isn't it ironic

that Assange’s lawyer is complaining about a leak of information.

Incriminating police files were published in the British newspaper that has used him as its source for hundreds of leaked US embassy cables.

In a move that surprised many of Mr Assange's closest supporters on Saturday, The Guardian newspaper published previously unseen police documents that accused Mr Assange in graphic detail of sexually assaulting two Swedish women. One witness is said to have stated: "Not only had it been the world's worst screw, it had also been violent."

Bjorn Hurtig, Mr Assange's Swedish lawyer, said he would lodge a formal complaint to the authorities and ask them to investigate how such sensitive police material leaked into the public domain.

seeking 'good government' republicans

What is striking to me about politics from the conservative side of things (conservative understood quite broadly) is that no claims have been made that conservatives would be more "competent" governors. This might be because the rhetorical emphasis on the shibboleth of "small government" gets in the way of an interest in "good government." Or I suppose "good government" is construed narrowly as "good for business" or "creating jobs in the private sector." Political Republicans (i.e. the governing group of Republicans, not the Rogueistas) appear to see no positive role for government other than playing the role of matador, getting out of the way of the charging bull of liberty and entrepreneurial initiative. However, if the conservative side were to turn from the mantra of reducing government to that of a "government that works" (i.e., one in which the trains run on time, not simply "balancing the budget"), then candidates like Romney or even Bloomberg would make sense. But since government by definition means incompetence for the Right, these possible candidates don't seem viable at the moment. (Another possibility, Petraeus, has wisely demurred). Thus a motley crue of Palin, Huckabee, Pawlenty, and Jindal must suffice for a Republican Party geared more towards hair band aesthetics than substantive politics.

strawberry fields forever

Death is the great equalizer. Only the most horrific character is not mourned in some small way. Indeed, this may be bourgeois sentimentalism, but in contemporary society any sense of loss in the face of brutality is truly more radical than the self-righteous detachment of the politics of objectivity. In fact, detachment admits to a compliance with, and affirmation of, that brutality against which another brutality is being waged in the name of peace and freedom. John Lennon has become a victim of that brutality which announces itself in objective newscasts on the one hand, and in the overt pseudo-emotionalism of intervening advertisements on the other. John apparently saw things-as-they-will-always-be all to clearly in the late sixties. “Give peace a chance” itself pays witness to the formidable odds against realization of peace. A symptom of the culture industry, he attempted to turn his master against itself. But selling peace only turned into a repressive desublimation, just as today the selling of war becomes repressive resublimation. Peace cannot be realized in the market place of Ideas. Yet, on the other hand, John found no identification with the orthodox dreams, if even for unconscious reasons. One sentence from many in his music is crucial: “you say that its an institution [the constitution], you better free your mind instead.” The freeing of the individual from instrumentalized rationality was not overcome by the music of John Lennon. Ironically, his last work saw a return to the family and love, the possible haven in a heartless world and that radical moment of resistance, the vindication of the irrational, Eros. John lost his heart tonight, as did much of what survives of humanity.

Written December 8, 1980

wikileaks once more

It does seem hypocritical, if not cynical, that wikileaks itself lacks transparency. It would be nice to know the structure of the organization, the salaries of its employees, their training and expertise in the field of transparency. At this point, it is seems to be nothing more than the righteous, self-appointed guardian of full disclosure and insists on the same privacy privileges that nation states do with respect to "sensitive information." And like nation states, wikileaks positions itself outside the law when convenient, for Raison d'wikileaks. Who will hold wikileaks accountable? Where is the means for public oversight?

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Wikileaks is like a surrealist manifestation: stir up and offend the bourgeois sensibility just to see what happens. After the initial shock effect of the initial manifestation wears off, predictable reactions ensue. With the issue of the second word salad leak there occurs, first, a faux shock effect ("omigod can you believe THAT! The Queen hates X, Y, and Z, Blah, Blah, Blah"); then stern but weary tut-tuting from Secretaries of State and Defense; then a noble defense of the Dick Cheney Principle (adopted from Malcolm X) on the part of the Merry Leaksters: "by any means necessary we will expose (X, Y, and Z, Blah, Blah, Blah), because this is the most outrageous lie, the most horrible offense, the absolute total crime against human decency committed by (X, Y, and Z, Blah, Blah, Blah). Any questioning of our methods or our motives is unacceptable, is simply the doublespeak of power, and aren't you all just Agents/Borg after all." Finally, after a few days, silence settles over the global village. Then, once a considered amount of time has passed, calculated according to sound market research findings, another manifestation is exploded. "1 trillion super-secret cables released!" Repeat ad nauseum the faux shock, the enervated scolding, the impassioned self-defense. If an artist were to draw a mustache on a print of the Mona Lisa today, it would elicit the same yawn that our contemporary, naive political surrealists will incur over time.

wikileaks oresteia

Like Orestes, Mr Assange is now fated to be hunted by the modern day Erinyes – i.e. the maleficent agents of various governments, and family members of people whose names were left unredacted. Unlike Orestes, there is no Athene who can save him. It will no doubt be surprising to Assange, in all of his grandiose naïveté, that his efforts have not (and will not) change the behavior of nation states, which exist in a state of nature.

limited government, American style

What is striking to me about contemporary economic doomsday prognostication is how much it echoes the hoary old Marxist theory of crisis, of the inevitable collapse brought on by the inexorable falling rate of profit. What both these crisis theories evidence is, however, a falling rate of political intelligence.

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It is difficult to get outside the cognitive constraints of the ideological image of liberals versus conservatives, and to think "institutionally." What might it mean to think institutionally about capitalism and about the State (government). Regarding the former, it is always oriented to the short term: today's profits matter more than some future event that might never happen. The next quarterly report is the extent of the attention span of the hypothetical self-interested entrepreneur. What might this mean in practice? It may mean, for example, that environmental degradation matters only if it cuts into profitability (who cares if there’s one less spotted owl as long as I make a buck selling timber). This is short-term thinking par excellence and it is perfectly rational if one assumes that people are driven by self-interest and that it would be irrational to pursue strategies that undermine self-interest. What does this mean for the predicted, impending bankruptcy of the contemporary crisis theory? It means that as long as current profits can be maintained at a reasonable level, the long-term possible bankruptcy doesn't matter.

