IMO pragmatism is a new ideology, not no ideology.
Your earlier blog was called "Is ideology dead?" - The debate was controversial. I didn't read all of it but I don't remember that there was agreement on ideology's death.
This blog is called "So, Ideology is dead. So now what?" -
Who said ideology was dead? You declared it dead by choosing this title.
Then, you present your argumented views. They are NOT OBJECTIVE. I don't say they are wrong or right anyhow, or pink, green, yellow, ..., left or right. They are simply not objective. And this is what most here have been saying, I think.
You can say that in your view ideology is this and that but you begin by presenting the issue of the former debate as solved, as irrefutable fact, and on top of it you claim that this is the truth. Well, you don't talk about the truth; you simply say that this is so because of your objective and rational assessment of facts.
This in itself is subjective and highly ideological because you say that your way of looking at an issue is objective; the way you choose and analyze facts is the best there is. By implication you dismiss the arguments others have brought forward on the issue.
You didn't want this debate to be about "your" presumed ideology by trying to keep it abstract and by declaring not only ideology dead but also yourself immune to ideology.
To me this feels like a vacuum that is imploding.
Isn't this the way stars are born?
;)
This blog needs a shift to the right.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
The title was merely provocative. Anyone bothering to go beyond the first line found this:
"Ideologies - or more accurately said, ideologisation of social and political life, seem to show signs of weakness. In what concerns me, I even argued about their approaching death - disappearance, if not from society, at least from public debate of any importance. Is this really the end of it, no more wars of ideas, no more ideals to dream of, no more polarisation?
I confess the idea that we would tend towards a sort of a bureaucratic-technocratic society, sounded quite appealing at first - not because of its advantages: jury's still out on that; but as a surprisingly (and terrifingly) accurate assessment of the state of affairs these days
Moreover, even arguing in favour of "the death of ideologies" is not ideological in itself. It's like arguing that the society is becoming atheist would be a religious position. In a contorted logic, maybe.
Pragmatism, as I said a few times now, is a methodology based on the systematic attempt to get free from subjective bias. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
this is starting to sound like dialogue out of star trek.
we'd all make better decisions if we had no emotions, i guess!
there's something dehumanising in the relentless verbiage, no sense of give and take, just wearying repetitions of what seems an increasingly robotic take on life, expressed with hairsplitting relish-less relish.
you are doubtless intelligent in an AI fashion, but it seems cognitively alien in some way i can't quite put my finger on, something emotionally autistic in the subtext, bleeding through the comments, also a slightly superior, hectoring tone that leaves a funny taste on the monitor.
excuse me for drifting into ad hom territory, but i use it to counter what i perceive to be a trollish passive-aggressivity, especially towards Jake, that provoked so many interesting comments i thought it just a new foil for a while for some here, who usually aren't so forthcoming as a rule.
but it's gone on so long, and while your command of language and argument is impressive, especially in a non-mother tongue, it's fucking hard work tracking you, and after doing the work, there's a vacuously cheated feeling left at the end, as i said in another comment on another semi-tedious thread, there's no 'there' there!
so i must regretfully conclude that you V are a new kind of troll i never encountered before, one that bores victims into reluctant submission, because who has the stamina, at the end of the day, to argue one's points with such a fixed-non-position as yours? in trying to be absolutely impartial, you actually create a semantic black hole for the idealistic to supposedly wormhole through to some post-ideological nirvana, where actually we all end up rendered, flattened into some different, dispassionate shape, disembodied algorithms jammed into some utilitarian anti-philosophy.
it's a recycling of the 'god is dead' mantra of the 50-60's, but this time it's ideology.
so fucking what?
you've created a little tautological loop, and having successfully convinced yourself of its invincibility to discussion, continue to batter the blog with spurious, sophistic, shaggy-dog circular non-reasoning that so far has convinced no-one of the veracity of any of the pseudo-truistic non-points you indefatigably belabour, with admirably impressive tenacity.
