“Always a danger in relative morality” — Ya Think?
The more clever postmodernists grant that the result of their thinking is relative morality, but always dismiss that danger with the cheap toss off that everyone has “sympathies and prejudices”, but (a) the well-off are less honest in admitting to them, and (b) the sympathies and prejudices of the elite are not as moral or valuable as of those who are of color, female, and poor. Again, Justice Sotomayor:
There is always a danger embedded in relative morality, but since judging is a series of choices that we must make, that I am forced to make, I hope that I can make them by informing myself on the questions I must not avoid asking and continuously pondering.
The Postmodern Olympus
Sotomayor, however, is simply the most recent concrete manifestation of the reigning postmodern philosophy that is inherent in President Obama’s thinking. For Obama, there is really no bad or good, wrong or right, but simply perspectives — competing narratives, as it were.
In the Middle East we must understand where an Iran or Hamas is coming from, specifically the history of poverty and oppression that fuel their cries from the heart and sometime lead them to counterproductive and self-destructive outbursts. That Israel is a democratic pro-Western nation, subject to the rule of law, means not so much as it once did. Its truth is merely an alternative discourse to that of the Palestinian authority or the Hamas narrative — and one we unduly privilege by its proximity to our own.
Ends and Means
Exalted ends justify most means. That Obama is a radical egalitarian means that he really cannot eat $100 a pound beef, fly-in on a lark his own pizza-maker, or go out on a multi-thousand dollar evening in New York. Unlike Bush, who would do such a thing to rub elbows with New York’s capitalists, Obama would do so reluctantly, for his family, or to find needed relief so he can better help the people the morning after.
In postmodernism, facts as we know them mean little, given either that they are the domain of elites alone with the resources to pursue and master them, or, more fundamentally, are simply representations of knowledge used by the privileged for political purposes. That there are not 57 states, that the world did not save Berlin during the airlift, that Obama’s great-uncle did not help to liberate Auschwitz, that the United States is not one of the largest Muslim countries, again matter little. In each case, particular contexts and intentions — what we troglodytes might call mitigating circumstances — condition the “truth.”
That a Timothy Geithner did not pay taxes that he asks others to pay or that he must himself oversee, or the fact that a Tom Daschle insists on limousine service that he does not report as income, are simply minor distractions. Such public servants pursue a higher truth of helping the helpless, and cannot be sidetracked by constructed transgressions designed to thwart the proper cause of egalitarianism.
So without absolutes, moral equivalence triumphs. In Obama’s world, that most of the Arab world is authoritarian, plagued by gender apartheid, tribalism, religious intolerance and statism matter little. Instead, as the less powerful, their writs against us must be as valid and compelling as are ours against them.
There is no such thing as calibration, a misdemeanor of the overdog must always be equivalent to the felony of the underdog. Guantanamo is about the same as the gulags in Russia, China, or the Arab world and logically deserves as much of the world’s condemnation. In the mind of the postmodernist it matters not at all that a million Arabs live safely under the rule of law inside Israel while Jews in turn live on the West Bank in danger — in the former it is legal and right, in the latter illegal and wrong. Why? The former are without power, while the latter use it to construct a “truth.”
Words Change Their Meanings
After six months of postmodern governance in which words and values lose intrinsic meaning, we don’t know any longer whether tribunals, intercepts, wiretaps, Predator drone attacks, Guantanamo, Iraq, renditions, etc. are good or bad, or Obama’s salvations or Bush’s Hitlerisms. I have no idea now whether five soldiers tragically blown up in war in Iraq (is it a war now?) is news as in the days of Bush, or reduced to “stuff happens” in the age of Obama. Iran having a nuke will soon be merely the same thing as Israel having one first.
I have discovered that “fiscal sobriety” is running up a $2 trillion annual deficit, that Obama’s once taboo middle name Hussein is now a publicized entre to the Islamic world, that his once agnostic father is now constructed back into a devout Muslim, and on and on.
In other words, we now have our first postmodern president. Yes, everything is possible — literally.
Our society has always had to deal with the unqualified minority. What do you with such a person once they are on your payroll? You promote them. Let them screw up another department or area for awhile.
We are now paying for that philosophy. These promoted minorities are getting pushed to the top. They actually think they are qualified to be President and on the Supreme Court.
So what do the “Uncle Tyrones” do when faced with no place to put such an unqualified person? Right on top.
Sotomayor and Obama are peas in a pod and their ilk will continue to be pushed up to the top by white folks who dont want to deal with them, dont want to be called racist, and whose parents werent limousine liberals, but instead slave owning liberals.
Its all like borrowing money to solve a problem. Eventually someone has to pay.
Ladies and Gentleman, we are now paying and the interest is compounding with every election.
Welcome home Doc – I always feel better knowing you made it back in one piece.
I’d love to read your reflections on your visit to Thermopylae.
Let me simplify relativism for you.
It means I get to set the rules.
See how easy that was?
“…we now have our first postmodern president. Yes, everything is possible — literally.”
Anything Obama wants to happen, will happen (even if it doesn’t). Obamessiah will simply proclaim that it happened, and most people will believe. He’ll say: The Guantanamo problem of President Bush is solved, and we’ll believe. He’ll say: Our federal government deficits will be reversed by more taxes on those wealthy bastards who haven’t been paying their fair shares, and we’ll believe. He’ll say: Capitalism and the free market economy can only be saved by government takeovers of banking, finance, automotive, agricultural, and healthcare industries, and we’ll believe. He’ll say: Only I can keep the country on track, so the 22nd Amendment must be repealed before 2016, and we’ll believe. He’ll say: Twenty years as your President has shown me that a three branch governmental system less efficient than a one branch system, and we’ll believe.
The only ‘wise Latina woman’ to whom I will give honor appeared to Juan Diego on Tepayec Hill, on Dec. 12, 1531.
“My fellow religionists: Just like your organization, America, too, has 57 member states. And like all rulers should, I, the ultimate power in America, bow and scrape in deference to his excellency, the guardian of Mecca and Medina, and carry a muslim middle name. In fact, America is one of the largest muslim countries in the world, as I have mentioned in French interviews. And so, in this MOST HONEST friendship, let us ignore our differences. Instead, point your arrows at your captive populations and at besieged non-Americans until next election cycle.” Your friend and fellow supplicant, Barry.”
postmodernism is indeed an absolute value system but one that is a function of a narrow set of non-classical criteria. Race, inclination, nationality, gender, religion, abortion etc. Probably not what Christian MLK had in mind with the “quality of their character”.
Can Dr. Hanson really not understand whence Obama’s postmodernism (and he is surely a postmodernist) comes? Has he not read _Dreams from My Father_? What about even _Middlemarch_? _Invisible Man_? _Tractatus_? Neibuhr?
Look — I grew up in Appalachia. Both sides of my family have lived in these parts for hundreds of years. But when I was fifteen, I left my home among the hills for prep school. There I met and befriended people who pretty much looked like me. Indeed, their fathers often did the same stuff mine did, at least nominally. Nonetheless, the worlds they came from were pretty radically different from mine in almost every way thinkable. They traveled to different places from the people I knew, treated newcomers differently, had different attitudes toward money and education and sports and religion, etc.
Hey — I still got along with them. Indeed, I often began to favor the WASPish way of doing things over the Appalachian way. Then I’d come home and and change my mind, holding the latter above the former. So I certainly understood — indeed I was enthralled — when I started reading the postmodernists!
Is it at all possible or acceptable that the experiences Obama describes in _Dreams_ were similar to my own? Is it so difficult to believe that a sensitive, curious kid growing up half-white, half-black would eventually come to recognize that both his heritages’ conceptions of the good are valid, although vastly different and often antagonistic? Did you know that a people that came “up from slavery” can pass on just as much wisdom as grandpappy, but of a very different stripe?
I no longer venerate the postmodernists. I think their conclusions are often counterproductive and that much of their work is now done with a flippancy antithetical to great art and lasting ideas. Dr. Hanson is right — the moral relativism of postmodernism can be frightening to ponder. However, this good old boy’s experiences suggest that pomo lessons are not absolutely incorrect. Given the circumstances of the modern world — increasing number of people of mixed (and even politically or socially conflicting) races, increased mobility (such that one can feel out of place or very much at home in a matter of minutes or hours), the novel medium of the internet and the way it makes us communicate — it is little surprise that many people feel ‘postmodern’ these days. It is no surprise that a man like Obama, certainly no dummy, has taken advantage of the conflicted feelings of the many and tapped into them. Great men and women have done this throughout history. Jefferson’s modus operandi, I think, was somewhat similar in its approach, and I think we can all agree that on balance he did quite well.
