This essay reads like a chapter from a PhD thesis, rich with impenetrable jargon and references to irrelevant debates among ‘scholarly’ and fashionable theorists like Foucault. It could be summed up in a few words i.e., far left activists don’t like Kristen Simena because she has realised that theoretical politics don’t work. They hit back by describing her as intellectually second rate and lacking in understanding of the political issues.
The writing is rather unappealing in style and tone however I think it’s worth persevering with because it reminds us of Schmitt’s insight about the risk of uncritical regard for the rule of law and the necessity for occasional actions outside the rule of law by state actors.
i think Sinema is standing in her back garden (back-yard), has picked up two handfuls of soil and is looking straight into the eyes of the demigods atop of the Democractic Party as she lets the soil run through her fingers back to the ground.
Shes reminding them who owns that soil, who owns what, where and why in the USA, she is challenging the "rule", their rule. And they dont like it because behind her they also see the forming ranks of a proto “bare lifer ” army that the Democratic Party is creating out of a large constituency of their own citizens due to overly dogmatic policies !
I have to agree with Anne Kelley at least as far as saying that the piece isn’t good at showing the relevance of the ‘scholarly’ debates that it invokes. However it does make some attempt to throw light on the strange and frightening transformation of liberalism into authoritarianism which has been taking place across western societies. It would surely be worthwhile to trace the connection between the political actions this involves and the rather half-baked intellectual context in which several generations have now been brought up. One symptom of this is a sloppy use of language, from which Blake Smith himself is not immune. For example he writes “Norms — such as Nato and Nafta — suddenly appealed to Leftists who had long critiqued them.” Surely Nato and Nafta are institutions, not norms?
Cheryl Jones
2 years ago
WTF is a ‘notorious centrist’? Oh no, someone who isn’t radical! Someone who might, gulp, have some affinity avd respect for The Other Side. The horror!
I think public servants like Sinema are to be applauded not demonised. This barely disguised hit piece talks with a withering disdain about her lack of intellectualism, as if to undermine her very credibility, simply because she has dared to not step in line. Acting on her conscience against the mob, well I thought such people didn’t exist anymore.
As my doctoral supervisor said to me, your PhD thesis will probably be the worst thing you ever write. For most academics, we look back and read these with some embarrassment. To me, this is unfair criticism of a young researcher working through their first big project.
“Sinema’s work has no original insights, and hardly any grasp on the theory that supposedly informs it.”
Fair enough but Sinema’s thesis is a work of singular genius compared to that of Dr Jill Biden.
aaron david
2 years ago
She seems inscrutable to the left because she is doing her job; representing AZ. Imagine that, a politician doing what they are paid to do.
Last edited 2 years ago by aaron david
Mikey Mike
2 years ago
The author is obviously a bright, well-studied, professional college student. On the matter of making a cogent, interesting, or even comprehensible freaking point, however, he’s got some work to do. This piece reads like a term paper that is required to be longer than it should be which no one but the author and his academic adviser will ever voluntarily read. If you do a word search I think you’ll find that the three most repeated words are Schmitt, Agamben, and Foucalt with the subject of the piece, Sinema, coming in a distant twentieth. It’s the intellectual equivalent of doing a Zoom call, carefully positioning the camera so it captures the Philosophy section of your bookshelf over your right shoulder.
Agamben likewise argued, following Foucault, that liberal states are inherently unable to live up to their own constitutional norms and in their routine exercise of power, place certain spaces and persons outside them. Sinema, either with naïveté or the cunning of stupidity, simply wishes the problem away and urges us to follow the rules. But, while her intellectual inadequacies are her own, the lameness of her conclusion reflects a change in the political valence of theory.
Imagine having a beer with a dude who talks like that. You wouldn’t. Not twice.
Critique, like terrorism, is a weapon of the weak. [I didn’t just throw up, you did] The powerful claim to defend security, reason and morality, while those out of power, grown clever and cynical from their experience of marginality, contest these claims and question whether such things even exist to be defended.
