My very first venture into YouTube was a ten-part series of lectures called Ideological Critique. Unlke all my subsequent YouTube efforts, which have been filmed and uploaded by Alex Cambell, a UNC Philosophy doctoral student now writing his dissertation, I recorded those lectures myself in my study, edited them, and uploaded them to YouTube. In the third lecture, after explaining Karl Mannheim's brilliant analysis of the ideological encoding of time itself, from IDEOLOGY AND UTOPIA, I offered my own ideological critique of four modes of space consciousness, ending with an account of the revolutionary experience of space.
If you will follow this link to the lecture, and skip forward to 1:07:00, which is to say to the last six minutes or a bit more, you will, I think, hear and see something that will lift your spirits in these difficult times.
It's a great song; it brings tears to my eyes. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteHowever, although in Harlan County there may have been only two sides, things are a bit more complicated these days and from what I've seen since the Mueller Report came out, the left and what some call "the liberal establishment" are not on the same side, although they may coincide on certain issues. Then of course there's the right, so we have at least three sides.
Wallerstein,
ReplyDeleteIt's quite true - at least in my case. I'll unabashedly admit that quite honestly I would sooner vote for many (actual) right-Libertarian candidates over many establishment liberals. Gary Johnson > most the democratic ticket. Since I think there's larger overlap between our anti-establishment sentiments than there is overlap between myself and Clinton, Booker, etc. [I think it goes without saying I hate capitalism].
Now I'll abashedly admit that this song got me through the first two weeks of the Trump election:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUB63iL3icA <-- Lana Del Rey 'Religion'
I'm not proud of it and understand if I'm forever ostracized from the community.
Chris,
ReplyDeleteI'll have to listen to the song a few times to get the sense of it. I'm completely out of sync with U.S. pop culture and I have no idea who Lana Del Rey is and what she stands for.
Would you be ostracized for listening to Lana Del Rey or for admitting to preferring Gary Johnson to most Democrats?
I can't see myself voting for a libertarian, although I generally vote for the third party left candidate in the first round here in Chile and in the run-off between the right and the mainstream liberal left, I often, but not always, don't bother to vote. I only voted once in my life in a U.S. presidential election, for McGovern in 1972. If I had voted in the U.S. 2000 election, I would have voted for Nader no doubt.
Lana Del Rey is my pop vice. I'm not proud of it. In terms of music I never really grew out of 90s grunge, but unlike some artistic venues, I acknowledge in music I'm a fool who shouldn't be listened to.
ReplyDeleteMy joke was that I would sooner be ostracized for LDR over GJ.
Right I usually vote left third party if Sanders isn't running, but I would admit if somehow it came down to Johnson/Ron Paul/Actual Right Libertarian versus Clinton/Booker/ETC in a general, I would vote libertarian.
I listen almost exclusively to classical music, mostly baroque, but when I was your age, I still mostly listened to FM radio rock. The change to classical music, which happened fairly late in life, was metabolic.
ReplyDeleteI just love "Which Side Are You On" and this version totally moves me! Helps me to see clearly and get my priorities in order!!
ReplyDelete"Which Side are You On" is an inspiring and moving song (in many versions as well).
ReplyDeleteThis song is 25 years old and has provided me with consistent inspiration/motivation for all those years (it helps I live on a Vermont hill):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwZkKBRNoc
(There is also a version based just around the chorus with Chumbawamba that is great as well but not on Youtubes).
For the literary members of the blog:
there's nothing for your comfort
in the place where I was born
someone's got the roses
'cause my people got the thorns
my people are the poor ones
their country made of stones
their wealth is in persistence
in stories and in bones
and one green hill, one green hill
one far green hill we carry everywhere
the tide must have a turning
the wind must have a change
children go to cities
where the stars look strange
and memory's a winding path
shining in the rain
to places where we parted
and we shall not meet again
and somewhere in the story
it came as no surprise
one time for all time the rain got in my eyes
it might be tears of laughter
it might be tears of rage
you hate it and you love it
and it rattles at your cage
my people are survivors living in the cracks
whatever bad luck hands them
they keep on coming back
to one green hill, one green hill
one far green hill we carry everywhere
Mr. Westrich, where in VT, may i ask. I lived in Monkton, and So. Burlington for many years. Really like all songs referenced. I gravitate to more sarcastic pieces like 'Political Science", Randy Newman, or "Power in the Darkness", Tom Robinson Band.
ReplyDeleteI have never understood the attraction to a Libertarianism. A note on Gary Johnson to illuminate: New Mexico is failed state plagued with corruption, incompetence, extreme poverty, horrible education and child welfare outcomes etc., etc.. During his term he set records for the N of times he vetoed bills. Usually tax/spending increases. When term-limited out of office everything was just as bad, or worse. That doesn't fit my understanding of the role of the state.
I'm assuming we all love John Lennon's Working Class Hero too?
ReplyDeleteChristopher J.M.,
Let me clear. I said I was more attracted to the anti-establishment components of libertarianism than I was to the common ground people presume lefties share with center Democrats. I am not actually attracted to libertarianism of the right wing sort. Although, on most political mapping tests I come out as a 'Libertarian-Socialists'. I.e., as far left as you can get on economic issues, and as libertarian as you can get on state power issues.
