philosophy.com has few Australian readers interested in political philosophy, and there are few philosophically informed weblogs in Australia. So it is always very heartening when a new one arrives on the local scene.
This is one. Don Arthur's Wealth for Toil. Don has writing since June but I have only just noticed. So I have been reading the archives and came across this post. In it Don says:
"The left struggles to achieve two things:to reduce inequalities of status, power, and wealth; and
to prevent inequality in one sphere from translating into inequality in another.Egalitarianism is the defining feature of the left. It is what all leftist projects have in common. The only thing that unites the right is its opposition to equality. It is the only reason groups like religious fundamentalists and economic liberals can find common ground."
I'm not so sure. It would be equality plus sustainability these days. We do not want a just (ie. an equal society) that is premised on unsustainable economic growth, which rips the guts out of the country. That is social democracy.
Few social democrats ask the question: equality for what? Equality is taken to be an end in itself, rather than a means to achieve the good life (a flourishing life well lived).
This is a bit of the beaten track for philosophy.com but I find it interesting. Work blogs.
The Guardian article says:
"The vast majority of blogs are background static to all but the friends and family of their creators, but it is becoming increasingly possible to find blogs that give unique insights into the working life of the authors.
Many "bloggers" write openly about their work, sometimes with approval from their employer."
Background static/noise huh. That is the view of the established media. Or it is vanity publishing. More like disruptive innovation.
Well, there are many different kinds of works blogs. Academics run them, journalists them, those involved in public policy run them and often with approval of their employers. The blogs do not need to be about work--they can be on other issues and be informed by work.
Why raise it? Well it makes a welcome change from what Matt has called "the collective mastication of the on-going Left-Right bitch-fest that so poisons the Australian blogosphere."
The bitch fest bores me.
I see that the ethnic Italian voice of Wogblog (Friday, April 4) has had another go at Public Opinion along with Gianna. Wogblog, who proudly looks at the world from a ethnic perspective, rejects the view that Public Opinion is keeping the public discussion going in favour of Public Opinion simply defending the left from all criticism. The defence of the left is so extreme that all the crazy views of the left have to be defended even though Public Opinion accepts nationalism and patriotism and rejects pacifism. As Wogblog says Public Opinion's position is, "Defend them all! Even the Jackasses! Never never never just admit they are appalling!"
On wogblog's account Public Opinion defends all the crazy views of the left including that of de Genova, who publicly called for for American defeat - "a million Mogadishus". It welcomed American deaths to teach them a lession about military interventions in sovereign countries. So Public Opinion, in defending Mogadishu was welcoming American bodies being dragged through the streets by the troops of one of the local war lords.
This was attributed to Public Opinion even though the weblog introduced the voice of Invisible Adjunct that said De Genova's view was a moral idiocy, and an explict denial was made in comments box that Genova's position was being defended. Such an attribution meant that Public Opinion is defending all the customs and habits of third world groups: eg; the Koran-and-Kalashnikov regime of the anti-modernist Taliban in Afghanistan. So Public Opinion is defending the Taliban blowing up the statutes of Buddha in Bamiyan because they were pagan idols; their desire to recreate a contemporary verision of the 15th century society of the prophet Mohammed; running a modern soceity on the kneejerk findings of guilt based on a sharia legal code and punishment by stoning, flogging, amputation and execution.
So what is the significance of this claim by Wogblog? On my interpretation Wogblog is saying that the left is morally bankrupt because of its moral relativism; and that this means an 'anything goes' embrace of cultural diversity. This moral idiocy or bankruptcy has arisen because the left has fled the universalism of the Enlightenment and gone over to the Counter Enlightenment. Consequently the [postmodern] left have become anti-liberal, have an enthusiasm for pre-modern political forms and turned a blind eye to the abuses and inequities of totalitarian regimes.
Of course, this charge is never argued for by Wogblog through addressing the arguments of Public Opinion. The latter's weblog said that it was responding to the way de Genova's remarks had been used in an Australian context by Tony Parkinson from The Age to attack the broad left in the culture wars. It went on to say, in response to Parkinson, that Mogadishu could be redescribed as the brutality of urban warfare that may offer an indication of what could happen in Baghdad. We can spell this out in terms of Beruit . Here in the 1982 invasion, the Israeli Army managed to reach Beirut in a few days and laid siege to it for three months without managing to enter the city. So it is not clear what will happen in Baghdad.
The weblog said that the left had traditionally operated with the principle of self-determination of the Iraqi people ---eg; from foreign invasion as in Vietnam. So it was not necesarily true that the left is morally bankrupt. To spell this charge out Wogblog needs to show how the principle self-determination of the Iraqi people necessarily leads to morally idiocy. I have scanned Wogblog but I have not seen such an argument about self-determining freedom.
This response was dismissed by a Wogblog as going off in another direction to cover up the moral bankruptcy. In the language of Wogblog the strategy is one of "defending an indefensible statement by one of your own - a leftie - muddy the waters (of the charge that you are defending the indefensible) by introducing an unattainable motherhood-type desire. This gymnastic debating style should win you enough time to turn and run."
Is this the case? Is the charge true? Has anthropology been embraced at the expense of ethics? Has Wogblog put an ethnic Italian finger on something? Is it a case of covering your tracks whilst turning and running?
So let us stay with the tacit cultural relativism charge for a moment by addressing it directly, rather than running away from it.
The ethics of Public Opinion are based on a conception of the good life as a flourishing human life. So it would say that it is better to be dead than alive; it is better to healthy than ill; it is better to have food than be hungry; it is better to be free than a slave; it is better to have access to clean drinking than salinised, polluted water. There are some conditions and goods that enable a flourishing human life and there are some conditions and goods that stunt such a life. The former is better than the latter.
