On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 19:18, David B. Shemano <[email protected]> wrote:
> Jim Devine writes:
>
>>> oooh, Straussians. I knew a few in college. They seem to have a
>>> mystical approach to books by famous people (Machievelli, etc.),
>>> always finding a message that other people can't see. Usually the
>>> authors had this kind of hidden message in order to avoid persecution.
>>> One of the Straussian tenets is that they should keep their own
>>> message secret, too. If the unwashed masses knew what the Straussians
>>> believe, the story goes, they'd face the fate of Socrates... Thus,
>>> they have a reputation for secretive plotting (as part of the broader
>>> neoconservative movement), as during the build-up to the US conquest
>>> of Iraq in 2003.
>
> It's not mystical. I took a class in college from a Straussian and we read
> Machiavelli, Hobbes and Locke, very "closely" as the Straussians call it. I
> remember sitting there thinking -- Jesus, the professor is right! It's not
> that people can't see what the Straussians see, it's that most people don't
> read the books at all, and those that do claim to read them do not read them
> with care.
>
Oh sure. Kind of like the Rodney King video--just slow it down and
you can see HE was beating the cops. I've read them closely and read
other people who've read them closely but those are, as the lit crit
folks like to point out, just "readings." It is not "the" reading; it
is not some illuminated truth that no one has access to unless they
read it that one particular way. From this you sound like that
utterly totalitarian section of Hayek's "The Fatal Conceit" where be
bemoans the fact that language is polysemic: why can't words just mean
one thing, he says. It is frustrating but unfortunately
interpretations vary.
I'd also note that one of the things preventing most people from
reading Locke, Hobbes, Hume and any other text closely is that most of
them are working long hours for little pay and taught in an education
system that privileges rote learning and submission to authority.
Just witness how persuasive Glenn Beck can be--despite the fact that
he can't spell.
> And it is not that Straussians believe Straussians should be secretive, it is
> that "philosophers" must be careful, as the story of Socrates shows.
> "Political philosophy," according to the Straussians, is ultimately about the
> relationship between "philosophers" and the "city." Philosophers (lovers of
> wisdom) are devoted to truth-seeking as the highest good, which is not the
> highest good of the "city", and if the philosopher openly announces in the
> marketsquare that the gods of the city are myths, it (1) endangers the life
> of the philosopher, and (2) endangers the happiness of the non-philosophers,
> who are not prepared to look death in the face and, if they believe there is
> no god, no life after death, no justice, etc., the social order will
> disintegrate. The Straussian view that the philosopher needs to be careful
> seems valid enough to me, even in an open society like the USA. For
> instance, if you believe that it is true that biological differences explain
> the different levels of success of men and women in the hard sciences, it is
> probably a good idea for you to be somewhat circumspect in presenting your
> view, because it challenges the foundational belief of the city that we are
> all created equal.
>
Oh please, Nietzsche said we had killed god and no one strung him up.
This is just a ridiculous fantasy about one's own self importance as a
philosopher. It is also a replication of all the two teired systems
of the feudal era philosophers you cite--Locke, Hobbes,
Machiavelli--who all claim that their philosophy is not for the
masses: for them, give them the false gods of religion and the
enculturing embrace of the work house. Strauss may have some
interesting ideas occasionally, but deep down he's an elitist prick.
And the idea that biological differences explain different levels of
success is not a philosophical issue: the philosophical issue is
drawing the line between what is a man and what is a woman. And, yes,
presenting that quandry to people will get you strung up--but it is
not the philosophers that have anything to fear in that regard. The
average transexual, who may or may not have any deep thought about
their condition, is the one who will get thrown off the bridge or
beaten to death, etc.
> I should note that from the perspective of the Straussians, Marx is
> interesting and important because he believes that, once communism is
> achieved. all will be philosophers, not just the few. Straussians are
> skeptical. Strauss's extended exchange with Alexander Kojeve is one of the
> most important Strauss materials.
>
Haven't read it. But it is not that surprising that they would
basically reject any truly democratic theory of philosophy or
knowledge. From this, I'm more convinced that even Adam Curtis'
interpretation of Strauss might have some truth.
