The ABC nightly news in Sydney on Wednesday reported Senator Ted Kennedy's cancer diagnosis in the following terms: that tributes had been pouring in from Democrats, and that the situation was tragic.
As reporting this is incompetent, and as a judgment it is absurd.
Among the prominent well-wishers in the United States have been President George W. Bush, Senator John McCain, and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell. None of these people were Democrats the last time I checked. Senator McConnell is quoted in the New York Times in these terms: "Senator Kennedy enjoys great respect and admiration on this side of the aisle [i.e. among Republicans] ... He is indeed one of the most important figures to ever serve in this body in our history." That respect would be because Kennedy has been serving in the US Senate for 46 years, is acknowledged by all persons as one of its leaders, and in the manner of active members of that institution habitually forges alliances with, and drafts or co-sponsors legislation with members of the other side. The death or serious illness of a legislator of Kennedy's stature is a sombre bipartisan event in the US. You do not need to be an expert on American politics to know this sort of thing, and for the premier television news program in Australia to be tone-deaf to it ... I'm sorry, it is just inexcusable.
Oh and BTW, for a little context, the guy doubled over and weeping at the podium over Teddy's cancer in the broadcast (Robert C Byrd) is 90, and is the only person who has been in the chamber longer than Senator Kennedy. So he has a free pass to cry in this matter, it would seem to me.
As for the situation being tragic: the Senator is 76. It is sad for him and for his family and friends (there are rather a lot of both), poignant given his brothers' fate, and in the manner of these things it has brought everyone up short with a reminder of the inevitability of death: lots of people participate in this particular illness. But it is not a tragedy. Cancer striking down a teenager or a person in their twenties, a mother in her thirties, a family man in his forties --- that is tragic. To live into one's late seventies in reasonable health and vigour, with wealth and family, and moreover in a position of great power and acknowledged leadership --- that is a good innings under any definition. It is regrettable that it will likely be cut short (for as I understand, the prognosis is poor for a man of the Senator's age with this kind of tumour) but it is not a deep offense against the proper order of things. Let's get some perspective.
[Disclosure: I lost my own father to cancer at 80, on about a week's notice, when he had otherwise been in very good health for a man of his age. So if I'm being unreasonable here, it's not for lack of exposure to the phenomenon.]
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Thursday, 22 May 2008
Monday, 21 April 2008
The Pentagon's hidden hand
If you are interested in the media response to (and responsibility for) the progress of the war in Iraq, may I recommend an article in today's New York Times, "Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand". It's the more devastating for being sober in its tone.
The standard of investigative journalism in this paper --- supported by the exemplary American Freedom of Information regime --- is excellent. It's in signal contrast to the partisanship of papers in (say) the UK, and the self-importance and shallowness of papers in my own country.
The standard of investigative journalism in this paper --- supported by the exemplary American Freedom of Information regime --- is excellent. It's in signal contrast to the partisanship of papers in (say) the UK, and the self-importance and shallowness of papers in my own country.
Sunday, 17 February 2008
Four reactions to an apology
I guess even people outside Australia have noticed that on Wednesday the federal parliament passed a motion of apology to the nation's aboriginal people, in particular the so-called Stolen Generations: victims of policies of removal of aboriginal children from their families. Of almost equal symbolic importance was the speech by the new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, in support of the motion.
There has been a lot of talk on this during the week and in a sense I do not have much to add to it. But by chance it's my duty to offer prayers this morning, on behalf of the 10:00 AM congregation at my church, and so I have to reach some kind of publicly useful position on the week's business. On the one hand, this is dark history that (as the PM says) cries out for recognition and redress. On the other, it is a fearful thing to inject irrelevant polemic into a public prayer, and so I've been trying to understand to what extent this apology really is controversial. As a way of thinking through this, here are a couple of (very different) reactions I think should be rejected; and one, equally critical, that I think should be treated with respect. (Skip to the end if you want to get to the positive bit!!)
(1) Easiest to dismiss is Miranda Devine's statement in the Herald that the PM was fanning the flames of the "culture wars". Coming from a serial arsonist, this really was a bit much ... and if Ms Devine truly thinks (as she says) that Mr Rudd is taking up the approach of former prime minister Paul Keating, then her memory is worse than mine, or her imagination more powerful. I fully admit to having enjoyed Mr Keating's use of aboriginal rights and history as a cudgel to beat his political opponents: at the time, I also thought it was clever politics, a way of bringing the Labor Party in line to support land rights (after the initiative of the High Court) that it might otherwise have held at arms length. In retrospect he was wrong, and so was I. That polemical approach sowed the wind, and we then reaped the whirlwind for eleven-and-a-half long years: reaction that could point to what it reacted against, accuse it of partisan ideology and impracticality ... and be at least partly right.
