tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post5763582033737122869..comments2023-06-22T07:32:28.491-04:00Comments on Dred Tory: "When Hacks Attack!": Part OneSir Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15052750849770350973noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-47902939952621613232009-10-06T00:27:19.328-04:002009-10-06T00:27:19.328-04:00Must we beg?
It might have helped! ;)
Seriously,...<i>Must we beg</i>?<br /><br />It might have helped! ;)<br /><br />Seriously, the last few months have been unconscionable. It shan't happen again. I promise.Sir Francishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15052750849770350973noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-65238348660727978862009-09-29T19:32:19.821-04:002009-09-29T19:32:19.821-04:00Cruel is too mild. Must we beg?Cruel is too mild. Must we beg?SeanStokhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03037341614959536678noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-4461692720489526692009-09-12T01:44:37.078-04:002009-09-12T01:44:37.078-04:00"I imposed this hiatus experimentally--in ord..."I imposed this hiatus experimentally--in order to see what the world would look like if starved of regular Dred Tory updates."<br /><br />Two months is experimental, but three months, especially during this festival of hypocrisy, is cruel.Jack Mitchellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06835284930543793029noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-39153318754290438592009-09-02T13:38:11.773-04:002009-09-02T13:38:11.773-04:00You have to post some more, Sir Francis! KMG seem...You have to post some more, Sir Francis! KMG seems not to be active any longer; the baton has been passed. Somebody has to oppose the Harper Neo-Cons from the Old Tory Right, so it's fallen to you. :)Will S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/02714519301979594160noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-34939744259993626072009-09-02T12:30:28.423-04:002009-09-02T12:30:28.423-04:00Fortunately, the experiment’s effects are reversib...<i>Fortunately, the experiment’s effects are reversible, and succour is at hand...</i><br /><br />Phew! I was getting worried!<br /><br />Now my only concern is what the F#$%#! happened to Olaf?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-44420789334766747452009-08-17T04:55:26.518-04:002009-08-17T04:55:26.518-04:00Ti-Guy & Jack:
I imposed this hiatus experim...Ti-Guy & Jack:<br /><br /><br />I imposed this hiatus experimentally--in order to see what the world would look like if starved of regular Dred Tory updates. <br /><br />As I feared, I’ve created a blighted, bleak, unforgiving, wind-swept wasteland. <br /><br />Fortunately, the experiment’s effects are reversible, and succour is at hand...Sir Francishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15052750849770350973noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-5955134704985309222009-08-07T12:23:58.199-04:002009-08-07T12:23:58.199-04:00Hear hear, Ti-Guy. Sir Francis deserves a good su...Hear hear, Ti-Guy. Sir Francis deserves a good summer break, as long as he hasn't retired from blogging: the internecine strife to succeed him would tear the civilised Canadian blogosphere apart, War of the Roses-style.Jack Mitchellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06835284930543793029noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-64286503259530634302009-07-24T10:20:35.520-04:002009-07-24T10:20:35.520-04:00I hope your and Olaf's long absence from blogg...I hope your and Olaf's long absence from blogging means you're both collaborating on a killer blog post. The blog post to end all blog posts.Ti-Guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06620550471437012866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-76170825514804216732009-06-23T11:45:34.540-04:002009-06-23T11:45:34.540-04:00their way of reading pushes texts to the limit but...<i>their way of reading pushes texts to the limit but only because the texts are doing the pushing.</i><br /><br />And that's certainly easily proved when you can fabricate language to demonstrate that.<br /><br />I don't know; I'm not an ignorant person. Yet, I've just never been persuaded that a text can (or should) have any more meaning than what its originator intended, either consciously, evidence for which can be easily provided or subconsciously, which limited interpretation, hopefully supported by meta-narrative evidence or, at the very least, clear and sound reason can demonstrate.<br /><br />I suppose I'm just too utilitarian to see the point to all of this, especially as it has pushed out more conventional forms of analysis for undergrad core curriculum. leading to astonishingly confused, mystifying and post-literate university graduates, who then go on to write <i>The Architectonics of Semiotics</i>.Ti-Guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06620550471437012866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-49319318589307629372009-06-23T02:04:57.297-04:002009-06-23T02:04:57.297-04:00...the influence of "signifiers" could e...