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What both contemporary and old-fashioned orthodox Marxist crisis theory conveniently ignores is the truly inconvenient fact that "crisis management" forestalls such cataclysmic crises, delays them, pushes them off to some future date. Crisis management is the art of softening the blows of short-term thinking, of the supply and demand cycle, and the social and political dislocation that both entail. Crisis management is neither a liberal nor conservative phenomena, it is a function of institutions, in particular State and quasi-State institutions (see the coordinated actions of Paulson, Bernanke, and Geithner in the aftermath of the demise of Lehmann Brothers). The art of crisis management assumes the irrationality of individuals acting on short-term interest in immediate profitability. Crisis management is also a high-wire act: it must find the right balance between the necessary degree of management and the necessary degree of short-term thinking. A crisis of crisis management (Claus Offe) arises when crisis management encroaches too much on the short-term rationality of the market (which is irrational); in other words, it must manage the consequences of market irrationality without undermining this irrationality entirely. (N.B. I'm using the term"irrational" in a non-pejorative, and purely descriptive, sense: short-term thinking and behavior that ignores long-term consequences is irrational in a restricted sense and from a certain point of view).

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To be sure, there is dim recognition of the implications of crisis management among those politicians today, who admonish -- in Matherian tones -- that "we are burdening our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren with debt." Of course we are! As rational economic actors, our only interest is in the now, not the 50 or 70 or 100 years from now. Our contemporary crisis managers push off the cataclysmic crisis onto future generations, who will have their own crisis managers to push off the crisis onto even more future generations, or until the last ton of fossilized coal has been burnt. Such crisis management is short-term thinking that attenuates the consequences of short-term thinking. Is this wrong or immoral? It is neither, if we accept short-term, self-interested behavior on the part of individuals (persons or firms) as normal and inevitable, which is precisely what these Chicken Little politicians assume.

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What about long-term thinking and long-term survival: who does that and how is it accomplished? Typically State institutions (i.e. government) have the task of maintaining the integrity of the socio-economic system over the longue duree. What are those institutions? The internal and external security institutions; and the social security institutions. Both of these long-term oriented institution forms must be maintained, i.e. financed; and hence we have taxation, and it is only a pipe dream to wish taxation away. Moreover, there is no choice to be made by those who seek “limited government” to get rid of one (social security institutions). Both internal/external security and social security are always already, necessarily interdependent. And while it would be nice to return to the seventeenth-century system of mutual aid, it is simply unrealistic (and hence irrational) to assume -- as a form of “tax relief” and “deficit reduction” -- that this is a practical alternative to State institutions. From the standpoint of the short-term, self-interest of the rational actor, time spent tending to ailing Aunt Jenny is time and money taken away from earning more money, starting a business, or pursuing a professional degree. And while this hypothetical rational actor might want to tend to Aunt Jenny, she realizes that she lacks the skill set to cope with her Aunt’s problems and is quite happy to be unburdened of this task by a government agency (Medicare/Medicaid), and by health care and social work professionals who are trained to take care of such ailing Aunts. Two pennies on the dollar of taxation that goes to this purpose is well worth it to this profit-seeking person, who can use the money saved on buying medicine for the aunt to purchase a larger HD television; and the byproduct of this consumption (or, rather, the “pursuit of happiness”) is that another rational actor remains employed at Best Buy.

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Quite contrary to their intentions, the limited government chorus may well create a new economic crisis if their goal of slashing the long-term social security institutions were achieved (for which new institutions of crisis management will evolve and the whole thing starts over once again). Truly limited government would likely be worse than no government at all, because such a limited government would lose political legitimacy, and would be unable to attenuate political and social disorder that comes from the loss of legitimacy.

panzer

panzer

on the tracks

east heading

--her face windcold

against the stonegrey of her eyes--

after the wende

hope exchanging hearts

on the glienicke brücke

the paranoid style: Glenn Beck

Recently, Glenn Beck cast his watery gaze upon George Soros. Beck is simply appealing to the anti-semitic segment of his viewing audience. His conspiratorial thinking regarding Soros, reflecting unconsciously the model of the distant past that evoked fear and condemnation of the "Golden International", comports well with the level at which his usual pseudo-intellectual punditry resides: character assassination. I heard Soros talk at an APSA meeting, during which he spoke at length of the deep impact Karl Popper made on his general vision of the social world. I look forward to Beck's future blackboard diagram of the hidden totalitarian kernel lodged in The Open Society and Its Enemies.

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Beck once devoted a program to his view that G.W. F. Hegel's thought lies at the root of what plagues America. I return to Hofstadter frequently for insight into his brand of conspiratorial theory.

"The final aspect of the paranoid style is related to the quality of pedantry to which I have already referred. One of the impressive things about paranoid literature is precisely the elaborate concern with demonstration it almost invariably shows. One should not be misled by the fantastic conclusions that are so characteristic of this political style into imagining that it is not, so to speak, argued out along factual lines. The very fantastic character of its conclusions leads to heroic striving for 'evidence to prove that the unbelievable is the only thing that can be believed. Of course, there are highbrow, lowbrow, and middlebrow paranoids, as there are likely to be in any political tendency, and paranoid movements from the Middle Ages onward have had a magnetic attraction for demi-intellectuals . . . The typical procedure of the higher paranoid scholarship is to start with such defensible assumptions and with a careful accumulation of facts, or at least of what appear to be facts, and to marshal these facts toward an overwhelming 'proof' of the particular conspiracy that is to be established. It is nothing if not coherent -- in fact, the paranoid mentality is far more coherent than the real world, since it leaves no room for mistakes, failures, or ambiguities. It is, if not wholly rational, at least intensely rationalistic; it believes it is up against an enemy who is infallibly rational as he is totally evil, and it seeks to match his imputed total competence with its own, leaving nothing unexplained and comprehending all of reality in one overreachiing, consistent theory. It is nothing if not 'scholarly' in technique. . . What distinguishes the paranoid style is not, then the absence of verifiable facts (though it is occasionally true that in his extravagant passion for facts the paranoid occasionally manufactures them), but rather in the curious leap in imagination that is always made at some critical point in the recital of events. . . The plausibility the paranoid style has for those who find it plausible lies, in good measure, in this appearance of the most careful, conscientious, and seemingly coherent application to detail, the laborious accumulation of what can be taken as convincing evidence for the most fantastic conclusions, the careful preparation for the big leap from the undeniable to the unbelievable. The singular thing about all this laborious work is that the passion for factual evidence does not, as in most intellectual exchanges, have the effect of putting the paranoid spokesman into effective two-way communication with the world outside his group -- least of all with those who doubt his views. He has little real hope that his evidence will convince a hostile world. His effort to amass it has rather the quality of a defensive act which shuts off his receptive apparatus and protects him from having to attend to disturbing considerations that do not fortify his ideas. He has all the evidence he needs; he is not a receiver, he is a transmitter." The Paranoid Style in American Politics, pp. 35-38

