Digressions&Impressions

Our Manichean Madness into Civil War

 

 

A few days ago, in the context of a (relatively minor, albeit symbolically intense) controversy, I described the debates over Zionism and the BDS movement as exhibiting the character of "Manichean battle" that should not be encouraged because ultimately the only side that benefits are those that prefer open-ended war and authoritarian forms of government; that in fact, we should keep trying to see each other's perspectives and shared humanity. Right on cue, the New York Times published an editorial by a staff editor in which one side of that debate got treated without any sympathy at all and characterized as exhibiting a "Manichaean view of life."

Today Jacob Levy shared the recruitment video by the NRA above on Facebook. I find it chilling because it villifies political opponents and treats those as un-american enemies and violence prone. It also suggests that such violence will be met with "violence of truth." If there were room for comedy, one could note that this last use of ‘violence’ is remarkably close to the way 'violence' gets used in some postmodern circles. But, alas, there is no space for comedy here because the NRA's message, which shows graphic effects  of very real violence and whose tone is not exactly  uplifting, will receive wide audience and, I fear, will only incite more fear and loathing. To be frank I think this video is laying the ground-work for a civil war between red-state and blue state America.

For, with political polarization at levels not seen before in the modern era, a heavily armed citizenry, many different kinds of armed forces, and a volatile, intemperate President, who rightly feels threatened by the deep State and who will almost certainly face obstruction of justice charges and risk impeachment over the  emoluments clause, we are now entering extremely dangerous territory. The news shows a steady drip of political violence, including deadly violence; ominously, the polarized echo chambers are seeing mostly the violence directed by the ‘other side.’ The tipping point to a more massive escalation by one side or another can’t be too far off if passions are mobilized and violence becomes – Weimar-style -- organized.

All of this is quite peculiar, because while The Great Recession in the aftermath of the financial crisis was very serious and there has been stagnation in living standards for non-trivial parts of the population, and disruptions caused by rapidly changing economy, the United States is at (relative) peace, near full employment, and with low inflation. While there are serious religious disagreements, a future conflict will not be a religious war familiar from Europe’s past. While the populace of the Unites States is more violence prone than many other advanced liberal democracies, it is still a remarkably safe and flourishing country. It has a party in control of all branches of government (including the Judicial), and so can exercise effective government if it so wishes. These are ordinarily not conditions for great concern.  

In my view there are two fundamental sources of our present predicament: first, the for-profit press and modern media are playing a non-trivial role in generating the conditions for escalation. It’s quite clear that a 24/7/365 manufactured sense of crisis, which produces fear and anger, is good for their business. Moreover, they benefit, too, when citizens’ groups and corporate associations generate more eye-balls (and, thus, advertising).

For example, the NRA’s video just feeds the hungry beast of outrage guaranteed to generate more coverage for its message.  (And, yes, this post plays right into that.) It is to be hoped that serious students, who are mostly focused on the looming environmental catastrophe, confront this conundrum at the core of capitalist, liberal democracy: a free, unregulated press is essential to keep our kind of polities thriving, but it is increasingly likely that they will facilitate our downfall. In a better world, the executive, who controls the armed forces, would be a source of calm. Unfortunately, President Trump has perfected the art of renewing and triggering the hunger of the beast of outrage.

Second, the United States has no serious military and political rival. This has made its politics fundamentally unconstrained (e.g., the invasion of Iraq), un-strategic (its proxies are fighting each other increasingly all over the Middle East), and irresponsible (e.g., climate-science denialism). The lack of felt external threat means that forces of disunity overtake those that may generate unity.  (The  previous sentence suggests that the effects of Islamic terror are not really feared.) Maybe one day China will concentrate American minds and we will discover our common humanity and the vibrancy of contested patriotism. But by then it may well be too late to stop the present Manichean march off folly

Manichean battle

Manichean battle

On Graeber, Bubble Politics, and the bursting of the "Blair-Clinton bubble"

[A]lmost no one is asking about the concept of “unelectability” itself. How did we get to the point where the candidate of a major party was judged not by his political vision, programme or sensibilities, but by an estimation of how different classes of imagined voters were likely to respond to him?

How is it that this has become our basic standard for judging politicians? And by “we” I am referring not just to political junkies, professional or otherwise, but to the electorate as a whole....

Back in 1936, John Maynard Keynes suggested that financial markets were organised a little like a beauty contest – except, he emphasised, a beauty contest with one important twist. Imagine newspaper readers were shown a hundred portraits, then asked to judge not which face was the prettiest, but which face everyone else would think was the prettiest.

In that case, everyone would not only be trying to imagine everyone else's preference, they'd really be trying to guess what everyone else guessed everyone else's preference would be. And so on, ad infinitum. This, Keynes argued, is basically how the financial sector works. Second-guessing of this sort can lead to crazy bubbles when people bid up, say, tulip bulbs in 17^th century Amsterdam, or housing in London today, just because they think others want them.

In between Keynes and the latest general election, the financial sector itself has come to dominate the world economy – and British and American economies in particular.

This rise has been accompanied by a profound cultural shift. Starting in the Eighties, when news feeds began to provide stock quotes moving along the bottom of the screen, everyone in rich countries has, in a thousand subtle ways, been encouraged to look at the world through the eyes of an investor.

The same period saw the rise of punditocracy. Even in Keynes's day, newspapermen were notorious for their cynicism (think of the movie The Front Page). But in recent decades, that particular strain of cynicism – the assumption that politics is really just a game of personalities, showmanship and manipulation, and in no sense a battle over values or ideals – has migrated from the Fleet Street pubs to newspaper comment pages, and from there to news stories, and from there to anywhere anyone argued about politics. 

...

For the rich and powerful, popular cynicism is extraordinarily convenient. It's no longer necessary to convince people that the political or economic system is fair. All you have to do is convince them everyone else thinks it is.

......

 

All this recalls the South Sea Bubble of 1711, where “every fool aspired to be a knave”, buying up worthless financial instruments for extravagant prices hoping to pass them off to the next sucker at a profit before the inevitable collapse.

When bubbles burst, the results tend to be dramatic. Corbyn's sudden rise can be seen as another's sudden fall. What we have just witnessed can, I think, be legitimately referred to as the popping of the Blair-Clinton bubble. That is, the ending of the assumption that a tepid, compromised, market-friendly, bureaucratic centrism that nobody actually liked was the only form left-of-centre politics could take, because everyone was convinced that everyone else thought so.

The moment a credible player appeared on the scene who rejected the underlying assumption, everyone realised no one really much liked it to begin with – which is, is of course, why the entire political-journalistic class united for two years to try to convince us that the player in question was not credible.

The only remaining question is: has the bubble fully collapsed? How far will it go? Will this spell the end of the financialisation of politics? If so, what does it tell us about the ultimate fate of the financial bubbles on which it is founded?--David Graeber "The 2017 general election marked the popping of the Blair-Clinton bubble," The New Statesman.

l very much like (with qualifications noted below) Graeber's two-fold idea that (i) much recent political commentary focuses on an estimation of how different classes of imagined voters are likely to respond to a candidate, that is, it tries to imagine everyone else's preferences; and (ii) that this is akin to how financial markets operate, especially in bubble territory. This may well have displaced discussion of "political vision, programme or sensibilities" and of the extent, if any, whether the "political or economic system is fair." Underlying Graeber's two-fold idea is (iii) a kind of  ideological trickle-down (recall this post on Hume and Berkeley) image in which a way of conceiving the world moves from "Fleet Street pubs to newspaper comment pages, and from there to news stories, and from there to anywhere anyone argued about politics." This trickle down is reinforced, perhaps even driven by, a larger cultural shift in which finance and financial reporting has become extremely important (by historical standards). Inspired by Graeber, I call (i-iii) bubble-politics.

