I have now finished my rereading of The Racial Contract, and I am more than ever convinced of its brilliance. It is, I genuinely believe, the most important (and yes, that does mean the best) work of political philosophy in the English language in the past century. It has one great virtue that is very rare in political philosophy or indeed in any philosophy: it is true. For obvious professional reasons, philosophers tend not to treat truth as an important criterion of excellence but I am old enough and crotchety enough to think that it matters.
And yes, S. Wallerstein to the contrary notwithstanding, it is a book principally about European and American political theory of the past four centuries, not a book especially about America. I will be very curious to see how it is received by my students at UNC Chapel Hill next semester.
By the way, I learned that UNC professors are not only not permitted to require that students be vaccinated, they are not even permitted to ask whether they have been vaccinated. The recent much reported breakthrough infections of prominent people who have been spending time around the unvaccinated have given me pause about the wisdom of teaching in person. I suspect I will be permitted to teach virtually by zoom if I wish, but I really did not enjoy the five sessions of my seminar that I did on zoom in 2020 after the pandemic hit and I am hesitant to take that step.
"The recent much reported breakthrough infections of prominent people who have been spending time around the unvaccinated have given me pause about the wisdom of teaching in person"
ReplyDeleteSorry to burst your bubble, but the 'vaccinated' are spreading the virus just as much as the unvaccinated. "Breakthrough" is a total misnomer as everyone is still getting COVID regardless of the overhyped protection offered by our BigPharma gods.
I know one shouldn't feed trolls, but this comment is demonstrably false: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html
ReplyDeleteThe unvaccinated have 6 times more infections than the vaccinated, and 12 times more deaths.
As to Prof. Wolff actual post: Mills' work is indeed extraordinary. I hope you can figure out a way to teach such an insightful text in person.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00648-4/fulltext
ReplyDeleteJust one of the more recent studies looking at this.
Sorry, but your 'fact-checkers' are the ones peddling false information.
Anonymous
ReplyDeleteFrom the Lancet study you cite:
"Vaccination reduces the risk of delta variant infection and accelerates viral clearance. Nonetheless, fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections have peak viral load similar to unvaccinated cases and can efficiently transmit infection in household settings, including to fully vaccinated contacts. Host–virus interactions early in infection may shape the entire viral trajectory."
So, if the students were vaccinated, there is less risk of infection in the first place and even if they are infected, they clear the virus more rapidly. Thus the risk of being infected in an all-vaccinated class would be less than it would be if some or all were not vaccinated.
Have you had a booster? Masking? Flu shot? Is there space for appropriate distancing in the room? Is the ventilation up to snuff? Even if your students are responsible, they will be in a general environment that isn't. Given the state of the humanities job market and the cogitative risks of long covid I would hope grad students would be vaccinated.
ReplyDeleteI would love for you to review The Racial Contract and post it on Amazon. Not an NDPR length review, but say around 900-1200 words. It might promote sales of the book, which I know would please you.
ReplyDeleteProfessor, I would get a booster, if you haven't already gotten one, and I would wear an N95 mask. Here is a helpful article from the New York Times:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/where-to-buy-n95-kn95-masks-online/
Thanks, David. My wife and I got boosters months ago and I just ordered a batch of KN95 masks from Amazon. We shall see
ReplyDeletei've been reading mises --who, you're aware, thought socialism was not just ill-considered, but actually apodictically doomed to fail--and when i also read austrians proclaiming mises was epistemologically kantian, something about that seemed wrong, so i went to youtube for a quick kant fix. that's where i found you. i thank you for putting those lectures online.. it's like being back in phil class with someone who really knows his stuff! i quickly found myself returning to the old habit of transcription. And that led me to this blog. what a surprise. it was a prof from caldwell hall that got me to buy a transcription machine (cassettes back then). Prof symth. did you know him? funny thing, he wrote a book on kant and his birthday was dec 28, 1933.... but, of course, he was definitely not into marx.
ReplyDeletedo you find much connection between kant and marx? if i still lived in chapel hill, i'd tune in to find out.
prof smyth, that is
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1455743667927502853?s=20
ReplyDeleteI imagine Prof Wolff will have thoughts in his next posts on the election results from yesterday (eg Terry McAuliffe's loss in Virginia to half-billionaire financier & political newcomer Glenn Youngkin), and there may be more fretting in Prof Wolff's posts and in the comments about the specter of fascism.
