Dialectical Martial Arts (Patreon)

By Sam (@StuffFromSam)

Despite the right-wing, reactionary, nationalistic culture within martial arts globally; despite its connections to the military, police, aristocratic family lineages, and market systems—many socialist martial artists still read Left philosophy within East Asian martial arts. Are they imagining things, or is there something to it?

The connection to bottom-up resistance is clearer when you look at the martial arts that came out of Africa and into the Americas to not only fend off enslavers but also preserve culture.

What people are noticing with East Asian martial arts is the influence of Taoism, which very much resembles dialectical materialism. Everything is motion; everything is action/reaction, cause and effect. Where everything is accounted for, and synthesis is not only the goal but also the outcome.

The other aspect is the Confucian work ethic. That physical effort and labor are what give something value. However, this virtue is near-universal in all martial arts, even in the West. Therefore, socialist ideas have existed in Europe long before the formalization of any socialist political philosophies.

But in Asia and East Asian martial arts, just as Taoism and Confucianism coexist together, so does dialectical materialism, unity, and the emphasis on labor. Perhaps not always in practice, but almost all of martial arts philosophy IS socialistic. For the weak to overcome the strong, from being disadvantaged to gaining the advantage, and for the bottom to defeat the top. Drawing from trial and error, science, and the observation of nature.

However, it is NOT only that. The point isn't only utility to kill but also preservation and passing on of culture. If read from a lens of "the best way to kill" utility, then many of the movements and methods won't make sense. From a cultural perspective, the movements, forms, and aesthetics model traditional dance, storytelling, folklore, along with family traditions. Preserving culture is ALSO resistance. In fact, thinking ONLY secular self-defense is not resistance or bottom-up at all. It's libertarian and colonial.

The system and philosophy CAN exist independently. The socialistic pedagogy can be removed from the martial arts system. (Practice without praxis.) Speaking from a US perspective, East Asian martial arts were introduced to the US by US military members. Many of the instructors, even to this day, are either police or former military. With neoliberal capitalism, the emphasis has been on markets, commercialization, privatization, intellectual property, and maximizing dollars per square foot. Even "traditional" martial arts schools that emphasize philosophy have removed the socialistic concepts. Just as when liberals mention Grace Lee Boggs, they don't mention she was a communist. They point to the East but not to Eastern values. Instead, they project Western values and stereotypes onto Eastern systems and traditions. Then from the US, it is spread to the world, even working its way back to Asia. Much like Western yoga has worked its way back to India. (In the case of yoga, it might be more accurate to say that it came from Europe, went to India, went to the US, then back to India.)

Be that as it may, the first principles of East Asian martial arts are survival and flourishing, and using observation to see patterns that already exist in nature. This is not only dialectical but also Taoistic (yin-yang, praxis-practice). Value in labor and culture are not only decolonial and socialistic but also Confucianistic. Much of this has broad overlap with martial arts writ large.

As socialists, we cannot think of martial arts/self-defense as secular from our politics but as dialectical. One informs the other, and within you lies the synthesis. This is why for both the martial artist and the socialist, one must continuously improve.