It had never occurred to me that something I wrote might have the implication that perhaps I ought not to have received the first-rate education I did. In that case, of course, I take back everything I wrote.
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A Commentary on the Passing Scene by Robert Paul Wolff rwolff@afroam.umass.edu
My Stuff
https://umass-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/rwolff_umass_edu/EkxJV79tnlBDol82i7bXs7gBAUHadkylrmLgWbXv2nYq_A?e=UcbbW0
Coming Soon:
The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.
NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for "Robert Paul Wolff Kant." There they will be.
NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for Robert Paul Wolff Marx."
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- As I observed in one of my books, in politics I am an anarchist, in religion I am an atheist, and in economics I am a Marxist. I am also, rather more importantly, a husband, a father, a grandfather, and a violist.
31 comments:
Another example of your complex irony, I imagine.
I think Irving Berlin put the issue of elite education in the proper perspective. As interpreted by Judy Garland and Betty Hutton, it was:
You don't have to go to a private school
Not to turn up your bustle by a stubborn mule.
You don't have to come from a great big town
Not to clean out a stable in an evening gown.
This suppresses some of the pointedness of the original. The earlier version by Dinah Shore unleashed the full force of the left critique with a the second couplet:
You don't have to go to a private school
Not to turn up your bustle by a stubborn mule.
You don't have to have a professor's dome
Not to go for the honey when the bee's at home.
Dr. Wolff,
Turning all of your writings into mental Air Castles, just for the sake of public approval, is an act of sheer folly. I back up my viewpoint with this excerpt from Plato himself:
SOCRATES: But why, my dear Crito, should we care about the opinion of the many? Good men, and they are the only persons who are worth considering, will think of these things truly as they occurred.
CRITO: But you see, Socrates, that the opinion of the many must be regarded, for what is now happening shows that they can do the greatest evil to anyone who has lost their good opinion.
SOCRATES: I only wish it were so, Crito; and that the many could do the greatest evil; for then they would also be able to do the greatest good—and what a fine thing this would be! But in reality they can do neither; for they cannot make a man either wise or foolish; and whatever they do is the result of chance.
I thought opinion of the many is what democracy is all about.
David Palmeter,
Sure, democracy is about the opinion of the many, but it can and often is "mistaken". It can chose Trump or Bolsonaro, worship Hitler and condemn Socrates and Jesus.
Maybe the problem is having a supposedly democratic political apparatus, namely, elections, while a democratic culture--namely, one fostering a somewhat egalitarian social system where collectively responsibility is widely accepted--is lacking and little has been done to fashion one in recent times (perhaps ever? those seeking to cultivate a democratic culture have often enough been forced into a marginal role by decidedly anti-democratic forces--see, e.g., the American constitutional convention, what has been done to the social democrats in Europe and Australia, etc.)
PS. I had Ober's account of democratic Athens in mind when I wrote what I just wrote.
The U.S. will send cluster bombs to Ukraine.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/07/joe-biden-military-aid-ukraine-war-cluster-bombs-human-rights-groups
It isn't only Putin who is committing war crimes.
@ Michael Llenos
What is a "mental Air Castle"?
Do you mean what's usually called a thought experiment?
LFC
An Air Castle is a special event, wish, goal, plan, etc you had for the future when you were younger but never became a reality later on in life. I first read about it in Andrew Carnegie's autobiography.
So if Dr. Wolff would be willing to turn back the clock & scratch the books he wrote in life for the sake of public opinion, he would be turning suck books into Air Castles.
I meant "such" books. That's what happens when you don't proof read your posts enough...
Michael L.
But since Prof Wolff's original post here is clearly intended to be sarcastic, and since it refers obviously to the immediately preceding discussion about "The Pimple on Adonis's Nose," I don't see how your point is relevant here. That said, it's an open comment section and you can obvs make whatever observations you want.
I thought I would refute the sarcastic logic of his post by refuting the logic in his sarcasm.
