While We Wait: Writer's Block & Other Lame Excuses

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We're talking about two different kinds of rulership here, I think.

One is the "face", the ceremonial ruler. A dead leader may well play that role, or "the People", or a charismatic figurehead of some sort. The other is an actual ruler with the power to guide his country. In China, there is no one charismatic, powerful leader in charge of the government - none that we know of, anyway. Their leaders are of a more replaceable sort nowadays. The democratically elected heads of state nowadays do have some aspects of the "face", but they also have real power. I would say that individual politicians in the West really can be more powerful and influential in real terms than any of the current Chinese leaders.
 
Hmm, fair point. I guess I'm almost of two minds on this debate.

On the one hand, I think Thlayli's argument is that basic human psychology will gravitate towards big men (in the anthropological sense of the term), so basically democracies and monarchies aren't all that different in the way we functionally relate to the leadership. China seems to be the primary objection that people have brought up; my point is that China is not exempt from the rule; it just substitutes a dead face for the living face. Therefore, it still operates on the "big men" principle, it's just a little more deified than your average American President.

On the other hand, once could argue that this means there isn't a whole lot of need for the big men in the first place; that it is more important to have a singular ruling ideology with a lot of buy-in from the inhabitants. In America, that happens to be the idea of the People, while in, say, Russia, that happens to be the cult of Putin. While the latter overlaps with a "big man" and seems to reinforce the idea of the chieftain, in the crux of things, the fact that the ideology happens to follow that model isn't as important as the fact that there is a strong, entrenched ideology.

Basically, it's a debate of whether all human societies are essentially modeled on earlier, personality-based rule, or whether they have descended from them and evolved on the way.
 
Well, again, America still does have elements of personal rule, even if some presidents are much better at playing the part than others. And in Russia, the government feels the need to call upon a specific set of values (moralism, nationalism, nostalgia, stability, etc.; and honestly, much of Putin's appeal here isn't so much from his stunts that get so much exposure in the West as from his nigh-explicit cynicism, which the population largely shares after the Soviet experience). I guess what I'm saying is that all those national ideologies are more nuanced and complicated, having a variety of personal and impersonal elements to them. I do not see the personal element going away any time soon, though it can manifest in different ways and be stronger or weaker in different types of societies. And I don't think you can make an easy classification here, like saying that authoritarians are necessarily focused on the personal or the impersonal or some specific combination of the two.
 
Yeah, I can't argue with that, das. It's probably a blend of the two in any given place, though you have to admit that it's remarkable how durable the human calling -- practically a biological penchant -- for a central figure is.
 
Has the fake bad grammar influenced your reasoning, man?

People don't need to explicitly trumpet the policies of a dead leader to be using him as their "face" -- mostly because said leader is dead and can't really fight back.

?

if uve been reading my posts my whole point is that the role of mao as the "face" of china has been thoroughly de-emphasized in recent years

the current regime's political mandate comes from a combination of chinese nationalism (which, if u had to use a figure, would be better embodied by sun zhongshan, who lacks all the baggage that comes with mao zedong) and the promise and delivery of prosperity

even as ideologies go, those concepts are pretty malleable and don't really fall into either of ur models i dont think

in general these ideas seem to be driven toward an overly reductionist view of history and society or what have u
 
Depends on how broad your definition of democracy is. An oligarchic republic is perfectly workable on a city-state level or league of city-states level. The Swiss are special for having small, isolated cantons; it would be hard to replicate elsewhere. I am not sure if this model could have been plausibly expanded to any larger scale, though, in medieval conditions.

When I was talking about alternatives to absolute monarchy, I was thinking more along the lines of estates-representative, constitutional, decentralised monarchy - like a more coherent Holy Roman Empire, perhaps. It would be much less of an optimal path towards nation-states, but who's to say that nation-states are necessary or preferable?

