I managed to make it through college, graduate school, and a Harvard instructorship without owning a car, but in 1961, As I set out from Cambridge, Massachusetts to find out whether there was a world beyond Harvard Square, I decided I needed transportation, so I bought Sam Todes' ancient Plymouth for a $100. The next year, when I got married, I decided wanted to get rid of the car but I could not find anybody to buy it or even take it away. I will never forget calling the police department and having a Sgt. lean in conspiratorially to the telephone as he said "dump it in the river." Eventually i did find a garage that would take it away for $25 (that is to say, I paid them $25 to take it away.)
Now, 63 years later, I have decided my car owning days are over, so I shall do something or other with my 20-year-old Toyota Camry and rely from now on on the transportation of others.As losses go, it is small one.
301 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 301 of 301The reference to LFC was to his first post not the second. I believe anything that happens at the convention is (would have been) performative as the actual delegate voting has to happen prior to the convention due to scheduling and making all the individual state ballots. The vote was originally scheduled for mid-July but was pushed back to early August due to objections that arose after the debate (that was a straw in the wind for folks paying attention).
aaall,
You're right that there are ballot issues and consequences for scheduling of the vote. That said, had there been a groundswell of sentiment for a snap primary of some kind and/or an open convention, those ballot issues might have been finesse-able (I don't know). But there was no such groundswell. As I said, Harris might not have been my first choice starting from a blank slate, but she will be able to run a vigorous campaign, and I hope, like everyone else here, that it will end successfully.
The problem is that a "snap primary" of any kind simply isn't a thing. I believe the last truly open convention in either party was the 1924 Democratic Convention. "Finessing" would have required (among other things) good faith and good will from Ohio Republicans, so good luck there.
Meanwhile, how about that J. D. Vance pick and Trump's Turning Point rant:
https://x.com/i/status/1817007890496102490
Am I the only political scientist on this blog? The idea of an open convention is totally ridiculous - if Harris didn't win the nomination all the money raised by the Biden /Harris campaign would not be available to the winning candidate. I thought the best idea was to form them to trade places on the ballot. Remember that the last time the worst case scenario played out was following LBJ's withdrawal and we all remember how that worked out. Given Biden's long history in the party it was I suspect impossible for him to not nominate Harris.
I am struggling trying to figure out when in the past there was such a monumental turn around in momentum. All of a sudden, Trump is old decompensating narcissist who is facing the one thing he fears most of all an African American woman who he knows can beat him in a debate hands down.
I don't bet, but if I did i would bet heavily on Harris winning hands down (all things being equal). I can' think of an issue on which Trump could possibly win, even if he were able to control himself while campaigning.
I suspect there will be considerable in political violence in those red states with newly enacted provisions for the Gov. or Legislature to declare a winner. That way they can declare Trump a winner when he isn't and go to the Legislative branch that has a significant number of insurrectionists still serving. Even before tha the House can cause all kinds of problems by refusing to pass funding and debt ceiling bills to create a serious crisis.
I have gotten push back from some on this blog for stressing the likelihood of serious violence. If you think am off the mark I urge you to go the ACLED (Armed Conflict Location and Event Data website or the SPLC and do some reading on the topic
Felicia Rosu, “Elective monarchy in Transylvania and Poland-Lithuania, 1569-1587?; L.T. Gentilucci, “Imperial elctioneering: The evolution of the election in the Holy Roman Empire from the collapse of the carolingians to the rise of the Ottonians”; M. Schnettger, “Dynastic succession in an elective monarchy: The Habsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire”.
I think I finally figured out why wet t-shirts cling like mad to the skin.
Electromagnetism flows through matter, as in the human body, to keep our various parts together. Water molecules located on the skin's surface, & inside the pores of the skin, & also on the fibers and the netting of a wet t-shirt, allows electromagnetism to more freely flow between them. This causes an attraction between such molecules to make them bind together more so.
Now two wet porous rocks have a hard time clinging together--and they're held together by electromagnetism too. But I believe rocks with mold between them stick to one another more adhesively than rocks without mold between them because of the increase in the flow of electromagnetism between them.
Electrically speaking, there are two types of electricity: direct current (DC) & alternating current (AC). DC flows only in one direction while AC flows in both directions. Obviously, the current that makes two objects stick together is AC current. AC current can flow between water molecules more densely packed together a lot more easily by via a wet t-shirt & wet skin, or two rocks & the mold between them, than those objects which have less amounts of water molecule density. And I believe it's true that Direct Current has less of a binding process than Alternating Current. If AC flows back and forth between two objects more frequently & more intensively, it makes it possible for such objects to more easily stick to one another. For AC causes an opposing force, while DC just directs itself one way.
--Michael Llenos (Pasteur)
In Summary,
I believe there is more electromagnetic activity with things covered by water than by a dry surface. And electromagnetism is the physical cause that holds things together.
Of course, electromagnetism is also light (the visible and invisible spectrums), it is also electricity & magnetism. It takes several different forms.
Of course, if I don't know everything about electromagnetism I don't care. I got a history degree but no science degree. I didn't take a single science class at college. I learned more science and math in High School than I did in college.
--also ML (Pasteur)
Of course, I did take astronomy, biology & oceanography classes at Leeward CC. But the subjects were so hard that I barely got B's for those classes. I did take a Logic class for my history degree in place of a math class. A History degree from UH West Oahu has no math requirements. At least when I was attending courses way back when.