VDH:
As you point out, postmodernism facilitates ends-justify-the-means political behavior. Seems to me postmodernism itself is a means to an end. Normal rational people don’t buy this Derrida (et al) inspired gibberish. But the younger generation does. Makes you wonder if intelligent middle-aged liberals like Sotomayor and Obama actually believe in postmodernism, or whether they just use it like other Leftists do, as a means to generate more young useful idiots for their cause. At least that would make some sense. I mean, no thinking American adult actually believes this b.s., right?
Dr. Hanson:
A very interesting analysis. Its fascinating that we invent all manner of ways to explain what Obama (and those like him) mean and are doing. In the not too distant past, if someone said they had no intention of running a car company, but everything they did indicated to any sentient being they were doing exactly that, we would have simply called them a liar and behaved toward them as we would toward anyone whose word could not be trusted. Or if they said that the country was broke, but continued to try to spend the nation into oblivion, we would have simply called them a fool and behaved toward them as we would toward anyone who had no sense or self restraint.
And regarding Judge Sotomayor, a wise Latina would not think a she does, and surely would not have said what she said. It would seem that she has made a prima facie case for her own utter lack of wisdom. Wisdom teaches us to judge people by who they are now, but what they can accomplish now, not by an interesting life story. Wisdom–to say nothing of humility–also tells us to avoid hubris lest the gods take offense. One can only image the god’s wrath toward Obama and Sotomayor.
Doc will like this, I think; remember what was said about Sickles Charge at Gettysburg: “Wait awhile, he’ll come tumblin’ back.”
Do her statements about “people of color” imply “people of color” assemble together in an alternative world surrounding and apart from the presumed corrupted essence of “colorless people”?
She is deliberately elevating tribalism as a component of justice. In her rhetorical questioning, she confesses she cannot escape her own tribalism, and by projection, neither can anyone else.
The more these pseudo-neo-post-ists stake out their position, the more of us will see them as they are: glib thugs consumed by resentment, obsessed with the desire for their tribe’s revenge, and intent on abusing their power in open rebellion against our way of life.
Thanks VDH…after reading your post I now can name that strange, unsettling aura that surrounds Obama. It is the moral anarchy, or perhaps moral vacuity, of the postmodern mind. Fine, glib, gilded words coupled to….nothing. A hollow man with no guts, no internal organs to give him substance. He has a vague program grown from his campaign rhetoric, but nothing beyond feel-good catch phrases to which he adheres. Bright but without “pre-postmodern” values or deeply felt and enacted ideals. A perfect politician for these days!
In fact, he reminds me of the 60′s band The Monkeys. A sort of commercial media creation meant to mimic real performers, they were immensely popular at first, but then soon veered off into being laughable caricatures.
When we as a nation veer off into stormy times, will he still seem so charming?
When the government decided not to pursue the case against the Black Pather voter intimidation acts on election day, last, I viewed it as firing another round across the bow of the good ship of State, the USS Constitution. Not only are the pro-Obama forces attacking the sacred right to vote, but they’re doing so with the cavalier attitude that befits a burglar who checks to see what’s in the refrigerator before he leaves.
At the same time, Zogby tells us that the polls place Barack’s approval rating somewhere in the sixty percentile. Which, to me, makes not a smidgen of sense.
Obama’s attacks on capitalism, the first and fourteenth amendments, his borrowing money and spending it at a rate that will bankrupt our country, his heinous plans to set a new unborn slaughtering rate that breaks 1.5 million per annum, his sanction of Attorney General, Eric Holder’s claim that white people are cowards, his co-opting of a free press and other media outlets through the offer of jobs, and or the threat of reprisals (TV stations losing licenses), his plans to raise a cornucopia of taxes, (capital gains, energy, estate) which will soon, I believe, begin to kill jobs at the rate he’e helping to kill the unborn; his scheme to create a taxpayer draining, rationed federally funded and managed healthcare system, his refusal to drill offshore and use nuclear power and pursue clean coal initiatives that would make us energy independent; his plans to neuter the military, and let China and Russia move ahead of us technologically; where is it all leading?
Well, one of the places is a point at which Barack announces that The U.S. can no longer afford to be a world power.
People, I think that he’s out to kill this country, and everything good it stands for.
Of course, his most insidious actions are his attacks on the constitution. With the brazenness of a Lee Harvey Oswald sizing up his target through an open upstairs book depository window, Obama and his lockstep minions have nominated for the supreme court someone I believe to be a marxist, liberty-hating, bill-of-rights despising, woman, Sonia Sotomayor, one of whose goals is, in my opinion, the eventual end of personal gun ownership in the United States.
It is my sincere belief that she and Obama’s supporters are preparing an attack on the second amendment with the fervor that Hitler attacked Poland on September 1, 1939.
American hunters will become the hunted, part of the end game, of course, being the dissolution of the politically powerful NRA.
A sociopathetic socialist, Barack Obama, bankrupt of a moral compass, is, in my view, visiting morally indefensible attacks on the United States of America with the zeal of a banzai charge.
Friends, my personal line in the sand has been crossed. I cannot abide by evil incarnate; can’t sit idly by and see the land of the free and home of the brave being torn asunder by who I believe to be a brown-eyed handsome fraud.
Fellow Americans, the law of the land is being twisted and transformed before our eyes.
If you’re not ready to see freedom die, I beseech you, prepare for the fight of your lives.
Relativism is inherently anti-intellectual. There is no reason to do any serious reading and studying if everything is ultimately relative. This explains why Barack Obama is such an intellectually shallow and poorly read man. He is unlikely able to read a halfway difficult book if his life depended on it. There are numerous adults in their middle twenties far more knowledgeable than our forty seven year old president. It’s not a question of I.Q. Obama is not mentally retarded. On a gut level, however, he doesn’t sense a need to get his act together. Obama on a daily basis says one dumb thing after another. The general public is reluctant to face this blatantly obvious fact because he graduated from Harvard Law. This is inherently supposed to mean that Obama is another John Adams. Nothing could be further from the truth. It only indicates that Obama can probably pass the typical state board exam. I always urge people to pretend that Obama instead graduated from someplace like “North Dakota Tech College.” After only a few days—the blinders start to fall off.
Obama learned to take advantage of white guilt during his teen years. Why study if all you have to do is learn to jack the system? Networking, on a practical level, is far more important than sticking your head in a book. Obama is a creature of his environment. The politically correct culture of the Ivy League schools gave him a pass. On top of that, it tacitly told Obama that his skin color provided him with a special wisdom far superior to the “dominant white truth.” He already knew more than his reactionary professors.
thanks for that. Here’s what’s always fascinated me about pomo nonsense; everything is relative truth, except for postmodernism which is absolute guiding truth and can’t be questioned.
And an academic like sotomayer is far more privileged than a white man with little education.
On a less serious note, the whole pile of crap always reminded me of an old Joe Walsh album called “Nothing Matters and What If It Did?”
Dr. T, thank you, now I am going to have nightmares.
No society governed by moral relativism has long survived.
Absolutely brilliant Dr. Hanson!
Where does certainty get us? Where does ‘truth’ get us? It gets us into a mess, that’s where it gets us. Because certainty has no reverse gear. It doesn’t even have a steering wheel because it can only go in one direction. The post-modern project certainly has its flaws – they almost all of them spring from the mouths of ‘true-believers;.
I’m listening to Obama’s speech in Egypt as I write this. He’s offering compromise, flexibility, he’s offering creative thinking. OK, so neither side is going to get everything that it wants. When was true peace ever achieved that DIDN’T involve compromise?
All you guys who so long for moral certainty. Tell me how you’re going to fix it in any other way.
I believe I can fly, I believe I can touch the sky …
Then,the postmdernist defines himself as a person who knows nothng,has no morals,can accomplish nothing and will stand up for nothing–nothing except race,class
and gender,because he is a Marxist or progressive leftist postmodermist.
Relativism-
Pres. Hopenchange created 150,000 jobs!
Absolute truth-
Since January 1.4 million jobs have been lost.
Relativism-
Pres. Hopenchange:
America is the largest Muslim country in the world!
We have 7 million Muslims.
Absolute truth-
2.5 million Muslims live in America.
Relativism-
Pres. Hopenchange:
Iran needs Nuclear Energy!
Absolute truth-
Iran is the worlds third largest oil producer.
Reserves are 136 billion barrels.
Unless he can convince them to go ‘green’, enough energy to last 100 years.
And if they don’t stop Nuclear-
Israel will turn Tehran into a large glass vase.
Relativism-
Pres. Hopenchange lives in a smoke filled room looking through a glass darkly.
Absolute truth-
Its the economy Stupid!
