Daily Archives: December 23, 2009

How I Really Feel About Contemporary Republicans

For those of us that are proudly left of liberal the density of the last eight years slowly passes as a dark, soulless sludge.  We have never recognized ourselves in the reactionary slogans of the Republicans.  We only see their own narcissistic, dark dreams personified when they begrudge liberals or the left.  We still do not see president-elect Obama as a leftist ticket to power.  He is certainly a refreshing break from the dark mandrills of the right.  He offers the possibility for balance and sense as opposed to endless, self-righteous pontifications.  Since Reagan with the exception of Clinton, many of us felt the repulsiveness and alienation that the Republicans should be feeling now.  We have not been a part of the national debate only a pin-up cartoon of the right.  We know that the follies and decaying ideologies of the right would cave into their own dust and blow away but the stench of their rotten ideas reeked nausea in our entrails.  President-elect Obama is not left.  His stated ideology is not even liberal.  He is actually a centrist.  The thought of “centrist” has been hijacked for too many years by those that would make it ever so increasing right of the chest beating, never extreme enough right.

 Yep, Republicans are scared to death about the dark awakening.  They have lorded over the destruction of the middle class and did a brilliant job of getting folks to believe we were all “middle class” while things just kept getting tighter and tighter for those making under 100k/year.  They cut taxes? – how would you know if you make under 100K/year? – all the while health care has gone up, insurance, mortgages, food, gas for way too long, college tuition and we hung on like rats on a sinking ship, telling ourselves we were “middle class”, while the well to do bailed out and went to their favorite private island.  They killed our children and told us it was for freedom.  We were not middle class; we were duped, robbed, mugged and made to feel grateful for it.  Their children never pay the “ultimate price”.  Now the veil has been torn and the obvious can no longer be denied.  Their PR wears thin.  Their philosophy fails and they can no longer peddle their wares on the street.  They lost the election and every time they bellow and moan about the liberals, the evil government, socialism, they only show their clay feet and remind us of their legacy of tragedy.  All these vile terms they hurl look good compared to their bankrupt ideology.  Their violent sneers are all over the blogosphere. Their insults amuse.  They have yet to see the repercussions of their demise as they retreat back into their caverns to eat their own.  They only rattle their chains when they preach to their choir.  Only when they see their own dark face in all they now despise will they find the possibility for redemption.  “Class Warfare” is their term to remind them of their deepest fear – that average folks may wake and rise from their Darwinian oblivion.

Why I Am Not a Conservative

 

There is nothing inherently evil about government and nothing inherently good about private business.  Those that would insist on either can only do so based on dogmatic, immutable and therefore, un-falsifiable, ideological grounds.  Once an ideology is calcified into a meta-ideology of this sort no contrarian, empirical event can dislodge it.  A meta-ideology can only re-prove itself.  It becomes an object of faith and ultimately requires violence to maintain it. 

The necessary condition that determines the merit of government or private business is vigilance.  Government and private business is actually an organizational continuum from large to small.  Those that deem big government as evil also deem small government as good.  Those that deem big business as evil deem small business as good.  A powerful government is like a monopoly.  It can determine the “free market” cost of its products and services. It can also determine its cost of materials (i.e., negotiating mass purchases) and salaries (i.e., forbidding collective bargaining and unions, outsourcing, relocating) based on its economies of scale.  This inherent organizational capacity actually diminishes viable competition.  While governments generally can’t go global, multinational corporations are global.  To the degree that a multinational corporation is global, it can subsidize its many business ventures vis-à-vis its enormous capital resources.  This results in decreased competition in the market.  For example, when a government subsidizes agriculture it makes it much harder for other countries to compete on equal footing and therefore, minimizes the possibility for viable competition.  Likewise, when the availability of capital is subsidized by corporations with huge reserves of capital it can leverage itself to such an extent that it can offer its products at a much lower cost than other competitors.  Thus, for example, mortgages can be cheaper in all the countries that it competes in than mere regional companies.  Economies of scale are what make anything such as a “free market” only possible as a meta-theology.  The “free market” left to itself will not encourage competition – it will stifle it. 

If the values implied by the use of the word “free” are innovation and increased value for the consumer then the more successful a corporation is and the larger it becomes the less meaningful these implications are and, in the worst case, the word “free” becomes only a bankrupt ideal.  The disadvantages of economies of scale in government or big business are the loss of efficiency and therefore, vigilance.  To the degree that inefficiency grows in an organization, bureaucracy grows and organizational entropy increases.  Diversity is suppressed and conformity is encouraged.  In this case, the organizational dynamic is reductionary and is aimed at self-preservation rather than innovation.  Conserving the inertia of the organization reduces the need for responsiveness to conditions outside the organization.  Responsiveness is vigilance.  Increasing organizational vigilance increases value to the consumer.  To the degree that an organization is enmeshed within itself also decreases value to the consumer and simultaneously makes competitive entry more difficult.  The result is a monopoly.  Furthermore, when a few large multi-national corporations determine a market segment without limitations the dynamics of a traditional single corporation monopoly equally apply to the market segment.  Competition decreases and inefficiencies increase.