Moreover, Graeber also explains who benefits from this status quo (the two-fold idea and its trickle down): "the rich and powerful." For their privilege goes unquestioned now because the very issues of fairness go un-discussed. The previous sentence is, I think, what Graeber intends to say, although not what he says. He suggests that what happens is a kind of mass ideological manipulation in which "All you have to do is convince [the people that] everyone else thinks the political or economic world is [fair]." I am not denying that it is possible that such mass ideological manipulation takes place [plenty of rhetoric about meritocracy to go around], but (a) it does not fit the logic of his particular argument; (b) it also goes against media culture which promotes unfulfilled desire not satisfaction with the status quo.

Before I got to my modest criticisms of Graeber a non-trivial aside. Modern financial markets are a peculiar kind of markets in a way that Keynes could not appreciate. (I would argue that Keynes's model is basically inspired by Adam Smith's treatment of bubbles in financial products, but that's for another time.) The prices of many financial instruments (especially derivatives) follow not so much the law of supply and demand, but rather rational pricing formulas* (most famously associated with names like Black, Merton, Scholes) and which rely at their core, on the idea that there is no-arbitrage. (The formulas presuppose, in practice that some traders instantaneously take advantage of arbitrage opportunities in the market-place.)** So, in financial markets people can imagine everyone else's preferences -- all other things being equal, and of course that's not always the case -- because everybody is using pretty much the same formulas (this gets discussed in the sociology of finance literature as an element of 'performativity').

No such pricing formula exists in politics. But everyone else's preferences are measured by way of opinion polls. It is no surprise, then, that the Bayesian aggregation models of opinion polls have provided a means at systematically imagining everyone else's preferences. (Recall my analysis of the weaknesses of these models here.) And so these have reinforced the mechanisms that Graeber is sketching.

So far so good. It is worth noting, however, that there are structural, institutional reasons why the United States and the United Kingdom, are especially susceptible to bubble politics. For in a first-past-the-post-system [FPTPS] it really matters what everyone else's preferences in one's district are, and so it matters how everyone else's preferences are imagined to be. Strategic and tactical voting in light of such imaginings is, in fact, quite rational whereas in a reasonably functioning proportional representation system one can rationally vote one's preferences without, on the whole, much concern to tactics. (Even small parties can have leverage in a coalition.) While I do not claim that bubble politics is intrinsic to a FPTPS, it is a non-accidental feature of it. That is to say, even even when one political bubble is burst one can expect another to develop in a FPTPS. In fairness to Graeber his focus is resolutely on the UK/USA because he speaks of the "Blair-Clinton bubble" and ignores other places where what he describes as tepid centrism seems to thrive (e.g., Macron, Trudeau Jr. etc.).

There is a further reason for this last point that one can expect another political bubble to develop in a FPTPS. As Jason Brennan never tires of saying, many markets generate direct and focused feedback mechanisms (through the price system; profits/losses, etc.) at fairly rapid time scales. (The collapse of Long-Term Capital twenty yeas ago is a nice case in point.) By contrast elections do not occur very often and the feedback mechanism are rather diffuse, slow, and coarse-grained. Meanwhile, participation in opinion polls has almost no feedback at all--this is a nice instance of cheap talk. Because of the lack of regular feedback the bubbles can, once developed, thrive for a long time (the term of a parliament, a US President, etc.).

 I said I had some modest criticism of Graeber. That's because I am struck by the fact that his post can be read as trying -- forgive  the language -- to call the top of the market ["Corbyn's sudden rise can be seen as another's sudden fall... the popping of the Blair-Clinton bubble"] in a bubble polity rather than discussing a "political vision, programme or sensibilities."+ That is, Graeber contributes to the genre of punditry that is most apt for a bubble politics: prophecy. Now he does so quite elegantly by simultaneously and artfully deconstructing -- like a magician who shows his tricks while performing them -- the practice he is, if I am right, contributing to. ***

 

 

On Those Flags at the Dyke March Chicago with Some Thoughts on the Future of American Jewry

Sadly, our celebration of dyke, queer and trans solidarity was partially overshadowed by our decision to ask three individuals carrying Israeli flags superimposed on rainbow flags to leave the rally. This decision was made after they repeatedly expressed support for Zionism during conversations with Chicago Dyke Mark Collective members. We have since learned that at least one of these individuals is a regional director for A Wider Bridge, an organization with connections to the Israeli state and right-wing pro-Israel interest groups. A Wider Bridge has been protested for provocative actions at other LGBTQ events and has been condemned by numerous organizations (http://tarabnyc.org/cancelpinkwashing) for using Israel’s supposed ‘LGBTQ tolerance’ to Pinkwash the violent occupation of Palestine...The Chicago Dyke March Collective is explicitly not anti-Semitic, we are anti-Zionist. The Chicago Dyke Mark Collective supports the liberation of Palestine and all oppressed people everywhere. From Palestine to Mexico, border walls have got to go!!”--The Chicago Dyke March@Twitter as reported by Pinknews

On Facebook, my blogging buddy,  Mark Norris Lance, shared a statement by People Artists Collective (FTP) defending "the decision of Dyke March Chicago (DMC) to protect Palestinian participants of the march by removing a group of openly Zionist marchers from yesterday’s event in La Villita." My exchange with Mark prompted the reflections that generated this post.

Let me start by noting that, according to most reports I have read, the number of folk that seem to have been removed is three. These were seen to be "carrying rainbow flags with a blue six-pointed star in the center." This was taken to be an expression not of Jewish Gay Pride, but Zionist Gay Pride. This latter inference is not silly: for at least one of the three works for an organization (A Wider Bridge) that is self-consciously (pro-Zionist). [I quote from one of its own press releases, "A Wider Bridge has been building a movement of LGBTQ people and allies, Jews and non-Jews, with strong interest in and commitment to Israel and its LGBTQ community."] It does not follow, however, that a rainbow flag with a Star of David needs to be a statement of support for Zionism.

I have defended the legitimacy of Zionism and often post my reflections on contemporary Zionism and its history as part of a wider, immanent conversation about the future of Zionism today; but, because I take freedom of association very seriously, I also recognize that DMC has every right, even a moral right, (i) to prevent its message from being hijacked by those whose policies it does not approve* of or (ii) "to protect Palestinian participants" from exposure to Zionist imagery. I would prefer an intersectional universe in which Jews, who wish to express their Gay Pride and their favorable view of Zionism, would not be forced to choose between them, but Zionists need not be told that the world we inhabit is imperfect.