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It's worth noting that the program during which Beck uttered the statement that became the target of controversy is entitled "The Puppet Master: How much does George Soros control?" Also interesting, in light of Hofstadter's diagnosis, is the fact that Beck (or his producers) invites his followers to participate in his paranoid style: "For months, Glenn has been pulling back the structure progressives have worked decades to put in place. Beneath every layer lies one common thread: George Soros. Tonight on TV, Glenn presents an in-depth look at the Puppet Master, billionaire financier George Soros, one of the most powerful forces in the Progressive Movement. But don’t just take Glenn’s word for it. Read. Analyze. Do your own homework and come to your own conclusions - read below to fact check all the sources used on tonight's show." (emphasis added)

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One notices in Beck’s paranoid style a monotheistic vision of evil in it. In the particular case of Soros, he is the singular puppet master behind all that is wrong, the First Mover of the "Progressive movement" that is destroying America. The "Jewish" angle Beck explicitly evokes (N.B. it is certainly the case that one could criticize Soros' politics without referencing his religious/ethnic background) works in both the secular and religious registers of the manipulative "Jewish Bankers" and the biblical "Christ Killers" (which no doubts adds to the cathexis between Beck's audience and the subject matter).

In contrast, a polytheistic vision might entail recognition of, and openness to, complexity. On this account, good and evil -- for those who traffic in such a worldview -- would be distributed across a range of gods (i.e. forces, entities, persons, institutions, long and short term historical processes, etc.). This vision may not be as emotionally satisfying for those possessed of the conspiratorial mind, but it would at least bring them in touch with ordinary reality and might take some of the symbolically violent edge off their rhetoric (e.g. the primordialist "Us" versus "Them" imagination).

the democrats' waterloo or the republicans' antietam?

Tomorrow’s mid-term election portends to be the end of American civilization.

Or not. It will be interesting to watch how these Tea Partysan candidates, who, paradoxically and unconsciously, are running for governing positions on an anti-government platform, will actually function once in government and seated among other governing Republicans. The anti-governmentarians will be a rump within the Republican caucus and they will either consign themselves to irrelevance by holding to their fantastical visions of democratic politics and to their “angry mob” symbolics (and one must consider how much of this anger is real and how much of it is show for the purpose of getting elected by a purportedly angry electorate, as depicted by emocons like Glenn Beck); or they will adapt to business as usual, which means governing according to the principle of compromise (i.e. according to an ethic of responsibility) rather than according to the principle of non-compromise (i.e. according to an ethic of conviction). I suspect they'll soon be fighting to distribute “pork” just like other piggish Democrats and Republicans have for quite a long time now.

However, it is interesting how much the war in Afghanistan is a non-issue, given its costs in human and economic capital.

One foreign policy issue does cut close(r) to home. Insofar as the Mexican diaspora is construed as a terrorist threat, I do expect the new Republican majority to get down to building a Great Wall on the southern border and to seek, at the national level, something akin to Arizona's SB 1070.

the poverty of social scientific culture

According to the New York Times, the cultural explanation of poverty (i.e., the “culture of poverty”) is back in. The Times confirms this fact with a quote from an essay by Mario Small, David Harding and Michèle Lamont: ‘“Culture is back on the poverty research agenda,’ the introduction declares, acknowledging that it should never have been removed.” Searching the globe for further confirmation, we are informed, based on the golden chestnut of the censorship imposed by “political correctness,” that: “We’ve finally reached the stage where people aren’t afraid of being politically incorrect,” said Douglas S. Massey, a sociologist at Princeton who has argued that Moynihan was unfairly maligned.’ We are then offered a presumably un-PC and deeply thought definition of culture: “‘Robert J. Sampson, a sociologist at Harvard, culture is best understood as ‘shared understandings.’” Best understood: but for whom, social scientists?

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The problem is these particular scholars of poverty (excluding Lamont) don't know what "culture" is from a scientific point of view, aren’t “current” with the ways contemporary scholarship on culture has developed, and end up reproducing folk knowledge derived from a folk category (as Bourdieu might say) rather than anything approximating social scientific knowledge. What’s equally ridiculous is that complaints about “the poor” have been couched in moral terms since the 17th century: they drink too much, fuck too much, have too many babies, are godless, and so on. The same moralistic language was behind the “welfare reform” of 1996, which presumably “ended the welfare state as we know it” (Bill Clinton's goal). The aim of that legislation was to “reduce illegitimacy.” People didn't wait for Rob Sampson, or Saint Daniel Moynihan and the benighted Oscar Lewis (who actually emphasizes social structure), to produce a cultural explanation of poverty. Meanwhile a "full employment policy" that was in discussion during the 1940s never got off the ground because, well, gubmint shouldn't compete with the free market. Oh well: maybe those politicos and their social scientific epigones are the ones with an impoverished culture of civic duty, not to mention a culture of intellectual poverty.

crisis of the humanities?

Whenever a department closes, another five administrators are born....

SUNY Albany closes departments of French, Italian, classics, Russian and theater and the scholastic punditry kicks into high gear. To write of a crisis of the humanities in general, as does Stanley Fish, misconstrues the actual situation that particular disciplines face scrutiny under the forceful watch of administrative bean counters. There are solutions that don't involve making claims that humanities programs really do sell merchandise. Endangered language programs can become interdisciplinary programs (i.e. “studies”), can hire higher value (from the cash cow standpoint) social scientists, and thereby co-opt the corporate good will that shifted to the social sciences during the years of the New Frontier (an outcome that had less to do with academic value than political savvy on the part of the quantifiers). French studies, German studies, Mediterranean studies (Italian, French, Spanish, Arabic), fold theatre into English departments (literature and literary performance arts). . . it just takes some imagination on the part of faculty to break with the canonical culture of disciplinary singularity. Classics will likely remain threatened, only to be taught to the privileged few at the top liberal arts colleges, which still inculcate the Arnoldian attraction to sweetness and light. There's nothing wrong with that.