I really don’t like masturbatory academic jabberwocky. If you do, I apologize. Nevetheless, thanks a ton for the article demonstrably not about Kyrsten Sinema or the current budget debate.
It is difficult to decide which parts to submit to Pseud’s Corner. An overlong indulgence nominally about a minor politician with a colourful past and present but really about Carl Schmitt and Giorgio Agamben (who they? ed) and how they interpret each other. It started well with the subject telling critics to ‘f**k off’ but then descended into the sort of turgid guff Unherd is now pioneering. Have I got this right – the ‘generalisable lesson’ is that without the rule of law barbarity is likely to occur?
AC Harper
2 years ago
You could make an argument that the security theatre, the racism theatre and the COVID theatre, together with the supply of cheap goods from China are the modern day equivalent of ‘bread and circuses’ – diverting the attention of the plebs from the activities of the elites. It didn’t end well for the Romans.
Perhaps Sinema’s inscrutability is because she is not playing by the ‘bread and circuses’ workbook?
hugh bennett
2 years ago
“Sinema’s work has no original insights, and hardly any grasp on the theory that supposedly informs it.”
How rude, and of course just Smiths opinion.
I admit to skimming as I read through the piece, because the guy is trying to fit too many ideas into one essay, trying to get a quart into a pint pot...as if he isnt going to get another chance.
If there is one thing I cannot stand, it’s wishy-washiness, so I watch this senator with great interest. She may not be up to the intelligence level of Mr Blake Smith but she has got some b-lls and for the moment at least I am cheering.. “go on girl stir up the pot!”
Insiders that perform attacks have a distinct advantage over external attackers, well at least for while, which is great as Nancy and co have to keep digging this thorn out of their sides. I also like the elements of commonsense she sheds, like acid rain over her Democratic “colleagues”.
I also like the loyalty to State pushing back at the Democrats manic Federalisation of everything that moves !
Last edited 2 years ago by hugh bennett
Warren T
2 years ago
One of the very few articles I couldn’t bring myself to finish. Sheer drivel.
By the way, isn’t it interesting that some writers use the term “populist” for just about any political candidate they disagree with, as they look down their nose?
I never heard Barack Hussein Obama being called a populist, yet he fit the very definition of one. Even certainly campaigned as one. In fact, formerly liberal democrats in the U.S. usually attempted to appeal to the huddled masses, yet were never called mere “populists”. But when a republican or conservative attempts to do the same, they are termed a “populist” in order to degrade them somehow. Nowadays, of course, the democrats are openly on the side of the elites.
David Bell
2 years ago
I nodded off well before the halfway mark, only to be roused by the sound of the post coming through the letter box.
Nick Bernard
2 years ago
“important modern political thinkers, such as Michel Foucault“ LOL
Last edited 2 years ago by Nick Bernard
Jonathan Andrews
2 years ago
I dunno but whenever I see the word “hegemonic ” I reckon that the article is not for the likes of me.
Yes. I may be with Goering: “When I see the word ‘hegemonic’ I reach for my revolver”.
Or does that make me fall foul of Godwin’s Law?
Last edited 2 years ago by Graeme Cant
Graham Stull
2 years ago
Interesting article but a little disjointed for my taste. Was it an essay about Sinema’s political rise? Or was it an essay about how the Left has risen to power? Is Sinema a personification of this rise, or is she somehow in opposition to it?
I agree that the Left has risen to power and in so doing has assumed the mantle of authoritarianism, along the lines of “The definition of a Civil Libertarian is an Authoritarian who has been ousted from power.”
But this is not so cunning an insight. The deeper question for me is: what are the conditions by which a political movement / ideology can command the mantle of power in a way that minimises the inherent abuse of that power?
The classical liberal would say: By creating a balance of powers; by bending the power of the State so that its every instrument is designed to support the rights of the individual. Then the power remains diffuse, pluralist, and in this way has the best chance to achieve stability.
