Before moving on to debating secularism versus...something else, I wanted to say regarding DM's advocacy of localism that one of the reasons I just don't find this very compelling is that I feel that the "national" is in a very real way the "local" for me, and I suspect for lots of other people. I identify myself as an American more than an Angeleno, or any other regional identity I might've laid claim to in my life to date, and I'd wager that most Americans are the same way. So when my national government is run by crooks and/or imbeciles, when it does stupid shit like invade countries for bad, deceptive reason, this effects me at least as much as, if not more than, if my local level politics is corrupt or dysfunctional. This is part of the reason that 33 dead at Virginia Tech or a Kansas town wiped out by a tornado merits days of non-stop coverage while death and destruction several magnitudes greater in Iraq day after day merits hardly a mention. What happens in America is the local, what happens in other countries isn't. I think a good liberal hope/goal is that someday we could think of all the world as "local" and feel the same concern for suffering in, e.g. the Congo, that we do (hopefully) for suffering in the states. I don't know if that's possible, but I think it's a decent thing to aspire to and I think the environmental problems facing the world today demand that we try.
There's a sense in DMs arguments that the identity of "American" isn't worth laying claim to or arguing over--he seems to think that this identity can't provide the sort of affective, aesthetic intensity that he thinks politics should possess. I'd disagree. I'd clarify that I certainly don't support a xenophobic or jingoistic nationalism. The bond I feel towards my country is kind of like the bond I feel with my family--it's based more on an emotional identification than any belief that it's objectively the best country. You still love your family even if they do things that drive you crazy, and you don't stop caring about them even though your friend's family is obviously a lot cooler; you don't love them uncritically--you're aware of their failings and concerned when they fuck up. I can imagine scenarios where I'd pretty much give up on America, just as I can imagine scenarios--chronic, hardcore theiving junkiehood, for example--where I might have to give up on a family member, but I don't see the US as anywhere near that point.
Of course I'm in no way opposed to being involved with politics, including "lifestyle" politics, at the really local level, either, just don't get advocating giving up on the national.
23 comments:
I think this post raises the question of mediation in a very interesting way. As TN's analogy between nation and family cleary points out, the national is only possible through media of communication and infotainment/propaganda. How else could a 19th century analogy (family=nation) survive in the face of completly transformed social-economic realities? The preference for a mediated national identity vs the one I think a call for localism envisions may not be too great in terms of mundane political realities (city councils are mini congresses bound by a political hierarchy that stretches from dc to dillweed Alaska) but I do think we need not abandon a politics of the immediate, a spatial-temporal category which is not bound by binaries of national and local.
correction: the preference for a mediated national identity vs the one I think a call for localism envisions may not be too great of a difference in terms of mundane political realities.....
The local/national debate is one I don't really get. Whether problems should be attacked at the local, national, or international level is a question that has to be answered on a case-by-case basis. I'm guessing that everyone here would agree with me on this (although we might disagree on particular cases), so what's the real issue?
One issue seems to be whether one identifies more with one's neighborhood or one's country, and how that pans out politically. As I understand him, DM thinks that people do tend to identify more with the local, and further thinks that political movements should leverage this identification more. He might be right about that, but that in no way implies that there's something wrong with identifying with your country, or with national politics in general. So again (to pretty much repeat what TN has said), I don't see that we're presented with an either/or choice here. I'm with TN in identifying myself more as an American than as a Californian or Santa Barbarian (is that how you say it?). I care more about my country than any city I've lived in. That's just a fact about me. Other people are different, I'm sure.
There are of course differences between national politics and local politics, identifying with your city or neighborhood and identifying with your country. As TC points out, our access to what goes on at the national level is necessarily more "mediated" than our awareness of what goes on locally (although the media still plays an essential role locally, usually, and when you have a shitty local paper like we do in Santa Barbara, you might question how much more immediate local politics really is). So there are probably some interesting questions there: Are we being hoodwinked by the national media? Is everyone else being hoodwinked by the national media? How much does the media really "control" what one thinks about one's own city, state, or country? Is there a common national self-image that can be leveraged for the greater good?
