On Meritocracy

“Wooldridge rehearses – and largely owns – many of the arguments levelled against meritocracy since the 1950s and voiced with such vehemence on both the left and the right today. Our world clearly is too divided, too unequal, too unfair. But the answer, Wooldridge insists, is not to scrap meritocracy altogether and still less to return to the kind of old-school nepotism and patronage... Rather, he argues, we need a concerted push to introduce more and wiser meritocracy, while at the same time striving to remoralise it. That would involve major investments in education and further efforts to pluralise elite schools and universities that still cater disproportionately to the well connected, despite their rhetoric of inclusion. It would also involve fighting seriously to improve social mobility and to challenge the sclerosis of the rich, putting more workers in elected office and on corporate boards, and (though Wooldridge doesn’t say so directly) paying them more. Finally, the cognitive elite needs to relearn humility and a sense of duty and responsibility to the social whole – call it, if you like, noblesse oblige.”

Darrin McMahon, “Review of The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World, by Adrian Wooldridge” - literaryreview.co.uk/earning-our-stripes.

On Complaint

“Weil’s essential contribution to the theory of complaint comes by way of her distinction between ordinary suffering and something she calls ‘affliction.’ Suffering is pain one can bear, pain that does not imprint itself on the soul. Sometimes, we even choose suffering, as in strenuous exercise, unmedicated childbirth or getting one’s ears pierced. Getting beat up in an alleyway by strangers is not like any of those forms of suffering. A violent attack, even one that does minimum physical damage, hurts in a distinctive way—in a way that, as Weil would put it, raises a question. ‘The same event may plunge one human being into affliction and not another,’ writes Weil. Her view is that the kind of suffering that makes a mark on the soul is incomprehensible suffering.”

Agnes Callard, “Why Am I Being Hurt?” - thepointmag.com/examined-life/why-am-i-being-hurt. Interesting essay on complaint, protest, venting and how to really listen to others in light of recent events.

On Digital Recognition

“The challenge for social movements is how to update Fraser’s perspectival dualism for an age in which the platform is becoming a dominant distributor of both reward and mutated forms of recognition. Few movements can afford to abstain entirely from the reputation economy. A lesson from Black Lives Matter is that social media’s accumulation of reputational capital can be harnessed towards longer-standing goals of social and economic justice, as long as it remains a tactic or an instrument, and not a goal in its own right. Campaigns may trigger or seize reputational bubbles that spread at great speed—#MeToo is an example—and potentially burst soon after, making a political virtue of the ability to shift movements into other spaces, including the street. The quest for recognition is more exacting and slower than that for reputation, and appreciating this distinction is a first step to seeing beyond the cultural limits of the platform, towards the broader political and economic obstacles that currently stand in the way of full and equal participation.”

William Davies, “The Politics of Recognition in the Age of Social Media,” newleftreview.org/issues/ii128/articles/william-davies-the-politics-of-recognition-in-the-age-of-social-media. Interesting summary of the challenge of political recognition today that rightly identifies the need to think past the paper mentalities of print culture in Habermas’s account of the public sphere. Davies’ concluding critiques are probably both needed at once in my view. That is, both the internalist work within the semiotic system of surveillance capitalist digital platforms to identify inequalities, as well as the externalist innovation of new platforms and explicit connection to existing democratic institutions. In any case, this is one of the debates of our times it seems to me, and interesting to see someone connecting this genre of political philosophy to everyday life issues.

On Peacebuilding

“But very often peacebuilding initiatives were anonymous and unseen. In 1983, John Lampen, an English Quaker, moved to Derry in Northern Ireland. A year later, he was joined by his wife, Diana, and their children. The Lampens were inspired by the work of another Quaker, Will Warren, who had lived in Derry for many years and had quietly befriended both sides in the conflict, including various members of the rival paramilitaries. Warren once said that his role as peacebuilder had been ‘to listen to people on both sides … and maybe, one day, to help them to listen to one another’. Listening was the central element of Quaker peacebuilding... Peacebuilders are often searching for metaphors to understand the mysterious process they’re engaged in. Addams spoke of ‘peaceweaving’, and in their admiring essay about her, the political scientists Patricia M Shields and Joseph Soeters in 2015 wrote of why it’s an apt metaphor: ‘individual, often fragile, strings are connected through the process of weaving, which does not homogenise the combined, often colourful, strings but lets them work together despite their differences.’ Diana Lampen calls peacebuilding a spider’s web: there are delicate links in all directions with, at the centre, not a spider but peace itself... If it’s true that peacebuilding requires not esoteric learning but sacrifice, sensitivity and artistry, it might be that we’re closer than expected to what Mac Ginty in 2014 called ‘the elixir’ of peacebuilding: ‘local ownership’. Not in the sense that locals accept what’s cooked up for them, but that they actually create their own recipes for peace. ”

