Excellent analysis and a pretty lively discussion in the comments at the link too.
While the conclusions TD draws and the language he uses are disturbing, contrary to the conclusions Debris Trail makes, TD was not out of step with alot of those both on the left and the right during that time. If he had been I suspect he would have been rebuked by his superiors.
What it does damage in TD’s image is, as Debris Trail points out, is that of his scholarliness in that it was very poorly researched. And that TD felt it was perfectly okay, check that, morally imperative that those in power should control the lives of others. Thus the moral foundation for government-run health care.
Those who’d like an in depth look at eugenics as it was advocated by liberals, progressives and socialists in the early twentieth century should visit: http://www.inklingbooks.com/inklinguniversity/
And those who’d like to read a criticism of British eugenics can do no better than read G. K. Chesterton’s 1922 classic, Eugenics and Other Evils.
Eugenics had similar demographics as today’s abortion debate. It was championed primarily by the political left (such as Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger) and opposed primarily by religious conservatives (such as the Catholic Chesterton). The New York Times praised eugenics in 1912, calling it a “wonderful new science.”
–Mike Perry, Seattle
I think the two previous postings were spot on.
This sort of eugenics stuff, along with a corresponding fixation on “ethnology” is part and parcel of that bastard child of Charles Darwin: Social Darwinism.
It was a line of crank science that developed through the late 19th Century and ultimately manifested itself in the rise of Adolf Hitler.
It is true that Douglas’s ideas would not have been out of place at the time he wrote them.
The conflict with Nazi Germany has conveniently obscured our view of the period leading up to the Second World War. It was a time when odd racial notions had wide acceptance not simply in countries like Germany, but also amongst the intelligentsia of Europe and North America.
The point about Douglas is, I suppose, not that he had rather “interesting” ideas but that he should be made a “Canadian icon.” Dr Norman Bethune is another example; his communist leanings are always conveniently glossed over.
The Left of the political spectrum is always so ready to rubbish the traditional “Great Canadians” of history based on some perceived transgressions in their lives.
So why do the heroes of the Left always seem to get a by on their past peccadilloes?
What else do you expect from sociology? It’s not a real scholarly discipline and merely serves as an academic cover for marxists, much like “political economy.” Check out any sociology department and I guarantee you’ll find almost no professor or student who is not a marxist, communist, socialist, etc.
A typical response from those on the left amounts to “A greater good”.
There was a greater good that came from these people so their transgressions are ignored. Kind of like Castro. His abuses are ignored because of what he represents, or Che Guevera, or Lenin or Stalin in his day was given the whitewash treatment.
See people and the world for what they are, not what we wish them to be, then work to move it toward what we want it to be.
The headline (and eulogy) for eugenicists, socialists, abortionists, communists and others who would like the power to plan every gene and moment of our lives should be “sounded great in theory… I had good intentions”
When Gwyn Morgan makes a quite sensible and factual comment about violent gangs in Canadian cities, he is considered unfit for an unpaying job serving Canadian taxpayers and his accomplishments are ignored. Tommy Douglas gets his multitude of ugly ideas and comments ignored, while being name the greatest Canadian for causing decades of healthcare problems and expense for Canadian taxpayers.
Re: the comments on C-Junk’s TC Douglas expose’:
I always find it humorous how the stilted zealots of sacred lefty dogma must give knee-jerk defense to any lefty dogma….no matter how old or discredited.
In this case what we have is purely Tommy Douglas’s unqualified, socially bigoted opinion masquerading as a legitimate social thesis….this is the “legacy” piece of “the greatest Canadian”….a classist and bigoted essay on who is fit to reproduce….phhhhttt, how we set our standards so low when it comes to cannonizing political leaders…..must be the celebration of mediocrity the left encourages.
Eugenics had similar demographics as today’s abortion debate. It was championed primarily by the political left (such as Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger) and opposed primarily by religious conservatives (such as the Catholic Chesterton).
This comment distorts history. Eugenics was championed all over the political spectrum, but became the property of the extreme Right, which racialized an already invidious set of ideas. Angus McLaren has done a history of eugenics in Canada called “Our own master race : eugenics in Canada, 1885-1945” which is worth a read.