there's a kind of zen futility to the whole operation, kinda makes me wonder if you enjoy creating a sort of vortex into which heartfelt arguments meet a watery grave, a maelstrom of meaninglessness into which they tumble, energy and time misspent chimera-chasing.
davy jones in person!
i sure hope you got your jollies here, where's the next lucky blog you plan to enlighten in your, er, unique way?
sheez, i'm sorry if i offended some netiquette, but some of these threads have had me wanting to scream at what i have finally deduced, wading through so many murky mystifications, can only be wilful, wanton and contrarian obtuseness.
i really tried, but this one's off any map i can relate to.
happy looping! i sure wish i hadn't bothered spending precious time down a rabbit hole, but hey, chalk it up to getting accustomed to ET being a place where mental energy invested was always over-amply rewarded.
there went another cherished illusion!
wheeee (with h)... have a peaceful day.
nice job, i admit you had me going for a while... hats off to the saintly levels of patience others have revealed, in trying to welcome you and make you feel respected and 'chez toi'.
fool's gold, it just shimmers, ultimately weightless... being endlessly 'right' is a vaccination against productive discussion. we lefties are easy to bait into 'deep' dialogue, but eventually you have to come clean and take a position that consists of more than shooting holes in others'.
but you're way too clever a fox for that, huh? you are a giant wind-up, that gets kicks from daring provoking people into spitting out what you masochistically really want to hear, namely that your counter-arguments hold no water of life, they're just maya, mindstuff, monkeymind chatter, much ado about Sweet Fanny Adams...
but you were dying to have your bluff called, right?
we're on to you! at least your posts elicited some excellent responses.
lucifer's advocate? ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
Apparently you have never tussled with a global warming skeptic. :-)
The rest was bonus hours spent replying to fierce ideological shots. I merely said, ideological stances have a tendency to exaggeration, to flaming, to work for some ideal, and was noting people might be getting fed up with it.
There is no "there", just a question whether utilitarians are to take the place of the "illuminated" politicians. No intention to promote anything, but the reactions were blazing. I explained why: a non ideologue is mistaken for a hidden kind of one, and attacked by everybody else. What's the goal of pragmatism? Simply utilitarian, I suppose. No more grand vision of the future. What's my goal? None, I framed an issue that I found interesting, and for the rest, mainly replied to ranting. Jake made valid points, which we discussed, and pure sloganeering (which he admitted). But in general, he dragged me on ideological ground. What do I care that he sees the society as a war between fatcats and (cornered, battered) civic organizations? For me, that's the dychotomic view typical to ideologically polarised people.
My "impartiality", utilitarianism, certainly looked excessive and boring, due to too much repetition. My mistake was to not set things straight from the very beginning, know when to draw the line, instead of leaving those "interesting" sub-threads develop to no end, and then complain of it. For instance, it was a big mistake to speak of "sheer communism". It was ideological, and my subsequent clarification was useless. I shouldn't have replied to Ted Welch on "communist dictatorships", as it had nothing to do with my diary.
I'm not trying to revive anything, you can see that but a few people joined in. And for a reason: my diary was a bit too "academic", phrases too long and convoluted, the subject quite trivial, if you take a critical look at it. The subject was actually so dull, that stopping the ideological rants make it look void: the only "brilliant" idea is that we would be diving into prosaic utilitarianism.
So yes, you can say 300 + 300=600 posts were published on anything and everything but the topic, because the topic itself hardly interested.
"saintly levels of patience others have revealed, in trying to welcome you and make you feel respected"
Oh? Except the newcomers' welcome, each of my subsequent posts were met with mistrust and accused of rightwing propaganda. On the women discrimination, or these two blogs on ideology, all I said was in the end quite trivial stuff. But the slightest scent of me not being totally and fully for the weak and the poor, no matter how trivial and argumented, provoked the ire of a handful of people and derived into hundreds of posts.
