People like you don't understand politics or plurality. Continue on your self-indulgent superiority.
Let me first say that in principle, I don't disagree. Liberals can be a little smug and superior--in part because their values are in part predicated on a species of enlightenment thinking that has been more or less validated by Western history. But they have no better access to truth than anyone else, and the tendency to act as though the future of history has already been written, and has already taken the shape of "progress"--is the sort of teleological reasoning that would have made Hegel blush.
But--this isn't the first time that I've seen you leap to the defense of conservatism by alluding to a kind of ideological relativism--and that's an approach that I have a problem with on a number of levels.
Firstly, relativism fails a basic test of logic. If all ideas are equally valid, it follows that they are equally invalid. The corollary that you must accept, every time you use relativism as a defense of an ideology that someone else considers morally bankrupt, is this: under total relativism, the only person who is always wrong is the person who always thinks that he or she is right. According to that, the extremes on any side of the spectrum will always be wrong--because they themselves normally fail the only test that relativism provides for, which is a recognition that human understanding and reasoning are partial.
Secondly--and this is a much bigger objection--relativism is morally empty. We all know that it just isn't true that all ideas are equally good. And that's more or less where Hemi-Cuda (the way I read him) is coming from. Canada isn't more liberal or more conservative than the U.S.--but it is more "moderate"--in that there is a culture of governance here that tends to be guided by reason rather than naked ideology. This is a good thing--and it's something Americans could learn from us. My worry is that instead, we'll end up learning the wrong lesson from them--but that's a topic for another day.
In this case, we have to differentiate between intellectual conservatism (which is mostly what I see you espousing) and the kind of Millenarian, magical-thinking, intolerant, nativist ethno-centric race-baiting wing of conservatism that Glenn Beck (and to a far lesser extent Sarah Palin) represent.
Any philosophy has to be able to make that distinction. One is a series of ideas that are in keeping with a materialist philosophy of life and a rational polity. The other is a millenarian, ultra-religious ideology that rejects materiality altogether. You and I both know that the result of that radical anti-materialism is complete moral nihilism. And those just aren't good ideas. As intellectually honest people, we have to be able to reject them. To be honest, I doubt we disagree much about that.
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Am I ? She has proven she has the ear of millions of Americans. She just sold 300 000 copies of her book in the first day of release. This is a year after her failed run for VP. How can that not be impressive?
It is no doubt about it. Thing is most people are observing her for the comedy value.
Let me first say that in principle, I don't disagree. Liberals can be a little smug and superior--in part because their values are in part predicated on a species of enlightenment thinking that has been more or less validated by Western history. But they have no better access to truth than anyone else, and the tendency to act as though the future of history has already been written, and has already taken the shape of "progress"--is the sort of teleological reasoning that would have made Hegel blush.
But--this isn't the first time that I've seen you leap to the defense of conservatism by alluding to a kind of ideological relativism--and that's an approach that I have a problem with on a number of levels.
Firstly, relativism fails a basic test of logic. If all ideas are equally valid, it follows that they are equally invalid. The corollary that you must accept, every time you use relativism as a defense of an ideology that someone else considers morally bankrupt, is this: under total relativism, the only person who is always wrong is the person who always thinks that he or she is right. According to that, the extremes on any side of the spectrum will always be wrong--because they themselves normally fail the only test that relativism provides for, which is a recognition that human understanding and reasoning are partial.
Secondly--and this is a much bigger objection--relativism is morally empty. We all know that it just isn't true that all ideas are equally good. And that's more or less where Hemi-Cuda (the way I read him) is coming from. Canada isn't more liberal or more conservative than the U.S.--but it is more "moderate"--in that there is a culture of governance here that tends to be guided by reason rather than naked ideology. This is a good thing--and it's something Americans could learn from us. My worry is that instead, we'll end up learning the wrong lesson from them--but that's a topic for another day.
In this case, we have to differentiate between intellectual conservatism (which is mostly what I see you espousing) and the kind of Millenarian, magical-thinking, intolerant, nativist ethno-centric race-baiting wing of conservatism that Glenn Beck (and to a far lesser extent Sarah Palin) represent.
