Mr. Chazelle, re your "unconditionality of welfare" argument above. It reminds me of McCain's recent statement that "well-meaning and deserving" homeowners who are in over their heads must be helped to renegotiate their mortgages. So, this presumes many of the people in trouble are not "well-meaning and deserving." Who, one asks, is to make that determination, and based upon what criteria? Who, one might further ask, has the f--king right to make that determination? (Well, the richies who took on one extra mansion -those folks can go pound sand, but you know what I mean.)

Thanks for your writing. It's always welcome, always. Catherine

"Hope," typically, results when the individual feels her/himself in the grip of events or conditions which limit or eliminate their own possibilities for agency.

I hope no big fucking semi swerves uncontrollably across the pathetically narrow gap between the lanes of speeding, on-coming traffic...i don't 'hope' it every moment; only when i am reminded of it. Cuz there's no fucking thing I could do about it if it happened.

...I don't hope I'm gonna have another drink...That's within my control. I have scotch, ice, a glass, and a thirst. ipso facto...

I don't 'hope' I'm gonna draw another breath... (unless i'm caught inside, without my board, with 20' clean-out sets rolling through every three minutes--which happened to me at Rincon one time).

I don't hope I won't be the only target on the barricades. I just won't go unless I'm not gonna be the only one the cops can shoot at. i doubt i have the courage to be the guy in the white shirt standing in front of the file of tanks.

I am a big fan of Rawls' Theory of Justice. It probably effected my long-term thinking on 'active' ethics more than any other book except, probably, Foucault's Discipline & Punish, and Kincaid's A Small Place. (Aside: Did you ever listen to the conversations between Foucault and Chomsky. They're on YouTube, and they're fascinating.)

The most important point you make is that BECAUSE we USers make such a public display of our 'democracy,' every one of us is equally complicit in the deeds of the people who do get 'elected' to act in our names. "I didn't vote for X, so it's not my responsibility" is equally false and self-serving as a White male claiming because his ancestors didn't have slaves, he bears no responsibility for consequences of the racial oppression of people of color.

One of the things I liked about your previous essay is that it rejected the Typical White Male Leftie obsession with blaming identity politics for the fragmentation of the left, where identity politics is defined as paying attention to the problems of people who are not white male able-bodied leftists.

Your complete rejection of the Clinton-era welfare "reform" on philosophical as well as practical grounds may not be as much of a minority position among lefties as you think. I share it.

The collapsing economy is bringing the practical effects of the "reform" home to such an extent that some of your fellow left-wingers who opposed it in the '90s on pragmatic rather than philosophical grounds may be more open to your p.o.v. now.

Well said, Sajia. Those pesky minorities, always whining, when instead the left could be united in providing every middle class family with that third car they so richly deserve. I guess the black man should apologize to the white man, too, for making him feel bad about himself for enslaving his ancestors. Remember Golda Meir wondering if Israelis will ever be able to "forgive the Arabs for forcing them to kill their children."
The victim is always guilty.

Or rather, as Catherine alluded to, the losers always deserve their fate. The underlying logic is that the game is fair, so losers deserve to lose and society needs only to make sure that it rewards winners.
And to tell you how fair the game is, if you lose your house because of poor judgment then it's off to tent city for you, but if you lose one of the world's largest investment banks then you're punished with a 100-million dollar booby prize.
That's how fair it is.

Yes I caught the C-F debate on YouTube a while ago. Fascinating and the language is so accessible. What a contrast with the nasty Chomsky-Buckley encounter.

I view IMPEACHMENT in a favorably pragmatic light, radically progressive yet conservative to the point of being reactionary, completely patriotic, addressing liberty, freedom, and equality along the lines of AMERICAN Citizenship while embracing the fraternity of man in these postmodern times. (1-202-225-0100)

One of the ways we could address the above-mentioned fragmentation is by emphasizing how fluid our little subgroups' boundaries are. Anybody, given enough alcohol, is in danger of being mentally disabled. Favored races and cultures go in and out of fashion; as soon as the white French kill enough brown French they'll redeem themselves in the eyes of Bushites. The question is not whether we (polyamorous bisexuals, hijab-wearing Muslim women, congenitally deaf people, aboriginal traditionalists) can assimilate, the question is why the folkways of Middle America get defined as mainstream. You raise me FGM and I'll raise you rape porn.

And while we're on the subject of invading countries to save their women - the Netherlands has legalized the sex trade, with mixed results. Sweden has criminalized the buying but not the selling of sex. I don't see Swedish politicians and media people calling for an invasion of the Netherlands on the grounds that their way of dealing with the oppression of a significant portion of women is so much superior and needs to be spread via machine gun ASAP.

