"The Left"

[deltablues]

But I think the poster was saying a lot more than just Penny Wong. Shame you missed it and wanted to be cute.

No, I didn't miss that. My comment was about political objectivity. You are either being mischievously disingenuous or literally unable to process plain English.

 

[Maggie5]

No, I didn't miss that. My comment was about political objectivity. You are either being mischievously disingenuous or literally unable to process plain English.

Well you would be wrong on all accounts!

 

[deltablues]

Well you would be wrong on all accounts!

Excellent. Then you will concede that your earlier comment was asinine.

 

[chelseacarlton]

Oh, you have an agenda. Cute. But I was talking about Penny Wong being on the Left - as was obvious from the context of my post. I am not interested in her (or anyone's) sexual preferences.

You have no ****ing ideas of your own.
You're a prefab on a shitty outer eastern 350 sq metre block with a 3.5 star rating at best.
I've never read one of your posts and been amazed at the level of competence of which the author understood the argument at hand.
Pfft and meh are too good for you buddy.
I'm cuter and craftier than you by spades.

 

[Maggie5]

Excellent. Then you will concede that your earlier comment was asinine.

You can have three more guesses.
Don't be sad because your 'cute' remark wasn't.

 

[Procrastinator35]

Can just hear the kids in the play-ground now: "Fight, fight, fight"....Only, in this thread....You'd want to be a south-paw.

 

[Maggie5]

Can just hear the kids in the play-ground now: "Fight, fight, fight"....Only, in this thread....You'd want to be a south-paw.

I am much better with my 'right'.

 

[Rotayjay]

Penny Wong would certainly have an objective view about the Right. Oh, wait...

At the time she said it (during a speech I was present for), I thought she was being a hardcore lefty, having a go at the right. Later on I've come to realise she had a point.

 

[deltablues]

Heh. Looks like we have some kind of tag team out of Wrestlemania III going on here.

Uh, chill, ladies - just meant to be a bit of light-hearted banter - no offense meant.

 

[JimDocker]

How can you be Left if you support capitalism?

I tend to think of myself as a left winger generally. I also believe capitalism is the best system that we have.

There is a clear paradox, but that is because if we look at everything in a totally black and white view we can find no grey areas.

I believe that we should not have mandatory detention of asylum seekers, off shore detention is disgraceful. We need to ensure that the unemployed and those unable to look after themselves are looked after with a safety net of some sort. People that are able to pay taxes should do so and not use dodgy accounting tools to avoid their responsibilities. Negative gearing is cheating the system. I believe in universal health care. I believe higher education should be available to more people. I believe that we should recognize the first people in the constitution and ideally, sign a treaty. I believe in marriage equality....

You get the point. I am the sort of person that is referred to as a do gooder, leftie, bleeding heart...

I run a business that employs 18 people. It was 20 until a couple left chasing the big bucks up North and I have not replaced them, but expect that I will later in the year. I pay above award wages to everyone, except the apprentices. They get paid exactly the award wage, but I do pay for their TAFE fees and all of their supplies, which I am not obliged to do. I have called people into my office and sacked them for being lazy, taking too much time off etc.

So, my point is that I believe capitalism is the system that over the course of history is the best system that we have, but it is not perfect. Human nature makes any system liable to failure.

 

[Ratts of Tobruk]

Agreed. I love to have freedom in my life, but I am considered 'left'. Right-wingers tend to believe in 'freedom' mostly so that the rich amongst them can stay rich by using their money to buy power and to exploit those with less money. The poor right-wingers also believe in 'freedom' so that them and their preferred people can drink, shoot and be racist uninterrupted. Both of these types of freedoms require 'big government' security or 'big government' medical and just like everyone benefit hugely from the sharing of resources that allows society to work smoothly.

