My apologies for having been absent from this blog for so long. I finally bit the bullet and asked Marc Susselman not to post any longer. I then deleted a number of his recent comments. That plus a bout of sciatica (I always seem to come down with such commonplace ailments) kept me from posting.
A reader contacted me to point out that Cornell West is thinking of making a run for the presidency. I like Cornell, but this is an ego trip, not a serious contribution to the political realm. If he really wants to make a difference, why doesn't he run for the House or for some state office? The answer is obvious. He does not really want to do the work and make a difference, he just wants to make a statement and capture some attention.
I raised what I consider an interesting and complicated question with my last serious post and it produced some thoughtful responses before the comments section was kidnapped and turned into a rather childish series of abusive posts. Later today or tomorrow I will return to that question that I raised and try to carry the conversation a bit further.
Meanwhile, like everyone else in this country I wait for Trump to get indicted, I hunker down indoors in order to avoid the god-awful air pollution coming from out-of-control Canadian fires, I read about terrible train wrecks in India and the Republican party's cruel attacks on a handful of trans kids, And I try desperately to keep my spirits up.
It is not easy being Tigger!
45 comments:
Great to see you back!!!
I have chronic sciatica myself, so I feel for you about that.
It is really not easy to be reasonably optimistic with the news situation. On the other hand, I often wonder whether the sheer mass of information and the enormous density of news sources in 2023, in relation to 1980, does not create a skewed picture when you compare the years. For me, I decided some time ago to read daily news once a day. There are a maximum of 2 articles that I read completely. The rest are headlines and the shortcuts.
If I have some time, I prefer science channels on Youtube. There it is about the latest state of nuclear fusion, or about the current images from the James Webb telescope and their significance for physical cosmology.
Somehow science clears my head and in contrast to the daily news I get an idea why Friedrich Nietzsche wrote about "happy science".
Interestingly, if one filters out certain comments, the residue contains more of interest than a first impression conveys.
Interesting thoughts on West; I'm a fan of his but I think you may be on to something. I'm tempted to suggest an amendment that all presidential candidates must first hold an elected public office. But I'm not really sure of that.
@A.K. there's some nice science reporting in Arstechnica.com and there's this wonderful news:
einstein tile
While I’d agree that elections are primarily about getting someone elected, isn’t it the case that they’re a bit more than that? Given the elections most of the electorate seem to attend to—something that can be gauged by, e.g., the turnout in Presidential as against non-Presidential years—if one wants to get any sort of audience for one’s political views, then running as a Presidential candidate is a way to do that. To be sure, candidates in minority parties as well as the less well known candidates in the major parties will not receive that much attention even then. But they may get some. And a positive aspect of their running is that the views they are advocating are likely no-mainstream ones which may get some people thinking untimely thoughts. I think it would be a missed opportunity, this far out from the actual election in November 2024, were deep anxieties about the outcome were allowed to narrow the political discussion so early in the process. For there are, in my opinion, a great many very troubling matters that I doubt the two mainstream parties will get around to addressing. And it would be everyone’s loss should these matters not be raised at all in the only game in town.
Note, I’m not addressing the issue of how long they should remain in the competition!
In the long term, we'll all be dead, so about feeling better in the short term: I too a very long time ago adopted Achim Kriechel's policy of only reading the news once a day, and keeping it brief. It works, but then again I've never been tempted to be a news junkie. On the turn to YouTube science: In the past year or so I've turned to a para-scientific series, Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't. It hasn't only improved my mood, but also it has opened up whole new modes of attention, and a different sense of and way of being within Neruda's Residencia en la Tierra. The various segments the ramblings amid plants, with identifications, Latin names, descriptions, remarks on pollinators, and bits on soil types and geology, by a foul-mouthed amateur (in the very best sense) botanist Joey Santore. He nows lives near the border in South Texas (and so does a lot of cactus), previously in Oakland, and is from Chicago. He's done many regions in the U. S., and also in Chile, Tasmania, the Dominican Republic, and others, and is currently in New Zealand. "Look at that banger goin' off!"
