By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, November 30th, 2010 
Last night in my course on the sociology of Erving Goffman, we discussed the release of classified documents by WikiLeaks. The students generally agreed with me that the publication was inappropriate and politically problematic. I think actually only one person dissented from the consensus. Given the general political orientation of the students and faculty of the New School, this was surprising. We are far to the left of the general public opinion, to the left, in fact, of the political center of the American academic community. Our first position is to be critical of the powers that be.
Why not disclose the inner workings of the global super power? Why not “out” American and foreign diplomats for their hypocrisy? We did indeed learn a lot about the world as it is through the WikiLeak disclosures. On the one hand, Netanyahu apparently is actually for a two state solution, and on the other Arab governments are just as warlike in their approach to Iran as Israel. China is not as steadfast in its support of North Korea and not as opposed to a unified Korea through an extension of South Korean sovereignty as is usually assumed. And the Obama administration has been tough minded in coordinating international sanctions against Iran, as it has been unsteady with a series of awkward failures in closing Guantanamo Prison.
And, of course, The New York Times, yesterday justified publication, mostly in the name of the public’s right to know about the foibles of its government, and also noted today how the leaks reveal the wisdom and diplomatic success of the Obama administration.
Most of the opposition to the release is very specific. It will hurt the prospects of peace in the Middle East. It shows our hand to enemies, as it embarrasses friends. But my concern, shared with my students is that as it undermines diplomacy, it increases the prospects for diplomacy’s alternatives.
In fact, given the social theorist we have been studying, Goffman, it actually is not that unexpected that my students and I share a concern about the latest from WikiLeaks. Goffman studied social . . .
Read more: WikiLeaks, Front Stage/Back Stage
By Martin Plot, November 29th, 2010 
In a democracy, power becomes an “empty place,” to use an expression of French political philosopher Claude Lefort. This does not mean that nobody occupies the place of power. Rather it means that those who occupy the place, do so circumstantially, and as a result of the periodic outcomes of the democratic, electoral struggle. That power is an empty place means that nobody can occupy it permanently, that nobody can “embody” it, and that no social group can claim to be entitled to rule.
My question is: in America, can we still consider political power to be the circumstantial result of the democratic electoral struggle?
Obama’s short political journey so far has proven two apparently contradictory facts related to the empty place, in my judgment. On the one hand, he has shown that the American electoral process is still able to make room for unexpected victories, for political actors defying political machineries and early financial disadvantages. On the other hand, however, his victory, together with his party’s victory, giving them ample majorities in both chambers of Congress, have indicated, in my opinion—and in that of most of those behind the famous “enthusiasm gap” between the parties—that neither decision-making nor legislative processes seem to be closely related to the electoral outcomes any longer.
The New York Times’ columnists Frank Rich and Nicholas Kristof have been using the word “plutocracy” in their columns to describe the problem I see. Would it be too strong of a claim to say that we have to take seriously the hypothesis of an at least partial plutocratic re-embodiment of power in America?
By Lauren Denigan, November 25th, 2010 From the staff of DeliberatelyConsidered, have a happy and safe holiday weekend.
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, November 24th, 2010 
Thanksgiving is a special holiday, the great American secular celebration: a common ritual, eating of a turkey dinner, almost universally practiced, in all the nooks and crannies of the social landscape. Indians may not be very enthusiastic. The return on their historic hospitality was not very good. And those who are concerned about the Native American place in the national story may have their critical doubts, but still just about everyone takes part or at least is expected to take part, including me. A conversation I had with a good friend earlier in the week reveals what it’s all about.
My pool at the Theodore Young Community Center will be closed from Thursday through Sunday, as there will be no new posts at DC during this extended holiday weekend. Knowing the pool would be closed, I made sure I went today and earlier in the week. I chatted with Beverly McCoy , the receptionist and social center of gravity there, about the upcoming holiday. She explained her preparations.
