Well, if anyone cared enough to read the whole of last post about Why I Am Not A (capital-P) "Progressive," the first thing I have to say is.... Why? Why would some one guy's "positions" be of the remotest interest? Sure, if you know me IRL, as the kids (used to) say, perhaps this kind of matters (and those are the ones I initially drafted this for, before I started getting all writer-y with it); but what could possibly be the fascination otherwise?
Here's one guess (though even here, "fascination" will be a strong word). Maybe you, too, are "not a Progressive" -- but, too, are not put off by my obvious hedging. If so, you too might also be "not a Conservative," and want to think a bit about how these things, or not-things, fit together. I will be of almost no assistance on the theoretical level, but maybe just enumerating examples will help -- ways in which positions don't match up with either "side" of this shadow-boxing match. We can extrapolate from the examples later, maybe.
I'm leaving completely out of account for the moment the "immediate context" of American politics -- our national case of the DTs. Going after the low-hanging fruit of the latest presidential tweet is impoverishing what was left of the smart liberal free press; we don't need more of that. That the current White House is a new low -- which is saying quite a lot -- is a point that I think needs no demonstration. That it has mouthed a number of points that were popular on the left within waking memory (especially in anti-globalist quarters) is less frequently mentioned, but I don't think this demonstrates anything beyond the administration's semi-incoherence and the way much of the left is a weathervane. In any case, I have been known to show up at demonstrations, sign petitions, and even strategically vote for Democrats lately -- all purely tactical decisions, which may be correct or mistaken or meaningless; but for the purposes of this post, I'm leaving the Narcissist-in-Chief off to one side. I hope he will soon be relegated there for everybody. (If and when that happens, we will see more clearly how much of a distraction from the real issues DT has been -- and how important this distraction will turn out to have been.) If the best the Left had to offer was "We're not D.T.," we would be in deep, deep trouble. Of course, we are in deep trouble anyway, but....
This is (a little) more brief than the last post, partly because that was a low bar, and partly because my critiques of the Left are internal critiques; these are made from without. I was raised in a conservative household in a conservative state (Utah), so I cannot take seriously the demonization of ordinary-folks conservatism (even the much-maligned "DT Supporter", though I was so proud of my home state for the lost-cause candidacy of Evan McMullin), and I still have a fondness for red-white-&-blue bunting, and small towns with lots of front porches; but I left the Republican Party behind even longer ago than I left the Democrats. If anything, I am more "small-c conservative" (not "further right") than most of the GOP; but I'm definitely "further left" (not "more liberal") than nearly every Democrat I know.
OK, then. If I'm not a Progressive, why not, the other thing, whatever that is? (Again, even more than last post, these positions here are not presented as full-blown arguments. They are, at most, indices. Or maybe symptoms. Note, too, the frequent recurrence of variations on the phrase "....but that is a different issue.")
1. I am an artist -- mostly a musician, but I do graphic art and, if you haven't noticed, a lot of writing too -- and sometimes art offends the shit out of people, with bad taste, irreverence, whatever. Oh well. I'm not saying the artist shouldn't care about codes, mores, standards, consequences, norms, canons, and so on; nor that being offended is somehow morally salutary or snaps a person out of their little cozy close-mindedness. I too have been turned off, offended, and repulsed by someone's "art." I'm just saying I would prefer that the law should pretty much stay the Hell out of this.
2. I have yet to see an account of social conflict that has persuaded me that the lion's share doesn't come down to class. (The closest has been Stan Goff, who argues that gender is even more basic, and sometimes he almost tips me over to his side.) This all by itself makes me a Marxist, in some senses. Though of course, aristocrats also know it comes down to class.
3. Speaking of Marx: Late-capitalist economics is clearly a pyramid scheme. I believe that human beings are free, and therefore we can decide to behave better; that we are not fated to be determined by the "laws" of the market. (This doesn't mean I think markets cannot be treated as an object of a kind of science).
