意识形态是什么?

Sunday, May 8, 2022

What Is It

Political polarization seems to be deepening, both in the U.S. and around the globe. Some believe that the rise of ideology is to blame for growing polarization. But can increased polarization really be attributed to ideology? What is exactly is ideology, and how is it different from dogma? Is ideology a kind of political or philosophical thinking? And how might our understanding of ideology affect how we practice politics? Josh and Ray ideate with Marius Ostrowski from the European University Institute, author ofIdeology (Key Concepts).

Listening Notes

意识形态总是错误的吗?你能在不知情的情况下订阅吗?乔什认为意识形态是与理性对立的错误的信仰体系,但雷以自由民主主义为例进行了反驳。然而,他们仍然认为意识形态与客观真理是分开的。此外,他们认为意识形态有助于我们理解世界,因为它们作为一个框架,我们通过它来看待和解释我们周围的事件。

The philosophers welcome Marius Ostrowki, Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute, to the show. Ray asks if ideologies always have to be false, to which Marius replies that they are true “as far as we are concerned,” since they help us simplify the world and build a narrative. Josh observes how ideologies often fit into -ism’s, such as fascism, progressivism, and socialism. Marius examines the relationship between polarization and ideology, since Ray points out that polarization today is at an all-time high. He believes a shift has occurred because of the way that the party system and the ideological system have mapped onto each other.

In the last segment of the show, Josh, Ray, and Marius discuss how privately held ideologies play into our present global situation, since average citizens are barely connected to policies decided by their political representatives. Marius provides a more nuanced conception of thinking about how ideologies differ from our political preferences. Josh is curious about how people adopt and change ideologies, as they follow a pattern of subjection followed by resistance. Ray wonders how we can prevent bad ideologies from harming democracy, and Marius emphasizes that the most important aspect of judging an ideology involves determining how good it is at helping us effectively get on with our lives.

  • Roving Philosophical Reporter (Seek to 3:55) →Sarah Lai Stirland asks people what living in a different country made them realize about the ideology of their country of origin.

  • From the Community (Seek to 44:01) →Josh and Ray respond to Mira’s question about how the geometry of the classroom impacts learning.

Transcript

Transcript

Josh Landy
意识形态总是错误的吗?

Ray Briggs
你能在不知情的情况下订阅吗?

Josh Landy
我们能想象一个没有意识形态的世界吗?

Comments(44)


Daniel's picture

Daniel

Thursday, March 31, 2022 -- 7:25 AM

Grammatically ideology

从语法上看,意识形态翻译为思想的逻辑,它指的是与经验没有明显或特殊联系的思想的产物。它不同于世俗的信念和假设,因为它据称是思考和推理的产物。因此,在我看来,政治咒语不符合定义,因为它们更多地与群体身份联系在一起,而不是与世界观解释或推荐联系在一起。然而,在我看来,教条几乎是一样的东西,但有一个基本的不同,教条包含了对群体的客观主张,而意识形态是它对个人的主观变体。教条只需要遵从某种外部权威,而意识形态则需要一种内部承诺来捍卫它,而不需要参考权威。

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Tim Smith

Thursday, April 14, 2022 -- 7:32 AM

Grammar is less helpful in

Grammar is less helpful in defining ideology than context and history. Logos is to logic as a drumbeat is to Dr. Dre's headphones, or Trotsky is to Putin. There is a liberal and a Marxist history that impinges here and will be touched on, I'm sure, in the show. Words are not bound by etymology and can take on their meaning with each application.

Mundane belief and assumption require thought and rationality. Political mantras can fit for ideology, but I am inclined to not see much value in using the term. It is too steeped in political history and appropriated social rage to have much use. That said, I use it all the time. This show is an excellent opportunity to think this out.

Contrasting dogma and ideology is helpful and needs clarification, but I like this path. Morality is another comparison that bears fruit. In the end, ideology tastes sour on my tongue. This discussion and show will probably not add any zest but might strike at the source of much modern conflict.

Ideology is an action-based system of belief; however, inaction is an action which makes that definition not very helpful. The Ukraine, the racial conflicts in the US and abroad, the treatment of Uyghurs, the Sunni and Shia conflicts, and the us/them conflict in Rwanda and Africa at large can all be pointed to ideology, but that is not quite right and is the source of my inclination to ignore the term altogether in the future.

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Daniel's picture

Daniel

Friday, April 15, 2022 -- 4:23 PM

--As both sour to the taste

--As both sour to the taste and offensive by the way it's misrepresented in use. Blaming bad situations on ideology gives ideology a bad name. I agree. But that's no reason to my mind to throw it away. For although you're quite right in my view to distinguish meaning from etymology (last sentence, first paragraph), it doesn't necessarily imply that you can have one without the other. Even in words with unknown etymologies, their characteristics are still determined by them in unrecognizable form. Take your example in the second sentence of the first paragraph above of the comparison, by the tokens of prominent figures, between Bolshevik state socialism and current Russian oligarchical state capitalism. By the following sentence, it can be safely read that you're comparing the Marxism of the former, with the Liberalism of the latter. But in my view these are superficial distinctions which upon closer inspection show a much more fundamental version of Western ideology which they share.

马克思从黑格尔那里得到这样一个观点:历史是一个理性的过程,它建立在人与自然的辩证法基础上。因此,对马克思来说,最合理的形式是通过劳动(或在黑格尔看来,通过“精神”),即生产来改造自然。这构成了内部设计元素和外部产品之间的理性统一,完成了转变。如果这种转变是有意的,那么在各自的语境中,就普遍存在着纯粹形式理性意志的产物的物质表现。马克思的思想把戏是把所有其他的历史关系都与生产的发展联系起来,以便绘制出生产发展的路线图。封建主义比重商主义生产的多,资产阶级资本主义比封建主义生产的多,等等。The more productive a period is, the more valuable it is, which is why history for Marx doesn't march backwards, as the rational mind will seek the more valuable if clearly distinguished from the less.

