On Fri, 16 May 1997, Doug Henwood wrote:
> John Ransom wrote:
>
> >I am very suspicious of attempts to force theory to provide us with
> >politically correct decisions on this or that side of an issue.
>
> No one is talking about scriptural infallibility. But do you mean to say
> that a political philosopher offers you no wisdom in thinking about Nazis
> and Naziism? Having read Foucault did nothing to improve your analysis or
> political response?
>
> Doug
>
Well, I feel strange because I get the feeling that you think the
following response is perverse in some way but my honest response is "no,
F never made me think more clearly about Nazis." I never read F for that.
Let's get off F for a minute and think about someone more basic, less
controversial. Take Aristotle. In his _Politics_, A does have a normative
kind of argument concerning the kinds of regimes that are appropriate to
humans. He has a teleological argument which runs like this: That which is
most unique about an entity is at the same time the *end* (purpose, goal)
of the entity. Or you could reverse it, I suppose, and say that the end
or purpose of something is tied to what is most unique about it.
In the case of humans, what's most unique about them is the capacity for
speech. (I apologize for going over all this; I know list members don't
need a review from me; I'm not trying to do a review but to use A's
procedure in the argument we are having.) Well, A asks, what's the purpose
of this most human, most unique feature of ours? To discuss, A answers,
what is right and wrong, what is just and what is unjust; and then to go
on and build institutions that will embody and make concrete those
communal discussions of what is just and unjust.
A's argument is classically normative: With it, we know ahead of time what
kinds of regimes to oppose and which to support. Regimes that make it
possible for us to operationalize our capacities as humans (for speech
especially) are just; those that do not, are unjust.
But notice that A's argument will not help us with regard to the Nazis.
That's because political philosophy is too gross a set of categories to
micro-manage such things. Another way to put the same point is that an
Aristotelian argument could be reasonably employed in favor of both sides
of a debate over allowing or disallowing the Nazis to speak.
So, first of all, no, I don't read F in order to develop a finer
sensibility over how to deal with Nazis; nor, to answer your question more
directly, have I recieved any special insight on this issue from F.
Second, I make the broader claim that political philosophy as
traditionally conceived is not itself crafted to deal with such issues --
which does not mean that it is useless, but that it approaches issues on a
different and also important level.
--John
> John Ransom wrote:
>
> >I am very suspicious of attempts to force theory to provide us with
> >politically correct decisions on this or that side of an issue.
>
> No one is talking about scriptural infallibility. But do you mean to say
> that a political philosopher offers you no wisdom in thinking about Nazis
> and Naziism? Having read Foucault did nothing to improve your analysis or
> political response?
>
> Doug
>
Well, I feel strange because I get the feeling that you think the
following response is perverse in some way but my honest response is "no,
F never made me think more clearly about Nazis." I never read F for that.
Let's get off F for a minute and think about someone more basic, less
controversial. Take Aristotle. In his _Politics_, A does have a normative
kind of argument concerning the kinds of regimes that are appropriate to
humans. He has a teleological argument which runs like this: That which is
most unique about an entity is at the same time the *end* (purpose, goal)
of the entity. Or you could reverse it, I suppose, and say that the end
or purpose of something is tied to what is most unique about it.
In the case of humans, what's most unique about them is the capacity for
speech. (I apologize for going over all this; I know list members don't
need a review from me; I'm not trying to do a review but to use A's
procedure in the argument we are having.) Well, A asks, what's the purpose
of this most human, most unique feature of ours? To discuss, A answers,
what is right and wrong, what is just and what is unjust; and then to go
on and build institutions that will embody and make concrete those
communal discussions of what is just and unjust.
A's argument is classically normative: With it, we know ahead of time what
kinds of regimes to oppose and which to support. Regimes that make it
possible for us to operationalize our capacities as humans (for speech
especially) are just; those that do not, are unjust.
But notice that A's argument will not help us with regard to the Nazis.
That's because political philosophy is too gross a set of categories to
micro-manage such things. Another way to put the same point is that an
Aristotelian argument could be reasonably employed in favor of both sides
of a debate over allowing or disallowing the Nazis to speak.
So, first of all, no, I don't read F in order to develop a finer
sensibility over how to deal with Nazis; nor, to answer your question more
directly, have I recieved any special insight on this issue from F.
Second, I make the broader claim that political philosophy as
traditionally conceived is not itself crafted to deal with such issues --
which does not mean that it is useless, but that it approaches issues on a
different and also important level.
--John