Arguments about "the right" or "the left" so often refer to Nazis or Mao/Stalin yet those two extremes are hugely authoritarian governments with a lot in common. As far as I can see there are some reasons to still refer to Nazis (antisemitism/racism/islamophobia is still common), but few to refer to Communists (is anyone even suggesting Australia return to the higher income tax rates we had before Hawke/Keating?).

When references to "the left" or "the right" approach something closer to real life they are still broad stereotypes that are constantly contradicted.

Most stereotypes of "The Left" are that they are "out-of-touch". Most stereotypes of "The Right" are that they are "selfish". But Lefties will say rich white men don't know how good they have it or that people don't realise how punishing a disability/illness can be to your prospects/wallet (i.e. they're out-of-touch). And right-wingers will claim climatologists are in it for the money or that socialists just want the rich person's 'hard-earned' money (i.e. they're selfish).

Then there's a confusing element to how some people talk about "The Left" which ambiguously refers to their "agenda" being to push minorities' issues, when it isn't clear what the exact problem is with that. I guess the imagined problem is that it is potentially at the expense of the norm. Our national identity combines history and mythology and rightful pride, but it looks like an odd form of pariotism if you think those principles and prideful elements are actually so weak that a few thousand immigrants might threaten it.

I use right and left as a shorthand, but I don't imagine a coalition of conspiratorial types out there working in sinister ways for one side or another in any meaningful widespread way. The Murdoch media is probably the closest we get to that, and it's not like they hide their beliefs or bias.

 

[Eastern Rangers]

The Marxist deconstructionists are against the West and its works. We can of course view this in a dispassionate universal way like some kind of cosmic curator or some academic in his/her/transgender ivory tower, but in the real world, where the rubber hits the road, these academic conceits are [literally in the Paris context] blown away - big time.

I'd worry less about the post-modern project and it's idealistic acolytes (who ironically misread Derrida and Foucault). Non-realist positions on language have limited function, they're good at highlighting the problems with our modes of thought, but they can't really be extended to making positive statements about value and thus can't overcome the casual but real structures that drive human societies.

Derrida drove doubt into some very reasonable minds and the end result is more comprehensive philosophies for science and epistemology.

 

[deltablues]

I'd worry less about the post-modern project and it's idealistic acolytes (who ironically misread Derrida and Foucault). Non-realist positions on language have limited function, they're good at highlighting the problems with our modes of thought, but they can't really be extended to making positive statements about value and thus can't overcome the casual but real structures that drive human societies.

Derrida drove doubt into some very reasonable minds and the end result is more comprehensive philosophies for science and epistemology.

I disagree, particularly from a political context. I don't think the "non-realist positions on language" have a limited function at all. Indeed, much of the the language has now been captured and redefined in order to control the debate. And not only the language, but now thoughts, as evidenced by so-called "micro-aggressions" apparently being perpetrated on a number of campuses.

This is out of the post-modern project playbook. Post-modernism is just another label for cultural Marxist (i.e. the extreme Left) deconstruction and its leitmotiv Hegelian dialectics,with its pernicious theories of, for example, cultural relativity.

Post-modernism seeks to re-define the concept of Western culture (and only Western culture). Its proponents argue that culture is encoded in language that must change with the material conditions - thus as the social environment changes, so too then must the language "constructs". They argue that each era has a language structure which determines the questions that people can ask and the answers they can receive. And as conditions change historically so do the mental tropes, thereby from a new perspective (i.e. the activists' very subjective on-a-mission perspective) rendering the weltanschauung and literature of the past age an affront and ripe for revisionism.

The methodology follows Derrida's belief that if one breaks apart the so-called hidden hierarchies in language terms, one can open up a "lacuna" in understanding and free the mind of the reader/critic, baby. Problem is that there are no lacunae - it is a in fact a device to re-write or leverage history to fit contemporary agendas. Hence, for example, the current black armband view of Western history pushed by the leftists in the education industry.