What's striking about this model is how nature has no value except as a means to something that does. Isn't this also one of the most salient characteristics of state capitalism in its most liberal expressions, the current Russian one included? The term "externality" in economic studies illustrates with some clarity the role that pure and self-renewing nature plays in large parts of capitalist economic theory; which together with the Marxist model could therefore be said to share a singular ideology of material consumption of natural form. Here ideology as the study of ideas equates to the study of shared assumptions expressed by different models or practices, indicating in this case a generic Western anti-naturalism.

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Tim Smith

Friday, April 15, 2022 -- 5:09 PM

Putin and Trotsky are viewing

Putin and Trotsky are viewing the same reality. The necessity of disambiguation between Marxist and Liberal ideology is precisely the philosophical road I wish to avoid. In my common usage, ideology draws more from Habermas' answer to the issue. But now, I'm not so sure it is worth using.

这样的问题甚至会出现,给意识形态带来太多日常使用的负担。如果马吕斯不同意我的看法,我就修正我的看法。现在,如果任何一个词需要这么多人来找到一个购买…2022世界杯小组赛分组我的回复是交易被拒绝。对于信仰系统来说,有足够的词汇来表达我们要讨论的现实,而不用在词汇中添加意识形态。

The more significant problem is inaction concerning ideology than the philosophical view toward its use and application.

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Daniel's picture

Daniel

Saturday, April 16, 2022 -- 12:09 PM

——哪一个?Isn't there

——哪一个?不是不止一个吗?“意识形态不作为”有什么问题?对其破坏性的影响不作为,或对其可能的创造性用途不作为?哈贝马斯的观点,你引用了但没能解释,我的理解是,意识形态等同于幻想,作为不公正和压迫后果的行动的基础,压倒了对世界的清晰理解,人们可以为其提供解释。因此,对任意的意识形态建构的批判性分析是人类从传统压抑结构中解放的更大工程的一部分。这是你不想使用的版本吗(最后一句话,第一段)?如果是这样的话,你有兴趣保留这种传统的结构吗?

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Tim Smith

Saturday, April 16, 2022 -- 5:03 PM

What I don't want to do is

我不想讨论什么是意识形态,因为意识形态这个词已经被用了这么多不同的方式,并带来了毁灭性的影响。这个词不能脱离它的历史。如果有人想讨论一种信仰体系,那就让我们直接讨论,而不要带着包袱。

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Daniel's picture

Daniel

Thursday, April 21, 2022 -- 4:09 PM

How is it clear that

意识形态到底是一种信仰体系,这一点怎么清楚呢?是否可以使用这个名字来清空行李?或者你指的是行李内容,所以他们的进口包装是不重要的?你的投诉是针对进口的东西还是进口的媒介?请在4月15日22日下午5点09分发表你对行李的评论。第二段介绍了家庭普遍使用意识形态的概念,并假设用来自其他地方的思想,即“包袱”来负担它,将是不适当的,因为会降低它对社区的社会价值。无论我的解释在符号学意图方面的准确性如何,它与下一段也是最后一段的关系与上面的帖子表达了相同的模糊性:“对意识形态的不作为”是指对其误用的缺乏关注,还是指拒绝接近其表达的价值?是你的行李处理不当,还是你的思想只是坐在那里,没有什么好东西可以放进去?

While answers to these questions are doubtless important, which way they come out must include your definition of ideology as a system of beliefs (first clause, last sentence above). Attending closely to this definition should therefore be the guiding principle for the concept of ideology in the analysis of its contents. In a Guest Post of 4/17/22 for Justice Everywhere, Professor Ostrowski writes that diagnosis of existing conditions is analytic and value-free. As purely descriptive, two opposite ideologies can have an identical diagnosis of the same conditions. He continues, on my reading, that any critique of existing conditions cannot rely on mere observations, but must import values to what is observed, so that a synthetic judgement is made. The concept to which something from experience, (the diagnostic observations), is added, then, must be some form of a belief-collection. So what kinds of beliefs are they? My belief that the sun will rise tomorrow can be seen to derive from observed experience, and is therefore not ideological. But add all the other beliefs to it, and the whole set is too big to have a single concept which holds them together to be also derived from experience. Where this set contains
beliefs about living with other human beings, or "social" beliefs, the optional insertion of logically arbitrary concepts in the service of holding all the non-arbitrary ones together could for practical purposes be called "ideological" in character, and therefore serve as collective guides for rational social institutions.

Whatever the strength of this assessment, if accepted for the moment for purposes of argument, one can draw two salient implications: First, ideologies contain by definition a claim to regulative legitimacy of institutional form. Second, it is easy to see by this why ideology gets such a bad name. The original legitimacy-claim serves as a ready pretext for any private violation of principles of public welfare which are ably repeatable simultaneous with actions contradicting them. "Shared values" in cases of ideological overreach become little more than demands for agreement, regardless of what those values are said to be. Professor Ostrowski provides by my reading a good example of such overreach on the conceptual level in an editorial written in 2021 for Ideological Studies and Comparative Political Thought, where he writes that the ideological constructs which include appeal to international institutional form is used in two ways: as support for human rights and respect for sovereignty by the "capitalist-democratic societies", on the one hand, and as emphasizing "institutional alignment" and collective solidarity by the "communist or authoritarian" societies, on the other. From this comparison I draw the implication that as an ideology, what the Professor calls "internationalism" is either a way to excuse military aggression and geo-political instability, or a method of enforcing private control over nationalized resources. In both cases no system of beliefs is observable, but only private interest with regards to social control. That is to say, no real ideological contents and only symbolically labeled baggage.

