tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post7980263725759201777..comments2023-12-31T13:47:05.758+00:00Comments on Fat Man on a Keyboard: Free speechThe Plumphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09244528534476387323noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-48472468621900635332009-09-12T00:30:02.549+01:002009-09-12T00:30:02.549+01:00I bring out the best in you.
may answer you the m...I bring out the best in you.<br /><br />may answer you the morra -- if can be arsed.Willhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08015473239835274353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-60027526379086699122009-09-11T13:42:17.816+01:002009-09-11T13:42:17.816+01:00Cont:
Then what about this:
"all genuine po...Cont:<br /><br />Then what about this:<br /><br /><i>"all genuine political theories presuppose man to be evil."</i><br /><br />Where's his dualism gone now? He has become a fucking monist! In politics, history and life you can find examples of spectacularly nice, decent and courageous people as well as complete and utter bastards. And there is a whole range of human behaviour in between. <br /><br />I think it is better to think of human nature (and he is right that most political philosophy eventually boils down to a concept of human nature) as a spectrum of behaviours, many of which can be profoundly changed by intervention and environmental change, but not all. Once a psychopath always a psychopath. <br /><br />However, it is the structure of the society or organisation that determines the damage that an evil individual can do. In a Western democratic society Himmler would have risen to a senior position in a bureaucracy, been hated by all his colleagues and certainly by his subordinates. He would have made his wife and children miserable. He would have wrecked a few careers, made a mess of the organisation and probably be paid money to leave early. A baleful legacy of a disturbed individual. However, in the context of the Third Reich he could kill millions. So, a presupposition of evil might be useful as a precaution! <br /><br />But what that leaves is the classic Hobbesian paradox; if all people are evil and you support the annihilation of your enemy, then you are arguing for total victory for evil people. Now liberalism, far from resting on a facile belief in inherent goodness, recognises this potential for evil and therefore calls for checks on power.<br /><br />This is where liberalism (not economic liberalism - that is something else) is important for me, not as cowardice, but courage. It stands up for an absolute and irreducible notion of human rights, often against the worst regimes and often at huge personal risk. It means people (like some I have worked for) remain as pains in the arse rather than become mass murderers. <br /><br />Now, I don’t think that we are that far away from each other on this. Much of what passes for liberal sentiment is intellectual mush and where it does stand up for one thing, it fails to deal with other intrinsically related issues. So an exposure of Jihadi fascism is rarely accompanied by a similar focus on the massive racist prejudice and discrimination directed against Asians and, where it is acknowledged, it is certainly not pursued with the same vehemence and anger. This neglect means we risk seeing ‘football hooligans against the Muslims’ as the end result. And this is what this post was arguing for, a combative liberalism that does see that people are fighting for real things – and for anyone at the end of a racist attack this is a life or death struggle. <br /><br />Peter Peter PeterThe Plumphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09244528534476387323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-41173306801749156022009-09-11T13:37:50.612+01:002009-09-11T13:37:50.612+01:00This is where I part company with Schmitt:
In pol...This is where I part company with Schmitt:<br /><br /><i>In politics, the core distinction is between friend and enemy. That is what makes politics different from everything else.</i><br /><br />This is simply a reductionist abstraction; as is the whole notion of an irreducible duality. So in economics some activities are not defined by profitability or non profitability, some are non-profit making, some mutualist, some operate as agents of redistribution of social goods, etc. You and I are friends on something and enemies on others (like hanging anarchists). On a personal level, I would always see you as a friend. Life and politics is more complex than that.<br /><br />And it is the same with this:<br /><br /> <i>the life-or-death stakes politics always involves</i><br /><br />The word that concerns me is "always". 'Sometimes' or even 'often' is fine but not always. Sometimes politics is fucking trivial to the point of banality. Have you ever attended a parish council meeting? And why expend all that energy eliminating bloggers when none of us matter a jot?<br /><br />The interesting thing about a dialectical approach is that it recognises conflict and sees it as resulting in transformation, not resolution or compromise. The total victory of one side to a conflict over another may not necessarily transform that conflict. What it may do is freeze it through the hegemony of the victors, whilst leaving the conflict latent. (According to your comment this is recognised by Schmitt in his critique of pluralism).<br /><br />Continued belowThe Plumphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09244528534476387323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-47144557955919717332009-09-11T01:01:47.164+01:002009-09-11T01:01:47.164+01:00ps -- i also hate and despise anarchists and shit....ps -- i also hate and despise anarchists and shit.<br /><br />really a lot.<br /><br />i wood have anarchists hung from trees and shitWillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08015473239835274353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-84052955159396131742009-09-11T00:31:06.187+01:002009-09-11T00:31:06.187+01:00Peter Peter Peter...there is no such thing as &quo...Peter Peter Peter...there is no such thing as "principle" whaddeverthefuckthat isanyways.