StephenKMackSD's Blog

What is so striking in this long article on Apple retail stores in the New York Times titled Apple’s Retail Army, Long on Loyalty but Short on Pay is that in the comments section so many writers defended the Apple policies, that perpetuated the myth that somehow because Apple is a giant corporation, it could do what it pleased, as far as employee pay etc. was concerned. It is as if it had no civic duty or obligation to treat it’s fellow citizens and employees first as fellow citizens of the commonwealth and as if their contribution to the success of their products was a meaningful contribution to that success. When did corporations stop being active participants in the civic life of the republic? What happened to the notion and practice of fairness and equity in the face of the moralizing rhetoric of the once triumphant Free Marketeers? If the corporations are granted the rights of citizenship by a reactionary majority of the Supreme Court,Citizens United,when do they start acting like good citizens aware of their obligations to a fully realized notion of good citizenship? When do we as citizens and contributors to the flourishing of Capital stop apologizing for insisting on a living wage for work performed? Is it 1930 all over again?

Publius

Mr. Gelb's usual chatter seems better organized and more succinct in this essay. Conjecture: one of Tina Brown's subordinates has assigned a new editor with the chore of revising his essays before publication. Or perhaps a cassette tape arrives at the Daily Beast office in a small padded envelope, that after the editing process takes place, will be returned to it's sender, for his next essay. It is a tantalizing thought.  Mr. Gelb takes on the foreign policy conundrum of whether the America should lend military aid and support to various rebels fighting dictators in the Arab World.  Mr. Gelb takes his usual rhetorical stance of that of the outsider, which can only be described as purest fiction. Anyone curious enough to do an internet search will find his CV very impressive but not at all confirming his pose as outsider, in the foreign policy realm. Although it does provide a cover of sorts. Mr. Gelb and his fellow experts in 'Foreign Policy' have spent the better part of their active political careers defending the ad hoc and carelessly cobbled together policy toward the 'Middle East'. Which meant that support for usable tyrants, who could keep their restive but quiescent populations under control, as long as US interests were duly recognized, has come to an abrupt and surprising end. Now, that wobbly structure is crumbling with a heavy loss of life, and a very real threat to Israel our unmanageable and increasingly reactionary client state. Mr. Gelb and his fellow 'Foreign Policy' experts are now in an uncomfortable moral quandary. Should we be at all surprised about the confusion and seeming disarray of one of the elite thinkers on this pressing issue? How does one act in the face of a failed policy constructed over two or more generations? Certainly not with a painful honesty, or a belated plain-speaking. Mr. Gelb and his intellectual partners squandered America's moral and political capital on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the revamped War on Terror. The new policy is based upon remotely controlled devices for murder at a distance. But with all it's virtues in terms of killing the 'guilty', it also kills the innocents, who are declared guilty as a matter of policy. All of this outside any notion or practice of checks and balances, but under the rubric of presidential power exercised in a time of war. No actual moral concern but a demonstration of it's exploitable politicized twin.
Political Cynic     
      
   

Compare the more empirical and historically based , revelatory arguments of Paul Krugman, on the Greek crisis and election, with the usual politically exploitable left wing paranoia of Conservative Ross Douthat. Although the discussion are not exactly parallel, Mr. D. extemporizes on the 'lazy southerner' of Bonn/Brussels myth, adding the political frisson of nihilistic radical left wing politicking, that always resonates with his political fellow travelers. The self-willed and irresponsible Left will, by it's actions, force the responsible members of that loose federation called the Eurozone, to precipitous action. Syriza represents a minority in Greek political life, as the elections demonstrated, but the imperative that Mr. D. expresses, in an American political context, is that the 'Left' is destructive and illegitimate, prima facie, no matter the context. A closely held belief of Conservatives: Occupy and the Nader of 2000 being the objects of his moralizing contempt. Mr. D. pitches his commentary to an American reader who fully accepts the political nihilism of the Tea Party; it's ideological control of the Republican Party, as a matter of urgent necessity, of national rescue, from the mendacity and bad faith of an outdated politics of pragmatism. Creating a politics of purity without compromise, which means no politics at all. Mr. D. does not acknowledging certain themes that both the Tea Party and Syriza have in common. Read this story at the Guardian for some insight into the elections, that puts the 'lazy southerner' myth into a more rational perspective. I am not saying that my interpretation of events and political predispositions is one hundred percent correct or true. But simply reading the Greek crisis in it's American political context, following the lead of Mr. Douthat.