So there, Ms Devine: I was wrong; so was Paul Keating, at least in this respect. As for the Labor Party, it is currently led by a dentist (figuratively speaking), a bureaucrat, a plain and uninspiring speaker (although his litany-inspired speech yesterday was, for him, unusually good) ... the kind of man who can say without irony that he is excited by establishing evidence-based policies. I take that as a token that the ALP is also willing, in this matter at least, to move on. Perhaps you could try it yourself. I understand that newspapers thrive on controversy, and on "debate" between "opposed" positions, and thus there's a kind of premium on taking a contrary view. But come on: this is important.
(2) Criticism instead from the left, and (as it were) from above, comes from a guest-post by Scott Stephens at Faith and Theology: The apology and the moral significance of guilt, accusing the PM and Parliament of tokenism and empty spectacle and (his words) enlisting aboriginal people "to take part in a kind of emotional pornography for the benefit of thousands of white Australian viewers".
I find this kind of purism --- this apology does not go far enough, so it is worse than useless --- infuriating. One could take issue with the details of the argument: for example, if it's intention that matters, as Mr Stephens Kants, doesn't that count against the approach of Paul Keating? (Mr Stephens faults the PM's language for not being as robust as PK's storied Redfern Speech: "we took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life … we committed the murders … " and so on.) As mentioned, I loved the Redfern Speech and I love PK, but the man can barely open his mouth without at least incidentally swiping at his enemies, Redfern not excepted: surely this is intentional at some level, and thereby compromises the action? Or if one's vice has become so ingrained that it proceeds without any higher-level volition, is it thereby innocent? (Hint: The Christian answer to that question is "no".)
But such arguments are incidental: I just cannot see the merit in trying and convicting the Prime Minister of compromise, of judging the limits of achievable consensus --- of being a politician. This is not news. Nor is it criticism. It is self-indulgence.
And yet ... Mr Stephens is held in regard by at least some other people I respect, and I have learned from experience to be careful of dismissing someone where this is true. There's also something a bit suspicious in a scientist accusing a theologian of contrariety and self-indulgence: because I would say that, wouldn't I? Maybe my reaction against this sort of posturing is part of some Two Cultures problem, however I have, as Mr Darcy would say, not yet learnt to condemn it.
(3) Both Ms Devine and Mr Stephens appeal for support to Noel Pearson, the aboriginal leader whose fierce independence of previous debate has won him enormous authority in the wider Australian community. Read his reflections the night before the apology, and also shortly after the election last year, and you will see why. In fact, one could profitably skip the Devine and Stephens articles and read Pearson alone: the substantial points against the current bien-pensant consensus are all there, but they are set in the midst of an argument that is actually about the problem of dealing with this history, and the present, in political terms, rather than using the apology as a tool in some other dispute.
Mr Pearson is in two minds about the apology, and seems to feel no need to condense his views into a easily-repeated "reaction". I will honour that restraint by simply saying: read what he has to say.
(4) As for me, I have no plan to repeat the apology later this morning: that would be presumptuous and unnecessary. But I do want to use it as a starting point, or (perhaps better) as background: for how can one ignore it this week? And when will we get a topic more fitting for reflection during Lent? "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?", asks the hymn. The answer to the question is "Yes", but it is not a simple yes by any means, and some of the issues are the same.
At Good Friday services at the Lutheran church in Geneva --- it doubles as a kind of chaplaincy to visiting English-speakers, and (a little perversely) as a British Commonwealth get-together --- a striking hymn was sung in the nineties, adapted from a Zulu (and Xhosa?) protest song. It was powerfully used to invite reflection on the crucifixion, and on all human sin, especially sins committed in company: the simple chorus will stay with me all my life.
Senzenina --- What have we done? What have we done? What have we done?
