I should like to say a few words about something that has been concerning me lately, namely the increasingly acrimonious tone of some of the comments to this blog. Look, the people who frequent this blog or at least those who comment all occupy the same small neighborhood in the political world. Some of us are further to the left, some of us not so much, some of us think we are further to the left than others are willing to grant, but all of this comes under the heading of that delicious phrase from Freud, “the narcissism of small differences.” Short of violent revolution, which I do not think is in the cards, at least from the left, our only way of changing the world in which we live is to join not with a handful of like-minded folks but with tens of millions. Some of us may believe that our best hope is through the political action of elected representatives; others of us may be convinced that it is ground-level organizing that offers the greatest hope; and perhaps many of us believe that both are necessary. But regardless of how we undertake to bring about the changes that we believe are desirable, changes whose desirability would, I think, be agreed to by virtually everyone who is a regular reader of and commenter on this blog, it is going to take the cooperation not just of the handful of people who disagree with one another in the comments section of this blog but of scores of millions – literally, scores of millions – of men and women in this country whose concerns, beliefs, and commitments will span a fairly wide range in the political spectrum.
Now, I have nothing against a good argument. After all, I
made my living for much of my life as a professor of philosophy and in that
game we don’t really have very much except arguments, good and bad. But I
simply do not see what is gained by insults, snide remarks, or accusations of
bad faith. To be sure, some of us post long comments and some of us post short
comments and most of the people who read this blog, if Google’s analytics are
to be believed, do not comment at all. The same thing is true in every class I
have ever taught and in every group discussion I have ever participated in. A
little generosity of spirit wouldn’t kill you, after all. This is a difficult
enough world as it is without backbiting among friends.
There is, as we all know, a long and rich tradition of
fratricidal infighting on the extreme left. It has always reminded me of
nothing so much as the murderous disputes among Protestant sects. I can at
least understand that – I mean, if you think that your immortal salvation
depends on precisely the exactly correct interpretation of ancient texts which
you are incapable of reading in the original languages, that might make you a
trifle peckish. But apparently with the exception of Michael Llenos, we are all
secularists here.
In short, I am asking you all to cool it.
You would not have this problem if your analysis were more accurate.
ReplyDeleteLOL @anonymous
ReplyDeleteThe black ink of the nascent civil war has leaked into your pristine philosophical blog. Its everywhere and only going to get worse. Batten down the hatches.
ReplyDeleteQuarrelsome types will ever have their say, if not on this blog than others. Such is the promise of our brave new internet world.
ReplyDeleteWe're not friends here. In my experience in this blog and many others you don't make friends in internet. The only person I've met in internet who became a friend became one through the normal pre-internet process of personal interaction after having met online. Making a friend is a long process of give and take, sharing and at times arguing, conflict and cooperation that takes years.
ReplyDeleteI don't see that the acrimonious tone which occurs here at times is the result of leftwing political sectarianism. There are rather people who just don't like one another, independent of their political point of view. If they had the same political point of view,
the dislike might even be increased. And, as is said above, internet makes mutual hostility easier.
I read the comments section of your blog on a regular basis for several years, although I rarely posted. But a few weeks ago I gave up reading the comments because: a handful of frequent flyers insist on posting long, boring, spiteful and often off-topic diatribes every single day;reading their posts is a waste of time; and skipping their posts to find the handful of useful comments is too tedious to be worth the effort anymore.
ReplyDeleteSome of these frequent flyers have in the past been told by other participants to go get their own blog; but they don't do that for the obvious reason that they barely have an audience in this forum, and they would have no audience for their own blog because nobody really cares much about what they have to say about anything.
If you want the comments section of your blog back, Professor Wolff, perhaps it's time to tell some of your frequent flyers, personally, to get their own blog.
So far, Professor, it looks like I'm the only one who agrees with you. Ad hominem seems to be he first resort of a lot of people.
ReplyDelete@ ridiculousicculus
ReplyDeleteProf Wolff didn't say he wanted the comments section of his blog back. He said he wanted people to cool it. Two different things.