I think it's probably accurate to say that most Americans identify more with the nation than the city where they live, but is this a good thing? As Transcritique seems to imply, this is very much a product of a world where people constantly move from city to city and human interactions are mediated through technology.
TigreNoche writes: "The bond I feel towards my country is kind of like the bond I feel with my family--it's based more on an emotional identification than any belief that it's objectively the best country."
I think this statement indicates that TC08 is correct in suggesting that there is a lot in common between TN's nationalism and my localism - both are grounded in specific spaces. However, I wonder if something isn't lost when a bond towards one's neighborhood is replaced with a bond towards nation. It seems that this inevitably eliminates the diversity of possible voices - we all become Americans rather than Oregonians, Texans, and Porlanders. If we agree that the maintenance of diversity is a value worth promoting (and perhaps we don't agree on this) then I think prioritizing the local over the national is a worthwhile project. There is nothing wrong with a national identity, but it worries me when this smothers other place based identities.
Why does having a national identity smother more locally based identities or somehow eliminate diversity? I think that the two can co-exist quite nicely. I think that there's plenty of diversity in America and the world today, though it's maybe becoming more based around things besides locale, I support maintaining that diversity and don't really buy the idea that we're all becoming somehow completely homogenous.
One can argue the opposite of your point fairly easily--that diversity is lessened at the local/neighborhood level, where people tend to self-segregate and the pressure to conform increases, and diversity is made easier when one has the relative anonymity of the city, the larger, more impersonal setting in which to craft an identity.
Maybe America has lost a lot of it's regional identities in the last 50 or 100 years, but in the process gained openly gay identities, middle class black identities, anarchist bike punk identities and urban advanced degree holders with bohemian tastes identities, and loads more. That's a trade off I'm willing to make.
First, I wonder if those identities you describe: gay, bike punks, black middle class, etc. aren't in some way related to the maintenance of distinctive local places. Maybe I'll come back to that later.
I had a chance to read one of the chapters from Connolly's book and it fits quite well with our discussion here. In chapter 4, "Freelancing the Nation" he analyzes William Bennett's war on drugs and war on culture in the mid 1990's in order to argue that the conservative right constructs the nation as symbol that is useful in a wider political battle. Connolly argues that Bennett's construction of the nation is "spiritual" in the sense that it is an abstraction that depends on shared meaning and faith. The nation is used to exclude or include individuals and groups in a way that has political implications. In Bennett's discourse criminals and leftist academics are not part of the nation while white middle class men are. If I understand Connolly correctly he is arguing that typical leftist response of critically deconstructing the nation is not adequate. If Bennett's construction of the nation has religious dimensions (faith in a symbolic entity) then the left must respond in a similar fashion. As Tigrenoche suggests, it may be possible to combine local and national identities and this is precisely what Connolly seems to suggest. He argues for the construction of a pluralist nation. In the chapter I've read he doesn't really elaborate on how this would take place. It seems to me that advancing localist narratives is one step in the right direction. When The Rats sing about the power of Burnside they advance a local lifestyle. Perhaps if the Nation could be constructed from various local lifestyles this would represent an important political victory. It is perhaps telling that all of the identities that Tigrenoche mentions are to some extent disenfranchised from the nation. Gays aren't permitted to marry, urban intellectuals are "elites" who are separate from real people, "middle class" blacks seem ok but what about all of the black men in prison? Reincorporating these groups into the nation involves more than legalizing gay marriage. It involves the symbolic construction of the nation through the imagery and lifestyles of urban gay neighborhoods, black prisoners, and bike punks. These individuals and groups are localisms that must be acknowledged before the nation can be reappropriated by the left.
Rather than: "the symbolic construction of the nation through the imagery and lifestyles of urban gay neighborhoods, black prisoners, and bike punks. These individuals and groups are localisms that must be acknowledged before the nation can be reappropriated by the left." which I'm not quite sure I understand what is entailed, couldn't we, in boring old liberal fashion, say "America's a great country. It was founded on some really good ideas--liberty, equality--that we haven't done a very good job of living up to. Too many people still don't get a fair shake in this country because of the color of their skin or who they love. America's a great country. It's got one of the most vibrant economies in the world. But too often the rich have been taking more than their fair share of the wealth we're creating and leaving too many of the people that really make this possible--the workers--struggling to get by." Or some such thing. You've got an appeal to values most Americans already identify with--fairness, equality--an appeal to faith in a symbolic entity (the truly egalitarian, pluralistic America that could be) and it's an appeal that works just as well running for city council as the white house.
