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Lurid Archive
12:47 / 01.06.04
I've been meaning to write about this for some time due to the nature of the discussions I often find myself having. It comes from my experience of Barbelith, and especially the Headshop, as a place with a good deal of political consensus which I usually find myself part of. But, interestingly, I also find myself in the position of often agreeing with someone's conclusions despite rejecting many of their supporting arguments. So, I sometimes wonder to myself, is this a particular example of a certain kind of philosophical antagonism (for want of a better phrase) that is common on the left?

I'm not sure, but let me be more specific in what I mean. I find the distrust of reason and empiricism perplexing, for instance, yet it seems a fairly trendy theme to equate these things with certain forms of oppression. I almost understand how this connection is made, when one looks at the historical context but, apart from some elementary cautionary notes, I don't think one can draw radical conclusions from that. The contrast with religion, say, is rather illuminating to my mind and the hostility with which atheism is greeted says...something. (I realise I am hopelessly generalising, and doubtless thrashing at lots of straw people but I think what I am saying is not completely hopeless.)

In fact the rejection of empiricism, say, seems like a gift to the right - I think the Iraq War is a perfect example of this. More generally, I am a left winger because I think it makes more sense. And the rejection of elementary, widely accessible arguments seems to work toward the support of a particular kind of elitism which, if one looks to their context in academia, seem a touch suspect.

Having said that, the posters here cannot be fairly caricatured as reason hating elitists and I feel no need to do so. I usually find a lot to agree with in the views expressed but every now and again there is a thread like the Whiteness thread which makes me wonder if there is really a chasm that I manage to skilfully avoid most of the time.

I'm reminded of a sci-fi story I once read in which a man is transported to an alternate universe by his alternate self along with countless other alternate selves from other universes. He quickly falls out with some of his incarnations because they are pro-slavery, and makes alliances with the anti-slavery hims. But, having assumed that they were all on the same page, is shocked to realise that the anti-slavery hims are actually all atheists opposing the pro-slavery faction on religious grounds. As our man himself is devoutly religious, he realises that the basis for his alliances were rather different than he allowed himself to believe.


But moving on to the wider world of the internet, I realise that I am not entirely alone in some of these feelings and if you have a look at Butterflies and Wheels, you will find a lot of these concerns stated rather more forcefully. But, far from echoing my points, B&W rather undermine them since they are so clearly driven by irritation of the left. In fact, if one were being slightly unkind, one would say that the site represents another right wing attack on those ever-menacing Postmodern barbarian hordes and since my point is not to dismiss the kerraazzzyy left, this isn't quite good enough.

If that doesn't get you fired up, have a read of the first chapter of Wolin's book The seduction of unreason. I haven't read the book and I'm not endorsing it, but the following quote might provide some entertainment,

When combined with an antihumanist-inspired Western self-hatred, ethical relativism engendered an uncritical Third Worldism, an orientation that climaxed in Foucault's enthusiastic endorsement of Iran's Islamic Revolution.16 Since the "dictatorship of the mullahs" was antimodern, anti-Western, and antiliberal, it satisfied ex negativo many of the political criteria that Third Worldists had come to view as "progressive."
 
 
Cat Chant
15:59 / 01.06.04
Yayy. Interesting thread. I know we have a tendency to reach mutual frustration and stalemate around this stuff quite fast, Lurid, so I'll do my best to avoid that. I tend to find it incredibly difficult to talk about, for the reason that science people tend to only hear "moral relativism run maaaad" when cultural studies people talk, and CS people tend to only hear "naive scientific empiricism" when science people talk, whereas obviously almost everyone falls somewhere between the two and there are interesting overlaps, mutual dependencies and discussions to be had. My experience seems to suggest that there is a serious lack of a language/discourse that can enable those sorts of discussions, though.

When I get home to my books I'll try and provide a paraphrase/summary of The Dialectic of Enlightenment, which if it isn't a key text in this debate generally, ought to be. (I haven't followed your links but I find it odd that Foucault is being associated with anti-empiricism, given that his methodology as I understand it was precisely to confront orthodox disciplines with empirical evidence that challenged or revealed their assumptions. But I'm not much of a reader of Foucault, so I won't press that point too much.)

[apologies for rushed post from work]
 
 
Jackie Susann
04:55 / 02.06.04
I agree, pretty much, with Lurid's argument here. I guess a key point would be, for many leftists, the concept of 'hegemony' - that what counts as commonsense in a given society isn't just the naturally/obviously true, but what's constructed as commonsense through the conflicting positions of different social forces. Thus, many leftists would say that arguing from commonsense positions means already conceding the most important part of the debate to dominant sections of society. Arguing against the war in Iraq, for example, on the grounds that it does not actually support or secure American (or Western) interests would still accept that America should be able to invade another country in support of its interests. That may be an overly obvious example, but I hope it gives an idea of what I mean.

This isn't the same as criticising rationality, and I think it's a fine line between the two in some cases. Also, it's a completely different issue from the general inability of the academic left to write properly or clearly.
 
 
trouser the trouserian
08:25 / 02.06.04
In fact the rejection of empiricism, say, seems like a gift to the right...

