Good essay Marc. Right on about the immorality of Trump and now GOP. Misogyny racism xenophobia—all part of an immoral life. But there’s a more concrete problem we can attack, namely the massive and growing level of voter suppression throughout the country. Greg Palast on Thom Hartmann today presented stunning numbers showing that “legal” voter suppression in Georgia Wisconsin Arizona Texas Florida cost Harris the election. Trump and Reeps have suppressed voters on steroids. This is not an easy problem to remedy but it is at least a clear target. And a moral one.
First, I subbed as a paid subscriber a while back because I long ago learned to respect his work in work in the Chile solidarity movement in the 70s and consistently since. I was drawn to the words morality and righteousness in the present piece. It is an important word, for use in responding to Trump or working to ensure peace with justice in the Middle East, it is too easy for us to get "self-righteous" in a politicized way, throwing around words we should think twice about using, like seeing something that is said as objectionable, when they are engaging in critical thinking about issues which divide us in part because we are partisan to one point of view, or one side or another in a conflict.
On "righteous," I just happened to have Alter's Hebrew Bible up in my Kindle, and Leviticus 19:15 says, "In righteousness you shall judge your fellow. You shall not go about slandering your in." But it does go on to say, "17 You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely reprove your fellow and not bear guilt because of him. 18 You shall not take vengeance, and you shall not harbor a grudge against the members of your people." Alter, Robert. The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary (p. 1090). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.
My original intent was to look for the word "righteous" in Wendy Brown's incredible new Nihilistic Times: Reading with Weber and Weber's Vocation Lectures. Yes, as I recalled Max Weber detested “the spirit of sanctimonious self-righteousness" or what he called a "pseudo-ethical feeling of self-righteousness." Earlier he had said, “And obviously, it is no different after a victorious war when the victor asserts with a wholly discreditable self-righteousness, “I won because I was in the right.”" Weber, Max. The Vocation Lectures: 'Science as a Vocation' (Hackett Classics). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Kindle Edition.
This was part of his opposition to unprincipled politics and one's approach to criticizing those with whom you disagree. No need to call Trump a fascist, in fact my analysis is that he is patrimonial more than he is authoritarian and there is a huge difference. Vance, however, seems authoritarian although he might claim he is libertarian.
Weber helps us realize this about responsible politics in a nihilistic age: "Essential to this work is turning hard toward rather than away from values in the classroom. By this I do not mean promulgating values. Rather, classrooms are where values may be studied as more than opinions, ideologies, party, or religious loyalties, but also as more than distractions from the empirical, technical, instrumental, or practical. It is where they can be deepened as worldviews (or recognized as falling short of that possibility), analyzed historically and theoretically, and considered in the contexts of the specific powers that mobilize and transmogrify them. It is where they can be examined genealogically, culturally, economically, and psychically—for example, as complex reaction formations or theological remainders."
This book is complex and I'm still far from being ready to review it, but just to say that we do in fact have to more fully analyze the election results and reconnect with a morality such as in Forrest Church's great book The American Creed: A Spiritual and Patriotic Primer. Not the kind of stringent morality or \ dogmatic political ideology or dogmatic religion Weber fears in the classroom or polity, but closer to a creed, even one like that in Jonathan Foile's Reading Arendt in the Waiting Room, a story of his personal journay from fundamental Pentacostalism to mainline Episcopalian practices he found consisent with progressive political stances. He liked Arend's approach to her principle of natality: "Arendt is the philosopher who exercises the most fidelity to their principles."
Foiles, Jonathan. Reading Arendt in the Waiting Room: A Philosophy Primer for an Anxious Age (p. 62). Arcadia Publishing. Kindle Edition.
If we connect with our creeds and act responsibly based on them Max Weber (who in 1919 predicted the reaction which came to Europe in the late 1920s) would be apply and we would have appreciated Wendy Brown's points as well.
Brown, Wendy. Nihilistic Times: Thinking with Max Weber (The Tanner Lectures on Human Values) (p. 102). Harvard University Press. Kindle Edition.
Clearly, it is time to drill down on clarifying the nature of our creeds and insist politicians do the same.
My angle is specific to my experiences in radio which though not lengthy are important to me, as well as my lifelong passion for old AM, and THAT was important to me developing in all ways, in life as a musician in 1957. With Clinton's ill, Telecom Act radio changed. Suddenly Howard Stern could get enough of a large audience and get around FCC disparaging others physically as could Rush, politically and physically. To me, born 1949..how can you DO that on air unless everyone's on set face to face. The only right wing jabber you could find was tiny stations in America. So: What man has built once should be able to be built again.
