Thursday, September 07, 2006

Pol Pot on the dialectic

"Everything is interrelated. This means that all things always have influence on one another. It further means that nothing can exist by itself and has never existed by itself. Observe activities in our revolution or problems outside of the revolution. They are all in the domain of this law.

"Example: In the situation of a person who has injured a buffalo's leg. We must analyze. If we do not, the buffalo will be put in the stable and the next morning it will be let out to pasture. We must ask if the child or the old man who tends the animal injured it, or who else did; and if it was done, why? Was it unintentional, or was it to oppose the cooperative. Look for a person who has something to do with this matter, the person who tends the animal and the places where he tended the animal in order to find out if anyone other than the cowherd himself could have injured the animal. The cowherd, what composition is he, what class stand, what political stand, which milieu is his stand in contact with? If the cowherd did not injure the animal, ask him if anyone came to the place where the animal was, etc. We follow up. Following up is a measure. If we cannot find out in one or two days, we will find out in three or four days.

"A skinny cow is handled similarly. We must find out what is wrong with it. Why is it skinny, what material reason, what reason of consciousness? We raise this matter in order to illustrate the law of dialectical materialism in order to accustom our analyses to follow this law."

from Sharpen the Consciousness of the Proletarian Class to be as Keen and Strong as Possible (1976), translated and reprinted in Cambodia 1975 - 1978, ed. Karl D. Jackson

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