“Cruddas … raises some serious questions for everyone on the left. The trouble is, he does not offer serious answers.”

It’s all very easy to criticise, but this is the beginning of long-term project, which is why Cruddas said;

“…whether Labour returns to government or it turns to opposition we need a fundamental re-examination of our identity and the kind of society we’d hope to create…”

Also, this is just one lecture, outlining a precis, and rallying up a possible contingent, some written outlines have been drawn up in articles in the Guardian and the staggers, the left communitarianism project itself is a brief introduction to Cruddas’ ideas. I say we see this as the primary stages of a new wave of ideas, drawing us and the Labour party back to the roots it belongs to.

“If that’s the plan, wouldn’t Labour be better served by a reorientation towards the mass labour movement and the organised working class?”

One major difficulty here is that it is far from clear that either the ‘mass labour movement + organised working class’ or the Kinnockite coalition which Cruddas seems to want are broad or substantial enough as a base to win Labour an electoral majority.

The “mass labour movement” is somewhat lacking in mass, so to speak.

(sorry)

I liked Cruddas’s speech, am attracted to some of his ideas (he seems much better on equality than David Miliband) and think a bit of intellectualism is a very good thing. But some of what he said did make me worry about what he does with his brains. I’m not an expert on Foucault (I bet the other Carl is, who wrote comment 1) but I wouldn’t recommend him to Labour politicians; more importantly, he seems to think Dawkins’s “selfish gene” idea represents some sort of social Darwinism, which it emphatically does not. I’m afraid that if he’s not clear about that, it might reflect a worryingly anti-science instinct.

For info: Toynbee’s found her new hero to replace Alan Johnson, though how she gets from the ‘old, dead, hard left’ to Cruddas somehow persuading Brown, Straw, et al. to buy into PR, adopt her regular shopping list of policy demands and achieving a realignment with the LibDems is a mystery she keeps to herself.

Carl #4

you’re so mean to me, I’d never be as childish in my arguments as you were. Oh and incidentally I’m not the other Carl, you are (see what I did there ha ha!).

But what you say about Dawkins’ Selfish Gene, my goodness what an error, Dawkins has written at great length on the pitfalls of genetic determinism, and in fact suggests to the utter contrary of social darwinism, in that Dawkins says we are equipped with tools (brains, intellect, knowledge, the ability to take in ideas etc) to help us avoid a fixed nature.

However, that error doesn’t prove an anti-science instinct does it, it proves a) Cruddas opposes social darwinism even to the point of charging non-social Darwinists with being so, and b) scientific theory is not his strong point.

His strong point does seem to be what out of the lists of liberal and socialist ethics must we employ in order to achieve the good society, and I for one am I fan of his insight. Whether this will be a success, it’s not yet for us to say.

I suppose we’re both “the other Carl”. Or maybe we should do an “I’m Carl!” thing, like in Spartacus.

Fair enough: but I’m still a bit concerned about a bloke whose loathing for social Darwinism goes so far that it spills over into attacking real Darwinism.

I didn’t realise I was being mean. I honestly meant I thought you’d know more about Foucault than me! No snark intended.

Carl #7

Hehe, no need, I’m happy being delegated to status of Antoninus, providing everyone else shouts “I’m Carl” as well, you know I’m not daft!

You’ve a good point, there Carl. The bit you mean reads;

“Thomas Hobbes, for example, assumed self-interest to be the only guiding principle; kindness a virtue for losers. Think the rationality of classical economics. Think the Selfish Gene. Think Ayn Rand. Before his death Michel Foucault wrote a series of brilliant lectures describing how this type of political economy becomes ‘biopolitical’; how its hollowed out conception of the human being – In terms of what we aspire – comes to be seen as natural.”

It’s a grave error, but not uncommon an error, that the Selfish Gene promoted self-interest, as was the philosophical nexus of Hobbes, and other thinkers namely Max Stirner, who stirred Karl Marx into writing The German Ideology, a book that came to be the end of period regarded ‘early Marx’ of philosophy, and the beginning of the period which came to be known as ‘mature Marx’ of economics.

It’s a pity Cruddas made this error because its an otherwise good point, biopolitics is a dodgy area that could legitimate anything from eugenics to egoism by design. The Selfish Gene, of course, does exactly the opposite of what Cruddas implies, Dawkins’ point was to say that we are not 100% determined at the level of the genes, so we can live as usual, becoming influenced by tabloid headlines, brainwashed etc etc, but also that genes themselves are unaltruistic, but we’re better than that, nicer, kinder more productive. We tend not to live as long though, which might be good too.

