Subject: Re: PKF: Walking On
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 1998 20:39:41 +0200


Bill,
I couldn't agree more.  I have tried to redress
the issue of clearer 'equations' in my response to
Michael. Problems is I am always short of time
and prefer to present my statements in a strongly
concentrated form (which often gets diffuse as
a result).

Just briefly on your lucid remarks below:
Remember this Third Way slogan?:
"We've got to get ourselves back to the garden."

This intellectual provincialism has brought us a number of external
mechanisms of control over behavior which can be labelled under
an orientation. The only models for such such Third Way slogans
are force and perhaps gravity, and bear the same assumptions as
those 'back to the beginning' 'back to the land' 'Year Zero' policies
of Pol Pot's citizen morass. You perpicuously exposed what
I meant by schadenfreude. And the lack of irony on the perpetrators
(I don't want to sound like an inquisitor, but so what) is
actually a crucial point. It is a part of the picture which I did not
consider consciously. For a potentially successful effort of Social
Democracy, you might want to monitor the happenings in the
Czech Republic, where the Social Democrats were just recently
'victorious'. If you are interested, you might send me an e-mail.
I also have to agree with your comments regarding Feyerabend
and others.
A.P.




> It would be better and clearer to simplify the terms of your equations. One of
> the less attractive elements of the neo-liberal ethos is its apparent ability
> to ingest logical contradictions and - all at the same time - to ignore the
> consequences. If that's what you refer to as "schadenfreude", I make no
> apologies. I have little to no sympathy for people who want to have their cake
> and eat it, too.
>
> This cancer of the human intellect is starting to infect the vital organs now.
> My example: read the editorial by E.J. Dionne on what is coming to be called
> the "Third Way" (i.e. between laissez fair capitalism and Marxism). Now, I
> grew up with a concept called "social democracy" which espoused an economic
> doctrine called the "mixed economy". We were taught that the "mixed economy"
> was pretty much the standard of Western political economies, and I had no
> trouble absorbing that reality.
>
> So now, some of the same people who were fairly well known standard bearers
> for social democracy in the 60s and 70s have latched on to this thing called
> the "third way". I am not convinced that the Third Way differs in any
> appreciable way from the "mixed economy" of the social democrats, and I really
> think that the only decision one need have to make is whether one wishes to be
> a social democrat or not. If the "Third Way" is nothing more or less than what
> is taught, and has always been taught at the London School of Economics, what
> need have we to look further in order to understand this genre ?
>
> This kind of pouring of old conceptual wine into new rhetorical wineskins has
> been the plague on the intellectual ethos of the 1990s. I wish these guys had
> stuck to their knitting, and allowed things to take their course, as will
> ultimately be the case, regardless of what they or we say and do. I regret
> that Feyerabend and others aided and abetted this fundamental dishonesty, but
> giving them the tools to shift their terms whenever things got a little tight
> in terms of campaign contributions or votes. if their original visions of
> utopia were good enough, why not stick by them ?
>
> It is the same thing where human rights are concerned. If you have a doctrine
> that insists that reasons of state or the rule of law takes precedence over
> the concerns, liberties, and interests of individuals, then it is essential
> for you to be honest enough to own up to that position. If you don't have the
> strength of will or character to see it done that no one gets hurt, when you
> have the most power of anyone to prevent these things from happening, how are
> you going to expect anyone else - people who do not have such power - to carry
> the water for you. I have been watching the evolution of the ICC treaty this
> summer with bemusement. Now that Saddam Hussein is back up to his old tricks
> again, what are you going to say to the American F-117 pilot that you've
> tasked to bomb Baghdad:
>
> "We want you to bomb this target in Baghdad tonight. Now, there is an x
> percent probability that you'll hit your target, and given that you hit that
> target right on the money, there is a y percent probability that you'll kill
> some civilians in the process. Now, given those probabilities, there is a z
> percent probability that Saddam and his diplomatic allies are going to raise a
> complaint to the International Criminal Court that accuses you of violating
> the Hague convention. If that does happen, there is an a percent probability
> that the ICC will accept the case, a b percent probability that we'll resist
> extradition in the face of international law, and a c percent probability that
> you'll be acquitted. Keep in mind that you are taking this risk in the
> interest of saving civilization from the perils of the unregulated spread of
> weapons of mass destruction."
>
> Now, as contrived as this scenario may seem, it does reflect the complications
> resident in the international system as it is currently ordered. While absurd,
> it is not fiction. What is absurd is the law of unintended consequences which
> forces countries that may contemplate resort to the force of arms to escalate
> their ends and means beyond the level of limited pinprick attacks in favor of
> total war, so as to ensure that any armed action, no matter how slight, may
> not be challenged by an international court that has extended its jurisdiction
> onto every man, woman, and child on the planet. This state of affairs may be
> ironic, but was brought to actuality by persons who so lacked a sense of irony
> that the unintended consequences were either lost on them, or they simply did
> not care what actualities got in the way of achieving their agendas. I would
> think that people who still went around calling themselves social democrats
> would know better.
>
> Bill R.
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