Red Tory v.2.0
On this issue, you and I have the honour of agreeing with Noam Chomsky, who said (and I'm quoting from memory), "It is a perverse way to honour the victims of the Holocaust to adopt a central belief of their oppressors".
...if [the Liberal opposition] ever manages to locate its testicles
The party knows exactly where its balls are. They're in the palm of Stephen Harper's hand. I expect they shall soon be adorning a mound of spaghetti.
Chomsky is absolutely spot on more times than many are willing to admit.
By the way, I was going to post regarding your latest, but my computer didn’t seem to want to co-operate, so I’m deferring to what may perhaps be its better cybernetic judgment for the time being.
"The party knows exactly where its balls are. They're in the palm of Stephen Harper's hand. I expect they shall soon be adorning a mound of spaghetti."
so, you're saying steve harper eats balls? he gonna sue.
and there was a great wetting of pants in the blogosphere. i'm sure some folks will over react to the side of caution and others will poke an angry dog in the eye. i'm not up on the details of the case or the preceding issues but i will note that warman's name has been used as a virtual door matt by the angry right for some time. given his apparent willingness to seek legal redress, the suits shouldn't come as a great shock to those that have been hurling rhetorical poop his way.
as for parting ways, mi amigo, i have a good deal more self-education to undertake before i declare a position with which to part. my basic notion is that more freedom is better. i don't like what i know of the hrc set up. but if those named in the suit have taken their issue with warman beyond fair comment, the court will decide. and while i would also agree that libel law needs to be reformed, i don't trust our current guvmint to do it. mind you, i don't trust our current guvmint in general. i also have a failing of faith in the cleansing power of sunshine. i have a lot of reading to do, to better inform my opinions.
cheers
I'm with you on reforming the libel and slander laws, but there should stil be libel and slander laws.
Nor do I agree that the onus should be reversed so that the defamed person must prove a negative. How do you prove that you're not a pedophile? How does Dean Steacy prove that he's not a criminal, as alleged in Maclean's by the odious Mark Steyn?
I think there are good grounds for claiming defamation here, with the exception of Kate McMillan who went away and came back to discover her house had been misused by the house-sitter.
Grab a two-four, though; this is going to be a long one.
I don't agree with you at all. Why restart the debate when all we have so far is a well-founded case of libel (the libel laws are a different issue) and someone shutting down an aggregator on the fear of being sued?
I'm not sure what Saskboy means by "apparently" in "The SaskBlogs Aggregator, run by Lance Levsen, has been taken offline due apparently to the likely threat of a lawsuit." Is this the same cheery Lance who's written on Kate's blog before? If so, couldn't this be seen as a stunt to exaggerate the reaction to this litigation and artificially create the situation the hysterics have been warning about?
You don't change laws by making them unenforceable just because it's easy to make them unenforceable.
And, more to the point, the fascists don't get my support...ever. If they wanted that, they should have thought about that a long time ago.
PSA — I too have little confidence in this government to tackle the issues and bring our legal system into the 21st century when it comes to the matter of libel. This is something in which I’d be quite pleased to be proven wrong however. As for the disinfecting power of sunshine, perhaps that’s one of those awful “faith-based” things I so often decry, but I do think there’s some validity and precedent for it.
Dr. D. — I’m not suggesting that libel/slander laws be abolished altogether, nor am I suggesting that the law be changed so as to make it that the plaintiff has to prove a negative, but as it stands now one only need “claim” that one’s reputation has been or will conceivably be harmed in the future and then attach some astronomical damages to the purported effects of such harm without ever having to provide the barest shred of evidence to substantiate this hypothetical scenario. It’s completely ridiculous and practically invites frivolous actions and absurd concoctions on the part of thin-skinned toffs who feel insulted or offended in some way.
Ti-Guy — It’s certainly not my desire that the libel laws be unenforceable but rather that they be made more defensible which presently, they most certainly are not! As for siding with fascists… well, sometimes politics makes for strange bedfellows and all that, you know.
but as it stands now one only need “claim” that one’s reputation has been or will conceivably be harmed in the future and then attach some astronomical damages to the purported effects of such harm without ever having to provide the barest shred of evidence to substantiate this hypothetical scenario.
How exactly does one provide such evidence? I mean, you can't count lost opportunities when you don't know you've lost them.
As for siding with fascists
… well, sometimes politics makes for strange bedfellows and all that, you know.
That's a pretty weak excuse for marching hand in hand with scum. I understand that you're simply taking a principled stand but why not not choose some nice high ground instead of a fetid swamp to make it. Mark Francis is being sued too. He's more deserving of your assistance than Ezra and the Ezralites and you won't feel the need to shower after defending him.
It’s certainly not my desire that the libel laws be unenforceable but rather that they be made more defensible which presently, they most certainly are not!
On this we agree, but this is not a new issue; our libel laws are rooted in English legal tradition and they could stand to be revisited.
Why those most affected by this never bothered to think about leading that discussion is not surprising; they were too busy suing other people for libel.
As for politics making strange bedfellows; you know I'm quite serious about movement conservatism reflecting the elements of proto-fascism that is fundamentally hostile to our way of life and to humanity itself. I'm not the only one to think that. There are simply alliances that I cannot ever be a part of.
RT, I'm behind you on this.
By contrast, applying the heavy hand of government to suppress them by means of Kafkaesque tribunals quite perversely has the opposite effect of ennobling them (as aptly illustrated by Jonathan Kay).
Something that no less than John Milton warned about in his free press treatise Areopagitica in 1644, yet people and especially governments still don't get.
Libel and slander should only be options when provable harm can be shown, by evidence not allegation and conjecture. In fact, the reverse onus in our current libel laws would not pass the Oakes test, which itself overturned the reverse onus provisions of the Narcotic Control Act.
Hate speech is defeated by more speech -shouting it down, ridicule, mockery, proving it wrong, not by suppressing it.
I despise everyone involved with this action (increasingly, that includes Warman)but that is no reason to use the heavy hand of the state and the economic privilege that SLAPP suits require, to silence political opponents no matter how odius.
Any weapon we can use against them, they can use against us. Think about that for a minute and decide whether you want them to do this to you...
Hate speech is defeated by more speech -shouting it down, ridicule, mockery, proving it wrong, not by suppressing it.
Really? Seems to me that hate speech is alive and well particularly in those places that I consider bastions of free speech absolutism.
Anyway, I've railed enough against the platitudes of libertarians when it comes to freedom. Libertarians inhabit a different reality than most people, I think; one rich with symbolism and nobility that never has to intersect with the grubbiness of everyday life or the excesses of power abuse.
I just read the whole Statement of Claim. All I can say is, wow.
I agree with you one hundred percent about how the Charter is only "half" the case. It's a sobering reminder that nobody truly is free.
I agree, the legislation regarding libel should be amended, however, it is still needed to a certain extent.
But now I realize I can go sue happy! (no, just kidding).
On the flip side, should some people not grow thicker skin and act like adults?
It is important to note that a couple of years ago, some Hamilton teens flew a large Swastika flag from their balcony in celebration of Adolf Hitler's birthday. The police were called, and said there wasn't anything they could do because it was their right to free speech. Which, in a sense, is true, as long as they weren't promoting violence towards any specific group. I happen to agree with you ONE hundred percent on this.
"the plaintiff, not the defendant, should have to prove the statements in question are false"
I was 100% in agreement with you until I came to this. When someone defames you by repeatedly and publicly asking, "so when did you stop beating your wife?" when you haven't been beating your wife, that can be difficult to disprove. For example, if your wife passed away and can no longer provide testimony to the effect that you're NOT a wife beater, you cannot stop a person from damaging your reputation.
This is why I think the current system, where the person making the claim has to prove that it is true, is fair and should be left intact.
"Really? Seems to me that hate speech is alive and well particularly in those places that I consider bastions of free speech absolutism."
Seems to me we still have quite a bit in those places with HRCs and hate laws too.