There has been a lot of talk on this during the week and in a sense I do not have much to add to it. But by chance it's my duty to offer prayers this morning, on behalf of the 10:00 AM congregation at my church, and so I have to reach some kind of publicly useful position on the week's business. On the one hand, this is dark history that (as the PM says) cries out for recognition and redress. On the other, it is a fearful thing to inject irrelevant polemic into a public prayer, and so I've been trying to understand to what extent this apology really is controversial. As a way of thinking through this, here are a couple of (very different) reactions I think should be rejected; and one, equally critical, that I think should be treated with respect. (Skip to the end if you want to get to the positive bit!!)
(1) Easiest to dismiss is Miranda Devine's statement in the Herald that the PM was fanning the flames of the "culture wars". Coming from a serial arsonist, this really was a bit much ... and if Ms Devine truly thinks (as she says) that Mr Rudd is taking up the approach of former prime minister Paul Keating, then her memory is worse than mine, or her imagination more powerful. I fully admit to having enjoyed Mr Keating's use of aboriginal rights and history as a cudgel to beat his political opponents: at the time, I also thought it was clever politics, a way of bringing the Labor Party in line to support land rights (after the initiative of the High Court) that it might otherwise have held at arms length. In retrospect he was wrong, and so was I. That polemical approach sowed the wind, and we then reaped the whirlwind for eleven-and-a-half long years: reaction that could point to what it reacted against, accuse it of partisan ideology and impracticality ... and be at least partly right.
So there, Ms Devine: I was wrong; so was Paul Keating, at least in this respect. As for the Labor Party, it is currently led by a dentist (figuratively speaking), a bureaucrat, a plain and uninspiring speaker (although his litany-inspired speech yesterday was, for him, unusually good) ... the kind of man who can say without irony that he is excited by establishing evidence-based policies. I take that as a token that the ALP is also willing, in this matter at least, to move on. Perhaps you could try it yourself. I understand that newspapers thrive on controversy, and on "debate" between "opposed" positions, and thus there's a kind of premium on taking a contrary view. But come on: this is important.
(2) Criticism instead from the left, and (as it were) from above, comes from a guest-post by Scott Stephens at Faith and Theology: The apology and the moral significance of guilt, accusing the PM and Parliament of tokenism and empty spectacle and (his words) enlisting aboriginal people "to take part in a kind of emotional pornography for the benefit of thousands of white Australian viewers".
I find this kind of purism --- this apology does not go far enough, so it is worse than useless --- infuriating. One could take issue with the details of the argument: for example, if it's intention that matters, as Mr Stephens Kants, doesn't that count against the approach of Paul Keating? (Mr Stephens faults the PM's language for not being as robust as PK's storied Redfern Speech: "we took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life … we committed the murders … " and so on.) As mentioned, I loved the Redfern Speech and I love PK, but the man can barely open his mouth without at least incidentally swiping at his enemies, Redfern not excepted: surely this is intentional at some level, and thereby compromises the action? Or if one's vice has become so ingrained that it proceeds without any higher-level volition, is it thereby innocent? (Hint: The Christian answer to that question is "no".)
But such arguments are incidental: I just cannot see the merit in trying and convicting the Prime Minister of compromise, of judging the limits of achievable consensus --- of being a politician. This is not news. Nor is it criticism. It is self-indulgence.
And yet ... Mr Stephens is held in regard by at least some other people I respect, and I have learned from experience to be careful of dismissing someone where this is true. There's also something a bit suspicious in a scientist accusing a theologian of contrariety and self-indulgence: because I would say that, wouldn't I? Maybe my reaction against this sort of posturing is part of some Two Cultures problem, however I have, as Mr Darcy would say, not yet learnt to condemn it.
(3) Both Ms Devine and Mr Stephens appeal for support to Noel Pearson, the aboriginal leader whose fierce independence of previous debate has won him enormous authority in the wider Australian community. Read his reflections the night before the apology, and also shortly after the election last year, and you will see why. In fact, one could profitably skip the Devine and Stephens articles and read Pearson alone: the substantial points against the current bien-pensant consensus are all there, but they are set in the midst of an argument that is actually about the problem of dealing with this history, and the present, in political terms, rather than using the apology as a tool in some other dispute.
Mr Pearson is in two minds about the apology, and seems to feel no need to condense his views into a easily-repeated "reaction". I will honour that restraint by simply saying: read what he has to say.
(4) As for me, I have no plan to repeat the apology later this morning: that would be presumptuous and unnecessary. But I do want to use it as a starting point, or (perhaps better) as background: for how can one ignore it this week? And when will we get a topic more fitting for reflection during Lent? "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?", asks the hymn. The answer to the question is "Yes", but it is not a simple yes by any means, and some of the issues are the same.