And come to think of it, I think that the less emphasis placed on the imagery and lifestyles of urban gay neighborhoods and black prisoners the better. This, especially with the gays, is where a robust defense of a separation between the public and private is probably advantageous. Even lots of people who are totally supportive of gay rights get a little creeped out by bondage gear and steam rooms.
Anyways, I guess I'm still just not seeing where preferencing the local comes in.
DM:
That last post was a slippery one; I don't really see where you were going with it. Here are some sources of my confusion:
I don't know anything about Bennett or Connolly, but what I got from your post is that Bennett markets his political view by painting an "us vs. them" sort of picture, and that he leverages religion (amongst other things) to do this.
Surely, Connolly isn't suggesting that this is what the left has to do. So what is it about Bennett that Connolly thinks the left can learn from?
I don't know what the "typical leftist response of critically deconstructing the nation" is. Could you explain this, maybe giving an example?
It also might help if you explain what you mean by "faith," and how it's supposed to be related to politics.
I don't see what "localism" has to do with any of this. What does it mean to "construct" a national identity out of local identities? Is there anything wrong with TN's claim that local and national identities can coexist in a healthy way? What's wrong with identifying with your nation more than your city?
The problem with TN's suggestion is that similar to the nationalisms advanced by conservatives, it posits a very singular notion of the nation. As I've noted in other posts, terms like fairness and equality have very different meanings to different people. To construct a national identity around an issue of fairness creates too much potential for excluding groups that have differing notions of what it means to be fair. For example, for some it is "fair" to punish low level drug dealers with long prison sentences, for others this is clearly not fair.
However I am not arguing for a total deconstruction of the nation. By that I mean the sort of critique that points out the problems with assuming that someone in rural Alaska has somethig in common with a resident of Miami that is best described with the word "American." I think Tigrenoche and I both agree that nationalism has value in the same sense religion has value. It provides a sort of faith based symbol that can be very useful. Nationalism can provide a common value on which to base negotiation and compromise. However it is necessary to take care so that nationalism does in fact support compromise rather than a singular vision.
By continually turning to the local and the identities that are generated within particular places it is possible to reconstruct the nation so that concepts like fairness emerge from various on the ground practices. The activities that occur within gay bath houses are one way of being American. To simply sweep these activities under the rug and hope that they will be accepted because we all value equality seems a little naive. The local serves as a constant reminder of what equality really entails within the context of America.
Perhaps part of my argument is based on the assumption that diverse lifestyles and identities are in fact based in qualities of place (do others disagree?). It is for this reason that the local can become a way of concretizing the often ambiguous notion of diversity.
DM:
Do you think that disagreements about what is fair are due to people thinking the word means different things, or do you just mean that people often disagree about what is fair? The arguments you've given in a few places only seem to support the latter. Saying what is fair is not the same thing as saying what "fair" means. (I think this is important, but will spare everyone an essay about it unless this seems to be a sticking point).
I think you are right that a general appeal to fairness is not very useful without filling in some of the details (e.g. saying "x, y, and z are unfair for reasons a, b, and c"). I think filling in the details in a way that appeals to both reason and one's aesthetic sensibilities is a sensible political strategy. Am I right in thinking that you think localism holds more promise for filling in these details in a good way than "nationalism"? That seems to be an avenue worth considering. How it's supposed to work is still hazy to me, though. A concrete, well-presented example would go a long way.
A writes: "Saying what is fair is not the same thing as saying what "fair" means."
It might be helpful for me if you could elaborate on that statement. I'm not sure if I'm following you.
A writes: Am I right in thinking that you think localism holds more promise for filling in these details in a good way than "nationalism"?
