Democratic Rock or Republican Whirlpool? Part VI
Political Language, Two Confessions, and an Old Poem
Greetings, Citizens.
For some time now, I’ve been trying to organize, and express in some legible fashion, my thinking on the U.S. Presidential election. Stress on my thinking, admittedly idiosyncratic (idiotic?). Here’s what has gotten done so far:
Democratic Rock or Republican Whirlpool? Part I A Decision as Mosaic
Democratic Rock or Republican Whirlpool? Part II Why is this election so hard to think, and why does it matter for a diverse polity?
Democratic Rock or Republican Whirlpool? Part III Does Political Speech Matter? The Problem of Demographics
Democratic Rock or Republican Whirlpool? Part IV Critique of Pure Liberalism: Raising Babies; Choosing Kings I; How Serious is Philosophy?
Democratic Rock or Republican Whirlpool? Part V Crises of Representation: Accounting; Poetic Bullshit & Graphic Silences
Writing often starts out as something you want to do, and somewhat impertinently turns into something that does you. This little decision as a mosaic of essays (not sure what to call it) has gradually started making demands. After all, some things need to be said for the sake of the text, like the rungs on a ladder. You can’t just leave things out because you’re bored or lazy or your thinking has moved on, even though lots of things are always left out, which makes no sense but there we are.
It has been a while since the last Rock or Whirlpool? because I found it hard to write this Part VI. My intention was to provide a longish and somewhat historical account of the changes in the meaning of our political vocabulary, notably “left” and “right.” But also, words like “progressive” and “democracy” and “representative” and . . . It all seemed like so much work, and other folks have done much of it. What was I adding? And I am obligated in other ways, waiting – why am I writing a book while waiting on two others? – feeling weak, and then the muse said she had to make a call, and would be right back. Right. Therefore, this rather abstract discussion will have to suffice. Get your history elsewhere.
For obvious example of our confused language, at one point “left” meant “let’s use the new government to take over everything and kill the king and the nobles,” and “right” meant, well, lets not be hasty, not a good idea to kill off the king and half the nobility, maybe not try to control everything. Left was big government, totalitarian even, or became so . . . of course “right” governments became totalitarian, too, just differently, maybe not so differently . . . Later on, “left” came to be identified with opposition to something called “capital,” which had very specific if untenable definitions. (As a slight detour, Toronto philosophy professor
has two gin clear bits of intellectual history: Key Stages in the Decline of Academic Marxism; John Rawls and the death of Western Marxism.) But then capital came to be seen as an intellectual and social matter, and people who certainly called themselves “left” sought, with some success, to monopolize it. And left, which had meant all sorts of obediance, came to mean “free to be you and me.” Meanwhile, people who thought of themselves as “right,” the party of tradition, sought to undue all sorts of laws and other fairly settled arrangements, often in the name of efficiency (see, e.g., Thatcher, Chicago School antitrust, usw.), thereby sweeping away all sorts of stuff, like medium sized cities, family farms, etc. Perhaps progressive, but certainly not traditionalist. It goes on like this.In a noble effort,
, The Rise of the Right Wing Progressives, attempted to make it all make sense, to create a political typology for the present. In it, he argued that the “real” difference between left and right is a commitment to equality as opposed to order (tradition, hierarchy). That is, left and right are moral, or at least rhetorical, stances. That’s not bad, as far is it goes, but the schema works only barely, in a dimly lit room. For starters, the left has become “meritocratic,” all about hierarchy and rules, and much of the right “populist.” The cultural switch of the Democratic and Republican Parties has been widely noted; I need not belabor the point.But what to make of all this? Well, again, one response is to give up all this rationalization. Who said politics was about ideas, much less consistent ones? Rationalist philosophy is not all that serious, or conversely, that politics is not Enlightened, whatever we might have thought since the American and French Revolutions. “The Left” is unprincipled and so is “the Right,” if by “principled,” we mean the kind of argument that Rawls did so influentially (at the cost of abstracting away politics altogether, see Heath, above, or raucously, German philosopher L P Koch
, WTF is an "accident of birth?". See also Democratic Rock or Republican Whirlpool Part IV.Inconsistent does not mean incoherent. As a matter of social life and politics in the ordinary partisan sense, when somebody from the German press worries about “right wing extremism and the AfD, we know exactly what they are talking about, at least superficially. If somebody in the United States declares themselves “progressive,” we may reasonably assume their position (note the currently correct use of “their”) on a host of issues. “Progressive” (in US political discourse ca 2024) implies ______________.
Which is to say that our use of abstract sounding political language is situated, not actually abstract at all. Usage in this or that historical juncture gives a container its contents, links signifier to some signified. As time goes on, however, the contents may change, signifiers may be traded out, linked to other things, whatever. Consider, for obvious example, the names for people currently called “Black.” As of this writing, the word is capitalized as a proper noun, denoting a people forged in a specific history, U.S. slavery and its consequences. Or, sometimes, people with dark skin in the United States, including Harris, an understanding that seems racist, a point that Trump awkwardly tried to make, which was of course ignored by the Left/Dems/Progressives/Media, because Trump tried to make it.
Saying that “we know what we are talking about” when we use political language evidently works for social journalism and party politics, at least our unimpressive versions, but is hardly satisfying. What does “progressive” actually say about human flourishing? Does this collection of policies constitute the way we want our polity to develop? Why? Under what understanding of flourishing? What understanding of history? In fact, at a deep level, we have almost no idea what we are talking about.