In JRR Tolkien terms: We don’t win the war against Sauron by giving the One Ring to Aragorn. We win by creating a million rings of equal power, and giving one to each of the citizens of Middle Earth.
Yes, but in our era we witness a celebration of the individual and their rights that has become obsessive, and has been employed in order to sow division – pitting presumed victims and oppressors in opposition to one another.
Ian Stewart
2 years ago
Jeez Blake Smith really needs to be more concise – he could have just stated I don’t agree with Sinema, instead of this long pompous diatribe dressed up as reasoned analysis.
John Pade
2 years ago
It’s nice you brought Kyrsten Sinema in this discussion of Agamben and Foucault.
Galeti Tavas
2 years ago
“Agamben likewise argued, following Foucault, that liberal states are inherently unable to live up to their own constitutional norms and in their routine exercise of power, place certain spaces and persons outside them. Sinema, either with naïveté or the cunning of stupidity, simply wishes the problem away and urges us to follow the rules.”
So the evil Postmodernist, Neo-Marxist, Foucault and the Schmitt PostModernist-Conservatism are both being taken by the right?…
“joined in a common project of Leftist critique, have now become the ever-more explicit moral centre of our regime — or are being taken up by its opponents on the Right.”
“double shift by which Leftists once enamoured of certain strands of radical political theory repurposed it towards the consolidation of a new hegemonic political morality, discarding its subversive dimension — and making it available to the Right.”
(” Liberals and their defendants are increasingly pressed by post-modernist movements from the left. And, as we shall see, they are also pushed by those on the right, who do not hold to traditional liberal values about the importance of free speech and inquiry. Most liberal thinkers blame their opponents for these tendencies.”) (from the link)(post-modern-conservatism) (also it is the Right who hold the Constitution dear, and the Liberals do not, so I do not get the above – I just cannot see Right Post-Modernism, but that is why this article was fun.)
But I do get the left figuring Biden as the Schmittian Sovereign tossing aside Rule of Law during “states of exception” existing now, and using covid as the ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste’ – only I believe in a Global Elite conspiracy… it all gets so confusing fitting in the pieces – but I am not sure how this all fits in with Sinema and the $3.2 Trillion ‘Human Infrastructure’ bill. I mean the writer even says Sinema misunderstands Schmitt totally…..Is she really a neo-Marxist Post Modernist/Conservative at heart? It seems by her position she must just be a Centrist who will not allow something crazy and destructive to get by on her watch.
Anyway – it was fun wading through it all, but must go to bed – building cabinets for a job tomorrow….
Steve Jones
2 years ago
My jargon translator app just crashed. Have anther go son.
James Hankins
2 years ago
On the last point, I have always been struck by how little interest there is among Chinese intellectuals in Marcuse and Frankfurt School thinkers – I now think precisely because their thought provides tools of subversion. The CCP is already in charge, hence uninterested in ‘critique’. On Sinema, the obvious explanation for her attitude is Arizona’s relatively conservative electorate. Agamben is now despised on the Italian left as an opponent of the bio-security state. The man still believes in democracy, imagine that!
Ed Cameron
2 years ago
“…hegemonic institutions pursue enemies and suspend liberal norms in the name of our psychological and physical wellbeing..”
Too true.
And there’s no bigger hegemonic institution than the CCP. Have a gander at this: “In response to its growing prominence as the object of international ire, with respect to both domestic statecraft and the conduct of foreign affairs, the Chinese have assumed a resolutely Schmittian posture.” Why Carl Schmitt Matters to China | THR Web Features | Web Features | The Hedgehog Review
This is turning into a schmitt show!
Oh schmitt. etc…
D Hockley
2 years ago
What a ghastly and pompous fellow the author comes across as being.
John T. Maloney
2 years ago
This turgid, half-witted screed is a dubious requiem for pluralism. Radicals scream ‘just one vote,’ (Sinema), is holding up America’s heading flight to the ‘Build Back Better‘ burlesque. The annoying fact is 50+ senate votes are holding back BBB. The dishonest always claim it is about ‘just one votes’ while summarily ignoring 50-senators and 213 house members. It’s a disgrace. Pluralism matters; this pap doesn’t.