Historically, such super-structures will collapse in on itself whether it is a government or a multi-national corporation but not before much misery and even tragedy has been expended.  The question that must be brought to the fore is, can we influence structures that are created by us to intervene before the natural death of our super-structures to prevent its cataclysmic havoc or do we adopt a lassie-faire approach in adherence to a non-retractable mega-ideology?     Government regulations can be implemented to protect the integrity of a governmental super-structure (self-protection) or to break down super-structure tendencies in multi-national corporations and increase competition and innovation in the market.  If government regulations stifle competition and innovation then, in a democracy, voters regulate the regulators by getting rid of them or, if not a democracy, then revolution. 

Revolution is the natural consequence for an oppressive government, super-structure to die.  However, the human cost is enormous.  Democracies intervene before this natural consequence is allowed to play itself out.  Democracy proves that it is possible to intervene and stifle the inertial effect of our government, super-structures.  Likewise, sound regulations whether on a national or international level can intervene in the natural death of a multi-national corporation.

 It would be sheer pessimism to insist that regulation cannot reduce the fallout from the natural death of global monopolies.  What this position really demonstrates is a mindless adherence to the meta-ideology of a mythical “free market”.  In this case, pessimism assumes nothing can be done to intervene in global monopolies and resulting economic catastrophes.  Lassie-faire hides an economic fatalism under the unquestioned metaphysic of a “free market”.  Pessimism always protects its underlying, unquestioned metaphysic.  If there is no underlying metaphysic then it is simply nihilism and pessimism is itself meaningless.  Unabated nihilism may rarely lead to creation but most typically results in infantile narcissism.  The only practical, alternative course of action is to intervene in the natural course of the market to prevent its global, cataclysmic demise. 

                Another inequality built into the global market is the varying temporalities of capital acquisition.  Multi-national corporations that are imbued with its own guiding value for self-preservation tend to make major decisions with its guiding principle favoring short term capital gain versus long term capital gain.  Ventures like research and development into fundamental new technologies are long term capital ventures.  If a large company can see a viable way to preserve itself by reducing this type of research and development, it will generally choose to do so.  This is how the auto industry in the United States has lost its way.  Instead of pursuing alternative energy for cars, they spent their time leveraging their current gasoline based technology and simultaneously trying to intervene in government regulations to preserve their existence.  Long term fundamental research into new technologies can never be equally competitive with short term capital gains for multi-national corporations.  If the natural tendency to realize short term capital gain in the market is not overcome and intervention does not occur then research and development is put off until it is too late.  The temporality of this type of research and development cannot be made to realize short term capital as other alternate strategies. 

                In medicine government has proven that public funding can offset the inherent inequities in long term research and development.  The government has used grants successfully for many years to introduce fundamentally new technologies into the market.  This technique can be generalized into energy and other pressing needs.  While this is not government intervention in the form of regulation it is a pro-reactive government intervention.

                The last point that needs to be made here is the crash course that traditional conservatism set us on.  Conservatives want “free market”, lassie-faire capitalism.  They also want less government.  This means less government intervention.  As has been pointed out smaller is good in terms of efficiency and innovation but in terms of checks and balances for multi-nationally corporations (or super-structures) less government intervention means the market is left to implode unimpeded from time to time.  Since the market is global and corporations can and will expand beyond the borders of a country, a policy of non-intervention and small government will not favor any particular country.  Capital and wealth can freely flow out to other countries beyond our borders as has been the case in recent years.  To insist that a “free market” thrive as conservatives would like is simultaneously to give up the notion to maintain our government’s status and ultimately, our self-preservation.  To insist that we are always going to be the best at every major undertaking and therefore always prolonging the existence of our government is to ignore the lessons of history and demonstrates another meta-ideology.  In the practical world, both conservative positions cannot be simultaneously held without sacrificing one.  While we do not want to condemn our country to oblivion we also do not want the government of the United States to take on the super-structure, inefficiencies previously discussed.  A global market owes no allegiance to a country.  The only way out is not to conserve but to intervene wisely.