The position should not be to eliminate hate speech, because you won't do it, but to effectively counter it. Telling people, essentially, to shut up, will not counter it.
I suggest reading Milton.
Good luck getting the politicians to change the law. They are all too busy suing each other to want to poop in their own bed.
Debate on political issues cannot be robust and wide-open if the looming threat of a potential inquest under the Human Rights Act or a libel suit hangs over you. Is that really the sort of country we want to live in?
I disagree. We can absolutely have extensive political discussions and debates in this country without resorting to the gutter-type of sniping that those named in the lawsuit engage in.
And how many of those who are now crying offence would gratefully support the HRC and libel laws if their rights were infringed and they needed to seek redress?
Such victims. And that's exactly what drives their ideology - victimization. Someone is always committing some exaggerated real or manufactured imaginary act against them that turns them into fearmongering bedwetters. They're afraid of their own shadows. Should that give them the right to say anything they want to?
We've had millenia of "sunshine" shining on those types of people. We know exactly what they're about. I feel no sympathy for them whatsoever. If they can't stand the heat, they need to stay out of the kitchen. Simple.
I don't fear "libel chill" because what I write is based on facts and I have respect for the law as it stands. You may want those laws to change, and maybe they need reform, but that does not take away anyone's responsibility to act within those laws as they now appear on the books.
I doubt Warman will be successful with his suit but that does not take away from his right to pursue his claims based on the laws of this country - no matter what you, I or anybody else thinks of him.
I would add that I'm sure those listed as defendants are heartily in favour of the Cons' lawsuit against the Liberals in the Cadman affair, aren't they?
What's good for the goose...
I suggest reading Milton.
John Milton? Did he address media concentration, military-industrial complex, the world wide web and the sorrows of empire?
Which Milton do you mean?
Catnip,
Lawsuits or any other legal attack on an innocent person in Canada, however, are not punished as they should be when they are frivolous. Ask the people of Martensville about problems in the application of the law
http://www.injusticebusters.com/
...ettlement.shtml
Sure, that was criminal law, but civil is just as messed up. Ask those under attack by Crookes. Innocent people shouldn't have to suffer the stress of defending themselves because our laws encourage lawsuits and accusations.
saskboy,
I agree that the laws need to be reformed, as I said. Is the defendants think they can make a "junk" lawsuit case against Warman, so be it. They're playing with fire at places like SDA where commenters are trying to hunt down his home address (a well-honed Michelle Malkin technique) and where some of them seem to think they have some sort of criminal case to make against him. Hogwash. The way to defend this type of suit is to present your legal defence. Period. If they want to reform the laws, there are other avenues available. What, exactly, are they doing about that besides whining?
I agree many of the Malkin and SDA commenters are vile thugs, but it's still a dangerous lawsuit to introduce, and has a libel chill effect in an "industry/hobby" that could be worse than a loss of net neutrality.
Robert — How exactly does one provide such evidence? I mean, you can't count lost opportunities when you don't know you've lost them.
That’s a fair question, but by the same token, how can you monetize hypothetical lost opportunities? Is it reasonable to claim damages of $1 million based on absolutely nothing whatsoever?
catnip,
And how many of those who are now crying offence would gratefully support the HRC and libel laws if their rights were infringed and they needed to seek redress?
-what rights did you have in mind? Surely you are aware that there are a host of Canadian criminal and civil laws under which "rights" can be defended. What people find offensive is the patently fascistic Section 13, along with other aspects of our "human rights" commissions. I have seen none of the defendants in this case trash the Canadian libel laws, only their use on this occasion.
And most crying offense make no claim that they have a right not to be offended. Unlike McClelland, above, who calls people "scum" for, well, calling people "scum", the Warman Suit 5 are not the hypocrites here.
We've had millenia of "sunshine" shining on those types of people. We know exactly what they're about. I feel no sympathy for them whatsoever. If they can't stand the heat, they need to stay out of the kitchen.
Give me a bloody break. This age-old "thinking" is exemplary of the evil we are always up against: the Gnostic magician/liberal elitist who just "knows" what others are too dumb to see, who knows the signs and types the rest of us are too fallen to appreciate. It's self-righteous resentful delusion from one who apparently thinks she stands above the universal fact of human resentment, and the need to mediate it with words. And because you are all seeing, you have no hesitancy throwing the state (HRCs) against your political enemies.
And by the way, these enemies of yours don't mind the heat. THey are standing up for the right to live in a heated kitchen. ANd I dare say they would all trounce you in free and open debate. That's really why you are so antsy, isn't it? You spent years and god knows how many dollars in one-thought schools where they told you that to be a self-righteous left-liberal (those really indebted to victimary thinking, those who care above all else finding a guarantee of their own righteousness as defenders of the downtrodden) was to be among the elite, it goes without saying, it must be, it feels right, there are millennia of examples to prove it. And then, faced with reality, you're starting to fear it might not be so...
Peers — I just read your post on this subject. Good work.
ANd I dare say they would all trounce you in free and open debate. That's really why you are so antsy, isn't it?
Why is that these types can't make their points without sounding so threatening all the time?
I'm not afraid of these assholes. What they know is they can't argue their weak positions without resorting to thuggery, and that it's only the civility of their adversaries that prevents them from being challenged much more decisively.
How dare you talk to people like that and defame them so casually? Who do you think you are?
You spent years and god knows how many dollars in one-thought schools where they told you that to be a self-righteous left-liberal (those really indebted to victimary thinking, those who care above all else finding a guarantee of their own righteousness as defenders of the downtrodden) was to be among the elite, it goes without saying, it must be, it feels right, there are millennia of examples to prove it. And then, faced with reality, you're starting to fear it might not be so...
Anyone targeted by this should feel urinated on.
Tell me, truepeers...in what social circle is this considered an acceptable way to address people?
ANd I dare say they would all trounce you in free and open debate.
In an "open debate" concerning what? The notion that we are all being held captive by Jewish international finance and that "inferior" races must be exterminated? I somehow doubt that those core beliefs of the "Warman Suit 5" would be as impervious to scrutiny as you allege, regardless of how persuasive you find them to be.
Ti-Guy:
Which Milton do you mean?
He means the one who propagandised on behalf of Oliver Cromwell's dictatorship--the guy who thought that the total suppression of English dramaturgy and the methodical extermination of Irish Catholics were just nifty.
ANd I dare say they would all trounce you in free and open debate.
Bring it on. And let's see if you and the rest of the invisible hoard you claim to represent can do so without using ad hominems like that made up fairy-tale about me and my background you employed in your post.
I won't hold my breath.
Truepeers is simply adopting that tone I've been hearing in the critique of leftism/liberalism/feminism and post-modernism since my university days (at a traditional, old-guard Canadian university) and when you see the reception it gets, you shake your head and wonder why the best and the brightest among Conservatives can't even manage to figure out how to engage the audience they make a point of addressing all the time in the hopes of persuading them (I suppose, since I've never really understood where this motivation comes from) on the strength of compelling arguments.
No wonder people react with hostility. I didn't want to listen to them even when I agreed with them. And when it comes to the critique of leftism, post-modernism and some issues with regard to feminism, I mostly did.
Now, I don't even care anymore.
How dare you talk to people like that and defame them so casually? Who do you think you are?
-a provocateur and a bit of a tease who tries to give approximately what others give, in the name of maximizing reciprocity, not limiting it.
-if my language is offensive, I hope it is the due of those who would write equally offensive things about what we have known for millennia about a certain type of people.
-why is it Ti-Guy, that you did not jump to decry catnip's words? Why don't you see them as ridiculous? WHy if you hate rough speech do you call me an asshole?
THis is the problem my provocation is trying to address: the assumption of self-righteousness that is the great appeal fo the left-liberal position, in fact its fundamental basis.
But I'm willing to keep it civil and defend any point I've raised.
What happened to the comment I made. It was there after I posted it and now it's disappeared.
The notion that we are all being held captive by Jewish international finance and that "inferior" races must be exterminated?