如你所说,对这种讨论的兴趣肯定与信仰系统有关,但它们的典型形式是由重复的符号和咒语组成的空壳,没有任何概念的内容,这些空壳,由要求的联想组成的空壳,被那些希望被视为更高理想的顺从仆人的人病态地接受,不仅必须包括在内,而是以非外围的形式进行了社会适宜的合作性意识形态建设。

P.S. for Admin. --Apologies for accidentally posting this two extra times, as there was a delay. Could you please delete the extra two? --Thanks,
--D.

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tartarthistle

Friday, April 22, 2022 -- 7:48 AM

Has anyone read Hannah Arendt

Has anyone read Hannah Arendt's book on Totalitarianism? She has an excellent chapter titled "Ideology and Terror: A Novel Form of Government." The entire book is excellent, but this chapter is particularly relevant now. In her view, "The only capacity of the human mind that needs neither the self nor the other nor the world in order to function safely and which is as independent of experience as it is of thinking is the ability of logical reasoning whose premise is the self-evident." (p.175) I think American philosophers may want to reflect on her work, as Hitler was greatly inspired by the American eugenics movement in science. We have our own seedy political history rationalizing the irrational, and this is not a Republican-Democrat, Liberal-Conservative issue. Both of these lovely binaries have used science to back irrational racist and class-based agendas.

P.S. I'm also curious how privately held ideologies play into our present global situation. Much of our behavior as a nation reflects rather problematic social beliefs. I'm thinking about our crazy incarceration rates, vaccine inequity, radical levels of financial inequality, contributions to international de-stabilization (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, all of latin America, etc. etc.), double standards regarding weapons policies and international relations as reflected with our interactions with Saudi Arabia, and on and on...If more Americans were politically active and involved, I would blame the population as a whole, but according to a recent Princeton study (Inequality and Democratic Responsiveness, Martin Gelins), the views of average citizens have little to no connection with policy decisions made by their political representatives. Some here in the States are clearly not believers in the four Socratic virtues of moderation, courage, wisdom, and justice. The American people are largely good and self-sacrificing, as we witnessed during Covid, but I'm not so sure about our elites. Actions speak louder than words, as they say, and our actions as a nation state are screaming out for all to see a pretty ugly belief system that has nothing to do with the genuinely held notion that our equality as people is sacred and undeniable, as Jefferson originally worded it.

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Daniel's picture

Daniel

Friday, April 22, 2022 -- 9:14 AM

So where does that leave the

那么双重效应的原理是什么呢?你所描述的情况中,是否有一些是可以接受的,但需要更大的预期成本?

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tartarthistle

Friday, April 22, 2022 -- 11:42 AM

Oh, please elaborate. I want

Oh, please elaborate. I want to grasp your full meaning here. Use your best omelette-making skills to clarify key terms (i.e., "double-effect" "acceptable costs" "greater anticipated goods"). Write as if you're speaking to an amateur blog participant, perhaps someone completely unfamiliar with philosophy. Let it all flow, go into great detail--I for one really want to understand precisely what ideas you're intending to share with others.

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Daniel's picture

Daniel

Friday, April 22, 2022 -- 2:50 PM

Why? Are you doing a survey?

Why? Are you doing a survey? In any case, I assume your answer to my question is "no". I surmise also you've no interest in sharing your obviously complex reasoning for that thoughtful reply.

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tartarthistle

Friday, April 22, 2022 -- 4:46 PM

Actually (being honest here),

Actually (being honest here), I would do my best to answer your question but I sincerely don't understand it. I'm really telling the truth. I know I play around a lot, but this time I'm super serious. I genuinely do not understand what you mean by the terms I cited in my question. In the context of my comment, they are fairly weighty and although I like to play with language, there are some things I do not play around with, so I want to be careful in my reply. I'm sure you would agree this is prudent.

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Daniel's picture

Daniel

Friday, April 22, 2022 -- 6:45 PM

Prudent and not distributive?

Prudent and not distributive? How could such a sincere request from an illustrious and valued colleague be denied by anything other than the rash heedlessness of a drowsy moment in the study-parlor of this inchoate greenhorn? There remains of course, as you're well aware, an alternative for this collegiate solicitation: you could just look it up. But as I see it, the principle of double effect is either a way to get out of getting blamed for something you did but didn't intend, or a way of taking credit for doing something good which looks really bad. Kant offers a good example of the latter variety in the Critique of Practical Reason at A107 in which someone who deliberately annoys others while relishing their displeasure is beaten (mit einer tuechtigen Tracht Schlaege abgefertigt), and compares it with a surgical operation. The beating, as with subcutaneous trauma of surgery, is in itself bad but its result is judged as good, and therefore the negative result is morally permissible on grounds of the good one. Examples of the former variety are also easy to find, as for instance the case of a suitor who intends to propose marriage after dinner in a restaurant by placing an engagement ring in a slice of chocolate mousse as a surprise and before he can get the question out she eats it and is hospitalized, which is bad, but the proposal is nevertheless accepted, which is good, so he doesn't get blamed for almost killing her. Note that the mistake is not an innocent one, as it was an exceptionally unwise plan. The ascribable value of the institution of marriage, however, overrides any condemnation of how it began. And there are other versions. But it's the first one (with Kant's example) which seems to my mind the most pertinent to your remarks. So with regards to their double-effect, might there be any positive result of the actions producing the conditions you describe above which, although they are bad in themselves, would furnish their moral permissibility on account of some positive effect which they in addition produce?

