The Paradox of Liberal Democracy, Via Mouffe, the Bering Strait and Byron's Lusty Swim.

Fall Trenching

We are going to go to Mouffe for our discussion on the paradox of liberal democracy, and I'll tell you why. Her Discourse Analysis has the fluidity of the Post Structuralist attitude toward an understanding of language as a Symbolic Order and therefore she blends into Postmodernism which allows her to escape from the Boa Constrictors that is Kantian understandings of structure which contain addictive tinctures that lead to an infestation of Historical Determinism, which is like grilled cheese and brandy or heroin.

And, in my view, Chantal Mouffe would have little sympathy for those who whinge against Irony with such off hand insinuations framed around flat headed accusations such as "Irony is an infinite absolute negative," or "a total metaphysical downer for the saints who cling to the power of positive thinking," and all "merchants monetizing fake news."

The point being, in the multi-dimensional symbolic order of language structure, the two pearls which are Irony and Paradox can see each other across the equivalent of the Bering Strait after Tsar Alexander II sold Alaska to the United States. And why did Tsar Alexander II do that? Well, after his country's defeat in the Crimean War he needed money and he didn't want his Alaska to become part of British Canada. So in 1867 Eduard de Stoeckl, Russia's man in the USA, and the U.S. Secretary of State, William H. Seward agreed that Alaska was worth something like 7 million dollars, which in today's money is something like the addition of an ostentatious, gold plate and chrome something or other, the chintz set and cheese burgers in suits and ties currently occupying the People's House have deemed necessary.

You're probably correct, bringing the Geography and recent history of the Bering Strait into a discussion about Liberal Democracy might be a bit of a reach, but suffice to say the strait between Paradox and Irony is now called "Action de Réconcilier" which means The Act of Reconciliation. Why French? A tribute to French Canadians and what remains of the French Colony of Louisiana.

Of course, if you wanted to achieve more than hope and wonder, you'd have to do a Byron on the linguistic equivalent of the Bering Strait. A mighty Metaphysical Passion it would have to be for the word Paradoxe to enjoy the gentle caress of Ironie. Such a Byronic Swim would have a one way distance of 55 miles through choppy seas and cruel currents. A good chance Paradoxe would be pretty much guaranteed to drown with a smile on his face on his sated way home. Still, the risk might be worth Paradox's while, 110 miles would wipe the record clean and it would put Byron's paltry 4 miles there and 4 miles back across the Hellespont to shame.

For Mouffe, and many others, Liberal Democracy is structured by a tension as wide as the Bering Strait between the two non-reducible elements of the Liberal Tradition of "I got Rights to do whatever I want to because I can" and the Democratic Tradition "Not if We the People say no." An Ironic Paradox if you prefer

 

Unmet Mental Health Needs. Bacon, egg and Cheese Sandwiches

Rain Clouds

I think it uncontroversial to suggest that Brains and Bodies are connected. We got the Vagus Nerve, a vestige of the primordial ooze that offers the professionals a chance to come up with expressions like "The Gut-Brain Axis" and go on to minutely explain why the Vagus Nerve is a source of so much unidentified and ill-defined stress. 

And yes we're talking about the structure of language as a means to usefully develop a Symbolic Order that permits the Professionals to communicate with the subconscious. We're also talking about an alien invasion of culturally homogenizing psychotherapists employed by corporate interests to rid our species of Unregistered Passions and replacing them with Cognitive Distortions about the centrality of washing machines, Selfies, beaches, bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches to a happy and fulfilled life.

Bobby does go on a bit, but he assures us that 'studies' have found that while the incidence of experiencing 'mental distress' is almost exactly the same throughout the spectrum, there are gaps in 'mental care utilization' between political party affiliation. Democrats and Independents are 'significantly more likely' to have engaged the services of a Mental Health Care Professional, than are the humorless and sexually frustrated Republicans who have 'substantially higher unmet healthcare needs.' Naturally Bobby is very thorough, he has examined trillions of words on the met and unmet mental health needs of the average US Citizen.

"Liberals," Bobby suggests, "who tend to be less inclined toward system justification and more critical of social and economic inequality, may recognize external factors (like political stress or systemic injustice) as contributing to their distress. This critical awareness may make them more willing to frame their feelings as a health issue requiring treatment."