As an important aside, the history of the Star of David as a Jewish symbol is an interesting one and is generally dated to late middle ages among Ashkenazi Jews in Central Europe. (The Star was used prior to that by Christians and Jews alike.) Perhaps it had a role earlier in Jewish Kabbalah, but that was always self-consciously an exclusive enterprise even among Jews. Due to the influence of Herzl (recall these two posts) it was also adopted as a Zionist symbol in the late nineteenth century, but that did not prevent Franz Rosenzweig, who was (to put it mildly) decidedly lukewarm about Zionism, to organize his (Jewish) philosophy around the Star in The Star of Redemption. That is to say, while the Star of David as a Jewish Symbol is itself a modern phenomenon, it predates Zionism. The early Zionists chose the Star of David because they wanted a Jewish symbol that did not, I think, emphasize Judaism (as a religion), otherwise they could have chosen a Menorah.

Let's return to DMC's decision and rhetoric (in non-pejorative sense). While allowing that the DMC has the right to prevent its message from being hijacked by those whose policies it does not approve* of or "to protect Palestinian participants" from exposure to Zionist imagery, I cannot help thinking that the DMC also thereby prevented the visible, public expression of Jewish Gay Pride. Now, DMC claims that "QUEER AND TRANS ANTI-ZIONIST JEWISH FOLKS ARE WELCOME HERE...WE LOVE YOU AND NEED YOU.” (Caps in original.) So, it would be interesting to learn -- I don't mean this cynically -- how such Jews can, if they so wish, self-present themselves publicly as Jews in a DMC organized march. (I have no doubt that Jews that keep their identity low profile are surely welcome.)

Before I get to why, given that I allow that the organizers of DMC have the right to prevent its message from being hijacked (etc.), I care about the potential effacement of public expressions of Jewish identity, I should note that I am not writing this in a vacuum: there are plenty of forces, both among many of my Zionist friends as well as by those (among which I include many that are my friends) that support the BDS movement, that will happily encourage a Manichean battle in which no genuine conversation between those that support Zionism and those that criticize it is possible. That's familiar enough.

But I am also writing this at a historical moment when American Jewry is confronting some uncomfortable truths. The revival of American White nationalism,** encouraged by President Trump [whose administration is, let's stipulate, pro-Zionist]],+ is also re-opening and undermining the public role of Jewish life in American politics and civil life. This revival occurs precisely when the State of Israel is increasingly understanding its own interest as independent and distinct from the survival of American Jewry in America (recall this post and this one). This last point is illustrated by the Israeli government's refusal to embrace the Western Wall compromise (one promoted by Natan Sharansky with backing of American Jewish organizations);*** the Israeli government's rejection generated the extraordinary statement by the new head of the Jewish Agency that 'Support for Israel doesn't necessarily mean support for the Israeli government.' The Jewish Agency is the largest Jewish non-profit organization (and traditionally funded primarily by American Jewry) and, also, an umbrella organization for worldwide Zionists (it played a central role in the founding of Israel and it is connected to the Corporatist elements of Herzl's vision).

So, American Jewry finds itself at a a complex cross-roads. A generation long drift away from unquestioned support for Zionism coincides now with a renewed urgency about safe-guarding civil rights for Jews Stateside and thereby a renewed receptivity for developing coalitions with others looking to secure civil rights for all. For American Jews this means both an international struggle within international Jewry to secure a Zionism that reflects its humane values -- including a desire to come to a historic, even if elusive, compromise with Palestinian self-determination -- as well as a national struggle to prevent the further erosion of civil rights Stateside. Such a two-fold struggle is unlikely to succeed because of lack of focus and thus its energy is likely to be diluted. It is surely doomed to fail if the most energetic and politically savvy would-be-interlocutors among existing American civil rights movements show themselves unwilling to be receptive to Jews, who publicly express themselves as Jews, as fellow-travelers in the march for civil rights and dignity.

This leads me to a final observation. I have already noted above that among certain Zionists and supporters of the BDS movement there is a long-term Manichean battle, which is designed, in part, to force a choice among American Jews for or against Zionism. Many college campuses and, as the debates over DMC indicate, other areas of civil engagement are now the sites of contestation. But in Trump's America, it is an urgent task to end this Manichean battle for the only ones that gain from this battle are those that support a resurgent White nationalism.

 

 

 

On the Significance of Derrida to Analytical Philosophy

In many ways I see Derrida as following Heidegger. But he was more pessimistic than Heidegger about the prospects for good metaphysics. And he paid a kind of attention to language that Heidegger never did. One of the main things that he did was to distinguish between what he called “speech” and what he called “writing”. He meant these terms in a more or less technical way. By “speech” he meant, very roughly, the use of signs whose meanings were intrinsic to them, so that they couldn’t be misinterpreted. By “writing” he meant, again roughly, the use of signs whose meanings were extrinsic to them—that is to say, whose meanings depended on the signs’ association with other signs—so that they could be misinterpreted. And he rejected the idea there was any such thing as “speech”, so understood: there was only “writing”. This was significant, because he also argued that much traditional philosophy, including most traditional metaphysics, tacitly presupposed that there was such a thing as “speech”. This was part of the reason why he was more pessimistic than Heidegger about the prospects for good metaphysics: he was sceptical about how far metaphysics could thrive once it had unshackled itself from the traditional forms that it had taken. And this is all relevant to analytic metaphysicians too, because his arguments about the unacceptability of traditional metaphysics carry over to what they’re doing.

So yes, there is something to be said for analytic metaphysicians reading Derrida and confronting the challenge that he poses to their various enterprises. But his style and approach to philosophy are so different from theirs that it would be silly to pretend that they are liable to find his work anything other than alien. Of course I hope that my book may help in that respect, by casting some of his principal ideas in ways that analytic philosophers will find more familiar and more accessible.--Adrian Moore interviewed @3AM Magazine.[HT Leiterreports]

lt is extremely rare for analytical philosophers to say anything positive about Derrida. (In fact, I kind of enjoyed the scandal it caused me to be doing so [recall here, here, and here].)* It is even more unusual to claim that Derrida may well be relevant to analytic metaphysicians in particular. So, I have decided to read Moore's book because of the interview (so more about that not before long).

In the passage quoted above, Moore (Oxford) hints at a substantive reason for analytic philosophers to take an interest: that Derrida undermines (shall we say) the ground beneath the projects analytic metaphysicians pursue. Somewhat strikingly, Moore claims that Derrida has arguments. (This is often denied.) As presented, Derrida is a thoroughgoing semantic holist, who, thereby, makes impossible certain (presumably realist/non-idealist) metaphysical projects. Right now such holism is a non-starter. (One can say, not entirely unfairly, that it was only through the rejection of Quine's holism that contemporary metaphysics got off the ground.) But presumably Moore thinks that Derrida's version of holism is especially insightful and challenging. Moore does not say what Derrida's arguments are that can pull the analytical metaphysian back from her project.

In the passage, Moore allows that Derrida's style is "alien" to the contemporary analytical metaphysician. One may think, in fact, that Moore believes that for those trained in analytical idiom, Derrida is simply unintelligible because Derrida's idiom is incommensurable (in the Kuhnian sense, say) with ours. But a moment's reflection reveals that there is something peculiar about Moore's stance here (analogous to Kuhn's ability to discuss incommensurable scientific paradigms); for Moore clearly believes that he can read and understand Derrida. (Let's stipulate he can.) And Moore is, of course, a trained analytic metaphysician (although by no means a kneejerk realist). So, Moore implies, strongly, that despite alien first impression there is no fundamental incommensurability between an analytical philosopher and Derrida's writing. (His comprehension of Derrida is a proof of real possibility.)

