You have to ask American Senator Ted Cruz, who’s propaganda is he and the gun lobby defending?
"Why only in America?"
US Senator Ted Cruz walks away from @Stone_SkyNews after being asked if "this is the moment to reform gun laws" https://t.co/d2oBaP4KvW#TedCruz #America #Texasshooting #gunlaws pic.twitter.com/gL4TYeg04t
— Sky News (@SkyNews) May 26, 2022
Do we ennoble savagery, and do we falsify civility? These are the questions for the times, and it goes to exceptionalism for personal and national conceit.
Exceptionalism is the condition of being different from the norm. For nations, it is the belief that characteristics are not global, but unique to what persons want to believe is a very large ‘national community’; the norm. For persons, it is a legitimation of identity.
The world population has become so drugged on entertainment that it is too less perceived outside of critical reflection. Let’s take one pertinent example of screen entertainment.
Black Sails is an American historical adventure television series set on New Providence Island and written to be a prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 novel Treasure Island. In the Rousseauan thinking of this era and place, savagery – violence and discord – was virtuous, ennobling, and it was civilisation which was false. Captain Flint is a persona of James McGraw, a young British naval officer, who falls foul of those establishment figures who resisted a scheme to civilise Nassau, the colonial outpost of the 18th century Atlantic empire for the British crown. Captain Flint, not only brings on younger crew members as they fight for the survival of New Providence island, but he also reinvents piracy as an all-out war against empire.
There is clearly a presentism in the entertainment. Colonialism is the modernist enemy. Piracy, however, was not virtuous in this way, but only in the way that ennobles violence and needless death of an enemy; a person, a human being. There is a twisted thinking that makes civility false when thinking, correctly, that that those who speak hypocritically of ‘civilisation’ are being false. War then becomes an ultimate solution, and here is where the stupidity sets in, since it becomes perpetual conflict with conceit and self-justification. The cognition is self-assured (conceited) and believes in its own flawed legitimisation. James McGraw becomes Captain Flint when the betrayal against him, and against the idea of civility, is twisted into the desire for vengeance and a destruction of authority. There is no better reasoning, no compassion, and no care. It is a reckless culture-history war. A new authoritarian regime take the place of the old.
The description of the conceit goes to the work, Ian Tyrrell’s American Exceptionalism: A New History of an Old Idea (2021). Tyrrell opens the book with a reference to the Republican Party’s formal adoption of national exceptionalism in the first decade of the new century. It came upon President Obama’s conclusion, in 2009, that exceptionalism for the United States might not be what Americans think it is, when the populations of ‘other countries’ can also be so conceited. We have seen in this week President Biden talk of ‘other countries’ in relation to gun violence for the United States. He has a critical point, but the exceptionalism which he refers to is not what rabble population thinks, those who ennoble their position as ‘pirates.’ The greater challenge is that an American political party also ennobles such violence upon its own people in the exact same way; ‘the American Way’. American exceptionalism, in the history of the United States, has become a cognitive tool to reject the ethical lessons from the ‘world out there’. Our war has noble purpose because we are an exceptional people, and I am an exceptional person. The world is then hated, for it is the norm.
Is there a better way of thinking?
In ancient terms, there are the compassionate Christian faith and the classical learning of the humanists. Both have had distorting turns as its ideas became dogmatic doctrines of faith and politics. There is a better way because common sense with critical thinking can show that savagery and violence is not to be desired, no matter the justification; and, for good or bad, we exist as civilised beings – persons in the bright metropolis or its shadow. It has been this way for millennia, and it is not about to change, unless we make the choice for an apocalypse. If democracy matters, then democracy says a no to an apocalypse. When does a population vote deliberately for its own species destruction? Only in war, with physical blows or as culture-history.
To then divert away from war, is to do what Joseph Rouse (2015) describes as ‘Articulating the World.’ Rouse has a deep technical argument on philosophical naturalism, and this swings us back around to the Rousseauan thinking. The critical question is the idea of ‘human nature’, a tug of war, not merely between Rousseau and Hobbes, but between Hobbes and Locke; for it is Locke who opens ups the possibility of having both liberated human nature and civility.