At Good Friday services at the Lutheran church in Geneva --- it doubles as a kind of chaplaincy to visiting English-speakers, and (a little perversely) as a British Commonwealth get-together --- a striking hymn was sung in the nineties, adapted from a Zulu (and Xhosa?) protest song. It was powerfully used to invite reflection on the crucifixion, and on all human sin, especially sins committed in company: the simple chorus will stay with me all my life.
Senzenina --- What have we done? What have we done? What have we done?
Tuesday, 5 February 2008
Two takes on the US budget ...
... both from the New York Times: one from the science pages, hoping that America's recent unilateral disarmament in Big Science may come to an end; and one from the editorial page, lamenting the fact that the budget as a whole is broken.
I am torn. If my own concerns were to take a hit as part of some reasonable, overall accounting --- a spreading-out of necessary restraint --- then it would be hard to object. But the process in the States at the moment is neither reasonable, nor global, nor an accounting. The Bush Administration is a long bad dream, defiantly resisting its wake-up call, and the new president is still a whole year away. (It is going to be a long year at that.) Meanwhile the Congress is in some kind of holding pattern.
A propos of the election: how strange is it that Hillary Clinton seems the least fictional option for president? An Obama v. McCain contest would resemble nothing so much as the final season of The West Wing, with John McCain playing Honest Arnie Vinick, and Barack as Matt Santos, substituting black for brown. If the junior senator from Illinois is considering an older man as his running mate, he would be wise to first insist on a visit to a cardiac specialist ...
I am torn. If my own concerns were to take a hit as part of some reasonable, overall accounting --- a spreading-out of necessary restraint --- then it would be hard to object. But the process in the States at the moment is neither reasonable, nor global, nor an accounting. The Bush Administration is a long bad dream, defiantly resisting its wake-up call, and the new president is still a whole year away. (It is going to be a long year at that.) Meanwhile the Congress is in some kind of holding pattern.
A propos of the election: how strange is it that Hillary Clinton seems the least fictional option for president? An Obama v. McCain contest would resemble nothing so much as the final season of The West Wing, with John McCain playing Honest Arnie Vinick, and Barack as Matt Santos, substituting black for brown. If the junior senator from Illinois is considering an older man as his running mate, he would be wise to first insist on a visit to a cardiac specialist ...
Sunday, 23 December 2007
The Clinton legacy
The Democratic primary contest for the upcoming US election is remarkable in that former two-term president William Jefferson Clinton --- can't you just tell, from their names, that Americans take themselves more seriously than Australians do? --- is a leading campaigner ... on behalf of his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
There is an excellent article in this weekend's magazine section of the New York Times, The Clinton Referendum, discussing the extent to which Mrs Clinton's campaign is turning into a referendum on her husband's legacy: this then opens up into a discussion of that legacy itself.
It is interesting to reflect on the similarities, and the differences, to the situation in Australia, where there has been a long-overdue renewal of Labor Party government. I have missed the Hawke/Keating administration with a passion for all of the last eleven-and-a-half years, and it is true that Kevin Rudd is neither Bob Hawke nor Paul Keating ... but then, for all that he stands on their shoulders, it's good that he isn't either of these men. Theirs were not flawless governments. I am glad to see that we are moving on from them, in a way (I must hope) that acknowledges and builds on their strengths. Maybe the way to do this, in the American case, is with a president who is not also a Clinton?
There is an excellent article in this weekend's magazine section of the New York Times, The Clinton Referendum, discussing the extent to which Mrs Clinton's campaign is turning into a referendum on her husband's legacy: this then opens up into a discussion of that legacy itself.
It is interesting to reflect on the similarities, and the differences, to the situation in Australia, where there has been a long-overdue renewal of Labor Party government. I have missed the Hawke/Keating administration with a passion for all of the last eleven-and-a-half years, and it is true that Kevin Rudd is neither Bob Hawke nor Paul Keating ... but then, for all that he stands on their shoulders, it's good that he isn't either of these men. Theirs were not flawless governments. I am glad to see that we are moving on from them, in a way (I must hope) that acknowledges and builds on their strengths. Maybe the way to do this, in the American case, is with a president who is not also a Clinton?
