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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| pietillidie wrote: | | Mugwump wrote: | | Why the Left, with its proud tradition of upholding sexual equality and free speech, and its distrust of imperialism, should be implicitly excusing the paraphernalia of Islam is almost a mystery. |
For goodness' sake, Mugwump, do a Google Scholar search. I studied this in second year development geography in 1993. It has been the central theme of poststructuralist feminism, the most influential leftist movement over the last two-plus decades. Apparently, you're unfamiliar with discussions of the "intersection of social cleavages" |
Yes, a mite unfamiliar, so I googled the term "intersection of social cleavages". Try it. Apart from your nicks posting, i got two hits across the entirety of google. It's clearly unforgivable for one not be abreast of the latest learned developments.
More seriously, I'm entirely aware that the academic Left has been hard at work for several decades justifying ways in which liberal democracy and the Western political settlement can be dismissed as just another contingent and invalid set of power relations. It is that intellectual conceit, enforced by violence and suppression where necessary (see the treatment of Geoffrey Blainey in the late 1980s) which has underlain the retreat of the poliical left from protecting workers and the exploitable classes in their own society, in favour of mass immigration with all of its deleterious effects on wages and conditions, and on social conditions in vulnerable and hard-pressed Australian communities.
What the academic Left does in its tax-funded symposia is not of great concern to most of us, but what the political Left does makes a real difference to the future of the democracies and the people who depend on them. In the EU, those same vulnerable communities are now defecting in large numbers to fringe parties of the right (UKIP, Vrij Deutschland et al) .... Which was my original point, of course.
Fortunately the political Left is starting to wake up to the threat, though whether it can serve the demands of the incumbent voters without a schism from the post-structuralist Leftists, is another interesting question. All times have the potential to go bad, but this era seems more liable to dangerous derangement than most.
Meanwhile, as you almost said, there is at least hope that economics, science and mathematics, engineering, business management and other studies founded on reason and practical experience, and untainted by the political coercion and auto-hatreds of the modern Left, are starting to enjoy a renaissance in our universities.
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think positive 
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
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And more terrorist raids in Sydney this morning, with reports of planned random public executions
Just sayin
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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1061
Joined: 06 Sep 2013
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| think positive wrote: | And more terrorist raids in Sydney this morning, with reports of planned random public executions
Just sayin |
Cool, but when did Abbott bring back the death penalty? |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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Hahahahaahahaha
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| Mugwump wrote: | | pietillidie wrote: | | Mugwump wrote: | | Why the Left, with its proud tradition of upholding sexual equality and free speech, and its distrust of imperialism, should be implicitly excusing the paraphernalia of Islam is almost a mystery. |
For goodness' sake, Mugwump, do a Google Scholar search. I studied this in second year development geography in 1993. It has been the central theme of poststructuralist feminism, the most influential leftist movement over the last two-plus decades. Apparently, you're unfamiliar with discussions of the "intersection of social cleavages" |
Yes, a mite unfamiliar, so I googled the term "intersection of social cleavages". Try it. Apart from your nicks posting, i got two hits across the entirety of google. It's clearly unforgivable for one not be abreast of the latest learned developments
.
Well, you might want to try again, because that concept looks to be repeated hundreds of times across the social sciences when I search Google: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=intersection+social+cleavages&rlz=1Y3NDUG_enKR535KR535&oq=intersection+social+cleavages&aqs=chrome..69i57.11987j0j4&sourceid=chrome-mobile&espvd=1&ie=UTF-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=rcecVLKcLI6sacr6gNAK
More seriously, I'm entirely aware that the academic Left has been hard at work for several decades justifying ways in which liberal democracy and the Western political settlement can be dismissed as just another contingent and invalid set of power relations. It is that intellectual conceit, enforced by violence and suppression where necessary (see the treatment of Geoffrey Blainey in the late 1980s) which has underlain the retreat of the poliical left from protecting workers and the exploitable classes in their own society, in favour of mass immigration with all of its deleterious effects on wages and conditions, and on social conditions in vulnerable and hard-pressed Australian communities.
