I could also call it the ideology's vicious circle :) Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
And ideologue is someone who cannot conduct any form of self-criticism as to the basis, sedimentation and practice of his/her beliefs.
I would say those who claim to be outside ideology are naive at best.
Someone who understands that the step outside ideology is a step into the ideology of certitude is someone who will tend to be self-critical about one's beliefs, someone who will always contest their assumptions in theory and in practice.
But I agree with you, this is my problem with ideologies. When evidence seems to deny articles of faith, ideologues would still just not give in, sometimes not even debate, often would just call others ideologues back.
Your last phrase defines much of what I think is the best approach to issues. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Yet that doesn't mean it's possible to think/exist outside of ideology. The only option seems to be to recognize, contest, and always critique the prevailing modes of ideology, including our own.
I note here and elsewhere a reference to Marxism which presupposes that this "ideology" is about alternative economic systems. Clearly, this is an example of thinking that hasn't been updated in a few decades. No serious Marxist today would posit that there is an alternative economic system other than capitalism. Yet everywhere I go we are having these discussions about alternate economic systems. When last I left Marxist theory, I noted that the goal of Marxism was to seize the state apparatus so that it could do the bidding of the proletariat. But the system itself doesn't change, only the people in charge of the levers.
Obama, for instance, understands this, and that's precisely why he used the words, "Spread the wealth." It's all about redistribution and not subversive revolution.
This should be obvious since the very people calling for new regulatinos and new paradigms aren't rejecting capitalism itself. Instead, people like Krugman or Roubini are capitalists, inside the system of capital. Even our very own Jerome here works inside the system.
So, we are confusing ideology mostly when we discuss these grand ideas for what are relative tweaks inside the ideological field of battle. It seems that by and large, almost everyone agrees on the economic system.
Ummmm, I'd contest that, but that would demand a diary of its own and too much of my time. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
I want your diary! Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
From Althusser to Zizek, I haven't read those claims.
In my reading of Marxists, the goal of revolution is seizing control of the levers of the economy.
And I never wrote about apparatchiks taking control of the levers.
Representatives of the proletariat do it, and thereby effectively redistribute the wealth.
The reason why Marxists I named aren't proscriptive is because they see no point in proscribing another system. But Zizek is proscriptive about a great many other things. From Darfur to the Balkans and a great many other situations, he has ventured into political proposals.
What do you mean by analyzing? It sounds like another one of these theory/practice divides that we're laboring under in this diary.
"Applied Marxism?"
These are the people who counsel seizing control of state apparatuses. Nor would Soviet Russia count as a capitalist society that was seized.
According to people such as Althusser and several other Neo-Marxists, it's not that there are no other alternate systems. It's that capitalism is so thoroughly pervasive and entrenched that the world's whole way of life is gripped by it. In other words, alternative systems cannot displace it at the fundament. Look at China. From agrarian society and suddenly there's hypercapitalism there.
On Wall Street, the managers have been reading Karl Marx and passing around his books for the last decade or so. It's considered reading that will help you get ahead. The dunderheads used to read books like, "Who Moved my Cheese?", and now they've graduated to Marx. Which no doubt explains credit default swaps as well.
Well, I guarded against going back to Marx by writing about Neo-Marxists in the last 30 years.
The dunderheads used to read books like, "Who Moved my Cheese?", and now they've graduated to Marx. Which no doubt explains credit default swaps as well.
A little learning is a dangerous thing. Drink deep or touch not the Pyrian spring. -----Alexander Pope
Wouldn't you count the classical socialdemocracy as an off-spin of Marxism? Up till the "third way" 1990s, certain Marxist awareness was still there. If Lenin's bolsheviks would not had taken the call to revolution that seriously (in barely capitalist Russia, of all places), Marx's legacy in the 20th Century would probably had been very different.
Ideologies (as world perspectives) are not dead really. Instead, a strong selection towards public awareness is taking place, especially now, once the "only" Soviet alternative is defeated. Only those ideologies that fit social legitimation needs of power/wealth holders are promoted, while others are ignored or ridiculed. This period is special by the degree of control of ideology selection. But once consensi of G20 dinners and intimidation of free tanks would cease, more various ideas will be discussed.
But then I also think that one of Marxism's problems has traditionally been a certain tendency among it's adherents to treat Marx as a Prophet and his writing as scripture. I far prefer the notion of him as one of the nineteenth century's greatest thinkers who revolutionized how we think of society and spawned a political movement. At least that's what I think his relevance is today.
Apart from compulsory (and rather formal) indoctrination by Soviet education and politicization, what would be examples of Marx's adherents treating him as a Prophet?
On Marx as prophet and his writings as scriptures though, I stand by my point. If you look at the debates during the Second International period in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, or those within the SPD during Weimar, there is a strong tendency among the participants to argue from Marx rather than from a broader perspective. That is, you'd get ideas 'refuted' by saying that they went against this or that in Marx's writings, rather than a genuine counterargument. Then there's the whole teleological aspect of the Marxist narrative. There I feel that Marx himself bears quite a bit of blame. All in all, Marxists seemed to often forget that Marx was just a human being who lived in a certain period of time, a brilliant one, but without psychic powers and quite capable of being wrong.
Gould and Buchanan seem to be adopting Engels especially for their science fights.
The problem with capitalism is that it has been adopted all over the world. Once ingrained systemically, the transition to alternatives seems like a bit of fantasy.
I recognize that it is but one ideology, and yet its pervasiveness and ability to adapt and encumber resistant movements make it all the more formidable. Capitalism seems better able to accommodate a critique of metaphysics in the wake of Marx.
Again, the most well-known Neo-Marxist theorists have pushed Marxist thought into our century, and yet they recognize the dominance of the capitalist model as being so pervasive not because it's the better one (necessarily), but because of its evident entrenchment. That doesn't mean there aren't other models out there, communal, etc. It just means that those models are, for all purposes, impractical at the moment, and any chance they have of becoming dominant is usually rooted in the complete collapse and total failure of capitalism. Which won't do much for the proletariat, I suppose.
The biggest obstacle for alternative views is the "self-interest" of leading industrial and political classes, I think. They pushing forward this libertarism as de facto social legitimation. The power-holding classes made quite a progress in the recent decade in accumulating a critical mass of economic and political power. By now they are almost autonomous from the masses (and any "dangerous" ideas).
Several aspects of ideological isolation dynamics can be found in Naomi Klein's book "The shock doctrine". I will give two examples from there:
If you look at late capitalism today, especially it's global character, the dismantling of this system would cause such upheaval, especially when it comes to distribution of energy resources and food, that many hundreds of millions would die, if not billions.
