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On Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in 20th Century America (1998).
What makes for efficacious progressive politics? Rorty has been cited much recently as predicting the rise of Trump. In this book, he gives us a history of the political left, and draws a dividing line between old-time reformist leftist intellectuals like Upton Sinclair who worked for real change and post-'60s cultural critics like Slavoj Žižek who seem to believe that we are past hope. Rorty thinks we leftists need to reconnect with national pride, which he considers not a matter of jingoism or reverence for the government in power, but of hope in the American project, which is always being achieved. Our goal is a classless, casteless society: a society that produces less unnecessary suffering than any others and is the best means to the creation of a greater diversity of full, imaginative, daring individuals.
This episode serves to bridge our recent political discussion with the previous episode on Rorty's epistemology.
According to Rorty's diagnosis, prior to the '60s, leftists worked with groups like labor unions to achieve concrete reforms. But with the Vietnam War, a new generation condemned the Old Left as collaborators and erected a high bar for moral purity that labeled anyone not explicitly Marxist as part of the problem. The effect, ironically for the Marxists, has been to shift attention away from economic issues toward social issues, and while it's been great that we've achieved such huge advances in cutting back on racism, sexism, and other types of discrimination, this focus on cultural issues has left a gaping void ripe for a right-wing demagogue to sweep in, claiming to represent the economic interests of the people.
One characteristic of this cultural Left that Rorty objects to is its moral absolutism, and here's where the connection to Rorty's epistemology comes in. For Rorty, thinking of racism and the like in absolutist terms is both false and counter-productive. It's false because morality, like truth, is a matter of historically shifting consensus, and it's counter-productive because it focuses on shaming violators, on humiliating them, and not on actually convincing them, on building a coalition based on a shared vision of a future free from both inequality and sadism.
This discussion features the full foursome, with Wes using Rorty to continue outlining his prescriptions for America and Seth taking Rorty's diagnosis of the Left personally. Dylan is inspired, while Mark thinks that Rorty's argument doesn't really hang together: You don't need all this relativism stuff to argue for hope in America (it may actually be counter-productive), and while many Leftists are politically disengaged, it's certainly not a fair characterization of the many demonstrators we've just seen (note that this was recorded earlier in January, before the demonstrations).
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Rorty picture by Olle Halvars.
“…Rorty thinks _we leftists_ need to reconnect with national pride…” — Who’s “we”? 😉
Yeah, if you’re a right-winger of the modern variety, he pretty much thinks you’re beneath his contempt; we give a couple quotes to that effect in the 2nd half of the discussion, but, really, what he’s dealing with is a crisis w/in leftism itself, and assuming that anyone who would read a book with that title cares about that.
It’s interesting to me going back to the Sokal Hoax days how many critics of postmodernism saw it primarily as a right wing phenomena. At the time this surprised me as I primarily saw the right wing as tied to either Catholic influenced natural law views or more utilitarian view with some less philosophically sophisticated Lockean like embrace. While at the time I read a lot of philosophers loosely put under the postmodern rubric (Heidegger, Derrida, Rorty, Latour, Levinas, etc.) I just didn’t encounter many other conservatives with a similar view.
While I know now in the Trump era charges of postmodernist relativism are again making the rounds, it really does seem like much more of a left wing thing. While I dislike what often goes under the rubric of postmodernism most of that seems like people with poor backgrounds in philosophy appropriating badly the philosophical figures. (Of course anyone who reads Heidegger can’t complain too much of postmodernists badly reading philosophers — even though I find the Heideggarian misreadings of Plato, Descartes and others to be extremely philosophically productive)
I think Romanticism is a big source for postmodernism. There was the ‘worship’ of the Great Individual – people like Napoleon.
So that weird mix of rightwing and leftwing existed in Romanticism.
any text in particular that makes you think this?
Here are some links.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p9d6x
http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/1848/section5.rhtml
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Carlyle
but what postmodernist texts/sources are you referring to?
Here’s one treatment
http://www.sunypress.edu/p-2995-romantic-desire-in-postmodern-a.aspx
gotta ask have you read that or are you just making this up as you go?
you seem to have missed how folks like Romantics/neo-gnostics like Allan Bloom and his disciples like Paglia despise postmodern thinkers like Rorty who wanted to democratize creativity and undercut the Great Man theories of history.