-I haven't a clue what this refers to, Sir Francis. It sounds like a casual libel. BUt open up the scrutiny, defend your asccusation, please...
No wonder people react with hostility. I didn't want to listen to them even when I agreed with them. And when it comes to the critique of leftism, post-modernism and some issues with regard to feminism, I mostly did.
- I really would like to know what you are talking about.
without using ad hominems like that made up fairy-tale about me and my background you employed in your post.
-maybe it is a fairy tale, a failed shot-gun approach. But since I know nothing about you other than the words above , is it really ad hominem? I didn't so much attack the person, as imagine the person that goes with the words...
So I'm wrong? Sorry. Where does the claim about knowing this type for millennia come from? Where does our debate go from here?
I'm not afraid of these assholes. What they know is they can't argue their weak positions without resorting to thuggery, and that it's only the civility of their adversaries that prevents them from being challenged much more decisively.
- I don't mind being challenged decisively. It is the only way I learn.
I really would like to know what you are talking about.
When faced with this...
You spent years and god knows how many dollars in one-thought schools where they told you that to be a self-righteous left-liberal (those really indebted to victimary thinking, those who care above all else finding a guarantee of their own righteousness as defenders of the downtrodden) was to be among the elite, it goes without saying, it must be, it feels right, there are millennia of examples to prove it. And then, faced with reality, you're starting to fear it might not be so...
...I ask myself the same thing. It sounds like something copied and pasted straight out of the Dartmouth Review.
I think you are right about almost everything you have written here Red. Unfortunately after looking more closely at the complaint, and based on my own experience with a similar lawsuit -- I have to say two things.
1)I don't think the defendants are all going to prove they did not libel Warman with malicious intent.
2)The defendants named in the suit would be well advised to shut up about the whole issue (which I devote 2 blogposts explaining why... it's not in their best interest to keep going on and on with this now that the writ has been served)
3)While I tend to agree with the idea that thought police are never a good idea -- I can't help but wonder from watching the Hotel Rwanda, with respect to the incitement of violence against people... whether or not there should be some brake when it comes to speech - so long as there exists a government for demagogues to take over.
4)As I said before... I think these people all deserve each other.
Geez, I go out to the store for smokes and all hell breaks loose. LOL.
It's kind of been building up Red, since I've been engaging the oh-so-tiresome haughtiness of the right-to-offend wing of the freedom of expression warriors, who all, every last non-conformist among them, seem to automatically think this issue is about ideological rigidity and/or moral corruption.
MWW — Yeah, you got that right. I’m very much in the mood of wishing a pox on the dwellings of all concerned.
I most certainly draw the line at incitements to violence and I believe this issue is already adequately provided for in the Criminal Code. The Human Rights legislation deals with a less immediately threatening, but more insidious and pernicious level of discrimination. That such bigotry should be excised from the public discourse is beyond question, but there’s obvious disagreement on the best means of accomplishing that goal.
"Libel and slander should only be
options when provable harm can be shown,"
If there wasn't a case to be made that the allegations repeated against Warman were done with Malice, the fact that those being sued have repeated the allegations after being served the writ is prima facie evidence that they are engaged in Malice.
Furthermore - now that threats have been made in response to these blogposts (made after thw writ was served--including one on Ezra's moderated com-box) it would be even more proof of malice on the part of the defendants should they continue to keep repeating the allegations.
Notice that the National Post's Jon Kay is not commenting on the issue directly in response to the writ. He's probably the only one who has competent legal advice at this point. In fact - Kay making a blogpost saying he is disgusted with the death threats will probably be used in court to prove that Kay and the NP have gone out of their way to mitigate any damage done to Warman. That his fellow bloggers are not following suit is to their own detriment.
Once you have been served - your best option is to try and mitigate the alleged damages as MUCH as possible without admitting that you have done anything wrong.
Since that is almost impossible to do without repeating the original claim of damage, it's best to not comment further on the situation in any capacity.
If Ezra, Kate and Kathy really wanted to win, they would be doing what Jon Kay is doing. But they aren't. In fact it seems obvious to anybody watching that they are trying to inflict as much damage as possible to Mr.Warman.
That's the problem with the Fair-Comment defence. Regardless of the truth of their comment, if you make comments out of malice -- and that can be proved, you lose.
I don't think that's morally right.. but that's the law, folks.
Ti-Guy
Well I've never read the Dartmouth Review, but perhaps the influence is indirect.
But if you want to get into the part of my first comment that you quote, I guess it makes the claim that: self-righteousness is basically a problem, it blinds us, and we all suffer it to some degree (i.e. we are all resentful and deluded to some degree); and that there is relatively more self-righteousness on the left-liberal side of things than on the conservative side. To be conservative is to defer to something higher than yourself. It is even to be ashamed of your own resentment, as you have made me feel today.
This takes us into questions about the nature of human existence, and the generation of culture, i.e. anthropology (or religion, for some). THe anthropological questions are the most interesting. Why, for example, are we all resentful beings, and why are so many of us keen to deny it? If that's the kind of question that's turning you off, I can't help you. But if there is something here you want to get into, let me know.
As for this statement, "a traditional, old-guard Canadian university": I didn't know there was such a place. Perhaps one of those places in the Maritimes I don't know much about? As far as I can tell, there is nothing that I would consider "old-guard" from McGill west, unless you are counting the liberalism that has been ascendant since the late nineteenth century, or the more radical leftism that has ruled since the sixties, though it had a few voices earlier.
To be conservative is to defer to something higher than yourself.
And what are "conservatives" currently deferring to? Ayn Rand? The "free market"? Dow Jones? Pray tell.
Virtually any graven image, golden calf, or wooden totem can be construed as something "higher than oneself". This process is especially easy (and tempting) for the low.
Robespierre Warman. May he get what he is dishing out.
To be conservative is to recognise one's humanity and individuality and natural origins.
Sir Francis,
Ayn Rand is someone of little interest to me.
No, most conservatives defer to God (monotheism in the Western tradition), or more to the point, to some understanding of the nature of transcendence (which is a universal human fact even if there is no God). If they can't believe quite, they try to understand why humans are religious beings, understand the necessity and role of faith in human affairs, in the generation of new culture and new possibilities through events which require leaps of faith to come to satisfactory conclusions; and if they can't effect traditional religious faith, they try to rediscover the kind of faith and deference that makes possible what is not possible without faith.
This can be more precisely explained in terms of the study of how we generate culture or language, but then it gets technical.
As far as I can tell, there is nothing that I would consider "old-guard" from McGill west,
Have you ever been to Upper Canada? Western, U. of T. and Queen's are certainly old-guard.
Anyway, the scope you're presenting is too broad, truepeers, so I can't address anything you have said too meaningfully.
I know that when I was in university (which I attended in order to learn, not be empowered or get an MBA or anything), I couldn't help but think that some of the establishment's approach to challenging new ideas was too dismissive and fearful.
At least in my experience, plenty of the older faculty were wise and indulgent and Alan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind didn't go over big with them, for some reason.
Ayn Rand is someone of little interest to me.
I am delighted to hear that.
No, most conservatives defer to God (monotheism in the Western tradition), or more to the point, to some understanding of the nature of transcendence...
This is what they should defer to and certainly forms a core component of the conservative account of itself. I would observe, though, that "conservatism" as politically executed (at least in North America) seems to proceed from a materialist nihilism utterly divorced from any commitment to (or even acknowledgment of) the world's essential sacrality.
The CPC won the last election by making a cut in the GST a key electoral strategy. The extent to which that initiative implies a "deference to God" escapes me.
Silly me. There I was thinking that Conservatives and right-wingers worshipped Mammon.