It's so systemically entrenched at a global level that a move to another system is the equivalent of radiation therapy to remove a cancer.
Here and there, there may be alternative models, but globally it seems to be the model most countries have adopted.
This global capitalism is a problem, in all its unsustainability. The world we know is dismantling before our eyes.
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine...
I am not talking about imposing other global order. I do not recommend any particular global order at all. In contrary - global top-to-down economic solutions must be resisted. To survive this economic crash, every country, community must have freedom to make decisions of its own. Someone would strike then ingenious solutions very probably. That's why plurality of ideologies is welcome now.
I wish this capitalism to retain most of its structure and buzzing network as it can. But the global system must be open to voluntary unscripted adaptations of its parts. What is not welcome is to let clubs of G20-lite leaders of wealth and power holders to decide everything. That would likely to lead to reversing all social evolution of the last 120 years, back to "Oliver Twist" scale gaps between haves and havenots.
Do you not believe in the existence of absolute truths, btw, do you think that everything is relative to the viewpoint one takes?
For instance Sarkozy during the electoral campaign brought this argument, in a debate about immigration:
"Mr. Le Pen can be a far-right extremist; yet if he says 'the Sun is yellow', I will not say it is blue in order to not appear as agreeing with a far right extremist".
This is what I call an out-of-ideology approach. We look at the raw facts. Is there an immigration problem? We look at the reality and without ignoring human rights, we craft solutions by a technocratic approach. (btw, does quoting Sarkozy with an apparently favourable view on them place me with the Right?...) Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
In the same way, "The sun is yellow" needs a language defining "yellow". Some don't. Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
Immigration is a common term, with one absolute (ie not relative!) meaning, it's definition is not ideological in any way and goes uncontested. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Nobody would talk about "immigration of the elderly towards southern France" yet it fits the "absolute" meaning.
Even in mathematics, truths require axioms to be demonstrated... Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
And again, why is a grandchild of an immigrant causing problems an "immigration" problem ? Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
The grandchild is an immigration problem when he is not integrated into society because mistakes were made with immigration policies, immigrants became ghettoised and so on. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
There are people who are not integrated in society, in a very similar way to grandchildren of immigrants, but who aren't grandchildren of immigrants. Why would you want to dissociate the problems of those grandchildren from those of other people not so well integrated ? Note that in 2005, among the suburbs that rioted, some were definitely not immigrants suburbs. Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
I didn't discuss his immigration policies, which is a whole different subject. I (or you) can make a diary entry on that if you like. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
(else you may also wonder why Sarkozy felt the need to say those words about the blue sun) Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
This Ministry has published target numbers of deportation per year (was it 25000 deported in 2007?) and is diverting a large proportion of police officers for this aim, to the detriment of, you know, getting after the burglars, car thieves, murderers and other fine people.
If this is not extreme-right-winger baiting, then I'm a beauty queen in Alaska. Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
Can someone be deported to their own country, to their own family ?
Alaska must be cold this winter. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
And defining "their own country" for people having spent most of their childhood and adult life in France depends strongly on point of view. Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
Is this respectful towards the victims of that genocide?
How long is the left going to throw nazism back at us the others, for any line that does not coincide with the Left Holy Word?
If there is one thing I like about F. Hayek, is the way he argues Communism and Fascism are basically the same thing. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
I guess the bottom line here is that there will always be good and nice first, second, third... generation immigrants without citizen status who will be sent back because they didn't observe the law when entering/remaining in the country.
One will argue in favour of their personal tragedy. It can be tragic for someone who feels French when he is returned to his country of origin, or his parents or grandparents country of origin though he may not expect torture in that country. He will have to bear the consequences of his own or his ancestor's non-observation of citizen law.
The question is what weighs more - the law or personal issues? I believe these deportations are tragic but also a case in point to demonstrate that you don't just obtain citizenship by wanting it or by presenting a fait accompli.
'The' right will always argue in favour of the law that is there to control/limit immigration; 'the' left will sense a responsibility towards their de facto fellow citizens, a sense of responsibility, and guilt in view of our relative wealth at the cost of theirs.
I guess (don't know) that there are few who'll have to expect 'torture' upon their return; a much lower standard of living - and the loss of social life/family/loved ones in France are the major concern.
Deportations are not about obtaining citizenship but the right to stay. Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
The right is in favour of stricter laws. Why? They have in mind that Europe has to expect a much stronger flow of immigrants towards Europe in the coming decades. It's a way to "control" immigration. How do you feel about this? Do you think that immigration does not need to be limited or controlled in any way? This is not a suggestive question. I simply wonder...
"Deportations are not about obtaining citizenship but the right to stay." -
Hmm. If someone doesn't have citizenship, he may not stay as if he had. In what way aren't deportations about citizenship? French citizens don't get deported.
People who live in France without citizenship or EU membership have the right to stay for a limited period of time. If they seek asylum or want to immigrate, they must follow the rules. If these rules get tighter, well, you can of course debate that and propose other solutions or advice politicians not to worry about immigration and just welcome everyone. I simply don't think it's all that easy.
Also, the number of people to be deported is an important aspect of Sarkozy's policies. The law in UK and France are similar, the number of illegals are, too, yet one has set an aim of 4000 deportation while France has set an aim of 26 000.
Legally, it is not compulsory to be a French citizen or have asylum to remain in France, thankfully. Family, parents, employees, are allowed to. And of course, many want to get nationality, yet are deported before they are able to ask for it. The laws are so tough, that Sarkozy's family are allowed to get around it.
Compare the French situation with those of Italy and Spain - who gave papers to all those living in the country - or the US - where much fewer, relative to the number of illegals, are deported.
Finally, the idea that "they are all gonna come and invade us" is using Le Pen's discourse, not anything based on any reality. There is no overwhelming mass of Africans wanting to come to France, like there was no overwhelming immigration from Eastern Europe when these countries joined.
Which didn't prevent the "pragmatic" Sarkozy to deport people to Romania at the end of 2006, a week before they'd be allowed to come back... Reaching his aimed number, appearing tough on immigrant so as to get the racist vote was very important. Indeed, these ugly deportation policies are not implemented because of an actual fear of the effects of immigration, but so as to bait the Le Pen vote. Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
My wife (herself the daughter of two immigrants) has a cousin who dated for years a Paraguayan over two continents. That is SERIOUS relationship -years despite living thousands of kilometers apart.