I made the mistake of not reading the previous post concerning the pimple on the nose.
I got well deserved flop sweat here.
s. wallerstein,
Democracy can indeed produce terrible results (though electing Trump isn't one of them; he lost the popular vote both times.) It's only strength is that it is better than the alternatives.
anon,
Could you elaborate on how the Constitutional convention is an example of how democratic culture was forced into a marginal role by decidedly undemocratic forces?
s.w., with DPICMs the war crime is in how they are used as well as the dud rate. Russia has been using them in civilian populated areas in Ukraine as well as Syria, etc. If Ukraine uses them to degrade Russian troop concentrations in fortified areas that are devoid of civilians and are already extensively mined then NBD (except for the Russian troops in those trenches or artillery/mortar batteries).
Also, it seems that the Russian bombs have a ~40% dud rate while the US ones have a ~1.5% dud rate which means that they are easier to clean up.
I don't get the need to both sides this
Professor,
I apologize if this is an inappropriate place to ask this, but I am currently a graduate student at the University of Arizona, where Prof. Allen Buchanan mentioned you highly. After viewing some of your online lectures, I am inclined to agree. Hence, I would like to ask you to recount any comedic or otherwise fun anecdotes about his time as your student.
Sincerely,
Herr August Bebel
anon, this may be of interest:
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/debcont.asp
David Palmeter, wrt the role of the constitutioal convention in relation to democracy I thought it was rather well known that, contrary to the efforts of some to have direct election for the executive and the senate, for example, the majority of the convention went for indirect election, etc. See, e.g., W. Ewald's extensive discussions of the convention based on the employment of documentation besides the Madisonian records (which some hold may well be a bit self serving).
aaall,
More than 120 countries have signed an agreement not to use cluster bombs.
Not the good old U.S.A.
Now Ukraine will have them and mistakes, as always in war, will be made, causing some civilian deaths. In addition, it's clear that within any military force there will be some sociopath officiers who will use them in circumstances which do not merit their use, in this case, especially if Ukraine advances into territories more friendly to Russia, some parts of the Donbas and above all, Crimea.
War crimes will be committed. No doubt fewer crimes than those of Putin, but....
anon,
I think it depends on whether you look at it from their viewpoint in 1787 or from ours, almost 250 years later. Their model was the British constitution with a monarch, a House of Lords and a House of Commons. Their loyalty at the time was to their own independent “country,” their State, e.g., the Republic of Pennsylvania, which had a President. Many of them were wary of giving up independence. They visualized a class structure similar to Briton’s, with themselves as the Lords. But they also provided for a democratically elected House. And no law could be enacted without approval of the House, and any tax legislation had to originate in the House.
It was the most progressive thing in the world as they knew it.
Few of us would design it that way today. I, for one, would eliminate the Electoral College and change the Senate to reflect population. But that is our “now,” not theirs.
What you are overlooking, I think, David,is that at least one member of the convention and of the committee of detail was, doubtless because his place of origin made him quite familiar with indirect election as well as extremely limited and manipulated elections, as I noted before eager to have the new US follow a less elitist system. But then, his perception derived from the fact that he came from Scotland rather than England. (There was, I think it safe to say, no single British class structure at that time.) He, the Scot I'm referring to, was actually, as I understand Ewald, trying to put in place something rather similar to what you are suggesting you would seek to put in place today. His particular "now" seems to have been rather like our "now."
Huntington argued fwiw that the American const. and political system owed a good deal to the Tudor 'constitution' and system of the 16th. cent. (Political Order in Changing Societies, ch.2)
s.w., Ukraine has laid down some markers:
"Reznikov's (defense minister) 5 principles:
-only used for "deoccupation" of UKR territory
-won't use in urban areas (unlike Russians)
-UAF will keep records of where rounds are fired
-those areas will be "prioritized" for de-mining after the war
-UKR will report effectiveness to allies."
