Darkness Rising (Part 2)

American politics is entering a new phase. Not the phase Obama aspired towards with pragmatic inter-party cooperation, but a phase of fragmented ideology with jagged confrontational performances. With health care reforms managing, against near insurmountable odds, to slide through politicians supporting the progressive reforms are being threatened with death threats and vandalism (link 1). George. W. Bush planted some terrible seeds and it is yet to be known in what manner they will come to fruition. After Barack Obama’s inauguration gun sales surged, after Obama and democrats attended town hall meetings on health care guns were carried outside the venues; this trajectory has no happy ending (link 1, 2). What is interesting are the parallels with terrorism (which, of course, everyone associates with Islamic terrorism), a fractured phenomenon where a large group is normal yet the group spawns a few deviants who act out the group’s most extreme values. Terrorism always forms out of something, there is no fast track to radicalism. As America displays unseemly turns to uncivil, then uncivil need only turn a little to reach catastrophe; the assassination of Martin Luther King, the assassination of Harvey Milk. If you shake things up and give them time you are courting disaster.

The instability of America is not unknown, it is labelled the Tea Party movement. The tea party is an ‘astroturf’ movement as opposed to a grassroots movement, in that significant conscious effort by institutions, in particular the FreedomWorks lobbying organisation and the Fox News Channel, have went out of their way to contrive or at least choreograph people’s anger at some specific politics or the government in general (link 1). They actually match the G20 protests quite well, few identify this contemporary left-wing equivalent, as they are without clear-cut values and objectives, coalesce numerous small groups and yet organise sufficiently to oppose something (always reactionary; both movements are too headless to speak or be spoken for). Yet despite the essentially nebulous character the Tea Party movements revolves around opposition to government (symbolised to them with taxation, because only money is real), promotion of freedom and individualism and shouting,  incivility and no discussions as the ‘right’ side has the right to demand without justification.

Lets be Nietzschean and investigate origins. The Tea Party movement has no necessary, simple causes. The movement is a pastiche which has numerous causes such as the failure of the Grand Old Party (i.e. GOP, the Republican Party) at the 2008 presidential election, the election of a non-white person to presidency, the prospect of a government doing things and reforming domestic affairs, more vocal right wing personalities like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin (what short names they seem to have, hmm), the global financial crisis and a zeitgeist of change and uncertainty giving friction to all things. Thereupon three vested interest groups helped ‘ground’ the movement, namely right-wing lobbying groups, right-wing media and the GOP and right-wing political forces (link 1). Although there is a sort of mythical event about it’s origin, which is informative:

“The Tea Party movement started in February, during the debates over the stimulus bill and the bank bailout. The right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin was among the early agitators for protest. But all remained inchoate until February 19, when CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli delivered what has become famous in some circles as the “Santelli rant.” Santelli is a former Chicago trader who joined CNBC in 1999. During one of his regular reports from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade, reacting to an earlier on-air segment about the Obama administration’s $75 billion plan to help several million homeowners avoid foreclosure, Santelli—who called himself an “Ayn Rander”—erupted:

The government is promoting bad behavior…. I’ll tell you what, I have an idea.

You know, the new administration’s big on computers and technology—how about this, President and new administration? Why don’t you put up a Web site to have people vote on the Internet as a referendum to see if we really want to subsidize the losers’ mortgages; or would we like to at least buy cars and buy houses in foreclosure and give them to people that might have a chance to actually prosper down the road, and reward people that could carry the water instead of drink the water?

As he carried on, the traders who normally serve only as his backdrop began to turn, face him, and cheer. He asked them how many of them “want to pay for your neighbors’ mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills?” They booed loudly—not at him, but at the idea. He announced plans for a “Chicago Tea Party” for July (whether he did this spontaneously or not is an interesting question). Thus was born the current grassroots movement, on a stock-trading floor (“This is America!” he roared at one point, gesturing toward the traders around him as if they were representative of average folk) and animated by anger at “the losers” and their mortgages.