As an aside, if there is no fundamental incommensurability between an analytical philosopher and Derrida's writing, then many analytical philosophers (who often claim that Derrida is bullshit) are just intellectually lazy or dishonest in their encounters with Derrida.

Be that as it may, Moore does not claim that Derrida's arguments would successfully undermine the project of the analytic metaphysian. They are said only to "challenge" them. One may wonder what the benefit of such relevance is. Moore could be thinking that such a challenge could lead to more subtle reflections on the (semantic, conceptual) foundations of the metaphysician's enterprise. It would be amusing (in a cunning of history sense) if grappling with Derrida created more stable foundations for analytical metaphysics.

Such a result would be unintended by Derrida because Derrida's skepticism about metaphysics is not just, as it were, epistemological; it has a Socratic and political or ethical element. Moore hints at the Socratic element in a touching passage:

As analytic philosophy has developed, and as it has become more and more assured, it has also become, in certain respects, less and less self-conscious. The concern with sense has never diminished. But there is less and less concern with what it is for us to make sense. For the most part, contemporary metaphysicians are more interested in just getting on with the business of making it than agonizing about what it takes for us to do so! Dummett, in that respect, can appear alien.

It is notable that the description of Dummett's philosophy is uncannily similar to the description of Derrida. They are both treated as alien. (I once wrote a whole blog post about asking when Wittgenstein had become a continental philosopher; it had not crossed my mind to ask the same about Dummett.) I have to admit that I used to find the word (and concept) 'alien' innocent--I thought of Martians who could fly away at will. But in our day and age, I think of unwelcome refugees when I hear 'alien.'

The main point of this passage is a decline and fall theme: the loss of self-consciousness. (I leave aside the rather harsh comment on the contemporary metaphysician's interest.) In fact, one may see Moore as saying that the point of an encounter with Derrida is that it would lead to a recovery of self-consciousness.

In the interview Moore does not explain the nature or point of such self-consciousness. And one may well wonder if it prevents one from getting on with the business of making it then is it really worth the agonizing, opportunity costs?

In the interview (which is admittedly brief, so this is not a complaint), Moore says nothing about Derrida's let's call it ethical or practical reasons for cautioning (recall) agains metaphysics, especially its and philosophy's more general tendency to deploy authoritative speech and, thereby, slide into authoritarian practices.  That is, in our jargon, Derrida worries about inductive risk (or, as we learn from Spivak via Dotson, epistemic violence). So understood Derrida's playful, even comic style is, in fact, an instance of responsible speech a topic that should not be alien to analytical philosophers at all (recall).**  

 

On Virginia Woolf on Thoreau being a Counterpart of Emerson

But for a time he was to live in the world of men, at least in that very remarkable section of the world of which Emerson was the centre and which professed the Transcendentalist doctrines. Thoreau took up his lodgings in Emerson’s house and very soon became, so his friends said, almost indistinguishable from the prophet himself. If you listened to them both talking with your eyes shut you could not be certain where Emerson left off and Thoreau began ‘…in his manners, in the tones of his voice, in his modes of expressions, even in the hesitations and pauses of his speech, he had become the counterpart of Mr. Emerson.’ This may well have been so. The strongest natures, when they are influenced, submit the most unreservedly; it is perhaps a sign of their strength. But that Thoreau lost any of his own force in the process, or took on permanently any colours not natural to himself the readers of his books will certainly deny.--Virginia Woolf (July 12, 1917:) commemorating the 100th anniversary of Henry David Thoreau’s birth for the Times Literary Supplement.

It's almost a century ago that Woolf published these remarks. I was reminded of her moving essay, and this passage, in particular, yesterday when, in the company of my former supervisor, I heard him (my Doktorvater), say, in passing (in a festive mood after a succesful defense of one of my students), that's just swell.+ (As it happens we had just discussed Allan Bloom's distaste for Zelig.) Now, I was not surprised by his use; I have long known that somehow, without initially noticing it, I have picked up the habit of using this (folksy) expression from him. Luckily, despite my fascination with prophets, we do not share many doctrines (but recall) and, as he will be the first to remind me, I am no Thoreau (and he is no Emerson).

While few philosophers live with their intellectual mentors, the phenomenon that Woolf describes is familiar enough. There are many mannerism associated with certain intellectual environments (when the Oxford trained philosopher of a certain generation in a galaxy far away says (recall), 'I am confused' to you, you know they think you are a moron.) I am sure the next sentence will land me in  trouble (but here goes): for a while, I could unfailingly pick out a Pittsburgh trained philosopher based on the way s/he nodded during a lecture (in apparent disagreement) or used the phrase 'deep' to pick out a favored position. (There was selection bias.)

Of course, what makes Woolf's description (she is quoting a description by a former classmate of Thoreau, the Rev. John Weiss,) especially amusing is that both Emerson and Thoreau strongly attacked conformism and praised robust forms of individuality (recall this post, for example). In fact, Woolf enjoys her own joke so much that she adds for good measure, "The strongest natures, when they are influenced, submit the most unreservedly; it is perhaps a sign of their strength." Here she is also recalling Emerson's and Thoreau's interest in magnanimity (of course a strong soul need not always be a magnanimous soul, but, following, say, Thomas (inspired by Seneca), Emerson couples them (for example here) and so does Thoreau) [for a lovely paper on this topic, see Andrew Corsa, himself a former student].

Besides joking, Woolf makes the further point that certain forms of submission may well be the expression of a form of courage.* At first, she does not explain what she has in mind. But she returns to the topic later in her essay, "He was a wild man, and he would never submit to be a tame one." Again, she echoes Thoreau here (his work is suffused with the strong tropological contrasts between wildness/strength/true America vs civilization/weakness/cultured Europe (false America). Somewhat mischievously,** Woolf goes on (in the original quote at the top of this post) to conflate the persona as presented by Thoreau to his readers with the author/the man Thoreau.

Be that as it may, we may say that for Woolf, on her reading of Thoreau,*** that in one's education, or path to wisdom, a species of courage consists in submitting to the right sort of influence or exemplar. In so doing, one need not become inauthentic (colours...natural to himself) nor loose one's identity/strength++ (lost any of his own force), although even the strong soul may do so along the way (permanently).

Woolf here reminds the reader that much true education involves a potentially temporary submission to the will of  another. (My blog-persona reminds you, dear reader, that this is also true (recall) of reading other people's ephemera.) And sometimes education involves oneself in a comical, repetitive mimicking, with or without difference, of other people's ticks or turns of phrase.

    Isn't that swell?