4. I am a localist; I believe in community -- its value, its indispensibility, for the good life. You might think this makes me a likely conservative -- and in small-c terms, this is close enough to true; but by the same token, I am therefore in a certain sense not an "individualist," in the sense of the individual posited (or constructed) by Lockeanism, and thus the whole modern small-"l" liberal idea of modern society or can-do, go-it-alone pull-yrself-up-by-yr-bootstraps nonsense which underlies a certain sort of conservative critique of social safety nets. (I am not sure I want my safety nets to be administered by the state, but that's a separate question.)
5. I am deeply suspicious of profit motives, and the venality of power. As far as I am concerned, beyond a certain threshold, The Bigger, The Worse.
6. I am persuaded by the critiques that show how comfort here is too often underwritten by misery elsewhere; and I think that we are under spiritual obligation to change this. How we live with (engaging or evading) this responsibility isn't simple, but there is a difference between engagement and evasion.
7. Despite my remarks about Identity Politics, I am deeply sympathetic to critiques of racism on large scales and small, and I am disgusted by it whether it is overt or covert. I am likewise moved by complaints of women who have to deal with guys being jerks, and systemic arrangements that enable and abet this. And likewise by the obvious ick-recoil that gays and lesbians had to deal with in my youth. I supported marriage equality in civil terms because I believe (on more or less libertarian grounds) that mutually-consenting people can do what they want with each other. (Should they? is another question, but it isn't one that I want decided by legislation.) This is not the same as endorsing religious marriages as a sacrament for same-sex couples; if you believe in sacraments at all, you have a whole different set of considerations to include in such a query. (I.e., that's another other question.)
I do not idolize "Diversity" for its own sake, nor Equality either, but in my encounters with other people individually and other groups, I genuinely try to lead with my curiosity and openness and not with defensiveness. There is a place for defense; it's not up in front. In short, while I may have all sorts of criticisms about specific behaviors of minorities and marginalized groups, about the tactics of activism within / on behalf of those groups, and indeed about the theoretical ramifications of thinking in terms of "marginalized groups" as the go-to first and last theoretical stop -- reservations about all sorts of aspects of the typical Social Justice itinerary and its theoretical underpinnings -- I do want to ask myself hard questions, catch myself at residual prejudices, and cultivate empathy for people who have a different and difficult row to hoe. And those empathizing efforts make me want to cultivate kindness -- which is painfully lacking when you listen to the defensive postures (and derisive snorts) on the right (I'm thinking of what is known as "the comments section" here). (That the left, to be sure, has its own cruelty, I neither deny nor condone; and -- because I am arguably "on" the left and unarguably surrounded by it here in my coastal city -- I fear that cruelty more; but that is (as usual) a different question.)
I am quite sure that "kindness" sounds to others, at times, either like a laughably/woefully inadequate response, or just the wrong word entirely for how I articulate my stances. That's a different matter; but I take it seriously. The biggest example these days seems to be so-called gender-nonconformity. Is it really necessary to underscore that people no matter how they comport themselves (i.e., how they "present") should be treated with dignity? It is true that not agreeing -- however tentatively -- with someone can itself be construed (wrongly, I hold, of course) as an affront to their dignity; can, indeed, be (mis!)characterized as questioning their right to exist. That is, however, no reason to throw the game and just forget about kindness and respect. If my stance is not accepted as respectful, I may not be able to control this; but I'm certainly not going to act disrespectfully by my lights.
8. I loathe trolls. (Lowest-grade Dada. Ugh.) Trolling I define (leaving aside, for now, the problematic question of actual propagandists or agents provocateurs) as willfully provoking the emotions of another for no reason other than to provoke; what is known as "fucking with people." (There can be such provocation that does have other, or further, rationale, and here the line can blur, but it does not vanish.) The troll is akin to the bullshitter -- they do not care about the correctness of their position; being right, or persuading someone, is not the point. But while the bullshitter is invested in seeming as if they are saying "something", and producing an effect of confusion or a vague impression that the bullshitter has said Something Important, the troll is invested in getting a rise out of the other side. This makes trolling (and this is not news) very much like bullying, and it brings out an icy fire of cold wrath in me. My severest judgment is reserved for cruelty and humiliation. I know humiliation from the other side; and I also know the temptation to it.