This re-writing of history is also in accordance with Michel Foucault's New Historicism theory, where modern "narratives" are sought to be imposed upon the literature/history of past ages. One basic example (linguistic-wise and history-wise) of this mindset is the charming phrase - old dead white men.

It is all part of the culture wars waged by the soldiers of the Left, of which gender/race/identity politics are some of the weapons of choice. And it is a worry to those who value and wish to preserve Western culture and its institutions, particularly freedom of speech.

 

[skilts]

This is the most comprehensive analysis of post-modernism I've read. Its method of enquiry risks them disappearing up their own fundament, in search of a contemporary snapshot of human existence. It seems to me that if Modernism was an introspective examination of, and play with, the writing process, among other things, post-modernism attempts to hold a mirror to society and saying what is from this method. It seems to be yet another attempt to 'stop time' in a meaningful way. Not sure this is beneficial or achievable.

Truth be known, a clear definition of post-modernism eludes me, so all I've written above is probably bullshit.

 

[deltablues]

This is the most comprehensive analysis of post-modernism I've read. Its method of enquiry risks them disappearing up their own fundament, in search of a contemporary snapshot of human existence. It seems to me that if Modernism was an introspective examination of, and play with, the writing process, among other things, post-modernism attempts to hold a mirror to society and saying what is from this method. It seems to be yet another attempt to 'stop time' in a meaningful way. Not sure this is beneficial or achievable.

Truth be known, a clear definition of post-modernism eludes me, so all I've written above is probably bullshit.

Post-modernism and in the political context, its fellow-traveler semiotics, help keep the non-STEM soft-science academics employed as they weave their webs of impenetrable academic jargon and obfuscatory BS, without which they might actually have to find some productive work to do for a living - which in their case would be digging ditches.

 

[GeneralSoreness]

Post-modernism and in the political context, its fellow-traveler semiotics, help keep the non-STEM soft-science academics employed as they weave their webs of impenetrable academic jargon and obfuscatory BS, without which they might actually have to find some productive work to do for a living - which in their case would be digging ditches.

I say Old Boy - I fully support your love of the Western Canon and the works of Old Dead White Blokes Generally but that post is straight out of the Post Modern Generator it would be at home in the Feminist Law Journal (my staff tell me that such a thing exists)

 

[deltablues]

I say Old Boy - I fully support your love of the Western Canon and the works of Old Dead White Blokes Generally but that post is straight out of the Post Modern Generator it would be at home in the Feminist Law Journal (my staff tell me that such a thing exists)

Hah. The PMG is a spoof on academic jargon [I take it that you are an academic from the tenor of your reply ] - not plain English, which is the style I try to emulate, albeit not always successfully.

PS Speaking of the Feminist Law Journal (what can I say?) you may like this

http://www.nationalreview.com/artic...oregon-glacier-gender-politics-study-travesty

 

[GeneralSoreness]

Hah. The PMG is a spoof on academic jargon [I take it that you are an academic from the tenor of your reply ] - not plain English, which is the style I try to emulate, albeit not always successfully.

PS Speaking of the Feminist Law Journal (what can I say?) you may like this

http://www.nationalreview.com/artic...oregon-glacier-gender-politics-study-travesty

Academic!! You could not insult me more. If Post Modernism is nothing more than cynicism to claims of Truth then I am for it Old Boy!

 

[deltablues]

Academic!! You could not insult me more. If Post Modernism is nothing more than cynicism to claims of Truth then I am for it Old Boy!

Consider it withdrawn

 

[GeneralSoreness]

Consider it withdrawn

Derrida is a much more subtle writer than his "greatest hits" might indicate and as for Foucault; the Birth of the Clinic and the Order of Things are paradigm shifting works of genius. They are bit like Marx - the works of the original thinker can't be blamed for the excessive bonkers ideas of subsequent interpreters or so they say down at the Army and Navy Club

 

[Eastern Rangers]

I disagree, particularly from a political context. I don't think the "non-realist positions on language" have a limited function at all. Indeed, much of the the language has now been captured and redefined in order to control the debate. And not only the language, but now thoughts, as evidenced by so-called "micro-aggressions" apparently being perpetrated on a number of campuses.