Angst, we were talking about nations as broader, dynamic cultural commonalities, not about nationalism or nations as ideological constructs or nations as collections of certain traits (not sure why you moved to that particular tangent). European nations have historically evolved with absolute monarchy as one of the main driving factors behind it. It is not impossible to argue that without the Kingdom of Denmark the Danish nation as such would not exist, instead being replaced by smaller and narrower regional identities. Such a scenario is admittedly hard for me to imagine - I doubt something would have failed to take its place. And of course whether regional identities being suborned by broader and higher one is a good or bad thing is largely a matter of aesthetic and ideological preferences. It's the same basic thing that you can see, to some extent, in the idea of European integration and in globalism today. Basically though, the Danish nation as such, with its peculiar current traits and its ability to evolve, exists to a considerable extent because the monarchy has indirectly and unwittingly brought it into being.

The last bit is a rather flawed analogy: the prosperity of Europe was hardly developed to keep the monarchs away. :p If anything it is more like a product of symbiosis between state (in all of its different permutations) and population - states adapting policies to help their populations and thus themselves thrive and populations largely supporting their states and social orders.

I thought you were heading in the tangent of nationalism. :p Sorry about the misunderstanding.

Monarchy's historical duration and prevalence is all well and good, but it is still institutionally terrible. Economic and political assertment for the upper class is not a true measure of prosperity. When we went away with the tuberculosis, we might have built upon the earlier institutions of monarchy, but they were reformed to serve the common people to a higher degree, necessiated by the new governmental institutional reliance on popular support; the question of popular support was now more than a fundamental question of keeping people not-revolting, but a question about catering and increasing the living standard. And it is not because the development has since been slow in any way without the kings. On the contrary, it is still explosive.

I could thank the king for forcing me to develop antibiotics which in turn paved the way for several additional developments that furthered the human condition greatly. But I won't. It's more of an accidental side effect. We're better off now and a reformation towards monarchy (ie abandonment of vaccine) will do away with institutions that attemp balance of power, spiral us much faster towards the abyss and end the happiness I'm currently enjoying.

I don't think the analogy is off. That you cite monarchy as something good due to it chronologically happening before most democracies is very much like citing murder as something good as it forces us to invest in a police force.

EDIT: I understand what you're getting at, of course: That oligarchy still exists somewhat in democracies and that personal cults are not done away with. But it is overshadowed by the relevance of the democratic institution and how much better it serves the broad population.
 
I don't think the analogy is off. That you cite monarchy as something good due to it chronologically happening before most democracies is very much like citing murder as something good as it forces us to invest in a police force.

...how? :p I really don't see your analogy, unless you are saying that history is a series of mistakes to be learned from and nothing else, which seems overly reductionist to say the least.

And where have I said that monarchy is good because it happened before most democracies? Of all the arguments in favour, that is one I've never voiced, because it would be inane, like suggesting that democracy is better because it came later.

What I said in the discussion with you specifically is that modern nations have evolved from centralised kingdoms. There is about as much moral judgement in that statement as in saying that the modern man evolved from a different species of primate.

If you are trying to revive the argument I had with Crezth, then I simply pointed out the advantages and disadvantages of authoritarian and democratic rule vis-a-vis each other. In my opinion, both are simply different tools that a society can employ. Both are prone to corruption and abuse in somewhat different ways and measures, and both can serve positive ends. When a government - regardless of how it is formed - carries out a beneficial policy with the intent to benefit the population at large or, say, the peasantry, and that policy does end up being to its benefit, then it is silly to deride it as a mere side-effect - it is a direct effect of that government's actions. There are of course also benign side-effects from the actions of malign governments (20th century totalitarianism is really good at this, for instance - pursuing goals that are contrary to the well-being of the populace but accomplishing some good things in the process), but to dismiss all monarchies as examples of malign government is, IMHO, insane. All specific political systems, all specific governments and all of their policies should be judged on their own merits and effects.

