Democracy and postmodernism

[Israfel the Black]

The concept of the metanarrative and its decline does have a lot going for it though.

In literary criticism maybe.

Indeed. Good leaders need to be appointed not voted in- we need experts not smiling morons.

Well, no.

Postmodernism does seem to be a major change, rejecting any overarching set of ideas, but its nihilism is in the wrong direction: a spiritual regeneration is required to ground the valuable rise of the intuitive and subjective over the rational and teleological.

Postmodernism is not strictly nihilistic -- there is a differing spectrum of postmodernmism. As with most things, typically a left and a right.

drogulus, I'm basically with Plato on this, who of course argued in his Republic that some people are better suited to leadership than others- and in fact I'd take this much further and argue some people are worth more than others. Certainly though, most people are wasteful, shortsighted, don't much care about others a long way away, and beyond this don't know what decisions to make.

Plato's vision of a society led by "philosopher kings" is no doubt problematic though. It often falls sway to centralizing democracy, or perhaps, destroying democracy. Plato was not a fan of democracy, and it does not seem you are either. Again, democracy is not to blame for postmodernism. It doesn't follow.

Democracy has its moderating and liberal benefits but is overall an immense excuse to loot the world of its rescources, pollute it and say that's okay because that's what the majority wants.

That's capitalism.

And ultimately it's not what even they want. They want someone above them to believe in, something which leads onto a spiritual life also. Nobody really wants to get fat and unhealthy on chocolate for instance, but many will, given the choice.

Sounds like a Stalinist platform.

Interesting post.
The issues are so massive you have difficulity in providing proper clothing, which is not fault of your won, as the issues facing the post-industrial age are so enormous, The One World Economy, everything now is inter-related. What happens in china , NOW does affect me in some way here in New orleans.

More holism. This has always been true to some measure, but again, systematic metanarratives do not solve problems.

What We need is a  real true leader who can guide this world across to safer peaceful pastures, someone witha   super critical genius that can take command and...oops, i guess Nietzsche's ideas are getting to me, The Superman...or is it my german ancestory welling up in my spirit giving rise to such fantasy

Pretty incredible. Nietzsche was beyond conventional morality. We don't need new morals. We need to realize the old ones.

Of course I was being facitious about the one man to lead us all to happy pastures, peace and prosperity for all. that idea comes out of the B of revelations, "the anti-christ", also Nietzsche;'s  Superman comes to mind, "the great savior".
The poor germans could read Nietzsche, but  the profound ideas imbeded in the obscure manner of  language was too cryptic, no one could translate what Nietzsche was trying to say.

I am not so convinced of this. Nietzsche is not an easy read, but I doubt the 20th Century Germans had a significantly inferior understanding of Nietzsche than modern academics. It is true his wife dabbled with his text, but even with modern revisionism, I am not sure much has been radically changed. Your reading seems to give Nietzsche more credit than he would want for himself. I am all for German pride, but I would prefer it in Kant and Wittgenstein rather than Nietzsche. What exactly was misunderstood about Nietzsche?

[Israfel the Black]

And what is with these ridiculous essays on semiotics? Stop trolling and derailing the thread please.

[Brian]

And what is with these ridiculous essays on semiotics? Stop trolling and derailing the thread please.

I have no clue what the joke is they're telling, but I'm pretty sure it might be funny.

[Israfel the Black]

I have no clue what the joke is they're telling, but I'm pretty sure it might be funny.

I suppose.

[M forever]

And what is with these ridiculous essays on semiotics? Stop trolling and derailing the thread please.

The way I understood it, those were meant to be sarcastic! 

[lukeottevanger]

The way I understood it, those guys have been playing around at http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/... 

[Sean]

Paul & Israfel, thanks, and I agree to differ.

[M forever]

Paul & Israfel, thanks, and I agree to differ.

Wow! What a tight, detailed and thoroughly convincing argument!