Yes that's right, because of the specificity of a localist position I think it's generally more useful for representing a diversity of perspectives on things like "fairness." These various perspectives also provide more concrete grounds for reaching and shared and inclusive meaning of fairness that could be incorporated into a shared nationalism.
I tend to think that there's enough of a generally agreed upon American idea of what constitutes fair vs. unfair, as just one example, that this particular value can be used as a basis for arguing about what we want American society to look like.
To the extent that there's still disagreement as to what, e.g. fairness means, that just means that people who share one particular definition of fairness need to argue consistently and persuasively for it, where their arguments are going to undoubtedly make appeals both to reason and emotion, logic and aesthetics. If you want people to base their values on concrete local practices, then you'll need to argue for and convince people of that...I just think that it'll be much easier to base a successful leftist political appeal on vocabulary and beliefs that people already kinda hold/mostly share than it will be to basically start from scratch, so...how would you specifically argue that what goes on in gay bath houses is one valid way of being an American, without making appeals to notions of fairness, equality, liberty, pursuit of happiness, etc.? How are you going to defend that activity, if not by appealing to those sorts of traditional American ideals, and spelling out how you define them? If you're going to defend these activities based on some new or other values, why are those values any less subject to debate and different interepretations than fairness and equality? How do you convince enough people to adopt these other values that they can be the foundation of a viable politics?
DM:
Here's an analogy: Saying what is water is not the same as saying what "water" means. I might point to a glass of clear liquid and say "that's water," while you might say "no, that's gin." We obviously don't have to disagree about what "water" means in order for this to happen; one or both of us just has to be mistaken.
Quickly, the reason I care about this distinction is that, for example, in the water example we can clearly come to an agreement over whether the glass contains water by arguing, experimenting, etc. If we didn't agree on what "water" means, we wouldn't really be able to do this--at best we'd just realize that we were talking past each other.
I think we can reason about fairness. I doubt we can resolve every disagreement about what is fair, but at the very least putting forward reasons enables us to understand where people we disagree with are coming from. If "fairness" means completely different things to different people, then this wouldn't be possible. I sometimes get the feeling from your posts, DM, that you think it is impossible (though you haven't said it outright). This goes against my own experience.
"Fair" is one of those pretty basic value-laden terms, like "good," "bad," "right," "wrong," and "ought." You simply cannot do politics without them. So your claim that appeals to fairness are not effective, or might even be dangerous, is a little puzzling to me. It's like saying you shouldn't use the word "better" when discussing who is a better basketball player.
I was maybe talking past you a little bit in that last post, DM. You obviously think there is some value to talking about "fairness." I've just always been uncomfortable with talk about "defining" or "constructing" concepts; I usually think it's an unhelpful and just plain wrong way of thinking about things, and hopefully my last post roughly indicates why. I know most people in the humanities talk about things that way, though, so partly I'm just harping on a pet-peeve of mine here.
At least in this particular post I don't think I've argued that we shouldn't talk about fairness or that we must generate "new values." (I still think new values could be useful but there's no reason to get sidetracked on that here) Rather I've argued that concepts like the nation can be valuable, but they should be based in concrete practices, and I find actual local spaces the best way of bundling together multiple economic and cultural practices.
A standard dictionary definition of fairness is "the condition of being just." To be just is to act in accordance with what's morally right (again from a dictionary). I agree with A that those meanings are more or less agreed upon. However, they are all grounded in a concept of what is "morally right." It is not difficult to find significant differences of opinion concerning what is morally right, even among good friends or partners. "America" or "the nation" as a concept also has a moral dimension in the sense that to be part of the nation is often assumed to be good while the reverse is bad. It is difficult for me to conceive of morals as anything but socially constructed. This doesn't mean that concepts like the nation or fairness should be thrown out because they are inevitably subjective. However, there is value in including diverse perspectives when constructing these concepts.
This is where the local comes in. The local provides a site for understanding the relation between history, economy, culture, and a particular struggle over what is fair. To abstract from context and simply promote a politics based on "fairness" is dangerous because it does not acknowledge all of the factors that go into determining what is morally right. By letting the moral foundations of fairness and the nation go unexplored there is too much potential for the sort of exclusion that is often promoted by the religious right.
