Archive for the 'Politics' Category

Feminism is Dead

Published on 16 August 2010 ago in Philosophy and Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Before I get to my point, I want to add a caveat here: ‘Feminism is dead’ should be understood as an observation (along the lines of Nietzsche’s ‘God is dead’) instead of a suggestion that feminism should be dead. To me, that is the furthest thing from my mind. Now, on to the post…

Perhaps I am misreading history, but if feminism that arose en masse prior to the 1980s or so was an active influence on society, it is dead now. This is largely because people are apathetic; the average person on the street doesn’t notice and doesn’t really care that equality hasn’t been reached and/or is deluded in thinking that it has. The fact is things like the Bechdel Test not only exist but are seen as shocking by people first discovering them.

For me, the ultimate goal of feminist thought (as well as all other movements of civil rights and equality) should be the ending of noting the usage of language as a tool for inequality. For this reason, I can agree with this article that racism is alive and well, as it points out that the language of Obama as a black president often implies the existence of inequality which can now be tolerated as ‘they’ (in this case, ‘blacks’) are now finally entering ‘our’ world. For the Bechdel Test, I propose that it shouldn’t be about getting x% of films produced each year which meet the test but about investigating the attitude that defeats the test’s minimal aim.

I believe this is largely because there are two basic genres of films these days: action and romantic-comedy. The first is billed as the embodiment of masculinity, even at the expense of dialogue and plot. I would argue that including women that do not talk about the (inevitably lead) male into an ‘action’ film is a wrong direction, as it aims to fill a quota so that the inequality can continue (or worse, just add more to the already poorly executed genre). A better goal for ‘action’ films is to completely leave out anything that gets in the way of the ‘action plot’ (which is the excuse for shooting, killing, and blowing things up) — including the gender of the actors. After all, does it matter if the person blowing things up is male or female? However, I think such a move would fail because I don’t think people who promote feminist goals really care much for the genre.

A similar story goes for the romantic-comedy genre, in which the story is inevitably about a protagonist (male or female) who eventually falls in love with a character of the opposite sex, who rejects the protagonist. The remainder of the film is the lead’s attempt at getting the love interest to fall in love as well, which happens in the last 5 minutes and everyone lives happily ever after (except for the antagonist who had seduced the love interest early on). Just like with the ‘action’ genre, I think the aim of ‘redeeming’ the genre is a failure to realise the goal of civil equality.

Instead of redeeming the film industry (which is an otherwise good idea), we must first attend to the apathy in society. A result of our consumer society is that people are apathetic. This is why the Bechdel Test is seen as surprising. The surprise isn’t because one doesn’t accept civil equality but rather because one thinks it’s already been achieved. And that is the exact problem: it hasn’t.

Capital is dead!

Published on 15 August 2010 ago in Current Events and Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

While concerns grow about a second recession (e.g. the Hindenburg Omen), the more worrying event is the American public’s ignorance of the significant revelations the ‘financial crisis’ two years ago brought out. The most significant of these revelations is the death of the illusion that America is a classless society. Prior to the events, corporations obscured their intentions by marketing their parasitic control of Capital as a way for Americans to pursue the American dream. This was in the guise of home ownership, suburban (and even rural) communities, and extravagant lifestyles. However, the reality of these have set in as the possibility of funding this dream has disappeared as jobs and credit options are being trimmed in accordance with ‘recovery’ from the ‘financial crisis’.

What has actually happened, however, is the rise of class warfare. While unemployment soars, so do corporate profits. The parasitic relationship has been abandoned as the corporate wealthy see that ‘middle class’ can no longer support the system. The Capital has been drained from the economy, consolidated into the hands of the corporate wealthy. The new plan of action isn’t parasitism anymore; it has turned to subjugation and enslavement. America has become a ‘third world country’ now, yet those who are in the direst positions (i.e. that ‘middle class’) cannot believe it. In fact, they even defend those who have stolen from them (e.g. the Tea Party’s defense of ‘free market’ capitalism, the ‘reformation’ of financial regulations, etc).

In short, the illusion of democracy has been cast aside. In its place, the ulterior motive of class warfare has come out in public. The problem is that the ‘middle class’ in America is too busy defending the people who have declared war against the ‘middle class’. We have seen this in the rise and (lack of) fall of prices. Theoretically, supply and demand state that prices should drop when there is high supply and low demand. However, when has this actually happened? Look at the ‘financial crisis’ in which demand for anything beside basic needs dropped, what prices dropped? Cars? TVs? Computers? Software? Housing. That’s the only thing that dropped in prices (temporarily), and typically because the houses were being foreclosed and people made homeless. While there are many responses to class warfare, the first step is to dispel the Stockholm Syndrome that the ‘middle class’ has long since believed.