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tartarthistle

Friday, April 22, 2022 -- 9:22 PM

Dear friend, I'm not sure how

Dear friend, I'm not sure how to respond to that. I think you may have imagined an attempt at insult where none existed. Sorry if I have rubbed the wrong way. No offense was intended. Take care...

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Daniel's picture

Daniel

Saturday, April 23, 2022 -- 10:49 AM

And part of that care you

And part of that care you implore to be taken would be best brought to the topic at hand, which I suppose you're attempting to give an example of in drawing an insult out of an explanation, hence a double-effect. My question was a relatively simple one: Might the actions which create the adverse conditions you describe above be morally permissible on account of some positive effect they have in addition to the negative ones described? Take your reference to the "American eugenics movement" as having an inspirational effect on German political leadership in the 1930's. Most would agree that is a negative effect. But some would argue that the movement, in spite of its abuses, resulted in identifying genetic diseases that later resulted in the development of a cure for them, which would be a positive effect. Under the principle of double-effect, the question is asked whether the positive effect grants moral permissibility to the action which produces the negative one as well. In the eugenics case the general consensus today is no, but not in the past where such justifications were taken more seriously. Therefore, remiss in my scholarly duties would I be if I, without effort to the contrary, allowed a valued colleague to escape the inquisitive snare of a pertinent question without its being addressed: Can the principle of double effect be applied to the actions with the effects you describe? Surely there is no malice on your part to deny your readers a thoughtful response. Might they be morally permissible on grounds of some positive effect?

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tartarthistle

Sunday, April 24, 2022 -- 7:18 AM

I don't feel at all qualified

I don't feel at all qualified to tackle such a question. Your position seems rather circular, as anything could be rationalized according this logic.

I did have some thoughts that I think relate to your notion of double-effect, but I'm not sure if they are what you mean. Oedipus thought he was in the right when unknowingly he killed his father, for he thought he was defending his just social position against an impudent subordinate who would not yield the right way. Bad things happened, but he did not knowingly intend them. Later he married his mother, but he thought he was doing a good and honorable thing when accepting the hand of the widowed queen. Oedipus was a good person, who accidentally did bad things. Similarly, Narcissus thought his reflection was real, and so he felt justified in falling in love with it. He meant no harm, but bad things happened.

Would these negative consequences of actions intended to be positive classify ironically as double-effects?

我确实觉得今天的白领阶层的成员都有一种类似于俄狄浦斯-那喀索斯心理的情结。他们只是不愿或不能听从任何试图让他们走出泡沫的人的意见。他们如此狂热地追求他们所钟爱的“愿景”,建立他们新的“开明的”技术乌托邦,以至于任何阻碍他们的人(土著人、无家可归的人、工人、法规、法律、传统的道德和美德观念)都会激起强烈的愤怒。真正的哲学家(不是那些与权贵友好相处的人)就像可怜的泰瑞西亚斯,试图让他们明白自己就是他们寻找的那个人。可怜的艾可就像工人阶级一样,她不明白为什么她会被纳西索斯如此鄙视。为什么她得不到他的重视和爱?她有什么不好的?为什么他看不到她的美,而只看到自己的美。为什么她被排除在他狂热的社会完美统一的视野之外?

Anyway, I tried to think about your question and answer in good faith, so don't be too angry with me. I'm not a robot.

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Daniel's picture

Daniel

Sunday, April 24, 2022 -- 10:20 AM

--Why would someone be angry

——为什么有人会对机器人生气?俄狄浦斯一案(根据我的阅读,当时我不知道它指的是什么,我拿起一本叫《哲学词典》的书,翻到有一段关于它的文章,标题是“双重效果,原则”),只有在他的罪行被揭露后(因为犯罪在那个语境中不是以意图为条件的),才有可能使他为了失明而自行进行双眼切除,退休后,他决定整件事其实对他有好处,因为失明让他见识到了更大的智慧。从泰瑞西亚得到消息仅仅是一种观察,在施害者的头脑中,好的结果和坏的结果按时间顺序一个接一个地发生,而行动的结果是相同的。没有双重效应,只是认识上的逆转。只有当消极影响可以被积极影响所证明时,这个原则才适用。军事术语中所谓的“附带损害”几乎总是这样解释。经济上的紧缩措施和堕胎问题是另外两个例子。

那么你如何将这一原则应用于产生你所描述的条件的行为呢?有没有可能有些人是基于一些积极的结果而不是消极的结果?如果没有,难道人们就不能做点什么吗?在上面第三段的第二句中,你犯了一个在我看来是非常严重的推理错误,我称之为“领导谬误”,这是基于这样的假设:因为别人造成了你所有的问题,你必须让他们解决它们。在这种情况下,“对权力说实话”是完全没用的,因为权力已经知道了,也不在乎。这是正确的,因为如果竞争性的自我最大化不被始终作为最高的美德加以奖励,并被纳入治理的殿堂,国家资本主义经济就不可能存在。这就产生了为服务于特殊特权阶层的人口管理而人为进行人口划分的负面后果,其对掌握权力的统治的积极影响无法证明其负面后果的正当性,即通过环境破坏和地缘政治背景下为争夺可开发资源的控制权而进行的战争,使下层阶级陷入贫困和威胁物种未来的存在;——因此没有双重效应。

