MAO: A LIFE by Philip Short, New York, Henry Holt and Company, 2000. 782pp. [Part 3]
Reviewed by Thomas Riggins
This is an important work and over the next few weeks I will be making entries one chapter (more or less) at a time (there are sixteen). Comments are invited, especially from anyone who has read the book and wants to critique my take on a chapter, but anyone is welcome to comment.
Chapter Four "A Ferment of 'Isms'"
Around the time of Mao's first article (1917) he and a group of his friends in the New People's Study Society left Hunan and went to Beijing. There Mao met Chen Duxiu (1879-1942) one of the two men to later found the CPC (the other was Li Dazhao), but at this time he was the editor of New Youth a magazine that contributed to the future May Fourth Movement. He was the CPC General Secretary 1921-1927 and later became a Trotskyist. Short quotes Mao as having said that Chen (whose view was that before China could become a modern country the old culture had to be completely superseded ) influenced him "perhaps more than anyone else."
In Beijing, Mao came under many influences both from the traditional culture and the new Western ideas penetrating China. He picked up what he later called "old fashioned liberalism" from reading Adam Smith, Herbert Spencer and Thomas Huxley. Another major influence was the Ming Dynasty Neoconfucian Wang Yangming [1472-1529] who, according to Short, "inspired him to link man to society, theory to practice, knowledge to will, and thought to action." This is a little redundant since "theory to practice" is the same as "thought to action." Wang Yangming is sort of a prolegomena to Marxism where the unity of theory and practice is a basic premise.
Another Ming philosopher that Mao liked was Wang Fuzhi [1619-1693], another Neoconfucianist, for whom the world "was in constant flux" and "the mutability of things, driven by the dialectical contradictions inherent in the material world, was the basic principle moving history forward." Engels couldn't have put it any better.
In 1919 Mao was writing about anarchism and later said that at that time he "favored many of its proposals." It is Prince Kropotkin that he has in mind. He thought the followers of Marx were too violent. This is a big improvement in humanism for Mao, as Short notes-- in three years he has moved from Butcher Tang to Kropotkin! Mao is now 25 years old.
On May 4, 1919 a great demonstration of students and workers took place in Beijing to protest the fact that the former German concession of Shandong Province was ceded to Japan by the Versailles Treaty. This was the beginning of the May Fourth Movement which spread throughout many areas of China protesting the weakness of the government and the warlord system. Above all it demanded the modernization of China. Short says this movement "has been regarded ever since as one of the defining periods of modern Chinese history."
Mao was in Hunan at the time, in the capital Changsha. He participated in actions against the local warlord. He started a local paper and in the first issue published an article on the crisis followed up by a long article that became very influential ("The Great Union of the Popular Masses.") He said China had a great future, the youth would be the major agents of change and a practical program was proposed.
Mao became nationally known and Hu Shih [1891-1962]: the philosopher of Chinese liberalism, he ended up in Taiwan after 1948, called the article, according to Short, "one of the [truly] important articles" and that Mao had "exceedingly far-reaching vision and effective and well chosen arguments." Mao was on his way!
But he was not yet a Marxist. Mao told Edgar Snow that he was a Marxist by the summer of 1920, but Short says this was untrue. Actually, Short says, "Mao at that time considered Dewey, 'who taught that 'education is life, school is society', to be one of the "three great contemporary philosophers", along with Bertrand Russell and the French thinker, Henri Bergson."
[Short has 142 pages of end notes to back up his claims, but no bibliography. Practically, this means you can't really check his references unless you want to spend hours searching thru the notes for the first time he cites a source since all subsequent citations are abbreviated. This is a sloppy and inexcusable procedure.]
Later Mao described himself at this time [1920]: "I am too emotional and have the weakness of being vehement." He said he wished he had had time to study Buddhism. His mother, who had died the previous year (his father died soon after) would have been happy had he done so. I cannot help but think the rest of the world might have also benefited if Mao had had a dose of Buddhist compassion along the way. Who knows?
Short says Mao, even after he became a Marxist, never abandoned the influences of his youth. His "thinking developed by accretion... Nothing was ever lost." This meant that when he was older he could think outside the box. He resorted to "metaphor and lateral thinking."
Who can object to a Marxist who tempers his views with knowledge of a wide range of other opinions and outlooks? His "approach to Marxism," Short writes, "when finally he embraced it, was coloured by other, very different intellectual traditions." Including many traditional Chinese motifs. This should bode well. Who wants Johnny one note as a leader?
In June 1920 Hunan's war lord was forced out and a new leader, with more democratic aspirations took over. Because of the general situation in the country Mao as well as most others favored a form of "home rule" for Hunan and its 30 million people.
Mao was a leader in Hunan and wrote articles and gave speeches advocating a government based on the participation of the citizens, and a democratic government in favor of socialism. But Mao didn't really think this type of government was actually possible. Because of a 90 percent illiteracy rate in Hunan he didn't think either a Soviet type revolution was possible, nor a really democratic form of government. His solution was to "create a movement of the educated elite, 'to push things forward' from the outside."
In November of 1920 Mao found himself at a conference in Changsha discussing constitutional government. Both John Dewey and Bertrand Russell attended and gave speeches. So Mao had the opportunity to participate in a conference with two of the three men he considered the most important philosophers of the day. A few weeks later another military leader overthrew the new Hunan government.
Meanwhile, since October Mao had been participating in a Marxist study group. By the end of the year the study group had three "factions" debating each other. Those who wanted to follow Bolshevism, those who favored Kropotkin style anarchism, and those who thought they should just work in education to enlighten the masses.
Mao was leaning towards Kropotkin. He didn't like what he called the "terrorist methods" of the Leninists and thought the education program unrealistic. But "realism" carried the day. With the war lords increasing in power Mao was finally won over to the Russian model. It was, he said, "a last resort."
By the beginning of 1921 Mao and his fellow radicals in Hunan were getting ready to found a new political party based on Marxism. "His conversion," Short says, "was complete." Yet there would remain to the end "an anarchist tincture" to his Marxism.
from PAEditorsBlog
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
RUSSELL, ROUSSEAU AND RATIONALITY
RUSSELL, ROUSSEAU AND RATIONALITY: A MARXIST CRITIQUE
by Thomas Riggins
I propose to show that Russell's interpretation of Rousseau in The History of Western Philosophy (HWP), is both unfair and inaccurate and misrepresents Rousseau's historical legacy.
The chapter on Rousseau in HWP has three parts: a biographical ( based on his "Confessions", which I will not deal with), a discussion of his religious views, and one on his political philosophy.
At the outset of his chapter, Russell tells us that Rousseau's importance comes "mainly from his appeal to the heart, and to what, in his day, was called 'sensibility.' He is the father of the romantic movement, the initiator of systems of thought which infer non-human facts from human emotions, and the inventor of the political philosophy of pseudo-democratic dictatorships as opposed to traditional absolute monarchies."
Russell further alleges that two groups of self styled "reformers" have come down to us from his time-- those who follow Locke (e.g., Roosevelt and Churchill) and those who follow Rousseau (Hitler). I intend to show that the notion that Hitler was a follower of Rousseau is absurd.
Russell's discussion of Rousseau's religious beliefs is based primarily ( but not exclusively) on his interpretation of a section of the novel "Emile" entitled "The Confession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar" and taken to represent Rousseau's views.
This "Confession" is in the tradition Enlightenment Deism. Rousseau accepts the God he finds in nature and basically rejects institutionalized religions as man made fabrications. In this respect he does not differ from thinkers such as Voltaire and Thomas Paine, although he is much more emotional about his form of Deism.
He says he believes "that the world is governed by a wise and powerful Will. I see it, or rather I feel it; and this is of importance for me to know." Further speculation about the Will is not necessary and there is no dogmatic attempt to get people to agree with him, "I am not dictating my sentiments to you, but only explaining what they are." Like every one in his times, including Locke and Newton, he saw design in nature as evidence of "that Being, in a word, whatever it be, that gives motion to all parts of the universe, and governs all things, I call GOD."
Rousseau throws in some attributes ( intelligence, will, power, goodness) that he finds personally convincing but doesn't insist on anyone else agreeing with him on specifics.
He also believes in life after death. Other Deists also have this hope (Paine). In the "Confession" he further reveals that he is a Cartesian dualist with his inner feeling (sentiment)-- i.e., self-consciousness, playing the role of the Cogito.
For some reason, Russell thinks all this is anti-rational on Rousseau's part.
"The rejection of reason in favour of the heart," Russell writes, "was not, to my mind, an advance."
Russell would never accuse Descartes of rejecting reason for basing his philosophy on the Cogito. This is Rousseau, but Descartes could have said the same thing. "I have only to know that matter is extended and divisible, to be assured that it cannot think... No material being can be self-active, and I perceive that I am so. It is vain to dispute with me so clear a point. My own sentiment carries with it a stronger conviction than any reason which can ever be brought." The wording is a little different, but the sentiment is the same as Descartes' statements about the Cogito.
Did Rousseau reject reason? Rousseau finds two contradictory principles in the nature of human consciousness: "one raising him to the study of eternal truths, the love of justice and moral beauty [this is very Kantian]--- bearing him aloft to the regions of the intellectual world, the contemplation of which yields the truest delight to the philosopher--- the other debasing him even below himself, subjecting him to the slavery of sense, the tyranny of the passions, and exciting these to counteract every noble and generous sentiment inspired by the former."
Rousseau is no irrationalist. The sentiments that he cultivates are inspired by reason (the intellectual realm) not the emotions (the passions). What could be clearer than the following. "I am active when I listen to my reason, and passive when hurried away by my passions."
Russell is making too much of Rousseau's belief that the moral rules are, found "in the depths " of the heart, "written by Nature in ineffaceable characters." Rousseau believes that we can trust our "conscience" to tell us what to do. In practice Rousseau seems to have some problems with this (especially in his personal life), but in principle it is an embryonic form of Kant's "moral world within."
Russell says there are two objections to "the practice of basing beliefs as to objective fact upon the emotions of the heart." But I have shown above, I hope, that for Rousseau it is the intellectual realm, the realm of reason, which is to guide the heart, not the realm of emotions and passions, so we can skip these objections.
Russell now goes off the deep end, in my opinion. He says, "For my part, I prefer the ontological argument, the cosmological argument, and the rest of the stock-in-trade, to the sentimental illogicality that has sprung from Rousseau." We will see who is being illogical.
These very arguments which Russell prefers, he says of them, earlier in the chapter, that they "may not, to us seem very convincing, and we may feel that they would not have seemed cogent to anyone who did not already feel sure of the truth of the conclusion." In other words, they are not sound arguments. Rousseau tried to guide his sentiments by reason. it is only because Russell, wrongly, considered Rousseau an enemy of reason that he could prefer logically unsound arguments to Rousseau's open admission that he doesn't use these types of arguments because he doesn't think they prove anything.
What can one say about Russell being logical when he claims , "if I had to choose between Thomas Aquinas and Rousseau, I should unhesitatingly choose the saint." Unhesitatingly? Here is what Russell says about the good "saint" in HWP:
"There is little of the true philosophic spirit in Aquinas... Before he begins to philosophize he already knows the truth; it is declared in the Catholic faith. If he can find apparently rational arguments for some parts of the faith, so much the better; if he cannot, he need only fall back on revelation. The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading."
Why would Russell prefer "apparently rational special pleading" to the open honesty of Rousseau. Aquinas was a spokesman for a powerful institution that burned heretics and clamped down on free expression wherever it could. It burned books. Rousseau had his books burned. He, like Russell, was the victim of the followers of revelation. Rousseau at least thought for himself and fought against the tyranny of the absolute monarchical state. Doesn't honesty count? Russell thinks Aquinas not intellectually honest. It doesn't seem intellectually honest to prefer the dogma of the Catholic Church to the free thinking of Rousseau who rejected revelation and apparently rational arguments in favor of it.
How did Rousseau get the reputation as an "irrationalist"? I suggest that the answer can be found in Georg Lukacs's book "The Destruction of Reason." Lukacs, a Marxist, follows Engel's discussion of the British and French Enlightenment as tending towards "the metaphysical mode" of thinking. Engels means a type of mechanical "materialism" which he contrasts to dialectical thinking. He mentions Rousseau's "Discourse on the Origins of Inequality" as a "dialectical masterpiece."
Lukacs writes that the picture of "Rousseau as an 'irrationalist Romantic' is a product of polemics against the French Revolution." What Rousseau was trying to do in his social philosophy was to develop "the history of mankind and human society out of its autonomous movement, the deeds and sufferings of men themselves, and grasping the reason, i.e., the principles behind the movement." Lukacs also points out that, according to Engels the "Reason" that was lauded during the Enlightenment was the "Reason" of the rising bourgeois class not some abstract universal "Reason" and it was this bourgeois view of "Reason" that was the object of Rousseau's criticism.
Now lets look at what Russell says about Rousseau's political philosophy to see if it leads to Hitler. Russell admits that the "Social Contact" has "little sentimentality and much close intellectual reasoning," but that it only gives "lip-service to democracy" and bolsters the idea "of the totalitarian state."
Russell has problems with the concept of the "general will." Rousseau says that people who do not obey the "general will " must be "forced to be free." Russell remarks that, "The general will in the time of Galileo was certainly anti-Copernican, was Galileo 'forced to be free' when the Inquisition compelled him to recant?" This indicates, to me, that Russell didn't understand what the "general will" is.
What the social contact is supposed to do (it is a theoretical construct not an actual historical compact) is leave everybody as free as they were in the state of nature but without the inconveniences of that state. The whole contract boils down to one clause, according to Rousseau, "the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community; for, in the first place, as each gives himself absolutely, the conditions are the same for all; and this being so, no one has any interest in making them burdensome to others." This is pure Rawls.
Basically, the general will is that we do what is best for the state and everyone in it. The general will represents the maximum freedom possible for every individual. As a citizen each wants what is best for the state in respect to the rights and freedoms of all. However, Rousseau points out the "each man, may have a particular will contrary or dissimilar to the general will which he has as a citizen."
Here is a real example of being forced to be free. The general will dictates that the state do all it can to ensure the health of the population. My particular will may want to make a fortune by marketing an adulterated medicine. This could lead to an outbreak of plague that could also spread to my own family or even myself. By preventing me having my way the state certainly denied me the freedom to act as an individual, but it has enforced my will as a citizen since as a citizen I agree with the general will.
The reason why Hitler cannot be an outgrowth of Rousseau's thought is because Hitler's particular will replaced the general will. For Rousseau the Sovereign is the body politic, the people, and not a single individual. "If then the people promises simply to obey, by that very act it dissolves itself and loses what makes it a people; the moment a master exists, there is no longer a Sovereign, and from that moment the body politic has ceased to exist...."
Rousseau said for the general will to express itself "there should be no partial society" in the state and that "each citizen should think only his own thoughts...." Totalitarian governments do not encourage this type of thinking for oneself. A modern state cannot, however, really exist without partial societies (labor unions, employer's associations, small business owners, the AAUP, the AARP, the Bertrand Russell Society, etc.) Realizing this, Rousseau said "if there are partial societies, it is best to have as many as possible and to prevent them from being unequal... These precautions are the only ones that can guarantee that the general will shall be always enlightened, and that the people shall in no way deceive itself."
A lot more could be said about the "general will" and its contrast with "the will of all" (something very different) but I think I have accomplished my goal of showing that it is only a superficial reading of Rousseau that can judge him to be an irrationalist, and that there is nothing substantial to the charge that Hitler and his government grew out of the doctrines of Rousseau.
I should also note that Rousseau's paternalistic attitude towards women marred his political philosophy since the interests of half the human race were not taken into consideration in formulating the "general will." However that correction is easily made.
Finally, I think Russell, Engels, and Lukcas, but not Hitler, would agree with the following sentiment of Rousseau: "The noblest work of education is to make a reasoning man...."
by Thomas Riggins
I propose to show that Russell's interpretation of Rousseau in The History of Western Philosophy (HWP), is both unfair and inaccurate and misrepresents Rousseau's historical legacy.