Interesting point, Lurid. I've recently been reading Meera Nanda's critique of postmodern relativism. Her argument is basically that postmodern attacks on objectivism have - unwittingly - allowed Hindu Nationalists to claim that the Vedas not only contain "scientific facts" but should be treated as "scientific texts" - so for example, the Vedic injunctions for dharma (which includes social obligations) are treated as immutable scientific laws. Scientific 'readings' of Hindu scripture is, in itself, nothing new - it's been going on since the nineteenth century. What's worrying Nanda is that underlying the BJP-sponsored "politicised" Vedic science is an anti-secularist, illiberal, 'traditionalist' social agenda. Now that the BJP are out of course, the promotion of "Vedic science" - which includes promoting the idea that karma can be equated with genetics and that cow's urine can be used as a cure for tuberculosis and AIDS - might cease. Nanda notes, interestingly enough, that some Hindu educational guides produced for British teachers in the Uk expound the ideas that everything modern science teaches can be found in the Vedas, and similarly, everything the Vedas say about the universe, matter, and human beings is "scientific".
Thoughts?
 
 
Tom Morris
09:31 / 02.06.04
Postmodernism, I see, as a theory of the specific. It started off in architecture and has spread to other art forms - literature, visual and graphic arts. It is an interesting set of glasses, as it were, to view these things through. But the term has become so diluted as to become useless to describe anything. Indeed, actual postmodernist architecture sits wearily next to the Islington fucktard complex who loves prancing round the Tate mumbling to his accomplices that something is "Just so pomo".

If it were just that, I would be mildly annoyed. But the way that the Left has picked it and ran with it as the basis for organising society is, in my mind, the secular equivalent of religious fundamentalism.

The effects are, simply, as stated in this thread already: anti-Enlightenment values. The worrying trend makes the intellectual Left as bad as the fundamentalist religious Right. If there is no such thing as truth, no overriding narratives (be they religious, scientific, political or academic) then scientific facts weigh just as heavily as any other type of 'truth'. As a number of academics have picked up, this leads to gross mischaracterisations of the work of true academics - sciences, social sciences and humanities.

Although I am no supporter of the Left (thanks for co-opting classic liberalism), with the embrace of postmodern theory, they have just created an enormous weak spot. I think Chomsky sums it up best when he says that postmodernism provides a way for leftists who find it "too hard to deal with real problems" to find something worthwhile to do by providing them with "academic cults that are very divorced from any reality and that provide a defense against dealing with the world as it actually is". I do not condemn the esoteric or 'non-useful' (one might say "What on earth does studying the classics do to solve our problems today?", to which I would respond "Try to imagine a society where there is nobody studying the classics"), but I do condemn these 'academic cults' for leading us off down blind alleyways.

The style is indicative of this lack of anything really worth saying. Reason, logic, evidence and a lucid style are great cures.
 
 
Lurid Archive
09:42 / 02.06.04
Deva: Yay, indeed. As I hope is clear, I am trying to....understand rather than attack some bogeyman of moral (or epistemic) relativism. This involves me posting lots of fighting words, in the form of links and arguments that overstate what I am trying to say, as a way of articulating a perceived problem. Language is, as you say, the problem.

Crunchy: Yes, you are right about commonsense. Especially,

Arguing against the war in Iraq, for example, on the grounds that it does not actually support or secure American (or Western) interests would still accept that America should be able to invade another country in support of its interests.

Except one can take it further, since the arguments deployed in favour of the war consisted of confronting an imminent threat to our security and a humanitarian action. Now, to some it is distasteful to admit the possibility of waging war on these grounds but I'd say that if you actually take these reasons head on, you will still oppose wars almost all the time. There is a powerful mechanism at work here whereby people will tend not support a war of aggression without some doublethink to help them. This is an enormous boon for the left, which I think is underused. More contentiously, I think that this point generalises to many left wing positions.

absence:

Ah, yes. Meera Nanda does criticise Vedic science quite a lot. You can much in the same vein at B&W, here and here, say. The argument, as I understand it, is that once knowledge is entirely local and culturally based, there are no grounds for opposing the assertions of the powerful who will have a bigger megaphone than you. This is why, the argument goes, postmodern ideas are a progressive force within academia but not outside it.

And, at the risk of taking this criticism too far, I think that Martha Nussbaum's attack on Judith Butler is interesting. The content of the claims made there are beyond my ability to judge fairly - that Austin is mis-used by Butler in order to provide a bogus philosophical cover for her ideas, for instance - but I have heard this type of criticism often enough and judged it to be about right on occassion (the Sokal affair), but this is problematic since argumentum ad nauseam is a pretty poor basis for any position, especially considering the source of many of the attacks. I'd be interested to hear what people have to say about it.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
11:19 / 02.06.04
Tom Morris - I find your post very interesting but I wonder if you could help me out by specifying exactly what kind of thinking/discourse it is that you're critiquing (apart from people who live in a certain part of North London, like a certain kind of art and "prance").

Can you give me some of examples of writers or others who have taken postmodernism or a misinterpretation of the same as "the basis for organising society", and explain how this becomes or leads to "the secular equivalent of religious fundamentalism" and "anti-Enlightenment values"? What "overriding narratives" do you feel are being dismissed or dismantled that should be kept intact, and who's taking them apart?
 