October Fifteenth

I was sitting alone in my Berlin apartment on Renate-Privat Strasse when I received the news by letter, several months after the fact (there was no email in those days): a clipped notice from my college alumni magazine. It flashed through my mind that I couldn’t remember the first time I saw Laura, and a sudden mélange of regret and remorse spread over me. I felt lightheaded. “That’s not true.” I remember when I first saw her. It was the fall semester. I had enrolled in an English literature class, the only “lit” class I would take in college. It was an odd choice, mixed in with courses in history and philosophy (and a writing course in “advanced composition”), since I never read literature. I fancied myself an intellectual, which is what a high school teacher had exhorted my AP European History classmates and I to become. I held philosophy in the highest esteem next to my major, history. At the time, I simply didn’t find literature intellectual enough. But I signed up for “Comedy Classics,” an introduction to literate, and literary, wit, taught by an itinerate assistant professor, Dr Shattuck. It was in this class that I first saw Laura. But when I first saw her, I could not recall. I didn’t really know what Laura saw in me. In my mind’s eye, I was not someone anyone would notice unless it was of necessity, like an admissions officer or hostess at McDonalds. Whatever it was, it must have had something to do with sitting next to each other in the first week of class. I may have noticed her first. The class read aloud works by Shakespeare and, because we sat next to each other, we often read together. Laura and I eventually adopted Bard appropriate nicknames. She was Laurino.

Laura Lane Leathers. I would notice a name like that then, its perfect alliteration. Then I imagine I would have noticed her eyes: green blue, two gemstones set below soft, dark blond hair. But her physical beauty didn’t strike me at first; that came later. After all, I was in a relationship. When it ended suddenly, a few weeks into the semester, Laura was there for me then and was with me afterwards. I loved her for that (as I still do). I recall all of this now, just as I did then, when the airmail letter arrived at its destination on the coffee table. I wish I could remember more about the exact moment the random act of mutual recognition occurred, because she is no longer be able to remind me.

Laura was always interesting, never dull or predictable. Never to be forgotten, she is forever, dearly missed.

Laura Lane Leathers, d. October 15, 1991

. . . because I knew you, I have been changed for good.

palling around with Paladino

Mr Paladino is the face of the new Republican Party, which has been infused by Tea Partysan resentment (the losers of recent American history). There was a time when Republican candidates would have expresses their various antipathies towards racial and sexual minorities (not to mention women) in indirect ways, using code words or euphemisms. But now that strategy is associated with the despised RINOcrats, the "weaklings" whom Tea Partysans seek to eliminate. Today it's good to be mavericky and to be rude and offensive, which is the form that "political correctness" takes for the Baggers: in other words, it's politically correct to be uncivil. Then, when the so-called MSM responds, one can always claim victimhood. It's a winning strategy: perp at one moment, victim of a media crime the next.

the year of reading tea leaves IX: the emocons

Regarding emotion, it is worth noting that a trend has emerged from the conservative milieu that may portend a new political orientation -- if not a new political style -- in American politics. Nine years ago, the "neocons" rose to power, bringing with them a confident and assertive view of America's place in the world. The "new American century" called for forceful action from the world's only superpower; and by pulling off the invasion of Iraq (a plan laid out in position papers during the 1990s), the new American centurions didn't allow a crisis to go to waste.

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A mere six years after the shock and awe of March 2003 and the triumphant days that followed the fall of Baghdad, the neocons and their grand vision have been swept away. However, a new group has stepped into the political void, a group that could be called the "emocons," whose affect-laden public discourse stands in marked contrast to the aggressive, self-confidence seen in the typical neocon performances of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, et al. The emocons have taken their place on the public stage in a variety roles, as politicians, as pundits, as police officers demanding public apologies, and even as ordinary citizens. The heartfelt emotion portrayed in the tearful performances of Glenn Beck is echoed by the Delaware “Birther” who cried out, during a public meeting, “I want my country back,” like a child who has had her favorite toy taken away (fortunately, the aggrieved Birther found comfort in a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance). Yet, it is the emergence of emocon politicians in recent months that has been most striking: from Die Leiden des mittelältlichen Sanfords, the South Carolina governor who found himself torn between two lovers, whose copious tears held viewers of his unscripted press conference riveted, and whose passionate emails to his “soulmate” from the Southern Hemisphere offered a modest challenge to the lyricism achieved by Goethe (or The Young and the Restless); to the pouting visage of Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions (R- Alabama) as he sat -- passive-aggressively -- in confrontation with a Latina who declared herself to be wiser than him; to Governor Palin’s star turn as a sympathetic (not empathetic) victim of the machinations of Hollywood (i.e., anti-hunting, anti-gun actors), of New York (i.e., The Media, also known as those who are “makin’ things up” about her), and of Washington D.C. (i.e., elected officials who are currently exercising the authority granted to them by “the People” -- as per the Constitution -- as a result of free elections). It is not clear whether the emocons have a common agenda or set of policy prescriptions apart from tugging at the heartstrings of the American public. But the pathos and bathos of this group is certainly fun to watch.

the year of reading tea leaves VIII: Palin

She's mastered the new political medium created by 24/7 cable news, blogs, etc., an over-caffeinated world in which half-truths, spin, winking falsehoods, and simmering status resentment constitute a fair and balanced communicative style. She is a celebrity, hence her life, her private life, is as much a part of her political brand as her policy positions and accomplishments in Alaska. Her propensity to respond to what appear to be trivial snipes, things ordinary politicians would ordinarily ignore, is a continuation of the persona that was presented in 2008: hockey mom, political maverick, and all-around western tough gal. She's anything but an ordinary politician. Her legend is enhanced by (1) the fact that she's a 'target' and (2) that she responds in kind (she's no weak-kneed libral). In the play book of contemporary Republican politics, if you're a target of ridicule in the mythical MSM, you are part of the real America, you are an authentic conservative (not one of those country club types who speak in sonorous tones -- and in complete sentences -- on the floor of the Senate), and you are a promising presidential candidate. I can easily imagine a Republican fantasy ticket of Palin/Prejean in 2012.

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Andre Agassi's tag line in the Canon ads "Image is everything" fits the new political reality. I think, at this point, Palin is famous for being famous and not much else. It is an open question of whether this "category" can sustain a presidential candidacy through the Republican primaries and debates. It appeared to me that the candidacy of Fred Thompson, which flamed out because he seemed to lack energy and interest in politics, was premised on being famous (a star of the big and small screens). Palin doesn't lack energy or a willingness to joust. It might come down to the question of which candidate is more likely to keep Republican primary voters awake during twenty two-hour debates: Romney, Pawlenty, or Palin? I'm betting on the former Alaska Governor.