One day he decided that he would be the one to make the move, come to France and marry her. A heartbreaking one since he has two children from a previous wedding. But apparently he made the move just too late, and the law was made massively harsher just before they got married in August 2006. He won't have his citizenship for years yet, and any lengthy return to Paraguay to meet his family would set back the clock.
It serves no societal purpose but, hey, Sarko needed to make it clear that he had fully embraced the Le Pen agenda in order to deliver on the most worthy goal of the universe: getting his demented ego into the Elysée palace.
This man is hardly an uneducated burden too: he has a PhD. But his field is social work, so I guess he'd count as unwanted in our new neo-liberal France. Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi
Now, when you look at this situation, there seems to be little that this man can do since the rules have changed. He cannot have his French citizenship anytime soon. I don't know 'these people' ;) but would moving to Paraguay be an option for the couple? What would her status be there? - I mean no one forces them to stay in France, either. If the French government is incompetent enough to show PhDs the door or simply to not welcome them in - nothing should hold them back, and he should seek his career in Paraguay and be together with his children, too.
I don't support these strange policies but all that can be done at this point is: draw the logical consequences. If France 'doesn't work', emigration is always another option.
Then, he wouldn't have custody of his children anyway.
And she has recently had breast cancer (despite being just 29). She is apparently fine now, but still with treatment. But I guess she'll want to stay in a country that has one of the best health systems. Paraguay is a poor and terribly unequal society. Not necessarily the dream place to live in.
Still, she did consider it for a while. Now even he has his friends here and I don't think it would happen. I guess what stopped them really was that it takes a brave person to choose Paraguay over France when you are used to having a thousand things we don't really notice anymore. We are spoilt brats. Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi
Much more problematic, I know a couple of a Moroccan and a French. They married two years ago, now have a kid, but things aren't going along so well anymore between them. Getting a divorce is impossible, though ; the woman would have to leave France, and parents living in two different countries can be a bit harsh for raising a kid. (Not mentioning the legal difficulties that would come from determining who is legal guardian). At least there isn't one beating on the other - there have been cases where a battered wife leaving her husband was then deported...
I read many mixed couples from Copenhagen were now living in Sweden, because it was the only way they could live together - what kind of pragmatic solution produces those absurdities ? Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
So a three-week trip to the Netherlands might be the solution to your friends' problem...
This has caused considerable consternation among certain unsavoury Danish politicians, because you're right, we do have rather a lot of couples living in Malmö (although not all of them for that reason - the undervalued SKK makes having an income in DKK and expenses in SKK a financially attractive proposition in its own right. Plus, houses are cheaper in Sweden because they haven't had a neolib government to Ponzify them for quite as long).
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
Oh, I do, I do. But the fact that France is still a nice place to be also puts into perspective the hardship of obtaining citizenship in the first place.
While I don't agree with these odd immigration policies, I believe that IF there is a need to control or limit immigration which I assume is there, at least to some degree, the better way to go would be to accept the status quo, hand out papers to those who are already here (as linca explained got done in Spain) and tighten regulations for those who newly arrive. That way there won't be any bad surprise later. It is inhumane to welcome people into the country and later drop, i.e. deport them.
To not grant citizenship to foreigners upon marrying a French citizen - is VERY bizarre to say the least.
Well, since these deportations take place, I'd still be interested in figures of torture and killings those deported actually experience... because much of the hardship actually seems to be the lower standard of living that awaits them. It sounds (is) right wing rhetoric. I've actually had to adjust before... but it still isn't a matter of life or death, like when linca is comparing the situation to the deportation of German Jews back to Germany in WWII.
It is a pity that the underlying "standard of living" argument somehow discredits the more serious concerns with regards to systematic deportations.
Your friends have decided to remain in France, and I wish them all the best; he'll have his citizenship, as you say, and hopefully, she's healed for good.
As for the matter of life and death, right now every few months people die, trying to escape the police that come to arrest them - do these people think being deported is a matter of life and death ? (Note that not having the proper papers to live in France is not a felony, in France). The known unknown number is that of thousands who die trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea - a less absurdly harsh policy, giving hope of actual migration, would also result in fewer such deaths. The unknown is that of statistics on what happens to the deported : the French state is not interested in them, and for a volunteer organisation, following up on thousands of people in a hundred countries, many of them not caring so much about human rights and free speech, isn't easy.
Deportations is not only a life and death matter (and I was not comparing the current deportation with those of the second world war, just pointing out the absurdity of saying "you can't deport people back to their own country") : making sure there are thousands of illegals in France is quite useful for those employers that rely on immigrant labor (mostly agriculture, food and house building - strangely, those people are traditionally UMP voters), and also has a cost in terms of unreceived taxes on that undeclared labor - which could be useful to fill the coffers of the Sécurité Sociale. More worrying, thanks to denunciations of parents that had come to register their kids for schools, and arrests of parents that were taking up their children after school, now they may stop sending those children to school... Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
Not all die. So there is still a very significant number who try to come to Europe but there are no exact figures, neither this way nor with regards to their forced return except the number of those actually deported (because these numbers are LePen voters' delight...).
Fact is this debate lacks facts - no matter who it is who is not going after these figures or who is deliberately withholding them.
What also strikes me is that you say that people (everyone?) has the right to stay in France (no citizenship needed? no Green card? no visa?) - and then, you talk of thousands of illegals in France.
So, again, it seems that you and I lack facts.
An unfair law that serves no purposes should be repealed even for one death.
Legally, some categories of immigrants have the right to remain in France and thus to get papers (Carte de séjour) without asking for the French citizenship. Ill people who could be healed if sent back to their country, family of people who have the right to stay in France (because the right to live with one's family is a human right) ; usually, foreign employees have no limit to their visas... But even for those being illegally in France, forcefully deporting them requires more arguments than simply wanting to appease racists. Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
I DON'T KNOW whether it is necessary.
"Family of people who have the right to stay in France (because the right to live with ones family is a human right)" - Sure.
What I mean is that the deleterious effects of the policy are established, even if some of the problems are not fully quantified. So the debate should be about the need to control or limit immigration ; and even if such a need were "proven" (which will have to depend on a whole lot of assumption about what is "good" for a country), whether the policies being applied are not overly harsh. Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
I wonder, is it really so that these projections of (I exaggerate) millions of Africans wanting to come to Europe are a myth? It's not only about immigration that currently takes place but also about what is yet to come. Are these arguments really only used by far right extremists?
"it is not compulsory to be a French citizen or have asylum to remain in France, thankfully."