Any philosophy has to be able to make that distinction. One is a series of ideas that are in keeping with a materialist philosophy of life and a rational polity. The other is a millenarian, ultra-religious ideology that rejects materiality altogether. You and I both know that the result of that radical anti-materialism is complete moral nihilism. And those just aren't good ideas. As intellectually honest people, we have to be able to reject them. To be honest, I doubt we disagree much about that.
Well, now, let's be totally fair. If I am philosophically conservative, which I am, at least classically, then let's not assume that I endorse any sort of Nietzschean ideological relativism. Because I don't! However, we do live in an democracy which assumes a certain egalitarianism among opinion, so ideologically, yes we are just a bunch of Kafkaesque bumblers seaching blindly for truth (although I do believe there is a light, just more complex than either Hemi-Cuda or Calgaryborn would believe).
To explain myself thoroughly I woud go back to what Raymond Aron (name-dropping) alluded to as the smug self-satisfaction of a post-radical society. I don't endorse Calgaryborn's posts, per se, but I respect his ability to post what he thinks and intellectually I don't give it anymore substance than something Hemi-Cuda says. Intellectually both are espousing the same ideology and without philosophy none can gain an advantage over the other, thus, my rather offensive defense of Calgaryborn.
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Well, now, let's be totally fair. If I am philosophically conservative, which I am, at least classically, then let's not assume that I endorse any sort of Nietzschean ideological relativism. Because I don't! However, we do live in an democracy which assumes a certain egalitarianism among opinion, so ideologically, yes we are just a bunch of Kafkaesque bumblers seaching blindly for truth (although I do believe there is a light, just more complex than either Hemi-Cuda or Calgaryborn would believe).
To explain myself thoroughly I woud go back to what Raymond Aron (name-dropping) alluded to as the smug self-satisfaction of a post-radical society. I don't endorse Calgaryborn's posts, per se, but I respect his ability to post what he thinks and intellectually I don't give it anymore substance than something Hemi-Cuda says. Intellectually both are espousing the same ideology and without philosophy none can gain an advantage over the other, thus, my rather offensive defense of Calgaryborn.
Fair points. And, maybe, with retroactive apologies to both Hemi-Cuda and Calgaryborn, the fairest thing for us to do from now on is to avoid dragging other posters into a conversation that is orders of magnitudes weirder than anything they imagined when they first composed their replies.
I often wonder if you and I aren't so different, though certainly we come from what we might term different "partisan" backgrounds. We both know that certain fields of academic study come with built-in shibboleths that betray the ideological underpinnings of their very projects of inquiry--the cozy relationship between Cultural Studies and Marxism comes to mind, or that between economic conservatism and political science.
Over time, I've grown uncomfortable with the Left Hegelian vision of history, precisely because of what you say above--that it seems out of line with a democratized world in which we must always be conscious of the partiality (in both senses) of knowledge. What in liberals is a smug confidence in the rectitude of their values, in Marxists is a gloomy (and yet, also smug) knowledge that history is careening toward disaster and redemption according to better ideals.
But that's an aside: the point is that I think both of us are interested in the impact of ideas (let's call them philosophies) on the realm of the real--and the Nietzchean relativism that you speak of has infected our way of thinking so thoroughly that University students in first year literature classes genuinely believe that their blinkered and stupid ideas about the books that they are encountering for the first time are just as good as anyone else's. And this is the endpoint of relativism. Nothing matters; no credential can set one person apart from another, because all credentials are equally in/valid. No action can be termed moral or immoral--all actions are equal. All persons are equal in value--no method of measuring them can stand above any other.
More to the point, no ideology can be seen as "wrong," even if it depends on millenarianism and nihilism as its basic warrants.
I just don't believe that any of that is true. Maybe that makes me a bad liberal--but to me, there is real right and real wrong. There really are good actions and evil actions, if not good and evil people.
And Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck? Their ideas, their ways of thinking--are disastrously wrong. They're not evil people. But they are ignorant people--and yes, they are stupid people. There may not be a static set of principles that determines "truth." But "bull****" looks the same in any philosophy.