Today she is driving to her son and his family in Central Pennsylvania. Yesterday and Monday, she was preparing, doing her packing and making the cornbread stuffing, a must for her African American family. Thanksgiving wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without Bev’s down home stuffing, a specialty of the South.
I have a similar but slightly different expectation at my Thanksgiving dinner at my sister in law, Geraldine’s, place in Brooklyn, across from the museum. She and her husband Bernard will cook the dinner, but one of the necessities is prepared by my other sister in law, Lana, the kugel (the traditional Jewish noodle pudding). As Beverly’s Thanksgiving requires her cornbread stuffing, ours wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without Lana’s kugel.
My daughter, Brina, felt this deeply when she was spending her junior year abroad in Paris. When the program director organized a potluck Thanksgiving dinner for the Brown students studying there, Brina immediately thought of the kugel, which was a big success, even as it puzzled the French Thanksgiving guests, a sweet dish that wasn’t . . .
Read more: Thanksgiving, Kugel, and Cornbread Stuffing
By Michael Corey, November 23rd, 2010 
A tragic story about Target, a hero dog that was killed in error by a worker in an animal shelter, caught my attention. The story brought to mind my uneasiness with state sponsored killings of all sorts. Additionally, I was intrigued by the way words shape narratives, in this case “euthanize” and “kill.”
Target was a war hero. She was a stray dog who survived gun shots and explosions in Afghanistan. She and two other strays, befriended by U. S. soldiers, deterred a suicide bomber wearing explosives. They barked at and bit the attacker, and in the process spared the lives of large numbers of soldiers. One of the dogs was killed. Target and Rufus, the other dog that survived with the assistance of aid workers, were taken to the U. S. to live with soldiers who had helped care for them in Afghanistan.
Target became famous after appearing on the Oprah Winfrey show. Unfortunately, last week, Target escaped from her backyard. She didn’t have on identification tags nor did she have an identification microchip implanted in her. Someone found the dog and called animal control. While Target’s family continued to search for her, she entered the institutional dog shelter system. Through a series of missteps, the owners didn’t get to the shelter in time.
“Euthanize” and “kill” have been used to shape alternative Target narratives. “Euthanize” and its related terms, “put down,” and “put to sleep ”(or “PTS”) are more comforting, “kill” or “execute” more disturbing. In Target’s case, the later terms are more descriptive of the case. Target wasn’t suffering. She wasn’t in physical distress. She wasn’t aggressive. She didn’t have any severe behavioral problems, and she wasn’t a threat to other people or animals.
Euthanize: Policy Implications
The deconstructed word euthanasia is “good,” “gentle” or “easy” death derived from the Greek. It typically refers to the painless killing of a suffering person or animal which either has an incurable, painful disease, or is in a permanent coma. While Euthanasia is generally considered to be illegal as it applies to humans, it is considered to be humane as it applies . . .
Read more: Euthanize or Kill: What is the Difference?
By William Milberg, November 22nd, 2010 
President Obama’s goal of “doubling exports over the next ten years” seems like a win-win in that it will boost employment and reduce the troubling U.S. trade deficit. At first glance, his position makes sense politically and economically. But there is a problem. Because of the globalization of production that U.S. companies have championed over the past 20 years, exports from sectors other than agriculture require a much higher level of imports than ever before. As a result, the job creation from expanding exports is much lower than it was in the 1980s and 1990s.
In economic terms, the President’s goal of doubling exports makes sense. Foreign demand is expected to be the fastest growing component of U.S. demand in the coming years. And other, domestic, sources of economic growth are less promising than they have been in the past.
We can’t consume our way out of our problems. Consumption demand is going through a long-term adjustment from the build up of consumer debt over the past ten years. Private investment also is not a likely singular basis for recovery. It stopped being the most dynamic source of U.S. economic growth years ago. With fear of a double-dip recession, lots of built-up excess capacity and still inexplicably tight credit, private investment spending is unlikely to be a driver of US economic growth. Government spending has been politically excluded by the bi-elections. Federal spending has grown rapidly over the period of economic crisis, but calls for deficit reduction mean that the kinds of increases we have seen in government spending over the last few years may not be politically feasible in the future.