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tartarthistle

Sunday, April 24, 2022 -- 4:21 PM

You forgot to mention poor

你忘了提可怜的艾可。

在我自己的社会哲学中,我不会把自己和当权者完全分开。我不认为自己是纯粹无能的(为那些没有权力的当权者服务),也不认为自己是全能的(纯粹处于权力地位)。虽然,我知道我有时或多或少地认同这两种极端的观点。我的社会哲学与杰斐逊最初的社会平等表述更一致,认为社会平等是神圣而不可否认的(而不是不证自明的东西,如科学或逻辑上可验证的东西)。我认为诗歌和艺术是更好的表达全能和无能这两种极端立场之间联系的方式。在我看来,这件事的真相并非不言自明。我绝对相信社会平等,但我不相信它所涉及的权力动态对每个人、任何地方、任何时间都是一样明显的。事情是复杂的。

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tartarthistle

Tuesday, April 26, 2022 -- 10:36 AM

P.S. This double-effect thing

P.S. This double-effect thing is more than a wee bit like Orwell's concept of double-think when applied to today's political reality in the manner you suggest. It definitely violates the excluded middle...And yes, it does not surprise me that when I did finally look up the term, there was the lovely Thomas Aquinas right at the top of the page. Sigh...

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Tim Smith

Tuesday, April 26, 2022 -- 10:36 PM

鞑靼蓟,我在

鞑靼蓟,我在half way through Michael Lynch's 'Know-It-All-Society' and he has a similar take on Arendt at the begining of chapter 4 discussing the roots of authoritarianisn. Thanks for pointing this out. I will read this next. I am very much enjoying Lynch.

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Tim Smith

Tuesday, April 26, 2022 -- 10:52 PM

Arendt is speaking

Arendt is speaking presciently about our current politic. Thanks for posting this!

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tartarthistle

Wednesday, April 27, 2022 -- 8:02 AM

You must read her book on

你一定要读她那本关于极权主义的书。她与这个主题非常合拍——毫无疑问,这归功于她自己的个人经历。我的硕士论文是关于极权主义及其与柏拉图哲学的关系的,并且主要依赖于她的研究。

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Tim Smith

Wednesday, April 27, 2022 -- 9:03 AM

Looking forward to it.

Looking forward to it.

可能要花上几个星期才能完成,但我还是会做这件事的。到目前为止,它引起了我的共鸣。

Thanks again!

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Daniel

Wednesday, April 27, 2022 -- 8:04 PM

Does Arendt take any position

柏拉图在《诡辩家》中主张逮捕专业的诡辩家,这些人是他的哲学对手,阿伦特对此有任何立场吗?我问她的原因是她在和哲学家海德格尔约会,当时他在马尔堡教书,那是20世纪20年代中期,他当时举办了一个关于柏拉图《诡辩家》的研讨会。因为他也在这一时期写了《存在与时间》一书,其中第74章与他后来对德国法西斯主义的支持有关,阿伦特对这一特殊段落的思考可能会揭示她对极权主义的理解和她与法西斯知识分子的深厚友谊之间的灰色地带。

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tartarthistle

Wednesday, April 27, 2022 -- 9:44 PM

I'm not familiar with this

I'm not familiar with this specific passage and I haven't read Plato's Sophist. I don't know anything about this. I do know that Arendt and Heidegger had an affair (I wouldn't call it dating, since he was married and they met in motels). I suspect she had the hots for him largely because he put on quite the performance in the lecture halls. A good mesmerizer gets the attention of the young students. A predatory teacher, lacking self-control, takes advantage of this wide open door. A genuine teacher, like Socrates, says "No, thank you," and heads home to Xanthippe (perhaps stopping off at several bars along the way).

Anyway, have you read her book Totalitarianism? It's actually creepy how it so accurately captures our present social situation with regard to mass movements, technology, and politics...Personally I'm climbing under a rock and waiting out the sand storm...

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Daniel

Friday, April 29, 2022 -- 11:40 AM

Isn't that the sort of thing

这难道不是阿伦特的分析所反对的吗?她是不是在某个地方指出,极权主义运动不同于民族主义政治运动(比如法西斯主义),因为它不需要公众的支持,而只需要大量孤立的个人?虽然我相信你的决定在策略上是合理的,但从表面上看,它与社会健康的建议不符,这可能是阿伦特治疗的衍生品。

阿伦特与海德格尔的关系是有争议的,关于她的成熟作品保留了多少他的影响。但我认为,可以肯定的是,这种影响是双向的:阿伦特在风格和方式上受到了影响,海德格尔认为社会孤立的概念是对社会纠缠的假装否认。由于后者在他的《存在与时间》(如上所述)一书中作为一个主要主题出现,有一些可信的理由相信阿伦特是这本书的部分合著者。(传记注:h主动提出和a建立关系,并在课堂上在a的桌子上放了一张纸条,邀请她去他的办公室讨论材料;你对苏格拉底婚姻忠诚的信心是少数人的观点)。

Although it's unknown if Arendt was enrolled in Heidegger's seminar on the Sophist, it's very probable that she was, and therefore it's in this respect, what she received and developed into her later work from this period, that the passage cited above becomes significant. The Sophist for Plato is someone who pretends to be they're not. As producers of mere appearances, or "semblence-makers" (eidolopoiikoi), they've made a career out of things which are not true, including themselves. Plato at this time is also dealing with a severe and crippling challenge to his theory of forms from which, according to his lecture notes, Heidegger believed was headed up by Plato's rebel-student named Aristotle, (the so-called "third man" argument which appears in the Parmenides, and written into the Sophist as the "Giantomachy"). This is apparently very threatening to Plato, as the success of such a challenge would "destroy the possibility of common discourse" (Parmenides 135c); which further indicates that the sophist, as a committed producer of false appearances, erodes the common ability to trust as true anything about other people, so that the sophist's success would mean the destruction of society.