Yes, lucifer's advocate in a way. I confess to this, I promise I don't do it on purpose, to troll, flame or hurt anybody, I just seem to thrive on hot debates and me taking several sides for the fun of argumenting. I actually tend to do that, indeed. I realize this won't bring me any more fans than I already have :)
I would apologize for this, even if it really was not meant like that. I really only wanted to speak of utilitarian politicians. But then, you do admit to having found some interest in those other reactions after all. If only for that, my "void" can be forgiven and forgotten :)
cheers Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Pragmatism, as I said a few times now, is a methodology based on the systematic attempt to get free from subjective bias.
Not under any of the definitions of that word that appear in my dictionary. The term you're looking for is "the scientific method." But of course, being familiar with the rather dubious claims of Marxism to be based on a scientific understanding of the world, you might understandably be hesitant to claim that your ideology is "scientific." It sounds much better to call it "pragmatic" and then do a rhetorical bait-and-switch to substitute in the meaning of "scientific."
You are of course free to attempt to construct your own political philosophy based on concepts that you invent out of thin air, or based on re-defining words that have a reasonably precise meaning in the context of other political philosophy. And by appropriating words with positive connotations, you might get people to profess agreement. But that's not quite the same thing as convincing them that your position is correct.
In the meanwhile, if you want to get your point across to people who actually do have a little schooling in the standard terminology of political theory, you'd be wise to at least give a nod in the direction of the usual terminology instead of dismissing it as ideologically influenced (it is, of course, just as your terminology is, but that does not render it invalid...).
Hardline ideologists - communists/marxists, fascists, hard right, neocons, neolibs (soc' and eco') occupy the political scene for some time. The point would be no more than applying reason even when the Book says things are this or that way. I'm not saying that computers should decide life much like rugby would only have video equipped robot as referee. I don't say people shouldn't have convictions, but they should be thought of, not just faith.
You think "the war against fatcats", "bigots", "McPain", "Sarko's baiting for racists", "USSR was not really communist" are not rants, do not come from faith and visceral reactions? Do they strike you as reasonable, or productive? Polarisation, framing, invective, truth twisting, sloganeering, this is has always been in fundamentalists' toolbox.
As I said to melo, people need frameworks. People needed religions, and were often exploited by them or by their opportunists. Ideologies today are much like religions yesterday: they pretend to give people a framework, an ideal, make some good points, but behind their rather abstract theoretical base, it often hides opportunism and faith.
"My" pragmatism would be opposed this ideological faith. Not against honest conviction, but against pre-determined, unquestioned conviction, the kind saying "we know workers are exploited, we need no argument or nuancing, anyone bringing that is a miscreant, anyone in dissent is evil". (who said that? one might ask; but it was there permeating everything) Those ideologies I listed above, in the end, amount to exactly that, despite some good, humanist, or logical points they have.
The idea would be about taking faith and intellectual dishonety out of politics and political ideas - call it idealistic, and as such, ideological :) We need people who think critically, rather than just activists, we need people who believe in what they do for a good reason, who combat discrimination not from feminist faith, or biased statistics, but are aware that not all inequality comes from discrimination or unfairness. That they need to look for the causes, not just act out of activism. I didn't plead for a mathematical objectivity, it's impossible and inhumane, and I feel quite more sympathetic to classical liberalism and enlightenment humanism than would be needed to deny that. I'm just getting the impression people are beginning to appreciate more down to earth politics, and less ranting and wild dreams. One might point me to Obama's hopeful yes we can own slogans. Yes, but we can change things that don't work, so that they work, in real life, and not in order to implement this or that ideological agenda. Just wait and watch him at it :) Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
What one might see as my excessive detachedness, abstract objectivity, mathematical formulas, or "scientific method" not unlike Marx's, is more like allowing more critical thinking, more facts, more down-to-earth practical life stances into politics.
Yeah... "critical thinking" - we sure need more Cobb County style "critical thinking..."
Now, that's a real "down to earth" "practical life" approach that caters to the issues that the community actually cares about.
Coming from the guy who said that sloganeering pollutes the debate...
You think "the war against fatcats", "bigots", "McPain", "Sarko's baiting for racists", "USSR was not really communist" are not rants, do not come from faith and visceral reactions?