ReplyDeleteHere is something else to think about:
Why did nearly half of voters in Minneapolis, a city where almost half of the residents are renters, vote against ballot measures that would allow the city council to adopt a limit on rent increases (47% of 59,000 votes cast) and to authorize rent control (47% of 142,000 votes cast)? Why did so many eligible voters not even bother to vote on these measures at all? (In Nov 2020, the total number of registered voters was estimated at roughly 273,000.)
Both of those measures passed, but with smaller margins than might have been expected, considering the large percentage of renters in the city. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE WHO ARE VOTING FOR LANDLORDS? Did folks just not know that these issues were up for vote? Were they that tuned out of the elections process? Is this a complete failure of Democracy?
And why did the DEMOCRATIC mayor, Jacob Frey, a lawyer, stand as a roadblock in the process to allow the public to decide on these issues. He vetoed the city council's original ballot measure bill, which would have allowed the voters to directly vote on rent control policies rather than, as in the current measures, to vote only to authorize the city council to possibly enact rent control policies at some future point. As Minneapolis Public Radio put it, Frey argued that "public policy should be based on data, informed by experts and not made through referendum." I think the answer to this question may help explain why McAuliffe lost and why Democrats like McAuliffe will lose big in 2022 and possibly 2024.
Minneapolis was where the mass uprisings that eventually spread all across the country last year began in the wake of George Floyd's murder by police. Was all that potential political energy wasted? (Another referendum question that also appeared on the ballots yesterday was whether Minneapolis should change its police department to a department of public safety--that measure was defeated.)
Minneapolis is overrun with violence, the downtown is still a deserted mess due to uncontrolled rioting and democrat-imposed "Covid" shutdowns. And the people noticed and used their brains and their votes accordingly.
ReplyDeleteWith any luck the trend will continue! America gave the democrats a chance like they gave Trump a chance, and found that their worst suspicions were true - that it's a party of imbecilic, 'woke', wannabe-fascists trying to usher in their terrible collectivist agenda under the lie of the neverending health crisis.
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/election-day-results-2021-virginia-governor-youngkin/#post-update-0f10ef5f
ReplyDeleteNo need for those KN95; very good N95 masks are easily available from Demetech. They also make what they call D95, which are N95's but with ear loops.
ReplyDeleteDemetech
And yes of course the UNC administration has been awful. It isn't clear to me how they can forbid you from asking a question although, of course, they can say that they forbid you. Try asking your students anyway. What could the punishment be?
Because it's a question related to someone's private health information. Should professors also be in the business of interrogating students on their other possible infectious diseases like HIV or Herpes?
ReplyDeleteLast I checked, Anyonymous, neither one of those diseases are transmitted through the air.
ReplyDeleteAnon, check out the laws around various communicable diseases, e.g. if you present with TB, typhoid, and a number of other infections, reporting to the state is mandatory. In some cases iindividuals can be incarcerated if they refuse treatment. In North Carolina e.g., school administrators are mandatory reporters. Perhaps the problem is that covid was initially viewed as a cold/flu thing. As we learn more about long covid, etc. that may change.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-11-04/study-shows-dramatic-decline-in-effectiveness-of-covid-19-vaccines
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty good news from the LA Times:
ReplyDeleteThe benefits of the vaccines are significant, though we're probably going to have to live with the need for regular updating boosters, as with flu.
"Among veterans 65 and older who were inoculated with the Moderna vaccine, those who developed a “breakthrough” infection were 76% less likely to die of COVID-19 compared with unvaccinated veterans of the same age."
ReplyDeleteAnon, is your point "why bother" or "get boosters as needed? I got a full dose Moderna booster in September and I'll get additional ones as needed. Anon's mileage may vary.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-federal-appeals-court-issues-stay-bidens-vaccine-rule-us-companies-2021-11-06/
ReplyDeletehttps://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/11/06/alyssa-farah-trump-second-term-vpx.cnn
ReplyDeleteGod help us. We are in serious trouble.
Kamala Harris cannot defeat Trump if he runs again
We were in serious trouble the day the Senate and Electoral College were adopted by the Constitutional Convention. All that is happening between 2016 and November 2024 are the chickens coming home to roost.
ReplyDelete(The failure of the Union to understand that Appomattox was merely a transition instead of a surrender was one item in a series of confirmations over the past 234 years - either an insurrection - and the supporting culture - is recognized and totally crushed or you eventually lose - see Vietnam and Afghanistan and Deut. 20.)
