Below is a link to a discussion by some very high class liberals, the like of which we could use more, to be frank. These are Michael Ignatieff, Ramin Jahanbegloo, and Mark Kingwell, all from Uni. Toranto discussing the Arab Spring.
The left needs the liberals to engage, because they are about the only decent opposition we have. I mean it is a tricky discourse. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EJkJT3gmFU Mark Kingwell, finally, at long last somewhere in the last quarter hour brings up Capitalism and its death grip on our society, but only in relation to their domination of the right and the dysfunctional US, by implication western democracies. He finally mentions this is not a moral intellectual dilemma, but a structural crisis. Thank Allah, they got off the moral problems. Fine, I always enjoy these sorts of discourses, but only because I know those elite watches, Michael Kingwell is wearing something like a Zinn Pilot worth over 500.00 (yes I hunger for those in moments of weakness), those arms that hold such riches, have never really labored at the toil of construction or wrench turning and gone home to an angry wife who has no idea what your day was like. While it is completely unjust, the terrible fact is that your paycheck is ultimately your worth as a human being, including the worth of your intellect---and the deepest sense of your humilation. The liberals do not know this kind of life because they have never toiled. It is not that toil makes us human, because obviously it doesn't. In fact in most cases toil makes us brutal. Where have those fine distinctions gone in the dirt of labor and sweat and the profound wariness at the end of the day, where a simple shower and quite, in the late afternoon are a solice all its own, simply smoking on the back porch studying the garden and cleaning tools is a moment to look forward to? So in my dream world we need more working class intellectuals, not just that they were the children of the working class like Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, or Studs Turkle, but the organic brothern---and sisters voices---who experienced both worlds. We have a few, a very few, like Angela Davis---about the only example I can think of at the moment. It's not that they are the right path. It is they are the right voice to mediate on. Nobody is going to like this idea, but Rousseau had the basic right idea, contra Isaiah Berlin, and I think that is the reason that Kant had his portrait on the wall. We do now have an answer to the Social Contract, a submission to the collective will, which is the simple idea, that when in the course of human events, it becomes necessary... So what I am fascinated with are the Egyptians where I saw many, many people like what I dreamed as a fellow class, a mass collective, not dismissive as nationalism, but of solidarity in the battles of the night, to ... I am not sure what ... creat a new world. I want to note that the importance of the internet, much like moveable type that Marshal McCluen notes is that we can move ideas and experience just as fast as Capital can move money. CG _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