 
Michelle Gale
11:38 / 02.06.04
People though can come to a "left wing conclusion" from a purley religious standpoint, levellers, revolutionary priest types etc.
Similary Right wing types can come from similar thought frameworks, look at how the Hegalians split off from one another into super nationalist types and anarchists.
I think people fundamentally are one way or another (or neither) be it through enviroment or just plain inclination, any kind of reasoning is jsut extranious.
 
 
Michelle Gale
11:38 / 02.06.04
ive just realised my last post made very little sense. sorry
 
 
Disco is My Class War
14:42 / 02.06.04
I think there's a question of specificity here, which is that 'postmodernism' and 'the left' are pretty difficult to actually define. The philosophers who are most often characterised as 'postmodern' (Foucault and Derrida, at least) often respond to the label of postmodernism by completely disavowing it.* The 'left', meanwhile -- who are we talking about here?

One way to get out of the 'postmodernism' hole is to think about postmodernity rather than postmodernism. It should be obvious that over the nineteenth and twentieth century, the configurations of power in terms of capital, liberalism, nation-states, gender, etc have changed significantly. [Capital is postmodern: 'All that's solid melts into air' -- why do so many people forget that Marx, and not Marshall Berman, said that first?] If I read Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard or Judith Butler, I read them to grasp analytically what I already see to be happening and to attempt to lever possible ways to undo or fuck with that. I don't think it's necessary for everyone to read those people: but this is my way.

I think Chomsky sums it up best when he says that postmodernism provides a way for leftists who find it "too hard to deal with real problems" to find something worthwhile to do by providing them with "academic cults that are very divorced from any reality and that provide a defense against dealing with the world as it actually is."

Well, here is Chomsky, who's been criticised roundly for supporting his own politically dodgy regimes (ie Cambodia), giving his own fairly biased opinion on what the 'real problems' are. I find those claims about what is really going on absurd, moreso when they come from a white academic. It's as if the seemingly obvious fact that almost everyone experiences different levels and kinds of domination -- and almost everyone wants a different kind of emancipation -- hasn't sunk in. I get particularly suspicious of this 'I know how the world is and you should be doing something else' manouvre because it's often cited by white men engaged in 'real politics' (critiques of capitalism and class, often) to 'merely cultural' political movements/activists around sexuality, feminism, race. To me, this just smacks of the traditional Marxist line that once class is abolished, sexism, racism and homophobia (to name a few) won't happen. Chomsky isn't a Marxist, but he does the same thing.

It's not that I have anything against science, scientific research, or knowing more about the way that bodies and the world work. I'm just more interested in the power relations are made possible in the name of science. And people have critiqued Western reason precisely because 'reason' and 'science' have been such powerful tools to justify various oppressions. They still are. Economic rationalism is supposedly a 'science'. The 'fact' that women are biologically more inclined to nurture and men are biologically inclined to be aggressive or competitive is supposedly 'science'. Look where that gets us: poor in suburbia (or wherever else) waiting patiently for the money to trickle down, unable to explain why Mrs Stewart from across the road wants to bake better scones than Mrs Lacey, and their husbands both get really embarrassed when they're caught cooing to the baby.

Weber, Marcuse, Habermas (none of whom would be caught dead being called 'postmodernist' if two of them weren't dead already) all have extremely nuanced critiques of technical reason, instrumental rationality etc. For all of them it's a strategy capitalism uses to oppress people more. The supposed alternative -- 'cultural relativism gone mad' -- is merely a rhetorical tool. It posits a binary where none exists. Politics consists of far more than a choice between two diametrically opposed positions.

Anyhow, I'd caution that people try not to fall into the trap of thinking that any political or philosophical strategy has immanent merit. The Right uses cultural relativism all the time: racist ideology is now often based not upon non-white people being 'scientifically' dumber or less capable, but that non-white people simply have cultural drawbacks that make them incapable of being properly governed, colonised, or 'civilised'.

(And, lastly, I want to add that I am making a conscious effort not to get snarky about the 'what would happen in a world where no-one studied the classics' line in the interests of peaceful discussion.)

*What post-modernism is and why it's a straw (wo)man are dealt with very well by Wendy Brown in chapter two of States of Injury, and by Judith Butler in a volume called Feminist Contentions, which is a nice neat feminism-oriented debate between some pretty hot philosophers about exactly this issue.
 
 
illmatic
07:24 / 03.06.04
I'd like to know where the Chomsky quote came from. My reading of it is that Chomsky sees his specific concerns - critque of US Foreign policy and Capitalism - as overiding the politics of culture. I can see why he'd reach that understanding - one can see visible death, disaster and suffering on a global scale as a result of these actions - but I don't agree with it.
 
 
Lurid Archive
08:40 / 03.06.04
Well, here is Chomsky, who's been criticised roundly for supporting his own politically dodgy regimes (ie Cambodia), giving his own fairly biased opinion on what the 'real problems' are. - Mister Disco

You realise that this is a right wing slur that is regularly trotted out in order to silence dissent? And you are using it...well, I think this is problematic if only for its factual grounding.

I find those claims about what is really going on absurd, moreso when they come from a white academic.

