belongs to. The dialectic works better when the person targeted wants to be accepted by the group. He may be willing to compromise his position in order to gain group acceptance. The facilitator works to crate group coherence and agreement on the issue at hand. This use of group acceptance can work also with an Internet forum, where there tends to be some agreement on positions, but there are factions also in the group, which may be in the minority. The user of the dialectic, the facilitator in the Internet forum situation, may try to appeal to the majority view against the minority view. This assumes the target person, part of the minority, or a minority of one in some cases, wants acceptance by the group, or at least wants some in the group to accept his views.
Gotcher talks a lot about the contemporary origins of the dialectic. He especially spends time in talking about the following guys in history:
Georg Friedrich Hegel (1770 � 1831)
Karl Marx (1818 � 1883)
Abraham Maslow
Carl Rogers
Irvin Yalom
Theodor Adorno
Erick Fromm
Norman O. Brown
Herbart Marcuse
Adorno and Marcuse were core members of the Frankfurt School. Fromm was similar to them
in ideology. Theodor W. Adorno, who was the senior author of the highly influential book, The Authoritian Personality (1950), posed as a social psychologist, and taught that fascism is caused by
Christianity and the strong family. The Frankfurt School, which included Wilhelm Reich on its fringes, represented what is called cultural Marxism. They set out to overthrow the major institutions of the West, especially Christianity and the family, by non-violent means, rather than by the violent means of classical Marxism. The dialectic is one important procedure in overthrowing the foundational institutions of the West.
But - the dialectic is not limited to cultural Marxism, because its use spread to the institutions of society, including the Christian church, And in the churches, the dialectic is not limited to the Rick Warren type of mega-churches, which emphasize church growth more than adherence to the Gospel.
Cultural Marxism, via the Frankfurt School, began to be spread from the major universities, especially from the University of California at Berkeley in the early fifties. Those in personality and social psychology became familiar with the Adorno book and the huge number of attitude studies that grew from it. A few years later, the cultural Marxism movement, plus Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers self psychology, spread to higher education and soon to the public school. This is where Dean Gotcher encountered the dialectic since he was in education.