Political Observer

"“We have a sense that the economic order we knew in the second half of the 20th century may not be coming back at all — that we have entered a new era for which we have not been well prepared. … We are, rather, on the cusp of the fiscal and institutional collapse of our welfare state, which threatens not only the future of government finances but also the future of American capitalism.”

This is a quote from an essay pretentiously, melodramatically titled 'Our Age of Anxiety', by Yuval Levin in the Weekly Standard, ( A reader of Mr. Levin's essay, in which he casts himself as the arbiter between the two propaganda's of Obama and Romney, might just find his proclaimed status of judge and the implicitly implied practice of 'objectivity' hard to take seriously, even find it questionable.) characterized as 'definitive' by Mr. Brooks in his essay titled What Republicans Think, that provides a confirmation of the thesis that the Welfare State is pernicious and needs to be discarded as a destructive relic of another century, or more pointedly as a morally corrupting impediment to natural capitalist dynamism. Where that 'dynamism' resides, or even better, what that construct might mean, in economic terms, remains a mystery, in our post 2008 world. That Conservatism has made it's mission to destroy, utterly, the Welfare State in all it's guises, since the days of the New Deal is carefully elided from Mr. Brooks argumentative frame. It could not be otherwise- the current worldwide economic crisis is now the final and 'definitive' rationale for the ascent of the dog eat dog 'economic philosophy' of Modern Conservatism: an amalgam of Friedman/Hayek/Mises/Rand with a heavy garnish of Carl Schmitt and his philosophical ally Leo Strauss. This ethical/political toxin has changed the American political discourse into a sterile debate between New Democrats, Conservatives, and Neo-Conservatives, all members in good standing of the Neo-Liberal cabal. In this instance Mr. Brooks usual bloated platonic chatter devolves into unsophisticated propaganda. It doesn't serve the notion that he, somehow, transcends the real political divide in post 2008 political/economic debate.
Selective quotation is illuminating:

" The average growth was a paltry 1.7 percent annually between 2000 and 2009. It averaged 0.6 percent growth between 2009 and 2011. Wages have failed to keep up with productivity. Family net worth is back at the same level it was at 20 years ago."

In the years 2000-2009 a Compassionate Conservative occupied the Presidency and the crisis occurred in late 2008, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. 2009-2011 can best be considered as a deepening of that collapse across the economy, accompanied by a too small stimulus package and no mortgage relief for home owners.

"In America as in Europe, Republicans argue, the welfare state is failing to provide either security or dynamism."

The Free Market failed and in the process failed to provide security or dynamism. Just a bit of recasting of the main characters can illuminate the failed promise of the Free Market mythology.

"The welfare model favors security over risk, comfort over effort, stability over innovation. Money that could go to schools and innovation must now go to pensions and health care. This model, which once offered insurance from the disasters inherent in capitalism, has now become a giant machine for redistributing money from the future to the elderly."

Here is the Conservative argument; security vs. risk, comfort vs. effort, stability vs. innovation, all neatly framed moralistically, having nothing to do with morality but everything to do with a theological conviction of rightness, of the moral high ground as a priori. Next : the old folks rob the young in this Neo-Darwinian fable.

"This is the source of Republican extremism: the conviction that the governing model is obsolete. It needs replacing."

Republican Extremism is about political purity and an effective political conformity, that expresses itself as 'no compromises' in the hopes that the failed presidency of Barack Obama will usher in the vulture Capitalist Mitt Romney. Mr. Brooks proclaims the necessary demise of the Welfare State amid the ruin of the Free Market Delusion, the failure to deliver on it's promises of a better future, that amounted to economic chaos and world wide economic decline, predicated on an unsustainable model of growth rather than a model based on development, abetted by wholesale mendacity and thievery . Mr. Brooks argues, propagandizes, for the end of the Welfare State as a well worn tactic of Modern Conservatism, displacement: proclaim the necessity of the end of the Welfare State in the wreckage of the Free Market, remembering to strike the necessary pose of high moral seriousness.

Political Cynic

Mr. Brooks begins his latest essay as a diatribe against contemporary monuments in the nations capitol, the mixture of aesthetics and politics is choice that leaves the regular reader of the platonically inflected political chatter of Mr. Brooks a bit confused, as aesthetics seems so far afield for a thinker, that reduces the facts of political history to more easily manipulable place holders. But then this essay devolves into an extended rant on the erosion, no the frontal attack on 'just authority'. 'Just authority' is code language for 'male heterosexual power'. Mr. Brooks is an adherent of both a religious, and a political tradition that exalts, indeed deifies male heterosexual power as foundational: as ineluctably justified in the eyes of 'God' and 'Political Tradition', both of which act in this essay the part of the voices of the self-exculpatory, the self-justified. Although, these rhetorical players remain in the argumentative background, this subtext is the great reservoir that fuels Mr. Brooks political indignation.