Ti-Guy,
Well, it's tough to generalize, but I don't think you would find too many self-describing conservatives at those three universities, especially among the faculty. The students who attend are probably less left-leaning than the professoriate. But it's confusing, because there is a certain kind of upper-class Canadian academic who can effect all kinds of manners and snobberies - i.e a kind of functional, pragmatic, conservatism - but when you look at the kind of ideas they propagate, it's standard left-liberalism, i.e. not much interested in getting at the fundamental questions of human order. And they widely tolerate intellectual frauds like Marxism. FOr most, there's no way they could survive in their jobs if they didn't. ANd why is that? The system is inherently liberal, or the conservatives have never existed in quantity or in sufficient quality to resist it.
I spent quite a bit of time at U of T in the 90s. I remember once being at the library of the supposedly most conservative college, Trinity. I was about to borrow the historical work "White Canada Forever" (the historian, Peter Ward, wasn't advocating but quoting his early twentieth-century subjects in that title) and the fooled librarian had a fit with me: how could such a book be found in their library, what was I doing with it?
I don't know what that little story adds up to, but quite aside from any position on immigration policy, the genuflecting to political correctness has been around at the more "conservative" schools since I've been around. THe problem isn't that a typical academic decries a "whites only" immigration policy; it's that she foregoes a deep (anthropological) understanding of the intuitions about order, GOd, culture, and civilization that earlier Canadians held, writing it all off, the low and the high, as not sufficiently progressive. Sure, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but not far from the standard line: one studies carefully and in detail but ultimately defers to liberal visions of what is "progressive", at the cost of truly recalling what one studies.
I would observe, though, that "conservatism" as politically executed (at least in North America) seems to proceed from a materialist nihilism utterly divorced from any commitment to (or even acknowledgment of) the world's essential sacrality.
-a slight exaggeration but I can't really argue with it. But then the question is less what finds its ways into the most pragmatic spins, as what really motivates one to become a conservative activist who will keep faith even when the power-mongers don't. ON the latter count, the answer is quite diverse. There are some good people in the CPC
The CPC won the last election by making a cut in the GST a key electoral strategy. The extent to which that initiative implies a "deference to God" escapes me.
-worse than that, they won because the people who usually are desperate to vote for the "centrist" party just couldn't bear it this time. It would be too humiliating to accept being cheated. Of course the CPC does not defer to transcendence much, though one hear's vaguely from time to time a repect for "our traditions" or "Canadian families".
No, while I've been impressed with Harper's principled stance on Israel and terrorism (which shouldn't be a tough one, but is unfortunately), I won't accord him conservative convictions until he lives up to his 1990 comments on the HRCs being "totalitarian".
Gotta run, thanks for the discussions folks.
Sorry, Truepeers...I can't really deal with impressions about reality. How do I know where that is coming from, exactly?
This...
and the fooled librarian had a fit with me: how could such a book be found in their library, what was I doing with it?
...sounds a little dodgy. Was it a librarian, or a clerk? And more importantly, didn't this present an opportunity to assert something meaningful? I've always dealt with that kind of thing directly.
Anyway, life's too short argue the hurt feelings and post-traumatic stress of today's conservative with the horrors of Trinity College still fresh in their minds.
...they widely tolerate intellectual frauds like Marxism...
The premises of Marx's thought, which flow from the likes of Smith, Ricardo and Malthus, are also central to classical liberalism, the economic dogma of neo-conservatism.
There are some good people in the CPC...
Let's hope they take over.
I've been impressed with Harper's principled stance on Israel and terrorism...
I'm not aware of those stances, unless you mean Harper's contention that the systematic destruction of Lebanese civilian infrastructure was a "measured" response to an abduction. If so, you and I have differing notions of "principle" (i.e. mine does not equate with "criminal stupidity").
...the CPC does not defer to transcendence much...
...or at all, actually.
I won't accord him conservative convictions until he lives up to his 1990 comments on the HRCs being "totalitarian".
"Totalitarian"! Golly. I wonder how often Stephen Harper has applied that word to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, Indonesia, or Pakistan.
Harper sure knows how to choose his battles. Heck, he might even get up the courage to enjoy another espresso with the Dalai Lama.
Sir Francis has a sound grip on John Milton. Check out this quote from the speech warrior's Bible, Areopagitica:
Yet if all cannot be of one mind--as who looks they should be?--this doubtless is more wholesome, more prudent, and more Christian, that many be tolerated, rather than all compelled. I mean not tolerated popery, and open superstition, which, as it extirpates all religions and civil supremacies, so itself should be extirpate, provided first that all charitable and compassionate means be used to win and regain the weak and the misled: that also which is impious or evil absolutely either against faith or manners no law can possibly permit, that intends not to unlaw itself: but those neighbouring differences, or rather indifferences, are what I speak of, whether in some point of doctrine or of discipline, which, though they may be many, yet need not interrupt the unity of Spirit, if we could but find among us the bond of peace.
It helps to read the text that allegedly advances one's cause before waving it around like a weapon.
THis is the problem my provocation is trying to address: the assumption of self-righteousness that is the great appeal fo the left-liberal position, in fact its fundamental basis.
I defer to your superior wisdom. I've never ever ever seen self-righteousness from conservatives.
pffft...
But since I know nothing about you other than the words above , is it really ad hominem? I didn't so much attack the person, as imagine the person that goes with the words...
I'm not your logic professor. Look up 'ad hominem'. You made assertions against me personally, from - you now admit - made up imaginings. Just how did you expect that to be germane to this debate?
Furthermore, if you're not aware that people with vile opinions have existed for millenia, that's just more proof that reality mean nothing to you. Imagine that.
I was wondering when someome would shoot down the Miltonian false argument.
Further to the issue at hand, spreading unsubtantiated and quite unattributable and thus unproveable words to particular people sounds rather like libel to me.
Further to DBT "Chris," calling you "stupid" is not libellous if expressed as opinion and logically defensible ...
..they widely tolerate intellectual frauds like Marxism...
Marxism isn't an "intellectual fraud". It's a political philosophy, oh ye of free speech rights.
I was wondering when someome would shoot down the Miltonian false argument.
Further to the issue at hand, spreading unsubtantiated and quite unproveable words and attributing them to particular people sounds rather like libel to me.
Further to DBT "Chris," calling you "stupid" is not libellous if expressed as opinion and logically defensible ...
I was wondering when someome would shoot down the Miltonian false argument.
Further to the issue at hand, spreading unsubstantiated and quite unproveable words and attributing them to particular people sounds rather like libel to me.
Further to DBT "Chris," calling you "stupid" is not libellous if expressed as opinion and logically defensible ...
Ed: I'm invoking my editorial prerogative here (for the first time!) to ask whether that cheap shot was really necessary? — RT
Peers — Thanks for stopping by. I found your comments very thought-provoking and will make a point of checking out your site more often in future.
Dr. D. — You and SF may be dismissing Milton unfairly and in too much haste. To wit, I’d submit the following:
Read any books whatever come to thy hands, for thou art sufficient both to judge aright, and to examine each matter.... Prove all things, hold fast that which is good.... Bad meats will scarce breed good nourishment in the healthiest concoction; but herein the difference is of bad books, that they to a discreet and judicious reader serve in many respects to discover, to confute, to forewarn, and to illustrate.
This goes to my “sunshine” argument. But then perhaps I have too much of that infernal “faith” in the discretion and judiciousness of readers…
RT:
Books that supported Popery or superstition, or transgressed faith or manners, would not have "come to thy hands," bad or good. They would have been illegal.
Perhaps. The principle remains valid nonetheless.
Red:
Further to Dawg's response, Milton actually worked for Cromwell's totalitarian apparatus, as an ambassador.
I've always seen Milton as the Albert Speer of the English Renaissance.
Well, I've always loved Milton. I skived off reading Paradise Lost in first year English, and for some unexplained reason, I ended up having a choice between it and something else on the final exam.
He's been dear to my heart since then.
