Wealth Bondage

Postmodern Morals - An Aporia Waiting to Happen

Posted by The Happy Tutor

Excellent post and very interesting comments on postmodernism by Erza, entitled, 'Searching for More Fog'. He and Ray Davis in Erza's comment section are remarkably charitable towards my views. In a spirit of common inquiry and personal testimony, I will clarify if I can.

Derrida came to Yale under de Man's auspices as a liberator, as we did recently in Iraq. He and de Man were iconoclasts. The icons they trashed were my gods. I am not a postmodern, but a Primitive Christian, whose views predate the Reformation, if not the Resurrection. When you are done relativizing discourse, and breaking the idols, what remains is the need for human decency. What a person does or does not do, under pressure, often has very little to do with doctrines and counter-doctrines. What is missing among the postmoderns, it seems to me, is not so much human decency, though some were and are Machiavels and Narcisstic self-marketers, and many are just glib and naive, but an intellectual, moral, political or aesthetic practice that supports ethical action.

What I find in Diogenes, or in Christ playing with Pilate over the issue of Truth, or entering the Temple with a whip, or in Swift, Pope and Gay, is a truth-practice that is as multi-vocal, irreverent and deadly-playful as anything in Derrida -- but to much better purpose.

I am not up to date than on the recent history of literary theory. I walked out of that world in '81, unable to write, debate, or express anything other than inarticulate self-defeating -- indeed laughable -- indignation. (And the laughter was cruel and vaunting.) It has taken me 20 years to find my back to the cross-roads and take another turn.

I think my road goes from Diogenes to Christ to Swift, and after that you would have to find fellow travelers like Lichtenberg, Karl Kraus, Kafka, and cryptic bits of Wittgenstein. You could include Wilde, or the aphoristic side of Frost. What is this a tradition of? Art? Ethics? Philosophy? All of a piece - but with an unnerving moral bite. The Word made Flesh -- but more than a performative utterance.

In my way of seeing it, Derrida and de Man look as foolish as Pilate -- clowning to no ethical purpose, or to dissemble emptiness and guilt. Pursuit of truth is noble, but coming back empty-handed is not much to brag about. Pilate did that, and made an everlasting fool of himself in the process. The other guy bore witness. If I had the courage, I would follow him.

Postmodern Morals - An Aporia Waiting to Happen

Posted by The Happy Tutor

Excellent post and very interesting comments on postmodernism by Erza, entitled, 'Searching for More Fog'. He and Ray Davis in Erza's comment section are remarkably charitable towards my views. In a spirit of common inquiry and personal testimony, I will clarify if I can.

Derrida came to Yale under de Man's auspices as a liberator, as we did recently in Iraq. He and de Man were iconoclasts. The icons they trashed were my gods. I am not a postmodern, but a Primitive Christian, whose views predate the Reformation, if not the Resurrection. When you are done relativizing discourse, and breaking the idols, what remains is the need for human decency. What a person does or does not do, under pressure, often has very little to do with doctrines and counter-doctrines. What is missing among the postmoderns, it seems to me, is not so much human decency, though some were and are Machiavels and Narcisstic self-marketers, and many are just glib and naive, but an intellectual, moral, political or aesthetic practice that supports ethical action.

What I find in Diogenes, or in Christ playing with Pilate over the issue of Truth, or entering the Temple with a whip, or in Swift, Pope and Gay, is a truth-practice that is as multi-vocal, irreverent and deadly-playful as anything in

The Conversion of the Jews

"M"

 "The Happy Tutor" is on his way to Chicago where he will read an expurgated version of Bound, Beaten and Branded, at Alex Golub's Digital Genres Conference. Though sometimes mistaken for a Postmodern, Tutor is actually a Primitive Christian. His Value System predates the Reformation, if not the Resurrection. He is a Wandering Jew circa 31 AD. All he got from Christ in Temple was the bit about whipping your neighbor.

Wealth Bondage will be closed until Tutor returns on Sunday night.

