I have just finished reading the comments on my brief celebration of William Shatner's journey to the edge of space. I do honestly believe that if I were to reproduce here a picture of the famous element of the Sistine Chapel in which God reaches out a finger and gives life to Adam, the commentary would be completely focused on the question whether God had a little dirt under His fingernail.
Get a life!
Well, Prof, I was going to post a couple of remarks completely unrelated to waxing poetic, but I did not want to be accused of taking up too much space in the comments section:
ReplyDeleteMichael Llenos: Personally I'm looking forward to finding out how Mr. Shatner's flight next Tuesday, to space and back again, is going to turn out.... I hope this all works out for him because I believe he is a great man & great actor and that he deserves it.
Meh. I see it all as a colossal, cynical PR stunt to increase interest and investment in Bezos' venture. I wonder how much Shatner was paid for his participation. And as for Shatner being a great man, I cannot deny he has been an incredibly charismatic actor, but I doubt his famous coworkers (and employees) would agree about him being a great man.
s. wallerstein: I suppose everybody could be wrong ...
ReplyDeleteAh, well, I think that brings us back to Rousseau's inane notion that the majority is always right. Wolff writes in In Defense of Anarchism, pp 54-55:
Rousseau supposes further that it is an ojectively ascertainable fact whether a proposed law has the proper form and aims at the general good. He thinks, finally, that the proper test of these matters is a vote, in which the majority must inevitably be correct.... Since the majority are always right, a member of the minority will by that fact be revealed as supporting inappropriate means to his own end....
The flaw in this argument, of course, is the apparently groundless assumption that the majority are always right in their opinions concerning the general good…. What can possibly have led Rousseau to such an implausible conclusion? Experience would seem rather to suggest that truth lies with the minority in most disputes, and certainly that is the case in the early stages of the acceptance of new discoveries. At any rate, if the nature of the general good is a matter of knowledge, then there would appear to be no ground for assuming that the majority opinion on any particular proposal for the general good will inevitably be correct.
I, for one, have to wonder what could have led Prof Wolff to make the bizarre claim that “experience would seem rather to suggest that truth lies with the minority in most disputes.” I would heartily agree if he had said instead that truth often lies with the minority, or that truth lies with the minority in many disputes, rather than in most disputes. The claim that the minority is usually right seems to me highly dubious.
On the other hand, Rousseau does indeed make a groundless assumption—or does he? What is the definition of “the general good”? Is this a tautology?
I have not read all of The Social Contract in many years (ok, I can hear the groans), but—hear me out—Rousseau believed in natural divine law (“All justice comes from God,” “All power comes from God, who is its sole source”). He also endorsed “civil religion”:
The dogmas of civil religion ought to be few, simple, and exactly worded:
•the existence of a mighty, intelligent and beneficent Divinity, possessed of foresight and providence,
•the life to come,
•the happiness of the just,
•the punishment of the wicked,
•the sanctity of the social contract and the laws.
And further:
So there’s a purely civil profession of faith, the content of which should be fixed by the sovereign—not exactly as religious dogmas, but as social sentiments that are needed for to be a good citizen and a faithful subject. While it can’t compel anyone to believe them, it can banish from the state anyone who doesn’t believe them—banishing him not for impiety but for being anti-social, incapable of truly loving the laws and justice, and if necessary sacrificing his life to his duty. If anyone publicly recognises these dogmas and then behaves as if he doesn’t believe them, let him be punished by death [my emphasis]: he has committed the worst of all crimes—lying before the law.
Rousseau apparently believed that morality is absolute, derived from God, uniform for all, universal—and that some semblance of knowledge of it (the general good will) can be ascertained by asking the majority what they think is right.
That’s fine and good if you are part of the majority. Can't help you if you are gay, disabled, neuro-divergent, a woman who does not want to bear a child that the majority has decreed she must bear, etc.
I definitely would not want to have lived in his version of the ideal world, as forward thinking as he was in his criticisms of the Roman Catholic and other major churches in Europe and in his call for religious tolerance.
"I see it all as a colossal, cynical PR stunt to increase interest and investment in Bezos' venture."
ReplyDeleteFor Mr. Shatner, just to have the experience of going to space on Bezos' rocket would either be a primary cause or an ancillary cause. I believe it was the primary cause of his decision to go into space. Look how touched Shatner was after he landed.
"as for Shatner being a great man, I cannot deny he has been an incredibly charismatic actor, but I doubt his famous coworkers (and employees) would agree about him being a great man."
We all have people who like us or don't like us--and this even happens between actors and other actors.
I consider Mr. Shatner a great man not just because he is a great actor, but also because he is a great philanthropist. He is generous to a lot of children, and I think that is pretty cool.
Eric wrote: On the other hand, Rousseau does indeed make a groundless assumption—or does he? What is the definition of “the general good”?
