[Peace-discuss] War and peace again
Jenifer Cartwright
jencart7 at yahoo.com
Tue Jul 17 14:22:35 CDT 2007
Reminder that my objections never concerned that paragraph -- and I don't want to rehash what my objections have been this past week or so!
Jenifer
"C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:
That's what I argued in the July 4 flyer.
The factitious separation of political and economic serves to protect
the economic order from criticism. Obviously the major political
questions -- now the war and health care -- are also questions about the
economic order. --CGE
Jenifer Cartwright wrote:
> Folks,
>
> Let's remember that some labels are political while others are
> economic.
>
> Social democracy sounds great to me (and no, I won't hold my breath
> for its happening here anytime soon. Worth working for, however.)
>
> Free-market/ capitalist democracy is an oxymoron.
>
> Jenifer
>
> */"C. G. Estabrook" /* wrote:
>
> Hostility to democracy has been commonplace in American politics,
> from the Founding Father's assertion that "those who own the country
> ought to govern it," to the open contempt for democracy shown by the
> Neocons. But such hostility is rarely asserted as an ideal,
> especially by those presumed to be opposed to war and racism. People
> are usually embarrassed about being opposed to democracy.
>
> The central assertion of the Enlightenment was that freedom was an
> essential component of human nature. "I have sworn upon the altar of
> God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of
> man," said Jefferson. Some authority may be justified, of course --
> I am right to assert my authority over my four-year-old to prevent
> her running into the street. But authority doesn't exist by right --
> it needs to justify itself.
>
> It is the task of democracy to establish justified authority. For
> example, there are those in the community who act against the freedom
> of others, occasionally with violence, and they need to be stopped
> and stopped quickly, and violence may be necessary to do it. A
> democracy will need a police force -- but it should be under
> democratic control.
>
> But authoritarianism (unjustified authority) is a civic vice, while
> democracy is a virtue. It's a perversion of Aristotelian moral theory
> to see political virtue as a mean between authoritarianism (a vice)
> and democracy (a virtue). (It also produces an infinite regress, sort
> of Hegel in reverse.) Aristotle thought that virtue declined in two
> directions to vice, one of excess and the other of deficiency (e.g.,
> courage is opposed to foolhardiness as well as to cowardice). Thus
> civic virtue (social order) lies between the vices of excessive law
> (authoritarianism) and lawlessness (anarchy).
>
> We do not say that political virtue is a balance between violence and
> peace. Peace is the ideal, even though (justified) violence may
> sometimes be necessary for its attainment. Democracy is the ideal,
> even though (justified) authority may be necessary for its
> attainment. (Hence the right of revolution.)
>
> What Aristotle actually said about democracy was that it would
> necessarily be undermined and destroyed by authoritarianism in a
> situation of inequality. Inequality and democracy are contradictory,
> Aristotle thought, so you had to restrict one or the other. The US
> founding fathers, who were well educated in the classics, understood
> the problem -- and chose to limit democracy, not inequality. Madison
> wrote that the Constitution was designed "to protect the minority of
> the opulent against the majority" -- i.e., it was set up to restrict
> the democratic impulses of Americans (e.g., Shays' Rebellion, 1786)
> so that the rich wouldn't be threatened with redistribution of their
> wealth.
>
> The political spectrum does not run from authority to democracy, but
> from authoritarianism (on the Right) to democracy (on the Left).
> Anarchism -- a political theory to be sharply distinguished from the
> state of anarchy, although the distinction is often and purposely
> confused -- is at the far Left end. Anarchism doesn't mean no rules,
> just no rulers. An anarchist society -- a free association of
> workers/producers (which is what human beings are) -- would
> necessarily be a highly organized society. There would have to be a
> good deal of democratic authority, but no authoritarianism.
>
> Oscar Wilde once said, "Socialism is a good idea, but it would take
> too many evenings." All anarchists are socialists, but not all
> socialists are anarchists. The 20th century acquainted us with the
> phenomenon of authoritarian socialism -- right-wing socialism -- but
> affords few examples of the non-authoritarian sort.
>
> Lenin of course recognized the phenomenon in his 1920 book "Left-Wing
> Communism -- An Infantile Disorder." He was against it.
> Authoritarians are opposed to democracy.
>
> --CGE
>
---------------------------------
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