--MLP
LFC
An open convention was never a realistic option for no other reason that if Harris lost all the Biden/Harris campaign donations would not go to whoever won. All the issues in this campaign weigh in favor of the democrats and now the political calculus has changed dramatically. Trump has only misogyny, white supremacy and grievance. Leaving aside the distortion that comes with the electoral college, Harris wins in a landslide.
sorry for being repetitive. When I checked earlier i couldn't find my first post on the stuff so I wrote a shorter version. Sorry
CJM,
As you may have already figured out, when the posts exceed a certain number you have to click on "load more" to see the latest ones (and the format for the comments section appears to have changed a bit recently, but it seems to be a cosmetic change only).
I'm not versed enough in the intricacies of campaign finance law to know whether the funds raised for Biden/Harris would be transferable to a candidate other than Harris, but I'll take your word for it that they would not be.
On the question (which you perhaps intended as rhetorical) of whether you're the only political scientist on the blog, I'll pass over that for now in the interests of time.
Thanks for considering the possibility I know what I am talking about, and as to the N of PoliSci folks would you care to venture a guess?
LFC,
I think the format change is because we've exceeded 200 comments on the Prof's last post. When I sign on, and look for the new comment, I continually get s. wallerstein's comment 200. I have to click on "New or Newest" to get the latest on my screen. Although for personal reasons (my wife's illness and my own lack of energy) I haven't commented much in recent weeks, I do look forward to reading the posts on the blog and will miss them when the blog is gone.
Omer Bartov: "Is the IDF the most moral army in the world?"
https://x.com/bartov_omer/status/1818276735567491540
No one seems to be commenting the news from Tobias’s Facebook account, according to which Prof. Wolff has had another setback and Tobias’s mother has just recently passed away (is Cynthia Wolff the Prof.’s current wife or the previous one?).
Anonymous, Thanks very much for the reminder-notification. According to wikipedia, Cynthia Griffin Wolff was the professor's first wife. Only recently did I learn that the professor's son Barney was a very high-level chess grandmaster. Apparently he played for both Harvard and Yale, as he managed the admirable but unenviable feat of attending both as an undergraduate. That's a bit like having survived getting kicked by a donkey twice, once on each ass cheek.
Professor Wolff chessmaster son is Patrick Wolff, not Barney. Barney is a cousin who from time to time comments here.
I don't follow Tobias in Facebook because I don't have Facebook.
If others have Facebook, please keep us up-to-date here about Professor Wolff's health.
My condolences to Tobias and Patrick on their mother's passing away.
s. wallerstein, thanks for the clarification. (Obviously) I mis-remembered the name. If I start referring to Alexander Capablanca or Bobby Spassky, send someone to unplug my computer.
Like s.w., I'm not on Facebook (by choice, of course). So the updates via Anonymous (or whoever) are appreciated. As for the rest, I echo what s.w. said.
(Btw, I'm a little surprised that J. Rapko had to resort to Wikipedia to determine who Prof. Wolff's first wife was, since he has referred to her not infrequently in his posts here.)
LFC,
I checked Wikipedia because I had already bungled the son's name (which I had looked up only a couple of weeks prior), and didn't want to make another name-changer. Now I have to get back to studying how Boris Fischer played the King's Indian against Bobby Spassky.
John Rapko,
Don't worry about it.
We all forget lots of names. I spent all morning trying to remember the name of that French singer who starred in so many movies. I finally googled Z, a movie I remember he was in and got Yves Montand.
I wonder what the process of forgetting names was like for my parents' generation, basically pre-Google. Maybe they felt less guilty about forgetting names and simply let the past be past, as I do with the names of my elementary school teachers, only two of which I recall.
Believe me, as you age, forgetting names will be a regular event your day:
"As I age and blank on names,
As my uncertainty on stairs
Is more and more the lightheadedness
Of a cabin boy's first time in the rigging,
As the memorable bottoms out
Into the irretrievable
It's not that I can't imagine still
The slight untoward rupture and world-tilt
As a wind freshened and the anchor weighed.
--Seamus Heaney, "In the Attic."
Interesting article from Corey Robin. Robin's too often glib dismissal of Trump, national conservatism (and conservatism in general) as incipient fascism is wrongheaded but the article is apt on many points:
https://coreyrobin.com/2024/08/03/on-jew-lovers-and-jew-haters/
Also, while the market tanked Thursday and Friday, there was an interesting spike in price and volume with DJT between 10:40 and 11:10 AM ET.
Nah, aaall, Robin is perfectly current re conservatism and Trump - nonsense to claim these all too American political currents are a case of fascism, historical or otherwise.
Anonymous,
It's a case of some similarities and some differences, imo:
https://surmisesandsuspicions.wordpress.com/2024/04/04/does-it-matter-whether-one-calls-trump-fascist/
Sure, they hate jews and foreigners, they hate gay and trans people, they think democracy is too disorderly and yearn for the decisive leadership of a strongman, they embrace an international movement of likeminded right wingers, their political base is made up of middle class petite bourgeois types along with what portion of the disaffected masses they can dupe with their propaganda, they look back to a mythical past when the volk were pure and contrast it with the present where they see only degeneracy, they adopt an affectation of declaring the superiority of Classical art while remaining profoundly ignorant of it as art, they've endorsed concentration camps as a policy proposal (the final solution to the immigration question?) etc. etc. etc.
But don't call them fascists! The comparison is entirely inapt!
Policing the proper bounds of how one ought to apply the term "fascist" is such a weird preoccupation some of you people have
There are really no similarities between Trump and historical fascism; I would read Gentile and Evans on this, and I wouldn’t concentrate on such flimsy and superficial “correspondences” like TJ does (fun fact, though: Italian fascism most certainly didn’t look back to any mythical past and didn’t care for Classical art, among many other differences: they were intent on creating a new Italian and in that respect they were revolutionary rather than reactionary). It’s an exercise of proof by quote (oh, they said this, and it sounds like this from the past), which is the worst type of scholarship possible.