Douglas Proudfoot
2 years ago
The rule of law, relatively free markets, and government by the consent of the governed, have brought us the richest society in history (herstory?) Only an academic snob would prefer the arguments of a Nazi supporter over John Locke and Adam Smith.
I realize I identify as a redneck, but golly, don’t these boffins read any history at all? When Hitler and Lenin tore down all the laws, then turned on the people, there was no protection and nowhere to hide.
Socialism can be interpreted as objection by academia to the division of wealth in capitalist societies. Academics think they should be paid more for their fantastic intellects, so they want to change the economy to put “experts,” themselves, in power through government edicts unchecked by law.
Sorry, but socialism fails every time. Unfortunately, academic socialist “experts” are immune to experimental results.
I apologize that my comment ain’t very intellectual. I did warn you I identify as a redneck, but I try to communicate in practical terms that even intellectuals can understand.
Fred Bloggs
2 years ago
Oh well. I actually enjoyed reading this. Sucks to be me, I guess.
Martin Johnson
2 years ago
Or maybe Sinema understands that she barely beat a weak Repub in a swing state and will have a very hard time being re-elected if tied to the $3.5T and very hard Left Build Back Better bill.
Crikey! A fog of words, and a definite sense that the article contains less than meets the eye. The only clear thing is that the author really dislikes Sinema.
Tom Elliott
2 years ago
I am familiar with the idea of context-free grammars and that they are not sufficient to describe all of language. Could this article have been composed (I almost wrote composted) as an example of a novel theory of content-free grammars?
Jim Cox
2 years ago
I do not think Sinema is either ignorant or naive. Rather, she has responded to the concerns of her constituents by moving from academic leftism toward a more common sense approach to today’s problems.
mike otter
2 years ago
Imagine that the writer is not pondering US academia and European leftist pseudo-philosophy – but real life. For example a childrens’ playground game, business start up or criminal gang. To be effective these enterprises must have enough people following the rules at all times and its not naive to think they will fail if the members or leaders spend too long in a “state of exception”. That’s why western democracies spend less time at war or murdering their own citizens than other systems of government, though obviously they are not immune from such exceptions to natural law, as the scamdemic proves on a frightening scale. To know this is not lameness or a failure of intellect. Its what normal people see and therefore know. I’d love to see the writer join, for example MS13, and test their naive belief that he has to follow their rules. That would be a glinting point of light but like the article above would show us nothing about how engaged US citizens view their country.
Alan Hawkes
2 years ago
Well, that was a bit of a slog; reads like a first draft that needs a bit of editing for greater clarity and perhaps drop the ad hominem criticism of Sen. Sinema. But, I thought that, “hegemonic institutions pursue enemies and suspend liberal norms in the name of our psychological and physical wellbeing..” was an interesting way to regard cancel-culture.
Terence Fitch
2 years ago
The kind of convoluted stuff I wrote when I was a first year undergrad. Sentences disappearing up their own fundaments.
Don Butler
2 years ago
Read this article if you want to appreciate fully the degradation of higher education in America. This fellow is a “fellow” at the institution that gave us Milton Friedman, Mortimer Adler, David Bevington, and Charles Van Doren, for that matter; all of whom could write with erudite clarity. And he dares accuse someone else of mediocrity?
Douglas McNeish
2 years ago
The writer cannot comprehend how anyone groomed in radical political theory could demonstrate betrayal of her Democrat Party masters – other than to belittle her intellectually. And to suggest that she has betrayed the triumphant new moral economic elite by applying radical theory in service to conservatives – her “cunning of stupidity.”
Fergus Mason
2 years ago
Well, I’ve read the entire article and learned absolutely nothing. It’s as clear, concise and explanatory as Judith Butler at her worst.
Alan B
2 years ago
Interesting read. Perhaps comments should have been disabled for this one!