Re Jerry Fresia's half-hearted suggestion that all Presidential candidates should first have held an elected public office, it seems to me that in the USA the electorate is given the responsibility of deciding whether a candidate has had sufficient political/governing responsibility--and they sometimes (often?) get that wrong.
J.F.'s suggestion also strikes me as a bit of a longing for a strong-party system rather than the weak-party system that has been the norm in the USA (though today's Republican Party would now seem to be at least a quasi-strong one). I'd try to temper his enthusiasm for strong parties by drawing attention to today's British Labour Party which has adopted such a strong model that it now ejects and disallows people who would have been quite acceptable when it was functioning as a moderately strong party
In a presidential system with the the ridiculous Electoral collage any third party candidates are going to be either irrelevant or spoilers (as well as providing opportunities for foreign meddling).
Prof. Wolff, I assume you have air conditioning, either centralized or individual. Now might be a good time to inquire about the last filter maintenance or (if individual) to get a HVAC tech to upgrade to a HEPA filter if needed. The air from recent fires were bad enough where I live but the pictures I'm seeing from the east coast are far worse.
Glad to have you back, albeit with the ailments of old age. I can identify with you're situation. Right now, apart from my aching back (which is fairly constant), the ailment that is bothering me most is arthritis, which is trying to turn a knuckle on my right hand into red, painful sphere. That will go away in a few days and something else will take its place.
I had not been aware of Cornel West's announcement.
His announcement video -- apart from the substance, which I have some qualms about, to put it gently -- is, as a matter of style, pretty great.
He says, among other things, that the two parties are not telling the truth about "big tech." Yet he chose to make his announcement on big tech -- namely, Twitter.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/cornel-west-announces-presidential-campaign-rcna87789
I'd like to put in a request that the professor someday allow the banished ultra-commentator a single short sentence as a comment, notifying the world of his newly-launched blog of legal commentary and Jeopardy questions. As I was walking around today an ode, closely modeled upon e e cummings's 'Mr U', popped into my head:
Mr Su will sort of be missed
who as a polemicist
provoked the many and praised the few
not excluding Mr Su
I will miss Marc S's comments.
I'll miss them too, but not because I learned anything from them except a bit of psychology, the kind of psychology one learns from observing any human behavior that awakens one's alert responses.
I'll miss them because every narrative needs a villain.
We all need people to get indignant about, so that we can feel righteous and lucid.
Now that we're all friends in this blog and roughly in agreement about many issues, we begin to miss the fun of having someone to oppose.
s.w.
There's still disagreement here. aaall and R McD disagree about U.S. foreign policy, just to take one example.
There's no way Pillette, Rapko, Fresia, you, me, Palmeter, Zimmerman, the two Michaels, Howard, anon., Anonymous (multiplied), etc etc agree about everything. So I wouldn't worry about that.
P.s. Forgot F. Poebel and no doubt some others.
There are two reasons that I will miss Marc's comments: 1. I find his legal cases interesting and informative, 2. He is one of the few contributors to The Philosopher's Stone who actually raises philosophical issues here. I have enjoyed our debates over abortion, meta-ethics, epistemology and others.
I do not miss his tendency to engage in ad hominem arguments and rhetorical invective. However, he not the only one who has that unfortunate tendency.
I’m quite taken aback to see some of these remarks. It’s almost as if—hauntology now being a scholarly subject—we can’t live without our spectre and long for his diversions. I, on the other hand, found his egotism and his narcissistic tendency to turn every discussion into his discussion, where he gloried in his role as an embattled defender of truth and virtue, not to mention his pig-headed refusal to ever admit he was in the wrong (remember all that stupid stuff about the sun/son of york?), quite intolerable. I’m glad he’s gone and I hope he remains gone. This may sound ungenerous. But the departed one would have tried the patience and generosity of an angel.
Now can we return to the subject Professor Wolff raised? And surely it’s a bit presumptuous to say that we who remain are all friends and in agreement about many issues. Should that seem to be so, maybe we need to explore the grounds of our seeming agreement.