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Outside of ultra-conservative chavs (who are not a majority among Republican voters . . . unless the birthers movement takes off unexpectedly), I don't see much support for Palin, going forward, in the Republican Party. She's anti-pork, so she would cut off the flow of milk to Alaska from the federal government teat. Could she even carry Alaska in a general election? She has a better chance of making a boatload of money using the media to bash the media, one of those performative contradictions that have marked her public persona since last August: she opposes the "politics of personal destruction" yet seeks to destroy her liberal opponents in a silly slurry of anti-American accusations; she's a fighter who nonetheless quits; a hockey mom who fancies Neiman Marcus; a momma Grizzly bear who protects her cubs, yet exposes them -- using them as political props -- to the harsh glare of the media; a family values candidate who publicly trashes the father of her grandchild; an avatar of abstinence, who allows non-same sex sleepovers under her own roof.

the year of reading tea leaves VII: violent tea

It could be that the USA is in the midst of conservative days of rage that recall the period of uncivil unrest that occurred in the wake of the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Those Tea Partysans who are unable to contain their disappointment over a legislative defeat appear willing to cross over the line from a peaceful remonstration of grievances into violent opposition. Even “Pro-Life” conservatives have turned on other Pro-Life politicians who are now deemed “baby killers” because they wrangled an executive order banning the use of federal funds for abortion from a pro-choice President (and in the screwy logic of the contemporary conservative base of the Republican party, what would otherwise be treated as a victory is viewed as a defeat or, worse, as a traitorous surrender). The overlapping membership of the remnants of 1990s militias and the newly-minted extremists within the Tea Party camp could lead to the formation of groups analogous to the Weathermen/Weather Underground. Whereas the Weather Underground’s theory of the legitimate use of political violence was fueled by Marxist-Leninist theory, copious quantities of pot, LSD, and polymorphous perversion, today’s incipient Rogue Underground is driven by apocalyptic visions of death panels and hidden Muslim agents, Hitler and the Anti-Christ -- all embodied in the Affordable Health Care for America Act -- and fueled by a collective memory of rage that was stoked when the Branch Davidians were consumed in the cleansing fires of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’s secular purgatorium. Similar to the Weather Underground, which possessed a photogenic and charismatic frontperson in Bernadette Dohrn, a conservative Rogue Underground can already claim a candidate with similar qualities as the attractive face of its armed resistance.

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It would be interesting to know whether, and how deeply, the FBI has infiltrated the Tea Party organizations.

*

Lacking moderate voices among their membership, the Republican party has only one option as long as it is out of power: total, absolute, non-cooperation. That is understandable, even rational. However, the way in which it pursues non-cooperation is curious, especially the use of slogans and distortions of reality that only invigorate the less emotionally stable segments of its political base. Republicans only paint themselves into a corner. It's been said many times before: if Republican legislators insists on describing the Affordable Health Care for America Act as a threat to American democracy and values, as a government takeover, and as socialist, then there's no way these legislators can contribute positively to such a piece of legislation, and the rhetoric will be impelled further into loon land. And the loons will come out to play.

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Also curious is the way the once staid, emotionally controlled presentation of the Republican Party has morphed into an uninhibited expression of feelings and a political style that exhibits the characteristics of a new form of secondary narcissism. In The Culture of Narcissism, Christopher Lasch described the shift in the type of patient who presented him/herself for psychoanalytic treatment: "Psychoanalysis, a therapy that grew out of experience with severely repressed and morally rigid individuals who needed to come to terms with a rigorous inner 'censor,' today finds itself confronted more and more often with a 'chaotic and impulse-ridden character.' It must deal with patients who 'act out' their conflicts instead of repressing or sublimating them." Todays Republican politician, no less than the Tea Partysan that is her de facto mirror-image, now presents similar characteristics. The Republican politician reacts impulsively to disappointments, and "acts out" against the agency (whichever one is found to be handy at any given moment: "liberals," Obama, ACORN, unions, Pelosi, "Hollywood," "illegal immigrants," the "mainstream media," etc.) that is perceived to be the source of disappointment through the use of disparaging language that reaches for the worst metaphors of political degradation. The emocons of today are no longer able to sublimate frustrations and anger, and their rage boils over on the floor of the House ("baby killer"), in town hall meetings, at Tea Partysan gatherings, and on voice mail left for members of Congress ("I hope you bleed ... (get) cancer and die"). None of this is new, of course: paranoid style rage against the changing political cultural circumstances is older than McCarthyism, the clinic bombings, and Tim McVeigh. What is new is the open embrace of a discourse of victimhood, of victimization, from the conservative milieu. The fear of victimization is the emotional anchor of conservative politics today, a sense of victimization conservatives enable through their refusal to participate in the political process like responsible legislators and citizens.

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Individuals identifiable with the Tea Party-Patriot tendency now feel entitled to attack governmental authority using symbolic and physical violence (if necessary). This new violence entitlement, often claimed in the name of Jesus, the Second Amendment, or Ayn Rand, has, unfortunately, been given comfort by mainline Republicans (who should know better) and by rogue conservatives (who don't know any better).

the year of reading tea leaves VI: Republicans

The Republicans' main recommendation for reducing deficits is to ban earmarks. However, they did talk a good game about cutting government spending, making government smaller, etc., when they had control of the White House and Congress. This has earned them the reputation as being the party of small government. Or was that just Ron Paul? Anyway, the Department of Homeland Security wasn't created on their watch.

Tea Partysans use this apparent hypocrisy of the establishment Republicans as a rallying cry and allegedly this is a sign that they are not simply the shock troops of the Republican Party (although they welcome establishment Republicans to their rallies and national conventions and pay at least one of them – the prodigal, former Rogue-Governor – handsomely). They would happily rid the nation of the FDA, FBI, CIA, Social Security Administration, Medicare (although it seems most of the Tea Partysans are receiving it), Homeland Security, FCC (because they don't care whether porn films are shown at 7pm on all networks), etc. Back to 1790, when a muzzleloader and the Bible were all the government one needed.

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I think coherence (such as it is) will come in the form of votes for Republican Party candidates. Now these Republican candidates, running as "rogues", will appeal to already existing incoherent Tea Partysan "ideals". Once in office, these rogue Republicans will make symbolic gestures towards this new base fraction, such as speeches about succession, the introduction of Constitutional amendments that have no chance of passage (for example, one that would abolish the IRS or abolish the 17th amendment) and the like; the same sort of thing Reagan did to appease his social conservative base (i.e., support a pro-life amendment in words, but not in deeds). But they'll vote with the establishment Republican bloc, will attach earmarks for their districts and states. Business as usual, American democracy in action.

