post-structuralist claptrap

postmodernism and claptrap.

i have made a few efforts to understand ‘postmodernism’ from various essays and comments only to come away none the wiser still wondering why or how it could be called a coherent critical approach ---to anything. the ‘school ‘ of thought is also called post-structuralism. (perhaps not accurately.)

well.. they use a lot of big words .. but…

i honestly wonder if it can be taken seriously? still people often mention Foucault and derrida and it seems to have some link with Marxian analysis which is definately an established and integrated approach in political science.. so..

terms such as existential- / post-phenomenology are used. well. i just wonder if it is worth the time it takes to find if it means anything at all or if it is just an empty attempt at attention-seeking behaviour by some totally bankrupt pseudo-academic/clown.

can it be called a scientific frame of enquiry? aaaa. boff !

it apparently started as a french critique of 'structuralism'.. which so far as I understood is a fairly superficial view of a body of whatever in terms of its structural principles alone.. like the formal structure of a movie or a bridge. sure design is arguably the most important element --if you’re an engineer.… but is still just an abstraction…and thankfully most people are not engineers… so yes.. I’ll go along with objections to structuralism as having much to contribute, but…. the pervasiveness of post-structuralism seems to have developed in the context of the disillusionment of marxists at the failure of the soviet experiment/structure. and so… people who were at odds with liberal or statist structures.. ie .. marxists had to come up with some ‘narrative’ or rather 'meta-narrative' so.. radical feminism, deconstruction as a weltanschauung, phenomeonlony and the like were bidding for attention/followers.

it seems to me that some vocabulary and ideas such as the dual reading of a model proposed by so-called deconstruction theory may have its usefulness, but it is fairly limited in its contribution though the crumbling of control economies in the last 2 decades of the last century followed by the crumbling of ‘laissez-faireism’ we are witnessing right now may owe it something. but I doubt if its much.. the seeds of their destruction was corruption/human imperfection. to me post-modernism is the counterpart in academia.. corrupt analysis. it is like a cake in la boulangerie that is way overdecorated /over-refined to the point of totally losing its merit as a cake. its lost the plot. incoherent. not worth bothering with. just a French fashion du jour.

my advice is if you want to speak greek, learn greek. its well worth the effort.

i’d like to be proved wrong but (apart from quantum mechanics,) there has been precious little contribution to the human store of philosophy since plato the divine.. life’s too short for claptrap. postmodernism is claptrap.

tejas fu

…

two american empires.

development and the 2 american empires.

I came across alice amsdens book, escape from empire*.

she sees the American drive for power since ww2 as being divided into two empires. the first ’45-1980 assisted developing countries in the building of institutions to acquire technology.. and the second as failing to contribute to economic deveiopment and characterised by chronic mediocracy and closed mind. the first one died because of ignorance and immoderation.. seen in highlight in the veitnam war, the second.. well she published in 2006 but one assumes it was pretty obvious to people like her where supply-side economics was heading--- the meltdown that has happened in the past year or so. and the war in iraq ….. empires rise and fall by war she notes. p103

traditionally, colonial powers generally preferred to rule through existing power elites repressing liberals and progressives and so retarding development----industrialization, agricultural modernization and democracy ---through discriminatory policy. so while the first American empire compared very favourably to the exploitative models of british and French colonial polices --particularly in Africa a century earlier though japan was exceptional in that it promoted colonial manufacture-- (she describes the first empire as a godsend to the third world), the second…relied on the fatwas from Chicago economics (privitization deregulation liberalization) and a dark age ensued p107

she makes other remarkably good observations.

technology transfer is the key to development. all successful newly industrializing countries had developed a base of manufacturing in the period prior to ww2. acquired by colonial enterprise. since then the problem of development has changed.. it is now knowledge that is no longer available. the finished products of established manufacturers are dumped in the markets of the countries most in need of development.. barriers to entry tower as never before. late developers are doomed. the policies of the usa 45-80 were generous. ‘colonised’ countries had the opportunities for a slice of the American dream.. jobs.. a chance for personal development and to develop their country where there was strong demand for the American dream.

the game became known as import substitution/export led growth.. it was driven by demand..(it was of course condemned by supply-siders who were correctly ignored by the developers) .. developing countries started producing the goods that they themselves wanted .. tvs, air-conditions, cars, white goods--- instead of importing them. it was a sound rejection of supply-side dogma.. it rejected neo-conservatism and orthadox laissez faire……it worked. .. japan.. nics.. china.. India..

the second American empire ran down the huge soft power that the usa once had. in its place china’s soft power in 'asia' has waxed.. regional differences in asia are weakening. americas loss is china’s gain.

however she sees the greatest policy failure of the usa being in latin America.

the question she poses--- will America be nimble enough to change?? has been answered since her book went to print by obamanomics. ie. prop up the zombies that issued the fatwa’s in the first place. (not overlooking the fat bonuses of their executives. naturally)

*Amsden, Alice H. Escape From Empire: MIT press. massachusetts 2007.

hobbes and the pitfalls of realism.

hobbes and the pitfalls of realism.

few english philosophers stand out like Thomas hobbes (1588-1679). alongside nikolai macchiavelli’s prince and thucydides’melian dialogue, leviathan(1651) is cited as enunciating the realist or statist theory in political science. his interest in politics was stimulated by the English civil war 1640s. his secular theory of civil government put him at odds with royalists both English and French in paris where he had taken refuge . in addition, the secular nature of his politics put him at odds with the church. he took a huge risk in publishing his philosophy. his books were banned. he was no armchair philosopher. his life was on the line.

the doctrine he expressed goes like this: states and legitimate governments are founded on a social contract requiring cooperation from citizens in exchange for security.. the state of nature is anarchy. .. conflict.. (and the dibble take the hindmost)….bellum omnium contra omnes …(unlike Heraclitus, hobbes wrote in latin) … sovereign authority is given to the state to avoid unending war/chaos... abuse of power by the king is to be accepted as the price of peace. morality is subordinated to power. .. it sounds pretty tame today but wasn’t in the mid 17^th century. the idea of individuals granting the king the right to rule was a touchy subject in the middle of the interesting times of the civil war.

social contract theory was not new in hobbes time. the concept of popular sovereignty and natural rights had certainly surfaced in the face of princes who had taken their divine right a bit seriously. the popularity of the idea was symptomatic of the beginning of a more enlightened period and a rise in consciousness. the idea that all tyrants find objectionable is that individuals have inalienable rights. social contract is the basis of civil rights. and while the realist tradition claims hobbes, he maybe seen as much as a liberal in the face of tyrrany.

anarchy is the natural state of woman avoided by hierarchical order. these two extremes are the underlying concepts …. another realist assumption is that the natural state cannot be changed.

states behave as individuals.. anarchically. and a balance of power is maintained. (for example the usa and the ussr .. implacable enemies balanced against Nazism.) its certainly one way of looking at it.

power is control over outcomes, one would have to agree yet … the prisoners dilemma and mistrust ..hobbsian fears sparking arms races and terrorist hyper-countermeasures… security paranoia. race to the bottom.. do unto fred before fred does unto you….. are among the pitfalls of realism--- its practical consequence.

the major criticism of the theory is that it assumes too much about the interests and intentions of states and also its inability to deal with change and unknown variables. yeah.. but who does any better?

the world has spun a bit since hobbes but is essentially the same place.

it is thanks to people like him that one day there will be a global bill of rights of the individual and an international court to which all government officers are amenable. governments will one day act morally. the u.n. and the world court is a laughing stock atm but the idea of it is essentially sound. very sound.

hobbes expressed a realist political theory . no one has illustrated it better so far.