An illuminating quote:

“Why can’t today’s memorial designers think straight about just authority?

Some of the reasons are well-known. We live in a culture that finds it easier to assign moral status to victims of power than to those who wield power. Most of the stories we tell ourselves are about victims who have endured oppression, racism and cruelty.”

I will close my comment here as Mr. Brooks' essay is worth reading in it's totality, it's suchness, as the expression of a deeply held and unquestionably justified patriarchal power.

Queer Atheist

 

I can't say that the Ross Douthat essay of June 9,2012 titled Eugenics,Past and Present is surprising in any way. Mr. Douthat manufactures some self-serving political hysteria regarding research led by Jay Shendure, a professor at the University of Washington, who supervised a research team, that mapped the genome of the human fetus. Now, the mapping of the genome is not at the 100 % level but it is a beginning and Mr. Douthat takes that information and turns it in to a fable, that takes Eugenics as it's starting point. That this research has been done, but is not yet complete, is used as the beginning, the start of a carefully selected history of Eugenics, that argues that Political Liberals were the vanguard of this movement instead of being a part of larger and more diverse ethical,political,cultural support of this pseudoscience: the quest for a kind of human perfectibility based on the demonization of existing stereotypes of the socially unworthy, and a repugnant methodology for ridding society of those deemed least worthy. That Eugenics is now associated with Nazism which vindicates, makes for an easier argumentative strategy, Mr. Douthat's position that this research will be used, eventually, as a rationalization to perform abortions. It is very hard for Mr. Douthat to think of freedom, of the primacy of the exercise of individual conscious, in such matters, as being different than his felt imperatives.He is pro-life which translates into a politics of defense of the un-born and an empirically demonstrated hostility to the well being of the living. I'm not the first to recognize this glaring disparity of 'values', that exists within the Conservative milieu, and their fellow travelers, nor will I be the last to make that connection. It is very easy to see Mr. Douthat's essay will take it's place as one more example of Conservatism's war on science as demonstrative of the rise of the theocrats.
Political Cynic
                      

If your looking for a diversion from the more troublesome aspects of your own life, and/or the failure of the Republic, the latest David Brooks essay titled The Moral Diet can supply something that almost resembles serious human thought. We are reading America's premier fake political moralist who has discovered the work of social scientist Dan Ariely, and his book The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty. In this book Mr. Brooks discovers that his Conservative belief in the sinfulness of man is borne out by the research that Mr. Ariely has conducted. To put it mildly Mr. Brooks is elated with the scientific proof that confirms his foundational belief in that inherent state. In this intellectual mode Mr. Brooks speaks the part of an eager Christian Fundamentalist. But Mr. Brooks being who he is, a status conscious self-promoter, wants to assure his readers that Mr. Ariely brings with him the appropriate intellectual pedigree, so this assurance to his readers is offered:

“Ariely, who is one of the most creative social scientists on the planet, invented other tests to illustrate this phenomenon.”

When Mr. Brooks sites his sources he cannot resist the hyperbolic assertion. Since he, a self-assured pundit, would not quote a scholarly source, that didn't match or exceed his own self-perceived, indeed, unquestionable, a priori high status. A reader of this highly garnished essay, by apt stories that illustrate the dishonesty of their fellow citizens, demands the adoption of a critical attitude of skepticism, because it fits too neatly the conservative master idea of a demonstrable, corrupting American Decadence. Here is a quote from near the end of the essay that illustrates succinctly Mr. Brooks moralizing position:

“Next time you feel tempted by something, recite the Ten Commandments. A small triggering nudge at the moment of temptation, Ariely argues, is more effective than an epic sermon meant to permanently transform your whole soul.”

Mr. Brooks cannot resist placing his arguments in the moralizing vocabulary of American Religious Fundamentalism, which retains it's shopworn quality, although the rhetorical frame is shifted from an anecdotal moralism to the realm of the social sciences. This shift can only enhance his status as the “thinking man's” Conservative: in a political culture that, above all, reveres a cultivated political respectability.

Political Observer

David Brooks cannot resist the temptation to present himself as public moralist even when discussing the career choices of the 'student elite' as in this essay of of May 24, 2012 obliquely titled The Service Patch. A side note: Mr. Brooks demonstrates a positive mania for 'elites' of all kinds, perhaps he strongly identifies himself with that category?