And this seems to me to be misguided to the point of being a touch incoherent. I'll lay off some of the cheap shots and try to see what you mean. Namely, I suppose you are claiming that Chomsky's criticism is part of a pattern of white oppression. That, when the position is properly understood and taken apart, one can understand the flaws and viewpoint of Chomsky as being informed by the context of white privilege. For me the problem is that you seem to have gone straight to the last step and, by doing so, seem to be implying that all criticism must be invalid, by an appeal to the ethnicity of the critic if need be.

Now, when I hear the stupid but regular denounciation of postmodernism from the right, based on the claim that many of its thinkers are french, I tend to have harsh words for that. With some probing, this is often justified by an appeal to the context of french thinking and its anti-american slant. Personally, I don't really think that makes much difference. Dismissing a critic on that kind of basis is not a tactic I have that much time for. It is, in part, this kind of thinking and argument that motivated me to start the thread.

Illmatic: My understanding is that Chomsky concentrates on US foreign policy as a personal choice, rather than as some grand statement. And his relation to postmodern thought is mixed - he seems to have been amicable with Foucalt, for instance.
 
 
Cat Chant
08:56 / 03.06.04
I suppose you are claiming that Chomsky's criticism is part of a pattern of white oppression. That, when the position is properly understood and taken apart, one can understand the flaws and viewpoint of Chomsky as being informed by the context of white privilege. For me the problem is that you seem to have gone straight to the last step and, by doing so, seem to be implying that all criticism must be invalid, by an appeal to the ethnicity of the critic if need be.

Okay, I don't want to get too into this, because it's at a very oblique angle to what I would like to contribute to this debate, but I do think there's a misreading here that I might be able to clear up. My reading of Mister Disco's statement would be less as a claim about the ethnicity of a critic determining the validity of hir statements, and more as pointing out a contradiction/incoherence. That is, that the claim to "know" what is "really going on" is usually supported with reference to a "real" world (which is almost always defined as non-white and non-academic). Thus, to make such a claim from the position of a white academic is to use the authority of white academia to make statements about a form of knowledge/experience which is defined in opposition to white academia. This is self-contradictory. ("The agenda must be set with reference to the people on the ground in Iraq, since they are directly involved in what is really going on. I have the right to set this agenda, because I am an academic.")

This is making me think that speech act theory, or the difference between a statement and an enunciation, is going to become fairly crucial in this debate. But I want to hang back for a while and see if I can make a coherent post about these issues in general.
 
 
Lurid Archive
09:30 / 03.06.04
I appreciate your effort, Deva, and I sincerely want to avoid getting into an argument with Mister Disco or anyone else but your explanation leaves me none the wiser. This is perhaps a side issue, I don't know, but it feels like a brick wall from where I am.

That is, your comments and their specific application seem to me a recipe that allows one to dismiss criticism without ever having to engage the critic, using tactics that would be quickly denounced if they came from the right. As such, the possibility of dialogue seems drastically diminished from my perspective. I could argue point by point but I suspect it would be a dead end.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
10:52 / 03.06.04
Hang on... that seems a very hasty aporia. I'm still trying to work out what the actual question is...

Lurid, could you give me an example of the sort of antagonism towards reason and empiricism? You cited the "Whiteness" thread, but I'm not sure at what point it exercised the antagonism. Also, is this antagonism a conduit to or a result of ethical relativism, and is ethical relativism, for our purposes, synonymous with what Tom is calling postmodernism (in the ethical field)?
 
 
Cat Chant
12:17 / 03.06.04
I could argue point by point but I suspect it would be a dead end.

I suspect it would as well, so thanks for this:

your comments and their specific application seem to me a recipe that allows one to dismiss criticism without ever having to engage the critic, using tactics that would be quickly denounced if they came from the right. As such, the possibility of dialogue seems drastically diminished from my perspective.

which is very clear and useful. I'm going to take it away and try and come up with a response.
 
 
Lurid Archive
14:30 / 03.06.04
Haus: I'm trying to determine, given the broad political consensus here, how people ground their political beliefs. In particular, I was thinking of this in terms of an opposition between a certain academic, theoretical left and other parts of the left. This is all far too vague, I realise, but if you follow my links you will find examples of arguments which appear structurally similar. I'm willing to be told that I am seeing something that isn't there, especially since I am having such a hard time articulating it, but it is a division that seems meaningful or at least usefully predictive.

At one level, I am talking about a reflection of the arts and science divide, where one side will focus on the contingent and situated nature of things and the other will be interested in basing beliefs on limited certainties. How can I explain this? Mister Disco might argue that Economics uses reason as a tool of oppression, whereas I would argue that it is an empirically weak science, if a science at all. Would it be fair to describe Mister Disco's attitude as antagonism to empiricism? Perhaps not. Perhaps it is easier to notice that I grounded my scepticism to economics in empiricism.