Besides, I see aaall at 1:10 PM seeming to reject what I was suggesting at 11:06 AM since he says, in essence, that elections are only about one thing. (I do, however, appreciate his humorous introduction of the term the “Electoral COLLAGE” emphasis mine.) Were he not so telegraphic and allusionary in his style, more might follow. And I wish LFC at 1:49 PM had said a bit more about what he has qualms about wrt Cornell West.
But I was too slow off the mark. While I was laboriously composing the foregoing, LFC at 5:13 PM put it all much more pleasantly and, so far as I am concerned, correctly. Thanks.
John Rapko’s variations on a theme by e.e. cummings brought to mind another of cummings’s poems, “I sing of Olaf glad and big,” which seems still timely to the generation that a lot of us here belong to. There are many remarkable lines in that short poem, of which a couple have to do with flags and dietary restrictions. Anyway, if you haven’t read it, or have forgotten it, it’s well-worth reading and helpfully available on-line. Also, with regard to sanctioning annoying speech (or, rather, speakers), I can’t resist quoting Joni Mitchell (whom I didn’t like 50 years ago and like even less now, but who managed to throw together some memorably insightful lines): “Don't it always seem to go…That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone?” We’ll see how the banishment/exile goes, and see if it deprives us of more than it benefits us. Professor Zimmerman sees some value in what/who has been sent to Coventry, and so do I. Then again, I have long mulled over the phenomenon of “conversational narcissism” sketched out in Charles Derber’s interesting little book, “The Pursuit of Attention,” and was thereby pretty much aware of what has been going on here. Some of Derber’s book is well-worth reading, by the way, if you care about the “conversational narcissism” that, as SW puts it, “awakens one's alert responses.” (I read somewhere, quite a while back, that Derber was influenced by Barrington Moore, a colleague and friend of RPW’s, after whom one of RPW’s sons is named.)
R McD, oops, must proof better. Anyway, I'm old fashioned. I like to win and in the US at least there is limited space for empty gestures and the stakes are too high - ask several hundred thousand Iraqis - oh wait, you can't, they're dead.
Speaking of which and looking on the bright side, it seems Pat Robinson and James Watt are newly dead and Trump is indicted. Obese, horrible diet, no exercise, mid-seventies, multiple serious Federal indictments - what could go wrong?
Cornell West aspires to be a three time loser. He backed Nader in 2000, Stein in 2016, and now he jumps back in. At this point one wonders. Met him ~20 years ago and he seemed nice - backed Kerry. The People's Party is only on the ballot in one state - Florida - so this is a totally empty gesture unless the PP can get on other ballots. I see the Green Party has qualified for the 2024 Wisconsin ballot - hopefully folks have learned.
Harlan Crow and other plutocrats support No Labels for a reason - centrist third parties help elect Republicans.
Regarding Cornel West's candidacy for US President, I would worry about hasty dismissal of his project or thinking he cannot change the electoral domination system of Democrat versus Republican and nobody else aspires to govern. I am a Canadian philosopher and only observer of American democracy but I teach West in my Theories of Justice class as a reasonable identity politics philosopher who contrasts with unreasonable identity politics such as Carole Pateman, Susan Moller Okin or Charles Mills.
I use selections from West's books Race Matters, Democracy Matters, and Black Prophetic Fire to show how West's development of prophetic justice contrasts with the universalistic justice of the procedural republic blueprint developed by Rawls which is proved insufficient by West's determined widening of the arguments. West's politics of recognition is now the most popular philosophical style among youth and most of my students appreciate West as a more relevant philosopher than the others on my reading list (Rawls, Nozick, Walzer, Okin, Charles Taylor, David Graeber and David Wenngrow). West has an extraordinary amount of video on YouTube and capacity to use social media which will surprise many and gain great attention.
Here is a link to an enlightening June 8 interview with West regarding his Presidential campaign from Democracy Now newscast:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW2iPjaJ-Js&ab_channel=DemocracyNow%21
I wish him good luck changing the rotten democracy incorporated that America has become.
Tony Couture,
I watched the Democracy Now interview with West.
West is sane, brillant and insightful, ten times more sane, brillant and insightful than Biden.
I then asked myself the question I ask myself faced with a similar alternative in Chile: would I really like this person to govern my country?