This is out of the post-modern project playbook. Post-modernism is just another label for cultural Marxist (i.e. the extreme Left) deconstruction and its leitmotiv Hegelian dialectics,with its pernicious theories of, for example, cultural relativity.

Post-modernism seeks to re-define the concept of Western culture (and only Western culture). Its proponents argue that culture is encoded in language that must change with the material conditions - thus as the social environment changes, so too then must the language "constructs". They argue that each era has a language structure which determines the questions that people can ask and the answers they can receive. And as conditions change historically so do the mental tropes, thereby from a new perspective (i.e. the activists' very subjective on-a-mission perspective) rendering the weltanschauung and literature of the past age an affront and ripe for revisionism.

The methodology follows Derrida's belief that if one breaks apart the so-called hidden hierarchies in language terms, one can open up a "lacuna" in understanding and free the mind of the reader/critic, baby. Problem is that there are no lacunae - it is a in fact a device to re-write or leverage history to fit contemporary agendas. Hence, for example, the current black armband view of Western history pushed by the leftists in the education industry.

This re-writing of history is also in accordance with Michel Foucault's New Historicism theory, where modern "narratives" are sought to be imposed upon the literature/history of past ages. One basic example (linguistic-wise and history-wise) of this mindset is the charming phrase - old dead white men.

It is all part of the culture wars waged by the soldiers of the Left, of which gender/race/identity politics are some of the weapons of choice. And it is a worry to those who value and wish to preserve Western culture and its institutions, particularly freedom of speech.

I'm not going to argue with a lot of your points. To me critical theories more often than not lead to cul-de-sac of self refutation and i'm skeptical as to the sustainability of the approach.

The bold part highlights the lack of empathy that exists within such dissonance, it's an anger at "things" that can't be understood. Critique without understanding is by all logical progression, is ignorant and/thus meaningless.

Doesn't New Historicism argue something a little different. Firstly that History is continuous and without boarders and that literature can't be removed from the context of that literature. It's the keeping of a text within it's context, that modern critique is imposed upon historical predicates. Leading to ahistorical and inaccurate conclusions due to irrelevance of that critique. This is used to undermine the universality of it's value or the capacity for truths to be said across time. When taken to the extreme you're left with radical relativist interpretations of art, culture, literature ect...

This is to be contrast with the historicist notions that exist within progressive and liberals thought. The idea of moral progress is in my opinion the biggest driver of radical social change within the West over the last fifty years.

 

[deltablues]

I'm not going to argue with a lot of your points. To me critical theories more often than not lead to cul-de-sac of self refutation and i'm skeptical as to the sustainability of the approach.

The bold part highlights the lack of empathy that exists within such dissonance, it's an anger at "things" that can't be understood. Critique without understanding is by all logical progression, is ignorant and/thus meaningless.

Doesn't New Historicism argue something a little different. Firstly that History is continuous and without boarders and that literature can't be removed from the context of that literature. It's the keeping of a text within it's context, that modern critique is imposed upon historical predicates. Leading to ahistorical and inaccurate conclusions due to irrelevance of that critique. This is used to undermine the universality of it's value or the capacity for truths to be said across time. When taken to the extreme you're left with radical relativist interpretations of art, culture, literature ect...

This is to be contrast with the historicist notions that exist within progressive and liberals thought. The idea of moral progress is in my opinion the biggest driver of radical social change within the West over the last fifty years.

New Historicism is a branch of post-modernism and as such is just another teat (if I am permitted that word in these gender-confused times) on the same Marxist cow. It professes to be able to reconstruct a more accurate past by reference to current memes and social causes du jour - i.e. a retrospective re-writing of history to pander to modern "narratives" without any regard whatsoever for the mindset and context of those earlier times.