Tobias Jones, “Peacebuilding Is an Artform Crafted by Divided Peoples,” - aeon.co/essays/peacebuilding-is-an-artform-crafted-by-divided-peoples

On Timekeeping

“But since the 14th century, we’ve gradually been turning our backs on nature and increasingly calculating our sense of time via manmade devices. It began in the monasteries of Northern and Central Europe, where pious monks built crude iron objects that unreliably but automatically struck intervals to help bellringers keep track of canonical hours of prayer. Like any machine, the logic of the mechanical clock was based upon regularity, the rigid ticking of an escapement. It brought with it a whole different way to view time, not as a rhythm determined by a combination of various observed natural phenomena, but as a homogenous series of perfectly identical intervals provided by one source. The religious fervor for rationing time and disciplining one’s life around it led the American historian Lewis Mumford to describe the Benedictine monks as ‘perhaps the original founders of modern capitalism.’ It is one of the great ironies of Christianity that it set the wheels in motion for an ever-unfolding mania of scientific accuracy and precision around timekeeping that would eventually secularize time in the West and divorce God, the original clockmaker, from the picture entirely.”

Joe Zadeh, “The Tyranny of Time,” - noemamag.com/the-tyranny-of-time/

On Beethoven and Bridgetower

“It’s a passionate and sweepingly epic work , but there’s also drama off stage in what is arguably Beethoven’s most loved and performed violin sonata [No. 9, Op. 47 in A major]. In our first collaboration with Belvoir St Theatre, we explore the drama, passion and scandal surrounding this masterpiece, and the interconnected fates of those that came after it: Tolstoy’s story of jealousy and murder, and Janáček’s First String Quartet, both bearing the title The Kreutzer Sonata. Known as The Kreutzer for its dedication to the violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer (who likely never played this difficult, titanic work), what has been lost in history is its original dedication to George Bridgetower – a far more accomplished violinist of mixed European and West Indian descent, and a kindred spirit to Beethoven – who performed with the composer at the Sonata’s premiere... However, in its success lay its downfall. While celebrating with a drink (or three) Beethoven and Bridgetower spectacularly fell out, and Bridgetower’s name was removed from the dedication, and from history.”

Attended this performance by the Australian Chamber Orchestra last night here in Newcastle. An eerie feeling to be in a theatre again after 2020’s hiatus, but a reminder of how live performance lingers in the mind over days. The theme threaded through the mashup of compositions seemed to me to be the manifold inspiration of music. In this case, a forgotten encounter between composer and virtuoso (Beethoven and Bridgetower) rippled out to other composers (Janácek), authors (Tolstoy), and audiences. What is to explain how one work goes on to inspire the ACO to now reclaim the Kreutzer Sonata’s original attribution as the Bridgetower? I suppose thinking about it the day after, the performance offered a kind of catharsis, an honest response to a year experienced as diverse facets of tragedy. Such honesty may make one hopeful, even if for a brief moment, that this year may be better than the last. - aco.com.au/whats-on/2021/beethoven-and-bridgetower.

On Aristotle's Poetics

“After carefully investigating the matter, Aristotle inked a short treatise that became known as the Poetics. In it, he proposed that literature was more than a single invention; it was many inventions, each constructed from an innovative use of story. Story includes the countless varieties of plot and character—and it also includes the equally various narrators that give each literary work its distinct style or voice. Those story elements, Aristotle hypothesized, could plug into our imagination, our emotions, and other parts of our psyche, troubleshooting and even improving our mental function.”

“The Empathy Generator - In this narrative technique, a narrator conveys us inside a character’s mind to see the character’s remorse... The invention’s original prototype was tinkered together by the anonymous Israelite poet who composed the verse sections of the Book of Job, likely in the 6th century B.C. Since empathy is a neural counterbalance to ire, it may have reflected the poet’s effort to promote peace in the wake of the Judah-Babylonian-Persian wars. But whatever the reason for its initial creation, the invention can help nurture kindness toward others.”

Angus Fletcher - smithsonianmag.com/innovation/eight-literatures-most-powerful-inventions-and-neuroscience-behind-how-they-work-180977168/. An interesting summary of neuroscientific work at Project Narrative on the effects of literary techniques.