If we allow him to continue this pace,
30 million of us will be out of work and the Chinese will move in and sell our homes.
Israel will nuke Iran and oil won’t be a problem anymore because it will be 400 dollars a barrel.
It’s sadly amusing to see how often Ms. Sotomayor uses the words ‘always’ and ‘never’ to justify her wishy-washy thinking.
I thought there were no absolutes…
VDH:
“One of the chief tenets of postmodernism is relativism — the notion that neither morality nor wisdom is absolute and definable, but instead simply predicated on what those with power and advantage say they are.’
That’s all you need to say. That’s the way it works with with the enlightened. No others need apply. The rest of the article is your usual paid-by-the-word rant against people you don’t like and to fuel your faithful readers angry livers.
Next rant: Egypt’s speech. Objective: convert gold into sand.
in his speech today, our guy said islam paved the way for the enlightenment. he misquoted the koran, and included a line that comes from the talmud, intoning that it came from the koran. he also said that america is based on islam.
apparently, his agenda is to be the new mohammed. our guy is plainly and simply off his beam. he is messianic and a cultist.
3-1/2 more years of this crap. i wonder if any american will have a job that pays the rent by then. it’s doubtful. meanwhile, he’ll be living it up in a tent, his heart’s desire.
Brilliant attack on relativism, and yes I remember these concepts being floated around as early as 1982 in my supposed “elite” university.
Another classic case of Obama’s relativism (which is really just a squishy lack of moral fiber that is going to bring upon us a world of hurt): The other day Obama said that it was okay for Iran to pursue a peaceful nuclear power plant.
Well then why can’t we build one here?
Read the papers of Sigmund Freud, right after you have read the dialogues of Plato.
If this doesn’t act upon your thinking, all hope is lost!
Obama et al. belong to a group of wanderers who most likely will be lost for the remainder of thier lives.
The question is: How much damage will they do prior to the big exit and how many will they take with them that never wanted to go?
Obama is the perfect president for us here in Jerry Springer Nation. The only thing that really matters is who gets to swing the next chair.
AEI rots the brain.
Happy days.
In Obama’s world, that most of the Arab world is authoritarian, plagued by gender apartheid, tribalism, religious intolerance and statism matter little. Instead, as the less powerful, their writs against us must be as valid and compelling as are ours against them.
Does Obama even know that these are the realities of the Arab world? How is that possible? Or is it that he doesn’t care?
If, in order to improve its standing in the world the United States must provide more humane treatment for terrorists why is there no requirement for Arab governments to provide basic human rights for its citizens?
The ultimate equivalency is that every country has a right to possess nuclear weapons.
If Obama were something other than POTUS his core beliefs (philosophy) could be dismissed as incoherent?
But given that he is POTUS the reality is that his philosophy is dangerous.
One of the main practical problems with relativism in a democratic or republican society is the ease with which relativism becomes elitism and the basis for a legal double standard. If some yokel in a college classroom wants to buy into relativism, it’s one thing. But if someone wants to say that “all truths are equal, but some truths are more equal than others”, that’s a huge issue that leads to revolution.
Great post as usual Doc! I find it oddly amusing that my favorite political postmodernist, Noam Chomsky, thoroughly despises postmodernism in science.
Let’s see if I can distill Sotomayor’s logic:
This is the meme that we need to counter Sotomayor-speak. We need to bring this weapon to bear whenever we are faced with the argument that since we’re never good enough, we should stop trying to be good.
In furtherance of my last post, even Nietzsche, the “fountainhead” of so much of postmodernism, believed that in the relativistic society of the future, an elite would exist to rule over the masses.
The book “Nietzsche and Aristocratic Radicalism” by Detwiler dealt with the structure and nature of this elite pretty well.
Welcome back! I’m with Kathy! Would love to hear your fresh thoughts on some of those old battlegrounds.
Postmodernism is hogwash. The Obama adminsitration is not immune from the ‘iron truths’ that you write about.. Sotomayor et al should ask a very simple question. Why did their forebearers come here? If there were any intrinsic value in simply being ‘Latina’ then Mexico and Central America would be heaven on earth. What you are for trumps who you are for. Talent, merrit and hard work were, are and will continue to be tools for success no matter what Obama and his pals think.
Victor is indeed correct in placing the onus of our decline squarely at the doors of our wretched postmodern universities.While the radicals were busy co-opting entire faculties, most Americans were asleep at the switch. Sound familiar?
I never thought I would say this because I groomed my sons from the time they could read to aspire to the height of higher education. I must honestly state that the only reason why I am pleased that they recently completed their university studies is because they chose engineering disciplines. Had they decided to opt for humanities degrees I would have directed them (gently of course) to the best vocational schools around. The humanities are nothing like they used to be. Nothing.
It’s infinitely healthier/saner to steer ones progeny into the art of refrigeration, auto mechanics, electronics techs etc, than into what passes for most US higher education indoctrination courses.
The postmodern university has become such a joke, and indeed a travesty, that it should be renamed LOWER education.
The whole problem comes down to this: Sotomayor would have you believe that each gender and race should have a different answer to 2+2=?.
Chris H -
“Where does certainty get us? Where does ‘truth’ get us? It gets us into a mess, that’s where it gets us.”
You are repairing a floor in your house. You measure an 8’X4’ section that needs replacing with your tape measure. You go to the hardware store and purchase a sheet of 8’X4’plywood. You place the plywood into the opening and find that it does not fit, it is too small, by some margin. You later discover that your tape measure measures 13 inches per foot.
There has to be good in this somewhere. Right? Something good must come from all of this chaos and stupidity that we find our tangled up in. I’m still trying to figure out how or why Americans voted for him. Why do the polls still show that Americans approve of what he is doing? Are they in the dark, do they have blinders on?
Any of you liberals that post on here that can give an answer please do. I really want to know. The only defense given for him is that we are racist or that he must fix things from Bush. If he is fixing things from Bush, why is he causing more damage?
Was not President Jimmy Carter a moral relativist as well during his 4 year term? President Obama seems to be another Jimmy Carter, but on steroids. I also see much in common with President Bill Clinton as well; however, the Republican congress kept much of Bill Clinton’s Leftist instincts in check.
One of the reasons why the approval rate for BO is so high is that our high schools and universities are now not worth anything. I’ve taught HS English for 12 years, and each year is a descent into less questioning, more ideology, less thought, more proselytizing.
A microcosm of what is going on: I asked a colleague why BO’s high inauguration cost (higher than Bush’s) was acceptable. She denied that it was. I then proved it using the usual MSMedia sources – ABC, NY Times. She ripped up the pages. When I brought up her lack of truthfulness in front of colleagues the next day, her response was “well a good thing happened so it doesn’t matter”.
This was from a woman near 60, with grown children. She’ll be in front of teenagers for at least another 5 years. This, from an ‘educated professional’. There are droves of them out there folks. Our education system is rife with “liberal good / all else bad” types.
3. proreason: , , , “Let me simplify relativism for you. It means I get to set the rules.”
Exactly! I’m the decider!
The roots of this relativism go back to
the sympathizers of the USSR. When a
regime intentionally or through incompetence
kills tens of millions in a short period of
time you really need to exaggerate, magnify,
invent and draw ridiculous parallels to
maintain the high ground.
We are simply becoming more like the rest
of the world in where you make up the story
or change it as you go along. Other than
the West and places the US and Britain
had heavy influence freedom, democracy
and individual justice are alien concepts.
If you asked an ordinary citizen of the
PRC to choose between full democracy or
a better standard of living the vast
majority will choose the latter. The
rulers know that. When some problem
emerges arrest some underlings, coerce
a confession, execute tomorrow. Truth
does not matter in most of the world,
only appearances. Welcome to tomorrow.
28. Judy, NYC: . . . “in his speech today, our guy said islam paved the way for the enlightenment. he misquoted the koran, and included a line that comes from the talmud, intoning that it came from the koran. he also said that america is based on islam.”
I haven’t heard the speech, apparently you have. Prove your statements. Or is it yet another “Obama apologized for America’ even though NO ONE can pint to that quote.
15. Rachel Peepers: . . . “When the government decided not to pursue the case against the Black Pather voter intimidation acts on election day, last, I viewed it as firing another round across the bow of the good ship of State, the USS Constitution.”
How’d you feel about the commutation of Scooter Libby’s sentence?
Chris H (21):
Certainty and Truth reflect what actually happened. When I calibrate a sensor, “Ground Truth” is important: what is actually there, as opposed to what the sensor says is there. As an engineer, I know that some things simply will not work, while others have been proven to work well. What you want to happen is irrelevent if you don’t base your desires on the laws of nature which apply to your situation (laws of physics, laws of economics, laws of phsychology, etc).