People should really try to get a sense of history. If you go far enough back, you can find leftists making shockingly racist comments–check out Karl Marx’s “The British in India,” for example. A little more recently, leftists made shockingly sexist comments (SDS activists like Mark Rudd come to mind). At the same time, though, and in fairness, the Right continues to make sexist and racist comments, if usually highly coded–some of the comments around Katrina were a real eye-opener, even for me. The Left repudiates both racism and sexism, including those elements in its own history.
The Left and the Right have evolved over time, or there would be no such categories today. At least the Left (speaking, I know, over-broadly) seems to have the capacity for self-criticism.
But this posthumous Tommy-smearing, in any case, is egregiously unfair. He was a man of his time. Check out Charlotte Whitton sometime if you want to do a real> trash job. Eugenicist. Anti-semite. Etc.
Err , since Margaret Whitton hasn’t won the CBC’s most famous Canadian award I’d forgotten who she was and had to google her. How could I possibly have forgotten that she was Mayor of Ottawa 1951-56 …
She is famous for the quotation: “Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.”
Whitton never married, but lived for years with her partner, Margaret Grier. I can see why the Dippers would like her … or am I missing something?
Well, I don’t know about the rest of the audience, as much as I dislike the idea of government eugenics; the idea of people who are mentally retarded/damaged (to the point of being sub-marginally functional as adults, or less) or the lunatic (I’m thinking institutionalized or on heavy daily drugs) reproducing doesn’t fill me with warm happy thoughts. The world does not need more of either.
Dawg, with due respect, most of the modern left isn’t exactly free of their racist/eugenic wing/past either.
It’s not too far to Cambodia, China, India (various South American) or Russia were not only committing racist, but “classist” genocides (often the two are tightly related) within my not so long lifetime. (and I’ll not mention Africa becaused the racism there predates and transcends ideology. But I’ll note that many of the worst offenders espouse a marxist cant.) Even the soft socialists in Sweden (and elsewhere) were busily sterilizing “morons” and what-not, well into the late 70’s, if I recall correctly.
Give me right wing racists any day, their retail, muttering, approach to racism is a relief, obvious, and more easily countered and challenged compared to recent leftist slaughter.
As to Katrina, and the “rights” coded comments, I agree, but I’ll note that the left (US or international) wasn’t entirely free of “coded comments” either, no less racist. There’s plenty to go around.
(And you have to watch about about “coded commnets” that you aren’t reading into things, things that aren’t there. I’ve seen some egregious examples of people saying “that’s coded racism” for things which are not (necessarily) so. You’ll find what your looking for, if you really want to.)
Ask Michelle Malkin to share some of her email with you, Dawg, if you are of the opinion that the modern left reject racism.
You might ask any number of black Republicans, while you’re at it.
If the thesis was defended and accepted in fulfillment of the requirements for a degree, and absent evidence of fraud or plagiarism, what’s the point of attacking the author’s scholarship 70-odd years later (besides politicking?)
We may not like the methods, stated views and conclusions, but academe at the time apparently had no problem with them.
agitfact 10:04. Which I will accept as proof that the Fabians and fellow travellers had infiltrated academe by that time.
No, the “Dippers” don’t like Charlotte Whitton. I was trying to point out, obviously too elliptically, that she, as a lifelong conservative, was pro-eugenics and anti-Semitic. I think I’ve made the point, over at CJ’s if not here, that eugenics was a fashionable notion at the time, right across the political spectrum. There are a lot of reasons for that, which I won’t go into here, but it’s a bit smarmy to pillory Douglas for engaging with a widespread public notion in the early 1930s.
Kate: idiots sending emails to Malkin don’t represent the Left. There are all kinds of confused people in the world who don’t have fully-integrated, consistent political ideologies, like you and me. 🙂
The Black Republican matter (if you’re thinking of the same cases I am) is maybe a little more complex. There are Blacks who feel betrayed by members of their own community who support Bush, and they’ve been pretty vocal about that sometimes. Blacks have called such Congressmen and Congresswomen “Oreos,” “Toms” and so on, but that’s within the community. Outsiders should just keep their yaps shut, it seems to me, unless they want to talk issues.
