If you are Itzhak Perlman and you announce a concert in which you will play the Beethoven Violin Concerto, nobody complains “But you already played that once, why are you playing it again?” If you are Barbra Streisand and you start singing People, nobody grumbles “that again! Why don't you sing something new?” So if you are a philosopher and you have what you think is a really good idea and you write it up and publish it somewhere, you ought to be able to come back to it and explain it again without generating a chorus of complaints, right? Fat chance!
Well, as I was taking my morning walk today, pushing as hard
as I could to get my heart rate up and all that, I thought to myself, “Why don’t
you write a blog post today about your critique of the concept of an inequality
surplus, which lies at the heart of John Rawls’s theories and also is taken for
granted by virtually all modern sociology, economics, and political theory?” when I got home, I went to the search facility on my blog and sure enough, it
turns out that I have already explained that idea three or four times in the
last 13 years.
Now I think this is a genuinely important and powerful
argument, and one to which I have never read or heard a satisfactory response.
It is as close as I am ever going to come to Beethoven’s Violin Concerto or,
for that matter, to the Queen of the Night aria from The Magic Flute. But I
devoted a whole blog post to the idea just one year ago.
If you go back and take a look at my blog post on
October 11, 2020 you can find out what I am talking about. That post generated a long series of
comments, almost all of which (with the exception of those posted by somebody
who identifies himself or herself as “purple library guy”) seemed completely to
miss the point of my argument, so maybe it would not be so bad if I play
Beethoven’s Violin Concerto again.
18 comments:
I think if you define fascism as the pursuit and abuse of absolute force to circumvent democracy and democratic rights, I would agree with Professor Wolff. Today's Republican party pursues power by any means, even at the harm of the country and even at the loss of their party members' lives. For fascists politics is a war and obedience is forced.
So if you put aside historical definitions, the Republicans have a policy of absolute power by any means necessary- so I'm in total agreement with Professor Wolff. The Republicans have been staging a putsch since the sixties and possibly before then. We are witnessing a fascist power grab
I would add that questions of ideology and definition are due to historical circumstances- Franco's Spain and Hitler's Germany struck in historical circumstances different than our own- so exactly how they seized power will differ- we have no Reichstag, Trump was a reality TV host, our system of government is a democratic republic, our technology is different- but the idea is the same, delegitimize the opposition and minorities, start off with democratic means and then subvert democracy from the inside, use of latest technology etc. The exact details differ due to context but subverting democracy and the welfare of the country for absolute power is the same- w
Aren't there opportunity costs associated with not choosing the loading dock? Climbing your way up the corporate ladder. You may be denied some of the social bases of self-respect. I have not seen people more confident on the dock but I have seen people reduced to driveling on the corporate ladder. All the primary goods should be taken into account as possible reasons for choosing one or the other, but Rawls has no reason to think about specific preferences.
I should have said Individual Individual preferences. Those I take it, solve the labor distribution problem on your 2020 post.
Fascism as the pursuit and abuse of absolute force to circumvent democracy and democratic rights? That's quite an inadequate characterisation - don't you just mean dictatorship? - and can be applied to many periods and countries in history, and well before Italian fascism came into being. Indeed, where is the extreme nationalism that comes with fascism? Or political parties with stormtroopers? Or the highly regimented societies fascist envisioned? Or, in the case of Italian fascism, but certainly not so for Nazi Germany and Francoist Spain, the obsession with creating a new kind of man?
Good point DJL- I think in the case of Trump and the Republican party there is not a movement or ideology in the sense as say the Nazis- I think the Republicans under Trump leading the way, supported by a large part of their base, are trying to impose what you would call a dictatorship or one party rule- they don't have any agenda per se but the traditional and exaggerated agenda of the white, wealthy and Christian- just a dream agenda of the base, but they are excluding many Americans from proper citizenship and they are disrupting normal life in America.
What would you call that DJL? It's definitely not democracy
I mean DJL, perhaps if Professor Wolff's blog really belonged to Aristotle, we'd define what is happening more carefully- that is helpful. It's important to know exactly what we're up against. Professor Collins on the sociological eye, for instance, analyzed exactly what happened January 6. I'm with Professor Wolff- the Republicans are trying to seize power and subvert democracy, using democracy against itself and through underhanded means.
