A System Exists Here, But not Well Articulated

One of the problems in the aftermath of terorism is that our Western system remains non-articulated. No one has explained the system that exists here in the West. We have a system. But it is not well articulated.

A whole raft of writers recently appear, all of whom have at least one thing in common, which is that they are talking about how a person in this system of ours is, or perhaps how s /he should be, which is to say how s /he can exist as a "cosmopolitan" individual who wears a variety of hats at different times but is no one, absolute category. No one is so to speak, just black, or just white. rather, the modern person is, or perhaps s /he should be, the ultimate version of the noncategorizable. One of the writers doing this kind of work (and doing it "perfomatively," one hopes) is J. Butler.

Many others have joined the trend recently. There are books or articles or pieces that are about just what kind of modern person it is who is not gendered, or "partitioned" --as Sen puts the matter in his recent book aimed (condescendingly) at the mass audience -- not partitioned that is to say into unitary cultures or parts. No, this modern person is representative of all. This is the anti-Al-Qaeda side of the issue. One is, or should be, free of such monolithic, categorical "identity."

This is the new trend I am seeing. It is a specification of the modern viewpoint. It seems to be something like a clearer, refocused attempt at the tolerant, multi-dimensional kind of thing that is characteristic of modernity from the beginning of the capitalist, bourgeois age, when rigid identities were broken down in favor of free trade or global travel or other such modern practices. What it is, really, is merely an articulation of a certain kind of modern viewpoint, but something which perhaps was not articulated well enough in the past (although I believe that Isaiah Berlin may have tried).

You can appreciate it if you read Butler, or if you read this recent book "Identity and Violence" I think, or something like that, by Amartya Sen. He normally writes very detailed theoretical accounts of things socio-economic that are a bit beyond my capacity. He writes some very articulated argument, detailed stuff that just goes on and on (especially if you don't get it). In Butler's book on the Seagull imprint, "Who Sings...", she mentions Hannah Arendt, who speaks of the "stateless" person. A persons who has lost his or her identity as a member of a state has no exact affiliation, and would be an example that helps us understand the issues here, although that seems more from the negative side rather than seeing the universal man as a positive pattern. Butler is well-known for taken the "gender" category away in general.

So, J. Butler is trying very hard to find him, or place him ----- this stateless person who needs to create an identity. Sen and Butler both want anything except the person who is hard-wired into some identity. But where could such a person be placed? Anywhere at all, perhaps. All of these persons --now I mean the successful, privileged authors extolling the death of fixed identity in favor of some kind of universal moderniy --are basically globetrotters themselves, so it is quite natural that they should like this kind of thinking. It hardly seems irrelevant that this whole bunch have exactly the lifestyle that would correspond to the idea of the person being many things, or any----wearing many hats.

But never one. You shouldn't be Christian, or Jewish, or Muslim. What you need to be is all three, with a little paganism or shamanism thrown in. Know what I mean? Pogo-stick?

Still ---- I think it is a really good idea to get a better articulation of just what being one of "us" actually amounts to. What does "developed world democratic modernist" actually mean? Just who is that?

What are you? ---- gender queer or something...?

This is a very stimulating idea on the part of Butler and Sen, and certainly one to fit the times.

Republicans Go Be(r)serk, part two

Where, then, do these guys like Sen. Coburn come from? Our system promises us freedom, individual freedom. There is a notion there that the individual is free, not because of his or her membership in a functioning community but rather something completely different from that, which is the idea that the individual is free in that he or she may be left alone to make his or her personal decisions. Actually, there are social things going on, for Sen. Coburn, as there are individual, things going on for progressives: it is just a matter of preference, opinion and emphasis.
So, what the "right" is doing is interpreting America's promise of freedom in a particular way. Notwithstanding the fact that his comments on healthcare are completely misinformed and insubstantive, such an individual does represent a legitimate point of view.

Republicans Go Beserk in Washington, Rant on Oddly About "Government Coercion" -Why?

Here is a U. S. Senator, being discussed in the Huffington Post that I get in my email box. Piece is by Benen ---- it is the first page that comes up on my screen, and he is discussing a Republican senator, who is quoted:

"... Sen. Coburn: My 25 years as a practicing physician have shown me what happens when government attempts to practice medicine: Doctors respond to government coercion instead of patient cues... "

What is the sexily-named Sen. Coburn actually saying here?

He has been a physician for 25 years. He claims that the government "attempts to practice medicine." What does that mean? Why would the man say that? The next line helps to understand.

The man is concerned with "government coercion." He is talking about a coercive relation between government and doctors that, he claims, may exist somewhere.

The final point that I notice is that Coburn says that such relationship between government and doctors or such interference with the work of doctors causes a disruption to the relations between doctor and patient.

The type of progressive intellectual elites that write for Huff Post are always going to point out that these kinds of statments do not pertain to the the substance of the bill up for debate. That is entirely correct, and so the Huff Post's writers mainly stress that, as Benen puts it, the man was "absurd, wildly misleading, and ... detached from the substantive reality of the debate..."

But what I myself am interested in is the question of where this ideology that Coburn's statements reflect comes from and why it is important to these persons.

What Coburn is saying essentially comes down to a statement of ideological concerns. It is quite true that it is detached from the substance of the debate and, hence, boring --- to a writer from the Washington Monthly, but, not so if you happen to be turned on by Right-wing ideology.

But that ideology is important. It has a grip on these peoples' minds... [t.b.c. -I hope so!]