The chapter on Rousseau in HWP has three parts: a biographical ( based on his "Confessions", which I will not deal with), a discussion of his religious views, and one on his political philosophy.
At the outset of his chapter, Russell tells us that Rousseau's importance comes "mainly from his appeal to the heart, and to what, in his day, was called 'sensibility.' He is the father of the romantic movement, the initiator of systems of thought which infer non-human facts from human emotions, and the inventor of the political philosophy of pseudo-democratic dictatorships as opposed to traditional absolute monarchies."
Russell further alleges that two groups of self styled "reformers" have come down to us from his time-- those who follow Locke (e.g., Roosevelt and Churchill) and those who follow Rousseau (Hitler). I intend to show that the notion that Hitler was a follower of Rousseau is absurd.
Russell's discussion of Rousseau's religious beliefs is based primarily ( but not exclusively) on his interpretation of a section of the novel "Emile" entitled "The Confession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar" and taken to represent Rousseau's views.
This "Confession" is in the tradition Enlightenment Deism. Rousseau accepts the God he finds in nature and basically rejects institutionalized religions as man made fabrications. In this respect he does not differ from thinkers such as Voltaire and Thomas Paine, although he is much more emotional about his form of Deism.
He says he believes "that the world is governed by a wise and powerful Will. I see it, or rather I feel it; and this is of importance for me to know." Further speculation about the Will is not necessary and there is no dogmatic attempt to get people to agree with him, "I am not dictating my sentiments to you, but only explaining what they are." Like every one in his times, including Locke and Newton, he saw design in nature as evidence of "that Being, in a word, whatever it be, that gives motion to all parts of the universe, and governs all things, I call GOD."
Rousseau throws in some attributes ( intelligence, will, power, goodness) that he finds personally convincing but doesn't insist on anyone else agreeing with him on specifics.
He also believes in life after death. Other Deists also have this hope (Paine). In the "Confession" he further reveals that he is a Cartesian dualist with his inner feeling (sentiment)-- i.e., self-consciousness, playing the role of the Cogito.
For some reason, Russell thinks all this is anti-rational on Rousseau's part.
"The rejection of reason in favour of the heart," Russell writes, "was not, to my mind, an advance."
Russell would never accuse Descartes of rejecting reason for basing his philosophy on the Cogito. This is Rousseau, but Descartes could have said the same thing. "I have only to know that matter is extended and divisible, to be assured that it cannot think... No material being can be self-active, and I perceive that I am so. It is vain to dispute with me so clear a point. My own sentiment carries with it a stronger conviction than any reason which can ever be brought." The wording is a little different, but the sentiment is the same as Descartes' statements about the Cogito.
Did Rousseau reject reason? Rousseau finds two contradictory principles in the nature of human consciousness: "one raising him to the study of eternal truths, the love of justice and moral beauty [this is very Kantian]--- bearing him aloft to the regions of the intellectual world, the contemplation of which yields the truest delight to the philosopher--- the other debasing him even below himself, subjecting him to the slavery of sense, the tyranny of the passions, and exciting these to counteract every noble and generous sentiment inspired by the former."
Rousseau is no irrationalist. The sentiments that he cultivates are inspired by reason (the intellectual realm) not the emotions (the passions). What could be clearer than the following. "I am active when I listen to my reason, and passive when hurried away by my passions."
Russell is making too much of Rousseau's belief that the moral rules are, found "in the depths " of the heart, "written by Nature in ineffaceable characters." Rousseau believes that we can trust our "conscience" to tell us what to do. In practice Rousseau seems to have some problems with this (especially in his personal life), but in principle it is an embryonic form of Kant's "moral world within."
Russell says there are two objections to "the practice of basing beliefs as to objective fact upon the emotions of the heart." But I have shown above, I hope, that for Rousseau it is the intellectual realm, the realm of reason, which is to guide the heart, not the realm of emotions and passions, so we can skip these objections.
Russell now goes off the deep end, in my opinion. He says, "For my part, I prefer the ontological argument, the cosmological argument, and the rest of the stock-in-trade, to the sentimental illogicality that has sprung from Rousseau." We will see who is being illogical.
These very arguments which Russell prefers, he says of them, earlier in the chapter, that they "may not, to us seem very convincing, and we may feel that they would not have seemed cogent to anyone who did not already feel sure of the truth of the conclusion." In other words, they are not sound arguments. Rousseau tried to guide his sentiments by reason. it is only because Russell, wrongly, considered Rousseau an enemy of reason that he could prefer logically unsound arguments to Rousseau's open admission that he doesn't use these types of arguments because he doesn't think they prove anything.
What can one say about Russell being logical when he claims , "if I had to choose between Thomas Aquinas and Rousseau, I should unhesitatingly choose the saint." Unhesitatingly? Here is what Russell says about the good "saint" in HWP:
"There is little of the true philosophic spirit in Aquinas... Before he begins to philosophize he already knows the truth; it is declared in the Catholic faith. If he can find apparently rational arguments for some parts of the faith, so much the better; if he cannot, he need only fall back on revelation. The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading."
Why would Russell prefer "apparently rational special pleading" to the open honesty of Rousseau. Aquinas was a spokesman for a powerful institution that burned heretics and clamped down on free expression wherever it could. It burned books. Rousseau had his books burned. He, like Russell, was the victim of the followers of revelation. Rousseau at least thought for himself and fought against the tyranny of the absolute monarchical state. Doesn't honesty count? Russell thinks Aquinas not intellectually honest. It doesn't seem intellectually honest to prefer the dogma of the Catholic Church to the free thinking of Rousseau who rejected revelation and apparently rational arguments in favor of it.
How did Rousseau get the reputation as an "irrationalist"? I suggest that the answer can be found in Georg Lukacs's book "The Destruction of Reason." Lukacs, a Marxist, follows Engel's discussion of the British and French Enlightenment as tending towards "the metaphysical mode" of thinking. Engels means a type of mechanical "materialism" which he contrasts to dialectical thinking. He mentions Rousseau's "Discourse on the Origins of Inequality" as a "dialectical masterpiece."
Lukacs writes that the picture of "Rousseau as an 'irrationalist Romantic' is a product of polemics against the French Revolution." What Rousseau was trying to do in his social philosophy was to develop "the history of mankind and human society out of its autonomous movement, the deeds and sufferings of men themselves, and grasping the reason, i.e., the principles behind the movement." Lukacs also points out that, according to Engels the "Reason" that was lauded during the Enlightenment was the "Reason" of the rising bourgeois class not some abstract universal "Reason" and it was this bourgeois view of "Reason" that was the object of Rousseau's criticism.
Now lets look at what Russell says about Rousseau's political philosophy to see if it leads to Hitler. Russell admits that the "Social Contact" has "little sentimentality and much close intellectual reasoning," but that it only gives "lip-service to democracy" and bolsters the idea "of the totalitarian state."
Russell has problems with the concept of the "general will." Rousseau says that people who do not obey the "general will " must be "forced to be free." Russell remarks that, "The general will in the time of Galileo was certainly anti-Copernican, was Galileo 'forced to be free' when the Inquisition compelled him to recant?" This indicates, to me, that Russell didn't understand what the "general will" is.
What the social contact is supposed to do (it is a theoretical construct not an actual historical compact) is leave everybody as free as they were in the state of nature but without the inconveniences of that state. The whole contract boils down to one clause, according to Rousseau, "the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community; for, in the first place, as each gives himself absolutely, the conditions are the same for all; and this being so, no one has any interest in making them burdensome to others." This is pure Rawls.
Basically, the general will is that we do what is best for the state and everyone in it. The general will represents the maximum freedom possible for every individual. As a citizen each wants what is best for the state in respect to the rights and freedoms of all. However, Rousseau points out the "each man, may have a particular will contrary or dissimilar to the general will which he has as a citizen."
Here is a real example of being forced to be free. The general will dictates that the state do all it can to ensure the health of the population. My particular will may want to make a fortune by marketing an adulterated medicine. This could lead to an outbreak of plague that could also spread to my own family or even myself. By preventing me having my way the state certainly denied me the freedom to act as an individual, but it has enforced my will as a citizen since as a citizen I agree with the general will.
The reason why Hitler cannot be an outgrowth of Rousseau's thought is because Hitler's particular will replaced the general will. For Rousseau the Sovereign is the body politic, the people, and not a single individual. "If then the people promises simply to obey, by that very act it dissolves itself and loses what makes it a people; the moment a master exists, there is no longer a Sovereign, and from that moment the body politic has ceased to exist...."
Rousseau said for the general will to express itself "there should be no partial society" in the state and that "each citizen should think only his own thoughts...." Totalitarian governments do not encourage this type of thinking for oneself. A modern state cannot, however, really exist without partial societies (labor unions, employer's associations, small business owners, the AAUP, the AARP, the Bertrand Russell Society, etc.) Realizing this, Rousseau said "if there are partial societies, it is best to have as many as possible and to prevent them from being unequal... These precautions are the only ones that can guarantee that the general will shall be always enlightened, and that the people shall in no way deceive itself."
A lot more could be said about the "general will" and its contrast with "the will of all" (something very different) but I think I have accomplished my goal of showing that it is only a superficial reading of Rousseau that can judge him to be an irrationalist, and that there is nothing substantial to the charge that Hitler and his government grew out of the doctrines of Rousseau.
I should also note that Rousseau's paternalistic attitude towards women marred his political philosophy since the interests of half the human race were not taken into consideration in formulating the "general will." However that correction is easily made.
Finally, I think Russell, Engels, and Lukcas, but not Hitler, would agree with the following sentiment of Rousseau: "The noblest work of education is to make a reasoning man...."
EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT MAO (2)
MAO: A LIFE by Philip Short, New York, Henry Holt and Company, 2000. 782pp. [PART 2]
Reviewed by Thomas Riggins
This is an important work. Over the next few weeks I will be making entries one chapter at a time (there are sixteen). Comments are invited, especially from anyone who has read the book and wants to critique my take on a chapter, but anyone is welcome to comment.
Chapter Two: "Revolution"
This chapter recounts the events leading up to the overthrow of the Manchus and the swearing in of Sun Yat-sen as the first president of China on 1 January 1912, and the aftermath.
Chapter Three "Lords of Misrule"
After China became a Republic, Mao spent about five years in school in Changsha, the capital of Hunan. He studied to become a teacher. Many of the views he would hold for the rest of his life were formed at this time. He read many books, including Rousseau's Social Contract, Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws, Smith's Wealth of Nations and works by Herbert Spencer, Darwin, Huxley and John Stuart Mill.
It was a Chinese book, however, that was most influential: Si-Ma Guang's Comprehensive Mirror for the Aid of Those Who Govern. Si-Ma Guang was a minister to an emperor in the middle of the Song Dynasty who lived over seven hundred years ago. Mao kept this book and referred to it all his life. Its message was simple. Good and honest men were more important than the laws in ruling the Empire.
He also read the German thinker Paulsen's System of Ethics. Short says Mao retained three main principles from this book, First, the need for a powerful state; second, the centrality of the individual will; third, the ambiguous relationship between Chinese and Western culture.
He published his first article (in New Youth) in 1917 at age 24. He extolled the individual will. The quote from Short shows that Mao was far from Marxism at this time. "Ultimately, the individual comes first... Society is created by individuals, not individuals by society." At this time he also developed a "cardinal principle" that stayed with him the rest of his life. This was to ground "foreign ideas in Chinese reality to establish their relevance." This of course makes sense and is the origin of the later notion of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Mao also reflected on the view (Paulsen's) that cultures go through old age and then decline. "Revolution does not mean," he said, "using troops and arms, but replacing the old with the new." Yet, the basis of classical Chinese thought must be preserved. The future Cultural Revolution will test this idea, but it is 50 years in the future.
Short says "a chilling hint of future ruthlessness" can also be detected at this time. This is Mao's attitude of "focusing on what he considered the principle aspects of [a] problem... and disregarding what was secondary." An example was his support of a local warlord "Butcher Tang" who killed people all over the place in order to enforce "law and order" in his area (i.e., stability). Mao supported Butcher Tang since order was the main need at the time and the mass killings were therefore secondary. Later, however, he changed his mind about Butcher Tang-- but not the principle.
He also developed his life long views on education at this time. Short says he was against rote learning, anti-elitist and pro "open learning" and he supported Kant's dictum that "our understanding must come from the facts of experience." I should note that the future inspiration for The Little Red Book also had "an abhorrence of book-worship."
At this time, when most of the youth and radicals, were against China's traditional culture and only thinking in terms of the advantages of Western culture and science, Mao had a vision that Short calls "astonishingly modern." This was "a synthesis that would reconcile the traditional dialectic of the country's ancient ways of thought with Western radicalism."
Reviewed by Thomas Riggins
This is an important work. Over the next few weeks I will be making entries one chapter at a time (there are sixteen). Comments are invited, especially from anyone who has read the book and wants to critique my take on a chapter, but anyone is welcome to comment.
Chapter Two: "Revolution"
This chapter recounts the events leading up to the overthrow of the Manchus and the swearing in of Sun Yat-sen as the first president of China on 1 January 1912, and the aftermath.
Chapter Three "Lords of Misrule"
After China became a Republic, Mao spent about five years in school in Changsha, the capital of Hunan. He studied to become a teacher. Many of the views he would hold for the rest of his life were formed at this time. He read many books, including Rousseau's Social Contract, Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws, Smith's Wealth of Nations and works by Herbert Spencer, Darwin, Huxley and John Stuart Mill.
It was a Chinese book, however, that was most influential: Si-Ma Guang's Comprehensive Mirror for the Aid of Those Who Govern. Si-Ma Guang was a minister to an emperor in the middle of the Song Dynasty who lived over seven hundred years ago. Mao kept this book and referred to it all his life. Its message was simple. Good and honest men were more important than the laws in ruling the Empire.
He also read the German thinker Paulsen's System of Ethics. Short says Mao retained three main principles from this book, First, the need for a powerful state; second, the centrality of the individual will; third, the ambiguous relationship between Chinese and Western culture.
He published his first article (in New Youth) in 1917 at age 24. He extolled the individual will. The quote from Short shows that Mao was far from Marxism at this time. "Ultimately, the individual comes first... Society is created by individuals, not individuals by society." At this time he also developed a "cardinal principle" that stayed with him the rest of his life. This was to ground "foreign ideas in Chinese reality to establish their relevance." This of course makes sense and is the origin of the later notion of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Mao also reflected on the view (Paulsen's) that cultures go through old age and then decline. "Revolution does not mean," he said, "using troops and arms, but replacing the old with the new." Yet, the basis of classical Chinese thought must be preserved. The future Cultural Revolution will test this idea, but it is 50 years in the future.
Short says "a chilling hint of future ruthlessness" can also be detected at this time. This is Mao's attitude of "focusing on what he considered the principle aspects of [a] problem... and disregarding what was secondary." An example was his support of a local warlord "Butcher Tang" who killed people all over the place in order to enforce "law and order" in his area (i.e., stability). Mao supported Butcher Tang since order was the main need at the time and the mass killings were therefore secondary. Later, however, he changed his mind about Butcher Tang-- but not the principle.
He also developed his life long views on education at this time. Short says he was against rote learning, anti-elitist and pro "open learning" and he supported Kant's dictum that "our understanding must come from the facts of experience." I should note that the future inspiration for The Little Red Book also had "an abhorrence of book-worship."
At this time, when most of the youth and radicals, were against China's traditional culture and only thinking in terms of the advantages of Western culture and science, Mao had a vision that Short calls "astonishingly modern." This was "a synthesis that would reconcile the traditional dialectic of the country's ancient ways of thought with Western radicalism."
Monday, June 25, 2007
EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT MAO (1)
EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT MAO (1)
MAO: A LIFE by Philip Short, New York, Henry Holt and Company, 2000. 782pp.
Reviewed by Thomas Riggins [Part 1]
This is an important work. Over the next few weeks I will be making entries one chapter at a time (there are sixteen). Comments are invited, especially from anyone who has read the book and wants to critique my take on a chapter, but anyone is welcome to comment.