I don’t like postmodernism much either. I think the Romantic inheritance can have divergent results. Isaiah Berlin (no fan of postmodernity) was a good critic of the Romantics.
https://www.amazon.com/Roots-Romanticism-Second-Mellon-Lectures/dp/0691156204/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486154307&sr=8-1&keywords=isaiah+berlin+romanticism
As to whether I am by sheer willing creating the world as I go. Well, that’s the discussion I guess.
The ‘we’ is those who agree with his project of minimising suffering and increasing diversity.
I suggest making a partially examined life t-shirt that says “fight fuzzy thinking” – Mark@ 46:38 hilarious and part of why I love your podcast..
WOW YOU GUYS!! I loved this. Perfection.
I was instantly moved by the ideas presented in this episode. The discussion around America as a project and a sense of National Pride about that project caused my heart to pitter patter and the hairs on my head to stand up. It was an idea as delicate as the paper the constitution is written on. You grabbed it out and put language to it in such a way that I now feel so moved and hopeful about what America really means. And the irony is that it almost cannot be put into words, because as soon as you start to name it or describe it, it becomes subject to dogmatism. It’s an idea that is movable and changeable yet grounded in something very real.
I so enjoyed the idea of not being tied to any authoritarian concept, yet in applying it to both sides: those who appeal to religion and those who believe that a sort of secular ethics is some kind of final law that can be labeled and put in commandment form. It’s funny because I am now taking a MOOC about our government, how it came to be from the first moment of treason onward, and the teacher says that although there is no civic religion, the constitution is in many ways our civic religion. Anyway, this learning more deeply about our government is my method of action right now. This is in addition to staying off facebook articles and instead getting boring updates about all the bills put before congress and realizing that of the 5000+ bills put before congress, a very small fraction ever gets made into law and understanding why that is. This is my action because I have discovered that the more I learn about the process and the more I put myself in the position of having to decide on legislation via apps like Countable, the more I realize how difficult, complex, intertwined, and mired in conflicting interests they all are. This helps me to avoid binary feelings about what is happening.
I agree in every way about what Wes has said about the left and the fact that in so many ways, they/we are ironically conservative in mindset. If that’s what he said. At any rate – I belief the left is so guilty of dogmatic thinking, of a sort of Imperialist thinking, of an appeal to an authority that they claim is not religious but is a religion of sorts.
Seth, when you spoke about your unraveling, BOY did I feel you. I woke up in the middle of the night to Trump being elected. I cried the next day. I was a total basket case. But the moment I read Wes’s facebook post election post about the rust belt voters, it was this instant realization and a sort of removing the wool from my eyes. I saw myself for the narrow minded, dogmatic, subject to group think person that I am. I wanted to escape myself completely when I saw my ridiculousness play out on SNL/Dave Chappelle skit. It was the most unsettling feeling I have had since having kids. And the problem with that realization is that I am now stuck in this space of extreme self-doubt. I cannot find my own moral ground right now. Or at least I am highly skeptical of it. And it sucks. Being certain feels so good and once you see this within yourself you can’t really unsee it. And so it’s a life of constant doubt and questioning.
There is a book called The Road to Character and although it’s a terrible book, there are some great parts. He writes this about A. Phillip Randolph: “Randolph, Rustin, and the other civil rights activists were in their best moments aware that they were in danger of being corrupted by their own aggressive actions. In their best moments they understood that they would become guilty of self-righteousness because their cause was just; they would become guilty of smugness as their cause moved successfully forward; they would become vicious and tribal as group confronted group; they would become more dogmatic and simplistic as they used propaganda to mobilize their followers; they would become more vain as their audiences enlarged; their hearts would harden as the conflict grew more dire and their hatred for their enemies deepened; they would be compelled to make morally tainted choices as they got closer to power; the more they altered history, the more they would be infected by pride.”
Whether or not this is true of these people’s thoughts and beliefs, I will have to take on faith in David Brooks, which is shaky at best; nevertheless, the words here are so valuable to me. This constant self doubt and questioning is what I think, with my limited knowledge, Nietzsche talks about when he talks about very free spirits. It’s not comfortable. And the fear of being on some sort of wrong side of history hangs over my head like a guillotine.