Maybe this is a bit off topic, but I think some of the above mischaracterizes some of the critique of identity politics.

For my part, I tire of people telling me that Obama and Hillary Clinton represent historically significant milestones for race and gender when the actual policies they stand for are the usual corporatist, centrist fodder. But I'm expected by many in the democratic party to suspend critical thought and stare at both of them with drooling wonderment. I realize that neither Bernard Chazelle nor Sajia have said this, but you seem to suggest that being put off by identity politics is inherently narrow-minded.

Jonathan V: I am put off by politicians who use identity politics as a ploy to attract votes. Clinton, our first "black" president, was also one of the worst presidents for African-Americans.

I am also quite leery of the word multiculturalism from the mouths of politicians, since it is often codeword for neglect.

In my essay I didn't refer to identity politics but to the preferential treatment that victimized groups should get. I was responding to Tomasky's well-received injunction that victimized minorities should not be listened to until they can prove that their special interests fit within the common good. This is quite an amazing statement. So perhaps Rosa Parks should have had to explain why the white majority would benefit from her right to sit at the front of the bus.

The white majority did benefit from that, and in fact justice is universal and I cannot think of a single worthy group interest that would not benefit society as a whole. However, it was not incumbent upon Rosa Parks to make the case.

I also believe that racism is the root of social dysfunction in this country.
White flight is not a figment of a scholar's fertile imagination. Local school funding is still the biggest engine of segregation in America.

Do blacks have a special claim on the collectivity for the harm they've received? Absolutely.

Now I had to say that, but I realize I am not addressing your point.

I will now. Glenn Loury, as you may know, worries about an Obama presidency because it will snuff out the legitimacy of black grievances: "Hey, you've got one of your guys in the White House, leave me alone: obviously racism is a thing of the past." I couldn't quite wrap my head around Loury's weakly-argued support for Hillary but now it makes sense.

Loury's point, however, is counterbalanced by the fact that, for black kids growing up in America, knowing that the guy in the WH is on your team is a big deal. I know it may sound patronizing to say that but it's also the reality.

The symbolism of a female president with Hillary is, for me, a joke. Hillary is competent enough to be president (Big deal! It's not that hard to be president). However, her symbolism would be that a woman cannot make it on her own. She'd be Bhutto, not Merkel or Thatcher or Bachelet. She would set the worst example for women.

Policy-wise, the womanhood of Hillary or skin color of Obama would almost certainly be irrelevant. As you say, their campaigns make it clear.

Since presidents don't do much good, anyway, people turn to symbols and I agree with you that it can get quickly tiresome.

I tire of people telling me that Obama and Hillary Clinton represent historically significant milestones for race and gender when the actual policies they stand for are the usual corporatist, centrist fodder.

aye there's the irony, innit? Two avatars of traditionally disempowered constituencies squabbling over Massa's (apparent) leavings, and neither of 'em actively advocates of the 'identity politics' to which their 'identity' assigns them.

Who says neo-colonialism can't be fun?

Hello, Bernard.

You say:
...racism is the root of social dysfunction in this country.

I see racism as more of a mask for classism.

As for:
...it's none of the state's business to pass moral judgments
Indeed it is. We do it all the time, in both civil and criminal law.

As for justice vs. security, what security can there be when there is no justice?

Still, I'm wondering about the emphasis on patriotism. This appears to be the defining characteristic of your paper.
To approach the issue from another angle, we can say that, perhaps, this sense of civic duty and pride is being held in check by ... ? What?
Could it be that Americans are overly competive with one another? Untrusting of each other, perhaps? Disenfranchisement?
Having identified the lack, it follows that some reason (good or bad) must necessarily exist for such a thing.

PT: You're right. I meant to say it's none of the state's business to pass moral judgments in order to grant citizenship. Another example is the disenfranchisement of felons.

Sajia writes: The question is not whether we (polyamorous bisexuals, hijab-wearing Muslim women, congenitally deaf people, aboriginal traditionalists) can assimilate, the question is why the folkways of Middle America get defined as mainstream. You raise me FGM and I'll raise you rape porn.

Hmm. But is that really the question? I mean, it might become the question if the subject is a prospective 'humanitarian' invasion, but is that the real central issue of what gets called "identity politics"?

I don't think identity politics is necessarily about what gets defined as mainstream; it seems obvious to me that the majority will get defined as mainstream in a just society. If I had to define "identity politics" I'd say it's the struggle to get equal rights for people who have physical attributes/personal behaviors/beliefs that mark them as non-mainstream.