I certainly agree with your bolded.

 

[Procrastinator35]

New Historicism is a branch of post-modernism and as such is just another teat (if I am permitted that word in these gender-confused times) on the same Marxist cow. It professes to be able to reconstruct a more accurate past by reference to current memes and social causes du jour - i.e. a retrospective re-writing of history to pander to modern "narratives" without any regard whatsoever for the mindset and context of those earlier times.
.

Good stuff.

Lets not forget the emotive co-dependent goo attached....If you disagree, you're a repressive, fascist, heart-less monster.

What Marxism (Hegelian dialectical materialism) truly aspires towards - & it's zealous adherents firmly believe - Is ownership of the high moral ground & it's accompanying righteous sensibility. .... Nay, ownership of morality per se.

When the world is shrunk to economic concerns alone, as the criteria for social justice, then it's difficult to argue with....The key lies in questioning that basic assumption, as the only 'real' measure.

 

[H2F]

There are issues with both the left and the right.

But the difference is that the left is driven by empathy, which is the tool that drives great design. What I mean there is that it is now understood that designers in all fields strive for empathy to then understand need and design for it.

So for me I am a lefty. It doesn't mean I don't acknowledge the pain points with it. But you need to ask yourself are you for 'getting better' as a society or being arrogant and standing still.

 

[Ratts of Tobruk]

I disagree, particularly from a political context. I don't think the "non-realist positions on language" have a limited function at all. Indeed, much of the the language has now been captured and redefined in order to control the debate. And not only the language, but now thoughts, as evidenced by so-called "micro-aggressions" apparently being perpetrated on a number of campuses.

This is out of the post-modern project playbook. Post-modernism is just another label for cultural Marxist (i.e. the extreme Left) deconstruction and its leitmotiv Hegelian dialectics,with its pernicious theories of, for example, cultural relativity.

Post-modernism seeks to re-define the concept of Western culture (and only Western culture). Its proponents argue that culture is encoded in language that must change with the material conditions - thus as the social environment changes, so too then must the language "constructs". They argue that each era has a language structure which determines the questions that people can ask and the answers they can receive. And as conditions change historically so do the mental tropes, thereby from a new perspective (i.e. the activists' very subjective on-a-mission perspective) rendering the weltanschauung and literature of the past age an affront and ripe for revisionism.

The methodology follows Derrida's belief that if one breaks apart the so-called hidden hierarchies in language terms, one can open up a "lacuna" in understanding and free the mind of the reader/critic, baby. Problem is that there are no lacunae - it is a in fact a device to re-write or leverage history to fit contemporary agendas. Hence, for example, the current black armband view of Western history pushed by the leftists in the education industry.

This re-writing of history is also in accordance with Michel Foucault's New Historicism theory, where modern "narratives" are sought to be imposed upon the literature/history of past ages. One basic example (linguistic-wise and history-wise) of this mindset is the charming phrase - old dead white men.

It is all part of the culture wars waged by the soldiers of the Left, of which gender/race/identity politics are some of the weapons of choice. And it is a worry to those who value and wish to preserve Western culture and its institutions, particularly freedom of speech.

Whatever you guys think you are deciding between with all this academic language, it doesn't seem that you are following through on the gist of your argument - that realism and plain language will save Western culture from "leftists" trying to kill it. At least two thirds of your post commits the same sin you think these "soldiers of the Left" commit.

A lot of academics talk **** and waste good talent to spurious ends. A lot of academics do very good work that is useful to society. People using new phrases have SFA influence on society, yet you take the term "micro-aggressions" and decide it is part of the "weapons of choice" to "control the debate. And not only the language, but now thoughts"... So you are quite obviously talking out your ****.

The "current black armband view of Western history" is a relatively accurate view of history. If you don't think it is 'nice' enough then you can join the brigade of people who write to the paper asking why the news is always depressing.