Discussions about social policies and choices are often considerably confused by a mismatch of context. Consider some simple examples.
Drones are abysmal. They are terror. They should disappear.
Versus: Drones are fantastic. They do good. They should proliferate.
Into the fray go the combatants. Neither side gives an inch. Is this about values? Often, but sometimes not.
A child, with a parent, plays with a toy drone. The child laughs and loves it. The parent concurs. Another adult, looking on, sees it like children in the old south playing with miniature nooses and hanging trees. Good play or bad callousness?
Both these commentators should easily agree that drones are merely things that fly without a person on board. They should also agree that in doing so, drones can collect data or carry cargo. Both should also be able to see that in a bad society drones encroach privacy, propel repression, and, even facilitate massacre so that celebrating them in such a context aggravates their evil. Yet in a good society, both should be able to see that drones could research hurricanes, deliver food into otherwise inaccessible flood zones, and even help with routing emergency vehicles or fighting forest fires.
Take a related example, surveillance. In a bad society, surveillance guides repression and stifles expression. It is 1984ish. In a good society, surveillance can find data useful for curbing abuses or, even more so, for curbing the spread of diseases. It might even catch instances of dangerous social deviance in time to avoid harm. Surveillance, after all, is just gathering information about people and gathering information is not intrinsically bad, and in certain contexts, can be quite valuable.
The point is, judgments about phenomena, policies, or actions are rarely absolute. Nuclear bombs? I suspect rejecting them is absolute, like rejecting tools with no use other than torture such as thumbscrews. But there aren’t many cases like these. Most often if we ignore context we make ridiculous or even suicidal errors.
Think about an activist who says “I am against institutions.” This is quite common. And in a horrible society this activist is correct that virtually every institution will be imprinted with the vile logic at the heart of that society’s various prevalent types of injustice. In the U.S., pick any institution you like. Family. Hospital. Production plant. School. Election. Police. Church. Their current inner logic includes despicable racist, sexist, authoritarian, and classist dynamics.
Joe sees this and deduces that all institutions are vile. We should oppose institutions per se. Joe’s sentiment is understandable. The statement is even nearly accurate – once we read it as all institutions in my society are vile. Of course, even in context it overlooks that those institutions also have positive merits, like providing space to live, options to learn, medical repair, and so on.
Jill looks and sees the positive qualities and says, hurray institutions. Well, this makes sense too, as long as the cheer is for the idea of people creating social relations that define roles they can fulfill over and over, without having to start from scratch every time they want to doanything. But if it means all role patterns are wonderful, even now, in all their aspects, or even on balance, well, then it is idiotic.
This is all simple, yet it is remarkable how often people ignore the simple to arrive at and staunchly advocate the seemingly sophisticated which is, however, actually absurd.
One more example. Call it compromise. Or call it reform. Sam says if we want x but we settle for y, whether it is a negotiation or a demand made in action, we are sell outs to our true desires. We are on a road to submission and ruin. Sue says, if we get y, and it is better than what we had, this manifests our will and approaches our true desires. We are on a road to progress and well being.
This is different views of the same thing, with context unmentioned. It trades assessment of actual circumstances and effects that are judged in context, for waving a flag deemed absolutely certainly in all cases.
So one side says without much concern for the subtleties of real conditions, the Syriza stance in its negotiations is a sell out. It is hypocrisy, submission, because it didn’t get x the whole enchilada. The other side says, the Syriza stance in negotiations was courageous, honest, smart and effective. It got y, on the road to the whole enchilada. In truth, carefully assessing circumstances, possibilities, and outcomes suggests both sides have insights and both sights have oversights. Dueling banners are only sometimes an accurate measure of reality’s fabric.
Make it more stark. Workers strike for higher wages. They settle. Sellout screams one flag waver. Success screams another flag waver. What’s the truth? You cannot know without closer examination.
But here is the insight that I suspect matters most regarding compromise/reform. Did the process of winning the limited again occur so as to point toward further advance, or did it occur so as to end with whatever the limited gain was? Did the process of struggling, and the limited victory as well, shift mentalities and material relations so that continued progress is more likely, or so that it is less likely. Again, you can’t know without looking. But at least this reveals what to look for.