So there you have it, the more liberal minded in our number should end their addiction to therapists as a substitute for bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches, they should allow their passions free rein, stop moaning about the debilitating affects of irony on happiness, find a unifying hat color, raise the banners and march.

Agonism, Chivalry and Megalomaniacal Fatheads

Light Snow

There's a distinction between an enemy and an adversary. I'd like to argue that Baxter and I prefer chivalry, and then the Romans with their iron discipline and blank wall mindset came along. All the same, even if it's just holes in our bones that chivalry fills with the strawberry cream of decency Baxter and I like to think we go big time for honor, courtesy, gallantry and protecting the weak. Otherwise we too would become prone to the fatheaded-ness currently devouring what remains of the Republican Party, large numbers of males obsessed with warrior look alike games and much of the Democratic Party here in the USA.

Cicero would have called our strawberry cream filling, a Magnanimous Filling. It's a filling that would include disdain to the point of contempt of wealth, pain, death and trivialities. For Cicero a magnanimous spirit focused on the glory of Rome, the moral fiber of stable, resolute and unwavering will. It's a soul too large to be constrained by self interest. And I think, to cheer him up, I recently reminded Baxter that Mark Anthony had Cicero killed for being too liberal in his thinking about the value of the Roman Republic to the well-being of the Roman Citizens, rich and poor. 

Ask any Latin Teacher, even girl Latin Teachers, and they'll tell you that John Locke of the Enlightenment, got most of his ideas for his understanding of liberal from Cicero. So No! It's not at all ridiculous to think of Marcus Tullius Cicero as Liberal. Or Cato the Elder for that matter.

What is a Liberal?

Cicero, who died in 43 BC when he was 63 years old, would have given you a number of possible signposts to the meanings in the word Liberal. Cicero believed in the balance between the Rule of Law and Liberty. He was a big fan of Private Property, he believed in what was called a balanced government. For him that meant Consuls, Senators, Assemblymen. His ideal state leaned heavily on giving power to Consuls and Senators who were mostly members of established family landowning hierarchies and military heroes. Roman Assemblymen were less reputable, often property-less citizen members of Roman society, they saw to the rule of law, they were often organized by traditional tribes, each with slightly different ways of doing things. And then there was the Council of the Plebs for the common people, or what the US Constitution still calls "We the People." But Cicero, like Cato the Elder heartily distrusted the Plebs. Both Cicero and Cato, despite their shared understanding of magnanimity in the word Statesman would have considered something like Democracy, as briefly practiced by Athens, a recipe for a Mob Rule by We the People, a guaranteed loss of property, slaves and possibly even Senators would have to wash their own dishes.

A new bright spark in the word liberal emerged during the Enlightenment. John Locke, an odd looking young man, who amongst other things was a physician who wanted to be a writer, did a lot of thinking for the First Earl of Shaftesbury, a man called Anthony Ashley Cooper who became the Leader of the English Whig Party. As a physician Locke had saved Shaftesbury's life. It was to become a close bond between brains and a member of a land owning Hierarchy who had political ambitions which is the polite way of saying Anthony Ashley Cooper wanted power and didn't much care how he got it.

Worth getting behind Anthony Cooper, understanding him as devious, politically slippery and destined to go far on his way up the greasy pole. He'd been a kings man at the beginning of the 1642 to 1651 attempt by the middle class to take monarchy down a peg or two. An attempt called The Great Rebellion (1642 to 1651) or The English Civil War. When the English King, Charles the First, was beheaded in 1649, Anthony Ashley Cooper, sidled up and found a place amongst Oliver Cromwell's supporters. Then when Cromwell died of natural causes and his son wasn't up to the job of Lord Protector, England decided they wanted their King back. Anthony Ashley Cooper moved on quickly, he probably read a lot into the Royalists' disinterment and beheading of Oliver Cromwell's corpse. Cooper became a Whig as opposed to a Tory.

Whigs wanted the King to have less power. The Tories clung to the idea that Kings had been chosen by god to rule The English in an unlimited and traditional way. The Whig preference of limiting the power of kings put the Whigs in the Liberal Camp on such subjects as Rule of Law, Limited Government, Liberty and Yes, private property because you can't have Liberty if the King's Toadies are allowed to take stuff away from you when it suits them, that's what Warlords do.