>>> Of course, there are no standardized definitions of any complex
>>> concept. People can use this kind of idealist definition if they want
>>> to ("capitalism means ... an ideology"). But as a student of society
>>> and history, I know that ideologies go nowhere (i.e., have no effect
>>> on human action) unless the social conditions are ripe. For capitalism
>>> as an ideology to bloom, therefore, in practice we need capitalism
>>> defined as as a type of social system to be present.
>
> <snip>
>
>>> In the Marxian view, capitalism as a social system is _not_ one "based
>>> on private property relations." Rather, it's one based on
>>> individual[*] property rights in the means of production (factories,
>>> land, etc.) It cannot be a complete social system without
>>> proletarianized labor (i.e. a mass of workers who don't own the means
>>> of production and are not owned as property themselves).
>>>
>>>
>>> Nazi Germany fit this conception of capitalism, except to the extent
>>> that it used slave labor. No system is _purely_ capitalist (though the
>>> MLs love and the neoliberals tried to establish that utopia). The Nazi
>>> economic system was dominated by its capitalist core, but it had slave
>>> aspects. In fact it was capitalist organizations -- corporations --
>>> that got a big share of the benefits of the use of slave labor.
>>>
>>> Nazi capitalism was one case where the boundary between the state and
>>> "civil society" (that part of society outside of the state sector) was
>>> relatively fluid. The state was involved in production and the big
>>> capitalists were strongly represented in government. One might call
>>> that economy an amalgam between private capitalism (e.g., liberal
>>> capitalism of 19th century England) and state capitalism (e.g.,
>>> Algeria). But it was capitalism in the sense that the main means of
>>> production were privately owned and there was a proletariat.
>
> Defining "capitalism" is very difficult, precisely because Marxists are
> slippery and disingenuous. (Sorry guys). Marxists are forever slipping and
> sliding between allegedly neutral analysis and subjective moral valuations.
>
Right and saying that
> It's not that people can't see what the Straussians see, it's that most
> people don't read the books at all, and those that do claim to read them do
> not read them with care.
AND
> Philosophers (lovers of wisdom) are devoted to truth-seeking as the highest
> good, which is not the highest good of the "city", and if the philosopher
> openly announces in the marketsquare that the gods of the city are myths, it
> (1) endangers the life of the philosopher, and (2) endangers the happiness of
> the non-philosophers, who are not prepared to look death in the face and, if
> they believe there is no god, no life after death, no justice, etc., the
> social order will disintegrate.
Is not slippery and disingenuous. Are people inadequate or are they
not? Is it just a careful reading that anyone could do if the simply
took the "time" or is it a brilliant flash of genius that only the
brave bold few have the courage to look in the face?
As for Marxists, I think few outside of the serious structuralist
school would claim that it was something like an objective science.
In fact, part of the point is that there is no truly objective
science, it is always partial and in the case of economics, claiming
neutrality is actually a subjective moral evaluation.
>>I can easily agree with you that we can call "capitalism" a social system
>>dominated by private property relations and proletarianized labor. Fine,
>>that is "capitalism." However, describing a social system as dominated by
>>private property relations and proletarianized labor to a non-Marxist is, in
>>the abstract, a neutral event, such a society has no intrinsic goodness or
>>badness.
>>
But that is exactly the point: the capacity of people to be wholly
okay with it is a moral problem--sort of like people being pretty okay
with slavery, date rape and beating your wife for a time. Some
people, as Plato points out, are just of different stock and can be
enslaved; If it's with your husband or boyfriend, it's just your duty;
and sometimes you just have to show her who the man is. No moral
judgement: that's just the way it is.
>> However, to a Marxist, identifying a specific society as dominated by
>>private property relations and proletarianized labor, and therefore
>>"capitalist," has all kinds of moral implications.
>>
I don't see what this has to do with the question of whether that is,
from a certain perspective, an accurate representation of the
situation. It has all sorts of moral implications either way, you
just don't see them from the opposite position.
>>Such a society, depending on the Marxist, has inherent contradictions that
>>will result in immiseration, is inherently alienating, is premised on
>>exploitation, etc., and deserves revolutionary replacement.