And it may also give us some insight into how to discuss, support, or even oppose a particular situation of compromise or reform. In context, are my comments about what is happening not only as accurate and truthful to the facts of the case as I can manage, but also delivered in such a way as to help propel continued gains? Or are my comments either not true to the facts, or delivered in such a way as to undermine continued gains?
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7 Comments
I would disagree with the opinion that Michaels column was elitist .
It clearly reflects the fact that the vast bulk of the U.S. electorate is severely and deliberately dumbed down and indoctrinated to not think .
It does take considerable time out of each day to keep up with what is happening and to analyze the daily events in context of what we already know.
If all the general public knows is the decades of lies and lies of omission , the daily events as presented by the corporate media they overwhelmingly tune into ( if indeed, they tune in at all) the lies and lies of omission presented daily by their same sources, fit in nicely with what they have already come to believe.
There are relatively few of us who can pick corporate “news” coverage apart to reveal the propaganda, the lies, the lies of omission .
What is quite apparent to us few , is not at all apparent to those whose life experience lies with untruths .
That is not at all elite any more than saying that well-informed people know more about things than those who are not well-informed is elitist.
It is simply the reality
Further, as an anarchist , it would be antithetical to Michael’s principled beliefs to hold an elitist (Leninist) position as suggested.
IMO .
>> “I would disagree with the opinion that Michaels column was elitist. It clearly reflects the fact that the vast bulk of the U.S. electorate is severely and deliberately dumbed down and indoctrinated to not think .”
See my response to Michael, below. In short, he didn’t say anything about the population being intentionally indoctrinated; he chalked it up to personality traits.
>> “It does take considerable time out of each day to keep up with what is happening and to analyze the daily events in context of what we already know.”
Agreed. Never had an issue with this.
>> “If all the general public knows is the decades of lies and lies of omission , the daily events as presented by the corporate media they overwhelmingly tune into ( if indeed, they tune in at all) the lies and lies of omission presented daily by their same sources, fit in nicely with what they have already come to believe.”
There are very, very few people that I’ve come into contact with that don’t think that the news, and whatever politicians say, is just a huge pack of lies. Interestingly, the individuals who do overwhelmingly believe the propaganda tend to be better-off (or aspiring) managers and professionals, or folks who readily and strongly identify as “liberal”. Perhaps your view is shaped by coming into lots of contact with such folks?
>> “There are relatively few of us who can pick corporate “news” coverage apart to reveal the propaganda, the lies, the lies of omission. What is quite apparent to us few , is not at all apparent to those whose life experience lies with untruths.”
I don’t understand the last part, but the first part clearly says: “there are only a few of ‘us’ who can really figure out what’s going on.” If that doesn’t come across as elitist, then there’s little point in continuing this discussion.
There’s another point to make here, too. The assumption that “a few of us know” and everyone else, by implication, doesn’t know is just plainly false in many cases. Look at public opinion polls and you’ll see it: in many, many cases, despite massive propaganda, people just don’t believe what they’re told by the media/government. Sorry, I don’t have time to go into examples here, but they’re pretty easy to find; countless have been written about by Chomsky and others on ZNet.
>> “That is not at all elite any more than saying that well-informed people know more about things than those who are not well-informed is elitist.
It is simply the reality.”
Ok. Well, just imagine someone telling you that your “life experience is based on untruths”, and see how you feel about it. Even if it is true, is that really the best way to reach out to “uninformed” constituencies? Does it convey respect, understanding, compassion? Or does it, perhaps, convey elitism, as I’ve suggested?
>> “Further, as an anarchist , it would be antithetical to Michael’s principled beliefs to hold an elitist (Leninist) position as suggested.”
I agree, it would be. However, that doesn’t prove anything.
This is pure identity politics: “I’m an anarchist, therefore I cannot possibly hold elitist views of any kind.” It’s utter nonsense — and mere ideological elitism, if we allow ourselves to see it.
