Items Posted by Jim Kalb
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Aug 7 06:11:47 EDT 1994
Article: 2072 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: libertarians
Date: 6 Aug 1994 14:58:34 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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cla04@cc.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) writes:
>I agree that the Welfare State needs a radical revamp but as a
>'communitarian' I am in principle in favour of a Welfare state
For me, it depends on what is meant by "welfare state". The expression
usually means, I think, an arrangement whereby government is responsible
for the welfare of particular individuals. If other social institutions
permit some people to suffer, then government should do something about
it.
My objection to that kind of arrangement is that if the government in
the end is responsible for the well-being of each of us then our
loyalties and obligations to institutions other than government become
optional. Nothing serious will happen even if we forget about them.
Our serious moral obligation becomes the obligation to support the
bureaucracy whereby government serves as an earthly providence.
The effects are particularly bad on the welfare state's intended primary
beneficiaries, poor people, who find the family and social networks
through which they had carried on their lives losing the competition
with well-funded bureaucracies that humiliate their clients in various
ways but make up for it by never calling them to account. Both
humiliation and impunity are bad for people.
>Most importantly of all I think is the fact that Libertarianism is an
>economics orientated world-view in many respects it's merely a reverse
>form of marxism rather like modern 'paganism' is a reverse form of
>Christianity.
This is a puzzling issue. Libertarianism can certainly be understood
that way, but many libertarians insist that they view their political
philosophy, which relates to the justification of compulsion, as
separable from their general ethical philosophy, which relates to what
things are good, right, praiseworthy, and so on. I don't think the
separation works in the long run, but the fact that many libertarians
feel so strongly that it should be made seems to show that they are not
in fact committed to the world-view you describe. Possibly what I would
propose could be better described as an alliance with many libertarians
rather than with Libertarianism.
>As for alliances of convenience it might be worth remembering what
>Cicero thought he was going to do to Octavian 'praise him, give him
>toys, get rid of him' - it was Cicero who was got rid of. I think the
>sad story of FCS as told by stuart is a lesson to us all.
But how do you know the CRs are going to be Cicero instead of Octavian?
I suppose if you're an embattled remnant you should maintain your purity
and if you're the coming thing the more alliances you form the better,
but how do you tell which you are? Would it help my case if I am right
that the libertarianism of most libertarians is incoherent (that is,
that they are uncomfortable with the full-blown worldview you describe)?
>But the problem is when you have reformed the state what do you do then
>with those who want to destroy it - indeed will such allies allow you
>to reform what they want merely to destroy in the first place?
If the main problem with the modern state is that it is overgrown and
crowding out other social institutions, then the reform that is most
urgently needed is to destroy whole sections of it.
Possibly the value of the libertarian alliance could be better assessed
by comparing it with other possible alliances and seeing which is a
better match. My own sense is that today the state is a bigger threat
than the market so the libertarian alliance makes the most sense.
Things might look different in Europe where there's more of a tradition
of restrictions on the market and where the states are much smaller and
less populous and are more tied to particular ethnic and cultural
traditions than our federal government is.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Palindrome of the week: Go hang a salami--I'm a lasagna hog!
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Aug 7 21:40:27 EDT 1994
Article: 2075 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: alliances
Date: 7 Aug 1994 16:27:32 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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DEANE@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU (DAVID MATTHEW DEANE) writes:
>Well, I think I can speak for myself and Michael Walker in saying that
>I agree; we are communitarians too and can - in principle - support
>some form of welfare state, whilst the libertarians cannot.
To clarify my own objection--the welfare state seems to me the most
anticommunitarian arrangement possible. The intention is to make every
man perfectly independent of every other man and perfectly dependent on
society in general. So far it's the same as Rousseau's dream in his
_Social Contract_. The difference, though, is that there is no General
Will, only particular wills. In the absence of the welfare state
particular obligations and loyalties remain necessary because otherwise
not all practical needs are taken care of. In the welfare state all
particular loyalties are sacrificed not to some grand loyalty that
serves as the basis for an absolutely unified community (as in Rousseau)
but rather to an abstract scheme through which appetite can be
satisfied. Society becomes a purely technical arrangement among the
particular desires of particular men, available resources, and processes
of production and distribution.
An objection to the above is that I am only describing the welfare state
in a liberal society and in a CR society the welfare state would be very
different in nature. That may be true, but it seems to me that in order
to attain hegemony a social order based on CR principles must begin
embryonically in some part of society that is not fully integrated into
the liberal order. My point is that in a libertarian society there is
more that is illiberal (e.g., family life) than in a liberal welfare
state. That is why libertarians tend to be narrowminded bigots who make
a fetish of private property--if they thought about things more flexibly
and clearly they would note that their libertarian political principles
do not carry out their philosophical liberalism nearly as well as modern
liberalism does.
If someone is a communitarian and wants people integrated into society,
that's great. But the effect of the welfare state under current
conditions is to integrate people into liberal society. Is that so
good?
>I am less sanguine concerning intellectual alliances with libertarians,
>for the fundamental reason that they are speaking an entirely different
>language and reasoning from alien assumptions.
Any language can express a very large variety of things, and assumptions
that appear true to people can usually be made true by slight changes
and redefinitions. If you want your outlook to win it can help to learn
to express it in a variety of languages and demonstrate it from a
variety of axioms. Think about what liberals have done with the U.S.
constitution and the Christian religion, both of which many people now
honestly believe require the liberal program. If hegemony is what
you're after, it seems to me that's one way of getting it.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Palindrome of the week: Go hang a salami--I'm a lasagna hog!
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Aug 8 16:14:10 EDT 1994
Article: 2079 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: welfare state
Date: 8 Aug 1994 16:13:50 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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DEANE@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU (DAVID MATTHEW DEANE) writes:
>In a sense, all states are "welfare states" since a state is
>necessarily created to provide certain benefits to its citizens - ie,
>provide for their welfare.
One distinction is between a state that promotes the common good and one
that promotes the particular goods of individuals. To promote the
common good is to promote something that defines and justifies a
community. Liberalism aims to promote particular goods because it
rejects the notion of the common good (and thereby rejects community).
The modern welfare state takes on direct responsibility for the
particular goods of individuals, while in its libertarian form
liberalism permits people to pursue their own particular goods
unrestrained by the competing claims of the common good.
>Those whose intellect does not function according to
>liberal/libertarian precepts have already emancipated themselves from
>the liberal order.
Easier said than done.
>So if libertarians were smarter they would not be libertarians - they
>would be liberals? Or they would abandon liberalism altogether? I'm not
>sure I follow you here.
Libertarians are muddled. Sometimes being muddled is a sign of
stupidity and sometimes it's a sign of unwillingness completely to
accept one's announced principles. To stop being muddled you either get
over your unwillingness (in the case of a libertarian, you become a
liberal) or you change your principles (abandon liberalism altogether).
Sometimes giving up a comfortable muddle can be too hard for flesh and
blood to bear.
>You seem to be arguing my case.
I'm not sure we're disagreeing. In my last several posts I've mostly
been repeating myself in different words for the sake of making my own
thoughts clearer to myself.
>Also, I mentioned alien assumptions; no language using liberal
>vocabulary can move in a CR direction until replacing liberal
>assumptions with CR ones.
Can CR assumptions be viewed as the dialectical completion or higher
truth of liberal assumptions? Could you continue the libertarian =>
liberal sequence and end up with something CR? For example, we have
seen the following evolution:
1. You can do whatever you feel like doing with your own property
(Jefferson).
2. You can do whatever you feel like doing with your own property,
except the part the government takes from you and gives to people with
less property (FDR).
3. You can do whatever you feel like doing with your own property,
except the part the government takes from you and gives to people with
less property and except that you can't act in a way that denies some
conception of human dignity and integrity of the natural environment
(McGovern and after).
Note that the development of liberalism can be understood as a move away
from pure procedure to some conception of substantive ethical goals. At
present the substantive ethical goals turn out on examination to be
vacuous. All men have equal dignity that must be respected because all
men are equally willful. Why couldn't the next step in the development
of liberalism be the infusion of more content into the goals? I don't
see how human dignity could be made more substantive without moving in a
CR direction. (For example, saying that men have dignity because there
are objective substantive goods that men share or because they are
participants in a moral order that they can either accept or reject.)
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Palindrome of the week: Go hang a salami--I'm a lasagna hog!
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Aug 10 13:58:34 EDT 1994
Article: 2086 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Murray
Date: 10 Aug 1994 13:58:28 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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DEANE@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU (DAVID MATTHEW DEANE) writes:
>Tuesday's Boston Globe (Aug. 9) has an article about a new book on the
>nature/nurture question by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray:
>"The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life"
>(Free Press).
I had known they were working on something of the sort but not that it
had come out. For some reason _The New York Times_ hasn't given it much
play.
>Interestingly, the Globe writer refers to Murray as "conservative
>political analyst Charles Murray". So I think it is not only I who
>thinks of Murray as a conservative, Mr. Kalb.
All I said was that his affiliations were neo rather than paleo, which
is to say that his ancestry is liberal. From the standpoint of the
Glob, I'm sure, "conservative" means neo, because paleos don't exist at
all.
On the view I espoused in the most recent thread, that a CR position
would be a legitimate development from liberalism, neoconservatism
should be viewed as a step in the right direction that will be followed
by further steps. This book is a further step.
>however, no one can examine the fundamental roots of inequality (in
>this example, genetics) and remain a liberal of good standing. To
>question equality is to question the very foundations of the modern
>liberal worldview; by that standard, many "conservatives" are nothing
>more than liberal quislings.
"PC" is a sign that liberals know that if you question their view of
things at all you will end very far from it. Did you notice Tom
Fleming's prediction in the latest _Chronicles_ that over the next year
it would become the neocon position that "civil rights" is a mistake
because its factual presupposition, the equality of the races, is an
error? He mentioned Michael Levin but may have had the
Murray/Herrnstein project in mind as well. Maybe the "conservatives"
weren't liberal quislings, they were liberals on the way to becoming CRs
who simply had not yet evolved enough.
The thing to remember about liberalism is that at this point it's an
extremist ideology attempting to present itself as common sense and
decency.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Palindrome of the week: Go hang a salami--I'm a lasagna hog!
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Aug 11 18:48:56 EDT 1994
Article: 6804 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Conservative objections to liberal programs
Date: 11 Aug 1994 14:26:45 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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The following are some general thoughts. Comments are welcome, if
anyone finds what I've written comprehensible enough to comment on.
The basic difference between liberals and conservatives is not economic
but moral and cultural. Fundamentally, liberals believe individuals
should be self-defining and liberated from dependence on particular
persons and circumstances by the welfare/civil rights state, while
conservatives believe it is better for people to have stable personal
and social identities determined by some combination of circumstances,
chance and personal effort. As a result, liberals seem to
conservatives to be immoralists who want to set up a totalitarian
state, while conservatives seem to liberals to be bigots who don't care
about justice or human rights.
The differences can be seen in disputes over the social institutions
that carry forward the liberal agenda:
2. Entitlements. The economic problem with these is that they are
expensive, and will become indefinitely more so even as the standard of
well-being they secure declines. In the end, it may be economics that
determines what happens to them. The conservative moral and cultural
objection to them, however, is that they destroy informal institutions
like family and community that define what people are and help them
make sense of their lives. Since the government will take care of
things if no-one else does, individual responsibility and family and
community obligations become optional. Our only serious moral
obligations become political correctness (support for the welfare/civil
rights state) and payment of taxes. Everything else is
self-expression. Conservatives believe that people can't live like
that, and indicia of social disorder such as crime rates seem to bear
out their view.
3. Civil rights laws. Liberalism dominates our public discussion of
politics to the extent that these are universally treated as lofty
expressions of an evolving morality that require only to be
strengthened and enforced more aggressively. Conservatives pay lip
service, but rightly are suspected of less-than-complete commitment to
the cause. In fact, what civil rights laws amount to is a
determination that people will not be allowed to come together for
common purposes unless the government controls the way they come
together to make sure their cohesion doesn't arise from something other
than economics and functional efficiency. Traditional principles of
cohesion--extended blood relationships, ethnic and cultural kinship,
religious affililation, sex roles--are forbidden when their
consequences would matter. Even economic and functional considerations
aren't good enough if they result in differential participation by
different social groups. No principle of social order other than
economics and legal compulsion, and in particular no principle that
people feel to be central to their personal identity, is to be allowed
any practical significance. But if personal identity is one thing, and
the public social order is something entirely different, it's not clear
how much is left of personal identity. What we're left with is the
liberal individual attempting to define himself in a void, and that
can't be done.
1. Public schools. Centralizing measures such as the recent Education
Bill, continuing judicial and legislative requirements leading toward
centralized funding in the name of equality, the power of
administrators, teachers' unions and professional organizations, and
overall social trends suggest that the public schools will continue to
cost more and get worse both academically and from a cultural and moral
point of view. Multiculturalism, which consists in a principled attack
on all particular cultures, is here to stay. Vouchers would only extend
central control to private schools as well. The basic problem is that
the schools are controlled by professionals and administrators employed
by the government who believe things ought to be run by professionals
and administrators employed by the government. Toward that end schools
intentionally weaken children's attachment to traditional ways of life
carried on through informal family and community institutions and
substitute for that attachment the ideology of self-definition and self-
realization. From a practical standpoint, of course, that ideology
means dependence on the government bureaucracy and thus furthers the
class interests of those who run the schools.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Palindrome of the week: Go hang a salami--I'm a lasagna hog!
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Aug 12 14:34:33 EDT 1994
Article: 2093 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: alliances
Date: 12 Aug 1994 10:38:46 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Stuart writes:
>But in the arena of policy the aims are *strategic*: ie an ideological
>battle waged principally for influence within the
>Conservative/Republican Party. Since we all seem agreed that
>ideological overlap between CRs and libs is at best superficial, they
>are rivals, not potential allies.
I don't think there are many ideological libertarians in the Republican
Party. The ILs I know of make a point of how disgusting they think
Republicans are--one motive is the one Mr. Deane mentioned, proving how
PC they are.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Palindrome of the week: Go hang a salami--I'm a lasagna hog!
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Aug 12 14:34:35 EDT 1994
Article: 2094 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Conservatives in crisis? Some thoughts
Date: 12 Aug 1994 10:41:17 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Stuart writes:
>The US, similarly, can no longer define or sustain its nationalism by
>reference to the Red Peril.
Quite true. The position of the Left is that the substance of U.S.
nationalism should now be an expanded welfare state at home, so that
every American is treated the way Americans deserve to be treated, and
abroad the extension of what are called democracy and human rights,
through multilateral arrangements if possible and by means of mutterings
about force if necessary. According to the mass-market Right, U.S.
nationalism now consists in the free market and its associated habits
and values, which are what made America great. The specialty-shop Right
is meanwhile fantasizing about secession.
>Although he approaches the problem more from a traditional class basis
>than a specific policy divide, the American political commentator
>Charles Murray also postulates a fundamental repositioning of the
>sociopolitical fault lines, between those he calls the 'New Victorians'
>and, rather unkindly, the 'New Rabble'.
Quite possibly. The New Rabble is very large and growing, though, and
has even developed its own intolerant moralism that is generally
accepted by our most authoritative institutions. So I don't see why the
New Victorians should win. They may, of course, either because virtue
tends to triumph because of its intrinsic attractiveness or because the
Victorians will be more productive than the Rabble and Marx and others
tell us that societies tend to organize themselves in the way that
maximizes production.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Palindrome of the week: Go hang a salami--I'm a lasagna hog!
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Aug 12 14:34:37 EDT 1994
Article: 2096 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Murray
Date: 12 Aug 1994 14:32:45 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In tlathrop@netcom.com (Tom Lathrop) writes:
>Anyway, can anyone suggest any good, reasonably recent books that look
>at the subject of intelligence from a, shall we say, *unorthodox*
>perspective? I've read Daniel Seligman's "A Question of Intelligence",
>but so far that's it.
A couple of years ago _National Review_ had an article summarizing the
state of knowledge regarding racial IQ differences. It probably had
references. Michael Levin, as you no doubt know, has written articles
on the subject.
On a somewhat different aspect, Mark Snyderman and Stanley Rothman
published a book in the late '80s summarizing a survey they did among
academics who study intelligence, a majority of whom (it turned out)
affirmed that there are material racial differences in average innate
intelligence. The book's findings are worth knowing about, since
discussions of this issue with people who know anything turn into
discussions of burden of proof, what counts as evidence, and so on.
Unless you happen to be an expert yourself, it pays to know how people
who spend their lives studying the stuff come out on the issues.
>BTW, interesting newsgroup you have here!
Thanks. I think the absence of crossposting has been the key.
alt.society.conservatism looked OK when it started up, but then someone
started crossposting to alt.fan.dan-quayle and alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
and it was all over.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Palindrome of the week: Go hang a salami--I'm a lasagna hog!
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Aug 13 07:19:49 EDT 1994
Article: 2099 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Conservatives in crisis? Some thoughts
Date: 12 Aug 1994 22:06:33 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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nmonagha@nyx10.cs.du.edu (N.O. Monaghan) writes:
>Is there any likelihood of separatism becoming an issue in American
>political life? Currently I have heard very little being expressed on
>such an issue although the concept was briefly touched upon in an old
>edition of _Scorpion_ (the 'In Search of America' edition). Would the
>possible separation of Quebec from the rest of Canada encourage
>discussion along these lines?
A few people daydream out loud about separatism on occasion, and the
daydreams have become more common in the past few years, but it hasn't
become an issue anywhere that I know of. One problem is that there's
not enough geographical separation among the groups in the U.S. that
might become different nationalities. Quebec is both a cultural and
linguistic community and a compact geographical area, and so is a
different case.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Palindrome of the week: Tulsa nightlife: filth, gin, a slut ...
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Aug 13 18:21:06 EDT 1994
Article: 2102 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Every man his own Spengler!
Date: 13 Aug 1994 10:32:22 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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I was in the mood for grandiose historical theorizing this morning, and
so wrote the following. Any comments are welcome. In the alternative,
I'm sure other people can post something better and I urge them to do
so.
Alternate centralization and decentralization has been a feature of many
civilizations. Empires arise but don't last forever; as the central
power becomes decadent imperial control becomes nominal or disappears
altogether. The pattern stands out most sharply in China because of the
long continuity of that civilization, but is visible elsewhere as well.
In Europe and its offshoots we lose sight of the cyclical nature of
empire because the centralizing trend has been going on for so long,
with interruptions since the 11th century, and because unification has
not been the apparent work of one man--an Alexander or Shi Huang Ti--or
a particular class of men--the Roman upper classes--but has been the
outcome of myriad tendencies combining to form what has come to seem an
irresistable force of nature.
Nothing human lasts forever, though. An empire is in danger when it is
too successful and those in power become more concerned with their
wishes than with realities and forget that the empire's existence does
not follow from their own inability to imagine anything different. It
falls apart when it can no longer call on the loyalty of the people
when it is challenged. The centralizing and universalizing trend in
the civilizations of the West has endured because it has always been
limited in its goals and it has been resisted, so it didn't grow stupid
and every advance had to appeal to loyalties that people actually felt.
It follows from its conditions of success that the moment the project
of European unification becomes unlimited, when the attempt is made to
integrate a united Europe and West into the New World Order, is also
the moment that project collapses. The signs are here to see. In the
American branch of European civilization, Clinton's incompetent
affirmative-action choices for his cabinet and the campaigns for
democracy in South Africa, Haiti, and elsewhere are among the many
indications that our rulers now take their wishes for realities, and
the state of public discussion of equality issues shows that they can't
contemplate doing otherwise. Popular trust in government continues its
decades-long decline, and the vision of a cosmopolitan consumerist
civilization is quite evidently one in which there is no place for
serious loyalty of any kind. Political fantasies that can't change and
that evoke no loyalty don't last, and that's what our politics have
become.
So what next? Presumably, crises and breakup. We can all hope and work
for a soft landing, but an ex-Soviet solution, in which imperial breakup
is followed by the neo-feudalism of organized crime and local warfare as
new boundaries are established, is certainly a possibility.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Palindrome of the week: Tulsa nightlife: filth, gin, a slut ...
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Aug 13 19:10:44 EDT 1994
Article: 2107 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Every man his own Spengler!
Date: 13 Aug 1994 19:08:40 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 71
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References: <32ilhm$pf1@panix.com> <32jf9s$pf9@dns1.NMSU.Edu>
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tminnix@nmsu.edu (Timothy O. Minnix) writes:
>I would follow Jefferson in stating that any government, whether
>national or imperial, has a strong tendency to arrogate more and more
>power to itself over time.
Sure, but that applies to local governments, individuals, private
organizations, and so on, as well as to the feds. If there is a
necessary categorical tendency toward centralization, why do empires
sometimes fall apart? Why didn't a single universal empire arise a long
time ago?
>People clamor for govenmental action which serves their interests,
And also from exemptions from governmental action which does not serve
their interests.
>and since for different groups these interests are bound to be
>incompatible to some degree, we wind up with politicians who only speak
>for these groups and not for the good of the whole.
Which means that we automatically have a tendency toward disunity as
well as toward central control. Which one wins when?
>In our time at least, this seems to impel even greater government
>interference as each group (and in the end practically all people) see
>government as some kind of cornucopia and fight endlessly over its
>fruits, with no 'wise statesman' around to show them how their actions
>can imperil their own well-being and that of others.
So you end up with a government that tries to do everything for
everyone without enforcing anything against anybody, and becomes
ineffectual. The problem is doubled if the government is trying to
replace criteria having to do with efficiency with ones having to do
with equality, and applies that program to itself as well as to private
institutions. The result: a theoretically omnipresent but practically
useless government. People deal with their problems by banding
together locally, and very likely illegally, and you get effective
decentralization.
> Hence, I consider the whole approach taken by the Founding
>Fathers for maintaing a small, relatively unobtrusive national
>government as somewhat confused. It's simply ridiculous to believe that
>these checks and balances are going to keep Big Brother (BB) away from
>the national 'doorstep' if the president believes in BB, Congress
>relies on BB, the Supreme Court invokes BB's power whenever it suits
>them, and the people themselves turn to BB for redress of their
>personal annoyances.
Structural things can help, but only if other factors generally point in
the right direction. As you observe, for some time that has not been
the case.