[paulb]

Paul & Israfel, thanks, and I agree to differ.

here's one for POT,,,I mean Post-modern society.
Someone please come to NO and educate the police "detectives" on how to track down a  notorious burglar who is terrorizing Lakeview, you know that place which had 12 feet of Katrina's fllod waters.
the cops have not even a  clue as to how to catch him.
I have to go this comming week and offer instructions on something   THAT THEY GET PAID $$$$ to solve.

sheeshh what a  world. what stupidity.

yet last week my father calls the police on me for "assult" 5 cars pull up, and they find not a  scratch on him.
IOW the cops are so efficient in comming to arrest a family dispute, but when it comes to a  burglar doing dozens of crimes a  month (may be 2 individuals  or more involved), they are like complete helpless morons, just sit back and take reports.
These are some of the wonders of the modern world.

[M forever]

How old are you, Paul?

[The new erato]

I often feel like a well fed and housed prisoner. Or like the rabbit colony in Watership down who conditioned themselves to accept their fate in traps and subdue their sharp wittedness, in return for free nourishment left around by the farmer.

But at least the rabbits get a proper shagging every once in a while! 

[drogulus]

drogulus

No it isn't. Petroleum and other fossil fuels are still the overwhelming basis of the economy, and that of the rest of the world- nothing meaningful has replaced them for centuries, and there's serious trouble staring us in the face.

This is another pack of lies from the democratic media and their commercial need to please the horde. Needless to say the West has pumped out the greenhouse gases over the last decades to damage the atmosphere, not the newly developing countries.

   "the masses"......."the horde" 

    Are you talking about people?

    I see. A few minutes ago, in world historical time, you discovered that oil has negative environmental consequences and will run out some day, so that negates the fact that we built the most advanced civilization in history on energy created from this resource, which is so much worse than wood, charcoal and teams of oxen. The world must go back to being poor to satisfy your sense of justice, which seems to reflect the prejudices of a well fed, reasonably well-educated Westerner afflicted by guilt over the advantages luck has dealt him, for which he desires that the worlds poor should be made to pay with blighted futures. No prosperity for them! They must stay pure, and quaint, and oh so exploitable in the bargain.
   
   

[Sean]

Drog, my point would be that it looks like we seriously missed a opportunity to build on the free energy of petroleum and find something to lead us beyond it. Our best bet was to cover several hundred thousand square kilometers of desert with high performance solar panels- this would have taken decades to develop and implement, and it could have been done. Instead humanity is facing a catastrophe the extent of which is almost undescribable. The horde weren't going to provide the necessary leadership- they just vote in smiling fools who say what they want to hear.

[M forever]

Once again, you are making the basic mistakes of the simplistic thinker. Things aren't as simple as they appear to you, but that's not because you are a towring genius, it is because you have an extremely limited and tunnel-visioned outlook on things. In reality, things are far more complex than that. But the good news is that we are very slowly going in that general direction. Everything moves extremely slowly, but things do still move and develop quicker in modern democratic systems than they did in non-democratic systems where things often didn't develop for centuries or even millenia. Your mistake is that you think things are fairly simply and would just need to be implemented from above, by "a good dictator". It shows that you have really no understanding of history at all. That's what a number of totalitarian systems tried to do in the 20th century, with horrible disasters on epic scales as the result. It doesn't matter that those were "evil dictators" with "evil plans". Whatever they wanted to implement still didn't work but got countless millions of people killed. It simply doesn't work that way. The democratic process is extremely slow and there is a lot of nonsense as byproduct, but it is the only way things can develop somehow, in some direction. We wouldn't even be sitting here typing in messages if we didn't live in such societies. Any kind of dictatorial system of any kind would completely prohibit uncensored avenues of information exchange like the internet.

Besides, there is no such thing as a "good dictator". Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and most people are corrupt and selfish to begin with. Even if there was a "good dictator", he would need people to help him to implement his "visions of a better world". Most of these people however would just abuse the power they hvae. Again, we have seen that many times over. That is why the only way things can get better is an open democratic system. There are still a lot of things going on in our systems which are very, very wrong - but at least they can be publically addressed without people in leather coats showing up at your door late at night.