For heaven’s sake, Dawg, please use correct definitions for your political theories.
Eugenics is NOT an idea of the ‘right’. It’s a top-down authoritarianism, focused around a utopian idea of purity of a population. That’s socialist. Fascism is not a doctrine of ‘the right’. It’s pure socialism, i.e., a centralist top-down governance, focused around a homogenization of a population.
Fascism is a ‘left’ ideology. Got that? Never mind that the German fascism was actually titled “National Socialist German Workers’ Party’. Just understand that the ideology of fascism is a socialist ideology.
Basic concepts of fascism include ‘the primacy of the group, towards which one has duties superior to those to the individual”; the focus on the group as supplying all of one’s needs; the focus on the authority of the leadership of the group, with this leadership speaking for all members of this homogeneous group. These are socialist ideals.
No, the ‘left’ doesn’t have any innate capacity for self-criticism. In fact, it might be said to have less capacity, because it grounds its policies in utopian idealism rather than in pragmatic realities.
Dawg,
What about gun control? That is one of the most left-wing socialist ideas out there. The Federal NDP hold that up a sacred cow. Hitler was all for it.
But even if Hitler wasn’t a socialist, like you claim. Let us say that he did just “borrow” the term to get “credibility” and win over millions of “fair minded” socialist voters. This is what you would like us to believe, correct? Well if that were to be true, you have to remember that Hitler was only one man! In your twisted argument you openly admit that Hitler’s followers were socialists; his followers are the ones that ran the concentration camps! It took MILLIONS of people – most of them left-wing socialists according to you – to commit the mass murders under Hitler.
And by the way, no right-winger would EVER let anyone call him/her a socialist. That would be paramount to spitting in her/his face.
So, ET, I take it you would agree with the following comments:
“Therefore not only does the organization possess no right to prevent men of brains from rising above the multitude but, on the contrary, it must use its organizing powers to enable and promote that ascension as far as it possibly can. It must start out from the principle that the blessings of mankind never came from the masses but from the creative brains of individuals, who are therefore the real benefactors of humanity. It is in the interest of all to assure men of creative brains a decisive influence and facilitate their work. This common interest is surely not served by allowing the multitude to rule, for they are not capable of thinking nor are they efficient and in no case whatsoever can they be said to be gifted. Only those should rule who have the natural tempermant and gifts of leadership.”
“Though all human civilization has resulted exclusively from the creative activity of the individual, the principle that it is the mass which counts–through the decision of the majority– makes its appearance only in the administration of the national community especially in the higher grades; and from their downwards the poison gradually filters into all branches of national life, thus causing a veritable decomposition.”
“Marxism represents the most striking phase to eliminate the dominant significance of personality in every sphere of human life and replace it by the numerical power of the masses. In politics the parlimentary form of government is the expression of this effort. We can observe the fatal effects of it everywhere, from the smallest parish council upwards to the highest governing circles of the nation. In the field of economics we see the trades union movement, which does not serve the real interests of the employees….”
Just to counteract your revisionist history.
Hitler, of course, stood for every value the Right holds dear: anti-feminist, anti-gay, pro-patriotism, anti-abortion, you name it. Of course, if you want to play with that other political axis (libertarianism vs. statism), you need to be consistent. Augusto Pinochet, much beloved by Margaret Thatcher, was no anti-statist, and neither is George W. Bush.
Trent:
Lowell Green supports gun control. Is he a socialist? I oppose it (at least the gun-registry nonsense). Does that make me a conservative?
Get a grip, man. You’re raving.
ET: my response to you was caught in Kate’s filter. It should appear sometime today.
“There are Blacks who feel betrayed by members of their own community who support Bush, and they’ve been pretty vocal about that sometimes. Blacks have called such Congressmen and Congresswomen “Oreos,” “Toms” and so on, but that’s within the community. Outsiders should just keep their yaps shut, it seems to me, unless they want to talk issues.”
Where to even start with this, Dawg? It’s a black thing, we wouldn’t understand? That’s one step away from “black people (or insert other ‘minority’) can’t be racist’.” It’s a statement that manages to be both condescending and intellectually spineless at the same time. When someone is called racist names for making a political choice, we have no right to call it what it is if we’re not of the same skin complexion?