>>
Now you are moving past the moral implications to the teleology of the
system. This is not a moral question so much as a prognosis--and von
Mises, Hayek, and even your little diddy about strauss above offers
such predictions: if the freedom of the market is breeched by the
state (except, of course for the complete and total protection of
private property) then it will lead directly to totalitarianism,
immiseration, which will exploit the people who actually take the risk
(the Ubermensch as Nietzsche called them and Hitler thought he was the
highest representative [hyperbole]); if you were to try to explain the
insight of philosophy to the teeming masses, half of them would have
their heads explode (it would, quite literally, blow their minds) and
the other half would suddenly be so irrationally attached to the gods
the Straussians had been distracting them with that they would kill
the very people who'd given them their mythical gods. etc. It's all
very, very messy. If this rife with moral implications, I don't see
any difference in the objective validity of any of these paradigms
according to the criteria you present--and I certainly don't see why
Marxists are supposedly, especially, slippery. If anything, they tend
to be a lot more upfront about the side whose interest they are
representing. Those above pretend like the best path is to
pretend--for the sake of the weak minded children--that there is no
struggle, but fight tooth and nail against those imbeciles gaining a
foothold.
>>
Therefore, agreeing with a Marxist that something is "capitalist" is
necessarily contentious.
>>
Not necessarily. It is only necessarily contentious if it is
undermining your wish to have the prototypical evil of the twentieth
century understood as falling into that category. Otherwise, you
should feel fine agreeing with a Marxist about it since they are wrong
anyway. Capitalism is AWESOME! Right?
>>
I could agree with you that Nazi Germany was "capitalist" in the sense
that yes, property continued to be held in private hands and there was
a proletariat. But that is the least interesting part of Nazi Germany
-- only a Marxist could look at Nazi Germany and the USA and say: see,
in both private property relations dominate and there is a
proletariat, therefore they are both "capitalist" and their
differences are one of marginality and not essence. That is a
peculiarly Marxist way of looking at things not shared by
non-Marxists.
>>
But the idea that the thing that made Nazi Germany *NOT* capitalist is
the absence of some consumer fantasy about constant consumption is an
a-historical projection of post-war western societies of mass
consumption backwards into the pre-war society (much less into
capitalism as a system: it was supposed to solve the intrinsic problem
of overproduction, which could no longer be patched over by direct
imperialism--though I know that comment takes me into one of those
slippery interpretive minefields). Pre-war, most people bought things
because they needed them--and the ideology of the interwar period in
the US and Europe was one of extreme sacrifice for the cause. Were
western societies therefore not capitalist because, although they were
still ostensibly based on the profit motive, and a class of workers in
the private (monopoly) industry, there was a short term shift in what
was required of the nation? The whole idea of mass consumption as an
ideology of capitalism--at least to the extremes that you're implying
here--is a post-war creation (in thought and, through all kinds of
financing mechanisms, in deed) that has largely (though probably not
finally) come crashing on the rocks in the past year or so. If
Strauss (or you) wants to make the ideological content of capitalism
more important to its definition than its fundamental character, then
I'm afraid you've struck upon what is, as you say, "the least
interesting part" of capitalism: it is the part, incedentally, to
which many of the Western Marxists who had an affinity for Kojeve
would be drawn towards, but it doesn't make it any more interesting
except as a philosophical problem. The most interesting part is how
quickly the fundamental system can shift ideologies based on what is
necessary to make a buck. Just ask all the anti-communist business
people who do mad business in China and Vietnam how hard it is to work
with ostensible commies.
As for Germany, no one said that the regime being capitalist was the
most interesting thing about it: they just said that it was clearly a
capitalist country and to act otherwise is a bit, as you say,
disingenuous. No one said that it was *because* it was capitalist
that Hitler murdered the Jews (which is, I suppose the more
interesting part to which you're referring); but several people have
noted that it was not because he was not capitalist or because he was
socialist, which, in my experience, tends to be the way this
conversation drifts (and, I expect, was the question that drew you to
the definitional quandry to begin with.) It may be the least
interesting part, but at least its mostly true.
s
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