On Early Demokratia

“Of course, a simple return to early democracy is neither possible nor desirable. But early democracy does help us better understand the frailties of the modern democratic experience. A closer look at early democracy can in turn help us to understand what we might do to see that democracy today fulfills the underlying idea of demokratia: bringing power to the people... [for instance] we need to think of new investments that might better connect citizens with government by giving them information sources that are in touch with reality and that, in the case of the US, would avoid fanning the flames of longstanding racism. In some countries, most notably the US and the United Kingdom, the local press, though known to be both more trusted and less partisan than national outlets, faces economic conditions that are leading to its disappearance. A subsidy for local news outlets could be money well spent... [moreover] as we become ever more tribal in nature in countries such as the US, perhaps we could learn more from societies that actually had tribes. The lesson wouldn’t be to establish new tribes or clans of our own: it would be, instead, to examine how different political and social institutions can aid in creating links for people living in different places, from different backgrounds and holding very different beliefs. The idea here would be to help strengthen and unify society by creating new links across the lines of polarisation.”

David Stasavage, “Lessons from All Democracies,” aeon.co/essays/democracy-is-common-and-robust-historically-and-across-the-globe.

On Listening

“As an activist on the left, I long assumed that my role consisted entirely of raising awareness, sounding alarms, and deploying arguments; it took me years to realize that I needed to help build and defend spaces in which listening could happen, too. As citizens, we understand that the right to speak has to be facilitated, bolstered by institutions and protected by laws. But we’ve been slow to see that, if democracy is to function well, listening must also be supported and defended—especially at a moment when technological developments are making meaningful listening harder. By definition, democracy implies collectivity; it depends on an inclusive and vibrant public sphere in which we can all listen to one another. We ignore that listening at our peril. Watching ‘What Is Democracy?’ today, I find that the answer lies not just in the voices of the people I interviewed. It’s also in the shots of people listening, receptively, as others speak.”

Astra Taylor, “The Right to Listen,” https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-future-of-democracy/the-right-to-listen. Interesting summary of themes in the recent documentary “What Is Democracy?” Well worth a watch as an example of deliberative democratic practices. As she rightly notes, deliberative theory can be overly enamored with speakers in an ideal public. However, more recent theory has focused on pragmatist accounts of discourse endemic to anywhere people are willing to explain themselves to each other. Moreover, as I’ve written last year, it can be coupled with democratic systems theory which apprehends interactive listening environments. Taylor pursues examples in the film as well as this essay’s debtor’s assembly. Systems theory aims to apprehend the way such assemblies could be made more robust as well as coordinated with other layers of democratic practice ranging from citizen’s juries, deliberation days, and mini-demoi to more familiar parliamentary institutions.

On Thinking to Some Purpose

“‘There is an urgent need today for the citizens of a democracy to think well.’ These words, which could have been written yesterday, come from Thinking to Some Purpose, a popular book by the British philosopher Susan Stebbing, first published in 1939 in the Penguin ‘Pelican’ books series, with that familiar blue-and-white cover. This little book, which could easily be slipped into a pocket and read on the train, in a lunch hour, or at a bus stop, was pitched at the intelligent general reader. In Thinking to Some Purpose, Stebbing took on the task of showing the relevance of logic to ordinary life, and she did so with a sense of urgency, well aware of the gathering storm clouds over Europe.”

Peter West - https://aeon.co/essays/on-susan-stebbing-and-the-role-of-public-philosophy. An interesting summary of what some hope philosophical skills can foster in democratic societies. The essay mentions John Dewey, who explicitly linked philosophical education to the practices necessary for democracy. As later pragmatists such as Jeffrey Stout noted in Democracy and Tradition, this relies on a rigorous defense of traditions that foster rich grass roots deliberative capacities. West’s essay on public philosophy has been widely circulated while the second impeachment trial is ongoing this week. Representative Jamie Raskin concluded his case with an appeal to Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, which he summarized as facts plain to most people as well as a human sense that is common. That latter notion made me think of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s summary of sensus communis in Truth and Method (p. 21-22) that looked back to Giambatist Vico who cited Roman Stoics interested in basic moral interest in the common good. It struck me that this is precisely what is eroding and what we must work to recover. Hannah Arendt discussed the challenge a bit in one of her last posthumously published 1975 lectures in a collection, Small Comforts for Hard Times. “Only when they [private individuals] can enjoy the public will they be willing and able to make sacrifices for the public good. To ask sacrifices of individuals who are not yet citizens is to ask them for an idealism which they do not have and cannot have in view of the urgency of the life process.” (.p. 105-107). Arendt was writing to a different time, but her words resonate as the pandemic rages on, economic struggles persist, and people are increasingly isolated from each other physically as well as through algorithmic information bubbles fostered online. The challenge remains to build democratic practices where common sense nonetheless persists.