ReplyDeleteAt this point, my inclination is to turn to Mencken: "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."
I have checked my copy of Janson’s History of Art from my undergraduate course of Art History. I could not find any dirt under God’s fingernail in the color-plate of the Creation panel of the Sistine Chapel. There was, however, a smudge of dirt that was left, I believe, by Michelangelo.
ReplyDeleteYou, Professor Wolff, tell us to get a life, but you yourself post about the misuse of the word "decimate", about your new cat, about the misuse of the phrase "over and out", about different names people call you and call your sons. The climate in this blog is partially or even largely your creation. If all your posts were about Kant or about Marx, people probably would comment in a philosophical manner.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I agree with Eric about all of this being a publicity stunt by Bezos and there being no good reason why Shatner should have gone along with it. By going along with it, he becomes complicit in Bezos's rather sinister attempts at self-promotion. In the age of climate change, maybe Shatner would have done better to pose besides Greta Thunberg than besides Bezos.
I never watched Star Trek, I'm not a fan of science fiction, but that criticism goes for any star from the 60's who now endorses the worst aspects of corporate capitalism, including Dylan doing commercials for Cadillacs.
"...there being no good reason why Shatner should have gone along with it."
ReplyDeleteShatner got a free ride which won him a couple of cycles which for him is enough. So far all Bezos has is a glorified bungee jump/carnival ride that can't scale.
That's why I have given up. I once had the aspiration of becoming a truly great historic figure of a blog commenter—a tremendously high-prestige occupation. What a fool I was.
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ReplyDeleteLongtime reader, first, perhaps only time commenter, Professor Wolff's post made me laugh aloud in a sincere way that most people that write 'lol' do not intend.
ReplyDeleteBut I am a young man, in my mid-twenties, and adept, perhaps in thrall to, the internet as I am, I find this comment space of intelligent and well-spoken old fogies charming and gentle in its own way. Long live Professor Wolff's lighter posts and the pedantic tangents that follow, it's so much nicer a space than so many others online.
To return moreso to the topic regarding Shatner's voyage, his remarks were really beautiful. I've no attachment or interest in Star Trek but space travel, however captive it may be to capitalist megacorps like Amazon or Virgin or SpaceX, is certainly an aesthetic, spiritual, meaningful endeavour I might never be part of, but I'm glad others may be. That kind of experience is a gift wasted on the young, maybe.
Why shouldn't Captain Kirk go into space and, in a way, make science fiction a reality? It was a great job that shows that 90-year-old old men, and why not women, still have enough power to set remarkable steatments.
ReplyDeleteShatner's comment was extraordinary because in some ways it countered Bezos' (and Musk's) project. While some people are loudly worshipping the future of mankind in space, for Shatner it was the view back to the fragility of the Earth's biosphere that was the defining impression. That's what people will remember, not the corporate goals of Blue Origin or SpaceX.
A similar motif of how fiction becomes reality is found in Rousseau. Rousseauism turned into reality has the names Robbespiere, Jacobinism and Terreur. There is probably no philosophical construct that has ever failed so blatantly against reality. One must admit, however, that there is also none that ever had to face reality in such unambiguity as that of Rousseau.
Then there's this:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lul-Y8vSr0I
aaall,
ReplyDeleteThat clip is great! Thank you.
A client sent me this lengthy link below to a Rumble segment broadcast by Michael Moore. It is about attorney Steven Donziger who won a multi-billion dollar judgment in Ecuador against Texaco and Chevron. Since he and several attorneys won that judgment 10 years ago, he has been sued by Chevron and has been held in contempt of court by a NY federal judge, as a result of which he has been under house arrest for the last 800 days. It is Kafkaesque and unbelievable. I urge all of this blog’s readers to listen to it.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.michaelmoore.com/p/kafka-in-america-it-cant-happen-here?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo0NDU3MzIxOSwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDI1NzEwNjYsIl8iOiJZQ3NGciIsImlhdCI6MTYzNDQxNDg1MywiZXhwIjoxNjM0NDE4NDUzLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMzIwOTc0Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.TwjedttfQrPqGZV9FdNbTACEEntvHiu2Az7t6HhSKr0&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email#play
Prof Wolff,
ReplyDeleteAre you familiar with David Graeber’s and David Wengrow’s challenge to the traditional take that inequality is the inevitable, and tragically necessary, result of the adoption of agriculture? Graeber and Wengrow laid out their basic argument in a scholarly article in 2015, and in an article aimed at a broader audience in 2018 (How to change the course of human history); there are also a few Youtube videos of them discussing their view (eg Graeber and Wengrow on the Myth of the Stupid Savage).