What you all talked about with regard to the apathy of the left or the constant criticism without action rings so true. The song, “Waiting on the World to Change” by John Mayer was the anthem of my generation in so many ways. Complete skepticism about our ability to change anything. Utter dismay at the level of corruption and problems and a general apathy that rises out of overwhelm and powerlessness. But if Trump has done nothing else, he has invigorated within me the idea that I can be a part of a broken system and not simply be contributing to the brokenness of a system. I have also learned the very important lesson which is that reading Salon articles is not action. And in the same way that having access to information via the internet is not the same as having knowledge and understanding of things, having outrage when I read articles and stay in the loop about what is going on is not the same as being effective.
What you said, Wes, about being discerning about protest and the lack of conscience behind it and seeing what that does is also so important. Wes, you wrote this to me in a question I asked on your facebook post election post: “Holding people accountable: this already comes from a place of condescension. We disagree. We argue our disagreements. The anxiety here is that we “normalize” particularly pernicious points of view. It’s a misguided anxiety. Do I patiently argue my point to the neo-Nazi? Yes. In part because I’m exhibiting the behavior I hope to obtain from them. If they come to feel ashamed of themselves by comparison, it issues from their own agency. Yelling at them allows them to point to my bad behavior. They win. They are persuaded of nothing, learn nothing, and they certainly aren’t “held accountable.” Having their sorts of beliefs won’t allow them to move in your social circles: but they were never allowed to move in those social circles anyway. To a large extent their beliefs are a result of that social division, not a cause of it. You can’t threaten to ostracize people from a club they don’t belong to. That enforcement goes on within social groups: it tends to reinforce partisan myopia. Between partisans, it functions only as display for your own in-group. You don’t direct epithets at Nazis in order to transform them; you do that to display your bona fides to your comrades.
There’s a great deal of power–both personally and politically–in not being reactive. In disarming people with firm kindness. Come as hard as you like with your arguments and against points of view. Tread lightly on egos. You’ll notice that Obama wielded this sort of power very effectively.”
That stayed with me for a long time and when the women’s march happened and I saw Ashley Judd grabbing her crotch and screaming, no matter how much I want rights for women, I knew this was an appeal to comrades. I assume that this was recorded before the recent ban on certain groups entry to the US. I took a very long time trying to make sure that this was a protest I could get behind. And I can. However, in my research, the ghosts of the past really left me feeling uncomfortable. Although different, there are some things that Obama did that were not questioned by me. And when Bush did something similar in 2001, I didn’t even bat an eyelash. My general ignorance and outrage at this time is tempered by the humility I have in understanding my total lack of participation prior to this point. But I will not let guilt guide me, only humble me.
I know this was a long rambling, but saying “thanks, great podcast” didn’t feel like enough. And I am sure my takeaways are probably off in many ways, but in the end, this kind of discourse that has been happening in the last few episodes has created a more mindful, open, questioning and HOPEFUL political activist within me. I’m still trying to find ways that I can really do something real, and effective. Self reflection at every moment seems to be key for me right now.
If you made it to the end, please keep doing this kind of thing for a while and give your insight about what we can do and be most effective.
I forgot to close the quote by Wes which ended with “bona fides to comrades”. I wanted to make sure it was clear that it’s he who shared that awesome bit of wisdom.
I thought that philosophy would help me with the feeling of unraveling you so richly describe, but it never did.
What helped is recognizing media for what it is: the product of a genetic algorithm (the market) evolving to deliver ever-more-compelling *programs* disguised as entertainment or information.
We’ve gone way past bias at this point. Even “opinion” is manufactured. Cable news is a progression of professional trolls who have made careers of disagreeing with particular parties or individuals.
You can recognize these types by their one-sentence bios:
“””
In studio tonight, we have
* Anna Paul, a Republican who says she’ll never vote for Donald Trump;
* Jim Smith, a Bernie supporter who now supports Hillary Clinton;
* Jane McElhenny, an African-American Trump Supporter; and
* Julie Jones, a former member of the Occupy Wallstreet movement who is voting for Jill Stein.
“””
We know exactly what these characters will do, no matter what their candidate (or foil) does. Whether the discussion is policy, strategy, or health rumors, these performers will stay on script.
It’s absurd, and we know it’s absurd. But it effects us. It is there for us to watch because it affects us more than ten-thousand other things the market tried and discarded. It pushes us so far *past* the truth that we (if only in internal dialog) may find ourselves reduced to sputtering incoherence by cognitive dissonance.