This is a trivial example, but seems part of a larger pattern. Certainly, the more theoretical justifications to opposing war in Iraq seem decidedly odd to me, the discussion in the Whiteness thread sounded racist at times and I seem to reach an impasse with Deva after every couple of posts. The point is that this isn't about disagreement, I think, but about incompatible conceptual frameworks which I am suggesting are part of a larger phenomenon. For instance, if you read this Znet discussion, what is striking is that the two sides, who are political allies with broadly similar opinions, completely fail to communicate. Now, I doubt that reason and empiricism are entirely the correct focus for what I am saying, but they seem to be part of it. Ethical relativism is also of interest, in the tension between the support of universal rights and of cultural sensitivity for instance, but it is a term that leads too easily to misunderstanding in my view.
 
 
grant
19:44 / 03.06.04
Are you saying, broadly, that positivism = right wing discourse (although it doesn't have to be)?
 
 
Perfect Tommy
05:45 / 04.06.04
I hope I'm not missing the point entirely, but I want to get all teleological and ask: what are we arguing for?

Taking Crunchy's Iraq example for instance... someone might argue as ze suggests that the war wasn't justified because it doesn't further America's interests; another might take serious issue with using 'America's interests justify invasion' as an axiom, but might reach objection to the war on different grounds.

Now, if we're talking about policy and what the right actions of governments and protesting citizens are, it might not matter what axioms are being used, if the conclusion is the same: we might be able to say, "Any way you slice it, even if we start from these imperialistic axioms, this war was unjustified" and so we've reached a robust conclusion which can rest on a number of different starting foundations.

However, if we're more interested in the business of critiquing axioms, than the eventual conclusion is less important than the starting point. I don't mean to play some sort of 'reality' card and say that the former is better; subjecting axioms to serious examination ought to shore up later arguments, and surely has inherent value (which I can't really elaborate on, not being a CS person by trade).

If I were to be flippant, I'd say that it almost seems like the CS people aren't necessarily rejecting empiricism so much as criticizing the axioms. (Social Darwinism and so forth.) Perhaps empirical methods ought to be distinguished from what they're resting upon?
 
 
Perfect Tommy
05:51 / 04.06.04
The point is that this isn't about disagreement, I think, but about incompatible conceptual frameworks which I am suggesting are part of a larger phenomenon.

If my previous post has merit, then the 'incompatible conceptual frameworks' in question are the one favoring critique of axioms and resistance to hegemony, and the one which takes some set of axioms and extends outward to see what happens.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
10:34 / 04.06.04
Lurid:

"You realise that this is a right wing slur that is regularly trotted out in order to silence dissent? And you are using it...well, I think this is problematic if only for its factual grounding."

It's not only a 'right-wing slur', there are loads of people on the left who don't like Chomsky for exactly this reason (and others). The point is that it's hypocritical to talk about Foucault supporting the Khomeini revolution, for example, only to then quote a writer who can be accused of a similar mistake. [This leads us in a different direction, which is that if theorists make problematic political alliances (like Heidegger and Nazism, the obvious example) do we still read them and get what we can out of their work?]

Anyhow Lurid, perhaps the word 'white' obscured the rest of the content in my post for you, which is why you haven't engaged with it. (I mentioned Marxists as well, was that comment entirely lost?) So I'll try to clarify, because this line of argument I'm making is central to the kinds of theory often derided as 'postmodern'.

I'm not concerned about the ethnicity of anyone who says 'We should all do X based on what is really happening'. Neither am I particularly opposed to people making a claim to know 'what is really happening' in whatever situation. But I do dissent to the claim that some mythical WE should all be doing X based on someone telling me what is going on when I have eyes and ears and want to decide for myself. I find this especially pernicious when it lines up along 'hard politics' (big men fighting all the big issues, wars, etc) and 'soft politics' (feminism, queer politics, trans politics etc) axes. Who is to decide whether the death of someome due to gay-bashing is less important an issue than the death of someone from a bomb in Iraq? I'm not saying this for reasons of self-interest, but to question the logic that makes every political problem into an 'issue' competing for space, resources and representation with other 'issues'.

One makes all kinds of decisions, some conscious, some not, about what particular political intervention one makes at a particular time. It's like, you might go to a protest because your friends are going. In the process maybe you participate in a blockade and prevent X right-wing politician from entering X forum. Or, you de-arrest a drag queen who's being picked on by the cops. You make contingent decisions, based on what is happening in your life and what you feel like doing, and often those decisions are based on what is most relevant to you at the time. This is not a problem. If we all made rationalist decisions about 'the most important issue everyone should be fighting for' we would either be in Trotskyist sects or involved in parliamentary politics. Because that is precisely the logic those people use, and look where it gets them. (The Australian Labor Party agree to sign a bill banning any kind of same-sex marriage just to get themselves elected, presumably so they can fix 'the more important problems'.)

By the way, Lurid, if you've read Foucault you'll know that as a historian, he is quite attached to empiricism. Also, as a last salvo, the thing that gets me about rationalism, apart from its history, is that people simply aren't rational. Although I have issues with psychoanalytic thought, it's the only framework I've found so far that this into account. And by 'psychoanalytic thought', I don't necessarily mean only Freud or only Lacan but the whole gamut of philosophy that used various bits of psychoanalysis as a basis. (And, controversially, I include Deleuze and Guattari in that. No matter how anti-Oedipus.)
 
 
Jackie Susann
07:14 / 06.06.04
But Disco, to play devil's avocado, what grounds are you leaving for any sort of discussion about which issues are important? I mean, aren't you at the kind of caricature point of postmodern relativism that has no grounds for any ethical or political judgement, can't say why fascism is wrong, etc.? Or to be less polemical, I think (could be wrong) you would generally agree that many problems demand structural, rather than merely individual, solutions - if all political decisions are purely contingent, how can you maintain that view?
 