The main point about avoiding the term fascism to describe current political events is that it is manipulative, it does not offer anything to properly explain current events, and it’s simply used as a slur at this point. It is more apt for the slogans and shouting at demos than it is in commentary or serious historical scholarship.
I think the use of the term fascist is appropriate, although white supremacist is a better term that encompasses fascism. Central to fascist political ideology is the belief that a group of people, an identifiable minority, is responsible for, as Trump put it, "this American carnage." Trump's proposal is to round up all the "illegal aliens, " place them in concentration camps and deport them. The barbarism of Trump was clearly present when he separated children from their families and housed them in cages Hispanics are the cause of this carnage, they are inferior and dangerous (murders, rapists and drug dealers). Beyond Hispanics, his universe of inferior races
is an equal opportunity list: African Americans, Asians, Jews, ...
If Congress failed to certify the election of Biden, Trump would have had the pretext to declare martial law. Indeed, his desire to go to the Capital while the attack was in progress tells us everything we need to know about his intentions. If this isn't fascism/white supremacism I don't know what is.
"(fun fact, though: Italian fascism most certainly didn’t look back to any mythical past and didn’t care for Classical art, among many other differences...")
Merely a sample:
"The use of the Classical motif and identification with ancient Rome abroad during
the reign of Italy’s fascist government was not only important to the fascist ideological
message of creating a Second Roman Empire, but also imperative to justify military
actions leading into World War II via “the use of Ancient Roman examples to create a new
sense of discipline, militarism and order.”1 By using Ancient Rome as an exalted example
of perceived discipline, militarism, and order, Mussolini was able to subjugate lands that
were not inherently part of his dominion, yet that he could justify claiming due to previous
Roman occupation. But what did the promotion of “romanita” or “romaness” have to do with the development of the classical motif abroad? Mussolini created the term “romanita” as a
general “catch-all” for his right to the lands previously occupied by the original Roman
Empire, under such leaders as Augustus and Julius Caesar. While many agree with Visser’s
assessment of “romanita” as an “opportunistic choice of Roman catchwords and symbols,
lacking any substantial ideological coherence and with no intellectual coherence and
with no intellectual background of any standing,”2 others describe it as, “akin to Roman
culture.”3 Perhaps in the case of Mussolini, the most apt description is that it “signified the
greatness of ancient Roman civilization and its uninterrupted manifestation throughout the
centuries.”
https://www.mcgill.ca/classics/files/classics/2012-13-09.pdf
Then there's Trump and his bffs; Putin seems to have internalized the whole Third Rome thing and Orban still has a beef with Trianon. Much of the early Trump/fascism commentary (e.g. Evans) hasn't aged well (e.g. Pence to Vance, 2025). DeSantis has made a stab at creating a private army.
Just a thought: Magats (including Trump) realize that his appointments in his first term were a problem hence the 2025 project and salting Magats in state election boards. The right SecDef controlling the promotion lists could work wonders. Who knows: Perhaps a Republican House and Senate along with a Project 2025 Cabinet and an Integralist VP would discover the 25th Amendment (they already have the Supremes).
White supremacy is not really a central feature of fascism per se - at least it is not in the case of Italian fascism. The case of Nazism (a type of fascism, of course, but it is commonplace in scholarship to emphasise the differences between Fascism, in capital letters, and Nazism; see De Felice's work on this, for instance) is different, but even here some nuance is necessary: Nazism believed in the supremacy of the German race - the Slavs, for instance, though white, were certainly not regarded as equal. I think that what's happening here is that the concept of white supremacy, whilst appropriate in the American context, is ill-fitted for a description of fascism in general, and you end up calling Trump and co fascists by fiat, really. Not very good scholarship. I agree with Anon that the correspondences between Trump and co. and historical fascism are weak if not non-existent.
@aaall: think the point above was that Italian Fascism did not look to recreate an Italian identity - there was no looking back to a mythical past for an idea of the Italian volk, which is what Anonymous was on about. The quotes you offer show nothing to the contrary, and no-one has ever claimed that Ancient Rome was never mentioned by Italian fascists (the quotes come from quite an obscure scholar, I must add; did you just search online for any stuff on this?; Emilio Gentile, referenced by Anon, has written extensively about this topic, on the lines alluded to by Anon).
Also, I disagree that Evans's early articles on Trump and fascism have aged badly; Trump and co remain an all-American phenomenon, but fascism it ain't.
Whether Trump is a fascist or not is an interesting scholarly question, but given that there's an election in a few more months, why not call him a "fascist" if that scares a few undecided voters or leftwing voters (who would otherwise vote Jill Stein) into voting for Kamala? The main point now is to defeat Trump, not to determine whether or not he is technically a fascist.
Trump is bad news. Call him all the bad names we have and invent some if necessary.
To simplify, if we subsume the terms "fascism" and "white supremacy" to "weird", we give maximum leeway for everyone to find the meaning they need.
The problem with using "weird" to characterize Trump and Vance is that some of us, who neither want to be nor can be normal, are proud to be weird and are neither fascists nor white supremacists nor misogynists, to add another term which fits Maga. The gays have appropriated the term "queer", so we who are not gay cannot use it to describe ourselves. So I'm weird and proud.
A pleasure to "hear" your voice, albeit in print, once again. Wishing you a full and rapid recovery.
s. wallerstein
The word "weird" here is meant as a political schema.