Anonymous Nov 11/8 at 11:24 AM here. This is a blog, so to be fair, there is no requirement even to be broadly correct, much less sufficiently comprehensive and accurate enough to obviate the inessential. Of course it doesn't matter what I think--while for me the commentary is at least broadly correct, the last thing the proprietor needs is thumbs up from an imbecile. And there is no honor cultivating a reputation as a blog commenter.
ReplyDeleteIf we are to use the election results as a gauge, it would seem that essential decency is back in style; that respect for the other’s vantage point is not a sign of weakness, that urbanity and tact might be traits to take out of the mothballs. Remember, we are all visitors in the “living room” of our host and he most graciously allows us free expression on a myriad topics, never calling us to task when we stray ridiculously far afield from the topic of his blogpost. His exquisite good manners have kept him, it would seem, from commenting on some of the grievous comments some of the people have allowed themselves to post here. I would urge each of you (including the ever-increasing and confusing collection of annonymice) to censor yourself before you unleash an uninvited barrage on some subject you consider yourself expert on or a diatribe attacking another commenter. These are unseemly, inappropriate, embarrassing for the rest of us, and they take this blog in an unwelcome direction. Civility is back in style!
ReplyDeleteHmm.. I seem to recall RPG just outright railing about supposed moderates -- despising somebody like Susan Collins worst of all. It is an era of intense ideological polarization, and suspicion is that we can all get back to attacking the wealthy soon enough, although I'm being sarcastic, given that I am somebody for whom the Sanders ethos of democratic socialism held little appeal.
ReplyDeleteTo move to a more neutral topic, off the topic of this thread, my daughter, who tweets (I have no idea how to tweet) sent me this somewhat typo-filled collection of nine consecutive tweets that go a long way toward explaining Trump. Some of the language is not of a kind that so far has characterized this blog, but I don't want to edit it. It's almost enough to make me feel sorry for him. Almost, but not enough:
ReplyDelete« One last thing before I piss off into a netflix stupor. I am so glad that we are finally going to have a President who actually enjoys things. One of the things that drove me most insane about Trump, and I have said this before, is that the man was simply incapable of joy. (1)
He doesn’t like to read, he doesn’t like music, he doesn’t care about art or poetry, or fine dining. He doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t laugh at himself. He is joyless. He doesn’t understand beauty in nature, in people, in architecture. (2)
The only way he measured things is by how he perceived it made other people envy or look up to him.
I’ll hold up a bible because other people like it and I want them to like me.
I will hang around all these bottle blondes with fake boobs because that’s what people like. (3)
Look at this magnificent room covered in marble and glitter I have it so I must be great people will adore me. (4)
He is just a deeply troubled, empty, vulgar shell of a man. I have no idea what his old man did to him, but he did a number on him.
If Trump were not such a scumbag who had hurt so many people and continues to do so, it would b pitiable. (5)
I mean, can you honestly imagine him ever just wanting to go to a friend’s house to sit on the couch and chat, and play with their dog, and have coffee, and talk about things? (6)
Or remembering something little his wife had wanted and mentioned, and picking it up while seeing it on his travels, and spiriting it away in his luggage and taking it home and hiding it and wrapping it and just being excited to give it to her? (7)
just the little human things that make life worth living. He feels and appreciates none of it. It’s all a crude dick measuring contest, and the only way to get ahead is to cut other’s down.
It’s why he is such a bad negotiator. He’s incapable of understanding win/win. (8)
Someone can only get ahead when someone else loses. It’s why he and the GOP never figured out that the way to save the economy was to handle covid. They couldn’t fathom that one didn’t have to be at the expense of the other. (9)
'There is, as we all know, a long and rich tradition of fratricidal infighting on the extreme left.'
ReplyDeleteWhy do rebels kill each other? I wonder if we all know that ideological extremity is central to rebel fratricide? Ideologically centrist ones will rely on other strategies.