 
Lord Morgue
10:14 / 06.06.04
Left, right, it all leads to totalarianism when taken to the extreme. Having been raised leftist, all I can ask is why aren't North Korea, the P.R.C., Cuba, Vietnam, or old communist Russia the vegan zen macrobiotic permaculture animal liberationist feminist racial equality paradise we were promised? Never seems to work, and forget the right wing, that goes without saying. I see the real problem as extremism, Buddha has his "Middle Path", Aristotle his "Golden Mean", but balance never lasts, either, does it? Got to be a dynamic, self-governing system that self-adjusts like a thermostat or biological process, Fritjof Capra's definition of "Mind" applied to the political arena. Of course, we already have it- it's called "democracy"- I like it. Recognizes the need for change- one party screws up too bad, the other guy gets in next term. (Not what the Greeks had in mind, they wanted everyone to vote on every decision, but fuck that, I didn't buy it when Timothy Leary was pimping the idea, either. Logistical nightmare, and imagine the consequences of letting the sheeple drive the bus when the goons we train and select for the job can barely manage at times?) Democracy is not without it's drawbacks, of course, hard to develop a ten-year plan when you could be out in four, politics is more a popularity contest than anything else these days, and there are never enough safeguards against an elected leader subverting the democratic process, like Hitler, or Australia's own Sir Joe Bjelke-Peterson, who ruled Queensland with an iron fist full of peanuts by the wonderful concept of gerrymander, where, thanks to some creative rearrangement of district boundries, people who vote for him (farmers)'s votes counted for more than anyone elses'. Slippery old bastard managed to hold on through Royal Commission after commission into his corruption until he was as senile and looney as Reagan, and invariably gave answers to interviewers that were complete gibberish (coined Johspeak by the media) more often than not...
At any rate, what is far more important to me than the Left/Right scale of political position (which I see as more a matter of ECONOMICS) is the axis of Libertarianism v.s. Totalarianism in a country. Both axii need adjusting for the climate, there's no perfect setting for all times and places, so that's why you always need some kind of force-feedback system in place, so the governed can decide how they're governed. Democracy is a compromise, but it's a workable compromise, whereas Communism/Socialism, despite sounding good on paper, always turns into a big pile of shit, unfortunately. Could someone please explain to me why this path seems so inherently corruptable? Is it, as I surmise, simply lack of popular control? Could you trust an elected Communist government to leave the democratic process intact, or would it be just as insane as voting the Nazis in?
Grist for the mill:
The Political Compass
I come up slightly to the right of Ghandi and Mandela. (Sigh) Well, that's dashed my hopes of being the next Victor Von Doom.
 
 
Jester
10:15 / 06.06.04
I'm not concerned about the ethnicity of anyone who says 'We should all do X based on what is really happening'. Neither am I particularly opposed to people making a claim to know 'what is really happening' in whatever situation. But I do dissent to the claim that some mythical WE should all be doing X based on someone telling me what is going on when I have eyes and ears and want to decide for myself.

Oh, of course, but isn't there an argument that part of what Chomsky is doing is concentrating the spotlight on things that otherwise forgotten. You (not specifically you, but anyone ) need to *know* about something in order to make a decision about it. Chomsky is a polemical political writer, and part of what he is doing is... forcefully providing an analysis of world events, that is also relevant, I think. Surely what you're complaining about is just *style*?
 
 
Linus Dunce
15:17 / 06.06.04
Jester -- but wouldn't that also suggest that, say, the Daily Mail's treatment of refugees as ""asylum seekers"" was also just a matter of style?
 
 
Jester
17:37 / 06.06.04
Jester -- but wouldn't that also suggest that, say, the Daily Mail's treatment of refugees as ""asylum seekers"" was also just a matter of style?

Hmm, I see your point. In a way, it is a style issue with the Daily Mail too: its just that I object to their polemics, and what they're basically saying too. Would their message be any more paletable in a sophisticated acedemic text?
 
 
Linus Dunce
17:56 / 06.06.04
What is their message? As far as I can tell, it is that immigration should be more controlled than it is at present. Would it be possible to make a rational, palatable case to present this argument? I think so. Certainly one could match the academic rigour of Chomsky's chops.
 
 
Jester
17:56 / 06.06.04
Having been raised leftist, all I can ask is why aren't North Korea, the P.R.C., Cuba, Vietnam, or old communist Russia the vegan zen macrobiotic permaculture animal liberationist feminist racial equality paradise we were promised?

Lord Morgue: the answer is simple. The socialist/marxist speil was always a gloss for those regimes. None of them were organised on actual socialist principles. Guy Debord explains why rather convincingly (to my mind) here. He argued that (forgive the crude interpretation) the Soviet States were just the continuation of capitalism in another, even more unfair form.

Here's another take on it. Here is a line from their argument:

"No vanguard can establish socialism, not even one which doesn't plan to oppress the working class. Socialism will be established by the working class, democratically, because that is the only possible way to establish a cooperative democratic society."
 