It's class war, and has a fairly precise meaning that involves taking away billionaires' billions (whether one permits them to keep their millions is where the imprecision comes in), respectively billionaires trying to become trillionaires at the expense of everyone who isn't a billionaire. The latter part being the more common in recent decades...
As for Sarko's race baiting... wasn't it you who said something along the lines of if the shoe fits?
"Bigot" can be a slur, or it can be an accurate assessment of a person. Someone who thinks that homosexuals should be denied the right to marry (or registered partnership or whatever you want to call it to not offend the fundagelical fruitcakes) is a bigot - I hardly think you'll deny that? Context is important.
Similar considerations apply for McPain.
I agree with you on the USSR being communist.
So what was that? One and two halves out of five? But hey, who's counting, right? I'm just being a spoilsport here and disrupting a perfectly good ideological rant.
"My" pragmatism would be opposed this ideological faith. Not against honest conviction, but against pre-determined, unquestioned conviction,
I never saw you make a serious attempt at challenging anybody's convictions. A serious attempt at doing so would involve data and policy, two things you have so far scrupulously avoided to pass comment on.
the kind saying "we know workers are exploited, we need no argument or nuancing, anyone bringing that is a miscreant, anyone in dissent is evil". (who said that? one might ask; but it was there permeating everything)
You never actually presented any data - at least none I've seen. Anecdotes are all well and fine as fairy tales go, but they really don't compare to a good, solid graph.
It would be one thing if all you wanted was for us to accept that workers are not getting a raw deal - and need to be getting an even rawer one - on blind faith, a little hand-waving and some sloganeering that could have been (and often has been) clipped right out of the part of the press that writes in big, easy letters and rarely use words with more than two syllables.
It is quite a different order of chutzpah to claim that this is injecting critical thinking into the debate.
The idea would be about taking faith and intellectual dishonety out of politics and political ideas - call it idealistic, and as such, ideological :)
I'm all for that - I just think you're barking up the wrong tree. The majority of the left got that memo decades ago.
We need people who think critically, rather than just activists, we need people who believe in what they do for a good reason, who combat discrimination not from feminist faith, or biased statistics, but are aware that not all inequality comes from discrimination or unfairness.
Yawn Been there, done that, got a Reagan Revolution for our troubles. We have all those things. What we need is activism that makes sure we can actually put to use any of the insights we gain from all this critical thinking and introspection.
You really are barking up the wrong tree here. The left is so far behind on the propaganda game that it's downright pitiful. It's like hearing a committed pacifist give sermons on the principles of non-violence to a Palestinian kid because he throws rocks at the Israeli tank that's just plowed his house down...
I'm just getting the impression people are beginning to appreciate more down to earth politics, and less ranting and wild dreams. One might point me to Obama's hopeful yes we can own slogans. Yes, but we can change things that don't work, so that they work, in real life, and not in order to implement this or that ideological agenda. Just wait and watch him at it :)
I don't know what you're smoking, but it's unfair of you not to share! (I think I know what you've been reading, but that's neither here nor there...)
I would be most happy if Obama could change the things that don't work so they start working - working for all the people all over the world, ideally. But heck, if he can get it working for all the people all over the US, I'd be impressed.
Given the shitpile that thirty consecutive years of Reaganomics (is it ideological to point out that the current financial and ecological disasters have been the sole and proprietary responsibility of the Right?) have dumped on him, I'd be very surprised.
Given the decrepit state of US democracy (is it ideological to point out that reduced voter turnout has been a deliberate strategy from the Right in the US?), I'd be very, very surprised.
Given that so far he seems to be more about centrism and sticking to Conventional Wisdom (is it ideological to point out that Conventional Wisdom is flat out wrong on how to run an economy?) than about radical change to make things work for Main Street as opposed to Wall Street (and is it ideological to point out that there has been a massive transfer of wealth from Main Street to Wall Street in the last three decades?), I'd be extremely surprised.