SF — Interesting comparison. I rather liked Speer… (*ducks*)
I’ll have to bone up on the subject because, to be quite honest, rather than giving much consideration to the politics of the matter, I never got much past the military aspect of the English Civil War and spent more time wondering what might conceivably have happened had Prince Rupert’s poodle been possessed of somewhat more devastating supernatural powers than were reputed to be the case…
As a defendant in a Crookes lawsuit, I am very much in favour of reforming our antiquated libel laws; however, I must say that, after reading Warman's Statement of Claim, and upon looking over Bouquets of Gray's research which reveals that the IP attributed to Warman is actually a Rogers proxy server, I must say that I think Warman has a valid case.
It is also not impossible that Warman is suing over evidence that was fabricated to inflict harm to his reputation.
One of the problems with requiring damage to reputation to be proven is that much of the damage is forward-looking. For what damage that has been done, it is hard to prove that lost opportunities exist.
Reputation has been recognized as a right in Canada.
Largely, I think that libel reform in Canada rests with allowing counter-torts for libel chill, and in making special defenses in cases dealing with governance and the actions of public figures.
As you can sue over damage to your right to reputation, why can't you also sue over your right to freedom of expression?
My view is that the current Warman lawsuit so far has sufficient merit.
As for the Harper lawsuit against the Liberals -- no merit. Aside from the clear public interest angle, the material on the Liberal website had already been broadcast and published all over the country, and the Liberal website was not the source of the information, QP was. To argue that the Liberals damaged Harper's reputation is clearly ridiculous.
How many conservatives supporting Harper's defamation tort are up in arms about Warman's?
Someone should go hypocrite hunting...
Mark — Warman’s suit may be indeed be well-founded. I’m not going to comment specifically on the particulars of that case however, for obvious reasons. As a somewhat casual observer, I can’t say how much his “reputation” has been harmed, or indeed what it may be worth considering some of his recent activities which strike me as veering into the unfortunate realm of the over-zealous and self-serving. But hey… that’s just my opinion. The whole idea of “reputation” is pretty dodgy to begin with.
I can’t agree with you that libel reform should rest on the matter of counter-torts. Good grief, if anything, that just seems to be compounding the problem. The reason it’s so offensive in the first instance is that it’s so heavily prejudiced in favour of those with sufficient resources to file suit against those of more meager means. Offering the prospect of additional litigation after the fact hardly seems like much of a solution at all.
To those who take exception to my calling Marx an intellectual fraud, I'd just like to point out that the case was made, in a manner I think most compelling, by Eric Voegelin in his essay "The New Science of Politics" (1952). Voegelin showed that in developing his philosophy, Marx willfully and knowingly proscribed certain questions about human existence and order that would throw his intellectual system into tatters, and Voegelin called this a swindle. More generally, Voeglin implicates the whole of modern liberalism in what he calls Gnostic thinking and the prohibition of questions. It's such a broad brush that many find the argument less than compelling; I'm not sure I could briefly explain why I differ.
Marxists (and sundry postmodernists) basically interpret history as a conspiracy theory (a nexus of knowledge and power) because they have no realistic way of explaining how transcendent signs and culture first emerge from lived experience in a process that is not really controlled by anyone (whether a small elite or a large oppressive majority) but in which all have a share in the exchange by which we collectively build order.
Voegelin is the central figure in the intellectual history of modern American conservatism. Not the easiest read, but worth while for those interested in intellectual history. Google "Thomas Bertonneau" and Voegelin for some excellent and entertaining conservative essays.
Too bad Marx didn't have access to Google. 
Voegelin is the central figure in the intellectual history of modern American conservatism.
"Modern American conservatism" is an interesting expression--rather like "medieval nuclear physics".
Voegelin is certainly well worth reading, though, as is Russell Kirk. It was Kirk, incidentally, who inspired the term "neo-conservative" in the 1950's. It was meant to refer to those American intellectuals who wished to see America restore its commitment to core Western values--a lost cause, obviously, and one which begged the question, in my view.
Marxists (and sundry postmodernists)...
This is awkward. You've paired two schools of thought that have fundamentally incompatible projects. Postmodernists consider Marxism to be a hopelessly essentialising doctrine that represents the last stage of Humanism. Jean Baudrillard's Mirror of Production is but one of countless post-structuralist deconstructions of Marxism.
[postmodernists]...have no realistic way of explaining how transcendent signs and culture first emerge from lived experience in a process that is not really controlled by anyone...
The inverse is true. Mainstream postmodernism argues that language is radically self-referential and thus always escapes our attempts to control it. For them, what appears to be meaning is only the mirage-like effect produced by the operation of sign systems.
The notion that social meaning is produced by an élite is a mainstay of cultural materialism (i.e. Marxism, New Historicism and its variants) but is anathema to postmodernism. To a postmodernist, the élite is as much a victim of the instability of semiosis as are the "masses".
What does Marxism have to do with this anyway?
Voegelin showed that in developing his philosophy, Marx willfully and knowingly proscribed certain questions about human existence and order that would throw his intellectual system into tatters, and Voegelin called this a swindle. More generally, Voeglin implicates the whole of modern liberalism in what he calls Gnostic thinking and the prohibition of questions. It's such a broad brush that many find the argument less than compelling; I'm not sure I could briefly explain why I differ.
And I should care about that why, exactly?
(Sorry, those were questions, which are apparently "prohibited". What a bad liberal I am!)
As for the IP point addressed above. Last year, I banned a user (who I knew IRL) by his IP address. I then received an e-mail from a regular commenter to my blog who discovered he'd been banned. He had the same IP addy as the person I banned. Same provider - Shaw - same city. When I tried to ban the original shit disturber again after lifting the ban so my regular commenter could post, the same thing happened - the regular commenter was banned as well.
Without knowing all of the details of Warman's original fight with freedominion (and knowing that this IP addy issue was not proven to be solid evidence that Warman made the offending post there, as found by the commission), I agree with whoever posted above that Warman's suit may indeed have merit.
The defendants posted allegations against him that had already been proven false by the commission. Sounds pretty clear cut to me, no matter what anyones' opinions of libel laws are.
And, may I add that I think it's hilarious that SDA commenters are redirecting their money from the Con Party to the roadkill queen and her ilk. Bonus, afaic. Let the party's coffers run dry.
Now there's an amusing turn of events, I must say.
SF — You’re vastly more erudite than I am about these things, but when I hear expressions involving the self-referential nature of post-modernist semantics invoked as part of an argument, it’s hard not to think perhaps that’s the entry point at which one’s head starts to venture into the mysterious depths of a certain bodily orifice of one's own, if you know what I mean.
No wonder you have such a bizarre affection for theology.
By the way, “Medieval nuclear physics”… LOL. Brilliant.
...that’s the entry point at which one’s head starts to venture into the mysterious depths of a certain bodily orifice of one's own...
Hey, when you want to communicate with somebody, it helps to be in the same room. 
Hey Red,
Buckets of Grewal has done some pretty amazing work in delving into the technical forensic aspect of the Ann Cools posting.
It's a painstaking effort he has made and I don't think very many people have read it, or linked to it.
It could do with some linking.
Oops. sorry red, I didn't see Mark Francis' comment with the link to Buckets.
My Bad.
"ANd I dare say they would all trounce
you in free and open debate."
This is just nonsense. It was over 2 years ago when alot of Right-Wingnuts suddenly became very interested in talking up Indian Affairs in Canada. One blog invited me to "participate" in discussions.
I said on the blog that I would welcome an open, frank and honest discussion on Aboriginal affairs, but that I had ground rules like "no ad homs" and "You must prove any assertions that you wish to make" and "no logical fallacies could be used" and "The first person to name-call loses"
Despite the dozens upon dozens of posts that resulted from the oringal blogpost -- NOBODY wanted a discussion on those terms and furthermore, the person who invited me to the discussion said that they didn't have the time or the energy to "moderate" the discussion based on the criteria I set out.
So - take you assertion about these people besting me or anybody else in an open discussion and suck on it.
DD and SF,
Well I have read Areopagitica (albeit 22 years ago as a first year Journalism student at Carleton). and Yes it has some nasty bits, but as Red has pointed out, the principle remains.