That leaves the export sector. With the dramatic growth rates of the emerging markets — most prominently Brazil, India and China, — the potential for growth in U.S. exports is considerable.
A rapid doubling of exports also makes sense politically, since it relies on the spending power of foreigners not the U.S. government, and in this sense is a “free lunch.” Moreover, if export growth is blocked by tariffs or exchange rate manipulation, the source of the failure lies outside U.S. . . .
Read more: Will Increased Exports Lift the Economy?
By Martin Plot, November 21st, 2010 
Martin Plot is a former student, and good friend and colleague. I have learned a great deal from him about the relationship between aesthetics and politics, specifically concerning the temptations and dangers of kitsch. He joins DC with this post offering his critical view of the question of truth in American politics. -Jeff
Many commentators on the Democratic side (including Jeff) are mesmerized by the fact that most in the Tea Party movement, and the Republican Party at large, seem completely delusional, asserting facts that are not so and assuming ideological positions that distort reality almost as a matter of sport. The problem is not, however, one of simple dichotomies between reason and un-reason, and of truth and fiction, the problem resides in the dynamic that is slowly transforming our political regime.
French philosopher Merleau-Ponty explained this in the epilogue to his Adventures of the Dialectic. At two different moments in that text he uses two phrases in an almost indistinguishable way. At one point, he says, in condemning the Soviet dictatorship, that a different regime is needed, one that makes room for opposition and freedom. Later on, almost as if he were saying the same thing—and he was, in the context of his philosophy—he calls for a regime that welcomes opposition and truth. For Merleau-Ponty, truth is opening, or what he calls hyper-reflection and hyper-dialectics, which means opening to both other perspectives and the unfolding of time. Put straightforwardly: hyper-reflection means that even “reason”—or what he calls “the point of view of reflection”—needs to understand that it has its own blind spots. Therefore, it needs to be opened to contestation. Hyper-dialectics, on the other hand, means that whatever is the case today, may not be the case tomorrow. Therefore, present circumstances should never be expected to remain unchallenged.
In this context, the problem with Republican illusions, and lies that are mostly self-delusions, is not simply that they are wrong and untrue. The problem is that they find no opposition, that Democrats are afraid of confronting them . . .
Read more: Opposition and Truth
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, November 19th, 2010
My posts, “.com v .org” and the follow up “Is the business of American Business?” have stimulated an interesting and important conversation. The complexities have been revealed, providing a basis for serious discussion which should inform decision making and political action.
Elle recognizes that applying the bottom line to the point that basic humanities majors are eliminated is a problem. She realizes that there is a cultural value, the value of the university, that has an independent significance beyond the logic of the market, and, I would add, beyond the significance the university has for the state. The modern university, with a definitive liberal arts tradition, shouldn’t be subjected directly to the logic of the bottom line.
Elle and I are in agreement with the great 20th century conservative philosopher, Michael Oakeshott, who, in his The Voice of Liberal Learning points out, “Education in its most general significance may be recognized as a specific transaction which may go on between generations of human beings in which newcomers to the scene are initiated into the world they are to inhabit.” He goes on to explain that a liberal education involves “the invitation to disentangle oneself, for a time, from the urgencies of the here and now and to listen to the conversation in which human beings forever seek to understand themselves.”
But Elle and I disagree about the application of this conservative reasoning to the appointment of Cathy Black as Chancellor of the New York City public schools. While I have serious doubts, Elle thinks that Black’s excellence in the arts of administration should be decisive. As a student of Oakeshott in this regard, I am not persuaded. Scott’s particular concerns about Black, revealing an acquiescence to questionable business practices, are disturbing and have implications. The competing ethos and imperatives of business and politics, on the one hand, and education, on the other, undermine the case for the Black appointment. I think this is an instance where the saying “there is a time and a place for everything” suggests that certain people should find their appropriate place.