 

Cavendish and Contemporary Feminism

The question will be What Kind of Government we shall Settle this Kingdome…for if there be no Order and Method, there will be no Rule nor Government, since Every one will do what he List, and then None will take Care of any thing, so that there will be neither Tillage nor Trade, and if there be no Tillage nor Trade, there will be neither Food nor Money, for where there is no Government, there can be no Assurance, and who will take Pains for that they are not Sure to Keep, or rather I may say, they are Sure to Lose?...for a Good Government, which Number being United, Represents and Acts as One Man, for like as Many Mens Voices Agreeing and Consenting make it as One Mans Decree, so a Proportionable Number makes it as One Mans Ruling or Governing: Wherefore, this is the Best Kind of Government for Us, for so all the Chief Commanders in our Army, being United together, may be this whole Person in this Aristocratical Government, in which the whole Power of the Kingdome will be in Us, and so we may Govern as we shall Think good. “A Souldier's Oration concerning the Form of Government.” (emphasis added)--Margaret Cavendish from (1662) Orations in a Disordered or yet Unsettled Government.

In this post I presuppose, controversially, that (a) Margaret Cavendish (1623 – 1673) is a systematic philosopher;* (b) that she has a distinctive political theory (without (recall) denying the debts to Xenophon, Bacon (recall), and Hobbes, in particular); (c) that the individual orations express elements this political theory from a particular and partial point of view (so a proper understanding of each, presupposes (b)). In the oration just quoted, Cavendish imagines a post-conquest moment. So, to put this in Hobbesian terms, she is imagining the circumstances of an exit from the state of nature by way of conquest (see, for example, Leviathan Chapter 20).

For Cavendish, who is a (pan-psychist) substance-monist, all individuals are societies and any 'part' of substance can be a society/individual (this is true in her metaphysical and political writings). Any individual/society consists of a (completely blended) rational, sensitive, and an inanimate element. (These can be blended in different proportions.) The "rational part...in the framing of natural effects, is, as it were, the surveyor or architect." (OEP 24) In addition, an individual/society is functioning properly if it is (properly) ordered. This post addresses, in part, what this amounts to.

Within a properly ordered individual/society, there is (as we have already just noted) a hierarchically structured division of labor. Cavendish thinks this is true of "every Part, or Corporeal Motion, [which] knows its own Office; like as Officers in a Common-wealth, although they may not be acquainted with each other, yet they know their Employments: So every particular Man in a Common-wealth, knows his own Employment, although he knows not every Man in the Commonwealth." (GNP 5.V, 51)

As the "soldier" says in the "oration," rational (and rationalizing) order is presupposed in (genuine) government (as opposed to tyranny). The aim of government is to secure the benefits of trade and agriculture; government is presupposed in trade and agriculture because it provides security and reduces uncertainty (i.e., assurance). Unlike many political theorists with hierarchical (monarchical and aristocratic) sympathies (recall), Cavendish is anti-war (and generally pacific, but not a pacifist).

For Cavendish the point of government -- and this is clear from her plays and stories, too, is the fruits of peace. In such a society happiness will reign.  As she explains in her natural philosophy, in "a Regular Society, every Part and Particle of the Body, is Regularly agreeable, and Sympathetical." (GNP 5.V, 52) That is, when the parts of a society/individual/body sympathize with each other this presupposes unity (for more on this see this point volume [or this post]).

This is not the place to explore the nature of proportionality (and the defense of aristocracy) at play in the quoted passage. Rather, I call attention to the fact that even in conquest, the soldier can recognize that political unity is constituted by the consent of all. That is to say, for Cavendish a proper functioning, hierarchical political unity may well be founded on force. But it is only a proper unity when all its members are flourishing (sympathetically) (recall also): “so that the several parts of one Society, as one Creature, have both Passionate Love, and Self-love, as being sympathetically united in one Society ” (GNP V.XXI)

There is a lot more to be said about the nature of happiness and sympathetic flourishing due to prosperity and proper functioning of the part in a political unity that is founded on the always present threat of force but compatible with (tacit) consent. Here I just want to call attention to one feature that may be relevant to feminism today, and those of us that read feminism in order to re-think our deepest commitments.

Charlotte Shane writes, in the context of criticizing, feminist-inspired/lauded prosecutions (and convictions) of sex-work (the direct target is Sen. Kamala Harris's past as a prosecutor), as follows:

One of the most intractable sticking points in these political battles involves the inconvenient truth that sexual labor is only as exploitative as other forms of labor, which, under capitalism, compel participation through the implicit threat of ostracism, homelessness, sickness, and starvation. We in the US have yet to see a concerted push from contemporary feminists to rethink the desirability and inevitability of capitalism. Politically, it is safe to attack sex work as immoral and coercive but less so to say such things about domestic labor or farming jobs.

Participation in heterosexuality, too, has long been compelled under similar terms.-Charlotte Shane, Retrospectively Reviewing Whores and Other Feminists (1997), @ Bookforum, Summer 2017.

From a standard liberal-feminist perspective, one might think that the problem diagnosed by Shane is the existence of the implicit threat exercised by illegitimate force (e.g., ostracism, homelessness, sickness, and starvation.). People wouldn't generally be doing bad things (e.g., sex-work), a (naive) liberal may say, if we could remove the pre-conditions that make them susceptible to coercion and other pressure. Such a liberal may advocate a basic-income, say, or social welfare state (that reduce the threats of homelessness, sickness, and starvation.).  But this (naive liberal) response misses the point of Shane's challenge because it ignores both (i) the exercise of legitimate force against the  vulnerable in society (state prosecution of sex-work, say, or property rights against the homeless, etc.) as well (ii) the many ways in which such tacit threat is -- let's stipulate for the sake of argument -- endemic to capitalism. In addition, (iii) the vulnerable victims of legitimate (threats of) force by the state and capitalism is gendered (and racialized, etc.). Here I ignore to what degree contemporary feminists, even liberal feminists, have recognized the problem diagnosed by Shane.

I close with an observation. Cavendish is far removed from contemporary liberalism and (modern) feminism. But her perspective is helpful in thinking about Shane's challenge. For from Cavendish's perspective the (threat) of violence/coercion may be in-elimable from political life. For her such threat and some hierarchy really cannot be avoided. But what matters are the conditions generated by political life. From Cavendish's perspective the main problem with contemporary uses of state violence and the many (tacit) threats/forms of coercion in modern economies is that these make people miserable and enemies of each other (even if in the long run the economy grows, such violence can be legitimated procedurally, or even substantially, etc.).

Cavendish is, thus, in no-trivial-part a consequentialist about the nature of society in which all of us need to be flourishing and happy. This is far removed from the contemporary, maximizing utilitarian who works with averages or median utility. For, Cavendish makes one ask not 'when is the use of force legitimate?'; but rather, how can the violence in society be ordered such that everybody is likely to be happy/flourishing? And, this, I think allows one to start thinking more clearly about the challenge that Shane diagnoses.

On Seneca's Mortal Meditations, Impartial Spectators, and Public Crimes (and Janis Joplin)

"Think on death." ['Meditare mortem'] In saying this, [Epicurus] bids us to meditate on freedom [meditari libertatem].  He who has learned to die has unlearned slavery; he is above any power [supra omnem potentiam est], or, at any rate, he is beyond it.  What terrors have prisons and bonds and bars for him?  His way out is clear.  There is only one chain which binds us to life, and that is the love of life [amor vitae].  The chain may not be cast off, but it may be rubbed away, so that, when it is timely [ut si quando res exiget] nothing may retard or hinder us from being ready to do at once that which at some time we are bound to do.--Seneca, Letter 26.

