I live in three worlds. In the first world, I am an 89-year-old man with Parkinson’s disease, living in a Continuing Care Retirement Community and looking after a 90-year-old wife who is cheerful and an enormous comfort to me despite her struggles with a number of physical problems. In the second world, I am a hapless observer of a nation racing toward fascism, a nation filled with people who can find nothing better to do with their time than to be cruel to the most at risk among us, in a world in which human beings race toward ecological disaster. In the third world, I calmly and quietly prepare for my next lecture on the elements of Game Theory, reflecting as I lie in bed in the middle of the night on the best way to explain to my students von Neumann’s six axioms that taken together allow us to impute a cardinal utility function to a player.
I have lived in these three worlds all my life, and though I
have devoted enormous amounts of time and energy to both the first and the second,
it is in the third that I am most truly myself.
26 comments:
And this does not include the infinite number of possible iterations of Prof. Wolff which theoretically exist in the parallel worlds of the multiverse.
Very interesting observation Professor, we are unique as individuals yet we live multiple lives; who knows what Kant would think about that; Kant who, as I learned from Your Eighth VideoLesson on him, admitted only one time, and only one possible universe.
I continue to think, following the suggestion of the beautiful book by Michael Ende "The Never Ending Story" that there are two Worlds: the World of Real and the World of Dreams or Fantasy or Ideals, and people to live a complete and happy life should be able to bring balance between the two Worlds: pure reality without dreams, fantasy, ideals is squalid or banal, while those who live only in the world of Fantasy or Ideals are often deluded, cloud catchers or drug addicts
PS Thank you very much, Professor, for the beautiful and interesting videocourse on Kant
Professor of world 2, any reflections on the manifestations and grèves across France, and on the teetering financial system that Biden's bankers & economic team (and their counterparts in Europe) are desperately trying to shore up?
In "The Future of Socialism" you wrote:
"Marx completely failed to anticipate that the capitalist state would develop the ability to manage and, to some extent, to control the increasingly wild booms and busts that threatened to destroy the capitalist order.... [He] was convinced that capitalists, confronted with disaster, would be unable to coordinate their actions in order to save their skins.... But the truth is that our corporate masters will never again allow a serious threat to the foundations of the economic house they have built."
and
"It is on the side of labor that things have not progressed as Marx imagined they would. For a time, the growth of industrial capitalism did indeed produce a vibrant labor movement that evolved very much as Marx expected.... But as industrial capitalism gave way to a complex mix of industrial and service firms with huge, bureaucratically managed assemblages of employees, the leveling and homogenization ceased. There came into existence a pyramidal hierarchy of job categories with sharply unequal wage, salary, and compensation schedules.... This highly unequal allocation of the rewards and burdens of labor has undermined that solidarity on which Marx was counting.... Workers have grown progressively less unified, until at long last, Organized Labor has come to be, and to be seen, as nothing more than an interest group, on a par with, but often less powerful than, gun owners, retirees, and fundamentalist Christians."
I would suggest that the events of recent weeks are evidence that the captains of global capitalism may be far less capable and, when pushed to the brink by the inevitable neoliberal overreach, the workers more united than you imagined.
I see the first wish has been granted:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2023/03/30/trump-indicted-by-manhattan-grand-jury-report-says/?sh=17caaac51389
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/30/politics/donald-trump-indictment/index.html
The Manhattan grand jury has voted to indict Trump.
Again with the spurious analogy to fascism? The current state of the US has little to do with 1920s Italy or 1930s Germany.
Since you’ve brought it up, Professor Wolff, let me say that auditing your Game Theory Lecture No.1 reminded me vividly of something that happened to me when I was 20 years old …
A bunch of us were sharing a house in Berkeley for the summer. At the time I owned as my most prized possession a beautiful (albeit used) handmade racing bicycle (a Serotta “Club Special”, with Nuovo Record components, if there are any fellow bike nerds in attendance) and I would ride it around Berkeley. I was 20 years old and an avid bicyclist … was I fit? I should think so!