“Earlier this year, Rob Reich, a Stanford political science professor (not the former labor secretary, the other one), held a terrific online discussion on why so many elite students go into finance and consulting and whether this is a good thing.”

Mr. Brooks doesn't quite comprehend that that is where the money is to be made. It seems simplistic but the profit motive could just drive career choices. In the moralist mode, Mr. Brooks seems to lose his romantic attachment to Virtuous Capital.

Further into the essay Mr. Brooks presents these thoughts:

“The discussion also reinforced a thought I’ve had in many other contexts: that community service has become a patch for morality. Many people today have not been given vocabularies to talk about what virtue is, what character consists of, and in which way excellence lies, so they just talk about community service, figuring that if you are doing the sort of work that Bono celebrates then you must be a good person.”

If the students that Mr. Brooks discusses, with such glib articulation, can be considered 'elite' where does the lack of moral vocabulary originate. Surly these students took accelerated classes dealing with philosophy, ethics and political economy, or even an elective or two in literature, not to speak of their respective religious/ethical backgrounds. Or,even just indulging their own intellectual curiosity, in personal reading. Mr. Brooks, perhaps, exaggerates the lack of 'vocabularies' in service to his rhetorical/ideological terminus?

“Let’s put it differently. Many people today find it easy to use the vocabulary of entrepreneurialism, whether they are in business or social entrepreneurs. This is a utilitarian vocabulary. How can I serve the greatest number? How can I most productively apply my talents to the problems of the world? It’s about resource allocation.”

Mr. Brooks looses himself in his own overly garnished argument, while a student looking for a job just might find the money to be made in Finance and Consulting, as a way forward in terms of career. That presents an opportunity to exploit her/his well earned status as 'elite'. Not an instance of utilitarianism but rather of the purest self-interest.

“People are less good at using the vocabulary of moral evaluation, which is less about what sort of career path you choose than what sort of person you are.”

One might think of a student, as here described, as wanting, in this depressed and uncertain economy, a dependable and lucrative career path, rather than indulging in the pseudo-philosophic conjectures of Mr. Brooks. It might be all about practicality, paying off student loans etc. with an eye to making enough money, to, at a later date, change careers. Career pragmatism is the option that Mr. Brooks doesn't even consider.

“In whatever field you go into, you will face greed, frustration and failure. You may find your life challenged by depression, alcoholism, infidelity, your own stupidity and self-indulgence. So how should you structure your soul to prepare for this? Simply working at Amnesty International instead of McKinsey is not necessarily going to help you with these primal character tests.”

Mr. Brooks mood turns utterly bleak in fore-seeing the possible future of these elite students. And now, in a moment of contrived crisis, he asks the question of how one structures one's soul. One can only ask: What does this mean?

“Furthermore, how do you achieve excellence? Around what ultimate purpose should your life revolve? Are you capable of heroic self-sacrifice or is life just a series of achievement hoops? These, too, are not analytic questions about what to do. They require literary distinctions and moral evaluations.”

Mr. Brooks is anchored in the vocabulary of Reagan through the Financial Crisis of 2008. Excellence was the rallying cry of Emancipatory Capital, as argued by Conservatives and their first cousins the New Democrats, before it descended into economic thuggery and wholesale theft. What follows is a collection of moralizing platitudes,i.e. a vocabulary: heroic self-sacrifice, achievement hoops, analytic questions, literary distinctions,moral evaluations.

“When I read the Stanford discussion thread, I saw young people with deep moral yearnings. But they tended to convert moral questions into resource allocation questions; questions about how to be into questions about what to do.”

Mr. Brooks perceives in the young people 'deep moral yearnings' who convert moral questions into 'resource allocation questions', perhaps a pragmatic solution to questions of career choices,simply put. Mr. Brooks does seems to perceives 'deep moral yearnings' at the drop of a hat, without regard to context

“It’s worth noting that you can devote your life to community service and be a total schmuck. You can spend your life on Wall Street and be a hero. Understanding heroism and schmuckdom requires fewer Excel spreadsheets, more Dostoyevsky and the Book of Job.”

Mr. Brooks loses his argumentative control and descends into vulgarisms as the end point of his high minded conjectures. Adding the names of a political reactionary Russian Novelist and Christian Mystic and a Book of the Hebrew Bible, that celebrates the state of mankind as subject to both the will of Satan and the will of God, whose only option is a pathetic and unedifying submission to the will of both. Here, Mr. Brooks steers us all into the ethical/political cul-de-sac that is Conservatism.

Political Observer