 
Jester
18:10 / 06.06.04
What is their message? As far as I can tell, it is that immigration should be more controlled than it is at present. Would it be possible to make a rational, palatable case to present this argument? I think so. Certainly one could match the academic rigour of Chomsky's chops.

And would that argument be any less polemical than Chomsky's? Of course not.

However, now I think about it, the Daily Mail's style does actually reveal something about them that would maybe be concealed by a 'rational and palatable' academic case for 'more controlled' immigration. Because it plays on the 'rivers of blood' reaction from its readers, it actually makes it a lot easier to see whats implictly (or actually fairly explicitly) behind the headlines...
 
 
Lurid Archive
20:19 / 06.06.04
I would be grateful if we could address Lord Morgue's points in another thread. This thread is already vague and meandering as it is, largely down to its conception, but I think we can avoid making it worse.

Mister Disco: Briefly, on Chomsky (and Herman) on Cambodia. I maintain that it is a slur, as one immediately suspects given the detail to which the usually unspecified charges are made. He was and is, variously, a supporter or apologist for Pol Pot, indifferent to genocide and a rabidly anti-american lefty (a favorite which applies across the board) who praised the Khmer Rouge rather than admit that his own country may have been right. Similar charges are repeated every time Chomsky speaks against the US. The strongest case I've seen made against C&H is probably here, which also has lots of links, including a rebuttal here. The matter seems technical enough that I hesitate from speaking authoritatively about it. But I know a smear campaign when I see one. You are right in correcting me over the "right wing slur", however. Just as people opposed to the Iraq war were denounced as supporters of fascism from all sides, it was wrong of me to to attribute this exclusively to the right. A subject for another thread, perhaps?

As for my hypocrisy regarding Foucalt, I think this is tied in to the veracity of the charge against C&H but let me try to meet you half way. I did quote that particular passage from Wolin's book as a provocation and I do think there are problems with Wolin's line of argument. Namely, despite the denial, it seems to be an exercise in finger pointing in which, if we were being fair, Enlightenment thinkers wouldn't come off any better than the Postmodernists (if I can use that term with the understanding of its inadequacy). But, if we restrict our attention to Barbelith for argument's sake, a critic of the Enlightenment would have a fairly easy time of it in a way which might introduce a bias. I need to say a lot more before I can really be said to have a point, but I'm going to leave it like that for now because I want to respond to the rest of what you said.


...I do dissent to the claim that some mythical WE should all be doing X based on someone telling me what is going on when I have eyes and ears and want to decide for myself. I find this especially pernicious when it lines up along 'hard politics' (big men fighting all the big issues, wars, etc) and 'soft politics' (feminism, queer politics, trans politics etc) axes.

I think that Crunchy answered this. Personally, I don't see prioritisation, discussions of tactics and strategy and the flagging of political dead ends as all that negative. One can, it should go without saying, disagree with the opinions of others. But the process of that debate can be effective and the effect of solidarity can be politically powerful. Given your criticism of Marxism (with which I agree to some extent), I'm not sure what you intend. You should always decide for yourself. But what if you decide for yourself to emphasise or criticise around some issue? I can't see how this can easily avoid the caricature of telling the mythical WE what to do.

Also, I think your criticism of the value judgements involved in dividing between "hard" and "soft" politics is largely right. I think they are all important, but I don't think that this precludes a prioritisation. One might then criticise the process of prioritisation, which I suspect is what you really want to do, but that seems fair enough too.

Having said that, and at the risk of playing to a stereotype, I do think that class (by which I mean socio-economic division, rather than its more cultural manifestation) is a neglected issue. Economic privilege and injustice is increasing and class prejudice is accepted to an alarming degree. The fact that I can see this on Barbelith (and elsewhere) concerns me. What makes this relevant is that I think one can legitimately ask whether "contigent" politics, based round academia and exclusionary language, is a contributing factor.

grant: Was that to me? If so, then no. I have more time for positivists than others here, I suspect, but I think it is clear that that sort of approach is bound to failure. Things are just much messier than that.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
07:16 / 07.06.04
"But what if you decide for yourself to emphasise or criticise around some issue? I can't see how this can easily avoid the caricature of telling the mythical WE what to do."

My point is, one doesn't have to act via a political form that consists of a competition for priorities. One way of doing this is to think through the connections between particular sites of unfreedom, which means that you have to stop thinking of, say, gender and class as separate issues that can only be analysed (or fought) separately. Another way of doing political forms is to autonomously organise, which means basically that people, small groups of people, whatever, can agree on one action they think may be effective but contribute to that particular action in different ways. I'd call this anti-representational politics, because there's no claim that X group represents X claim/position. However informally. But the, the arguments do become about tactics, specifically plractical stuff, and not endless ideological debates about whether person X is a proper marxist of feminist or autonomist.

What this requires, however, and this is where I get to answer Crunchy, is a sense of ethics or responsibility. If one is to acknowledge that one's political decisions are not always based on 'the good and the true', one has to think through the power configurations of what one is doing in a far more interrogatory way. Taking into account desire, contingency, etc.

(By the way, Crunch, when did I say political decisions are 'purely contingent'? If you're going to be devil's avocado, respond to what I said, which was that not all decisions people make about political practice are rational.)

