Muni-muni ni Milan Kundera (1984) sa isang ‘teolohikal na problema’:

When I was small and would leaf through the Old Testament retold for children and illustrated in engravings by Gustave Dore, I saw the Lord God standing on a cloud. He was an old man with eyes, nose, and a long beard, and I would say to myself that if He had a mouth, He had to eat. And if He ate, He had intestines. But that thought always gave me a fright, because even though I come from a family that was not particularly religious, I felt the idea of a divine intestine to be sacrilegious. Spontaneously, without any theological training, I, a child, grasped the incompatibility of God and shit and thus came to question the basic thesis of Christian anthropology, namely, that man was created in God’s image. Either/or: either man was created in God’s image—and God has intestines!—or God lacks intestines and man is not like Him. The ancient Gnostics felt as I did at the age of five. In the second century, the great Gnostic master Valentinus resolved the damnable dilemma by claiming that Jesus ate and drank, but did not defecate. Shit is a more onerous theological problem than is evil.

Mula sa gawa ni Pet (sketch: Tatlong Matalinong Unggoy, 2009)

May nakakabit-laging mga elementong pulitikal kahit sa mga maliliit na kasiyahan na natututunan ng tao sa kasalukuyang mundong kanyang ginagalawan. Dahil naging bahagi na ng mga di-pansing mga ‘panaginip’ ng (idyotiko at) ‘karaniwang-buhay’ ang maraming elemento ng sistemang Kapital, mahirap bitiwan ang mga ‘walang-kwentang’ kasiyahan (Fredric Jameson: compensatory desires and intoxications) ng kasalukuyang kaayusan para lamang mabuhay. (Tingnan: Modes of dreaming)

Mintal/Calinan (Davao City), circa 1950s

Ito ang hybrid fantasy/social realist na pabalat ng pinakahuling akda ni Fredric Jameson (Valences of the Dialectic, 2009; rebyu). Nasa sentro ng usaping teoretikal ngayon ang konsepto ng ‘dayalektika’ bilang sistema at metodo—na sa kasawiang-palad ay natagpas ayon sa dualistikong sistema/Hegel: metodo/Marx, lalong-lalo na ng mga ‘Marxistang di-seryosong natuto kay Hegel’:

[T]he Hegel revival, which seems as vigorous today as it will ever be, promises to ensure the inclusion of many indispensable “theological niceties” that a Marxism unschooled in Hegel left out or even censored.

Mangyari pa, sentral rin ang tanong kung ipagpapatuloy ang pagsasawalang-bahala sa mahahalagang konseptong nabuo ni Hegel—dala ng tradisyong Unyong Sobyet, Althusser, at iba pa, sa pagmamaliit kay Hegel bilang simpleng ‘ideyalista’ (at kung ‘ideyalista’ nga, ano ngayon?); na, maisisingit rin dito,  hindi makikita kay Lenin. Ang seryosong pagbabalik-aral kay Hegel ay may kaugnayan ngayon sa pagbubuhay-muli sa istatus ng (matatag na) pilosopiya at pamimilosopiya bilang isang natatanging praktika (at pulitika) na hindi maaaring tunawin ng kasalukuyang pagsamba sa isang magaspang na ideolohiya ng Siyensya (o tipo ng siyentismo ng ika-21 siglo).

Isang buong ‘di pa halus nagalugad na kontinente’ ang nais pasukin ni Jameson: kontra karaniwang pang-unawa tungkol sa Hegelyanismo ni Marx, binigyang-diin niya ang di-napapansing ‘Marxismo ni Hegel’. 

I would rather propose for current purposes a more unusual version, namely Hegel’s Marxism. This virtually unexplored continent would certainly include the dialectic itself, and it would find encouragement in Lukacs’ pioneering study of the formative studies of classical political economy in Berne, in Young Hegel. It would necessarily attempt to reevaluate the Master/Slave dialectic which Alexandre Kojeve famously placed on the agenda. But I like to think that, in the age of consumerism and the world market, reification would also come in for some attention.