Nietzsche famously castigates Platonism (the whole of Western philosophy) as a life-denying philosophy. At first sight Seneca's mortal meditations confirm the charge: we should meditate on death in order to overcome the love life. Yet, the point of thinking about death is to overcome the ways in which the love of life enslave us and thereby secure true liberty. For, by implication, Seneca holds that when we often assume we are free, we are really in the grip of some attachment, which we are unwilling to lose, and which constrains our actions.

The passage helps explain the fact that while Stoicism could have an apathetic or quietist consequence, it also "had," as Adam Smith noted, "very great influence upon the character and conduct of its followers," and "that though it might sometimes incite them to unnecessary violence, its general tendency was to animate them to actions of the most heroic magnanimity and most extensive benevolence." (Smith fails to note the significance of freedom, although elsewhere in the section he does connect the Stoics to liberty.)

Contemporary, scholarly readers may see in this passage an affirmation of republicanism (a Ciceronian version of which has been revived). But it is by no means always obvious that Seneca is a republican, and, in context, Seneca seems not to be focused on a particular political order (although, of course, he was intimately familiar with the institution of slavery); but, rather, on a certain comportment to life (or death). In fact, the letter as a whole tries analyze how much of Seneca's present character is a consequence of wisdom (that is prior emendation) and how much of it is a consequence of his old age.

So, here it is not entirely clear what Seneca means by freedom. In fact, I doubt that Seneca insists on acting without constraints at all.* For, in the previous Letter 25 (which I commented on obliquely last time) had discussed what we would call ethics by the introduction of an impartial spectator device. In fact, any spectator will do:

There is no real doubt that it is good for one to have appointed a guardian over oneself, and to have someone whom you may look up to, someone whom you may regard as a witness of your thoughts. It is, indeed, nobler by far to live as you would live under the eyes of some good man, always at your side; but nevertheless I am content if you only act, in whatever you do, as you would act if anyone at all were looking on [ut sic facias quaecumque facies tamquam spectet aliquis:].--Letter 25

It is quite notable here, that for Seneca the spectator within need not be Cato or Scipio but can be anyone. Seneca is willing to embrace such egalitarian spectatorship because he thinks that  "solitude prompts us to all kinds of evil" [omnia nobis mala solitudo persuadet.] (Letter 25) What makes me shudder is that today so many political crimes are executed in front of the camera, even demand its presence.

Be that as it may, I was suddenly reminded of the Stoic echoes in Janis Joplin's version of Me and Bobby McGee (written by Kris Kristofferson, who performs it with Joan Baez here):

 

On Being A Particular Scholar's Gate-Keeper

About a decade ago I refereed a paper which seemed familiar. I decided to check my archive (that is my email account), and I found a rather lengthy and what seemed (to me) generous referee report on an earlier version of the same, barely changed paper. I filed a second, somewhat more curmudgeonly report (mostly cut and paste from the first one), but alerted the editor of the (second) journal that I had seen this paper before (with apologies I had not alerted him to it earlier in the stage). A few months later I was sent the same paper by a third journal. The paper was essentially unchanged from the earlier versions. I told the editor that it was pointless for me to referee it again because I had refereed the paper twice before and that in my opinion the author was not responsive to my criticism. The editor decided to send the paper to another referee.

At the time I had no idea who the author of the paper was, although I have to admit that I had developed a certain amount of irritation about him. In my imagination the author was a stubborn scholar immune to my helpful attempts to call attention to detailed evidence that undermined his position. I also thought of him as ungrateful because I had put in a lot of work to offer (splendid!) advice on the paper--work that would go unrewarded professionally and, now, unnoticed, too.

The case I describe occurred in history of philosophy--where most journals practice so-called double-blind or (in deference to my wife--an eye surgeon) double-masked review. By contrast, in some fields, say, economics and history of economics, when one is refereeing one nearly always knows the author's identity (so-called single-blind, etc.). This is pretty problematic, and perhaps I should stop reviewing for such journals. But here I ignore that it is problematic and what I can do about it. (Mea culpa: I have been pretty lethargic in protesting this state of affairs.) A while ago, I noticed that during the last half decade I was often being asked to review the work of particular young scholars, who were otherwise unknown to me. None of the cases involved anything like the situation described in the previous two paragraphs. (That is, I read the papers, write reports, and then the experience merges into the mush that is my professional life.) In some cases I hope I'll meet the young scholar in person one day because I was excited about their work.

Even so, I have started to wonder what it means that for some junior scholars (I can think of at least four), I am literally one of the referees on the vast majority of the refereed papers they have published. (That's an easy thing to check given that most young scholars have updated versions of their CV online.) Part of me thinks this can't be healthy for them (and the field). I am happy to be gate-keeper, but now I worry that my scholarly niches and complete strangers (whose careers are on the line) have been shaped by the idiosyncratic nature of my intellectual sensibilities. (Yes, I recognize that the self-image may be a delusion, but it's a better delusion than those that think of their own work as un-problematic mainstream or cutting edge.)

Now, journals have lots of ways of preventing over-reliance on particular referees. But they are somewhat powerless to prevent different editors of different journals of over-using the same referee for particular papers (absent a data-base which would likely undermine anonymity).* [In fact, some scholarly conglomerates now find ways to ensure that you review a paper again (by having their software ask you if you would be willing to review for a sister journal).] For, while it is not a coincidence that I get asked to review these papers, the particular journal editors may call on me rather rarely.

My current inclination is to decline requests to referee when I notice that I am a frequent referee for a particular, junior person. This stance, if it is more widely shared, may also encourage editors to think outside the box and draw on a wider range of referees. Having just written the previous two sentences, it occurs to me that such a stance may also make it harder for journals to find (willing) referees and, thereby, undermine the opportunities for professional advancement of the younger scholars and the wider circulation of their ideas (which hurts the cause of truth). So, now I am  unsure about what to do. I welcome hearing what readers think.

Before I close this Digression, one final remark: I learned the identity of the stubborn and ungrateful author years later after the paper was published pretty much unchanged in the third journal. (I didn't look for the paper, but scholar.google brought it to my attention.) As it happens, by then I had many pleasant and stimulating interactions with the person at various conferences. Even so, I harbor a modest resentment and suspicion toward this person (now happily tenured) and I will not review any other papers by him if I can avoid it.

At the Dusk of Liberalism; Spinoza, the Unraveling of NATO, and Liberal Institutions

This "contract" remains so long unmoved as the motive for entering into it, that is, fear of hurt or hope of gain, subsists. But take away from either commonwealth this hope or fear, and it is left independent (Chap. II. Sec. 10), and the link, whereby the commonwealths were mutually bound, breaks of itself. And therefore every commonwealth has the right to break its contract, whenever it chooses, and cannot be said to act treacherously or perfidiously in breaking its word, as soon as the motive of hope or fear is removed. For every contracting party was on equal terms in this respect, that whichever could first free itself of fear should be independent, and make use of its independence after its own mind; and, besides, no one makes a contract respecting the future, but on the hypothesis of certain precedent circumstances. But when these circumstances change, the reason of policy applicable to the whole position changes with them; and therefore every one of the contracting commonwealths retains the right of consulting its own interest, and consequently endeavours, as far as possible, to be free from fear and thereby independent, and to prevent another from coming out of the contract with greater power. If then a commonwealth complains that it has been deceived, it cannot properly blame the bad faith of another contracting commonwealth, but only its own folly in having entrusted its own welfare to another party, that was independent, and had for its highest law the welfare of its own dominion.--Spinoza Political Treatise (translated by Elwest) 3.14.

