I think this is the first time I have read the changes you want to see enacted. Some of your points I agree with and some I do not. But I have wondered from time to time what you are actually looking for in a government/society so I was very pleased to read your post. Just wanted to say that.
It was a well-intentioned message, and I appreciated the thought, but I thought he was wrong. I thought I'd been making it pretty clear what I'd like to see.
For example, in the same month as that dreams post I published this lament of the destruction of the Bush years, and I don't think my disgust with basically everything that man did has been any secret. Was it not clear that I'd like to live in a country that doesn't invade other nations based on outrageous lies, destroy millions of lives, torture its captives, and whatever else you want to include as part of the rotten corpse of the Bush legacy?
Also in the same month as the first post, just a few days before it in fact, I wrote that the departing Bush gang were all criminals but will be protected by the rest of the US political class, including Obama. In case it wasn't obvious, if I'm going to live under the rule of a government, I'd like that government to hold its leaders to higher standards of conduct than anyone, rather than the current arrangement of a two-tiered justice system where the full force of the law is brought down on common people while political elites break the law with impunity. I'd like my government to prosecute war criminals for war crimes and to honor the treaties they've signed that obligate them to investigate and prosecute such crimes. Was that not clear before?
And in case it wasn't clear from this post, also in the same month as the others, I'd like my government to display the opposite priorities from the ones criticized. I'd like government to place higher priority on meaningful help for needy people than on endless expansion of the war machine or corporate welfare. Did I not get that message across?
Again, I thought my friend's message was a nice-hearted gesture, especially from someone who has often disagreed with me. But I just find the idea that I've never said want I wanted bizarre.
Maybe I'm sensitive to this issue because I've seen the same idea applied to critics far more eloquent than I am, and I suspect it is yet another way that people have found to dismiss challenges to their perspectives without actually engaging them. "Oh sure, Chomsky is a smart guy, but he's so negative. He never offers constructive solutions, he just criticizes everyone." They can just tune out criticism based on the nonsensical idea that it isn't productive. It seems to me that criticizing terrible actions is highly constructive, and that the solution is obvious: stop doing the terrible stuff. But Chomsky's oh-so-wearisome negativity becomes the first talking point brought up in response to anything he says, drowning out his important message with this distracting bullshit. And by the way, while in some cases people do that as a conscious strategy, I'm sure that many people do it automatically and without realizing it, like a built-in ideological defense mechanism. (It is kind of a version of "poor form." I don't like that guy, so I won't listen to him.)
But instead of speculating about that kind of cognitive dissonance management strategy applying to my friend, I'll gladly adopt a more generous interpretation of his message: that he read my list of dreams as specific policy positions I'd like to see, and that seemed fundamentally different (and more interesting) to him than the criticism of past government actions that he's mostly seen me write. And I guess that's fair enough, at least for the first sentence of his message.
But as for the rest of what he wrote, his confusion about what I'm "looking for in a government/society" confuses me. Maybe I don't really have a good sense of how closely what I've written here keeps up with what is going on in my head. But as I've already mentioned, several of the items on that list had been mentioned in weeks before it, and most of the others in the months before (I assume, but I don't feel like looking it up right now). And all of them seem very straightforward extensions of the general philosophies I routinely express. So maybe he just doesn't pay close attention to my writing, and/or maybe he just didn't pick his words very carefully.
I'll emphasize that I don't mean to give any impression that I'm personally bent out of shape about his comment. I'm not. I read a post at another blog recently about a private email exchange that made me think of several of my own that I've considered writing about, including this one. I chose to go ahead with this one because of its similarity to the broader pattern I've observed where critics of power are dismissed for not providing "constructive solutions" or whatever, and I think that pattern is worthy of comment. So I used this personal example as a launching point for the discussion.
2 comments:
"Maybe I don't really have a good sense of how closely what I've written here keeps up with what is going on in my head."
I think that might be a fair assessment. I see what you're saying, that by expressing your philosophies you are inherently implying what you'd like to see happen. But I don't know that that's always the case, and sometimes when people point out criticisms and don't make their constructives (I don't think that's a word...) clear, only the criticism is heard. We just discussed a book called, "The No Complaining Rule," and I want to read it. It essentially says, don't voice a complaint unless you can also voice the solution you'd like to see. I see this happening with a few people in my class who complain to me a lot. They say, "This is really poorly done, just another example of how the school doesn't respect us." It might be implied that their proposed solution involves the school respecting us (or whatever), but unless that solution is clearly stated, I only hear the complaint. I think that's just a part of how we communicate.
I will say that in the past, I've thought, "So what is it that adspar wants? It's very clear what he doesn't want, but I often don't know what his proposed solution is."
First of all I appreciate your comment, and I think what you're saying is useful here.
But I think this "no complaining rule" is a terrible idea. I'd agree that complaints followed by constructive suggestion is preferable, but I think complaints are important no matter what. Especially when those complaint are about the actions of the powerful.
In the case you mention, the complaint your fellow students mention is most likely a valid one, though their interpretation that it is because the school doesn't respect them probably needs further justification. It could be that if they thought about the range of possible alternatives, they'd think differently about the problem or whatever. All that is well and good.
But, think about the various victims of state violent. Think about the 4 million displaced Iraqis, or the family and friends of a million dead Iraqis. They have every fucking right to complain. Do they have to specifically offer an alternative? I mean, I think the alternative is obvious: HEY YOU ASSHOLE AMERICANS, STOP FUCKING INVADING OTHER COUNTRIES AND KILLING PEOPLE.
So again, most of the time my proposed solution is that the state simply not do things I complain about. Which pretty much means that the state shouldn't do anything. Hence the anarchy.
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