EDIT: That being said, I am also strongly opposed to any kind of drastic political change, in any situation short of a total breakdown of political order that has already occurred or is visibly imminent. So I am in agreement with you in that there would not be any sense in restoring monarchy in modern Europe. I do however think that you are overly categorical in separating the present from some impure ancien regime. IMHO they form a pretty clear, if not undisturbed continuity - especially in places like the Scandinavian countries and Britain, which never had a revolution in their history (and IMHO have been much better for it). So saying that monarchy is a disease and democracy is a vaccine makes no sense - it's more that Denmark-1600 is an earlier stage that has since developed into Denmark-2000, evolving under the influence of a variety of different factors. Has it improved for it? As far as I know, definitely. Does it make sense to dismiss what was an organic part of this process as wholly harmful or only accidentally helpful? I do not think so. Do note that different monarchs and their ministers have had different priorities from one another. That seems to be a very important thing to consider when deciding whether their actions were benign (or malign) side-effects or, in fact, primary effects.

EDIT EDIT: What the hell am I saying. Okay, yes, they did have revolutions in their history, and I should not stay up late at night if it makes me forget stuff like that. :p But they did not result in long-lasting drastic political change unlike the French Revolution, is what I meant.
 
You know das, I'm just not sure what you're getting at.

You seem to render my political views a little bit naive and a little bit unnuanced. Of course I recognize that the centralization of Denmark was undertaken forcefully by an assorted number of aristocracies throughout its history. I'm not arguing against that. I'm not saying monarchy's wholly harmful. Likewise I'm not saying democracy is wholly unharmful. I may just as well retract my analogy I guess. I use them for pleasure of textsexiness, and remember that analogies never translate properly into real world situations, as those are always more complex. If you don't want it, I don't care. I'll reiterate the parts I think you missed.

I'm just saying that from a purely pragmatic standpoint, as you would note in one of my earlier posts, at least as far as I remember, I used the world relative which should highlight the relatively institutional, economical and judical safety the common folk enjoy in a democracy - and relative used compared to the sort of oligarchic regime that was the European monarchy.

You might claim that certain political institutions are kinda archieving popular happiness without democracy. I'm not disputing that it's possible. See, the thing is, I'm all in for what I might consider concrete institutional balance, something democracy is doing very well. You seem kinda into it too as you note that Denmark was well served with the comparatively stable national development. Institutional stability. Now, your ongoing reiterations of "monarchy happened, things centralized, this whole thing lasted long" doesn't really concern me as I think none of them are really counterpoint to what I believe in politics. I don't think I've claimed what you said I did outside my analogy, if it claimed that after my explanation. I don't think you addressed my concerns with monarchy as a political system either. But I guess it's because the word institution can be so bloodily vague sometimes.

But as far as I can tell right now, I misread you as overtly glorifying monarchy, and now it more seems like you play Devil's Advocate. Which is fine. Incidentally, as I'm way too absorbed into counterpointing idealistic fellatiorethoric, I fall into condenscendation and do not give myself breadth to nuance my views properly. As such, I appear as yet another idealist nogood.

Meh.

Anyways. The below is an explanation of my view of monarchist idealism. That was what I was trying to get over to you in my fallacious understanding of you being a monarchist idealist. I understand now that it was not the case. My use of democracy is and was only used as a relative measurestick and not as an idealist utopia. Keep that in mind.:

I like it if we can solve the world. I really don't care how. I want institutional check'n'balance. Monarchy does not provide that. Its duration and "prosperity" ignores the numerous civil wars that naturally appear due to heritage issues as well as the institutional surpression of popular influence. Combing over "monarchy" as "monarchy" also ignores the jolly tidbits of thousandfold different sorts of systems and centralizations, differences in lineage and crap like Struensee. I know similar issues with democracy exist - especially due to that purist blueprint democracy doesn't really exist due to the ******** number of systems it could produce - but contrary to monarchy, I have institutional right to smear all over a picture of my prime minister, something I do not recall happening with any of my peaceful transition from Viking farmland to postmodern Copenhagen. That, my friend, is the only thing I contend. I know several flaws in the current Danish model of democracy, and I'd love to change that, but that's not what I'm arguing about.

And second-to-lastly, I did not read your discussion with Crezth. You are free to get angry at me for that for it is pretty much laziness.