Isang ala-21 siglong pag-eensayo sa istilong dayalektikal ng Hegelyanong Penomenolohiya ng Isip ang ginawa ni Jameson sa bahaging ‘Ang Globalisasyon bilang Suliraning Pilosopikal’, isang birtusong patikim mula sa isang maestro kung paano isagawa ang isang tipo ng Hegelyanong Marxismo sa analisis ng ‘globalisasyon’ bilang dayalektikang sayaw ng mga kategoryang Identity at Difference na hahantong sa ganitong paglalagom: 

Now I have little enough time to summarize what may seem to have been a never ending series of paradoxes: such an impression would already mark a useful beginning, insofar as it awakens the suspicion that our problems lie as much in our categories of thought as in the sheer facts of the matter themselves. And that would be, I think, the meaning and function of a return to Hegel today, as over against Althusser. The latter is surely right about his materialist dialectic, his semi-autonomous levels, his structural casualty and his overdetermination: if you look for those things in Hegel you find what everybody knew all along, namely that he was simply an idealist. But the right way of using Hegel is not that way; it lies rather in precisely those things he was capable of exploring because he was an idealist, namely the categories themselves, the modes and forms of thought in which we inescapably have to think things through, but which have a logic of their own to which we ourselves fall victim if we are unaware of their existence and their informing influence on us. Thus in the most famous chapter of the Greater Logic, Hegel tells us how to handle such potentially troublesome categories as those of Identity and Difference. You begin with Identity, he says, only to find that it is always defined in terms of its Difference with something else; you turn to Difference and find out that any thoughts about that involve thoughts about the “identity” of this particular category. As you begin to watch Identity turn into Difference and Difference back into Identity, then you grasp both as an inseparable Opposition, you learn that they must always be  thought together. But after learning that you find out that they are not in opposition, you find rather, that in some other sense, they are one and the same as each other. At that point you have approached the Identity of identity and non-identity, and in the most momentous single reversal in Hegel’s entire system suddenly Opposition stands unveiled as Contradiction. 

This is always the point we want to reach in the dialectic, we want to uncover  phenomena and find their ultimate contradictions behind them. And this was Brecht’s notion of dialectic, to hold fast to the contradictions in all things, which make them change and evolve in time. But in Hegel, Contradiction then passes over into its Ground, into what I would call the situation itself; the serial view or the map of the totality in which things happen and History takes place. I like to think that it is something like this movement of the categories—producing each other, and evolving into ever new viewpoints—that Lenin saw and learned in Hegel, in his reading of him during the first weeks and months of World War I. But I would also like to think that these are lessons we can still put to use today, not least in our attempts to grasp the still ill-defined and ever emerging effects of that phenomenon we have begun to call globalization.

Ilang marhinal na tala sa isang popular na pag-unawa sa dayalektika:

(1) Senyales ng isang teoretikal na kalabuan ang paglalapat sa Dawismo/Taoismong yin/yang na pananaw sa paglalarawan ng ‘dayalektika’, lalo pa’t ang dalawang ito—yin/yang at Hegelyanong dialektik–imbes na magkapareho, ay matalas na magkataliwas. May kaugnay na komentaryo dito si Jameson:

But dualistic oppositions posit absolute equals or equivalents, turning Hegel’s minimal dialectic into an eternal alternation between identical forces which it is finally impossible to adjudicate: turning ceaselessly into one another in such a way that, as with Manichaeism, the forces of light become indistinguishable from those of darkness or good from evil. The fundamental problem of such mythic dualisms—their secret conceptual and even dialectical weakness, as it were —lies in the implication that each term or force is fully positive, and wholly autonomous in its own right. Yet as each is the opposite of the other one despite everything, it is hard to see where in that case that portion of negativity could come from which is presumably required of each term in order that it also be an opposite in the first place.

(2) Kailangan ring mabura ang pormulasyong Hegel = tesis/antitesis/sintesis dahil isang seryosong teoretikal na hadlang ito sa radikal na implikasyong pilosopikal (at metodolohikal) ng konseptong ‘dayalektika’: 

Here too, to be sure, we begin with the denunciation of that stupid old stereotype according to which Hegel works, according to a tripartite and cut-and-dried progression from thesis through antithesis to synthesis. But this is completely erroneous, as there are no real syntheses in Hegel and the dialectical operation is to be seen in an utterly different way [...].

Tinalakay ni Erik Olin Wright sa kanyang bagong akda (Envisioning Real Utopias, 2010) ang limitasyon at halaga ng tinatawag niyang interstitial strategies sa pagpapalitaw ng sosyalistang alternatibo sa kasalukuyang sistemang panlipunan. 