Within hours, Web sites started popping up. FreedomWorks, a conservative lobbying organization founded in 1984 with a current budget of undisclosed millions (its most recent report to the IRS covers 2007), helped support this activity from the start. It is funded in part by Steve Forbes and headed by former Republican Congressman Dick Armey of Texas, who was a featured speaker at the September 12 rally. FreedomWorks has a history of setting up “astroturf” groups, so named because they resemble grassroots organizations but in fact have significant hidden corporate backing, on a range of issues.

While President Bush was trying to promote Social Security privatization, a woman in Iowa who identified herself as a “single mom” won a coveted spot on the stage from which she praised Bush’s plan. It was later revealed that she was FreedomWorks’s Iowa state director. She had spent the previous two years as spokeswoman for something called For Our Grandchildren, a pro-privatization group that is itself, according to SourceWatch, the nonprofit monitoring Web site, an offshoot of another group, the American Institute for Full Employment (an outfit advocating reform of welfare that was funded initially by a multimillionaire in Klamath Falls, Oregon, who made his fortune in doors, windows, and millwork).”

As the thoughtful Michael Tomasky mentions there is a process of organising people’s raw emotions for the purpose of corporations’ goals. Vested interest money sets up an organisation, some symbol, with a benign sounding name (something cliche like the ‘liberty group’, for instance) which seeks to channel and manhandle the emotions of large groups of people.  For closer details on the formation of the Tea Part Movement read Tomasky’s piece which I recommend http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23150.

Yet what does the Tea Party mean? It means rational, consensus seeking discussion can be undermined and fail. That shouting can defeat good faith negotiations. Furthermore that such disproportionate methods can pass for legitimacy and receive endorsement at a distance, but clear endorsement, from mainstream American political forces like GOP politicians. Although, there is no guarantees at all that the GOP can subsume the Tea Party movement. In fact, by trying to incorporate these extreme elements and by trying to bring them into the tent of the GOP the party could falter and fragment. Conventional politics does not stand well with the Tea Party movement.

Who are the Tea Party participants? At a meeting for the wealthier clients “99.5%” of the people were white, and in general they are white and old and from the south (link 1). Red states, same old really. They are also simplistic Christians who are pro-life. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, they are agitated and fearful. Unsure about the future and contemplating rasher and rasher action. Also there is an obsession with authenticity and ‘the real’ which permeates the movement, similar to Christian movements who emphasise ‘the fallen’ part of biblical dogma.

The American political system is defective, it takes the movement of heaven and earth to pass any legislation with the obstructionist opposition. The Tea Party movement are an unknown, in that it is unknown if they will in fact organise sufficiently to do serious damage to society. Yet it is known they are the most likely source of destruction and tragedy. It remains to be seen how postmodern movements can effect politics. It is quite possible they are strictly ineffectual and are nothing more than catharsis. Yet it just takes one crazy spinoff to do serious damage, like a JFK assassination. Time will tell how dark the darkness is over America.

Guilt, Suspicion, Self-Censorship and Other Contemporary Joys

What a Strange thing is guilt! It can only come about because of others (who provides the context for norms & morality, think of Sartre’s look same deal) yet we are the figurative legislator of our own guilt; we ultimately cast it upon ourselves. Flexing our superego muscles is a contemporary pleasure, which we know from Freud we can relentlessly exercise. Few understand that the superego is a hellish taskmaster who demands infinitely from us, like the id. Hence we should remember to not overwork morality and remember to let other people actually judge us!! and not infinitely make the judgements we believe they may make. Needless anxiety and unreasonable norms, which often scapegoat minorities, arise. Another needless note, I think guilt and empathy are very closely related, maybe two sides of the same coin.

