Editorial
The Tenacity of the Nihilists
In the book Reading Obama (Princeton, 2010), James T. Kloppenberg makes a case for how the kind of approach President Obama takes to public policy is now widely preferred, to put it paradoxically, on principle at the most prestigious universities. Obama's rejection of general principles, the kind of we find stated in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, is in sync with what has come to be mainstream philosophy in America.
Mind you, this is no novel insight about American intellectual life. Pragmatism is, after all, America's homegrown school of philosophy, one that on principle rejects the value of principled thinking! Now, pragmatism has several versions but the one that has become fashionable is the radical type that Paul Krugman uses to ridicule principled thinkers by calling them 'fundamentalists,' as if they were dogmatic, mindless and doctrinaire.
Principled thinkers, such as the American founders, are nothing like this. The principles they found valid for governing a free society were learned from extensive studies of history, by philosophical education and reflection and by reading a lot of others who embarked on inquiries about human affairs.
In a way those alleged fundamentalists whom at least the more vulgar type of pragmatists try to marginalize are like medical scientists. They learn about the criteria of good health and physical condition from their study of human life, a study that comes up with certain reasonably stable notions about what can be done to achieve and maintain good health. These notions are not Platonic forms, fixed in heaven forever and incapable of being modified and updated. But they aren't the infinitely flexible ones that are preferred by those who scoff at principled thinking. Engineers, farmers, gardeners, pharmacists and others who take the findings of the various sciences and translate and apply them to problem solving aren't doctrinaire or dogmatic for being guided by generalizations, principles that come out of those sciences and the experimentation that is part and parcel of them.
Indeed, all disciplines are comprised of more or less fundamental notions that come out of the studies being done in them and the practical implementation of the results of those studies. It is like a pyramid, with some very basic propositions that, to use a phrase the Cambridge philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein made prominent, "stand fast for us," as well as ones that are less and less well established and more subject to revisions.
Instead of denying that there are fundamentals in fields like political economy and political science, embracing a vast Heraclitian flux that leaves everything indeterminate, ambiguous and open to infinite interpretation, depending upon the personal preferences of those concerned with a discipline, a better, contextual approach is warranted. Even pragmatists tip their hats to this when they, for example, refuse to be flexible about the viciousness of rape or murder. They know that some things do stand fast for us, including the value of human life, maybe even of human liberty!
However, those spending reams of paper apologizing for Barack Obama's wobbly political economic decisions and policies act as if this abyss of pragmatically invented ideas could really guide public policy reasonably, productively. (Check out Sam Tanenhaus's "Will the Tea Get Cold?" in the March 8, 2012 issue of The New York Review of Books as a good example!) They ought to check with those who study and practice such fields as medicine, engineering, farming, or auto mechanics and see if anything could be dealt with successfully without general principles, with well founded theories in them. They would find that none of these vital areas of concern can bear fruit without principled thought. And thus they could also realize that neither can the discipline of political economy.
To put the matter bluntly, so called market fundamentalists − as Krugman likes to call people who hold that the best economic arrangements in societies should rely on the free choices of economic agents − are on solid footing; it is sheer laziness not to seek out firm economic principles and theories and proceed by mere intuition, by, literally, nothing at all. Such nihilism hasn't advanced any of the fields of study, research and reflection that human beings have relied upon to steer them toward a more and more successful way of living, including of organizing their communities.
And let us not kid ourselves: One reason the nihilist's stance is attractive is that it supports the policy of arbitrary governing, governing that need not give any account of itself, governing that is, ultimately, autocratic and a matter of pure will. Yes, there are some authentic pragmatists and even nihilists but mostly these positions give aid and comfort to corrupt leaders and their cheerleaders in the academy.
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Posted by DwightJohnson on 03/27/12 03:21 PM
Ron Paul, a principled man if ever one existed, is rejected by many because he represents Natural Law, the law that inspired the Declaration of Independence, as well as the federalism enshrined in the US Constitution. But Natural Law has been rejected. Federalism was slowly killed in the US, most decisively when "preserving the Union" became more important than the long-accepted right of states to secede. The income tax turned federalism on its head, making it possible for the "federal" goverment to go around the states for funding, and making the states beggars for whatever crumbs they could snatch from the hands of the new masters in DC. This can only change when Natural Law is again recognized, when the human person becomes more important than any government, when the principle of subsidiarity is given more than lip-service, when government gets its just powers from the actual consent of the governed.
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Posted by DwightJohnson on 03/27/12 11:13 AM
I'm really going to step in it this time. Please don't take this as antipathy toward anyone.
I am a Catholic. I can look to a rather extensive published catechism (over 800 pages) to get a good idea of what Catholic orthodoxy means, based on the authority of the bishops, and ultimately of the Pope. Dogmatic, to say the least. Then I gaze out at the plethora of Protestant, Reformation (the original one) churches, those guided by a principle known as "sola scriptura", and what I see is relativity of teaching based on whoever happens to be doing the interpreting of said scripture. Everyone, it seems, is right, giving sound, orthodox teaching, though the orthodoxy is entirely personal.