How is this in the UK? Apparently I have no idea about the "right to stay" in France. I've heard of cases a few years ago where people came to France (and had family in France), worked here for three or four months and then had to return to their country where they stayed a certain time before returning to France again. So, there must be some law limiting the duration of stay in France (??).
According to what you say above, "immigration" seems 'easy' since everyone may remain in France. All this sounds a lot like double standards (not yours but French authorities applying two measures...).
What may be worse than the deportation per se are these grey zones - of having a right to stay on one hand and fiercely implemented 'rules'(?) for deportation on the other. The ambiguity is 'inhumane' in that it causes fear and creates an agonising sense of insecurity.
The US relies heavily on their illegal immigrants for cheap labour. Deportations aren't of primary concern there, rather the precarious situation of these illegal immigrants.
Sending illegals back would not be possible without the agreement and the "collaboration" (oh the vicious word!) of their native countries (hence the problem when most of them throw away their passports) - which still remain their motherlands, who rose and educated them. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
deportation - definition of deportation by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.
de·por·ta·tion (dpôr-tshn, -pr-)n.1. The act or an instance of deporting.2. Expulsion of an undesirable alien from a country.hm()The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Are you joking ? Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
My Webster's defines "deportation" as follows: 2. the removal from a country of an alien whose presence is unlawful or prejudicial.
According to this definition, deportation does not include being exiled from ones OWN country.
You prefer to say "send back" - to their country of origin. The country of origin may not be where deportees will feel "at home". In most cases, they'll feel at home where they are "illegals" though according to linca, all are allowed to may remain in France so that there would be no "illegals" but I think he was talking of a basic human right, not of the legal status according to French law of those who are "sent back".
However anyone feels about it, the technical term for this forced return to their country of origin is still "deportation".
BTW: I'm not sure of this but I believe that in German usage, the term "Deportation" is mostly (only?) used with regards to 'transport' of Jews in WWII or other groups of people during wars in general. There is another, a German word used for sending illegals to their country of origin: "Abschiebung" which translates as "deportation" or literally as the fact of being 'pushed off/away', which isn't a much nicer word, either.
I understand the political implications that you see. You would have to choose the term "repatriation" which would be a more positive word that would also consider the deportee's country of origin as his home. I wonder, though, whether 'repatriation' wouldn't require the deportee's consent at being repatriated...
Here's what I have:
Deportation De`por*ta"tion, n. [L. depotatio: cf. F. d['e]portation.] The act of deporting or exiling, or the state of being deported; banishment; transportation.
In their deportations, they had often the favor of their conquerors. --Atterbury.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
New Pocket Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary © 2005 Oxford University Press: déportation depɔʀtasjɔ̃ feminine noun internment in a concentration camp; Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
I still believe that this is just about a difference in language usage. When I look up the German word that is used to describe the process of sending people to their country of origin, it's not the same as the one describing deportation (to concentration camps), yet when I look for a translation - I'll still arrive at deportation in English period.
Deportation (German) - deportation (English) Abschiebung (German) - deportation (English) Abschiebung (German) - Expulsion/reconduite à la frontière (French)
Déportation (French) - deportation (English) Expulsion (French) - expulsion (English)
Maybe "EXPULSION" is the better, less controversial word; it doesn't say anything about where anyone is going - just that someone is not allowed to remain in the country where he resides and that he is sent across the border.
So deportation is the correct description. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
3) What would be the situation when you would you use the word "expulsion" since you don't think it's correct to call deportations expulsions?
If there are 'legal holes' in this system, there is injustice and people are forced out of the country only to find torture and death, there is a problem that must be addressed differently.
To question the reality of deportations as they take place today (not just their scope) also questions the value of citizenship as such. Doesn't it?
Just language differences; of course for us French (and probably a number of EU countries), it has a more sinister meaning.
In the US, the INS (or the USCIS as it is known today) is deporting undocumented aliens.
And yes, one can be deported to one's own country: if the USCIS is "escorting to the border" (that's US English for "reconduire à la frontière") or "deporting" a French citizen who's been staying in the USA for 20 years without documents (visa or Green Card) to France, the person in question is effectively, well, deported, even if he/she doesn't have any family left whatsoever in France and just wanted to go on with his/her life in the US. Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
But again, deportation is just a regular and legitimate technical term used in English language (well, American English at least) and comparisons with WWI are no excuse to refrain from using it, which is why I used a US-centric (hypothetical) example. Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
In English too it can mean banishment, exile - see comments above.
It is precisely this kind of excesses that this diary entry stands against. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
I stand by my earlier comment: the major activity of the "Ministry of Immigration and National Identity" is the deportation of undocumented migrants and for that aim, it is diverting quite a number police resources that are unavailable to fight crime.
This, I call it right wing baiting.
Same for linking "Immigration" with "National Identity"; first of all, this is no government business to decide what the French national identity is or isn't. And this is right wing baiting pure and simple: This is code speak; it's playing right into every racist's irrational fear of the brown hordes flooding over our homeland and threatening our white identity.
Of course, we can repeat the official line if we fancy to: its' all about making sure the immigrants learn our language and our values.
I'm not interested in what these people say but in what they do; and what they're doing is perpetuating a climate of fear and permanent suspicion on everyone dark-skinned, French citizen or not. And no matter how well they know French language and Republican values, it's never enough: neither them nor their children or grandchildren will be "French enough" for this kind of people - the kind of people our president is (pragmatically) sending coded messages to. Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
You can see things as right wing baiting, and someone else can reply it's calming down citizens indignated and worried about the savagery sometimes seen on public transport or certain immigrant ghettos. To say, you're continuing to hold on to your leftwing positions and call anybody else names.
In the end, you're making a speculation ("no matter how well"...), which is your right from a leftwing standpoint. You're fitting exactly the case I wanted to make: anyone not agreeing with our ideology must be some barbarian, bigot, racist, in any case not a human being whose issues might be legitimate. Well more and more of these sub-humans voted Le Pen.
Obviously, the left did not understand anything at all from Jospin's humiliation - which we can also see in the PS' recent turbulences. People are going to punish this arrogant left over and over again, the way you punish a stubborn child, until it ceases patronizing and labeling citizens as stupid, racist or bigot when they have legit and perfectly explainable problems. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
You're opposing and interpretting what you consider to be the "true meaning" of a governmental policy ("controlled immigration") that was made clear all along the electoral campaign,
You're saying we should believe a word of what a politician says during an election campaign? And not try to second-guess them based on their contacts, associates and voter demographics?
That's rich.
You can see things as right wing baiting, and someone else can reply it's calming down citizens indignated and worried about the savagery sometimes seen on public transport or certain immigrant ghettos TV.