This contemporary age has unique features to it. Yet, the past age of the late 20th century must be understood to fathom our age. I’m unsure where I stand with the term ‘postmodernity’ though I believe it is important to emphasise this period’s outgrowth of the last period in contrast to modernity’s relative breaking from it’s prior period.

Besides guilt there is suspicion, which viewers of American news and media know is pervasive.  David Foster Wallace, the super genius who tapped onto so many contemporary concerns about society, examined conservative radio and found illustrations about suspicions of the other having bad faith in the discussion (then by extension the others are grouped and the fallacy of poisoning the well occurs ): ‘the underlying premise of the John Ziegler Show is that, thanks to its socialistic leanings, incompetant media, eroding moral foundation, aging demographics, and undereducated masses, the United States, as we know it, is doomed’. Suspicion of terms, rather than reasoning which pieces together why something is no good, effected the US when John Kerry lost votes for seeming ‘French’ and Obama lost support for health care because it seemed ‘socialist’ or ‘European’. Michael Moore had the right idea that the negatively juxtaposed terms must be defused, whilst with the other hand I believe stupidly obvious positives must be simplistically hammered home. It is extremely difficult to time and work these two, fighting miseducation and with haste educating, spelling out the fundamental truths.

The very coinage of the phrases ‘liberal media bias’ and ‘liberal bias’ illustrate that suspecting all newspapers and academics are hoodwinking and taking advantage of people is normalised and that there is a presumption of illegitimacy to facts purported by once trustworthy institutions. This is another instance of Aristotle; taking a virtue too far, out of it’s range of moderation, and turning it into a vice (Nicomachean EthicsBook 2), in this case suspicion (or historicising or in largest form contextualising). The masters of suspicion Nietzsche, Freud, Marx taught us well that certain institutions often have certain agendas. Yet this does not mean we should dismiss them as supplemental or superfluous as the right wing does after they suspect, but it means we should know how to reasonably show they do not put forward a good argument and there are better arguments out there.

Self-censorship is often the outcome of one habitually moralising and guilt-tripping oneself. When a person sets out rigid, non-negotiable norms so they will not act in a certain way they are self-censoring and this, I agree with Tony Judt, is far more common and far more concerning then censorship by external forces, as the latter are readily exposed but the former are hard to pin down. Simply, or to use the appropriate adjective for it’s being enacted difficultly we need to be open-minded. The mind can open so far and its often the case, like the movie Look Whos Coming to Dinner, where we believe we are open but we have real moral blackspots which hurt people. Moral progress collapsed exhausted by the start of the 90s, fatigued from decades of exertion. We need to tire and even hurt our minds and hearts and realise that women still are paid significantly less than men (around 15-20% less for exactly the same work in Australia and Europe), that LGBT communities of the world are shunned with no significant progress foreseeable,  that Muslims are misunderstood and presumed to be morally suspect even after a decade of post 9/11 where we should of been trying to understand them, immigrants are now getting it bad, Arabs and Palestinians are treated poorly, and even youth are not appropriately understood yet. There are many issues people must fathom, all these humans are not completely wrong or misguided for being what they are (the usual reasoning for trying to ‘correct’ or ‘fix’ certain peoples). The details surrounding them all are complicated, yet people must start trying to understand them sufficiently so these groups do not receive cruelty. A superfluous note, I remember my lessons from Nietzsche that a small amount of cruelty/discomfort is necessary and constructive, yet that amount is too small hence the matter too nuanced to be brought up commonly. Hence it will be not brought up.