The Conversion of the Jews

"M"

 "The Happy Tutor" is on his way to Chicago where he will read an expurgated version of Bound, Beaten and Branded, at Alex Golub's Digital Genres Conference. Though sometimes mistaken for a Postmodern, Tutor is actually a Primitive Christian. His Value System predates the Reformation, if not the Resurrection. He is a Wandering Jew circa 31 AD. All he got from Christ in Temple was the bit about whipping your neighbor.

Wealth Bondage will be closed until Tutor returns on Sunday night.

Blogging for Justice

Posted by The Happy Tutor

Thinking about "blogging for justice," or emergent democracy, as opposed to the mighty Wurlizter of right wing propaganda, two images come to mind from Gulliver's Travels.

1. 
   

   Gulliver is tied down with many small strings by the Lilliputians -- so we collectively might restrain corporate power.



2. 
   

   Gulliver, bestrides Lilliputt, with his flies undone, putting out a raging fire with his personal firehose -- so the The Powers that Be will save the Homeland.

When we talk about "philanthropy" and social justice, it is an odd fit, as odd as Bryon or Shelley supporting Revolution. Philanthropy, on average, will always support the interests of wealth-holders and their elite institutions, if only by palliating the ills caused by the status quo. The correlative stance to the left, would be not philanthropy, but social activism or social organizing, the millions of small filaments that might restrain mighty Gulliver.

Speaking of Giants, I don't think we can create a Gulliver to go against Gulliver, dollar for dollar. What we can do is to awaken many people to do a small bit, whether in hashing out ideas, pooling lots of small contributions, contacting legislators, and all the little things that make no difference unless repeated hundreds of thousands or millions of times. When we create these grassroots networks, as moveon, for example, is doing so well, we create a driving force and focal point. That focal point can then in turn apply to leftward leaning foundations for grants. Also once we have a database of several hundred thousands small donors, we can pulse that network for larger gifts, and planned gifts.

Where the conservative right has another significant advantage is patience. Big money is cautious and slow to move. A person who is worth, say, $10 mil or $100 mil will make life time and multi-generational financial decisions with advice from a team of advisors. In that conversation, the subject of family foundations will come up. Perhaps the foundation will be established at the donor's death, or perhaps it will be funded with a little money today, with the bulk at death. The right is planting these seeds, building what are called endowments, legacies, and planned gifts. The left is simply not. If you go down the list of grassroots social activist organizations, very few have any solicit and facilitate these longer term legacies. The infrastructure even to take in and manage the legacies is most often lacking. So the financial advantage of the cultural conservatives will only increase over time.

We have a lot of building to do. Like the Ancient Mariner, I stoppeth one in three, to ask what they might suggest. I have talked with David Bollier, Peter Karoff, Tracy Gary, and Tides. I have talked with David Johnson for Commonweal Institute. All without any real decisions being reached or action taken. But the consensus is that the need is clearly pressing -- both for grassroots organizing with small gifts, like Gulliver's filaments, and for an infrastructure to facilitate grants and larger gift, including legacies, where they are available.

We will never have a Gulliver of our own, but we might have a David to go against Goliath. I would be interested in any thoughts you might have. Here and there within the world of elite wealth planning there are a few who could be allies, or strategic partners.

Vision, Mission, Strategies -- Planning begins with brainstorming. If you don't have money, contribute ideas. To writes as Turbulent Velvet does about 18th Century English Literature, and its relationship to coffee houses, salons, epistles, pamphleteering, pseudonymity, and the rise of democracy is to contribute to the this cause, because that kind of thoughtful analysis shows how important little things, like blogs can be, in creating a consciousness that spills over into group formation, and ultimately action.

As Rana noted in a comment to an earlier post, with all the money the ultra-wealthy, ultra-conservative right is spending on propaganda, prisons, flybys, homeland security, surveillance, think tanks, gated communities, private security forces, armored limos, you know that they see this as a battle, and know that they would be outnumbered 1,000,000:1 if people knew and voted their own best interests. If they commandeer the media and lay down a barrage of BS 24/7 there is good reason, and any competent Machiavel would counsel them to keep it up, or escalate. In fact, it would be good to dumb the hokum down even more, to the third grade level, or below, so as to sweep in the largest possible group of Dunces.