This post was prompted by Andrew Sabl's fine restatement (at Niskanen) of the nature and use liberal institutions in light of the fact that when "the core institutions of liberal democracy are threatened, it is necessary—as it usually isn’t—to examine why they exist and why they are valuable." It's an important, creative, and original piece, and it makes me think that now that we're confronting the possible collapse of liberal project, some of the best theorizing about (let's call it) non-ideal liberal theory is possible. But not unlike Jacob Levy's recent essay (recall my discussion), Sabl's piece not does discuss the international dimension in which liberalism operates.  (This may be due to the fact that Niskanen seems to be a think-tank oriented toward American domestic politics.) That's a problem because I want to discuss the unraveling of NATO.

Even so, it's useful to draw on Sabl's insights when discussing NATO, and it may help us formulate a better liberalism for the future.  Sabl identifies six features of modern liberal institutions. What follows is all quoted from his essay (but in abbreviated format, so don't blame him for any confusion):

1. a modern institution must be large-scale and anonymous; it must allow us to benefit from the contributions of strangers, not just intimates. It must operate by managing conflict and diversity rather than wishing it away. And it must be open to steady improvement, either by learning and reform within a society or—a source of improvement neglected by much political theory—by observing and borrowing other societies’ best practices.
2. modern liberal institutions owe their past development and present stability to their ability  to serve the interests of all members of society (by promoting in some sense equal opportunity.)
3. a modern liberal institution promotes indefinite and multiple values and purposes, rather than giving priority to any one (or none);
4. modern liberal institutions value diversity and conflict up to a point; and their first preference in dealing with agents who threaten to bring about truly dangerous conflict is to marginalize and discredit them, limiting their influence and impact, rather than resorting to direct coercion;
5. modern liberal institutions need not reflect a prior plan, nor a post-hoc consensus: they typically arise largely accidentally, and persist in the face of sharp disagreement (or, more commonly, mere ignorance and unconcern) as to their essential nature and proper working.
6. modern liberal institutions occupy controverted jurisdictions: each has partisans who want to expand its turf at the risk of impinging on others’.
   

It's clear at once that NATO does not really fit feature (i), but remarkably and surprisingly enough it does fit the other features quite well. (I won't argue this here, and open to challenge.) Now, I treat NATO as one of the key, constitutive institutions that made the liberal order (Pax Americana) since 1950 possible.* That is, I see it as a liberal mechanism to escape, perhaps temporarily, the state of nature that characterizes international politics by way of a mutual contract (recall this piece on Sabl and Hume). It secured American, transatlantic hegemony, and thereby prevented the possibility of a rival military power, and it provided collective security against external threats (primarily the USSR) and internal threats (primarily communist revolutions) while tolerating quite a few dictatorships in its midst. It's this security arrangement that by reducing political uncertainty and regulating and constraining would-be-conflicts made possible all the huge, collective gains from the evolving liberal economic orders since and, en passant, created a fairly captive market for US arms. (Thus this is not to deny a reciprocal relationship in that economic interests promoted NATO, and that American economic and intellectual power were a cause of its military power, etc.)

As Spinoza teaches (see above), it is very difficult to maintain an alliance when a common enemy disappears (no fear) or when individual gain seems unlikely. With the collapse of the USSR, fear disappeared. (NATO was not just founded in opposition to USSR, of course; it was also designed to keep the Germans down.) But that's almost 30 years ago (wow I am getting old). And while it tried to define new missions for itself, inertia and the win-win liberal economic order kept it going. 

Now, by the time of the end of the Cold War nearly all of its members were liberal democracies or aspiring to become one, so one may well have responded to Spinoza by suggesting that common values can also keep an alliance together. (There is a whole literature on the claim that liberal democracies don't go to war with each other [recall my post on the pre-history of this meme in Addison and Kant].) That claim does not rely on other liberal commitments. (For example, Marxists were once happy to assume that Marxists would be friendly to each other; absolutist monarchies were known to support each other against all kinds of uprisings, etc.) I think shared values can be a strong tie, but as we're learning liberal democracies may, in fact, evolve such that their values seem to be conflicting/inimical to each other. I think that's happening.

For, we're witnessing the unraveling of NATO in front of our eyes: this week Germany decided to withdraw some of its troops from a Turkish airbase, after the Turks refused access to the base by German parliamentarians. A few months ago a Turkish minister was refused access to a campaign rally (involving the Turkish referendum) and evicted from the the Netherlands. These days European journalists are routinely detained in Turkey on some charge or another. Nominally, these are all NATO allies. It's hard to say what is cause and effect but ever since the Taxim square crackdown, European clear reluctance to let Turkey start final, EU accession talks, the EU and Turkey have been moving increasingly far apart and Turkey is sliding into petty tyranny.** This matters because in the Syria civil war, the proxies supported by various interested NATO allies (primarily Turkey, USA, and France) were effectively fighting each other.

The previous paragraph all describe issues that have developed during President Obama's tenure, so this is not a bash-Trump-post. But if the US had an interest in keeping the NATO alliance together we would not see this increasing escalation of friction over differences. Yet, throughout his campaign, President Trump has been -- to put this politely -- lukewarm over the future of NATO; his recent unwillingness to reaffirm article 5 (the core commitment to mutual defense) means that the mutual trust presupposed in NATO is evaporating. Officially, Trump wants to renegotiate the financial terms of NATO, but that de facto entails a willingness to walk away from it (recall my recent post that rationalizes Trump's foreign policy). This is not just idle speculation, for Trump's actions are being interpreted as such most prominently by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Let me wrap up by returning to Sabl's list in light of NATO's development and present crisis. I think (ii) needs to be rephrased in terms of belief (so: modern liberal institutions owe their past development and present stability to their ability  to serve the perceived interests of all). I think (v) is right, but in his piece, Sabl overlooks the significance of some level of mutual trust (or, if one prefers, social capital). Nationalist-liberals (like Mill) or nationalist critics of liberalism (recall Haivry & Hazony) tend to point to the nation as a source of such trust. The nationalists are wrong in thinking that the nation is the only or best source of such trust (religions and other sources of shared value may be equally capable), but I think too many contemporary liberals have forgotten that dispositions that allow us to maintain some sense of unity need to be cultivated on an ongoing basis (recall) and cannot be left (and this builds on Sabl) to the market or to ideals of justice un-grounded in reactive attitudes. This requires effective (and potentially collective) leadership. And, finally, this shows (iv) really presupposes that none of the agents (or group of the agents) has effective veto-power or are indispensable to the functioning of the institution as the USA is in NATO.***

On Wanting To Be A Public Philosopher

• Do you actually want to? 

  • ...nobody should have to be a public philosopher. Although it can be valuable, it can also be risky, and it isn't suitable for every kind of philosopher or for every kind of philosophical work.
  • If you are only here in response to external pressure in this direction, and this is not something you're motivated to do for your own reasons, or for its own sake, IMO you're within your rights to resist that pressure citing the risks and/or the inappropriateness of this kind of work for your situation.