Tuesday, 9 October 2007
The PM and his puppy
In today's Herald: why the Mersey Hospital is like a puppy. The analogy is surprisingly exact.
Style warning: The last sentence of this otherwise fine article is an appalling pun.
Style warning: The last sentence of this otherwise fine article is an appalling pun.
Saturday, 15 September 2007
Do the math, as they say
Polygamous sects have been in the news recently, with a New York Times article on the vile practice of driving teenage boys out of isolated communities into a wider world they are not equipped to handle, and separating them from their families. Such sects are said to be into control, and so an uneasy relationship with teenage boys is no great surprise; and of course it serves the older men's interest in a more sinister way. Unless men are being lost to war or accident (or expulsion), a community in which all men are expected to take several wives cannot be sustained ... but then, so much the worse for community commitment to such rules. Can't maintain your way of life? Surely the answer is just "Well, that is too bad!"
(Viewers of Big Love will recall that Bill Henrikson was run out of the Juniper Creek compound as a teenager, as a threat to its leader in several senses.)
Meanwhile mainstream Mormons and other folk are in some places learning to co-exist with polygamous sect-members via the classic means of cooperation, and respect for virtuous individuals. In certain senses one cannot argue with this, and nor should one want to. But it provides an interesting test-case for prevailing ideas on tolerance:
Polygamists (and especially their children) should not be subject to relentless taunts, quasi-legal harrassment, or irrelevant discrimination. Amen. Individuals should be treated on their merits, and ideally one should "take them as you find them" in social settings. Sure. Allowance for their customs should be made in forming moral assessments. Well of course, although this is not the same as bracketing polygamy as an issue, or approving of it: as discussed in an earlier post on Bill and Barb's "affair", it's difficult to express a coherent opinion on certain individual actions (I was against the affair) without taking a position on the lifestyle as a whole (I think Bill taking second and third wives was wrong, and the fact that his domestic commitments now prevent him from devoting himself to his first and "true" wife, even despite his feelings, is part of what made it wrong in the first place).
But it is somehow illegitimate to express moral disapproval or criticism of this lifestyle choice, provided it stays within norms of informed consent (and so on)? Um, no. Acceptance of such customs should be taught, for the sake of integration/respect/choice/whatever? Nope, doesn't follow. And so on ...
"Gay marriage" always seems to float around the back of these discussions, and to some extent discussion of polygamy can serve as a proxy for discussion of homosexual partnerships. To me, this last approach seems unhelpful: each case should be treated on its merits. Polygamy is useful to the discussion precisely because it is different, and thus throws our concepts and rhetoric into relief. For example, what does one make of "rights" in this case? What about arguments on "orientation" and "choice"?
(Viewers of Big Love will recall that Bill Henrikson was run out of the Juniper Creek compound as a teenager, as a threat to its leader in several senses.)
Meanwhile mainstream Mormons and other folk are in some places learning to co-exist with polygamous sect-members via the classic means of cooperation, and respect for virtuous individuals. In certain senses one cannot argue with this, and nor should one want to. But it provides an interesting test-case for prevailing ideas on tolerance:
Polygamists (and especially their children) should not be subject to relentless taunts, quasi-legal harrassment, or irrelevant discrimination. Amen. Individuals should be treated on their merits, and ideally one should "take them as you find them" in social settings. Sure. Allowance for their customs should be made in forming moral assessments. Well of course, although this is not the same as bracketing polygamy as an issue, or approving of it: as discussed in an earlier post on Bill and Barb's "affair", it's difficult to express a coherent opinion on certain individual actions (I was against the affair) without taking a position on the lifestyle as a whole (I think Bill taking second and third wives was wrong, and the fact that his domestic commitments now prevent him from devoting himself to his first and "true" wife, even despite his feelings, is part of what made it wrong in the first place).
But it is somehow illegitimate to express moral disapproval or criticism of this lifestyle choice, provided it stays within norms of informed consent (and so on)? Um, no. Acceptance of such customs should be taught, for the sake of integration/respect/choice/whatever? Nope, doesn't follow. And so on ...
"Gay marriage" always seems to float around the back of these discussions, and to some extent discussion of polygamy can serve as a proxy for discussion of homosexual partnerships. To me, this last approach seems unhelpful: each case should be treated on its merits. Polygamy is useful to the discussion precisely because it is different, and thus throws our concepts and rhetoric into relief. For example, what does one make of "rights" in this case? What about arguments on "orientation" and "choice"?