First, a deleterious effects on wages? Having just debunked this myth a dozen times, let me just say there is no steady state, zero sum economy; economies keep growing with the population as long as productivity holds up. Immigrants are tiny blips on the radar whom themselves soon start producing, which is why you see GDP growth per capita and population growth at the same time in so many countries.
Second, you take the entirety of the disciplines I mention, and which you know little about, and reduce them to that? A retreat from protecting workers? Really? Just what the heck do you think the opposition to Howard's Work Choices was? Or the consistent support for the minimum wage? Or workplace safety? Or the rights of women and the disabled and other minorities in the workplace? Or concerns for the exploitation of overseas workers in sweatshops? These are standard academic and political left concerns. Forget conceit, worry about your own shortcomings.
To then brandish poor old Blainey as a counterweight to all of the opposition to neoliberal economic dogma, neocon international relations, and all of the work on oppression related to gender, sexuality, race, and so on, is farcical.
What the academic Left does in its tax-funded symposia is not of great concern to most of us, but what the political Left does makes a real difference to the future of the democracies and the people who depend on them. In the EU, those same vulnerable communities are now defecting in large numbers to fringe parties of the right (UKIP, Vrij Deutschland et al) .... Which was my original point, of course.
Well, as we've established, you wouldn't know what happens at those symposia because you couldn't tell us the first thing about those fields. The phenomena of class, gender, race, sexuality, disability (a major focus I forgot to mention earlier) and environmental quality (yet another longstanding leftist cause) are of massive practical concern to much of society, and like any other area of importance such as medicine, law, finance and technology, they depend heavily on universities to supply professional graduates and advanced researchers and practitioners.
Fortunately the political Left is starting to wake up to the threat, though whether it can serve the demands of the incumbent voters without a schism from the post-structuralist Leftists, is another interesting question. All times have the potential to go bad, but this era seems more liable to dangerous derangement than most.
Except the vast majority of that derangement, from failed wars to economic collapse to increased wealth gaps and slowing real wage growth to the attacks on clearly superior universal healthcare models and denial of anthropogenic global warming, has clearly comes from the right, and is consistently and vociferously opposed by the academic left and political progressives, even if the centre-left parties have been piss weak and only follow along after the victory has been won.
Meanwhile, as you almost said, there is at least hope that economics, science and mathematics, engineering, business management and other studies founded on reason and practical experience, and untainted by the political coercion and auto-hatreds of the modern Left, are starting to enjoy a renaissance in our universities.
Just what about work on the phenomena of class, gender, race, sexuality, social systems, social relations, politics and power precludes the use of reason and practical experience, and what about any other discipline precludes irrationality and impracticality?
That's just another appalling generalisation and misleading dichotomy, especially when the science community itself is significantly left in political orientation, and all of the main leftist issues, including those associated with the social cleavages studied heavily by the poststructuralist left, share widespread mainstream scientific community political support. Do you even know any scientists? They're often among the most radical leftists of the lot.
Importantly, in the context of your completely erroneous understanding of progressive thought, the intersection of gender and race has been understood by the left for decades. Waleed Aly's views are standard fare, it's just that articulating the complex relationship between gender and race, as with almost any complex idea in any field you care to name, cannot be explained in five second soundbites, and sane analysis is not what the trash media wants to hear. |
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| pietillidie wrote: | | Mugwump wrote: | | pietillidie wrote: | | Mugwump wrote: | | Why the Left, with its proud tradition of upholding sexual equality and free speech, and its distrust of imperialism, should be implicitly excusing the paraphernalia of Islam is almost a mystery. |
For goodness' sake, Mugwump, do a Google Scholar search. I studied this in second year development geography in 1993. It has been the central theme of poststructuralist feminism, the most influential leftist movement over the last two-plus decades. Apparently, you're unfamiliar with discussions of the "intersection of social cleavages" |
Yes, a mite unfamiliar, so I googled the term "intersection of social cleavages". Try it. Apart from your nicks posting, i got two hits across the entirety of google. It's clearly unforgivable for one not be abreast of the latest learned developments
.
