Not All Woke on the Left

[Some Schmo]

Except that everything in society has something to do with law and finance, from zoning requirements to who gets taxed. Public funding of universities and public health research ensured that abortion, Wuhan labs, and gender pronouns would be political.

You're kidding yourself to think that you can (or even should) cordon off politics. As you know, the fact that we even have disciplines such Spanish, Near East Studies, or Classics taught in universities is, and always has been, a political statement.

Well, I was being proscriptive, not descriptive. I do think politicians should restrict themselves to talking about serious things.

Your point is taken to some extent, but we don't need everybody's input on everything. I believe data and expertise should rule the day in terms of lawmaking, but I also realize that many issues are complicated and certain laws are dependent on how those issues play out.

I guess what I'm really saying is that I don't think political discourse is as serious as it used to be. When I was young, everything seemed serious and complicated. As I've aged, I not only got to the point where I understood what was going on, I started to realize it was dumber and more straightforward than I'd ever imagined. These days, it's all political theater, and it exposes us Americans as easily distracted peons. The things people argue over today largely seem insane to argue over, and a huge distraction so that politicians never have to actually do anything substantive for the American people. They motivate voters with agitation, not promise. When politicians are getting into that game by default and seem no smarter than the average dude in a bar arguing about it, well... it's sickening.

[canpakes]

I’m unconvinced. It is regularly observed that most Americans want the same good, progressive policies. I think that is true. So what’s the problem, then? Something is motivating people to vote Republican just enough to keep these dreams from being realized, no? Are we going to blame gerrymandering? Republican propaganda? What is it that makes us blame Putin for Trump instead of Hillary for failing to wipe the floor with him? Our stupidity or that of others?

Kish, just from casual observation, it seems that some part of Republican success at the ballot box rests on pitting what Americans arguably ‘want’ versus what Republicans tell voters is going to be taken away from them.

Universal healthcare? - “They’re coming for your healthcare, to give it to others!!”
Better education? - “They’re coming to take away your parental control!!”
Food assistance? - “They’re coming to raise your taxes and take your money!!”
Sensible immigration policies? - “They’re coming for your jobs!!”
Sensible firearms regulation? - “They’re coming for your firearms!!”
Trans issues or pronouns? - “They’re coming for your religious freedom!!”

Many people are emotional and reactive critters. If you can convince them - on every issue - that ‘the other’ is coming to take their whatever, then folks are going to react more negatively and strongly to that than react positively to whatever as-yet-unrealized supposed benefit from ‘x’ policy may exist for themselves or others down the road. Republicans work that playbook very well.

[Alphus and Omegus]

Good list. Don’t the Dems also benefit from the filibuster when they are in the minority?

Democrats can benefit from the filibuster if they are the minority in the Senate, but ultimately, the Republican party has shifted to a governance strategy of jamming up Congress entirely and using control of the courts to force their viewpoints on America, as they recently did in overturning Roe v. Wade and hope to do with birth control in a Texas court. The filibuster benefits the party who wants nothing to happen, which is what Republicans want from the Congress. They know that passing their agenda via laws would be political malpractice. So they have lifelong judicial activists do it for them instead.

Throughout U.S. history, the court system has generally been a vehicle for the political right, but this changed for a brief moment in time beginning with Earl Warren and then ending once Trump got to appoint 3 justices of the current right-wing super-majority after Republicans abused Senate procedure and blocked then-president Barack Obama from replacing Antonin Scalia.

Instead of going with the original, correct view of the Progressive movement which was that courts should be more democratic and that change should come through elections, the Democratic powers-that-be fell in love with the decisions of the Warren Court, not realizing that any right given by a present the Supreme Court could easily be taken away by a future one. This was a very faulty strategy because not only have some rights been annulled, the court-centric approach to policy-making that Democrats adopted after Warren made them de-emphasize democratic norms and traditions in their campaigning.

As it happens, the critical legal studies movement (out of which grew critical race theory) opposed this trajectory, arguing correctly that all judicial decisions are fundamentally political acts, regardless of how some attorneys may feel about that fact. They asked Democrats to show more interest in campaigning and making a progressive case in campaigns but were generally ignored. Cornel West, a Marxist Christian, is an example of someone who has tried to make the Democratic Party more democratic.

In the present moment, Democrats have lost the ability and desire to campaign effectively and the courts have returned to their former state of being right-wing bulwarks against social progress. The American political system is fundamentally destabilized because one party contains basically the entire political spectrum and is terribly divided within while the other major party is dominated by a high skilled minority which has perfected the art of political manipulation to effect its reactionary goals.

[Morley]

I guess what I'm really saying is that I don't think political discourse is as serious as it used to be. When I was young, everything seemed serious and complicated. As I've aged, I not only got to the point where I understood what was going on, I started to realize it was dumber and more straightforward than I'd ever imagined. These days, it's all political theater, and it exposes us Americans as easily distracted peons. The things people argue over today largely seem insane to argue over, and a huge distraction so that politicians never have to actually do anything substantive for the American people. They motivate voters with agitation, not promise. When politicians are getting into that game by default and seem no smarter than the average dude in a bar arguing about it, well... it's sickening.

I agree with everything you say here, Schmo.

[Res Ipsa]

Good list. Don’t the Dems also benefit from the filibuster when they are in the minority?