One day I’m riding up the big hill in Tilden Regional Park. This is on the back side of the Berkeley Hills, I was coming back from Briones Reservoir and I’m huffing and puffing, grinding my way up this hill, Wildcat Canyon Road, in bottom gear. I’m thinking to myself something like, “Jesus Christ on The Cross, this hill is killing me … but I’m The Shit nevertheless … I mean, I’m 20, I’m fit, and I’m on this awesome bike …” (Here I was helped by the fact that a pair of pretty girls in a Honda had HONKED at me on my ride out.)
But just as I’m thinking this, who should pass by me from behind but an old man … I mean LEGIT old, not just comparatively “old”... he was at least 70, I’d say, so 3 ½ times my age! But he’s not even out of BREATH and so has the energy to give me a friendly greeting as he’s passing, which I can’t politely return because, as noted, I’m gasping like I’m a fish out of water. He drops me like a bad habit. He disappears around the next corner and I never see him again.
Here I had seen an example of an identifiable type, the certified Bay Area Eccentric. This dude appeared to be carved out of solid oak. Had he been doing this ride every day for what, 50 years? Probably. Did he live on some crazy Berkeley macrobiotic diet? Looked that way ... the best part was that he was riding what we bike snobs call with pure disdain a “Department Store Bicycle”—that is, the absolute lowest form of bicycle, the Chevy Chevette, the Yugo, the AMC Gremlin of bicycles, a Sears “Free Spirit”, a bicycle that weighed TWICE what my racing bike did.
My point is, this guy was purely a “bicyclist” in that that’s just what he did, he rode up and down the biggest and gnarliest hill he could find, over and over and over again … and here he was doing it when I (a young poseur) happened to cross paths with him.
What is Game Theory but a big gnarly hill? Watching someone climb it with absolute ease, without having to even pause for breath (while I’m gasping for air) was something to see … Chapeau!
"The current state of the US has little to do with 1920s Italy or 1930s Germany."
And fascism isn't only defined by what happened in two nations a century ago.
Hello Professor Wolff. Close to a year ago I think I might have asked a question about Kant concerning the first chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason, the transcendental aesthetic. It is safe to assume that that book, which I can definitely see now why it is held in such high regard, have not continued. But maybe I will, once I can learn it more formally.
I apologise if I am naive, and my writing is unrefined and messy. I do not usually do things like this.
Regardless, today I've come with two questions. First concerning Søren Kierkegaard and the second conerning Alexis de Tocqueville. First, I haven't read Kierkegaard at all, but I recall in one of your lectures you mention having read the beginning of a certain book of his. From what I've learned about him, the majority of his works have an underlying theological idea behind them. Either/Or seems to be his magnum opus. Should this book be where I begin? Because as I've learnt in philosophy, no philosopher creates their philosophy without some past or current individual(s) on which to base their work on. Basically, everything that humans create must have its origin in some other prior thing. This includes everything from politics to the concept of race to gender to philosophy to language to religion to the whole of identity, and social existence in general. Anyway, because of the thing I have just mentioned, do you possibly know what influenced Kierkegaard?
Second, as I have been reading Democracy in America, I have come across a chapter in the book which deals with questions I have always had on my mind. On Chapter 1, pages 23-28, Tocqueville dedicates 5 pages to the Native Americans. Now, 18:07-18:20 of lecture four of Ideological Critique you describe that 50,000 or so years ago its thought that there was a change in the way humans behaved. And this changed is also thought where modern structured language formed, and it is also when more sophisticated forms of art are found throughout the world. These behaviourally different humans are, I think, the starting point of the societal structure of the modern world. 19:05-21:58 you mention the three revolutions that occurred roughly 10,000 years ago: The beginning of agriculture, domestication of animals, and the establishment of cities.
Correct me if I misinterpret what you say, but here’s what I got from it:
You say that agriculture resulted in a surplus of food, meaning that people had other activities to which they could dedicate themselves to. Whereas before the hunter-gatherer had to always be moving, and where the hunter-gatherer had to be efficient at all forms of survival, people could now be efficient in a select task. Such as, you say, soldiers and builders.
