Pay no attention to Caesar. Caesar doesn’t have the slightest idea what’s really going on.

Published
by
Nicola Karras
on October 11, 2008
in If You're Not Postmodern You're Not Paying Attention, Navel Gazing and Politics
. 2 Comments

Serious philosophical questions and midterms do not mix well.

I have so many things floating around in my head, including some thoughts on capitalism vs. culture, but it’s mostly responses to the responses. Some of my favorites (and you should really read the whole things, because they say far more than I can quote):

EAT THE APPLE

Virtue ? That is your responsibility, whilst it may be nice to think of the spartans whipping virtue into the young, wishing you too could have the rest of modern society from its crack addicts to perverts to slothful today tonight watchers pushed towards a life of virtue, to do that is to deny their humanity, deny their choice and ultimately deny that they have any possibility of a virtuous life. For virtue can not simply be external behaviour rote learned. It has to be valued and sought after by the individual, not simply a pattern of behaviour forced upon an individual if they are to survive and participate in the community.

We may not be a virtuous society today, and many individuals may not express such a character. But for the first time in human history it is at least possible and an option. One built on a real foundation of respect towards us as humans who can choose individual achievement towards nobility, not a forced behaviour as if mere pet dogs trained to beg and bark on command.

You can seek community, or you can seek virtue. Not both, and likely neither with modern conservatism.

(Chasing the Norm)

SHE SAID PERFORMATIVITY! …WELL, SHE SHOULD HAVE.

A good play can change not just a man’s life but his identity, but only if he “believes” it in a very particular way. He can’t really believe it—if he does, he’ll rush onstage to try and stop Oedipus from blinding himself!—but neither can he keep in the front of his mind that it’s just his friend Jeff in an Oedipus mask. That’s the kind of belief I have in my traditions, especially those that can’t be traced back to divine revelation. More on why traditionalism isn’t relativism here. I’d excerpt, but this post is long enough already; let it suffice to say that Oscar Wilde was my kind of conservative.

(Helen at Pomocon)

YOU KEEP USING THAT WORD. I DO NOT THINK IT MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS.

Here is what I think: I think “postmodernism” is a great way to justify excessive navel-gazing, obtuse writing, obfuscated thinking, and various forms of related wankery. (But if anyone wants to convince me otherwise with a concise definition of the term, the comments are open below.)

(Another Damned Blog)

THE STATE: WHAT’S UP WITH THAT?

My deeper point is that by not locating our own context/position, political discussions that are abstract (What is The Fundamental Issue?) assume a one-size-fits-all answer for all times and places.  And they can inadvertently end up supporting a point of view I doubt (esp. in this case) the author really holds to.  Moreover, a great deal depends on our location in terms of what we see/pick up on.

If postmodernism (conservative and/or liberal) taught us anything it’s that meaning is contextual and that contexts are never-ending, hence all our statements (including this one) are provisional.  [Provisional however can be a very long time--point to pomocons].  My take is the best way to deal with that reality is to be as honest as we can about our own position and just say it out. In that way I think there is more an invitation to debate and dialogue than a framing that says “X Issue is THE One” and then creates sharp divisions between those who stand on either side of X. When often, the reality, I would say, is never that clear or simple.

(Indistinct Union)

TO DEFINE CONSISTENCY AS TRUTH IS TO DENY THE EXISTENCE OF TRUTH

I would substitute her categorical rejection of rationalism and a firm commitment to community with the following maxim: It is the conservative’s job to remain permanently uncomfortable with existence. Because it is precisely when we think we have arrived at final answers–whether they reside in reason or in community–that we actually become susceptible to totalitarianism. We shoud firmly accept, as the late Judge Learned Hand once declared, that “The true spirit of liberty is the spirit that is not too sure that it is right.” This belief was at the heart of the American Founding, and it is, sadly, a belief that has all but evaporated in today’s destructive partisan politics.

Conservatism should be about ideas and ideals, not about emotional appeals to interpersonal connections, and there is simply no way to arrive at the “right” ideas without reason. This element of balance is what seems to be missing from the worldview that Karass has arrived at.

(Exit Cave Right)

MY BELOVED IS MINE AND I AM…WHOSE?

To the extent that this is a love story in which the beloved(s) remain intentionally unnamed, I can understand your interlocutors’ frustration! WHOM one loves (whether a person, a Person, or a persona e.g. a tradition) makes an enormous difference….

I can guess at a few possible beloveds; and you say yourself that this is a story of the shape of your thoughts rather than their content, but obviously it’s really difficult to separate shape from content, and I wonder if your decision to attempt the separation wasn’t a mistake.

I’m hoping that this reading of Nicola’s post is reasonably accurate. Because there are several different ways to read it, and a love story with a beloved (or beloveds) she can actually name would be the best one. A love story in which the identity of the mystery date hasn’t been revealed, but she thinks it might, and she’s going on a detective search–that’s also good.