There, fixed it for ya.
I'll take it once more for crown prince Knud: The people who actually live in the ghettos, and have first-hand experience with conditions there, do not, in the main, vote for right-wing politicians. The people who overwhelmingly vote for wingnut politicians are the ones whose only contact with the ghetto is through a TV screen.
You seem to assume that what the press reports bears a strong relationship to what actually goes on in the world. That's an assumption contrary to fact. I should know. I've been in a couple of "newsworthy" events and seen the reporting in the commercial press afterwards. You should try it too - it might be enlightening.
Anyway. As to what politicians are saying. Sarkozy made it a point to return people's interest to elections, indeed to democracy. Papers, think-tanks and poll centers keep an eye on his political program and its implementation. So I guess we'll see how it is. One thing's certain: everybody wants to believe in electoral promises. We are entitled to, and to hold those people accountable. This is the base of the democracy.
I have no official and reliable statistics as to the situation and reasons of the vote in poor neighbourhoods. I can only tell you that it is not the rich, the office employees or the youth who predominantly chose Sarkozy, but the poor, the workers, the elders - ie, the vulnerable categories. The "rich" in the fancy neighbourhoods voted left, as they always do. It is them who call the others racists and claim there is no problem in those suburbs except poverty, the rest being far-right rhetorics - and it is them who never go there. (I do speak about France)
Oh well. From your posts, I retain that politicians are not to be trusted, their programs are deceitful, democracy is flawed, press is on the rightwing's pay. My conclusion is: we need a REVOLUTION ! Sigh... Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Someone needs to tell me if there's a quick way to put in those quotation boxes - I have no patience typing html code.
I will tell you instead of someone - who actually made the plugin do it.
European Tribune - Download ET's own Firefox add-on: TribExt
Do you browse the web on Firefox? Then you can download TribExt, a nifty little add-on, written by ET user someone, to navigate around European Tribune easier. It can also be used on Booman Tribune and Daily Kos.
That plugin allows to mark and copy not only the text, but the html-code and paste it as a qoute. Very nifty. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
Sarkozy made it a point to return people's interest to elections, indeed to democracy.
Elections and democracy are not quite the same thing.
Papers, think-tanks and poll centers keep an eye on his political program and its implementation.
You clearly have more faith in both the neutrality and competence of poll centres and belief tanks than I do.
One thing's certain: everybody wants to believe in electoral promises. We are entitled to, and to hold those people accountable. This is the base of the democracy.
Holding people accountable involves distrusting their will to carry out their promises as a matter of principle. If we trusted the police, we wouldn't need the courts. But in a democracy, we have an institutional distrust of the police (for a variety of mostly excellent reasons). So we have courts.
Political philosophy aside, there is, I believe, a French saying that goes something along the lines of "look not at what you eat, but with whom you eat." If a politician who takes money from employers' unions says that he wants to make anti-trust laws more effective, I'd want to read the actual proposal line by line before agreeing with it. If a politician backed by the Catholic Church says that he wants to reform the health service to give easier access to reproductive health care, I'd check with a reputable local family planning NGO before endorsing his proposal. And if an avowedly creationist politician says that the sky is blue, I'd look out my window before agreeing.
Is that really so unreasonable? Or even particularly ideological?
From your posts, I retain that politicians are not to be trusted, their programs are deceitful, democracy is flawed, press is on the rightwing's pay. My conclusion is: we need a REVOLUTION ! Sigh...
Hyperbole much?
I rather like democracy, thank you very much. But I prefer a democracy of active, engaged citizens to a "democracy" of disengaged consumers for whom turning on the television for the nightly advertisements news shows represents the height of their engagement with the body politic.
I didn't call "anyone else" names: just the racist people and their racism. As folks around here may have noted, I have very little tolerance for racism and prejudices in general.
And yes, I do object to our UMP government "speaking code" to the racists amongst us. I don't imply that they are necessarily all racists themselves, but they sure do have no compunction in playing the race card.
And for our non-white fellow citizens, this climate of discrimination and "not being French enough" is no frigging left-wing standpoint, but just a regular day in Sarkozia.
And where exactly did you see that anyone "anyone not agreeing with our ideology" must be some barbarian-bigot-racist sub-human?
Racists are idiots and humans: idiocy is a very human weakness. It's racists who do believe there are two categories of people - humans and sub-humans (themselves being in the top human category, of course). You don't have to be a racist to vote for the FN, but you have to be comfortable (or willingly oblivious) with quite a high dose of racism.
Oh, and your "elitist" left vs. "real-people" right: I've heard that for years; that's precisely the theme pushed by the Republicans since Regan. It worked beautifully in a way: they won elections and kept in power until recently - when enough people eventually saw through that horseshit and figured out where exactly the real elitists are (hint: follow the money).
People indeed do have legitimate problems and the politics of Mr Sarkozy and the UMP has only made things worse. Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
The view from the left has always been that the causes are social - that immigrants, or their offspring, are never to blame for anything, it is the society which wouldnt do enough for them. Whoever said anything different was labeled racist and xenophobe, was said to propagate fear etc etc. The whole range of arguments political correctness uses to put its fist in the mouth of those who say otherwise.
So you here did the same thing: you assumed that Sarkozy and his immigration policies, addressed racists, which is the usual French leftwing line. What if FN voters or sympathizers were not all racists, what if many are citizens who feel republican values are stepped upon, and it is insulting to call them racists (despicable people, not far from nazis), patronize them, exclude them. It is them who eliminated Lionel Jospin, who made win Sarkozy, and will continue to do so, as long as you guys continue to consider them as such. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
I repeat my request I put to you downthread - I'm interested in your ideas and solutions regarding these political issues. Would you please consider writing them down? We can play devil's advocate until we're blue in the face.
This led me to say that the dutch policies you mentioned were not so much pragmatic but debatable compromises made on a social-libertarian foundation. In the same way, I replied to Bernard that what he calls racist policies or code speech targeting racists, are actually pragmatic policies meant to address what are legitimate issues for many citizens.