I'm just still not getting what it is that focusing only on the local is supposed to achieve for us. Let me second A's request for a concrete example...say you're local politician running for office, what's your platform? Or your a local political action group (define that however you wish) what are your goals, what actions do you take to further them?
As to your last comment, I don't think that anyone is arguing that we "abstract from context and simply promote a politics based on 'fairness'" I'm saying we talk about specific aspects of American society that are unfair, talk about why they're unfair, where possible offer up actual policy proposals to remedy the situation, and appeal to the pretty widespread notions of fairness that already exist in our country to get popular support for our positions and over time change people's attitudes. I don't think we'll ever make everyone agree completely with us, I just want over time for the number agreeing with us to be going up.
I think that well made arguments of this sort will go a long ways towards addressing "the moral foundations of fairness and the nation" which DM thinks is important I think that there's plenty of different angles to argue for a pretty all encompassing definition of fairness from: Religious (the left should be able to cherry-pick Biblical quotations to support their views as well as the right), the enlightenment ideals of the constitution, bill of rights, etc. pragmatic arguments about what kind of society functions best...I don't mind making use of any of these angles, or collaborating with someone who bases their defense of gay rights (for example) on religious beliefs that I don't share.
DM:
I don't see why you keep bringing up the fact that people sometimes disagree about what is fair. Supposing what is fair comes down to what is moral (there are reasonable people who disagree with that... I don't know what to think about it myself), and given that sometimes people do disagree about what is moral, I don't see that it follows at all that reasoning about fairness should be given up or is in any way a questionable activity, even if you are a constructivist about morality. As I've said, in my experience we can do this. I think you underestimate how much people agree about matters of morality and fairness.
I don't see how "America" or "the nation" has a moral dimension. It doesn't follow that because it's good to be a part of the US, it is bad not to be. It doesn't follow even if "good" is read as "morally good."
As I said before, I agree with you that a general, unspecific appeal to fairness is probably not very useful. I would like you to fill out the story about what gay bath-houses can do for politics.
(btw, I don't really want to get into arguments about the metaphysics of morality (but maybe we'll have to to understand each other), but aren't social constructivism and subjectivism about morality mutually exclusive? Social constructivism being the view that what is moral is relative to a particular society and time, and subjectivism being the view that each individual has his or her own moral rules (usually relative to their own beliefs or desires). Do I understand these views correctly?)
Some points of clarification.
Tigrenoche writes: "I don't think that anyone is arguing that we "abstract from context and simply promote a politics based on 'fairness'" I'm saying we talk about specific aspects of American society that are unfair, talk about why they're unfair, where possible offer up actual policy proposals to remedy the situation, and appeal to the pretty widespread notions of fairness that already exist in our country to get popular support for our positions and over time change people's attitudes."
If that's the case then I think we agree. Combining specificity ("the local") with broad reaching values like fairness or American nationalism sounds good to me. Aspects of American society that are unfair would include those in which people are discouraged from having sex in the manner that they like or are not given opportunities for desirable employment. I think these examples are particular to certain times and places and acknowledging context enables a better understanding of the complexity of fairness. It also ensures that "widespread notions of fairness" are in fact widespread.
A writes: "I don't see that it follows at all that reasoning about fairness should be given up or is in any way a questionable activity, even if you are a constructivist about morality."
I don't believe I suggested that reasoning about fairness should be given up. I just think any discussion of fairness should occur with in a concrete spatial and temporal context.
A: "I think you underestimate how much people agree about matters of morality and fairness."
I don't know about this. I think most political differences come down to issues of morality and fairness. These include, for example, taxes, gay marriage, the war in Iraq, and climate control.
A: "I don't see how "America" or "the nation" has a moral dimension. It doesn't follow that because it's good to be a part of the US, it is bad not to be. It doesn't follow even if "good" is read as "morally good."
