comelately

Wild Horses
Despite all the accusations of postmodernism, 'relativism' and the like - Leo Strauss came before Derrida, and they're really not that different in many ways. It's just that the right hide their post-truth machinations in estoteria and nuance, whereas the left do frequently, it seems to me at least, appear to be more vulgar in their attempts to undercut objective notions of truth.
 
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Benny Bunter

Well-known member
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jun/27/circumcision-ruling-germany-muslim-jewish



They might have a quarter of a point if FGM wasn't already illegal in Germany, but it is, and has been for decades. People have been sent to jail for it, which is more than be said for the UK, AFAIK.



It's not just "someone" though, is it, it's people speaking on behalf of pressure groups. And it's a fairly widespread feminist position.


sorry but which part of that article supports your "there are feminists who insist, point blank, that any opposition to male circumcision is effectively an endorsement for FGM", thus proving that its a "fairly widespread feminist position"? You're being reductive.

When it comes to feminists criticising 'intactivists', its usually stuff like this they've got a problem with, which is why I mentioned MRAs.

http://www.theestablishment.co/2016...s-activists-hijacked-the-circumcision-debate/
 

comelately

Wild Horses
It's a fucking textbook example, what's wrong with you?

How strange, I thought you were ambivalent about it.

A morally relativistic point of view would be to say that if a rape was to take place in a culture where rape is not considered morally wrong, then it would be essentially incoherent for someone outside that culture to state that it was morally wrong. Or to put it formally;

a) There was a rape within 'Culture A'
b) rape is not considered to be morally wrong in 'Culture A'

ergo:
c) the rape was not morally wrong

That isn't what she was saying. She was stating, implicitly, that the cultural background of the perpetrator has *some bearing* in determining their precise level of culpability. I do understand that this may seem nuanced, but it at no point is making the claim that the culture of the perp cannot be said to be morally inferior; indeed, as you suggest yourself, the opposite position may easily be inferred from the suggestion that Swedish culture produces more fully free moral agents than Islamic cultures.

So not relativist, or hysterical, or irrational. You may disagree, but at some point the challenge is going be to actually provide some kind of objective foundation for your morals. Because noone else has managed it yet. Just saying.
 
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comelately

Wild Horses
sorry but which part of that article supports your "there are feminists who insist, point blank, that any opposition to male circumcision is effectively an endorsement for FGM", thus proving that its a "fairly widespread feminist position"? You're being reductive.

This. If you're going to say 'point blank', then you pretty much have to deliver the quote verbatim not find it vaguely implied by one person.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
It's not just "someone" though, is it, it's people speaking on behalf of pressure groups. And it's a fairly widespread feminist position.

I didn't know who it was, cos afai could see, you hadn't linked to any evidence at the point at which I wrote that. So, women's rights groups and social policy makers, it was, says the article.

So it's a widespread position among feminists think that "any opposition to male circumcision is effectively an endorsement for FGM"? I think you'll need to back that one up with some evidence. Edit: I see someone beat me to that punch

And the person who's actually quoted in that article you linked to isn't identified as a feminist, but rather as a social policy maker, who happens to be a woman. So, is this a widespread social policy maker position as well?

To be honest, at this point, you look like you're fishing around for things to be outraged by, in precisely the same manner as you're criticising others (the 'social media echo chamber' people etc) for doing. Which links back to the original speech from Lionel Shriver, cos that was her schtick -the awful infringements upon her liberty that don't even exist, as she's free to write what she damn well pleases, and does so, no matter how offensive others find it.

And in the process of hunting out these outrages, you and she are totally misrepresenting the power balance in the actual world, presenting people from groups that have historically been discriminated against (non-white people, women), and continue to be the subject of mass discrimination, as the 'true' aggressors to be held to account.
 
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comelately

Wild Horses
“The right exists in a perpetual state of victimhood” - Keith Olbermann. But bemoans 'weaponized victimhood' at every turn.