Why is there GSSC? I believe it is, of course, because of history. In this period of information society, post-industrial capitalism & giant, pervasive media there is much to be suspicious (or better term, critical) of & there are many vested interests (just realise there are so many businesses today, and the future will only have more and more and more…). An underlying theme, we don’t like feeling stupid so we minimize the universe of information and downplay the information society, we know advertising is never as good as it seems (e.g. there cannot be so many banks with “the lowest rate”) and the performativity of media means we will learn to ignore and be dismissive of messages as they inundate our lives (I myself lost sympathy at an early age for child sponsorship commercials; the additional guilt I couldn’t bear in my youth). The underlying theme: we don’t want to be duped. We don’t want to be deceived, fooled. We don’t want to be on the outside, so consequently and without conscious recognition we condemn many people to the margins. The fact that we repress and fight to acknowledge this is, I believe, the worst part of this situation of tragedy. We can but follow Kant, to do our best and intend for ethical perfection. Try for the best, exercise your reason and try to fathom what is just. We will fail, and fail often, but we must continue and try to imagine futures where less people are suffering and are oppressed. Absolutes and easy answers are illusions, we must not try to imagine futures where we can offload our infinite ethical call to arms, our promises to humanity, the eternal other. We need not always feel guilty as they are Levinasian promises we hold, they are fragile and contingent promises. Yet they are of immense importance as we are talking about the wellbeing of humanity, there is no logical propositional expression of its worth so we need just accept the hyperbolic expression that our ethical commitment to others are infinitely large and we must never shrink into simple individualism.

So in sum we must be loving and open, open to others to validate our moral norms (and not feel guilty all too readily), not simply dismiss an argument but disprove it and put forward a better one (or just leave a question mark and a “needs more work” sticker, instead of taking a non-constructive route) and must make sure we can actually make moral progress, that self-censorship hasn’t structured our living in a way where superior futures with less suffering cannot be imagined. It is a messed up, nuanced period with strange problems, yet I believe they can be worked through.

Darkness Rising (Part 1)

Historian Mark Mazower titled a book Dark Continent which details the history of 20th century Europe emphasising the precariousness of liberal democracy and the unsettling history of humankind’s vile motives often overtaking more conscientious motives. Shadows are starting to emerge on Europe once more, with rumblings upon other Western countries such as the United States and Australia. What shall be tested is the mettle of the common person, with history on the line.

The oldest challenge human groups and human individuals have to deal with is the other, minorities. In this case at this point in history its Muslims. The folly of Switzerland and France, actually holding a referendum on Mosque ornamentation with minarets, and seeking to ban burkas is ludicrous and dangerous. It is ludicrous as only 4 minarets exist in Switzerland and less than 2000 women wear burkas in France by government estimates (link 1 2). This is clearly unnecessary and is negative in two regards. Firstly is will be correctly perceived as an attack upon being a Muslim and will isolate Muslim communities across Europe instead of letting them build ties with the local communities and also moderate and adjust beliefs which they may of obtained from their homelands. Second it is a movement towards undermining human rights and individual rights. There is absolutely no right for a government to dictate minorities and individuals over non-ethical matters. In situations where there is specific violence being done by specific minorities than they may receive actions from the government. Otherwise it is the tyranny of the majority. That is, individual lives being trampled as majorities demand homogeneity. What is concerning is that people seem to be presuming that the majority of a society can and should do what it wants, which could be symptomatic of right-wing mentality and/or propensity for right-wing adherence. As Tocqueville eloquently and perfectly said:

“I Hold it to be an impious and detestable maxim, that, politically speaking, the people have a right to do anything; and yet I have asserted that all authority originates in the will of the majority. Am I, then, in contradiction with myself?

A General law, which bears the name of justice, has been made and sanctioned, not only by a majority of this or that people, but by a majority of mankind. The rights of every people are therefore confined within the limits of what is just. A nation may be considered as a jury which is empowered to represent society at large, and to apply justice, which is its law. Ought such a jury, which represents society, to have more power than the society itself, whose laws it execures?

When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind. Some have not feared to assert that a people can never outstep the boundaries of justice and reason in those affairs which are peculiarly its own; and that consequently full power may be given to the majority by which they are represented. But this is the language of a slave.

A majority taken collectively is only an individual, whose opinions, and frequently whose interests, are opposed to those of another individual, who is styled a minority. If it be admitted that a man possessing absolute power may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should not a majority be liable to the same reproach?”