To build a community (centre)

Published on 14 August 2010 ago in Current Events, Politics and Religion. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

The current ‘controversy’ in the US is the plans of a Muslim community to build a community centre a few blocks away from the ruins of the World Trade Centre (you know, that place where 9/11 happened 9 years ago). It’s really sad that these Muslims are getting such harsh treatment. So, I want to look at some of the major ‘arguments’ against the community centre and show how weak they are in addition to showing how much of a non-issue this should be.

A Mosque at Ground Zero!

First, I want to clarify on word choice. The current situation has very specific features and we should be clear, accurate, and concise with our words. First, the building in question is not a mosque. This seems to be a problem that even people on the left who promote religious tolerance have accepted. However, it is an all-purpose facility (e.g. community centre) that will include athletic areas, auditoriums, classrooms, a 9/11 memorial, a parking garage, and finally a mosque. An equivalent example would be calling Princeton Theological Seminary a ‘church’. Furthermore, the site in question is not on Ground Zero, nor even directly adjacent to it. The site is located two blocks away, far enough for them to use different subway stations with at least one in between.

Insult to Injury

The first ‘argument’ is that moderate Muslims building a community centre near Ground Zero is a slap in the face by Muslims against America. However, there are a few flaws with such an argument. First, this argument juxtaposes the religious and the political, making it the radical Muslims against the good religion of the US. Interesting in itself, as it turns America into a single religious community, more than likely ‘Christian’. This kind of assertion is exactly what the prohibition of a state religion is against. I’ve been arguing elsewhere that a government which is completely apathetic to religion (i.e. a secularised society) is the greatest asset for the growth and development of a religion. The ‘argument’ against the building of the community centre is a perfect case showing why secularisation is beneficial to a religious tradition. ‘America’ is not a religion (well, possibly, but that’s another post), and Islam is not a political entity that can attack a nation (Libya, Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, etc are).

Secondly, the Muslims building the community centre are themselves Americans! Many of them were present on 9/11 and have the same experience all other New Yorkers (and Americans in general) regarding 9/11. Not only that, but then they were ostracised and demonised by their fellow countrymen for what a handful of people who claim to practice the same religion did. This would be equivalent to Americans wanting to ban Christianity, burn the Bible, and discriminate against Christians because of Timothy McVeigh, the various abortion clinic bombers, Westboro Baptist Church, etc.

So, yes, 9/11 (as well as al Qaeda and others) are radicals who claim to be Muslims. However, the people building this community centre are not. I’m certain that they dislike the radicals as much as Sarah Palin, and chances are they are conservatives who agree with other religious conservatives from Christianity, Judaism, etc. In other words, they are really no different from any of the people who are most vociferous in opposition to the community centre with the exception of religious commitments. The community centre should be seen as Muslims offering to show that they are not the same as the radicals in al Qaeda. While I’ll suggest that they shouldn’t need to do this, other Americans should interpret it at least as such. In fact, the community centre is open to people of all faiths and will continue the tradition of interfaith dialogue. This is nothing like building a shrine to the kamikaze pilots at Pearl Harbor, a KKK memorial at Gettysburg, or a monument to nuclear weaponry at Hiroshima.

Islam is Violent

This was an early thought following 9/11. However, it is based on a severe misinterpretation of Islam, one which the radicals want to popularise. In other words, this argument already accepts a radical minority as being the proper/true interpreters of Islam. Given the facts that places like the UAE, Egypt, Jordan have progressive, moderate atmospheres, it seems that there are modern-day counterfactuals to the assertion that Islam is inherently violent. Further, with accounts of Andalucia, we also have historical evidence that Islam is not just peaceful but progressively adaptive as societies change. While Sean Hannity denounced Feisal Abdul Rauf as a supporter of al Qaeda, his publications in Newsweek and the Washington Post say otherwise.

To put things simply: the current ‘arguments’ from the opposition to the community centre amounts to nothing put bigotry, racism, and religious intolerance in a country that claims to be none of them.

Corporate Persons

Published on 3 April 2010 ago in Philosophy and Politics. 1 Comment

Ever since the Supreme Court ruled that corporations have the right to spend money on political free speech, I have been consciously looking at the issue of corporate personhood. While I’m against perceiving corporations as legal persons, I think there is a problematic area in the enforcement of law. If we are to refuse seeing corporations as persons, then we cannot prosecute these corporations for breaking laws. To remain consistent, we can only prosecute the individuals within the corporation for wrongdoing. Furthermore, that means laws that prevent fraudulent pharmaceutical corporations from contracting with Medicare/Medicaid (which was recently mentioned in the Pfizer trial) would no longer be applicable. So where do we draw the line?