And then, lastly, I have no idea whether I actually have an idea of what the ideal governmental model is like. Hm. I like the idea of post-scarcity apolitism. That'd be pretty good. But yea, I really don't abstractly or idealistically prefer any government over the other, so I'm sorry about inferring that.
 
I have never before seen somebody write so much while saying so little.
 
EDIT EDIT: What the hell am I saying. Okay, yes, they did have revolutions in their history, and I should not stay up late at night if it makes me forget stuff like that. :p But they did not result in long-lasting drastic political change unlike the French Revolution, is what I meant.

Stewarts out, William and Mary in, supremacy of Parliament established?
 
So apparently Ophorian has managed to use my pictures in the 'Faces of NES' thread to hunt me down at UBC. :p BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU POST ON THE INTERNET KIDS.
 
Stewarts out, William and Mary in, supremacy of Parliament established?

Yes, but: both the parliament and the monarchy survive and the latter is neither crushed outright nor deprived of its power and influence if later events are anything to go by. It did alter the balance between existing political powers, strengthen the position of the parliament vis-a-vis the monarchy, but I would argue that this was not such a radical break. Perhaps it's more significant in that it prevented the radical break that may have occurred if the Stewarts did succeed in establishing an absolute monarchy; then again, perhaps that outcome was always unlikely and the Glorious Revolution simply sped up the inevitable.

Having slept I also realise that the USA does have an equivalent to the cult of Mao (in addition to its living-personal and impersonal ideological elements): the cult of the Founding Fathers. Not as prominent as it used to be, but I get the impression it's still there, especially among the right.

Incidentally, the official state ideology in Russia hardly has anything like this anymore - communists care about Lenin and/or Stalin, Neo-Nazis care about... Stalin (and sometimes the great unacknowledged Russian hero Hitler), and some liberals still care about Yeltsin, and some monarchists I don't care for care about St. Nicholas (not that one), but the government itself is understandably wary of embracing any such things - those history textbooks that ostensibly glorify Stalin are less "evil neo-Stalinist propaganda" and more "confused, poorly written gibberish that alternates between praising and condemning Stalin in equally poorly-argued ways" if you actually read them.

Dachs, he did say he's rambling and inconsistent. :p I'm inclined to cut him some slack, especially if I did confuse him earlier. Devil's Advocate just about sums it up. I do have some basic distaste for democracy due to a set of specific flaws within it, but I do not overly mind its current Western form with its reasonably functional constitutional balances. At the same time I do not share the sense of priorities some people seem to have where political freedoms are put over all other considerations. This may well make sense in the modern West, where such things are already securely established and giving certain benefits with comparatively little harm, but elsewhere and elsewhen such a focus has often helped along a great deal of unnecessary suffering.

Is Ophorian a NESer?
 
What a massive load of douche you bring to the forums sometimes. :p

Well, let's be fair here. There are multiple sides to the argument and we should look at them as such. With respecting to wit, not forgetting intensely that the analysis must not be foregone. For instance, I think that the current discussion is suited to a comparison of contextual paradigms and modernist ideologies.

If one examines modernism, one is faced with a choice: either accept the textual paradigm of context or conclude that language has intrinsic meaning. The subject is interpolated into a modernism that includes culture as a paradox.

But Marx promotes the use of Lyotardist narrative to read and analyse class. Baudrillard uses the term ‘the textual paradigm of context’ to denote not theory, but neotheory.

In a sense, the subject is contextualised into a preconstructivist cultural theory that includes consciousness as a whole. An abundance of discourses concerning the role of the writer as participant may be found.

In the works of Madonna, a predominant concept is the concept of neocapitalist narrativity. Thus, Marx suggests the use of semiotic destructuralism to attack hierarchy. The premise of the textual paradigm of context states that the significance of the artist is deconstruction, but only if language is equal to truth; otherwise, we can assume that sexuality is used to reinforce class divisions.

“Society is part of the fatal flaw of art,” says Debord. But if Baudrillardist simulation holds, we have to choose between Lyotardist narrative and precultural discourse. The subject is interpolated into a deconstructivist paradigm of narrative that includes truth as a paradox.