This comic theatre makes us terrified of wars and death that might be, and (tellingly) blasé about wars and death that are going on right now. This is a powerful drug, the effects of which can be measured physiologically. This isn’t something from which philosophy or “will power” can protect us.
The solution for me was to eliminate television and social-media silo-ing, not to be inclusive of opposing points of view, but to *exclude* artificial points of view with which I may very well agree.
I’d like to think that my doubts come earlier now, not in a tsunami after the programming changes focus.
And Wes, what you said about everyone hating the peacemaker. I feel you. But I can’t help but notice that you are from Georgia and I am from Arkansas. I have always felt different from everyone around me and while I think peacemaker is a good idea, I can’t help but wonder if it’s some weird sort of repetition compulsion being played out for me!! Saw this quote: “It is now those of us on the liberal left, trying to guard the safety of those shamed and blamed by Trump, who are strangers in our own land.” from this article in New Republic – no idea if it’s a bad magazine – just picked up a copy from the library, but still…an apt quote for me. https://newrepublic.com/article/138910/left-now-strangers-land
this might be of interest http://www.robertounger.com/english/pdfs/discussions2.pdf
I really enjoyed this, and I think it is asking a lot of good questions. I especially like the part about how “Patriotism is to a nation what self-respect is to the individual. It is simply the necessary conditions for self-improvement.” This I completely agree with. I think that sense of national pride is sorely lacking on the left. The lack of it is crippling to our ability to achieve anything. It turns us into sideline critics and eternal pessimists.
Yet there are questions from this book that that left unresolved for me. My interpretation of this book was that Rorty suggests that secularists are better suited to play the role of democratic citizens than theists because they make no reference to transcendent non-human authority. The person who stands in the middle of this tension for me is Martin Luther King Jr. The discussion about Martin Luther King Jr. seemed to neglect the fact that MLK was quite explicitly a Christian. I do not think that MLK’s Christianity is some element that can be easily abstracted from who he was and why he believed in the methods of protest he did. It’s not some ancillary detail about him that we can jettison. Martin Luther King Jr. was equal parts Christian and American. Both the tradition that is American democracy and the tradition that is Christianity (specifically the black church) are responsible for him. Yet, if I am interpreting him correctly, Rorty seems to suggest that these two traditions are either fundamentally in tension or fundamentally antagonistic to each other. One believing in transcendence and the other not. Martin Luther King Jr’s belief that: “the universe bends towards justice” are not the claims of a pragmatic secularist.
Part of the tension may come from Rorty’s hope is that cultural identities, religious, and ethnic identities may become seen as secondary to national identity. Rorty’s vision wants to shift the religious impulse towards a civic religion. To transfer some of that reverent religious energy towards national pride rather than sectarian allegiances. Rorty thinks that the left needs to believe in American democracy again, and belief in the Democratic experiment is, for him, at odds with belief in God or transcendence. He makes it seem like a zero sum game. He is the other side of the coin to people like MacIntyre and Hauerwas. Traditionalists who denounce the individualizing and consumerist tendencies of liberal democratic society, declaring liberalism to be an outright enemy to forming communities of virtue.
Am I wrong in this interpretation of Rorty? Is there a place for religiously committed people in Rorty’s vision of the left? Does Rorty leave open the possibility of vibrant and active religious left who will work with secularists in the interest of justice? If Rorty makes space for that sort of thing it was hard for me to tell from reading this book.
This was a point I tried to argue in the episode (don’t know if it was in the first or 2nd half): religion, even if dogmatic, is not necessarily stifling of liberal values. Getting caught up in whether you’re doing epistemology right is get another distraction from working together to achieve common goals. The desire for more alive, diverse individuals and less unnecessary suffering can be put in any number of ways that all practically amount to the same political actions.