<i>...the influence of "signifiers" could easily have been examined through conventional forms of criticism and analysis</i>.<br /><br />Post-Structuralists would argue that what they're doing <i>is</i> conventional, insofar as they are merely doing what the Western logocentric tradition demands; their way of reading pushes texts to the limit but only because the <i>texts</i> are doing the pushing. Post-Structuralists don't see this as a radical departure but as the uncovering of a dynamic that has always been there (and which can be glimpsed in some of the pre-Socratics, before it was crushed by the juggernaut of the Platonic program).<br /><br /><i>Post-structuralism's agenda was overtly political</i>...<br /><br />Not really. Sure, some of them were <i>soixantehuitards</i>, but, really, <i>everyone</i> was (except De Gaulle, perhaps).<br /><br />Post-Structuralism doesn't allow for a politics, as its detractors affirm. Foucault, for instance, endorsed French Maoism only to endorse Khomeini's revolution a few years later.<br /><br />Post-Structuralism is political only insofar as it is denounced as reactionary by the Left and as nihilist by the Right. I think it is neither <i>per se</i>--although it can be used for reactionary and nihilist ends--as can Aquinas.<br /><br /><i>Come back less snippy</i>.<br /><br />Yes, Miss Ti-Guy. Is detention over now? May I go play with the other lads?Sir Francishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15052750849770350973noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-71189159491871320752009-06-23T01:12:26.490-04:002009-06-23T01:12:26.490-04:00Will:
Agreed. Elites everywhere and at all times ...Will:<br /><br />Agreed. Elites everywhere and at all times have been quite apolitical in the strict sense--because they can always <i>afford</i> to be. They eschew beliefs and moral priorities, for such things would blunt the edge of their tactical versatility and render them less adaptable to the fluid environments in which they operate. <br /><br />The Krupps of the world could never be made to care whether their buyers are communist, fascist or democratic--as long as they pay in cash, and promptly.Sir Francishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15052750849770350973noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-78723276047919810062009-06-21T22:03:55.605-04:002009-06-21T22:03:55.605-04:00On a more lay level, I don't espouse the consp...<i>On a more lay level, I don't espouse the conspiratorial "Star Chamber" view of things, but I do think that there is a broad commonality of interests that binds élite actors into what one could call an intentional community--not necessarily "coordinated", but certainly co-invested and co-involved.</i><br /><br />I've always found Joe Sobran's concept of "The Hive" to be quite intriguing; if one sees the elites as behaving as bees in a beehive do, one can observe patterns that don't require central control, to occur. (See <a href="http://www.sobran.com/hive/hive.shtml" rel="nofollow">here</a> for an introduction, and <a href="http://www.sobran.com/hive/index.shtml" rel="nofollow">here</a> for a collection of articles on the subject.)<br /><br />I think this concept can be useful in understanding how various different interests can coordinate without central planning, whether they be left or right, socialist, liberal, neoconservative, etc. In fact, I don't think the political orientation of the players matters all that much, when different groups may discover they have common interests, and end up as political bedfellows in spite of themselves. (Which really, is only to say, that the degree to which political affiliations matter in today's world, is rather low; that the differences between the different groups that jockey for power and position are exceedingly small.)Will S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/02714519301979594160noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-4958175025919301862009-06-18T21:29:38.029-04:002009-06-18T21:29:38.029-04:00Post-Structuralism has suggested interesting thing...<i>Post-Structuralism has suggested interesting things about language--most provocatively, that everything is language and that the semiotic units that signify the "real" for us may describe more about the system according to which they operate than the reality they appear to communicate so transparently.</i><br /><br />I've never been persuaded by this; the influence of "signifiers" could easily have been examined through conventional forms of criticism and analysis. Post-structuralism's agenda was overtly political; destroy conventional forms of inquiry and critique to remove the deforming influences of class, state and other entrenched structures in order to make way for "The New." A 1960's intellectual urban renewal, with about as much success.