- In order to regain credibility, the Left needs to recover a strong, coherent and reasonable liberalism. To do this, we need to out-discourse the postmodern-Left. We need to meet their oppositions, divisions and hierarchies with universal principles of freedom, equality and justice. There must be a consistency of liberal principles in opposition to all attempts to evaluate or limit people by race, gender or sexuality. We must address concerns about immigration, globalism and authoritarian identity politics currently empowering the far- Right rather than calling people who express them “racist,” “sexist” or “homophobic” and accusing them of wanting to commit verbal violence. We can do this whilst continuing to oppose authoritarian factions of the Right who genuinely are racist, sexist and homophobic, but can now hide behind a façade of reasonable opposition to the postmodern-Left.
Posted to start a discussion.
I want my money back. See, I harbor FOMO when it comes to philosophy because surely nobody would make such a big deal out of stuff if it were pointless. Great minds love philosophers, love to throw them at each other. But holy fuck, dude. This is an eye-watering fusillade of self-reference and impenetrable jargon the likes of which I have not seen in many, many years of cruising the Internet. I have... thirteen fucking tabs open because of this essay. One of them is bfv's essay, which has the distinct advantage of being written in plain English. One of them is the linked essay. One of them is Andrew Sullivan whingeing about Charles Murray at Middlebury, which is linked to in the linked essay as one of twelve footnotes. One of them is the author's twitter feed, which conclusively proves that she can write in English should she choose to. One of them- and this should show how far afield this shit took me in search for truth - is about the RZ because the only relevance I could think of in my entire literary experience that relates directly to criticism of postmodernism was Tony Judt writing about the fucking Baader-Meinhof Gang. And then sure. A tab on Modernism. A tab on Epistemes. A page of quotes about jargon because there's something pithy I want to say about this torrent of opaqueness but whatever quote I was looking for isn't there. Hegel because when someone says "Hegelian" all I know is they aren't talking to me, and they're being silent as loudly and condescendingly as they can. A page of Laurie Calhoun's tweets, because the author slags on her (third hand!) as someone with no grasp of objective reality, but apparently she's written a couple books about the ethics of drone warfare so I mean, shit, at least she's got "applied" in front of "philosophy" which kind of puts this whole shitshow to shame. Some more bullshit about giraffes and ants and then finally, the last tab in the row, the author's LinkedIn page, where I discover You shoved a grad student's rantings at me as if she had something to say despite the fact that it took her five years to get a degree in English Lit. ___________________________________ Which, yeah. Ad-hominem. Low blow. The argument should stand on its merits. But the point I want to make is that this style of argumentation? It's fucking contagious. Just weeding through that shit made me incapable of speaking concisely and while I'm getting back into it, I want you to suffer through that shit because I'm legitimately dizzy. ___________________________ - If I've written 4,000 words on something, its unlikely I'm 'just saying' something simplistic that can be fitted into a tweet. Helen Pluckrose, 15 hours ago Or maybe it's that she needs to edit her treatises before posting them. Because I'm not sure she's "just" saying anything but parsing that shit out into human-readable language basically boils down to "all these people no one outside of philosophy knows or reads are directly responsible for a eugenicist getting shouted out of an auditorium in Vermont by a bunch of angry undergrads". In order to make this argument, she first has to mis-define several terms, misrepresent several philosophers and quote things out of context. Not gonna lie. My thirteen-tabs-open odyssey through this bullshit blizzard had a lot of "wiki foucoult" and being glad that Google knows how to spell that which I do not. My basis of knowledge in this world is minimal. But when shit like this pops out: ...I first go "I know that name!" And then I go "I read that book!" and then I go "and I still don't understand what she's saying!" and then I go "...wait a minute. Said's argument was that Westerners ignore the basic facts about the East because they're too wrapped up in their narratives. This chick is arguing that we're too busy crafting narratives to believe in facts. But she's... slagging on Foucault, whom she's claiming influenced Said... so... isn't...this...argument... the exact opposite of what she's saying?" And this is where I want to thank you for linking to this, and I want you to know (I want you to appreciate!) how hard I tried to respond to it in a useful, coherent way, and that I would love to try on some philosophical debates that don't leave me cross-eyed and hating philosophy back to the Greeks but sweet jesus tapdancing christ does it always have to be this way? No. No it doesn't. Goddamn. I feel like I've been waterboarded.Judith Butler drew on Foucault for her foundational role in queer theory focusing on the culturally constructed nature of gender, as did Edward Said in his similar role in post-colonialism and “Orientalism” and Kimberlé Crenshaw in her development of “intersectionality” and advocacy of identity politics.
Foucault: Society imposes the identity of "a homosexual" on people who have sex with people of the same sex, it comes with an awful lot of baggage that has nothing to do with what a person does with their naughty bits. Society's idea of what a homosexual is tells us little about people who have sex with people of the same sex, but tells us things about society. Said: The colonizing west imposes its exotic fantasies onto the colonized east, which have very little to do with life in the east. Society's idea of what the exotic east is tells us very little about the east, but tells us things about society. Judith Butler: Society imposes an awful lot that has nothing to do with plumbing onto {men,women}... Those are all bad summaries, but yes, the essay is either deliberately misleading or there's a whole lot of whooshing in the background.
Bruno Latour, one of those mad bad and dangerous to know frenchmen, made the argument this post wants to make 10 years ago except better because he wasn't coming from a position of ignorance.
This whole discussion highlights to me how essential humor is in dealing with serious matters. I listen to a podcast called Verbal Violence. On this show, up and coming comedians take turns saying the most offensive, debasing things they can about their opponents, and they pull no punches. Callbacks are made to addictions, suicide attempts, sexual conduct and orientation, the deaths of family members, etc ad nauseam. And every round of 'verbal boxing' ends with a hug. Turn the other cheek, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, fukkin' "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." We have to be able to hear words, and not immediately allow them to determine our course of action. Right action, moral action does not change because of mere words. Might come back to this later with more thoughts.