(Eve — and seriously, read the whole thing. I think she groks me in a way that I don’t grok myself, which is always cool if a little scary.)

I promise I’ll get to all of this, not least because I can’t sit still until I do. In the meantime, feel free to discuss in comments.

In other news, I really, really want this shirt:

Burke is dead.

Published
by
Nicola Karras
on October 9, 2008
in If You're Not Postmodern You're Not Paying Attention, Navel Gazing, Philosophy and Politics
. 7 Comments

Freddie dissects me and comes up short:

…I was sure I had missed something: where was the resolution to Karras’s existential crisis? Where was the moment where she found her access to the truth that frees her from the spiritual emptiness that pure intellect had left her with? I couldn’t find it, and can’t. I find instead her (very understandable) sense of loss at the dissolution of real authority and real certainty, and the choice to embrace foundationalism and its political child, conservatism.

He couldn’t identify the moment where I found “access to the truth” because I didn’t. That is, in a way, the whole point. The problem with that rationalism was the human inability to grasp truth by itself. I spent my time looking for something that I could be sure was true, and I couldn’t find it. I still haven’t. I’m not certain. My realization was not of the truth of anything in particular, but in the fact that I could have meaning without the certainty of truth.

So yes, of course my “ethic is an ethic of necessity, not of truth.” Truth would be lovely. Truth would, I imagine, give me some objective meaning. But meaning also comes from the search.

This is a willed belief in tradition, a knowing choice of old institutions, the inherently meta rejection of the meta. “I had been drowning, and looking back I saw how easy it would have been to latch on to something murderous to save myself.” Not, “the life raft was the reality of Christ/community/tradition/etc”. Instead, the pure pragmatism at grasping at whatever piece of driftwood happened to float by. This is postmodern premodernism, and it has become kind of popular.

I may not have been clear, and in retrospect the whole drowning thing is a dubious analogy. Let me try to explain myself again: when we regard foundationalism as the best way to understand the world, we are desperate for some foundational principle. We will grasp at whatever driftwood floats by. When I thank my lucky stars, it isn’t for the fact that I happened to grab a particularly benign piece of driftwood but that I realized I didn’t have to grab one at all.

How does that work? It segues nicely into Freddie’s questions about tradition and postmodernity:

How can traditionalism survive, when you know that mere human subjectivity is the source of tradition? Conservatism has tradtionally been suspicious, even hateful, of postmodern skepticism towards meta-narratives. I think many of the pomocons believe that they can have the destabilizing nature of postmodernism and yet still knowingly choose the stability of classical forms, traditional mores. But the old school conservatives abhor the postmodern for a reason. They know the limits of willed obediance to the past, they recognize the fragility of any conservatism of choice.

I’m not one of the arbiters of Pomoconservatism, but I’ll give this a shot. My emphasis on tradition is not, God knows, because I discovered that tradition is objectively correct. It’s not even because I’ve decided to think that tradition is objectively correct. (The former is impossible; the latter is lame.) Rather, it’s because tradition does form us, because tradition does give us meaning. We have to examine it and search for truth within it, because if truth is the sort of thing that can be found, that’s the only place we’ll find it.

Freddie is right: you cannot choose to be premodern. Those who have eaten from the tree of knowledge cannot forget. There is something pathetic about the conservatives who try to pretend they missed the Enlightenment. But if a postmodern conservatism does not stick its fingers in its ears (”la la la la, William of Ockham, I can’t heeeeeear you…”), it also does not insist that I have chosen my choice and that’s that.

Postmodern conservatism is a reflection of the fact that the veils have already been stripped off; tradition has already lost its reflexive hold on us. It still shapes us, but we recognize that it is to some degree arbitrary. The values we want to see in the world are informed by our tradition, but because we know that, any attempt at change must be a reflective, self-conscious process.

So what is the project of postmodern conservatism? Is it, as I think Freddie understands it, to justify conservatism in the language of postmodernity? Or is it the first steps towards overcoming?

Happiness is a warm puppy.

Published
by
Nicola Karras
on October 9, 2008
in Extemporanea
. 6 Comments

This video has made my week. (Title: “My Dogs greeting me after returning from 14 months in Iraq.”)

(Via.)

Elegy for October

Published
by
Kate Maltby
on October 9, 2008
in Media and Politics
. 1 Comment

The West at Yale has the most moving response I’ve seen yet to Tuesday’s Presidential Debate. It’s a lament for the dearth of serious philosophical commentary in this election cycle, in a world in which a Presidential candidate can declare healthcare “a right” and, instead of a public debate about the nature of Rights Language, be greeted with a resounding intellectual silence. It’s a loss that’s been particularly felt since Andrew Sullivan turned into a tabloid scandal hound. The money quote?

I just need some conservative intellectual commentary right now to save me from this election cycle’s demagoguery, and Sullivan is being as unquestioningly partisan as Hannity is for McCain.