Hence, at times, wonderful spontaneous acts that change the face of the world. And, at times, terrible mistakes. So you have a sense of responsibility, and you target what you can do at any particular time. One example I'd give here is the anti-war marches. Hundreds of thousannds of people thought the most important thing in 2003 was to march peacefully through the streets of hundreds of cities to 'stop the war'. Anyone could have told them that this wasn't going to work, practically. Did they listen? No. Was it a meaningless activity, apart from the complacent glow of all of them thinking how big the marches were and how much everyone wanted to stop the war? Yes. A bit of interrogation of the 'desires' going on there would have helped a great deal.

"What makes this relevant is that I think one can legitimately ask whether "contingent" politics, based round academia and exclusionary language, is a contributing factor."

Lurid, Lurid. My political practice is not based around academia. I feel rather offended by the suggestion, in fact. If you want to play 'who's the real activist', I suggest you start telling stories about ye olde days on the picket lines. I mean, what's at stake for you here, Lurid? Is it going to change your political practice? Are you looking for ways to practice politics more effectively? Is it anything more than a spot of pomo-bashing? I agree with your thoughts on class, but I don't know that otherwise this discussion is very useful.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
07:24 / 07.06.04
By the way, I think one of the most scary things about left politics post-9/11 is the conservatising of people's responses to situations. People panic. People feel powerless. And the solution seems to be bigger and bigger numbers, greater and greater solidarity, more and more panicked renditions of belonging to whatever cause, whatever group, however informalised, and more and more reaction against 'postmodernism', which is being blamed for the fact that people weren't powerful enough to stop all of this shit from happening. This thread feels to me like it might be an example of exactly that. 'Back to tintacks, the basics, whatever'... It doesn't work, because the world is not, and never was, basic.
 
 
No star here laces
08:24 / 07.06.04
If I can weigh in with a view here. I think the issue here is exactly the same one that always exists wherever you can draw an art/science type divide.

Which is of course that neither side properly engages with, or understands the other, and instead chooses to debate with a reductive and stereotyped version of what they think the 'opposition' is saying.

Many scientists or rationalist thinkers create a straw man of the "Postmodernist" who believes all perspectives are equally valid, is obsessed with language and terminology, is paralysed by their beliefs and is ultimately incapable of taking any meaningful action.

This is, of course a caricature.

On the flip side you have statements such as:

The 'fact' that women are biologically more inclined to nurture and men are biologically inclined to be aggressive or competitive is supposedly 'science'.

To me, this comment frankly looks like it is engendered (no pun intended) by a lack of understanding of exactly what a 'scientist' or 'empiricist' means by such a comment, and why they place so much value on it.

When someone says 'science' what they mean is not "absolute and indisputable fact that cannot be disputed". It is at the very core of science that every factual statement can and should be disputed, ad infinitum if necessary.

The very reason why science is deserving of respect is that it forgoes notions of absolute truth for notions of "the best guess we can make at the present time". Any scientist who makes a statement about women being biologically predisposed to be a certain way, will have to be able to back up hir arguments with proof that all alternative explanations for women's behaviour are less likely. And if someone, for example a cultural theorist, can propose an alternative explanation that the scientist cannot disprove, then more research will be necessary to resolve the issue.

So science=absolute truth (in the mind of the scientist) is as much of a straw man as "postmodernism=lack of a moral compass".

The second straw man bound up in that comment is that statements about, for example, women's biological predispositions, are black and white distinctions.

They are not - they are statistical statements.

So if a psychologist, for example, makes a statement that "men have stronger spatial ability than women" ze is always referring to an average.

That is to say, a bell curve.

So any statement of this form allows, indeed requires, the possibility that there are many men and women who do not conform to this average - that there is no reason why a woman cannot have as strong, or stronger, spatial abilities than any man.

Now you may make an argument about the power relations in such a statement, in that a statistical argument always supports the majority over the minority. And that might well be correct. But it isn't an argument against science in general.

Empirically a scientific fact has a higher probability of being correct, and should be considered on that basis.

Campaigners for equality of opportunity and equality of treatment would do well to engage with scientific statements both in terms of picking their battles and in terms of evaluating their goals...
 
 
Lurid Archive
09:14 / 07.06.04
Just a quickie, but

My political practice is not based around academia. I feel rather offended by the suggestion

I didn't mean to suggest that it was, Mister Disco. But I am interested in looking at different strands of thought within the Left and the effects and ideas that they have. Some of this is about forming a critique, including a critique of the kind of things I am saying. In that context, looking at the influence of academia seems reasonable. Also, some of what I want to do is open lines of communication. I mean, if you look at our exchanges I think you'll agree that they are far spikier than you'd expect between two people with broadly similar politics (I may be assuming too much there, but that is interesting too).

I'll get back to the rest of your post a little later.
 
 
Lord Morgue
11:04 / 07.06.04
I do think the idea that the anti-war protests would "stop the war" had a lot to do with the fiction that the Vietnam war was ended by protesting. I believe America losing had more bearing on that particular outcome...
As for my post- oh, fuck it, do what you want with it, it's your fucking board, after all, the topic is arguments FOR the left wing, not bitching about how it doesn't fucking work.
Jester- thanks for the links.
 
  

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