I think the "unconditionality of welfare" argument needs to be made MUCH more often, and much more loudly: whenever I start saying anything like that to people in real life, they give me this blank stare like I'm saying something they've never even heard of. I don't think it's occurred to most Americans that basic survival isn't something you should have to work for in civilized society.

Going back to the original essay, this sentence struck a chord with me:

As the reality of a multipolar world sinks in, America has a golden opportunity to shed its exceptionalism and become a normal, decent society.

"Normal, decent society" seems like such a modest goal, and yet also seems completely unattainable in America today. And why? If "normal decent society" isn't beyond the reach of European countries, why is it beyond our reach?

The answer to that question isn't found in the lack of a progressive creed, however necessary that is, but in the power structures of our society.

Take health care as an example. In 1940's Britain, a country bankrupted by war, with a health care system teetering on the brink of total collapse, simply elucidating the goal of health care for all took you a good part of the way towards achieving that goal.

But the US missed that moment of opportunity, and in the intervening 60 years, health care has become the most profitable sector of our economy, and powerful insurance, pharmaceutical and for-profit hospital interests have grown, and now have an effective veto on any health care reform plan.

My point is that Americans need to be more radical in our outlook than Europeans, simply to achieve the same things that they already take for granted. What could be done in Britain 60 years ago with a well-written white paper requires a revolution here in the US.

So a progressive creed is a start, but we need to go far beyond what we believe and want, to an understanding of who prevents us from getting what we want. This seems like almost an obvious point, but how many candidates for office have you seen take this obvious step?

I remember reading somewhere that the farming population (or the rural population, even) forms a relatively low percentage of the US population, yet so much political action is taken in its name. And considering the globalized nature of the world, it seems inequitable to have universal standards of human rights defer to Middle American sensibilities - not in the sense that it's ok to stone sexual transgressors, but precisely in the sense that abortion, queer unions, outfits that don't come from the American Apparel catalogue, all these are at least tolerated, whether or not they fit into the next consumer craze.

It's none of the state's business to decide if its citizens are allowed the resources necessary to belong on the basis of morality. But it's so entrenched here that even Democrats go along with disenfranchising felons (even though it might assure them a permanent majority in Congress).

The state is there to implement a democratically accepted notion of justice, not to impose its parochial view of what an individual's moral actions ought to be.

Sajia's brings up the contingency of such thinking. A Chinese dissident spends two years in jail for publishing an anti-government newspaper; an American anti-war activist spends two years in jail for climbing over the fence of a military nuclear facility.
The first action is that of a totalitarian state; the second is that of a democracy protecting its laws. That's how most Americans would look at it, anyway. Good luck to anyone trying to spot a universal principle of justice in that position.

Re the antiwar demo, I was not thinking about Americans. This country loves wars and its military -- almost, but not quite, as much as its pocketbooks. This is the titanic battle unfolding one: ass-kicking vs pocketbooks.

I was thinking about the rest of the world. Iraq has given war a very bad name and antiwar voices played a role. Maybe one day America will leave the 19th c, skip over the 20th, and join the rest of the world in the 21st.

But judging from the fact that the more firmly entrenched in the 19th century US commentators are the faster they get promoted I am not hopeful.

>> they knew of no specific crimes

Brings back memories of the immortal Dr Strangelove:
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the war room!"

To play devil's advocate: an American might respond that the American antiwar activist has an open political process that she can use to change the laws she disagrees with, if she manages to convince enough of her neighbors, whereas the Chinese dissident does not.

That's why I think any attempt to make real change in America must involve showing people how hollow our "democracy" really is--the gap between theory and practice is very wide, but most people don't know just how wide, and this ignorance leads them to excuse a lot.

Though, actually, I don't think universal human rights standards are based on Middle American sensibilities. People who articulate those standards will usually include things like a right to birth control, equal rights for gays, prohibition of the death penalty, standards for humane prisons, and rights for children to protect them against child abuse--all of which the U.S. refuses to accept precisely because Middle America wouldn't like it. The problem is that we in the States don't engage in critical self-examination when we hear about these discrepancies between American law and global human rights standards, which we seldom hear about anyway.

Brings back memories of the immortal Dr Strangelove:
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the war room!"

I believe that was President Muffley, not Dr. Strangelove.

Unless by 'Dr Strangelove' you meant the movie itself, in which case the nitpicking doesn't apply.

The more I read this discussion, the more I realize the need for anarchy(not chaos, for you smart-assed conservatives posing on this site as progressives). We have all of us, failed and there is NO "do-over". Period. Grow up and face it, for the love of science.

Good Night ;)