Agreed. I think part of Wes’ characterization of MLK and religion was wrong, pretty inarguably. MLK didn’t view secularism and his social activism as distinct from his Christianity. Evidence has only mounted that counters that point over time. He fundamentally saw his work and the civil rights movement as an extension of being a Baptist preacher. http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Writings-show-King-as-liberal-Christian-2623685.php
The article you linked to here, Brian, speaks, IMO, mostly about MLK being less of a fundamentalist or maybe some would say evangelical christian. I am not persuaded by this being grounds for saying that MLK believed his civil rights actions were an extension of him being a preacher. One could argue that his Christianity provided the basis for his morality and ethics, but that does not then mean that it is a foregone conclusion that he believed that there was nothing to appeal to outside of being a Christian. This article reminds me of my Southern Baptist preacher’s reference to an “Oprah God”. It is a disparaging comment meant to undermine or question her faith because she extended the notion of a path to god beyond Christianity and thereby isn’t a real Christian. There’s an argument about something there, but I am not sure it really has to do with his work in the Civil rights movement. He was a big fan of Ghandi. He appealed to all religions and to people of no faith. When he argued for what he wanted and what he believed in, his basis for being justified in his desires was not anything along the lines of “because god said it should be so”. To appeal to an authority such as god, god would have to be the primary reason for believing you deserve certain rights or have certain wishes. This is where, IMO, the religious groups go wrong. They want to win arguments based on religion and an appeal to god, but really, they could get much of what they want with an appeal to reason and their rights as a human being with a point of view. So, I will restate that, while king could not be separated from his Christian values as a person, his platform of peace and equality was argued for with an appeal to reason. Please explain further if I am missing the substance of your argument.
Getting too bogged down into turf wars over MLK’s legacy always seem to be unproductive. However, one thing I will comment on. When you say, “MLK spoke specifically to people of all faith and even people of no faith.” Every time any of us speaks in the context of public discourse we are speaking to people of all different faiths as well as people with no faith. This is something that all of us should take into account (MLK certainly did). Rorty, in my opinion, does not sufficiently take this into account and so is probably rhetorically ineffective to any left-leaning religiously committed readers of his. If he never intended on appealing to a religious left, then so be it. I just think that’s an un-pragmatic strategy.
I suppose the question is what we must share in common in order to work towards effective political action. If religious differences are likely to remain in place for the foreseeable future, how are we to reason one another respectfully, productively, on issues of public importance? And how might we build coalitions among citizens to fight effective for a just social order?
To use a tangible example: If you want to fight homophobia or some other social evil, it’s more pragmatic to just attack it directly, and cut out the essentializing generalizations about inherent tendencies of religion. There is no essential, transcultural nature to religion. It’s more malleable than most people think. This is probably more rhetorically effective, and it is more likely to leave open the possibility of a politically active religious left. And I believe that a politically active religious left could valuable for actually achieving our country.
you seem to be missing that this was Rorty’s version of Dewey’s Common Faith book, a laying out of a kind of ironic but deeply humanist ideals and not a book about organizational tactics for the current state of affairs, the PELers talk about this in the beginning of the podcast when they discuss the futural/aspirational aspects of the project, he was quite involved with folks like C.West and Jeffrey Stout: https://www.sss.ias.edu/files/pdfs/Stout-Rorty-religion-politics.pdf
Matt, I’ve had the hardest time replying to you! Weird technology. Anyway – thank you for your comments. I can’t really have a turf war over anything because I really don’t know anything deeply enough! What you said about MLK and Rorty – I think we agree on MLK and it seems that Rorty actually does not succeed in speaking to all crowds in that his emphasis is on secularism in itself? I don’t know. I wish they had flushed this idea out a little more, but perhaps if I actually read the book it would help! I plan to now. Because this episode was so pertinent to the modern day, it did seem to focus a lot on the text with relation to the current situation in politics. It did less of the sort of philosophical breaking down of the actual argument and explaining areas where one might agree or disagree. I know they did some – just not as much as usual. This happened in other episodes such as No Country for Old Men and Lucy Lawless etc. I think when the text reads less like a philosophical treatise (or is just not one!) this happens. I do like criticisms of the text as well as a charitable reading. I have listened to both parts 1 and 2 but plan to listen again.
thanks for commenting.
MLK spoke specifically to people of all faith and even people of no faith. I can find some sources if you want. Although his faith was a foundation for his guiding principles, he did not appeal to his faith or to his god as a justification for what he wanted. He appealed to his ideas of what was fair or just. He did often appeal to his religion when speaking on a religious platform, citing the Bible and Jesus as examples of what he meant when he spoke of peace. This is not arguing a point with an appeal to faith IMO. He was careful, I thought, not to do this. For me, this was a shining example of how one can have a strong faith and still be secular in their fight for justice. Please explain further how this assessment by Wes in inaccurate.