For centuries, we have been telling ourselves a simple story about the origins of social inequality. For most of their history, humans lived in tiny egalitarian bands of hunter-gatherers. Then came farming, which brought with it private property, and then the rise of cities which meant the emergence of civilization properly speaking. Civilization meant many bad things (wars, taxes, bureaucracy, patriarchy, slavery…) but also made possible written literature, science, philosophy, and most other great human achievements.
Almost everyone knows this story in its broadest outlines. Since at least the days of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, it has framed what we think the overall shape and direction of human history to be. This is important because the narrative also defines our sense of political possibility. Most see civilization, hence inequality, as a tragic necessity. Some dream of returning to a past utopia, of finding an industrial equivalent to ‘primitive communism’, or even, in extreme cases, of destroying everything, and going back to being foragers again. But no one challenges the basic structure of the story.
There is a fundamental problem with this narrative.
It isn’t true.
Now Wengrow is publishing their book-length treatment, due out in the US next month--The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. (Wengrow discusses the book in a video from this week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTIlkttdnmU)
Since your course will discuss Rousseau and In Defense of Anarchism, both of which accept the traditional view that Graeber and Wengrow take issue with, you might want to check out at least one of their articles, if you haven’t encountered their arguments before.
I am not familiar with this material and I will take a look at it, but it is not obvious to me in what way my little book accepts this standard story.
ReplyDeletere A.A.'s reference to the Donziger case, it's also covered here:
ReplyDeletehttps://scheerpost.com/2021/10/11/chris-hedges-on-the-ongoing-persecution-of-steven-donziger-video%ef%bf%bc/#comments
I guess some chains are weightier and more painful than others
Eric, I just read the article you linked to and it is absolutely fascinating. Thank you so much. It really changes my understanding of these matters significantly and I will try to bring it to the attention of my students.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the link to the Donziger article.
His story is a clear and present threat to the operation of law and the courts in our country. As one of the commenters following the article states, a friend of his, a retired judge, has said: “If we lose the courts, we’ve lost everything”.
Prof Wolff, I am elated to hear that you enjoyed the article.
ReplyDeleteWhether their hypotheses are valid or not, they certainly make for an interesting counter-narrative.
I do owe you an apology. I read more into In Defense of Anarchism than is on its actual pages.
I conflated one of your lectures on Marx (@ 7:21) with passages from Defense in which it seemed to me that you were acknowledging that to a certain degree the complexities of modern, technologically advanced societies produce certain desirable results at the expense of increasing loss of autonomy:
There are great, perhaps insurmountable, obstacles to the achievement of a complete and rational autonomy in the modern world....
The paradox of man's condition in the modern world is that the more fully he recognizes his right and duty to be his own master, the more completely he becomes the passive object of a technology and a bureaucracy whose complexities he cannot hope to understand. [p 17]
Under a system of genuine democracy the voices of the many would drown out those of the few. The poor, the uneducated, the frightened who today are cared for by the state on occasion but never included in the process of government would weigh, man for man, as heavily as the rich, the influential, the well-connected. Much might be endangered that is worthwhile by such a system, but at least social justice would flourish as it has never flourished before. [p 37]
From the example of the doctor, it is obvious that there are at least some situations in which it is reasonable to give up one’s autonomy. Indeed, we may wonder whether, in a complex world of technical expertise, it is ever reasonable not to do so! [p 15]
[E]ven if there were no exploitation or domination in society, it would still be in men's interest to achieve a very high level of social coordination.... At our present extremely advanced stage of division of labor, relatively minor disruptions of social coordination can produce a breakdown of the flow of goods and services necessary to sustain life.
Consequently, it is worth asking whether a society of men who have been persuaded of the truth of anarchism—a society in which no one claims legitimate authority or would believe such a claim if it were made—could through alternative methods achieve an adequate level of social coordination....
Is there any way in which these ends [eg national defense, reconstruction of our cities] could be served other than by commands enforced by coercion and by the myth of legitimacy?
I do not now have a complete and coherent answer ... but I shall make a few suggestions.... [pp 79-80]
As Friedrich Hayek and a number of other classical liberal economists have pointed out, the natural operation of the market is an extremely efficient way of coordinating human behavior on a large scale without coercion or appeal to authority. Nevertheless, reliance on the market is fundamentally irrational once men know how to control it in order to avoid its undesired consequences. The original laissez-faire liberals propose that we go on confusing nature and society, even though we have the knowledge to subordinate the market to our collective will and decision.
Only extreme economic decentralization could permit the sort of voluntary economic coordination consistent with the ideals of anarchism and affluence. [p 81]
(my emphases)
That wasn’t quite fair. You weren’t writing about inequality per se. (But I think Graeber would argue that there is a deep connection between material inequality and lack of political autonomy.)
About your last sentence, I could not agree more. I suppose it is one of the burdens of old age that words you wrote 56 years ago come back to haunt you. After I have read the book I hope I will have something more coherent to say. Thank you again for alerting me to their work.
ReplyDelete