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The following passage in Steinfels's old book on The Neoconservatives seems apt as a description of the present state of contemporary American conservatism (as it is manifested by the Republican Party and its Tea Partysan allies).

In our time the classic statement of the benefits to be secured in taking one's political adversaries seriously -- and in having political adversaries worthy of being taken seriously in the first place -- is found in Lionel Trilling's preface to The Liberal Imagination. Trilling begins with the observation that has since become the commonplace we already noted: 'In the United States at this time liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition.' Such a situation poses two dangers. First, the absence of conservative or reactionary ideas 'does not mean, of course, that there is no impulse to conservatism or to reaction.' It simply means that such impulses do not 'express themselves in ideas but only in action or in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.' They may do worse, for 'it is just when a movement despairs of having ideas that it turns to force.'

Trilling’s vision of the character of opposition to the dominant liberal tradition captures almost exactly the current reaction to the liberal political order of the moment: "irritable mental gestures” which only vaguely resemble ideas sums up the Tea Party movement. However, one should notice an additional element in the current reaction against the liberal tradition (or, rather, the reaction within the liberal tradition). The motive force behind these gestures is religious, not in the sense of organized religion or any particular body of faith, but rather in the structural sense of actions motivated by the force of a collective idea that is not susceptible to the test of (its) reality. Today's conservative and/or Republican political vision is fundamentally chiliastic. And even if the predicted doomsday never arrives, the fundamental faith in fear is not shaken. The Tea Party charivari blithely staggers on.

the year of reading tea leaves V: political style

What I think distinguishes my analysis from that of Hofstadter and Lipset (but primarily Hofstadter) is that I think there is a reasonable element in economic and social status anxiety. One is not a kook, a paranoiac, or an extremist for worrying about one's present and future in economic and social terms. Where the Hofstadterian analysis is useful, I think, is in characterizing the modality through which these otherwise rational concerns are articulated. And, hence, the lack of interest in genuine debate is a telling sign of something like a paranoid style. The demonization of political opponents is also a sign of this style.

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So whereas randomly sampled Republicans may identify with some of the opinions expressed by the Tea Party, they are not necessarily likely to turn up at a rally with a poster that refers to the President by a racial slur. However, the activists in the Tea Party (and some segment of its rank and file), who may not be identical demographically with the individuals sampled by the NY Times poll, appear to be more extreme, open to expressing their concerns in extremist images and words. And more disturbing to me is the presence of Republican politicians who also seem willing to engage in (if not incite) the same mode of symbolic violence that pops up during Tea Partysan events.

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Why does the anxious, white, middle-class college-educated male not argue in favor of an expansion of Medicare, a peace dividend dedicated to funding library construction, and amnesty for the immigrant underclass that services his comfortable lifestyle? I think the key factor here is that not all individuals of this sort react in this manner or hold these views. However, those who do also have a party identification that is Republican. They have an ideological framework (a justice frame) within which to make sense of their predicament: government is to blame. This has been the conservative mantra since Reagan. Government is given faces: Pelosi, Reid, Obama. These three individuals by themselves have created all sorts of problems, some of which will arrive on a Day of Reckoning, the national domesday that will occur at some unspecific point in the distant future. Why is this happening? Because Pelosi, Reid, and Obama are socialists.

Continue a bit further down this rabbit hole and one winds up at a Tea Party event, cheering Palin, Bachmann and Beck, wearing a silly hat, and holding a poster with a misspelled, uncivil message.

*

The Tea Party is clearly more than a tax rebellion, given the Partysans' obsession with birth certificates and other symbolic phenomena that reach far beyond the vagaries of deficit spending and the income tax. It is part poujadisme, and part classic American paranoid style, the latter of which is manifested in the Chicken Little Syndrome that infuses Tea Partysan and Teapublican rhetoric. If one were to turn over some of the Partysans, old-fashioned Dixiecrats would crawl out.

the year of reading tea leaves IV: tea-mography

I wonder if it's true that wealthy, well-educated Republicans are the ones seen at Tea Partysan events bearing signs equating Obama with Hitler, etc. On the one hand, if it is true, then we should be very afraid, because it would show that such extremist forms of political expression are now part of the mainstream Republican thinking of mainstream (i.e., wealthier, better educated) Republican voters. On the other hand, one might be encouraged by the profile of the average person who is an adherent of Tea Partysan activism: it means people who are not male, not identified as a Republican, and who are under age 45 (which would be the majority of all Americans) are not now and are unlikely to be persuaded to drink the Tea.

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"Better educated" usually translates into a measurement of years of schooling (i.e., educational attainment), which does correlate with (but which does not mean causes) different levels of wealth attainment. The Statistical Abstracts of the United States shows this pattern descriptively. The less interesting statistical analysis involves the relationship between educational attainment and wealth (which typically means income, not assets). The more interesting statistical analysis would involve the relationship between educational attainment, wealth, and ideological disposition. In this particular case, the research questions would be: (1) are individuals with higher levels of educational attainment and income more likely to identify with the ideology (inasmuch as one exists) of the Tea Party than individuals with lower levels of educational attainment and income? And: (2) are identification with the Republican party, being a male, being "white," and being over 40 years old, the most significant variables in a statistical model that includes educational attainment, income, and Tea Party ideology? A reasonable guess is that Republican Party identification, being male, being "white", and being over 40 carry more weight than educational attainment and income as a predictor of identification with Tea Party ideology.

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Despite all of the claims that the Tea Party is comprised of political independents, the Tea Partysans have always pursued their prey on the happy hunting grounds of the Republican tribe. It is no accident that the Tea Partysans target Democratic politicians for defeat and support candidates whose platform is indistinguishable from Republicans or candidates who are Republicans. The Tea Party demographic is basically Republican voters of a certain age, gender, race, educational attainment level, and income level who are facing a decline in their economic status (due to macro-economic trends and the financial crisis of 2008), which has implications for their social status. This reasonable economic and social status anxiety is exaggerated (i.e., raised to a fever pitch) by the presence of a liberal President with a strange name and a democratically-elected Democratic majority in both Houses of Congress. Hence, despite Ross Douthat’s fantasies, the Tea Party activists are nothing more than the shock troops of the Republican party, a new set of shock troops who will replace deployments of aging, economically less successful and less educated social conservative shock troops who have manned the barricades against secular liberalism (read godless socialism) since the mid-1970s. In other words: the Tea Party phenomenon is the Newest New Right, following in the footsteps of McCarthyite Anti-Communism, Goldwater Conservatism, and Moral Majoritarianism.

zwischenbetrachtung: the seduction of Ross Douthat

In an Op-Ed “The Seduction of the Tea Partiers,” Ross Douthat complains that “House Republicans have adopted the atmospherics of the Tea Party movement, but they’ve evaded its most admirable substance.” He describes the Tea Partysans as follows:

The Tea Party is a grass-roots movement — wild, woolly and chaotic — which sometimes makes it hard to figure out exactly what it stands for. But to the extent that the movement boasts a single animating idea, it’s the conviction that the Republicans as much as the Democrats have been an accessory to the growth of spending and deficits, and that the Republican establishment needs to be punished for straying from fiscal rectitude.

