If you note carefully, it is obvious that I do not feel truly satisfied with the project of modernity itself, let alone the democrats and republicans. In this case, I frame the issue in far broader context than you are. Whether Democrats win or Republicans, Weber's analysis of the crisis of modernity remains intact.
In any case, did not Marx say that in a capitalist society where the fundamentals are the survival of the capitalist system, all that happens when when elections take place is for the oppressed to be given the opportunity to choose who will oppress them in the next four years. And did he not say in the Communist Manifesto that the state in modern capitalist society is a committee for managing the common affairs of the bourgeois? This kind of discussion transcend Democrats or Republicans.
But more importantly, there is a huge literature long ago that represented a serious debate in the New Left Review about the nature of the state in capitalist society between Ralph Miliband and Nicos Poulantzas. The debate was on whether the state in capitalist society can be understood by looking at the people who administer it or aspire to (functionaries, and e.g., Ben Carson) or by understanding the structure of the state and the structure of capitalist society in which the capitalist state is embedded (Althusser).
In contrast to your suggestion, I see nothing radical in someone in this forum arriving at the conclusion that both democrats and republicans are the same. Even the Vice President of Moral Majority, Ed Dobson, said in a book and documentary series titled "With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right" that the White House whether Democrat or Republican is the same. They ask you to help them win an election as a minister and then after that, they give you a "dog biscuit" to keep you busy until the next election when they do what they want to do and then ask you to come and close the meeting with a prayer.
If someone who participated in partisan politics like Ed Dobson on grounds of certain conviction is so observant and honest to make this observation, what more of a trained scholars or informed persons? Even if one has sympathy for the Democrats, did not Bill Clinton moved the party to the right? And did he not quote someone at a convention t hat in order to live like Republicans, vote Democrat. Does this not suggest that the bourgeois lifestyle is the ideal whether democrat and republican? Indeed, in the literature, often republicans support supply-side policies, while democrats support demand-side policies. But all these is debate about means to a particular substance: a bourgeois capitalist society as the Nirvana that all humans should aspire as Rostow states in his theory: "The Age of High Mass Consumption." One feels sorry for such a civilization even though he is a part of it. This is all what western civilization or modernity is aspiring for. If you were to watch the six-hour documentary on neoliberalism and globalization titled: "The Commanding Heights" you see that Clinton's campaign is featured in it. H e moved the party to the right.
The documentary is also a good empirical test of whether the best way to understand what is going on in modern electoral politics is to first start by looking or analyzing the people who manage the state or by understanding the structure of the society and the state and then examine how that shape the individuals aspiring to the state office or managing the state office (i.e., state functionaries). Even Alexis de Tocqueville argues that in America, we deceive ourselves about freedom but the parameters or the space within which you can exercise such freedom is determined by the system in a manner that is not necessarily just and fair; and if you go beyond the boundaries, even if by law you are free, you will be ostracized by the society and become useless because people will avoid you. That is the punishment.
My analysis is not just applicable to Ben Carson if properly understood; it is about a culture, a civilization, and a system, which produced Ben Carson. It applies to myself, to Democrats, to anyone living in this modern world. Have I fully figured who I am? Nope!
Kant argues that there is a deep side to ourselves that we ourselves cannot reach. We can only interpret ourselves through situations we find ourselves in. Is there a limit to such situations? I did not know about myself as much as when I came to the U.S. and got certain opportunities and put put myself in certain situations that helped me to understand myself better. But I have not fully figured out who I am even now because I will encounter certain situations in the future that will help me figure out through interpretation who I am. . We did not know at the beginning that Moses was a very temperamental person until he found himself in a situation that helped us to see that part of himself.
It may appear that it is easier for some of us to be realistic because we do not have wild imaginations or aspirations. Anyone who desires to be a U.S. president must have an ego that is outside the normal curve in the first place, whether that person is Black, White, Religious or not, etc. it does not matter. And there are many distortions that come with such an ego. I think the Farida the woman who was in the past in charge of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, once said that anyone who decides to aspire for an office in Nigeria should be examined in a hospital..
The idea of making the skin color of a person the only significant thing about his or her identity in the world of neoliberal globalization is in my view limiting. On the surface the odds of being a Democrat if you are Black is higher than being a Republican. But the same thing is true of Whites, i.e.,. the odds of being a Democrat is lower compared to being a republican as per the General Social Survey data.
In my view, it is about their social and material interest, even though they are black, which is sometimes mediated by certain variables depending on social contexts.
With regard to U.S. value system and how it oppresses others in other countries, it is hard for a Black person to succeed in the U.S. without at least being normative about American cultural values, which are not as benevolent as you yourself suggested. I have no disagreement with you about that. However, there are economic evidence that Black people in the U.S. still benefit from some of the benefits of American capitalism which often succeeds at the expense of other social groups in other parts of the world. So you can see here that oppression is not just about America in a general way, but even we African immigrants are being indirectly subsidized by the U.S. capitalist system of exploitation of other groups abroad through unequal exchange. Often when you go to the store and buy things that are made overseas, the cheap or bargain prices we get is not some miracle from heaven. There is an explanation for that. This means that many who are otherwise minorities in the U.S., including those of us who are African immigrants are now part of that empire because we benefit from the unequal exchange. Let us not be carried away by our idealistic academic analysis on this forum.
