These are the biggest objections people have raised so far, it seems to me:
- 'Capitalism' is a biased word to begin with and what it means is less than clear if not problematic. No one calls herself a capitalist, rather, this term is coined and used by socialists or alike. And even if it were an appropriate name to call the converse of socialism, what does it mean? Why have I neglected to pay that any attention?
- My weak, intuitive sense of defining socialism is too weak, even nihilistic maybe. 'Socialism' is reduced to fuzzy, warm feelings we have for one another. This may be something, but to call it socialism is about as productive as calling oil "black stuff." More importantly, it forgets that socialism is, as Boston put it, "more than a feeling." It is a real thing that happened in the history of ideas and in recent political history. Which leads the third point.
- Esoteric meanings of thing we have mostly clear definitions for in dictionaries and so on only complicate things needlessly. No one in their right mind needs -- not to mention that no one wants -- another theoretical nuance or more intellectual parsing out this or that from the language we use and can, generally, agree on. This may serve a certain small circle of blowhards and cloud dwellers, but it does no good for these terms as they work in the world for the rest of the population. Weak, intuitive socialism is nothing more than nerdly self-gratification. If I want to say something about socialism or capitalism (or whatever word we prefer for what socialist and alike call capitalism) I should stick with the pre-established, normative definitions and, then, try and say something smart about it.
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I would try to be more respectful in how I phrased it (e.g. not referring to you as a 'blowhard' prone to 'nerdly gratification' we're all nerds here), but 3 captures my basic proposal for your consideration. Namely, that using established definitions precisely is often better for facilitating conversation.
You're right, but I enjoy putting things as antagonistically as I can, that way, when I respond the contrast is clear. And, I guess I am hiding behind some self-deprecating rhetorical devices. At the same time, the sentiment of the objections to things esoteric smack of a certain anti-intellectualism that, I think, those ways of self characterizing myself convey... But now to the task of refuting those objections...
I would also object that I don't really see anything particularly intuitive about your weak sense of socialism. Socialism, even as the historically factual reaction against capitalism, has always been a matter of class struggle, with all of the ressentiment which that implies. That is why it was, even if not entirely invented by Marx, at least taken up by him. As such, I don't agree with your use of the term as a general description of every reaction against capitalism. I understand what you're trying to get at in trying to understand the sociality of the person and opposing it to the individualism of the capitalist system, but I don't think that 'socialism' is the proper term for it.
Bill: Are you using "ressentiment" in the technical, Nietzschian sense here? What do you mean by that, exactly?
I do mean it in the Nietzschean sense, and as such I am suggesting that the connections between the ideas of class struggle and socialism are born out of the hatred of powerlessness and not out of the love of neighbor that an authentically Christian answer to socialism and capitalism would imply.
I see. Let me chew on that Nietzschianlly: "like a cow". I'll get back to you on it when I'm done.
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