And Lo, John Locke, who, to quote the Icelandic Proverb was a man with a book in his belly, and even if John Locke might have been a little bit too progressive to be popular, he was just the right chap for the job of advising Anthony Ashley Cooper who in 1677 was titled Lord Ashley, he was Whig Chancellor of the Exchequer, in charge of the nations money. 

What did John Locke add to the word Liberal other than the content his often rejected book, Treatise on Human Understanding? Well, in essence, he added the authority of The Enlightenment to the ingredients of meaning which are included in the idea of "A Legitimate Other" and which in many ways are summarized by the words of hope and passion "We the People" as enshrined in the Constitution of the United States.

So when you go to bed at night, best not to forget Locke's contribution to a Liberal Hegemony's approach to slavery and child labor, a grasp of the sentience in animals, religious tolerance, as well as his opinions on the accumulation of wealth, along with his positive views of allowing supply and demand for money to determine the value of money which he wrote about in his 1691 "Considerations on the consequences of the Lowering of Interest and the Raising of the Value of Money." 

Liberal Democracy

Pond and Ice

It's the same old problem. "Why can't we all get along." The answer, "We can't," seems disappointing. "We're not meant to," is no better but possibly true. The other answer, "Kill them all and let God decide" seems far too Roman, kind of pathetic and very expensive. Another possibility, "Liberal Democracy," might seem a little limp for a paradox I've yet to place in the dictionary of Symbolic Order.

When thinking about Mouffe's perspective on life in general the charm is the way she distinguishes between Populism and Fundamentalism. It's very much a perspective that replaces the grind and convictions of metanarratives with a pluralism she would like to be able to describe as Agonistic Pluralism. Agonistic here means passion filled, combative, argumentative, impolite, rude contestants in the struggle for hegemony who share an allegiance to the ethics and political principles of liberty and equality.

Chantal's understanding of pluralism is on the same shelf as smiling Jean-François Lyotard's multiplicity of competing narratives, sometimes thought of as coexisting authorities. And Oh Yes, there's always the example of James Madison's two contributions to the US Constitution.  His coexisting and equal branches of government. His other contribution, he didn't like owning slaves, he thought it a "sad blot" on created equal, but he had to own property to keep his plantation profitable, what else mattered.

The Mouffe/Laclau understanding of the signifier Fundamentalism sees it as a complete rejection of Pluralism. Fundamentalists determine only one legitimate authority. More politely, fundamentalism mobilizes passion in a manner that results in reducing and then eliminating political space. This Eternal Order, is usually more convincing when decreed by a God or maybe a Squillionaire, rather than by a man.

Fundamentalism for Mouffe et al is a fixed ideology. Populism is not a fixed ideology, it's nothing to do with an ideology, it's a way of doing politics that builds, or clarifies the frontier between underdog interest groups, or the "The People" on the one side and the kings, queens and princes or "The Elites" on the other side. Populism, or "Us against Them," because it's not an ideology but a way of doing politics can raise passion for a single eternal order or for a pluralist order, it doesn't matter which it's still populism, and it's populism that puts the pussy foot into Elites. Big crowds get you elected and big crowds string you up from the palace balcony and make you pay taxes. 

Mouffe's point is that when you're a dominant elite in a cultural hegemony tied around something like the American Dream, the passions of populism need to be either won over, redirected or discouraged.  And it's just not good enough to be simple minded about "The People." We are not a lump or a blot, we, as the signified other, the subjects of hegemony, or The People, are the material out of which  a cultural hegemony's focus group consultants and political theorists, build and then manipulate a political construction that might manufacture the right sort of passion.

How easy it should be! But in reality we people look more like a symbolic order of meanings than a grammatically cohesive class. We are chaotic from moment to moment and we should be understood as a chain of equivalences linked not by steel but by a collection of unsatisfied demands and unidentified holes or even by a single dissatisfaction such as the price of coffee or a tax on vodka. The political construction the hegemony builds to secure our passions increasingly fails to interpret and then represent our interests.

I'd argue that one of the results of this failure is the flatulence of Post Irony and Metamodernism with its rejection of irony, its embrace of Tinkerbell's A for Effort and that oscillation between hope a skepticism found in the fairy tales of old that challenge children to reconsider some of their decisions.