Another brilliant and timely piece, David. Two minor comments.
Firstly, it is potentially misleading to view the top-down vision of the state (shepherd-sheep) as having an interest in 'equality', since the bottom-up vision is equally interested in 'equality' - just a different meaning of 'equality'! This is a highly disputed term that is massively overloaded (I realised this issue in my book Chaos Ethics, long before I appreciated its direst consequences). There is some legerdemain involved in 'equality of outcome' approaches; these are frequently concerned with redress and could ultimately never reach a balance point, so 'equality' only has a role by analogy in such approaches. This is parallel to the debate in US jurisprudence regarding 'civil liberties versus civil rights'. I dislike this framing: 'civil rights' in this case are attempts at positive redress, and so this gerrymanders the meaning of (negative) 'rights'.
Secondly, I have been working on this problem (replacing the left-right divide with a meaningful framework) for a few years now, but success requires not only working metaphors but also to provide them in a way that can be taken up more widely. The problem with the Oakeshott framework is that these terms simply aren't going to make it out into common parlance, and although it is strange to be writing that Foucault does a better job in popular clarity here (!), his terms are also unlikely to gain wider traction. Success may also require reframing this issue into at least a three cornered struggle. A tangent for another time, perhaps.
Please keep going! As someone on what used to be 'the left', I view the path you are treading here as much more productive than anything coming from my side of the Old Republic these days.
Yes, the problem with Oakeshott is his (surely partly deliberate) obstinacy about terminology. It reminds me of Hayek's designation of his intellectual comrades as Old Whigs. How are you expecting to win friends and influence people if that's what you call yourself?
'Left' and 'right' remain useful shorthand terms for this reason, and this is why I find myself resorting to them - in the end, there is path dependency in them for all their flaws, like the QWERTY keyboard.
Comparison with the QWERTY layout is an inspired analogy! As a philosopher who has had his own fair share of terminological obstinacy, I am sympathetic with Oakeshott... but I increasingly feel that pragmatism is something I cannot avoid. Mary Midgley also taught me a great deal about ordinary language philosophy that seems, eventually, to have stuck. 😁
This documentary, which I've just finished watching ,is a fascinating and in parts, timely account of the life of a committed idealist and revolutionary, who ultimately bent to the will of the ruling Soviet nomenklatura, having been threatened with expulsion and even execution.
So, an early and effective manifestation of the power of cancellation and ostracism wielded by the Bolshevik elite.
The same is now distorting our society and steadily undermining the ties which used to bind, as more and more of us become alienated, frustrated and alarmed by the spread of 'woke', with its irrational diktats and its powers of suppression, aided by both the public and opportunistic corporate sectors.
Not directly related, but nonetheless, an articulate assessment of the abandonment of personal responsibility and accountability which has infected so much of our society,and which is another symptom of the decay now spreading.
Another brilliant and timely piece, David. Two minor comments.
Firstly, it is potentially misleading to view the top-down vision of the state (shepherd-sheep) as having an interest in 'equality', since the bottom-up vision is equally interested in 'equality' - just a different meaning of 'equality'! This is a highly disputed term that is massively overloaded (I realised this issue in my book Chaos Ethics, long before I appreciated its direst consequences). There is some legerdemain involved in 'equality of outcome' approaches; these are frequently concerned with redress and could ultimately never reach a balance point, so 'equality' only has a role by analogy in such approaches. This is parallel to the debate in US jurisprudence regarding 'civil liberties versus civil rights'. I dislike this framing: 'civil rights' in this case are attempts at positive redress, and so this gerrymanders the meaning of (negative) 'rights'.
Secondly, I have been working on this problem (replacing the left-right divide with a meaningful framework) for a few years now, but success requires not only working metaphors but also to provide them in a way that can be taken up more widely. The problem with the Oakeshott framework is that these terms simply aren't going to make it out into common parlance, and although it is strange to be writing that Foucault does a better job in popular clarity here (!), his terms are also unlikely to gain wider traction. Success may also require reframing this issue into at least a three cornered struggle. A tangent for another time, perhaps.
Please keep going! As someone on what used to be 'the left', I view the path you are treading here as much more productive than anything coming from my side of the Old Republic these days.
Yes, the problem with Oakeshott is his (surely partly deliberate) obstinacy about terminology. It reminds me of Hayek's designation of his intellectual comrades as Old Whigs. How are you expecting to win friends and influence people if that's what you call yourself?
'Left' and 'right' remain useful shorthand terms for this reason, and this is why I find myself resorting to them - in the end, there is path dependency in them for all their flaws, like the QWERTY keyboard.
Comparison with the QWERTY layout is an inspired analogy! As a philosopher who has had his own fair share of terminological obstinacy, I am sympathetic with Oakeshott... but I increasingly feel that pragmatism is something I cannot avoid. Mary Midgley also taught me a great deal about ordinary language philosophy that seems, eventually, to have stuck. 😁
https://youtu.be/yxPa7O6eZZE?feature=shared
This documentary, which I've just finished watching ,is a fascinating and in parts, timely account of the life of a committed idealist and revolutionary, who ultimately bent to the will of the ruling Soviet nomenklatura, having been threatened with expulsion and even execution.
So, an early and effective manifestation of the power of cancellation and ostracism wielded by the Bolshevik elite.
The same is now distorting our society and steadily undermining the ties which used to bind, as more and more of us become alienated, frustrated and alarmed by the spread of 'woke', with its irrational diktats and its powers of suppression, aided by both the public and opportunistic corporate sectors.
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/09/04/the-edi-industry-is-out-of-control/
The marchthrough our institutions: profligacy, entryism and an armoury of woke denunciations.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/09/05/britains-elites-need-to-own-up-to-their-failures/
Not directly related, but nonetheless, an articulate assessment of the abandonment of personal responsibility and accountability which has infected so much of our society,and which is another symptom of the decay now spreading.