Don Lightband
2 years ago
The article is clear as a bell. The bulk of conments below it are incomprehensible in their bizarre preference for god know what
Laura Cattell
2 years ago
She’s not even going to win re-election let alone bring anyone down.
This essay reads like a chapter from a PhD thesis, rich with impenetrable jargon and references to irrelevant debates among ‘scholarly’ and fashionable theorists like Foucault. It could be summed up in a few words i.e., far left activists don’t like Kristen Simena because she has realised that theoretical politics don’t work. They hit back by describing her as intellectually second rate and lacking in understanding of the political issues.
Thanks! I was wondering what the heck he was on about : )
Bravo!
The writing is rather unappealing in style and tone however I think it’s worth persevering with because it reminds us of Schmitt’s insight about the risk of uncritical regard for the rule of law and the necessity for occasional actions outside the rule of law by state actors.
i think Sinema is standing in her back garden (back-yard), has picked up two handfuls of soil and is looking straight into the eyes of the demigods atop of the Democractic Party as she lets the soil run through her fingers back to the ground.
She
s reminding them who owns that soil, who owns what, where and why in the USA, she is challenging the "rule", their rule. And they dont like it because behind her they also see the forming ranks of a proto “bare lifer ” army that the Democratic Party is creating out of a large constituency of their own citizens due to overly dogmatic policies !Love the irony in ‘rich’.
Thank you. I gave up about a third of the way in. I came to the comments hoping for some clarification.
indeed..
Wish I had read your comment first, much better than the article and more to the point and relevant, for non academics like myself.
I have to agree with Anne Kelley at least as far as saying that the piece isn’t good at showing the relevance of the ‘scholarly’ debates that it invokes. However it does make some attempt to throw light on the strange and frightening transformation of liberalism into authoritarianism which has been taking place across western societies. It would surely be worthwhile to trace the connection between the political actions this involves and the rather half-baked intellectual context in which several generations have now been brought up. One symptom of this is a sloppy use of language, from which Blake Smith himself is not immune. For example he writes “Norms — such as Nato and Nafta — suddenly appealed to Leftists who had long critiqued them.” Surely Nato and Nafta are institutions, not norms?
WTF is a ‘notorious centrist’? Oh no, someone who isn’t radical! Someone who might, gulp, have some affinity avd respect for The Other Side. The horror!
I think public servants like Sinema are to be applauded not demonised. This barely disguised hit piece talks with a withering disdain about her lack of intellectualism, as if to undermine her very credibility, simply because she has dared to not step in line. Acting on her conscience against the mob, well I thought such people didn’t exist anymore.
As my doctoral supervisor said to me, your PhD thesis will probably be the worst thing you ever write. For most academics, we look back and read these with some embarrassment. To me, this is unfair criticism of a young researcher working through their first big project.
Go Cheryl!
‘Blake Smith is a Harper-Schmidt Fellow at the University of Chicago… a translator of contemporary francophone fiction’.
(No kidding).
couldn’t agree more
“Sinema’s work has no original insights, and hardly any grasp on the theory that supposedly informs it.”
Fair enough but Sinema’s thesis is a work of singular genius compared to that of Dr Jill Biden.
She seems inscrutable to the left because she is doing her job; representing AZ. Imagine that, a politician doing what they are paid to do.
The author is obviously a bright, well-studied, professional college student. On the matter of making a cogent, interesting, or even comprehensible freaking point, however, he’s got some work to do. This piece reads like a term paper that is required to be longer than it should be which no one but the author and his academic adviser will ever voluntarily read. If you do a word search I think you’ll find that the three most repeated words are Schmitt, Agamben, and Foucalt with the subject of the piece, Sinema, coming in a distant twentieth. It’s the intellectual equivalent of doing a Zoom call, carefully positioning the camera so it captures the Philosophy section of your bookshelf over your right shoulder.
Imagine having a beer with a dude who talks like that. You wouldn’t. Not twice.
I really don’t like masturbatory academic jabberwocky. If you do, I apologize. Nevetheless, thanks a ton for the article demonstrably not about Kyrsten Sinema or the current budget debate.