Let’s face it, it takes work, psychological energy to be informed, well informed, and advancing in understanding. It also takes an element of honesty and courage to test one’s own ideas and to arrive at a more enlightened and progressive position. Lacking these, the temptation is to believe its just plain easier to think whatever one wants, and be concerned only with what one thinks is in one’s own narrow interest. Thus, we can even find ourselves working against the long-term interests of all, and of ourselves!
I hope I’m reading this wrong, but are you saying that the problem is when people “lack” the will to “work” or the “psychological energy to be informed” and to “advance in understanding”, or when people lack “honesty and courage”? And, conversely, that people who don’t lack such things are “enlightened” and “progressive”? In other words, that it just comes down to honesty, courage, and the will put in the effort that separates the “enlightened” from the, presumably, unenlightened?
If so — and again I hope I’ve read this wrong — then reading such statements, don’t they just smack of elitism? It’s quite striking to read such statements so focused on elements of personal character in the context of an article about, well, context. (And on a site that has consistently promoted a systemic understanding of the ways that social institutions are built to misinform, ‘dumb down’, mislead, etc., the general population.)
What’s up? It’s elitist to say that it is difficult to figure out what is going on in the world and that it takes work and energy?
Yes, you’ve read my comments wrongly, but thanks for your comments, they made me re-read what I wrote. John Goodr following also describes aspects of why it is difficult.
Allow me to clarify. First, I agree that it’s hard to figure out what’s going on and that it takes work and energy. I think that’s obvious enough.
Where I got a whiff of elitism was when you said “lacking these [i.e., work, energy, honesty, courage], the temptation is to believe it’s just plain easier to think whatever one wants…” Thus you explained the difference between “enlightenment” and “believing whatever one wants” in terms of personality traits. Some are honest and courageous, so they know better; others aren’t, so they don’t.
In other words, to put it quite bluntly, what I read from your comments was that you see there being two groups: 1) The “enlightened” progressives, who have honesty and courage and put in the hard work to become informed, and 2) Those who “think whatever they want” (conversely, the “unenlightened”), who lack honesty and courage and are unwilling to put in the hard work to become informed.
When progressives put themselves in the former group, and claim that they’re “enlightened” because they work harder and are more honest and courageous, they put themselves above those deemed “unenlightened.” It’s unfortunate that, although progressives consistently stress a systemic understanding of the roots of all kinds of problems, some progressives then go on to implicitly reject this systemic view when it comes to explaining their own “enlightenment” — which is then explained in terms of personality traits (honesty, courage, hard work, etc.), completely disconnected from circumstance and systemic factors (e.g. education, media, greater access to information owing to class privilege, etc.).
Sadly, it’s attitudes such as this that doubtless contribute to turning many people away from left activism, analysis and vision who might have otherwise become involved.
Michael,
Your article reflects the reality where there are two camps with opposing views of a given subject.
Where people limit themselves to the corporate media on such things, they are misinformed and often disinformed by both exaggerations or, as is more often the case, lies of omission.
The huge number of disinformed usually do not check the “facts” they get from the corporate media against that which is to be found at sites like ZNet and so wade into any debate short of a thorough understanding of that particular subject.
Most are also minimally interested in world affairs or that beyond their living space and have no intellectual interest in pursuing things like democracy, imperialism , capitalism etc.
Their eyes glaze over really quickly.
The nation is polarized between center-right Democrats and center-further right Republicans and the overwhelming number of corporate media debates are about the tactics rather than the philosophies underlying the policies.
That Fox News is #1 in the USA ( or #2 as many think) speaks to the depth of ignorance and disinformation abroad in the country .
It is very difficult to talk to a disinformed crowd who refuse to hear, much less believe , facts that get in the way of what they have long ago come to believe and which they consider crucial to their sense of self-esteem.
I believe well-informed debaters can come to rational conclusions and agreements but when one side refuse to even look at the argument of the other side , there is little hope for change in the greater, ill-informed population.
IMO