• Be aware of the risks.

  • Online hate and abuse are disproportionately directed at women, POC, LGBTQ people and other groups who experience discrimination, but anyone can be targeted. There are psychological, emotional, legal, financial, and other risks involved in public-facing work. They are often unpredictable.
  • Hate and abuse do not only occur online, even if they begin there. If you become a public figure your personal safety may be put at risk through e.g. doxxing, stalking, and dangerous physical mail. Academics are typically easy to target as our work addresses and phone numbers are posted freely online by our universities and our physical office spaces are often accessible to anyone.
  • If you belong to a university or other institution, find out what support and protections they provide. If nothing (or too little) is available, you might want to suggest/request/demand that they do better. Especially if your institution, department, or funding agency is actively encouraging you to engage in the risky business of public scholarship, they should support and help you when you do.
  • Some colleagues, in philosophy and elsewhere in the academy, do not respect public-facing scholarship. Some will even view it as evidence that you've lost interest in—or failed at—"real" philosophy. This can be an issue in securing employment as well as for promotion, tenure, and other forms of assessment.
  • Even positive experiences in the public arena can be exhausting and unpredictable. For example, media interest tends to come in viral waves, the timing of which can depend on all kinds of factors beyond your control and won't respect your teaching schedule.

• Have something to say.

  • It should be something you care enough about, and that enough people will want to hear, to make your efforts worthwhile. If you are going to make a serious investment of time, emotional energy, research funding, and other things into public work, you need to believe in your project and your message.
  • I started to do public-facing work in earnest when I started to research the philosophy of love. My work on the epistemology of arithmetic is no less important to me, but it isn't suitable for the same kind of public audience, and that's OK (see above).

• Consider who you want to be in the public arena.

  • If you develop a public profile, you will almost certainly be judged both positively and negatively for pretty much anything you do. Under these circumstances, integrity is challenging but essential. I recommend thinking carefully in advance about your intended public image, persona, personal brand, or whatever you like to call it.
  • I created a list of features I would aim to embody in my public-facing self. You don't need to be that explicit about it, but it helps to have a sense of direction and personal ethics to maintain consistency as you build a platform and audience.
  • Think ahead about your preferences with respect to privacy, as well as those of people around you (such as family members, collaborators, and colleagues). Keep these conversations current—people and situations change.

• Know that you will need different skill sets.

  • Philosophers trained in a typical contemporary philosophy PhD program are not trained to be public philosophers. Don't expect it to be easy to transfer what you already know into the public sphere. Although often ignored, trivialized, or disparaged, everything listed in Part 2 below is an achievement.

  • I've found learning to write and speak for public audiences very challenging. I experienced a steep learning curve. I'm still learning rapidly...--Carrie Jenkins " So You Want To Be A Public Philosopher?" [HT DailyNous; all emphases in original]

I warmly recommend Carrie Jenkins's post to would-be-public philosophers, their would-be-peers and evaluators, and people that love public philosophers (for whatever reason). The piece is full of important insights and suggestions (there is a lot more than I quoted above), and I would echo her focus on integrity (recall). In particular, I really like how she calls attention to the significance of advance planning. Importantly, Jenkins calls attention to the responsibilities of institutions, not the least universities and grant agencies, that encourage public philosophy, but often provide shamefully few resources to support colleagues that are being threatened or abused/harassed from various angles or become targets of political campaigns. (The previous sentence draws on my experiences of my departmental colleagues and myself.) In addition, Jenkins is right to call attention to the reputational risks of doing public philosophy. We do have a lot of colleagues who fail to respect public-facing scholarship, but use it, as she suggests, as a proxy for lack of philosophical ability.

I like how Jenkins speaks of "public-facing" work/scholarship. It is clear that she tries to make it symmetrical with, let's call it, peer-facing scholarship. She is right to emphasize that they draw on different skill sets, and that our professional training does not really prepare us for public-facing work. (Having said that, European universities and grant agencies are increasingly offering seminars to address some of the required skill set as part of graduate training.) Her underlying (tacit) model, however, is that of publicizing insights she developed through her peer-facing expertise.  That is, for Jenkins some peer-facing expertise is suitable for development to a public audience (and some not). That is, this is really a matter of (to use European technocratic-speek) disseminating peer-evaluated research findings to a wide audience.

To be sure, Jenkins's model is compatible with skipping publication in peer-facing outlets (journals) and hybrid versions (publishing some material for fellow experts and other material only in public venues, but with expert-quality documentation available--Piketty did a version of this and, perhaps, also Jenkins in her work on love). But my point is that public philosophy so conceived has an implied directionally from peer-facing expertise to public-facing exposure. There is nothing wrong with this conception. But it is not the only possible conception of the genre (for more of my views on public philosophy, recall here, here on Dotson's service philosophy, and here on some blogging as public philosophy).

Before I get to to that, it is worth noting that even in Jenkins's model of public philosophy, the person, who is a philosopher, and who faces the public, may well change. Jenkins hints at this by calling attention to the many skills and new dispositions one acquires by doing public philosophy. Even leaving aside (due to opportunity costs) that one may not be able to participate with the same dedication and attention to peer-facing philosophy, one may become a different kind of philosopher entirely. Here the metaphor of face is not innocent; by professionally facing others, one also becomes -- go read your Levinas - part of their community. A public-facing orientation generates duties, loyalties, and obligations and these when taken serious, in turn, transform the person. I don't mean the previous sentence to be my last word on it (it's not the first), but as the Hypatia debacle revealed (recall), research ethics are not fully developed within professional philosophy yet.

And this gets me to another possible conception of the genre. It is quite possible for public-facing philosophy to influence or displace peer-facing philosophy. (To give a standard example: Socrates undoubtedly talked quite a bit to Plato, one hopes, but quite possibly spent a lot more time talking to non-philosophers.) By this I mean that public-philosophy entails a receptivity toward the risk that one's peer-facing philosophy is not just influenced by one's engagements with public others, but, more importantly, shaped by one's public-facing activities. For example, and it's not my area of expertise, but it is my sense from reading Judith Butler that gender theory was shaped by (no doubt, theory-mediated) encounters with lived experience that in certain respects ran well in advance of gender theory. (Some such analogous transformative experience occurred to me through my engagements with professional economists--I didn't go native [despite being employed in a social science department], but I look very differently at my own profession and its history now. I am confident plenty of philosophers of mind, say, were changed by their immersion in some of the cognitive sciences.)

The way such public-facing work can shape peer-faced work is unpredictable. Some will start muttering about lowered standards and lack of seriousness--and, indeed, there are genuine risks. But the would-be-shaping of peer-faced scholarship is, in fact, a central argument in favor of public-facing work. As I have noted before, analytical philosophy has low barriers to entry and little in the way of doctrinal or even (much) methodological expertise. At its best, it has a sponge-like capacity to constantly rejuvenate itself -- some would say be disciplined -- by way of outward engagement with mathematics, the other sciences, history, and even the arts, etc. There is no reason to end rejuvenation by way of facing-other-expert-areas. But, in addition, if we are being encouraged to face and transform the public, we should not be afraid to be transformed by it.