The comment to which I am responding deserves more upvotes.
Done.
An essay on which Mr Smith shows:
A. Quite how clever he thinks he is in comparison to Senator Sinema.
B. How utterly powerless he is in comparison to Senator Sinema.
Politishum not do wat me want, me criteek her PhD feesiss.
LOL
Unusually tedious article.
Well that’s five minutes of my life I’m not going to get back. What a badly written article
Jeez you wasted just 5 minutes!
Quite: just because someone has a couple of needles is no reason to bring along a whole haystack.
I’m guessing George Orwell didn’t write this.
This is one of a series of recent Unherd articles which should have won the Judith Butler Award for Opacity.
It’s a typical PhD thesis!
No doubt reflecting the authors academic credentials
Going by the general tone of this article, the writer probably despised George Orwell for his lack of intellectualism!
It is difficult to decide which parts to submit to Pseud’s Corner. An overlong indulgence nominally about a minor politician with a colourful past and present but really about Carl Schmitt and Giorgio Agamben (who they? ed) and how they interpret each other. It started well with the subject telling critics to ‘f**k off’ but then descended into the sort of turgid guff Unherd is now pioneering. Have I got this right – the ‘generalisable lesson’ is that without the rule of law barbarity is likely to occur?
You could make an argument that the security theatre, the racism theatre and the COVID theatre, together with the supply of cheap goods from China are the modern day equivalent of ‘bread and circuses’ – diverting the attention of the plebs from the activities of the elites. It didn’t end well for the Romans.
Perhaps Sinema’s inscrutability is because she is not playing by the ‘bread and circuses’ workbook?
“Sinema’s work has no original insights, and hardly any grasp on the theory that supposedly informs it.”
How rude, and of course just Smith
s opinion.t going to get another chance.I admit to skimming as I read through the piece, because the guy is trying to fit too many ideas into one essay, trying to get a quart into a pint pot...as if he isn
If there is one thing I cannot stand, it’s wishy-washiness, so I watch this senator with great interest. She may not be up to the intelligence level of Mr Blake Smith but she has got some b-lls and for the moment at least I am cheering.. “go on girl stir up the pot!”
Insiders that perform attacks have a distinct advantage over external attackers, well at least for while, which is great as Nancy and co have to keep digging this thorn out of their sides. I also like the elements of commonsense she sheds, like acid rain over her Democratic “colleagues”.
I also like the loyalty to State pushing back at the Democrats manic Federalisation of everything that moves !
One of the very few articles I couldn’t bring myself to finish. Sheer drivel.
By the way, isn’t it interesting that some writers use the term “populist” for just about any political candidate they disagree with, as they look down their nose?
I never heard Barack Hussein Obama being called a populist, yet he fit the very definition of one. Even certainly campaigned as one. In fact, formerly liberal democrats in the U.S. usually attempted to appeal to the huddled masses, yet were never called mere “populists”. But when a republican or conservative attempts to do the same, they are termed a “populist” in order to degrade them somehow. Nowadays, of course, the democrats are openly on the side of the elites.
I nodded off well before the halfway mark, only to be roused by the sound of the post coming through the letter box.
“important modern political thinkers, such as Michel Foucault“ LOL
I dunno but whenever I see the word “hegemonic ” I reckon that the article is not for the likes of me.
I spotted twice here
Yes. I may be with Goering: “When I see the word ‘hegemonic’ I reach for my revolver”.
Or does that make me fall foul of Godwin’s Law?
Interesting article but a little disjointed for my taste. Was it an essay about Sinema’s political rise? Or was it an essay about how the Left has risen to power? Is Sinema a personification of this rise, or is she somehow in opposition to it?
I agree that the Left has risen to power and in so doing has assumed the mantle of authoritarianism, along the lines of “The definition of a Civil Libertarian is an Authoritarian who has been ousted from power.”