The answer is no. Bernie Sanders fine, he has the political experience and smarts, but West is too innocent, too full of loving goodness, too obsessed with justice.
I prefer business as usual with someone as cynical as Biden is.
Too much goodness and idealism in politics generally brings disaster.
This is not RPW's fault bc he's likely dictating his posts w voice recognition software, but to commenters here: it's Cornel West - one "l" in the first name, not two.
To Tony Couture:
The issue is not whether West is a good political/social philosopher --- better than Rawls, et al--- but whether a third party candidacy from the left does anything other than help to get a Republican elected president, as happened in 2000 (Nader--- Florida) and 2016 (Stein--- upper Midwest).
Do people on the left who are deeply dissatisfied with the two party system, and with the admitted lameness of the Democratic Party, never learn? The lesser of two evils is LESSER.... especially now that the Republican Party has gone stark raving mad.
There is no way that a West candidacy can "[change] the rotten democracy incorporated that America has become."
Wallerstein is right.... better Biden than West any day.... as a political actor, as opposed to an academic philosopher, or even a "public intellectual" --- which is what West has now become. He really is no longer a philosopher.
Sorry to repeat myself, aaall (at 2:04 AM) as well as s. wallerstein and david zimmerman both in response to Tony Couture, and so in support of the last mentioned:
While elections certainly ultimately come down to who is elected, elections can be and usually are about something else too. I’ll skip the part about them being ways of trying to ensure system loyalty/maintenance and go on, as did Tony, to note, again, that they’re also about trying to get some things onto the political agenda, to open up even a toe-hold for certain points of view that the mainstream politicians don’t address.
We’ve actually seen this happen in recent times even in the US, I think. Recall the anti-war candidates who, though they failed for the most part to get elected or even onto the final ballot nevertheless got opposition to Vietnam into the national discourse and onto the national agenda. And surely Sanders campaign was initially considered, maybe even by Sanders himself, to be a somewhat forlorn effort, but nevertheless worth pursuing as a way of trying to shift American public opinion? And didn’t that succeed to some degree?
So what if West isn’t someone who’ll make it very far or if he’s someone s.w. and d.z. would definitely not want to see actually becoming President? Mightn’t he get some people thinking untimely yet important thoughts?
It’s, as I said before, early days yet. Is there no political space for those who want to try to introduce something different into the American political conversation? Is the Democratic-Republican monopoly of the actual election in November to be allowed to dominate further and further upstream, to the point where only those would-be politicians are regarded as legitimate who situate themselves in one or other of these two camps? As T. C’s reference to Sheldon Wolin’s “democracy incorporated” suggests, are we always submit to being so restricted? Because we’re locked into an interminable electoral cycle where every moment between one election and the next must be devoted to ultimate victory? Given what we know about how actual elections tend to reduce and simplify the public discourse, what an awful political world that would be—two political machines increasingly detached from reality, increasingly devoid of all principle other than the need to win at all costs, trundling along from one election to the next, selecting this or that empty figure, someone safe and plausibly a winner, to be their ‘leader.’ I’m not saying we’re quite there yet. But it seems to me that’s where the admonitions to keep quiet and get on board otherwise you’ll let the greater evil win 18 months from now will inevitably lead. Seems I’m back to sytem loyalty/maintenance after all.
R McD,
But West isn't running in the Democratic primaries as Sanders did and as Eugene McCarthy did in 1968, but as a third party candidate as Nader and Stein did.
To R mcD:
Bernie Sanders did inject progressive ideas into the 2016 election.... BUT he ran in the Democratic primaries, and then supported Hilary Clinton when she was nominated.... He did not run as a third party candidate.
You ask: "Is the Democratic-Republican monopoly of the actual election in November to be allowed to dominate further and further upstream, to the point where only those would-be politicians are regarded as legitimate who situate themselves in one or other of these two camps?"
