I have started doing my preparation for the course I will be teaching at UNC Chapel Hill in the spring. My preparation consists for the most part of rereading the books I shall be assigning. Two days ago I finished rereading John Locke’s Second Treatise Concerning Civil Government. It has been perhaps 55 years since I last read it and I had completely forgotten how much of it is backward looking, arguing against the divine right of kings and such. I realized that to make sense of it to the students I would have to do some stage setting and context explication.
Yesterday I started rereading Rousseau’s Of the Social
Contract. I was absolutely stunned. Rousseau is so powerful, so on point, so
provocative that I wanted to start teaching right then and there. I also
realized that it is really against Rousseau, not Locke, that I am arguing in In
Defense of Anarchism.
When I am finished rereading Rousseau, I have to decide
which selections from A Theory of Justice I want the students to read. I only
want them to read about 125 or 150 pages from the first part of the book. My
problem is that I must hold down the amount of money they are expected to spend
and the Rawls book is almost $40. I may try to scan what they are required to
read into a PDF file and post it on the course website.
Fortunately The Racial Contract by Charles Mills is in a
Kindle edition and I am hoping all the students can handle that. (So are two of the books by me that I want them
to read but that is another matter.)
Since I cannot actually do anything about the world except
give money to organizations and candidates, it depresses me to brood endlessly
about how badly things are going, and unlike some of those who read this blog,
I am not really much gripped by the question whether what I see developing in
this country is fascism, authoritarianism, white supremacist panic, or just the
good old USA. But planning to go in front of a group of students and teach
really grips me. It has all my life and even now at the age of 87 it still
does.
Sorry to of been away from this site for a week. If anybody
cares, I can report that I have cut 10 minutes off my 67 minute morning walk and brought
my heart rate up over 100 during at least half of it, so if the literature on
Parkinson’s is to be believed, I will be around for some while yet.
18 comments:
As one of the people who brought up the subject of whether Trump really represents fascism, I must admit that the subject doesn't grip me either. What grips me is the health of my grand-daughter, born two weeks ago, who spent a week in a incubator, but is now home.
Nevertheless, if we want to deal with and defeat Trumpism, it seems that we had best analyze what it represents and while placing a name on it such as "fascism" or another does not complete the process of analyzing it, it's part of the process.
Second, there's a pure intellectual interest in studying the relationship between fascism as it arose in the 1930's and Trumpism today (which may have muted since 2016) and that interest seems valid to me and as worthy of study as whether Rawls' Theory of Justice is implicitly racist, as Mills appear to claim. I haven't read Mills, but there is a lengthy discussion of the subject in Leiter's blog which I have followed.
You are being incredibly disciplined about your exercise program. The medical profession's word for what you are is "compliant patient". And, although one gets what they mean, they really could have chosen a better word.
"unlike some of those who read this blog, I am not really much gripped by the question whether what I see developing in this country is fascism, authoritarianism, white supremacist panic, or just the good old USA"
Is this aimed at me? If so, that's a wilful misrepresentation of what I actually said (oh yes, I am an academic; and yes, I do get annoyed at being misrepresented).
I of course did not mention white supremacism or the good old US at all, and my point certainly was not about the proper definition of fascism (I did say, after all, that the word 'fascism' is often used to refer to right-wing authoritarianism in general, and that that was fine as far as it went, though I do have my own preference).
Instead, what I objected to was the constant referencing to what happened in Europe in the 1930s and 40s as a relevant background, or context, to what's going on in the US now - the claim in many posts on this blog was that what's happening in the US is literally 1930s fascism, which is complete nonsense. This was the case but not a couple of posts ago, in 'One more time', where there is yet another (personal) reference to 1940s Europe, this time even including the Holocaust, to then move on to the present dangers of the Republican party in the US (the Holocaust and the present US situation?!). My complaint is that the analogy simply doesn't hold up, that it is pretty piss-poor analysis, actually, and that it is moreover not helpful at all (I also personally find the allusion to the Holocaust not a little obscene in this context, but that's by-the-by).
A much better analogy is to modern Hungary in my opinion - a far-right kleptocracy that aims to subvert the rule of law and bring the free press into line. And even Jason Stanley, he who has argued for a pretty expansive definition of fascism, has recently joked on his Twitter account that Hungary is not even fascist (according to his definition) in that its leader throws fascism to his supporters even though he is picking their pockets and that it is thus no surprise that Fox News praises them. Quite right.
Both The Racial Contract and A Theory of Justice can be downloaded as pdfs for free through UNC Library, so no need to scan or use Kindle. I just tried it, and it totally works, cover page and all. This only works for free for those who have a UNC library affiliation of course, which all of your students should have. The Library also allows for direct linking to the online version of the books from your course Sakai page if you use Sakai.
Thomas, that is fantastic, thank you so much. I will work with Mariska to make it happen!