Democrats can benefit from the filibuster if they are the minority in the Senate, but ultimately, the Republican party has shifted to a governance strategy of jamming up Congress entirely and using control of the courts to force their viewpoints on America, as they recently did in overturning Roe v. Wade and hope to do with birth control in a Texas court.

Throughout U.S. history, the court system has generally been a vehicle for the political right, but this changed for a brief moment in time beginning with Earl Warren and then ending once Trump got to appoint 3 justices of the current right-wing super-majority after Republicans abused Senate procedure and blocked then-president Barack Obama from replacing Antonin Scalia.

Instead of going with the original, correct view of the Progressive movement which was that courts should be more democratic and that change should come through elections, the Democratic powers-that-be fell in love with the decisions of the Warren Court, not realizing that any right given by a present the Supreme Court could easily be taken away by a future one. This was a very faulty strategy because not only have some rights been annulled, the court-centric approach to policy-making that Democrats adopted after Warren made them de-emphasize democratic norms and traditions in their campaigning.

As it happens, the critical legal studies movement (out of which grew critical race theory) opposed this trajectory, arguing correctly that all judicial decisions are fundamentally political acts, regardless of how some attorneys may feel about that fact. They asked Democrats to show more interest in campaigning and making a progressive case in campaigns but were generally ignored. Cornel West, a Marxist Christian, is an example of someone who has tried to make the Democratic Party more democratic.

In the present moment, Democrats have lost the ability and desire to campaign effectively and the courts have returned to their former state of being right-wing bulwarks against social progress. The American political system is fundamentally destabilized because one party contains basically the entire political spectrum and is terribly divided within while the other major party is dominated by a high skilled minority which has perfected the art of political manipulation to effect its reactionary goals.

I went to Law School at ground zero for the CLS movement. It is not the case that CLS reached the reductive conclusion that law is politics. Rather, it rejected the notion of a clear distinction between law and politics: The two were unavoidably entangled, but not identical.

CLS, like most forms of postmodernism, relies heavily on deconstruction but does not generate a prescriptive philosophy. CLS scholars have certainly deconstructed the reliance on courts as a civil rights strategy. But CLS itself provides no guidance on whether reliance on courts on any given issue is necessarily an inferior strategy.

I’ve seen the type of arguments you describe used in the last decade or two. But I’m not aware of any prophets warning the Democratic Party at height of the CLS movement (1970s-1980s) not to rely on courts.

Criticism of CLS is very similar to the philosopher Kish referenced in the OP. Foucault’s amoral stance is reached through the exact type of deconstruction that CLS uses. Just as Chomsky had to appeal to biology as a source of morality, some philosophy’s other than CLS is required to decide what action one should take.

I read a couple of Neuman’s essays and interviews. I’m not surprised that his deconstructive arguments are used in race and gender studies. I think his deconstruction of gender is spot on. But I’m not persuaded (yet) that “woke” folks accept his ultimate position of amorality. I certainly don’t, and I don’t get that impression from “woke” folks I’ve encountered. I’ll have to read her book.

[Alphus and Omegus]

I went to Law School at ground zero for the CLS movement. It is not the case that CLS reached the reductive conclusion that law is politics. Rather, it rejected the notion of a clear distinction between law and politics: The two were unavoidably entangled, but not identical.

CLS, like most forms of postmodernism, relies heavily on deconstruction but does not generate a prescriptive philosophy. CLS scholars have certainly deconstructed the reliance on courts as a civil rights strategy. But CLS itself provides no guidance on whether reliance on courts on any given issue is necessarily an inferior strategy.

I’ve seen the type of arguments you describe used in the last decade or two. But I’m not aware of any prophets warning the Democratic Party at height of the CLS movement (1970s-1980s) not to rely on courts.

Criticism of CLS is very similar to the philosopher Kish referenced in the OP. Foucault’s amoral stance is reached through the exact type of deconstruction that CLS uses. Just as Chomsky had to appeal to biology as a source of morality, some philosophy’s other than CLS is required to decide what action one should take.

I read a couple of Neuman’s essays and interviews. I’m not surprised that his deconstructive arguments are used in race and gender studies. I think his deconstruction of gender is spot on. But I’m not persuaded (yet) that “woke” folks accept his ultimate position of amorality. I certainly don’t, and I don’t get that impression from “woke” folks I’ve encountered. I’ll have to read her book.

The trends I'm describing began in postmodernism and have not quite filtered down to all the outposts of critical legal studies, given the institutional incentives for law professors to adopt the native legal theory of formalism.

Outside of the law school, after the task of deconstruction was completed, the second generation of critical theorists began moving toward creating an affirmative social theory for reasons too long to get into. Cornel West and Kai Nielen have interesting work in this regard, but most relevant to your point is the latter work of Richard Rorty, who turned his attention toward reconciling liberalism with deconstruction because he realized that there must be a philosophical lode star in order to have an alternative to Christianist hypercapitalism. That destination was secular, pluralistic, socialistic liberalism.

In his final book, Achieving Our Country, Rorty predicted that a liberalism divorced from democratic processes would give rise to a fascist politics. It's an eerily prescient description of how Trump gained power, even though it was published in 1998:

Members of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers — themselves desperately afraid of being downsized — are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else.

At that point, something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking for a strongman to vote for — someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots.

This is a good writeup of what Rorty was trying to do before he died:

https://newrepublic.com/article/163297/ ... ook-review