The domestication of animals resulted in the idea of property and owner. This is why for a long time domesticated animals were considered a form of currency. The Old English word feoh and Latin word pecu originally meant domestic animals but came to mean money.
The establishment of “permanent residencies” or cities, came from both domesticated animals and agriculture. Cities were founded because of and existed on the dependency of these two things.
On pages 24-25 of Democracy in America, Tocqueville compares how in aristocratic countries “the lowest of people” are not only “rude and uncivil” because they are “poor and ignorant”, but it is because their own inferiority and weakness and servility to the ruling classes makes them dissatisfied and oppressed. “Unable to perceive a single chance of regaining their equality, they give up despair, and allow themselves to fall below the dignity of human nature”
Tocqueville then states how although the native americans (of his time at least) are poor and ignorant, they are equal and free. For north american natives were hunter gatherers, and according to Tocqueville “occupied without possessing” the land. The native american and the british colonist were both very independent, but the colonist found his independence in ownership of the land, under the law of an agricultural society. While the native found his independence in the ownership of himself, under the communal life of a nomadic culture. This is why although the nations of europe were able to remove the natives, they were never able to conquer them. The natives never had any concept of property or class structure. And thus no government to subjugate. As Tocqueville says, the destruction of the natives began from the day europeans set foot in the new world.
Now I ask my question: Because communism founds itself in the ideology of communal ownership of the land, agriculture, and cities, how can it sustain itself under the idea of communal ownership. When naturally this will result in some class, group, or individual gaining power? As, unlike the natives of north america, the idea of property and value still exists.
If you’ve already answered this in your works, please redirect me to it. Thank you.
-Giovanni Tamburino
I trust that in your third world there is an aesthetic that manifests itself and gives you pleasure, in ways that are impossible in the first two.
I do take the view that it’s more helpful to keep to the Italian case when it comes to fascism, and I see little value in using the term ‘fascism’ to refer to authoritarian policies (and capitalist policies at that, which are hardly applicable to the Italian or German case).
My own nocturnal reflections:
It is fortunate that DA Bragg was the first to indict Trump. Of the three possible venues for a Trump trial – N.Y., Maryland, or Georgia – N.Y. has the lowest percentage of Trump supporters, reducing the likelihood of a hung jury.
Anonymous @3:30 a.m.
Are you aware of the key role that large privately owned (i.e., not state-owned) corporations played in the economy of Nazi Germany? How can you claim that "capitalist policies" were not "applicable" in that case? The claim makes little to no sense. Yes, the official ideology was called "national socialism" but it was not a socialist system of any kind, notwithstanding a fairly high degree of govt intervention in the economy.
P.s. The German economy was not even put on a complete war footing, so to speak, until well into WW2. The real problem though was the shortage of resources like coal, steel, and oil, which the 'total war' economic initiative could not solve. See R.J. Evans, _The Third Reich at War_, p. 425ff.
Both Italy and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s carried out what is best called as a corporatist type of economy, which was then quite different from the capitalist society that the US is today - the role of corporations per se doesn’t mean much. But that’s by the by anyway, for historical fascism, especially in Italy, bears little resemblance to anything that is going on in the US now. And what’s the point of harping on about fascism in the US, in any case?
Anonymous @1:35 p.m.
There are at least two possible positions here. One is yours, roughly, namely that Italian fascism in the 20s and 30s bears relatively little resemblance to what is going on in the U.S. and therefore the word "fascism" in the U.S. context should be avoided.
The other position, exemplified say by Jason Stanley's How Fascism Works, is that certain common fascist (or fascist-like) emphases or themes or whatever word you prefer -- e.g., hypernationalism; hostility to immigrants and foreigners (xenophobia); denigration of intellectualism and expertise; creation and valorization of a mythic past; attack on the rule of law (often wrapped in anticorruption rhetoric) etc. -- can be identified across time.