DOA, Use whatever words you have in your arsenal to defeat Trump and Vance. If you haven't seen this, Leiter today talks of a book Vance promotes:
https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2024/08/more-on-jd-vance-and-his-fascist-friends.html#more
Unhumans seem to me to be very human. As for myself I know that I am me--no matter how much a failure I am in life. Thankfully, however, I've never run into a Matrix revelation. What do I mean by that? Like this one:
"https://youtu.be/yjw_DuNkOUw?si=dtas3XjyOXOUD4b3"
A couple of days ago I was very excited to see that some of Gillian Rose's introductory lectures on Marx and the Frankfurt School had just been published . [For those not familiar with her work, Rose was an extraordinarily brilliant writer (and exceptionally difficult) in the tradition (very broadly construed) of Marxist philosophy. And for those who don't wish to keep up with Marxist philosophy, the memoir she wrote at the end of her life, Love's Work, is quite moving and beautifully written to boot.] The Jacobin has just published a brief excerpt from the lectures that deals with the Masters of Suspicion, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. https://jacobin.com/2024/08/critical-theory-marxism-gillian-rose?fbclid=IwY2xjawEjerdleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHV00pk9ZETrcl-0MSjniEK0oYoMhPfd0vT-QnbRQg5ku1anW4AK5irJ8zg_aem_jvXwugf5rvN0vTDaovZ75w
That previous comment on Gillian Rose was from me in my clever pseudonym 'Anonymous'.
Jerry: where, how, did you "hear" RPW? PLEASE EXPLAIN.
I'll recite Psalms ffor Professor Wolff's health and maybe say the Kaddish for him, if it comes to that
BITE YOUR TONGUE!
I suppose Americans, particularly the highly educated leftish-liberal, do not like dictionaries, I however find them pretty useful.
scaremonger
noun
One who spreads frightening rumors; an alarmist.
Someone who spreads worrying rumours or needlessly alarms people.
A person who spreads frightening rumors and stirs up trouble.
malign
transitive verb
To make evil, harmful, and often untrue statements about someone.
To treat with malice; to show hatred toward; to abuse; to wrong; to injure.
To speak great evil of; to traduce; to defame; to slander; to vilify.
Especially his defense of the great socialist leader Pol Pot, his claims that Holocaust denial was not antisemitic, and that the Serb-run camp in Bosnia called Omarska, where Bosnian inmates were starved and tortured to death, was not a concentration camp. A great man indeed.
It is Sunday, August 25, and I am still here, getting better. It may be a
Month pbefore I can post something.
Robert Paul Wolff
Great to hear from you and to learn that you're on your way to recovery. We're all curious about what you have to say about Kamala and other related subjects.
just post haste a-mending, dear professor!
I would like to ask if anyone has any news on how Pro. Wolff is doing.
sorry I missed his message
email from Professor Tobias Wolff
I wanted to provide another update about my Dad. Please feel free to post this directly to his blog. It has been a long and difficult ordeal, but my father is on a path to recovery. Most important, and remarkably, he has come through this critical traumatic brain injury with his cognitive ability, personality and sense of self fully intact. To say that he is beating the odds in that respect would be an understatement. He still has to take things slowly but he is very much himself and he gets more of his energy, focus and concentration back every day. My father also has a major physical recovery ahead of him, the result not only of his injury but almost seven weeks of hospitalization or its equivalent, but on that score too he is making progress every day. He is in a rehabilitation facility now and will probably be there for another month, but we are optimistic that he will be able to return home before too much longer. He is not yet ready to resume stewardship of his blog but it is very much on his mind and he will return to it when circumstances permit, I hope in the early fall.
That's wonderful news, wallerstein and Tobias. Thank you for keeping us updated. Best of luck to prof wolff on the rest of the recovery and looking forward to having him back with us
There was a Marxist corner in the synagogue where I grew up! Come on, I'll bite your tongue! Besides, prayer works, I prayed for Trump to disappear and it almost worked a couple of months ago. Enough people have to pray for Trump to go somewhere else. You all are too busy plotting Revolution #9
The professor's long absence from the blog has made me realize that the only things I look forward to in the on-line world, along with Crackermilk skits and the profane botanical identifications of Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't, are The Philosopher's Stone's posts. For the past few days in idle moments I've been wondering about the weird (to use the Dem's new word) rise of the Blue MAGA, manifest first in frenzied e-support of following Biden into electoral defeat, and now in the ecstatic 'meme'-ing of Harris (multiple examples of which I see daily on Facebook). In my little world only the most clear-sighted leftists (e.g. Jeffrey St. Clair and Tony McKenna) have so much as raised questions about Harris's public record in prosecuting and persecuting. Freddie deBoer, the poor but not unintelligent man's Robert Paul Wolff, has suggested that it's a bit of good old liberal guilt, and is a successor to the liberal-managerialist symbolic 'ally'-ship with BLM, now embarrassed in the face of the mounting evidence inter alia of graft from racialist hucksters. Lacking evidence, and the motivation to look for evidence, I have no opinion about the Blue MAGA. But I have come here to bear witness to an act of bravery. Yesterday at my local liberal anti-union grocery store, The Berkeley Bowl, I was standing in line near the impulse-buyer's magazine rack. For the past few months it featured a kind of money-making vanity production of Taylor Swift and her lipstick (BE LIKE TAY-TAY!). Now it features a stylistically-similar production of Harris (KAMALA! HER LIFE! HER PASSION! HER MISSION!). A late-middle-aged African-American woman walked up and looked at the cover for a few seconds, then began visibly shaking. She fearlessly reached out and turned the magazine over. I could not fight back the tears of relief and gratitude.--While awaiting the professor's next post, I would be interested in reading reflections on this meme-ing as the latest vicissitude of the liberal conscience.
As a very episodic commenter but someone who's read close to every post on this blog since 2010 I wanted to add my prayers for a full and speedy recovery. Life is less rich without the sound of Prof. Wolff's inimitable voice.