CHAPTER ONE “A Confucian Childhood”
Short aptly begins with December 26, 1893 in Hunan with Mao’s birth. His mother was a practicing Buddhist and, Short says, was disappointed when the teenage Mao gave up the faith. Her name gives some idea of the status of women at the time, Her name was Wen Qimei “Sister Seven” as girls were not given names, just numbers.
Mao came from a well off peasant family and his father was able to send him to the village school to get a traditional Confucian education. Short tells us that Mao learned three main principles from Confucianism. First, every person and every society “must have a moral compass.” Second, “the primacy of right thinking” which means that one’s thoughts had to be morally right: this was what Confucius called “virtue.” Third, “self-cultivation” was very important. These are not, I think, bad precepts to inculcate in children.
Short says that all his life Mao was influenced by Confucius, Zhuangzi (a Daoist) and Mozi as well as Lenin and Marx. He thinks the Confucian element was “as least as important” as the Marxist.
One of the major influences on his life, according to Mao himself, happened when he was 16 years old. These were the food riots of 1910 in Changsha. There was plenty of food for the people of Changsha but it was all shipped out to other places where it could be sold for more money so the locals all died from famine. People died in droves, sold their children, and even practiced cannibalism to survive. A nice introduction to the capitalist market for the young Mao.
This chapter ends with a discussion of modernism in the 1890s. Chinese were studying abroad and returning to introduce Western ideas into China. Short mentions Kang Youwei who updated Confucianism for the modern world and Liang Qichao who “took Charles Darwin’s thesis ‘the survival of the fittest’ and applied it to China’s national struggle....” Mao’s world was one of ferment.
I should note that “survival of the fittest” was actually the slogan of Herbert Spencer not Charles Darwin. Spencer adapted Darwin’s ideas to society to get a form of “social Darwinism.” Darwin was only interested in biology and his term was “natural selection.”
Posted by Thomas Riggins
from PAEditorsBlog
MAO: A LIFE by Philip Short, New York, Henry Holt and Company, 2000. 782pp.
Reviewed by Thomas Riggins [Part 1]
This is an important work. Over the next few weeks I will be making entries one chapter at a time (there are sixteen). Comments are invited, especially from anyone who has read the book and wants to critique my take on a chapter, but anyone is welcome to comment.
CHAPTER ONE “A Confucian Childhood”
Short aptly begins with December 26, 1893 in Hunan with Mao’s birth. His mother was a practicing Buddhist and, Short says, was disappointed when the teenage Mao gave up the faith. Her name gives some idea of the status of women at the time, Her name was Wen Qimei “Sister Seven” as girls were not given names, just numbers.
Mao came from a well off peasant family and his father was able to send him to the village school to get a traditional Confucian education. Short tells us that Mao learned three main principles from Confucianism. First, every person and every society “must have a moral compass.” Second, “the primacy of right thinking” which means that one’s thoughts had to be morally right: this was what Confucius called “virtue.” Third, “self-cultivation” was very important. These are not, I think, bad precepts to inculcate in children.
Short says that all his life Mao was influenced by Confucius, Zhuangzi (a Daoist) and Mozi as well as Lenin and Marx. He thinks the Confucian element was “as least as important” as the Marxist.
One of the major influences on his life, according to Mao himself, happened when he was 16 years old. These were the food riots of 1910 in Changsha. There was plenty of food for the people of Changsha but it was all shipped out to other places where it could be sold for more money so the locals all died from famine. People died in droves, sold their children, and even practiced cannibalism to survive. A nice introduction to the capitalist market for the young Mao.
This chapter ends with a discussion of modernism in the 1890s. Chinese were studying abroad and returning to introduce Western ideas into China. Short mentions Kang Youwei who updated Confucianism for the modern world and Liang Qichao who “took Charles Darwin’s thesis ‘the survival of the fittest’ and applied it to China’s national struggle....” Mao’s world was one of ferment.
I should note that “survival of the fittest” was actually the slogan of Herbert Spencer not Charles Darwin. Spencer adapted Darwin’s ideas to society to get a form of “social Darwinism.” Darwin was only interested in biology and his term was “natural selection.”
Posted by Thomas Riggins
from PAEditorsBlog
Saturday, June 23, 2007
REAGAN THE DUNCE
TALKING POINTS: REAGAN THE DUNCE
There is an interesting article by Susan J. Douglas in the July 2007 issue of In These Times, "The Enduring Lies of Ronald Reagan." I want to give a few highlights for the benefit of those who haven't seen it. It is important to have facts at hand in case you are unfortunate enough to run into someone who thinks Reagan was one our "great" presidents. If such a horrible fate should befall you, you can repel the evil influence by pointing out:
1. He was, according to polls at the time, one of the most unpopular modern presidents ever-- his ratings overall were lower than Kennedy's, Eisenhower's and Johnson's.
2. He was a big dunce-- trees cause more pollution than automobiles, the apartheid government in South Africa had eliminated "segregation" (also don't forget "ketchup is a vegetable" for the purpose of providing healthy food for poor children-- a hamburger with ketchup = meat, carbohydrate (bun), plus vegetable-- a perfectly healthy meal).
3. "Reaganomics" was a disaster-- one of the highest unemployment rates
since WW 2 (10.1% in 1981, 11.9 million out of work, 1982), 500,000 people (the majority children) fell into poverty due to welfare cuts while those making $80,000 plus got $15,000 more or less back from tax cuts, poverty rate went up to 15% the highest in 20 years.
4. His knowledge of foreign affairs was nil-- honoring Nazi war dead (Bitburg), Iran-Contra (who me?), [ and don't forget the Contras were the "moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers"], stupid actions in Lebanon and Beirut. [He gets credit for being in office and breathing when the USSR came apart].
5. Eight of his senior appointments were indicted, so he had one of the most corrupt administrations in living memory.
Just a few things to remember when St. Ronnie is conjured up from the vastly deep.
There is an interesting article by Susan J. Douglas in the July 2007 issue of In These Times, "The Enduring Lies of Ronald Reagan." I want to give a few highlights for the benefit of those who haven't seen it. It is important to have facts at hand in case you are unfortunate enough to run into someone who thinks Reagan was one our "great" presidents. If such a horrible fate should befall you, you can repel the evil influence by pointing out:
1. He was, according to polls at the time, one of the most unpopular modern presidents ever-- his ratings overall were lower than Kennedy's, Eisenhower's and Johnson's.
2. He was a big dunce-- trees cause more pollution than automobiles, the apartheid government in South Africa had eliminated "segregation" (also don't forget "ketchup is a vegetable" for the purpose of providing healthy food for poor children-- a hamburger with ketchup = meat, carbohydrate (bun), plus vegetable-- a perfectly healthy meal).
3. "Reaganomics" was a disaster-- one of the highest unemployment rates
since WW 2 (10.1% in 1981, 11.9 million out of work, 1982), 500,000 people (the majority children) fell into poverty due to welfare cuts while those making $80,000 plus got $15,000 more or less back from tax cuts, poverty rate went up to 15% the highest in 20 years.
4. His knowledge of foreign affairs was nil-- honoring Nazi war dead (Bitburg), Iran-Contra (who me?), [ and don't forget the Contras were the "moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers"], stupid actions in Lebanon and Beirut. [He gets credit for being in office and breathing when the USSR came apart].
5. Eight of his senior appointments were indicted, so he had one of the most corrupt administrations in living memory.
Just a few things to remember when St. Ronnie is conjured up from the vastly deep.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
U.S. TO AFGHANS: "SORRY WE KILLED YOUR CHILDREN BUT IT COULDN'T BE HELPED"
U.S. TO AFGHANS: “SORRY WE KILLED YOUR CHILDREN BUT IT COULDN'T BE HELPED.”
By Thomas Riggins
Its getting harder and harder to believe U.S. government spokespersons when they imply that the killing of Afghan children is something we try to avoid. The more you read the news reports the more it looks like our policy is one of just not giving a hoot about children and other civilians. It seems like we just don’t care if we kill them or not.
Tuesday’s New York Times (6-19-07) has a story by Barry Bearak and Taimoor Shah (“7 Children Killed in Coalition Airstrike on Religious Compound in Afghanistan”) that shows what I mean.
The Times reports that the children were killed in an airstrike against a compound “thought” [therefore not known] to be a Qaeda sanctuary. Its nice to know we bomb the Hell out of people on a suspicion they might be enemies.
The paper also reports that up to 50 civilians may have been killed in combat between the U.S. led forces and the Taliban in Uruzgan province. The head of the provincial council said,”I have seen with my own eyes that women and children were badly hit by bombing. The fighting is inside the villages, so that’s why the civilians are suffering casualties. I have met some families who have lost almost everyone.”
Since when is it ok to bomb and kill everyone in sight just because some enemy troops hide out in a village. A rural village can be surrounded and starved out. It may take longer but its better than mass murder of women and children just to save some time. There are other non lethal ways to deal with this type of situation as well. US forces should not be engaging in mass murder.
The Times says that the compound with the children in it ( which was only “thought” to be an enemy compound) was a “targeted strike.” Keep that in mind when reading the totally insincere and hypocritical explanations of the US army spokesman trying to justify child murder.
“We are truly sorry,” army Major Chris Belcher said, “for the innocent lives lost in this attack. We had surveillance on the compound all day and saw no indications there were children inside the building.” Well, without X-Ray vision it would be pretty hard to see inside the building. This just means the US did not know who or what was in the target. It could have been anybody. It is criminal to blow up such a target. It is, in fact, a war crime and should be treated as such. Even the Afghan president Hamid Karzai has complained about the high (and unnecessary) number of civilian deaths.
Not content with his original statement, Maj. Belcher decided to blame the Afghans for the death of the children. It was due to the “cowardice” of Al Qaeda. “Witness statements taken early this morning clearly put the blame on the suspected [still only suspects?] terrorists, saying that if the children attempted to go outside they were beaten and pushed away from the door” according to a press release from the US led forces.
This is definitely a crock. This was a “targeted bombing” the whole point of which is catch the “enemy” with his pants down. So the “terrorists," not expecting a bomb, would have no motive to keep the children inside the compound. What for? To be safe? They would know from experience that mere children wouldn’t stop us from blowing them up. If they thought we were going to bomb they would have been long gone. So this press release doesn’t make sense.
Who could the witnesses have been? If they lived to tell about what they saw they must have been coming and going in and out of the compound. If the compound was under “surveillance” then either they were seen to be unarmed civilians so the strike was misdirected and should have been called off, or they were carrying weapons and were thus the enemy ( and so we need not use expressions such as “suspected” and “thought to be”).
In other words, the whole story and the press release have the mark of the usual cover up when trigger happy officers order their subordinates to shoot up a village regardless of what will happen to the civilian population. But there were seven dead “militants” found in the rubble. What about that proof? I can only remark that in every killing spree the US and Nato forces conduct all the bodies of men (and sometimes women) are chalked up to being “militants.”
The Times reported that it was impossible to get any independent confirmation of what happened. I, for one, won’t take the US govenment’s word for anything after all the lies that have been spread about what goes on in Iraq and Afghanistan. [Remember how Pat Tillman died fighting the Taliban?]
Khalid Farouqi, an MP, said, “Nobody can accept the killing of women and children. It is not acceptable in either Islam or international law.” The US ambassador, William B. Wood, basing himself on the utterly ridiculous aforementioned press release, said: “Unfortunately, when the Taliban [before it was al Qaeda] are using civilians in this tactical way, instances of casualties just like instances from friendly fire, cannot be completely avoided.” Especially since, as with “friendly fire”, we don’t know what we are shooting at and bombing but we do it any way.
Finally, a quote from a medical doctor from the region where the children were killed. “The aircraft is targeting the civilians inside and outside of their houses. There are many villagers under the rubble.”
Thomas Riggins is the book review editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at pabooks@politicalaffairs.net
By Thomas Riggins
Its getting harder and harder to believe U.S. government spokespersons when they imply that the killing of Afghan children is something we try to avoid. The more you read the news reports the more it looks like our policy is one of just not giving a hoot about children and other civilians. It seems like we just don’t care if we kill them or not.
Tuesday’s New York Times (6-19-07) has a story by Barry Bearak and Taimoor Shah (“7 Children Killed in Coalition Airstrike on Religious Compound in Afghanistan”) that shows what I mean.
The Times reports that the children were killed in an airstrike against a compound “thought” [therefore not known] to be a Qaeda sanctuary. Its nice to know we bomb the Hell out of people on a suspicion they might be enemies.
The paper also reports that up to 50 civilians may have been killed in combat between the U.S. led forces and the Taliban in Uruzgan province. The head of the provincial council said,”I have seen with my own eyes that women and children were badly hit by bombing. The fighting is inside the villages, so that’s why the civilians are suffering casualties. I have met some families who have lost almost everyone.”
Since when is it ok to bomb and kill everyone in sight just because some enemy troops hide out in a village. A rural village can be surrounded and starved out. It may take longer but its better than mass murder of women and children just to save some time. There are other non lethal ways to deal with this type of situation as well. US forces should not be engaging in mass murder.
The Times says that the compound with the children in it ( which was only “thought” to be an enemy compound) was a “targeted strike.” Keep that in mind when reading the totally insincere and hypocritical explanations of the US army spokesman trying to justify child murder.
“We are truly sorry,” army Major Chris Belcher said, “for the innocent lives lost in this attack. We had surveillance on the compound all day and saw no indications there were children inside the building.” Well, without X-Ray vision it would be pretty hard to see inside the building. This just means the US did not know who or what was in the target. It could have been anybody. It is criminal to blow up such a target. It is, in fact, a war crime and should be treated as such. Even the Afghan president Hamid Karzai has complained about the high (and unnecessary) number of civilian deaths.
Not content with his original statement, Maj. Belcher decided to blame the Afghans for the death of the children. It was due to the “cowardice” of Al Qaeda. “Witness statements taken early this morning clearly put the blame on the suspected [still only suspects?] terrorists, saying that if the children attempted to go outside they were beaten and pushed away from the door” according to a press release from the US led forces.
This is definitely a crock. This was a “targeted bombing” the whole point of which is catch the “enemy” with his pants down. So the “terrorists," not expecting a bomb, would have no motive to keep the children inside the compound. What for? To be safe? They would know from experience that mere children wouldn’t stop us from blowing them up. If they thought we were going to bomb they would have been long gone. So this press release doesn’t make sense.
Who could the witnesses have been? If they lived to tell about what they saw they must have been coming and going in and out of the compound. If the compound was under “surveillance” then either they were seen to be unarmed civilians so the strike was misdirected and should have been called off, or they were carrying weapons and were thus the enemy ( and so we need not use expressions such as “suspected” and “thought to be”).
In other words, the whole story and the press release have the mark of the usual cover up when trigger happy officers order their subordinates to shoot up a village regardless of what will happen to the civilian population. But there were seven dead “militants” found in the rubble. What about that proof? I can only remark that in every killing spree the US and Nato forces conduct all the bodies of men (and sometimes women) are chalked up to being “militants.”
The Times reported that it was impossible to get any independent confirmation of what happened. I, for one, won’t take the US govenment’s word for anything after all the lies that have been spread about what goes on in Iraq and Afghanistan. [Remember how Pat Tillman died fighting the Taliban?]
Khalid Farouqi, an MP, said, “Nobody can accept the killing of women and children. It is not acceptable in either Islam or international law.” The US ambassador, William B. Wood, basing himself on the utterly ridiculous aforementioned press release, said: “Unfortunately, when the Taliban [before it was al Qaeda] are using civilians in this tactical way, instances of casualties just like instances from friendly fire, cannot be completely avoided.” Especially since, as with “friendly fire”, we don’t know what we are shooting at and bombing but we do it any way.
Finally, a quote from a medical doctor from the region where the children were killed. “The aircraft is targeting the civilians inside and outside of their houses. There are many villagers under the rubble.”
