In speaking with a friend of mine, we came to the conclusion that the economy could be described by two main claims, 1) the crooks are in charge, and 2) we don’t make anything here anymore. I supported my contention that the crooks are in control here by talking about the ideas put forward by the protesters, that the 1% have rigged the system to make them rich and undermine the 99%’s ability to support themselves. The other idea that supports this claim is Greenwald’s that the country is no longer run by the ‘rule of law,’ but run by the powerful. The powerful in this country are above the law. As for the problem of making things here, I referred to Paul Craig Roberts arguments about how the manufacturing part of our economy has been transferred out of the country and how almost impossible it will be to bring it back.
I have recently watched a discussion between Thom Hartman and David Korten discussing these same issues. I was struck by how Korten thought of the problem and how his thinking repeated the same thinking Marx pushes in his work, and, how both repeat the thoughts we get from considering the playground metaphor. That is, our lives are like the lives of kids on a playground run by a bully. Korten describes the behavior of the financial sector and the devastation it has caused and says this:
…If change comes, the leadership will come from below through citizen action that originates from outside of the institutions that are failing us on so many fronts. Change from below can succeed only when a large number of people have a shared understanding of the roots of the problem and share a vision of the path to its resolution.
As a society, we cannot create a future that we cannot see in our collective mind. One of the most important tasks of the moment is to define a vision of the life-serving New Economy it is ours to create and to build popular commitment to its realization.
http://www.alternet.org/story/148917/replacing_our
_failed_economy_is_long_overdue_and_we_have_the
_power_to_change_it/
If we are one of the kids on the playground, we have to be careful not to be cornered by the bully. The bully if he gets you in his clutches will slap you around a bit and take your lunch money. The financial sector in the United States has been slapping us around a lot and has been taking our lunch money. Marx and Korten have thought that the way the little kids on the playground could have safer lives is to work together, or form a gang, so to speak, and threaten the bully with their collective action, as a response to his bullying.
The problem with Korten’s prescription for protecting the kids shares the same problem that Marx has had. That is, not all the kids are going to work against the bully. Some of them are going to point a finger at Korten, or Marx, and anyone else who recommends collective action against some perceived bully as the more significant enemy of the kids. That is, some kids see the bully as just a more successful version of themselves and resist any effort to undermine what they take to be the undermining of our basic freedoms. For some, the bullies are heroes of capitalism.
It seems to me that Korten, and Marx, have failed to consider two kinds of questions. The two questions are first, given that we live on a playground run by bullies, or that there are mafias that run the world, what do we do about that predicament? Korten tells us that what we do as kids on the playground is work together against the bullies, because there is strength in numbers. Others might tell us that you don’t do anything, and definitely you don’t try to undermine the kid’s ability for themselves to become lords of the playground. The second question, different from the first, is what justifies this account of our lives, that we are like these kids on a playground run by a bully? Are we correct to presume that this playground metaphor is accurate? We might craft some response to the bully’s attacks, if we allowed that we lived in a world of bullies, this would be a response to the first question. But, why should we suppose that our lives are accurately described as being kids tormented by bullies?
The way I’d have to answer this second question is that we do think of our lives as being like kids on a playground run by a bully because we have certain commitments rather than others. That is, as a civilization, we have made certain commitments that make’s our lives this way. It would have been possible, I’m saying, that with other commitments, our lives would not be this way.
I’m kinda vague on this point, at the moment, because there is some controversy about what justifies our presumption that life is about bullies. There is another view that claims not only that life is about bullies, but that this is just a matter of fact. If you look out at the world you’ll find that the thing being run by force, by bullies, is just the way things are. There is no choice that anyone could have made that would have made things any different.
I’m vague about this point, partly to have us look again at this question. I think the unfortunate thing is that the claim that bullies are natural is the received view. There’s no real controversy about this point. No one believes that we had any choice to make about whether bullies run the playgrounds of our lives.
In order to make sense of the claim that the metaphor’s hold on us is a matter of choice, you have to examine what exactly would have to be different in order for life to be different enough that the playground metaphor was no longer true.
