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A Commentary on the Passing Scene by Robert Paul Wolff rwolff@afroam.umass.edu
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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Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.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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- Robert Paul Wolff
- 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.
10 comments:
Here, there, everywhere, eggman
@ John Rapko
Scott Lemieux, who is not usually one of my favorite bloggers but sometimes hits the nail on the head, had an incisive critique of that deBoer piece at Lawyers Guns & Money.
P.s. Since the center of gravity of the Dem Party has shifted leftward, albeit not as fast as the center of gravity of the Repub Party has shifted rightward, calling someone "just another Democrat" doesn't quite carry the sting that it would have 15 years ago, say. As I remarked on my blog, there's a case to be made that Biden is the most pro-labor President in decades.
It's not surprising about AOC except it happened to her very young. I think of the lyrics to the Bruce Springsteen song, Common Touch.
In the end what you don't surrender
The world just strips away.
That happens to most of us, although not as young as in her case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85cNRQo1m3A
It's also possible that being an effective Representative for her constituents and being a firebrand leftist proved to be not entirely compatible.
LFC,
There are generally very good and understandable reasons why we firebrand leftists end up making our peaces with the status quo. It's very unusual that it's the result of someone passing us a suitcase full of hundred dollar bills.
LFC--Thanks very much for the reference to Lemieux's piece, which I will read later today. I had gathered that DeBoer's piece had generated a great deal of heated commentary.--It's wrenching, as I have a thing for AOC and all the other Lisztomania-mashup-Ally-Sheedy dancers.
Compromise is looked down upon by the Left, but the Left doesn't have enough votes to get anything adopted. The House (apart from gerrymandering) is the democratic arm of government. It takes a majority to enact any policy. There is no option but to compromise to get anything done. This is true of all groups, and even couples. When my wife and I were healthy enough to travel, we compromised when we couldn't agree on a destination "Compromiser" is not a derogatory name in my book; it's the name for those who are willing to work for the common good with those who disagree.
I don't think that compromise is looked down upon by the left, but reneging on one's basic principles is. In fact, reneging on one's basic principles is looked down in most, if not all, political groups.
Obviously, you need people to compromise if you don't have huge majority in Congress.
You also need people to stick up for their principles.
Congress is full of compromisers. It was a cool to have someone, who also happened to be an attractive young woman, in Congress who stood up for their principles in spite of
"good sense."
I put "good sense" in quotation marks because without people who lack "good sense" and who stand up for their principles in spite of it, we don't have a civil rights movement, we don't have a feminist movement, we don't have a gay rights movements and we're still in
1955.
In fact, would we even have philosophy if Socrates had had the "good sense" to compromise with those who accused him of corrupting the youth of Athens.
"...the Democratic Party is simply structurally resistant to socialist change."
He writes as if that is a bad thing. He also appears to have never heard of the Railway Labor Act and seems unaware that Biden followed through on his promises to the railroad unions and that a strike would have likely given the Republicans both the House and the Senate (got to heighten those contradictions , I guess).
Is this "socialism" even a thing anymore? There have been maybe four Congresses that were capable of doing even social democracy in the last ninety-odd years. I guess Freddie has decided to slip further down the horseshoe while AOC (and Bernie) are serious.
(Freddie doersn't seem to realize that we have Las Vegas because a great man had a vision - and even has a monument in that town).
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