Here's where the passage comes in. Plato has a solution in his ideal state for the possibility of that eventuality: Simply arrest them. "To seize him (sullabein auton) according to instructions from the king's argument (kata ta epestalmena hupo tou basilikou logou) and, handing him over (paradontas), to proclaim the manhunt's success (apophaenai taen agraen)". So what argument is it that is referred to as authorizing such action? Since Plato is not explicit about it in the text, one can surmise that it's his theory of forms, uninstantiated universals called "ideas", prominent among which is the idea of freedom which controls the truth of people as real, and not mere appearances. Because no one can in truth deny their own freedom, to make a career out of pretending to be a mere appearance corresponds in aggregate to an unfree society, or tyranny. But that sounds very similar to Arendt's view that involves totalitarian movements as elevating the small, anonymous person to the appearance of threatening the established powerful one. This is where the individual uninterested in civil participation and is hidden "under a rock", in your terminology, is seen in aggregate to ruffle the feathers of the powerful and equates to a surrender of one's own freedom, as though such a thing would be possible, in unconscious exchange for the totalitarian movement's leadership elements to "do the acting for you", so to speak, as a surrogate voluntariness of agency. Well then, couldn't Plato's idea to arrest sophists in order to keep society together resemble a similar tactic based on Arendt's analysis to arrest leaders of totalitarian movements? While such a recommendation would be inadvisable according to current legal standards, it may offer insight into the precise nature of Heidegger's influence of Arendt.

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tartarthistle

Sunday, May 1, 2022 -- 6:49 AM

I'm going to have to revisit

I'm going to have to revisit your comment when I'm sober, but I will add now that my guess is that the nature of Heidegger's influence on Arendt was rather lower than you might be imagining. As someone who's had many a crush on a teacher, I can say that sometimes while attending a seminar or lecture, one is simply captivated by the position the teacher occupies (the actual living source point of attention may be rather unattractive, even sort of intellectually lame), but it's the position--front, center, radiant, all eyes upon--that raises the horns, so to speak. Wittgenstein could apparently mesmerize from this position (rhetorical seduction is a known art-form). Heidegger was known to mesmerize. I'll bet Socrates could mesmerize (he certainly got Alcibiades' horns going). I could be wrong, but my suspicion is that all that's "philosophical" is not strictly philosophical. Arendt was a pretty, bright young student. Heidegger was a man, and thus mortal.

Sorry, but as someone who's not been sheltered from the truth by protectors, my observation is that things in these sorts of realms are complicated....

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Daniel

Monday, May 2, 2022 -- 6:34 PM

--And also due to the fact

--And also due to the fact that the older partner was married, as you make note of above, the affair between them must have compounded the ground-level complication of a professor dating his student. Some facts of the affair though I think can be safe to assume. The first is that Arendt's influence on Heidegger was at least as significant as his influence on her. Pretended social isolation as denial of social entanglement which can not be discarded by free individuals, arguably comes from Arendt, and finds its way into Being and Time in the form of an attack on Cartesian subjectivism. But Heidegger's contribution to this same notion might not be at all insignificant, and related to your remarks in the post above, as the notion of always falling back into that subjectivism wherever it is momentarily overcome could have specific reference to the male phallus as the physiological equivalent of socialized institutional apology for group-responsibility abdication.

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Harold G. Neuman

Monday, April 4, 2022 -- 6:25 AM

Yes. All of the previous

Yes. All of the previous comment encompasses ideology well, I think. I guess the only thing I would claim is that an ideology---any ideology---needs both group identity and internal commitment in order to survive and thrive. People are herd-oriented and don't want to think too hard about that. But, if the foundations are insufficient to warrant internal commitment, the sheep ship out.

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Daniel

Tuesday, April 5, 2022 -- 3:00 PM

--Ship out by the wind of

——乘着承载着意识形态符号的风帆,乘着内部未被反映的教条之风出海,还是乘着经过锤凿的意识形态之桨,驶进没有教条咆哮的平静大海?当教条在政治表达论坛和学术讲堂陷入困境时,如果不以现成的答案来支持教条的要求,那么对一种意识形态来说,“繁荣”意味着什么?这种意识形态可以在被称为“供给学派经济学”的经济学领域中找到,它与经济学家米尔顿·弗里德曼(Milton Friedman)和所谓的“芝加哥学派”(Chicago School)经济学联系在一起,后者被普遍认为在1973年的政变后为智利的皮诺切特(Pinochet)政权提供了重要的智力支持。在这里,我们的羊被“运过来”,任何与我们竞争的经济牧羊人都被成功地赶出了牧群,反过来,牧群被迫忍受一个高度开发的牧场。在这个和类似的例子上,人们可以证明任何成功和广泛传播的意识形态将颠覆其最初的知识合法性,以服务于与盛行的教条相关的权力中心。

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tartarthistle

Wednesday, April 20, 2022 -- 7:30 AM

Are centers of power

权力中心是否与普遍可见和已知的主流教条有关?圆圈的权力中心是3.14。在我们现在的社会中,权力的中心当然不是任何一个看得见的领导人,无论什么教条在激励他们做出决定,这肯定不是一个普遍的和公认的。