Incidentally, the most official endorsement of loose rights terminology that I’ve ever seen was at the Museum of the Red Cross in Geneva. According to the stone inscriptions that greet visitors on entry, prisoners of war have natural rights to Water, Food and … Tobacco. Of course, if access to tobacco is a natural right, may the noble savage light up inside a New York restaurant?

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy

Published
by
Nicola Karras
on October 8, 2008
in Navel Gazing, Philosophy and Politics
. 49 Comments

I mentioned this “political autobiography” project for class and a few people were interested. I am one of my favorite topics, so I’m happy to share it; find out All About Me after the jump. (I feel very silly about this.) This is more of an attempt to trace my development than the actual content of my thoughts — that’s a much more interesting story.

More…

Object Lesson

Published
by
Dara Lind
on October 6, 2008
in Arts and Extemporanea
. 1 Comment

Often I ask myself: what’s the “tipping point,” new-content-wise, that distinguishes a comment on another blog from a post on this one?

Today I figured out the answer.

Comment: wondering what Alicia Keys is doing in the new James Bond theme.

Post: realizing that — of course! — she’s there because she’s supposed to be Amy Winehouse.

The video makes so much more sense now. The lingering shots of eyelids and wrists. The excessive mic-seducing pouts. The retro-raunchy that keeps its edges so jagged that it turns out retro-pushy — but in a loose, tame way, like a girl lip-synching in front of her mirror.

Seriously, did the James Bond Theme Song Brain Trust rethink anything after jettisoning her? Or did they just try to find two musicians who, if morphed together, might approximate Amy Winehouse — and then, upon deciding that Jack White and Alicia Keys fit the bill reasonably, skip the crucial step of morphing them? (And don’t tell me that’s scientifically impossible. This is the Bond franchise, people.)

I mean, I like the song (almost despite myself), and I guess I appreciate their attempts to think ahead to the (likely near) day when we won’t have her around anymore. But if imitation can’t compare to the real thing, sometimes innovation can’t either.

UPDATE: Okay, so it problematizes my distinction just a little bit to point out that Poulos didn’t see this as worth posting on when he wrote his comment — before I wrote mine — on the original post…

The meta, it burns!

Published
by
Nicola Karras
on October 5, 2008
in Extemporanea and Yale
. 5 Comments

…and to tide you over until Iqra’i gets a collective handle on schoolwork, social lives, senior essays, jobs, and the increasing amounts of blood in our caffeine system, HuffPo has just posted speeches from September’s YPU debate.

Sadly, no one asked for mine. On the other hand, I have a blog, too, and what could be more democratic than blogging about a debate where I gave a speech about how blogging isn’t democratic?

Ten pages down, ten to go.

Published
by
Nicola Karras
on October 5, 2008
in Navel Gazing, Politics and Yale
. 6 Comments

“La Contre-Révolution ne sera pas une révolution contraire, mais le contraire de la Révolution.” — Maistre.

From the end of my “political autobiography” (for class):

More than anything else, I am concerned with how we think about things, and what that means to us in terms of living both virtuous and fulfilling lives. I’ve long since stopped caring about labels: call me a conservative, a libertarian, a reactionary — just don’t call me late for the counterrevolution.

Now to finish write the other two papers due tomorrow. (Note to my mother: just kidding!)

Coincidence? I think not!

Published
by
Nicola Karras
on September 30, 2008
in Politics
. 0 Comments

Intellectual history is in large part the geneaology of ideas. We try to understand the backdrop, the implicit assumptions, the unconscious past meanings that present use still carries. Sometimes it’s fun to do it to yourself.

Over at LadyBlog, through children’s books, I try.

But what would Sartre have thought of social networking?

Published
by
Dara Lind
on September 20, 2008
in Extemporanea and Media
. 3 Comments

Are you looking for something to add to your Google Reader that isn’t quite as taxing as “Diaries of the Greats: Commemorative Blog Edition” (Pepys; Orwell) but has a bit more intellectual meat to it than, say, that cluster of Mad-Men-character Tumblrs that was hot for about a minute and a half this summer?

I give you “Being and Nothingness: le weblog personnel de Jean-Paul Sartre.”

Mocking the misanthropy of genius hasn’t been this much fun since Strindberg and Helium.

The Pepys/Orwell phenomenon highlights something else, actually: even as the infinite capacity of the Internet has broken all rules regarding a certain kind of time-boundedness — eliminating the tendency of old information to get “buried” under new information, for example (much to the chagrin of Google News and United Airlines) — the rise of blogs has encouraged packaging information in a serialized manner for consumption. Pepys and Orwell aren’t just being reintroduced for the 21st century, but de-archived (in a manner of speaking). Sidestepping the question of whether or not we’d be able to handle reading their diaries at one go these days, it seems like a really solid marketing strategy for targeting people who are mature/stagnant enough in their Web use that they tend toward “checking” rather than “exploring”.