I see far more trolling on the "right" than on the "left." (I am speaking, for the most part, of the common citizenry here -- again, of "the comments section," where the real depressing outline of hoi polloi comes out in stark relief. As the internet has changed the public square, the distinction between the peanut gallery and the stage has gotten blurry, however. There are now plenty of low- and mid-level "official" commentators and policy-makers who seem to me to flirt with trolling or at least with the sort of pseudo-trolling that comes from preaching to the choir -- and that serves to "legitimize" trolling proper when the choir is sent out into the comments-sections.) Since the troll qua troll does not care about the issue, it's an interesting question why one side of the binary attracts them more, and I think a prima facie case can be made for the argument that the Left, bleeding-heart that is is, makes itself an easy target. But n.b., since the troll doesn't care about the issue (the troll simply enjoys the spectacle of anti-racist righteous indignation; they are not making a principled case for the right to wear blackface), the troll can be accidentally associated with a an argument that has, in itself, some abstract plausibility. Conversely, certain moves in serious argument (or in serious art -- see (1) above) can look like trolling, because sometimes an emotional effect -- even offense -- can be part of a set of argumentative (or artistic) moves. They cannot be the point of the argument, however. (The case of art can be interestingly different, but -- though this is a longer argument -- even here offense as the primary end undermines the integrity of art qua art, I think.)
9. I don't have a scientific degree, but I value the (loosely so-called) scientific method, and I am a scientific optimist in the sense that I think science is good. Technology... well, we can have that conversation. And the one about how to tell the difference or separate them. Anyway, what this means is that I don't foreclose (though I may be dubious about) the possibility of real solutions coming out of research; and I don't believe in "forbidden questions." (This can also set me apart from the left, of course, depending on which question we're talking about.)
10. I am, as mentioned, ambivalent about the military. I'm just dispositionally not a hawk, and lots on the right are -- unless they are isolationist, which I'm not either.
11. I'm genuinely unsure what to do about the oncoming ecological ruin that we have wrought, but I'm absolutely sure that the rapaciousness of industry and capital own the lion's share of the blame for the damage we could have seen (and indeed did see) coming. There may be plenty more blame to go around as well, but in this at least, we could have used for the last century some actual conservatism -- with, you know, some real conservation in it. And yes, desperate times make for desperate measures, and at this point I'd be happy to give the EPA carte blanche within certain to-be-determined (but broad) parameters.
12. I started out my explanation of Not Being a Progressive with an account of how and why I value existing goods over possible but imaginary ones; and I mentioned there that this can make me look like an apologist for the status quo. I'm not. And far less am I merely in the grip of nostalgia. I am religious, yes; I am a "traditionalist", yes (tradition refers to something real); but I'm neither a triumphalist nor a fundamentalist, for the very good reason that they are not traditional (that "real" that tradition is about is not "literal", it is more than literal -- though if pressed, I will take the humble submission of "literal" over the arrogant subtlety of "you know, spiritual" any day). I love culture, but culture, like everything human -- like everything created -- is temporary and passing. I understand nostalgia, and I do not think it is either stupid or inevitably "reactionary;" but I understand that it is nostalgia. As Ivan Illich said when facing similar charges of crypto-conservativism, "I'm not endorsing the past. It's past; it's gone. Even less am I endorsing the present." One should be able to speak well of the past without being accused of "wanting to turn the clock back," or some such foolishness. I can name, and mourn, what is being lost, try to salvage what can be salvaged, or even "stand athwart history yelling 'Stop!'", without trying to use the force of the state (as if there was anything "conservative" about that) to enforce a delusion.
13. I am not eager for, but I do expect, the Revolution. Probably too late.
The proper attitude to take towards that, however, is another post.
No comments:
Post a Comment