ABC just showed a poignant and moving tribute to Alex Trebek, who passed away today form pancreatic cancer. He was a wonderful, good-hearted, compassionate, knowledgeable man, the polar opposite of our President. He will be sorely missed by those of us who love Jeopardy, and loved the humble and witty way he hosted it. I learned a lot about him that I had not known, including that he was a philosophy major in college. Au revoir, Alex.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the tweet that pondered what Trump’s father had done to him to make him such a vicious and hateful person. You see, he once owned a sled, and he loved that sled with all his heart ....
ReplyDeleteIf I were to write a philosophical anthropology, one of the central points would be the assertion that the ability to ‘suspend judgment‘ shows the essence of human freedom (to that extent I am a Cartesian). I would even condense this point to the thesis that this strange ability of "suspension" is directly related to what Kant understands by "time as pure form of perception". In a nutshell; Not because I can choose between A and B, (or for C or D, etc.) I am free, but because (in contrast to Buridan's donkey) I can restrain myself from judging.
ReplyDeleteSeen in this way, time stretches between event and action. In short, that's just a comment.
At the political level, I would then argue that representative parliamentary democracy offers the best opportunity as a kind of anthropological equivalent to make this ability of restraint useful for society. Parliamentary processes allow themselves the luxury of introducing all pending decisions into a time loop so that as many perspectives as possible on an object unfold.
This principle already works in the discourse between two or more people. This can turn the “narcissism of the small difference” into something valuable.
MS claims he has made his last post, and then almost immediately is back posting again. Can't help himself. Shocker.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, whoever you are,
ReplyDeleteA comment, “This will be my last comment,” in a thread of comments is admittedly ambiguous, i.e., “Is the writer speaking for all time, or only for that particular thread?” In a subsequent comment, I believe I clarified the ambiguity by pointing out that I was responding to Christopher Mulvaney, Ph.D.’s comment because I had not seen it when I posted the prior ambiguous comment.
In any event, even it my comment was meant to refer to eternity, the fact that you would take the time to accuse me of mendacity because I commented reverentially about the passing of Alex Trebek, and then made what I thought was a humorous reference to “Rosebud” in order to explain Trump’s psychosis, demonstrates how petty you are. And now you can take me to task for purportedly breaching my pledge once again by responding to your comment. “Let s/he who is without sin cast the firs ad hominem comment.”
It's not often that I side with MS, but on this occasion I think he has the right of it: it was/is ambiguous when he said he was making his last comment. (There, that wasn't so hard.)
ReplyDeleteRMcD,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your confirmative comment. Who knows, as Captain Renault said to Rick Blaine, “I think this may be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” (I’ve edited it slightly.)
I just pop in every day to check for philosophical content as I'm not American and the political debates aren't really in my camp of interests lol.
ReplyDeleteTherefore I haven't been reading what's been happening in the comments but I hope we can all "chill" as the good prof suggests.
NP
Why do I come up as "unknown" ? Bloody technology lol
DeleteNat p.,
ReplyDeleteI used to have the same problem. In order for your pseudonym/initials to appear at the top of your comment, you have to click on the oval which states “Name/URL” and then type your pseudonym/initials in the rectangle below. Otherwise, you are registered as “Unknown.’
MS,
DeleteAh I see! Thank you very much for your kind reply and I'll try my best lol.
I hope you have a nice day!
I'm 73 and auditing a U. of F. course in intellectual history. We just read some Bakunin and I remembered that I have a very old copy of "In Defense of Anarchism." Re-read it. Like visiting an old friend. Then I discovered this blog, and you still write with grace, intellect, and incisiveness. Many, many thanks.
ReplyDeleteBakunin’s grave in Bern, Switzerland, has a bronze plaque on which is embossed his quotation: "By striving to do the impossible, man has always achieved what is possible." The same sentiment which Prof. Wolff has pronounced as his reason for forging on, even in the face of the disappointing facts of political reality. Browning expressed a similar view when he wrote, “Ah, a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” which Robert Kennedy was fond of quoting during his campaign for President.
ReplyDelete