> More likely, the U.S., which prides itself on its 'frontier'
>heritage and mentality, will just gradually turn into another typical
>'European' nation where large bureaucracies are a daily, largely
>unquestioned fact of life. There's no need to postulate a 'breakup' for
>the U.S. any more than for Britain or France.
Neither the U.K. nor France are eternal. The U.K. is visibly composed
of several nationalities, and France has also been, in its own small
way, a prisonhouse of nations. The question is whether the process that
has produced the bureaucratic and centralized European state and is now
establishing a bureaucratic European superstate as part of a global
order will keep going successfully forever or whether at some point it
will destroy the conditions for its own existence--for example, popular
loyalty and the class system that for so long produced effective and
intelligent administrators and statesmen.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Palindrome of the week: Tulsa nightlife: filth, gin, a slut ...
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Aug 14 14:45:50 EDT 1994
Article: 6833 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Individualism and stereotypes
Date: 14 Aug 1994 14:37:40 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 92
Message-ID: <32lo9k$sdp@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Societies are destroyed by their characteristic features. Accordingly,
the catastrophic changes afflicting American society over the past 30
years or so can be traced to our excessive individualism.
American individualism started with the view that social identity should
not be fixed, and that a man should be accepted as whatever he is able
to make of himself. It has ended with the view that social identity
should not exist, except as a temporary and superficial aspect of the
voluntary performance of a particular social function. Each of us is to
be a free and equal individual unlimited by the social stereotypes that
make up social identity.
Accordingly, what liberals consider the moral and political progress
achieved since the Second World War, and especially since Kennedy's
assassination, has been in essence an attack on social stereotypes and
an attempt to uproot them by all possible means of persuasion and
coercion. The civil rights and feminist revolutions were overtly such,
the sexual revolution was an attack on the traditional view that modes
of sexual conduct should be stereotypically fixed, and the attempted
exclusion of religion from public life, together with the radicalization
of the mainstream churches, has been an attempt to eliminate the notion
of the world as an objective moral order in which people have
stereotypically prescribed obligations independent of their personal
feelings and choices.
The liberal attack on the legitimacy of social stereotypes has often
been cast as one on discrimination--the application of differing
stereotypes to different people--but it is really an attack on
stereotypes as such. A stereotype is simply a fixed concrete view of
what people should do and be (that they should get married before they
have children, for example), and any such view can be characterized as
discriminatory against those who don't comply with it.
The attack has been successful to the extent that there is no body of
respectable opinion that squarely speaks up for stereotypes. At least
in public, there is general agreement that social stereotypes are wrong
in principle.
Since all seem to agree that stereotypes are bad, we should consider
what a society without stereotypes would look like. Such a society
would be one in which we have no grounds for assuming anything about
the attitudes or conduct of other people, except (in the best case)
that they will meet their legal obligations. As a result:
1. Such a society would be one in which law (including legally-
enforceable contracts) should determine everything that people need to
rely on. But law must be interpreted, and even the clearest and most
detailed law can in the end only be interpreted by reference to
presumptions as to what is proper. However, no such presumptions can
be attributed to a society without stereotypes, so the necessary
presumptions would simply be those made by the particular people in
power. It follows that in such a society the law would grow more and
more complex and all-encompassing, while its meaning would become more
and more inscrutable and reduce in the end to the will of those who
interpret and enforce it.
2. In a society without stereotypes we couldn't say anything about the
specific goals people should have, but we could say that they all have
goals that they want to achieve, and therefore we would accept as an
objective good whatever is a universal means of bringing about goals.
The universal means of bringing about goals, at least to the extent
goals require the cooperation of other people, are money and power. It
follows that in a society without stereotypes money and power would be
the sole recognized objective goods.
3. Long-term personal relationships such as friendship and marriage
depend on our ability to make informal and usually inarticulate
presumptions about the attitude and conduct of other people. Such
presumptions can't possibly be made legally enforceable. Accordingly,
long-term personal relationships would be rare or nonexistent in a
society without stereotypes.
4. A vision of one's own long-term good can not be truly a private
matter because one must be able to contrast it with impulse, present
inclination, infatuation, and the like. It must therefore be something
one can make mistakes about. We can't understand something as a
"mistake", though, except by reference to standards that don't depend
solely on our state of mind and therefore must be standards that we
share with other people. A standard of conduct that doesn't depend on
one's state of mind, in order to be fixed and concrete enough for most
people to use, would have to be a stereotype. It follows that a
society without social stereotypes would be a society of fundamentally
aimless people, with all the ills mass aimlessness brings about.
Students of social trends will recognize these consequences as ones with
which we are living. As the war against stereotypical thinking wins
more and more victories we will see more of them, with no apparent
limit. Some may like the overall package the liberal moral order offers
us. For my own part, I prefer what is now called bigotry.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Palindrome of the week: Tulsa nightlife: filth, gin, a slut ...
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Aug 14 14:46:00 EDT 1994
Article: 30229 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.radical-left
Subject: Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: OBNOXIOUS LIBERTARIAN AWARDS!
Date: 14 Aug 1994 13:45:26 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 16
Message-ID: <32ll7m$m21@panix.com>
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Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:30229 talk.politics.misc:189041 alt.politics.libertarian:40477 alt.politics.radical-left:22908
In bsharvy@efn.org (Ben Sharvy) writes:
> of course it is possible for a faschist state to call
>itself socialist, just as it may call itself capitalist (e.g., South
>Africa).
Why call South Africa a fascist state? The old South Africa had
multiple political parties that actually competed with each other in
public, it didn't have a single magnetic leader ruling by
extraconstitutional means, it wasn't particularly militaristic, the
government laid no particular emphasis on mass rallies, a youth
movement, ritualistic approval by electorate and parliament of the
leadership's decisions, and so on.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Palindrome of the week: Tulsa nightlife: filth, gin, a slut ...
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Aug 14 20:11:10 EDT 1994
Article: 2110 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Murray
Date: 14 Aug 1994 16:41:07 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Message-ID: <32lvh3$lah@panix.com>
References: <32gf8d$oeq@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
tlathrop@netcom.com (Tom Lathrop) writes:
>>. I think the absence of crossposting has been the key.
>
>Do I see a subtle hint here?
None was intended, but I won't object if one is taken.
>I must admit I hadn't really thought about how crossposting can mess up
>a newsgroup by homogenizing the discussion and drawing in the same old
>crowd.
It makes it difficult to do anything except discuss old points with
either the same people or their twins. There's no way a discussion can
evolve.
>I am kind of curious though whether anyone here has been reading the
>somewhat unfortunately named "Illegal to be White" thread in
>alt.politics.correct, talk.politics.misc, and a few others, and whether
>you think I'm a complete idiot or what? Any comments?
I hadn't, but I just looked at it. I thought you did very well. Did
you get any email from people who wanted to discuss the issues?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Palindrome of the week: Tulsa nightlife: filth, gin, a slut ...
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Aug 15 06:30:30 EDT 1994
Article: 2113 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Every man his own Spengler!
Date: 14 Aug 1994 21:53:54 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 66
Message-ID: <32mhri$g4b@panix.com>
References: <32jf9s$pf9@dns1.NMSU.Edu> <32jjpo$7em@panix.com> <32m0rp$aed@dns1.NMSU.Edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
tminnix@nmsu.edu (Timothy O. Minnix) writes:
>It helps to recall that an empire is really only a very powerful nation
>able to rule over other nations or peoples.
They often start that way, but it seems to me that an empire is simply a
multinational and cosmopolitan state. There need be no dominant nation.
Neither the Romans, Latins, nor Italians were dominant in the later
Roman Empire. The United States is an empire, or it is now that we have
been told by our betters that it is our destiny and ideal to be a
multicultural and multiethnic society. The European community is an
empire in the making. The New World Order is a projected universal
empire.
>In our own time, it seems two ideas are being lost: 1) that possibly
>social problems can be solved without bringing the government into the
>scene either in a positive or negative sense, and 2) that a government
>might possibly serve the common good instead of a mixed bag of special
>interests with the mix shifting according to which party is in power.
Sure. The government may not always be able to deliver, though. If
not, people will form their own local alliances to shift for themselves
whether they like it that way or not.
> Now is the time, I suppose, to tell you that I'm a
>'conservative's conservative' in the tradition of De Maistre though my
>brain is nowhere near as great as his. I look both upon liberal and
>counter-revolutionary schemes to 'mold' people in a manner contrary to
>the nature of their psyches with a somewhat jaundiced eye
The question is what someone with that view does in a society in which
the authoritative institutions are committed to the radical
reconstruction of the human soul in the interests of equality, hedonism,
and materialism. Ethnic and other particular attachments, sex roles,
faith in things that transcend sense and desire--all are to be
eliminated. One possibility is to say "it's all a philosophical
mistake" and expose it so it will disappear. There's certainly some of
that attitude in de Maistre and in Burke.
>The trend toward tyranny of which Socrates spoke takes many generations
>to come about, and occurs in a process that could be called organic.
Plato's account in _Republic_ viii-ix is certainly persuasive and makes
the process look inevitable. On the other hand, no theory exhausts
reality.
>Because of this it appears unlikely to me that anyone will force
>fundamental social change that isn't ready to happen anyway, and so we
>doctors from e e cummings who know a hopeless case when we see one must
>still allow the 'patient' (modern society) to die a natural death
>instead of murdering it, which would simply insure even greater chaos.
You can tell a hopeless case only in retrospect. Even efforts that seem
hopeless can bear unexpected fruit.
>Although all three of the above countries will likely disappear
>sometime, such events on the world scale by and large unfold over the
>course of several lifetimes in a way consistent with the evolving
>goals and needs of the people living in those places.
Events prepare slowly but can happen quickly. They may result from
people's evolving goals and needs but need not satisfy them. Think of
the French and Russian revolutions.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Palindrome of the week: Tulsa nightlife: filth, gin, a slut ...
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Aug 16 05:50:16 EDT 1994
Article: 2119 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: alliances
Date: 15 Aug 1994 22:36:14 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 121
Message-ID: <32p8mu$ijk@panix.com>
References: <01HFMLDQKDC49C647O@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU> <323g3k$g1f@panix.com> <32ogi0$hnt@gabriel.keele.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
cla04@cc.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) writes:
>The general problem with getting rid of the system I suspect is human
>nature. If we were all prepared to contribute willingly to charity to
>help the deserving poor the world would indeed be a better material and
>moral place, but we wouldn't be and the damage then to the fabric of
>society would be incalculable.
Does the welfare system reduce or increase misery? I live in a
neighborhood with a lot of people on welfare, and it looks to me like
the system isn't a good thing in the long run even for the people who
supposedly benefit from it. If welfare is available more and more
people become dependent on it and it becomes unmanageably expensive, so
the standard of support is eventually cut. In the mean time people's
ability to organize themselves for effective action and their
affiliations with other people weaken. The result is a horribly sordid
and brutal way of life for a lot of people that never would have gotten
started if the government hadn't made it easy to live that way. That's
what I see around me, anyway.
If there weren't a comprehensive welfare system a variety of things
would shift in ways that would reduce poverty. It wouldn't just be
increased charitable giving, although that would happen too.
(Charitable giving went up a lot in America in the Reagan 80s, for
example.) Welfare reduces the willingness of people with few skills to
accept and stick with whatever employment they can find, which is the
way for them to accumulate work experience and so climb out of poverty.
As to your particular concern, welfare weakens the immediate ties among
people that make up community.
The ties that create families for the raising of children, I suppose,
are the most fundamental ties that build communities. Welfare is
adverse to the formation of those ties. An unwed mother on welfare in
Britain in 1955 had to get by on less than 22 pounds a week (in 1987
purchasing power). In the 60s and 70s the benefit grew, to 36 (1987)
pounds by 1970 and 52 (1987) pounds by 1980. Also, starting in 1977 the
Homeless Persons Act gave unwed mothers an immediate right to housing if
they couldn't live with their parents and also put them at the head of
the queue for council housing. Corresponding to the changing welfare
system, illegitimacy generally declined in Britain from 1947 to 1960, to
about 5% of all births. It then began to rise, to 10.6% in 1979, and
then really took off, to 14.1% in 1982, 18.9% in 1985 and 25.6% in 1988.
It seems to me that mothers and children in Britain would most likely
have been better off if the whole process had never gotten started.
>That I think is the base of my objection to the Libertarian solution.
>The worst of it would be that instead of a free society of economically
>autonomous individuals we would see private patrons emerging -
>Caciquismo is a reality in much of Mexico and was once in Spain - the
>robber barons would simply take the place of welfare bureaucrats.
I doubt it-- Mexico and Spain have always been poor examples of free-
market economies, and feudalism generally arises only when the laws
don't protect life and property. As I suggest above, I think you would
see much stronger family life and community institutions. Leftists like
Hillary Clinton, of course, see such things as the moral equivalent of
feudalism and slavery.
>: Society becomes a purely technical arrangement among the
>: particular desires of particular men, available resources, and processes
>: of production and distribution.
>
>True, but the same is manifestly true in a society with no welfare system.
How so? I could understand your point if by "society" you mean "the
formal institutions of a libertarian society". My point, though, is
that a liberal (in the American sense) society is much more prone to
absorb all institutions into its formal institutions than a society with
libertarian legal institutions.
>The full blown Lib though would have rights for children and the family
>would become a contractual agreement where each party would angle for
>their own selfish advantages,
I agree any CR alliance with Libertarians would break down at some
point. Alliance is not identity. Even on this point, though, formal
rights of children under the law can't mean much unless there is a
government bureaucracy to vindicate them and give the children someplace
else to go. For that matter, parents could have their children sign a
standard form of contract providing for what normal people think of as a
normal relation between parent and child. My real point here, though,
is that libertarian legal institutions would not cause the members of a
family to understand it as a contractual arrangement. Libertarians
think it would because of their understanding of human relations, but I
don't give that understanding much credence on the point. Families
exist as families when there is no government at all. Why not when
there is minimal government?
>The problem with the Lib view is that even non-economic relations are
>reduced to a cash-nexus,
That's their theory, but I don't think it would be the result of
libertarian legal arrangements. Libertarians don't understand society.
That means, among other things, that they don't understand what the
results of their own proposals would be.
>I suspect if this is the only sanction in society many such
>arrangements which are not dependent on this in the ordinary world would
>simply collapse, not because the emotions which underpin them would
>erode but because restraints which stop foolish actions in the heat of
>the moment would have vanished.
I admit this is an issue. It seems to me, though, that most
arrangements that benefit people won't collapse as long as the
government isn't telling people they don't have to support the
arrangement because if it collapses the government will pick up the
pieces. Occasional thoughtlessness isn't enough to destroy most human
institutions because human institutions are designed for beings that are
thoughtless now and then. In any case, my point is not that libertarian
legal arrangements are perfect but only that they're better than what
more evolved liberals want.
>The big problem with Libs is that there are no second chances (unless
>of course you can pay)
I don't see this. Again, the formal libertarian legal institutions
would not be the only institutions of the society.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan: insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Aug 16 10:56:01 EDT 1994
Article: 6844 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: What is Social Conservatism?
Date: 16 Aug 1994 07:06:11 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 13
Message-ID: <32q6j3$ogs@panix.com>
References: <1994Aug15.235411.1835@cabell.vcu.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
csc8mls@cabell.vcu.edu (Michael L. Snapp) writes:
>I believe it is time for social conservatives to re-examine their
>approach to issues such as women, minorities, the poor, and the
>disabled.
>
>It is one thing to be right-wing - I consider myself far right. It is
>quite another to become a Social Darwinist.
What do you suggest?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Aug 16 13:11:03 EDT 1994
Article: 6848 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: Individualism and stereotypes
Date: 16 Aug 1994 13:10:43 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 128
Message-ID: <32qruj$er9@panix.com>
References: <32lo9k$sdp@panix.com> <32qhq2$l0q@mimsy.cs.umd.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
brad@cfar.umd.edu (Brad Stuart) writes:
>: 3. Long-term personal relationships such as friendship and marriage
>: depend on our ability to make informal and usually inarticulate
>: presumptions about the attitude and conduct of other people. Such
>: presumptions can't possibly be made legally enforceable. Accordingly,
>: long-term personal relationships would be rare or nonexistent in a
>: society without stereotypes.
>
>I have numerous friendships with people from vastly different cultures
>than my own.
That's unusual. People usually hit it off better with people with
similar background and social connections. Birds of a feather, and all
that. That's why self-segregation is so common, mixed marriages tend to
be rockier than others, and so on. The focus of my article was on what
would tend to happen in society at large rather than what some people
might be able to do.
>Some of these people I don't even have stereotypes for.
I don't understand what you mean. A "stereotype" is an expectation that
goes beyond specific experiences with an individual based on beliefs
about the class or kind to which the individual belongs. You make no
assumptions about how these people will act that go beyond particular
observations you've made? If you do, what do you base the assumptions
on? Or if you don't, I don't understand what it means for you to say
they are your friends or even that you know them. "All I know about him
is what I've actually seen of him with my own eyes" is not something one
would say about a friend.
>Long-term relationships are precisely what make reasonable expectations
>of other peoples' conduct possible.
How do the long-term relationships ever come about unless the parties
initially feel they know much more about each other than they could
possibly derive solely from specific observations of each other? And
how could they feel they know so much about each other without relying
on stereotypes? Robinson Crusoe and Friday eventually became attached
to each other, but that was because they were stuck with each other.
If they had met on the streets of London there would have been no
long-term relationship.
>It certainly does not come from learning some sponsor-driven stereotype
>on television.
Is your point that stereotypes are an invention of the age of
electronics?
>: We can't understand something as a
>: "mistake", though, except by reference to standards that don't depend
>: solely on our state of mind and therefore must be standards that we
>: share with other people.
>
>No, something is seen to be a mistake after your state-of-mind has
>changed, i.e. after you *learned something.*
By itself, a change in state-of-mind is a change in personal feeling or
attitude, not learning something. For the change to be recognized as
*learning*, something must justify the belief that the revised state-of-
mind reflects something objective, that is, not dependent on your own
state-of-mind. It's hard to know what could justify such a belief other
than standards shared with others.
>You seem to be presenting the view that stereotypes, any stereotypes at
>all, are better than no stereotypes. This is the central issue in your
>argument, and it is one which I think is so totally wrong, I can hardly
>find words to describe it.
The central point is that stereotypes are necessary, not that all
stereotypes are equal. I may indeed believe, although I've never
thought about it, that any stereotypes whatever are better than no
stereotypes at all. After all, someone with no stereotypes at all would
be a hopeless idiot who couldn't respond coherently to anything. This
latter issue is an odd one, though, and not the one I was raising.
>The fundamental problem with stereotypes is that they are limiting.
Sure. Stereotypes define a specific form of life. A specific form of
life is limiting because it is something that actually exists and
therefore excludes all the different and inconsistent forms of life that
might have existed.
>You see this as a good thing, since it gives people a clearly defined
>description of what they are expected to do. However, it severely
>limits the choices of many people, and denies them many of the
>benefits of living in this country. Should women still be excluded
>from universities?
When women were excluded from universities they were subject to the
stereotype of "wife and mother", and now that they are included they
are subject to the stereotype of "person making a career in the formal
institutions of the bureaucracy and market". They're still subject to
lots of pressures based on people's expectations that aren't based on
their individual characteristics and that limit their choices. There's
no way around the problem. The issue shouldn't be whether people
should be subject to stereotypes, since they will be (the alternative
to social stereotypes is social chaos), but which array of stereotypes
will promote the best life for people generally.
>The other problem with stereotypes is that they tend to be self-
>fulfilling. That is, if everyone thinks that women can't compete in the
>workplace, then, amazingly enough, they can't. Because the women don't
>try, and the men won't hire them.
And if everyone thinks it's appropriate for women to compete with men in
the workplace and something is amiss when they don't, other paths
through life that they once had will tend to disappear. All you're
saying is that patterns of social life tend to perpetuate themselves,
and I agree with that.
>I think it is much better to use the full talents of all members of our
>society, rather than discarding 50-60% of our most intelligent and able
>people.
You seem to believe that everything good that people do they do in the
workplace, and that anything that happens outside the cash economy
doesn't matter. I don't understand that.
>I don't really know if you posted this expecting serious discussion, or
>if you were just baiting.
The article was meant seriously. I wrote it very abstractly, and you
never know how people will interpret abstract discussions, so I had no
definite expectations as to what comments if any people would make.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Aug 16 19:54:55 EDT 1994
Article: 2123 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: ARC
Date: 16 Aug 1994 15:47:34 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 46
Message-ID: <32r54m$glj@panix.com>
References:
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
al998@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Jason Smith) writes:
>What can we do, both as individuals and as a collective, to achieve
>this counter-revolution?
One way to start is by developing a counterrevolutionary understanding
of the world. So there's some benefit even in a discussion club.
>I suggest a return to more traditional values, along with environmental
>awareness, all coupled with nationalisation of key industries with a
>program of ethnic seperation.
Enviromental awareness seems to have lots of supporters, so I'm not
inclined to concentrate on it.
What do you include among traditional values? Our actual tradition has
led us into our current situation, so presumably what you have in mind
is some sort of reformed version of the tradition. How would you
characterize the reformed version you want? At least in the United
States, nationalization of key industries would be adverse to
traditional social and political values. Ditto for an activist program
of ethnic separation that goes much beyond supporting whatever the
status quo happens to be. I don't know about Canada.
> The basis of all societies, however, is its education system.
>For the past few decades, kids have not been recieving the proper mores
>and values in school. This has resulted in the degeneration of our
>society as a whole. Teachers who stray from the government-sponsored
>programs are severely sanctioned, and others who would wish to expose
>the folly of their teaching fear to do so for fear of reprisals.
>Reform of the education system is another of our top priorities. To
>achieve this, however, one must be ina position of power.
My favorite reform of the education system would be to shrink and
decentralize it. It's grown *enormously* over the past 50 years. It's
run by government functionaries, and as it's grown in size, power and
autonomy its purpose has become more and more to make sure kids grow up
seeing things the way government functionaries want them to see them.
Government functionaries believe that government functionaries should
run things, so public schools tend to downplay things that help people
carry on their lives without government assistance. The things that
get played down for that reason include most of what are called
"traditional values".
