I asked DeepSeek about the dialectical relationship between the “people” and an “other”, and it came up with a good answer.
Excellent question. The concept of a dialectical relationship between a “people” (or in-group) and an “other” (out-group) is a cornerstone of modern social and political philosophy. There is no single “definitive” writer, as the idea has been developed and refined by several key thinkers across different traditions.
The most definitive and influential works come from a blend of Continental philosophy, political theory, and post-colonial studies.
Here is a breakdown of the key thinkers and their seminal works, moving from the philosophical foundation to its concrete political and social applications.
1. The Philosophical Foundation: G.W.F. Hegel
While he didn’t use the terms “people” and “other,” Hegel provided the fundamental dialectical model that all subsequent thinkers built upon.
- Key Concept: The Master-Slave Dialectic (Lordship and Bondsmanship)
- Found In: Phenomenology of Spirit (1807)
The Argument: Consciousness does not exist in a vacuum; it becomes aware of itself only through encountering another consciousness. This encounter is initially a “life-and-death struggle” for recognition. The one who chooses to dominate becomes the Master; the one who submits to avoid death becomes the Slave.
- Dialectical Twist: The Master’s identity is now dependent on the Slave’s recognition. However, this recognition is meaningless because the Slave is not an equal. The Master is trapped in a stagnant, dependent existence. The Slave, through work and transforming the world, actually develops a stronger sense of self-consciousness and independence.
- Why it’s Definitive: This is the classic template: the Self (the “people”) defines itself against the Other, but in doing so, becomes fundamentally dependent on that Other for its own identity. The relationship is mutually constitutive and fraught with tension.
2. The Existential-Phenomenological Development: Jean-Paul Sartre
Sartre applied and popularized Hegel’s dialectic in a more accessible, existential context.
- Key Concept: “The Gaze” (The Look)
- Found In: Being and Nothingness (1943)
The Argument: The “Other” is the one who looks at me. In their gaze, I become an object. I am no longer the free, subjective center of my own world; I am defined, limited, and “fixed” by the Other. My own sense of self is shaken, and I am forced to see myself as the Other sees me.
- Application: In his Anti-Semite and Jew (1946), Sartre argues that “the Jew is one whom other men consider a Jew… it is the anti-Semite who makes the Jew.” This is a direct application of the dialectic: Jewish identity, in this analysis, is shaped in reaction to the hostile gaze and definition imposed by the anti-Semitic “people.”
3. The Most Direct and Influential Answer: Frantz Fanon
Fanon synthesized Hegel and Sartre and applied them directly to the colonial context, creating what is perhaps the most powerful and definitive analysis of the “people” vs. “other” dialectic in a political setting.
- Key Concept: The Racial-Epistemic Dialectic
- Found In: Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and The Wretched of the Earth (1961)
The Argument: Fanon experienced Sartre’s “gaze” as a Black man in a white-dominated world. The colonizer (the “people”) creates the colonized (the “other”) as fundamentally inferior, savage, and non-human. This is not just a political or economic act but a psychological and epistemic one—it invades the very mind of the colonized.
- The Dialectic: The white colonizer defines himself as rational, civilized, and human by contrasting himself with the Black “other,” whom he constructs as primitive, emotional, and savage. The Black person internalizes this “othering,” leading to a profound psychological crisis and self-alienation.
- The Synthesis: For Fanon, the only way to break this destructive dialectic is through violent struggle. By fighting back, the colonized “other” reclaims their humanity, shatters the colonizer’s myth, and forges a new, liberated identity. The relationship is not just one of recognition but of violence and liberation.
4. The Poststructuralist Elaboration: Edward Said
Said took this framework and applied it to the cultural and academic discourse of the West about the “Orient.”
- Key Concept: Orientalism
- Found In: Orientalism (1978)
The Argument: The “West” (the “people”) has constructed its identity by creating a fictional “Orient” (the “other”). The Orient is defined as everything the West is not: irrational, despotic, feminine, backward, and exotic. This is not an objective study but a discourse of power that allows the West to define, classify, and ultimately dominate the East.
- The Dialectic: The identity of the “rational, democratic, masculine” West is entirely dependent on its constructed opposite, the “irrational, despotic, feminine” Orient. One cannot exist without the other. This is a dialectic of knowledge and power.