In the context of nationalism "American" becomes an evaluative term. As tigrenoche points out in his original post his affection for his country is like his love of family. Without any rational reason he loves his country and his family. I think many people feel this way. Therefore something that is American is positive. It's true that the reverse doesn't necessarily follow, but in practice it often does. "American" acts as a standard by which practices and beliefs can be evaluated. You might object that evaluation does not imply moral judgement. In the case of nationalism, the evaluation seems to be based on a broad world view that plays a role in distinguishing good from evil. I need to think about this more, but the types of evaluation that go on in relation to nationalism certainly seem different than basketball.
I too am very curious to know what gay bath houses can do for politics...
I consider myself a social constructivist (not a subjectivist as you're defining these terms) when it comes to values, so I don't think there's some final true definition of something like fairness that we can arrive at. There'll probably always be arguments about what is or isn't fair; those arguments, about values and how they'll be acted on by a society, are what politics is.
I think that the US is a cohesive enough unit, socially and politically, that it makes sense to talk about and care about those arguments over values at the national level. Note that I'm not saying that the US is completely cohesive, just cohesive enough. I don't expect that we can ever completely resolve all of our differences, I just hope that we can get enough agreement to do what I (and most liberal democrat types) think is some good.
This is why I don't get the point of arguing the specific practices of gay bath houses: I doubt I can convince everyone that anonymous handjobs in a steam room are some important expression of American identity; frankly I don't care. If you think gay sex is gross, fine. I just don't think you should be able to discriminate against gays in any way (including marriage rights) and need to show basic respect and courtesy to any gays you interact with. I think that it'll be much more easier to "win" that argument, in the sense of making discrimination and disrespect against gays socially and legally unacceptable (polls show the country moving rapidly in this direction already) than it would be to convince everyone of the importance of bath house culture.
DM:
I guess I just don't see where you're going with the fairness stuff. On the one hand you say "I don't know about that" and talk about how prevalent disagreements are whenever TN or I say that it is something people can reach agreement over, while on the other hand you claim that it's important that discussions about fairness take place in a "concrete spatial and temporal context." So on the one hand you seem to think it's not worth arguing about fairness, since it won't get anywhere, while on the other hand you seem to be presenting a way of arguing politics using the notion of fairness.
You'll have to work out how "America" works as a moral value. It's something that people value, but that obviously doesn't make it a moral value. People who use "American" as a brute evaluative term are wrong, as far as I'm concerned. If you want to start using it in a moral way, you'll have to do a lot of arguing to convince me that I'm wrong about this.
I think that you might have something when you suggest that we need to ground our political and moral discourse on concrete "local" thingamagings. I'm not sure if those thingamagings are the gay bath-houses, however. Not that I want to shut them down, it just seems like making them a front-and-center issue would be a political blunder.
Although it is probably best to move on to transcritique's most recent post, there are still questions here that I think are worth more exploration.
A writes: It's [America is] something that people value, but that obviously doesn't make it a moral value. People who use "American" as a brute evaluative term are wrong, as far as I'm concerned. If you want to start using it in a moral way, you'll have to do a lot of arguing to convince me that I'm wrong about this.
What is the difference between something people value and a moral value? I don't mean to imply that there is no difference, but I'm not quite sure how to articulate it.
My sense is that nationalism always involves the transformation of nationality into an evaluative category. Are you arguing against all nationalisms? Could a sort of weak nationalism be useful? When does nationalism go too far and perhaps become facism? The link between nationalism and facism could be a link between this post and TC08's recent post.
DM:
Do you think there is a difference between moral and non-moral values? I think we all have a workable grasp of the difference between moral and non-moral things. We would get sucked into a black hole if we tried to articulate the difference between moral and non-moral values. When I finish my term papers maybe I'll jump into that hole.
I'm not arguing against nationalism, if all you mean by it is valuing your nation. I'm questioning whether there is a "moral dimension" to valuing one's nation. I just don't see it. Fascists and other "nationalists" (in what I take as the normal, bad sense of the word) may think that being part of their nation gives them certain moral obligations or permits them to do certain otherwise immoral things, but, as I said, I think they are wrong, and I think it is pretty obvious that they are wrong. Here's a vague thesis: Nationalism goes wrong when people treat it as a matter of morality.
A: I think you're probably better suited to address the moral vs. non-moral values question than myself. I'm looking forward to your post-term paper thoughts.
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