the reactionary mind

watching up w/chris hayes and seeing corey robin, author of the reactionary mind: conservativism from edmund burke to sarah palin. see the problem with robin's frame, also pointed out by mark lilla in the nyrb this month, is that the definition of conservatism as the defense of privilege and hence reactionary in the face of movements for emancipation, obviously begs all the normative questions. then the only remaining mystery is that conservatism can sell itself as a popular philosophy at all, and the fiendish manipulations by which it does that become an object of study, along with the false consciousness of the reagan democrats or whatever. 

rather we should see the left/right spectrum as a contest between different cultural coalitions, led by elites in a contest for power. what? are columbia or harvard profs the representatives of the downtrodden in a democratic movement of emancipation? the idea that the left is emancipatory and the right oppressive is just a reproduction of the rhetoric of the left circa 1848; it doesn't look like what's there. where in reality is the non-hierarchical left? not in american liberalism, e.g., or in marxist communism. what robin's thesis gets half-right, however, is that the left and right take shape in response to one another. but as lilla said we could really use a taxonomy of the right. because the fact that robin's thesis takes the left/right split as fundamental and coherent in itself disqualifies it as social science. add that he accepts the account of the taxonomy itself of one of the positions, and you have something that by definition is a mere polemic, not a 'study' of the 'conservative mind.'

just take a hyper-primitive idea of progress and reaction: changing things vs keeping things the same; moving into the future as against stopping time, as though that were among the choices. well, the average working-class person might have various stakes either way. no one can just endorse change or no change, and for example various government programs for the amelioration of this or that might effect you one way or another. working people too can get entwined in the coils of the state or rightly regard it with extreme suspicion. the managerial expertise of professors might not be so obviously attractive after all even on a sober analysis of one's own interests.

at any rate, you can't start with interests as only economic interests, and these are bound up at every node with religious interests, moral interests, psychological predilections, individual autonomies, regional interests, racial interests, aesthetic interests, social affiliations, and so on. that there would be the precise failure of the left: reduction to the economic, while regarding everything else as mere ideology or superstructure. rather, you had better listen to people's account of their own interests, and the role of religion in the inner city or in deeply rural zones of america makes answering that a religious question. appeal to managerial expertise or cold-war style militarism or constitutional fundamentalism is an aesthetic as well as an economic issue, etc. we need to be pluralists about real values and hence real interests.   

i would start by dividing the poltical spectrum along the lines of domination and resistance to domination. of course, what resistance is at a given moment also depends on the shape of the dominant ideology, which might be right or left.

Comments

[Pied Cow]

I tend to agree that left and right are distinctions without a substantial difference, particularly when the proponents of one side or the other find it necessary to establish their bona fides by reminding their readership of educational credentials bestowed onto them by elite institutions of indoctrination.

When I see those credentials I tend to deny credibility to the person(s) flaunting them, or at least to make it their burden to show why I should take what they say with any seriousness when their credentials suggest that I shouldn't.

I feel that our societal and unspoken faith in the value of elite educational institutions as a threshold requirement of legitimacy is at least part of the reason why we're such a bunch of docile bovines.

[Jack Crow]

I'm with Pied. Burn all the colleges and universities, first. Burn 'em to the ground.

[philowitz]

I agree that the taxonomy of conservatisms is lacking, and the left/right dichotomy obscures more than it reveals. And it is true that there are more variables at play than economic realities or perceptions of interests. But riddle me this: I just saw a commercial on tv for interstate batteries with a jingle proclaiming god's love. So we have a merger of commerce with religion, and I am not sure which is selling what.

[CB]

"where in reality is the non-hierarchical left?"

The Occupy General Assemblies?

I've said that to you before, but as usual, if it contradicts your thesis, you pretend it doesn't exist.

[ThisHere]

"But riddle me this: I just saw a commercial on tv for interstate batteries with a jingle proclaiming god's love."

Pardon my ignorance, but what is an "interstate battery," and why is there a commercial for it?

[crispy]

yes, cb, there can be and there is a non-authoritarian left! you won't be voting for it this year though.

[CB]

Obviously. If it's non-authoritarian and non-hierarchical it wouldn't require a vote to begin with. That's a clear contradiction in your loaded premise. You constantly bombard and conflate 'the left' for Democratic (party) practice and performance.

[philowitz]

@ThisHere: Interstate battery is a chain of stores selling car batteries. They advertise nationally but started this god campaign about a year ago.

[ThisHere]

@philowitz:

Ahh. Duh. I would blame your punctuation, but I'm in a forgiving mood and will just chalk it up to my New Year's hangover and general thickness.

Although, yeah, your punctuation...

[Karl]

I'm not that impressed with CB's 3-card-Monte evasiveness. If it's "humor" it lacks the funny. If it's "serious" it lacks a point. What exactly is it? I guess Prof Crispy knows... I'm just a reader and sometime commenter, and I can't figure it out.

[CB]

Well, I most definitely didn't write - nor will ever write anything - to impress your implacably cynical attitude.

There's nothing evasive in what i said, it's rather explicit, and straight forward.

[Karl]

CB, remind me: when and where did we meet in person and have a deep and meaningful conversation of the type that could allow you to posit any "implacably" ANYTHING attitude on my part?

Can you help me with that, please?

Maybe that will add some clarity to the insistence that you're being explicit. I read Crispy's main entry and I didn't see him directly and unequivocally equate, for example, Barack Obama to "leftists." But you suggest he did that very thing.

Ah well. I should expect no less from someone who considers him/herself qualified in internet psychiatry.

[CB]

Karl, you've got to be bloviating for your own entertainment at this point. I've read your site - a bit - and had enough discussions with you on this blog, to draw a general picture of your internet behavior. Whatever your 'real life' behavior is is irrelevant, as we'll probably never meet. How you conduct yourself in person is therefore moot. How you conduct yourself online is pugnacious, bellicose, crude, cynical, invective, and ultimately implacable.

Crispin admitted less than a fortnight ago that he often means Democrats and Liberals when he refers to the 'left,' which makes his post painfully befuddling, and frequently flawed when the distinction isn't drawn. Moreover, my initial point stands: the anti-authoritarian anti-hierarchy left can be found in Occupy General Assemblies (I doubt you went to any of these, finding another reason to hate and disdain without compromise and humility).

If you're only problem with my post was that you didn't understand it, you need not introduce your personal confusion with a exposition about how it doesn't "impress" you. As if anyone, ever, has any onus to do so; and given your implacable pretense, ever can.

[Rik Little]

You know I suppose I could have stayed at home and baked cookies and put on teas but what I decided to do was go out and pursue my profession. A vast femi-fascist conspiracy. It takes a village jail to raise a child.

[Karl]

I see you looked in the mirror at your own self's reflection, as metaphorically carried by this text:

"pugnacious, bellicose, crude, cynical, invective, and ultimately implacable"

...and determined, therefore, with the highest faculties of logic and reasoning, that you were describing me and not yourself.

Quite interesting.

You did accuse ME of something, and now you backpedal furiously and scramble around, headless chicken style, accusing me of having a false persona?

That's a lot of digging and dodging to avoid being explicit, isn't it?

So, where exactly did Prof Crispy say Obama is a "leftist"?

Please.

*******

Incidentally, if I were to gauge your personality based on your posts here at Prof Crispy's, I'd say you're a prim pwoggie who insists the world agree with him/her, and gets fully apoplectic when someone utters a disagreeable phrase or sentence... and who divides the world as thus: CB vs non-CB.

How'd I do?

[CB]

Wow the inanity.
Have a good night Karl.