Summary Table
| Thinker | Core Work | Their Dialectic | Key Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| G.W.F. Hegel | Phenomenology of Spirit | Master vs. Slave | Established the foundational model: self-consciousness is formed through a struggle for recognition with an “Other.” |
| Jean-Paul Sartre | Being and Nothingness | Self vs. The Gaze | Popularized the concept that the “Other” objectifies and defines the Self through their look. |
| Frantz Fanon | Black Skin, White Masks | Colonizer vs. Colonized | Applied the dialectic directly to race and colonialism, emphasizing its psychological violence and the need for liberation. |
| Edward Said | Orientalism | The West vs. The Orient | Showed how the dialectic operates through cultural discourse and academic knowledge to create and maintain power. |
Conclusion:
If you are looking for the most definitive and direct analysis of the dialectical relationship between a “people” and an “other” in a modern social and political context, Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth are the essential texts. They build directly on the philosophical foundations of Hegel and Sartre to explain the brutal, real-world mechanics of how identities are forged through oppression, resistance, and the struggle for recognition.
I then asked it about the Asian redpill’s fascination with women in WMAF (white male, Asian female) relationships. I asked because I’d been mired in reading about it. DeepSeek produced some interesting text, but it also felt off, because there’s really a triadic relationship there, and it drifts from personal experience to societal post-colonial ideas, and the people writing about it are angry, and have different positions about it.
I’m suspecting the discourse on Reddit is probably good enough to allow the LLM to write at length about it, but also crap enough that it’s not going produce useful information.
Then, I asked it about alternatives to the dialectic, and it suggested Deleuze. I never really “got” Deleuze, because I started with Anti-Oedipus, and didn’t know anything about psychiatry. Deleuze was popular in the 1990s, and I missed out on what the cool kids were reading. So I asked DeepSeek to help me study Deleuze. I don’t know if this text is good, or not.
Important Essays and Books to Read
Deleuze is not an essayist in the traditional sense; his key ideas are developed in full-length books. However, some books are more accessible and can be treated as collections of interconnected essays/concepts.
The Starting Point: The “Prequels”
Before diving into his original system, read his brilliant monographs on other philosophers. He called it “a kind of buggery” to make the authors he admired say something new. These are the clearest entry points.
- Nietzsche and Philosophy (1962): Crucial. Here, he develops his love for affirmation, multiplicity, and his hatred for dialectics, which he sees as a “slave morality” in philosophical form—always defining things through negation and reaction. (Video about Deleuze and the dialectic.)
- Bergsonism (1966): Introduces his key ideas about time (duration) and multiplicity.
The Core Collaborative Works with Félix Guattari
This is his main project. Read them in order, but don’t feel you need to understand everything at once.
- Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1972):
- Thesis: Classical psychoanalysis (Freud/Lacan) is a repressive, bourgeois institution that “territorializes” desire into the narrow space of the family (the “Oedipus complex”). They argue desire is a revolutionary, social force.
- Key Concepts Introduced: Desiring-production, the Body without Organs, Schizoanalysis.
- Why read it? It’s a thrilling, explosive book that lays out their core project of freeing desire from binary structures (like the Oedipal triangle of mother-father-child).
- A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1980):
- This is the essential text for your question. It is explicitly written as a rhizome. You are encouraged to read the “plateaus” (chapters) in any order.
- Key Concepts Introduced: The Rhizome, Assemblage, Refrain, Nomadology vs. the State apparatus.
- Recommended Plateaus to start with:
- Introduction: Rhizome – The manifesto for his entire method.
- Plateau 2: 1914: One or Several Wolves? – On multiplicities.
- Plateau 3: How to Make Yourself a Body Without Organs – A practical, if strange, guide.
Essential Solo Works by Deleuze
- Difference and Repetition (1968): His doctoral thesis and his most difficult, purely philosophical work. It’s the foundation for everything else. Do not start here.
- Foucault (1986): A brilliant analysis of his contemporary, Michel Foucault, which helps clarify Deleuze’s own thoughts on power, knowledge, and the “fold.”
- Negotiations (1990) & Desert Islands and Other Texts (2002): These are collections of actual essays and interviews. This is perhaps the best starting point for accessible, shorter texts. Negotiations includes the fantastic essay “Postscript on the Societies of Control,” which predicts modern digital surveillance.
A Final, Simple Contrast
To return to your original thread:
- A Dialectical Thinker (Hegel) looks at a WMAF relationship and sees a contradiction between fixed identities (Self/Other, Colonizer/Colonized) moving toward a resolution.
- A Deleuzian Thinker looks at the same relationship and sees a temporary assemblage, a knot in a vast, rhizomatic network connecting flows of colonial history, media images, genetic material, money, and desire. They would map the connections and ask what this assemblage produces—both positively (new cultures, hybrid identities) and negatively (resentment, pathological communities like the “Asian redpill”).
His work is demanding but offers a liberating toolkit for analyzing the complexity of the world without getting trapped in binary oppositions. Start with the monographs or the interviews before attempting the monumental Capitalism and Schizophrenia project.