The postmodern era has put an end to the confidence in the Lockean project, which is why we have screen films like Black Sails. In rejecting the Lockean view of civilisation, we have become pirates. What I suggest, however, is a humanism against privateers (pirates in its original conception), and a humanism for public and educated dialogue. It is not a war I propose but peace in the educative process.
REFERENCES AND RECOMMENDED READING
On the technical arguments re: the gun control debate, see the well-designed argument from ‘Steve Hofstetter Presents’
https://fb.watch/dfX0JBBH8b/
Arendt, Hannah & Canovan, Margaret (1998). The Human Condition (2nd ed. / introduction by Margaret Canovan). University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Baker, D. (2015). Collective Learning: A Potential Unifying Theme of Human History, Journal of World History, 26(1), 77-104. Retrieved April 28, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/43818826
Grayling, A.C. (2002). Meditations for the Humanist: Ethics for a Secular Age, Oxford University Press.
Harris, J. (2003). Hiding the bodies: The myth of the Humane Colonisation of Aboriginal Australia, Aboriginal History, 27, 79-104. Retrieved April 28, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/24054261
Lydon, Jane (2015) H. G. Wells and a shared humanity, History Australia, 12:1, 75-94, DOI: 10.1080/14490854.2015.11668554
Matherson, Francois, Translated by G.M. Goshgarian (2003). Louis Althusser: The Humanist Controversy and Other Writing, Verso, New York NY.
Olin, John C. (1987). Christian Humanism and the Reformation: Selected Writings of Erasmus, Fordham University Press, New York, NY.
Rouse, Joseph (2015). Articulating the World: Conceptual Understanding and the Scientific Image, The University of Chicago Press.
Sartre, Jean-Paul (1947; 2007). Existentialism Is a Humanism, Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn.
Tyrrell, Ian (2021). American Exceptionalism: A New History of an Old Idea, The University of Chicago Press.
Image: Giambattista Vico, Hannah Arendt, Black Sails
Neville Buch
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haven’t read the links, or bothered following the usual gun outrage/gun lobby justifications. just re: yr post: This needs to be disentangled – just what is American “exceptionalism”? as a concept that American policy makers have applied (to themselves) in world affairs, and as a concept that Americans apply to their own self-image of themselves and their society contra all others? very interesting that American conservative values (the Constitution, including the 2nd amendment, is a Sacred document) is the first (and only?) instance where Burkean conservatism is based not on organic, unconscious, long built up and established historical “forces” in… Read more »
For Steve: 2. Burkean Conservatism: “where Burkean conservatism is based not on organic, unconscious, long built up and established historical “forces” in a society (the customs, mores, morals, laws etc) but on a consciously constructed man-made rational document that sprang new-born out of the heads of Enlightenment reasoners in the 18th century.” Love to discuss Burkean Conservatism further. But now I have questions for you, how is “man-made rational document that sprang new-born out of the heads of Enlightenment reasoners in the 18th century” NOT also (whatever else) “organic, unconscious, long built up and established historical “forces” in a society… Read more »
because to Burke the customs, mores and laws of a country (its entire “culture”) were the results of long processes, piecemeal and slowly arrived at in a perhaps “irrational” fashion; they perfectly fit the society that has grown up and with them and the individuals are habituated to and for them, their souls are part and one with and formed by an entire organic process that cannot be planned and they cannot be transferred to other cultures who have their own individual processes. They should not be tampered with by what he considered, the fantastic ideals of dreaming reasoners; societies… Read more »
Steve 2.3.
I am going to keep these comments brief. The replies are going around the point rather on the point, but if you just making a descriptive point to my analytic point, that’s fine, message received.