The key thing is they will do anything for power. Whether we call it the name of fascism is irrelevant- the situation on the ground, to me at least, is urgent
While never, ever voting for a Republican is obvious, we err if we fail to note that that party is just the captured political organ of an international revolutionary movement (there is, it seems, a nationalist International - really!).
The ideological eco-system that began in the 1920s financed by capital has "matured" into an alliance of racists, religious fundamentalists, libertarians, Integralists, traditionalists, and assorted grifters who are united to end liberal democracy. Hungary is their lodestone.
Here is a link to a rogues' gallery:
https://nationalconservatism.org/natcon-2-2021/
Note that the keynote speakers are a fascist traitor, an empty suit, a vampire-plutocrat, and an Ivy League faux hillbilly.
The new election laws in several states along with the 12th amendment are our Article 48.
"Urgent" understates this.
w
So, if Biden's agenda goes up in flames today, whose fault will it be - the progressives for being unwilling to compromise, or the moderates for going back on their word and being willing to compromise? Are the progressives making the perfect the enemy of the possible?
AA
"Are the progressives making the perfect the enemy of the possible?"
Alas, it wouldn't be the first time, and probably not the last. The Democrats are most adept at forming a circular firing squad.
"moderates"? isn't it time we acknowledged that many referred to as such are really conservatives?
As to the "perfect" vs. the "possible," maybe we should acknowledge that often enough it's actually those who support the "good enough" vs. those who urge couldn't we do better?
The "moderate" Democrats are,as Democrats go, conservative. On the spectrum of the entire Congress, however, they are moderate.
Of course we should try to do better, up to a point, the point at which you get nothing rather than something. It isn't easy to know what that point is--the point hat Michael Harrington called "the left wing of the possible."k But it is essential not to go beyond it.
The sad fact is the this is not "left" country, and until the left can convince enough of the population of the substantive merits of its positions, that's how it's likely to remain. It's impossible to govern without a majority, and majority includes the center. The the task is to move the entire spectrum toward the left, including the center. The Danish parliament, I'm sure, has a political center. I'd be very surprised if that center weren't far to the left of ours.
Jack Rasmus wrote about the House budget negotiations on Sept 26. The link I gave previously has a later date.
The problem with "moderate" Democrats is not so much their conservatism as their stupidity. Reps. like AOC, Lee, Waters, etc. have safe seats. When Dems don't deliver, it's the "moderates" that get slaughtered. They never seem to learn that. When the numbers are there, "bi-partisan" needs to be defined by the population of the country not the population of the Congress. One would think Dems would have learned that after the ACA fiasco.
What the reconciliation bill provides is immediate benefits to the middle and working classes. The items poll well. Inserting means testing will kill that. "Moderates" will be the ones who benefit from folks in the suburbs having affordable access the child care, education as well as Mom and Pop having dental and vision covered.
Where progressives fail is in prioritizing climate. If Dems lose either House in 2022 or 2024 or the presidency in 2024, that's it for democracy as well as climate legislation/enforcement. The first goal should be doing well by doing good.
Pace AA but the root of the current foolishness is structural and
pace Prof. Wolff but those structural flaws allow the moral and mental issues of two people to put the nation at risk.
Joe Manchin is in his mid-seventies and is financially set. He wanted at first to retire in 2018 and barely won in that year. Running in 2024 makes no sense as does his present show-boating.
In another life I had to deal with way too many folks like Sinema. Intellectual rigidity coupled with narcissism and a propensity to grift describes not a few verdes. Once you realize there are folks who will pay you to go away...
Re: Rasmus - if the rec bill is back-loaded, the Dems are toast. Recall the 2010 mid-terms after the ACA was passed but didn't go into effect until 2014.
"until the left can convince enough of the population of the substantive merits of its positions, that's how it's likely to remain"
Jumping the shark on identity politics, being always more 'woke' than the rest, and then cancelling all those who don't embrace the latest extremism is certainly not going to be a viable longterm strategy for convincing any normal people of anything.
Anon, Prager U isn't a real university.
Post a Comment