Trump's recent speech in Waco TX, which someone sent me a Guardian piece about that I haven't read yet, apparently reminded some observers of a classic fascist spectacle/rally. Trump called among other things for having more babies, by which he obviously meant white babies.
For a long time I was of your view, i.e., that it did not make much sense to talk about fascism in the U.S. context. Having read Stanley's book, however, I am now more undecided about the matter.
"And what’s the point...":
Anon, rhyming is often no better and can be worse then repeating. Check out the goings on in Idaho, Wisconsin, Texas, and DeSantistan for a start. This may be of interest:
https://johnganz.substack.com/p/what-makes-fascism-fascist
And in case you missed my reference south of here:
https://johnganz.substack.com/p/the-jockcreep-theory-of-fascism
Lots more out there if you look.
@ aaall
I looked quickly at the "jockcreep theory of fascism" when you first linked it. Quite a long piece for a screen read. And the conceit is perhaps a little cutesy. Whereas with an actual physical book, such as the one I just mentioned in the comment above, the staring-at-the-screen-endlessly problem is alleviated. However, that is a side point and not substantive.
I know Stanley's work well, but I find his characterisation of fascism quite tendentious, and a little too focused on making it relevant to modern conditions. And not original: Eco's Ur-fascism was not a million miles away from what Stanley goes on about, though Eco had Italian neo-fascism from the 1970s and 80s in mind (some of the relevant groups were in fact terrorist groups), and I bet he'd have been surprised by the parallels to Trump - a much more relevant analogy is, of course, to Berlusconi, who was keen to get in bed with actual neo-fascists in his various coalition governments, but wasn't of their ilk at all, not least because Berlusconi, like Trump, one might add, was more a liberal (in the American sense of the word, perhaps) when it came to things like abortion and the like - Trump as a person is quite far removed from the people most keen to follow him (worth noting that Stanley is not an expert on fascism and his work raised a few eyebrows, to say the least, in Italy; much better to read Emilio Gentile on this issue!).
Two points about actual fascism that were typical of the time (and of Italy, in fact) and that are nowehere to be seen in the US (or elsewhere, in fact): political parties had their own militias at the time and violence in the streets was extreme (summary executions were not uncommon in either Italy or Germany then), including of politicians (targeted killings by well-organised groups) and, despite the talk of the mythical past, a point that is exaggerated in the case of Italian fascism, Mussolini's movement was explicitly focused on creating a new society and even a new man, and in this sense it was not a reactionary or conservative movement in the way that nazism was (and this is one of the reasons the Italian futurists were early fans of fascism, by the way). Nazism and fascism had many things in common, but they also differed in many ways (and the same goes to francoism, with its strong, catholic element, completely extraneous to either nazism and fascism).
My main problem in all this is that people use the word 'fascism' to refer to authotarian, conservative movements for the most part, and whilst there is a place for that - words do change in meaning in time - the analogies can go off tracks very easily. Not long ago, in this very blog, Wolff drew attention to some event or other in the US, and said something along the lines of 'this is what it must have felt like in 1920-30s Germany and Italy', and that was simply, I am sorry to say, ridiculous.
So, again, what is the point of using the word 'fascism' when something like radical conservatism will do and you won't create confusion by doing so? (I'm alluding to Corey Robin here, who has made similar points).
For the vulgar, the point of applying the label of “Fascist” to something is that it feels good (as any undergraduate can tell you). But that aside, there are some clearly Fascistic elements to the modern Republican party, even if they look like they are of the “second-time-as-farce” variety.
(As for working definitions of “fascistic” I prefer Umberto Eco’s to any of the others that I’ve read. He lived through it, after all, and he is able to sum it up concisely.)