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Aug 16 21:04:14 EDT 1994
Article: 2129 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Conservatives in crisis? Some thoughts
Date: 16 Aug 1994 21:04:06 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 31
Message-ID: <32rnm6$bib@panix.com>
References: <32h9r9$iqp@panix.com> <32j9oi$ll0@gagme.wwa.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Stuart writes:
>In Europe, we have the big advantage of being able to appeal to the
>proprietorial 'blood and soil' aspects of nationhood. After all, many
>of us have been on the same patch (more of less) for a thousand years.
>I presume that most Americans have a sense of having come 'from
>somewhere else' and so must define their nationalism differently.
American nationalism was a mixture of things. Attachment to the land
can spring up quickly, and it was part of it. It was important in the
older parts of the country, in the South and New England, and among
rural people elsewhere. Even people with no special attachment to any
particular place were attached to the country as a whole, "from sea to
shining sea". It wasn't as important as in Europe, though.
National symbols were a big part of it--the Flag, the Constitution, and
so on. Our particular system of government was very important to our
nationalism. Also, people were very proud of particular qualities they
regarded as American--freedom, democracy, decency, social equality, not
to mention economic opportunity and material size and success. All this
stuff got seriously called into question in the 60s and never bounced
back.
As you say, a lot of people still have a feeling for the Old Country.
It's no accident that my mother, whose grandfather was from Inverness,
is now living in Banffshire, and when we first went to visit her there
my wife, descended from Scotch-Irish Presbyterian ministers, felt that
the people there were familiar to her.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Aug 16 21:06:01 EDT 1994
Article: 2130 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: ARC
Date: 16 Aug 1994 21:05:43 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 32
Message-ID: <32rnp7$cpd@panix.com>
References: <32r54m$glj@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
al998@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Jason Smith) writes:
>We have fallen into the liberal guilt trap. Our traditions are
>actually very xenophobic, decentralised, and conservative.
How did we manage to fall into the guilt trap if our traditions are as
you say? It seems to me our traditions were a mixture of things that
lost their balance.
> The education system in North America is poor, when compared to
>several European systems. We spend prodigious amounts on
>propagandising our youth into believing what the hedonists want us to
>believe, and yet, the quality of their education is poor. Several
>European countries have far more effective systems that deliver a
>superior education. I think we should take a look at the Swedish
>model, for example, and see what they're doing right.
I understand the Europeans have been getting somewhat more Americanized
in their educational systems as in other respects. Less elitism, more
emphasis on democracy, self-expression and social adjustment. Any
Europeans who can advise us?
>I think those who miscegenate and those who associate freely with other
>ethnicities have been conditioned to do so.
Not altogether. You have some mixing just because people of different
ethnicities have common interests that draw them together. Also, some
combinations seem more to people's taste than others. White men don't
seem adverse to oriental women, for example.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Aug 17 08:27:31 EDT 1994
Article: 16946 of alt.politics.correct
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.correct
Subject: Re: Lutefisk
Date: 17 Aug 1994 08:25:36 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 13
Message-ID: <32svk0$s0o@panix.com>
References: <32m3mj$702@hebron.connected.com> <94226.222219U41660@uicvm.uic.edu> <32shkf$nva@goshen.connected.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <32shkf$nva@goshen.connected.com> oldguy@connected.com (John Griffin) writes:
>The lutefisk eating contest was cancelled because it was feared that
>the local vagrant population might be offended.
>"Lutefisk" is a yummy seafood delicacy. It is prepared by treating
>cod in lye. If you think you can imagine how bad it smells, you are
>wrong.
Could you explain just a little more?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Aug 17 11:26:37 EDT 1994
Article: 2136 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: National Socialism Frequently Asked Questions
Date: 17 Aug 1994 11:25:58 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 48
Message-ID: <32ta66$8me@panix.com>
References: <1994Aug16.191255.1264@msus1.msus.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
hermann@TIGGER.STCLOUD.MSUS.EDU (MILTON JOHN KLEIM, JR.) writes:
>The World Manipulators are an international network of highly
>resourceful fanatics who believe it their rightful destiny to be Lords
>of the Earth. This network of organized crime has become a de facto,
>quasisecret "supergovernment," exercising near absolute power over the
>world's banking system, and tremendous influence over the world's mass
>media and most of the world's ostensibly legitimate governments.
If manipulators have so much power on such a vast and enduring scale,
there must be something about modern society that makes it easy to
manipulate in certain directions. So if the current group of WMs
disappeared, why wouldn't others see their chance and start
manipulating, so that nothing much would change? Maybe things would
get worse. Also, most of the world's biggest banks are Japanese. How
do they (and the other East Asians) fit into this scheme of world
manipulation?
>Jews, members of a People who have chosen themselves to rule the World,
>comprise a majority of the World Manipulators, with substantial numbers
>of Aryans and Asians intoxicated with Judaic thought also participating
>in this obscene racket.
If the Jews are powerful WMs, why are they declining as a people? The
Israelis seem to be holding their own in numbers and in cultural
distinctiveness, but they're not particularly rich or influential, so
they don't seem to be running the world. Their influence on politics
in this country has to do with specifically Israeli national goals,
mostly the physical survival of their very small country, and so
doesn't have much to do with ruling the world. The strictly Orthodox
are thriving, but they're only 5% of all Jews, and they stick to
themselves and keep very busy running small businesses, supporting
large families and doing all their religious stuff, so they don't seem
to be hidden rulers of the world either.
That leaves the secularized Jews of the diaspora, who are mostly in
America and Russia (for reasons that remain obscure after reading your
FAQ there are a lot fewer European Jews now than in 1939). In Russia
the Jews have been extensively deJudaized by 70 years of Soviet rule
and nothing anyone does in Russia these days is very influential
anyway. In America more than half of them marry non-Jews and their
birth rate is far below replacement levels, so it looks very much as if
they're on the way out. It seems that it should be the American
secular Jews who are the great manipulators on your theory. If they
are, why can't they even secure a future for their own people?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Aug 17 12:28:03 EDT 1994
Article: 2137 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: We Must Adopt A Radical New Philosophy
Date: 17 Aug 1994 12:27:40 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 35
Message-ID: <32tdps$j4t@panix.com>
References: <1994Aug17.084133.1290@msus1.msus.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
hermann@TIGGER.STCLOUD.MSUS.EDU (MILTON JOHN KLEIM, JR.) writes:
> Opposed to this, one may look back to pre-Christian European
>traditions and discover a lifestyle in true harmony with Nature, devoid
>of an ego-maniacal dominating will, yet still capable of producing an
>advanced culture and chivalrous beliefs. Our ancestors were wiser than
>us when they possessed our original, race-inspired religion.
If they were so wise and that religion was so good, how come they dumped
it? Also, Europe really didn't do so badly after it came under the
influence of the classical world and the Church. You can't just laugh
off the thousand years after 800. There's been a tendency to downplay
Greece, Rome and Jerusalem lately, but it doesn't seem to have helped
things much.
Maybe you don't like some things about the modern world, for example the
emphasis on abstract universal reason and the domination of nature, and
that's fine, a lot of people don't. It's worth noting, though, that at
the beginning of the modern period there weren't any Jews in any of the
European countries bordering on the Atlantic. They had all been bounced
during the Middle Ages (from Spain and Portugal in 1500 or so) and were
mostly in Poland. Oddly, they weren't able to create a world to their
taste there, so they apparently had to do it elsewhere by remote control.
Few of the thinkers who contributed most to creating the modern world
(Machiavelli, Hobbes, Bacon, Descartes, Newton, Locke, Hume, Rousseau,
Kant, Hegel, Mill, Darwin, Nietzsche) were Jews. The French Revolution
needed no Jews to happen, literary intellectuals and bored aristocrats
were enough. It's true the Jews have since given us Marx, Freud and
Einstein, all major figures, but by the time they began to play an
important role in European intellectual life the things you seem to
object to were all fully developed in spirit.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Aug 17 15:01:15 EDT 1994
Article: 6870 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: Individualism and stereotypes
Date: 17 Aug 1994 15:00:45 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 141
Message-ID: <32tmot$2pf@panix.com>
References: <32lo9k$sdp@panix.com> <32qhq2$l0q@mimsy.cs.umd.edu> <32qruj$er9@panix.com> <32r21o$ssh@mimsy.cs.umd.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
brad@cfar.umd.edu (Brad Stuart) writes:
>This is because I think of them as "educated, moral, emotionally-stable
>people." I suppose this can be considered a stereotype, but it
>certainly is not the normal usage of the word.
"Educated" means that one has been trained in a particular system in
accordance with particular standards, and people become moral through
assimilation of the _mores_ of a particular society. "Emotionally-
stable" means that someone doesn't act in ways that seem erratic by the
standards of his community. So when you say "X is an educated, moral,
emotionally-stable person" a man from Mars would very likely describe
the situation as an instance of Brad Stuart deciding that X doesn't jar
his culturally-based stereotype of how someone ought to be. I'm not
sure you would have hit it off with the Ayatollah Khomeini, who so far
as I can make out was also an educated, moral and emotionally-stable
person.
>I also, of course, have expectations of fellow researchers, college
>professors, police officers, mothers, fathers, and all sorts of other
>people. I don't see, however, that there is any erosion of this
>sort of stereotype.
Do you really think there has been no erosion in stereotypical maternal
and paternal roles? If so, you live in a different world than the one
I'm familiar with. More generally, it seems to me that the questioning
of sex roles and of authority generally has affected even stereotypes
that seem more purely functional, such as the others you mention. With
respect to the most abstract of the stereotypes, "researcher", I
understand that in recent years plagarism and falsification of results
have become much more a problem than formerly, a development that would
indicate a decline in the compelling force of even that stereotype.
>Your premise is that the social changes consist in attacks on ALL forms
>of stereotypes. However, I see that the stereotypes which have been
>attacked are those based on irrelevant personal characteristics, such
>as skin color, gender, and disabilities.
That's certainly the most prominent line of attack. It's hard for me to
see how the attack can be so limited, though. A stereotype based on
ethnicity (what you call "skin color") is mostly an array of
expectations based on the community a person comes out of. You base
your dealings with friends on their social background and affiliations,
and whether those influences seem to have taken (whether they are
"educated, moral and emotionally stable"). I don't see any very
decisive difference in principle.
In your ideal world there might be stereotypes applicable to all human
beings. Presumably those stereotypes would depend on some combination
of the needs of society and people's average characteristics, because
what you expect of people depends on what you're trying to achieve and
what they're capable of doing and how much it costs them. It's hard for
me to understand why, if that kind of stereotype is good, stereotypes
that differ in accordance with the differing average characteristics of
classes of people (men and women, for example) wouldn't be even better.
Better yet would be differing stereotypes that are functionally related
(e.g., traditional sex roles), so that a particular social need gets
satisfied more reliably than it would if responsibility were more
diffused.
Of course, we know that ethnic and gender stereotyping is bad under the
new dispensation. But if those things are bad it's hard to understand
how you can accept other situations in which people are subject to
expectations and demands to which they didn't consent and that have
absolutely nothing to do with their personal characteristics and goals
("don't practice your trombone in the dorm at 3 a.m.; pay 30% of your
income in taxes; don't make sexual propositions to small children").
If you want, I could say that such rules discriminate against insomniac
trombonists, people with champaigne tastes on beer budgets, and
pedophiles. That sort of claim would not be unprecedented.
In fact, the attack on stereotypes has not been limited in the way you
suggest and people are more nervous about enforcing functional
stereotypes than they once were. If somebody violates one people feel
more comfortable saying that training and therapy are the answer than
resorting to punishment. Part of the reason is that all stereotypes are
correctly felt to be culturally related. Thus, one way people responded
to the revelation that Martin Luther King had plagarized his doctoral
dissertation was to point to the practice in the black church of "voice
merging", whereby one preacher picks up and adds to what another
preacher says and makes it his own.
>The essential difference is that a person is free to choose a line of
>work, or whether to be married or have children.
Free choice can't be made a universal rule, because most of the things
we are interested in choosing depend on what other people do. We are
social animals. For example, "marriage" and "line of work" are social
institutions that can exist only if they are supported by existing
patterns of stereotypes. They require the long-term cooperation of
other people through thick and thin and it is not possible to rely on
such cooperation if all people are viewed as free at all times to do
whatever they feel like doing, even if that freedom is limited by
contractual obligations. Formal contracts don't help much in personal
relations. It's worth noting, by the way, that in the U.S. in 1994
there are no enforceable indissoluble marriages. People are not
allowed to make that choice.
>All morality is based entirely on choice. Obligations are not imposed,
>they are chosen.
So someone who chooses to torture cats to death, or for that matter to
do the same to his own mother, is not acting immorally unless he has
chosen to assume the obligation not to do so? Is that kind of morality
what you had in mind when you said your friends are "moral"?
>Police officers generally take an oath, describing their obligations to
>their unit and their community, in somewhat general terms.
So how do you know the officers have undertaken to keep their oaths?
How would someone go about making his oath binding if it wasn't binding
already? And if it's automatically binding, why isn't that an
obligation that is (oxymoronically) imposed without consent?
>But electronic media has a way of reducing people, cultures, and issues
>to a form which is easily presented in a 5-10 minute news story, or a
>30-minute tv series.
Certainly. Modern egalitarianism and moral libertarianism are creatures
of the TV age, which makes it easy to form a picture of the world
without grappling with the complexities of actual human relationships.
>The fundamental problem with *externally imposed* stereotypes is that
>they are limiting.
All stereotypes are externally imposed.
>I think that individuals flourish best when they decide for themselves
>their path through life. Imposing artifical restrictions on the
>movement of people in home and work cannot have a beneficial result.
The best path through life, like everything else human, is no doubt
some combination of particular choice and general structures. To avoid
artificiality I would propose letting people's desires for themselves
and their understanding of what works best overall (that is, what
stereotypes are appropriate) develop freely through experience,
discussion, and what they actually choose to do. As a first step I
would propose repeal of all civil rights laws.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Aug 18 06:58:38 EDT 1994
Article: 2141 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: ARC
Date: 17 Aug 1994 17:11:17 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 40
Message-ID: <32tudl$ejj@panix.com>
References: <32rnp7$cpd@panix.com> <32tk9s$a7k@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>The example of white men/oriental women would seem to be due to the
>impression that oriental women are "more submissive", less likely to be
>infected with shrill feminist ideology, etc.
Did you notice the short piece in the most recent _Chronicles_ about
politically incorrect research by someone named (I think) Dombrowski?
It seems he was engaged to convert research on Chinese and American
attitudes toward family life, sex and so on into readable English.
Nobody liked what he was turning out because the research showed that
the Chinese attitudes were those of civilized human beings (they love
and respect their parents, think it's out of place for women to use
sexual allure for anything except getting a husband, etc., etc., etc.),
while the American attitudes were the opposite. So maybe it's not
submissiveness so much as decency and normality that the men are looking
for. That doesn't explain what the women are up to--maybe it matters
less what the man is like in a marriage as long as he is a reliable
breadwinner. I know, though, that when my sister was at Reed she ended
up hanging around strictly with orientals because they were the only
sane people there.
>Also the influence of "mail-order brides" should not be ignored. One
>wonders about the kind of men who feel desperate enough to resort to
>such means to find a spouse...or about the society in which such things
>happen...
I've mostly noticed ads for such in conservative publications. Somewhat
troubling, perhaps ...
>It would seem that the "common interests" of which you speak exist to
>draw these people together precisely because of problems within the
>respective ethnic groups, or at least within these individuals.
Actually, what I really had in mind for "common interests" were things
that are less personal--business, intellectual pursuits, sports,
whatever.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Aug 18 11:24:44 EDT 1994
Article: 2145 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: National Socialism Frequently Asked Questions
Date: 18 Aug 1994 08:53:29 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 53
Message-ID: <32vlk9$8t7@panix.com>
References: <1994Aug16.191255.1264@msus1.msus.edu> <32trqh$ap8@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
dgard@netcom.com (dgard@netcom.com (!)) writes:
>The enemy, clearly, is a cosmopolitan white elite which wants freedom
>to enlarge its markets and import cheap labor without regard to ethnic
>and cultural consequence.
>
>A cosmopolitan elite that wants freedom to seek profits by encouraging
>irrational purchases with mass advertising campaigns that finance TV
>programing intended to convince all to yield to the impulses of the
>moment, and are intended to create frustrations and make everyone
>unhappy with what the already have.
Things can't be fixed by destroying a particular enemy. Everyone
deserves everyone else. Even people who aren't subject to mass
advertising campaigns and the influence of profit-seekers want the
consumer society. When the Wall fell, the East Germans who crossed to
the West didn't go to the nearest church or public library, they went to
the nearest department store.
In addition to the economic elite you mention, springing from the
market, there is another elite that springs from government and those
who identify with projects that can only be realized through government.
It is the outlook of this latter elite, which is even more opposed to
ethnic and other particularisms than that of the economic elite, that
dominates our mainstream intellectual life. Most mainstream politics
can be viewed as a struggle between the two elites, with the "right"
mostly representing the economic elite and the "left" mostly
representing the other elite.
>I am not optimistic that the destructive power of bureaucracy can be
>tamed by peaceful means.
A violent counterrevolution is out of the question. What could be the
social basis of such a movement? The bureaucracy and its clients are
everywhere.
>I am not optimistic that the cosmopolitan elites will yield power
>peacefully.
Elites go when they commit suicide. That happens when they become self-
seeking and clueless. Consider the Clinton administration.
>I am not optimistic that a real counter revolution can be mounted
>without race being a prime motivating force.
So what happens after the race war? Suppose the whites are totally
victorious and the country looks like Sweden. Who wants to live in
Sweden? One thing that's needed is a vision of a concrete and
achievable way of life that works better than what we have now. "The
white way of life" just doesn't have enough content.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Aug 18 13:38:39 EDT 1994
Article: 2149 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: National Socialism Frequently Asked Questions
Date: 18 Aug 1994 12:18:55 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 48
Message-ID: <3301lf$al@panix.com>
References: <1994Aug16.191255.1264@msus1.msus.edu> <32ta66$8me@panix.com> <1994Aug18.085201.1317@msus1.msus.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
hermann@TIGGER.STCLOUD.MSUS.EDU (MILTON JOHN KLEIM, JR.) writes:
>Jewish thought has never been more prevalent around the World. A form
>of secular "Judaism" -- Capitalism, with elements of Jewish Marxism --
>has taken hold. And the other disastrous ideologies, such as
>individualism, also stem from the original Jewish paradigm of
>opposition to the natural Order. The Jewish-controlled media would
>like to claim that "Jews are disappearing," yet the reality is that
>their influence is continuing to grow, just not in the commonly
>recognized forms [ ... ] The Jewish _paradigm_ remains, while the
>cultural "window-dressing" is discarded.
>
>Of course the "Big Jews" don't give a damn about the "orthodox" Jewish
>culture; they realize that they are going to have to sacrifice alot of
>people, including many of their own kind, to achieve their "New World
>Order." The World Manipulators realize if their goals are attained,
>the Jewish People survives. The Jews are a bastard people, composed
>of just about every type of humanity on Earth, and _it is the
>mentality_ that is predominate in them (their genetic character
>_supports_ this Jewish character).
>Today's Jews can go back to Central Asia where they came from.
It's really not clear to me that by "Jew" you mean what other people
mean when they say "Jew"--any member of a particular people with a
particular history, descent and religious tradition, all going back to
ancient Palestine. Your view seems to be that the Jews are originally a
Central Asian people, apparently with no real connection with ancient
Israel, that by now has been bastardized with every race on earth. I'm
not sure how much "genetic character" they can have if that's so. The
Jewish religion or ideology, it seems, is something very abstract that
equally characterizes Christianity, Marxism, capitalism, individualism,
and lots of other things as well. Also, the decline in numbers of
visible Jews and the dissipation of their attachment to historical
Judaism somehow seems to go along with the triumph of The Jew.
Would it clarify things if you stopped talking about Jews and started
talking about what you now call the Jewish paradigm and its influence,
possibly calling it by a different name? It seems to me that it's that
paradigm and the people and institutions that support it that are really
what bothers you, and not guys in side locks or kibbutzim or the average
Jewish dentist or accountant in Minneapolis. Very likely most of the
people who support and work for what you call the Jewish paradigm aren't
Jews at all, and most actual Jews--most of the Rosenbaums in the Chicago
phone book--are as much injured by that paradigm as anyone else.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Aug 18 16:46:02 EDT 1994
Article: 16981 of alt.politics.correct
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.dan-quayle,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.correct,soc.culture.usa,soc.culture.canada
Subject: Re: Illegal to be White
Date: 18 Aug 1994 16:45:32 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 59
Message-ID: <330h9c$ddm@panix.com>
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libwca@emoryu1.cc.emory.edu (Bill Anderson) writes:
>: early humans who were clearly our intellectual inferiors (such people
>: *must* have existed if you believe in evolution)
>
>Only if you believe that evolution necessarily confers "intellectual
>superiority," whatever that might be.
Only if you believe evolution has in fact conferred intellectual
superiority; that is, that the breeding population of which you are a
member is greatly superior intellectually to its ancestral population a
billion years ago. (I suppose it's conceivable that there was an
evolutionary jump in a single generation from a nonhuman population to a
human population that was the intellectual equal or superior of the
present human population, but somehow that seems unlikely.)
>I think you'll find, if you try to do this, that the concept of race
>(and the concept of intelligence; but we won't get into that) is so
>muddled as to be almost unintelligible. I can't show that one "race"
>isn't more "intelligent" than another; but I can't think of anything
>powerful or interesting that such a assertion would reveal, either.
The relevance to social policy is obvious: Does disproportionate
representation of different races among professional mathematicians
show systematic racial discrimination in the system by which people
become mathematicians, so that the most talented people are not
becoming mathematicians? Can development policies that have been
successful in East Asia be made equally successful in Africa? If not,
what are the specific differences that require modifications? If large
numbers of people of different races immigrate to the United States
what will the long-term consequences be? Is it likely there will be
unhappiness because of different average achievement of the races that
can't be avoided through improvements in the educational system and the
like because the differences correspond to differences in average
innate capacities? One could go on ...