Christianity took over Rome. And it wasn't because St. Peter had a big foundation, control of the media, a billion dollar budget, or the ability to crucify his enemies without trial. Democracy is contagious. Word will get around -- one Lilliputian hyperlink at a time.

Blogging for Justice

Posted by The Happy Tutor

Thinking about "blogging for justice," or emergent democracy, as opposed to the mighty Wurlizter of right wing propaganda, two images come to mind from Gulliver's Travels.

1. 
   

   Gulliver is tied down with many small strings by the Lilliputians -- so we collectively might restrain corporate power.



2. 
   

   Gulliver, bestrides Lilliputt, with his flies undone, putting out a raging fire with his personal firehose -- so the The Powers that Be will save the Homeland.

When we talk about "philanthropy" and social justice, it is an odd fit, as odd as Bryon or Shelley supporting Revolution. Philanthropy, on average, will always support the interests of wealth-holders and their elite institutions, if only by palliating the ills caused by the status quo. The correlative stance to the left, would be not philanthropy, but social activism or social organizing, the millions of small filaments that might restrain mighty Gulliver.

Speaking of Giants, I don't think we can create a Gulliver to go against Gulliver, dollar for dollar. What we can do is to awaken many people to do a small bit, whether in hashing out ideas, pooling lots of small contributions, contacting legislators, and all the little things that make no difference unless repeated hundreds of thousands or millions of times. When we create these grassroots networks, as moveon, for example, is doing so well, we create a driving force and focal point. That focal point can then in turn apply to leftward leaning foundations for grants. Also once we have a database of several hundred thousands small donors, we can pulse that network for larger gifts, and planned gifts.

Where the conservative right has another significant advantage is patience. Big money is cautious and slow to move. A person who is worth, say, $10 mil or $100 mil will make life time and multi-generational financial decisions with advice from a team of advisors. In that conversation, the subject of family foundations will come up. Perhaps the foundation will be established at the donor's death, or perhaps it will be funded with a little money today, with the bulk at death. The right is planting these seeds, building what are called endowments, legacies, and planned gifts. The left is simply not. If you go down the list of grassroots social activist organizations, very few have any solicit and facilitate these longer term legacies. The infrastructure even to take in and manage the legacies is most often lacking. So the financial advantage of the cultural conservatives will only increase over time.

We have a lot of building to do. Like the Ancient Mariner, I stoppeth one in three, to ask what they might suggest. I have talked with David Bollier, Peter Karoff, Tracy Gary, and Tides. I have talked with David Johnson for Commonweal Institute. All without any real decisions being reached or action taken. But the consensus is that the need is clearly pressing -- both for grassroots organizing with small gifts, like Gulliver's filaments, and for an infrastructure to facilitate grants and larger gift, including legacies, where they are available.

We will never have a Gulliver of our own, but we might have a David to go against Goliath. I would be interested in any thoughts you might have. Here and there within the world of elite wealth planning there are a few who could be allies, or strategic partners.

Vision, Mission, Strategies -- Planning begins with brainstorming. If you don't have money, contribute ideas. To writes as Turbulent Velvet does about 18th Century English Literature, and its relationship to coffee houses, salons, epistles, pamphleteering, pseudonymity, and the rise of democracy is to contribute to the this cause, because that kind of thoughtful analysis shows how important little things, like blogs can be, in creating a consciousness that spills over into group formation, and ultimately action.

As Rana noted in a comment to an earlier post, with all the money the ultra-wealthy, ultra-conservative right is spending on propaganda, prisons, flybys, homeland security, surveillance, think tanks, gated communities, private security forces, armored limos, you know that they see this as a battle, and know that they would be outnumbered 1,000,000:1 if people knew and voted their own best interests. If they commandeer the media and lay down a barrage of BS 24/7 there is good reason, and any competent Machiavel would counsel them to keep it up, or escalate. In fact, it would be good to dumb the hokum down even more, to the third grade level, or below, so as to sweep in the largest possible group of Dunces.

Christianity took over Rome. And it wasn't because St. Peter had a big foundation, control of the media, a billion dollar budget, or the ability to crucify his enemies without trial. Democracy is contagious. Word will get around -- one Lilliputian hyperlink at a time.