(link 1)

Anti-immigration is the main simplistic evil which the right-wing parties sell and many people immorally buy. The irony being their equal commitment is to as free and lax markets as possible which cannot be sustained with an aging populations. Therefore, there are four choices; increase productivity per worker, increase labour force participation at older ages, increase birth rates and increase immigration (nearly always the most relied on answer) (Markus, Jupp and McDonald 2009). Demonising a division of migrants enables right-wing parties to have their cake (i.e. provide a sense of maintaining borders) and eat it too (i.e. sustained economic growth).

Regarding immigration in general The Australian Government’s Intergenerational Report, for instance, showed a strong positive fiscal contribution from immigration. Furthermore, research illustrates that G7 countries which restrict immigration will have static Real Gross Domestic Product over the next 50 years whereas countries with freer movement laws will have double RGDP over 50 years (Markus, Jupp and McDonald 2009). Many pieces of the pie to go around. Finally low skill immigrants are also of value as they perform unattractive jobs and don’t have the resources to pursue higher jobs. Even in the painfully simple Islam fear mongering work Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West it is conceded:

“Italy has lately received more than half a million immigrants a year from Africa and the Middle East, mostly to work in its farms, shops, and restaurants. The market price of certain kinds of Italian produce, so Italian farmers say, is in danger of falling below the cost of bringing it to market. Under conditions of globalization, Italy’s real comparative advantage may lie elsewhere than in agriculture, in some high-tech economic model that is remunerative but not particularly “Italian”…

Traditional ways of working the land may be viable only if there are immigrants there to work it. You can make similar arguments about traditional Italian restaurants, which in the present economy may be able to hold their own against soulless chains only with the help of low-paid immigrant labor. Ditto the country’s lovely public parks, which have traditionally required dozens of gardeners, a level of manpower that the country’s shrinking population cannot supply, except at a high price…”

The Netherlands’ Party for Freedom with it’s leader Geert Wilders have recently gained a lead in the polls, with a general election in June. The party seeks to stop immigration from Muslim countries and makes explicit comparisons between Nazis and Muslims, like comparing the Qur’an to Mein Kampf. (link 1). In Austria the Nazi sympathetic, anti-immigration Freedom Party won 27% of the general election vote in 1999. The Switzerland Swiss People’s Party gainned 22.5% of the 1999 vote.

The concern is that if rich, well educated countries can have populations which sway towards such poor politics what is stopping the rest? We are seeing grassroots insidiousness in the UK with the ‘English Defence League’, a growing number of volatile mob-like nationalists who roam the streets, often in balaclava in protest to Muslim headwear, looking to gang up on migrants (link 1). In Italy there are currently many mobs who patrol for migrants to hurt and terrify, which is supported by the Berlusconi coalition combining with the anti-immigrant Northern League and the “post-Fascist” Alleanza Nazionale (link 1).

The left-wing parties in Europe also are rather disenfranchised as centre right parties, like Angela Merkel’s government in Germany,  provide worker protections and have a significant welfare state including a mix of unemployment benefits, health, education and transport (link 1). This unto itself is a positive phenomenon. Yet its where the future elected parties might be positioned on the political scale which is troublesome as shuffling a little to one side, for instance further right, becomes easier.

With the trajectory of global recession, which causes societies to curl up into their shells (or borders), continuous scapegoating of Islam and Muslims (which Christians and the Vatican also try to score points and converts off instead of promoting harmony) and political alternatives not representing themselves well far right parties could coax the worst out of people. Europe may be reaching a moral twilight which could lead to terrible politics and knock it’s progress back decades. The dark continent, and maybe more of the world, could show unabashed evil like the Iraq war or worse hence strong vigilance is needed to persuade and reason people back into light of freedom, equality, justice.

References

Markus, A., Jupp, J., and McDonald, P.  (2009). Australia’s Immigration Revolution. Allen & Unwin.