John Rapko: From what I can see from a distance (and I don't follow U.S. politics as closely as most here do) the Dems have launched a new product, say, 100% natural Coca Cola light, with the improved traditional flavor. So far that product is beating Trump and that may well be the winning strategy, which is designed to sell Kamala to low information voters in swing states, not to convince you, the already convinced.
The days, if they ever existed and I have my doubts, when candidates were presented as statesmen or stateswomen, capable of steering the ship of state through the complexities of a changing world, are over. In postmodern ultracapitalism candidates are one more product to be marketed as other celebrities, for example, Taylor Swift, are.
Kamala is a celebrity. See the Woody Allen movie with the same title, in which, strangely Trump
appears.
Kamala is all that stands between us and Trump. She was at one time on the left of the Democratic party and is said to be moving to the center in the election. I don't care. If Richard Nixon rose from the dead and captured the Democratic nomination, I'd vote for him. Never Trump. Anyone but Trump. Defeating Trump is all that matters. We can argue about policy later.
"The days, if they ever existed..."
They didn't. Trump was a celebrity before his actual accomplishments - creating a successful cult, being selected by the EC, and getting convicted of multiple crimes and torts. Harris was elected to local and state offices in the USA's most populous state so we hardly have a "new product." Republicans long feared that she would get to where she is now. Given where he lives, we can reasonably assume that JR's "late-middle-aged African-American woman" has a friend or close relative in Corcoran or Pelican Bay (Republicans actually did some clever oppo research around this back in the day).
Meanwhile we have efforts like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJk7BiKc4Wc&t=2s
Perhaps we can have high hopes that happy days will soon be here again.
BTW, I'm sure Vance soothes the hurt and humiliation by daily reading the 25th Amendment.
Meanwhile:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUHuL-oBSrg&t=2s
@DJL- Trump has no ideology aside from power and narcissism- it's a joy ride for him- there's this vague free floating fascist vibe lingering- Trump is mainly giving cover for these "fascists" and for the fixation of the American right on low taxes, abortion, guns and let's not forget: immigration
Thanks for the responses. I still wonder about the forced ecstasies of the Harris memes. Personally, I have great sympathy for the 'whatever-it-takes' of the Never-Trumpers. Last month I had a long conversation with a 21-year-old who told me that she would never vote because the system is corrupt. I told her that I didn't vote when I was her age, but I had felt compelled to register as a Democrat and vote back in the 80's in order to vote against Dianne Feinstein in the primaries, and had mostly been doing it ever since. I urged her to think of it as a kind of basic bit of civilized life, something on the level of paying a parking ticket. But, on the other hand, I see no reason to lurch into ecstasies about the meter maid.
Professor, you have been in my prayers- which I know you probably consider useless. I kind of do too, but figure it can't hurt. But I have been wishing you well and you are in my thoughts at the least.
I very much hope you get back to explaining things to me. Your always kind and intelligent responses to my wide variety of questions has helped me maybe more than you realize. I mean helped me a lot.
Get well soon. And get one of those mail-in ballots in the mail as soon as possible :)
John Rapko
Part of the problem may be that your online diet is not v. diverse. Counterpunch plus Freddie deBoer. For balance you could look at LGM once in a while - which I often have issues with but it wd balance what you're getting. But of course you won't, bc we're all creatures of habit. (I refrain from touting my own blog, but I don't post that often anyway.) I like what D Palmeter said above btw.
LFC, I am sure you are right with your advice, but in my defense I have to say that I try not to spend much time on-line, and I already feel over-burdened keeping up with the two you mentioned, plus Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't and (this year) Daniel Naroditsky teaching the King's Indian Defense in chess, on top of my life's blood of watching world dance. I haven't gotten much of anything out of LGM (except of course when Warren Zevon does it). Personally, intellectually, and spiritually I find that what I most benefit from is reading highly intelligent people with whom I disagree (e.g. Roger Scruton), except I've never found that to be true with regard to politics. And as a personal favor, could you just one more time remind me of the name of your blog?
Sure, will do so tomorrow. Turning in for the night now.
J. Rapko,
Here's the link:
https://surmisesandsuspicions.wordpress.com
oops, that anonymous was me. sorry.
I keep forgetting to sign into my google account. It's been one of those days.
LFC, Thanks! I'm putting it into the rotation.
great, thanks.
I see on Facebook that Tobias Barrington Wolff has gone to visit the professor, so perhaps there'll be an update soon. At least partly because of the course of this blog and the commentariat, I've been thinking about aging and so have returned to Jean Améry's harrowing book On Aging: Revolt and Resignation (sample (p. 43): "Pain and sickness are the festivals of decay the body organizes for itself and me." On a lighter note, a few days ago I watched Stewart Lee's newest show when it was briefly up on YouTube. It ends with a joke that Lee wrote in the late 1980's; it goes something like this: Young Stew: "How are you doing, Granddad?" Granddad: "Ah, the worst thing about growing old is that you see the slow lingering deaths of people you've known for ages." Young Stew: "Well, Grandad, you did feed them those berries."
JR: I read impacting Amery's book maybe 20 years ago. I believe that things have gotten worse for us old folks since then because of the rapid technological advance. I had to change my bank password the other day and that involved sending a photo of myself and of my ID card, all within certain parameters and within a certain fixed time limit, which any 15 year old can deal with and I couldn't. A kilo of fruit gets heavier every day and the stairs get steeper. I can feel the annoyance in the shoppers on line behind me as I fumble counting my change so so slowly. There is incredible prejudice against old people and no one talks about it. From time to time one runs into someone courteous, but they are few and far between. Simone de Beauvoir's book on ageing is good too.