Friday, 14 September 2007
Midgley on rights and social ethics
Here is my current author-crush, the moral philosopher Mary Midgley, writing in 1989, near the end of her book Wisdom, information, and wonder: What is knowledge for? (which I've recently been re-reading):
The trouble wrought by mere disputatiousness is one of her themes in this book (and indeed throughout her writings), and is a standing challenge to all of us with strong opinions: one must ask, does a boofhead cease to be a boofhead, simply because he/she is an intellectual, or --- even worse --- an activist?
For instance, questions such as euthanasia and abortion are often made unmanageable by being treated in arbitrary isolation, as if they were the only moral issues in sight. They cannot be effectively thought about apart from wider issues. To name just one, they lead us into questions about the emphasis on brute, unreasoning competition that arises from arguing always in terms of absolute, competing `rights', rights which are not brought into intelligible relations within any wider system. They also bring in question the general unrealistic attitude to the inevitability of death which has long prevailed in our society ... But, besides this lack of a proper background, much-litigated questions like these are bedevilled by the disputants' refusal to admit that they are dealing with a genuine conflict, a real choice of evils. Out of the welter of previous argumentation, argumentative people have constantly picked in advance some set of concepts which favours their own attitude, and refused to extend it so as to make recognition of opposing arguments possible ...
The trouble wrought by mere disputatiousness is one of her themes in this book (and indeed throughout her writings), and is a standing challenge to all of us with strong opinions: one must ask, does a boofhead cease to be a boofhead, simply because he/she is an intellectual, or --- even worse --- an activist?
Tuesday, 17 July 2007
Gotcha!
In a surprisingly non-partisan op-ed piece in Tuesday's Herald, Gerard Henderson attacks the current journalistic sport of trying to catch politicians in an "embarrassing" failure of memory, in this manner: "Can you name all of the Senate candidates of your party from [some_random_State]? Your time starts now ...".
There has been a certain amount of this lately, and it serves no respectable purpose. It should just stop.
There has been a certain amount of this lately, and it serves no respectable purpose. It should just stop.
Friday, 18 May 2007
The problem with Dawkins (the other one)
The other Dawkins, that is. From today's editorial in the Herald:
Oh really? With hindsight it was probably a mistake? There was never anything about the idea of taking disparate institutions and calling them the same thing, that seemed like a mistake at the time?
The Dawkins restructure of university education reduced higher education from two tiers to one, transforming or amalgamating the former colleges of advanced education into new universities, or separate institutes within existing universities. With hindsight, this development was probably a mistake.
Oh really? With hindsight it was probably a mistake? There was never anything about the idea of taking disparate institutions and calling them the same thing, that seemed like a mistake at the time?
Sunday, 6 May 2007
The Trouble with Principle
I am currently involved in a discussion on liberalism (in politics) and the role of principle (in ethics), courtesy of The Blogging Parson.
The initial posts by TBP are almost always well-informed and provocative, and lend themselves to further discussion. I guess this makes it a good blog, my semi-frequent grumbles with the content notwithstanding.
The initial posts by TBP are almost always well-informed and provocative, and lend themselves to further discussion. I guess this makes it a good blog, my semi-frequent grumbles with the content notwithstanding.
Sunday, 22 April 2007
The Condition of France
On the occasion of the French presidential election (or at least, its first round) I've been reading an excellent article by Alain Supiot, from the University of Nantes, in an LRB from the middle of last year. Despite its title, it's really about Europe, and the West generally, and our current predicament.
I'm afraid you need a subscription to read the full article: the website only shows the first paragraph. So consider this an ad. I will allow myself this brief quote, about the decay of western institutions, especially political ones:
I'm afraid you need a subscription to read the full article: the website only shows the first paragraph. So consider this an ad. I will allow myself this brief quote, about the decay of western institutions, especially political ones:
Put less colourfully, de-institutionalisation produces idiocy, in the original sense of the word --- confinement within the self, loss of contact with the real world and an inability to subscribe to a shared meaning ... This phenomenon is made worse by the endogamy of the ruling class, since a single `noblesse d'état' monopolises the exercise of political, economic and media power.
This situation is not peculiar to France, but rather forms part of a fundamental tendency to see the law as merely a neutral instrument, a product that everyone ought to be able to use in the service of their individual interests...
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