Rolling Political Philosophy Thread

^thoughtprovoking; i’m sympathetic to much of it. (also liked another post from same blog you linked before, re whether some political phenomena are akin to religion. going to (ab)use that analogy myself here.)

some rambling halfdrunk tltr (seriously way tltr) thoughts:

agree (albeit in much more qualified & problematized way) that people— in this case academics— are “fundamentally good,” i.e. distressed by others’ suffering. SA argues that significant motive for western academic geopolitical “self-blame” (beyond theoretical or empirical merits of such etiology) is to resolve cognitive-ethical dissonance— to reconcile urgency to help others with our notions of “duty.”

bracketing (for sake of current arg) theoretical/ empirical merits of such etiology, i’d say 1) there’s something to this but also 2) more primordial motive is to make sense of suffering (others’ suffering as much as our own), find/ give meaning or reason to it. in other cultures or contexts, that might involve very different etiologies, teleologies, or ways to find/ give meaning. this intersects terrain covered on other recent ilx threads (e.g. problem of evil, theodicy, free will vs determinism, etc). there is something essentially “therapeutic” about such sense-making of suffering (even “scientific” explanation), whether it’s greek tragedy’s catharsis or marxist critique.

as nietzsche puts it in OGM (concerned precisely with genealogy of guilt etc.):

What really arouses indignation against suffering is not suffering as such but the senselessness of suffering: but neither for the Christian, who has interpreted a whole mysterious machinery of salvation into suffering, nor for the naïve man of more ancient times, who understood all suffering in relation to the spectator of it or the causer of it, was there any such thing as senseless suffering. So as to abolish hidden, undetected, unwitnessed suffering from the world and honestly to deny it, one was in the past virtually compelled to invent gods and genii of all the heights and depths, in short something that roams even in secret, hidden places, sees even in the dark, and will not easily let an interesting painful spectacle pass unnoticed. For it was with the aid of such inventions that life then knew how to work the trick which it has always known how to work, that of justifying itself, of justifying its “evil.” Nowadays it might require other auxiliary inventions.

SA expresses surprise that western academic explanation would take form of western self-blame (“naively we would expect people to cast themselves and those like them in as positive a light as possible”), but actually this isn’t surprising: for (post)judeochristian culture— even after “death of god”— guilt & the confession/ expiation of guilt, original sin etc., are deeply embedded paradigms for experiencing & making sense of (otherwise senseless) suffering.

cf e.g. anthropogenic climate change. on the one hand, there’s the scientific theory, scientific consensus, empirical corroboration, delimitation of explanation (and political advocacy based on current science). on the other hand, you find many in the west immediately adducing climate change to account for any natural catastrophe, even those which responsible scientists don’t find reason to ascribe to climate change.

on the one hand, there’s the science. on the other hand, there’s the urge to resort to quasi-religious sense-making/ blame-ascribing when confronted with great suffering in ANY case of natural catastrophe— whether or not it’s scientifically legitimate to claim, in the particular case, that the catastrophe is “anthropogenic” (our fault) or just “natural” “act of god” (or “act of planet,” planet of perpetual continuous catastrophe, from before human existence to after human extinction).

it’s more therapeutic to find reason to blame “ourselves” (original sin of the west, capitalism, etc)— to find reason— whether this is supported by science or not in the particular case, than face utter senselessness of horrendous suffering.

but also note how this therapeutic quasi-christian machinery of guilt enables relief or evasion from responsibility, too. guilt can be dealt with through confession or casuistry. cf eco-evangelist eco-warrior hollywood actors flitting to and fro on private planes.

also note how trickily guilt/blame can slide from self to other. for an academic to blame the “capitalist west” is as abstract & detached a form of self-blame as original sin or christ’s crucifixion is for the christian: it’s my sin in the sense that i inherit it, am complicit in it. yet (intuitively) i’m not personally responsible; i’m caught up in the postlapsarian (or capitalist) “system.”

so it’s all too easy to slide from self-guilt to other-blaming (or scapegoating): e.g. to blame the jews (or jewish bankers, etc).

so there’s a dark side to the western academic self-blame thing (on analogy of christian guilt machinery): e.g. facile shift to scapegoating, and relief/ evasion from personal responsibility. latter intersects with SA’s point about deontology. one thing about deontology is that it stops at the water’s edge, so to speak: i must act in accordance with my moral duty; i fulfill my duty by doing the “right” thing; but the unintended consequences of such an act don’t really fall in deontology’s purview. what counts, what’s in my power, is acting in accordance with a proper moral intention. if the arrow of my action doesn’t hit its mark (and instead, unfortunately, accidentally, hits something else)— that’s not so much deontology’s concern.

