'It is well-known that an automaton once existed, which was so constructed that it could counter any move of a chess-player with a counter-move, and thereby assure itself of victory in the match. A puppet in Turkish attire, water-pipe in mouth, sat before the chessboard, which rested on a broad table. Through a system of mirrors, the illusion was created that this table was transparent from all sides. In truth, a hunchbacked dwarf who was a master chess-player sat inside, controlling the hands of the puppet with strings. One can envision a corresponding object to this apparatus in philosophy. The puppet called “historical materialism” is always supposed to win. It can do this with no further ado against any opponent, so long as it employs the services of theology, which as everyone knows is small and ugly and must be kept out of sight.'
"...the relationship between historical and dialectical materialism is that of parallax; they are substantially the same, the shift from one to the other is purely a shift of perspective."
(Slavoj Žižek, The Parallax View)
Indeed, is not dialectical materialism essentially materialist theology, that aspect of Marx that, despite its necessity, is "small and ugly and which must be kept out of sight."