There is incredible prejudice against --- people -- fill in the blank.
This is the youngest you will ever be from this moment forward. Savor the many many things you can do, you can enjoy, you have experienced. Buy less fruit at a time or put it in two bags. Take the stairs more slowly and count your blessings that you can still climb them. Find a reason, each day, to love being who you are. i give myself permission to write this because i am much much older than you are, Mr. Wallerstein.
Anonymous, Thank you.
s. wallerstein, Anonymous—Thank you both for the thoughtful posts. At 86, I’ve found aging to be a process of giving up—loved ones, friends, acquaintances , activities. But I’ve found much to enjoy. I read a lot—mostly history these days, simply because I find it interesting and enjoyable. (Philosophy requires more mental energy than I care to expend.) My biggest concern right now is my wife who, after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 2019, was re-diagnosed a year ago with something much worse: Progressive Supranuclear Palsey, a rare disease that I had barely heard of before she was diagnosed. There is no treatment, no cure. Trying to put as much enjoyment as I can in her life is both difficult and rewarding emotionally. After half a century or more of paying no attention to baseball, I’ve become a fan of the Washington Nationals. I seldom watch them live, but record the games, delete the losses, and watch the wins. Sports fans typically are with their teams through thick or thin. Not me. I’m with them through thick; thin, they’re on their own.
David P., All my solidarity with your wife's condition. What you are living with her shows what love is, not what we generally see as love in Hollywood romanticism.
David Palmeter - my heart breaks for you. I lost my husband of 66 years three years ago and it does NOT get easier as time passes. Watching his last months with esophageal cancer was unbearable (yet one bears what cannot be altered, doesn't one?). So trying to project what it must be like for you given your dear wife's condition is really dreadful. (I have been heard to say that there are things worse than death). And yes, it is much about finding ways to provide enjoyment in whatever manner at any given juncture.
At ninety and with physical challenges of my own, yes - there is a process of giving in and giving up, of learning grace, a certain humility (coupled with a streak of in-your-face courage).
Take excellent care of yourself, David!
s.w., Anonymous. Thank you very much for kind posts. Old age, the saying goes, ain’t for sissies.
Meanwhile, I will watch the debate tomorrow night very nervously. I fear Trump so much, not for myself, but for my kids and grandchildren. What will their world be like?
The Trump phenomenon both puzzles and depresses me—that some 48 or so percent of American adults will vote for Trump no matter what. I can understand why they voted for Nixon or Reagan or Bush or McCain or Romney, or any of the others. I didn’t agree, but I could see their position and their reasoning. I don’t grasp the Trump supporters. The only good news is that some Republicans will be voting for Harris.
Think of it: Bernie Sanders and Dick Cheney will be voting for the same candidate for President. Imagine yourself 10 years ago. If someone had told you then that Sanders and Cheney would vote for the same candidate for President in 2024, who would have believed it possible?
We are living in amazing times. Frightening, but amazing.
indeed, David. Indeed!
David, Anonymous, pleasing continue sharing your existential wisdom about old age with us here. This blog is called "philosopher's stone" and philosophy is about a lot more than politics and is certainly not about insulting the politics of others as some have done here. I particularly look forward to hearing more from you, Anonymous.
Old age, by the way, in spite of the saying, may be for sissies, since it's certainly not the moment for proving your masculinity.,
As for Sanders and Cheney supporting the same candidate, we had at least two elections in France, where everyone from right to left joined to vote for whoever was running against Le Pen.
In Chile in 1989 many of us on the left voted for Patricio Aylwin, a centrist Catholic who was anti-abortion and who had supported the 1973 Pinochet coup but then became a very moderate critic of it, against Hernan Buchi, Pinochet's hand-picked successor. Aylwin won.
Here's the latest (about 4pm PDT) comment from Tobias Barrington Wolff on Facebook about the professor: "A brief update on my Dad. It has been a terrible ordeal for Robert Paul Wolff these last three months. A fall led to a severe traumatic brain injury that produced a critical emergency with life-threatening consequences. Dad almost died on multiple occasions and was the subject of multiple solemn discussions with his care team pronouncing that even if he survived he almost certainly would never return to himself if we continued treatment. But Dad decided to defy the odds. He is still working on getting his strength back in rehab and this ordeal coupled with the continuing advance of his Parkinson’s means that he faces changes and challenges. But he has made a complete cognitive recovery with only some limits in his mental stamina remaining and even those continue to get better. That fact is simply remarkable. We are mapping out Dad’s return to his senior community in a new home and a new level of care where he will be reunited with his wife Sue and pick up where he left off. Dad is entitled to some discontent at all he has endured and the parts of his life he must now adjust or let go of, but he is looking to the future and there is every reason to believe — with more work and some providence — that we have more good years with Dad ahead."
John Rapko, Thanks to you and Tobias for the update. My best to Professor Wolff and I'm happy to see "that we have more good years with Dad ahead".
How I wish I could read the professor's post on the 'debate'! I continued my life-long practice of not watching it, but here's what I glean from my myopic reading today: Haaretz: big win for Harris. Aljazeera and Guardian: something of a win for Harris. Trump: big win for Trump. Counterpunch, Jacobin, Brian Leiter: 'win' for Harris, but striking emptiness of policies and avoidance of issues by Harris (who also concedes Republican boilerplate on various points), most dramatically climate change (as well as of course pollution, desertification, species-loss).--Is there a human being on earth who was surprised?--As far as I can tell, the relevant notions of winning and losing are restricted to instant polling, short-terms shifts of declared choice in polls, and especially which way 'independent' voters in swing states are swinging.