Burke’s ideas that culture are the results of long processes, piecemeal and slowly arrived at in a perhaps “irrational” fashion does not divert from the point that change is possible, that the general will is there, and legislative change is needed. Burkean conservatives make the same criticisms and the same call for a change in the gun culture.
was commenting on the genesis of the American polity, not current events. No doubt all “decent” people, liberals/conservatives, want to reduce gun violence – as to whether they both coalesce around restricting access to guns, not sure about that.
For Steve. 3. Roussean Thinking. A case misreading.
Read again: “In the Rousseauan thinking of this era and place, savagery – violence and discord – was virtuous, ennobling, and it was civilisation which was false”
You said: “According to Rousseau the savages were noble and lived in a primitive state of harmony with Nature and their fellows. It was civilization that corrupted Man (see the 2nd Discourse)”
How is that not the same meaning?
because Rousseau did not consider that the savages lived in a state of violence and discord; they certainly had to struggle with Nature to survive, but not between themselves: they were “good”, their feelings were naturally compassionate and communal. It was only after they exited this primitive state of nature and private property and the stratification of civiilisation were established that war and oppression began. In his 1st discourse? (I think, long time since i read him) he shows (or attempts to) that the evolution and development of civil society, the increase in refinement and power of the arts and… Read more »
Steve 3.2.
I am going to keep these comments brief. The replies are going around the point rather on the point, but if you just making a descriptive point to my analytic point, that’s fine, message received.
I accept that it mostly likely is a misconstrued reading of Rousseau, no doubt from Hume’s views. So, I apologize. It is still Rousseauan thinking in how Americans came to romanticised the view of ‘the savage’. No doubt, your right, the detrimental effects from civilisation that Rousseau talked about was dramatised into ‘the evil effects of civilisation.’
For Steve 4. Gun Culture. “…the idea of guns = freedom is so deeply rooted in the American character that it seems ineradicable…” Is character ineradicable? adjective unable to be destroyed or removed. “ineradicable hostility” Perhaps, there is a better question which, ignoring it, is deflecting clear thinking in the gun culture. Is character changeable? And then there are other questions follow, is the gun culture the fin de siècle for the American character? My argument is that is it sociological mythology, and one archetype of an American. There is no necessity for hostility because there is no necessity for… Read more »
i used “character” as just a expression, not in any technical sense. just meant that this love of guns is so much part of their history and is so ingrained in the American psyche as to be part of their being (see Burke). I definitely don’t see it as a “mythology”, as something not real: it is a very real element to Americanism. One only has to go to America and mix at ground level with them to observe and feel that it is a very different type of society to say, here. And guns are very much part of… Read more »
Steve 4.2.
I am going to keep these comments brief. The replies are going around the point rather on the point, but if you just making a descriptive point to my analytic point, that’s fine, message received.
Message received; as per the rest. But the mythology is a ‘real’ element of the Americanism or American modernism. The narrative is fantasy, however, being believed *some* Americans make real decisions on it. Those numbers of Americans are declining, and have been so for some time. The issue is that includes a 100 or so US Senators.
If you mean by mythology/fantasy that the holding of a gun contributes nothing to maintaining one’s freedom – well, the Founding Father’s of the American Constitution put the 2nd Amendment in there because they considered that it did, as was one way to check tyranny; as to whether that insight holds good under the conditions of State power today (jets, tanks, drones up to nuclear weapons etc) well…maybe ( but America is a more free society than China, and more so even than awstrala? who can say how much strong gun ownership has contributed to that and the “mythology” of… Read more »
For Steve 5. Aesthetics and Culture. “Speaking aesthetically, America was fascinating, now its becoming a little boring.”
Perhaps, that is the problem in your analysis, Steve. My argument is that too many citizens have their heads in the aesthetics of the entertainment clouds to think clearer. Culture has become a rhetorical grab-bag, and what is needed for understanding is the boring technical bits of history and philosophy.
Kind regards…
entertainment is not an aesthetic in my terms. I meant that up until about the mid 20th century America was producing major, original figures in the arts (certainly in literature and painting). But also, the idea of America as the land of infinite hope and complete Freedom, endlessly creative and expansive, at the forefront of Man’s frontier at all levels, this was a fascinating and intoxicating idea; one was always considering: what new thing will America produce next? That’s finished, I think (and one reason is like you say, the all suffocating enveloping miasma of the “entertainment” industry). But the… Read more »
Steve 5.2.