So, the question I have to ask is: how much has the (original) Reformation's principle of "sola scriptura" influenced the relativity and autocratic thinking that this article speaks of?
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Posted by rossbcan on 03/27/12 07:45 AM
"Hobbesian state model hinges crucially on a social contract."
There IS a "social contract", we all have many "social contracts", amended on a minute by minute basis as we freely form and sever agreements as we CHOOSE whom to associoate / not associate with, and, on what terms.
The statist conception of "social contract" is a massive fraud, as articulated by Friedrich Nietzsche:
"The state is the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it lies, too; and this lie creeps from its mouth: 'I, the state, am the people.'... Everything about it is false; it bites with stolen teeth."
The REAL social contract:
Click to view link
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Posted by Peter VC on 03/27/12 05:39 AM
??
Back to basics: you start from a social contract, which is a Hobbesian notion. It posits that man devours man and therefor a strong state is needed. If you believe that. Good luck. Even the mercantilist nation of England found out that France and Holland cooperated during the 17th century, delivering a blow to that assertion.
Austrian economist and libertarian philosophers are starting from a cooperative model, disposing of the notion of a (big Hobbesian) state. No social contract. Nobody ever signed one.
The Hobbesian state model hinges crucially on a social contract. And that is indeed a problem.
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Posted by Dr Shoe on 03/26/12 10:24 PM
Dr.T. Machan I have started to read this blog and news site for about 2 years now. I find many of the writers here pedantic and use vague philosophical practices to trounch those that don't agree with their liberterian views. I am trying understand what you people want and why you believe that someone who reaches down to help someone in need is interfering in some basic human process that will keep downtrodden people weak and ends up ruining great governments.
Your hypothesis that Obama is a closet nihilist is absurb to me. I don't think that liberal thinkers despise fundamental principles that have worked across the centuries or that have controlled research to back them up. If fact most highly read and educated people I read and know are far from being "lost in subjectivity" or feel life has no purpose beyond its relativity for the age in which they live. They espouse many fundamental principles like "science is possible" and that voluntary altruism even if supported by governmental practices can be of benefit. I would hate to think of what would have happened to many immigrant and ex slave children if the government didn't have manditory school for all young children. The principles of education and learning from what others can teach and show you is not nihilistic. It is purposeful and directive, ethical in its implications because it believes rational thought is a good.
The problem I have with libertarian philosophy is that is posits that if all controls are removed in the social contract that good people will do what is right with out coddling or interference. and this is probably true for a minority of people who have a conscience and expect of themselves to provide to others out of their excess. The problem is that most people need some coaxing, persuasion, or on occasion reprimands when they are insensitive and only selfish in their approach. The further science delves into the higher conscience of higher order primates and atruism research they are discovering that most people need some stimulation to be cooperative..not just absolute sovereignty over their behavior. the social contract is not just for survival of the fittest but that this is strength in numbers and helping out our fellow wo(man). I need help understanding how being free leads to the cooperation that we despartely need to overcome the problems we face in this century. I am open to solid ideas based in research not just polemics.
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Posted by Dr Shoe on 03/26/12 10:24 PM
Dr.T. Machan I have started to read this blog and news site for about 2 years now. I find many of the writers here pedantic and use vague philosophical practices to trounch those that don't agree with their liberterian views. I am trying understand what you people want and why you believe that someone who reaches down to help someone in need is interfering in some basic human process that will keep downtrodden people weak and ends up ruining great governments.
Your hypothesis that Obama is a closet nihilist is absurb to me. I don't think that liberal thinkers despise fundamental principles that have worked across the centuries or that have controlled research to back them up. If fact most highly read and educated people I read and know are far from being "lost in subjectivity" or feel life has no purpose beyond its relativity for the age in which they live. They espouse many fundamental principles like "science is possible" and that voluntary altruism even if supported by governmental practices can be of benefit. I would hate to think of what would have happened to many immigrant and ex slave children if the government didn't have manditory school for all young children. The principles of education and learning from what others can teach and show you is not nihilistic. It is purposeful and directive, ethical in its implications because it believes rational thought is a good.
The problem I have with libertarian philosophy is that is posits that if all controls are removed in the social contract that good people will do what is right with out coddling or interference. and this is probably true for a minority of people who have a conscience and expect of themselves to provide to others out of their excess. The problem is that most people need some coaxing, persuasion, or on occasion reprimands when they are insensitive and only selfish in their approach. The further science delves into the higher conscience of higher order primates and atruism research they are discovering that most people need some stimulation to be cooperative..not just absolute sovereignty over their behavior. the social contract is not just for survival of the fittest but that this is strength in numbers and helping out our fellow wo(man). I need help understanding how being free leads to the cooperation that we despartely need to overcome the problems we face in this century. I am open to solid ideas based in research not just polemics.
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Posted by Friend_of_John_Galt on 03/26/12 02:36 PM
The ultimate achievement of the liberal utopia is here on earth: North Korea.
I'll bet that they started out just trying to be pragmatic.
