Once Obama has secured his victory tomorrow (I know, I'm really counting my chickens before they're hatched here -- but as Oscar Wilde once pointed out, it is best to count chickens before they hatch and start moving around and making counting so much more difficult, after all), it won't be long before he is announcing his Cabinet appointments and advisors and so on. We are pretty much guaranteed a full-on collective freakout across the Netroots -- without whom Obama would not have been elected in the first place they will point out, and with justice -- all of whom will be spitting mad at the Clinton-era dinosaurs and corporate-capitulators and so on who will surely come to litter his Administration. Count on it.
I have two things to say about this. First, it is going to be the job of the Netroots to push Obama and our elected Democrats to more progressive policies from their left and so all this fist-shaking is right and proper and to be encouraged (and I am sure to be among those doing it). Second, one wonders how on earth could anybody have expected otherwise? Wingnuts may have been calling Obama a socialist and all the rest, but nobody with a brain ever thought Obama was more than moderately left of center in his politics. I mean, given the urgency and structural depth of the financial crisis, given the democratizing thrust of his small-donor support and organization, and given the symbolics of his historical candidacy, it's actually likely that Obama is going to govern a little left of the place he would have settled comfortably onto otherwise. But nobody should have expected a radically (or even adequately) progressive administration from Obama, and nobody should feel betrayed or, worse, demoralized when he doesn't provide one.
The reason this should not be devastating to progressives is that I think we should expect truly progressive initiatives to issue not from the White House but from the House of Representatives. For example, I think it should matter far less to progressives that Obama has not offered up a universal single-payer health care plan than that we know he has said healthcare is a right, and so will almost certainly not veto such a plan when it finds its way through Congress to his desk.
Obama will certainly provide much of the rhetoric that inspires, sustains, and frames the work of this emerging progressive epoch, but much of the actual substance of that work is sure to come from our Representatives and Senators. That is not such a bad thing, if you ask me.
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"Centrist" may mean a lot of different things... Someone who does whatever seems to work for the nation, disregarding ideological labels, or someone to whom "centrism" is just a convenient way to further his own powermongering agenda/hedging their bets/whatever. I'm all for the first kind of centrism. Whether or not Obama would be that kind of centrist remains to be seen, but it's certainly something modern world is lacking. We need "New Realpolitik" which would, like the original one, emphasise solution's long-term viability above all else, but unlike it, won't be about keeping five failies in power over the world, but about solving _people's_ problems.
But hey, championing for a bunch of preconceived notions is so much easier...
I think I may agree with you... "Centrism" certainly shouldn't sensibly be taken to mean supporting an agenda that benefits a small elite or incumbent interests, given, you know, that it has the word "center" in it, and not the word "elite" or "extreme" in it.
However, I doubt claiming to be "beyond" ideology and "solving people's problems" is the way to achieve a more properly centrist result, though, since everybody claims to be doing that already. Indeed, if one studies ideology in any depth one discovers that its chief effect is precisely to produce in its adherents the sense that their idiosyncratic views are universal, that their moral views are practical, that their actually contingent and disputed notions are natural and commonsensical. Usually the views one proposes in the name of moving beyond the ideological are the consummate accompishment of ideology.
It seems to me that if one is for democracy and justice for all then one needs to bite the bullet and actually embrace explicitly and forcefully the idea that the needs of majorities matter as much as the needs of minorities, that equal access to the law is undermined for all when it is blocked for any, and one must declare these things whether or not this gets pilloried as "ideological" or "unrealistic."
I happen to think these are fairly mainstream American notions, and hence it should be regarded as centrist to advocate them -- this despite the fact that views have been decried as extremist by the extremists who have been in charge of things through the long national nightmare of Movement Republican rule.
Maybe that's just a bunch of preconceived notions on my part though. I can't say that championing for these notions has been so much easier than alternatives I could conceive, but ymmv.
Excellent points.
However, I doubt claiming to be "beyond" ideology and "solving people's problems" is the way to achieve a more properly centrist result, though, since everybody claims to be doing that already.
Definitely. A Machiavellian powermonger is probably even more beyond ideologuy than "proper" centrist, and of course everyone nowadays claims to solve real or imaginary "people's problems".
But for all my cynicism, I still belive there is such thing as "objective reality" somewhere out there against which such claims might be validated, and erroneous or fraudulent theories exposed.
It seems to me that if one is for democracy and justice for all then one needs to bite the bullet and actually embrace explicitly and forcefully the idea that the needs of majorities matter as much as the needs of minorities, that equal access to the law is undermined for all when it is blocked for any, and one must declare these things whether or not this gets pilloried as "ideological" or "unrealistic."
They are neither in themselves, at least nowadays. But means by which someone purports to achieve these goals, may be.
Bush economics policies might be prime example... They didn't work, hence they were unrealistic, and they were based on pure ideology.
The trick is of course in spotting such unrealistic proposals (whether made in good faith or not) before they result in global crises, and by "spotting" I mean "spotted by majority on their own," not by small group of vanguardist whistleblowers.