If "race" were unintelligible, then none of these issues would matter,
but that is plainly not the case. If the concept were unintelligible,
it would be impossible to enforce laws against racial discrimination or
to compile statistics separately by race because no-one would be able
to apply it. As to the intelligibility of "intelligence", we all in
practice use and rely on the concept. Someone who says "I am more
intelligent than a dog, and Shakespeare was more intelligent than the
inhabitants of the halfway house for the retarded next door" is saying
something intelligible and true. It's also relevant that intelligence
tests have been devised that measure something that seems connected to
our intuitive notion of intelligence, and that turns out to be an
excellent predictor of academic and job performance.
The claim that "race" and "intelligence" are unintelligible strikes me
as obfuscation. People wouldn't make it unless they felt driven to do
so by circumstances other than concern for intelligibility and truth.
I find the fact the claim is made strong evidence for the existence of
material racial differences in average intelligence. If such
differences don't exist, why go to such lengths to avoid dealing with
them?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Aug 19 06:40:13 EDT 1994
Article: 16993 of alt.politics.correct
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.dan-quayle,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.correct,soc.culture.usa,soc.culture.canada
Subject: Re: Illegal to be White
Date: 18 Aug 1994 21:58:13 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Message-ID: <3313jl$pa8@panix.com>
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mbowen@panix.com (mellow mike) writes:
>considering that in the areas where the intelligibility is clearest,
>sport, there is no predictive test outside of longitudinal and constant
>measurement of performance; it would be foolish to think that some
>single set of tests could do so for intelligence, and that such a set
>could be predictive over large populations....
I'm not sure of your point. Are you saying that comparative
physiological studies would be irrelevant to assessing a claim that the
rarity of aged Japanese-American females among pro football linemen
indicates unjust discrimination?
> Can development policies that have been
>: successful in East Asia be made equally successful in Africa? If not,
>: what are the specific differences that require modifications?
>
>i can't believe that you would say that race matters more than politics
>as regards such a question. then again, it might indicate a lot about
>your politics.
The issue was whether it would even be intelligible to think of race as
relevant, not whether race is likely to be the most important factor.
> If large
>: numbers of people of different races immigrate to the United States
>: what will the long-term consequences be?
>
>that depends on the amount and force of racism.
Very likely. Is it *unintelligible* to think that it might depend on
other things as well, including differences in average innate
propensities? Remember that the post I was commenting on was making the
very strong claim that the notion of racial differences in intelligence
is unintelligible and even if intelligible is of no possible interest.
>race, as an ontological concept to racialists is most certainly
>intelligible. in using this concept to confer variability in social
>standing a priori the racialist becomes racist.
Suppose someone uses it a posteriori to explain variablity in social
standing. Is that racist? If so, what do you mean by racism and why is
it bad if you think it's bad?
>: It's also relevant that intelligence
>: tests have been devised that measure something that seems connected to
>: our intuitive notion of intelligence, and that turns out to be an
>: excellent predictor of academic and job performance.
>
>only to the extent that social structures are built upon and recognize
>the validity of these tests.
Are you saying that if the test results were kept a secret they would
have no predictive power?
>the assumption that you make is that there is some great social value
>to be gained by pushing this science to its limit.
I don't know why you say so. All I did was criticize a claim that
there's no possible social value and it's not science.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Aug 19 06:40:20 EDT 1994
Article: 2153 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The National Alliance
Date: 18 Aug 1994 21:16:05 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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References: <1994Aug18.155536.1329@msus1.msus.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
hermann@TIGGER.STCLOUD.MSUS.EDU (MILTON JOHN KLEIM, JR.) writes:
>There is only one reality, which we call Nature: not the "my reality"
>and "your reality" of the subjectivists and not the separate spiritual
>and physical realms of the supernaturalists. We are a part of Nature
>and subject to Nature's laws. Within the scope of these laws we are
>able to determine our own destiny.
>
>First, we have an obligation to the Nature of which we are a part to
>participate as effectively as we can in its eternal quest for higher
>levels of development, higher forms of life.
It seems from this that even though there is only one reality, that
reality has elements that are greater than us that we are obliged to
discern and obey. So our ability to determine our own destiny turns
out to be an ability to obey or ignore the command of some higher
force. Is that really so different from Semitic religion? Elsewhere
you call for civil servants with disinterested priest-like devotion.
The priests you have in mind seem to be very much like Semitic priests
serving something absolutely transcendent.
>We must have no non-Whites in our living space, and we must have open
>space around us for expansion.
What happens when the open space is filled up? Also, does Life want
non-Whites to have living space as well?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Aug 19 07:48:41 EDT 1994
Article: 6888 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: Individualism and stereotypes
Date: 19 Aug 1994 07:48:26 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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steve-b@access1.digex.net (Steve Brinich) writes:
> Simple: individual variation makes the stereotype invalid too often
>for it to be a reliable guide.
The question was why, if variations make a stereotype for "men" and
"women" too unreliable to be useful, a single stereotype for "human
being" would be better. I would think it would be worse.
> > Better yet would be differing stereotypes that are functionally related
> >(e.g., traditional sex roles), so that a particular social need gets
> >satisfied more reliably than it would if responsibility were more
> >diffused.
>
> By this "logic", the stereotypes of the antebellum South were good, because
>they clearly defined who was responsible for the social need of picking de
>cotton and hoeing de fields.
Clear responsibility is a good thing. That doesn't mean it is the only
good thing or that some ways of assigning and enforcing responsibility
are not better than others. One way of distinguishing a good system
from a bad system is the amount of force needed to maintain it; another
is whether it's a system that human societies uniformly tend to adopt.
On both points slavery comes out much worse than stereotypical sex
roles.
> A straw man, since no responsible person advocates *total* free choice;
>rather, advocates of freedom and liberty advocate free choice within the
>range of actions which do not violate the basic rights of others.
So people should have no defined obligations other than observing
others' basic rights? In that case almost all laws and regulations can
be done away with as dealing with other matters. For example, people
don't have a basic right to have me pay 30% of my income in tax rather
than 10%, so if I feel like it it appears that your advocates of freedom
and liberty would let me choose to pay only 10%.
> > For example, "marriage" and "line of work" are social institutions
> >that can exist only if they are supported by existing patterns of
> >stereotypes.
>
>If you don't know the specific *person* (*not* "stereotype")
>well enough to predict that that person's *individual* character will
>engender such loyalty, you shouldn't be considering marriage.
Marriage is a covered dish. How can a couple of people in their
twenties know what they're getting into? People develop and change over
time, and how they will respond when things turn out not quite as
expected is hard to predict.
Marriage has to be something you can rely on. It's not sensible to
think you can rely on what will happen to a long-term relationship based
only on your specific knowledge of the other person without considering
the setting, the influence of other people, the sort of expectations
with which the other person grew up, the example of others, and so on.
It seems to me there will a large difference in the frequency of stable
and functional marriages depending on whether social attitudes and
expectations support the institution or treat it as a private matter of
concern only to those immediately involved. Do you disagree?
> > So how do you know the [police] officers have undertaken to keep their
> >oaths? How would someone go about making his oath binding if it wasn't
> >binding already? And if it's automatically binding, why isn't that an
> >obligation that is (oxymoronically) imposed without consent?
>
> Another straw man; I've never heard of any American jurisdiction that
>conscripts people into the police force, so I'm at a loss to understand
>that final question.
I was responding to a claim that moral obligations don't exist unless
they are consented to. A police officer's oath was proposed as an
example of consent to an obligation. My question in effect was why
someone who mouthed the words of an oath with no intention of being
bound by it should be viewed as having morally given his consent to it.
It's true that the social conventions that define the meaning of the
words he used and created "oaths" as a social institution would
prescribe that he had given his consent, but I thought the point was
that people aren't automatically bound by what social institutions tell
them, and my officer had not consented to oath-making as an institution.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Aug 19 12:31:41 EDT 1994
Article: 2160 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: ARC
Date: 19 Aug 1994 12:31:24 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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References: <32r54m$glj@panix.com> <332g2h$5rs@gabriel.keele.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
cla04@cc.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) writes:
>: Enviromental awareness seems to have lots of supporters, so I'm not
>: inclined to concentrate on it.
>
>I wonder if we should be so blaise about this [ ... ] This is where I
>would see hope in the Christian doctrine of man as God's overseer. The
>natural world is valuable but needs keeping in order and man is of
>infintely more worth than nature.
I have no objection. What I had in mind was the value of making the
most noise about issues people never hear about (e.g., the necessity of
some form of traditional roles and stereotypes for a decent life).
Certainly there's also value in trying to put one's own spin on
discussions that are already underway. Someone who says "let's
infiltrate libertarianism" shouldn't object to someone saying "let's
take over the environmental movement".
>However I suspect I would be favour of nationalisation of the banks.
>What does any one else think?
I think it's a bad idea. (Surprise!) Why give our existing governing
class more money to spread around in the areas they think ought to get
money? It would be "socially conscious investing" writ large, and at
present "socially conscious investing" means supporting left wing causes
and attempting to starve things of which the Left doesn't approve.
Maybe the idea is that a CR government would nationalize the banks.
When one is established we can reopen the discussion.
It's worth noting that banks are less powerful now than they were 20
years ago because credit markets have grown much more diverse and fluid.
Instead of relying on bank loans companies can sell commercial paper or
medium term notes or securitize financial assets. Bank loans themselves
have grown far more liquid and therefore far less indicative of an
enduring debtor/creditor relationship that would enable the bank to
exercise power. In loans of any size syndications and the sale of
participations is standard, with the lead bank often keeping a piece of
the loan only for the sake of assuring the other members of the lending
group that it is negotiating a good deal for them. Interests in the
loan are then often traded in an informal secondary market.
Banks themselves see fee-based business (basically, acting as brokers or
dealmakers) and not relationship banking as the wave of the future.
(I've described the situation in the U.S. and I believe to a lesser
extent in the U.K. German and Japanese banks, I understand, remain very
influential in the economies of those countries.)
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Aug 19 18:01:27 EDT 1994
Article: 17005 of alt.politics.correct
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.dan-quayle,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.correct,soc.culture.usa,soc.culture.canada
Subject: Re: Illegal to be White
Date: 19 Aug 1994 12:29:22 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 21
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References: <32vspn$sb3@emoryu1.cc.emory.edu> <330h9c$ddm@panix.com> <332hgh$dnj@emoryu1.cc.emory.edu>
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Xref: panix alt.fan.dan-quayle:30018 alt.fan.rush-limbaugh:141068 talk.politics.misc:190127 alt.politics.correct:17005 soc.culture.usa:38134 soc.culture.canada:43202
libwca@emoryu1.cc.emory.edu (Bill Anderson) writes:
>: The claim that "race" and "intelligence" are unintelligible strikes me
>: as obfuscation. People wouldn't make it unless they felt driven to do
>: so by circumstances other than concern for intelligibility and truth.
>
>That's an amazing feat of logical acrobatics, and it is of course
>very flattering to have my rhetorical failings attributed to omniscience
>and a desire to obfuscate, but I'm afraid there are a wide variety of
>alternative explanations.
I came close to imputing bad faith, and I apologize. Much more could be
said on the substance of all these issues, but I'm about to go off the
net for a couple of weeks and am not sure I would want to put in the
necessary work just now even if it were possible for me to continue. So
I will leave the discussion to whoever wants to carry it on.
Thank you for your comments.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Aug 19 18:01:38 EDT 1994
Article: 2161 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: taking a chill pill for now
Date: 19 Aug 1994 12:33:31 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 9
Message-ID: <332msr$n8e@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
After tomorrow I will be going off the net for a couple of weeks.
Anyone who comments on one of my posts after then and wants me to see
the comment should send me a copy by email.
Also, I distribute a.r.c. to several people who don't reliably get the
newsgroup. Will anyone volunteer to do the distribution while I'm gone?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Aug 20 14:54:50 EDT 1994
Article: 6902 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: Individualism and stereotypes
Date: 20 Aug 1994 05:56:48 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 9
Message-ID: <334k10$t2j@panix.com>
References: <32lo9k$sdp@panix.com> <32qhq2$l0q@mimsy.cs.umd.edu> <32qruj$er9@panix.com> <32r21o$ssh@mimsy.cs.umd.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
I will be away from the net for a couple of weeks after today, so if
anyone posts something further in this thread and wants me to to see it
he should send me a copy by email.
Thanks for all comments.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Sep 3 09:10:03 EDT 1994
Article: 2275 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Imperialism
Date: 3 Sep 1994 08:56:05 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Message-ID: <349rp5$2bq@panix.com>
References:
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Stuart writes:
>The only modern empire which perhaps approaches the multi-national
>concept was Austro-Hungary and then only in its declining stages.
>
>French imperial policy in its later stages was officially dedicated to
>creating this type of multi-national empire [ ... ] The French
>experience suggests that the transition to a multi-national 'empire' is
>no more than part and parcel of its decline [ ... ] the official
>Portuguese policy that Portugal was an 'Afro-European' nation ...
tminnix@nmsu.edu (Timothy O. Minnix) writes:
>I suppose my question is why this recurring feature of empires exists;
>that is, why do the people in the dominant nation 'lose their will to
>rule' as you put it?
A variety of reasons. It's hard to maintain rule over foreign countries
because the problems are distant and the sacrifices that must be made to
deal with them are immediate. So the empire must be made to seem to the
dominant nationality worth the effort required to maintain it.
Material benefits are worth an effort, but long-term I don't think they
are sufficient to maintain an empire because material prosperity gotten
too easily tends to dissolve rather than reinforce the solidarity of the
dominant group, and because empires often become for extended periods
more expensive to maintain than they are worth from a material
standpoint. Ibn Khaldun based a whole theory of history on such
considerations.
So the empire must seem to the dominant nationality the embodiment of
some ideal and must continue to seem the embodiment of an ideal as
contacts with the subject nationalities multiply and mutual influences
grow in importance. That condition can be satisfied most easily if the
empire is seen to embody some universal ideal like law that has no
necessary connection to any particular nationality. A secondary
advantage of such an ideal is that it can be used as part of a program
to make the empire seem attractive to subject populations, thereby
reducing the effort required to maintain rule.
As Stuart suggests, universal ideals may be insufficient to hold an
empire together, either because by themselves they don't arouse enough
loyalty or because they may incorporate elements like popular rule that
are inconsistent with empire. Therefore, the transition from the
nationalism of the dominant group to universal ideals as the basis of
empire can easily be seen as a symptiom of decline. On the other hand,
Alexander staged mass marriages of Greeks and Persians, and the Roman
Empire lasted a long time after it stopped having any real connection
with the Senate and people of Rome.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Sep 3 09:10:04 EDT 1994
Article: 2276 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Yggdrasill Weekly Lesson #1
Date: 3 Sep 1994 09:07:39 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 29
Message-ID: <349ser$35m@panix.com>
References:
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Anonymous User writes:
> " Political economy explains some of the benefits from
> having a homogeneous population within a given state. If
> diversity is great--measured say by the inequality in
> potential earnings-then there is a strong incentive for
> people to spend their energies in efforts to redistribute
> income rather than to produce goods. In particular, a
> greater dispersion of constituent characteristics leads to
> the creation of interest groups that spend their time
> lobbying the central government to redistribute resources in
> their favor."
Why then are the United States and Switzerland less socialistic than
Sweden? It seems to me that ethnic diversity makes redistribution less
likely because it makes it more obvious that in large part it is a
matter of taking from one group the material goods produced as a result
of their particular way of life and giving them to some other group with
a way of life that is materially less productive. Of course, in a
liberal society for large and successful groups to base actions
explicitly on their interests as groups raises troublesome issues, so
respectable people don't talk about things that way.
It's largely because of the resistence to cross-group redistribution
that redistributionism and the attempt to destroy the culture of the
most successful and dominant groups are so closely related.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Sep 3 09:10:05 EDT 1994
Article: 2277 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Civic Conservatism
Date: 3 Sep 1994 09:09:12 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 13
Message-ID: <349sho$3ae@panix.com>
References: <33lmcm$5t5@gabriel.keele.ac.uk>,<33memg$48t@dns1.NMSU.Edu> <33oe2i$sj0@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>The Republicans more so, since they have to pretend to be conservative,
>when what they are really after is merely to slow down our march to
>destruction a little bit, and maybe get in a game of golf beforehand.
What you say suggests more mental clarity than exists. What almost all
Republicans really want is respectability and comfort, which makes them
vulnerable to people who can define respectability through dominance of
the institutions through which public opinion is expressed.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Sep 3 14:11:03 EDT 1994
Article: 2280 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Yggdrasill Weekly Lesson - #3
Date: 3 Sep 1994 14:10:53 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 10
Message-ID: <34ae7d$3dl@panix.com>
References: <34a8ah$dp7@agate.berkeley.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Tommy the Tourist (Anon User) writes:
>We received 35kg of amonium nitrate on Tuesday from that factory in
>Chicago. We're waiting for him to finish making the detonator then
>we'll kill him.
Significance?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Sep 4 09:44:41 EDT 1994
Article: 2284 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The Missing Amendment
Date: 4 Sep 1994 09:44:28 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 28
Message-ID: <34civs$i6u@panix.com>
References: <348qd9$m7g@great-miami.iac.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
tline@iac.net (The AMAZING TOM LINE !!) writes:
> If you were back with Thomas Jefferson and all those guys from
>history, who wrote the constitution; what amendments would you have
>left out or added that are or aren't in the thing now, that could
>probably only have been done when they first wrote the constitution?
I would have included a procedure for succession, and left out the Bill
of Rights. The latter has been almost entirely a means of extending
federal control over state and local governments rather than a
limitation on the power of the federal government. It has diverted
attention from the real issue, the tendency toward consolidation, by
making it appear that the problem was particular abuses of central
power and had been taken care of. A procedure for succession would
have done far more to maintain the distribution of power throughout the
constitutional system and might have prevented the War between the
States and the subsequent Amendments and their interpretations.
> I think an amendment to deal with special interest groups would
>be helpful.
Madison thought the problem could be dealt with by setting up an
extensive federal system with divided and distributed powers that no
particular group could long dominate for its own benefit. How would you
do better?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Sep 4 19:13:28 EDT 1994
Article: 25744 of alt.politics.radical-left
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.radical-left
Subject: Re: Productive Chaos and Vertical Monopolies
Date: 4 Sep 1994 11:50:44 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 59
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References: <340r99$rqm@world.fx.net> <94Sep1.012449edt.48153@neat.cs.toronto.edu> <34cfqa$72l@world.fx.net>
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rickp@fx.net (Rick Pasotto) writes:
>: | : Even if all of the people involved in the
>: | : transactions are happy, this doesn't mean the net result is good.
>
>What is your basis for thinking that you know better than the
>participants what is good for them and what is not? If everyone is
>happy, ie, everyone prefers the current situation, how can you claim
>that they might not actually be better off?
The discussion has become quite abstract here, so I'll just plunge in
on the theory that when statements get general enough almost anything
becomes relevant. I won't presume to answer for Mr. Ostrum, but your
questions appear to be at least partly rhetorical and I will deal with
them on that basis.
it seems to me that an observer might have many bases for thinking
that people are choosing the wrong thing.
He might have seen that some choices (becoming a drug addict) tend to
turn out badly from the standpoint of the person making the choice. He
might have noticed that other choices (pursuing certain forms of
education) develop abilities to realize goods that would have remained
unavailable and uncomprehended if the choice had been different, but
once experienced tend to become preferred goods. He might believe that
the goods people pursue most have to do with continuing relations with
other people (friendship, place in society), and that the necessary
continuing relations won't exist as much as people would like if they
are simply allowed to follow their preferences in day-to-day life.
(Stable marriages and family life may be examples.) More generally, he
might think that the relation between what people prefer and what is
good (and therefore worth pursuing) is as loose as the relation between
what people believe and what is true.
He might also believe that "all of the people involved" in a transaction
of any size and complexity will generally be a far larger group than can
be taken into account in any poll of preferences.
It's worth noting that in everyday life we normally think that other
people can often judge someone's advantage better than the actor
himself. That's the basis of the authority parents exercise over
children. We conventionally draw a line between childhood and
adulthood, and I think the convention is necessary, but by nature the
distinction is one of degree rather than kind. As an example, it would
make no sense for us grownups to ask or offer advice on personal affairs
if we believed that the actor's views as to his own advantage were
necessarily better than those of any other person.
I suppose the point that is relevant to the discussion is whether a
system that maximizes the satisfaction of preferences is necessarily the
best system. It seems to me that the answer is clearly "no".
Naturally, any specific alternative system (the social teaching of the
Roman Catholic Church, say, or the systems set forth in Plato's _Laws_
or in _Walden Two_) would have to be argued for. Demonstrative proof
could not be required, of course, since such proof seems unavailable for
any system.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Sep 4 21:05:44 EDT 1994
Article: 25771 of alt.politics.radical-left
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.noam-chomsky,talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.radical-left
Subject: Re: Chomsky on "failure of socialism"
Date: 4 Sep 1994 19:58:14 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Xref: panix alt.fan.noam-chomsky:2638 talk.politics.theory:32745 alt.politics.radical-left:25771
jmelton@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (robert jeffrey melton) writes:
>>rm> In any case, the cost to the treasury of such glaring loopholes in our tax
>> laws is surely in the tens of billions at least.
>>
>To be exact, in 1988 corporations wrote off $51 billion using the net
>operating loss deduction. (Well over 10 billion in lost income there.)
>Write-offs for interest payment deductions were in the hundreds of
>billions and cost the Treasury around 100 billion in '88.
The effect of the net operating loss deduction is that if a business has
a loss of $9 and a profit of $10 in two adjacent years it ends up paying
tax on net income of $1 rather than $10. The effect of the interest
deduction is that if a business borrows $100 to buy a machine that
yields it a profit of $10 without taking interest payments into account,
but it has to pay $9 interest on the loan, it again ends up paying tax
on net income of $1 rather than $10.
Why is either deduction a loophole? Why aren't both necessary to carry
out a legislative intention of enacting a tax on net income?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Sep 5 06:18:59 EDT 1994
Article: 2290 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Civic Conservatism
Date: 5 Sep 1994 06:17:36 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 14
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tminnix@nmsu.edu (Timothy O. Minnix) writes:
>: Anagram of the week: Ronald Wilson Reagan--insane Anglo warlord.
>
> No, that was last week's anagram!
Sorry--just back in town and no time to get organized.