I know you need to imagine these people in leather coats are still coming for critical minds like you and orchestrate things like 9/11, but that is all nonsense. You just need that as a counterweight to your simplistic ideas. Every ideology needs some kind of general and easily identifiable enemy, be it "the government", "the capitalists", "the communists", "the Jews" or whoever seems to be a good enemy and scapegoat. You are very close in your thinking to people like Stalin and Hitler. You may not be dangerous, but people like you can become extremely dangerous if they get into positions of great power and influence. People like you can destroy millions of other people and whole countries, and the one big plus of a deomocratic system is that people like you can not gain absolute power. That in itself is the biggest argument pro democracy, whatever other problems there may be with the concept.

[paulb]

Drog, my point would be that it looks like we seriously missed a opportunity to build on the free energy of petroleum and find something to lead us beyond it. Our best bet was to cover several hundred thousand square kilometers of desert with high performance solar panels- this would have taken decades to develop and implement, and it could have been done. Instead humanity is facing a catastrophe the extent of which is almost undescribable. The horde weren't going to provide the necessary leadership- they just vote in smiling fools who say what they want to hear.

I agree with Sean, and disagree with Drogulus and M Forever.
"the exploited poor' as if the poor are have absoluetly no sense of responsibility to their fate. Sure their situation is overwhleming. But gave gave each man a  brain, and if the poor fail to use it as best they can, why are they considered so exploited?
The poor have to own up to some sense of responsibility to their plights.
M Forever seems to be misunderstanding sean, for some reason. M is projecting onto  Sean, this idea of 'dictatorship",  a  idae Sean never even mentions.
M you are german correct?
Not saying you have that german guilt complex, just asking.

[Daidalos]

I agree with Sean, and disagree with Drogulus and M Forever.
"the exploited poor' as if the poor are have absoluetly no sense of responsibility to their fate. Sure their situation is overwhleming. But gave gave each man a  brain, and if the poor fail to use it as best they can, why are they considered so exploited?
The poor have to own up to some sense of responsibility to their plights.
M Forever seems to be misunderstanding sean, for some reason. M is projecting onto  Sean, this idea of 'dictatorship",  a  idae Sean never even mentions.
M you are german correct?
Not saying you have that german guilt complex, just asking.

I think you're making the same mistake that M claims that Sean makes; you see things as simpler than they really are. Do you really think the poor are simply poor due to their own actions? How would you account for reports and statistics that show that people who grow up in rich societies and are provided with a wealth of opportunities generally end up more productive than people who grow up poor? It's not some inherent defiency at all, there are larger societal forces at work that influence our lives in ways we might not be comfortable with, but I think it's an indisputable reality. We have a degree of "free will" (I'd argue it's a small quantity), but generally economic and political circumstances affect our lives more than our natural skills and abilities do. It's callous, I think, to tell poor people they simply need to toughen up and take responsibility for their plight, and it will alleviate none of the societal ills that plague the undeveloped nations.

[head-case]

Drog, my point would be that it looks like we seriously missed a opportunity to build on the free energy of petroleum and find something to lead us beyond it. Our best bet was to cover several hundred thousand square kilometers of desert with high performance solar panels- this would have taken decades to develop and implement, and it could have been done. Instead humanity is facing a catastrophe the extent of which is almost undescribable. The horde weren't going to provide the necessary leadership- they just vote in smiling fools who say what they want to hear.

The shortage of oil, which seems inevitable, will be remedied the same way every other shortage in history was remedied.  The thing in short supply becomes expensive, and people try harder to make more or find an alternative.  There are numerous sustainable options as well as immense quantities of fossil fuels which are not currently exploited (Canadian oil sands, shale oil, coal) because they are too expensive.  When the time comes we will have no choice but to become more efficient and these other sources will be exploited. 

[paulb]

I think you're making the same mistake that M claims that Sean makes; you see things as simpler than they really are. Do you really think the poor are simply poor due to their own actions?

