Greatest Danger Redux
Can moderates write manifestos? It strikes me that so much of our discourse these days is nothing more than shrill extremists shrieking at each other while laying claim to vast majorities that really don’t belong to them. And I’m not just talking politics here. I see it everywhere… music, science, philosophy, religion, and, especially recently, in art; it’s all the same dialectic. But then I look around and it seems that if you put all the pieces together you can assemble a reasonable, if difficult to articulate, third way.
Without getting terribly preachy, I just have to get this thought off my chest: un-self-critical work in service of the dominant ideology, whether that ideology is supply side economics or abstract oil painting, is nothing more than propaganda. If you’re going to work in the dominant framework, you had better be aware of the power structure that props it up or you’re really nothing more than a shill and we know, deep down, that’s not where you want to be.
The flip side is, of course, the dominant structure is most likely not in place because it completely sucks. There must be (or have been) some value there or it would never have existed in the first place. I’m not saying you must rebel gently, but insurgents needn’t throw out the baby with the bath water; tyranny begins, after all, with the will of the people.
So today, just as I’m getting the urge to say “screw it all, other people have said this better” the good people at Lantana are kind enough to link to this. It’s not exactly Critical or even revelatory, but at least it mostly seems thoughtful. I particularly liked Hari Kunzru and Jeanette Winterson and not so much Matthew Collings. Note to Matthew: water is no less important to the individual because there is lots of it. (Better writers than him have made this same mistake, of course.)
Regardless, I’m going to have to grab a copy of the book.
*****
Also, from the I’m-not-just-some-pontificating-asshead department: I found while blog surfing today a nifty DIY project for anybody into photography. I wish I’d had one of these while shooting slides for Amber.
4 comments:
is it really fair to say that dominant structures are usually in place because there is something worthwhile in them? this seems to echo the argument that what is traditional is good BECAUSE it is traditional - but this argument of course could once have been used to defend slavery, feudalism, hereditary monarchy, colonialism, and the effective denial of personhood to married women. so it's not at all clear ot me that "dominant structures" necessarily have anything of value in them just because they have perservered. i understand you're not just talking about political and social structures here, but in that world at least, i think the assumption that lasting structures must have some good in them is actually fairly dangerous.
I think that equating “having value” with being “good” is a value judgment that I wouldn't be comfortable making even in the general since (nor would I for a moment defend any of the traditions you listed). Most of what I have been writing here recently is an attempt to scrutinize my on prejudices and presumptions about the things I encounter and your assistance in that process is appreciated. You are right in that I am not meaning to be political in the vernacular sense.
Perhaps my sin here is insufficient qualifiers, but this is the problem you always get into extrapolating from the particular onto the general if you’re not careful. My rhetoric-fu is not as strong as it once was, but I’m going to have a go at giving that third paragraph a better explanation while remaining in the general.
I cannot term any of the conditions you listed to be anything other than morally reprehensible, however to a class of people each had a value (i.e. - they served a purpose). Had it value to nobody, it would not have existed. Ergo, I should be able to extrapolate that an examination of why conditions existed in the first place that would make the morally reprehensible preferable to a group of people over a more defensible position would lead us to a more effective means of abolishing or reforming an unjust institution. I suppose that I even would posit evolution superior to revolution in that the latter must by nature create a new disaffected class.
My point was not to value the traditional beyond the realm of criticism because it is traditional, though I see where you are coming from in taking that from my post. I simply think that most of the issues I’m presented with for discussion or debate these days are framed in a polar dialectic which itself is valued only because of history or because it gives the framer some intellectually dishonest advantage to do so.
Regardless, I am gratified that you are reading, much less that you responded. Further, I am happy to continue playing Gorgias to your Plato, anonymous, if you are so inclined.
I appreciate your thoughtful response to my earlier comment; I've only just noticed it now. I think perhaps our concerns may be coming from different places. I can absolutely understand being frustrated, in any domain (political OR aesthetic) with schools of thought which appear to have no real content beyond absolute polar opposition to one another. The pendulum can sometimes swing too far in the opposite direction, with no thoughtful effort to preserve what is still compelling in whatever theory or practice is being displaced. My own concern, on the other hand, is that I think too many people tend to presume, with no real basis, that "moderation" must necessarily be better than any kind of "extremism" and I worry that this creates an uncritical dismissal of radical theories - again, whether political or aesthetic or social or whatever. These concerns don't necessarily have to cancel each other out, though.
That caveat aside.... I wouldn't necessarily disagree in the abstract about the superiority of "evolution" to "revolution" but I do think there is a problem. When an entrenched class benefits from an unjust institution, I'm just not sure if you can always rely on "evolution" to rectify the injustice. Am I therefore advocating the necessity of revolution? Well, I don't know, I suppose it depends on what we mean by "revolution" and that's a terribly complicated question....
Sorry for taking so long to reply; I’ve had a crazy couple of days.
I agree that these premises are not mutually exclusive, and I further think you are right in that we’re probably coming at two slightly different problems (though it sounds like we might ultimately reach a fair number of similar conclusions). I suppose that the thing for me is that I would have a hard time defining anything as moderation that dismisses a radical theory out of hand. That would itself seem to be a sort of Radical Moderate epistemology (simply defining itself in terms that make it only “not This or That”) rather than a rationally critical position that examines the best of the polar extremes and attempts to fashion a unified proposition.
That said, I’m not sure I’m ready to defend even rational moderation is always the best defacto position to take; Dante tells us that the darkest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality (and I’m not sure he was that far off). However, I think that a well articulated, self critical middle ground could often be a good place to start, given a defensible construct from which to work and a willingness to shift as reason warrants. In any event, the lack of the ability to perform rational self criticism, regardless of your starting position, is where ideology just becomes dogma, and that’s almost never good.
As to the definition of revolution, I was admittedly playing a little loose with the term. The rise of the New York School does not present the same sort of dilemma as the American slave trade prior to the 1880’s and they each require very different kinds of response. This is probably why the classic distinction between hermeneutic (“literary”) theory and social criticism (though both Adorno and Benjamin crossed those lines pretty regularly); both are rightly called “critical theory”, with current similarities and common roots, but grievous social injustices requires a normative response not necessarily required of a critique of color field painting. But, even in the case of social situations where violent revolution can be considered warranted, I wonder if stable resolutions aren’t still often the result of social evolution (i.e. – revolution as catalyst rather than cure). I’m not positing that as an absolute… more of a question worth exploring…
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