I gave both of you hints about what I see as pragmatic policies: helping the immigrants, but also considering the locals, the cultural differences, enforcing integration and republican values (in France) along with help for integration and against discrimination. Also accepting in France people with a good chance to adapt - balanced, rational measures that have worked in countries like Canada or Australia. The same about the more general question of civil rights. Vulnerable people must be protected and helped, but not by introducing other kinds of unfairness or exclusion. Hence, I don't believe in quota laws, except very rare, precise cases and very limited in time. I think both Massachusets vote for and California vote against gay marriage should be accepted as democratical, contested democratically, without throwing insults and contempt at the other. I do think people have a certain degree of free will and critical thinking. Hence we should not legislate for every possible situation, we should not attempt to protect people at all cost, we cannot justify issues only by societal or environmental causes. I think the idea that people are completely irresponsible is wrong, just as the idea that crime or poverty would only be explained by external causes. I also believe wrong the idea that people would be completely responsible, that life, success or failure, would be mostly up to them, that crime should only be dealt with by punishment. In short, I would be somewhere between the US (americans call me a socialist) and Europe (where I am positioned to the right).
These are but general ideas. Situations are not dealt with like this, with general statements made upon imperative demand. Laws should not be made from principial reasons, but depending on the concrete case, looking at all facets and considering all sides and how that will profit the society and the individuals. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
I gave both of you hints about what I see as pragmatic policies: helping the immigrants, but also considering the locals, the cultural differences, enforcing integration and republican values (in France) along with help for integration and against discrimination.
That's not policies, that's slogans. How do you think the immigrants should be helped (and helped to do what?)? How do you think the locals should be "considered?" What does "cultural differences" mean when translated into English, and how does one "consider" it when designing policy? How does one "enforce" "republican values?" And what are those "republican values" in the first place? How do you think that public policy can best assist integration (of whom into what?), and how can public policy be used to prune back discrimination?
Also accepting in France people with a good chance to adapt
What does this even mean? You do realise that there are several ways to get into France that France has very little control over? Refugees cannot be cherry-picked like that - aside from the dubious morality of doing so, it's probably in violation of the UN Refugee Convention. Then there's the whole marriage thing - where a policy of making immigration by marriage difficult by making potential immigrants jump through a ridiculous number of insane hoops is not only of dubious legality under both UN and Union law - it also effectively exiles those of your own citizens who happen to be unfortunate enough to fall in love with someone from outside the Union.
balanced, rational measures that have worked in countries like Canada or Australia.
But you haven't actually mentioned any of those measures! All you've done is provide a laundry list of slogans. Australia and Canada have taken a lot of measures over the years that could broadly be said to be based on those slogans - some of them more or less rational and balanced, while others... not so much.
Vulnerable people must be protected and helped, but not by introducing other kinds of unfairness or exclusion. Hence, I don't believe in quota laws, except very rare, precise cases and very limited in time.
OK, this is more like it. There's actually a debatable political principle here. So quotas are bad and need to be thoroughly justified and limited in scope and time. I can buy that (for suitable values of "limited" and "thoroughly justified").
But can you actually give any examples of quotas that have been assigned on ideological rather than factual grounds?
I think both Massachusets vote for and California vote against gay marriage should be accepted as democratical, contested democratically, without throwing insults and contempt at the other.
Reducing a group of people to second-class citizens based on nothing more than their sexual preference is a completely kosher expression of democracy? I disagree, but at least that proposition is sufficiently concrete to be subject to be debated on its merits.
But I do wonder: When those amendments are struck down by the SCOTUS as being in violation of the Federal constitution, will you argue that this should also be accepted as a kosher expression of democracy? Or is a plebiscite "more democratic" than the doctrine of judicial review?
we should not legislate for every possible situation,
Straw man.
we should not attempt to protect people at all cost,
From what? And, as an aside, "at all cost" is a straw man too.
we cannot justify issues only by societal or environmental causes.
Environmental as in the culture you grow up in or environmental as in polar bears?
I think the idea that people are completely irresponsible is wrong,
But surely, you do accept that some people are totally and utterly irresponsible, right? And policies must be enacted to curtail their irresponsible behaviour, correct? I think that's pretty obvious - particularly set against the backdrop of a global economy brought to the ragged edges of another great depression by one of the greatest pyramid scams in history...
just as the idea that crime or poverty would only be explained by external causes.
Here's my suggestion for the question of crime and poverty: We know that poverty causes crime. We don't know how much of the current crime is caused by poverty, and how much is caused by other factors. But we do know that inasmuch as there is poverty, some of the crime is caused by poverty. So I'd suggest getting rid of the poverty. Then there will be less crime, and we will probably have a clearer picture of what causes the crime, since we've eliminated one of the contributions.
I'd call that a pragmatic approach.
As for the causes of poverty... pragmatically, they don't matter much, because poverty can largely be cured with distributionary policies. There may be ideological reasons to prefer other methods as far as possible (empowerment is also a part of lefty ideology, after all) but pragmatically money works exceedingly well to combat poverty...
Laws should not be made from principial reasons, but depending on the concrete case,
Kinda sorta... But taken to excess, this leads to a lex 8 o'clock news syndrome - where each whiff of scandal gives rise to a new law or rule or regulation to prevent similar failings in the future. Such ad hoc laws often create an ineffective and unduly burdensome legal hodge-podge, which lacks both coherence, structure and a clear strategy for what it is supposed to accomplish.
Jake has gotten into depth to important questions but I will restrict my reply to two issues:
ValentinD:
This led me to say that the dutch policies you mentioned were not so much pragmatic but debatable compromises made on a social-libertarian foundation.
So you did, but with little evidence to show for your argument. Again, I don't think you've adequately answered why libertarian rational can never be considered as pragmatic.
The other problem I remain having is also pointed out by Jake - your ideas on pragmatism get obfuscated by a slew of generalities. I don't "get" your side of pragmatism - the word just gets bandied around and it's just a filler word for me. Drop the hints, tell us what you really would like to see happening.
And preferably not in this thread.
Because I object to right-wing baiting from the presidential party, I am a patronizing, insulting, fist-in-the-mouth, left-wing elitist?
It's your opinion and this is a free country.
Over time, there has been less and less arguments and more vituperation in your writings.
If you choose to go this way, this is your prerogative; just don't expect me to follow you there.
In my book, each adult takes personal responsibility for one's own words and actions. I assume mine.
You decided to behave the way you do; no one else forced you. You can call this ideology (like I care), I call this values. Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
You said that Sarkozy's electoral promises and immigration policies are coded speech targeting racists. I said - and I repeat - that the audience that you call racists are actually citizens who have perfectly legitimate and real reasons to worry, that you deny. And you deny it, because they don't fit the leftwing ideology claiming that "those who appear as weak or as victims must always be right".
The left, just like you do for the third time now, declares those people racists (ie, calls them names), despises them, excludes them. Hence they, with their 15-20%, pushed Le Pen in front of PS's Jospin 6 years ago and ensured Sarkozy wins in 2007.