There are aspects of militarizing the police, surveilling citizens (domestic and foreign), mitigating or closing the empire, mitigating or ending our bloated defense (really offense) budget, reigning in coups, and limiting or ending the drug war which libertarians are *much better* on than center Democrats. Moreover, some of these policies combined, just in terms of utility, would probably be greater for the globe albeit of course awful for various local/domestic populations.
Milton Friedman, who obviously sucks, makes a correct point in Capitalism and Freedom, which is that, if lefties want to be publicly radical and advocate revolution, they're *safer* doing so under a libertarian regime, than an Orwellian one. I agree with that completely. Obama persecuted more whistle blowers than any president combined, droned strikes US Citizens, and expanded the war powers act. Those are now precedents that Trump can utilize. I seriously doubt Johnson would have done any of that.
Speaking of U.S. imperialism, Trump just threatened Russia (his supposed pal) if Russian troops are not withdrawn from Venezuela. Can you imagine the reaction of the U.S. media if Putin threatened the U.S. if U.S. troops were not withdrawn from the Ukraine?
ReplyDeleteBy the way, when I googled the story, I didn't see any mention of it in the liberal establishment U.S. media but maybe that's a problem with my google.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuelan-politics-usa/pence-calls-russian-troops-in-venezuela-unnecessary-provocation-idUSKCN1R81OQ?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews
Maybe google itself is liberal establishment ;)
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteChris, thank you for taking the time to clarify your thoughts. I have never given much credit to a distinction between left and right libertarian theory or politics and I shall reexamine that assumption. As a practical matter it seems that libertarians are lefty sometimes, conservative sometimes depending on the issue. I usually describe my intellectual orientation as a critical theorist and my political orientation as democratic leftist (the FDR wing of the party, which is also where I put Bernie Sanders who I consider a "sewer socialist." )
BTW, on political orientation tests I am usually well to the left and about halfway to being a libertarian.
I brought up Johnson for this reason: the state (federal or state) in an advanced capitalist society has the problem of mitigating the effects of capitalism on society, environment, etc. never doing as well as it could or should but at the least engineering a semblance of social stability and legitimation. Until we have devised a better state and a better way of distributing the surplus, I fail to see how a libertarian governor or president would get us any closer to that end. The result will always be, it seems, the status quo maintained or worsened.
I am also skeptical as to whether a libertarian could function in the area of foreign policy as president. How does maximizing liberty translate into foreign policy in a Hobbesian universe?
Take care...
We actually have no disagreements Christopher. Like I said I hate capitalism and I recognize libertarian economics would be a disaster, but so is the status quo state-capital nexus.
ReplyDeleteThe political tests I'm talking about are usually measured on an X Y axis grid (Cartesian coordinates). So up and down on the Y axis, are how you relate to state power. In that regard I'm full libertarian, i.e., very bottom. Left right, the X axis, is how you relate to the economy. In that regard I'm very left. So on the spectrum I'm absolute left absolute bottom. Interestingly, every President is usually somewhere in the top right (including Obama, Clinton, etc).
Jeez, Chris, cut me some slack!! They Y axis had been discovered when I took advanced statistics! I'm typically just shy of complete leftist but only halfway to libertarian. Therein lies the difference between our views on the state.
ReplyDeleteSo the problem may be that when I take the test I answer it according to my ideals - period.
ReplyDeleteE.g., should the state be in the business of educating students? In a libertarian-socialist society I say no when asked. But presently as a voter, of course I prefer Rawlsian equal and fair public schooling at all levels over private and income based schooling. So we may or may not be different. Not sure.
Chris
ReplyDeleteI don't have a conception of an ideal ideal.
I assume that there will always be some anti-vaccination people around and I don't think that people have a right not to vaccinate their children. In any society, socialist or not, some people are going to be free riders or try to cheat the system, and the state will always have a role to play.
Public school, which would be much less authoritarian than current public schools, would make sure that all children get a decent education in not only basic skills, but also in the best of multicultural human culture.
I don't have a conception of an ideal ideal.
ReplyDeleteWallerstein,
ReplyDeleteFair point. Ideal may have not been the best choice of words. Since I think libertarian-socialism is roughly the best conceivable social form I can presently muster (and this would change as society changes) I answer on that basis. I don't know how vaccines would be handled in a different state for two reasons:
1. I think as economies change, states change. I.e., a medieval state, and an ancient state are not a western liberal capitalist state. Just as green paper in America isn't the same as green paper in the past. This is the standard Marxian-Hegelian view that the categories we use to understand society are not static.
2. I'm not anti vaccine, but the concern most anti vaccers have (given my limited research) is that they don't trust the state-pharmaceutical nexus. Which I don't either. Of course the state and the private sector can occasionally be right about what they espouse and distribute, but initial skepticism towards both is warranted. Their skepticism is of course too strong, but I completely understand the weariness about a state mandating the consumption of a private product.
So in a 'new' state, how this concern would arise, or be adjudicated is not something I can weigh on with certainty.
I know a lot of leftwing doctors, ones who don't trust the big drug companies, and all of them are pro-vaccine. I realize that the drug industry is a big business, but in some cases the medication that they push is beneficial for our health and that seems to be the case with all the normal vaccines. Unless you have very strong scientific evidence against standard medical procedures, you don't have the right to deny them to your children, although you certainly have the right not to undergo them yourself.
ReplyDeleteWe don't disagree here.
ReplyDeletei'm partial to natalie merchant's version.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SB0fc9CobQ