[lbo-talk] Blue Dogs cashing in

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Sun Aug 2 11:32:43 PDT 2009


Michael Pollak (Sat, 25 Jul 13:56:46) wrote:

On Jul 25, 2009, at 12:17 PM, shag carpet bomb wrote: "I've asked this question three times now, and everyone who thinks morality matters, that there is something wrong with carrol, have refused to answer me.

"What improves politics? What advantage do you get?"

Michael responded: "For me it's more a question of what you lose when you deny it."

I write:

Michael, you are wrong, fundamentally wrong, from the start, because the "it" you invoke here does not exist. There is no such thing as a moral principle, except as a figment of the disordered imagination of the bourbeois abstract, isolated, individual. Where do they come from? Pure subjective impulse, with no basis in reality. (This is a philosophical and historical, not a scientific, assertion.) Arnold at least was honest in a way you and Doug are not. He recognzied that "moral principles" (which he also, for no good reason, thought essential) were attached to the religious idea, and died with that idea. He proposed that "poetry" might substitute for religion, as I.A. Richards (also a moralist without any ground to stand on) thought neurology (balance of emotions) might replace religion. Eliot was wiser. There are no substitutes. If you drop religion, then you have to get along without it and the ideas it (and it alone) supports.

Where do those moral principles come from? What is their ontological basis? You can't answer that. Neither can Doug, but you seem a bit more acquainted with the history of philosophy than he, so I expect something more of you than cranky kibitzing.

What you are doing is verbal trickery. You simply rename politics morality and say, See! But you can't do that. You can deny that "morality" is about people, buyt every time "morality" enters political discussion in a serious way, the end result is the attempt to purge individuals from the left as "bad people." The Iranian discussion of was completely empty of political principle: it was solely and nakedly an effort to purge certain people from "the left" as bad people. You stayed out of that mess to some extent, but you couldn't quite resist the stupid moral outburst, "What's wrong with you people?"

Morality (or moral argument) in politics leads to purges or attempts at purges, whether the purge is ssimple expulsion from the Party, harrying someone from a list, or putting people against the wall. It is all in aid of maintaining the capitalist system by rejecting the validity of political principle and political debate.

Carrol



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