The speech you call rightwing baiting for racists are actually pragmatic policies addressing legitimate issues of an important part of voting citizens.
You'll likely dismiss this, and I am saying this yet again: the French left, with its custom of picking favourite categories and pushing forwad unreasonable rhetorics and political correctness, is bound to lose general elections for a long time still. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
To say we exist inside ideologies is not a form of relativism. Not at all. Ideologies, even the one that most describes our conceptual framework, are constantly contested, as we learn and develop and incorporate new ideas into the frame.
As for absolute truths, no I have never come across one. I am with Nietszche on this one.
So when we are all inside the same system, and we see (or measure) the same things, in the same conditions, the result will always be the same; hence, in this context, can be said absolute. A relative absolute, if you like.
Absolute, in the sense that we stick to the raw facts, and not reinterpret them in any way.
A statement is not necessarily bad because it's an extremist who issued it first.
When we note that 90% nurses are women, we don't infer that men would be discriminated against. We don't infer that nursing is viewed as an inferior job either. We bring the analysis to the root causes. And if we can't find them, we don't infer anything at all and we leave those poor people alone. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Absolute certitudes such as, there are two genders of humans, male and female, have been overturned.
Again, you're talking about an agreed upon perception of the sun (assuming everyone agrees that in Paris, it's yellow, which I actually think people would contest). That's not a raw fact about the sun.
But that was not the point. The point was that we accept or reject political or social statements based on factual data, and we craft measures pragmatically, not based on some ideological framing. It is a matter of methodology. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
The fact that you said two genders is somehow equated with Newton's laws shows me you're laboring under ideology. Clearly, science has presented facts that show there are more than two genders, and that the very concept of gender is constructed. There's really no debating this at this point since not only the biological evidence shows a significant portion of human beings do not fall into the male and female binary, but that some entire societies don't ascribe to the division either.
Which means these things are socially constructed, or as you put it, normative.
Again, that wasn't the point Sarkozy made by mentioning the Yellow Sun. Hairsplitting when the thing is right in front of us. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Try to look into the incidence of hermaphroditism.
The numbers are much greater than you apparently believe.
Like I said, a poll in Kansas yields the absolute truth that the world was created by God.
If that's not ideology, I don't know what is. And those who are certain there are only two genders are indeed also laboring under an ideology.
But, you'd be quite surprised about this: "Make a poll anywhere you like, see if they're are more than two genders..."
If I took that poll on a Native American reservation that's aware of traditions, if I took that poll in parts of the Dominican Republic, and elsewhere, the results would reveal that people believe there are more than two genders.
Did you intend to type TWO SEXES OF HUMANS? or TWO GENDERS IN ENGLISH, MAN AND WOMAN? Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
But, the original metaphor was very limiting.
The Sun is yellow.
What about sexes? What about race?
I wanted to know if he had raw facts about these sorts of subjects. It seemed to me the precisely proper time to bring these up.
The original metaphor was about refusing ideological interpretations of facts (in every-day-life sense). Not denying the common sensical assessment of a situation because your ideology would not agree with it, or because you would not agree with the ideology of whoever made that assessment first.
For instace, since you speak about race: I wonder if all this talk about racism isn't mistaken, and certain xenophobia come from cultural differences rather than morphologic ones. Cases of perfectly integrated non-white race people in western societies are well known - and I remember someone mentioning the contempt "bounty" persons (dark-skinned outside, white inside) are sometimes facing. I thought it is the best example that it is not biological race in question, but cultural factors, and the keeping or abandoning of it.
This is a good example of pragmatic reasoning as opposed to the current culpabilizing political correctness about racism.
As you see, mine is not a highminded philosophical discourse (not that I wouldn't like it), but applied politics - the underlying theme of this diary. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
I only brought things like race and sex up because these two categories are held in such certitude by most people as being fundamentally based in hard science.
When you realize that these categories are contested and contestable as having no real biological basis, then the previous certitude or "common sense" about their truthful or absolute existence ends up being just one more ideological point-of-view.
As to the race issue, without reading anything deep on it, mine was a common sensical conclusion (for which I expect to be labeled far-right).
Pragmatism sometimes looks narrowminded because of its temptation to a slightly simplificating approach what I called the everyday-life sense, or Newton's laws). In other words, rational pragmatism would seem to require brilliant people like Obama or Clinton to really reach a critical mass. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Same thing.
Thoughts don't appear from out of the blue, neither do values, neither do beliefs.
Ideology is simply one's belief system. If you believe anything, your within ideology. There is no outside.
I just think calls for pragmatism inevitably force me to adopt horrid positions that I don't like. What's pragmatic about pragmatism?
And if you don't read deeply into definitions which most people regard as absolutes (about race for example) aren't you simply deluding yourself?
I mean, I like to know if I'm constantly referring to something I believe is real, but in any sense other than cultural usage, it doesn't exist. There's no essential race out there, neither sociological, nor genetic/biological, not in any field. We can't even define it on the cultural level. There has never been an adequate cultural definition for race, never mind a biological proof that it even exists.
As to race, you are actually protesting against the ideologies of the last 40 years, who defined race in absolute, anthropological and morphological terms. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
By recognizing the total work of ideology, however, you're forced into a more critical and skeptical approach to your beliefs and ideas. You're asked to see them as an interlocking pattern of beliefs that's culturally bound, not solely reliant on logic or common sense, etc. Nietzsche said that the errors in thinking are inevitably the values passed down through the centuries, so that common wisdom never questions itself as long as it regards its bases (DEPTH) as natural or normal or given. Thus, things like sex and race go unexamined. Instead, we argue logically and rationally about the formations of race and sex, but we never actually think beyond that narrative frame to see whether these things have any substance.
"Not solely reliant on logic or common sense"... you say 'not solely', yet you speak about 'recognizing the total work of ideology' and seem to be making an assumption with the hope that it will bring you into a more critical approach by some kind of counter-reaction. Very weird reasoning. One cannot claim that everything is culturally bound, nor that common sense (or wisdom) would always be a mere cultural/social construct. Sometimes they are, other times not so. A rational approach is also about recognizing one's own limits and realizing tendencies of taking something as the final (common sense) base, the absolute truth.
That's why I said that this seems to require people capable of sensing when they start to take as definitive things that are not so, when it is the moment to halt an analysis, or to continue it, or to declare it undecided. I rather tend to say it's a matter of teaching people to think critically, purely and simply, a bit like French school did before the advent of libertarianism in education. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
My approach is to question everything - the critical approach that you seem to think the left are utterly incapable of. Who can really truly say where the line should be drawn on what is culturally bound or not? If you took some of things you consider to be absolute common sense and tried to apply that to a tribe in Africa or the Amazon, would it still stand? Would it still stand if something that is common sense and in no way culturally bound in your opinion, in France was compared to another European country?
