political philosophy
Posted at 11:14am on May 21, 2008 Maximos the philosopher.
By Paul J Cella
My colleague over at What’s Wrong with the World, Maximos, an old friend of Redstate to boot, is capable of some remarkable passage of philosophical synthesis. No doubt his prose style makes demands of the reader that bloggers are not accustomed to. Nevertheless, I know of few writers who can so ably render the dilemmas and disasters of modernity in politics. Herewith a sample, with some annotation by me:
In this, contemporary conservatives, right-liberals[*] almost to a man, disclose their philosophy as a mere modulation of the dominant political frameworks of modernity; we are creatures of affects and drives, desires, forces of attraction and repulsion, and political society is a contractual artifact engineered to facilitate, for the individual, the maximal potential satisfaction of appetites compatible with the MPSoA of all other individuals in the simulacrum of society[**]. The specific good of the political is the facilitation, and protection, of a regime of preference-satisfaction; the political is instrumental towards the acquisition of the objects of desire, and towards their security from the vicissitudes of history, the malice of our fellows, and, increasingly, the judgments rendered, from within the older teleological traditions[***], against the essentially disordered foundations of the age. In this respect, both left and right are modulations of a common theme, the left valorizing progressive lifestyle experimentation on the basis of sentimental identitarianism ("I have experienced repeated, persistent feelings of attraction to members of the same sex, and therefore, I am gay."), the right analogously valorizing a consumerist acquisitiveness ("I wish to enjoy all of the trappings of material abundance, as I define them, and no impediment should be placed across my path, no ethical crosswind should divert my trajectory."); both essentially want what they want when, how, and in the quantities they want it [****], and it is not the underlying disposition that distinguishes them, but only their objects, and the political doctrines expressive of the respective desire-object pairings.
Posted in Archived | political philosophy — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 9:05pm on Apr. 3, 2008 How to argue against Socialism.
By Paul J Cella
Someone once wrote to ask a question jarring in its directness: How should we argue against Socialism? It is commonly supposed, of course, that the question of Socialism is a somewhat antique one. We’re past all that, you know; it’s so Eighties. But then one reads or hears something striking enough in its implications, that one is reminded that the issue is very far from settled. It is quite pressing — a menace, even, though it wears new disguises. So perhaps the reader will forgive me my presumption as I endeavor to advise my correspondent on the question of how to argue against Socialism.
Posted in Liberals | political philosophy | rhetoric | Socialism — Comments (14)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 10:02am on Mar. 5, 2008 Hillary's big wins could mean one thing for Michigan... an end to democracy and the rule of law
By RightMichigan.com
Cross-posted on Right Michigan at www.RightMichigan.com.
The cable news networks were abuzz last night as Hillary Clinton swept the big primary contests in Ohio and Texas. (Looks like maybe a little bit of the Comeback Kid's magic has finally rubbed off on his wife, though it may still be too little too late.) That has renewed interest and discussion here at home and across the nation about the possibility of a voided election and a new set of ballots being printed here in Michigan. Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, the press is entirely focused on the horse race and is ignoring, completely, the larger questions raised by such a potential move. Larger questions that go to the very core of democracy and the rule of law. The sort of questions on which graduate students write thesis papers and dissertations.
Posted in Barack Obama | Breaking News | democracy | Hillary Clinton | Michigan | political philosophy | rule of law — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Read More »