The Tea Partiers have a point. Officially, the Republican Party stands for low taxes and limited government. But save during the gridlocked 1990s, Republican majorities and Republican presidents have tended to pass tax cuts while putting off spending cuts till a tomorrow that never comes.

Douthat asserts that “Conservatives have justified this failure with two incompatible theories. One is the “starve the beast” conceit, which holds that cutting taxes will force government spending downward. The other is the happy idea that tax cuts actually increase government revenue, making deficit anxieties irrelevant.” He expends a fair amount of newsprint attacking the case Republicans make for tax cuts. In his view, they are simply coopting the Tea Partysan message for political gain that will not bring about reduced government spending.

But having maligned Republican arguments for tax cuts, what does he offer in support of the Tea Partysans?

Their eccentric elements notwithstanding, the Tea Parties have something vital to offer the country: a vocal, activist constituency for spending cuts at a time when politicians desperately need to have their spines stiffened on the issue. But it’s all too easy to imagine the movement (which, after all, includes a lot of Social Security and Medicare recipients!) being seduced with rhetorical nods to the Constitution, and general promises of spending discipline that never get specific.

So far so good. But Douthat never gets around to explaining the Tea Partysan’s case for spending cuts. For good reason: they have none. It seems that the absence of a rationale for spending cuts is preferable to having a rationale, even if a failed one, for tax cuts. The Tea Partysans have no political theory to back their position. Douthat has been seduced by the mere gestures of a movement that lacks substance. The eccentric wheel gets Douthat’s journalistic grease.

the year of reading tea leaves III: love and hate

The German language is unfairly maligned when the worst phrases are said to sound better in it. Certainly "We need to purge the weaklings" (said Tea Party Express 3 Chairman Mark Williams of the RINOs: Republicans In Name Only) would have sounded better in the original Blubo (Blut und Boden) German of the NS-Zeit. But if we are not bound to the pessimism of Adorno concerning the fascist debasement of language, and the barbarism of writing poetry after Auschwitz, one could just as easily say the obsession with weaklings or others said to undermine the community or nation is as American as apple pie and Father Joseph Coughlin. Nonetheless, the integrity of language can be restored (albeit with difficulty) no matter how debased it becomes in the hands of the political entrepreneurs du jour.

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Perhaps one should not hold the neue Tee-Patrioten up to standards they can never meet, such as honesty, ethical consistency, and echt constitutional patriotism. Of course, they can be charged with being self-serving, with representing a false claim of universality, or wilfully neglecting the fact that the political process remains legitimate even when one's side "loses" and loses badly (perhaps they were cutting class during the lesson on "majority rule" in 10th grade civics). This self-serving rationalization of failure elevates personal loss to the level of national crisis: one needs look no further than the Hatepalooza tours of Governor Palin for an object lesson in projection. There is no impending Chicken Little Moment as much as people like Cheney wish for one (i.e., wish for an attack on the USA to prove that enhanced interrogation techniques were necessary). Republicans warn of a divided nation, which only proves they can help bring about their own self-fulfilling prophecy through the use of Us-versus-Them rhetoric pitched in the delusional terms we have grown accustomed to hearing: death panels, government takeovers, and, Armageddon (thanks to Republican National Committee Chairperson Michael Steele for that one). What goes hand in hand with the disaster movie plot structure of the political imagination of the conservative base is a pathological view of the most ordinary, mundane political action: the idea of compromise in the course of the legislative process sends our Tea Partysans into convulsive spasms that are becalmed only by amassing a stockpile of ammunition. All of this makes me long for simpler days, when the lunacy that found its way into common political discourse centered around the benign figure of Joe the Plumber, a wondrous P. T. Barnum exhibit for the 21st century. Where have you gone Joe the Plumber, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you...

Well of course he lent his voice to various gatherings of conservatives around the country, including the Tea Partysans. He's also adopted the discourse of victimhood that is so familiar among conservatives (from Palin upward) to account for his relationship to John McCain.

"I don’t owe him s—. He really screwed my life up, is how I look at it," Joe -- aka Samuel Wurzelbacher -- said of John McCain in an interview with Pennsylvania public radio correspondent Scott Detrow.

"McCain was trying to use me. I happened to be the face of middle Americans. It was a ploy."

the year of reading tea leaves II: political theory?

Some random thoughts: what does "government" mean? From the standpoint of "liberty," I could be quite happy to be unburdened of certain tasks so that I have more free time to do what I want. That would be a justification for such "government" as a standing army, or police and fire department, or FDA/USDA. I don't feel I'm giving up any "right" to make decisions for myself when I trust others to do things (like inspect/monitor the quality of the produce I eat). So here "government" are institutions that unburden ordinary citizens of a lot of tasks that would impinge on their liberty.

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That's not the only meaning government could have. "Government" can mean a set of procedures that (ideally) bring about an orderly, rational, and fair decision making process. Government here means "governing." Roberts Rules of Order is a procedure for "governing" meetings or a parliamentary body. Insofar as individuals must enter in cooperative relations with others to achieve collective and individual ends, this notion of "government" is unavoidable.

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Compared to these simple propositions, the Tea Partysans have an anemic political philosophy. They seem to react to random problems associated with "government" without offering any vision of what "government" should be. To assert that government should be "small" or "limited" doesn't cut it.

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Another matter: if government is to shrink, what are the criteria for deciding what should stay and what should go. You are ok with the military but not ok with HUD or the Dept of Education. What are the criteria for this distinction? Do Tea Partysans make any distinctions on what should stay or go? One person's idea of "excessive government intrusion" is another person's idea of a "necessary function."

*

Corporations and government: yes, there is a "problem" (for some people) with the influence of corporations on legislative outcomes. But what is the solution here: get rid of government or contain corporate influence? If one argues that the growth of government (and its intrusiveness) goes hand in hand with the increase of corporate lobbyists, then one would have a more robust analysis of the situation and a better platform with which to support criticism of government.