. . .
Read more: DC Week in Review: Thoughts on Recent Replies
By William Milberg, November 18th, 2010 
While January 2009 marked the inauguration of a new President of the United States, it was also a virtual coronation of John Maynard Keynes as the king of modern economics.
For decades, the economics profession attacked Keynesianism, first for lacking a theory of inflation and then for an insufficient appreciation of individual rationality in decisions by investors and employers. Robert Lucas, Thomas Sargent, and other radical conservatives ruled the roost, arguing that markets work best when fully deregulated, that labor market protections reduce employment, and that economic growth is driven by a series of exogenous shocks. Milton Friedman’s influence was felt more than that of Keynes.
But for the past two years Keynesianism has served as the scientific foundation for the ideas of today’s most celebrated economists, both conservative and liberal. From Martin Feldstein to Joseph Stiglitz, from Glen Hubbard to Paul Krugman, all major economists have supported Keynesian demand management in the form of large fiscal stimulus to reverse our economic decline. Even today, it is only the far right of the economics profession that has backed away from this view in preference to the politically popular notion that deficits should be eliminated in the short run. The embrace of Keynes is a welcome development. He brought deep insight about the nature of capitalism and especially the need for adequate demand (as opposed simply to downwardly flexible wages) to generate fully employment.
The Keynesian concern is the short-run stabilization of employment and income. The current situation poses a longer-term set of challenges, rooted in the structural changes that have plagued the economy both during and prior to the crisis in 2008: stagnant wages and a huge buildup of household debt, the disappearance of manufacturing jobs and a persistent trade deficit, a bloated and destabilizing role for finance, a reduced rate of private sector innovation, and heightened economic insecurity. A progressive response to these problems is likely to be more informed by another great social thinker of the 20th century, Karl Polanyi, than by Keynesianism.
![]( "The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time by Karl Polanyi, Amereon </i></strong></em></b>. . .
<p>Read more: <a href=") Making Sense of the Economic Mess
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, November 17th, 2010 
I worry about the penetration of the market and its logic into all spheres of social life. I see this almost everywhere I turn. It’s the future of America that Republicans wish for, but it is my nightmare.
In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg has chosen Cathie Black to be Chancellor of the largest public school system in the United States. She is not an educator, never went to public schools, has never worked on school issues and didn’t send her children to public schools. But the mayor still confidently declared her to be the most qualified person, as The New York Times reported, calling Ms. Black “a superstar manager who has succeeded spectacularly in the private sector” and added, “There’s no one who knows more about the skills our children will need to succeed in the 21st century economy.” Hers are market, not educational, qualifications for a management position in the NYC public school district.
In my and the country’s second city, Chicago, where I studied for my Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, in the meanwhile, smaller issues are at stake, a local battle of symbols. The Chicago Transit Authority is selling naming rights “for rail lines and stations, bus routes, retail concessions, and special events. Even the venerable (sic) CTA logo will be on the auction block,” the Chicago Tribune reports.
And where I studied as an undergraduate at the State University of New York at Albany, because of a budget crisis, five humanities programs, including French, Italian, Russian, classics and theater, have been suspended, apparently because these programs don’t contribute to the university’s and the individual’s bottom line. (link) Such majors don’t attract many students, and those who are so attracted upon graduation have trouble finding work. But how can there be a university without the humanities? (link) This hits close to home for me. Albany is the place where I decided to make the unusual move that has defined my career, starting my research by studying the sociology of theater.
How can it be that the business of the New York City school system and of my alma . . .
Read more: Is the Business of America Business?
|
Blogroll
On the Left
On the Right
|
Making Sense of the Economic Mess