With regard to the focus on being Black, African immigrant kids do not get along well with African American kids even though they are all Black. This is a reflection of what people experience in the culture. It is not inherent in the skin color per se. One African American minister while we were at a meeting of African Americans and African immigrants students at the University of Minnesota made an important point that I will never forget. We were trying to promote greater understanding and unity between the two groups because the relationship was very tensed. I was lucky my roommate was African American and for two decades we still remain friends and visit each other. And we grew in our relationship and in the process I learned a lot about African Americans as he has learned about Africa.
But the African American Minister at the meeting said, we (African immigrants) have to understand that they (African Americans) grew up in a culture where they were not taught to love or appreciate themselves because of who they are, and so for many who internalized this kind of oppressive socialization even at the subliminal level, it is difficult to appreciate someone who comes from a continent that is given negative coverage in the media by the same dominant culture that taught them to hate themselves, and not to appreciate people (Africans) who look like them (African Americans). He was not saying this was something that will continue forever but he was trying to explain the complexity and dynamics of the situation. It happens even in Nigeria. You can grow up in a particular region and be told to not appreciate people in another region. Some African American families raise their kids with an African self esteem but some teach their kids to avoid Africans or anything African. And there are good reasons. Some African immigrants though Black tell their children to avoid African Americans for so many reasons. Some do things differently and there are contexts for all that. To explain all this we have to go beyond merely having black skin color. At best, that should just be a starting point.
We are all Black but when you go deep into understanding how we behave, you then begin to realize that to account for variation, as important as it is, we cannot reify skin color and accord it an autonomous existence, and uniform meaning outside the complex, contingent, and concrete dynamics of history, space and time i.e., context. Because there are nuances in contexts, it complicates the situation and that is why for me, Ben Carson is a Black person but because I never reify blackness, I need to go beyond his skin color to understand what his blackness represents in concrete historical context and circumstances of the American marketplace; instead of assuming that because he is black he must automatically be this or that. This is almost like essentializing if pushed too far. I have attended a meeting where I encountered dedicated African American atheists; but they are Black. Many people will find that strange but it is context.
People can come from the same ethnic group for instance but within the group there can be as much variation (i.e., within group variation) as there is "between group variation" i.e., differences between that ethnic group and others. Nigeria for instance as many other countries because of group competition have focused on inequality between groups and regions while ignoring inequality within groups and regions. We have to look at both types of variations and understand them in contexts, and which of the two will be more powerful at any one time as an explanation is often an empirical question.
To get a full account of what is happening we have to synthesize our understanding of the situation by combining both types of variations and how they account for a person's personality, cosmology, worldview, and choices.
So no matter how discredited, there is still that desire in humans that when they encounter someone, they want to know the "real person" the authentic person, when many layers are trappings are removed, or at least they want to be as close to that reality as the person is. Otherwise they can as well abandon the dialogue or communication. One thing that Habermas notes can distort authenticity in dialogue or communication is inequality in power relationship, which can of course distort dialogue as the powerless people will feel afraid to say what they really mean unless if they are given a guarantee of safe passage. The powerless can engage in sycophancy, which distorts authenticity in communication..
samuel--
are you imagining that one cannot be a black person and a conservative republican?
or an "authentic" black person and a conservative republican? or that the only space for black people here is with the dems? or what? there are many radical people on the list who would argue republicans and democrats are equal failures for real black needs, that they prop up american dominant values, etc
as for "authenticity," one day when i am less busy i will happily post my own strong distaste for that term, but that is another day. (in the old existential days, it was another matter)
ken
On 9/28/15 3:33 PM, Samuel Zalanga wrote:
He is playing a "role." The problem with human beings in many types of societies, but particularly in advanced modernity is that it is sometimes difficult to figure out what is authentic about a human being. To illustrate to my students in social theory how this represents part of the crisis of modernity, I ask them how can they be sure that when I am teaching, it is the "real or authentic" me that is teaching or just a professorial persona, i.e., just playing a role which any person with similar training and skills can. When people are in a role situation, it is amazing how the dynamics of the role can shape the person's behavior and indeed, sometimes, his or her moral and ethical choices. We know that even conscience is not developed in social vacuum.
Moreover, who knows whether Ben Carson has really sat down to reflect much about himself and do so with the help of others. Getting high level of education is not a guarantee that someone has gone through that kind of reflection. Some people are educated but they are so much in love with themselves that when they look at themselves in the mirror, they want to hug themselves. Modern day education in many instances is about analyzing one or another person or issue (i.e., externally focused on things), but not much about introspection, or self-interrogation or reflecting deeply about oneself.
To get the situation even more complicated, if one is going to reflect on him or herself, one social theorist says there are different pieces to it. There is first who you are, then second, there is how you think about who you think you are. These are two different things. But more problematic, the third, is the fact that for a person to think about who he or she is, he or she cannot do so directly without going through some categories of mediation. These categories or mediation are not produced by the individual and although the individual can choose which category of mediation to use in understanding himself or herself, the choice process does not take place in random or in social vacuum. There are social and institutional constraints and parameters.