Well, you might want to try again, because that concept looks to be repeated hundreds of times across the social sciences when I search Google: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=intersection+social+cleavages&rlz=1Y3NDUG_enKR535KR535&oq=intersection+social+cleavages&aqs=chrome..69i57.11987j0j4&sourceid=chrome-mobile&espvd=1&ie=UTF-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=rcecVLKcLI6sacr6gNAK
More seriously, I'm entirely aware that the academic Left has been hard at work for several decades justifying ways in which liberal democracy and the Western political settlement can be dismissed as just another contingent and invalid set of power relations. It is that intellectual conceit, enforced by violence and suppression where necessary (see the treatment of Geoffrey Blainey in the late 1980s) which has underlain the retreat of the poliical left from protecting workers and the exploitable classes in their own society, in favour of mass immigration with all of its deleterious effects on wages and conditions, and on social conditions in vulnerable and hard-pressed Australian communities.
First, a deleterious effects on wages? Having just debunked this myth a dozen times, let me just say there is no steady state, zero sum economy; economies keep growing with the population as long as productivity holds up. Immigrants are tiny blips on the radar whom themselves soon start producing, which is why you see GDP growth per capita and population growth at the same time in so many countries.
Second, you take the entirety of the disciplines I mention, and which you know little about, and reduce them to that? A retreat from protecting workers? Really? Just what the heck do you think the opposition to Howard's Work Choices was? Or the consistent support for the minimum wage? Or workplace safety? Or the rights of women and the disabled and other minorities in the workplace? Or concerns for the exploitation of overseas workers in sweatshops? These are standard academic and political left concerns. Forget conceit, worry about your own shortcomings.
To then brandish poor old Blainey as a counterweight to all of the opposition to neoliberal economic dogma, neocon international relations, and all of the work on oppression related to gender, sexuality, race, and so on, is farcical.
What the academic Left does in its tax-funded symposia is not of great concern to most of us, but what the political Left does makes a real difference to the future of the democracies and the people who depend on them. In the EU, those same vulnerable communities are now defecting in large numbers to fringe parties of the right (UKIP, Vrij Deutschland et al) .... Which was my original point, of course.
Well, as we've established, you wouldn't know what happens at those symposia because you couldn't tell us the first thing about those fields. The phenomena of class, gender, race, sexuality, disability (a major focus I forgot to mention earlier) and environmental quality (yet another longstanding leftist cause) are of massive practical concern to much of society, and like any other area of importance such as medicine, law, finance and technology, they depend heavily on universities to supply professional graduates and advanced researchers and practitioners.
Fortunately the political Left is starting to wake up to the threat, though whether it can serve the demands of the incumbent voters without a schism from the post-structuralist Leftists, is another interesting question. All times have the potential to go bad, but this era seems more liable to dangerous derangement than most.
Except the vast majority of that derangement, from failed wars to economic collapse to increased wealth gaps and slowing real wage growth to the attacks on clearly superior universal healthcare models and denial of anthropogenic global warming, has clearly comes from the right, and is consistently and vociferously opposed by the academic left and political progressives, even if the centre-left parties have been piss weak and only follow along after the victory has been won.
Meanwhile, as you almost said, there is at least hope that economics, science and mathematics, engineering, business management and other studies founded on reason and practical experience, and untainted by the political coercion and auto-hatreds of the modern Left, are starting to enjoy a renaissance in our universities.
Just what about work on the phenomena of class, gender, race, sexuality, social systems, social relations, politics and power precludes the use of reason and practical experience, and what about any other discipline precludes irrationality and impracticality?