But this is not so cunning an insight. The deeper question for me is: what are the conditions by which a political movement / ideology can command the mantle of power in a way that minimises the inherent abuse of that power?
The classical liberal would say: By creating a balance of powers; by bending the power of the State so that its every instrument is designed to support the rights of the individual. Then the power remains diffuse, pluralist, and in this way has the best chance to achieve stability.
In JRR Tolkien terms: We don’t win the war against Sauron by giving the One Ring to Aragorn. We win by creating a million rings of equal power, and giving one to each of the citizens of Middle Earth.
Yes, but in our era we witness a celebration of the individual and their rights that has become obsessive, and has been employed in order to sow division – pitting presumed victims and oppressors in opposition to one another.
Jeez Blake Smith really needs to be more concise – he could have just stated I don’t agree with Sinema, instead of this long pompous diatribe dressed up as reasoned analysis.
It’s nice you brought Kyrsten Sinema in this discussion of Agamben and Foucault.
“Agamben likewise argued, following Foucault, that liberal states are inherently unable to live up to their own constitutional norms and in their routine exercise of power, place certain spaces and persons outside them. Sinema, either with naïveté or the cunning of stupidity, simply wishes the problem away and urges us to follow the rules.”
haha-cunning of stupidity….
But this is the best thing on Schmitt I read https://merionwest.com/2018/06/18/carl-schmitt-liberalism-and-post-modern-conservatism/
So the evil Postmodernist, Neo-Marxist, Foucault and the Schmitt PostModernist-Conservatism are both being taken by the right?…
“joined in a common project of Leftist critique, have now become the ever-more explicit moral centre of our regime — or are being taken up by its opponents on the Right.”
“double shift by which Leftists once enamoured of certain strands of radical political theory repurposed it towards the consolidation of a new hegemonic political morality, discarding its subversive dimension — and making it available to the Right.”
(” Liberals and their defendants are increasingly pressed by post-modernist movements from the left. And, as we shall see, they are also pushed by those on the right, who do not hold to traditional liberal values about the importance of free speech and inquiry. Most liberal thinkers blame their opponents for these tendencies.”) (from the link)(post-modern-conservatism) (also it is the Right who hold the Constitution dear, and the Liberals do not, so I do not get the above – I just cannot see Right Post-Modernism, but that is why this article was fun.)
But I do get the left figuring Biden as the Schmittian Sovereign tossing aside Rule of Law during “states of exception” existing now, and using covid as the ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste’ – only I believe in a Global Elite conspiracy… it all gets so confusing fitting in the pieces – but I am not sure how this all fits in with Sinema and the $3.2 Trillion ‘Human Infrastructure’ bill. I mean the writer even says Sinema misunderstands Schmitt totally…..Is she really a neo-Marxist Post Modernist/Conservative at heart? It seems by her position she must just be a Centrist who will not allow something crazy and destructive to get by on her watch.
Anyway – it was fun wading through it all, but must go to bed – building cabinets for a job tomorrow….
My jargon translator app just crashed. Have anther go son.
On the last point, I have always been struck by how little interest there is among Chinese intellectuals in Marcuse and Frankfurt School thinkers – I now think precisely because their thought provides tools of subversion. The CCP is already in charge, hence uninterested in ‘critique’. On Sinema, the obvious explanation for her attitude is Arizona’s relatively conservative electorate. Agamben is now despised on the Italian left as an opponent of the bio-security state. The man still believes in democracy, imagine that!
“…hegemonic institutions pursue enemies and suspend liberal norms in the name of our psychological and physical wellbeing..”
Too true.
And there’s no bigger hegemonic institution than the CCP. Have a gander at this: “In response to its growing prominence as the object of international ire, with respect to both domestic statecraft and the conduct of foreign affairs, the Chinese have assumed a resolutely Schmittian posture.”
Why Carl Schmitt Matters to China | THR Web Features | Web Features | The Hedgehog Review
This is turning into a schmitt show!
Oh schmitt. etc…
What a ghastly and pompous fellow the author comes across as being.