权力动态是复杂的,而且任何事情都不是不言自明的……我所要做的就是微笑,说些友善的话,最刻薄最生气的时候都会突然变得甜蜜。这就像魔术。

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Daniel

Wednesday, April 27, 2022 -- 9:02 PM

--If that trick can be

--If that trick can be learned, it certainly seems worth teaching! In response to your question though, centralized power wherever it appears is normally hidden behind a manufactured appearance of benevolence to its subjects, but is usually pretty thin. In our society there's no ambiguity. Consolidated business institutions and multinational wealth remain in firm control over the levers state power. By no means absolute and credibly challenged by popular forces as well as state sector interests overriding at times the interests of big business, nothing else at present comes close. Therefore I'm not quite in agreement with your point in the last sentence of the first paragraph. My view is that not only is the dogma associated with most, but certainly not all, current U.S. political leadership currently recognized, it's advocated by much prevailing opinion. Well being of the nation as equivalent to the health of the corporate sector, "a rising tide lifts all boats", and other such nonsense, is still parroted today by much of the educated class as though they were not waist deep in the toxic sewage of the predatory institutions such attitudes are designed to support. Here I think the centers of power are therefore visible and known, since the ideological constructions rewarded by the institutions which serve them must be functional for popular acquiescence to private control over the state.

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tartarthistle

Thursday, April 28, 2022 -- 8:09 AM

I'm not disagreeing with you,

我不是不同意你的观点,只是那些看得见的“力量”让我发笑。事实上,他们让很多人笑。我们只是在媒体上看不到这样的笑声。但相信我,很多人都在笑。对不起……我这么说并不是刻薄,只是实话实说。全世界都在嘲笑“强权”。它只是被过滤掉了…

附注:“严格控制”的东西很有趣。如果目前这种集体疯狂的经历是当权者(合并的商业机构和跨国财富)“牢牢控制”的任何例子,那么这种语言就没有意义了。我建议用叉子而不是搅拌器来搅拌鸡蛋。法国人就是这么做的,他们做的煎蛋卷总是最棒的,不是吗?

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Daniel

Thursday, April 28, 2022 -- 10:29 AM

Laughter can be a counter

在被嘲笑的对象清楚的情况下,笑可以成为一种反论。在这种情况下,让你感到好笑的是,大企业牢牢控制着国家权力杠杆的说法,与你所描述的“目前的集体疯狂状态”之间的差距。如果集体精神错乱是一个例子,那么你的论点似乎是针对“严格控制”这个词的无意义。但事实并非如此。如果我们为了论证的缘故而接受你的集体精神错乱的前提是正确的,那怎么就等同于对国家机构缺乏控制呢?你是否认为一旦国家控制被确立,无论谁拥有它,集体疯狂都将被避免?为什么集体的疯狂不会给私人控制带来巨大的好处?因此,你的立场是弱势的,因为它是基于一个武断的假设,即国家控制和集体疯狂是不相容的。那么,这和欧式早餐有什么关系呢?

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tartarthistle

Thursday, April 28, 2022 -- 11:23 AM

Still laughing. (Is laughter

Still laughing. (Is laughter an argument?)
这种关系是维系。和快乐。(维持生计和快乐是一回事吗?)

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Daniel

Thursday, April 28, 2022 -- 7:55 PM

They can be, depending on the

They can be, depending on the context. Take disrespect. Without context it's by definition a relation between two things, something disrespected and whatever is doing the disrespecting. But let's say someone becomes involved in an organized group activity with others for the sole purpose of disrupting it and demeaning its participants. That would be in effect an argument that the activity is not to be taken seriously and its participants are misguided in doing so. But interestingly it also could also provide the content of a premise in someone else's argument that such an activity is not worth engaging in, as it is seen being disrespected. Laughter is frequently used in this way; and given sufficient context, there's no reason why the other two things you reference could also be an argument. But perhaps the question should be thrown back to its inquirer. You're clearly making an argument here, so what do you think? Can they be arguments?

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tartarthistle

Friday, April 29, 2022 -- 9:22 AM

Not all laughter is intended

并不是所有的笑都是不尊重别人或过分破坏别人的。有时,笑声可以减轻智力负担,让大脑释放出蒸汽。有时笑是有趣的,可以释放精神紧张。有时候笑是命中注定的。有趣,但不要以牺牲别人为代价。只是为了好玩而已。哲学讨论中的一点点混乱有时只是活跃辩论所需的调味品(不要太多,只要在酱汁中撒一点辣椒粉)。这有时是非常有用的,让一个人自己和别人从新的角度看问题,学习新的东西。有趣有时是件好事。快乐有时是好的。 I enjoy writing, I do like to play. Perhaps sometimes I use too much paprika. But I'm not trying to be disrespectful or disruptive. I mean no harm (sincerely). I also think dry boring crunchy language is not healthy or helpful in seeking truth. It can also be a way of disrespecting and excluding others, as only academics can put up such diatribes. A lively fun spicy discourse--not too much, not too little--but just right, is more inclusive and welcoming to a larger audience, and it can really hit the spot of truth. I think we could all use a little more life and liveliness and play (not too much) in our language games with one another...But that's just me...and please know that when I'm playing around, I'm not trying to make fun of others or be disrespectful or disruptive. And if I have been, I do apologize. I will try to be more crunchy...