As you can see, I'm off anagrams now and back on palindromes.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Sep 5 10:59:43 EDT 1994
Article: 2291 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: To Yggdrasill
Date: 5 Sep 1994 06:18:49 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 15
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al998@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Jason Smith) writes:
>>how come White people go to Africa on safari?
>
> Why do Whites go to Africa at all? Why do some live there?
Mostly to make money, I suppose. It would be interesting to know how
many whites visit Africa south of the Sahara as tourists for reasons
other than looking at the wildlife and scenery. I think it was Samuel
Johnson who said that no man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Sep 6 04:01:57 EDT 1994
Article: 17497 of alt.politics.correct
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.correct,alt.discrimination
Subject: Individualism and stereotypes
Date: 5 Sep 1994 21:55:15 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 94
Message-ID: <34gi63$8a5@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Xref: panix alt.politics.correct:17497 alt.discrimination:20643
American individualism started with the view that social identity should
not be fixed, and that a man should be accepted as whatever he is able
to make of himself. It has ended with the view that social identity
should not exist, except as a temporary and superficial aspect of the
voluntary performance of a particular social function. Each of us is to
be a free and equal individual unlimited by the social stereotypes that
make up social identity.
Accordingly, what mainstream opinion views as the moral and political
progress achieved since the Second World War, and especially since
Kennedy's assassination, has been in essence an attack on social
stereotypes and an attempt to uproot them by all possible means of
persuasion and coercion. The civil rights and feminist revolutions were
overtly such, the sexual revolution was an attack on the traditional
view that modes of sexual conduct should be stereotypically fixed, and
the demand for exclusion of religion from public life has been an
attempt to eliminate the notion of the world as an objective moral order
in which people have stereotypically prescribed obligations independent
of their personal feelings and choices.
The attack on the legitimacy of social stereotypes has often been cast
as one on discrimination--the application of differing stereotypes to
different people--but it is really an attack on stereotypes as such. A
stereotype is simply a fixed concrete view of what people should do and
be (that they should get married before they have children, for
example), and any such view can be characterized as discriminatory
against those who don't comply with it. Even stereotypes that seem
purely functional can be viewed as discriminatory. For example, many
have pointed out that stereotypes such as "business executive" have
traditionally embodied stereotypically masculine characteristics and
have therefore called for change in the interest of equality and
inclusiveness.
The attack on social stereotypes has been successful to the extent that
there is no body of respectable opinion that squarely speaks up for
them. At least in public, there is general agreement that they are
wrong in principle.
Since all seem to agree that stereotypes are bad, we should consider
what a society without stereotypes would look like. Such a society
would be one in which we have no grounds for assuming anything about
the attitudes or conduct of other people, except (in the best case)
that they will meet their legal obligations. As a result:
1. Such a society would be one in which law (including legally-
enforceable contracts) must determine everything that people need to
rely on. But law must be interpreted, and even the clearest and most
detailed law can in the end only be interpreted by reference to
presumptions as to what is proper. However, no such presumptions can
be made by society as a whole if there are no social stereotypes, so the
presumptions that are necessary would simply be those made by the
particular people in power. It follows that in such a society law would
grow more and more complex and all-encompassing, while its meaning would
become more and more inscrutable and reduce in the end to the will of
those who interpret and enforce it.
2. In a society without stereotypes we couldn't say anything about the
specific goals people should have. Nonetheless, we would recognize that
they all have goals that they want to achieve, and therefore we would
accept as an objective good whatever is a universal means of bringing
about goals. The universal means of bringing about goals, at least to
the extent goals require the cooperation of other people, are money and
power. It follows that in a society without stereotypes money and power
would be the sole recognized objective goods.
3. Long-term personal relationships such as friendship and marriage
depend on our ability to make informal and usually inarticulate
presumptions about the attitude and conduct of other people. Such
presumptions can't possibly be made legally enforceable. Accordingly,
long-term personal relationships would be rare or nonexistent in a
society without stereotypes.
4. A vision of one's own long-term good can not be truly a private
matter because one must be able to contrast one's good with impulse,
present inclination, infatuation, and the like. It must therefore be
something one can make mistakes about. We can't understand something as
a "mistake", though, except by reference to standards that don't depend
solely on our state of mind and therefore must be standards that we
share with other people. A standard of conduct that doesn't depend on
one's state of mind, in order to be fixed and concrete enough for most
people to use, would have to be a stereotype. It follows that a society
without social stereotypes would be a society of fundamentally aimless
people, with all the ills mass aimlessness brings about.
Students of social trends will recognize these consequences as ones with
which we are living. As the war against stereotypical thinking wins
more and more victories we will see more of them, with no apparent
limit. Some may like the overall package the current moral order offers
us. For my own part, I prefer what is called bigotry.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Sep 6 04:02:09 EDT 1994
Article: 32889 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Liberals and conservatives
Date: 5 Sep 1994 21:58:03 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 83
Message-ID: <34gibb$8ng@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Just for a change, here's something that ignores libertarians
altogether. Comments are welcome, if anyone finds what I've written
comprehensible enough to comment on.
The basic difference between liberals and conservatives is not economic
but moral and cultural. Fundamentally, liberals believe individuals,
liberated by the welfare/civil rights state from dependence on
particular persons and circumstances, should define themselves, while
conservatives believe it is better for people to have stable personal
and social identities determined by some combination of circumstances,
chance, and personal effort. As a result, liberals seem to
conservatives to be immoralists who want to make everything dependent on
the omnipotent state, while conservatives seem to liberals to be bigots
who don't care about equality or human rights.
The differences can be seen in disputes over the social institutions
that carry forward the liberal agenda:
1. Entitlements. The economic problem with these is that they are
expensive, and seem likely to become indefinitely more so even as the
standard of well-being they secure declines. In the end, it may be
economics that determines what happens to them. The conservative moral
and cultural objection to them, however, is that they destroy informal
institutions like the family and community that define what people are
and help them make sense of their lives. Since the government will take
care of things if no-one else does, a comprehensive system of
entitlements makes individual responsibility and family and community
obligations optional. Our only serious moral obligations become
political correctness (support for the welfare/civil rights state) and
payment of taxes; everything else is self-expression. Conservatives
believe people can't live decently when their connection to society
becomes as loose and abstract as it does in a liberal social order.
Current indicia of social disorder such as crime rates seem to support
that view.
2. Civil rights laws. Liberalism dominates our public discussion of
politics to the extent that these laws are universally treated as lofty
expressions of evolving morality that require only to be strengthened
and enforced more aggressively. Conservatives pay lip service to them,
but rightly are suspected of less-than-complete commitment to the cause.
In fact, what civil rights laws amount to is a determination that people
will not be allowed to come together for common purposes unless the
government controls the way they come together to make sure their
cohesion doesn't arise from something other than economics and
functional efficiency. Traditional principles of cohesion relating to
what people feel to be constituents of personal identity--extended blood
relationships, ethnic and cultural kinship, religious affililations, sex
roles--are forbidden when their consequences would matter. Even
economic and functional considerations aren't good enough if they result
in differential participation by different social groups. But if
personal identity is one thing, and the public social order is something
entirely different, it's not clear how much can be left of personal
identity. What we're left with is the unconditioned individual
attempting to define himself in a void, which conservatives believe to
be an impossibility.
3. Public schools. Centralizing measures such as the recent Education
Bill, continuing judicial and legislative requirements tending toward
centralized funding in the name of equality, the power of
administrators, teachers' unions and professional organizations, and
overall social trends suggest that the public schools will continue to
cost more and get worse both academically and (from a conservative point
of view) culturally and morally. Multiculturalism, which consists in a
principled attack on all traditional cultures, is here to stay. One
aspect of the problem is that the schools are controlled by
professionals and administrators employed by the government who believe
things ought to be run by professionals and administrators employed by
the government. Toward that end schools weaken children's attachment to
traditional ways of life carried on through informal family and
community institutions, and substitute for that attachment the ideology
of self-definition and self-realization. From a practical standpoint,
that ideology means dependence on the government bureaucracy and thus
furthers the interests of the class that runs the schools. That would
be OK, of course, if the net effect were a better life for people
generally. That better life seems elusive, however, in spite of vastly
increased expeditures on education and other social welfare programs.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Sep 7 05:30:08 EDT 1994
Article: 25895 of alt.politics.radical-left
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.radical-left
Subject: Re: Productive Chaos and Vertical Monopolies
Date: 6 Sep 1994 10:13:52 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 45
Message-ID: <34htf0$r4@panix.com>
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Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:32934 alt.politics.libertarian:45857 alt.politics.radical-left:25895
rickp@fx.net (Rick Pasotto) writes:
>An economist can deal only with revealed preferences, that is, with the
>choices market participants actually make. He is neither a psychologist
>nor a moralist.
I take it "revealed preference" means something like "propensity to
act"? If so, it seems that economics is the study of the aggregate
outcomes of people's actions, given some state of technology, political
and legal regime, distribution of individual propensities to act,
distribution of physical resources and personal characteristics, and so
on. Does that way of understanding economics leave out anything of
importance?
If not, it seems that the transition from economics to policy requires
a moral theory that is quite separate from economics. Expressions in
economics like "value" and "welfare" have a purely technical meaning
with no immediate relevance to what is desirable. It also seems that
both libertarian and liberal moral theory bridge the gap rather
directly, by saying that it is best to interfere with people's
propensities to act as little as possible. The difference between the
two seems to be that libertarians take the distribution of resources
and personal characteristics as given, part of what establishes the
setting within which the actions take place that are not to be
interfered with. In contrast, liberals believe that the receipt of a
less-preferred-than-average share in that distribution can constitute
an interference with one's propensities to act, at least if
institutional arrangements are possible that could deliver to the
disfavored group more of what they prefer.
Would you agree that economic science can cast no light on this dispute
between libertarians and liberals?
It also seems to me, by the way, that Mr. Ostrum would go the liberal
position one better, and treat particular actual propensities to act not
as given but as things that can interfere with one's true, best,
overall, fundamental (or whatever) propensities. Economic science can
give no reason for saying that view is wrong, it seems to me. On the
other hand, one disadvantage of the view is that it makes it much harder
to use economics to generate policy prescriptions.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Sep 7 11:06:20 EDT 1994
Article: 17545 of alt.politics.correct
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct,soc.culture.african.american,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,talk.politics.misc,alt.books.reviews
Subject: Re: The Museum weighs in on "Black Egypt"
Date: 7 Sep 1994 06:01:35 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 17
Message-ID: <34k31v$e32@panix.com>
References: <1994Aug15.212908.1@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu> <1994Sep7.010316.72096@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
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ggentry@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Greg Gentry) writes:
>And while you are at it, please give a concise biological definition of
>race. Until someone gives me this I'm going to go with the belief that
>race is an obsolete biological construct that went out with the sub-
>species construct.
Do you believe there is any set of terms that can be used to talk about
distinct human populations that have not intermarried with each other to
any significant extent for a very long time, and apparently as a
consequence now differ genetically? A comparison of the Swedes,
Nigerians and Japanese I have met suggests that such populations exist.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Sep 7 11:06:27 EDT 1994
Article: 33083 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Individualism and stereotypes
Date: 7 Sep 1994 06:23:16 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 101
Message-ID: <34k4ak$f3i@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
The attentive and thoughtful silence that greeted my recent post
comparing liberalism and conservatism convinces me of the strength of
the interest in such themes in this newsgroup. Accordingly, I am
following it up with a related discussion.
American individualism started with the view that social identity should
not be fixed, and that a man should be accepted as whatever he is able
to make of himself. It has ended with the view that social identity
should not exist, except as a temporary and superficial aspect of the
voluntary performance of a particular social function. Each of us is to
be a free and equal individual unlimited by the social stereotypes that
make up social identity.
Accordingly, what mainstream opinion views as the moral and political
progress achieved since the Second World War, and especially since
Kennedy's assassination, has been in essence an attack on social
stereotypes and an attempt to uproot them by all possible means of
persuasion and coercion. The civil rights and feminist revolutions were
overtly such, the sexual revolution was an attack on the traditional
view that modes of sexual conduct should be stereotypically fixed, and
the demand for exclusion of religion from public life has been an
attempt to eliminate the notion of the world as an objective moral order
in which people have stereotypically prescribed obligations independent
of their personal feelings and choices.
The attack on the legitimacy of social stereotypes has often been cast
as one on discrimination--the application of differing stereotypes to
different people--but it is really an attack on stereotypes as such. A
stereotype is simply a fixed concrete view of what people should do and
be (that they should get married before they have children, for
example), and any such view can be characterized as discriminatory
against those who don't comply with it. Even stereotypes that seem
purely functional can be viewed as discriminatory. For example, many
have pointed out that stereotypes such as "business executive" have
traditionally embodied stereotypically masculine characteristics and
have therefore called for change in the interest of equality and
inclusiveness.
The attack on social stereotypes has been successful to the extent that
there is no body of respectable opinion that squarely speaks up for
them. At least in public, there is general agreement that they are
wrong in principle.
Since all seem to agree that stereotypes are bad, we should consider
what a society without stereotypes would look like. Such a society
would be one in which we have no grounds for assuming anything about
the attitudes or conduct of other people, except (in the best case)
that they will meet their legal obligations. As a result:
1. Such a society would be one in which law (including legally-
enforceable contracts) must determine everything that people need to
rely on. But law must be interpreted, and even the clearest and most
detailed law can in the end only be interpreted by reference to
presumptions as to what is proper. However, no such presumptions can
be made by society as a whole if there are no social stereotypes, so the
presumptions that are necessary would simply be those made by the
particular people in power. It follows that in such a society law would
grow more and more complex and all-encompassing, while its meaning would
become more and more inscrutable and reduce in the end to the will of
those who interpret and enforce it.
2. In a society without stereotypes we couldn't say anything about the
specific goals people should have. Nonetheless, we would recognize that
they all have goals that they want to achieve, and therefore we would
accept as an objective good whatever is a universal means of bringing
about goals. The universal means of bringing about goals, at least to
the extent goals require the cooperation of other people, are money and
power. It follows that in a society without stereotypes money and power
would be the sole recognized objective goods.
3. Long-term personal relationships such as friendship and marriage
depend on our ability to make informal and usually inarticulate
presumptions about the attitude and conduct of other people. Such
presumptions can't possibly be made legally enforceable. Accordingly,
long-term personal relationships would be rare or nonexistent in a
society without stereotypes.
4. A vision of one's own long-term good can not be truly a private
matter because one must be able to contrast one's good with impulse,
present inclination, infatuation, and the like. It must therefore be
something one can make mistakes about. We can't understand something as
a "mistake", though, except by reference to standards that don't depend
solely on our state of mind and therefore must be standards that we
share with other people. A standard of conduct that doesn't depend on
one's state of mind, in order to be fixed and concrete enough for most
people to use, would have to be a stereotype. It follows that a society
without social stereotypes would be a society of fundamentally aimless
people, with all the ills mass aimlessness brings about.
Students of social trends will recognize these consequences as ones
with which we are living. As the war against stereotypical thinking
wins more and more victories we will see more of them, with no apparent
limit. It is these consequences that we have chosen in adopting our
current public moral principles.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Sep 7 15:29:36 EDT 1994
Article: 33094 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: the rule of law
Date: 7 Sep 1994 12:07:15 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 49
Message-ID: <34kofj$lve@panix.com>
References:
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Keywords: the rule of law
bjornola@dhhalden.no (BJORN OLAV LAEDRE) writes:
>What lies in the expression "the rule of law" ?
>
>Which values are 'the rule of law' meant to take care of, and how may
>these ideas represent a threat to other values, such as effectivity of
>rule and equality?
As I understand it, the rule of law is intended to promote:
1. Freedom. You are effectively free only to the extent you can make
plans and carry them out with some assurance of what the results will be
or at least some way of assessing the risks involved. Therefore,
freedom can exist only within a knowable order of things. The rule of
law is knowable political order.
2. Broad participation in government. In order for the effects of
particular government actions to be discussed and assessed, other
things must be assumed to be constant. The greater the number of
things that are held constant the larger the number and the greater the
diversity of people who can participate productively in discussions of
the particular things that are to be changed. The rule of law
establishes rules that stay the same until they are changed and thus
permits narrowing the scope of discussion in the manner required.
3. Government accountability. The rule of law establishes concrete
principles that bind the government itself and therefore make it far
more practical to determine when an abuse of government power has taken
place.
The rule of law presupposes a settled state of society, which doesn't
always exist. So people who think the rule of law is a good idea
usually think occasions can arise (e.g., invasion, civil unrest, large-
scale natural calamity) when it must be suspended. John Locke discussed
this issue under the rubric of the royal prerogative and it has more
recently been dealt with under the heading of emergency powers.
Some people think the existing settled state of society incorporates
evils that must be rooted out, that the rooting out is going to take a
long time, and that once the rooting out has been accomplished coercive
law won't be necessary because people won't distinguish between their
own self-interest and the interests of other people. Such people when
in power have rejected the rule of law on principle, with horrendous
consequences.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Sep 7 15:29:41 EDT 1994
Article: 2304 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Back to the future
Date: 7 Sep 1994 15:29:02 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 54
Message-ID: <34l49u$h6o@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Do the internet and related developments mean anything good for the
counterrevolution?
Centralized mass communications have made things difficult for
counterrevolutionaries. Consider as an extreme case network television
as we've had it in the U.S. since the early 50s. TV is our main forum
for public discussion. It's expensive and time-consuming to produce a
high-quality show, so national TV has edged out local productions and
the forum has fallen entirely under the control of a very small class.
TV is good for presenting striking images and telling a simple story.
The large commercial organizations that produce it are vulnerable to
pressure groups, and don't like to make the public uneasy, so the
viewpoints that prosper are those that take a striking image that
creates a feeling something should be done but don't suggest that
there's anything the viewer should do personally. An image of someone
suffering someplace else is ideal. Then within the short time alloted
the image has to be followed with narrative that makes concrete what
would fix things and also makes it clear that the viewer is not going
to have to do anything personally although he will have a chance to
participate by proxy. A proposal for a government program is oerfect.
In this way network TV by its nature has become one of the major
promoters of the regulatory welfare state.
Network TV has many other anticounterrevolutionary effects. CRs
generally favor a society in which people relate mostly to particular
other people through membership in small family and community
organizations and the like; TV, like modern markets and bureaucracies,
leads people to relate to each other mostly in the abstract. And of
course the small size of the class that controls TV ensures that that
class will be an important constituent of the existing ruling class.
The internet and similar developments promise to decentralize
communications. The prospect worries our rulers to some degree--hence
the nervous talk of fragmentation and the use of the networks to spread
hate. Nonetheless, things are plunging ahead. Any views on what the
results will be? What will happen when people compile their own
"newspapers" from a variety of sources, both print and video, instead
of reading _USA Today_ and watching the _CBS Evening News_? The
success of talk radio shows how narrow the range of political
discussion in the popular media had become. What will happen if the
conditions that permitted such a small class to control the public
forum disappear?
Also, what can foaming-at-the-mouth right-wingers do to make use of
these developments? One suggestion has been to publish hard-to-find CR
texts electronically, and that will happen. Another has been to have an
on-line directory of relevent resources on the net, and that's being
worked on. What else?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Sep 7 18:21:30 EDT 1994
Article: 33128 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Individualism and stereotypes
Date: 7 Sep 1994 18:20:33 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 103
Message-ID: <34lebh$sor@panix.com>
References: <94250.122612MXR18@psuvm.psu.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Michael Rectenwald writes:
>|American individualism started with the view that social identity should
>|not be fixed, and that a man should be accepted as whatever he is able
>|to make of himself. It has ended with the view that social identity
>|should not exist, except as a temporary and superficial aspect of the
>|voluntary performance of a particular social function. Each of us is to
>|be a free and equal individual unlimited by the social stereotypes that
>|make up social identity.
>
>I think Mr. Kalb is referring to that intellectual moment so dreaded by
>libertarians and other conservatives, namely, DECONSTRUCTIONISM.
What I had in mind most specifically was the moral and social values
net libertarians usually say they favor. It seems to me that today
those are the values that people find easiest to articulate, especially
people who have had a lot of formal education. As you suggest, those
who are more academically reputable than net libertarians commonly
share those values.
>But Jim is referring to stereotypes, which are really products of
>advertising and consumer culture. Stereotypes are not some Platonic
>forms or ideals as Mr. Kalb intimates, but rather created social
>categories for target marketing purposes, which by ossification end up
>in actual social identities.
In Iran they downplay advertising and consumer culture. Do you think
the power of stereotypes is less there than in the U.S.?
I don't think I suggested there was anything Platonic about stereotypes
or denied their social nature. I do deny that they are a product of
advertising or consumer culture. The tendency of that culture, I
think, is to encourage desire and turn everything into a means to
satisfy it, a process that tends to break down stereotypes and every
other principle of coherence. The ideal consumer is the unbound ego
that lives for the satisfaction of impulse, not someone with fixed
ideas about what should and should not be done.
>|Accordingly, what mainstream opinion views as the moral and political
>|progress achieved since the Second World War, and especially since
>|Kennedy's assassination, has been in essence an attack on social
>|stereotypes and an attempt to uproot them by all possible means of
>|persuasion and coercion.
>
>Kennedy's assassination doesn't for some odd reason mark a momentous
>change in the formation of social identities.
All historical markers are somewhat artificial. Nonetheless, I think
there was a shift in the balance of things in the early to middle
sixties that brought about a rapid change in attitudes on issues like
personal autonomy, obligations to society (especially as they relate to
particular other people), and so on.
>Gender categories have certainly had limiting consequences for women,
As has what has supplanted them. Do women in their day-to-day lives
today really feel less pressure from people's expectations than they did
40 years ago? To feel pressured by expectations is to experience
oppression from social limitations. The abolition of all categories
would also have limiting consequences since something can exist only by
being a thing of a particular kind--not being able to exist as a thing
of a particular kind would be a very severe limitation.
>likewise, gender deconstruction has attacked categorical assimilation
>of women into the feminine stereotype. The civil rights movement has as
>its axe to grind the underclass status of African-Americans. Blacks
>shouldn't have stayed as Slaves just so your little world view and
>universal assumptions can remain secure, should've they?