This turgid, half-witted screed is a dubious requiem for pluralism. Radicals scream ‘just one vote,’ (Sinema), is holding up America’s heading flight to the ‘Build Back Better‘ burlesque. The annoying fact is 50+ senate votes are holding back BBB. The dishonest always claim it is about ‘just one votes’ while summarily ignoring 50-senators and 213 house members. It’s a disgrace. Pluralism matters; this pap doesn’t.
The rule of law, relatively free markets, and government by the consent of the governed, have brought us the richest society in history (herstory?) Only an academic snob would prefer the arguments of a Nazi supporter over John Locke and Adam Smith.
I realize I identify as a redneck, but golly, don’t these boffins read any history at all? When Hitler and Lenin tore down all the laws, then turned on the people, there was no protection and nowhere to hide.
Socialism can be interpreted as objection by academia to the division of wealth in capitalist societies. Academics think they should be paid more for their fantastic intellects, so they want to change the economy to put “experts,” themselves, in power through government edicts unchecked by law.
Sorry, but socialism fails every time. Unfortunately, academic socialist “experts” are immune to experimental results.
I apologize that my comment ain’t very intellectual. I did warn you I identify as a redneck, but I try to communicate in practical terms that even intellectuals can understand.
Oh well. I actually enjoyed reading this. Sucks to be me, I guess.
Or maybe Sinema understands that she barely beat a weak Repub in a swing state and will have a very hard time being re-elected if tied to the $3.5T and very hard Left Build Back Better bill.
bright girl then !
Crikey! A fog of words, and a definite sense that the article contains less than meets the eye. The only clear thing is that the author really dislikes Sinema.
I am familiar with the idea of context-free grammars and that they are not sufficient to describe all of language. Could this article have been composed (I almost wrote composted) as an example of a novel theory of content-free grammars?
I do not think Sinema is either ignorant or naive. Rather, she has responded to the concerns of her constituents by moving from academic leftism toward a more common sense approach to today’s problems.
Imagine that the writer is not pondering US academia and European leftist pseudo-philosophy – but real life. For example a childrens’ playground game, business start up or criminal gang. To be effective these enterprises must have enough people following the rules at all times and its not naive to think they will fail if the members or leaders spend too long in a “state of exception”. That’s why western democracies spend less time at war or murdering their own citizens than other systems of government, though obviously they are not immune from such exceptions to natural law, as the scamdemic proves on a frightening scale. To know this is not lameness or a failure of intellect. Its what normal people see and therefore know. I’d love to see the writer join, for example MS13, and test their naive belief that he has to follow their rules. That would be a glinting point of light but like the article above would show us nothing about how engaged US citizens view their country.
Well, that was a bit of a slog; reads like a first draft that needs a bit of editing for greater clarity and perhaps drop the ad hominem criticism of Sen. Sinema. But, I thought that, “hegemonic institutions pursue enemies and suspend liberal norms in the name of our psychological and physical wellbeing..” was an interesting way to regard cancel-culture.
The kind of convoluted stuff I wrote when I was a first year undergrad. Sentences disappearing up their own fundaments.
Read this article if you want to appreciate fully the degradation of higher education in America. This fellow is a “fellow” at the institution that gave us Milton Friedman, Mortimer Adler, David Bevington, and Charles Van Doren, for that matter; all of whom could write with erudite clarity. And he dares accuse someone else of mediocrity?
The writer cannot comprehend how anyone groomed in radical political theory could demonstrate betrayal of her Democrat Party masters – other than to belittle her intellectually. And to suggest that she has betrayed the triumphant new moral economic elite by applying radical theory in service to conservatives – her “cunning of stupidity.”
Well, I’ve read the entire article and learned absolutely nothing. It’s as clear, concise and explanatory as Judith Butler at her worst.
Interesting read. Perhaps comments should have been disabled for this one!
The article is clear as a bell. The bulk of conments below it are incomprehensible in their bizarre preference for god know what
She’s not even going to win re-election let alone bring anyone down.