Getting too bogged down into turf wars over MLK’s legacy always seem to be unproductive. However, one thing I will comment on. When you say, “MLK spoke specifically to people of all faith and even people of no faith.” Every time any of us speaks in the context of public discourse we are speaking to people of all different faiths as well as people with no faith. This is something that all of us should take into account (MLK certainly did). Rorty, in my opinion, does not sufficiently take this into account and so is probably rhetorically ineffective to any left-leaning, religiously committed readers of his. If he never intended on appealing to a religious left, then so be it. I just think that’s an un-pragmatic strategy for trying to achieve our country.
I suppose the question is what we must share in common in order to work towards effective political action. If religious differences are likely to remain in place for the foreseeable future, how are we to reason one another respectfully, productively, on issues of public importance? And how might we build coalitions among citizens to fight effective for a just social order?
To use a tangible example: If you want to fight homophobia or some other social evil, it’s more pragmatic to just attack it directly, and cut out the essentializing generalizations about inherent tendencies of religion. There is no essential, transcultural nature to religion. It’s more malleable than most people think. This is probably more rhetorically effective, and it is more likely to leave open the possibility of a politically active religious left. And I believe that a politically active religious left could valuable for actually achieving our country.
It’s interesting that Rorty’s wife (a philosopher herself) is Mormon and Rorty’s children were raised Mormon. After Rorty’s death there was an interesting interview with her about Rorty’s views on religion that is slightly more expansive than you get in his arguments within his books.
I think in a lot of ways “white privilege” is just a term that has replaced “systemic racism” which in turn replaced “white supremacy” in talk about our society. And yes a good chunk of white people in the United States have spent every second since its founding, complaining when people talk or try to do something about it. But given that white supremacy is still basically the single organizing principle of our politics I don’t think it can be avoided as part of any left movement. This is aside from if every aspect of this talk is politically useful to the Democratic Party or whatever.
http://www.splicetoday.com/writing/richard-rorty-an-intellectual-memoir
Luttwak was famous in his own circles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Luttwak
He was mostly interested in tactics, rather than strategy.
I’m in Australia not the US.
The Left always had a cultural agenda as well as a narrowly economic one. More in Europe perhaps than the US. Workers Education Associations and so on.
I do agree with Wes about the ‘progressive’ institutions betraying the working class.
I also think that there is a tension (at least) between a relativist epistemology and a positive political project. The relativism (getting rid of a sense of sin) can easily get rid of conscience too.
I very much appreciated this episode and it was a timely and necessary intervention. Rorty builds his case against a type of marxism that has surely been destructive in the way he and you all suggest. For example, Louis Althusser seems to be the paradigmatic perpetrator of this type of thought. However, with Marx and Marxism (i’m not sure Marx would recognize himself in Rorty’s analysis or in the type of analytical and cultural Marxism that he discusses) is not representative of some of the more interesting marxist thought that was coming out in the mid to late 20th century (E.P. Thompson, David Harvey, Henri Lefebvre, Ellen Meiksins Wood et al). I would be interested to hear you all return to Marx in some capacity (especially the Grundrisse/Capital) and really read him against the characterization that Rorty lays out. This is not to suggest that Rorty is incorrect in his assessment of a large segment of Marxism that has been particularly damaging to left politics, but that he might be throwing the baby out with the bath water. Marx (not marxism) can actually help in working out many of the issues in leftist politics that Rorty was concerned with. I think reading some of the thinkers mentioned earlier (especially Lefebvre) offers a very different picture than Rorty’s more sweeping characterization. Thanks for the fantastic podcast and it was a great listen!
Give us a specific textual recommendation for Lefevbre, please!
I would suggest something from his “Critique of Everyday Life,” which was originally published in 3 separate volumes over a few decades (Verso has compiled them all in a one volume edition now). From the first volume the chapters: “The knowledge of everyday life,” “Marxism as Critical Knowledge,” “The Development of Marxist Thought,” and “What is Possible,” are a nice place to start. In volume 2 there is a nice chapter entitled, “Clearing the Ground”. Also, E.P. Thompson’s “The Poverty of Theory,” would speak well to the concerns that you raised in this episode. He is also a terrific writer and he pulls no punches in this essay. It can actually be quite funny at times. Hope that helps 🙂
https://progressivegeographies.com/resources/lefebvre-resources/where-to-start-with-reading-henri-lefebvre/
eth, we hear you. And Wes we hear you. Mark and Dylan, we hear you. It is apropos that amist the total confusion of these recent events that we have a model of true dialogue available to us. I have supported PEL for a few years now and I suggest you do the same. Allow for these conversations. Donate now to support true listening.