Wrong. As C.S. Lewis said, if you are on the wrong path then you must turn around until you meet the correct path again. Certainty must have a reverse gear, since one may get on the wrong path by mistake. Certainty also knows when one is on the wrong path; indeed, one of the problems with moral relativism is that it refuses to acknowledge that there is even a wrong path to begin with. Of course, Certainty must always review its bases to confirm that it is in correspondence with Truth. One may go down the wrong path with complete certainty, after all.
These are only of use if one has a correct foundation for one’s actions. Sometimes, after all, the other guys is wrong. In this case flexibility and compromise only mean that you are also wrong.
What we in the West forget, and will suffer for, is in assuming that our opponents think as we do and are equally desiring of a compromise solution. They are not – they rigidly desire our overthrow and degradation. The Muslims in particular would see us in a dhimmi status, living and worshipping at their sufferance. For us to be flexible means only that we surrender to their desires without achieving any of our own.
George Best: I have to take some issue with you lumping both Sotomayor and Obama together as some sort ultimate affirmative action cases. Sotomayor, by all accounts, is a qualified jurist. She has produced a body of legal work over her career and, while I hate the over-the-top media accounts of her life story, no one can deny that she did, in fact, work hard to get where she is today. I have to respect her as an exceedingly hard working, intelligent and learned person. That said, I think she subscribes to many wrong-headed ideas (and many learned, intelligent people do), and I do find her statements to tread on the edge of racism and sexism. But that said, again, the woman has accomplished a great deal in her life and it has been largely on the merits of her work (whether or not you agree with that body of work). One can make a case that her appointment to the SCOTUS is an affirmative action move of sorts–there aren’t enough women on the court, enough minorities, enough of whatever quota of the right sorts of people. However, it isn’t as if she is a poor judge relative to her peers. Again, I don’t agree with many of her decisions that I’ve read about, but she doesn’t want for accomplishments. So in the sense that you are arguing, Sotomayor doesn’t really figure into the discussion–she isn’t an unqualified member of some identity political group, she is qualified person with certain political desirables, and a cynical President is using her for that reason.
The POTUS, on the other hand, sure, you can make a case for him being the ultimate affirmative action case. Unlike Sotomayor, he is an intellectual lightweight, has no record of academic, nor any other accomplishment, and has seemingly been pushed up to the highest office in the land on the basis of his being a charismatic (though I personally don’t see the charisma at all) multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and yes, thoroughly postmodern kind of guy. So, as I see it, BHO is logical conclusion of postmodernism. Accomplishments are just constructs anyway, and who is to say that being a community organizers is less valuable than say, oh, running a company, or a scientist, or a doctor, or a military commander, or an engineer? It’s merely a social construct that values certain sorts of accomplishments more than others. Hell, even the idea of accomplishment is a social construct. Thus, BHO is the embodiment of postmodern thought, whereas Sotomayor is postmodern in her worldview, but got to where she is in the world largely on the merits of her own ability.
I think it is important to make this distinction. We can disagree vehemently with someone’s ideas but still respect them as a person. And being in academia, this is pretty much my life–working with a great many brilliant colleagues who, despite their brilliance, subscribe to a great number of irrational ideas outside their field of expertise. But I respect their accomplishments and ability nonetheless (as they do mine, even if I’m ‘the crazy right winger’). Obama, on the other hand, is POTUS on the basis of a thin resume as an academic, professional and legislator. And in this case, we must respect the office and respect the man insofar as he is the POTUS, but it is fair to call him out on lack of credentials to hold that office and the lack of professionalism he has demonstrated in office (date nights and comedy show appearances in the midst of multiple pressing domestic and international issues? Not to mention his inability to hire competent and ethical people).
Jeez I am surprised how often the PJ editors allow for racist comments. I clicked on one commenter hyperlink the other day and was forwarded to her white supremacist web site. Please explain George Best just how qualified you are.
#21
How can someone who says this: “Where does certainty get us? Where does ‘truth’ get us? It gets us into a mess…?”
Also claim this: “He’s [Hussein Obama is] offering compromise, flexibility, he’s offering creative thinking…Tell me how you’re going to fix it [the, ahem, Western vs Muslim problem] in any other way.”
In other words everything is uncertain except this certain certainty that only I, Chris H, perceive and not the rest of you guys.
I am simply making the same point as Victor and some of the other commenters made. There is a slight flaw in the foundation of the structure of postmodernity. It is this silly premise: “There is no truth, except the truth that there is no truth.”
#41 Mr. Lucky: Great analogy.
Thank for another brain stimulating article Dr. Hanson. I think a great way to look at post-modernism is to use the “Forest Gump” quote:
“Post-modernism is as post-modernism does.”
I’ve been posting a few videos here and there throughout Pajamas, hoping to get as many people watching them as possible. I am going to post them once again.
Soviet Subversion of America
The History of Political Correctness
Evan Sayet: How Modern Liberals Think
Prof. Hanson,
I do not recall reading a piece on moral relativism any better than this.
It is both fascinating and deppressing that our country could be so hugely split – and baffling that so many supposedly intellectual (ly superior) folks can desire to go down a road whose model has failed repeatedly throughout history and is in fact failing in many parts of the world today.
Chris H@21, you asked:
When was true peace ever achieved that DIDN’T involve compromise?
Everytime “true peace” has actually been achieved, that’s when…one side surrendered unconditional, no compromises. Peace is always achieved on the victor’s terms.
All you guys who so long for moral certainty. Tell me how you’re going to fix it in any other way.
Your logical converse would be “moral uncertainty.” While this may be your intellectal posture, I’m certain from my experience, it’s unhelpful to everyone involved.
Please don’t respond there are no absolutes, because that is in and of itself a statement of absolutism, and therefore the statement is self-contradictory.
Just because you have no moral certainty, doesn’t mean there isn’t any, or that it does not exist. Reality exists regardless of what you think.
At her age, Sotomayer has spent most of her life at Princeton, Yale, and perusing an elite law career. The years in the projects are a distant, faded, almost nonexistent memory. And we’re supposed to swallow this hooey about how her time there makes her anything other than a typical elite?
Struggles at Princeton, my itching butt. Once she was into the elite, she was one of them. Ditto for the POTUS.
Culturally, they both are “whiter” than most of us whites.
No, those against pro choice are bad. Those that speak out against climate change are bad.
The left may cage their perspective as being non judgmental but they are just as judgmental as anyone on the Right or in the traditional sense. They have a different set of moral values that don’t always correspond to the traditional western moral values. To get their values accepted, Leftist go around telling people not to impose their values on others. This is a ploy to disarm the individual and open them up to their indoctrination.
Moral Relativism:
Translation:
There are no rules.
There is no moral North on that compass.
Consequence:
There is no controlling authority.
There is no behavioral social fabric.
Emotions prevail in all conflicts.
Dominion is the only legitimate achievment.
This is the Order of Battle for social warfare. Hearts and Minds have nothing to do with it.
For those of us who seek social order, civil discourse, and the rule of law,
the Operations Order of the Day is;
Prepare to defend yourself.
sheesh@45
Thank you for being the exemplar.
The biggest intellectual failure of the postmodernist is incoherence in, on the one hand, denying the existence of absolute truths or morality, and then, on the other hand, asserting the universal truth of his or her values such as “egalitarianism.”
What makes these intellectual pygmies think “egalitarianism” is a valid moral value? Maybe it’s not.
Also, postmodern moral equivilence is internally contradictory. E.g., to say that all truth or morality is “relative” is really to say: “It is absolutely true that all truth is relative.”
But don’t expecct the typical postmodernist to comprehend this. The bottom line for the postmodernist is always (and I mean ALWAYS) self-absorbed moral vanity.
More terrific insights. Thank you professor.
Key concepts: ‘traditional criteria’ and ‘ a misdemeanor of the overdog must always be equivalent to the felony of the underdog.’
I hear fellow conservatives speak of a tipping point. We wait for the pendulum to swing back. We hope for an equal and opposite reaction to the postmodern way fully in bloom with Obama’s favorable ratings.
For all we know, this new-generation mindset may go on indefinately. All talk about a return to the past is just wishful thinking.
Obama learned to control people in Chicago with the 50 million dollar Annenberg Challenge. He buys people. He’s no empty suit. His minions are mercenaries and his mercenaries are warriors in disguise with a weapon of intimidation through invective. Rush, Glen, Sean, Mark, and Michael are weaklings compared to the Soros network. This is payday and the battle may be just beginning in a long war for truth, justice and what most of us have been proud of all our adult lives…the American Way.
sheesh@47
You idiot, the full taxt is available here on PJM. Why don’t you read it, before spilling your tripe here and soiling up the place.