This may be of interest:
https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article/46/1/53/102853/White-Supremacy-Terrorism-and-the-Failure-of
Cheer up, serious global warming would become inevitable and with five authoritarian nations with nukes borderig each other in Asia, what could go wrong.
Or not; the brain worms will likely have their way with Trump by 2024.
Lacking a VRB, 2022 is the ball game. And Harris 2024 would be a convergence of racism and misogyny, so there's that.
There are a few problems w the "five authoritarian nations" statement. For one thing, India, despite the BJP in power, is not authoritarian. (The other issues I don't have time to go into right now.)
ReplyDeleteAn aside to make a movie recommendation. My wife and I saw The Last Duel last night, directed by Ridley Scott (who never disappoints) and staring Matt Damon, Adam Driver, and Ben Affleck (difficult to recognize at first), and Jodie Comer in the female lead. For those who like historical dramas authentically recreated, I highly recommend it. The movie takes place during the years 1370-1380, during the Hundreds Years War. It opens with the battle of Limoges, 1370, during the reign of Charles V. It ends during the reign of his son, Charles VI (Charles the Mad). (This is about 70 years before Joan of Arc and the battle of Orleans, during the reign of Charles the VII, who abandoned Joan of Arc to the English.) The plot is based on true events, and the acting and cinematography are superb. It also portrays a compelling recreation of life for women in medieval France and the abuse of power by autocrats. Warning: there are scenes involving rape and the final duel scene is quite gory.
ReplyDeleteAA
ReplyDeleteThanks for that recommendation. Sounds like something I might go to see, though I'd prob take a look at the trailer first. It's not the sort of movie, based on your description, that one would nec. expect to find Damon and Affleck in, although I guess if there's a big-name director and big-name actors and they like the script and the money is right, they'll do pretty much anything (w.in certain wide bounds).
P.s. I think there was a book on this particular medieval duel, though I remember offhand neither the author nor the exact title, and presumably the movie is based on that account.
ReplyDeleteLFC,
ReplyDeleteCorrect, the script is based on a book written by Eric Jager, titled, "The Last Duel: A True Story of Trial By Combat in Medieval France."
Affleck and Damon did not agree to act in the movie based on its money. They are in fact producers and co-script writers. Aside from the physical demands of the movie, I suspect that the subject of the history of misogyny also interested them.
I and my wife both found the movie superb. The cinematography of portraying medieval France was fantastic. I seem to remember your expressing some uneasiness watching movie with violence. There is violence in this movie, but it is by no means gratuitous (ala Tarantino). One other word of advice - the movie is quite long, a little over 2.5 hrs., so, if you have prostate issues, be sure to visit a restroom before you go into the theater.
AA
ReplyDeleteThanks for the additional info.
P.S.:
ReplyDeleteAt the end the of the movie, I told my wife that I, too, would defend her honor, as did the protagonist, but that I could by no means guarantee the outcome of my effort at hand-to-hand combat.
LFC, currently there's quite a debate on the state of governance in India but setting that aside, a 4/1 split with the glaciers in central Asia shrinking, nothing good is likely. I've been in New Delhi in September and it was unpleasant. South and Southeast Asia will be hotter with less useful water. Wars have started over less.
