The End of MaxSpeak

Just a bit condescending. As if I read CT for prose style, or anything at this point, other than than DD (sounds a bit like Max doesn’t he?). The rest of you spout self-important academicism leavened with occasional musings on Stan Lee and stories about meeting Bill Gates… “Cool!!”
The nice thing about Max was that outside his field of expertise he was a proud vulgarian. He didn’t pretend. He didn’t care. This site treats intellectual vulgarity with reverence.

“The results weren’t pretty,”
Compared to what?
Jesus fucking christ, learn to write.

‘Populist’ would probably be a better word.

I met Bill Gates on the road, and killed him.

MaxSpeak was one of the first blogs I read regularly, and one of the progenitors of a minor, largely-fogrotten (but dear to my heart) experiment in left-right blogging called Stand Down. Admittedly I haven’t read him much in the PajamasMedia era. I do hope the Sandwichman finds a good outlet.

The last sentence is a bit much, but I’m not sure its wrong.

‘MaxSpeak was one of the first blogs I read regularly, and one of the progenitors of a minor, largely-forgotten (but dear to my heart) experiment in left-right blogging called Stand Down’.

Doctor Slack do you know anything about Scoop software? Contact me if you do.

(PS this goes for anyone who knows something about Scoop and is broadly sympathetic to the ‘editorial line’ of Stand Down).

Confident rationalists are at best an annoying bunch. At worst they’re a threat to the republic.

President Bush shares your sentiments. As does Ayatollah Khomeini.

For some incomprehensible reason my first post was deleted so my last comment was…well…incomprehensible.

Anyway what I meant to post was:

‘MaxSpeak was one of the first blogs I read regularly, and one of the progenitors of a minor, largely-fogrotten (but dear to my heart) experiment in left-right blogging called Stand Down.’

Doctor Slack: do you know anything about Scoop? Do you know anybody that does? Please drop me a line if so.

ps this goes for anyone who is vaguely sympathetic to the ‘Stand Down’ editorical line.

The first blog I ever stumbled upon was Delong’s, which led to Dsquared, which led directly to Max.

Max is good stuff.

Seth, your remarkable humpty-dumptyism vis-à-vis the word “rationalism” notwithstanding, it simply is not remotely fair to describe someone like Khomeini as a “rationalist”. Apart from his preference for divine revelation as a source of knowledge he is, after all, known for remarks like the following:

I repeat for the last time: abstain from holding meetings, from blathering, from publishing protests. Otherwise I will break your teeth.

Likewise, if Bush, Rove et al‘s cardinal intellectual sin is a narcisstic preference for tedious academic chin-stroking sessions over decisive action in the real world then that would certainly be news to me. On the contrary, it seems pretty clear that the problem is a disdain for rational thought, learning and discussion altogether, one which, from your regular pronouncements on the superiority of common sense, rhetoric and “craft” to knowledge and expertise of any kind, you appear to be somewhat sympathetic.

As for the tendency of intellectuals to embrace theoretical abstraction as a means of avoiding the messiness of reality, yes it can lead to serious problems, in academic life as well as in politics (although without some form of it modern science would surely be impossible) but such problems are best addressed through serious-minded critique and empirical refutation, not by the kind of rhetorical carpet-bombing which you seem to favour, which leaves it unclear whether your targets are intellectuals and academics who have gone astray or just intellectuals and academics per se.

Finally, this jeremiad against “rationalism” (purportedly now on behalf of “empiricism”) really does sit very oddly with your belief, stated elsewhere, in the innate superiority of European over Anglo-American philosophy. Are you going to tell us that Hegel was an empiricist, and J.S. Mill wasn’t?

I was reading Max a long time before there was Maxspeak …

Christ, abb1, you really do have a talent for making any sort of intelligent discussion impossible, don’t you?

(I should have written “Reason”, “Science”, “The Enlightenment”, or whatever.)

That’s all right, I was just trying to help. The short version: this Saul guy wrote a whole book attacking all sorts of rationalism. Probably more than one book, that’s the one I know. That’s his main schtik, really. Basically says without humanist ethics and common sense it’s not good.

abb1, a lengthy cut-and-paste from someone who has written a series of books on a topic which may or may not be all that similar to the one we were discussing does not add up to a serious argument for or against any of the specific points which people took the time to develop above, does it?

And you have made it pretty clear that you just aren’t interested in most of the issues which come up here unless they are directly related to US politics. Yet you frequently pop up on these threads with comments which just seem intended to wreck these discussions for everyone else.

‘Keep an eye out for “Stand Down!” at nowarblog.org. A hardy soul is working on getting it up and running again, since we haven’t run out of wars yet.’

That hardy soul is me me me me me me me. Anyone who is interested in helping with a revamped Stand Down get in touch. Like I say, knowledge of Scoop a definite advantage, but not a necessity at this stage.

No, abb1, I am happy as larry the lamb on a spring morn and my family have never been better (and thank you so much for asking!) I just happen to think that you are an irritating, empty-headed pseudo-leftwing prat.

Hidari: Sadly, I’m a bit of a techno-peasant and don’t know anything about Scoop. I do like the idea of a revived Stand Down. I’ll keep an eye out for people more knowledgeable about the technical whatsits and thingamadoodles than I am.

Fuck off, Novakant.