Trump voters are indoctrinated against their self-interest. Harris committed voters don't need regurgitation of their prime policies. It is moderate Republicans and Independents who need coddling on issues that will turn their vote to her. In a longer campaign, we'd all like more meat on the bone from Harris, but time is short and the election (electorally) is still close.
If one doesn't watch debates then what good comes of reading secondary material. The "relevant notion" of winning or losing a debate derives from watching it and making a judgement. Harris won the debate without question. Why not watch it and then comment?
Now that DJT is tanking:
https://x.com/i/status/1834313812054294726
I assume a trip to someplace without an extradition treaty will follow.
If candidates actually had a serious policy discussion the folks who report politics would still do the horse race as they are too shallow and stupid to understand policy.
For once I almost agree with aaall. But I don’t think it’s because those who report on politics are too shallow and stupid to understand policy. Rather, I take it that they actually have little say in what they do. The parameters of their job are set by others. And they get and keep these jobs only if they remain obedient to what ther masters will. The “horse race” is no doubt where the money is—hype up an audience; keep the ad money rolling in; don’t antagonise too many people by pointing out what’s actually being proposed by the two horses designated as the only serious contenders, thus eliminating all those who might actually seriously try to address in a thoughtful way the frightening predicaments that threaten us. et cetera . . .
I return from a performance of The Comedy of Errors, and wonder if the play has ended. Just the briefest possible response to the attack: Why don't/didn't I watch the debate, analyze it, and say something about who 'won'? A. I couldn't be bothered. B. I've never watched a second of a presidential debate, and cannot think of any reason to break with such a noble tradition. C. My repeated experience is that there's nothing to 'analyze' in such activities, other than noting perlocutionary effects. D. What I did note was that every publication I looked at declared that someone [Harris] 'won', but that it was prima facie unclear what the relevant criteria of winning and losing are. A bit of reading and reflection revealed the answers that I gave. E. The philosophical point (which is what interests me, not what American presidential candidates say) is that generally talk of winning and losing makes sense when there are established/recognized/widely accepted criteria governing the activity (today I lost a bunch of chess games; the relevant criteria, as administered and self-administered by the players, say so). But outside of structured activities like rule-governed games, criteria of success are at the very least essentially contestable.--A coda on losing: I used to know a Brazilian mathematician who was fluent in at least six languages. He thought a damning feature of the U.S. was that it was only in American English that the word 'loser' was a term of abuse.
"Loser" has been incorporated into informal Spanish in Chile and maybe other countries.
As for watching the debate, I watched a few minutes. Trump is ridiculous and Harris's patriotism, American exceptionalism and militarism turn me off, although she is evidently better than Trump. I suppose that for those people who are into the details of mainstream political life watching the debate was a "must", but it was past my bed-time (we're an hour ahead of New York here).
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I certainly hope Professor Wolff recovers. Aside from this blog and Leiter's intellectual oasis, Judge Nap on YouTube interviewing John Mearsheimer and assorted military and intelligence experts, and the news from India, the Net is worse than the grey goo Bill Joy predicted it would become.
As for Prof Brian Leiter, I find the timing more than a little curious that Prof Joseph Heath has taken to criticizing Marx on his Substack around the publication of what has to be the best introduction Marx's thought to date. Heath says we're all Rawlsians now, but this is self-defamation if it anything could be so termed. Jaime Edwards and Brian Leiter observe that "... the central players in Marx’s Europe are those who own the factories, those who own vast tracts of land, those who own small farms, and those who do the actual work in the factories or on the land. However, this is never a society characterized by “social cooperation among equals for mutual advantage” (Rawls 2009: 14) as traditional political philosophy supposes. Rather, groups acting in pursuit of their own interests inevitably find themselves in conflict with one another." [Edwards, Jaime; Leiter, Brian. Marx (The Routledge Philosophers) (p. 3). Taylor & Francis.]
More importantly, or just importantly, Edwards and Leiter's new book led me to write a mnemonic for the terms "explanandum" and "explanans" (here "explicandum" and "explicans" respectively), which I offer Professor Wolff and the august readership here.
Philosophical Nursery Rhyme
Mnemonic for absent-minded philosophers
The Expli-Toucan and the Owl Minerva
On Hegel's windowsill alight.
The Toucan speaks before the Owl takes wing--
The Owl in vespertine respite.
Speak Explicans! The Expli-Toucan's Beak
Explain the thing in need of Explication.
The thing too dumb we are to understand--
The Explicandum begs the Explicans.
My apologies—aside from obvious grammatical errors due to failing eyesight, the doggerel didn't strike the right balance between humor and condescension for a "nursery rhyme." If you think writing these is fun, you'd be mistaken. This unfulfilling blue-collar work puts food on the table but little else.
Philosophical Nursery Rhyme
Mnemonic for absent-minded philosophers
The Expli-Toucan and the Owl Minerva
On Hegel's windowsill alight.
The Toucan speaks before the Owl takes wing--
The Owl in vespertine respite.
Speak Explicans! The Expli-Toucan's Beak
Explain the thing in need of Explication.
The thing we are too dumb to comprehend--
The Explicandum begs the Explicans.
You should read (or re-read) "the Absolute Fruit" in Marx's Holy Famiily. I fits you like a glove.
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Quick update - not (I'm sad to say) regarding Prof. Wolff, whose return I eagerly await, along with everyone here. Instead, just a follow-up for those kind enough to respond to my comment upthread from July 14th...
As I said, I'd had a routine physical earlier in the summer, and the results were disturbing - pretty bad numbers all over the place, some veering toward "seriously" bad, and this as I'm approaching the age at which my grandfather prematurely died from a heart attack.