Thomas Riggins is the book review editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at pabooks@politicalaffairs.net
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
REMEMBERING RICHARD RORTY 1931-2007
REMEMBERING RICHARD RORTY 1931-2007
by Thomas Riggins
Last Saturday, June 8, one of the most influential American thinkers died at his home in California. Richard Rorty was educated as a philosopher but in his later years abandoned that field for the humanities and culture studies. The purpose of this remembrance is to outline his thought and see what, if any relevance, it has for Marxism and a progressive world outlook.
Rorty grew up in a left wing household dedicated to the views of Leon Trotsky. He said that when he was 12 he “knew that the point of being human was to spend one’s life fighting for social justice.” Well, he was off to a good start at any rate.
He was more or less known as a conventional analytic philosopher until his 1979 book (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature) appeared. In this book he argued that both the British-American analytic and the European philosophical traditions from Descartes to the present were wrong to think that philosophy could reveal some sort on independently existing objective truth “out there” which we could then accurately reflect in our philosophical languages.
Rorty became more and more influenced by the kind of “deconstructionist” thought associated with the writings of Derrida. His thought is summarized by W. L. Reese as follows. Rorty rejects systems and thinks one should be an “ironist, who does not presume any finality in the vocabulary to which he or she is drawn.”
So far so good. If we make a presumption of finality with respect to our positions we run the risk of being dogmatists. Marxists, as well as many others, have fallen (and still fall) into that trap.
But Rorty goes too far. According to Reese he thinks an argument is “merely a rhetorical device” which simply proposes a “new vocabulary” to use for “redescription” of whatever we are arguing about. Since this is the case we should forget building theories about “reality” but, as Reese puts it, “poetize culture, rather than rationalize or scientize it, celebrating not truth but play and metaphor.”
In other words, If I argue with a neocon about the war in Iraq I find myself in the following position. Bush has just made a big speech about weapons of mass destruction and the need to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq, and that Iraq is an existential danger to the United States. When I attack this position what I am really doing is providing a new vocabulary for what Bush has said thus creating a “redescription.” I come up with this: there are no weapons of mass destruction, this is a war for geopolitical regional dominance and for control of Iraqi oil, it has nothing to do with freedom and democracy.
What are the neocon and I doing? We are “poetizing” each others views and playing with metaphors. Rorty may or may not agree with me completely (he was antiwar) but may support me because he is liberal and he thinks “liberals now agree in their abhorrence of cruelty, and hope for the future diminution of suffering and humiliation.”
“Yes,” say I. “That’s my position.” “Mine too,” says the neocon. But my narrative demands this be achieved by stopping the war and withdrawing the troops. “No. no,” replies the neocon. His narrative demands this be achieved by increasing the troops and winning the war. Both narratives, Reese says, for Rorty are “without foundation.” They are not about truth but about metaphor. And, if I think my view has some real foundation, then I am a “liberal metaphysician” in Rorty’s words. A metaphysician, for Rorty, is someone with a fictional view of the world.
A. Quinton, writing on Rorty, says this view is “something like the extreme point of Derrida’s rejection of the ‘metaphysics of presence’, which holds not only that there are no absolute foundations, but that no belief is more fundamental than any other.” So the belief that genocide is wrong is no more fundamental than its opposite. This is not a position likely to recommend itself to Marxists, or anyone else, for that matter, who values rationality and doesn’t think nothing is right or wrong save thinking makes it so.
Rorty himself said, “There is no basis for deciding what counts as knowledge and truth other than what one’s peers will let one get away with in the open exchange of claims, counterclaims and reasons.” This certainly does not encourage thinking outside the box.
Using this criterion Spinoza would never bother to have developed his philosophy. Galileo should have realized the errors of his ways as well. Often new ideas have to fight against what one’s peers will let you get away with. But without some method which allows one to assert that not all narratives are equal and there is some method to discriminate between different and often contradictory truth claims you are forced to take this absurdist position of Rorty.
Daniel Dennett is quoted in the New York Times obituary as saying Rorty showed “a flatfooted ignorance of the proven methods of scientific truth-seeking and their power.”
Rorty may have been a good fellow for having liberal ideas, but allowing reactionaries and fascists, racists and neocons to hold their narratives of reality with the same truth values as his own means he was no friend of the progressive community.
by Thomas Riggins
Last Saturday, June 8, one of the most influential American thinkers died at his home in California. Richard Rorty was educated as a philosopher but in his later years abandoned that field for the humanities and culture studies. The purpose of this remembrance is to outline his thought and see what, if any relevance, it has for Marxism and a progressive world outlook.
Rorty grew up in a left wing household dedicated to the views of Leon Trotsky. He said that when he was 12 he “knew that the point of being human was to spend one’s life fighting for social justice.” Well, he was off to a good start at any rate.
He was more or less known as a conventional analytic philosopher until his 1979 book (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature) appeared. In this book he argued that both the British-American analytic and the European philosophical traditions from Descartes to the present were wrong to think that philosophy could reveal some sort on independently existing objective truth “out there” which we could then accurately reflect in our philosophical languages.
Rorty became more and more influenced by the kind of “deconstructionist” thought associated with the writings of Derrida. His thought is summarized by W. L. Reese as follows. Rorty rejects systems and thinks one should be an “ironist, who does not presume any finality in the vocabulary to which he or she is drawn.”
So far so good. If we make a presumption of finality with respect to our positions we run the risk of being dogmatists. Marxists, as well as many others, have fallen (and still fall) into that trap.
But Rorty goes too far. According to Reese he thinks an argument is “merely a rhetorical device” which simply proposes a “new vocabulary” to use for “redescription” of whatever we are arguing about. Since this is the case we should forget building theories about “reality” but, as Reese puts it, “poetize culture, rather than rationalize or scientize it, celebrating not truth but play and metaphor.”
In other words, If I argue with a neocon about the war in Iraq I find myself in the following position. Bush has just made a big speech about weapons of mass destruction and the need to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq, and that Iraq is an existential danger to the United States. When I attack this position what I am really doing is providing a new vocabulary for what Bush has said thus creating a “redescription.” I come up with this: there are no weapons of mass destruction, this is a war for geopolitical regional dominance and for control of Iraqi oil, it has nothing to do with freedom and democracy.
What are the neocon and I doing? We are “poetizing” each others views and playing with metaphors. Rorty may or may not agree with me completely (he was antiwar) but may support me because he is liberal and he thinks “liberals now agree in their abhorrence of cruelty, and hope for the future diminution of suffering and humiliation.”
“Yes,” say I. “That’s my position.” “Mine too,” says the neocon. But my narrative demands this be achieved by stopping the war and withdrawing the troops. “No. no,” replies the neocon. His narrative demands this be achieved by increasing the troops and winning the war. Both narratives, Reese says, for Rorty are “without foundation.” They are not about truth but about metaphor. And, if I think my view has some real foundation, then I am a “liberal metaphysician” in Rorty’s words. A metaphysician, for Rorty, is someone with a fictional view of the world.
A. Quinton, writing on Rorty, says this view is “something like the extreme point of Derrida’s rejection of the ‘metaphysics of presence’, which holds not only that there are no absolute foundations, but that no belief is more fundamental than any other.” So the belief that genocide is wrong is no more fundamental than its opposite. This is not a position likely to recommend itself to Marxists, or anyone else, for that matter, who values rationality and doesn’t think nothing is right or wrong save thinking makes it so.
Rorty himself said, “There is no basis for deciding what counts as knowledge and truth other than what one’s peers will let one get away with in the open exchange of claims, counterclaims and reasons.” This certainly does not encourage thinking outside the box.
Using this criterion Spinoza would never bother to have developed his philosophy. Galileo should have realized the errors of his ways as well. Often new ideas have to fight against what one’s peers will let you get away with. But without some method which allows one to assert that not all narratives are equal and there is some method to discriminate between different and often contradictory truth claims you are forced to take this absurdist position of Rorty.
Daniel Dennett is quoted in the New York Times obituary as saying Rorty showed “a flatfooted ignorance of the proven methods of scientific truth-seeking and their power.”
Rorty may have been a good fellow for having liberal ideas, but allowing reactionaries and fascists, racists and neocons to hold their narratives of reality with the same truth values as his own means he was no friend of the progressive community.
Friday, June 08, 2007
THE THEOLOGY OF SENATOR BROWNBACK
by Thomas Riggins
Personally I don’t think Sen. Sam Brownback from Kansas has much of a chance of getting the GOP presidential nomination in 2008. But you never know. Who would have thought someone of such a low caliber as George Bush would have gotten it in 2000?
In the first debate of the Republican candidates, Brownback raised his hand when the question was put as to which candidates did not believe in “evolution.” Now he has written an article, “What I Think About Evolution”, in the New York Times published as an op-ed piece on 5-31-07.
Brownback wrote the article to clarify his views. It is not, I think, a good article for a man who wants to be president for it shows that he has no understanding of science and that he does not use valid evidence or reasons to ground his beliefs. We have just had two terms of such a president, who has left the country in a mess, and we can ill afford another president whose views are not grounded in reality.
Brownback thinks that the "premise" behind the question is-- either you come out for evolution or "one must necessarily believe that God created the world and everything in it in six 24 hour days." For a man who says he wants to bring "seriousness" to the discussion, he is off to a bad start.
First we need a proper definition of "evolution." Scientifically speaking, the word refers to Darwin's theory of changes in species, and the development of new species, by random natural selection. This is the scientific biological evolutionary theory that has obscurantists, reactionaries and fundamentalists up in arms. There are other opponents besides these.
Anyone who believes in "design" is opposed to this theory-- not just the unsophisticated yokels who think every thing was made in six 24-hour days. The "premise" Brownback thinks the question entails is incorrect. He says so himself. But he set it up to make himself look more serious than he actually is, as we shall see.
Brownback says he believes there can be no contradiction between faith and reason. Let's see what he means by this and if he really does believe it.
The issue is: does science explain the origin of the universe and/or man, without the need to postulate a "creator", or is the postulate of a "creator" needed. Brownback's position that faith and reason (science) do not contradict each other is based upon the fact that he just assumes that there is a creator therefore, since that is a fact, what is there for science to contradict.
"The scientific method, based on reason, seeks to discover truths about the nature of the created order and how it operates, whereas faith deals with spiritual truths." In reality, science seeks to understand the nature of the universe, in practice it does not appeal to a "creator" and Brownback's assumption of a "created order" has no scientific warrant at all. And he seems not to understand that "reason" has little to do with faith.
There is no contradiction because "the spiritual order and the material order were created by the same God." Well, there is nothing like assuming in your premises the very conclusion you seek to support by your argument. Reason is obviously not being applied in this type of thinking (valid reason at any rate.)
Brownback fails to realize that there is a real antithesis between science and faith when it comes to trying to understand the physical world and the place of humans within it. "Faith," he says, "supplements the scientific method by providing an understanding of values, meaning and purpose." The problem here is a confusion between the descriptive function of science and the prescriptive role of faith.
For example, science can describe the values held by Christians and those held by different groups of non-Christians, what these values mean to the different groups, and what purpose (i.e., function) they play in different cultures. But if these are faith based values, science cannot say one faith based system is right and another wrong. If there was a compelling reason that showed one was right it would no longer be a matter of faith.
Brownback thinks he can reconcile the faith/science dichotomy, but he does it by rejecting science. Here is what he says about evolution. "If belief in evolution means simply assenting to micro evolution, small changes over time within a species [such as a diminishing ability to comprehend scientific theories in Kansans], I am happy to say, as I have in the past, that I believe it to be true." But he knows that that is not at all what the theory of evolution is about.
He says he rejects the view that "holds no place for a guiding intelligence" and that is "exclusively materialistic" and "deterministic." But he seems to reject more than that. Some religious folk believe in a guiding intellect and also that, e.g., humans evolved from ape like ancestors. Brownback doesn't say if he goes for that. His concept of micro evolution ("small changes within a species") would seem to leave Lucy and Homo erectus out of our family tree.
Brownback says the question of "whether man has a unique place in the world or is merely the chance product of random mutations-- go beyond empirical science and are better addressed in the realm of philosophy or theology."
Here he is simply wrong. It is precisely due to advances in genetics, DNA research, physical anthropology, and a host of related sciences, that the question of human origins, and life on earth in general, is primarily a question for the empirical sciences. If there is to be no conflict between religion and science then theology will have to evaluate the discoveries of science not try to ignore them or reject them and pretend it is better suited to give answers based on faith (i.e., based on nothing but a traditional belief from the pre-scientific past).
Science demands an open minded attitude. It bases its conclusions on the best available evidence. Brownback is wholly lacking in the open minded spirit of science. Only if science agrees with his faith based opinions will he accept it. "Man," he says, "was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order. Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth [there are none] are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth [no matter how firmly established by modern science], should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science."
An "atheistic theology" is a curious term. It is even more curious to think the modern science of evolutionary biology is any kind of theology at all. Brownback is a US Senator and could (God forbid!) become president. Be prepared for a new Dark Age. The faggot is not far from the fanatic.
Thomas Riggins is the book review editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at pabooks@politicalaffairs.net.
Personally I don’t think Sen. Sam Brownback from Kansas has much of a chance of getting the GOP presidential nomination in 2008. But you never know. Who would have thought someone of such a low caliber as George Bush would have gotten it in 2000?
In the first debate of the Republican candidates, Brownback raised his hand when the question was put as to which candidates did not believe in “evolution.” Now he has written an article, “What I Think About Evolution”, in the New York Times published as an op-ed piece on 5-31-07.
Brownback wrote the article to clarify his views. It is not, I think, a good article for a man who wants to be president for it shows that he has no understanding of science and that he does not use valid evidence or reasons to ground his beliefs. We have just had two terms of such a president, who has left the country in a mess, and we can ill afford another president whose views are not grounded in reality.
Brownback thinks that the "premise" behind the question is-- either you come out for evolution or "one must necessarily believe that God created the world and everything in it in six 24 hour days." For a man who says he wants to bring "seriousness" to the discussion, he is off to a bad start.
First we need a proper definition of "evolution." Scientifically speaking, the word refers to Darwin's theory of changes in species, and the development of new species, by random natural selection. This is the scientific biological evolutionary theory that has obscurantists, reactionaries and fundamentalists up in arms. There are other opponents besides these.
Anyone who believes in "design" is opposed to this theory-- not just the unsophisticated yokels who think every thing was made in six 24-hour days. The "premise" Brownback thinks the question entails is incorrect. He says so himself. But he set it up to make himself look more serious than he actually is, as we shall see.
Brownback says he believes there can be no contradiction between faith and reason. Let's see what he means by this and if he really does believe it.
The issue is: does science explain the origin of the universe and/or man, without the need to postulate a "creator", or is the postulate of a "creator" needed. Brownback's position that faith and reason (science) do not contradict each other is based upon the fact that he just assumes that there is a creator therefore, since that is a fact, what is there for science to contradict.
"The scientific method, based on reason, seeks to discover truths about the nature of the created order and how it operates, whereas faith deals with spiritual truths." In reality, science seeks to understand the nature of the universe, in practice it does not appeal to a "creator" and Brownback's assumption of a "created order" has no scientific warrant at all. And he seems not to understand that "reason" has little to do with faith.
There is no contradiction because "the spiritual order and the material order were created by the same God." Well, there is nothing like assuming in your premises the very conclusion you seek to support by your argument. Reason is obviously not being applied in this type of thinking (valid reason at any rate.)
Brownback fails to realize that there is a real antithesis between science and faith when it comes to trying to understand the physical world and the place of humans within it. "Faith," he says, "supplements the scientific method by providing an understanding of values, meaning and purpose." The problem here is a confusion between the descriptive function of science and the prescriptive role of faith.
For example, science can describe the values held by Christians and those held by different groups of non-Christians, what these values mean to the different groups, and what purpose (i.e., function) they play in different cultures. But if these are faith based values, science cannot say one faith based system is right and another wrong. If there was a compelling reason that showed one was right it would no longer be a matter of faith.
Brownback thinks he can reconcile the faith/science dichotomy, but he does it by rejecting science. Here is what he says about evolution. "If belief in evolution means simply assenting to micro evolution, small changes over time within a species [such as a diminishing ability to comprehend scientific theories in Kansans], I am happy to say, as I have in the past, that I believe it to be true." But he knows that that is not at all what the theory of evolution is about.