You have made a number of assumptions about many different things here, whilst inconsistently saying that these very things should be questioned. Ad astra per aspera
But as I said above, while doubt, keeping an open mind, questioning and self-questioning, are fundamental, this shouldn't stop one from being pragmatic about things, and avoid getting closed in a vicious circle of relativism. If we quit the philosophical scene and leave aside ideologies, we'll likely notice there actually are quite a lot of things we know already, but refuse to see, admit, or whose importance we diminish because it doesn't fit with our previous positions or preferred ideology. The only way to show there's no artificial bias, is sound, honest argumenting.
I gave several examples, that I called obvious:
The only way to show my good faith and my only concern: finding the truth, was to present the two facets and frame it as a question. Can you really not see how precipitated, ill-thought and ideological these conclusions are?
Of course, you can always turn my reasoning at me and say that by claiming common sense, I would decide what is true and what is not, I would bring forth my certitudes. This will always be the risk for rational pragmatists: "how dare you say things are so, impose your own truth, claiming logic and pragmatism? it's just a rhetorical method to exclude others' truths!"
False issues. Theoretical. Ideological. We actually know a lot of stuff as true already; relative stuff is much less than we like to admit. Nuancing is not the same thing as relativism. Seeing both sides of a problem, for instance, the employee's and the manager's, the man's and the woman's, the immigrant's and the local's, is an indispensable tool in finding solutions, and a proof of fundamental good faith. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
And I might not even be able to find an answer. Being a rationalist doesn't mean being all-knowing. As I said before, it is all about the methodology - especially the refusal of any ideology. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
That's not how I live my life.
If you think people don't reject binary divisions of sex in real life then you haven't gotten around much. You'd be totally surprised at the incidence of hermpahroditism. On m college campus there are many many students who live this reality EVERY day.
I'm not being polemical, just noting that I didn't claim rationalism would pretend to give new definitions to things or situations. If incidence of hermaphroditism is relevant (in general, or in a given situation), then it may well be entitled to be declared an absolute truth :) I still don't see the problem. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
That's what I was responding to.
"Gender" in languages signifies cultural norms (say, hierarchical social constructs) and the instrumentality of reproductive capability and political ideologies or economics.
There is too that bio-ethical dilemma evinced in clone technologies yet opposed by law that defeats the "rules" of reproductive politics (cf Mary O'Brien, eg), gender politics (a/k/a "sexism" or "feminism"), and scientific veridical methodologies to which arbiters of Western civilizations appeal for rationales, the legitimacy of punative actions.
Some day being born either male or female will cease to carry institutional value. We all will learn to be it. Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
If infertile variations are divided into the group most similar according - the groups constructed from the sexual reproduction schemes - then you are dealing with a socially constructed cathegory that is wider then the biological one. So no, sex is not an incontrovertible term unless you deal solely with fertile individuals. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
Do you not believe in the existence of absolute truths
In-as-much as we do not each of us on our own develop all of the perceptual processes we employ, we rely on those provided for us by our parents and community. Thus our view of the world is first inherited and then modified as time passes. The question is only of whether we recognize this or simply think that our world "exists" in some absolute sense. So stepping outside of ideology or of our worldview is not a simple thing. Sorry to disappoint. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
Both yours and Upstate NY's points, quite valid at first sight, end up in philosophical discussions about life and reality, life as an illusion, reality as phenomenology, relativism, existence as in ontology, knowledge as in epistemology, religions and myths, sex and gender, Heinsenberg's uncertainty principle and so on.
I know about all this. If we push our reasoning that way, we'll get drawn in endless philosophical discussions hardly likely to bring us anywhere. I can't find less pragmatic an approach, not even that of political ideologies.
The question is, what do we want? What was my diary entry about? Did it look like a philosophical essay? I don't have such pretence, be it only for the time I'd have to spend on it :) This diary entry was about Politics. The relation between political ideologies and factual truth. The new approach that seem to take off these days. My examples were not philosophical, not meant to be. I know where it would lead to start discussions about "what is truth, what is fact, what is factual truth".
I made those reflections from a position of applied political philosophy, from the perspective of, say, someone intending to enter political life, target an office, who knows, dream about becoming President of the United States of Europe. Such a person, I believe, would have the best chances if he dropped ideological stances and stick to the cold facts, adopt a truthful, pragmatic, rational approach.
I don't care about philosophical hairsplitting, for one and only one reason: I'm speaking politics, applied, real-life politics. Someone will maybe launch on an analysis of how braintwisting philosophic theories gave birth to political ideologies. I'm aware of that too. It is part of what I am arguing against. How many people, even amongst the highly educated, actually really understand philosophy? It is maybe the time that people be allowed to live in peace, instead of considered as a mass to manipulate, swung back and forth with this or that slogan, deceitful worldview, emotional appeal, hate speech, visceral stimulation. Ideologies eventually act as blinds drawn over man's conscience, no better than blind faiths. They manipulate consciences with reasonings that hardly go further than two or three moves. Instead of being told what the world is, what society is, people should be treated as rational beings first, allowed their liberty to do critical thinking. Asked their opinion, not told that this or that category would be discriminated against. Educated, not indoctrinated or culpabilized. Treated with more respect, in the end.
Of course "truth", "reality" are interpretable concepts, "facts" may be in continuous evolution, depend on the depth of analysis and so on. But what do we care about quantum physics, or general relativity, when in everyday life Newton's laws suffice? This may seem narrowminded, short-term-ist, but if you look better at my examples, you might seem what I mean. I could speak about an honest approach - and longer debates might flourish, this time about morals.
So I'll just limit to saying that it's all about refusing ideology or any kind of faith in assessing situations. And using a pragmatic, rational approach for this assessment. That kind of rounds it up for me. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
One can believe that absolute truths exist without believing that it is possible to know them (or at least to know that one knows them, which pragmatically is the same deal).
One can also believe that absolute truth doesn't matter. What matters is predictive power. An epistemology that focuses on predictive power usually operates with a finite probability that any given theory is wrong. That probability can, of course, get exceedingly small - for instance, the probability that the Maxwell equations are fundamentally flawed is so minuscule that for most practical purposes it can be ignored.
But really, let's set aside the epistemology for another day. This thread is already more than 200 posts long, and epistemology has a way of adding a hundred and fifty posts to every thread it comes up in :-P