Listening again. Mark said he thought that we should appeal to the religious arguments – or “play on those sentiments – however conscience works in you.” And the issue with that is this – unless you are a very specific brand of Christian speaking to that same very specific brand of Christianity, your argument holds no value. An atheist most certainly cannot argue using religion and expect to be heard. It’s disingenuous and it goes against one of the maxims of conversation which is never to say something that you yourself don’t believe to be true.
But you can say things like, “We share a commitment to justice and equity, even if we disagree on it’s basis”.
You can tell stories that appeal to the conscience of both atheists and doctrinaire Christians (or Marxists or whatever). Eg that awful picture of the drowned child on the shore, that featured in the debate about refugees.
Sure, Jennifer. That’s true. But the thing is for a big segment of people–probably bigger in the 50s and 60s but still large today–that’s a huge basis for how they inform their choices, and it’s sometimes one of the most persuasive forms of argument for those people of faith. And not all those people are fundamentalist, literalists who are just ideologically against the left everywhere. Besides, you can have a multi-pronged attack. MLK certainly did that in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail–there’s all sorts of references to exodus, faith, the constitution, humanist ideals, visions of america, calls for empathy (such as the bombings of little girls in churchs), etc.
My comment on MLK with the article was really only prompted because of Wes’ final insistence that secularism was vital to the left and it’s activism. Personally, I’d prefer it if that was the case, but historically it wasn;t.
I hear you. I’m probably butchering things here, but my point is not that we can have no arguments based on religion, rather that for each issue there has to be a strong secular argument if there is to be consensus. And with regard to who the people are who are compelled for religious reasons – I think having the arguments they do is great. I just think that if you have an opposing argument and you try to use their own logic against them – say something like – Jesus was a refugee or some other argument along those lines, you run the risk of coming off as manipulative. You can’t use something which you reject to argue your point. Even if it is logical. Even if it is compelling. The very idea that a person who is not a believer would try and use a religious argument to persuade someone who is religious comes across as manipulative in my experience. What I took away from this is that we have our positions. We both argue our positions. And we argue our positions based on shared ideals. The good of the many, the safety of our Nation, the economic impact etc. Arguing ideologies or beliefs is somewhat impractical and futile. I am not necessarily trying to persuade someone that their beliefs are wrong. I am trying to get them to see where we have shared belief and how my particular position speaks to our shared beliefs. How it is a better choice based on our shared ideas. Changing a belief is almost impossible. Changing position is less so.
Jennifer,
Isn’t one of the purposes of philosophy to shake and disturb our personal convictions-to constantly test our beliefs against our best perceptions of reality. Doubting oneself is a good thing as long as it propels you toward a better understanding of the subject you are considering. I offer you my family’s motto while you are establishing a new beachhead, “Always certain, seldom right.”
Jim! You are my favorite person I have never met. I still have your words saved on my computer when you spoke to me about my “aporia” on the PEL facebook page.. I think you are right! I love that saying! Thanks again!
“We do not lack communication. On the contrary, we have too much of it. We lack creation. We lack resistance to the present [banal].” (D&G, What is Philosophy, p.108)
We need to engage in that which redeems our time, is a creative force, productive–in a political context.
Positive Actions:
1) Productive Persuasion–
— Eliminate tribal criticism (of outgroup): negativity without content
— Identify objectively and mutually concerns and values
2) Productive Actions
Interesting that all the above is about Buber’s I-Thou concept of Solidarity.
I find it ironic that Wes rightly has criticized purists within the left who make the perfect the enemy of the good and never take a half a loaf when they can peacock about, strutting their purism; yet he makes the hyperbolic claim that the Democratic Party has totally abandoned unions. By saying that, he is also calling union leadership stupid because they continue to organize and spend money on behalf of Democratic candidates. The reality is that Democrats have a diverse coalition and are not singlemindedly union oriented, but have not completely abandoned them either.
