This blog was about the bad sides of pragmatism - technocracy, bureaucracy, shutting down the debate with a pretention of expertise, opposing rights so that to not confer any. You turned it into a ideologically polarised fight. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
I could not care less about sloganeering of any kind.
... says the guy who talks about "promoting a better life for all" and who pronounces that "ideology is dead, so what now?"
Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, pot.
You can blast at neocons, or Sarkozy, or catholics all you want, I don't feel personally touched, it is but the lack of fairness and truthfulness that annoys me.
I challenge you to find somewhere I said something untrue.
Fairness, OTOH, is to some extent a matter of perspective, so it is possible that you find some of my assumptions or conclusions unfair. Which is to my sorrow, but does not change their merit.
This blog was about the bad sides of pragmatism - technocracy, bureaucracy, shutting down the debate with a pretention of expertise, opposing rights so that to not confer any. You turned it into a ideologically polarised fight.
It was ideologically polarised from the word go. By claiming the death of ideology, you lent a shroud of normalcy, legitimacy and even historical inevitability to the current political climate - a climate that is very much dominated by ideological dogmatism, as I explained in considerable detail. I fail to see how disputing the assumptions fundamentally underpinning your diary constitutes an irrelevant threadjack. But maybe that's just me.
As for the fight part... well, we could go back through the comments and see who started what and who called whom names. But frankly, that would probably be an exercise in futility. At any rate, I don't think any of the participants has reason to be particularly ashamed of his or her conduct.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
Untrue stuff? Your whole point of view was heavily biased. Like when you deny any place for argumentation in neocon propaganda, I reply that many americans were still convinced of some of the more logical bits in it, since they re-elected Bush, and you reply the elections were stolen, choosing to ignore the fact that plus or minus several thousand votes, about 50% actually voted for him. You're propagandizing against a supposed propagandist, which is why I'm telling you you're wasting your time. I don't believe in any hard right, neocon or neolib theories, I have certain rightwing values (like the moral value of effort) and leftwing one (like fighting inequalities as a genuine societal goal), and some more. But my stance is not ideological. You probably think anyone must have an ideology, like you have one. The world is polarized, the good and the bad, the fatcats and the oppressed, and any attempt to say differently is a support for the actual state of affairs. If you're trying to prove the inherent relativity in any such position, that's what I call an exercise in futility. We can abstractize stuff to no end, my original points, where I presented several views of certain topics and the polarisation ("extremisation") of debate that usually follows, remain unchallenged - just like the examples I gave on pragmatic Sarkozy.
Had you paid more attention, I did not argue in support of the present situation, but about a change of approach, for nuancing and de-polarising stuff in order to keep in touch with reality. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Pronouncing ideology dead, can that e ideologic ? :)
It can, as in the case of Fukuyama. But that's beside the point, because I was using it as an example of sloganeering - which it indisputably is - not of ideology.
I reply that many americans were still convinced of some of the more logical bits in it, since they re-elected Bush, and you reply the elections were stolen, choosing to ignore the fact that plus or minus several thousand votes, about 50% actually voted for him.
There are several ways to steal an election, of which actual ballot stuffing is only the crudest one. Massive media dominance also counts as a way to manipulate elections - at least when Vladimir Putin does it...
And as an aside, it's closer to 25 % given the turnout.
Had you paid more attention, I did not argue in support of the present situation, but about a change of approach, for nuancing and de-polarising stuff in order to keep in touch with reality.
Depolarising the situation requires a good-faith effort from both sides. The Left has - broadly speaking - shown its good faith by moving towards the centre. The Right has - broadly speaking - responded by moving farther to the right. You're barking up the wrong tree here - we've scratched their backs, it's their turn to scratch our backs now.
And precisely in what way, if I may, would "pronouncing ideology dead" be even remotely similar to "sloganeering" ? (let alone I challenge you to point me wherever such a declaration would be made at all).
Been there, done that, gave the reference to Fukuyama. What more do you want? A detailed dissection of The end of History complete with an analysis of all the misleading sloganeering in it (of which the death of ideology is but one among several)?
"beside the point, because I was using it as an example of sloganeering"
So (unless I misread your english) I rightly ignored it. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
My bad.