The answer must be: When it comes to national campaigns for the Presidency, an emphatic "yes." ... because it is a fact of American political life that the two dominant parties are the only game in town at that stage. Third party candidates are spoilers and nothing more, whether from the left or the right. Chris Christie has gently flirted with the idea of running a third party candidacy if Trump is the Republican nominee. I say "Go, Chris!" because that would make Biden's path to reelection much easier. On the other hand, third party runs by the Wests and RFK Jrs and their ilk would only make it harder for Biden.... not because they would attract many votes nationally, but because of the wretched and anti-democratic (small "d") Electoral College. This is a lesson that one would have thought that the left would have learned from the disasters of 2000 and 2016.
The existence of the Electoral College would allow third-party candidates to run *non-spoiler* campaigns if they chose to do so.
Thus, for example, in 2000 Nader could have refrained from campaigning in Florida and told his supporters there to cast a "strategic" vote for Gore if their conscience permitted as a way to thwart a G.W. Bush victory in the Electoral College. Nader cd have focused exclusively on states like NY, California, and MD where he cd *not* have been a spoiler bc the outcome in those states was never in doubt.
So, in 2024, West, depending on where he gets on the ballot, cd focus exclusively on Blue states where he wd not be a spoiler. That wd allow him to inject his issues into the campaign without the danger that his candidacy wd redound to the benefit of the Repub nominee.
There are of course always third-party candidates in a general presidential election these days. Most of them never draw enough votes to affect the outcome; a possible exception to that generalization in recent years is the Libertarian Party -- not nec that it's changed outcomes but it does draw more than a miniscule amount of support.
To LFC:
"The existence of the Electoral College would allow third-party candidates to run *non-spoiler* campaigns IF THEY CHOSE TO DO SO."
Therein lies the rub.
Thanks for the author recommendation, Fritz Poebel. Added Derber's Sociopathic Society to my wish list - it has just a chapter on conversational narcissism, included among many other things - though who knows when I'll get around to it...
Ditto Homo Ludens by Huizinga - I don't think I ever thanked LFC for the recommendation.
Also, s.w., a while back you mentioned (IIRC) an Israeli sociologist who describes the impact of capitalist culture on interpersonal relationships, particularly romantic relationships. I didn't write her name down at the time, but was it Eva Illouz? Thanks.
(This place has been great for reading recommendations.)
Michael,
Exactly Eva Illouz (I and two l's).
The End of Love and Why Love Hurts are good. The End of Love is about why romantic relationships often don't work in our current neoliberal capitalist society and is more
recent, thus taking in more the effect of internet and dating apps.
Her bibliography is impressive, she has read everything.
D Zimmerman
Yes, and I tend to doubt that West would adopt such a strategy. I think he underestimates the actual differences betw a Biden and a Trump or DeSantis.
On the other hand, I think West, unlike - arguably - Nader in 2000, will not attract enough votes to be a spoiler *anywhere*. He's a good speaker but it's not clear to me where his support is going to come from, other than a few leftist pockets in the usual places. And at age 70, West may not have quite the same appeal to young activists as a younger candidate, though Sanders's age did not seem to hurt him.
P.s. I've heard West speak at least once in person, many years ago at a DSA event (an organization I am no longer a dues-paying member of, though that's neither here nor there). The old word "stemwinder" comes to mind.
To LFC:
You are probably right about when you say: "I think he underestimates the actual differences between a Biden and a Trump or DeSantis."
But, oy and f'ing vey: This speaks volumes about West's lack of judgment. (Roe, anyone? Or Shelby County?... or Bruener?... or Citizen's United?.... or on and one and on?
These vanity candidacies are a pain... even when embarked upon by sort of admirable people like West. (The unspeakable RFK Jr is beneath contempt.)
To Michael
You're welcome
To RPW
You're making me nervous again. Our long-awaited indictment has been filed, and your silence is worrisome.
One of the dangers of watching too much MSNBC is coming away with the belief that somehow DeSantis is, or at least was at one point, a ‘credible candidate’ for the republicans with lower numbers than both RFK Jr. and Williamson (at least at one point - thank god I don’t follow this stuff daily considering what it seems to do to people’s brains). Yet they are both dismissed as not serious, credible etc. Treated with derision, as spoilers whatever that means (read: a term people use when they have nothing substantive to say). It would be easier to ignore third parties if both the Democrats and Republicans weren't so irretrievably smug and entitled. It's hard to believe I'm still hearing the same baseless, tedious whining about Nader after more than 20 years.