If one examines the textual paradigm of context, one is faced with a choice: either reject Lyotardist narrative or conclude that sexual identity, perhaps paradoxically, has objective value. It could be said that the ground/figure distinction prevalent in Madonna’s Sex is also evident in Material Girl, although in a more mythopoetical sense. Marx uses the term ‘the textual paradigm of context’ to denote a neodialectic reality.

Therefore, Derrida promotes the use of modernism to deconstruct language. Any number of desituationisms concerning Lyotardist narrative exist.

However, Lacan suggests the use of constructivist discourse to attack hierarchy. Marx’s critique of the textual paradigm of context holds that consensus comes from communication.

Therefore, Sartre promotes the use of precapitalist objectivism to modify and analyse sexual identity. The primary theme of McElwaine’s[1] analysis of Lyotardist narrative is the meaninglessness, and eventually the fatal flaw, of textual class.

It could be said that in Naked Lunch, Burroughs deconstructs the textual paradigm of context; in Junky he reiterates Lyotardist narrative. Foucault uses the term ‘the textual paradigm of context’ to denote not, in fact, deconceptualism, but neodeconceptualism.

However, postdialectic sublimation suggests that sexual identity has intrinsic meaning, given that Sartre’s model of the textual paradigm of context is valid. Scuglia[2] implies that we have to choose between Lacanist obscurity and cultural socialism.

The characteristic theme of the works of Burroughs is a self-falsifying totality. In a sense, Bataille uses the term ‘the textual paradigm of context’ to denote not narrative per se, but prenarrative. Many deappropriations concerning the rubicon of textual class may be discovered.

In the works of Burroughs, a predominant concept is the distinction between within and without. Therefore, the main theme of la Tournier’s[3] essay on modernism is a mythopoetical reality. The neomaterial paradigm of expression suggests that discourse is a product of the collective unconscious.

The primary theme of the works of Burroughs is the role of the reader as artist. But if modernism holds, we have to choose between the textual paradigm of context and the modernist paradigm of narrative. The collapse, and subsequent economy, of neotextual cultural theory intrinsic to Burroughs’s The Ticket that Exploded emerges again in Queer.

In a sense, Drucker[4] implies that we have to choose between the textual paradigm of context and material desituationism. The subject is contextualised into a submodernist nihilism that includes narrativity as a paradox.

Thus, in Black Orchid, Gaiman examines the neomaterial paradigm of expression; in Stardust, although, he analyses textual narrative. If modernism holds, we have to choose between the neomaterial paradigm of expression and preconstructive construction.

It could be said that the subject is interpolated into a Batailleist `powerful communication’ that includes culture as a reality. Scuglia[5] states that we have to choose between the neomaterial paradigm of expression and the neodialectic paradigm of reality.

In a sense, Baudrillard uses the term ‘materialist narrative’ to denote the difference between society and narrativity. The subject is contextualised into a textual paradigm of context that includes reality as a whole.

However, Bataille suggests the use of modernism to challenge class divisions. The premise of the textual paradigm of context implies that the task of the participant is significant form, but only if culture is interchangeable with art; if that is not the case, consciousness is intrinsically meaningless.

---

1. McElwaine, D. T. (1981) The textual paradigm of context in the works of Burroughs. Harvard University Press

2. Scuglia, Y. ed. (1975) The Burning Sea: Modernism in the works of Koons. Cambridge University Press

3. la Tournier, J. L. O. (1980) Modernism and the textual paradigm of context. Panic Button Books

4. Drucker, H. D. ed. (1998) Precapitalist Narratives: Modernism in the works of Gaiman. Schlangekraft

5. Scuglia, U. (1980) The textual paradigm of context and modernism. Panic Button Books

I hope that makes sense. It's a little rambling at times.
 
I like how it's totally okay for you to rip on lj, but it's downright barbaric to respond to someone else's snark with more snark.

Hypocrisy, thy name is you.

(I don't like to bring private quarrels into the forum, but seriously, Crezth?)
 
lord joakim and I are friends and he knows I mean him well.
 
Well at least you didn't bring a private quarrel onto the forums.
 
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