“our guy said islam paved the way for the enlightenment. he misquoted the koran, and included a line that comes from the talmud, intoning that it came from the koran. he also said that america is based on islam.”
If you read the text, you’ll find the above summarizes it concisely.
“When was true peace ever achieved that DIDN’T involve compromise?”
I’m going to say…never. “True peace” has never existed in this world. Relative peace, however, is obtained only when your enemy is sufficiently worried for their own safety that they are content to stay the hell away from you. This doesn’t happen when we come to our enemies with our hat in our hand.
Compromise only encourages those who wish to take advantage of your momentary weakness. Compromise is how Hitler came to power. Compromise is how a weakened, post-WWII Soviet Union was allowed to control Eastern Europe and obtain the atomic bomb. Compromise is how North Korea fooled a mental lightweight like Madeline Albright into giving them nuclear technology for “peaceful” purposes. A decade later, cue the mushroom cloud.
Imagine if Europe had isolated Hitler the moment he attempted to re-militarize. Imagine if Patton had been allowed to push back the Russians and deliver Moscow to the Allies after the defeat of Germany. Neither of these things happened because of the desire to compromise with nations known to be aggressive. WWII might have been shortened to a skirmish and the USSR would have collapsed before it managed to acquire satellite states and push forward its demise by decades.
We are now in the midst of compromise with a series of totalitarian nations. The Middle East, Russia and Venezuela are oil-rich dictatorships and oligarchies propped up only by our idiotic policy to lock up our own energy resources. China has us bought and paid for through our addiction to debt. Islam is slowly but surely invading a weak Europe softened by socialism and the protective hand of the U.S. military. We not only compromise our freedoms away, we no longer even recognize who are enemies are.
Peace is never obtained by compromise. It is obtained by thoroughly and completely defeating the opposition, or at least inflicting enough pain to drive home the point that you do not attack us again.
descartes i think therefor i am
Eminem aka Marshal Mathers i am who ever i say i am
Big O i think therefor we are who ever i say we are.
Homer Simpson I don’t apologize, i’m sorry that’s just the way i am.
#63 john from cinncinatti:
“To do is to be.” – Nietzsche
“To be is to do.” – Kant
“Do be do be do.” – Sinatra
#25. Parabellum:
“It’s sadly amusing to see how often Ms. Sotomayor uses the words ‘always’ and ‘never’ to justify her wishy-washy thinking.”
I noticed this, too, Parabellum. Another mental tick evident in her speech patterns is her usage of the “I wonder if (or whether)…” formulation.
My opinion is, when a progressive says “I wonder,” he almost always means “I think,” or “My opinion is…” Of course, this suggests the speaker is obfuscating his true convictions, which is a theatrical device for currying favor with a constituency. We call people who resort to these devices “politicians.”
The other explanation for Sotomayor’s “just-wonderin” approach, that she is, like, duh, kinda, a lazy thinker and that this manifests itself in her, um, poor word-choice is equally bunk. While this excuse may be wildly popular with her benefactors in DC, I think its repetition insults Obama’s goodfaith critics and the remaining, well-meaning American citizens who’d honestly like to support the guy.
Not to mention how this explanation might reflect on the mental acuity of his nominee.
51. Whatnow?: Click on some of the links on HuffPo…wow, I came across one for recruiting black youths to take out those who voted against Obama. They had a thread with names and addresses of people with McCain signs.
‘Instead empathy (as President Obama noted) and good intentions, based on ‘personal experience’ should be considered of equal, or indeed superior worth, allowing the underrepresented, or those without access to privileged resources, to be considered educated and astute in their own right.”
Yes, good intentions, that’s it. King George III once said that he had nothing but good intentions and therefore could not be wrong. Who would have thought King George and Obama have so much in common.
VDH:
You have traced several important concepts to their roots, and I appreciate that very much. You are elevating the discussion to levels far beyond the nonsensical planes of “hope and change”.
Obama’s philosophy cleary jives with postmodern relativism. While it is important to assign a name to this philsophy, and to diagnose it in terms of its apparent symptoms, the problem is that this philosophy does not lead to a particular pattern of behavior that can be logically analyzed. I think the diagnosis gives us a framework for analysis, but as you allude, it is still difficult to predict what Obama will do even after being diagnosed with this “condition”.
As I see it, a relativist philosophy requires one to accept that someone else’s point of view is “correct”, but it does not prescribe how an individual should decide for themselves what is correct. A relativist can easily vaccillate between differing viewpoints, because he or she is trained to accept that all viewpoints are valid. By accepting that others have their own views without attempting to reconcile those views with their personal viewpoint, a relativist can reserve an obstinate viewpoint for themselves, with the foolish expectation that the differing views will not create conflict.
History gives us an enormous amount of information upon which an individual can choose to base their views, but historical context is not valuable to relativists in choosing their actions, because a person’s current state of mind is the only view that matters. This can lead a relativist to make decisions that deviate from history or precedent, and seem to others to be random and senseless.
Decisions that Obama has made already have been conflicted in several ways; from Gitmo, to the massive deficit spending, to his claims of bipartisanship, to the fiasco that he does not want to run GM, to “empathy” as a judicical requirement (where is the precendent?)
These conflicts are symptoms of a relativist conundrum; trying to reconcile words with actions. Obama tries to immunize himself from the consequences of his actions by claiming moral superiority of intent with words. However, maturity and character are not realized by the intent of words. Faith in speeches is a solipsism that few can enjoy.
Maybe I am less metaphysical but more analytical than Obama. Whatever intellect Obama may have, I will not forgive him for mistakes that could have been avoided by learning lessons of history.
Our hothouse orchid and spender-in-chief is living large and high on the hog while people are losing everything but, he still wants everyone to love him as much as he does no matter who or what he has to throw under the bus to achieve his goal of self-worship.
I’m not impressed, DohBama but, it’s nice to know you can finally ‘come out’ about your Muslim past. :roll:
The notion that there is no truth is self-refuting. If “there is no truth,” then it is not true that “there is no truth.” As pointed out, the moral relativists also refute themselves, since they assert that anyone who denies that all views of the good are right, is imposing his views on others – which, according to their theory, is also right.
See Plato, Descartes, David Hume, John Stuart Mill.
LESSONS FROM THE CURRENT OBAMA POWER GRAB
Czars only lead to tyranny.
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/06/czar-crazed-obama-executive-power-grab.html
#3. That sounds like ‘I won’.
Thank you, Doctor Hanson.
Forever grateful you’re on our side. (Of Truth)
Brian Richard Allen
Los Angeles Califobambicated 90028
And the Far Abroad
If relativism is the morality of the moment, then at any one time, anything goes – like waterboarding?
Thanks once again to Dr. Hansen for his fine work. I think there are few writers who could summarize and illustrate the postmodern condition with so skillful a combination of clarity and economy.
I am chiefly concerned that postmodern thought is too firmly rooted in the established power of the West to turn the tide in a measured, incremental way.
Ref. 21, 49: extending the reverse gear metaphor.
With reverse gear out, a stuck throttle and failing brakes a serious collision may be our only way of stopping. We don’t have the luxury of waiting to run out of gas. I am thinking in terms of cataclysm rather than apocalypse. I hope to be proven wrong, but I am inclined to see our time as one where pessimism and reality intersect.
On the other hand, there may be some reasons for optimism. The work and influence of conservative writers (VDH), commentators, a handful of legislators, internet news-and-opinion alternatives and what appears to be a swelling of public resistance to the excesses of postmodernist power. The Tenth Amendment initiative is an encouraging development.
But the immediate question is whether conservative forces can mobilize quickly enough to match the stunning speed shown by this administration. For the longer term we wonder whether the Left is too firmly entrenched in academe, media, government and, increasingly, Wall Street to overturn.
With the postmodern Left there is one domain which is neither ambiguous nor relativist – that of power and control. Anti-war pieties aside, I believe they would not abjure bloodshed to preserve it. Power and control are the are the foundations of narcissistic supply, and it is literally vital to them; it is the source of their being.
The concerted opposition of free men is the primary existential threat to the power of the left. Can it be organized and harnessed?
I refer again to the Tenth Amendment initiative; it has the virtue of having an existing organizational structure (the states themselves and their legislatures). It seems promising. And it is a good place to begin.
———————
After a long struggle, metaphysics has regained the ground and the power lost to the Enlightenment.
The notion that there is no truth is self-refuting. If “there is no truth,” then it is not true that “there is no truth.”