<br /><br />Have fun on your trip. Come back less <i>snippy</i>.Ti-Guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06620550471437012866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-48034419163661655352009-06-18T20:34:17.424-04:002009-06-18T20:34:17.424-04:00The anger among this demographic is what has been ...<i>The anger among this demographic is what has been feeding into...anti-intellectualism</i>...<br /><br />Something tells me that Stephen Harper, Gary Goodyear and their torch-and-pitchfork hoplites throughout the 'burbs have managed to become the deeply anti-intellectual prats they are without need of the slightest exposure to Paul De Man or Derrida. My brother-in-law is rabidly anti-intellectual, and he probably thinks post-Structuralism is the clinical term for a sinus infection.<br /><br /><i>Every</i> school of thought has been seen as high-flown tosh by contemporary antagonists, not all of them philistines. Many thoughtful lay Edwardians damned the term "stream of consciousness" for a bit of laughably pretentious jargon; today, even my brother-in-law could use William James' term unselfconsciously, without knowing anything about its role in James' psychological pragmatism. <br /><br />Anti-intellectualism is an organic neurosis generated by the degraded cultural priorities of certain societies. In such societies--in America, for instance--even the most elementary and exoteric intellectual enthusiasms fall under suspicion. Pandering GOP thugs like Nixon didn't need the pretext of post-Structuralism to pursue anti-intellectual vendettas against the Adlai Stevensons and Alger Hisses of the '50's.<br /><br /><i>I'm not aware of any way in which it has advanced human understanding</i>...<br /><br />The fact that some scholars misapply and degrade the technique does not invalidate the technique being misused--any more than sloppy brain surgery invalidates the technique of brain surgery.<br /><br />Post-Structuralism has suggested interesting things about language--most provocatively, that <i>everything</i> is language and that the semiotic units that signify the "real" for us may describe more about the system according to which they operate than the reality they appear to communicate so transparently.<br /><br />The implications of this are huge, which is why so many thinkers have felt the need to at least encounter this issue and formulate a perspective on it. Yet, it is hard indeed to see how it has advanced human understanding, as we would need a few generations' worth of retrospective distance in order to determine anything on that score; the thinkers of the Enlightenment had no idea how they were advancing human understanding, or <i>if</i> they were—an uncertainty that drove Kant to give an essay the interrogative title, "What Is Enlightenment?". It's one thing to have a program (or technique); it's quite another to know what it's doing to your world.<br /><br />Well, I'm off to the airport in four hours (after about three hours' sleep), then onto a plane for a six-hour trip. I shall be incommunicado until I'm back on our side of the pond (or, as Derrida would insist, the "pond").Sir Francishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15052750849770350973noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-79093282355886200582009-06-18T16:52:12.263-04:002009-06-18T16:52:12.263-04:00there are many ways of "doing" post-Mode...<i>there are many ways of "doing" post-Modernism (or, more properly, post-Structuralism), and it really is, after all, a technique, not a position.</i><br /><br />A technique for what, exactly? I've seen it applied in literary criticism, sociology, political science, the pure sciences, visual arts, music, popular culture studies...<i>cooking</i>...and I'm not aware of any way in which it has advanced human understanding, except perhaps as an experiment in what happens when academics become unmoored from stable points of departure and abandon praxis.<br /><br />What I find most tragic, though is the backlash resulting from the legions of mediocrities who subjected their students (unwittingly, I'm sure) to what amounts to intellectual fraud. The anger among this demographic is what has been feeding into the anti-intellectualism that has been surging and frothing in the last eight years.Ti-Guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06620550471437012866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-71833797826088702302009-06-18T14:53:44.502-04:002009-06-18T14:53:44.502-04:00Ti:
