tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post2534869821344486178..comments2024-03-28T20:47:48.468-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: RETURNING TO REALITY, HOWEVER DISTASTEFULRobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-66894082528041344772016-06-14T02:13:54.933-04:002016-06-14T02:13:54.933-04:00Off topic: Prof, I was recently musing about Marx ...Off topic: Prof, I was recently musing about Marx and leftist politics generally, prompted by a <a href="http://induecourse.ca/naomi-klein-this-changes-everything/" rel="nofollow">commentary</a> I happened across by Prof. Joseph Heath on Naomi Klein's <i>This Changes Everything</i>. What struck me in particular was Heath's interpretation that the reason Klein is opposed to the practical solution of carbon pricing when it comes to climate change is because she thinks it is immoral to pollute, pure and simple. <br /><br />This struck me of an instance of a broader thrust among the left, touched on previously here, and regularly on Prof. Leiter's blog, of identity politics and moralizing trumping an understanding of economics/class and politics (as well as psychology).<br /><br />As I pondered how the left had drifted so far from class and power being central to its socio-political analysis, I wondered if it might come, not just from a general tendency to turn Marx into a moralizer, but specifically from his talk of capitalism's contradictions. Could it be that the left has made the mistake of extrapolating from "capitalism has contradictions" to "therefore capitalism is irrational" and it is the irrationality per se that is bad? <br /><br />I'm currently rereading Nietzsche's <i>Beyond Good and Evil</i> where he strongly challenges the utility of "truth". Might the left have fallen prey to West's general pathological (some, like Nietzsche, would say) tendency to desire a rational basis for all things? <br /><br />I was also thinking that it is probably all too easy to elide Marx's theortical work on capitalism with his worker's activism, which could reinforce the tendency to read Marx as a moralizer.<br /><br />I guess I would say the point of this rambling comment is several-fold: 1) do you think any of the above is correct (or even coherent)? 2) do you think socialism is more rational than capitalism (and did Marx think so) - and is that a reason to favor it over capitalism (for you or Marx)? 3) how strongly related (if at all) is the irrationality of capitalism to the fact that it causes immense global suffering which we rightly deplore?TheDudeDiogeneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11613928663752680375noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-91878123774490574492016-06-13T07:52:49.682-04:002016-06-13T07:52:49.682-04:00My own approach to reading the polls & the new...My own approach to reading the polls & the news ignores the polls and numbers generally. Drawing a distinction between the content of the media reports [i.e. what happened & what was said] and and the judgments the media makes about what it is reporting. Setting aside the judgments found in the media and ignoring the temptations of big data, it becomes quite likely the Republicans will be massacred come November.<br /><br />Look at the GOP. Trump can't even unify his own party. These people may be functionaries and players of one kind or another in the GOP establishment, but they are his target demographic. If the GOP was united and coming at the rest of a country like a flaming meteor, then there would be cause for deep concern. But what is happening instead? Hardly a week seems to go by without some figure in the GOP admonishing him for racist remarks or some other foolishness he's come out with.<br /><br />Admittedly Hillary is deeply unpopular, but she has a mostly united party behind her. If Obama's & Bernie's campaign show anything, it is the power and necessity of a well-run organization in electoral politics.<br /><br />With their poll numbers roughly equal at the present time and four months to the election, the biggest difference between them is just that: the unity of the Democrats and the chaos in the GOP and its donor networks (just look at the articles on the more or less secret conference of Romney and his network of donors).<br /><br />The results of the presidential election will be lop-sided and there's a lot of reasons to think that it will be worse than the usual spillover for down ticket races. I expect that a fair number of figures in the GOP will find it difficult to live down their endorsements of Trump.<br /><br />The question to ask is this: setting aside poll numbers and big data generally, who do you think is going to win Hillary or Trump? And why?timhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03365335307516550096noreply@blogger.com