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Finally, there is an interesting situation for some (maybe not all) Tea Partysans that they respond to the electoral results of last fall as if it were illegitimate; they are then rejecting the democratic rights of the majority and holding their own view up as not only superior but also non-negotiable. Here I find a fundamental disrespect for democratic processes, a disrespect that could be labeled "un-American" or "unpatriotic" (but I won't do that). If they don't like majority rule (with respect going to minority rights), then they should do some homework on constitutional design and come up with an alternative deliberative and electoral procedure as opposed to ranting about socialism or depicting the President as Hitler or engaging in some other ridiculous and regressive street agitprop. I believe there is a streak of Leninism in the Tea Partysans, they seem to believe they are a vanguard party that knows better what America is and what America needs and are unwilling to subject their ideas and principles to a democratic process in which their ideas may "lose."

progress?

I think it makes sense to think of "progress" as a relative term and to define it, in the first instance, within the boundaries (however conceptualized) of a "society"; in the second instance, one might talk about "progress" across societies. I'm comfortable with a "Weberian" (Max Weber) conception: each historical case is unique; it makes no sense to look for universal laws (such as a universal law of progress) that would apply to all cases; however, comparison is possible using "ideal types." The idea of "progress" might be an ideal type that has significance within a particular case, which, under particular circumstances, could come to have significance across many cases. But this ideal type should not be defined by the standards of any particular case.

I think Weber articulates this perspective well in the “introduction” to his essays on the sociology of religion (two of which are the essays that comprise The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. (NB. The translation of this introduction was appended to the Routledge translation by Parsons, but actually post-dates the original publication of the essays on protestantism).

"A product of modern European civilization, studying any problem of universal history, is bound to ask himself to what combination of circumstances the fact should be attributed that in Western civilization, and in Western civilization only, cultural phenomena have appeared which (as we like to think) lie in a line of development having universal significance and value." (2001: xxviii)

(Universalgeschichtliche Probleme wird der Sohn der modernen europäischen Kulturwelt unvermeidlicher- und berechtigerweise unter der Fragestellung behandeln: welche Verkettung von Umstanden hat dazu gefürht, daß gerade auf dem Boden des Okzidents, und nur hier, Kulturerscheinungen auftraten, welche doch – wie wenigstens wir uns gern vorstellen – in einer Entwicklungsrichtung von univeseller Bedeutung und Gültigkeit lagen? Weber, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie, p. 1)

Weber's interest is in the "universal significance" of "Occidental rationalism", represented in his time by the stage of development of science, rational techniques employed in the production of art and music, and, especially, capitalism ("the pursuit of profit, and forever renewed profit, by means of continuous rational, capitalistic enterprise.” (2001: xxxi) (”…mit dem Streben nach Gewinn, im kontinuierlichen, rationalen kapitalistischen Betrieb: nach immer erneuntem Gewinn: nach ‘Rentabilität.’” p. 4)

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The idea of progress is complicated in two ways: (a) by the fact that whatever is defined as progress is highly susceptible to partiality derived from one’s particular standpoint in time and space; (b) by the fact that progress bears a distinct, and not necessarily universal, sense of historical time. The first point (the partiality of any definition of what progress is or means) is obvious; the second point, perhaps less so. Koselleck’s discussion of time consciousness is relevant regarding point (b). He argues that between 1500 and 1800 “there occurs a temporalization (Verzeitlichung) of history, at the end of which there is the peculiar form of acceleration which characterizes modernity.” Taking Altdorfer’s splendid Alexanderschlacht (1529) as a point of departure, Koselleck comments on the peculiar representation of temporality in the painting.

“Let us try to regard the picture with the eye of one of his contemporaries. For a Christian, the victory of Alexander over the Persians signifies the transition from the second to the third world empire, whereby the Holy Roman Empire constitutes the fourth and last… The battle, in which the Persian army was destined for defeat, was no ordinary one; rather, it was one of the few events between the beginning of the world and its end that also prefigured the fall of the Holy Roman Empire. Analogous events were expected to occur with the coming of the End of the World. Altdorfer’s image had, in other words, an eschatological status. The Alexanderschlacht was as timeless the prelude, figure, or archetype of the final struggle between Christ and Antichrist; those participating in it were contemporaries of those who lived in expectation of the Last Judgment.

Until well into the sixteenth century, the history of Christianity is a history of expectations, or more exactly, the constant anticipation of the End of the world on the one hand and the continual deferment of the End on the other.” (“Modernity and the planes of historicity,” Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time, pp. 5-6).

In light of this sense of time, of timeless time, what would be called “progress”?

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Finally, I’ll mention briefly a discussion by Koselleck of the historicity of the concept of revolution (a concept that might intersect in ways with the idea of progress). Regarding the concept of revolution, which he argues is “a linguistic product of our modernity,” Koselleck makes the following point: “In 1842, a French scholar made a historically enlightening observation. Haréau recalled what had been forgotten at the time: that our expression actually signified a turning over, a return of the movement to the point of departure, as in the original Latin usage. A revolution initially signified, in keeping with its lexical sense, circulation. Haréau added that in the political sphere, this was understood as the circulation of constitutions taught by Aristotle, Polybius, and their successors but which since 1789 and through Condorcet’s influence was hardly comprehensible. According to ancient doctrine, there was only a limited number of constitutional forms, which dissolved and replaced each other but could not naturally be transgressed. These are the constitutional forms, together with their corruptions, which are still current today, succeeding each other with a certain inevitability. Haréau cited a forgotten principal witness of this past world, Louis LeRoy, who had argued that the first of all natural forms of rule was that of monarchy, which was replaced by aristocracy as soon as the former degenerated into tyranny. Then followed the well-known schema in which aristocracy was transformed into oligarchy, which was in turn displaced by democracy, which degenerated ultimately into ochlocracy, or mass rule. Here, in fact, no one ruled any longer, and the way to individual rule was open once more.” (“Historical criteria of the modern concept of revolution,” Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time, p. 41).

What idea of progress, which is commonly ingrained in our affirmative understanding of “revolution,” is imaginable with this cyclical understanding of political events? Or consider the first two sentences of Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, which indicate a “repetitive” (and pessimistic) idea of the “progress” of historical events: “Hegel remarks somewhere that all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.”

My point here is this: “progress” is a temporal sensibility that is, arguably, a product of historical consciousness as much as it is something “tangible”, that is, something measurable by things such as “quality of life” or level of technological development, etc.