here’s where SA’s appeal to utilitarianism (or more widely, consequentialism) hits the mark for me. the western academic (on analogy of christian) makes sense of suffering through machinery of guilt, and relieves her guilt through confession/ critique. no doubt there’s something really genuinely good about urge thereby to help suffering others. but too often what takes precedence is the therapeutic deontological self-absolving: doing/ writing “the right thing” with “good intentions”— less concern with actual empirical consequences of political theory or action. (there’s some lineage here to the “beautiful soul” which i’m too lazy to trace right now.) this is one reason why it’s salutary for leftwing thinkers to read rightwing critique (and vice versa of course, but rightwing’s blind spots tend to be of different nature)— to have their “good” intentions and “good” self-critical (i.e. critical of west/capitalism) theorizing confronted with discrepant empirical realities and consequences.

on the other hand, utilitarianism unchecked by deontology is abhorrent. this leads to end-justifying-means calculations which (depending on who’s doing the calculating) are all too likely to come down to goal of gaining brute/absolute political power over individuals.

would read a blog post psychologizing those who feel the need for elaborate justifications of their disinclination for (what they perceive as) left wing "theory." talk about moving guilt around!

(just leaving aside the weird and confused notion of "theory" at work in that blog post)

i like a lot of that - particularly re this "i inherit it, am complicit in it. yet (intuitively) i'm not personally responsible" in the sense that objection both fulfills the moral criteria ("not in my name") while obviating the need to directly confront the areas that the subject personally benefits from injustice such that in its most hypocritical state you see academics who rail against all types of injustices, but won't support adjunct unionization.

the one thing i particularly liked about the op was how generous i think the pov is that yr ideological opponent sincerely believes in their values, and aren't cynically lying about what they feel/think is true. and that more importantly, that ppl's values are often the same (i think this blog talks elsewhere about u ethically agreeing w/ salem witch hunters that witches that curse the land should be put to death - you just disagree that these are witches, or that witches exist, etc. ie - what is bad about these ppl aren't their values, but how those values are expressed).

xp to drash. ryan's ideological anxiety not so interesting ;)

ryan, i think more directly he is asking an important question about the far left - what do they gain from objecting to the very states, communities, etc that they live in. ie if you assume that members of larger social groups feel loyalty towards that group, why doesn't this one? one answer these ppl might give is that they are actually hyper loyal to the values proclaimed by the society, and therefore feel obligated to object to the society that doesn't honor those values (this is the 'protest is patriotic' argument). this might be true but is suspiciously self-serving. a cynical right-wing response might be that liberals have 'white guilt,' some kind of unprocessed psychological trauma (u hear this argument often in reverse too - that right-wingers are inflicted by paranoia, etc). the value of this post's answer is that by treating it as a deontological/utilitarian problem u don't have to either dehumanize either side of the argument - they have logical differences that account for various ideological differences. as opposed to being somehow emotionally crippled.

ryan, i acknowledge confusion of my own thinking here-- and am NOT exempting myself from any of the psychological motivations here. (i'm largely sympathetic to and partisan of "left wing theory" but tbh have a lot of issues too. i'm definitely NOT speaking from any place of superior political or ethical knowledge, judgment, or clarity. there's a lot of tension, doubt, uncertainty, confusion in my political thinking, i admit it.)

nb i was careful at the start to "bracket" theoretical or empirical validity of (leftwing) theory, just as SA's original blogpost did.

ps not just not exempting; a lot of my description of the academic here (eg re the academic's confessional self-critique) is... my own confessional self-critique. i'm not moving guilt around-- i admittedly don't know how to deal with my own "guilt."

the one thing i particularly liked about the op was how generous i think the pov is that yr ideological opponent sincerely believes in their values, and aren't cynically lying about what they feel/think is true. and that more importantly, that ppl's values are often the same

the value of this post's answer is that by treating it as a deontological/utilitarian problem u don't have to either dehumanize either side of the argument - they have logical differences that account for various ideological differences

otm, i appreciate that aspect (perspective or interpretive principle— which is also, in a way, an ethical principle) to this blogger’s thinking. seems unusual?

also, if we are to uphold value of critique then, damn, let us always take care to submit ourselves (the various “ourselves”) to critique— all the more precisely where we least think critique is called for (e.g. motives and mechanisms of contemporary critique).

i love consequence ethics, so many excuses for human sacrifice whilst you feel good about humanity

yeah I dont see why the latter seems to be a deliberate aim here

Many people have remarked on the paradox of an academia made mostly of upper-class ethnic-majority Westerners trying so very hard to find reasons why lots of things are the fault of upper-class ethnic-majority Westerners.

lol @ "trying so very hard". it's not very hard!

if you assume that members of larger social groups feel loyalty towards that group, why doesn't this one?

why is group loyalty something to take as basic?

or better: why is group loyalty to any group smaller than all people something to value rather than oppose, as a source of war/suffering/exclusion?

or all living things

or all things

which is just to say no group loyalty

these are axes of individualism vs communitarianism & debates amongst these typically assume some answer to one of these questions re. particular historical communities e.g.