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Posted by seer on 03/26/12 01:03 PM
Boy Bush followed the constitution to the letter-LOL
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Posted by rossbcan on 03/26/12 07:13 AM
TM: "The Tenacity of the Nihilists"
Forgot to connect the dots...
"discovering the crucial concept of zero"
connects to:
"cannot read minds nor determine motives, such as: is an individual a slacker, taking advantage of carrors encouraging sloth, or, truly disadvantaged"? We cannot know the answer unless we make "help" an opportunity, a "hand up", as opposed to "hand out" and see whether opportunity is taken, or not. The "answer" cannot be general, it varies with the individual.
More explicitly, the power base of Nihilists is NOTHING, forceful asserations in the area of the unprovable. In this example: they choose to "interpret" the answer to the question of "disadadvantaged by nature or, choice", to be "by nature", therefore achieving a hefty, civilization destroying "helping commission" and tax. This destroys any reason or moral basis to choose to "contribute to civilization".
And, since civilizations must be maintained by "consent of the governed" and funded by "consent of the productive", when these are withdrawn, civilizations implode. First the USSR, now us, for the same reason: the social contract is a now a unilateral decree of arbitrary power, not in the interests of "we, the people":
Click to view link
We are on an inevitable trajectory. "Consent of the governed" is LOST. Arbitrary power is not amused. Their frauds, thanks to the Internet Reformation are inefective. THEY refuse to trade honestly, adding value. That leaves arbitrary power ONLY FORCE to achieve THEIR survival and, "we, the people", to achieve OUR survival, ONLY passive resistance and, for idiots, forceful blowback (which arbitrary power provokes and uses to terrify us, to rationalize more power for THEM).
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Posted by rossbcan on 03/26/12 06:38 AM
"guilty of poor "animal husbandry", leaving no way for the herd to survive."
pigs, excreting where they eat...
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Posted by rossbcan on 03/26/12 06:14 AM
TM: "governing that need not give any account of itself, governing that is, ultimately, autocratic and a matter of pure will."
THAT is what arbitrary power lusts after, to be god, to decree (and forcefully coerce) a subjective "reality" where they are "master" and, the rest of us, cattle to be milked, slaughtered and consumed. Futher, THEY are insane, guilty of poor "animal husbandry", leaving no way for the herd to survive. We KNOW them by what they do. Their REAL goals are what they REALLY achieve. THEY have destroyed justice (now, JustUs) and thus, collective survival.
Justice Defined: We are all free to profit or suffer and learn (adapt to excellence) by facing the consequences of our OWN choices. Injustice is to be forced to suffer the consequences of choices of unaccountable (irresponsible) others..
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern. The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over race, of faith over faith, of class over class." ~ Lord Acton
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Posted by rossbcan on 03/26/12 05:53 AM
TM: "flux that leaves everything indeterminate, ambiguous and open to infinite interpretation"
"If man had the ability, the effects of destruction of mankind's basic knowledge is as profound as if the law of gravity had been repealed, leaving us floating with no anchor or firm ground to stand upon. We, as a species have become severed from reality and are blindly plunging to disaster for our species and life on earth.
In the absence of precise and unchanging definitions and concepts, reality is a shifting thing which cannot be accurately described nor comprehended by an individual, let alone communicated to and understood by anyone else.
Without precise, generally agreed meaning, words are meaningless vibrations in the air and writing meaningless squiggles on paper or electronic patterns. Language devoid of precise meaning is incapable of conveying any sort of precise information. Your cat becomes a fuzzy, greater than three, less than five legged creature, easily misinterpreted as a dog when you try to discuss it. If mathematics is forgotten, we will have to deal in terms such as many and few and again spend several thousand years discovering the crucial concept of zero (only discovered twice in history by the ancient Babylonians and Mayans)."
Excerpt from:
Click to view link
... by a century+ of organized power chipping away (by decreeing different who pays for the consequences and who profits by the actions, destroying responsibility, thus, ability to control your own life and learn) at the foundational natural law basis of reality, such as action precedes consequence and "interpretations" unconfirmed / opposed by reality are dangerously insane when used to "inform" or worse, coerce actions. Consequences are determined by reality and not stated "intent" (neglecting the fact that alleged "unintended consequences", "crap happens" are what power is really after).
The base of the pyramid of mankind's knowlege, acquired by millennia of determined study by mankind's best and brightest, tit for tat conflict and suffering in the "school of hard knocks" of life has been rationalized away and most are just confused pawns and cannon fodder in various Hegellian political / economic / shooting war games of arbitrary power, useful idiots.
Luckily, a little applied THINKING can easily sort fact from fiction:
Click to view link
... , and since mankind's highest goal is survival, it is no surprise that mankind's highest intellectual achievement is regarding how to collectively survive and live in peace and harmony, the "rule of law":
Click to view link
It is a very bad, survival terminating idea, to defer your intelligence and tolerate your choices to be coerced by those bullying, pointing guns at you, threating you with "obey or else". The point of "obey" is to force you to trade your survival for the survival of tyrants (and idiots at the helm, steering us over the cliff of collective non-survival):
Click to view link
"or else" is pregnant with the near infinite possibilities of "better choice" and, therefore, consequences.