He says he rejects the view that "holds no place for a guiding intelligence" and that is "exclusively materialistic" and "deterministic." But he seems to reject more than that. Some religious folk believe in a guiding intellect and also that, e.g., humans evolved from ape like ancestors. Brownback doesn't say if he goes for that. His concept of micro evolution ("small changes within a species") would seem to leave Lucy and Homo erectus out of our family tree.
Brownback says the question of "whether man has a unique place in the world or is merely the chance product of random mutations-- go beyond empirical science and are better addressed in the realm of philosophy or theology."
Here he is simply wrong. It is precisely due to advances in genetics, DNA research, physical anthropology, and a host of related sciences, that the question of human origins, and life on earth in general, is primarily a question for the empirical sciences. If there is to be no conflict between religion and science then theology will have to evaluate the discoveries of science not try to ignore them or reject them and pretend it is better suited to give answers based on faith (i.e., based on nothing but a traditional belief from the pre-scientific past).
Science demands an open minded attitude. It bases its conclusions on the best available evidence. Brownback is wholly lacking in the open minded spirit of science. Only if science agrees with his faith based opinions will he accept it. "Man," he says, "was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order. Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth [there are none] are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth [no matter how firmly established by modern science], should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science."
An "atheistic theology" is a curious term. It is even more curious to think the modern science of evolutionary biology is any kind of theology at all. Brownback is a US Senator and could (God forbid!) become president. Be prepared for a new Dark Age. The faggot is not far from the fanatic.
Thomas Riggins is the book review editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at pabooks@politicalaffairs.net.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS: TWO PEAS IN A POD?
Thomas Riggins
PAEditorsBlog
The great debate rages on! Democrats are really different from Republicans. No, they are the same. I think the confusion results from not looking at this from a dialectical perspective. I am thinking of the dialectical ideas of the unity of opposites and identity in difference. I want to use a specific example not deal with abstract generalities.
It may seem paradoxical to speak of unity and identity being used in reference to concepts or objects that are ostensibly different. But I am thinking of the distinction between quantitative differences on one hand, and qualitative differences on the other. I think there is evidence that the Republicans are quantitatively different from the Democrats while at the same time they are qualitatively the same.
Both ultimately represent the interests of monopoly capital and hence are imperialist parties. What they argue about is how to best achieve the goals of US monopoly capital.
The war in Iraq is an example. This war, when all the patriotic hype is stripped away, was planned back in the 90s, 9/11 was the excuse not the cause, as a resource war to take over Iraq's oil and put the US in a commanding position in the Middle East. Victory will be the control of the oil.
Success or failure in the war cannot be judged by the number of people killed, by the level of sectarian violence, by the increase or decrease of troop levels, or how long the US must remain in Iraq. It can be judged by one thing, in the long run, and that is-- did we get control of the oil or not.
If we leave behind a democratic and prosperous Iraq with a free and happy people whose oil, however, remains owned and controlled by the Iraqi people themselves, then we have lost the war and all our sacrifice of troops and treasure will have been in vain.
On the other hand, if we leave behind a destroyed wasteland with five times as many troops lost as we have lost to date, if we have to maintain garrisoned outposts, and most of the Iraqi people have fled or been killed, but the oil is now controlled by our big oil companies, then we shall won a glorious victory.
How to get the oil? First, overthrow the government of Saddam which controls it. Mission accomplished. Second, install a regime that will be on friendly terms with the US. Mission accomplished. Third get that regime to pass a new oil law which favors the US. Their motivation? Well they need our troops to stay in power. Mission-- on hold.
The major bench mark (there are others, but this is numero uno) that we are demanding the government meet is the passage of the new Iraqi oil law. This law was devised and written by the Bush administration. The surge in troop levels is to impress the urgency of this benchmark on the government.
This law will effectively privatize 2/3rds of the oil giving ownership and then control of production (for the next 30 years) to foreign oil corporations such as Exxon-Mobile, Chevron, and (for Blair) British Petroleum [BP] among others. Since the Iraqi masses completely reject this benchmark (oil workers are striking against it at this very moment) it can be pushed through only with the presence of US troops. The recent talk out of Washington that Iraq will be like Korea, i.e., we will have to keep about 30,000 troops there for 50 years or so (!) is simply a realization that these troops will be needed to enforce this new oil law should the Iraqis pass it.
If they do Bush wins.
The Democrats, for all their anti-war talk (they have used the discontent of the American people to take over the Congress) have caved in to Bush on the funding of the war. They have abandoned a date certain to begin withdrawal and have also said that the Iraqi government must pass the oil law as a bench mark for continued support. Their leadership is also collaborating with Bush on trade policies favored by the big international corporations, including a sell out on the "fair trade" programs favored by the unions for "fast track" negotiating where big deals can be worked out by the executive branch which bypass the Congress. The Democrats, however want some slop thrown to the middle class and the workers and the poor.
Two peas in a pod? I think quantitatively NO (we get some slop after all) and qualitatively YES ( don't expect fundamental change in the goals of our corporate dominated government). Practically this boils down to, lets get rid of the Republicans, but then the real fun begins!
PAEditorsBlog
The great debate rages on! Democrats are really different from Republicans. No, they are the same. I think the confusion results from not looking at this from a dialectical perspective. I am thinking of the dialectical ideas of the unity of opposites and identity in difference. I want to use a specific example not deal with abstract generalities.
It may seem paradoxical to speak of unity and identity being used in reference to concepts or objects that are ostensibly different. But I am thinking of the distinction between quantitative differences on one hand, and qualitative differences on the other. I think there is evidence that the Republicans are quantitatively different from the Democrats while at the same time they are qualitatively the same.
Both ultimately represent the interests of monopoly capital and hence are imperialist parties. What they argue about is how to best achieve the goals of US monopoly capital.
The war in Iraq is an example. This war, when all the patriotic hype is stripped away, was planned back in the 90s, 9/11 was the excuse not the cause, as a resource war to take over Iraq's oil and put the US in a commanding position in the Middle East. Victory will be the control of the oil.
Success or failure in the war cannot be judged by the number of people killed, by the level of sectarian violence, by the increase or decrease of troop levels, or how long the US must remain in Iraq. It can be judged by one thing, in the long run, and that is-- did we get control of the oil or not.
If we leave behind a democratic and prosperous Iraq with a free and happy people whose oil, however, remains owned and controlled by the Iraqi people themselves, then we have lost the war and all our sacrifice of troops and treasure will have been in vain.
On the other hand, if we leave behind a destroyed wasteland with five times as many troops lost as we have lost to date, if we have to maintain garrisoned outposts, and most of the Iraqi people have fled or been killed, but the oil is now controlled by our big oil companies, then we shall won a glorious victory.
How to get the oil? First, overthrow the government of Saddam which controls it. Mission accomplished. Second, install a regime that will be on friendly terms with the US. Mission accomplished. Third get that regime to pass a new oil law which favors the US. Their motivation? Well they need our troops to stay in power. Mission-- on hold.
The major bench mark (there are others, but this is numero uno) that we are demanding the government meet is the passage of the new Iraqi oil law. This law was devised and written by the Bush administration. The surge in troop levels is to impress the urgency of this benchmark on the government.
This law will effectively privatize 2/3rds of the oil giving ownership and then control of production (for the next 30 years) to foreign oil corporations such as Exxon-Mobile, Chevron, and (for Blair) British Petroleum [BP] among others. Since the Iraqi masses completely reject this benchmark (oil workers are striking against it at this very moment) it can be pushed through only with the presence of US troops. The recent talk out of Washington that Iraq will be like Korea, i.e., we will have to keep about 30,000 troops there for 50 years or so (!) is simply a realization that these troops will be needed to enforce this new oil law should the Iraqis pass it.
If they do Bush wins.
The Democrats, for all their anti-war talk (they have used the discontent of the American people to take over the Congress) have caved in to Bush on the funding of the war. They have abandoned a date certain to begin withdrawal and have also said that the Iraqi government must pass the oil law as a bench mark for continued support. Their leadership is also collaborating with Bush on trade policies favored by the big international corporations, including a sell out on the "fair trade" programs favored by the unions for "fast track" negotiating where big deals can be worked out by the executive branch which bypass the Congress. The Democrats, however want some slop thrown to the middle class and the workers and the poor.
Two peas in a pod? I think quantitatively NO (we get some slop after all) and qualitatively YES ( don't expect fundamental change in the goals of our corporate dominated government). Practically this boils down to, lets get rid of the Republicans, but then the real fun begins!
Monday, June 04, 2007
READING THE PRESS ON IRAQ
PAEditorsBlog
Thomas Riggins
Reading the June 8, 2007 issue of "The Week" reveals how completely out of control Iraq is. "The Week" is a magazine that gives snippets of opinions from the national and international press. Here is some of the reportage on Bush's "surge" and the war in general.
The New York Times reported on a government study that shows that Iraq is Al Qaida's best training ground, much better than Afghanistan because of the urban environment. Perfect, the US is responsible for providing the best training conditions for urban terrorists. Soon to be seen in a city near you (or maybe your own).
The Palm Beach Post has figured it out. It editorialized as follows; "The United States has to be in Iraq to fight the terrorists, who are in Iraq because the United States is in Iraq." The Post concludes we should get out.
The San Antonio Express-News is on the slow track to nowhere. This paper said a withdrawal would be a defeat for the US (so what, its wrong to be there in the first place, anyway we are already defeated, it just hasn't sunk in yet) and would leave behind "chaos". Chaos is what we already have. This paper wants to give Bush more time for his surge to provide "measurable security progress."
Meanwhile, The Los Angeles Times reported that US generals in Iraq don't think this summer surge will achieve any of the goals Bush said it would. Therefore they are going to "redefine success." Somebody should alert the good folks at the San Antonio Express-News that "measurable security progress" isn't likely to be in the new definition of "success."
Andrew Sullivan was reported as having written, in "The Atlantic.com" that intelligence reports that Bush had before the invasion of Iraq told him an invasion would be "an al Qaida recruiter's dream." Sullivan opined that, "Al Qaida surely never had a more helpful man in such a powerful place."
Finally, while Bush continues to help out al Qaida and weaken the US defenses against another terror attack ( the above mentioned New York Times report also revealed, according to "The Week" that "Al Qaida is starting to use terrorists trained in Iraq to carry out missions in other countries")-- the dunderheads at "The Weekly Standard" have concluded, if columnist Frederick Kagan is any example, that al Qaida actually wants the US to withdraw.
Every report indicates that that is the last thing they want. They are slowly destroying us and they are growing and recruiting new members every day we stay. Kagan thinks they want us out so they can build a base for themselves in Iraq. If the Standard crowd could understand what they read in the press, they would have figured out that al Qaida already has a base in Iraq and is now exporting terror to other countries from it.
So is Bush nuts to stay in Iraq? The real reason we are there is for the oil. So, the so called "war on terror" is just a lot of infantile claptrap to occupy the minds of the American people and the press. We will, I think, eventually withdraw from Iraq. It will be as it was in Vietnam. The Iraqi people will drive us out.
Thomas Riggins
Reading the June 8, 2007 issue of "The Week" reveals how completely out of control Iraq is. "The Week" is a magazine that gives snippets of opinions from the national and international press. Here is some of the reportage on Bush's "surge" and the war in general.
The New York Times reported on a government study that shows that Iraq is Al Qaida's best training ground, much better than Afghanistan because of the urban environment. Perfect, the US is responsible for providing the best training conditions for urban terrorists. Soon to be seen in a city near you (or maybe your own).
The Palm Beach Post has figured it out. It editorialized as follows; "The United States has to be in Iraq to fight the terrorists, who are in Iraq because the United States is in Iraq." The Post concludes we should get out.
The San Antonio Express-News is on the slow track to nowhere. This paper said a withdrawal would be a defeat for the US (so what, its wrong to be there in the first place, anyway we are already defeated, it just hasn't sunk in yet) and would leave behind "chaos". Chaos is what we already have. This paper wants to give Bush more time for his surge to provide "measurable security progress."
Meanwhile, The Los Angeles Times reported that US generals in Iraq don't think this summer surge will achieve any of the goals Bush said it would. Therefore they are going to "redefine success." Somebody should alert the good folks at the San Antonio Express-News that "measurable security progress" isn't likely to be in the new definition of "success."
Andrew Sullivan was reported as having written, in "The Atlantic.com" that intelligence reports that Bush had before the invasion of Iraq told him an invasion would be "an al Qaida recruiter's dream." Sullivan opined that, "Al Qaida surely never had a more helpful man in such a powerful place."
Finally, while Bush continues to help out al Qaida and weaken the US defenses against another terror attack ( the above mentioned New York Times report also revealed, according to "The Week" that "Al Qaida is starting to use terrorists trained in Iraq to carry out missions in other countries")-- the dunderheads at "The Weekly Standard" have concluded, if columnist Frederick Kagan is any example, that al Qaida actually wants the US to withdraw.
Every report indicates that that is the last thing they want. They are slowly destroying us and they are growing and recruiting new members every day we stay. Kagan thinks they want us out so they can build a base for themselves in Iraq. If the Standard crowd could understand what they read in the press, they would have figured out that al Qaida already has a base in Iraq and is now exporting terror to other countries from it.
So is Bush nuts to stay in Iraq? The real reason we are there is for the oil. So, the so called "war on terror" is just a lot of infantile claptrap to occupy the minds of the American people and the press. We will, I think, eventually withdraw from Iraq. It will be as it was in Vietnam. The Iraqi people will drive us out.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
FASCIST TRICKS AT CNN? THE RACISM OF LOU DOBBS
PAEditorsBlog
Thomas Riggins
CNN likes to call itself "the most trusted name in news." What you call yourself and what you are often turn out to be quite different. Lou Dobbs, a "populist" champion of the angst ridden American middle class is a case in point. But first some comments on fascist disinformation techniques.
An old fascist trick is to rally support for regressive and racist causes by railing against "big government" from a "populist" point of view, pointing out how the middle class is "hurting" and the the interests of ordinary Americans are being ignored, while at the same time scapegoating another class or subgroup in society as being one of the sources of the problems facing "regular" people.
European fascists scapegoated Jews, gypsies, gay people, and foreigners at various times. Today, in the US one of the many groups targeted is likely to be immigrants, legal and/or illegal, (especially those of Mexican descent).
Lou Dobbs of CNN has managed to drive up the ratings of his show ("Lou Dobbs Tonight") by 72% in the last four years by using this tactic. He has even written a book "War on the Middle Class." CBS has gone so far as to hire him as a commentator for its "The Early Show." This means fascist techniques are going main stream.
The New York Times has called Dobbs "arguably this country's foremost populist." "Arguably" is the right word. I would argue no one is a true populist who bases his or her message on lies, slander and racism. This information is available in a Times article by David Leonhardt ("Truth, Fiction And Lou Dodds" in the Business Day section of 5-30-07.)
Here we find out that in 2005 Dobbs supported claims that immigrants had brought diseases to the US. He echoed the charge that there were 7000 cases of leprosy (Hansen's Disease) in the US between 2003 and 2005. This was not true but Dobbs and CNN refuse to retract it. This is in line with his belief that the main enemy of the "middle class" is illegal immigration.
"The invasion of illegal aliens," he said , "is threatening the health of many Americans." The Times reporter checked out the official figures and found out the 7000 cases were the figures for the last 30 not 3 years. This was pointed out to Dobbs. He was, as the Times put it, "flat-out wrong."
The test of a serious commentator or journalist or reporter, as opposed to a racist fear monger using fascist techniques against minority scapegoats, is his or her willingness to admit a mistake and apologize for the misunderstanding.
How did Dobbs do on this test of his integrity? He had presented this false information on his show at least two times. Once in 2005, and again this year when it was challenged. Leonhardt says "he has never acknowledged on the air that his program presented false information twice."
Leonhardt also checked transcripts of his shows and found out that Dobbs "has a somewhat flexible relationship with reality." He claimed "one-third of the inmates in the federal prison system are illegal immigrants." The truth is that its only 6%.
