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It is imperative today to abandon not only [the] shattered fantasies of two Western generations but also the intellectual narcissism implicit in them. For only then will the deeper structural changes of a suddenly unfamiliar world come into view—the changes that flow from decolonization, the central event of the twentieth century.

It was clear, even during the cold war, that the shape of things to come would be decided by ideas and movements occurring in places geographically remote from the West, with their vast majority of the world’s population, rather than by Western cold warriors. The Chinese Revolution of 1949 always seemed to hold greater consequences for the wider world than the Russian Revolution, and Mao Zedong’s declaration that “the Chinese people have stood up” after a century of humiliation by Western countries was always more than just boosterish rhetoric, inaugurating as it did a feverish, calamity-prone, but ultimately successful pursuit of national wealth and power.

Today, it cannot be denied that the major developments within Anglo-America—from deunionization, in-‌ creased corporate clout, and the outsourcing of jobs to extreme inequality and white supremacist upsurge—cannot be explained without reference to the rise of China as a manufacturing giant and aggressively nationalist world power. In other words, understanding the contemporary world requires a truly global perspective—and not just one that merely adds the history of “democratic” India and “authoritarian” China to preexisting narratives of Western eminence. It means forsaking the whole structure of preconceptions on which a parochial West-centric view has long been based.

It is not easy to stop beating the old drums. The self-images and modes of thought and perception developed during the cold war are as pervasive as they are tenacious. American and British commentators were then battling against a potent indictment of Western-style democracy and capitalism by Communists and Communist sympathizers around the world. One consequence of this intense ideological clash was that anti-Communist commentators consistently overestimated their “free world”: they saw in it more widespread and enduring material, moral, and intellectual uplift than could be supported by historical facts.

In the most significant defensive maneuver by Western commentators during the cold war, liberalism became “not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition,” as Lionel Trilling confidently put it in 1950. This moral promotion was an odd fate for an ideology of individual freedom and property rights that had been denounced from both the left and the right for conceitedly fueling inequality and mass disaffection. As Reinhold Niebuhr wrote in 1944, “bourgeois liberalism was, on the whole, completely unconscious of the corruption of its own class interest and fondly imagined its perspectives to be ultimate.”

Last edited by uziq (2020-11-01 01:12:05)

uziq wrote:

anywhey

the NYRB have a new website. you should sign up. here is a good free article.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/1 … _id=983729

It is imperative today to abandon not only [the] shattered fantasies of two Western generations but also the intellectual narcissism implicit in them. .... As Reinhold Niebuhr wrote in 1944, “bourgeois liberalism was, on the whole, completely unconscious of the corruption of its own class interest and fondly imagined its perspectives to be ultimate.”

Dilbert_X wrote:

uziq wrote:

anywhey

the NYRB have a new website. you should sign up. here is a good free article.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/1 … _id=983729

It is imperative today to abandon not only [the] shattered fantasies of two Western generations but also the intellectual narcissism implicit in them. .... As Reinhold Niebuhr wrote in 1944, “bourgeois liberalism was, on the whole, completely unconscious of the corruption of its own class interest and fondly imagined its perspectives to be ultimate.”

You didn't realise this article was about you?

Last edited by uziq (2020-11-01 02:58:29)

you have no idea what a 'normal' person is. it's a convenient and constantly shifting concept to which you like to appeal, and a very lazy and predictable right-wing populist trick. speaking on behalf of 'the everyman', who of course must share your virulent racism and exhausting reserves of hatred.

where are you getting your figures from? the brexit result? that overwhelming thing that wasn't, in fact, a consensus on multiculturalism?

so 51% of people are 'normal' and 49% are 'abnormal', because they wanted to stay in the european union?

what does a large nation-wide plebiscite like that have to do with multiculturalism, again? you do realize that all of britain's black and muslim citizens come largely from the ex-empire/ex-commonwealth, right? it wasn't a referendum on repatriating british-pakistanis or jamaicans who have been here for 50+ years, dilbert. leaving the EU is not going to change the racial or religious make-up of the UK.

as for me being 'out of touch' and 'dangerously isolated' from that result: you do realize the demographics of brexiteers, right? a huge proportion of them are well-educated, rich, conservative southerners. that's literally my socio-economic tribe: i've already told you that my parents and grandparents voted for brexit. what was i 'blindsided' by again? your attempts to portray this as a 'real volk' rising up to express their long-ignored desires against an 'effete, metropolitan, liberal, academic elite' is hopeless. another right-wing trick deployed by the likes of farage and bannon. look at the fucking data.

you haven't been to the UK in 20-30 years. your talking points, ventings and spleen is still directed at blair-era tropisms. you're still ranting about benefit collecting migrants like it's the hey-day of new labour. no doubt you also enjoyed demonizing single mothers and chavs back in 2003, as well. nobody here even regards those as talking points or relevant anymore (we've had over a decade of hard austerity, i mean why would we), and yet your imagination is still inflamed by the image of 'britain ruined' ... from 1987 or 1998 or whatever.

you have a complete ignorance of history, context and the power dynamics at play in all of these disparate issues. and yet you make grand pronouncements and sit in smug satisfaction in some basement somewhere. really not very clever at all.

uziq wrote:

you're still ranting about benefit collecting migrants like it's the hey-day of new labour. no doubt you also enjoyed demonizing single mothers and chavs back in 2003, as well. nobody here even regards those as talking points or relevant anymore (we've had over a decade of hard austerity, i mean why would we), and yet your imagination is still inflamed by the image of 'britain ruined' ... from 1987 or 1998 or whatever.

Nearly half (49%) of leave voters said the biggest single reason for wanting to leave the EU was “the principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK”. One third (33%) said the main reason was that leaving “offered the best chance for the UK to regain control over immigration and its own borders.”

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2020-11-01 04:53:43)

Dilbert_X wrote:

Larssen wrote:

Dilbert, you may as well boldly proclaim we should dismantle universities. All those professors and phd's doing nothing but read & write all day....

Nope never said that.

Now as to the humanities and many world leaders in the west often studying history, law, politics, literature or economics: if you have aspirations to run a country or guide a culture into the future it helps to familiarise yourself with what these concepts (country & culture) actually are. It helps to know how societies function and evolve. It helps to know how humans interact, live, think, across time and space. After all, you'll be in charge of a group of people, a society, a country.

All these bright sparks studying those subjects seem to learn nothing useful at all though, they think they're pretty clever, because someone told them they are and they have a certificate to prove it, but thats about it.
British govt has been dominated by Oxbridge humanities types for decades and has been corrupt and shambolic that whole time.
Europe is no better.

So apart from your history, law etc graduates deciding for themselves they're best placed to run the world what do you have exactly?

Last edited by Larssen (2020-11-01 05:35:18)