New media and A2K in general is a way to make this validation process viable, to make democracy really work as it purportedly should have been working from the beginning.
Since we're all fallible human beings, maybe that also is just a bunch of preconceived notions on my part, of course.
I strongly disapprove what seems to me to be the fantasy (held by folks from quite diverse ideological perspectives) that a technocratic disavowal of the political will ever yield politically progressive results. This is actually a very different claim from a denial that there is such a thing as an objective reality "out there." As it happens, I do deny many versions of that sort of claim, if only because I don't think reality is out there, rather than, you know, what we're soaking in. It's true that Bush's administration has been enormously incompetent, but the deeper problem is that is has been enormously evil if you believe in democracy, nonduressed consent, or the facilitation of general welfare, equity or diversity. Those are values and need to be defended as such, rather than outcomes stealthed under the auspices of scientific administration. It's a pet topic with me, as a theory-head, I'm not sure it yields results that are dire in practice in proportion to which they it seems to me wrongheaded in theory.
It's a pet topic with me, as a theory-head, I'm not sure it yields results that are dire in practice in proportion to which they it seems to me wrongheaded in theory.
"they it"... I can't tell what "it" means.
They didn't work, hence they were unrealistic, and they were based on pure ideology.
"Unrealistic" doesn't have to be "ideological." The policies could just be unrealistic without being guided by ideology, just like trying to destroy a wall with a gun is unrealistic but not ideological.
I strongly disapprove what seems to me to be the fantasy (held by folks from quite diverse ideological perspectives) that a technocratic disavowal of the political will ever yield politically progressive results.
(I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "technocratic disavowal," so please ignore me if I am talking about something different)
Ignoring politics obviously won't strengthen democracy or make society more equitable or diverse, and it probably won't reduce coercion. I think most people know that, since it is so obvious. My guess is that they are trying to make people in general happier in ways unrelated to politics, such as making it more convenient to fly on an airplane (etc., etc.).
strongly disapprove what seems to me to be the fantasy (held by folks from quite diverse ideological perspectives) that a technocratic disavowal of the political will ever yield politically progressive results.
So do I, in fact, but I was a little unclear.
I don't think reality is out there, rather than, you know, what we're soaking in.
Do we? Certain aspects of reality are trivial to personally expirience, sure, but I could act as if, say, London doesn't exist for decades, and if I'd really wish, I could easily deny any proof of its existence. All photos are fake, books are fake, people who claim they've been there all lie for some reason.
But if I lived in London, I'd have to at least act as if it was there, whatever my paranoid fantasies.
Unfortunately, politics is nowhere near brick and concrete in this reegard. People can act as if most outlandish theories were true until it's too late.
There's little (if anything) wrong with values of the majority of Americans (or any other nation's people for that matter). The mere fact of us discussing Obama as a almost-certain (as of when I wrote that) winner means something in this context, doesn't it?
Certainly, we shouldn't be too complacent in this regard but we won that battle and can maintain that victory for foreseeable future. But as long as those admirable values are repeatedly leading to "we liberated that village by destroying it" situations, either because those values were hijacked by loony minority, or because we just thought "straight" (Alcohol bad. Me wanna ban alcohol... Hey, why the Mafia is celebrating? Monopolies bad. Lenin SMASH monopolies... Communism bad. We need Libertopia! etc.) there is little use in those values.
outcomes stealthed under the auspices of scientific administration.
Again, I agree wholeheartedly.
Of course "scientific administration" isn't even close to an answer, exactly because of that "hijacking" thing.(Experts said Iraq has WMDs. Iraq BAD! Bush Smash!) Not to mention that one couuld count political geniuses of the whole history on two hands.
So, that's why I thought of the Realpolitik and centrism as good descriptions of what I'd like democracy to look like. But, again, it won't work, unless we, the people would learn to be subtle in our means, instead of hoping that whomever we elect knows what he's doing.
But, frankly, situation looks so bad, that if Obama would turn out to be one of those political geniuses who really can "scientifically administrate" more than their way out of a paper bag, I'd treat it as a gift horse, and won't look too closely in its mouth... For a while.
The demand for a politics "beyond ideology" tends to be an ideological production and to function in the service of demonstrable ideologies. This is a point we can grasp and take seriously without becoming radical relativists or seeming to cast doubt on the question whether reality exists, and I think it is better to keep them separated. I'm not claiming anything deeper than that or anything.
The demand for a politics "beyond ideology" tends to be an ideological production and to function in the service of demonstrable ideologies.
I don't think that being beyond ideology 100% all the time is either possible or desirable. And I see why you treat anything that sounds like it as suspect. But yes, I sounded like that, without quite realizing, especially in my 2nd post. I didn't mean that. Really.
What I do want is people of all the ideological bends (myself included) stopping acting as if we still live in caves (and can solve any problem by throwing big enough rocks at it) 90% of the time. Is that too much? Is it in any way undemocratically stealthing a hidden agenda?
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