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Fair points. And, maybe, with retroactive apologies to both Hemi-Cuda and Calgaryborn, the fairest thing for us to do from now on is to avoid dragging other posters into a conversation that is orders of magnitudes weirder than anything they imagined when they first composed their replies.
I often wonder if you and I aren't so different, though certainly we come from what we might term different "partisan" backgrounds. We both know that certain fields of academic study come with built-in shibboleths that betray the ideological underpinnings of their very projects of inquiry--the cozy relationship between Cultural Studies and Marxism comes to mind, or that between economic conservatism and political science.
Over time, I've grown uncomfortable with the Left Hegelian vision of history, precisely because of what you say above--that it seems out of line with a democratized world in which we must always be conscious of the partiality (in both senses) of knowledge. What in liberals is a smug confidence in the rectitude of their values, in Marxists is a gloomy (and yet, also smug) knowledge that history is careening toward disaster and redemption according to better ideals.
But that's an aside: the point is that I think both of us are interested in the impact of ideas (let's call them philosophies) on the realm of the real--and the Nietzchean relativism that you speak of has infected our way of thinking so thoroughly that University students in first year literature classes genuinely believe that their blinkered and stupid ideas about the books that they are encountering for the first time are just as good as anyone else's. And this is the endpoint of relativism. Nothing matters; no credential can set one person apart from another, because all credentials are equally in/valid. No action can be termed moral or immoral--all actions are equal. All persons are equal in value--no method of measuring them can stand above any other.
More to the point, no ideology can be seen as "wrong," even if it depends on millenarianism and nihilism as its basic warrants.
I just don't believe that any of that is true. Maybe that makes me a bad liberal--but to me, there is real right and real wrong. There really are good actions and evil actions, if not good and evil people.
And Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck? Their ideas, their ways of thinking--are disastrously wrong. They're not evil people. But they are ignorant people--and yes, they are stupid people. There may not be a static set of principles that determines "truth." But "bull****" looks the same in any philosophy.
Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are morons because they have this pretense of anti-intellectualism as intellectualism which drives me crazy. Like Palin's little wink or Beck mixing his sneakers with suits. It's the ultimate in democratic stupidity.
The common man can probably rule himself, but he needs guides through a natural aristocracy where the quest for knowledge is understood as something important where not all can participate equally. Heck, the greatest insights made on America were written by a French aristocrat, Alexis de Tocqueville and they are still studied for their relevance today.
There is a reason that we should read great books naively. I am almost certain that there are very few men (and some women) who attain a level of philosophical genius in the sense that they can actually step aside the pattern of history and create honest insights into the workings of human nature. I am absolutely certain when I read Shakespeare or Austen or Plato that they should be telling me things, not me criticizing them.
We are lost as a society, currently. Our politics are in disarray, given to smugness and sloganeering by both left and right.
I've got to come back to this subject in the morning, any more and I won't be able to sleep tonight.
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Not at all, as I've said, I would rather start with LA over any of the other WC playoff teams. Bunch of underachievers who look good on paper but don't even deserve to be in the playoffs.
Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are morons because they have this pretense of anti-intellectualism as intellectualism which drives me crazy. Like Palin's little wink or Beck mixing his sneakers with suits. It's the ultimate in democratic stupidity.
I'm with you. I'd add that this "folksy anti-intellectualism" is actually itself a species of relativism. It denies the value of knowing more, and of having more training--and privileges the reactions of the "gut" over those of the "brain." In other words it both proposes a total relativism of ideas ("even though I know nothing, my ideas are just as good as those of people smarter and more educated than me") it also proposes a kind of nihilism of spirit ("my convictions are de facto true because I say so, and need not stand up to any rational or empirical test whatsover").