As long as I’m picking on Wes (who, again, has historically been my favorite), let’s note the irony in his saying that animal rights protests are ineffectual. Just a couple weeks ago the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey circus announced that they were shutting down. This is pretty directly a result of animal rights protests. The protests against the use of elephants led RBBB a couple years ago to stop featuring elephants in their performances. This subsequently led to a steep decline in their box office, much more than they had anticipated. So it was clearly not actual consumer pressure that led to the end of elephants in the circus – in fact, it turned out to be just the opposite. Animal rights groups were successful in stopping the elephant acts, and ultimately ending the circus entirely, against the wishes of the ticket buying public. That strikes me as a very strong illustration of the power of their protests, when they can destroy a 130 year old institution.
I’ve been following Wes for a bit and the message I got was not that protests were ineffective, rather, many protests are. And for a protest to be effective it needs to have a clear focus and an element of conscience to it. This line of thinking has me interested in what makes for useful protest. I just read the essay on civil disobedience and some of that didn’t seem helpful for me. I’m a mom – even if the only place for a just man in an unjust society is jail – I’m gonna have to disagree. I can’t abandon my kids. I’m not quite finished with it so maybe I’ll get some good info there. I’m ordering “the art of moral protest” from my library to see if there is something useful
there. I’ve been reading about the social psychology of protest as well to see what gives. It seems it is often ineffective. There are studies you can read about the “social psychology of protest”. So all of this is to say that I’m doing this because of the fact that I see an element of usefulness to protest but I struggle to find the characterstics of protests that effect change which are different from those that don’t.
hello, nick here, long-time listener, first-time caller, and i’ll take my comments offline (being a long-time npr junkie–thinking back to the days of ‘talk of the nation,’ when and where all sorts of crazies would call in, and now i can include myself in that register–i have always wanted to say that bwahaha).
okay, but enough of the formalities. first, though, i should note: i do very much appreciate and enjoy this podcast, so thank you all for the public way in which you air thinking through various texts, ideas, and issues. i applaud you!
now, if i could be so bold so as to offer a bit of my own thoughts, to the discussion board thread (lol): this first installment of rorty and the last episode on politics were, in my view, done quite well. the four of you, together, aggregated a unique, but also, in many ways, universal, conception of the present and the political by amalgamating and manifesting some of the tensions, emotions, rationalities, and orientations that populate the discourse. the discussions were not, that is, altogether, nor even mostly, polemical, but neither were ideas or positions left uncritically scrutinized. there was not necessarily any, kind of, consensual caricaturing either, despite what seemed to be a concerted effort to not proscribe. the result of all of this is, i think, a model of a possibility for productively engaging.
and this brings me to trying to think about why we are where we are.
wes, i have come to learn that you have quite a bit of specialized knowledge in psychoanalytic theory. i do very much enjoy reading and thinking about psychoanalysis as well. i wonder what you might think about the concept of the reaction formation as related to the collective consciousness in these united states at present. in my understanding of the concept (and what i remember from laplanche and pontalis), libidinal energy that is not properly _satisfied_ nor _sublimated_ violently erupts in ways that are not healthy for the subject. (this is a very general, trite, and probably exhausted question, but) do you think that our collective mechanisms are doing much too much to overdetermine our post-wwii society? I mean, we are not ultra rational robots quite yet i don’t think
I’m at 32:58, and I have to get this off my chest. The folks blocking the highway had very specific demands: police reform, and justice for Mike Brown. If you don’t understand the point of that action, then you don’t know enough to make this episode. Additionally, if you talk about the civil rights movement, you have to talk about the armed parts of the movement: Black Panthers and Deacons for Justice. Talk about the pressure they put on lawmakers that others could not. And if you’re going to stand around and criticize these actions, you should have suggestions. You should get involved in the project of America.
I’m gonna try to finish this up, but I feel like this is gonna devolve into the debate about which is more central: class, race, or something else. and no. just no. I’ve met zinesters who have answered that question more deftly than any published philosopher ever could.
It’s still amazing to me that of all the truly innocent victims of police brutality they could have chosen, BLM has made Mike Brown their poster boy. The Obama Justice Department found that the city’s police department was oppressing the black population; but about Brown in particular, they also found that it was a justified shooting. Why not make Tamir Rice a literal poster boy? Eric Garner or Walter Scott would have been good choices as well. To keep focusing on Mike Brown after all we have learned is incredibly counterproductive and boggles my mind. Is it just stubbornness or what?