I am going to keep these comments brief. The replies are going around the point rather on the point, but if you just making a descriptive point to my analytic point, that’s fine, message received.
Your point has merit, a link between mass entertainment and democracy turning on itself.
but then the issue becomes more tangled the more its considered. Might end up similar to Roe v Wade if it gets overturned. Then u would have the overarching law banning abortion, but – the devil is in details as with most applications of laws – there would probably evolve enclaves (the NE, West Coast) where the law was applied laxly or got around through myriads of state and local regulations making it practically possible to get an abortion done. Same with guns – what seems to be evolving now; certain State enclave areas where either guns are given a… Read more »
For Steve 6. Bureaucracy, Technē, and the Gun Culture.
You are quite right to zero in on the set of themes. Yes, there is no simple solutions, but there are negotiated package legislation, and education process, which is reasonable, common sense, and critical thinking. So, my questions is how can resistance to the process of gun control/safety be anything more than thick-headed prejudice?
well, it may be so on the level of good old British “common sense”. But, as indicated in above posts, guns resonate and mean far more than the actual physical implement to a significant number of Americans. They would lose a part of their souls if their guns were taken from them (Burke again). No one I think realistically considers that an option (again, as referenced, trying to take out the 2nd Amendment would probably lead to at least riots and terrorism, if not outright civil war). Curbing access to high powered assault weapons might have some hope, through some… Read more »
Steve 6.2.
I am going to keep these comments brief. The replies are going around the point rather on the point, but if you just making a descriptive point to my analytic point, that’s fine, message received.
Yes, describes the current American gun debate. But it seems that today in the debates of Congress in the couple of weeks the terms have changed. It may not be enough, but we will see.
For Steve: 1. Exceptionalism – “just what is American “exceptionalism”? as a concept that American policy makers have applied (to themselves) in world affairs…” A basic search of any large academic database would give you the answer. The answer is more historical than current and, as I indicated in the blog, President Obama challenged the policy framework for Americans. You could express it in many ways, but the phrase, “United States is the greatest democracy in the world” is a joke to any educated citizens of the world who has read considerably on American foreign policy. Hyperbole is never good… Read more »
It was a kind of rhetorical question. I’m well aware of the American neo-con justification for their forays into never ending wars since WW2, the meddling of the CIA and their backing for repressive regimes: all as means (in their terms) to protecting and furthering the American project; America as the best and brightest hope of humanity etc. In their terms, American power cannot be constrained by the norms of international law (as the other nations should be) if furthering the higher ideals of democracy and polities based on Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness are gradually to be… Read more »
For Steve 7. Democracy and its Discontent. “…referenced Rousseau in the blog – the philosopher for democracy – there are no real democratic regimes today. Real democracy can only function in small scale societies where everyone gets to have a say in designing the laws. Representative democracy is not democracy (in Rousseau’s terms)…” I stated that ‘USA is recognized as a model democracies’ and what I was unconsciously thinking is that the United States is more than one model. Rousseau is only one philosopher for one conception of democracy, and, in may ways, his model does not apply in the… Read more »
“and the modification in the late 18th and early 19th century provided the framework of American democracy and the republic” Locke was the blue print for Jefferson. Its been said that America is a creation of Locke. Jefferson actually uses his exact words in the Declaration but changes the ending – Locke’s formula for what a good polity should aim at is life, liberty and the protection of property of its citizens; Jefferson, L, L, and pursuit of happiness. Apparently to allow for the strong religious aspect in American culture. I think you are thinking of Socrates, put to death… Read more »
Steve 7.3.
I am going to keep these comments brief. The replies are going around the point rather on the point, but if you just making a descriptive point to my analytic point, that’s fine, message received.
Indeed understanding Locke, Socrates, and indeed, Rousseau and Hume, is important for clarifying the change that is needed.