My knowledge of Foucalt doesn’t extend too far, a real pity I’m sure, I read history of madness at uni, but have positioned that right to the very back of my brain, just before the essay he wrote on Rene Magritte’s This is not a Pipe – apparently it isn’t a pipe, but a mere symbolic reference to pipeness…excellent work!! Kids are still starving, though.

Fly me to the moon, let me sing among those stars…

8

Lucky you. I was forced to read Foucault’s ‘Archaeology of Knowledge’ at Uni. A more incomprehensible text would be hard to produce.

And he’s wrong about Hobbes as you say. Hobbes conceived the modern state, the very antithesis of what he was criticising.

9

Ha, he conceived of the modern state insofar as he justified state power as a small price to pay for peace, since without a state we’d all be stealing from each other. Its true in political philosophy we need a state – call me old fashioned – but we are allowed to speak up about it if that state gets silly, they’re supposed to represent us not themselves. Thank goodness Hobbes didn’t conceive of modern democracy, then we’d all be fucked.

Archaeology of Knowledge eh’, it’s my understanding that that book was the frontrunner to the philosophy of multiplicity, which is the postmodern suggestion that truth is multiple and not singular, or of the One, would that be a correct statement (or énoncé – if anyone gets that joke I’ll buy them a cake!)?

10

Indeed my tutor did say something about some new philosophy Foucault was working on, but said tutor couldn’t explain what it was in comprehensible terms. Which pretty much sums up postmodernism for me. And no, don’t get the joke.

its a bad joke. not to worry, énoncé is the French translation for the English word ‘statement’, the focal point of Foucalt’s point (ha, even that made me laugh, is it Friday?) in Archaeology of Knowledge, and I said “would that be a correct statement (or énoncé)”.

No cake tonight!

We are all Carl now.

Bang on about Dawkins. The selfish gene is not about selfish individuals.
And if Cruddas can’t understand Dawkins – one of the clearest writers science writers there are – I suspect, like many, he’s just pretending to understand the garbled and incoherent Foucault.

Full of sound and fury and signifying Foucault

“It is wrong to think of socialism as a tradition that stands in opposition to liberalism.”

Right then…I’ll get my coat

My understanding of political history is that socialism traditionally did stand in oppostion of liberalism, as liberalism emphasizes the individual as its’ starting point and Marxism denies the existence of the individual, how is this not an opposed view.?
While Cruddas’ list of references are impressive, he fails to mention Andre Gorz, the most recent proponent of a socialist model, and who addresses the concerns of modern society including environmental issues. He managed to ‘marry’ socialism with liberalism in a way which rarely challenges the core beliefs of either political view.

From exactly where does Cruddas derive this reputation as a thinker, because my reading of his speech was that there were many woolly buzz-words, and a lot of name-dropping of theorists, but few signs of him having grasped their import, and one or two indicators that he greatly misunderstands some of their work. As such, it struck me as being all about presentation, and the old trick of trying to give the impression of being well-read and intellectual via the name-drop.

My understanding of political history is that socialism traditionally did stand in oppostion of liberalism, as liberalism emphasizes the individual as its’ starting point and Marxism denies the existence of the individual, how is this not an opposed view.?’

You are confusing socialism – which is a broad spectrum of ideas – with the narrower spectrum of Marxism, which rests upon the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

Read pre-Marxist socialist texts and you’ll find many are indistinguishable from some forms of anarchism. The schism between anarchism and what’s generally regarded as socialism today was largely down to Marx’s paranoid expulsion of Bakunin from the Hague congress in 1872.

Marxism is anti-humanist but socialism itself generally is not.

19 shatterface;

You risk mistakes in sweeping assumptions, Louis Althusser has been the best source for promoting the humanist elements of Marx’ early period, not to mention Sartre. You might do well to see exactly the strands of liberalism Cruddas is charging against, he embraces some of the liberal ethics, he even says that Tawney pursued a liberal ethics, it’s actually the classical and individualistic liberal ethics which Cruddas charges against, Smith, Hobbes etc.

19
When I discuss socialism I am referring to an economic theory, whilst there have been several theorist, other than Marx’ within the socialist tradition’ who have contributed to the theory of economic arrangements eg Owen and Morris, it is traditionally Marx’s critique of liberalism and capitalism which places the two (socialism and liberalism) in opposition.

ANIMAL FARM OR ANIMAL HOUSE

No compelling case to re-elect the vile ZaNuLab gang?

Comrades, surely you don’t want Jones back, do you?

The fact that Silly Polly thinks Cruddas is more of a literate smartie than Postman Pat at the Home Office says more about Polly than about either bloke.

What has Cruddas ever said that a smart 19-year-old could not have ghost-written for him, with or without a ‘Bluff Your Way in Political Thought’ cramming text to hand?