Leonhardt also found out that Dobbs gave airtime "to white supremacy sympathizers." The Times article concludes that Dobbs, with his mixtures of truth and lies, "is the heir to the nativist tradition that has long used fiction and conspiracy theories as weapons against the Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, the Jews and, now, the Mexicans."
Don Imus lost his job for being stupid and insensitive. The racist filth spewed forth by someone like Dobbs is more deadly by far. That CNN and CBS both seek his services should let us know what type of society the corporations are preparing for our future.
Thomas Riggins can be reached at pabooks@politicalaffairs.net
Thomas Riggins
CNN likes to call itself "the most trusted name in news." What you call yourself and what you are often turn out to be quite different. Lou Dobbs, a "populist" champion of the angst ridden American middle class is a case in point. But first some comments on fascist disinformation techniques.
An old fascist trick is to rally support for regressive and racist causes by railing against "big government" from a "populist" point of view, pointing out how the middle class is "hurting" and the the interests of ordinary Americans are being ignored, while at the same time scapegoating another class or subgroup in society as being one of the sources of the problems facing "regular" people.
European fascists scapegoated Jews, gypsies, gay people, and foreigners at various times. Today, in the US one of the many groups targeted is likely to be immigrants, legal and/or illegal, (especially those of Mexican descent).
Lou Dobbs of CNN has managed to drive up the ratings of his show ("Lou Dobbs Tonight") by 72% in the last four years by using this tactic. He has even written a book "War on the Middle Class." CBS has gone so far as to hire him as a commentator for its "The Early Show." This means fascist techniques are going main stream.
The New York Times has called Dobbs "arguably this country's foremost populist." "Arguably" is the right word. I would argue no one is a true populist who bases his or her message on lies, slander and racism. This information is available in a Times article by David Leonhardt ("Truth, Fiction And Lou Dodds" in the Business Day section of 5-30-07.)
Here we find out that in 2005 Dobbs supported claims that immigrants had brought diseases to the US. He echoed the charge that there were 7000 cases of leprosy (Hansen's Disease) in the US between 2003 and 2005. This was not true but Dobbs and CNN refuse to retract it. This is in line with his belief that the main enemy of the "middle class" is illegal immigration.
"The invasion of illegal aliens," he said , "is threatening the health of many Americans." The Times reporter checked out the official figures and found out the 7000 cases were the figures for the last 30 not 3 years. This was pointed out to Dobbs. He was, as the Times put it, "flat-out wrong."
The test of a serious commentator or journalist or reporter, as opposed to a racist fear monger using fascist techniques against minority scapegoats, is his or her willingness to admit a mistake and apologize for the misunderstanding.
How did Dobbs do on this test of his integrity? He had presented this false information on his show at least two times. Once in 2005, and again this year when it was challenged. Leonhardt says "he has never acknowledged on the air that his program presented false information twice."
Leonhardt also checked transcripts of his shows and found out that Dobbs "has a somewhat flexible relationship with reality." He claimed "one-third of the inmates in the federal prison system are illegal immigrants." The truth is that its only 6%.
Leonhardt also found out that Dobbs gave airtime "to white supremacy sympathizers." The Times article concludes that Dobbs, with his mixtures of truth and lies, "is the heir to the nativist tradition that has long used fiction and conspiracy theories as weapons against the Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, the Jews and, now, the Mexicans."
Don Imus lost his job for being stupid and insensitive. The racist filth spewed forth by someone like Dobbs is more deadly by far. That CNN and CBS both seek his services should let us know what type of society the corporations are preparing for our future.
Thomas Riggins can be reached at pabooks@politicalaffairs.net
BUSH IS DELUSIONAL
PAEditorsBlog
BUSH IS DELUSIONAL
Thomas Riggins
The Congress should really gear up impeachment hearings. Reading today's AP reports [5/29] shows that the president has really lost it. He is quoted as saying only a "handful" of people oppose his war policies and think we should get out of Iraq. He is convinced that the majority of Americans support him. This is dangerous. If he is that disconnected from the polls and mood of the people he can engage in truly irrational actions under the impression that the "American people" are behind him.
Here is the AP lead: "Confronted with strong opposition to his Iraq policies, President George W. Bush decides to interpret public opinion his own way. Actually, he says, people agree with him."
This is taking the maxim of "we make our own reality" too far. With the AP reporting that 55% of the American people want to see some or all of the troops pulled out of Iraq, Bush nevertheless maintains that the majority really wants to see them stay in theater and supports his military policy.
And what do the president's aides say when asked about negative poll numbers? They "say poll questions are asked so many ways that it is impossible to conclude that Americans really want to get out."
The way the Democratic leadership has caved in to Bush they must have arrived at the same conclusion.
BUSH IS DELUSIONAL
Thomas Riggins
The Congress should really gear up impeachment hearings. Reading today's AP reports [5/29] shows that the president has really lost it. He is quoted as saying only a "handful" of people oppose his war policies and think we should get out of Iraq. He is convinced that the majority of Americans support him. This is dangerous. If he is that disconnected from the polls and mood of the people he can engage in truly irrational actions under the impression that the "American people" are behind him.
Here is the AP lead: "Confronted with strong opposition to his Iraq policies, President George W. Bush decides to interpret public opinion his own way. Actually, he says, people agree with him."
This is taking the maxim of "we make our own reality" too far. With the AP reporting that 55% of the American people want to see some or all of the troops pulled out of Iraq, Bush nevertheless maintains that the majority really wants to see them stay in theater and supports his military policy.
And what do the president's aides say when asked about negative poll numbers? They "say poll questions are asked so many ways that it is impossible to conclude that Americans really want to get out."
The way the Democratic leadership has caved in to Bush they must have arrived at the same conclusion.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
ARE THE WORLD BANK AND INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND BECOMING IRRELEVANT?
ARE THE WORLD BANK AND INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND BECOMING IRRELEVANT?
by Thomas Riggins
The Wolfowitz scandal has raised some questions about the relevance of the financial institutions set up to stabilize the world economy after W.W.II. It was in 1944, just before the end of the war, at Bretton Woods, N.H. that both the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were set up.
Some critics maintain that in today’s world of Globalization these institutions, along with the World Trade Organization (the successor to 1947’s General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, G.A.T.T.), are becoming increasingly irrelevant.
Last Wednesday a major article appeared in the “Business Day” section of The New York Times addressing just this issue. (“Cracks in the Financial Foundation: Roles of 3 Institutions Questioned in a Changing Global Economy,” by Steven R. Weisman, 5-23-2007).
For one thing, their roles don’t seem to be as important as they once were. World Bank loans, for example, to poor countries only account for about 7% of the aid they get from all sources. There are also questions being raised about the Bank’s policy of loaning money to midlevel developing countries.
Some eyebrows are being raised over $40 billion in loans to China (which has a trillion dollars as reserves). The Chinese, in fact have loaned out some $20 billion of their own to poor nations in Africa. The Bank likes these loans because it knows it will get paid back with interest and it uses this money to bankroll its staff and research projects. But is it really helping the poor?
Robert E. Rubin (a past Secretary of the Treasury) is quoted as saying, “The Bretton Woods system has become outmoded. It has served us [i.e., Western capitalists] very well for a long time, but these institutions haven’t changed with the times. They need to be rethought and restructured.”
The Wolfowitz scandal didn’t help. Eckhard Deutscher, one of the Bank’s directors, says, “The biggest challenge of the World Bank is to restore its credibility. But the international community also needs to look at the whole system. There are governance problems across the board.
It has been a tradition that the head of the Bank is nominated by the US President. But what happens, as with Wolfowitz, when an incompetent President nominates an incompetent political loyalist? Wolfowitz has resigned, but Bush will get to name his replacement. Many of the international directors would like to revisit the nomination process. Kenneth S. Rogoff, a Harvard professor, maintains that, “The Wolfowitz situation exposed what an antediluvian system the bank has. But I’m worried that this crisis is going to set back the reform process.”
Many think the Bank has really fallen down on the job of helping the poor. These critics, looking at the China situation above, want the Bank to quit loaning money to middle income countries, and to begin just giving outright grants to the poor countries. At the present time about 93% of the aid that poor countries get from the governments in the more developed world is coming from some 230 different international agencies. The Bank’s role is rather modest in comparison. Everyone seems to agree that the Bank has become, in some sense, “marginal” but still important.
The same can be said about the International Monetary Fund. Former Secretary of State (and Secretary of the Treasury as well) George P. Shultz is quoted as saying, “In the past I have called for the abolition of the I.M.F. If it disappeared tomorrow, I don’t think people would miss it very much.”
The I.M.F. you may recall, gained notoriety for insisting that Asia and Latin American countries seeking aid sould cut back on all the programs they had for helping poor people-- so called “austerity measures” were insisted upon, leading to social unrest. The Fund is unpopular at the present time, basically because there is a booming global economy, at least for the capitalists. But this is capitalism, after all, and the good times won’t last forever.
Another Harvard professor admits as much. Richard N. Cooper maintains that, “We happen to be in a very quiet time at the moment. People are saying ‘Who Needs It [the I.M.F.]?’ I am morally certain that financial crises are not a thing of the past, and that we’ll see crises in the future. The I.M.F. is the obvious collaborative instrument to deal with them.” But what about the policy of “austerity?” That might just start off a revolutionary spark.
Finally, one last institution seems on the verge of a breakdown. This is the World Trade Organization (W.T.O.). The W.T.O. dates from 1995 when it replaced the G.A.T.T. But it has been bogged down in getting a new international trade regime in place for the last five years--- ever since it began talks in 2002 in Doha, Qatar.
These talks are on the verge of failure because the Third World nations are putting up stiff resistance to rules the U.S. and Europe are trying to push through which will significantly damage poor nations to the advantage of the rich.
“Many trade experts fear,” the article reports, “that if the talks fail, it could lead to a reversal of 60 years of opening the trading system to more goods and services.”
What is the issue? The U.S. and Europe want to protect their own domestic markets and at the same time are insisting that Third World countries open their domestic markets to them. This would lead to the destruction of small and midlevel producers throughout the Third World whose domestic markets would be taken over by First World producers who would simultaneously be blocking the entrance of Third World products into the markets of the First World.
As the Times reports, “The Doha talks are at an impasse because the United States and Europe are refusing to lower barriers on farm goods and both are demanding that India and other exporting countries lower barriers of their own.”
This is a typical capitalist squabble. One that the imperialist powers are used to winning. But they have not been able to advance their cause for the last five years. Third World bourgeoisies are turning out to have more staying power against the imperialist bourgeoisies than had been expected. This too is one of the major reasons that the international financial tools of the West, hammered out at Bretton Woods in 1944 are finding themselves to be increasingly irrelevant.
Thomas Riggins is the book review editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at pabooks@politicalaffairs.net.
by Thomas Riggins
The Wolfowitz scandal has raised some questions about the relevance of the financial institutions set up to stabilize the world economy after W.W.II. It was in 1944, just before the end of the war, at Bretton Woods, N.H. that both the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were set up.
Some critics maintain that in today’s world of Globalization these institutions, along with the World Trade Organization (the successor to 1947’s General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, G.A.T.T.), are becoming increasingly irrelevant.
Last Wednesday a major article appeared in the “Business Day” section of The New York Times addressing just this issue. (“Cracks in the Financial Foundation: Roles of 3 Institutions Questioned in a Changing Global Economy,” by Steven R. Weisman, 5-23-2007).
For one thing, their roles don’t seem to be as important as they once were. World Bank loans, for example, to poor countries only account for about 7% of the aid they get from all sources. There are also questions being raised about the Bank’s policy of loaning money to midlevel developing countries.
Some eyebrows are being raised over $40 billion in loans to China (which has a trillion dollars as reserves). The Chinese, in fact have loaned out some $20 billion of their own to poor nations in Africa. The Bank likes these loans because it knows it will get paid back with interest and it uses this money to bankroll its staff and research projects. But is it really helping the poor?
Robert E. Rubin (a past Secretary of the Treasury) is quoted as saying, “The Bretton Woods system has become outmoded. It has served us [i.e., Western capitalists] very well for a long time, but these institutions haven’t changed with the times. They need to be rethought and restructured.”
The Wolfowitz scandal didn’t help. Eckhard Deutscher, one of the Bank’s directors, says, “The biggest challenge of the World Bank is to restore its credibility. But the international community also needs to look at the whole system. There are governance problems across the board.
It has been a tradition that the head of the Bank is nominated by the US President. But what happens, as with Wolfowitz, when an incompetent President nominates an incompetent political loyalist? Wolfowitz has resigned, but Bush will get to name his replacement. Many of the international directors would like to revisit the nomination process. Kenneth S. Rogoff, a Harvard professor, maintains that, “The Wolfowitz situation exposed what an antediluvian system the bank has. But I’m worried that this crisis is going to set back the reform process.”
Many think the Bank has really fallen down on the job of helping the poor. These critics, looking at the China situation above, want the Bank to quit loaning money to middle income countries, and to begin just giving outright grants to the poor countries. At the present time about 93% of the aid that poor countries get from the governments in the more developed world is coming from some 230 different international agencies. The Bank’s role is rather modest in comparison. Everyone seems to agree that the Bank has become, in some sense, “marginal” but still important.
The same can be said about the International Monetary Fund. Former Secretary of State (and Secretary of the Treasury as well) George P. Shultz is quoted as saying, “In the past I have called for the abolition of the I.M.F. If it disappeared tomorrow, I don’t think people would miss it very much.”
The I.M.F. you may recall, gained notoriety for insisting that Asia and Latin American countries seeking aid sould cut back on all the programs they had for helping poor people-- so called “austerity measures” were insisted upon, leading to social unrest. The Fund is unpopular at the present time, basically because there is a booming global economy, at least for the capitalists. But this is capitalism, after all, and the good times won’t last forever.
Another Harvard professor admits as much. Richard N. Cooper maintains that, “We happen to be in a very quiet time at the moment. People are saying ‘Who Needs It [the I.M.F.]?’ I am morally certain that financial crises are not a thing of the past, and that we’ll see crises in the future. The I.M.F. is the obvious collaborative instrument to deal with them.” But what about the policy of “austerity?” That might just start off a revolutionary spark.
Finally, one last institution seems on the verge of a breakdown. This is the World Trade Organization (W.T.O.). The W.T.O. dates from 1995 when it replaced the G.A.T.T. But it has been bogged down in getting a new international trade regime in place for the last five years--- ever since it began talks in 2002 in Doha, Qatar.
These talks are on the verge of failure because the Third World nations are putting up stiff resistance to rules the U.S. and Europe are trying to push through which will significantly damage poor nations to the advantage of the rich.
“Many trade experts fear,” the article reports, “that if the talks fail, it could lead to a reversal of 60 years of opening the trading system to more goods and services.”
What is the issue? The U.S. and Europe want to protect their own domestic markets and at the same time are insisting that Third World countries open their domestic markets to them. This would lead to the destruction of small and midlevel producers throughout the Third World whose domestic markets would be taken over by First World producers who would simultaneously be blocking the entrance of Third World products into the markets of the First World.
As the Times reports, “The Doha talks are at an impasse because the United States and Europe are refusing to lower barriers on farm goods and both are demanding that India and other exporting countries lower barriers of their own.”
This is a typical capitalist squabble. One that the imperialist powers are used to winning. But they have not been able to advance their cause for the last five years. Third World bourgeoisies are turning out to have more staying power against the imperialist bourgeoisies than had been expected. This too is one of the major reasons that the international financial tools of the West, hammered out at Bretton Woods in 1944 are finding themselves to be increasingly irrelevant.
Thomas Riggins is the book review editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at pabooks@politicalaffairs.net.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
CHILDHOOD ORIGINS OF ADULT RESISTANCE TO MARXISM
CHILDHOOD ORIGINS OF ADULT RESISTANCE TO MARXISM
by Thomas Riggins
Why is it so difficult to build a Marxist mass movement in the US? There are Marxist movements of considerable size, in comparison to the US, both in many Third World nations and in countries more advanced than the US. Not only is Marxism seemingly at a disadvantage in the US but a scientific world outlook is similarly hindered with respect to a favorable growth outlook. At the same time many views and outlooks characteristic of medieval obscurantism (fundamentalist religious beliefs-- for example), blatant superstition (astrology), superficial intellectually childish “philosophical” trends (Ayn Rand, Deepak Chopra, etc.), are flourishing.