Funding Progressive Advocacy

Posted by The Happy Tutor

SeeTheForest: Moderate and progressive philanthropists and foundations must step up to the plate and begin providing general operating funding to advocacy organizations who will work to move the public back away from this right-wing ideological nonsense that we have been subjected to for so long! Political advocacy can jeopardize a charity's 501(c)(3) exemption. so it is important to work within the rules. See Alliance for Justice for guidelines.

Funding Progressive Advocacy

Posted by The Happy Tutor

SeeTheForest: Moderate and progressive philanthropists and foundations must step up to the plate and begin providing general operating funding to advocacy organizations who will work to move the public back away from this right-wing ideological nonsense that we have been subjected to for so long! Political advocacy can jeopardize a charity's 501(c)(3) exemption. so it is important to work within the rules. See Alliance for Justice for guidelines.

A Cancer called Democracy

Posted by The Happy Tutor

Tom Matrullo: This uneasy relation between knowledge and wealth is the crux of the dis-ease in broadcast media, news media, pure science, web architecture, academic funding and political campaigns, and is relevant to bloggers who wonder how they can be both independent and generate revenue from ads, endorsements, or other sponsorship vehicles. It compromises every sphere in which US society talks to itself.

What is the relationship between knowledge -- or virtue, wisdom, and justice -- and wealth? What interests me is how our culture creates and compensates certain grotesque human types, and exalts them as objects to be imitated or obeyed. Quality is Job 1, but it seems to me that the quality of life, and of we who produce and consume it has slipped. We talk dumb, on purpose. We smile when we are not happy, because enthusiasm sells. We acquiesce on the job and put our best talents to venal uses, at behest of Usura. When those who are used to cleaner air join us from academia, they experience the transition as death or entering Durance Vile.  To know which of two forms of happiness is the higher, said Aristotle, talk to the person who has experienced both. Today, those who have experienced the higher, and could produce and reproduce it, all too often are working beneath those who have no experience of higher intellectual pursuits, and scorn them.

A palliative for wealth culture might be gift culture, where our gifts pass around in a gift circle, but also up and down the laddered generations of living and dead. We take from our elders, and the writers and thinkers whose work gestates in us. We pass on that gift to repay a gift. The coinage is gratitude. Reading Tom, or Liz, or Language Hat, or Invisible Adjunct, or AKMA, or Mark Wood, Waggish,  Alex Golub, Dorthea Salo, or Ray Davis, or  Rana, you can feel that need, whether fulfilled or thwarted, to pass on the gift that has been received, and to be faithful to a calling, whether it leads to riches or shame, fame or obscurity. It is an impulse as strong as the desire of a mother to protect her young, even at the cost of life, or of a soldier to live or die with honor, protecting the altar and the hearth.  

Peter Karoff has been writing about this theme -- generosity. What I think he means is generosity as opposed to the culture of selfishness, where every line is deduced upward, from the bottomline, rather than responding to a higher calling. I don't think we have one word for what is at issue, and all the words we have carry some of the wrong valances. But here are some "binaries" to gesture towards the contrast

• Generosity/Selfishness


• Success/Vanity


• Celebrity/Humility


• Wealth/Sacrifice


• Business/Profession


• Business/Art


• Business/Calling (or Vocation)


• Profit/Virtue


• Consumer Choice/Real Freedom


• Mastery of Others/Mastery of Self


• Build/Nurture


• Produce/Cultivate


• Hype/Bearing Witness


• Get/Give


• Command and Control/Caritas


• Delegated Authority/Peer to Peer Networks


• Power/Reciprocity


• Mind Share/Shared Wisdom


• Measurable Results/Grace


• Flesh/Spirit

To create sustainable social enterprises, that flow the cash needed, as blood is needed in the body, but which exalt the head and heart over the stomach, that is the challenge for those of us watching as little companies, with mission and markets rooted in a local community, responsive to, among other things, civic goals, and having a sense of shame, are "rolled up" into behemoths -- new Leviathans -- like Citigroup, or Time/AOL, or Disney, which can only respond to international capital markets, with every other item, including shame, listed under an account like, "legal liabilities pending," or "PR," or "Brand Equity." Professions, or callings, are not in themselves charities or philanthropies, or even nonprofits, though some have been. What we are losing is the sense that law, teaching, medicine, reporting, are professions, affected with the public interest, with a fiduciary responsibility to society. That is discouraging. What is enheartening is to see this ethos so much alive not only in the so-called nonprofit sector, but in what you might call, private time, our time as citizens, or off-work or out of work, employees. In America's vile body politic something is metastasizing -- a cancer called democracy. 