And the people who call Malkin names aren’t generally posting in self-identified leftist forums, don’t generally hold a group of beliefs, fully-integrated or not, that they themselves would probably call leftist or “Democrat”?
And how old is your Monopoly game definition of a conservative? You seem to find it comforting to imagine conservatives as some kind of cross between Bull Connor and Henry Ford – the conservatives I know tend to be rigorously opposed to racism of any kind, anti-Semitism in particular, while the religious conservatives consider eugenics to be a sort of ideological original sin.
The fact is that the standard-bearers of so much historical leftist thought – the Fabians, so many social “progressives” like Sanger and the five women immortalized on Parliament Hill – considered the poor and marginal to be the disease, not the symptom, and felt that discouraging them from procreating, preferably through legislated social programs and medical procedures, was the cure to so many social problems. I think the sheer, inhuman idiocy of this idea is patently obvious, even to someone like yourself.
I’d agree with agitfact that it’s irrelevant to attack Douglas for his ‘academic scholarship’ if such a document, with its inadequate research, was accepted by the university. I assure you, I’ve seen similar theses accepted – by which I mean, scantily referenced and inadequately researched, documents accepted.
And certainly, the arguments of the era about our species focused around whether behaviour was genetic or was culturally determined. There were lots of followers of both sides. During WWII, for example, a famous example was Ruth Benedict’s book, outlining different innate ‘personality types’ – the Apollonian, the Dionysian, the Paranoid. These were connected to nations, and whole societies (such as the Japanese) were examined for ‘national behaviour’.
The notion of scientific betterment of our species was an inevitable offshoot of Darwinism – something that he, himself, didn’t engage in.
By the way, after WWII, Turing, the brilliant computer scientist, who broke the Enigma code, was forced to take ‘medication’ against his homosexuality; it led indirectly, to his suicide.
There was another viewpoint, advocating that our species’ behaviour was learned, rather than innate. A famous example was Margaret Mead, who wrote a naive book about Pacific natives in Samoa, explaining that there were ‘no problems’ there, because every child was essentially, allowed to do whatever they wanted.
Both sides are fallacious, but, my point is that Douglas’s perspective did fit into the 1930-1970 era.
What IS the problem, however, is socialism. Socialism isn’t just a ‘spreading of the wealth’. In order for socialism to operate, it must act within a centralist, authoritarian governance, which rejects individual decision-making, and insists on collective homogeneity of behaviour. This reductionism, for that is what it is, is actually disabling for an industrial economy.
Ideologically, socialism is utopian; it has a seemingly ideal of progress leading to The Best Society. This is a debatable idea, for the notion of an ‘end state’ is counter to the modern understanding of societies as ‘complex adapative systems’ which can never reach an ideal ‘end state’. And, the idea of progress requires deviation from the norm – which runs counter to the socialist emphasis on conformity and group-ism.
Douglas’ thesis, which is focused on these two basic components of socialism: the centrally enforced collective ‘best type’ and the idea of progress to this ‘best mode of life’, which are basic axioms of socialism, are what should be debated.
You know Dawg, why are you using Hitler, the former leader of “The National SOCIALIST and German Workers Party”, and a bunch obscure local politicians to justify and defend Tommy Douglas? Is it because of the similarities of these people?
“Where to even start with this, Dawg?”
You don’t need to start. It’s textbook leftist racism, taking the form of identity politics. It’s so fundamental to their ideology, even well-meaning lefties like Dawg buy into it without fully examining their own racist assumption that _skin colour alone_ should qualify an individual’s right to criticize, right to associate, right to speak freely.
Having to explain the obvious is beginning to bore me. Sorry to take it out on you, Rick, but enough is enough.
The word “Oreo” means Black on the outside, white on the inside. It’s an insult that people in the Black community have used against some of their own members who appear to have adopted values that they consider harmful to the community. I find it hard, in that context, to call the term “racist,” although, in the American context, it is certainly racialized discourse.
My argument is that people not identified with that community shouldn’t throw around terms like that. I thought that was simple enough.