That's just another appalling generalisation and misleading dichotomy, especially when the science community itself is significantly left in political orientation, and all of the main leftist issues, including those associated with the social cleavages studied heavily by the poststructuralist left, share widespread mainstream scientific community political support. Do you even know any scientists? They're often among the most radical leftists of the lot.
Importantly, in the context of your completely erroneous understanding of progressive thought, the intersection of gender and race has been understood by the left for decades. Waleed Aly's views are standard fare, it's just that articulating the complex relationship between gender and race, as with almost any complex idea in any field you care to name, cannot be explained in five second soundbites, and sane analysis is not what the trash media wants to hear. |
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ugh, my brain hurts!
_________________
You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| Really interesting. |
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Pi 
Joined: 13 Feb 2006
Location: SA
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Most of, if not all the so called intellectual left are made up of low level sociology graduates who could hardly be called politically diverse. It should be noted that sociology is unlikely to attract the best and brightest of applicants, indeed most of the best university candidates go to medicine, engineering and quantum physics.
However all is not lost; some of the more objective social scientists have broken ranks with the cronies who run university sociology departments.
Dr Frank Salter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Salter
if you don't have time to read his books, have a listen, he makes some interesting points
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww4h0dAuF1w
And now some quality reading for our intellectual friend (pietillidie) 
_________________
Pi = Infinite = Collingwood = Always
Floreat Pica |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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^There's some truth to that, though comparing any discipline to the best hard sciences is disingenuous given we all pretty much agree their esteem is deserved. I mean, history is better classified as entertainment or fairy tale much of the time, while literature is steeped in the very same social theory as the soft social sciences, and much of business outside finance and parts of marketing is on the edge of simpletonian as a discipline. So where is the criticism of those disciplines? Of course, it's a lot easier to avoid criticism when you agree to change the bed pans of power for a living and don't piss people off.
My biggest criticism of social theory is its innumeracy; however, a lot of content analysis now involves serious number crunching and is used in very respectable experimental work. It certainly doesn't have to be purely discursive. Not to mention the need for broad topic exposure and integration, which has always been a strength of soft social sciences, if not their primary function.
The curious thing, though, is that the main points poststructuralism is making - that identity collapses on investigation; that most positionality rests on unaccounted for foundations despite making up so much of what passes as knowledge; that people say they understand these things out of one side of their mouth but go right on violating all semblance of cautious and contingent objective analysis; that knowledge is far more embedded in received metaphor than we realise; that he who pays the piper calls the tune, and so on - is very basic stuff. This is why Chomsky, for example, says it makes no sense to him as those things are just truisms.
And yet, what does that say about the twits who still don't comprehend it?
I mean, how embarrassing to study a field like history or international relations or politics and still think certain groups of H.sapiens are somehow exceptional. Or to study economics, and be so deluded that you sign a farcical letter like this: http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/11/15/open-letter-to-ben-bernanke/ . Or to invade countries you know nothing about and rationalise away open asset theft, and on and on. I mean, that hysterical inflation screed is bloody hilarious, and shows fancy universities and ability in calculus and differential equations are not worth much when you're religiously enamoured or kept and paid for.
The point being that as long as dishonesty, insincerity and self delusion/justification abound, discourse analysts have a job to do; that's hardly their fault, I'd say, and I'd be very surprised if most scientists didn't agree with that given how tired they are of dealing with the lying morons who keep scuttling their work by doing things like running dirty PR campaigns against climate science and cutting funding to the CSIRO.
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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Interesting citation, Pi - I am not familiar with Frank Salter, and I'll follow it up. He sounds like that rare thing, a genuinely contrarian sociologist. A few more like him and sociology might start to look like a credible discipline again, in which genuine, non-coercive intellectual controversy is conducted against a framework of testable theory.