It's a dangerous combination. You look at "tea party" types, who are willing to heckle and deride grieving mothers in order to stand up for insurance companies... and you realize that the danger here isn't that their convictions are too strong. It's that their conviction is in the service of nothing. It's complete moral emptiness and blackness--and it is very scary. http://beltwayblips.dailyradar.com/v...arty-patriots/
I mean, we can say that these people are idiots. But we can't dismiss them as idiots, because their ideology leads in a direction that we must not go. And that has nothing to do with conservatism vs. liberalism--it has to do with the conviction that we can build a greater polity together vs. the conviction that this world is an illusion, and most of its inhabitants are doomed infidels anyway, so callous cruelty and total nihilism become options in a way that they wouldn't otherwise.
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I'm with you. I'd add that this "folksy anti-intellectualism" is actually itself a species of relativism. It denies the value of knowing more, and of having more training--and privileges the reactions of the "gut" over those of the "brain." In other words it both proposes a total relativism of ideas ("even though I know nothing, my ideas are just as good as those of people smarter and more educated than me") it also proposes a kind of nihilism of spirit ("my convictions are de facto true because I say so, and need not stand up to any rational or empirical test whatsover").
It's a dangerous combination. You look at "tea party" types, who are willing to heckle and deride grieving mothers in order to stand up for insurance companies... and you realize that the danger here isn't that their convictions are too strong. It's that their conviction is in the service of nothing. It's complete moral emptiness and blackness--and it is very scary. http://beltwayblips.dailyradar.com/v...arty-patriots/
I mean, we can say that these people are idiots. But we can't dismiss them as idiots, because their ideology leads in a direction that we must not go. And that has nothing to do with conservatism vs. liberalism--it has to do with the conviction that we can build a greater polity together vs. the conviction that this world is an illusion, and most of its inhabitants are doomed infidels anyway, so callous cruelty and total nihilism become options in a way that they wouldn't otherwise.
We live in very confusing times. Or perhaps we just live in times that lack a certain order. Personally, I, most like yourself, tend to look at the spirit of things and become rather depressed when the spirit of our age is so completely mysterious.
We should not be so bold to suggest that the visions of society that we hold will result in the type of future we desire. We lack a certain public freedom that a healthy democracy used to urgently require. As my favourite author, Saul Bellow said in ... "Herzog" I believe... us moderns have radically expanded the private freedom, without creating anything meaningful to fulfill it with. Thus, the majority of us tend to fill our lives up with ourselves. Our own opinions and ideas are often too smug to allow for any sort of self-awareness and thus, we have no real means to conduct meaningful friendship or community with anyone of our fellow citizens.
Politics is regime-building and humans are regime-building machines. When our own personal views of what the polity should be are vocalized, they become opinions and thus, inevitably collide with other's opinions, becoming politics. The problem is that we have no higher conduct with which to conduct our debates anymore. Allan Bloom, another of my favourite writers, believed that what we really were missing from our souls was longing or "eros." We do not desire any sort of public outcome, but merely the satisfaction of seeing our own meager ideas come to fruition.
I guess we have a certain crudity to these modern times, but we also have a wonderful freedom. Even though we lack order, we have the space to conduct our affairs the way we see fit. I dedicate myself, as a student and writer, to fighting this war of ideas with the relativists and the radicals, from both right and left, who seek to supplant any good that remains in our culture with the nihilism of egalitarianism. We have beautiful things that lie embedded in our culture, they still retain their power to dazzle and sweep away those who come into contact with them.
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You want to change your name like a pornstar - stick to fluff news. You want to change your name and then talk as if your opinion should matter - then you are a joke.
I could not agree more, Palin changed her name, there was a time that she was known as Sarah Heath. But instead she goes with the pornstar name of Sarah (im)Palin and then started talking as if her opinion should matter, she is a joke.
I can't believe that when push comes to shove this woman will actually get the nomination.
Conservatives gripe about her rough treatment from the "left wing media". Well, wait until certain members of the Republican party, in the employ of the other candidates, go after her. You think Katie Couric's bad? Wait 'til you see what a guy like Karl Rove can (and will) do to her.
On another note, this thread feels suspiciously like a fourth year political philosophy class.
And, IFF - shibboleths? The only other time I've seen this word used it was on a midterm...The entire class asked the prof to explain its meaning. Great word.
