This long response was eloquent, especially your contention that our seriously restricted terms for thinking through national and international policies were killing off broad questions that ought to be asked.. I laughed silently to myself when you questioned speculatively whether "look[ing] at the creation of Nunavut [one would] wonder if it is not a model for other indigenous-rights movements." It seemed a partial extension and answer to the previous speculation, "I am allowed to ask whether there are other ways that states formerly ruled by European empires might have been created during decolonization[?]" ---I relate those questions to the pluralistic political philosophies of James Tully [former McGill University professor] and Charles Taylor [McGill Emeritus]. I'd especially call attention to Tully's _Strange Multiplicity: Constitutionalism in an Age of Diversity_, which begins with the [currently, much disputed] claim that North America's Constitutional frameworks are clearly progeny of Northern Europe's ideal of 'living constitutions'. A Charter of Rights and Freedoms based on a premise of evolving constitutional negotiation granted special sovereignty to provincial Quebec and also to Nanavut would be a proven, practical basis for reconsidering the status of states---little nations---within the Federal Nation. **I wonder whether contractual law in the U.S. has enabled corporations to become obtain those 'special sovereign' [constituent nation-]statuses in the 'service' of the market economy.** So Tesla and Amazon [like Haliburton before] practically become the U.S.' shadow-living-constitution's 'First Nations'. 'Pretty 'screwed-up, when another way of seeing our country's pluralism might consider a Greater Idaho and also a Sovereign State of Atlanta.)
I hope you're overreaccting .... but so what? I agree. My comment is that any political organization that is not hard right simply cannot write (or speak) cogently. They cannot be concise except by omitting information, which usually is done by using abstractions. Those are, by design, ambiguous. Nor can they employ emotionally-activating prose, possibly because they don't understand that emotion is what has motivating effects. It's not dissolute. Reasoning without emotion is fine in academia but it's not the way people actually behave. Most people "like us" (presumptuous, I know) don't care because we think we already agree. (Ambiguity can have that effect.) But ordinary people see it as vacuous, boring, or both, and the right wing is fine with it too because there is no threat. I've had numerous conversations in the past, such as the following: "Why don't we call 'right to life' efforts something like 'Forced childbirth'?" You can probably guess the answers - "that's gauche," "too inflammatory"' or, "I'm not sure that's really correct," "doesn't address all the issues...." So the hope, I guess, is that we are still in the Enlightenment where reason carries the day. A few, like George Lakoff and Michael Moore "get" it, and sometimes Biden does, but a lot of people are put to sleep. Recently I heard "He's just in it for himself" as a way to attack Trump... that seems maybe a fresh sign of life? Do you agree? What to do? Without a transfusion we're in big trouble (deep shit?).
I think the paradox for me is that the affective alignments of Trump's aggrieved base point them towards a culture-war, social-war enmity that makes it impossible to figure out how to acknowledge the legitimate sources of their alienation and resentment in a neoliberal economy that uses education as an alibi and a gating mechanism and to move in some meaningful way towards positive change. There should be alliances or affiliations that are possible but in the real world they're absolutely blocked.
Tim, excellent, insightful, something I’ve been trying to get my head around. Much appreciated.
This long response was eloquent, especially your contention that our seriously restricted terms for thinking through national and international policies were killing off broad questions that ought to be asked.. I laughed silently to myself when you questioned speculatively whether "look[ing] at the creation of Nunavut [one would] wonder if it is not a model for other indigenous-rights movements." It seemed a partial extension and answer to the previous speculation, "I am allowed to ask whether there are other ways that states formerly ruled by European empires might have been created during decolonization[?]" ---I relate those questions to the pluralistic political philosophies of James Tully [former McGill University professor] and Charles Taylor [McGill Emeritus]. I'd especially call attention to Tully's _Strange Multiplicity: Constitutionalism in an Age of Diversity_, which begins with the [currently, much disputed] claim that North America's Constitutional frameworks are clearly progeny of Northern Europe's ideal of 'living constitutions'. A Charter of Rights and Freedoms based on a premise of evolving constitutional negotiation granted special sovereignty to provincial Quebec and also to Nanavut would be a proven, practical basis for reconsidering the status of states---little nations---within the Federal Nation. **I wonder whether contractual law in the U.S. has enabled corporations to become obtain those 'special sovereign' [constituent nation-]statuses in the 'service' of the market economy.** So Tesla and Amazon [like Haliburton before] practically become the U.S.' shadow-living-constitution's 'First Nations'. 'Pretty 'screwed-up, when another way of seeing our country's pluralism might consider a Greater Idaho and also a Sovereign State of Atlanta.)
I hope you're overreaccting .... but so what? I agree. My comment is that any political organization that is not hard right simply cannot write (or speak) cogently. They cannot be concise except by omitting information, which usually is done by using abstractions. Those are, by design, ambiguous. Nor can they employ emotionally-activating prose, possibly because they don't understand that emotion is what has motivating effects. It's not dissolute. Reasoning without emotion is fine in academia but it's not the way people actually behave. Most people "like us" (presumptuous, I know) don't care because we think we already agree. (Ambiguity can have that effect.) But ordinary people see it as vacuous, boring, or both, and the right wing is fine with it too because there is no threat. I've had numerous conversations in the past, such as the following: "Why don't we call 'right to life' efforts something like 'Forced childbirth'?" You can probably guess the answers - "that's gauche," "too inflammatory"' or, "I'm not sure that's really correct," "doesn't address all the issues...." So the hope, I guess, is that we are still in the Enlightenment where reason carries the day. A few, like George Lakoff and Michael Moore "get" it, and sometimes Biden does, but a lot of people are put to sleep. Recently I heard "He's just in it for himself" as a way to attack Trump... that seems maybe a fresh sign of life? Do you agree? What to do? Without a transfusion we're in big trouble (deep shit?).
I think the paradox for me is that the affective alignments of Trump's aggrieved base point them towards a culture-war, social-war enmity that makes it impossible to figure out how to acknowledge the legitimate sources of their alienation and resentment in a neoliberal economy that uses education as an alibi and a gating mechanism and to move in some meaningful way towards positive change. There should be alliances or affiliations that are possible but in the real world they're absolutely blocked.