The same applies to John Lennon’s dreadful Marxist anthem “Imagine”. If you have “no countries” it means that there’s ONE all powerful country that you can’t leave in order to find another place that’s more to your liking. If you have “no religions” it means that there’s ONE acceptable belief system that no one can is allowed to deviate from. If you have “no possessions” it means that the government owns ALL possessions. If there’s “nothing to kill of die for” it means that all who are opposed to the above have already been dumped in a mass grave.
“When was true peace ever achieved that DIDN’T involve compromise?”
**Well, let’s see: the unconditional surrenders of Japan and Germany achieved peace, no? We compromised all over the place with the Soviets and got a good long cold war out of it. Ask Neville Chamberlain about seeking peace through compromise. You help Dr. Hanson’s point–you don’t know your history.
Numerous commenters have spoken of right and wrong, good and evil? Where did these concepts originate? From philosophers…or educators…or governments? No, they came from Almighty God and his word, the Bible. God, through his prophets and spokesmen, defined good and evil and commanded us to do good, not evil. When we ultimately failed and sinned, He gave us his Son, Jesus Christ, as payment for the penalty of those sins. All who confess and ask for His mercy and grace may enter and spend eternity in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Many “highly educated” people cannot accept their own shortcomings and refuse to humble themselves before God. They view themselves and their motivations as “good” and “fair” and “reasonable”. In any case, these “educated” secularists, pumped up with worldly pride, consider God’s absolutes to be primitive and foolish, and are readily willing to supplant His truths with the lunacy of moral relativism.
Such “intellectuals” are the real fools, as God has stated in Psalm 14:1: “The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. “They are corrupt, they have done abominable works. “There is none who does good.”
75, Not exactly. Calvinball means not only that all things are potentially permissible, but all things are also potentially forbidable.
Moral relativism implies that there’s no such thing as an absolute right, which nullifies all constitutional guarantees of anything that the leaders don’t want.
I can just hear my grandfather in his NE twang saying, of Obama’s Egypt speech, “What an arrogant, contemptible bastid.” As for me, I’m wondering if there is any ideal, standard, principle, belief, rule that this glib and hollow man won’t throw under that hell-bent bus.
We in the U.S. are supposed to stand for something, not ooze along in constant compromise, changing shape to suit whatever circumstances. Ultimately, history will leave Barack merely a smear on the sidewalk.
But, oh yes Dr. Hanson, Barack & Co. are, after all, post-modern shape-shifters…no guts, no backbone…….just lotsa empathetic talk that has no more substance than breaking wind.
Why is there no talk anywhere about the philosophical term “historicism”? How can this be?
The “postmodern” has been a long time in coming; when will we begin to sharpen the dialogue by using the proper terminology?
Here’s a pretty good primer:
http://www.nhinet.org/ryn-rob.htm
It isn’t about law, it’s about female power. I have a female labrador – sweet and unassuming. Human canids are ferocious and and unremitting. Jackals, hyenas, dingoes.The woman is a dumpy social failure with a flair for the “oops” speech. Latina! Wise! Who makes the judgment?Justice Cordozo got left out of the race due to having the poor judgement to have forebears from Portugal and not Spain! Gee, Wally! Where is Iberia, anyway? Nuance. Pull your head out! Poor ole’ fatty, plodding along with all of that wisdom.
Comment 76.
Apologies to Dr. Hanson for my careless misspelling of his name.
51. Whatnow?:
“Jeez I am surprised how often the PJ editors allow for racist comments.”
I’m glad they don’t censure this. Then we get to know what these people are all about: sorry humans (Humans?).
56. Self-hating Boomer:
“Culturally, they both are “whiter” than most of us whites.”
You’re getting there. Good one.
70. Delia:
“Our spender-in-chief is living large and high on the hog while people are losing everything but,”
Unemployed 9%, employed 90%, or something like that.
80. Saltherring:
“All who confess and ask for His mercy and grace may enter and spend eternity in the Kingdom of Heaven.”
I confess, I confess!
82. David:
“We in the U.S. are supposed to stand for something,”
Yes, but not the insanity you believe in. That was the best speech on Middle East truths and solutions. It will change minds. Just wait and see.
84. Larry:
I’ll put Paris Hilton in the SC before any of your 16th century friends.
Somewhere in Germany the putative father of postmodernism is turning over in his grave. I doubt Friedrich Nietzsche would approve of the perverse superficial interpretation the modern left applies to his philosophy. Where in his writings does it say we should stop thinking critically about ethics and morality? About any other philosophical inquiry? Afterall, he spent much of his own life critically examining Judeo-Christian morality before he discarded it. Were he alive today, he would have little respect for the Leftist intellectual slackers who piggy-back onto his thinking, falsely claiming he proves it is futile to do their own.
sheesh @ 47:
Lisa Schiffren at NRO examines the most popular line in Obama’s speech (according to polls) –
‘… the Koranic sura… 5:32 (“The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind.”)’
“It is one of the suras that comes straight from another religion. Not that they teach this in Al Azhar, but the original occurrence of the line is found in the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin, 4:5. You know, the book in which the ancient rabbis interpret Jewish law. It reads:
שכל המאבד נפש אחד מישראל מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו איבד עולם מלא וכל
“המקיים נפש אחת מישראל מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו קיים עולם מלא
Does the phrase “People of the Book” ring a bell with you? The Judaic version precedes Mohammed’s by about 500 years. As with certain other ideas, the Jews rightfully claim historical precedence to the idea embodied in this Koranic Sura.
BTW, asking for quotes, details, proof etc, strikes me as anathema to your postmodern take on things. I mean, it doesn’t “prove” anything anyways, does it? Well, other than the fact that you’re too lazy to look it up yourself. What would Nietzsche say about such intellectual sloth?
17. wyatt salt:
thanks for that. Here’s what’s always fascinated me about pomo nonsense; everything is relative truth, except for postmodernism which is absolute guiding truth and can’t be questioned.
And an academic like sotomayer is far more privileged than a white man with little education.
On a less serious note, the whole pile of crap always reminded me of an old Joe Walsh album called “Nothing Matters and What If It Did?”
That was John Mellencamp’s album, not Joe Walsh.
Wow, I didn’t think the usual suspects would step up and confirm they agree that there is no absolute right and wrongs. Very interesting. It seems to be right up there with the those that are just fine with a certain appointment of one who thinks that her race and sex make here a better judge.
For an excellent study of PoMo read: Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault
Product Description from Amazon:
“Tracing postmodernism from its roots in Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant to their development in thinkers such as Michel Foucault and Richard Rorty, philosopher Stephen Hicks provides a provocative account of why postmodernism has been the most vigorous intellectual movement of the late 20th century. Why do skeptical and relativistic arguments have such power in the contemporary intellectual world? Why do they have that power in the humanities but not in the sciences? Why has a significant portion of the political Left – the same Left that traditionally promoted reason, science, equality for all, and optimism – now switched to themes of anti-reason, anti-science, double standards, and cynicism? Explaining Postmodernism is intellectual history with a polemical twist, providing fresh insights into the debates underlying the furor over political correctness, multiculturalism, and the future of liberal democracy.”
Highly recommended
88 TLM . . . For all your cutting and pasting, you show a disturbing lack of insight into the shared narrative and tenets of Abrahamic fatihs. Read some Buber and get back to me.
62. geoffgo . . . “You idiot, the full taxt is available here on PJM. Why don’t you read it, before spilling your tripe here and soiling up the place.”
I have read the text. Watched the entire speech. Didn’t read it. Didn’t hear it. Just like no one can produce a quote from Obama apologizing for America.
This is the stuff that makes you people look purely political. Not good for your future. And you thought “change” was just a word.
Ideas have consequences and postmodern ideas lead to Totalitarian government. If there there is no objective truth outside of ourselves to check power, then power is all there is and it must be utilized to achieve one’s subjective view of reality. This also means any view that asserts a moral and spiritual reality that is objective must be punished or prevented from being permitted in the public arena. It is too bad America ignored this when we elected Barack Obama as President. The postmodern chickens are about to roost.
This is a ridiculous exaggeration of the truth. Obama and his advisers may be relativist to some extent, but they certainly aren’t “there is no truth,” “we don’t really exist” postmodernists in the vein you describe. Most of these people are anarchists who would never find themselves running for political office in the first place, and are quite content in their academic havens where they’re (almost) taken seriously.
Your dates are off, as well. Postmodernism didn’t suddenly erupt onto the scene in the 80s and 90s. On the contrary, this was a period of backlash against (or a reexamination of) postmodernist thinking in the academic world. Certainly, postmodernists still exist in force in American universities (especially in fields like English Literature and Religious Studies), but there are plenty of more reasonable people there as counterweight.