A Cancer called Democracy

Posted by The Happy Tutor

Tom Matrullo: This uneasy relation between knowledge and wealth is the crux of the dis-ease in broadcast media, news media, pure science, web architecture, academic funding and political campaigns, and is relevant to bloggers who wonder how they can be both independent and generate revenue from ads, endorsements, or other sponsorship vehicles. It compromises every sphere in which US society talks to itself.

What is the relationship between knowledge -- or virtue, wisdom, and justice -- and wealth? What interests me is how our culture creates and compensates certain grotesque human types, and exalts them as objects to be imitated or obeyed. Quality is Job 1, but it seems to me that the quality of life, and of we who produce and consume it has slipped. We talk dumb, on purpose. We smile when we are not happy, because enthusiasm sells. We acquiesce on the job and put our best talents to venal uses, at behest of Usura. When those who are used to cleaner air join us from academia, they experience the transition as death or entering Durance Vile.  To know which of two forms of happiness is the higher, said Aristotle, talk to the person who has experienced both. Today, those who have experienced the higher, and could produce and reproduce it, all too often are working beneath those who have no experience of higher intellectual pursuits, and scorn them.

A palliative for wealth culture might be gift culture, where our gifts pass around in a gift circle, but also up and down the laddered generations of living and dead. We take from our elders, and the writers and thinkers whose work gestates in us. We pass on that gift to repay a gift. The coinage is gratitude. Reading Tom, or Liz, or Language Hat, or Invisible Adjunct, or AKMA, or Mark Wood, Waggish,  Alex Golub, Dorthea Salo, or Ray Davis, or  Rana, you can feel that need, whether fulfilled or thwarted, to pass on the gift that has been received, and to be faithful to a calling, whether it leads to riches or shame, fame or obscurity. It is an impulse as strong as the desire of a mother to protect her young, even at the cost of life, or of a soldier to live or die with honor, protecting the altar and the hearth.  

Peter Karoff has been writing about this theme -- generosity. What I think he means is generosity as opposed to the culture of selfishness, where every line is deduced upward, from the bottomline, rather than responding to a higher calling. I don't think we have one word for what is at issue, and all the words we have carry some of the wrong valances. But here are some "binaries" to gesture towards the contrast

• Generosity/Selfishness


• Success/Vanity


• Celebrity/Humility


• Wealth/Sacrifice


• Business/Profession


• Business/Art


• Business/Calling (or Vocation)


• Profit/Virtue


• Consumer Choice/Real Freedom


• Mastery of Others/Mastery of Self


• Build/Nurture


• Produce/Cultivate


• Hype/Bearing Witness


• Get/Give


• Command and Control/Caritas


• Delegated Authority/Peer to Peer Networks


• Power/Reciprocity


• Mind Share/Shared Wisdom


• Measurable Results/Grace


• Flesh/Spirit

To create sustainable social enterprises, that flow the cash needed, as blood is needed in the body, but which exalt the head and heart over the stomach, that is the challenge for those of us watching as little companies, with mission and markets rooted in a local community, responsive to, among other things, civic goals, and having a sense of shame, are "rolled up" into behemoths -- new Leviathans -- like Citigroup, or Time/AOL, or Disney, which can only respond to international capital markets, with every other item, including shame, listed under an account like, "legal liabilities pending," or "PR," or "Brand Equity." Professions, or callings, are not in themselves charities or philanthropies, or even nonprofits, though some have been. What we are losing is the sense that law, teaching, medicine, reporting, are professions, affected with the public interest, with a fiduciary responsibility to society. That is discouraging. What is enheartening is to see this ethos so much alive not only in the so-called nonprofit sector, but in what you might call, private time, our time as citizens, or off-work or out of work, employees. In America's vile body politic something is metastasizing -- a cancer called democracy.