Although, I have a DVD set called the Dictators Handbook, I have only watched Mussolini, Sadaam Hussein, and some snippets of Noriega. Sadaam paid me little interest and diversion, but Mussolini totally. I believe the term fascism began with the rule of Mussolini or Il Duce. From reading history, there are really two men who eclipsed Mussolini: Napoleon & Caesar. Both made their political gains through military ability & fame, but Caesar also more so through supporting the common man. In fact, Cicero wrote a work called De Offices is three books stating that grand liberality was the way to political power. He was using the Stoic Panaetius' two book work as a base for many of his ideas in his three book work De Offices or On Duties or On Obligations. I would say that Caesar's way to power was more financially risky and Napoleon's way more politically difficult. Of course, no one has to worry about modern politicians buying their way to high office. Nobody does it these days because every great nation these days has too many people in each to significantly satisfy the masses. All they can do these days is make promises to the masses that they can't totally keep. During the time of Augustus, I believe Rome only had around 1 million civilians to court.
Professor Wolff --
I am excited that you are excited by re-reading classics such as Locke and Rousseau. This is why those texts are classics. As we age, we gain insights that sometimes cast a new light on the texts that we read when we were younger. Having said that, do you think there is much more to gain from Rawls on re-reading? I found him so dull, boring, and drab on the first go round that the thought of tackling it again makes me tired. Then again, I seem to be perpetually tired these days.
-- Jim
Re the preceding comment and question: Obviously RPW does not like Rawls's TOJ, that should be clear from everything he's written about it here (and elsewhere).
"Of course, no one has to worry about modern politicians buying their way to high office."
Surely you jest.
s. wallerstein,
Congratulations on the birth of your grand-daughter and her release from the hospital in good health. May she grow up strong and independent, and bring you and her parents much joy.
Another Anonymous,
Thank you very much for your kind words. I appreciate your good will and sincerity.
Eric,
"Surely you jest."
I mean in a philanthropist way. Modern politicians will flood their campaign movements with tons of money and spend the people's money on tons of pork barrel projects, but they will not and cannot give stimulus checks to everyone from their own bank accounts or feed the people every day like Caesar did when he spent money on many countless days of gladiator games etc. Or like Cimon of Athens who knocked down the fences to his fruit orchards for the Athenians to eat freely of and who gave free meals to the people of Athens who belonged to his Athenian tribe or deme. Today's politicians will spend the government's money on helping the public, but none of them have the personal funds or accumulated graft to do this like the ancients did. There are two reasons: (1) politicians don't go on personal war campaigns anymore where they can collect tons of cash to spend on their fellow citizens, and (2) population counts are very much greater than in ancient times.
I don't believe kleptocracy and fascism are mutually exclusive. Authoritarians left and right seem to live well. CPAC is holding its 2022 conference in Budapest and the quite a few American right-wingers are serious Orban fan-boys.
In 1932, despite our defective Constitution, we went from Hoover and Mellon to Roosevelt and Perkins. In 1932, with its defective constitution, Germany hopped, skipped, and jumped from Bruning to Hitler.
To LFC:
Yes, I realize it is obvious that Professor Wolff is critical of Rawls. So am I. But, if you take the time out of your life to write a book on Rawls, and deem him relevant enough to include in your syllabus half a century after the publication of TOJ, I am simply curious if any new insights can be gleaned from a re-reading. If so, I would give it a shot.
-- Jim
Might you put some of your lectures on YouTube - Locke and Rousseau - perhaps?
Regarding heart rate, has anyone ever recommended a stationary bicycle?
Jim,
At the risk of engaging in bit of self-promotion, I think you might find my review of Forrester's In the Shadow of Justice of some interest. I'll link to it a bit later.
As to whether new insights can be gleaned from a re-reading of TOJ, I think Prof Wolff's answer to that would be no. (My answer might be different.) I think TOJ is on his syllabus just as background/foil for Mills's The Racial Contract and maybe for parts of RPW's own book on Rawls if he's assigning that. RPW has written on this blog that the only way he forced himself to get through TOJ in its entirety in the first place was by assigning it in a course, so he had no choice but to read it. As best I can tell, RPW thinks Part III of TOJ is "fretwork," and that the core of the theory is the choice situation (orig. position etc.) set out in Part I, notwithstanding that Rawls himself, iirc, wrote in the preface to the first edition that if Part III is written off there is a good chance his whole enterprise will be misconstrued. As for the style of TOJ, it's often not v. inviting, so if you found it a slog to get through, I'm sure many agree w you.
LFC --
Agree on all points. I have so much other more relevant material to read anyway that the thought of making time for Rawls would seem like a waste. However, I do want to read the Shadow of Justice piece you mentioned -- I will try and look up.
-- Jim
Jim,
Here's the link. (Sorry for the delay.)
https://s-usih.org/2021/03/review-of-in-the-shadow-of-justice/
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