What is even of great concern in complicating the situation is that people may be in the same society and situation but choose different categories of mediation through which to understand themselves, because they socially construct different meaning out of it.
So figuring out Ben Carson is as much a project as figuring out ourselves. Part of the problem also is that in figuring ourselves out, sometimes there is a part that is like an abyss, and we do not want to look into that abyss because we are not pleased with what we see about ourselves or who we think we are, and we will do much in order to distract ourselves.
We will not know who the authentic Ben Carson is by focusing on his presidential role, just we will not figure out what is authentic about a professor by just focusing on his or her professorial role. In my view, what applies to Ben Carson applies to all other presidential candidates. The fact that Donal Trump wants to increase taxes on the rich does not really get us to his authentic self in terms of whether he is saying this because of a genuine commitment to social justice or just as a way of persuading people to get him to the White House.
The worst thing is that many have abandoned the project of even trying to know the authentic person or trying to be authentic because they see little value in that. More energy is directed at what sort of role people can play so as to get they want? Even in religious leadership we see this problem manifesting in huge proportion. The "consumer taste" of the religious consumers plays an important role in shaping the "product" produced by the religious organization, it beliefs, doctrines, sermons and policies, which often change with consumer taste, else they lose market share.
If we cannot ever reach the authentic person in our world today or that many have abandoned that project, that makes the dignity of humanity fragile and in some cases even what it means to be human disappearing. What remains is just role playing. This is why Ben Carson in my view is just a illustration of one of the manifestations of the crisis of modernity. This sounds somewhat pessimistic. But frankly much of what happens in our world today is like that.
Samuel
--
On Mon, Sep 28, 2015 at 10:41 AM, Anunoby, Ogugua <AnunobyO@lincolnu.edu> wrote:
--Is there anyone who knows anyone, especially an African-American, who does not agree that "being a member of a minority race does'nt mean being a minority achiever"? His credentials suggest that he is a very educated intelligent man. His religion and Christian denomination should therefore not excuse the absurd and divisive statements he continues to make on important issues of public interest and the arrogance and disdain with which he expresses them.
When I think about him sometimes, I am reminded of the late Sir Bobby Robson, a former England Football (soccer) manager. He said the Argentine former professional footballer, Maradona, was a very gifted man but all his gifts seem to be in his left foot. Is this man's brilliance in medicine mostly? I wonder?
oa
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com]
Sent: Sunday, September 27, 2015 2:57 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Dr. Ben Carson on the race issue in the US
At the risk of defending Ben Carson, let me say I don't think he is oblivious of the plight of black people. His first book - Gifted Hands - is an autobiography of a black kid who grew up in an impoverished black neighbourhood. There must be something else that explains why he is saying unacceptable things: postracial politics of success?
"being a member of a minority race doesn't mean being a minority achiever."
― Ben Carson, Gifted Hands 20th Anniversary Edition: The Ben Carson Story
As for the conservatism, an explanation is readily available. He is a Seventh-day Adventist (SDAs). Although there are liberal SDAs, the foundation of adventism is pretty much conservative as far as issues of sexuality and abortion are concerned. He is indeed caught up in an ideological dilemma - no wonder SDAsm and politics tend not to mix.
"Adventist Church in North America Issues Statement on Ben Carson's U.S. Presidential Bid" - http://www.adventistreview.org/church-news/story2602-adventist-church-in-north-america-issues-statement-on-ben-carsons-u.s.-presidential-bid
From: kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu>
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Sent: Friday, September 25, 2015 3:52 PM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Dr. Ben Carson on the race issue in the US
this is the historic low point for the political thermometer of this nation. we are more conservative, extreme conservative, xenophobic, right-wing, and even neofascist, than any time in my memory.
that candidates like carson and trump are leading the pack, given their views, their hatred of foreigners or the poor, is unbelievable.
thanks for providing the quote that just confirms my pessimism.
kenOn 9/25/15 1:07 PM, Anunoby, Ogugua wrote:
Ben Carson has said worse.
According to The Washington Times (10/11/13), Carson said that Obamacare is "the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery…" in that year's Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. Imagine that from not an African-American, but a trained medical doctor to a blood thirsty ideology driven audience. Did Carson say who blacks are happy with and grateful to "for what they were given" Does he know that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and many others on all sides lived? Is knowledge of history his problem? I wonder.
Specific audience targeted hyperbolic statements might just be his stock in trade. Everyone must make up their minds about whether or not he believes them.
oa
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kenneth harrow
Sent: Friday, September 25, 2015 10:12 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Dr. Ben Carson on the race issue in the US
he really said this? amazing. no wonder white conservatives like him.
On 9/25/15 6:08 AM, Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:
It's outrageous that a Black man could see and if he wasn't a brain surgeon you'd think that he had a screw or two loose, up there. And this man wants to be elected president of the United States?
"Before Obama, people barely noticed skin color; that goes back 150 years. Blacks were happy and grateful for what we were given." (Benjamin Carson)
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Bethel University, 3900 Bethel Drive #24
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