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The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
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Sunday, February 14, 2016

DON'T BLAME ME

The death of Scalia has intensified our collective awareness of how much is at stake in this election. As someone who anguishes about this daily, I am constantly beset by the worry that I am wrongly estimating the election chances of Clinton and Sanders and hence allowing myself to back Sanders more than I ought.  When these doubts threaten to overwhelm me, it is oddly comforting to recall that it makes no actual difference at all what I think or say.  I am just a pimple on the arse of history, and not a big one either.

3 comments:

Carl said...

Don't be too sure. Some of us are strongly influenced by your opinions.

s. wallerstein said...

Even if you are wrongly estimating the election chances of Sanders and Clinton (for example, Clinton has more chances of beating any given Republican than Sanders), that does not mean that there are not very good reasons to back Sanders enthusiastically.

He is getting a simple social democratic, anti-Wall Street message across to lots of people who otherwise would not hear that message. That could be the start of a movement that may take some years to grow to maturity and even if not, a society where a goodly number of people are aware of what's going on with capitalism is better (less stupid, more pleasant to live in, less depressing, less alienated, etc.) than one where very few are aware of that.

Besides that, it's fun to back Sanders, to be able to back a candidate who is not just the lesser evil, who seems like a guy with whom one has something in common with, whom one might actually be able to have an intelligent and honest conversation with.

Chris said...
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