That is a cross cultural claim; a universal claim. It presupposes that we humans are the sort of creatures with certain interests/needs which have to be met to enable, and ensure, our healthy functioning.When it is put it in philosophical terms---within the western philosophical tradition that the academic left has supposedly dumped into the garbage can of history---it is a conception of a flourishing life based on good old Aristotlean essentialism that also recognizes cultural difference. What is important to one culture for a flourishing life (eg.,religion) may not be important to another.
So much for the 'anything goes' charge, or for embracing the Counter- Enlightenment of the reactionary right. To put it in Hegelian terms, the abstract univeralism of the Enlightenment has been replaced by a concrete universal.
What we have here with Wogblog is an unwillingness to engage with content of an argument. This claim is reinforced by two considerations. First, Wogblog claimed that Public Opinion was opposed to the Anglo-American intervention because of the negative long-term consequences in the Middle East. Thus:
"Gary is against the coalition because he is afraid the outcome of their efforts will not be some perfect self-determined democracy and honeydripped chocolate fantasy life for Iraqis after the military action formally comes to a close. Or something."
Well, it is more of the 'something.' Wogblog did not address Public Opinion's stated reasons that going to war with Iraq was not in Australia's interest; or that the case for Australian military intervention had not been made by the Howard government; or that UN approval was necessary for military intervention.
Secondly, Wogblog ended with the claim that Public Opinion as a defender of the Australian Left did not care about migrant ethnic communities. All of the mothehood stuff is:
"...cloaked in a great concern for Iraqi people. But this is a person who does not give a shit about actual change for wogs."
This cloaking claim was made in reference to hoping to avoid a Grozny with battle for Baghdad and self-determination of the Iraqi people. Not caring a shit about actual change for wogs is made by Wogblog even though the Australian left has advocated and defended multiculturalism, defended the exploitation of migrants because their working class location in industrial capitalism; defended them from the institutionalied white racism of Anglo-Australians; defended the group rights to their own minority migrant culture and granting recognition to their different communal ways of life in a multicultural Australia.
Wogblog goes on at great length about racist Anglo-Americans, or "really stupid nasty skippies, calling all Italians 'wogs' and meaning 'filthy, garlic munching wierdos with wierdo music' etc etc. Or not giving them jobs. Not crediting their education undertaken in Italy." But no mention of the left fighting the stupid nasty skippies.
Hence, there is no engagement with arguments advanced in public discourse. Rather, it is an attempt to discredit, and so Wogblog is doing a similar job to a Miranda Devine and Piers Ackerman--it is a conservative smearing of critical public intellectuals. A critical intellectual public discourse is one of the cornestones of a liberal society that should be preserved if Australia is going to be able to justify its claim that it is a civilised country fighting totalitarian regimes like Iraq and fundamentalist Islamic groups to bring democracy to the Middle East.
I really enjoyed this post by Kieran Healy Dealing with Philosophers. Lots of fun. Witty comments.
Analytic male philosophers are a strange species. Many think that they are the master thinkers whose concepts mirror the fundamental structure of the universe in such a way that Absolute Truth is just around the corner. Just needs a little bit more reduction and a bit more theoretical scaffolding.
They are low on people skills, strong on clarity and rigor, and exemplars of balck and white thinking (science non-science etc). They were doing grunge before it became a style statement. And they are still doing grunge.
I do remember my supervisor refusing to read more than the first five words in my draft thesis. We had a raging argument about 'being'. We went our separate ways. Mine led to Nietzsche.
Doing a thesis in the liberal academy was an exercise in learning to cope with humilation and living in a world of intellectual thuggery.
Do read Kieran's post. Its great. And while there read this called close reading about the high powered discussion in an academic seminar.
You know, academics often think that public debate in our political institutions should be modelled on the academic seminar.
God, what can you say to that as a philosopher? That there is very little self-reflection on their own academic practices?
I was too tired last night to do any work on my post on 'America as empire'. However, I did come across a website that I found extremely interesting ---- Eject! Eject! Eject! run by William A Whittle.
He is an armed liberal US style --a war blogger. He believes in the manifest destiny of America. So he maintains that the US has fact, history, logic and reason on our side and that it will use its great power, great wealth, great ingenuity and great courage to achieve a huge gain in freedom and happiness for the countries it invades.
Bill would quickly toss the postings on Iraq at Public opinion into the Australian 'leftist rabidly anti-American defeatist nitwits' basket. According to him all I have left is the ruins of Marxism in an ever-more free and prosperous world. And with the little sanity that I have left,I am only capable of chanting the line that the US war with Iraq 'HAS to be about oil, money, revenge and whatever other base motivations I can hurl at' patriotic Americans.
So there will be no engagement on that issue. It is too black and white and excludes how the majority of Australians see the war with Iraq. Thats war blogging.
But we can easily put these differences to one because thre is another side to this weblog. Bill writes weblog essays. They are good ones that are self-reflective, considered and honest. This is philosophy in the public domain based on thinking issues through.
The essay on war, for instance, does set the pro-war position clearly and it gives a good insight into the broad US neocon mentality or discourse. If you can put the "liberals are suckholes" stuff to one side and read it in terms of its ethical/political structure, then you can discern the geopolitical strategy and tactics.
In the essay on celebrities the ethical perspective is more clearly evident---the politics is more in the background and more woven through the text. The essay on empire is the one that interests me. It accepts that the US is an empire and sets out to defend it (as I said the guy is honest). So I will engage with it when I can find a bit more time.
In the meantime, if you have a moment, take some time to read Bill's essays.