In relation to David Palmeter's query, scroll through this
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/06/09/us/trump-indictment-documents-news
the sight of all those boxes in bathroom is quite staggering--who has a chandelier in their bathroom? Is there no limit to bad taste?
To Anonymous SrVidaBuena:
So, are you saying that RFK Jr and Williamson ARE "serious, credible" candidates, NOT suitable targets of "derision", NOT really "spoilers"? And, that anyone who suggests otherwise is "irretrievably smug and entitled"?
Really? What world do you live in?
BTW: If not for Nader, Gore would have been elected President in 2000. There is nothing "baseless and tedious" in noting that simple truth.
"Nader cd have focused exclusively on states like NY, California, and MD..."
And Stein could have stayed out of the upper mid-west but that's not how these folks roll. One can't heighten the contradictions that way and we don't do these anymore:
https://c7.alamy.com/comp/MKPPP7/the-lincoln-douglas-debate-at-charleston-MKPPP7.jpg
Don't know about MD but doing media and field operations in CA and NY are costly and require organization.
"...will not attract enough votes to be a spoiler *anywhere*."
True if the PP isn't able to get on more then Florida's ballot as FL is hopeless. If the PP suddenly gets an infusion of dark money and is able to get on more ballots then that could change.
Another potential problem is that some states have minor parties with ballot access who could put West on their line.
It wouldn't make any difference in California but both the Peace and Freedom Party and the Green Party could run West. That could be a problem in other states.
Most folks don't respond to reasoned arguments, they respond to kayfabe which is how we got Trump (recall all the earned media in 2015-16 - “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS”).
West's appeal is a reverse indicator.
Anonymous:
Who has a chandelier is their bathroom? Trump has a gold toilet in his bathroom. Bad taste is his watchword.
"And Stein could have stayed out of the upper mid-west but that's not how these folks roll."
And Obama and then Clinton could have paid more attention to Wisconsin, but that's seemingly not how these folks roll. I recall very well the way they almost entirely left the people in their many thousands circling the Wisconsin capitol free from any warmth their presence or even acknowledgement might have provided.
Etc. etc.
On the basis of poll numbers the media, including CNN and MSNBC seem selective in who they deem a ‘credible candidate’. Surely it’s a coincidence that this selectivity is biased in one direction. They’re doing a better job than the democrats own people in promoting their candidate. And last I checked both RFK Jr. and Williamson were declared as democratic primary challengers, not for some 3rd party. I’m sorry you don’t like it but they’re not ‘spoilers’. As for Nader I don’t know what else to say to people so determined to displace blame that it’s like arguing with religious zealots. If Gore wanted to beat Nader it would have been pretty simple: steal his issues. They had hundreds of millions of dollars to beat a small time candidate and they couldn’t do it. Did they even try? No. They told everyone ‘oh no you can’t vote for Nader you have to vote for us’. I was there. It didn’t work. That’s entitlement. Believe whatever you want. I won’t be gaslit on this anymore. I won’t vote for Trump, but still I don’t see him as the existential threat like so many others. I do see nuclear war as an existential threat, and an immanent one, from a cognitively impaired president and party determined to spend billions on a proxy war with Russia.
DeSantis is a "credible" candidate mainly bc he's the governor of a populous state and a proven vote-getter in that state.
RFK Jr., while not a spoiler bc not running third-party, is less "credible" bc he's never held public office, has relatively little national recognition despite his last name, plus his positions on certain issues are outside the mainstream of his party, unlike DeSantis whose "culture war" emphasis appeals to the Republican base.
That said, the mainstream media shd pay a bit more attention to RFK Jr. and Williamson. Not that they have a chance to win but it wd make the primary campaign more interesting, for one thing, and give Biden some probably needed forensic/debating practice. Instead the mainstream media and official party bodies will ignore them.
RFK Jr's announcement speech btw was a study in the lack of self-discipline: it was more like an announcement seminar it was so long. I watched a fair amount of it and then said to myself "this is absurd - he doesn't know when to stop."
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