& the "far left" perhaps doesn't buy this assumption. & why should that be what demands accounting ("oh, they're just suffering guilty" or whatever) rather than those who assume the importance of particular group loyalties?

lol @ "trying so very hard". it's not very hard!

i agree with that (which is not to say all those reasons are necessarily valid; no doubt many are)

why is group loyalty something to take as basic?

good salient question (assuming one takes "basic" to mean philosophically/ morally basic, rather than historically/ sociologically/ psychologically basic)

(nb it’s possible to consider “group loyalty” as basic phenomenon but any particular form of group loyalty as arbitrary/ contingent)

why is group loyalty to any group smaller than all people something to value rather than oppose, as a source of war/suffering/exclusion?

that’s even better question (and point),

but "no group loyalty" seems to imply a kind of abstract universalism which i don't think far left (at present) finds congenial, either

i've recommended it many times around here but reinhart koselleck's Critique and Crisis is a really important text in this case because it shows how something like a "critical" pov became differentiated from politics (and therefore power). koselleck argues that once politics is distinguished from an "absolute morality" centered in the subject then something like "critique" locates for itself an observational position that is not entangled or determined by what it is observing (that is, society). ever since then critical theory has sought perspectives from what you might call the "outside," the proletarian subject being of course the paradigm case. the reason why academics who engage in theory are so keen to denounce their "own" society is because its this gesture which enables their whole critical project in the first place! it's what "authenticates" and secures their ability to do Theory. you have to locate a "subject" (whether that word is used or not) somewhere from which you can do the observing.

and, of course, Theory itself (or critique) isn't domesticated in this process because it reflexively discovers (after the fact) how contingent (ie, embedded in the very society it presumes to critique) those critical observations really are---hence a sort of arm's race you see sometimes, "my oppressed is more oppressed than your oppressed."

so, for me, what's at issue here isn't "guilt" (unless by guilt you mean the status of the unobserved observer making the critique possible) but the more or less inevitable development of a mode of communication identified by koselleck.

lol ryan you should really read that sloterdijk 'critique'

i really should!

it's got fart jokes

sold

I just farted btw

i bought it as an undergraduate (god knows why or what i thought it was, i think i saw it in a barnes and noble) and it has been sitting on my shelf ever since.

fucker has a lotta pages, hope there are a lot of fart jokes

point taken that the academic left has theoretical reasons (which is imo a more cynical explanation than the ops) but i don't think that is what is animating the vast majority of the left who ime are coming from a more - idk - like sensational affect phenomenology. it is painful to see someone suffer, you want to do something to help with that, but most ppl* feel that "charity starts at home," so focusing on how yr responsible for their suffering is a neat way to bridge that gap.

* admittedly this resonates w/ me atm bc i've been reading about dolphin social groupings and the gombe chimpanzee war where i think these tribal loyalties are so crystalized

some about jerkin it too

haven't seen any about farting while jerkin it

but there are a lotta pages left

http://www.vice.com/read/undergrads-today-are-the-worst-a-tas-confession

find this weird though:

the reason why academics who engage in theory are so keen to denounce their "own" society is because its this gesture which enables their whole critical project in the first place

*the* reason? rather than academics who engage in theory living in ~the west~ and thus being first-party to their society's exploitations?

strikes me as sorta like "I pushed my car off a cliff for the excellent photo opportunity!"

sterl: accurate

who don't have the time of day for anyone who can't immediately process obtuse burns about Heidegger or whatever. Basically, professional philosophers are the worst people.

*the* reason? rather than academics who engage in theory living in ~the west~ and thus being first-party to their society's exploitations?

i think if you take "theory" to be a particular form of societal self-description then yeah distinguishing yourself from that society in order to describe it seems like a necessary move. i dont think this distinction has to be negative a la "denounce" but that's the way the particular tradition we're talking about often works. i think this form of theory from the start doesn't identify with western society--that's its whole raison d'etre!

a good example of a theorist who refused to do this and got all kinds of hell for it is richard rorty.

anyway, im dodging the question, which is why western academics are drawn to do this in the first place--but in rortyan terms think there's a good ethnocentric reason for that in koselleck! or "what is enlightenment?" even!

thanks for koselleck recommendation

Ryan I've read most of irony solidarity & contingency but I don't quite understand how rorty is more(?) ethnocentric?