There may be a scientific explanation for Adult Resistance to Marxism (ARM). In this article I will explore the causes of ARM and propose possible remedies to this serious mental deficiency which severely prevents those who are victims of this disorder from properly functioning in their social environment and maximizing their abilities to provide the best possible existential conditions for the flourishing of themselves and their loved ones.
The scientific information on which this article is based is critically culled from the article “Childhood Origins of Adult Resistance to Science” by Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg (SCIENCE 18 May 2007 VOL 316).
The authors of this article are concerned about the negative social consequences of the resistance that many American adults have to the acceptance of scientific ideas. I believe that ARM results from some of the same fundamental causes that Bloom and Weisberg list for the rejection of science and that the same negative results are involved with ARM.
The authors maintain that “a scientifically ignorant public is unprepared to evaluate policies about global warming, vaccination, genetically modified organisms, stem cell research, and cloning.” There are social repercussions as a result of this ignorance.
I hasten to add, that as a result of ARM the public is also ignorant with respect to the proper attitudes to take on the issues of war and peace, racism, international relations, employment and unemployment, proper education polices and health issues, among many other social problems.
The authors use developmental psychology to suggest that two basic characteristics about children may make some resistance to ideas based on science “a human universal.” This would also explain the origin of ARM if their views are correct.
The authors claim that, "The main source of resistance concerns what children know before their exposure to science." We are told that "recent psychological research" shows that babies are not "blank slates" [the authors, however start with one year olds for their argument] and that children know all sorts of things about the world-- objects are solid, people react emotionally to appropriate situations, etc. What they call "naive" physics and psychology.
Bloom and Weisberg think this is a problem. Children don't have an accurate perception of the world in a scientific sense, according to them. Scientific views are so different from normal common sense (Einstein, Quantum Theory, Darwin, etc.). This makes it difficult to teach scientific theories to them.
This is hogwash. Children learn by trial and error and learn from their mistakes. They are natural born scientists using the empirical method and induction (as well some deduction after many experiences.) They learn the same way all mammals do. The scientific method is simply a more sophisticated extension of this "naive" common sense approach to understanding the world. They also have basic moral intuitions such as fairness and empathy which, if they were properly educated, would reinforce socialist ideals of equality and non-expoitation in adulthood.
The authors, however, think this intuitive approach leads to a resistance to science and ultimately to belief in things such as ESP, astrology, ghosts, fairies, divination, and creationism. None of these things, by the way, follow from the common sense view of the world any more than do scientific theories, indeed rather less so.
Children have natural developmental stages that they go through. If they are taught properly, at age appropriate levels, there will be no untoward resistance to science education and understanding. Almost all the examples the authors give of childhood scientific resistance is the result of bad educational methods and poor nurturing. If this "resistance" really were "inborn" science would never have gotten off the ground in the first place.
The second fact, having, I hope, disposed of the bogus first factoid (what children spontaneously intuitively know), has more merit. This is "how children learn." This basically has to do with the fact that children trust the adults that raise them and tend to believe what they are told as long as it doesn't conflict completely with common sense.
The children of uneducated and ignorant adults will tend to be more ignorant and uneducated that those of knowledgeable educated adults-- and vice versa. This is hardly startling. Take the example of creationism versus evolution. Children trust their parents and their teachers. But if their parents are creationists, other things being equal, the children will likely be so too. This is because they spend far more time around their parents and their like-minded parent's friends, etc., than they do around their science teachers.
The authors hold that the evidence suggests these science resistant people maintain their beliefs for reasons "not necessarily rooted in an appreciation of the evidence and arguments." But this surely a problem of nurture not nature.
The reason, they say, that this nonscientific, or even antiscientific group of people resists scientific rationality is "because they trust the people who say it [the unscientific explanation] is true." All of this can be explained by education, class and culture without recourse to any inborn psychological
propensities to be found in babies.
The authors finally arrive at the amazing conclusion that "recent studies" suggest that children, just as adults, "rely on the trustworthiness of the source when deciding which asserted claims to believe." And if the educational system has done its job of providing a basic scientific analysis, I think, of the world system for people they will also be able to rely on the objective evidence for an assertion as well.
It is for the same reasons that Marxism is not objectively taught in the US that science is also played down. Namely, there are too many vested interests that benefit from the ignorance of the population. In our class riven society neither science nor a Marxist understanding are in the interests of the ruling corporate elites or the political parties and forces that control the levers of power.
The authors seem to recognize this when they write that unscientific beliefs in the US "are particularly likely to be endorsed and transmitted by trusted religious and political authorities." But instead of having a Marxist analysis of why this so in a capitalist society, the authors fall back on the notion that "developmental data suggest that resistance to science will arise in children when scientific claims clash with early emerging intuitive expectations." This is a cop out as the so called "clash" can only take place when age inappropriate teaching methods are applied to the education of young children, or anti-scientific (also anti-socialist) attitudes are deliberately cultivated.
It is the fact that our ruling class is not committed to a universal scientific education for children, not "intuitive expectations" that is responsible for the backward educational climate in the US. The fact that the authors don't see that Marxism, or scientific socialism, is as important a part of education as neuroscience and evolutionary biology only shows that many scientists themselves have a resistance to science. Perhaps they should have entitled their paper "Adult Origins of Childhood Resistance to Science."
Finally, antiscientific outlooks, as well as ARM, will only be eliminated by a reorganization of the educational system, especially early childhood education, with an emphasis on independent critical thinking, scientific method, and the banning of religious propaganda.
Thomas Riggins is the book review editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at pabooks@politicalaffairs.net.
by Thomas Riggins
Why is it so difficult to build a Marxist mass movement in the US? There are Marxist movements of considerable size, in comparison to the US, both in many Third World nations and in countries more advanced than the US. Not only is Marxism seemingly at a disadvantage in the US but a scientific world outlook is similarly hindered with respect to a favorable growth outlook. At the same time many views and outlooks characteristic of medieval obscurantism (fundamentalist religious beliefs-- for example), blatant superstition (astrology), superficial intellectually childish “philosophical” trends (Ayn Rand, Deepak Chopra, etc.), are flourishing.
There may be a scientific explanation for Adult Resistance to Marxism (ARM). In this article I will explore the causes of ARM and propose possible remedies to this serious mental deficiency which severely prevents those who are victims of this disorder from properly functioning in their social environment and maximizing their abilities to provide the best possible existential conditions for the flourishing of themselves and their loved ones.
The scientific information on which this article is based is critically culled from the article “Childhood Origins of Adult Resistance to Science” by Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg (SCIENCE 18 May 2007 VOL 316).
The authors of this article are concerned about the negative social consequences of the resistance that many American adults have to the acceptance of scientific ideas. I believe that ARM results from some of the same fundamental causes that Bloom and Weisberg list for the rejection of science and that the same negative results are involved with ARM.
The authors maintain that “a scientifically ignorant public is unprepared to evaluate policies about global warming, vaccination, genetically modified organisms, stem cell research, and cloning.” There are social repercussions as a result of this ignorance.
I hasten to add, that as a result of ARM the public is also ignorant with respect to the proper attitudes to take on the issues of war and peace, racism, international relations, employment and unemployment, proper education polices and health issues, among many other social problems.
The authors use developmental psychology to suggest that two basic characteristics about children may make some resistance to ideas based on science “a human universal.” This would also explain the origin of ARM if their views are correct.
The authors claim that, "The main source of resistance concerns what children know before their exposure to science." We are told that "recent psychological research" shows that babies are not "blank slates" [the authors, however start with one year olds for their argument] and that children know all sorts of things about the world-- objects are solid, people react emotionally to appropriate situations, etc. What they call "naive" physics and psychology.
Bloom and Weisberg think this is a problem. Children don't have an accurate perception of the world in a scientific sense, according to them. Scientific views are so different from normal common sense (Einstein, Quantum Theory, Darwin, etc.). This makes it difficult to teach scientific theories to them.
This is hogwash. Children learn by trial and error and learn from their mistakes. They are natural born scientists using the empirical method and induction (as well some deduction after many experiences.) They learn the same way all mammals do. The scientific method is simply a more sophisticated extension of this "naive" common sense approach to understanding the world. They also have basic moral intuitions such as fairness and empathy which, if they were properly educated, would reinforce socialist ideals of equality and non-expoitation in adulthood.
The authors, however, think this intuitive approach leads to a resistance to science and ultimately to belief in things such as ESP, astrology, ghosts, fairies, divination, and creationism. None of these things, by the way, follow from the common sense view of the world any more than do scientific theories, indeed rather less so.
Children have natural developmental stages that they go through. If they are taught properly, at age appropriate levels, there will be no untoward resistance to science education and understanding. Almost all the examples the authors give of childhood scientific resistance is the result of bad educational methods and poor nurturing. If this "resistance" really were "inborn" science would never have gotten off the ground in the first place.
The second fact, having, I hope, disposed of the bogus first factoid (what children spontaneously intuitively know), has more merit. This is "how children learn." This basically has to do with the fact that children trust the adults that raise them and tend to believe what they are told as long as it doesn't conflict completely with common sense.
The children of uneducated and ignorant adults will tend to be more ignorant and uneducated that those of knowledgeable educated adults-- and vice versa. This is hardly startling. Take the example of creationism versus evolution. Children trust their parents and their teachers. But if their parents are creationists, other things being equal, the children will likely be so too. This is because they spend far more time around their parents and their like-minded parent's friends, etc., than they do around their science teachers.
The authors hold that the evidence suggests these science resistant people maintain their beliefs for reasons "not necessarily rooted in an appreciation of the evidence and arguments." But this surely a problem of nurture not nature.
The reason, they say, that this nonscientific, or even antiscientific group of people resists scientific rationality is "because they trust the people who say it [the unscientific explanation] is true." All of this can be explained by education, class and culture without recourse to any inborn psychological
propensities to be found in babies.
The authors finally arrive at the amazing conclusion that "recent studies" suggest that children, just as adults, "rely on the trustworthiness of the source when deciding which asserted claims to believe." And if the educational system has done its job of providing a basic scientific analysis, I think, of the world system for people they will also be able to rely on the objective evidence for an assertion as well.
It is for the same reasons that Marxism is not objectively taught in the US that science is also played down. Namely, there are too many vested interests that benefit from the ignorance of the population. In our class riven society neither science nor a Marxist understanding are in the interests of the ruling corporate elites or the political parties and forces that control the levers of power.
The authors seem to recognize this when they write that unscientific beliefs in the US "are particularly likely to be endorsed and transmitted by trusted religious and political authorities." But instead of having a Marxist analysis of why this so in a capitalist society, the authors fall back on the notion that "developmental data suggest that resistance to science will arise in children when scientific claims clash with early emerging intuitive expectations." This is a cop out as the so called "clash" can only take place when age inappropriate teaching methods are applied to the education of young children, or anti-scientific (also anti-socialist) attitudes are deliberately cultivated.
It is the fact that our ruling class is not committed to a universal scientific education for children, not "intuitive expectations" that is responsible for the backward educational climate in the US. The fact that the authors don't see that Marxism, or scientific socialism, is as important a part of education as neuroscience and evolutionary biology only shows that many scientists themselves have a resistance to science. Perhaps they should have entitled their paper "Adult Origins of Childhood Resistance to Science."
Finally, antiscientific outlooks, as well as ARM, will only be eliminated by a reorganization of the educational system, especially early childhood education, with an emphasis on independent critical thinking, scientific method, and the banning of religious propaganda.
Thomas Riggins is the book review editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at pabooks@politicalaffairs.net.
Monday, May 21, 2007
TURKEY SHOULD BE IN THE E.U.
.On May 16 Nicolas Sarkozy became president of France. The prime minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan reacted to Sarkozy's anti-Turkish stance with respect to membership in the EU. Sarkozy doesn't want to let Turkey in because it's a culturally alien Asiatic country, according to him. (And the French are supposed to be rational and enlightened!)
PM Erdogan said: "This approach of Mr. Sarkozy comes from prejudices. Mr. Sarkozy has to overcome these prejudices. Turkey's E.U. membership is the peace project of the 21st century, an alliance of East and West."
The greatest blow that Islamic fundamentalism could get would be for the world's Islamic community to see Europeans welcome Islamic Turkey into the bourgeois democratic EU. It would completely wipe out the "clash of civilizations" nonsense and boost the national democratic aspirations of the people, as opposed to the ideology of fundamentalism, throughout the Muslim world. If would undo a wee bit of the damage done by the Great Leader Dubya and his oil crusade in Iraq.
Thomas Riggins
[based on a report by Sabrina Tavernise in the NYT]
(from PAEditorsBlog)
PM Erdogan said: "This approach of Mr. Sarkozy comes from prejudices. Mr. Sarkozy has to overcome these prejudices. Turkey's E.U. membership is the peace project of the 21st century, an alliance of East and West."
The greatest blow that Islamic fundamentalism could get would be for the world's Islamic community to see Europeans welcome Islamic Turkey into the bourgeois democratic EU. It would completely wipe out the "clash of civilizations" nonsense and boost the national democratic aspirations of the people, as opposed to the ideology of fundamentalism, throughout the Muslim world. If would undo a wee bit of the damage done by the Great Leader Dubya and his oil crusade in Iraq.
Thomas Riggins
[based on a report by Sabrina Tavernise in the NYT]
(from PAEditorsBlog)
Friday, May 18, 2007
STOP THE PRESSES
Thomas Riggins
An interesting sentence is buried in a page six NYT story “Death-Squad Scandal Circles Closer to Colombia’s President” [5-16-07] by Simon Romero.
The death squads are tools of the state and private interests to terrorize and kill the poor (to take their land), the workers ( to prevent unions) and indigenous peoples (to drive them out of areas rich in minerals and oil.) Colombian President Alvaro Uribe (an ultra-right Bush ally) is involved with these squads of right wing murderers.
The sentence I mentioned is the following: “But the scandal over the paramilitary ties now threatens a growing number of legislators, business executives, military leaders and AMERICAN CORPORATIONS over their collaboration with the paramilitary death squads, which are classified as terrorist organizations by the United States State Department.” [ my emphasis- tr]
Well, let’s see what the Great Leader of the War on Terror has to say about his buddy Alvaro and the American companies which are part of his (Bush's) “base.”
[from PAEditorsBlog]
An interesting sentence is buried in a page six NYT story “Death-Squad Scandal Circles Closer to Colombia’s President” [5-16-07] by Simon Romero.
The death squads are tools of the state and private interests to terrorize and kill the poor (to take their land), the workers ( to prevent unions) and indigenous peoples (to drive them out of areas rich in minerals and oil.) Colombian President Alvaro Uribe (an ultra-right Bush ally) is involved with these squads of right wing murderers.
The sentence I mentioned is the following: “But the scandal over the paramilitary ties now threatens a growing number of legislators, business executives, military leaders and AMERICAN CORPORATIONS over their collaboration with the paramilitary death squads, which are classified as terrorist organizations by the United States State Department.” [ my emphasis- tr]
Well, let’s see what the Great Leader of the War on Terror has to say about his buddy Alvaro and the American companies which are part of his (Bush's) “base.”
[from PAEditorsBlog]
LET JERRY FALWELL REST IN PEACE
Thomas Riggins
I’ve been reading a lot of comments on the passing of Falwell. The man had some strange ideas, from my perspective, about Jesus. He opposed civil rights for minorities, supported the apartheid regime in South Africa, and wanted to subject women’s bodies to the control of men, also rights of gay people to be treated as equal human beings was opposed by him. Most of his teachings on these issues don’t square with the teachings of Jesus. It makes me wonder if Falwell ever read the Sermon on the Mount.