Milton also used it to speak against censorship and in favour of free speech and a free press because the suppression thereof was something that his enemies the Catholics did. His argument that suppression of speech gave an undue amount of credence to what the speakers where saying and a legal platform from which to say it, is apropos to the discussion at hand. That is, suing an persecuting mad ramblings makes the state (or those doing the suing) seem like it has something to hide and give the idea that "there might just be something too this".
But what am I doing, arguing about the ideas expressed in Areopagitica? What's really important is that Milton worked for Cromwell (6 years after he wrote the book, btw), or Sir John was a drunk, or that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. Their ideas and principles and how they apply in modern times are not nearly important as what a bad person they were.
Hey, when you want to communicate with somebody, it helps to be in the same room.
Not only did Sir Francis nail the postmodernism question with a fine economy of language, he has a brilliant sense of humour into the bargain. Onto my blogroll he goes.
"Modern American conservatism" is an interesting expression--rather like "medieval nuclear physics".
-you've probably heard the old saw about the real traditionalist being the person who doesn't know he is one.
Once you've stepped out of relative agrarian stasis and comes to terms with the reality of a history and humanity that must be ever changing (history waits for no one, it being the way we defer our ever-present resentments and stop ourselves from ripping each other apart), it's then one becomes a "conservative". To be all too general, a conservative is a defender of the normal ("core values" or some such) as a more productive route to worthwhile change; one tends to see the liberal as indulged in overly-imaginative and not realistic political fantasies. Of course, neither side is always right.
This is awkward. You've paired two schools of thought that have fundamentally incompatible projects.
-This all depends on where you are standing. If you are a postmodernist, well I suppose you have to believe in some great difference from the modernist. I tend to see pomo as a disappointed form of modernism. You might want to consider the perspective from what has become known as the "post-millennial" age (Eric Gans) or the performatist age (Raoul Eshelman)
The inverse is true. Mainstream postmodernism argues that language is radically self-referential and thus always escapes our attempts to control it. For them, what appears to be meaning is only the mirage-like effect produced by the operation of sign system
-you seem to forget that pomo is a two-step boogie. First you stick your head up your ass; then you go about thinking, well if meaning is nothing but a tissue of tissue papers, then every meaning only exists because someone is asserting a reality as prior to their issuance of tissue paper. Meaning is the Nietzschean will to power. And it is our job to go about deconstructing each and every assertion of meaning. For at every centre of attention there is a victim for us to champion.
It is this that constitutes the pomo continuity with the Marxist proclivity that sees society or culture as fundamentally a conspiracy of some nexus of knowledge and power.
To a postmodernist, the élite is as much a victim of the instability of semiosis as are the "masses".
-you fall for this sleight of hand? Sure the elite claim that, but they also never stop asking to be paid for standing at the front of the room and telling the reverential audience how instable all authority is. And they never stop writing books and articles to pad the resume and angle for jobs on the HRCs. It's an S & M routine, mate.
And I should care about that why, exactly?
Fair question. It all depends on where you are at present. For most people most of the time, following the intellectual fashion is the safest and wisest route. If, however, you find yourself on the wrong side of the crowd (and if you wait long enough...), if you are suffering some serious crisis or conflict that requires you to come to terms with the fundmental nature of our shared humanity, in order to maintain mental stability (or maybe you are angling to do an end run around the marketplace of ideas) then you should care to know more of the truth we can know about the fundamental human questions. In a real crisis, greater self-understanding is the only way out.
So - take you assertion about these people besting me or anybody else in an open discussion and suck on it
You're welcome to have a go at my blog any time, on "Indian Affairs" if you must; I really don't believe in "racializing" two different kinds of citizenship in this country. A self-governing democracy can't be sustained on those terms. I say sign the treaties, give every aboriginal an ownership stake in this country, with the same rights of exit and mobility as the rest of us hold property, send the paternalist chiefs and tribal systems packing, and let the chips fall where they may (knowing it will be a hard fall for some; but give them the benefit of the same safety net as the next Canadian).
Oh, one more thought, if you read the renegade historian and philosopher of science, Michel Serres, i.e. his vision of history as a turbulent stream that is constantly mixing up times, you will discover that there really was a medieval nuclear physics, avant la lettre of course. It's a fair argument and an interesting read at least. Start with his conversation with Bruno Latour.
Once you've stepped out of relative agrarian stasis...
"Relative...stasis"? Stepping out of moving vehicles is unsafe, as you know. Oddly, you seem to view history as a mechanistically determined process driven by an industrial, "progressive" teleology--much as Marx did. I doubt a conservative would agree.
...history [is] the way we defer our ever-present resentments and stop ourselves from ripping each other apart...
I'm not sure history has ever prevented anybody from "ripping [themselves] apart". It rather appears to be the enabling condition of that act.
...a conservative is a defender of the normal ("core values" or some such) as a more productive route to worthwhile change...
You're speaking of conservatism, inappropriately, in instrumental terms, something that is used to effect "change"--as an agent of change, in effect. A conservative would defend his disposition in absolute and immanent terms, not utilitarian and relative ones. There is no need to employ a "route" to change; change happens. The challenge is to orient oneself according to those things that are changeless. This has nothing to do with wanting to get off the farm or escape an "agrarian stasis".
This all depends on where you are standing.
That is classic postmodern relativism, but it's not quite true. Definite and quantifiably accurate things can be asserted about this issue.
...you seem to forget that pomo is a two-step boogie. First you stick your head up your ass; then you go about thinking...
This is playfully metaphorical but analytically unhelpful, I'm afraid.
Meaning is the Nietzschean will to power...For at every centre of attention there is a victim for us to champion.
You've almost got it. Postmodernism does rest on a vision of the Nietzschean will to power, which is precisely why there can be no victim of it.
It is this that constitutes the pomo continuity with the Marxist proclivity that sees society or culture as fundamentally a conspiracy of some nexus of knowledge and power.
No. The postmodernist argues that there is no "nexus" or centre of power. Power is an embodied simulacrum created by the play of signs; it is only apparent, and it is the semiotic system itself--not any person or group of people--that creates that apparition. For Marxists, there very much are centres of power.
Sure the elite claim that, but they also never stop asking to be paid for standing at the front of the room and telling the reverential audience how instable all authority is.
You've a rather restricted definition of the "élite"; it appears not to include CEO's, investment bankers, etc. I've certainly never heard them natter on about "instable[sic] authority".
You seem to be calling attention to the perceived irony that many tenured intellectuals have a certain socially sanctioned power even though they, themselves, b
The last part of my post was cut off for some reason. It reads as follows:
You seem to be calling attention to the perceived irony that many tenured intellectuals have a certain socially sanctioned power, even though they, themselves, believe that "power" is a semiotically produced superstition. They would argue that their own power is a superstition created by the semiotic code, a code within which everyone must exist and which is non-transcendable. A Marxist would consider such a view deeply reactionary.
In a real crisis, greater self-understanding is the only way out.
And, again, what does Marxism have to do with that?
I don't seek my "truth" from studying political philosophies.
RT:
The cheap shot was possibly unwarranted - I'll grant that.
However, DBT brings out the worst in me, not because he is obtuse (IMO), but because he refuses to educate himself - even when people go out of their way to lay-out the URL for him.
I realise that you are way more indulgent of him, and that is your call. However, his blinding and quite stubborn ignorance over Free-Trade (spread-out over two years I might add ...), is to me, beyond galling.
It's as if he revels in his own ignorance. He is highly unreasaonable, so I stoop down and bait him.
I just wish I could help myself. But, it's like this dark fetish that I cannot control.
I have always had a problem with willfully stupid people. Always. It is my Achilles' Heel I suppose.
Stragely enough, I do find the Ice Princess somewhat charming.
I am somewhat of a sick bastard at times.
No doubt the conversation has evolved to the point where we are abusing the host's hospitality, for which I would like to thank him and his kind words earlier.
If I may be indulged, some closing thoughts...