Presumably what we should all favor is the constellation of assumptions
and expectations that leads to the best life for everyone, or for most
people, or something of the sort. You seem to believe that the current
cultural and moral order leads to a better life than that of 1960 for
women, blacks and so on. If that's so it's hard to understand the
feminization of poverty, or why the long decline in black poverty slowed
down in the late 60s and stopped in the early 70s, or why black life
expectancies have been growing shorter. I could go on. One might
consider crime rates, for example, or the dramatic growth of
illegitimacy and its implications for the lives of women, children, and
black people. You should consider that the weak suffer most from moral
anarchy, and as a practical matter morality can't exist without
stereotypes that prescribe concrete duties for particular people.
>The Objective world moral order you invoke wouldn't be based upon an
>anglo-saxon dominion, would it?
Who said anything about a world moral order? Presumably the anglo-
saxons can do their anglo-saxon thing while elsewhere the Japanese do
their Japanese thing. I have no fondness for imperialism.
>What people should do and be? According to Who? You, or some other
>fascists?
The whole idea of social stereotypes is that they develop at most half-
consciously and are held and acquiesced in by most people as background
assumptions about the world. So they're not something I could
prescribe and don't have much to do with an outlook like fascism that
exalts will.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Sep 8 05:49:28 EDT 1994
Article: 96024 of rec.arts.books
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: REVIEW (long): Red Chamber Dream/Story of the Stone
Date: 8 Sep 1994 05:45:09 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 13
Message-ID: <34mmf5$rvh@panix.com>
References:
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In rabbit@econ.lsa.umich.edu (Terence Hearsay) writes:
>The Golden Lotus_ is based on Chapter 25 of _The
>Water Margin_, and is said to have been greatly influenced by _Genji
>Monogatari_ (_The Tale of Genji_), which was the first Japanese (first
>ever?) novel.
Was _The Tale of Genji_ translated into Chinese and known there?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Sep 8 07:03:55 EDT 1994
Article: 33177 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Liberals and conservatives
Date: 8 Sep 1994 07:01:37 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 44
Message-ID: <34mquh$4hc@panix.com>
References: <34gibb$8ng@panix.com> <94Sep7.135752edt.48153@neat.cs.toronto.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
cbo@cs.toronto.edu (Calvin Bruce Ostrum) writes:
>Well Jim, I am surprised and disappointed that no one has stepped
>forward to correct some of the biases and distortions that
>unaccountably have crept into your fascinating disucssion of the
>differences between conservatism and liberalism.
On usenet it's hard to get people to talk about anything they're not
already in the habit of talking about. I would have expected most
people on t.p.t. to consider the basic point (liberalism aims to
liberate the individual through the agency of government, while
conservatism favors traditional social identities that can be chosen
only in part) pro-liberal and anti-conservative. The unfavorable
images each party has of the other (statist immoralist vs. tyrannical
bigot) was also intended to be even-handed if dramatized. The
remainder was from a conservative standpoint. I could have developed
what a liberal might say on the issues, but why not leave as large an
opening for response as possible?
>I'd like to take a crack at it myself, but unfortunately I am currently
>being beaten to a pulp by the invisible hand, as conceptually wielded
>by the libertarians, something which I am sure you take great pleasure
>in supporting.
Not particularly. I like to see issue joined in discussions, and my
chief problem with the discussions in which you involve yourself is that
issue never seems to get joined. The side comments I posted on the
thread, to the extent they consisted of anything other than me talking
to myself, favored your side more than the other.
>The opportunity cost I'm incurring prevents me from taking on any other
>similar task, but if I can extricate myself, I'll be back to this,
>provided that in the meantime, you post some kind of defining policy
>document for "The Institute for the Human Sciences" to give us an idea
>of where this is all coming from.
Corrections and criticisms are welcome. As I've told you, "I. for the
H.S." is a name I invented to fill in a blank. The defining policy
document is the manual for rn.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Sep 8 14:27:53 EDT 1994
Article: 33178 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Individualism and stereotypes
Date: 8 Sep 1994 07:03:24 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 25
Message-ID: <34mr1s$4mj@panix.com>
References: <94250.122612MXR18@psuvm.psu.edu> <34lebh$sor@panix.com> <94Sep8.032105edt.48152@neat.cs.toronto.edu>
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cbo@cs.toronto.edu (Calvin Bruce Ostrum) writes:
>| Who said anything about a world moral order? Presumably the anglo-
>| saxons can do their anglo-saxon thing while elsewhere the Japanese do
>| their Japanese thing. I have no fondness for imperialism.
>
>White Pride, eh Jim? Does the Institute have any special, uh, uniform?
I think that cultural distinctiveness is OK and that it requires some
degree of separation of some nature. ("Elsewhere" was intended broadly
to indicate any socially distinct time and place.) On which point do
you disagree?
As to specific institutions, I wouldn't want anything beyond what the
libertarians would propose with the addition of limitations on
immigration. If anglo-saxons or Japanese find it comforting or
rewarding to deal mostly with each other and live distinctively they can
do that. If some or all of them find it better to enlarge the ethnic
nest or leave it altogether they can do that too. "Presumably" and
"can" are not words of compulsion.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Sep 8 16:16:13 EDT 1994
Article: 33201 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.radical-left
Subject: Re: Productive Chaos and Vertical Monopolies
Date: 8 Sep 1994 16:15:47 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 14
Message-ID: <34nrdj$pq@panix.com>
References: <34hdq7$4e9@world.fx.net> <34htf0$r4@panix.com> <34nfui$92n@world.fx.net> <34np93$k6r@panix.com>
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Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:33201 alt.politics.libertarian:46340 alt.politics.radical-left:26048
In <34np93$k6r@panix.com> gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>One has to have a
>system of values in order to know what is important and
>what isn't. And a system of values applied to human
>behaviors is a moral theory. At least, I think this is
>what Jim Kalb is talking about.
As always, Gordon and I are in perfect agreement.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Sep 8 16:19:47 EDT 1994
Article: 33202 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.radical-left
Subject: Re: Productive Chaos and Vertical Monopolies
Date: 8 Sep 1994 16:19:27 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 95
Message-ID: <34nrkf$1uk@panix.com>
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Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:33202 alt.politics.libertarian:46341 alt.politics.radical-left:26049
rickp@fx.net (Rick Pasotto) writes:
>: it seems that the transition from economics to policy requires
>: a moral theory that is quite separate from economics.
>
>Why should there be a transition? What policy are you talking about?
>Whose policy are you talking about? Why should there be a 'policy'?
I, as a voter, am trying to decide whether to vote for Milton Friedman,
John Rawls or the Ayatollah Khomeini to run the government and make the
laws. How do I go about making up my mind? Do I not vote because it
isn't worth the effort to cast one vote in 100,000,000? Do I simply
vote for whoever seems likely to get me the most of whatever it is that
I want? If my guy loses but I can get what I want anyway by violating
laws made by the victor, is there any reason I shouldn't do so if I
think I can get away with it? If I am in office do I just do whatever
maximizes my idea of my own well-being or should I respect the
obligations of my office even if I can get away with ignoring them?
More generally, is there some notion of public spirit that I should take
into account? All these questions suggest to me that politics requires
a theory of moral obligation that does not reduce to self-interest.
>: Expressions in economics like "value" and "welfare" have a purely
>: technical meaning with no immediate relevance to what is desirable.
>
>Desirable - to whom?
Say "good" instead of "desirable", if you wish.
>The relevance is immediate to each individual actor.
The relevance is immediate to the demonstrated desire (that is, to the
propensities to act) of each individual actor at the time he acts. So
what?
>: It also seems that both libertarian and liberal moral theory bridge
>: the gap rather directly, by saying that it is best to interfere with
>: people's propensities to act as little as possible.
>
>Best for whom?
Best categorically.
>Whose interference? How? Why the passive voice?
I used the passive voice because I wanted to point to common ground
between liberals and libertarians. Both oppose interference with
propensities to act, but they count different things as interference. A
liberal might count the absence of a government-funded system of medical
care as an interference with the freedom of a poor sick man to run
marathons.
>: The difference between the two seems to be that libertarians take the
>: distribution of resources and personal characteristics as given, part
>: of what establishes the setting within which the actions take place
>: that are not to be interfered with.
>
>That is, libertarians take the given as the given. :-)
The distribution doesn't exist in the absence of rules of property. Are
there rules of property that are given? Perhaps such rules may be
accepted as given within a particular society, but I don't see how they
can be so viewed at the present level of abstraction.
>Note the ambiguity of refering to the 'distribution' of both resources
>and personal characteristics. It's certainly possible to rearrange the
>'distribution' of the first, but how do you propose to do so for the
>latter?
Instead of saying "the distribution of personal characteristics" say
"the distribution of the benefits accruing from the possession of
personal characteristics". It's possible to redistribute those
benefits, for example through an income tax system or for that matter
through forced labor.
>Libertarians are interested in the welfare of each individual as an
>individual, not as a member of some group. Liberals are interested in
>groups as groups and really don't care about the individuals that make
>up the groups. Libertarians are individualists; liberals are
>collectivists.
Why would someone who said "I think every individual has a right to free
medical care, an apartment, and a lifetime meal ticket, all to be paid
for out of tax revenues" be a collectivist? It sounds like his concern
is with ensuring the welfare of each individual.
>Economics can show that the liberal's way is doomed to failure
Can economics do more than indicate that there is a price for achieving
liberal goals?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Sep 8 22:01:39 EDT 1994
Article: 33215 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Individualism and stereotypes
Date: 8 Sep 1994 20:21:58 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 39
Distribution: na
Message-ID: <34o9r6$sur@panix.com>
References:
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pajerek%tels24.telstar.kodak.com@kodak.com (Don Pajerek) writes:
>> A
>>stereotype is simply a fixed concrete view of what people should do and
>>be (that they should get married before they have children, for
>>example), and any such view can be characterized as discriminatory
>>against those who don't comply with it.
>
>I would think that the key factor in a stereotype is the arbitrary
>association of behaviors with other - often visual - characteristics.
>The pattern-matching circuitry in the mind, by using stereotypes, can,
>having visually examined a person, derive expected behaviors from the
>visual information. For example: 'young+black+male' == 'violent
>criminal'. Note the use of visual cues to give rise to behavioral
>expectations.
The word has multiple applications. What they all have in common, I
think, is that they refer to situations in which the presence of some
parts of a pattern lead one to expect the rest of the pattern even
though the expected pattern is not rationally necessitated. The account
I gave was of moral stereotypes, while your example is of a factual
stereotype.
It should be obvious that it would be impossible to deal with practical
situations without stereotypes. Your word "arbitrary" puzzles me. The
pattern-matching circuitry in the mind does not exist by accident. To
take your example, there would be something very odd about someone made
equally nervous on a deserted street late at night in a crummy
neighborhood by the approach of a group of old ladies, black or white,
and a group of young black men, even though the old ladies might in fact
be a greater threat. As to the racial issue, even Jesse Jackson has
said he is made more nervous in the situation I mentioned by a young
black man than a young white man. Do you think that reaction is
unreasonable?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Sep 9 05:48:31 EDT 1994
Article: 33224 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.radical-left
Subject: Re: Productive Chaos and Vertical Monopolies
Date: 8 Sep 1994 22:05:13 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 80
Message-ID: <34ofsp$ka5@panix.com>
References: <34nfui$92n@world.fx.net> <34np93$k6r@panix.com> <94Sep8.165511edt.48176@neat.cs.toronto.edu>
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Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:33224 alt.politics.libertarian:46382 alt.politics.radical-left:26064
cbo@cs.toronto.edu (Calvin Bruce Ostrum) writes:
>| To the extent one creates such a
>| property system and sets up such conditions, one has a
>| _policy_. Setting up other conditions would simply be a
>| different policy [ ... ]
>
>I don't think Jim would like the phrasing here of "setting up" and
>"selecting" that you are using. He seems to be against people taking
>control of their situations, and reflexively considering the
>possibilities, and prefers instead that we take whatever stereotypes or
>traditions that we have and just live within them without complaining.
I have no objection to using the phrasing for analytical purposes. I am
dubious, though, of the notion of setting up or selecting fundamental
laws for society. For one thing, I don't think an attempt to do such a
thing can reasonably be described as "people taking control of their
situations". "People", presumably meaning the society as a whole, can
act collectively only if they are already part of a settled and highly
organized society most of which is held constant with respect to any
proposed change. Major social change is a leap in the dark, and I don't
see how such a leap can be described as "taking charge" of anything. I
suppose that a small group of manipulators might use the leap to take
charge of things, but that's not what's intended.
>For that matter, what do *you* mean by "selecting" and "setting up",
>Gordon? Who should do this, and how should it be done? Or, if it
>can't really be done, what is the point of phrasing it this way? Do
>you think certain sets of social institutions are made legitimate
>because they could possibly be selected in some kind of hypothetical
>choice situation? Or, as I suspect, is this just all a matter of real-
>politic?
So you agree that there are major problems with the notion of the people
writing fundamental laws for themselves. The best that can be done, I
think, is to accept that we are living together within a tradition which
is authoritative for us and to which we all owe loyalty, and that
develops half-consciously and seemingly of itself with changing times
and views.
That's the best that can be done because the background assumptions that
people generally make about the world and that define their culture are
more likely to reflect a broad base of experience and perception without
manipulation than consciously enunciated principles are, and the
development of a tradition, more than other processes of political
change, reflects the former rather than the latter.
I'm not sure it's possible to understand a tradition in the way I
suggest unless it's viewed in some sense as divinely inspired. It has
to be viewed as somehow participating in superhuman wisdom. It's no
accident that Supreme Court justices here in the U.S. have sometimes
been described as secular priests or for that matter that classical
political theorists have favored the ascription of a religious origin to
the state.
Someone might ask what to do if the actual political tradition one is
living within seems to have led to John Rawls. Good question. My
inclination is to say that our political tradition has gone awry but can
be righted if people give up their principled opposition to the
authority of tradition, stereotypes, and so on. That actually might
happen. Those things readily develop in a society unless something
inhibits them, and the philosophical tendencies that have been
inhibiting them for the past several hundred years seem to be on the
wane. An obvious objection is that such a change would be a leap in the
dark with incalculable consequences, but I am inclined to think that
current tendencies can't be sustained and the longer they go on the
worse things will get when they come to an end because there will be
less to fall back on.
Somewhat as an aside, I should say that hypothetical choice theories
seem to me to yield always and only the constitution that the
theoretician approves on other grounds. If someone thought that the
best constitution would be the theocratic rule of a god-king and
priestly aristocracy, then that's the constitution he would expect to
result from an appropriately structured hypothetical choice.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Sep 9 12:44:14 EDT 1994
Article: 33297 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.radical-left
Subject: Re: More liberals and conservatives (was Re: Productive Chaos...)
Date: 9 Sep 1994 08:15:09 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 165
Message-ID: <34pjkd$h12@panix.com>
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Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:33297 alt.politics.libertarian:46521 alt.politics.radical-left:26125
cbo@cs.toronto.edu (Calvin Bruce Ostrum) writes:
>| Major social change is a leap in the dark, and I don't
>| see how such a leap can be described as "taking charge" of anything.
>
>So we can do it piecemeal.
Is it sensible to view as piecemeal a movement that consciously accepts
as authoritative overall abstract standards (those set forth in _A
Theory of Justice_, for example) that are thoroughly in conflict with
actual social practice? Suppose we add to the acceptance of overall
abstract standards reliance on formal government machinery designed to
vindicate claims based on such standards in accordance with still
abstract but operationally useable standards devised by social-reform
professionals?
>The plain fact is that a lot of people don't like the stereotypes that
>they are subjected to, and which Jim seems to admire. When they get a
>chance to, they complain about them.
The notion seems to be that the impetus for change arises out of
people's concrete experience, without much ideological theorizing. On
that account, it's hard to understand why reform has required so much
judicial and regulatory activity that explicitly rejects people's common
sense of what is involved in situations. Remember that stereotypes
don't exist at all unless people unconsciously accept them as valid.
>The maintenance of these old stereotypes also becomes difficult when
>conflicting brands of them are brought into conflict. Jim offers no
>solution to this kind of problem,
If it's so hard to maintain them they'll just disappear, so why worry
about it?
My suggestion is for people to live and deal preferentially with those
whose understanding and way of life is compatible with their own. In
other words, minimal government and, to the extent people find life is
better that way, voluntary separation. In short, the libertarian
solution. Abolition of the welfare/civil rights state.
>but liberals suggest that insofar as people continue to draw sustenance
>from such things, that they try to see them as compatible with those of
>others. This, in fact, is one of the main motivations for modern
>liberalism (at least in theory) which Jim continually wishes to
>downplay or ignore. He complains that this means that people have to
>water down their stereotypes so far as to make them meaningless. Well,
>lots of people don't think the accomodations are all that bad.
People do indeed like comfort. I think what we should look to, though,
is not whether many people are able to make the accomodations necessary
to stay comfortable at a particular time but rather the overall
consequences of the moral regime. Are current tendencies making people
smarter or stupider? More or less brutal? Do they seem to promote or
to inhibit anything that can reasonably or even figuratively be thought
of as virtue in society or the salvation of souls? Are the problems
recognized by the regime itself (poverty and human indignity, say)
growing or shrinking? If (for the sake of avoiding anecdotal evidence)
you look as tables of social statistics from publications like _The
Statistical Abstract of the United States_ or _Historical Statistics of
the United States_, it appears that people are getting stupider, more
brutal, and spiritually more chaotic, and that long-term connections
among people are breaking down. The process seems to have something to
do with the cultural revolutions of the 60s, which in turn seem the
legitimate outcome of the liberal tradition.
>I do endorse some kind of abstract hypothetical contractarianism as
>providing a solution to the main question of political theory.
Suppose a theoretician thinks constitution X is the best constitution,
wither abstractly or in a particular situation, because of fundamental
impersonal considerations A, B, and C. If that theoretician described a
constitutional convention among participants who had sloughed off
irrelevant characteristics, it seems that appreciation of the importance
of A, B, and C would not be among the irrelevant characteristics he
would have them slough off. An account of an abstract hypothetical
contract can illuminate a theory, but I don't see how it can generate
one.
>Once some of the obvious physiological ones are taken care of, we are
>left with among other things the need to feel a belonging to something
>greater than oneself [ ... ] a to claim that this can only be handled
>by appealing to a set of worn out, often oppressive, and even silly
>stereotypes, seems to me to be a serious error.
If stereotypes are actually accepted then they're not worn out and it's
rather doubtful they are silly. If they serve a necessary function they
shouldn't be considered oppressive. Actual concrete institutions and
therefore belonging to something greater than oneself is impossible
without fixed ways of thinking about and dealing with things and other
people--that is, without stereotypes. Therefore, the view that
stereotypes are bad in principle can't reasonably be maintained, even
though all stereotypes fit some situations poorly and prevent some
people from doing things they could do if the stereotypes were
different, and therefore in some respects can be viewed as silly and
oppressive.
>| Someone might ask what to do if the actual political tradition one is
>| living within seems to have led to John Rawls. Good question. My
>| inclination is to say that our political tradition has gone awry but can
>| be righted if people give up their principled opposition to the
>| authority of tradition, stereotypes, and so on. That actually might
>
>This seems to be the classic conservative complaint of all ages.
>Things have gone awry but if we could just go back a little bit.
>Really.
It's not a complaint, it's a matter of taking the view of the situation
that offers hope that one can something about it. The view of the
situation that is more persuasive abstractly is that it's all a matter
of historical developments that you can't do anything about. Things go
on for a while and then at some point they all go smash and then after
a while something else gets started. For practical purposes, though,
it seems better to adopt the view that gives practical guidance rather
than the view that seems superior as a speculative matter.
>We even have the token demon. Rawls is clearly a monstrously evil
>figure. I know because Ayn Rand told me so
Where did you get the idea I thought Rawls was a demon or that Rand has
anything to do with it? Rawls would be useless to me if he weren't a
central figure who sums up a whole lot of historical developments.
>| Those things readily develop in a society unless something
>| inhibits them, and the philosophical tendencies that have been
>| inhibiting them for the past several hundred years seem to be on the
>| wane.
>
>What, like, the Enlightenment?
I had Descartes most specifically in mind.
>Jim refers to two things above. "Developments" and "tendencies". The
>"developments" ("stereotypes", "authority") are good, and the
>"tendencies" (presumably "self-determination", "reason", "critical
>thinking") are bad. But I am not sure what the criterion is for calling
>some a development as opposed to a tendency.
Degree of universality. Rationalism has come and (presumably) can go;
stereotypes and authority are forever because human social life requires
them and man is a social animal.
>These principles (two of them mentioned above) radically underdetermine
>things, or at least currently appear to, but they do appear to rule
>quite a lot out.
Like what?
>Can Jim provide any references from the literature that develop the
>lines that he suggests are possible?
For a contractarian argument for rule by a god-king? Here's one--it's
good to do what the gods tell us to do, and the god-king is a god. So
if all confusions and special perspectives dropped away, everyone would
agree that submission to the god-king is the best way.
Even behind the veil of ignorance people know the fundamental principle
of action (theoretician A says the prosecution of one's life-plan;
theoretician B says doing what is good) and certain other things needed
to devise fundamental institutions (theoretician A says the laws of
economics; theoretician B says theological truths).
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Sep 9 21:10:22 EDT 1994
Article: 33345 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.radical-left
Subject: Re: More liberals and conservatives (was Re: Productive Chaos...)
Date: 9 Sep 1994 21:10:02 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:33345 alt.politics.libertarian:46625 alt.politics.radical-left:26171
cbo@cs.toronto.edu (Calvin Bruce Ostrum) writes:
>| For a contractarian argument for rule by a god-king? Here's one--it's
>| good to do what the gods tell us to do, and the god-king is a god. So
>| if all confusions and special perspectives dropped away, everyone would
>| agree that submission to the god-king is the best way.
>
>Oh yeah? And where in the literature is this?
Nowhere. Was it crucial that an actual contract theoretician also be
fan of god-kings? I interpreted your question far more loosely than you
intended, to be in substance a request for an example.
>As I said, the actual motivation for abstract contractarianism does
>rule this kind of thing out (not by fiat, but because such a thing is
>simply foreign to those motivations).
Just so. As I said, your two self-evident principles (the equality in
value of all human lives and the requirement that the political order
could in some sense be approved by everyone) don't rule out much. To
get substantive results you need some further principle, which you here
refer to as "the actual motivation for abstract contractarianism". Can
you state what that further principle is?