I need to make myself more clearer.
I thought I did so.
The poor have some part in their fate. How much? well its surely not alot, but some small measures can be made along with each generation.
making babies with the hope that at least one will be a  bread winner is not good thinking. But its what they believe. Also, they need to realize that some education is necessary for their children, and work towards this goal. The blacks in New oreans thought that by making lots of babies they could take more power by numbers. It worked fora  time. But now look at where that philosophy has gotten them. Disaster and a  back-fire.
The masses of people that flock through the guatemalan and mixican streets, have no sense of educating their children.
the wealthy of these 2 countries are happy just the way things  are, plenty of soldiers for their industry at a  cheap pay rate.
The poor need to grasp the concept that more children lead to continued poverty for their children. They'll not listen. You see young 15 yr old  girls in both countries with babies.  They are in some SMALL, SMALL, got it!  part responsible for the destiny.
Not sure how i can be any clearer.

[paulb]

The shortage of oil, which seems inevitable, will be remedied the same way ever other shortage in history was remedied.  The thing in short supply becomes expensive, and people try harder to make more or find an alternative.  There are numerous sustainable options as well as immense quantities of fossil fuels which are not currently exploited (Canadian oil sands, shale oil, coal) because they are too expensive.  When the time comes we will have no choice but to become more efficient and these other sources will be exploited.

Its true the giant oil fields in saudi arabia and also in mexico are about at peak and will slowly decline.
Also you should note to produce from oil sands creates a  tremendous amount of green house pollution gases from the process. Not good.
also everyone take note. Saudi arabia is building a  super massive chemical plant for platics and such. Super duper mega green house gases there..


"oh but just one natural occuring volcano eruption produces more gases than the industrialize world does in one yr"..
I've heard this.
my argument is that man made pollution and volcanic pollution are not the same chemical makeup.
nature somehow is better bale to cope with volcanic gases vs man amde SUPER LETHAL gases.
Even Jaques Cousteau couldn't figure that one out.
Though I am no scientist, I got it. There's a  reason i have this intuitive understanding about the earth.

[M forever]

I agree with Sean, and disagree with Drogulus and M Forever.
"the exploited poor' as if the poor are have absoluetly no sense of responsibility to their fate. Sure their situation is overwhleming. But gave gave each man a  brain, and if the poor fail to use it as best they can, why are they considered so exploited?
The poor have to own up to some sense of responsibility to their plights.
M Forever seems to be misunderstanding sean, for some reason. M is projecting onto  Sean, this idea of 'dictatorship",  a  idae Sean never even mentions.
M you are german correct?
Not saying you have that german guilt complex, just asking.

You actually have to read the posts you reply to:

M
Okay, but I'd say the problem is that democracy will necessarily be exploitative and organize the world in a vast capitalist pyramid. With dictators by contrast, though some may not be so good, some may be excellent- because they don't have to answer to the base desires of the widest level of society.

So I am not "projecting" anything onto Sean. Those are his own words, and that is what his whole argumentation is leading towards. It is very typical for people like him who see themselves as a towering, yet misunderstood genius and who have such simplistic views of the world to dream about simple solutions for all problems, and that such simple solutions could be implemented by a "good" dictator or leader of some sort. Needless to say, it is very likely that Sean would like to be that "good dictator".

And yes, I am from Germany, but I don't have any kind of German guilt complex at all. In fact, I know very few Germans who do, certainly next to none from my generation or any generation that was born after WWII and didn't participate in the Nazi dictatorship in any form. On the other hand, the education about and open public discussion of that period in history and everything that happened there has beengoing on very actively for decades now, the result is that Germans in general are probably better informed about and more critical of their own history than any other people anywhere. And being exposed to that subject from an early age on on that level of intensity of information certainly helps understand a lot of things about the mechanisms which lead to that kind of dictatorship. So it is very easy for me to see exactly where Sean is coming from. All the elements are there, the paranoia, the conspiracy theories, the simplistic world view, the idea that simple sledgehammer solutions dictated from above can solve all problems, the misunderstood genius complex, the failed artistic or philosophical aspirations - in Sean, you can study the psychological makeup of people like Hitler in miniature.

So, I asked you, how old are you?

And, you rant about the poor and how they don't make anything of themselves, but you know, it is very obvious that you haven't made much out of yourself either. Your written English is shamefully bad for a native speaker. You don't seem to have much good education. I think you are projecting some nagging self-doubts onto people who did even worse than you.