I'm not trying to argue a mechanistic view of history, whatever the periodic weakness in my use of old-school terms. But I imagine that people belittle terms like "modern conservatism" because conservatism has been too much defined by the post-French Revolutionary left whose religion in large part defines the "modernity" to which "conservatism" is inevitably something of a response. As I've been suggesting, conservatism is involved in building order, which, like it or not, is always destined to be eroding. One can think along these lines without being too dogmatically dialectical.
I'm not sure history has ever prevented anybody from "ripping [themselves] apart". It rather appears to be the enabling condition of that act.
Well, every historical event has a variety of moments. The articulation of a sign, or representation, is a moment of deferring violence, of substituting signs for contested things or for body blows. If successfully picked up and institutionalized, the representation will shape forms of material and linguistic exchange, and thus also resentments thereof, thus creating the possibility for violent forms of sacrifice.
All too briefly: history is a process by which the forces of culture or human self-understanding try to keep a step ahead of the forces of dissolution. A conservative can't just sit back and do nothing, like the good man who lets evil prosper.
Yes, speaking of a "productive route" is lazy of me. But a defense of the sources of productivity must be some part of the conservative's "agenda", though as Sir F. says having a faith that foregoes the need for systematic planning is what it's all about.
That is classic postmodern relativism, but it's not quite true. Definite and quantifiably accurate things can be asserted about this issue.
-you're assuming too much. What is definite and quantifiable does depend on our intellectual paradigms, and forms of exchange, for its meaning. To recognize, in retrospect, the evolution of such paradigms need not entail embracing either modernist teleology or pomo disappointments therewith. But seeing that we can forego that choice may require adopting a paradigm with which one is yet unfamiliar.
Postmodernism does rest on a vision of the Nietzschean will to power, which is precisely why there can be no victim of it.
-postmodernism will be defeated by co-opting its own game: it has a lot of victims, whether it will "officially" recognize them or not amidst academic shell games; we are appealing to some both more fundamental and evolved human concerns (culture evolves by refining its understanding of what is fundamental) in putting the Hirsi Alis, the Ezra Levants, the Muslim who suffers for defending a Christian
...defending a Christian or Jewish neighbor, on stage and demanding the apologists of pomo relativism, and all the parasites they enable, acknowledge the sacrality of the individual person and freedom.
The Nietzschean vision of the will to power is sufficiently divorced from the reality by which power is constructed to allow all kinds of objections to today's left-Nietzscheans. Even Nietzsche recognized this by hating the left and going mad.
But then perhaps I am not following Sir Francis: are you suggesting that postmodernity is not obsessed with finding victims to champion? Just read the decisions of the HRCs...
The postmodernist argues that there is no "nexus" or centre of power. Power is an embodied simulacrum created by the play of signs; it is only apparent, and it is the semiotic system itself--not any person or group of people--that creates that apparition.
-Look, a postmodernist can argue all kinds of nonsense. What about reality? The entire deconstructionist project rests on the fact (and assumption) that there are centres of power and attention to contest in the defense (if only temporary, soon to be reversed) of those whom the play of signs has unduly marginalized: it is only the Utopian side of pomo that still (despite itself) imagines a world without centres and margins, the way it should be but somehow can never be... And hence the world-weary endless embrace of deconstruction.
They would argue that their own power is a superstition created by the semiotic code, a code within which everyone must exist and which is non-transcendable. A Marxist would consider such a view deeply reactionary.
-sure and maybe the Marxists have a point (which is not to deny the utlimately falsity of their intellectual paradigm). But whether you call your own power a superstition by playing shell games with the subject audience, or whether you are more forthright about condemning bourgeois entertainments, you are in either case contesting the legitimacy of the means by which people create culture in shared exchange, as a means of building order. It should be apparent to a conservative that both Marx and Foucault are conspiracy theorists (if nonetheless of pragmatic use, in some time and place) whether one openly contests or plays falsely ironic with the "bourgeois" norm.
What allows us to say this is the dawning realization (the revelatory proof from life in the laboratory of history) that neither the modernist or postmodernist has a satisfactory answer to the basic question: what is culture for? Read Raoul Eshelman on how this revelation has already emerged widely in "performatist" art.
To pose the question of what culture or history is for, need not be to assert some vision of history with an apocalypic end, or conversely some denial that the question has any meaning. One can attend to anthropological or esthetic hypotheses of what is minimally involved in the emergence, exchange, institutionalization, er
...institutionalization, erosion, articulation, of each and every sign of language or culture. One can assert, in non-conspiratorial terms, that the purpose of culture, or history, is (not always successfully) to defer our great capacity for violence by means of the creation and exchange of representations. Humanity has made it thus far; we have survived ourselves. History is open-ended, inexhaustible, unpredictable; it operates on faith before there can be any kind of central planning folly; but that open-endedness doesn't mean we can't look back on it and see some kind of evolutionary pattern and human goodness in it all.
Sorry for going on so. I hope it was of some interest.
"In a real crisis, greater self-understanding is the only way out."
And, again, what does Marxism have to do with that?
I don't seek my "truth" from studying political philosophies.
Right, political philosophies are insufficient to the task, however important they are in public life. But that's just the problem with Marxism. It can't deal well with the crises of modern life because it does not have a sufficient human self-understanding. As Voegelin says, Marxism proscribes certain basic questions about how a transcendent human order is built. Marx did this to be more pragmatically or politically effective, in his time, but in doing so Marxism limited its contribution to the enduring human conversation. Instead of a keen respect for the enduring uncertainties that human existence poses, Marxism substitutes Utopian fantasies about the end of history.
Peers — Not a problem at all. I haven't been around much today to participate in the discussion. Most of the day was spent at the doctor's office... Such fun!
Marxism substitutes Utopian fantasies about the end of history.
So? That's a problem, somehow? Don't the major Judeo-Christian religions do that as well? (not that I'm defending those religions)
But that's just the problem with Marxism. It can't deal well with the crises of modern life because it does not have a sufficient human self-understanding.
Sorry, but that's just elitist crap (not going after you, just that opinion). Every political philosophy is based on some interpretation of "self-understanding". To say that Marx's was not "sufficient" enough, you'd have to tell me what you're comparing it to and where you think it comes up short (besides what you raised after writing that which I obviously don't agree with).
Marxism limited its contribution to the enduring human conversation
What "enduring human conversation" and how did it limit itself? We're talking about it, aren't we?
history, aka "the great rashomon". easier to con someone with it than to learn from it. history teaches us that....
marxism, aka "the great red herring". *yawn*
back to topic....
glad we yanks don't share your libel laws or your hate speech laws, hope kate loses her shirt, popcorn is good.
KEvron
The American system is a definite improvement over ours, at least in those respects, in my opinion.
...we are abusing the host's hospitality...
Well, abuse is not always a bad thing. Some people have...complex needs.
Besides, we've just got to push the comment count to one hundred, at least.
Even Nietzsche recognized this by hating the left and going mad.
Well, he hated everybody, and went mad from tertiary syphilis.
I'll address the gist of your latest post globally. You clearly want to make postmodernism responsible for HRC's and their devotees. The problem is that, while "postmodernism" may be used broadly (and rather sloppily) to refer to our era, it more properly refers to a theory of language and a way of reading, both of which are premised on notions precisely counter to the ones you've been ascribing to it. The fact is that radical de-centering and the demolition of the "myth of origins" are key aspects of the postmodern/deconstructionist project, ones that have compelled most theorists on the Left to reject it as reactionary and dangerously (even decadently) apolitical. That HRC minions are free to call themselves "postmodern" is obvious; they are also free to call themselves "Martians". Applying a term like "postmodern" to an actor simply because he seems motivated by a "conspiracy theory" or deploys a rhetoric of victimhood vitiates the term of any meaning (in an ironically postmodern gesture!). As bureaucratised mechanisms of surveillance and discipline, HRC's are far more modern than postmodern--more Kafka than Robbe-Grillet.
