A Commentary on the Passing Scene by
Robert Paul Wolff
rwolff@afroam.umass.edu
Thursday, March 3, 2016
NUMBER NINE!
The ninth in my series of lectures on Ideological Critique is now available on YouTube. One more to go [Jane Austen]. Then they shall be available to the ages, and I can go back to bloviating about this extraordinary electoral year.
I suppose that's why Republics have the best mixed constitutions: made up of monarchy, democracy and aristocracy. Why become a Triumvirate tyrant illegally when you can be a lawful king (or queen) for four years--and eight years if your lucky!
What an insightful story the one you tell about your first meeting in the African-American studies department!
I suppose that in the philosophy departments they didn't try to create a psychic space for you, because they assumed that you would "naturally feel at home", although at times one is least "at home" where one is supposed to be "naturally at home".
When I first arrived in South America, 40 years ago, I got a lot of often condescending tips about how to make myself at home. I was often left to sink or swim and inevitably sank. I received a certain amount of outrage hostility or covert hostility and although I was too immature to realize it at the time, having listened to your account of your first meeting at the African-American studies department, I now realize that I was greeted in certain spaces with the same consideration and openness to integrate me as you were, generally (as I recall from so many years ago) in spaces where we were going to work together politically, where my ultra-gaucheness had little importance. By the way, I've never been the life of the party, not even in my home town, which by now is as alien to me as any name on the map I've passed through. You can't go home again and sometimes there was never any home to go back to in the first place.
This is at least somewhat off topic, (well, a lot of topic, but maybe not 100%) but I hope you'll indulge it a bit. The other day, while feeling a bit board and not wanting to do work preparing for lectures, I took down Alasdair MacIntyre's book _Against the Self Image of the Age_ and was surprised to see it had a review of your old book on liberalism. (I've read most of MacIntyre's book, but hadn't read this and forgot it was there.) I was even more surprised, and intrigued, when MacIntyre criticized your book for failing to see that liberalism could be ideological or an ideology.
As he says, But [a political] theory and the principles may stand in a quite different relationship. For the theory may provide not an elucidation of the principles, but a mask behind which their true meaning and importance is concealed. The theory may be an ideological instrument, which enables those who profess the principles to deceive not only others but also themselves as to the character of their political action. I have already noticed that Wolff does not allow for the possibility of ideological distortion in his own explanations...
Now, I have a copy of _Against Liberalism_ on my shelf, but I have to admit that I have not read it. I am very curious if you think that MacIntyre just got you wrong in his review, or missed your point, of if you have changed your own views significantly since the time that you wrote that book. Of course, as this is really "off topic", there's no need to devote space to it, though I would be very interested to hear your take.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI suppose that's why Republics have the best mixed constitutions: made up of monarchy, democracy and aristocracy. Why become a Triumvirate tyrant illegally when you can be a lawful king (or queen) for four years--and eight years if your lucky!
ReplyDeleteWhat an insightful story the one you tell about your first meeting in the African-American studies department!
ReplyDeleteI suppose that in the philosophy departments they didn't try to create a psychic space for you, because they assumed that you would "naturally feel at home", although at times one is least "at home" where one is supposed to be "naturally at home".
When I first arrived in South America, 40 years ago, I got a lot of often condescending tips about how to make myself at home. I was often left to sink or swim and inevitably sank. I received a certain amount of outrage hostility or covert hostility and although I was too immature to realize it at the time, having listened to your account of your first meeting at the African-American studies department, I now realize that I was greeted in certain spaces with the same consideration and openness to integrate me as you were, generally (as I recall from so many years ago) in spaces where we were going to work together politically, where my ultra-gaucheness had little importance. By the way, I've never been the life of the party, not even in my home town, which by now is as alien to me as any name on the map I've passed through. You can't go home again and sometimes there was never any home to go back to in the first place.
This is at least somewhat off topic, (well, a lot of topic, but maybe not 100%) but I hope you'll indulge it a bit. The other day, while feeling a bit board and not wanting to do work preparing for lectures, I took down Alasdair MacIntyre's book _Against the Self Image of the Age_ and was surprised to see it had a review of your old book on liberalism. (I've read most of MacIntyre's book, but hadn't read this and forgot it was there.) I was even more surprised, and intrigued, when MacIntyre criticized your book for failing to see that liberalism could be ideological or an ideology.
ReplyDeleteAs he says, But [a political] theory and the principles may stand in a quite different relationship. For the theory may provide not an elucidation of the principles, but a mask behind which their true meaning and importance is concealed. The theory may be an ideological instrument, which enables those who profess the principles to deceive not only others but also themselves as to the character of their political action. I have already noticed that Wolff does not allow for the possibility of ideological distortion in his own explanations...
Now, I have a copy of _Against Liberalism_ on my shelf, but I have to admit that I have not read it. I am very curious if you think that MacIntyre just got you wrong in his review, or missed your point, of if you have changed your own views significantly since the time that you wrote that book. Of course, as this is really "off topic", there's no need to devote space to it, though I would be very interested to hear your take.