But politics, our lives together in time, do not somehow go away because we don’t really know what we are talking about in any deep sense. We cannot just subside. Here my sort is obliged to say “late Wittgenstein.” It’s a superstition; pay it no mind. What is important is that we must somehow use our ill-thought language to come to some sort of agreement on what is to be done. So, in spite of ourselves, we often suppose some, of course idealized, notion of representative democracy, a diverse polity that reaches decisions (leaders, and policies) through relatively rational and generous discourse, resolved by fair and agreed upon procedures. And from this platform, criticism and argument is launched. If this is the standard by which politics is to be judged, then what is to be said about U.S. politics as actually experienced today?
At this juncture, an easy cynicism is all too tempting. So, for example, one might think in terms of demographics, or perhaps oligarchy, and there would be obvious reasons to do so. The argument is easy to make, insofar as couched negatively. “You think we have a democracy? You are so naïve. What’s really going on is . . .” “You think we need a president? Look at the Biden administration. Staff runs everything.” That sort of thing.
As I’ve already suggested, however, few people are willing to take such positions to their logical conclusions. Few people would argue, for example, that since we have an oligarchy, only people with substantial assets should be allowed to vote. We didn’t mean oligarchy, we . . . Well, what do we mean? It’s not that “oligarchy,” or the “deep state,” or the “empire” or any number of other words used critically in our political discourse are altogether wrong. It is that politics, especially politics of large scale, relies on abstractions, the naming of large-scale social phenomena. This is not a solvable problem. Consider “democracy,” “law,” “justice,” or “market.” The fact that philosophy does not stop means that politics does not stop either.
Rationalistic language, then, becomes a rhetoric, a way of speaking. Speech usually has a logic, but political speech is mostly about expressing the position of the speaker, a speaker who presumably aspires to rationality, or believes membership requires at least a semblance of autonomous thought. As N.S. Lyon’s text, above, suggested: it is not that the left is about equality, or the right about tradition, it is that those on the left believe speaking politically requires invoking the authority of the shared value of equality. Those on the right genuflect in similar ways to tradition, order, the nation, etc.
I suppose this must be considered an advance. Wanting to appear thoughtful might lead to thought. Or it might smother it. The question is hard. But surely a shallow rationality, republican manners, is preferable to politics organized merely by demographics, by traditional enmities, the potential for violent loyalties? Citations omitted.
If our arguments are to be understood primarily as efforts to be partisans of one sort or another, to demonstrate our loyalties, however, then what informs our choice of side, team, party? Surely, much of the time, our choice is made by for us by demographics. Of course I support __________, because [List of Reasons] i.e., I am [kind of person, and we all think like this]. A neighbor has a sign that reads “Harris/Walz. Obviously.” Is it? But sometimes, in party politics or in war, loyalty is not foregone, either side may be conceivable, even tempting, whatever one might have done in the past.
By way of illustration, two small confessions. I realized, within the past few months, that most of my political favor, and hence argument, during the Trump era, was subconsciously founded upon two notably undemocratic sentiments: (i) class consciousness, even snobbishness, and (ii) resentment.
Snobbishness. Although Trump has been around for years, not all that long ago I realized that my objections to Trump was not really grounded in any particular policy. I could of course criticize the policies he espoused, and for that matter, make arguments for the same policies. That’s what lawyers do; I am a law professor. Nor do I believe that the talking points we hear on the campaign trail have more than a notional relationship to governance, policy as realized by the machinery of government.
What I was really responding to was Trump’s sheer crudity, sheer lack of manners. A President does not talk openly about killing people, about genitalia, about being the greatest this and that. I simply don’t want to be represented by a man like this . . . We used to have a phrase, “presidential timber.” Did the candidate look “Presidential?” Which was a republican way of saying we are choosing a king, or perhaps a queen, is the candidate’s bearing noble, even royal? It’s not, at bottom, a democratic sentiment. There is something embarrassing about Trump (and Harris) here. This is the best we can do? This is the caliber of our leaders?
Resentment. And yet, when I read a poll, or an analysis, I often find myself nodding in agreement with the argument that the Dems, or the NYT, or the academy, is insensitive, prejudiced, sometimes downright cruel, and often just stupid. More notably, I often find myself happy to see Trump’s advances in the polls. I, like many people in the US (Germany, France, usw.) am sick of it, even if I’m not completely sure what “it” is, and have my doubts that (Trump [the AfD, Le Pen, usw.] have any idea how to improve matters.
But, to borrow an old lefty slogan, I just want to stick it to the man. Now, of course, it’s HR, which is embodied as a female, which is of course a choice. What could meritocracy lead to but contempt? And what could contempt lead to but resentment? Let me conclude with a poem I wrote when I was a young lawyer, long before Trump entered politics.
Play in the Works
We repeat tales of merit and true worth
like “you can’t keep a good man down”
steeling ourselves, to look at injustice
to hide our fear of being thrown away.
But meritocracies need their injustices
If we really believed that the system
perfectly matched each of us to our station
we could not abide those on rungs above
and we in turn would condemn the poor.
A negative election indeed. More, and I hope more positive, to come.
-- David A. Westbrook