Granted I’ve only read The Elementary Principles of Philosophy and On Contradictions from Mao, but the examples are still very vague and abstract. I’ve been trying to think of every day situations where I could apply dialectical materialism but I just can’t seem to understand it well enough.
EDIT: Amazing replies from everyone, everything is much more clear.
Lots of good detailed answers here. I’ll start off by trying to explain it even more succinctly by breaking down DiaMat into its simpler terms.
Dialectic - The examination/investigation of opposing ideas that eventually reach a resolution (in other words, a dialogue).
Materialism - Reality stems from the material world (ideas and consciousness are products of matter).
Therefore, Dialectical Materialism is the examination of opposing material forces that eventually reach a material resolution.
The implication here is that reality isn’t static. And the engine that drives change in our material world is the competition (or “dialogue”) between material forces.
More broadly this encompasses examples like environmental pressure leading to new species adaptations (natural selection), the collision of hot and cold air leading to storm systems, and nuclear reactions.
More specifically, Marx takes this further and applies the DiaMat lens to the development of human civilization (i.e. Historical materialism). This is how we can recognize that our current existence under capitalism is not some static “end of history” (reality changes), but a temporary mode of production that will eventually resolve itself into something new (“socialism or barbarism”) through opposing material forces (the working class vs the ruling class).