<br /><br />And as you well know you can read cunTs (Schmitt) not in agreement but as someone to *learn* from. <br /><br />Liberals are not just annoying little titheaded fuckwits but representative of something bigger and more important - i.e. a cowardly retreat from politics and passion into a jealously guarded little private sphere - which is the worst form of conservatism. <br /><br />Liberals are in fact worse than conservatives. They are ineffectual cowards and not just cowards.<br /><br />A quote that comes to mind is from Carl Schmitt 's Concept of the Political<br /><br />Summary by Alan Wolfe at (werth reading it all BTW):<br /><br />http://www.stanford.edu/~weiler/Wolfe_on_Schmitt_044.pdf<br /><br />"In The Concept of the Political, Schmitt wrote that every realm of<br />human endeavour is structured by an irreducible duality. Morality is<br />concerned with good and evil, aesthetics with the beautiful and ugly, and economics with the profitable and unprofitable. In politics, the core distinction is between friend and enemy. That is what makes politics different from everything else. Jesus's call to love your enemy is perfectly appropriate for religion, but it is incompatible with the life-or-death stakes politics always involves. Moral philosophers are preoccupied with justice, but politics has nothing to do with making the world fairer." <br /><br />"Economic exchange requires only competition; it does not demand annihilation. Not so politics."<br /><br />"The political is the most intense and extreme antagonism," Schmitt<br />wrote. War is the most violent form that politics takes, but, even short<br />of war, politics still requires that you treat your opposition as<br />antagonistic to everything in which you believe. It's not personal; you<br />don't have to hate your enemy. But you do have to be prepared to<br />vanquish him if necessary."<br /><br />Half the 'liberal' problem (and more than half of the wider problem of liberalism) is that they and your fellow liberals (not you like -- you are great and that) genuinely do not understand that politics is not a game but involves real enemies fighting about real things. <br /><br />Schmitt was a cunt and its a great shame that the Russians didn't catch him and string him up in 1945 (see? I am being political again?) - but an absolutely honest and clear sighted one. Unlike the thick fucking scum liberal cunTs who have blogs and shit (Sauce type cunTs and that).<br /><br />Wolf's article is very good - argues that in the US conservatives are (or were) hegemonic because at some level they instinctively understand Schmitt and see themselves as engaged in a dualistic life and death struggle.<br /><br />Particularly like this: <br /><br />"Schmitt argued that liberals, properly speaking, can never be political. Liberals tend to be optimistic about human nature, whereas "all genuine political theories presuppose man to be evil." Liberals believe in the possibility of neutral rules that can mediate between conflicting<br />positions, but to Schmitt there is no such neutrality, since any rule -- even an ostensibly fair one -- merely represents the victory of one<br />political faction over another. (If that formulation sounds like Stanley<br />Fish when he persistently argues that there is no such thing as<br />principle, that only testifies to the ways in which Schmitt's ideas<br />pervade the contemporary intellectual zeitgeist.) Liberals insist that there exists something called society independent of the state, but Schmitt believed that pluralism is an illusion because no real state would ever allow other forces, like the family or the church, to contest its power. Liberals, in a word, are uncomfortable around power, and,<br />because they are, they criticize politics more than they engage in it."<br /><br />Liberal thick cunTs again!Willhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08015473239835274353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-12587644237109797542009-09-10T14:01:27.040+01:002009-09-10T14:01:27.040+01:00Hmm ...
The big difference between you and Norm i...Hmm ...<br /><br />The big difference between you and Norm is that Norm (or Geras when he displeases you) is not a Leninist. <br /><br />So you recommend reading Carl Schmitt (a Nazi), Lenin's Tombola (a loon) and like my post (from a liberal perspective). Just proves my point that this issue is about judgement rather than principle.<br /><br />And, in this case, as we often seem to be, we agree and I reckon we are right. (I am also not a Jane Austen fan, though not for the same reason. As a novelist she is a miniaturist and I like the big bold canvas. I suppose that's why Marx himself loved Shakespeare too).The Plumphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09244528534476387323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-69069880292948541772009-09-10T00:34:44.600+01:002009-09-10T00:34:44.600+01:00PS. Don't look at Normblog on the issue -- it ...PS. Don't look at Normblog on the issue -- it is fucking embarrassing.<br /><br />Geras has no concept of political combat. For him it is all a matter of fucking intellectualism and bullshit 'debates'.<br /><br />Needs to read some Carl Schmitt or some Lenin.<br /><br />Geras has long ago left his Marxist roots behind. that explains why he posts shite about jane fucking austen.<br /><br />A lost cause. without a doubt.Willhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08015473239835274353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-54602493689500791132009-09-10T00:16:28.625+01:002009-09-10T00:16:28.625+01:00on same subject
good
http://leninology.blogspot.c...on same subject<br /><br />good<br />http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/09/case-for-no-platform.html<br /><br />similar<br />http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/2009/09/06/once-more-on-the-no-platform-policy/<br /><br />both recommended.Willhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08015473239835274353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-54139812083630025532009-09-09T20:26:52.711+01:002009-09-09T20:26:52.711+01:00The best, most scholarly, account of the business ...The best, most scholarly, account of the business I have read.Brigada Flores Magonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17832555450198713371noreply@blogger.com