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Daniel

2022年4月29日,星期五——上午11:24

My apologies, but I don't

对不起,我不明白你的回答。你是说它们可以是争论,比如反对生硬和过度严肃的言语表达?或者你的主张是,它们不能成为辩论,对辩论者来说,仅仅是文体上的选择?只是为了澄清一下,没有人说笑总是不礼貌的。在一个方面,笑根本不是有意的,它在大多数情况下都是作为对有趣的感知的自发反应而发生的。这个例子展示了笑是如何成为一个论点的,在引用的情况下:一些活动被认为不被认真对待。它与你上面提到的个人偏好和观点有什么关系,以及它与意识形态建构的更大讨论有什么关系,我们不得而知。

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tartarthistle

Friday, April 29, 2022 -- 10:02 PM

I'm making funny sounds right

我现在发出的声音很滑稽。就像笑声。是的,非常像笑声。更大的讨论……意识形态建设……你说得对,我绝对错了…淘气、麻烦和问题太多了……请不要让他们带走我……我没有恶意。(它们也超级可怕。他们会把我吊死的。)啊啊啊! !

[Silence.]

[She really wasn't a robot.]

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Daniel

Sunday, May 1, 2022 -- 11:26 AM

By my reading, an argument

By my reading, an argument can be implied without being explicit, and still be an argument. This above is the third one you've constructed for topic and/or forum irrelevance. The first, of April 4/28/22, 8:09 am, concludes that the pathological effect on a discussion-content receptacle (in this case, the interlocutor to whom the original premises are transmitted) overrides in relevant importance the content of those premises. If reflected as positive on the content, say, a nodding of the head, then relevance is confirmed. If reflected as negative, in this case producing laughter in the recipient, then a claim of irrelevance is issued. Your argument turns on a logical solipsism of stated interaction-value. The content's pathological effect on the recipient is the point of reference from which all valid inferences can be made.

作为这一结果的原因的一个这样的推论是,基于观察到的“集体疯狂”,任何对国家机构的“坚定控制”的断言(在我的4/28/22上午10:29)都不可能是真实的,对此的反驳,在我的4/28/22上午10:29的帖子中指出,私人对国家的控制和集体疯狂是不相容的。由此引出了对第一个论点的重复(4/28/22,11:23 am),并添加了一个主张,即反应病理可能根本就不是一个论点,因此没有责任为其辩护。

对于我的反诉,重申响应性的争议者-病理学可以携带前提内容的立场(4/ 28/22,7:55 pm),你的第二个论点发布了(4/ 29/22,9:22 pm)。在这里,明显的试图通过声称它适用于接受者来驳回反应-病理前提中提供的一个例子的内容,因此,如果后者修改她/他未来的论证行为,这个前提就不再适用。虽然逻辑唯我论的假设在第二个论点中仍然有效,但确认例子如何被理解的对话者倾向的详细自我描述并不构成一个额外的前提,因此反应-病理的有效性被保留。

To the reply thereto (post of 4/29/22, 11:24 am) that internal interlocutor reform is relevant neither to the claim that laughter can be an argument nor to the topic of ideology, your third argument is given above: that premise-misinterpretation vacates responsibility for conclusion-defense. Clearly therefore, three arguments for topic-irrelevance, by means of the premise of validity of response-pathology, have been made here. They differ from the more formal variety in the disputant's consistent refusal to defend them.

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tartarthistle

Sunday, May 1, 2022 -- 4:12 PM

[Don't worry, we've got her

别担心,我们已经把她绑好了。一切都在掌控之中。这只似乎患有严重的反应性病理。但她对前提的误解现在已经被消除了。蓟就不会再烦你了。]

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Daniel

Sunday, May 1, 2022 -- 5:20 PM

--A clever and relevant

--A clever and relevant reference to Plato's Sophist at 235c2-7: "if however she/he submerges (duetai) into the parts of her imitation (mimetikeas), [we must] follow closely upon her/him, always partitioning the impression of the part (tean hupodexomenean) from the part itself (auton moiran), until she/he is apprehended (heosper an lephthea)". Is not something similar going on here?

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Harold G. Neuman

Tuesday, May 3, 2022 -- 5:31 AM

Lots of information and

这里有很多信息和争论。当有足够多的理论家时,意识形态就会从信仰中产生。就我相信Davidson而言,信念是一个命题:我是否能接受这个建议决定了我是否认同这个信念。意识形态就像建筑师——他们来来去去,可能永远不会改变一个人的观点。They may, if pernicious enough, come and go and come back
with alterations...like a suit worth wearing a bit longer. Just a few thoughts here. I am not looking to initiate an ideology.

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Daniel

2022年5月3日,星期二——上午9:34

Interesting proposal. So by

Interesting proposal. So by your account, and considered in relation to the post above of 4/16/22- 5:03 pm by participant Smith, upon which I've based a large part of my analysis, ideology is not properly described as a system of beliefs themselves, but a product of their interrelation in that, considered as a group, they can then be tinkered with by the ideologue, with some put on top of others, others set next to each other which did not occur together, and so on. And this is consistent with the notion of belief as more of an attitude about something than the holding as true of some specific conceptual contents. So, for example, if I find myself in possession of two beliefs about ice cream which are already there without any proximate effort on my part, --that it is a dairy product, and that strawberry tastes better to me than vanilla, no ideology of ice cream is detectable. But then an ideologue comes along and tells me that consumption of dairy products violates ethical standards by supporting the abuse of livestock, and any flavor added to such products serves only to mask the unethical basis of how it is produced. Now the two beliefs have been arranged in an architectural form, where the belief about taste, a positive attitude towards strawberry, is stacked on top of the belief about dairy products, a negative attitude about how its made. Does that sound about right for how an ideology emerges from belief? The problem here is, of course, how to prevent the ideological architecture from becoming just another belief, so that the explanatory value of the distinction is preserved. Could one solution be to distinguish between simple and complex beliefs, with ideological constructions being of the latter variety?

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