[MD] Neoconservatism

[Matt Kundert]

DMB,

David, of course I'm on your side politically.  When you say that "I suppose 
you think Pirsig's complaints about the pragmatists inability to prevent 
political horrors like fascism is just some lame and irrelevant tangent," 
you're more or less right because I have no idea how a _philosophy_ is 
supposed to prevent political horrors, which is Rorty's point.  You deal 
with fascism with politics (and armies when nothing else works).  Rorty's 
point is that to treat Cheney and Wolfowitz and Kristol as theorists, rather 
than thugs, is to A) give them far more credit then they deserve) and B) 
distract attention away from the way we should be treating them--as thugs 
who need to be voted out.  They are just greedy bastards, and that's how we 
should treat them.

Now, I will grant you that that's not _all_ they are.  They are trying to 
return to what you called pre-modern values or Victorian values.  And that 
is scarry.  But I don't philosophical argument is entirely in point here, 
either.  Pirsig's distinctions work well, but I don't take them as 
philosophical distinctions that, as would be a kind of consequence of your 
portrait of lame pragmatism, pragmatists couldn't use.  I read Pirsig as 
doing some good cultural criticism that anybody can pick up and use (or 
disregard as Platt does) whether or not they accept Quality or the 
static/Dynamic distinction, stuff that I think swings free of his 
philosophical system.

I can't remember if you'd ever read Rorty's little book Achieving Our 
Country, and what you'd thought of it.  It's rather short and describes 
(from Rorty's amateuish historical point of view) the political history of 
the 20th century.  Rorty's main point is that the Left has been cut into 
two: the Reformist Left (roughly New Deal leftism) and the Academic/Cultural 
Left (born of the 60s).  Rorty thinks that the switch to cultural politics 
has produced great movements and reform, but it has caused the left to 
forget about what got them into power to produce great reform: class 
politics.  Rorty thinks, and I tend to agree, that greed is what's 
motivating this thuggish administration and cultural politics is just the 
instrument they're using to divide Americans and get at least half of them 
on their side.  Rorty wrote AOC in 1997, but even then he was writing that 
the Democrats' focus on cultural politics was playing into the Republicans' 
hands by distracting everybody's attention away from all the money the 
Republicans wanted to steal.  And that's what's happened.  Just one recent 
example: last week the Republicans called a super-secret, 
behind-closed-doors session of some committee (the judiciary, maybe) to 
discuss an amendment to the Constitution banning Gay marriage (roughly, my 
details may be off).  Russ Feingold (who I love dearly, all the more because 
he's _my_ Senator and I can be geographically proud of him) objected that 
the session was even taking place and stormed out of the room.  I listen to 
Air American all week, and pretty much everybody (Fraken, Randy Rhodes, Big 
Ed) was in agreement that this was the Republicans' attempt to distract 
attention, by focusing on the divisive "gay issue" (which is what partly won 
them the last election), from the huge, stupid and greedy tax cuts they gave 
to the rich the week before (not to mention the committee hearings on 
Hayden, of which Feingold had to run to after the amendment meeting).

My point is not that cultural politics aren't important.  Far from it. But I 
have two points--one, that philosophy is pretty remote most of the time from 
politics and two, that it might be more efficacious for us strategically to 
refocus on class politics in the political arena.  We can get a much bigger 
majority on those issues.

David, you've known for a long time that I'm on your side politically.  I'm 
usually in almost total agreement when you launch political arguments (most 
of which are remote from Pirsig's books) and cultural arguments (which are 
influenced by Pirsig's anti-Victorianism) against Platt.  What I shy away 
from is when you try and hook up Pirsig's cultural criticism with his more 
abstract philosophical parts--like the Quality thesis and the static/Dynamic 
distinction.  I don't think there's a very tight connection there, if for no 
other reason than those distinctions are so abstract.  Platt fills them in 
one way for his arguments, you fill them in another way for yours.  I say, 
keep talking about Victorianism and the virtues of egalitarian democracy 
against Platt, and don't get hung up on talking about Straussian philosophy. 
  That's just a distraction.  I think Rorty was right that the so-called 
Straussians in the administration don't even want to argue about Strauss.  
They just want to take everybody's money and rule the world.  They'll do it 
anyway they can, and if extoling Strauss helps, they'll do it.  If it 
doesn't, they'll ignore it.  As far as an efficient method of getting them 
out of office, I say screw the Strauss stuff and stick to how they are 
taking all of our money and screwing the entire country for generations to 
come.

So when you say at the end that "Our disagreements about mysticism don't 
effect this area of the pragmatic tradition in America, right?", I think you 
are absolutely right and that that's been my point about pragmatism and why 
I think Pirsig's attack on James' pragmatism was at cross-purposes--views 
about mysticism, epistemology, and metaphysics are besides the point when 
talking about politics.  I think Pirsig's systematic philosophy is totally 
divorcible from the cultural criticism he did, just as James' politics was 
from his philosophy (and Nietzsche's was from his philosophy).  He could've 
done it without it, and he could've just as easily have not done it at all.  
Rorty's often argued that we tailor our philosophy to our politics, and I 
think that's what we see when we take the example of Platt.  Many of us here 
(you, me, Anthony, etc.) agree with the cultural criticism and the politics 
that seem to be hiding behind Pirsig's books.  Platt doesn't.  But he 
tailors quite easily the abstract sections of Pirsig's philosophy to suit 
his needs.  I don't think there's anything we can say to stop him.  I think 
Pirsig tailored his systematic philosophy to the cultural and political 
criticisms he wanted to make, but when you go abstract, the pieces become 
cooptable.  So what if Platt's getting Pirsig wrong?  Platt can just reply 
that Pirsig got his own philosophy wrong, that the conceptual instruments he 
used really imply something else.  As a "real" Pirsigian (someone who might 
agree with Pirsig on nearly all issues), Platt loses, but that doesn't 
matter on the level of defeating Platt at philosophy, and neither of them 
matter in defeating him at politics and cultural criticism.

Matt

p.s.  Alice, yes, the thugs I was talking about were Bush and his cronies.

p.p.s.  DMB, if you're interested or have the time, there's an article of 
Rorty's online that takes another angle on current American politics.  It 
again argues that philosophy is irrelevant to politics, but it also forwards 
a distinction in the beginning between democracy-as-constitutionalism and 
democracy-as-egalitarianism to catch the difference between American 
rightists and leftists.  So, whatever your disagreements with the 
"philosophy is irrelevant" thing, the distinction might prove to be a useful 
weapon to beat about the heads of rightists like Platt.  
http://www.iranculturestudies.com/english/02_fund-study.html

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