Freedom Handout

While the notion of freedom is a high and lofty ideal, exactly what it means and how it gets implemented demands thought prior to action.  Otherwise, we may find ourselves defending a “freedom” that is nothing other than a self-serving delusion and stuck in a quagmire while the body bag count goes up.  Did anyone give us a “freedom handout” when we wanted it?  We wanted it bad enough to make great sacrifices.  We had a resolve that included the vast majority of people in the colonies.  We did not have to convince a lot of “traitors to humanity on the left” (a convenient way of dismissing the majority without thought) to break away from England.  We do not need to lose our idealism but we do need to get real.   If we try to fight every battle for freedom for every one we may end up losing the war and ourselves in the process.  The resolve we had to implement our freedom did not depend on any “freedom handout”.  We would not have appreciated it if it had been given to us from another country.  The call of freedom is the call for self-responsibility.  Anytime someone is given something they did not earn they take it for granted.  If it comes cheap it goes cheap.  This does not mean we condone brutal, self-serving aggression when we see it.  It does mean that we have a realistic understanding of what freedom means and how it has value.  Knee-jerk reaction is not what makes freedom real.  A “freedom handout” does make freedom real.   To make freedom real a majority of people must thoughtfully resolve to make it their own no matter what the consequences.   Our resolve does not effortlessly apply to everyone, everywhere.  This is magical thinking (or no thinking at all).  Our anger and indignation does not create a resolve for freedom in other countries.  It only gives us an occasion for own angry, narcissistic catharsis while we sacrifice our young and cheapen the value of freedom.

Note: While I would not want to minimize the involvement of France, Spain and Holland in the Revolutionary War I would point out that the resolve of the colonies was already demonstrated and forged in the three years it took for France to get involved (four for Spain and Holland).  Washington himself was totally surprised by the fortunate, “Divine Providence” of these countries involvement.  In any case, I think if those countries had initially invaded England to give the colonies “freedom” my point would have failed.  As it is their involvement years later for their own reasons does not negate the patriots resolve.  I might also add that “freedom” in the case of the Revolutionary War may also have more meat on it than simply a lofty ideal (i.e., taxation without representation, etc.).

A Brief Introduction to Being and Time

Heidegger (H.) tells us we all have a pre-cognitive understanding of “being” already at work in our “everydayness”.  There are different ways that we relate to being.  For example, when we use a hammer to build something, we are relating to that hammer with a “pre-understanding” of its being.  We are relating to it in the mode of instrumentality.  In German, Heidegger refers to this as zuhanden, ready-to-hand.  In that mode, “being” shows itself as “disappearing in use”.  We relate to the being of the hammer as a “tool”.  If the hammer breaks while it is disappearing in use we immediately relate to it in another mode “present at hand”.  We look at it and say “stupid hammer” how dare you!  It becomes conspicuous, even a bit intrusive.  “Present at hand” is how science relates to being.  In this mode being is present as a thing (substance), an object of study, and shows itself to us.  In German, Heidegger refers to this as vorhanden, present-at-hand.  For H. when being is mis-understood (semblance) we relate to it in in-authenticity.  If we pre-understand our environment as instrumentality, we use it to accomplish a task such that it disappears in use, we use oil to make our cars go, we use trees to build our houses, etc. –  then, we pre-understand the being of nature/environment as “standing reserve”.  This is the problem of technology.  It comes from a confusion of how we relate to the being of “nature”, as a semblance of “nature”.  Why do I emphasize “nature””?  Because this shows something else about how we relate to being, we are historical beings.  We live in a “stretch” of time that goes from a past to a future not an instant present.  “Nature” is a term/relationship to a being that is carried with us from language, philosophy, history – metaphysics.  It tells us a pre-cognitive understanding of what something “is”, its being.  When what something “is” is a semblance we have failed to relate authentically with “it”.  The being of human (dasein) is what H. spends much of his effort on in Being and Time.  A few examples:   The experience of time – there is lived time and abstract, historical time.  Our history informs us that time is a series of abstract “now” moments and yet the way we live time is as a stretch.  When we are happy time seems/feels like it flies by quickly.  When we are depressed time drags on forever.  So the experience of time is different than the abstract notion of time as “now” moments.  Why do we privilege abstract time? – because we are historical beings and pre-understand time as an abstraction (i.e., a history defined by “now” moments) – this informs us about time – not how we experience it.  Another example:  The experience of space – history tells us that space is linear extension, “things” are x number of feet away in 3 dimensional space…but what about lived space?  – When I am looking at a glass of water while wearing glasses the glasses on my face is closer to me in terms of linear extension but in a lived sense I am closer to the glass of water, I am together with the glass of water, co-habiting its space.  So humans can de-sever regions of space and bring them close or far at will.  If I am walking down a hallway I am not calculating the feet to all the walls, floor and ceiling (as perhaps a robot would do) to orient myself, to keep from falling.  In a lived sense, I am co-habiting the region of the hallway and orienting myself accordingly.  Again, we privilege the abstract over the lived (phenomenological) experience because we are historical beings.  This is a short intro. into H. and his work.  It gets better!