The central fact about our lives has to do with the nature of reason, and about that, the understanding we have about argument. Basically, what is an argument? I’m saying there are two accounts of argument. One of them leads us down a path where life is about being on playgrounds run by bullies, and the other one does not.
The fatal step is taken when one adopts the claim that argument is a matter of having a claim and its support. So, the following is a fair statement of such a definition:
“An argument is a statement that is given support, support that takes the form of a statement or statements.”
(Don Levi, Critical Thinking and Logic, page 212)
Reason is supposed to be a matter of this kind of argument. When we adopt this kind of account of reason there are various implications and consequences. One of the main such implications is that life then becomes like a playground run by bullies.
The alternative step would be taken if one rejected this account of argument being a matter of merely a claim and its support, and instead committed oneself to the claim that argument was about controversies, claims, and their support. The following is an account of that way of understanding argument:
“An argument is given when an arguer takes a position or stand on an issue and offers support or backing for it.”
(Don Levi, ibid, page 27)
Reason, on this view, is not just about claims and their support, but about controversies as well as claims and their support. Levi goes on to say, “An argument is given in connection with a controversy, but the controversy is not the argument. We are talking about an argument given for or against a position in the controversy: to be giving an argument, arguers must be doing more than merely taking a stand; they must offer support for it.”
Not only would I caution that the controversy is not the argument, but any other part of this understanding of an argument is not itself an argument. So, some claim and the support one offers for it is not itself an argument, just as a controversy, or a controversy and the claims one would want to make about the controversy, are themselves arguments. On this view, an argument has three parts, and not any less.
The steps one takes to go off thinking reason is one thing is a different direction than where one goes when thinking reason is something else. That we go in one direction rather than another is, on this view, a matter of choice. There are two alternatives, and we have to choose one or the other. We make our choice because we find the one account or the other of argument and reason more compelling. What justifies our choice of one account of reason or the other is a matter of what supports one account more than the other.
Advocates of the first view, where one’s account of reason is about claims and their support, where reason is about logic, believe that maybe the best justification for this view is that it’s how things are as a matter of fact. It might be nice if things were different. One might want to tinker a bit with reason and what it can do, but the fact remains, according to this views advocates, this is just the way things are.
Advocates of the second view, that comes down to a tripartite view of argument, argue that whether one holds the first view, or the second is a matter of choice, and there are good and bad reasons for one to adopt the first or the second.
One of the reasons to reject the first view, according to the advocates of the second, is the claim that one of the implications of such a view just is the fact that on such a view life will be like living on a playground run by bullies. It is one of the disadvantages of such a view.
I believe the argument I’m making about the disadvantages of the first account of reason as being a matter of logical argument is original with me. I take it that the story told about the Garden of Eden is just this argument. So Adam and Eve were living in the garden of Eden. God told them that they can do whatever, but what he didn’t want them to do was eat the fruit off of one of the trees in that garden. However, Adam and Eve were persuaded to eat fruit off that tree. When God found out about what they had done he banished them from the garden and told them that because of what they had done they and all their children would suffer.
This is the story of two accounts of reason, where at bottom, there are two opposing understandings of what an argument should be. On the one hand one has the garden made up of plants, where the plants grow out of the ground just as arguments grow out of controversies that people have about their lives, and have stems and leaves, just as arguments have claims made about controversies, and their supports. This is the account of argument that God attempts to protect because it is the kind of understanding that nourishes people. On the other hand, there is the account of argument that amounts to just a small part of an actual argument, a piece of fruit snatched off a tree, for example.
When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, that symbolized their commitment to the account of argument that amounted to an incomplete account. By making such a commitment, the story suggests, people will thereby suffer, and suffer from their lives being run by bullies.
The Genesis account of the fall of man is the story of how man’s commitment to a faulty account of argument has doomed him to suffering.
The first account of reason, involving logic, refuses to allow either that it’s account was adopted as a matter of choice or that its adoption itself dooms anyone to suffering. If anyone suffers it is not because they had some other choice about the nature of argument. If anything, their problems come from not being able to handle life on a playground run by a bully.
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