Yesterday I completed some bloodwork that had been ordered as a result of the physical, mainly to determine whether I'd need a statin, or whether I could get my cholesterol numbers to a decent level by way of lifestyle adjustments instead. I checked the results today, and they were much more boast-worthy than I expected. In short, no statin needed. :)
Usually a "decent" physical just means "The doctor scared and shamed me about as much as I figured, but fortunately no new problems were discovered." This was...more than decent. It was the first one in years to give me the "attaboy" feeling.
Thanks again, folks.
Michael: Well... I've only ever been able to dip my toes into the world of political analysis and reflection, but I've consistently gotten the impression that its main lesson is: "Human society is in many ways terrible, broken, doomed; and there's pretty much nothing you can do to change this."
Whose political analysis and reflection?
Perhaps you have been listening to the wrong voices.
"There's pretty much nothing you can do to change this" isn't the message you get from a Howard Zinn or Michael Parenti, to take just two names.
It's the message you get from people who profit from the existing social system, whether they be politicians, media figures working for corporate news outlets, members of the academy, etc. So this is all by design. It serves their purposes to convince us that the limits of possible change are quite narrow and we just have to make do with a few tiny tweaks here or there of the existing system. Because that's just the way it is. (Nancy Pelosi: "We're capitalists, and that's just the way it is.") As Upton Sinclair said, it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
I suggested Prof Wolff take a look at David Graeber's and David Wengrow's book "The Dawn of Everything" when it came out a few years back. Prof Wolff subsequently wrote several posts here commenting on the book as he read it. In one post he wrote:
As [Graeber and Wengrow] indicate, there are two versions of this story [of the development of civilization], one optimistic, positive, and celebratory, the other sad, doleful, and depressing, depending on whether one likes or does not like the way the world is now. But both versions of the story are based on the fundamental premise that political structures, kings, emperors, bureaucracies, democratic states, or what have you are an inevitable consequence of the appearance of agriculture.
Drawing on vast quantities of anthropological and archaeological evidence assembled by huge numbers of researchers in the last 30 or 40 years, the authors argue that this story is just plain false....
Equally important is the evidence the authors put forward of large numbers of human settlements in which, prior to any evidence of agriculture, huge construction projects were carried out that involved systematic planning, the mobilization and direction of the efforts of large numbers of people, and the use of sophisticated forms of mathematical calculation and astronomical observation (think Stonehenge, for example) all without any of the usual evidences of rulership, systematic differentiations in wealth and power, or the concomitant abilities to compel the labor of large numbers of people.
These evidences, drawn by the authors from research done virtually around the world, fundamentally call into question the standard story about the development of recognizably modern political states.
So there is ample evidence from history that there are many different ways for societies to be organized. We are only condemned to tolerate our present society if we allow ourselves to be deceived into accepting the lie that no other world is possible.
https://robertpaulwolff.blogspot.com/2021/12/graeber-and-wengrow-part-one.html
In response to Eric:
The impression I describe there is ultimately just that - an impression. It's not much more than an overall "vibe" I've absorbed from a patchwork of readings (rarely what I'd describe as thoughtful, disciplined readings), interactions, overheard conversations... But so as not to pull a complete cop-out here, I'll share a few quotes that strike me. Here's one from an interview with Allen Wood:
"His [Marx's] assessment of capitalism is far too favorable. He took its instability, inhumanity and irrationality to be signs that it was a merely transitional form, which had delivered into humanity's hands the means to a much better way of life than any that have ever existed on earth. Marx could not bring himself to believe that our species is so benighted, irrational and slavish that it would put up with such a monstrous way of life. He thought that it was inevitable that people would find a better way. We now see that this was not so. Capitalism has not proven to be a transitional form, a gateway to a higher human future. Capitalism now seems more likely a swamp, a bog, a quicksand in which humanity is presently flailing about, unable to extricate itself, perhaps doomed to perish within a few generations from the long term effects of the technology which seemed to Marx its greatest gift to humanity."
Not that I'd claim any of these folks has the last word, of course, but Bertrand Russell is a striking case as well - pretty bleak overall, but also with a sense of humanity's (likely squandered) potential:
"Few men seem to realize how many of the evils from which we suffer are wholly unnecessary, and that they could be abolished by a united effort within a few years. If a majority in every civilized country so desired, we could, within twenty years, abolish all abject poverty, quite half the illness in the world, the whole economic slavery which binds down nine tenths of our population; we could fill the world with beauty and joy, and secure the reign of universal peace. It is only because men are apathetic that this is not achieved, only because imagination is sluggish, and what always has been is regarded as what always must be. With good-will, generosity, intelligence, these things could be brought about."
So, with this sort of stuff in the air - along with the constant flood of commentary on injustice, violence, environmental degradation - I can't help but feel skeptical when people arrive at a much different verdict than Richard Rorty's: "If I had to lay bets, my bet would be that everything is going to go to hell, but, you know, what else have we got except hope?"
Still, when people do have a more empowered, less demoralized sense of things, it never occurs to me that I'd want to take that away from them (even if I were somehow capable, even if my knowledge and insight were remotely adequate for the task). I think the world would be even worse if not for the few heroic, visionary strugglers. But as for me, I think the most I'm capable of doing is to make life a little less onerous (and also, at times, a cause for joy and gratitude) for myself and a very small number of others. I think that goes for most people - "really" meaningful, large-scale progress isn't impossible to effect, but it's out of most individuals' conscious reach, with extremely rare, probably unpredictable exceptions.
Michael, Great Rorty quote. Thanks.
"...you know, what else have we got except hope?"
Perhaps a few bucks here and there? I assume the good Prof would have a challenge or so around now. There are several critical and winnable Senate races (Maryland, Penn., Montana, etc.) that could use some help. Regardless of who is president, a Republican Senate would be a disaster.
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