>A couple of other requests before I start constructing a reply: first,
>please post your description of the possible future scenarios, given
>that our current path cannot be continued, as you claimed.
Quite a demand! The future is notoriously hard to predict, and a
belief that current trends will lead to instability makes the job that
much harder. It's fun to speculate, though, so I'll give it a whirl:
1. For a general theory of political evolution that considers the fate
of the democratic consumer society, in which equality and the
satisfaction of whatever desires people actually have are the governing
principles, see Plato's _Republic_, books viii and ix. Basically, he
thinks the liberation of desire characteristic of such a society
eventually leads to tyranny due to the absence of an principle of order
sufficient to restrain the irrational dominion of the strongest.
2. It's hard to predict specifics of how things will play out.
Presumably, the decline in stable affiliations among people will
continue. At some point social cohesion will become too weak to permit
anything one can reasonably call popular rule. At that point political
power will be in the hands of some small group that will present some
public excuse for its rule and maybe paper over the fact of its
irresponsible power through manipulated plebiscites or something of the
sort, but will in fact rule for the sake of continuing its own power.
You might end up with a military despotism with an official ideology
that no-one can question but no-one takes seriously, rather like the
last years of the Soviet Union, only with no alternative form of society
to the West.
3. There are lots of other possibilities, of course. Maybe the
weakening of affiliation among people will provoke a reaction and since
civilized forms of affiliation will have been fatally weakened we'll get
an outburst of something cruder, like violent racism or political or
religious fanaticism. Maybe there'll be a soft landing--people will
gradually grow tired of liberalism and then stuff like tradition and
authoritative social stereotypes will grow up again slowly enough for a
civilized way of life to be reborn. Or maybe continuing technological
improvements will make it impossible for the state to exist because it
will be too easy for people to move things out of the reach of
government, so we'll get libertopia. Who knows?
>Second, are you really serious about all of this stuff?
Of course.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Sep 10 08:53:40 EDT 1994
Article: 33360 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.radical-left
Subject: Re: More liberals and conservatives (was Re: Productive Chaos...)
Date: 10 Sep 1994 08:49:32 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:33360 alt.politics.libertarian:46672 alt.politics.radical-left:26181
cbo@cs.toronto.edu (Calvin Bruce Ostrum) writes:
>According to Rawls, the principles set forth in _A Theory of Justice_
>*are* in accord with social practice in modern democratic societies.
Really? I thought most liberals were less pleased with the existing
order of things. If the point is that he has our governing elites on
his side and has grounds to think he's winning, I agree.
>This is irrelevant in any case because we don't ever have to accept any
>standard in a naive rationalist and foundationalist manner, once and
>for all, but instead can employ a quasi-scientific process whereby we
>search for what Rawls calls a "wide reflective equilibrium" between our
>moral principles and our considered moral judgements, feelings, and
>intuitions.
Society as a whole is to do that, and it's also to be accepted that
people are going to have fundamental moral commitments that are
irreducibly different in important respects with no prospect of
convergence (as I think Rawls also believes)?
My own view is that quasi-scientific processes whereby a bunch of people
collectively establish a reflective equilibrium take place only within
well-defined communities with strong standards and the habit of
excluding people who don't measure up. So to the extent the process you
describe is taking place within liberalism it's grossly misleading to
identify the "we" among whom it is taking place with the people at
large.
>My impression is that a great deal of the impetus for change has come
>from concrete experience, particularly when it comes to race, gender,
>and class.
And mine is that the development and success of modern liberalism since
the 50s have had a lot to do with centralized mass communications,
organized consciousness raising, and the extension of the activities of
the administrative welfare state.
>That we are not allowed to take conscious action to change things in
>your ideal situation is something I find quite incredible.
What's wrong with recognizing that the "we" who take conscious action
to change things is not "the people" and that the notion of conscious
action to change anything very comprehensive or fundamental is
troublesome because you can't know what you are doing or what the
results will be?
>why shouldn't people seek to expand their understanding where possible,
>to include others.
I never proposed that they be forbidden from doing so.
>| If (for the sake of avoiding anecdotal evidence)
>| you look as tables of social statistics from publications like _The
>| Statistical Abstract of the United States_ or _Historical Statistics of
>| the United States_, it appears that people are getting stupider, more
>| brutal, and spiritually more chaotic, and that long-term connections
>| among people are breaking down. The process seems to have something to
>| do with the cultural revolutions of the 60s, which in turn seem the
>| legitimate outcome of the liberal tradition.
>
>This is where I have trouble. I don't believe anything like this,
Is it the factual claims (the first sentence) you dispute, the causal
claim about the connection of bad social tendencies to the cultural
developments identified with "the 60s", or the semi-conceptual claim
that those cultural developments were a legitimate manifestation of the
liberal tradition?
>No one said "stereotypes are bad in principle". With your definition,
>every concept is essentially a stereotype. What we are arguing about
>is whether these things can be rationally examined, then improved or
>replaced as a result. I believe they can and must be. Now, there has
>to be a limit to this, of course. But those limits are themselves
>(meta?) stereotypes and as such subject to the same kind of criticism.
As you say, there must be limits. If not, then the claim really does
become "stereotypes are bad in principle". My claim is that the limits
have already been exceeded and my evidence is the social trends of the
past 30 years or so.
What particular limits would you propose? How would those limits be
determined and their acceptance secured in a society of which you would
approve? Stereotypes, especially stereotypes about something as complex
and little understood as human life, have an essential element of
arbitrariness. Any particular limitations on the criticism and reform
of stereotypes will also have an element of arbitrariness. They could
have been different from what they were and if they had been then to all
appearances they would have worked equally well, but they weren't and as
a result someone is disadvantaged. How, from your point of view, do you
go about accepting that and requiring others to accept it?
It seems that you think the notion of a single ideally rational
political culture makes sense as an ideal to which we can successively
approximate through something like scientific method. I don't. For one
thing, I can't imagine who the scientific "we" would be. The scientific
method calls for the utmost in disinterestness, but whoever determines
stereotypes has almost limitless social power. How to combine the two?
One might try to vest the power to pass on the validity of stereotypes
in society as a whole, whatever that might mean, but that's not what
liberals do--they vest it in particular officials (judges, for example)
who are intentionally made as independent of popular sentiment as
possible and required to justify what they do to other professionals
rather than some larger group.
Another problem is that scientific political morality can't get any
farther than the state of social science. The state of social science
is unsatisfactory, it doesn't seem to going anywhere fast, and one can
think of reasons why it may never get anywhere.
>your hated "elites"
Why hated, and why the scare quotes? Every society beyond a small band
of hunters and gatherers necessarily has elites. When things are going
badly the elites very likely bear a lot of the responsibility. Do you
disagree? One notable feature of our current elites is that they often
like to pretend they aren't really elites. In part that shows that
something is amiss (people don't deny the nature of what they're doing
for nothing), in part it's a consequence of the complexity of modern
society, in which it really is more difficult to assign responsibility.
>You are going to suggest that people simply be allowed to separate out
>into groups each of which accept the same set of stereotypes. This of
>course is impossible given the way things are all mixed together now,
People would make decisions based on the relative roles of the
stereotypes and other considerations in their lives.
>but if something like it were attempted, you would have to apply the
>criteria you listed above. I do not believe the result would be to many
>people's liking.
We differ on a point of social science, then. I do think the gross
statistics on social trends pre- and post-60s are illuminating on the
point and hard to shrug off as biased.
>refusing to allow critical reflexivity, and suggesting we just follow
>inarticulate "authority" and "stereotypes"
There are kinds and degrees of critical reflexivity, from the evolution
of unselfconscious reactions as a result of experience to the sort of
thing one might see in a philosophical debate. We do far more things
that are reasonable and responsive to experience than we could ever
articulate. Think of how practical skills are mastered. Nor is
plausible articulation a necessary sign of reasonableness.
>Descartes is not a "tendency". I guess we are talking about the
>method of radical doubt, a very nasty thing when once can recommend
>instead dogmatic and unquestioning belief.
Are those the alternatives?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Sep 10 08:53:41 EDT 1994
Article: 33361 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.radical-left
Subject: Charles Murray and the coming apocalypse
Date: 10 Sep 1994 08:53:11 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:33361 alt.politics.libertarian:46674 alt.politics.radical-left:26182
Mr. Ostrum mentioned Charles Murray. I thought some might be interested
in the following, which I ran into on another newsgroup this morning.
The Coming White Underclass
----
By Charles Murray
10/29/93
WALL STREET JOURNAL (J)
Every once in a while the sky really is falling, and this
seems to be the case with the latest national figures on
illegitimacy. The unadorned statistic is that, in 1991, 1.2
million children were born to unmarried mothers, within a hair of
30% of all live births. How high is 30%? About four percentage
points higher than the black illegitimacy rate in the early 1960s
that motivated Daniel Patrick Moynihan to write his famous
memorandum on the breakdown of the black family.
The 1991 story for blacks is that illegitimacy has now reached
68% of births to black women. In inner cities, the figure is
typically in excess of 80%. Many of us have heard these numbers
so often that we are inured. It is time to think about them as if
we were back in the mid-1960s with the young Moynihan and asked
to predict what would happen if the black illegitimacy rate were
68%.
Impossible, we would have said. But if the proportion of
fatherless boys in a given community were to reach such levels,
surely the culture must be "Lord of the Flies" writ large, the
values of unsocialized male adolescents made norms -- physical
violence, immediate gratification and predatory sex. That is the
culture now taking over the black inner city.
But the black story, however dismaying, is old news. The new
trend that threatens the U.S. is white illegitimacy. Matters have
not yet quite gotten out of hand, but they are on the brink. If
we want to act, now is the time.
In 1991, 707,502 babies were born to single white women,
representing 22% of white births. The elite wisdom holds that
this phenomenon cuts across social classes, as if the increase in
Murphy Browns were pushing the trendline. Thus, a few months ago,
a Census Bureau study of fertility among all American women got
headlines for a few days because it showed that births to single
women with college degrees doubled in the last decade to 6% from
3%. This is an interesting trend, but of minor social importance.
The real news of that study is that the proportion of single
mothers with less than a high school education jumped to 48% from
35% in a single decade.
These numbers are dominated by whites. Breaking down the
numbers by race (using data not available in the published
version), women with college degrees contribute only 4% of white
illegitimate babies, while women with a high school education or
less contribute 82%. Women with family incomes of $75,000 or more
contribute 1% of white illegitimate babies, while women with
family incomes under $20,000 contribute 69%.
The National Longitudinal Study of Youth, a Labor Department
study that has tracked more than 10,000 youths since 1979, shows
an even more dramatic picture. For white women below the poverty
line in the year prior to giving birth, 44% of births have been
illegitimate, compared with only 6% for women above the poverty
line. White illegitimacy is overwhelmingly a lower-class
phenomenon.
This brings us to the emergence of a white underclass. In raw
numbers, European-American whites are the ethnic group with the
most people in poverty, most illegitimate children, most women on
welfare, most unemployed men, and most arrests for serious
crimes.
And yet whites have not had an "underclass" as such, because the
whites who might qualify have been scattered among the working
class. Instead, whites have had "white trash" concentrated in a
few streets on the outskirts of town, sometimes a Skid Row of
unattached white men in the large cities. But these scatterings
have seldom been large enough to make up a neighborhood. An
underclass needs a critical mass, and white America has not had
one.
But now the overall white illegitimacy rate is 22%. The figure
in low-income, working-class communities may be twice that. How
much illegitimacy can a community tolerate? Nobody knows, but the
historical fact is that the trendlines on black crime, dropout
from the labor force, and illegitimacy all shifted sharply upward
as the overall black illegitimacy rate passed 25%.
The causal connection is murky -- I blame the revolution in
social policy during that period, while others blame the sexual
revolution, broad shifts in cultural norms, or structural changes
in the economy. But the white illegitimacy rate is approaching
that same problematic 25% region at a time when social policy is
more comprehensively wrongheaded than it was in the mid-1960s,
and the cultural and sexual norms are still more degraded.
The white underclass will begin to show its face in isolated
ways. Look for certain schools in white neighborhoods to get a
reputation as being unteachable, with large numbers of disruptive
students and indifferent parents. Talk to the police; listen for
stories about white neighborhoods where the incidence of domestic
disputes and casual violence has been shooting up. Look for white
neighborhoods with high concentrations of drug activity and large
numbers of men who have dropped out of the labor force. Some
readers will recall reading the occasional news story about such
places already.
As the spatial concentration of illegitimacy reaches critical
mass, we should expect the deterioration to be as fast among
low-income whites in the 1990s as it was among low-income blacks
in the 1960s. My proposition is that illegitimacy is the single
most important social problem of our time -- more important than
crime, drugs, poverty, illiteracy, welfare or homelessness
because it drives everything else. Doing something about it is
not just one more item on the American policy agenda, but should
be at the top.
Here is what to do:
In the calculus of illegitimacy, the constants are that boys
like to sleep with girls and that girls think babies are
endearing. Human societies have historically channeled these
elemental forces of human behavior via thick walls of rewards and
penalties that constrained the overwhelming majority of births to
take place within marriage. The past 30 years have seen those
walls cave in. It is time to rebuild them.
The ethical underpinning for the policies I am about to
describe is this: Bringing a child into the world is the most
important thing that most human beings ever do. Bringing a child
into the world when one is not emotionally or financially
prepared to be a parent is wrong. The child deserves society's
support. The parent does not.
The social justification is this: A society with broad legal
freedoms depends crucially on strong nongovernmental institutions
to temper and restrain behavior. Of these, marriage is paramount.
Either we reverse the current trends in illegitimacy --
especially white illegitimacy -- or America must, willy-nilly,
become an unrecognizably authoritarian, socially segregated,
centralized state.
***
[policy prescriptions for restoring family life to people below
the poverty line omitted]
***
Three decades after that consensus disappeared, we face an
emerging crisis. The long, steep climb in black illegitimacy has
been calamitous for black communities and painful for the nation.
The reforms I have described will work for blacks as for whites,
and have been needed for years. But the brutal truth is that
American society as a whole could survive when illegitimacy
became epidemic within a comparatively small ethnic minority. It
cannot survive the same epidemic among whites.
---
Mr. Murray, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is
the author of "Losing Ground" (Basic, 1984).
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Sep 11 05:36:47 EDT 1994
Article: 2314 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Back to the future
Date: 10 Sep 1994 11:59:13 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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raf379@bloxwich.demon.co.uk (rafael cardenas) writes:
>The 'freedom' on the Internet has depended on subsidized provision from
>the State.
Is that really so? There are hobbyist networks like FidoNet that so far
as I know have never had state support. They're not as big as the
Internet, and there's not the capacity to do as many things, but public
discussion groups nonetheless exist on them as easily as on the
Internet. Also, electronic communications (like all things electronic)
is growing radically cheaper and will continue to do so.
>big commercial media organizations like Murdoch's are moving into
>access and service provision. As the service becomes more commercial,
>the justification for State subsidy becomes less and the arguments for
>privatizing the backbone become stronger. At that point, the usual
>media interests will control it and will censor your traffic.
Why should this be so? The phone company doesn't censor my phone calls,
and UPS doesn't care what they carry for me as long as it's not
explosives. If the production of messages (e.g., TV shows or news
stories) is centralized then the class of people who produce them very
soon becomes a part of the ruling class and the content of the messages
they produce reflects that perspective. Similar developments seem much
less likely if it is only the carrying of messages that is controlled by
large organizations, in the same way the carrying of mail is controlled
by the post office. In all countries the mass media reflect a ruling
class perspective, but not all countries censor mail to make sure the
things the post office delivers reflect that same perspective.
>They are quite used to running decentralized networks: look at VisaNet,
>which is almost as big as the Internet and much faster. How much
>traffic on that dealing with _your_ affairs do you get to monitor?
I'm not familiar with VisaNet.
>Censorship can spread very rapidly across the Internet
I don't dispute that it is technically possible, just as the censorship
of mail is technically possible.
>The media barons, unlike the Communists, don't need total censorship--
>all they need is to control the diet of the majority of the population.
The media barons don't exist of necessity. If people in the
communications business find it easy in the ordinary course of their
business to control the diet of the majority they will do so and become
politically important "barons". If they find it difficult to work
diet-control into the activities customers pay them to perform, they're
not likely to make the effort and very likely they'll end up having the
political importance of trucking companies or manufacturers of
printer's ink.
>Compare the state of literature and communication in the ex-communist
>countries, where there was a sudden burst of anarchic freedom for all
>sorts of interests during and immediately after the collapse of the
>regimes, and where market forces have squeezed that out in favour of
>the usual pap.
A good comparison. Anarchic freedom doesn't last, and eventually
things sort out into more-or-less stable arrangements that people live
by. Nonetheless, my guess is that there's more freedom now than when
the only publisher was the state, and a radical reduction in the cost
of printing and distributing books would mean more freedom yet. The
importance of improvements in electronic communications is that by
radically cutting costs they have increased the freedom available
within the bounds of market forces. To the extent our current
arrangements have depended on central control of the content of the
mass media, that change matters.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Sep 11 10:34:05 EDT 1994
Article: 33421 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.radical-left
Subject: Re: Productive Chaos and Vertical Monopolies
Date: 11 Sep 1994 05:30:33 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <34th9p$94o@portal.gmu.edu> jhal5@mason1.gmu.edu (John M Hall) writes:
>It seems to me that laissez-faire does require something
>and it is not simply the default. Members of the society
>and those participating in various markets have to agree
>that these underlying institutions should set the limits
>and terms of our interactions. There has to be an agreement
>to accept the resulting outcomes.
Maybe part of the idea is that some agreements require lots of
negotiations and formal administration and others can arise implicitly
through the course of conduct of people who need not even be in direct
communication with each other. The latter are what people call
"natural" or "default" arrangements. Certainly they have many
advantages. From this perspective the claim would be that
laissez-faire capitalism is the system that would arise if explicit
design of fundamental economic institutions were minimized, at least in
a large and economically diverse society. Any comments on whether that
claim is correct or how it might be supported?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Sep 11 12:21:06 EDT 1994
Article: 7671 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: The end of democracy
Date: 11 Sep 1994 05:58:54 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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References: <34qt43$6g7@news.CCIT.Arizona.EDU>
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mns@helium.gas.uug.arizona.edu (Miklos N Szilagyi) Newsgroups: writes:
> Money will be eliminated from politics and replaced with this
>independent information system to present a broad range of political
>choices for every caring citizen. Participation will be open to all
>qualified persons.
Can this really be the case? Suppose you have the ultimate internet
that distributes interactive virtual reality videos. Presumably people
will be more interested in receiving the higher quality productions, so
they'll develop ways of screening out the flood of trash produced by
cranks and amateurs. The likely result will be that people will only
look at things that have been expensively produced by someone with a
name. How will that be different from what we have now?
>The electronic information system will provide forums to express ideas.
>Competing opinions will be freely publicized, criticized, and
>discussed.
If the forums are truly free and immediately accessible to everyone in
the world, will anyone take them seriously? Consider the polical rant
groups on usenet. How high are the standards of discussion now? At
present a small elite (compared to the population at large) of educated
and active people participates. What would happen if the size of that
group were vastly increased?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Sep 11 12:21:20 EDT 1994
Article: 33421 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.radical-left
Subject: Re: Productive Chaos and Vertical Monopolies
Date: 11 Sep 1994 05:30:33 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 24
Message-ID: <34uinp$5ei@panix.com>
References: <34nfui$92n@world.fx.net> <34np93$k6r@panix.com> <34qmmc$qqd@world.fx.net> <34th9p$94o@portal.gmu.edu>
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Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:33421 alt.politics.libertarian:46800 alt.politics.radical-left:26222
In <34th9p$94o@portal.gmu.edu> jhal5@mason1.gmu.edu (John M Hall) writes:
>It seems to me that laissez-faire does require something
>and it is not simply the default. Members of the society
>and those participating in various markets have to agree
>that these underlying institutions should set the limits
>and terms of our interactions. There has to be an agreement
>to accept the resulting outcomes.
Maybe part of the idea is that some agreements require lots of
negotiations and formal administration and others can arise implicitly
through the course of conduct of people who need not even be in direct
communication with each other. The latter are what people call
"natural" or "default" arrangements. Certainly they have many
advantages. From this perspective the claim would be that
laissez-faire capitalism is the system that would arise if explicit
design of fundamental economic institutions were minimized, at least in
a large and economically diverse society. Any comments on whether that
claim is correct or how it might be supported?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Degas, are we not drawn onward
Palindrome of we freer few
the week: drawn onward
to new eras aged?
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Sep 11 19:29:42 EDT 1994
Article: 33447 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.radical-left
Subject: Re: Productive Chaos and Vertical Monopolies
Date: 11 Sep 1994 19:28:39 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 26
Message-ID: <3503r7$997@panix.com>
References: <34hdq7$4e9@world.fx.net> <34htf0$r4@panix.com> <34nfui$92n@world.fx.net> <34nrkf$1uk@panix.com>
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Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:33447 alt.politics.libertarian:46870 alt.politics.radical-left:26235
jamesd@netcom.com (James A. Donald) writes:
>> I used the passive voice because I wanted to point to common ground
>> between liberals and libertarians. Both oppose interference with
>> propensities to act, but they count different things as interference.
>
>Actually you used used a passive voice to obfuscate the difference
How can that be when I went on to say that there was a difference and
stated what I thought the difference was? Libertarians and liberals
plainly have something in common; I was trying to specify what that thing
is. I nowhere suggested that the differences are not important.
>You are claiming that when I fail to give somebody something he
>wants I am "interfering" with him in the same way as when I
>forcibly take from him something that he wants.
I claimed that liberals believe failing to give somebody something can
count as interference, while libertarians do not. I never said anyone
thought it was the same kind of interference, and I never said I agreed
with liberals on the point.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Palindrome of the week:
Go hang a salami, doc! Note I dissent: a fast never prevents a
fatness--I diet on cod; I'm a lasagna hog.