Link sa website ng proyektong ito ni Wright: http://realutopias.org/

Mabilisang makita ang sentral na ideya ni Wright sa sumusunod na klasipikasyon ng ‘tatlong modelo ng pagbabago’, ang ruptural (lusubin ang estado), interstitial (lumikha ng mga larangan sa labas ng estado, o di-kaya’y ‘loob’ din: pagkilos sa ‘mga puwang at giwang ng kasalukuyang nangingibabaw na kaayusang panlipunan/pangkapangyarihan (in the spaces and cracks within some dominant social structure of power)—na interesanteng tinitingnan ni Wright bilang mas kumikiling sa ‘anarkistang tradisyon’), at symbiotic (gamitin ang estado):

Ganito ang buod ng ini-endorsong estratehiya ni Wright:

If one believes that systemic ruptural strategies of emancipatory transformation are not plausible, at least under existing historical conditions, then the only real alternative is some sort of strategy that envisions transformation largely as a process of metamorphosis in which relatively small transformations cumulatively generate a qualitative shift in the dynamics and logic of a social system. This does not imply that transformation is a smooth, non-conflictual process that somehow transcends antagonistic interests. A democratic egalitarian project of social emancipation is a challenge to exploitation and domination, inequality and privilege, and thus emancipatory metamorphosis requires struggles over power and confrontations with dominant classes and elites. In practice, therefore, an emancipatory metamorphosis will require some of the strategic elements of the ruptural model: the history of the future – if it is to be a history of emancipatory social empowerment – will be a trajectory of victories and defeats, winners and losers, not simply of compromise and cooperation between differing interests and classes. The episodes of that trajectory will be marked by institutional innovations that will have to overcome opposition from those whose interests are threatened by democratic egalitarianism, and some of that opposition will be nasty, recalcitrant and destructive. So, to invoke metamorphosis is not to abjure struggle, but to see the strategic goals and effects of struggle in a particular way: as the incremental modifications of the underlying structures of a social system and its mechanisms of social reproduction that cumulatively transform the system, rather than as a sharp discontinuity in the centers of power of the system as a whole.

Sa tingin ni Wright, habang masasabing ang kapitalismo ay isang di-sinasadyang epekto ng mga kagilirang proseso ng mga artisano at mangangalakal sa loob ng sistemang pyudal, isang kinusa at sistematikong pinag-iisipang pagkilos ang (pangalanan nating muli bilang) ‘estratehiyang puwang-giwang’: 

An interstitial strategy, in contrast, involves the deliberate development of interstitial activities for the purpose of fundamental transformation of the system as a whole.

Hindi nakaligtaang banggitin ni Wright ang kadalasang kritika ng mga Marxista sa estratehiyang ito—dahil mismo umiiral ito sa mga maliliit na mga giwang at puwang ng panlipunang larangan, hindi talaga ito seryosong humahamon sa kapangyarihan ng estado, bagkus isa itong ‘pag-urong sa tunggaliang pulitikal’ (they may even strengthen capitalism by siphoning off discontent and creating the illusion that if people are unhappy with the dominant institutions they should just go off and live their lives in alternative settings)—gayumpaman, tinitingnan niyang napaka-pisimistiko at napakalupit ng husgang ito. Habang wala siyang nakikitang totohanang alternatibo at komprehensibong estratehiya sa kasalukuyang panahon mula sa modelong ruptural, mas nagbubukas siya sa interstitial  na mga posibilidad:

The fact is that in present historical conditions no strategy credibly poses a direct threat to the system in the sense that there are good grounds for believing that adopting the strategy today will generate effects in the near future that would really threaten capitalism. This is what it means to live in a hegemonic capitalist system: capitalism is sufficiently secure and flexible in its basic structures that there is no strategy possible that immediately threatens it. The strategic problem is to imagine things we can do now which have reasonable chances of opening up possibilities under contingent conditions in the future. Interstitial strategies, of course, may ultimately be dead-ends and be permanently contained within narrow limits, but it is also possible that under certain circumstances they can play a positive role in a long-term trajectory of emancipatory social transformation.

May mga ehemplo ng kasalukuyang praktika na, para kay Wright, ay mahalagang isa-teorya bilang mga interstitial strategies:

Wikipedia is the result of people building an alternative noncapitalist form of knowledge production within the extraordinary space of interstitial activity called the Internet. Many projects within the social economy are the result of interstitial strategies, even if as in Quebec some of them receive important subsidies from the state. Worker-owned cooperatives are the quintessential form of interstitial organization at the center of classical anarchist strategies of interstitial transformation. To this list many other empirical examples could be added: a wide variety of internet-based strategies that subvert capitalist intellectual property rights (eg. Napster, the music-sharing site); open-source software and technology projects; fair trade networks designed to link producer cooperatives in poor countries to consumers in rich countries; efforts to create global labor and environmental standards through various kinds of monitoring and certification projects. Within each of these interstitial activities, many of the actors involved see what they are doing as part of a strategy for broad social change, not simply as self-limiting activities motivated by life-style preferences or the desire to “do good works”. The question then is how these kinds of interstitial activities could have broad transformative, emancipatory effects for the society as a whole? What is the underlying logic through which they might cumulatively contribute to making another world possible?