Entitlement Madness

Published on 23 March 2010 ago in Current Events, Philosophy, Politics, Randomness and Rants. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , .

One of the key phrases being wielded in response to the House’s second passage of the healthcare insurance reform has been ‘entitlement’. This struck me as strange because ‘entitlement’ is typically used to denote benefits being given to a specific group (e.g. military veterans, Midwest farmers, displaced victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, etc). Yet the healthcare reform bill, as passed is not specific to a particular group but to all Americans. Sure, there are parts which provide graduated assistance to those who are under a certain percentage of the poverty line, but is that enough to claim the entirety of the reform bill is a great entitlement — as these same opponents also decry of programmes such as welfare, Medicare, and Medicaid?

This kind of crying foul that the government should not help the less fortunate is faulty on two counts. It rests on the assumption that ‘social justice’ is something that should be voluntary. This is particularly difficult for religious conservatives who tend to accept that humans are inherently ‘bad’ (whether it be moral corruption through Calvinism’s ‘Total Depravity’ or something similar). If humans are inherently bad (or at the very least morally cuplable), why should we accept that humans will reach through this fault and give willingly and unselfishly? In other words, humans are selfish (and I believe this is something implicit in my previous post on social justice). If it weren’t for humanity’s selfish nature, I could accept voluntary giving as a viable alternative.

The second assumption this line of thinking rests on is the assumption that ‘social justice’ is not part of the government’s role. This is problematic because equality for all people and the right to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ is written both explicitly and implicitly throughout the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. However, it has changed over the last century as the public sphere has degraded into a culture of opposition and war. In fact, I would go so far as to say that notions of the ‘common good’ have been superceded by the notion of the private consumer (the four part BBC documentary Century of the Self has a good analysis here). We can see this in a historical look at actions such as exorcism in which people were removed from communities because they were harmful to the community has become a battle between the many fragments of Self and Other within individuals. We’ve tried to erase the public sphere in order to protect our isolations, to protect our Selves from the Others. What we did not expect was to find that even individuals have many Selves and Others already from which an identity emerges. And now, we isolate ourselves so that we do not meet the Other face-to-face, we turn the mirrors away so that we do not see the Other within. Instead, we seek exorcism of the individual in the hopes that we will find a complete Self beneath the rubble, equally afraid that we will only see fragments! From this, we have transformed government into our own pet that should console us, pamper ourselves as individual Selves, and hide the Others from our sights. This is most evident in the lack of cooperation between political parties as all major votes now fall to partisan lines: as long as Our Party is in power, we can have our way and excise the Others from our midsts! ‘Social justice’ and ‘equality’ are within government’s role only if they benefit us! We don’t truly care for democracy, equality, liberty, or freedom; we only care for our own as we pay for it! We, as social-political creatures, have become consumers of rights! We should only have the right to buy; if one cannot pay the costs, one does not deserve it! If one does not deserve it, then that one is not of Us! — And all outsiders should be rejected lest they reveal our own inadequacies! The role of government is to continue to isolate Us from Them, equality and freedom be damned! Perhaps these opponents are using entitlement in terms of rights, but do they seriously want to contend that people have no rights whatsoever to healthcare? Only the right to consume is needed in our perverse consumer society where those unable to consume are less than human and worthless…

I think this kind of view turns government into a capitalist corporation. For the kind of thinking above, the best government is one which operates like a for-profit industry, subjugating people by marketing — as our present day capitalist corporations do — and to do so without concern or apathy. The documentary The Corporation did a good job in arguing that if capitalist corporations are persons (which the Supreme Court of the US just ruled), then they are amoral psychopaths. We want fascist dictators — not the kind that tell us directly what politics are right but the ones that tell us what to buy and use product placement to tell us which politics are good to buy!

This is, I believe the heart of the matter when it comes to criticising something as ‘entitlement’: it runs against the grain of capitalist consumerism. People are provided necessities not on the basis of their status as a consumer but on their status as a human who is part of the public sphere which haunts the consumer market. We’ve created many illusions of the public sphere (such as the American Idol phenomena in which we believe we get direct representation for once!) because we fear there may be a reality ‘out there’ in which not everything fits our utopian fantasy. Movies like Avatar are horrific because they’ve turn the Real into a fantasy which we consume as a brief foray into entertainment (‘it was a good movie with awesome effects, but the story’s been done before in Fern Gully or Pocahontas‘) before returning to our own fantasies that we mistake for the Real! Programmes like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and welfare need to be opposed because they don’t fit our fantasy of consumerism — and that is why many conservatives criticise the healthcare insurance reform as it interrupts our utopian consumerist fantasy and makes us look at Others for what they are: human beings.