ReplyDeleteI would argue with your appraisal of Mills because I think that Mills has much in common with the "judge-penitent" Jean-Baptiste Clamence in Albert Camus' novel The Fall (1956). 1) Mills makes exaggerated and unsubstantiated claims to epistemic privilege as a black man interpreting white political theory. He has "X-ray vision" but whites like Rawls are handicapped by an epistemology of ignorance (p 5 and 18). This is absurd infallibility for non-white knowing in regards to what the white people are really all about. 2) Mills borrows a methodological radicalism derived from radical feminism (p 2-3) that uses ethically loaded (biased) terms and highly slanted narratives of victimization to make overly brash claims about how naturalized or actual history can be recognized and overturned, undermining the need for proper modesty in political philosophy as exemplified by Rawls. 3) Mills is recreating and picturing the world in terms of racialized persons whose experiences never meet or converge in an overlapping consensus that would provide social unity for a liberal democracy. 4) Mills thinks falsely that neutrality or meeting the burdens of reason/judgment is a big fat white fairy tale rather than an important academic standard all must learn to respect and play fairly. 5) It is not fair to characterize Rawls's theory of justice as "raceless" because race was supposed to be added into the deliberations over justice at later stages after the constitutional convention, regarding obtaining fair resources in order to exercise equal rights, the right to non-discrimination and re-distribution in particular. Rawls's theory of justice is incomplete or a fragment like Heidegger's Being and Time, not a whole system of justice as Mills aspires to produce out of his own head. Due to his death from cancer, Mills cannot finish his own theory of racialized justice, so he becomes a fragment too. Be kind to fragments, they are only human. 6) Mills' own critical theory of racism is a kind of "enlightened" racism directed at naive white readers and white people in general which implies some degree of biological determinism despite his denials. It aims not to be more accurate but rather to challenge their ability to perceive reality and reverse white power by imposing black definition on to it until the white ability to think collapses into a black hole of fetishized jargon of liberation theory. 7) Mills' "epistemology of ignorance" narrative should be discounted because it is a belligerent standpoint theory epistemology which speaks only to what is true for this human subgroup versus what is true for other subgroups, and never about what is true from all perspectives when we remove the highly politicized reasoning and let deliberations and procedures improve fairness of interpretation, or respect for principle of charity. 8) White supremacy, whiteness and being epistemologically privileged by the color of your skin are not suitable elements for constructing a feasible theory of social justice because they use standpoints which overpersonalize the struggle for justice and make it so personal that we don't know what a just society would be like for all concerned, as it slips into divisive subjectivity and group-interests which make social unity even more improbable. Methodological radicalism (Alice Crary's term, not Mills) is a flawed identity politics which unbalances perception of facts and increases sophistry instead of fair and enlightening argument.--For these reasons, Mills is not speaking the truth about Rawls or how modest white people think when they do political philosophy.
ReplyDeleteThe Parable of Charles Rawls
ReplyDeleteImagine that a boy named “Charles Rawls” was born in 1921 in Baltimore, the colored son of Jamaican immigrants to America who had done well as a family of black lawyers. Charles Rawls was sent to good Christian prep schools and served in the segregated U.S. Army in the Pacific during World War 2 where he experienced racism against nonwhites, stopped believing in God, and regarded the army as a dismal institution. But he returned from war and went back to Princeton University where he studied philosophy with Walter Stace and Norman Malcolm, and eventually became professor at Harvard University.
From his black experience of oppression, he developed a theory of justice as unfairness
showing the current justice system to be structured by racism. Charles Rawls assembled his “epistemically privileged” arguments into a major expose of the West, A Theory of Injustice, which detailed the principles for correcting a racist society and the original imposition of domination on vulnerable groups by the powerful. He expounded about the “epistemology of ignorance” which unveiled the history of denial and distortion by the white majority and their theorists. Later, he wrote a second, greater book about
the complexity of injustice called Political Illiberalism which gave even more emphasis to what is required for genuinely equal rights for all types of persons in a pluralist society, how the unjust enrichment of the powerful groups in society had warped the very thinking about law and order needed to maintain mutual respect and social unity, and how people were naturally diverse at the same time as being ontologically equal in value, rather than inferior by nature.
His last unfinished book was about methodological radicalism, international racism and how racism had disordered the development of humanity, The Anarchy of Racism. Humanity could only become united if it defeated the divisiveness of racism in politics, otherwise worldwide anarchy would triumph over the rule of law. Charles Rawls always kept promising to get to ideal theories and perfect justice formulas, but never could finish grappling with the pretzel logic of non-ideal theory.
In his later work, Charles Rawls developed a nonideal theory of justice based on the
overwhelming consensus of minorities, who agreed on a basic structure of society which figured out how to compensate fairly for discrimination after a history of discrimination had already impacted us all. But Charles Rawls used a “method of confrontation” to deal with all controversies equally and not to avoid any urgent priorities. He worked so hard and long at expounding his non-ideal theory of justice that he was never able to make the dialectical leap to an ideal theory of justice, where the concepts he developed for non-ideal circumstances could be checked and further revised from another dialectical angle. Charles Rawls marginalized universal principles, objectivity, neutrality and logical philosophy in general, possibly blackening the reputation of the Harvard Philosophy department, and nauseating Professor Quine. He needed a dialectical partner to teach him about justice as a more positive ideal, “purity of heart, if one could attain it” (TJ, p 514), and universal hope for humanity, rather than a struggle for neglected
group interests or self-interests and other politicized ends serving some groups but not all.