From: dalec@socrates.berkeley.edu
Date: Tue Sep 10 2002 - 16:34:36 MDT
Politics isn't ethics, neither is it aesthetics.
That people differ in their situations, motives, knowledge, and
desires is the *point of departure* for political deliberation.
Intellectuals from Plato to the present, from left to right, have
incessantly criticised and expressed suspicion about genuine political
thinking and action accusing it of superficiality, hypocrisy, compromise.
Politics is about reconciling differing perspectives, negotiating
compromises, collaborating on projects whose aims cannot be controlled by
any singular perspective. This can seem debased from the perspective of
ideologues, purists, aesthetes -- but it is just as right to say that the
political realm has its own dignity, viability, and uses.
It is absolutely possible to be committed to an ethical project
which you hope one day will sweep the world, to be committed to an
aesthetic project that assimilates the totality of your individual
experience and affirms it as beautiful, *and* to be committed to political
projects that negotiate compromises that make the world relatively better
than worse, even if they do not perfectly reflect your most cherished
ideals, all at the same time. This isn't cowardice, confusion, or
relativism (at least it *needn't* be), but a recognition that values and
practices unfold in different domains with different consequences and with
standards.
Mr. Newstrom admitted an abstract commitment to libertarianism,
and a tendency to vote for democratic politicians. He then offered a set
of individual positions for every one of which he offered an argument in
justification. That is a properly political practice. I suspect that he
is open to being convinced by a better argument to change any single one
of the positions he delineated. To accuse him of cowardice when he is
being realistic, is just to abjure the political in favor of a
prepolitical stance that values moral or esthetic ideals over the fact
that other people with real differences actually exist and must be engaged
with as peers however unappealing one finds the practice.
I know that this seems to be singling out Lee Daniel Crocker, and
I don't mean it to at all -- it's just that along with Damien Broderick
and Anders Sandberg, Harvey Newstrom has seemed to me lately to be
fighting indefatiguably to keep this list culture reasonable and relevant
against a rising tide of noise and barbarism and his (their) efforts
should be rewarded -- I am very much mostly a lurker here, by temperament
and due to the tangential relevance of my skillset, so my endorsement can
only count for so much. Still, it seems like it needs to be said.
On Tue, 10 Sep 2002, Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> > Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> >> Until libertarian candidates become more popular and realistic,
> >> I see the Democratic party as the lesser of two evils.
>
> Frankly, I find the attitude dangerous and unamerican. A vote isn't
> a bet--you don't "lose" if you vote for a candidate that isn't elected.
> It's an expression of preference, and you only lose if your real
> preference isn't heard. Voting for the lesser of two evils perpetuates
> evil, is dishonest, and is part of the cause of American political
> cynicism. And refusing to stand up for your real beliefs because they
> aren't yet "popular" enough is just cowardly. If you really, honestly
> believe that the Libertarian candidate would be the best, you are
> morally obligated to express that preference, or else you are morally
> complicit in perpetuating the duopoly.
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