Eco describes Mussolini as not having a political philosophy—instead he had “only rhetoric”. This is a crucial point. I haven’t seen any word-for-word comparisons, but I’ll wager that Mussolini has to be regarded, next to Trump, as a subtle political theorist, and that Trump’s rhetoric represents a degradation to a lower level. I certainly doubt that it could be seen as any kind of an improvement on the Italian original. And we’re all clever intellectuals here, and so we tend to dismiss apparently empty rhetoric (or sub-rhetoric, if you like) whether it’s coming from Mussolini or Trump.
But none of that matters. Our subtle distinctions are beside the point. Trump’s rhetoric may be incoherent, contradictory, and so on, but for all that, it’s effective. Why? because it is appealing to the universal frustration that 50 years of bipartisan neoliberalism has produced for everyone who is forced to scratch out a living below the two topmost strata of society (the genuinely rich and the ambitious, over-compensated professional class).
This near-universal frustration (especially of the lower middle class) is the other side of this crucial point. The frustrated lower middle class is the social base of Fascism. This is the ground in which Fascistic movements take root ... but this class is practically invisible to the lefty sensibility, because it is so GAUCHE: pickup trucks, Nascar, Hooters, Pro Wrestling, Militarism, God (the Baptist one), Duck Dynasty, ... (I could go on here, ad infinitum).
So nobody takes it seriously. Nobody takes "those people" seriously, because they are an embarrassment, because they ought not to behave the way they do, they ought not to think the things they think. And yet there they are, in plain sight (if you care to look).
In this sense the analogy to Germany in 1932 is quite (terrifyingly) apt.
"In this sense the analogy to Germany in 1932 is quite (terrifyingly) apt."
I think this makes the point I was trying to make quite apt.
"...pickup trucks, Nascar, Hooters, Pro Wrestling..."
Back in 2015 I checked out the first few Trump rallies and marveled at the resemblance to a WWE event. Anyway:
https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2023/03/how-wrestling-made-trump/673597/
I understand that slicing and dicing is how academics make their living but with fascism the analysis too often seems like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18AzodTPG5U
Acknowledgment after the fact is sort of useless.
As for militias, DeSantis and Abbott have both made feelers (as has Bibi in Israel, it seems). In those areas in which Trump isn't a savant he's a dummy. The next Republican trifecta plus the Supremes will result in a re-implementation of Schedule F for the civil service and some serious tinkering with the DoD promotion list - all things Trump fumbled. give them time - or better don't.
For those who didn't google:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fascism
Literary intellectuals love to sniff for incipient “fascism” everywhere (typically in the area of culture), but what will happen when the real thing shows up? I’m not too confident that the Light Horse of the NYRB is going to be worth much in this fight.
A few years ago I thought to research this question by looking through the historical record to determine the reaction of the London “Left” to the Falklands War. To that end, I went through the LRB archive, and what did I find?
The London “Left” was 100% in favor of capitulating to the Argentine Junta (as vile a bunch of fascists as have shown up anywhere in the last 75 years). To a man, these “radicals” were in favor of handing over the Falklanders (sorry, the “Malvinas Islanders”) to the Argentine regime … Nice! All because of their “principled” opposition to Thatcher.
And this was well after the dirtiest parts of the Dirty War had become widely known.
Anonymous,
I've studied enough European history to know about Marinetti and the Futurist manifesto, and I take your pts re differences betw Italian fascism, Francoism, Nazism. (I've read Paxton's Anatomy of Fascism though I don't remember it in all that much detail. Unlike Stanley, Paxton of course is an expert on fascism. The book was published pre-Trump.)
I don't care much about what one labels Trumpism and, say, the right-wing militias. They're not really conservatives, but "right-wing radical" is ok.
P.s. Corey Robin, whom I respect though I don't always agree with him, is not an expert on fascism either. He's no doubt read a lot about it, but he's not a historian. I mention this because you want to insist on disciplinary boundaries re Stanley. (Stanley is the first to say he's not an expert capital E on fascism, btw.)
Agreed re Robin; my point in bringing him up was related to Robin’s work on conservatism (and Trumpism), and his claim that calling any of these strands ‘fascism’ doesn’t add anything to begin with. But I take your point.
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