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Sep 12 05:47:12 EDT 1994
Article: 7692 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism,talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: The end of democracy
Date: 11 Sep 1994 21:55:13 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 22
Message-ID: <350ce1$5to@panix.com>
References: <34qt43$6g7@news.CCIT.Arizona.EDU> <34ukcu$6ic@panix.com> <34vm2q$9f6@news.CCIT.Arizona.EDU>
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Xref: panix alt.society.conservatism:7692 talk.politics.theory:33456
mns@helium.gas.uug.arizona.edu (Miklos N Szilagyi) writes:
>At the present time, any idea that is not picked up by the media or
>other special interest group, is doomed because nobody knows that it
>exists. With the proliferation of computer networks, no one will be
>able to stop any idea.
I agree that networks will open things up a great deal compared with the
present situation and that they will make it much easier for ideas to
get a hearing and win a following of some sort. Actually, I think
networks are likely to make quite a large difference in our political
and intellectual life. I suppose my basic point was that things will
nonetheless stabilize somehow and that one aspect of stability will be
the general acceptance of some particular set of ideas and the evolution
of arrangements that will put conflicting ideas at a disadvantage. So
the ideal republic of free and rational discussion that you seemed to be
describing will likely still be a long way away.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Palindrome of the week:
Go hang a salami, doc! Note I dissent: a fast never prevents a
fatness--I diet on cod; I'm a lasagna hog.
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Sep 12 05:47:21 EDT 1994
Article: 33455 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.radical-left
Subject: Re: More liberals and conservatives (was Re: Productive Chaos...)
Date: 11 Sep 1994 21:53:01 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 162
Message-ID: <350c9t$5ha@panix.com>
References: <94Sep9.022006edt.48152@neat.cs.toronto.edu> <34pjkd$h12@panix.com> <94Sep10.001826edt.48153@neat.cs.toronto.edu>
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Mr. Ostrum's comments seem likely to be the best I'll get in the current
thread, so I thought I would return to some of his posts to add to my
responses:
>He seems to be against people taking control of their situations, and
>reflexively considering the possibilities, and prefers instead that we
>take whatever stereotypes or traditions that we have and just live
>within them without complaining.
We have nowhere to start other than with the stereotypes and traditions
we have grown up with and that have become established in our society.
Obviously those things aren't altogether fixed; they exist only to the
extent people feel them as valid, and so they change in accordance with
experience and changing circumstances. Also, different people
experience them differently and the hold of particular stereotypes or
traditions may be strong among some and weak among others. When that
kind of division arises you have conflict of a kind that is a normal
part of social life. When the conflicts grow too severe the society may
tend to fall apart with consequences that can range from cynicism and
apathy to lawlessness to civil war. Normally, though, the conflicts are
resolved through a messy process involving argument, negotiation,
changes in opinions for good or bad reasons, compromise, accommodation,
and any number of other things (boredom, generosity, cowardice, etc.,
etc., etc.)
So what is there to say about something so complicated? Not much, until
theories that set forth blueprints for social reform try to simplify
things and make it all scientific.
One basic point that has come to be at issue is the extent to which
social prejudice should have the benefit of a presumption of validity.
How can it be otherwise? What can we start from and rely on other than
the outlooks people actually have?
Another issue is whether conflicts of the kind described can be handled
through formal procedures. For example, when someone objects to a
tradition or stereotype he might go to the Supreme Court and claim he
has been denied equal protection, and the Court would then pass on his
claim. Unfortunately, it's hard to see any principled way for the
Court to deal with such claims--there can be no generally-applicable
principles for resolving such conflicts because the conflicts have to
do with the absence of generally-accepted principles. So all the Court
could do, really, is decide in accordance with the prejudices of the
justices or those of the class with which the justices identify.
A third point is whether legislation is likely to be appropriate to
rectify social views or stereotypes the legislators think bad by
forbidding people to act on them. Certainly, it is hard to see the
justification of such legislation on the modern liberal view that
society should accommodate as large a variety of moral outlooks and
styles of life as possible. If it is important (as liberals believe) to
protect the freedom preferentially to form relations with persons of the
same sex in the affectional context, why is the freedom preferentially
to form relations with persons of the same sex or race in the employment
context a moral monstrosity? Also, on the face of it there is something
very puzzling about such legislation in a society professing to live by
popular rule. If the prejudices are so widespread and deeply rooted as
to lock out certain people from the benefits of society, how can
legislation making it illegal to act on them ever get enacted? Plainly,
the official story does not accurately describe what is going on.
>The maintenance of these old stereotypes also becomes difficult when
>conflicting brands of them are brought into conflict [ ... ] liberals
>suggest that insofar as people continue to draw sustenance from such
>things, that they try to see them as compatible with those of others.
The assumption seems to be that old stereotypes serve no social
function but only a personal psychological function for the persons
attached to them. That's plainly not true as a general proposition.
Sex role stereotypes, for example, including stereotypical marital
obligations, serve the social function of requiring both parents to
contribute cooperatively to raising the children they produce and
ensure that both will be trained from earliest childhood for their
complementary functions within the cooperative unit. It's not at all
obvious that there is an adequate replacement for such stereotypes.
Coming from Mr. Ostrum, an odd feature of this general line of thought
is that he explicitly recognizes (and he distinguishes himself from
other liberals by reason of that recognition) that the institutions of
the liberal state form people morally. He considers that effect a very
important consideration in choosing those institutions. But if the
liberal state forms people morally then what good does it do to tell
them that they should view the liberal state as neutral with respect to
their private morality?
>worship stereotypes (literally, it appears, as Jim would have it)
Stereotypes, for example one's duties as a son, aren't objects of
worship. My claim is only that they must be understood as connected
with an object of worship (that is, with something thought of as a force
for good embodying a wisdom greater than our own). The reason they are
authoritative for us is not that we choose to have it so.
>the need to feel a belonging to something greater than oneself. This
>need is something that we would definitely want to consider, and the
>one argument I have with the liberal theoreticians that I have
>mentioned is that they do not seem to explicitly consider it.
It isn't by accident that they leave that out. To belong to something
greater than oneself is to recognize one's relation to that thing as
part of one's definition. So much for the autonomous individual.
Incidentally, why would anyone want to belong to anything that he didn't
view as a force for good embodying a wisdom greater than his own?
>According to Rawls, the principles set forth in _A Theory of Justice_
>*are* in accord with social practice in modern democratic societies.
Modern democratic societies exist only because they are not altogether
liberal. For example, Rawls in essence admits in _T of J_ (he doesn't
put it this way) that there can be no moral justification from his
viewpoint for asking a man to die for his country. It follows that if
modern democratic societies were truly liberal they would very quickly
disappear. So I view the respects in which the principles of _T of J_
conflict with our social practice as absolutely fundamental.
>| It's not a complaint, it's a matter of taking the view of the situation
>| that offers hope that one can something about it. The view of the
>| situation that is more persuasive abstractly is that it's all a matter
>| of historical developments that you can't do anything about. Things go
>| on for a while and then at some point they all go smash and then after
>| a while something else gets started.
>
>But by refusing to allow critical reflexivity, and suggesting we just
>follow inarticulate "authority" and "stereotypes" [ ... ] this is
>exactly what you are recommending.
An obvious objection to conservatism in the modern setting is that
conservatism generally recommends going with the social flow as
embodying a wisdom greater than any explicit theorizing, and in 1994 a
lot of the social flow is in the direction of liberalism. The response
is that if going with the social flow is wisdom, and the current social
flow is to do away with social flow in the interests of having
rationalistic institutions control everything, then conservatism doesn't
tell you much except that you've got a big problem and you'll just have
to do what you can and hope for the best.
>| >Jim refers to two things above. "Developments" and "tendencies". The
>| >"developments" ("stereotypes", "authority") are good, and the
>| >"tendencies" (presumably "self-determination", "reason", "critical
>| >thinking") are bad. But I am not sure what the criterion is for calling
>| >some a development as opposed to a tendency.
>|
>| Degree of universality. Rationalism has come and (presumably) can go;
>| stereotypes and authority are forever because human social life requires
>| them and man is a social animal.
>"Degree of universality" does not serve to pick out what you want.
One distinction I was making was between things that are always present
that must therefore serve as the materials for a society and things that
also arise historically but whose existence is more contingent, and that
go to excess and become destructive.
>The things you object to are deeply interwined in modern culture
Sure. On the other hand, modern culture is not necessarily forever.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Palindrome of the week:
Go hang a salami, doc! Note I dissent: a fast never prevents a
fatness--I diet on cod; I'm a lasagna hog.
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Sep 12 12:57:09 EDT 1994
Article: 2317 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Back to the future
Date: 12 Sep 1994 06:49:41 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Message-ID: <351bo5$bbm@panix.com>
References: <34l49u$h6o@panix.com>
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dgard@netcom.com (dgard@netcom.com (!)) writes:
>It is broadening the band of socially acceptable opinion, by weakening
>the grasp of commercial media.
So what will the future agencies of social thought control be? Such
things always must exist, I think. Otherwise it becomes much more
difficult for people to cooperate, or for that matter to have a stable
understanding of who they are, what they're doing, and what their place
in the world is.
One possibility is that things like the net, by making central control
more difficult, will promote control by smaller groups. The signals
each of us gets from the larger society will be irremediably confused,
so we will tend to look to the people immediately around us and the
views we grew up with for guidance. Presumably, that's the possibility
that many CRs would prefer.
Another is that since the net puts everyone into immediate touch with a
worldwide society the controls will also be worldwide but will be
abstract controls like those of the market rather than administrative
controls like government censorship or control by some small elite of
media people. I'm not quite sure what that would look like, though.
The way the net puts us in touch with worldwide society is by putting us
in touch with particular people worldwide, who tend to organize
themselves into discussion groups of the likeminded and maybe their
complementary opposites. That seems quite a different process from the
worldwide extension of the market, which has been based on the
establishment of objective forms and standards that make the identity of
the person you are dealing with less important.
>Usenet has stripped the civilized veneer of public discourse from
>the private feelings of ethnic groups.
Evesdropping is certainly fascinating!
>Thousands and thousands of people read your posts, and will seldom
>react.
I've wondered how many people actually read any of this stuff, or care
about it. Monthly readership figures for a.r.c. from the arbitron
survey are now about 5000. In the past they have gone as high as 25000,
but I think the drop reflects a change in arbitron rather than
readership (other groups dropped as well). I have no idea how real the
5000 figure is--maybe it includes 4950 new users every month who look at
a couple of articles because "revolution" sounds diverting, decide the
whole thing is stupid, and then vanish forever.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Palindrome of the week:
Go hang a salami, doc! Note I dissent: a fast never prevents a
fatness--I diet on cod; I'm a lasagna hog.
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Sep 12 20:34:29 EDT 1994
Article: 33508 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.radical-left
Subject: Re: More liberals and conservatives (was Re: Productive Chaos...)
Date: 12 Sep 1994 20:21:43 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 22
Message-ID: <352ran$sre@panix.com>
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cbo@cs.toronto.edu (Calvin Bruce Ostrum) writes:
>the point was that people just *don't* make up this kind of theory. At
>least not the people who do this kind of thing seriously for a living.
>Then you could ask yourself why this is so.
I asked you why it was so. Why not give me your answer?
>Surprisingly, you don't bring up at all the trend Murray has mentioned
>a number of times, which is that of the secession of the rich and
>successful, to mansions in the hills overlooking the teeming slums of
>underclass.
I suppose that might be viewed as an extension or special case of the
possibility I mentioned of rule by some elite in its own interests
resting fundamentally on physical force but most likely with lip service
to some ideology.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Palindrome of the week:
Go hang a salami, doc! Note I dissent: a fast never prevents a
fatness--I diet on cod; I'm a lasagna hog.
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Sep 12 20:34:31 EDT 1994
Article: 33510 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.radical-left
Subject: Re: More liberals and conservatives (was Re: Productive Chaos...)
Date: 12 Sep 1994 20:32:46 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 221
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cbo@cs.toronto.edu (Calvin Bruce Ostrum) writes:
>I think that the more people do this kind of reflection about their
>moral commitments, the better.
Moral seriousness is no doubt a good thing. Rawls seems to think it
realistic to expect that the outcome of universal moral seriousness
would be a lot of very separate and radically different moral "we's" who
somehow manage to become a single political "we" for purposes of
establishing a state that thinks of itself as the custodian and
administrator of all physical assets and all the abilities, skills, and
so on on that people have, all on behalf of the true owner of those
things, some all-inclusive "we". I find that incomprehensible.
>I think we all have a duty to attempt to conceive of how we can
>creatively alter our moral attitudes to produce a greater degree of
>harmony amongst the existing traditions, a process which probably will
>entail "liberalising" them ("watering them down" to some).
All of them, or just some? Liberalism is a moral tradition too. Does
it get watered down too or is it exempt because it's the one that
thought of the idea? How and on what grounds is it decided which gets
watered down and how much?
>Clearly it [working toward moral reflective equilibrium] needs to be
>taught in the schools.
Schools are not now very successful in teaching concrete and
straightforward things like the 3 Rs, and over time they have become
less so. If they're going to teach morality I find it surprising that
someone would propose teaching the most abstract possible approach to
the subject. That's not the way people normally learn things.
>I think we can assume Murray has the ears of the "elite" in this case:
>do you think Dan Quayle's handlers pulled the reference to "Little
>Platoons" from the original Burke, or is it more likely that they all
>have well-worn copies of Murray's "In Pursuit"?
It's odd that you pick Quayle to exemplify our national elite. Was it
populists who turned him into a figure of fun? As to the specific
question, I don't know the answer. A lot of people on the Right have
read Burke, and "little platoons" has been a stock phrase for a very
long time. Also, some of Quayle's advisors were Straussians who
presumably didn't rely on Murray for their knowledge of political
philosophy.
>| And mine is that the development and success of modern liberalism since
>| the 50s have had a lot to do with centralized mass communications,
>| organized consciousness raising, and the extension of the activities of
>| the administrative welfare state.
>
>As I pointed out last time, everyone uses these devices when they get
>the chance.
Do you think those particular devices lend themselves to liberalism and
conservatism equally well? The devices I mentioned haven't always
existed. Do you think that their development has favored particular
political tendencies or can they just be ignored in that regard?
>| What's wrong with recognizing that the "we" who take conscious action
>| to change things is not "the people" and that the notion of conscious
>| action to change anything very comprehensive or fundamental is
>| troublesome because you can't know what you are doing or what the
>| results will be?
>
>Okay, I'm glad you came out against the American Revolution and the
>process which led to the development and installation of the U.S.
>Constitution.
I'm certainly against taking the explicit ideology of those events as a
model for what normal politics should be.
>I also don't see you complaining much about the Industrial Revolution
>and modern big capitalism.
Why complain about something that already happened? The actual function
of such complaints in modern politics is to promote the next step in the
same process of turning society into a unified machine that treats
everything and everybody as resources to be used in a rational process
of producing goods and services to satisfy actual preferences. If
someone has a believable alternative to modern capitalism that isn't
socialism I'd be very much interested in hearing about it.
>Robber barons or not, the "elites" involved in these developments were
>doing exactly what you object to, acting to change things comprehensive
>and fundamental. Oh yeah, except it wasn't too conscious.
Just so. So the particular complaint I was making doesn't apply.
According to the Austrians, the absence of overall planning is what
makes markets better than government bureaucracies from an economic
standpoint. That lack permits them to reflect far more information than
can enter into a bureaucratically rational decision. Part of
conservatism is a generalization of that point. Practices that evolve
without a plan have advantages over those that are explicitly designed
because they leave out less.
>statements along the lines of "whites can do the white thing and
>japanese can do their thing elsewhere" are kind of suggestive.
What you placed in quotes is not a quote. To move on to substance, the
alternative to some sort of at least voluntary separation of people who
participate in different cultural traditions is the destruction of all
cultural traditions except at most one. I don't think that would be a
good thing.
>You have still not addressed the fact that the modern world has thrown
>a lot of *differing* sterotypes and traditions together. This has
>produced a lot of wars and violence.
People tend to be less violent and aggressive when they have a way of
life that they think makes sense and that satisfies various needs like
the need for affiliation. That's not likely to be the case if all
particular cultures come to an end in the global melting pot you seem
to look forward to. If no better excuse comes to hand there'll be
battles between the Greens and the Blues, as in Byzantium. In the
neighborhood I live in there are a lot of very different sorts of
people thrown together (yuppies, aging white radicals, poor blacks).
There's also a lot of violence and aggression, but not much of it is
between people of different sorts. It's mostly the blacks doing things
to each other. Their problem is not participation in a coherent
cultural tradition.
As an aside, I've been doing a study of peoples (Jews, Gypsies,
separatist Mennonites) that have managed to maintain themselves as
peoples without a geographical base. I suspect that the social devices
those peoples have relied on for their preservation will become a lot
more important in the future.
>And on the small scale it's produced a lot of individual tension when
>individual communities don't happen to like what some of their members
>decide to do when they get a little bit of experience of the world at
>large outside the cherished stereotypes of their elders.
All quite normal. If people affiliate some people will decide to
disaffiliate for one reason or another and those they are separating
from very likely won't like it. You seem to want to abolish the pain of
separation. The way to do that is to abolish everything that anyone
might separate from. Not worth it.
>Also, you seem to favour restricted immigration to keep non "anglo-
>saxons" out of your country) you neglect the force of those well-
>positioned by the set of favoured stereotypes.
I don't understand the sentence.
>I might point out that it appears that these problems are not as bad in
>a lot of other countries who have welfare-state policies that go far
>beyond the American ones.
Things like crime rates and illegitimacy have also increased radically
in Britain and Sweden, the two European welfare states that I've looked
into. In the case of crime the rise was from a much smaller base,
though. Nonetheless, in Britain the rate of property crime is no lower
than in the U.S. now, and for that matter the rate of violent crime
among American whites is not out of line with that in Europe. Of
course, you will have to look into all this yourself. For my own part,
a lot of what I rely on is what I see around me here in New York.
>| The state of social science
>| is unsatisfactory, it doesn't seem to going anywhere fast, and one can
>| think of reasons why it may never get anywhere.
>
>What, like conservative think-tank elites at "Institutes" (Manhattan,
>American Enterprise, American Values, Human Sciences...) battling it
>out with the the liberal university elites?
I was thinking more of the difficulty of having a science of the
scientist himself.
>I disagree in that I think you are picking out certain elites and not
>mentioning others like the religious and business elites.
Rawls says his theory conforms to social practice in Western
democracies, so *he* must believe that whoever is most fundamentally
running the show accepts liberalism.
Picking out who constitutes the most influential elite is something
people will argue about. My own view is that an "elite" should be a
group with interests that are consistent enough to have a common point
of view that advances those interests, and a governing elite should be
an elite whose position is such that they can unselfconsciously assume
that their common point of view is the one that will prevail in society.
It seems to me that the liberal elite, which consists mostly of the
sellers of information and expertise (educators and media people) and
the elite of the legal profession and other hangers-on of government
who are in a position to influence policy (legislative staffers and
heads of public employee unions come to mind), has a common interest in
promoting a bureaucratic organization of society and pushing to the
side informal and traditional institutions. The business elite, on the
other hand, is divided against itself by the huge extent and complexity
of modern economies and the world market. For the most part, they are
connected only by the cash nexus, which doesn't do much for promoting
class consciousness. As for religious elites, I don't think they much
matters as far as political trends go. All their causes are rearguard
actions. Also, the most respectable among them tend to be
left-wingers.
As to the unselfconscious presumption of power, I instance Rawls as you
have represented his views and your own habitual use of "we" to refer
to the people who are going to develop and apply liberal theory.
People who have attended elite law schools may also have noted
references to what "we" think or like as the explanation for the
adoption of liberal positions by judges and other government officials.
That usage sometimes spills over into law review articles and the like.
>The elites you don't like (those pushing a liberal agenda) at least
>have an inclusive model.
So they claim. In fact, of course, every elite defines itself both by
what it includes and what it excludes and so can be described in
accordance with taste as either inclusive or exclusive. The liberal
elite would exclude almost everyone who ever lived because very few
people have the right education and organizational affiliations and
almost everyone believes things inconsistent with membership in that
elite.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Palindrome of the week:
Go hang a salami, doc! Note I dissent: a fast never prevents a
fatness--I diet on cod; I'm a lasagna hog.
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Sep 13 05:56:08 EDT 1994
Article: 33525 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.radical-left
Subject: Re: Charles Murray and the coming apocalypse
Date: 13 Sep 1994 05:54:41 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Distribution: na
Message-ID: <353st1$97j@panix.com>
References:
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:33525 alt.politics.libertarian:47085 alt.politics.radical-left:26296
pajerek%telstar.kodak.com@kodak.com (Don Pajerek) writes:
>Anyone who thinks that *white* illegitimacy is rising because of
>government policies is deluding himself. This is happening for the same
>reason that so much social change happens, and that is the impact of
>technology on social arrangements [ ... ] women aren't dependent on men
>anymore in order to secure the economic means of survival. Women are
>therefore free to behave in ways which were unthinkable in earlier
>ages.
Murray's implicit response to this line of thought is that the increase
is concentrated among the women with the fewest economic resources.
>To me, what this really means is that, while we can't and shouldn't
>deliberately abandon the 'traditional family', we also should begin to
>cultivate and encourage the formation of other voluntary social
>structures which can provide family-like support for their members.
What might those other voluntary social structures be and how could
they be encouraged? If the idea is that there are fewer economic
constraints now so people can do without families and just go their own
ways why shouldn't the same apply to the other structures you envisage?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Palindrome of the week:
Doc, note I dissent: a fast never prevents a fatness--I diet on cod.
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Sep 13 05:56:10 EDT 1994
Article: 33526 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.radical-left
Subject: Re: More liberals and conservatives (was Re: Productive Chaos...)
Date: 13 Sep 1994 05:55:51 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 14
Message-ID: <353sv7$9ct@panix.com>
References: <34sa0s$l04@panix.com> <94Sep11.171638edt.48153@neat.cs.toronto.edu> <352rve$1t4@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:33526 alt.politics.libertarian:47086 alt.politics.radical-left:26297
jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
>Nonetheless, in Britain the rate of property crime is no lower than in
>the U.S. now, and for that matter the rate of violent crime among
>American whites is not out of line with that in Europe.
I should have added that cross-country comparisons of social statistics
are tricky and I couldn't argue intelligently the validity of these
comparisons if someone objected to them. (Nor do I know anything
against them.)
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Palindrome of the week:
Doc, note I dissent: a fast never prevents a fatness--I diet on cod.
Do let me know if you have comments of any kind.
Back to my archive of posts.