Both Sides of Power

Both Sides of Power

 

When I was a teenager, I was arguing with my Dad, for we both loved to argue. At one point he said dismissively, “Ahhhh, you’ll become a conservative in your old age!” Stung to the quick, I retorted, “If so, then it’ll be on my own terms!” Looking back a half century, I see that both of our predictions came true.

          For now that I am 66 years old, I see that I have indeed become a Conservative; but on my own terms, for I am a Left Conservative. I like conserving various lefty things; the middle class, civil rights, women’s rights, worker’s rights, democracy, the environment, rule of law, and basic human decency. This is in contrast to the, quote, ‘Conservative’, unquote, movement on the Right, which is against conserving any of those things. Right-wing ‘conservatism’ is CINO: conservative in name only. Left conservatism, such as mine, is the only non-Orwellian conservatism left.

I do not know when the flip happened. Perhaps it was the 2000 election; for that was when the Democratic party was assigned the color blue, and the Republicans got the color red. It had been the other way around before. I was not consulted on this change; I merely found it all over the media one day.

I acquiesced, for it made sense. Blue is serene, cool and distant; it’s the color of sky and sea. Red is hot, passionate and violent; it’s the color of blood. This matches the temperments of the parties.

The swap of temperments is part of the circulation of aristocracies. And with the Right as the radical faction and the Left as the conservative faction, that means the factions swap the usual virtues and flaws of both radicalism and conservatism. Radicalism’s passion and energy, and also stupidity and fanaticism. Conservatism’s calm and experience, and also smugness and inflexibility.

Einstein said, “To punish me for my contempt for authority, Fate made me into one.”

          Or, to paraphrase “Both Sides Now”, by Joni Mitchell:

I’ve looked at power from both sides now

From in and out, and still somehow

It’s power’s illusions I recall

I really don’t know power at all.

 

Identity Is Shadow Work

          Identity Is Shadow Work

 

          “Shadow work” is the unpaid labor one must do to stay in the system. Traffic jams, waiting for an elevator, navigating a phone tree, paperwork: all are shadow work.

          Identity is shadow work. The system requires identification, so you must maintain an identity just to participate in the system. But identity is not organic individuality; identity is mostly imposed illusion. The government issues an identity card to you, not you to it. Identity takes unpaid labor to maintain, and this labor is sometimes expensive and dangerous. Sometimes oppression is part of the identity.

          Identity is mostly illusion; politics require attachment; therefore identity politics is attachment to illusion, and attachment to illusion causes suffering. So identity politics does not liberate; it is part of what one must be liberated from.

          Fortunately, there is a liberating counter to identity politics: universality politics. What you and I have in common, we need not labor to hide from each other. When I am you, and you are I, then you are you, and I am I.

 

 

 

Can Philosophy be Forged?

Can Philosophy be Forged?

 

There has been forgery in art, literature and religious relics. Forgery seems a most postmodern crime, for what is deceptive is not the art - for a good forgery is indistinguishable from the original - but its provenance, which is a story attached to the artwork. Lately art detectives have given up on art expertise as effective forgery-detection, and instead rely on physical forensics; but that to me is an admission of defeat.

You could say that all art is forgery. “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”.

Consider a painting, beautiful and reputedly by a master, and therefore worth a million dollars. One day its provenance is debunked, and its market value falls to a thousand dollars. Then the painting’s debunker is himself debunked; the painting’s honor is triumphantly restored, as is its market value. Is the painting’s beauty only worth $1000, and its reputation the other $999,000? This of course links to the fictitious nature of money.

There are written forgeries, such as ‘lost’ Shakespeare plays and the Donation of Constantine. The last proves that some forgeries can last centuries and have major effect. So what else that’s so that isn’t so?

If literature can be forged, then can philosophy? Imagine this scenario: a previously-unknown philosophy student posts on the Web two unknown works by a famous philosopher; both as text and as photo-scan. One of those works really was written by the famous philosopher, but the other one was written by the student. The student claims that both originals were destroyed in a fire; this arouses suspicions. Experts inspect the photo-scans and say that both were written either by the famous philosopher, or by a skilled forger. (Which the student admittedly was.) They also concur that both works were indeed expressions of the famous philosopher’s thought, or of a learned disciple; and that the first work (genuine) was a minor amusement, but the second work (forged) was a masterpiece. On the basis of this they accuse the student of forging the first work. The student then produces the originals of both works, which had not been destroyed in a fire after all; forensic examination proves that the first, inferior, work was genuine, the second, superior, work was forged by the student. And finally, to complete the scandal, it turns out that the student was not a disciple of the famous philosopher, but was in fact a harsh critic, and that the student’s forgery, merely by existing and succeeding, refuted a core tenet of the famous philosopher’s thought! Is the student a philosopher? Has any crime been committed?

This hypothetical case of satirical forgery resembles the very real case of Alan Sokal’s “Social Text” hoax.

Can you think of other philosophical hoaxes, frauds and forgeries? They needn’t involve financial gain - who ever makes money from philosophical thought? - for with most art forgers, money-gain takes second place to honor or glory or revenge.