The poor man could not help himself. Although he had the good luck to have had an atheist for a grandfather and a non-religious father, he fell under the spell of his bible toting mother. “It was my mother,” he said, who planted the seeds of faith in me from the moment I was born.” Some children never grow up to think for themselves. Falwell, had he been born in the middle east to a Muslim mother or in Japan to a Buddhist one, would certainly have been a Muslim or a Buddhist.
Sen. McCain [ before he saw how many votes he stood to lose and changed his mind] called Falwell one of the “forces for evil” and “agents of intolerance.” “Evil” is too metaphysical a concept for me, but he was a force for “intolerance” with respect to the rights of human beings to live happy and fruitful lives of their own choosing even when they were doing no harm to others. But millions of Americans, unfortunately, have been brought up in this society, just as he was, which has a great historical undertow of racism and violence left over from the era of slavery and the Indian wars.
Falwell and his fans were caught in this undertow: some like Jerry, from birth, and were simply swept along by it into the dark ocean of prejudice, ignorance, and hatred. In his own words he tells us that but for the accident of birth he well might have been a jihadist. The following words are from Falwell, but Osama bin Laden could have written them-- the beliefs are the same: “We are born into a war zone where the forces of God do battle with the forces of evil. Sometimes we get trapped, pinned down in the cross fire. And in the heat of that noisy, distracting battle, two voices call out for us to follow. Satan wants to lead us into death. God wants to lead us into life eternal.”
Falwell, as has bin Laden and many a confused soldier on that battlefield, did not understand what he heard above the din of battle and followed the wrong voice
[from PAEditorsBlog]
I’ve been reading a lot of comments on the passing of Falwell. The man had some strange ideas, from my perspective, about Jesus. He opposed civil rights for minorities, supported the apartheid regime in South Africa, and wanted to subject women’s bodies to the control of men, also rights of gay people to be treated as equal human beings was opposed by him. Most of his teachings on these issues don’t square with the teachings of Jesus. It makes me wonder if Falwell ever read the Sermon on the Mount.
The poor man could not help himself. Although he had the good luck to have had an atheist for a grandfather and a non-religious father, he fell under the spell of his bible toting mother. “It was my mother,” he said, who planted the seeds of faith in me from the moment I was born.” Some children never grow up to think for themselves. Falwell, had he been born in the middle east to a Muslim mother or in Japan to a Buddhist one, would certainly have been a Muslim or a Buddhist.
Sen. McCain [ before he saw how many votes he stood to lose and changed his mind] called Falwell one of the “forces for evil” and “agents of intolerance.” “Evil” is too metaphysical a concept for me, but he was a force for “intolerance” with respect to the rights of human beings to live happy and fruitful lives of their own choosing even when they were doing no harm to others. But millions of Americans, unfortunately, have been brought up in this society, just as he was, which has a great historical undertow of racism and violence left over from the era of slavery and the Indian wars.
Falwell and his fans were caught in this undertow: some like Jerry, from birth, and were simply swept along by it into the dark ocean of prejudice, ignorance, and hatred. In his own words he tells us that but for the accident of birth he well might have been a jihadist. The following words are from Falwell, but Osama bin Laden could have written them-- the beliefs are the same: “We are born into a war zone where the forces of God do battle with the forces of evil. Sometimes we get trapped, pinned down in the cross fire. And in the heat of that noisy, distracting battle, two voices call out for us to follow. Satan wants to lead us into death. God wants to lead us into life eternal.”
Falwell, as has bin Laden and many a confused soldier on that battlefield, did not understand what he heard above the din of battle and followed the wrong voice
[from PAEditorsBlog]
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
BALONEY, BROOKS AND BLAIR
by Thomas Riggins
Reading David Brooks, the ultra-right New York Times op-eder, never fails to amuse. He is able to take the simplest facts and twist them around to such a degree that they come out looking like the exact opposite of what they really mean. A recent case in point is his article on Tony Blair (NYT 5-11-07) which he entitled “The Human Community.”
His opening sentence reflects the “the conventional view” about Tony Blair, a view that is, incidentally, true so far as it goes-- i.e., Tony Blair “was a talented leader whose career was sadly over shadowed by Iraq.” Brooks thinks this view “is absurd.”
Brooks says that Blair wasn’t making an error of judgment when he went into Iraq along with Bush. His decision “grew out of the essence of who he is.” And that would be? Well Tariq Ali says Blair is a second rate politician with a third rate mind. That is one kind of essence.
He jumped into a war that was the result of lies and is responsible, along with Bush, for hundreds of thousands of needless deaths. That is the essence of who he is. Now Brooks will pull out the baloney to try and turn this sad and rotten essence into one of shining purity. God will even play a role (via a theologian) in the redemption of a man with the essence of a mass murderer.
We are told that Blair believes that globalization is making us all more dependent on one another and that “the world will flourish only if the international community enforces shared, universal values.” Such values, I presume, as waging wars of aggression and occupation on other people’s countries without the sanction of the UN and clearly in violation of the wishes of the international community.
Actions speak louder than words. Blair believes nothing at all about a world of shared, universal values. He has his own values and if the world begs to differ, too bad.
Where do his values come from? It all began long ago when little Tony was 11 years old. His father had a stroke and Tony was led to the theologian John Macmurray. Brooks quotes Blair. “If you really want to understand what I’m all about you have to take a look at a guy called John Macmurray. It’s all there.”
So, lets take a look. By way of preface I can only say that the late John Macmurray would not take comfort in the thought that he was the inspiration for a war criminal.
There are certain themes running through the theology of Macmurray. One is that action should prevail over thinking. First comes the act, then reflection. Well, Blair did this in Iraq. First invade, then think about the consequences. It's not really a very good philosophy, or in Macmurray's case "theology."
Macmurray has written that science "is characteristically Christian." He calls it, "the intellectual life of faith." But science deals with the physical world and empirical evidence. Faith deals with hopes and unseen non-empirical pseudo-entities. This is also characteristic of Blair who believes in "Iraqi democracy" with reference to a militia dominated fundamentalist Iraqi government. Faith based politics, yes, scientific understanding, no.
Macmurray also bases his thinking on the "God of the Hebrews" (the genocidal demon that was worshiped in Old Testament days) not the God of the Greeks (Zeus had a libido problem but he didn't engage in genocide.) I think philosophical reason is really meant with respect to the Greeks.
More positively, Macmurray was interested in the "human community." For him ""community means a "common life" through religion while "society" means a "common purpose" to be found through "politics." Like many Islamists (and Blair's buddy George Bush), Macmurray thinks politics should be suborned to religion. If Blair is really a Macmurryite he is a strange ally for the US which was founded on the separation of church and state. Maybe not so strange since Britain has a state church and president Bush, in complete violation of his oath to uphold the Constitution has tried to break down the wall of separation between church and state.
Macmurray says life has two aspects. The first is the realm of the "functional" workaday world in which we live, it is a sphere of inequality (this view is amenable to conservative status quo thinking). The second is the realm of the "personal" where human equality reigns. In other words, as human persons we are all equal, but in the real world don't forget to salute officers and bow and scrape before your betters. Or, as Macmurray puts it: "The functional life is for the personal life: the personal life is through the functional life."
One of the great values celebrated by Macmurray is that of "freedom." And now we get to Brooks again, and the "essence" of Tony Blair. Macmurray tells us that: "We can preserve our freedom only by sharing it."
Tariq Ali is right. Only a third rate intellect would interpret this lofty theological abstraction as a license to wage an armed crusade against another people bringing them death and destruction and calling it "freedom."
This is how Brooks tries to dress up Blair's criminality and wretched chauvinistic beliefs. He quotes Blair on the war and aftermath of 9/11: "This is not a clash between civilizations. It is a clash about civilization [i.e., we are civilized. our enemies are uncivilized]. It is the age-old battle between progress and reaction, between those who embrace and see opportunity in the modern world [such as being able to launch aggressive wars of conquest] and those who reject its existence." Yes indeed. Tony Blair's world of war and death, which he shares with president Bush, should be rejected, it is definitely about civilization and Blair is no spokesman for the side of the civilized.
Brooks now outdoes himself in illogicality in describing how Blair concluded he must support Bush's middle eastern crusade. Blair "concluded that Britain had to combat those who would divide the human community even without the support of the multilateral institutions that he cherished."
But the multilateral institutions are the institutions that "the human community" has devised in order to help preserve itself from war and misadventure. What Brooks is saying is that Blair decided he must combat the human community to save the human community. Third rate thinking at its best. Brooks's baloney, on the other hand, is first rate.
Thomas Riggins is the book review editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at pabooks@politicalaffairs.net.
Reading David Brooks, the ultra-right New York Times op-eder, never fails to amuse. He is able to take the simplest facts and twist them around to such a degree that they come out looking like the exact opposite of what they really mean. A recent case in point is his article on Tony Blair (NYT 5-11-07) which he entitled “The Human Community.”
His opening sentence reflects the “the conventional view” about Tony Blair, a view that is, incidentally, true so far as it goes-- i.e., Tony Blair “was a talented leader whose career was sadly over shadowed by Iraq.” Brooks thinks this view “is absurd.”
Brooks says that Blair wasn’t making an error of judgment when he went into Iraq along with Bush. His decision “grew out of the essence of who he is.” And that would be? Well Tariq Ali says Blair is a second rate politician with a third rate mind. That is one kind of essence.
He jumped into a war that was the result of lies and is responsible, along with Bush, for hundreds of thousands of needless deaths. That is the essence of who he is. Now Brooks will pull out the baloney to try and turn this sad and rotten essence into one of shining purity. God will even play a role (via a theologian) in the redemption of a man with the essence of a mass murderer.
We are told that Blair believes that globalization is making us all more dependent on one another and that “the world will flourish only if the international community enforces shared, universal values.” Such values, I presume, as waging wars of aggression and occupation on other people’s countries without the sanction of the UN and clearly in violation of the wishes of the international community.
Actions speak louder than words. Blair believes nothing at all about a world of shared, universal values. He has his own values and if the world begs to differ, too bad.
Where do his values come from? It all began long ago when little Tony was 11 years old. His father had a stroke and Tony was led to the theologian John Macmurray. Brooks quotes Blair. “If you really want to understand what I’m all about you have to take a look at a guy called John Macmurray. It’s all there.”
So, lets take a look. By way of preface I can only say that the late John Macmurray would not take comfort in the thought that he was the inspiration for a war criminal.
There are certain themes running through the theology of Macmurray. One is that action should prevail over thinking. First comes the act, then reflection. Well, Blair did this in Iraq. First invade, then think about the consequences. It's not really a very good philosophy, or in Macmurray's case "theology."
Macmurray has written that science "is characteristically Christian." He calls it, "the intellectual life of faith." But science deals with the physical world and empirical evidence. Faith deals with hopes and unseen non-empirical pseudo-entities. This is also characteristic of Blair who believes in "Iraqi democracy" with reference to a militia dominated fundamentalist Iraqi government. Faith based politics, yes, scientific understanding, no.
Macmurray also bases his thinking on the "God of the Hebrews" (the genocidal demon that was worshiped in Old Testament days) not the God of the Greeks (Zeus had a libido problem but he didn't engage in genocide.) I think philosophical reason is really meant with respect to the Greeks.
More positively, Macmurray was interested in the "human community." For him ""community means a "common life" through religion while "society" means a "common purpose" to be found through "politics." Like many Islamists (and Blair's buddy George Bush), Macmurray thinks politics should be suborned to religion. If Blair is really a Macmurryite he is a strange ally for the US which was founded on the separation of church and state. Maybe not so strange since Britain has a state church and president Bush, in complete violation of his oath to uphold the Constitution has tried to break down the wall of separation between church and state.
Macmurray says life has two aspects. The first is the realm of the "functional" workaday world in which we live, it is a sphere of inequality (this view is amenable to conservative status quo thinking). The second is the realm of the "personal" where human equality reigns. In other words, as human persons we are all equal, but in the real world don't forget to salute officers and bow and scrape before your betters. Or, as Macmurray puts it: "The functional life is for the personal life: the personal life is through the functional life."
One of the great values celebrated by Macmurray is that of "freedom." And now we get to Brooks again, and the "essence" of Tony Blair. Macmurray tells us that: "We can preserve our freedom only by sharing it."
Tariq Ali is right. Only a third rate intellect would interpret this lofty theological abstraction as a license to wage an armed crusade against another people bringing them death and destruction and calling it "freedom."
This is how Brooks tries to dress up Blair's criminality and wretched chauvinistic beliefs. He quotes Blair on the war and aftermath of 9/11: "This is not a clash between civilizations. It is a clash about civilization [i.e., we are civilized. our enemies are uncivilized]. It is the age-old battle between progress and reaction, between those who embrace and see opportunity in the modern world [such as being able to launch aggressive wars of conquest] and those who reject its existence." Yes indeed. Tony Blair's world of war and death, which he shares with president Bush, should be rejected, it is definitely about civilization and Blair is no spokesman for the side of the civilized.
Brooks now outdoes himself in illogicality in describing how Blair concluded he must support Bush's middle eastern crusade. Blair "concluded that Britain had to combat those who would divide the human community even without the support of the multilateral institutions that he cherished."
But the multilateral institutions are the institutions that "the human community" has devised in order to help preserve itself from war and misadventure. What Brooks is saying is that Blair decided he must combat the human community to save the human community. Third rate thinking at its best. Brooks's baloney, on the other hand, is first rate.
Thomas Riggins is the book review editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at pabooks@politicalaffairs.net.
Monday, May 14, 2007
BOTSWANA GOVERNMENT RESTRICTS UN ACCESS
For some reason the Botswana government is bound and determined to destroy the culture and way of life of the idigenous Bushmen people by taking their land from them. An African government acting like a colonial power against its own people does not set a good example for handling disputes with indigenous peoples. The Bushmen are the original inhabitants of Botswana, indeed, of all of southern Africa, and their rights should be respected. The government of Botswana should respect its own High Court and should also cooperate with the UN. It should be ashamed to persecute the Bushmen and try to take their land away!
Thomas Riggins
[from PAEditorsBlog]
SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE
14 May 2007
BOTSWANA: GOVERNMENT RESTRICTS UN ACCESS
The Botswana government has announced that access to the country for
the top UN human rights spokesman for indigenous peoples will be
restricted.
Survival's director Stephen Corry said today, 'The Botswana
government clearly thinks it has something to hide from the UN
special rapporteur. And indeed it does - despite the Botswana High
Court's decisive ruling in the Bushmen's favour, the government is
still trying to stop them returning to their land.'
[for more info google Survival International]
Thomas Riggins
[from PAEditorsBlog]
SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE
14 May 2007
BOTSWANA: GOVERNMENT RESTRICTS UN ACCESS
The Botswana government has announced that access to the country for
the top UN human rights spokesman for indigenous peoples will be
restricted.
Survival's director Stephen Corry said today, 'The Botswana
government clearly thinks it has something to hide from the UN
special rapporteur. And indeed it does - despite the Botswana High
Court's decisive ruling in the Bushmen's favour, the government is
still trying to stop them returning to their land.'
[for more info google Survival International]
Thursday, May 10, 2007
KHALIL GIBRAN AND RADICAL ISLAM
The news reports from New York City indicate that the Khalil Gibran International Academy set up to study Arabic (it is a public school, by the way) is facing opposition from some parents and conservative news columnists who fear it will “promote radical Islam.”
The press should inform the public that Gibran (1883-1931), the author of The Prophet, was an Arab-American of Lebanese descent. He was an artist and a poet. He studied in Paris with the sculptor Rodin, and his poetry influenced JFK, who lifted the line about not asking what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country from one of his works. He was also a Christian.
It seems unlikely that the New York City school system will allow this new public school to become a hot bed of radical Islam.
Posted by Thomas Riggins
The press should inform the public that Gibran (1883-1931), the author of The Prophet, was an Arab-American of Lebanese descent. He was an artist and a poet. He studied in Paris with the sculptor Rodin, and his poetry influenced JFK, who lifted the line about not asking what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country from one of his works. He was also a Christian.
It seems unlikely that the New York City school system will allow this new public school to become a hot bed of radical Islam.
Posted by Thomas Riggins
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)