You're certainly right to say that Marxism and postmodernism both challenge the authenticity of shared cultural codes, but they do so from opposite poles: the one contests and wishes to perfect the mode by which those codes are produced; the other denies that anything beyond the code is available for perfection or, in fact, even exists.
I am by no means a dogmatic deconstructionist and find untenable much upon which the technique is premised, but postmodernism can and should be considered a legitimate component of the West's engagement with the Platonic tradition. The questions it poses are significant, and conservatives cannot honestly recuse themselves from the responsibility of answering them. Quite a few conservatives have found engagements with postmodernism to be immensely fruitful, the Radical Orthodoxy group being just one example. I recommend Catherine Pickstock's Truth in Aquinas to anyone who would like to see deconstructionist concerns collide with Anglo-Catholic exegesis.
So? That's a problem, somehow?
-yes, if you ever find yourself under the boot of a Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc., keen to bring on the fated vision of the way history will unfold, it's a problem.
The historian, Eric Hobsbawm, a lifelong communist activist, was asked a few years ago if, had communism actually been workable, would the deaths of all the millions who died in the attempt have been justified. He pondered and replied yes.
But how could anything good require millions of murders and deaths? One has to be blinded by a political religion to think it possible. And that's the problem with political religions.
Don't the major Judeo-Christian religions do that as well?
-at their worst, yes; but they are more likely to provide some discipline to allow one the patience and faith required to overcome the desire to bring about the kingdom of God on earth, the faith to wait endlessly for the Messiah to come, or the faith in a world to come. More to the point, perhaps, Christianity aims to separate church and state, religion and politics, God and Caesar, the sacred and secular. And our ability to do that has been key to Western success. I fear we are losing it at present.
Every political philosophy is based on some interpretation of "self-understanding". To say that Marx's was not "sufficient" enough, you'd have to tell me what you're comparing it to and where you think it comes up short
-I agree. All forms of thought have some degree of the truth about ourselves that we can never know fully. I believe that if we work at it , it is possible to know something more than those who came before. This is because history is constantly unfolding new possibilities and hence new lessons into the potential that was inherent in our origin as a species. What we can know about communism today, just wasn't knowable in the 1930s, say.
One couldn't deny that Marxism served all kinds of pragmatic ends for those who bonded with it, that it had some amount of truth to it. I'll just say it proved insufficient because communism didn't work; we now know it couldn't work without the kind of state tyranny under which millions suffered and died. It was a dangerous political religion that attempted materialistic and economic explanations for ethical problems. In other words, it didn't appreciate how the ethical could be constituted as something other than a derivative of economic/power relations. It couldn't appreciate how the economic is an outcome of ethical exchange, not vice versa.
What "enduring human conversation" and how did it limit itself? We're talking about it, aren't we?
- yeah we're still talking about it; its failure still has much to teach us. To my mind, the "enduring human conversation" has to do with understanding our origins as humans (distinct from animals), i.e. the traditional concern of religion, the humanities, and now of theoretical anthropology. SO it's a question of how
...SO it's a question of how well we talk about these things with Marxist logics. As I've suggested, I don't think we do it very well. One way of saying how Marxism limited itself would be that it just wasn't very interested in the nature of transcendence (many Marxists tried to outlaw such questions as superstitious), i.e. interested in questions of how our representations emerge from and give meaning to experience. TO be sensitive to such questions is to be sensitive to various paradoxes and uncertainties, regarding the relationship between signs and things. Yet Marxism was a religion seeking rather definite answers to existential uncertainties, answers it found in materialistic notions of cause and effect. But this is a way of avoiding basic questions; for example, there is nothing materialistic about the words we use. Unlike letters and sounds, our words are purely transcendent products of mental associations. Words have no material existence, they're not imprinted in our minds. They exist, somehow, among us, or above us, and they rely on our shared faith to make particular collections of sounds or letters meaningful and useful. They are means by which we transcend conflict through a free and reciprocal exchange. Marxism, on the other hand, tried to dictate the terms of transcendence, according to a theory of history; but you need freedom and openness to uncertainty and unpredictability to really allow people to find sufficient ways to transcend conflicts, since our transcendence of conflict is never permanent and is always eroding, while conflict never goes away, and certainly not by state fiat.
Well, Sir F., regarding use of the term postmodern.
it seems to me evident that there has been a sea change in the Western culture since WWII, especially since the 60s, but even in some respects since the end of the Soviet empire. Are we to say that all of this is simply some kind of extension of modernism? I'm thinking of phenomena like decolonization, white guilt, political correctness, the hegemony of youth culture, the decline of high arts.
As for that theory of language, doesn't it more properly go as "poststructuralism"? In any case, it should be clear that I question its premises; it's not my religion. But I'm puzzled why you think my description of the deconstructivist faith is so off base. Yes, I caricature; what else can one do here? I admit that the Derridean approach to "differance" is on to something, it just doesn't impress me that the school has sufficiently explored the implications of the founding intuition. It to has its forbidden questions, re the event of origin. And for that I blame their inability fully to escape modernism.
Well, abuse is not always a bad thing. Some people have...complex needs.
Not me. Just feed me cheesecake.
I'm no fan of Warman's, from what I have heard of him. He may have received recognition from the Law Society of Upper Canada, however I can assure you as a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada myself that these sort of designations are not based on any sort of popular vote among the membership.
However, I do have some misgivings about the way some of the defendant bloggers conducted themselves here. Was the "proof" that Warman himself made the Cools posting under a sock puppet name a complete fabrication by a neo-nazi with an axe to grind? If so, then it seems that some people may have crossed the line here by reproducing such a serious allegation of misconduct by Warman as fact.
I don't really care about minnows like SDA or "Five Feet of Furry" (as she was called at one point in the Statement of Claim, LOL) but certainly someone like Ezra Levant who is a relatively well known public figure, former publisher of the Western Standard, and himself a lawyer and apparently expert in matter of libel and slander law (as they stand, not as we might wish them to be), ought to have known better and not have put himself on such thin ice.
I think there is a difference between saying Warman is a latter-day witch hunter, and saying that Warman planted evidence on an opposing party in a legal proceeding without reliable proof of Warman's misconduct. The former is protected free speech, the latter is probably libellous.
Great post Red Tory. Spot on!
I agree,
Except you will not lose one liberal friend maybe some socialists but that's different.
Socialists like to approve of speech whether national socialists or marxists etc, Liberals Voltaire et all do not.
Hell I call my salf a liberal because I Could have voted for Saint Laurent, King, Laurier.
but they were all knuckle draggers which sounds like hate and libel so I should sue everyone whose called me anything like that.
I agree with RT! I'm going to have nightmares tonight, yeeha.
The men who had hated [the book], and had not particularly loved Helvétius, flocked round him now. Voltaire forgave him all injuries, intentional or unintentional. 'What a fuss about an omelette!' he had exclaimed when he heard of the burning. How abominably unjust to persecute a man for such an airy trifle as that! 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,' was his attitude now.
S. G. Tallentyre, referring to Voltaire. Often attributed to Voltaire.
IMHO Warman is acting like a certified fascist. I bet American and European bloggers can mock Warman right into a straight jacket. Everyone in Canada must hear about this Warman and the HRC injustice!
This fellow in the HRC, Richard Warman, sounds like a totally wonderful human being who doesn
’t have a huge chip on his shoulder or one evil bone in his whole fair-minded body.
He doesn
’t at all sound like a sick and demented bastard who is angry
and bitter because he got his butt massively kicked in those elections years ago.
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe likes
human rights commissions
that violate human rights
while claiming to protect them
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe hates
real freedom of speech
an American concept
which is NOT for Canada
.
Why Does Canada Allow This?
All real freedom starts with freedom of speech.
If there is no freedom of speech, then there can be no real freedom.
http://www.richardwarman.com/
http://haltterrorism.com
.
Brilliant insight, Red Tory.
And oooh looks like truepeers hit a nerve with certain commenters. Kudos dude; you understand these elitists perfectly.
Commenting by HaloScan