I mean how any white guy can read the more absurdist #radfem schtick and do anything but laugh is beyond me.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Yep, if you're going to weaponise victimhood, at least have the good grace to be a victim in the first place.

I'm glad that quote exists, it's very useful.
 

comelately

Wild Horses
@comelately - interesting point about the Lab-LibDem coalition that never happened. What do you envisage would have happened since then in that alternative universe, though?

Hard to say. Would it have split the Tory Party? Yeah, maybe - I think a lot of them would have joined either New Labour, the LibDems or UKIP. Some of them might have gone AnCap. Things would have remained very centrist, but I think there's every reason to believe that electoral reform would have left us in a much less scary place than the one we find ourselves in right now.
 

vimothy

yurp
The last fifty years have not been kind to the right, so their pitiful state is understandable, if not exactly aesthetically pleasing.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
sorry but which part of that article supports your "there are feminists who insist, point blank, that any opposition to male circumcision is effectively an endorsement for FGM", thus proving that its a "fairly widespread feminist position"? You're being reductive.

I've seen it voiced elsewhere. Oddly enough I don't keep a scrapbook of links of everything I've ever seen on the internet.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Leo Strauss can't really be conflated with Derrida. I know what you're saying, but it's a fundamental misunderstanding of their original positions in regard to Heidegger. And Srauss has absolutely no connection to the emergent alt-right. To be honest, in a number of ways, neither does the original Tea Party platform, far more political and legalistic than the current Trumpwagon, viz. Elizabeth Foley's 'The Tea Party' (CUP, 2010): limited government, US Sovereignty, Constitutional Originalism.
 

comelately

Wild Horses
Leo Strauss can't really be conflated with Derrida. I know what you're saying, but it's a fundamental misunderstanding of their original positions in regard to Heidegger. And Srauss has absolutely no connection to the emergent alt-right. To be honest, in a number of ways, neither does the original Tea Party platform, far more political and legalistic than the current Trumpwagon, viz. Elizabeth Foley's 'The Tea Party' (CUP, 2010): limited government, US Sovereignty, Constitutional Originalism.

I appreciate they have different positions on Heidegger ergo they are v
different philosophies in some respects. In simple terms, they both do make a break with enlightenment notions of truth (though Strauss breaks with it largely, perhaps, to culturally defend it). Rorty certainly cited Strauss as a major influence. Ultimately Strauss wrote esoterically so it's very easy to say 'I understand it in a higher level than you'.....maybe. Their jumping off point for both is largely Heidegger, their views on intention are clearly different and that's possibly an area where the right get something right. I may look at this tomorrow.

Agreed also on the alt-right, who are clearly distinct from neoconservatists to a large degree - though when neoconservatists espouse different truths for different people, I think one can be sceptical about their complete separation from the alt-right without going full tinfoil. Strauss is the ideology of the generals, what the footsoldiers believe is a different matter - this is potentially a simplification; I am not sure I want to know what really goes on in the mind of Ted Cruz, for example. But you get the general idea.
 
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vimothy

yurp
I think it's fair to associate the traditional right with moral relativism (to an extent - though it's generally more cultural particularism than the extreme moral relativism discussed here), but not the contemporary liberal right, - including the neocons - who strike me as committed universalists.
 

comelately

Wild Horses
Well I think neocons frequently like the idea of an universalist culture because reasons, rather than actually believing in universals. I was at school (not Eton, he was only there for 6th form in a choral scholarship) with Douglas Murray; he called his book 'Neoconservatism: why we need it's, not 'why it is true'. I remember seeing him in Hardtalk, and he quietly revealed himself to be a pluralist - but the role of neocon is a) fun for him, b) he's good at it, c) it pays, d) he thinks it is a necessary force because reasons.