"Pure" philosophy can become (or se...Ti:<br /><br />"Pure" philosophy can become (or seem) remote from real-world contexts. Chomsky and other like-minded humanists (like Habermas) have been very hard on post-Modernism for what they see as its irresponsible abandonment of praxis and its (alleged) inability to provide a stable point of departure for political engagement.<br /><br />I think some of that criticism is misplaced; there are many ways of "doing" post-Modernism (or, more properly, post-Structuralism), and it really is, after all, a <i>technique</i>, not a position.<br /><br />Certainly, though, Anglo-American pragmatism--perhaps the most superficially un-dogmatic of modern schools of thought--is much more user-friendly as a philosophical framework for lay political discourse, and it's thus no accident that most of our public intellectuals (a dying breed, as we've discussed) have been practitioners of that school.Sir Francishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15052750849770350973noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-31857142254920696262009-06-18T00:17:22.826-04:002009-06-18T00:17:22.826-04:00Um, did that actually happen? Please tell me that ...<i>Um, did that actually happen? Please tell me that didn't actually happen...</i><br /><br /><a href="http://ezralevant.com/2009/05/vancouver-island-and-24-sussex.html" rel="nofollow">Read it and weep.</a><br /><br />...Christ, Ezra's <i>hideous</i>.<br /><br /><i>I'm amazed at the number of people who fail to see to what extent Western economies are fuelled by the consumption of waste/excess rather than by actual production. We're a culture of seduction, of consumptive enervation, of a gluttony so relentless that it insists on consuming even the inedible.</i><br /><br />I bring this up a lot, because I think the empiricism its analysis easily accommodates imposes greater scholarly rigour for the discussion of social dynamics and the human condition and produces more persuasive observations and conclusions than philosophy can, at least at this point. I think that's the reason philosophy never appealed to me. I was never convinced that, generally, the insights of any particular philospher were really <i>true</i> for anyone but the philosopher himself and that the philosopher wasn't uncovering truth, but <i>creating and imposing it</i>. Generally speaking...<br /><br />But then, I'm a Chomskyite. No evidence? No reason to agree.Ti-Guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06620550471437012866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-41911934459706508672009-06-17T23:27:43.195-04:002009-06-17T23:27:43.195-04:00Ti:
I'm amazed at the number of people who fa...Ti:<br /><br />I'm amazed at the number of people who fail to see to what extent Western economies are fuelled by the consumption of waste/excess rather than by actual production. We're a culture of <i>seduction</i>, of consumptive enervation, of a gluttony so relentless that it insists on consuming even the inedible. <br /><br /><i>Can you imagine any other PM shamelessly hosting Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn at 24 Sussex</i>?<br /><br />Um, did that actually happen? Please tell me that didn't actually happen...Sir Francishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15052750849770350973noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-46912867138997990472009-06-17T23:16:03.409-04:002009-06-17T23:16:03.409-04:00Sean:
Yes, well Foucault's views are notoriou...Sean:<br /><br />Yes, well Foucault's views are notoriously incommensurate with Chomsky's, on a number of levels. For one thing, no one actually <i>has</i> social power for Foucault. Power/knowledge is the enabling condition for discourse, and no subjects (even the most powerful ones) can stand outside it.<br /><br />On a more lay level, I don't espouse the conspiratorial "Star Chamber" view of things, but I do think that there is a broad commonality of interests that binds élite actors into what one could call an <i>intentional community</i>--not necessarily "coordinated", but certainly co-invested and co-involved.Sir Francishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15052750849770350973noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-83141900247857214662009-06-17T22:54:18.614-04:002009-06-17T22:54:18.614-04:00I do think, for example, that what infantilises ou...<i>I do think, for example, that what infantilises our civic modalities most blatantly is the need for élites to put tight constraints on allowable discourse;</i><br /><br />There an alternate thesis; that the infantilisation of our culture is a consequence of a consumer economy that has nothing left but to nurture, entrench and exploit the irrational desires of the type children and adolescents are seized by, since most real material needs and very many desires have been met and probably have been since the 50's.<br /><br />I see more evidence for that going back several decades, but I've also seen (since I returned to Canada) a lot of evidence that the élite realises this and now exploits it shamelessly (for reasons you state), rather than <i>model</i> more sophisticated alternatives, which is what they used to do.