It's in their interest to follow them so we will see.
The reality is that regular 155s are running out world wide and Russia is using 152s that were made decades ago and appear to be degrading (as well as dragging out T-55s). DPICMs are the only game if Ukraine is to advance without it being 1915 all over again. If Ukraine had air superiority things might be different but the go-slow folks slow-walked F-16s, ATACMs and other systems.
At this point I doubt there are any areas dispositively "more friendly to Russia" including Crimea. There are always dead-enders but using cluster weapons to deal with them would be counter productive. If Ukraine breaches the Russian lines I would assume that the Quislings will be jamming the roads to Mother Russia. Your go-to models are based on how invaders (including the U.S.) operate. Ukraine is playing on home turf and has to live with fixing what is broken.
Do you ever wonder why all the fuss over Ukraine getting cluster munitions while the usual suspects have been silent about Russia using them on civilian populations since February 2022?
"I, for one, would eliminate the Electoral College and change the Senate to reflect population."
Eliminate the Senate too as well as congressional districts (or increase the House to ~700 or so and end gerrymandering and FPTP). Fix the Supremes - 15 - 18 members and term limits. The Convention simply wished parties away - big mistake.
The EC came at the end of the Convention when everyone was burned out and something had to be passed. It had to be fixed after the 1800 election fiasco (12th Amendment)- should have been abolished then.
aaall,
In the heat of battle such perhaps well-intentioned principles tend to be disregarded, but
we'll see...
The one of your "usual suspects" whom I follow is Chomsky and he has been very emphatic in comdemning repeated Russian war crimes and human rights violations.
s.w., just to clarify, I wasn't lumping Chomsky in with the "usual suspects." He's focused on global warming and nuclear war and in his mid-nineties. OTOH, folks like Sacks, Ritter, Stein, Greenwald, and other assorted tankies don't get a pass and it's just flop sweat with a hack like Mearsheimer.
Shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq there was a huge uproar because some U.S. soldiers were filmed kicking Iraqi prisoners of war as they lay helpless on the ground.
In response, a Brit wrote in the Guardian about his experience in the Malvinas or Falkland War (the Argentinians use the first name, the Brits the second).
He narrated how after marching 48 hours in a cold rain and watching several of his buddies being killed or wounded by enemy fire, they finally got into close combat with the Argentinians and took some of them prisoners. They treated them viciously and cruelly, he said, but no one has never been in that kind of battle experience has the capacity of put themself in the place of the U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
The point is that with cluster bombs, after all the atrocities the Ukrainians have undergone from the Russians, they are very likely to throw out the rule book during battle because they're human.
Since all of us are human, all too human, most civilized nations ban cluster bombs because they will be misused.
s.w., one also has to consider the disincentives. All Ukraine has to do is break the land bridge and the Kerch rail line and Russia is screwed. Given the number of Ukrainians that Russia has kidnapped, surrendering troops have value as long as they are alive. Also Ukrainian troops have to advance and overusing cluster munitions would endanger those troops and impede that advancement. For some reason Russia seems not to value their soldiers all that much - their military culture seems to suck. NSM Ukraine which is bailing on the Soviet/Russian model.
Would Ukraine go postal on Minsk or Moscow? Maybe, but that's not where this is going and Ukrainians aren't likely to trash Ukraine for reasons.
aaall -- I have some serious disagreements w Mearsheimer but I wd not call him a "hack." But I'm tired of debating this actually.
LFC, understood. I'm basing that on recent presentations. We all need to check our priors from time to time. It seems he hasn't.
I wonder if one of the reasons Ukraine was given 'cluster bombs' was the Russian build up of trenches before the Ukrainian counteroffensive? A regular bomb can miss a trench but cluster bomb grenades can more easily drop into a trench. Like in the game pinball. And I believe the trench warfare has given Ukrainian forces problems since the counteroffensive began.
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