There's no doubt that there has been a lot of people on the internet who thought they believed in the NAP. But that's falling apart; I had to explain to some YouTube ranter the other week that being in favour of death squads targeting peaceful anarcho-communusts isn't really compatible with the NAP. The 'social libertarian' movement of a few months ago came out of the realisation that ppl needed the co-op station of private companies to disseminate views on the internet (this has largely been folded into the alt-right, or the personality cults of Milo and Trump). These ppl might think they're universalists but it's a bit of a bad joke.

I would largely argue for particularism, along with Jonathan Dancy. But I appreciate the potential for cultural instability in such ideas. I guess this is why Isaiah Berlin wanted to be morally plurally and an universalist; not really sure that works though.

Tl;dr - they might identify as universalist, but I don't think their thought system is particularly universalist.
 
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vimothy

yurp
From the John Gray article - good summary of what the liberal mainstream (both left and right) get wrong:

Hayek’s belief that vital freedoms can be enshrined in law and thereby taken out of politics is ultimately delusive. But it is not an aberration peculiar to the brand of right-wing liberalism that he professed. An anti-political liberalism is the ruling illusion of the current generation of progressive thinkers. Philosophers such as John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin had views of justice very different from Hayek’s. Whereas Hayek rejected any redistribution of income beyond that required by a minimum level of subsistence, Rawls and Dworkin demanded different versions of egalitarianism. What all these thinkers had in common was the idea that reasonable people will converge on a shared conception of what justice requires. In this view, politics isn’t a rough-and-tumble in which rival interests and ideals contend with one another unceasingly, but a collective process of deliberation that leads to a common set of values. Some such vision seems to have possessed Ed Miliband, until he discovered that his ideal of equality was not widely held and the parliamentary road to predistribution was closed.
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
From the John Gray article - good summary of what the liberal mainstream (both left and right) get wrong:

Hayek’s belief that vital freedoms can be enshrined in law and thereby taken out of politics is ultimately delusive. But it is not an aberration peculiar to the brand of right-wing liberalism that he professed. An anti-political liberalism is the ruling illusion of the current generation of progressive thinkers. Philosophers such as John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin had views of justice very different from Hayek’s. Whereas Hayek rejected any redistribution of income beyond that required by a minimum level of subsistence, Rawls and Dworkin demanded different versions of egalitarianism. What all these thinkers had in common was the idea that reasonable people will converge on a shared conception of what justice requires. In this view, politics isn’t a rough-and-tumble in which rival interests and ideals contend with one another unceasingly, but a collective process of deliberation that leads to a common set of values. Some such vision seems to have possessed Ed Miliband, until he discovered that his ideal of equality was not widely held and the parliamentary road to predistribution was closed.


This reminds me of something I saw on twitter the other day talking about liberals: how its nuts that liberals talk positively about the "free marketplace of ideas" where people naturally gravitate towards the best ideas, but don't support actual free markets of real things - so they're arguing from an analogy that they don't actually support.

also this, "The paradox of the free market liberal": http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/opinion/sunday/the-paradox-of-the-free-market-liberal.html?_r=0
 

vimothy

yurp
I read it and didn't hate it. I don't think it makes much sense, though. On the one hand, racism is structural (therefore pervasive and impersonal); on the other hand, we're all personally responsible for it (if we are white). We can also become better people by being mindful of our whiteness (even though this has no effect on a structural level).
 

comelately

Wild Horses
This reminds me of something I saw on twitter the other day talking about liberals: how its nuts that liberals talk positively about the "free marketplace of ideas" where people naturally gravitate towards the best ideas, but don't support actual free markets of real things - so they're arguing from an analogy that they don't actually support.

Isn't that more or less a category mistake though? Analogies are to be used to support specific positions, they are not to be supported in themselves - or at least one doesn't have to support the use of an analogy in every situation, in order to support its use in some.

I think saying that "liberals talk positively about the "free marketplace of ideas"" is a a very broad-brush generalisation, and pretty close to a strawman.
 
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