Actually, Engels Abb’s comments were on point. And your reference to Khomeini was absurd, as is your assumption that the only arguments against rationalism come from irrationalism. By that logic the critique of classical economics has been lead by wizards, warlocks and catholic priests. I put it nicely back at home:

“A community of people may build a formally consistent social system founded on nothing more than shared assumptions, and label it “rational scientific secularism.” It’s up to others to point out that its just bourgeois.”

I swear to god we’re reliving the 19th fucking century. Nothing ever changes.

(But very briefly:

your reference to Khomeini was absurd

Well, if I may remind you, your original claim was that “Confident rationalists are… a threat to the republic.” I merely pointed out that this sentiment is not exactly original, having been shared by people including Karl Rove, Mao Zedong and Nicholas II of Russia.

Abb’s comments were on point

Are you referring to the comment that I am “in a bad mood” or the comment that I have rabies?

By that logic the critique of classical economics has been lead by wizards, warlocks and catholic priests.

No, by that logic it’s been led by people who feel that those assumptions are not truly reasonable. And you really are using the word “rationalist” in an idiosyncratic way if you take it to mean “logically valid reasoning from unexamined premises”. I doubt if anyone would want to defend that as a definition of rational enquiry. Being rational ought to mean submitting all of one’s beliefs to the test of reason. To be rational a formal system would have to be built on rational principles.)

Seth, like I said, you can define rationalism in various ways, but you have to twist the meaning beyond recognition if you want to claim that the problem with religious fundamentalism is that it is “rationalist”.

In your last comment, you seem to be using it in a pejorative sense which is derived from its meaning in the history of philosophy; roughly, an over-reliance on reason, rather than experience, as a guide to truth. But then the distrust of “rationalism” in this sense is central to the self-image of the Anglo-American intellectual culture which you rail against, which has always claimed to be a common sense, empiricist style of thought, as against the speculative “theory” of the European continent (to which you appear to be more sympathetic) and the “ideology” of the Soviets. That’s why I asked you whether you would want to label Hegel as an empiricist, and J.S. Mill as a rationalist. Such a categorisation would certainly be unorthodox.

Btw here’s Seth

rationalism […]

“logically valid reasoning from unexamined premises”

Same shit.

It’s the nature of professionalism that premises are no longer questioned. If you were still questioning premises you’d never even get there.

And here’s evil philosopher and arch-rationalist Descartes

Some years ago I was struck by the large number of falsehoods that I had accepted as true in my childhood, and by the highly doubtful nature of the whole edifice I had subsequently based upon them. I realized that it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations if I wanted to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last.

Now by all means complain that present-day academic philosophers fail to live up to the founding spirit of their discipline. But claiming that philosophy is inherently opposed to questioning basic assumptions is to turn things upside down.

Mr. Saul, whose real target is (I suspect) the philosophy of neo-liberalism, writes:

We carefully – rationally in fact – assign blame for our crimes to the irrational impulse. In this way we merely shut our eyes to the central and fundamental misunderstanding: reason is no more than structure. And structure is most easily controlled by those who feel themselves to be free of the cumbersome weight represented by common sense and humanism. Structure suits best those whose talents lie in manipulation and who have a taste for power in its purest form.

Thus the Age of Reason has turned out to be the Age of Structure; a time when, in the absence of purpose, the drive for power as a value in itself has become the principal indicator of social approval. And the winning of power has become the measure of social merit.

I’m not arguing against you, I’m just trying to explain what I think people like Saul and (possibly) Seth are talking about.

Maybe it’s just a different angle. Maybe you’re both right, but you talk past each other, so there’s no counterargument. Reason is (according to Saul) just but a tool; can be used to build a house, can be used to blow it up.

I didn’t like his book much, actually; too many examples, interpretations, confusing. But I share the sentiment.

Seth, I’ve read through your comment twice now trying to discover some sort of connection between it and anything I wrote above, but I’m not getting it. Abb1, at least you have the honesty to admit that you are not even attempting to address anything I have actually written.

Anyway, I could have this kind of “debate” with the drunks who hang around outside Brixton tube, but on this occasion I’ll pass. No offence meant. As you were.

Yo, cut me some slack, Daddy-O. I’m just an IT guy, I don’t know shit about these things. I read a book on the subject and I’m telling you about it, that’s all. You don’t have to read my comments or respond to them.

try this one.
Logicians aren’t philosophers, they’re technicians, The law of non-contradiction does not hold in the perceptions of our daily life. If it did there would be no need for literature. All of our linguistic definitions are provisional. Language is not mathematics. Look at the list above of Descartes’ rhetorical slips and slides.
Formal ethics. How do we come to terms with downloading as a ubiquitous (but not victimless) crime? We can’t. The best response to change the system of distribution: to cut the Gordian knot. Such moments are inevitable in every formal system. Philosophy is concerned with the question of how we recognize and respond to those moments. A philosophy that does not concern itself with crisis is not a philosophy but a technics

And here’s that same quote from Santayana again:

Transcendental logic. the method of discovery for the mind, was to become also the method of evolution in nature and history. Transcendental method, so abused, became transcendental myth. A conscientious critique of knowledge was turned into a sham system of nature. We must therefore distinguish sharply the transcendental grammar of the intellect, which is significant and potentially correct, from the various transcendental systems of the universe which are chimeras.
The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy

The rationalism of utility and the lowest common denominator brings us to this. Read em and weep. Really.