Good essay Marc. Right on about the immorality of Trump and now GOP. Misogyny racism xenophobia—all part of an immoral life. But there’s a more concrete problem we can attack, namely the massive and growing level of voter suppression throughout the country. Greg Palast on Thom Hartmann today presented stunning numbers showing that “legal” voter suppression in Georgia Wisconsin Arizona Texas Florida cost Harris the election. Trump and Reeps have suppressed voters on steroids. This is not an easy problem to remedy but it is at least a clear target. And a moral one.
Re: Marc Cooper's piece https://thecoopscoop.substack.com/p/the-twilight-of-american-morality
First, I subbed as a paid subscriber a while back because I long ago learned to respect his work in work in the Chile solidarity movement in the 70s and consistently since. I was drawn to the words morality and righteousness in the present piece. It is an important word, for use in responding to Trump or working to ensure peace with justice in the Middle East, it is too easy for us to get "self-righteous" in a politicized way, throwing around words we should think twice about using, like seeing something that is said as objectionable, when they are engaging in critical thinking about issues which divide us in part because we are partisan to one point of view, or one side or another in a conflict.
On "righteous," I just happened to have Alter's Hebrew Bible up in my Kindle, and Leviticus 19:15 says, "In righteousness you shall judge your fellow. You shall not go about slandering your in." But it does go on to say, "17 You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely reprove your fellow and not bear guilt because of him. 18 You shall not take vengeance, and you shall not harbor a grudge against the members of your people." Alter, Robert. The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary (p. 1090). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.
My original intent was to look for the word "righteous" in Wendy Brown's incredible new Nihilistic Times: Reading with Weber and Weber's Vocation Lectures. Yes, as I recalled Max Weber detested “the spirit of sanctimonious self-righteousness" or what he called a "pseudo-ethical feeling of self-righteousness." Earlier he had said, “And obviously, it is no different after a victorious war when the victor asserts with a wholly discreditable self-righteousness, “I won because I was in the right.”" Weber, Max. The Vocation Lectures: 'Science as a Vocation' (Hackett Classics). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Kindle Edition.
This was part of his opposition to unprincipled politics and one's approach to criticizing those with whom you disagree. No need to call Trump a fascist, in fact my analysis is that he is patrimonial more than he is authoritarian and there is a huge difference. Vance, however, seems authoritarian although he might claim he is libertarian.
Weber helps us realize this about responsible politics in a nihilistic age: "Essential to this work is turning hard toward rather than away from values in the classroom. By this I do not mean promulgating values. Rather, classrooms are where values may be studied as more than opinions, ideologies, party, or religious loyalties, but also as more than distractions from the empirical, technical, instrumental, or practical. It is where they can be deepened as worldviews (or recognized as falling short of that possibility), analyzed historically and theoretically, and considered in the contexts of the specific powers that mobilize and transmogrify them. It is where they can be examined genealogically, culturally, economically, and psychically—for example, as complex reaction formations or theological remainders."
This book is complex and I'm still far from being ready to review it, but just to say that we do in fact have to more fully analyze the election results and reconnect with a morality such as in Forrest Church's great book The American Creed: A Spiritual and Patriotic Primer. Not the kind of stringent morality or \ dogmatic political ideology or dogmatic religion Weber fears in the classroom or polity, but closer to a creed, even one like that in Jonathan Foile's Reading Arendt in the Waiting Room, a story of his personal journay from fundamental Pentacostalism to mainline Episcopalian practices he found consisent with progressive political stances. He liked Arend's approach to her principle of natality: "Arendt is the philosopher who exercises the most fidelity to their principles."
Foiles, Jonathan. Reading Arendt in the Waiting Room: A Philosophy Primer for an Anxious Age (p. 62). Arcadia Publishing. Kindle Edition.
If we connect with our creeds and act responsibly based on them Max Weber (who in 1919 predicted the reaction which came to Europe in the late 1920s) would be apply and we would have appreciated Wendy Brown's points as well.
Brown, Wendy. Nihilistic Times: Thinking with Max Weber (The Tanner Lectures on Human Values) (p. 102). Harvard University Press. Kindle Edition.
Clearly, it is time to drill down on clarifying the nature of our creeds and insist politicians do the same.
I thought it was clear what i meant by riighteous. Guess I wasnt … st least for u. Tnx for ur reply.
My angle is specific to my experiences in radio which though not lengthy are important to me, as well as my lifelong passion for old AM, and THAT was important to me developing in all ways, in life as a musician in 1957. With Clinton's ill, Telecom Act radio changed. Suddenly Howard Stern could get enough of a large audience and get around FCC disparaging others physically as could Rush, politically and physically. To me, born 1949..how can you DO that on air unless everyone's on set face to face. The only right wing jabber you could find was tiny stations in America. So: What man has built once should be able to be built again.
Would like to UP my subscription, but a missing link prevents my good intentions.
Just when I think you have gone off Chicken Little's rails, you come back and write a beautifully written column like this. Thank you Coop.