>From: Greg Burch <gregburch@gregburch.net>
>
>As I use the term, "PC" applies to a set of ideas, values and goals
>characterized by:
>
><> post-modernist subjectivism
><> extreme cultural relativism
><> crypto-marxist condemnation of capitalism
><> antipathy to:
> <> "patriarchy"
> <> Anglic culture
> <> exercise of American political and military power in the world outside
>the US
Well, I'll be. This is exactly what characterizes the (amusingly called)
"progressist intellectual" group in Argentina. To a great degree, they are
the dominant intellectual current in academia, trade unions, and social
activism groups. Now the whole thing starts to make sense to me.
>Now, the problem in the contemporary cultural scene is that this
>constellation of cultural values and vectors is:
>
><> almost wholly identified with "the left" (i.e. U.S. left-Democrats and
>Social Democrats everywhere else)
><> at least in the U.S., became the dominant cultural foundation in academia
>and, to a great extent in influential parts of the media
><> had a head-start as a fairly self-conscious ideology vis-a-vis the
>reactive "cultural conservative" constellation that developed in response to
>it.
In our case, the identification with the Left is essential to this group.
They also dominate certain parts of the media, though given the recent years'
integration of the Argentine media with foreign networws and owners, it
is a relatively small (though influential) part. The difference I see is that,
for us, it grew as a response to the "cultural conservative" long prevailing
tradition in politics and culture, not the other way around as you suggest
(if I didn't misundestand that).
>All of these factors came together -- again in the U.S., certainly -- to
>create a mentality of "siege" in the last two decades among many people who
>perceive "PC" to be a bad thing. People who came of age in American
>academia in the 1970s and 1980s, especially -- and did not buy into the PC
>cultural paradigm -- correctly perceived that a major element of U.S.
>culture had been essentially "hijacked" by a group of people whose values
>and goals were very different from those who had created the institutions
>that were being overtaken by policies and ideas shaped by "the PC paradigm".
We lack the siege mentality, since from the '60s onwards the "progressists"
and the "conservatives" have clashed frontally and publically. In addition
to the previous "nationalist aristocratic" vs "nationalist populist" conflict
axis, this more recent one overlapped with it in all kinds of strange mutations
and puzzling bed-partnerships in the political parties and even dictatorships.
>Cultural phenomena often tend to operate "out of synch" with each other.
>This seems to be the case with attitudes toward the PC paradigm.
>Significant centers of cultural power have now coalesced around values
>distinct from the PC paradigm, but many participants in those other cultural
>streams still feel isolated and overwhelmed by the PC paradigm.
>Unfortunately, almost all of those new cultural streams are reactive: "The
>Moral Majority," the nasty white power groups and the like.
We lack the cultural centers coalescing around non-PC values. The people
who actively act and believe in non-PC ideas don't much care for that,
only for keeping control of the economy. The few actively proselitist
intellectuals or media stars embodying the equivalent of your reactive
streams have been hopelessly clumsy and risible. The sad effect of this
is a discredit for pro-market and related ideas/ideologies for most of
the population.
>One phenomenon that I believe can be attributed in part to a reaction
>against the inroads made by the PC paradigm into U.S. cultural institutions
>is the renaissance of classical liberalism -- with its modern American label
>of "libertarianism" -- in groups like the Cato Institute, publications like
>Reason magazine, and renewed interest in both the origins of and the modern
>expression of libertarian theory. This trend is largely an attempt to
>salvage the liberal foundation of Western culture in a way that is not
>reactionary.
I doubt you can find a classical liberal in Argentina even if you dig
on the graveyards. Self-called "liberals" in our country are just
oligopolist kleptocrats that wave all the pro-market flags without ever
actually allowing markets to happen. This is worrisome, as the majority
of people actually believe the plundering and cronyism is what markets
are about, since that's what can be seen of the "liberals" and people
believe this is what markets are about.
>Relative newcomers to the list should be aware that extropianism is, in a
>very general sense, part of this latter cultural phenomena. Although the
>general cultural impetus that gave rise to the renaissance in liberal
>thought (in the original sense of the word) at the end of the 20th and
>beginning of the 21st centuries may have been reactive (to the seizure by
>the proponents of post-modernism and the PC paradigm of the "commanding
>heights" of cultural institutions), extropianism is NOT a "reactionary"
>philosophy. Unfortunately, too many people who are steeped in the
>vocabulary of the contemporary polarization of political and cultural life
>into "left" and "right" get confused about this.
I suspect in our current cultural and socioeconomic setting, a public
exposition of extropianism in Argentina will get you quickly labeled as
"reactionary capitalist exploiter". Though considering the prevailing
ignorance about almost anything, I reckon most of the people would just
look at you with a "huh?" instead, only the "progressists" jumping on your
neck.
>The other day I joined in condemnation of material that had come from an
>essentially reactionary web site, pointing out that we have to see the
>context in which something is offered to really understand the CULTURAL
>SIGNIFICANCE of that material. ASSESSING THE CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF
>SOMETHING IS DIFFERENT FROM DETERMINING ITS TRUTH OR FALSEHOOD. This is a
>fundamentally important distinction that is being missed in almost all the
>discussions about public policy and ethics here lately, from posts about IQ
>tests, to discussion of financing and control of education, to the
>reparations discussion, to the talk about what people mean when they use the
>word "Mexican". Interestingly, I think we're seeing a real example of the
>different styles of thought and discourse among "the two cultures": In the
>sciences, there's really no merit to talking about the cultural significance
>of a proposition; it's either true or false, testable or not, fruitful or
>not. In the humanities and politics, truth, testability and fruitfulness
>are important, but they aren't the whole story.
Again, this kind of situation is not exactly what troubles us. You have the
"progressist" culture, and on the other hand a desert, with the occasional
ridiculously inept defense of vague "liberal" ideas (most of the time
just done in a purely lip-service way). I WISH we had two cultures
discoursing. Public discourse starts to look more and more like a guy
yelling the same old lines ad nauseam, while the other guy just leaves the
debate hall to see how he can add some new screws to his oligopoly machine
in case the yelling guy grabs a stick and starts to bang on it.
Carlos
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