Can u recommend a critique that deals w that?

sure: Rorty's own "On Ethnocentrism" in Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth. what i mean when i call him ethnocentric is that i think he's very forthright about his unwillingness to locate a place for critique outside of society...so the only to do is "draw a moral" (as he would put it) based on our cultural values as best we can seeing as it is impossible to locate ourselves outside of them and thus judge them from an "absolute." in turn, i think a very good critique of this ethnocentric position can be found in Tom Cohen's Anti-Mimesis. it's a thorny issue.

Rorty otm? as a complete outsider to "theory" I'm surprised they've staked out a position so at odds with Nietzsche; Rorty's view is by contrast straight out of Nietzsche. I should read Rorty (I loved his late sartorial style (blue pants e.g., church lady chic), my aspiration when I'm 80 or whatever)

Rorty's view is by contrast straight out of Nietzsche

a version of nietzsche, a version of wittgenstein, a version of heidegger

haven't read rorty in a long time (since undergrad days), should reread. it's a strange situation (or strange relation to philosopher): iirc i found him very congenial, almost too congenial, to my own thinking, intuitions, situation-- but maybe for that reason (unfairly) don't take him or read him seriously enough. funny, if i were asked to pick philosopher closest to my own views, rorty would be one of those to come to mind-- yet feel great disengagement from him. it's like he articulates in plain language metaphysical situation as i see it-- but there's something too easy, too readable, too facile, disappointing about his overall philosophy/ response (though it's not like i've read anything more convincing, either). like lol he's not tortured & complicated & mystifying enough. (and offers v little help in tackling thorny political problems, though i don't necessarily expect that from a philosopher.)

his appeal to/ avowal of 'ethnocentrism' (along with its metaphysical ungroundedness) is compelling (hits close to home for me), yet ultimately seems simplistic

one great thing about rorty is how seriously he takes "literature" (and relation of philosophy & literature), though iirc his literary readings are not particularly profound

i <3 stanley cavell more

euler otm about his style. attended a talk once; very charming witty man.

like lol he's not tortured & complicated & mystifying enough. (and offers v little help in tackling thorny political problems, though i don't necessarily expect that from a philosopher.)

my own take on rorty (in my forthcoming book!) piggyback's off cohen's argument to argue something not terribly far from this. more or less that while he's otm about the conditions of our thinking his appeal to ethnocentrism is too straightforward because that space rests on a logic of exclusion to which it remains blind. that's the short version, but you sorta see the outcome of this when he dismisses the likes of foucault and other european thinkers as "private ironists" with little useful to say about the social space.

in any case, rorty is a uniquely useful thinker because he's a congenitally clear one, and he's willing to following his argument through to it's logically extreme conclusion. i used to not like his thought very much, but his unfrozen caveman american philosopher routine has grown on me a lot.

sorry for garbled posts. i think i am ever so slightly dyslexic and when i write too fast it comes out weird--hopefully the meaning can be inferred!

agree with your posts. would be v interested to read your book!

his unfrozen caveman american philosopher routine

lol (& otm)

that is, am v interested; would read

ok here's my question:

in the United States, despite some exceptions, the left and right are pretty well understood. the right-wing is in favor of less government regulation and involvement in the market (at least ideologically, let's put aside whether right-wing capitalism is actually as govt hands-off as it purports to be), and more government involvement in social and foreign affairs issues. by contrast the left, generally speaking, is against government involvement in social and foreign affairs but in favor of more government involvement in the economy. obv this very general statement has a lot of holes in it- eg what do you do w/ libertarians? do these ideologies really correspond to the actual policies promoted by different political groups that self-identify as right or left-wing, etc. so my question is really on the most superficial level - is it incidental that the two primary methods of self-identification have lined up this way? is there an alternate reality where the two parties are more consistent on issues of govt involvement (one party against govt involvement in the economy, foreign affairs, social issues, and one party pro govt involvement in all the above), or that they align differently? or are there good reasons why, in the US at the very least, history has lined them up in this particular configuration?

have-lots vs have not-so-muches

what does that mean? i don't understand how it answers my question.

is your question, are there good reasons for ~history~

because

are there good reasons to have these particular facets bundled together like this (like a consistent ideology motivating each constellation of ideas) or is it an accident of history

there's an obvious power bloc in Western democracies whose interests align with having as little as possible government interference in the economy and regulation of business - the source of their wealth and power is directly tied up with the development of government by representative democracy.

why this same group favours more expansionist foreign policy = trade, resources, overseas markets

And domestic social interference? Doesn't seem like a good fit for unbridled capitalism

one wants ones workers well-behaved, sober and fit for duty.

otoh tho we see US corporations more-or-less lining up behind a progressive social agenda vis-a-vis diversity issues