A postmodernist couldn’t be a judge because postmodernists don’t make judgments (at least in theory). Sotomayor’s assertion that a Latina will make different choices than a white male counterpart isn’t racist or even particularly postmodern in nature. Regardless of some unattainable ideal of complete androgynous or colorless impartiality, our experiences do shape our outlooks and opinions on life and thus will affect our legal philosophy (should we become lawyers or judges). During a Supreme Court session, you will usually have two or three competing opinions (with some overlap). A reasonable person would say there isn’t necessarily a right or wrong opinion in the absolute sense, because all of the judges might make good points. A reasonable person will add, however, that while there might not be a completely right or wrong answer, there is of course a best answer. The postmodernist would exclaim that there is no answer. You would exclaim there’s only one answer. Ironically, both you and the postmodernist would take an absolute position. Both approaches lack imagination (no disrespect).
We’re all too familiar with worldview differences between the pomo left and conservatives. This social bifurcation demands more than an explanation, though. We need a game plan. A solution to the problem.
We need to figure out how to live with “those people.” To word it differently, how do tradition-respecting, small-government conservatives co-exist with power–hungry leftists?
In the past, we could tolerate them as long as they stayed in their academic and Hollywood ghettos. In a way, pomos were amusing. My parents used to call them “party favors” because they’d enliven social gathering with their ridiculous banter and behavior. It was always fun to have a few around.
But now, they’re in the White House, ruining the economy and taking far too much of our properly-earned money. It’s not funny anymore. It was easy to get along with them as long as they stayed on the periphery of our lives, now they’re determined to manipulate, tax and otherwise destroy non-pomos.
So, what do we do about it?
How do we raise the next generation of kids in this environment?
What’s our short-term plan?
Any ideas?
TLM,
What would Nietzsche say about such intellectual sloth?
One of my favorite passages from Nietzsche is the opening paragraph of the “Schopenhauer as Educator” essay where he speaks of a “traveller” who has been all around the world being asked, “What have you learned about men?”, to which he replies, “They have a tendency to laziness.”
Somewhere in Germany the putative father of postmodernism is turning over in his grave. I doubt Friedrich Nietzsche would approve of the perverse superficial interpretation the modern left applies to his philosophy. Where in his writings does it say we should stop thinking critically about ethics and morality? About any other philosophical inquiry? Afterall, he spent much of his own life critically examining Judeo-Christian morality before he discarded it. Were he alive today, he would have little respect for the Leftist intellectual slackers who piggy-back onto his thinking, falsely claiming he proves it is futile to do their own.
Nietzsche would probably say that “somewhere in time” his life is eternally recurring.
When Nietzsche wrote:
“To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities – I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not – that one endures.”
I doubt he was thinking of the sort of people who support single-payer health insurance. He probably had heartier folk in mind as being his natural heirs.
Will a wise Latina make better judgments than a wise latino? Than a wise black man? Than a wise black woman? Is she wiser than any Constitutional scholar? Is there any person who’s judgments are wiser than hers? If you are a defendant, should you have the right to select the gender and ethnicity of the trial judge?
In Sotomayor’s world, nobody’s judgment is better than anybody else’s judgment, so the decision goes to whoever is assigned the power to render it. Is this not the definition of anarchy?
Obama is not a thinker or scholarly philosophizer. He is a doctrinaire Socialist, obsessed with the dreams from , (not of), his doctrinaire Stalinist father, and who advanced through his college years and Chicago politics by feeding rote back to his mentors. Like any good actor, he picks up his lines quickly. His one great competence is his ability to extemporaneously spout socialist platitudes in gospel-style oratory. All his speeches are carefully scripted, and he is managed so that his opportunities for winging it are limited. His postmodern moral equivalency is unreasoned, written into the teleprompter text du jour.
That it is built into the policy of the administration he fronts for, along with aa deep, Black Liberation faith, is beyond doubt.
For the record, it’s been four months.
Keep the straw man arguments coming, they play well here.
63:TheMightyMonarch
You maybe right about isolating Hitler early but no one seem to have the stomach for it at the time. As for Patton driving back our allies yes I said allies because without the soviets it is very doubtful that we could of won since they did most of the fighting. Even Bob Hope called Stalin “Uncle Stalin”, so unlike 1984 or the soviets the people of our country would find it pretty strange when we suddenly turn on those we called friends and allies. Watch or read “Band of Brothers” to get a feeling about how tired of war those troops in the European theater were by the end. I doubt even Patton could of convinced them to start another awful war with anyone much less recent allies.
78:Brad
Brad you do not have a very nuanced view of history. In the case of Japan we kept the Emperor in place (kinda like leaving Hitler in place) and with the Soviets we compromised all over the place. The cold war is one example, we let the Poles down as well as all of Eastern Europe. The Second World War was begun to save Poland by the end we compromised them almost out of existence. The Hungarians rose up in 1956 and we left them to die. What about the Prague Spring in 1968 we let the soviet tanks roll right in. We made all sorts of treaties with the Evil Empire, I would call that a compromise wouldn’t you?
Just to be even more nuanced I will even suggest that the infamous compromise of Neville Chamberlain was done to delay Germany’s attack till England could prepare their radar stations and build enough of those spitfires and hurricanes to defend themselves.
Our country was founded on compromise think slavery, so don’t be so quick to dismiss compromise. So compromise used wisely can be a force for eventual victory.
Just to be clear, compromise done right i.e. The Cold War was a compromise that allowed us to defeat the soviets without destroying our nation and killing millions.
#21 Chris H – I will tell you how I’d fix it… with moral certainty. Define the parameters of the discussion. What are the goals for each side? What are the absolute musts (minimums)? What do each side consider dealbreakers (aka, preconditions, in political parlance)? If there is no movement on the dealbreakers, there will never be a deal. Never.
So, to us and Israel, Israel must have the right to exist as a separate, free nation. To the Palestinians, Israel must be wiped out. These are the minimums for each side, and they are mutually unacceptable. They are dealbreakers.
Now, we determine if either side then has any superior moral claim. That is the side we back. I choose Israel. The Arabs cannot justify to me their desire to destroy Israel and kill the Jews, because I know my history. Their stance is completely immoral by any measure. Thus, their claim has no merit. They are homicidal psychopaths.
It is time for Israel to invade Gaza and put all the leaders to the sword. It is a language these savages understand and respect. If you want to negotiate, one must speak their language. Theirs is the language of violence and power. Do not be overly-concerned for life, this time. One must make it harsh enough for them to understand the message. Nothing else do these killers understand.
While morally repugnant to us, they can understand nothing else. Nuking Japan, while repugnant, was the only way to drive the message home. To nothing else could the Emperor yield and yet save face. It had to be done. It was a language the Japanese could understand. Only thus did they yield.
This was an absoluely brilliant piece. Thank you so much, Dr. Hanson.
Moral equivalence is utter shite. Actually, right before Obama was elected I had a massive fight with my ex-History professor, my adviser from college, because I was like, “The universities are responsible for making Obama acceptable.” Pushing socialism, for one thing. And if you’re liberal arts and you think that Freud and Derrida are big frauds, you are dismissed as a hopeless Cro-Magnon.
Moral equivalence leaves you with nothing. Sotomayor, like Obama’s wife, can’t see beyond her own ass. Moral equivalence means nothing means anything, means nothing matters, and we are limited to our biological markers.
You can not govern with this. You can not fight wars with this. No one will take you seriously coming from this perspective- and the Muslims, and China, and Iran, and Chavez- they know, they know. They probably had a moment where they were like, “Oh, Obama, maybe America knows something we don’t.” Now they’ve figured out that Obama is a joke, and the American people are fools.
There are all kinds of empathies in this world…but “Empathy” is essentially the essence of acting, (Remember Ronald Regan describing his movie role experiences as his “life” experiences to foreign dignitaries). Now this practice, (really it’s a lower diagnosis of schizophrenia coupled with narcissism) is becoming the American Ethos and near Constitution …These politicians, who are rooted in this manner of perception are destroying the fabric of society for the sake of personal conceits…”Empathy” in a judge’s decision should not outweigh due process nor the facts involved with legal concerns….”Empathy” is not fact…That is why we have judicial process in the first place…Reading this article where, in her own words, (and I do not see how Mr. Hanson is taking them out of their proper context or subverting them in any severe degree) Sotomayer clearly states on the record, that she WILL defend her bias, in the context of her offices, towards “Latino” and other so-called “minority” agendas. This suggests she does not believe in the very laws she is sworn to uphold. She confirms this disposition by stating she has no belief in the “impartiality” of justice. Simply said, she does not believe in a right or wrong as a judge. Then what exactly to her keeps a society from chaos, despotism and tyranny? Being allowed to endorse such levity within judicial offices that are meant to protect the lawful rights of a sovereign nation, is an overt act of subversion and a “shy” declaration of war against said offices…but a “declaration” jest the same…Not only does the Latino population want the ability to police itself within the United States borders they also want the political latitude and gravity within the other law-abiding populations of the United States to feel “empathy” (read, “less severity, if any”) towards the very same elements that supposedly have “forced” their migration to the United States. A privilege such common criminals would not receive in their own nation. An outstanding opportunity, a great boom, for the drug cartels.