<br /><br />Can you imagine any other PM shamelessly hosting Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn at 24 Sussex, SF? When I think of <i>juvenile</i> in the worst sense, that's what I'm talking. Not child-like or irresponsible, but an unsophisticated, immoderate, petty high school clique.Ti-Guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06620550471437012866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-82516411772472956532009-06-17T22:47:56.928-04:002009-06-17T22:47:56.928-04:00We're going to have to thrash out this whole &...We're going to have to thrash out this whole 'elites' thing one of these days. :)<br /><br />It suggests a coordination of interests, motives and strategy that I just don't buy - at least in the arena of Canadian politics. Or are the elites idiot savants who manage to achieve their outcomes without necessarily setting out to do so?<br /><br />I'm not dead set against the idea (I've found use in Foucault's notion of power realized through control of society's language and categories), but it seems all too easy, at times, to fall back the star chamber explanation.SeanStokhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03037341614959536678noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-35534401512609546272009-06-17T22:13:25.438-04:002009-06-17T22:13:25.438-04:00Sean/Ti:
Well, as a determined Chomskyite, I have...Sean/Ti:<br /><br />Well, as a determined Chomskyite, I have a certain (perhaps too predictable) perspective on the callow nature of our political environment.<br /><br />I do think, for example, that what infantilises our civic modalities most blatantly is the need for élites to put tight constraints on allowable discourse; they do this because a pluralistic, ethically nomadic populace can be mobilised and made to ratify the élite's agenda only when their options are made "manageable"; as you know, options are at their most manageable when they are <i>trivial</i>.Sir Francishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15052750849770350973noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-55001272833399644442009-06-17T19:43:05.942-04:002009-06-17T19:43:05.942-04:00I will grant you, and, yes, quite a bit less juven...<i>I will grant you, and, yes, quite a bit less juvenile. It was often just as mean and petty, though--as I point out.</i><br /><br />So why are they so much more juvenile now?Ti-Guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06620550471437012866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-71282723891376321052009-06-17T19:26:59.752-04:002009-06-17T19:26:59.752-04:00It occurs to me that while people wrongly assume t...It occurs to me that while people wrongly assume there was a golden age of polite and reserved politics, there is a sense that something has gone badly wrong in recent years. Maybe it's the extent to which we depend on government (among other structures - we live atomized social existences where our very survival depends on vast economic structures that are often beyond our knowledge, never mind our control). If I'm a farmer in the mid-1800's, and we're not at war and I'm not being taxed too harshly, the politicians can spin their wheels and froth at the mouth for all it affects my life. The same cannot be said today. Which might be why the absence of decorum and minimally shared vision is more disquieting.<br /><br />But that's just a guess on my part - I'd be curious to know what you think, even if I'm dead wrong!SeanStokhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03037341614959536678noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-58366653197343610472009-06-17T17:21:34.189-04:002009-06-17T17:21:34.189-04:00And mommies and daddies think it's good for th...<i>And mommies and daddies think it's good for their children be exposed to these campaigns</i>...<br /><br />Really? I get the impression that today's parents negotiate their children's exposure to politics the way farming couples handle their children's exposure to the sight of rutting animals--as a "teaching" moment, an introduction to the "way of things" and the squalid world of adulthood but also a rather uncomfortable, embarrassing and unpleasant event that is best passed over in silence.<br /><br /><i>... please...disabuse me of the impression that I'm witnessing something that...is at least novel </i>.<br /><br />That's a tall order. For flamboyantly vacuous cant (most of it Grit, of course), the politics of our colonial era cannot be out-quacked. That cant was vastly more sincere than it is now, I will grant you, and, yes, quite a bit less juvenile. It was often just as mean and petty, though--as I point out.Sir Francishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15052750849770350973noreply@blogger.com