Quote:
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The upside of a win by the collective forces of the American left is that portion of the population who are dangerously dissatisfied with their lives, with those who think differently than they do, and with the world as it exists today may be temporarily assuaged.
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art:
are you serious about this "diagnosis" concerning the "left" in america (whatever that is--whatever it is, it has little to do with kerry)---that people would operate in opposition because they are "dissatisfied with their lives"?
what does that mean?
that there is no possibility of operating from a left viewpoint on principle?
that there is no possibility of arriving at a left position on analytic grounds?
how do you know that?
its a kinda patronizing position to adopt, dont you think?
do you really think that at stake in this election, the issue that seperates bush from kerry, the two electorates one from the other, is a simple matter of opinion?
if that is true, are you saying that there is nothing meaningful beyond opinon at stake in this election?
does it follow that there is only opinion at stake in any american election?
if that is true, where does it leave the idea that the american system is democratic?
you seem to say here that it is maybe an oligarchy (my term) that legitimates itself by generating a flurry of superficial, meaningless activity once every four years....
within this flurry of meaningless activity, debate is impossible because there is no possible grounds for even thinking about the validity of competing claims--so everything to do with debate or argument is undecidable and interminable---the result of this pseudo-debate can be nothing more or less than impatience experienced by one side with a pattern of speaking particular to the other--and that is it.
so all possible political positions then are equally valid because equally based on opinion, which is more or less arbitrary.
and that arbitrariness is ok because nothing serious is at stake in the whole process.
but what is serious?
where does real power originate? how is it exercized? what checks it?
how can you have faith in the existing order if you deny that the central elements of that order--the relationship of the state to the people--means nothing?
curiously, if you are saying this, then our positions might converge in a sense--though from very different places, with different analytic emphases and different kinds of conclusions drawn from it as to implications for present and future.