Rosita @ 103: Very well put. And how simple and basic, in contrast to those who ponder 19th century postmodern philosophers and attempt to justify the elitist gibberish written by such.
Thanks to America’s amoral “educators”, the influence of Hollywood, and our bankrupt (morally and otherwise) newsmedia, we are no longer a nation bound by absolutes, one that can stand on firm ground when facing the world’s despots. How can we possibly invoke morals and ideals when our elected leaders espouse the wholesale murder of the unborn and the lawful union of sodomite perverts? Has it even crossed Obama’s mind as he stumps his way through Europe and the Middle East, that his government has abandoned the high ground we once occupied? Is it any wonder Muslims consider him an unprinciple fool?
It is no surprise that a man like Obama, certainly no dummy, has taken advantage of the conflicted feelings of the many and tapped into them.
Michael (#8) my take is that Barack Obama has chosen to overly emphasize the so called “conflicted feelings of the many” and exploit them and exagerrate them for purposes of divide and conquer. These not so subtle devices remind me of the “race industry” in America that individuals such as Jesse Jackson have emphasized, for fun and profit, for decades now.
It’s what JWright, Billy Ayers, Louis Farrakhan all hang their hats on.
I cannot recall such emphasis on our (class, racial, religious, whatever) differences, from the university extending to the highest domains of political power, in my lifetime.
Personally, I’ve always found more in common with my fellow human beings, from all so called walks of life and strata, than I have differences.
exagerrate
exaggerate
In any event, this essay helps me grok this President and where he is coming from, in the context of postmodern relativism.
It’s kind of a depressing ah ha! moment, however.
If you want to read a good article on where the courts ultimately started going wrong (and it wasn’t as short a time ago as the 80s), follow this link:
http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2009-summer/justice-holmes-empty-constitution.asp
The article describes how the Justice Holmes (and the justice system in general) have construed the founding document of the US government to be an “empty constitution”. And it shows how this has become THE principle of jurisprudence in the US.
VIVO: Please answer the following questions for us:
1. Was Obama’s father an agnostic or a devote Muslim?
2. Was Obama’s Uncle (or Grandfather) a liberator of a concentration camp or not?
3. Did Obama promise to close Gitmo?
4. Is Gitmo still operating?
5. Did Obama promise to end “domestic wiretapping”?
6. Did Obama recently re-authorize “domestic wiretapping”?
7. Did Obama promise to reduce the deficit?
8. Did Obama recently sign legislation increasing the deficit by over 20 fold?
9. Is black white?
10. Is white black?
11. Are you bothered by people who constanty contradicts himself/herself?
Thank you…..
May Obama’s chains sit lightly upon us?
For God’s sake, please don’t drag out the “relativism” argument. Is there a shred of evidence that contemporary “relativist” (Western) cultures have a higher level of ambient violence than pious tribes, ruled by an established religion, throughout the past? A simple historical scan will prove just the opposite: cultures dominated by a strong religion are always more violent than agnostic democracies. When Ivan Groznii crucified an entire city for offending him, he did it with the blessings of clergy and the certainty that he was doing God’s will. And such examples are all too easy to list.
109. James:
“VIVO: Please answer the following questions for us:”
You know the answers.
Did you open your mouth?
Did you close your mouth?
Did you open your eyes?
Didi you close your eyes?
Did you sit?
Did you get up?
You get the drift . . . Hopefully.
We now have reason to fear the future. Instead of hope we are confronted with financial disaster and moral cowardance the consequences of which the administration seems to be ignorant or pursuing with reckless abandon . There is change but change that gives all the signs of being catastrophic.
Mr. Hanson:
Here is a corporate memo, written in 1968 that will illustrate the inner workings of affirmative actions that President Obama and Supreme Court candidate Sonia Sotomayor don’t want the public (read VOTERS) to see.
Please comment on this memo:
Wilson and McColough’s 1968 Letter
(Published in Harvard Business Review – 1994)
May 2, 1968
To All Xerox Managers:
We at Xerox are among those who are compelled to accept
the indictment of the National Advisory Commission on
Civil Disorders: What white Americans have never fully
understood — but what the Negro can never forget — is
that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto.
White institutions created it. white institutions maintain
it, and white society condones it.
We, like all other Americans, share the responsibility for
a color-divided nation; and in all honesty, we need not
look beyond our own doorstep to find out why.
In Rochester, one of the first American cities scarred by
racial strife, Xerox continues to employ only a very small
percentage of Negroes. In other major -cities, including
some that have suffered even greater violence, we employ
no Negroes at all.
Thus, despite a stated policy that seeks to fulfill our
obligations to society — and even though the significant
steps we have taken have been publicly praised — our
performance is still far from a shining beacon of corporate
responsibility.
We know, of course, that many Negroes – fearing rejection -
simply don’t apply to Xerox for jobs. And of those who do
apply, many fail to meet our usual standards of qualification.
But those factors obviously cannot be used as excuses. They
are, rather, the very problems which Xerox must and will attack
in the future.
In order to respond with concerted action to the Advisory
Commission’s recommendations that American industry hire,
train and suitably employ one million Negroes within the
next three years, we are therefore going to adopt these
immediate courses of action:
First, we will heavily intensify our recruiting of Negroes
and other minorities, If, as our past experience indicates,
they are reluctant to dome to us, then we will go to them.
A special recruiting effort at University Microfilms in
Ann Arbor, Michigan has proved the validity of this approach
by substantially increasing minority employment in the space
of a few months. We will now extend that effort throughout
all the departments, divisions, and subsidiaries of Xerox.
Secondly, all managers responsible for hiring — regardless
of geographical location — will re-examine their selection
standards and training programs. Our past efforts, by and
large, have sought to find only the best qualified people
for Xerox, regardless of age, race or religion. But that
goal, however valid, has inadvertently excluded many good
people from productive employment.
We are, accordingly, going to change the selection standards
that screen out all but the most qualified people. We will
also begin devoting special attention to minority employees
of limited qualifications to make them genuinely productive
in the shortest possible time. Hopefully we can maintain
standards of performance throughout.
Effective immediately, therefore, all Xerox managers are
directed, on an individual basis, to begin this effort, pending
a more systematic company-wide revision of standards.
Thirdly, we are planning to increase substantially our training
of unqualified Negroes, and other minority members.
Although the Project Step Up Program to qualify people for
entry level jobs has been successful in the Rochester area,
we feel that its scope must be considerably broadened and the
entry requirements modified. We are presently planning to
incorporate the program into our present hiring process, and
to extend it to major Xerox facilities outside Rochester.
The full and unqualified cooperation of all Xerox managers
is expected in reaching our minority hiring goals. Corporate
Personnel has been given the responsibility for implementing
our plans, and for establishing an accountability system
through which top management — beginning immediately — can
regularly assess progress in all divisions, departments and
subsidiaries of the corporation.
Today there are 22 million Negroes in the United States.
The exclusion of many of them from our society is a
malignancy that the nation cannot endure. To include them as
integral to the nation, however, will mean even more than
the correction of an intolerable injustice. It will also
mean the creation of an enormous and affluent market for
new products and services, and of an equally enormous pool
of manpower to help meet the critical shortages predicted
for the future.
We are fully aware, of course, of the progress that Xerox
has already made in assisting the civil rights movement.
But it simply has not gone far enough.
We must do more because Xerox will not add to the misery of
the present condition of most Negroes. It will not condone
the waste of a great national resource. It will not com~
promise the conviction on which the success of this enterprise
and of the nation depends.
Joseph C. Wilson C. Peter McColough
Linked to at:
http://www.thecampofthesaints.com/wwuam.html
Uh, Joseph, leaving the Emperor of Japan in place was not a compromise, but a decision by us to do so. Japan surrendered unconditionally and we could have dressed the emperor in women’s clothes and paraded him around if we wanted to, but we thoughtfully allowed him to stick around but only as a ceremonial figurehead. Japan did not insist on it or something. And to compare that with leaving Hitler in place is profoundly ignorant. I see your point about a good compromise being a cold war and not a hot one, but my point is the two unconditional surrenders brought peace with no forced compromise on our behalf–ergo “unconditional.”