_________________
Two more flags before I die! |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| I am sure he will be interested to hear that. |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| Mugwump wrote: |
Interesting citation, Pi - I am not familiar with Frank Salter, and I'll follow it up. He sounds like that rare thing, a genuinely contrarian sociologist. A few more like him and sociology might start to look like a credible discipline again, in which genuine, non-coercive intellectual controversy is conducted against a framework of testable theory. |
All of the macro-phenomena social sciences have bitten the dust for very good reason: The phenomena are systemic complexes and all but impossible to define. Even if you delude yourself into thinking you've defined the phenomena, you can't run useful experiments on them anyhow. This was understood early last century. Here's a simple but effective classic from a mere 40 years ago: http://www.uctc.net/mwebber/Rittel+Webber+Dilemmas+General_Theory_of_Planning.pdf
If people think poststructuralism arose in a vacuum, somehow cutting short masses of brilliant "scientific" work in sociology, then you do have to wonder if such people understand the philosophy of science at even a rudimentary level. The reality would have to be the complete opposite: The greatest heights of modernity and logical positivism produced nothing but laughs and giggles and justification for deranged tyrants.
Moreover, take a discipline like social psychology, one of those malevolent vectors of poststructuralist infection. Social psychology has been researching phenomena such as hierarchy, power relations, inter-group relations, and so on, for a considerable time now. For all its flaws, at least it comes out of a numerate, experimental and medically practiced discipline—unlike sociology and anthropology.
As I say, what you find when you drill down into criticisms of poststructuralism are criticisms of its most arcane proponents, and generalisations about its intelligence.
And yet, most of the same people who criticise poststructuralism make embarrassingly superficial claims about the world in the very next breath and clearly don't understand poststructuralism at any serious level: They can't explain it in terms of traditional analytic philosophy; they dismiss worthwhile aspects of the best criticisms of simplistic understandings of the scientific endeavour without dealing with them in a concrete fashion (more than a few hard scientists will tell you Feyerabend's work looks a lot more like what they do every day than the claims of scientific idealism); they have no account of its rise as a social phenomenon; and they often have a highly simplistic comprehension of the philosophy of science themselves.
The fact is, almost every single discipline on the entire planet looks pathetic when you sit it next to the body of knowledge, explanations, methodologies, rigor, reproducability, and output of chemistry. That ought to hint that a more complex account of intellectual activity is needed than one which merely repeats the boldest headlines on the worst flyers at the fair.
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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I listend to the Frank Salter stuff, and found the first 45 minutes somewhat persuasive, though as it went on he started to sound like a right wing extremist, and the radio channel itself (complete with Front National Francais emblem) is not one that i'd want to patronise. When he started talking about putting Tony Blair on trial for treason, it became pretty obvious that he's a crank.
Nevertheless, even cranks can set out from a viable place, wherever they end up. His basic point makes a lot of sense to me : that the embrace of diversity may be an attractive ideal, but it is certainly debatable that it advantages the host society or sits easily with widespread human preferences for cultural affinities rooted in a shared history and meanings ; and secondly, that the rate of change and cultural fragmentation being visited on Western societies by governing elites in the name of "diversity" is an experiment unprecedented in history, with unpredictable, and potentially destructive effects. Those premises deserve a civil airing without the shrill smears of racism that emanate from the more coercive elements of the Left when they are raised.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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Paul Keating dealing with similar disingenuous conservative efforts to malign other peoples and kowtow to aligned power on the basis of some BS pretext: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTwDinIFcQk
The conservative abuse and manipulation of the public on the basis of the complexity of certain kinds of world problems, such as the apparent contradiction between gender and culture, or the environment and culture, or class and the environment or early industrial impoverished nations and wealthy nations, or whatever, is an old one.
Keating is one of the few politicians in memory with the courage and leadership to educate the public for the good of the bigger picture despite the cost.
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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swoop42 
Whatcha gonna do when he comes for you?
Joined: 02 Aug 2008
Location: The 18
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Nazi's vs IS.
I'd watch it.
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He's mad. He's bad. He's MaynHARD! |
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