I haven’t followed Malkin’s emails, to be honest, but I can imagine what some of them might contain. I haven’t sent any, myself. Why not check out the emails that Black leftists get? Why not check out what people have to say about them on Stormfront.org? This whole side-discussion is getting a bit stupid, frankly.
Back to eugenics, though, for a moment. I think it’s safe to say that most people these days consider eugenics discourse suspect–Hitler had a lot to do with that. So asking people today to comment on thinking that’s three-quarters of a century old might yield embarrassing discoveries for people right across the political spectrum.
It is impossible, in any case, to read into Douglas’ writings and speeches any notion that the poor are to blame for their own poverty. That’s a conservative notion.
Dr. Dawg says…
“At least the Left (speaking, I know, over-broadly) seems to have the capacity for self-criticism.”
Ah yes, the “capacity” for self-criticism.
Dr Dawg, you say that blacks feel “betrayed” because members “of their own community” voted for Bush.
This is the most racist statement I’ve heard and guess what – you’re left wing. You just proved Kate right. You assume that every black person should have the same ideology, and that if they vote differently from other members of their race, that they’re betraying their race. Are you seriously using that as an excuse for the racist cartoons and comments people like Condoleeza Rice have experienced?
There is the same type of sexism on the left. A woman who is anti-abortion, or not openly socialist is called a traitor to her sex, an “anti-feminist” or a man. Thatcher experienced this quite a bit. Condi gets both sexism and racism from the left.
And Dr. Dawg: the left advocates affirmative action, i.e systematic racism and sexism. Reverse racism is still racism. The right advocates individualism.
ET, you seem to be the lady for political theory.
I’ve been trying to come up with a bare-bones definition of Conservatism. Seems to me that it is an unshakeable belief in individual laissez-faire except where the interests of the conservative himself are concerned, when criminal law, protectionism, subventionism etc. are called for.
Is that a fair distinction from the socialist ideals you have described?
Dawg,
You are trying to change the discussion to who was a left-winger and who is a right-winger; you even have me in on it.
The discussion is about Tommy Douglas’ thesis, and the sick mind behind it. It is not about some obscure mayor that no one has ever heard of and whether or not they supported eugenics.
A lot of people want to divert attention away from Tommy’s thesis, convolute and fragment the discussion so that they can keep people from knowing the truth about Tommy, the CCF and the modern NDP. Let’s not allow that, this time.
Kate:
Actually I reject identity politics. I don’t believe in reifying culture and gender, and I don’t like the notion of “race” at all. Read my piece on “Table Manners” for yourself.
But because I reject such politics doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. In the heavily racialized political climate in the US they are fairly prominent.
If people are defined by others as communities, they will come to define themselves as communities. Hence the “Black community” — for example.
One doesn’t have to approve of this phenomenon to be very wary indeed of making things worse by ploughing into that milieu from the outside and making inappropriate comments. I was actually agreeing with you, for once, or thought I was: people outside that community have no business throwing around words like “Oreo.” I thought it was incidents like that to which you were referring.
So, if a black Bush voter is an orea, Dr dawg, what do you call someone who looks like a westerner on the outside (i dont mean racially, i mean in terms of freedom and affluence), but is really a socialist or fascist on the inside and is therefore a threat to their community?
Dawg – have you ever read G. B. Shaw? A lifelong socialist, supporter of Stalin, and founder of the Fabian Society? A darling of progressives everywhere? Have you ever read his blistering, hateful contempt for the poor, and his belief that they were a social liability, to be flushed from a healthy society like a disease?
So much for the conservative monopoly on that idea, as you see it.
As for Douglas, how else do you interpret a thesis that frames poverty as a product of inherent, bred in the bone weakness? Douglas, like so many social reformers, saw the poor as congenital, a blood-borne pathogen that was dragging down a healthy society – the metaphor alone is pernicious and repulsive, don’t you think? While no one is advocating eugenics today, aren’t we allowed to use its advocacy as a yardstick by which to measure so-called “heroes” like Douglas – or are you extending your charming theory about black conservatives to the past as well, and insinuating that we have no right to criticize Douglas if we weren’t alive at the time?
What IS the problem, however, is socialism. Socialism isn’t just a ‘spreading of the wealth’. In order for socialism to operate, it must act within a centralist, authoritarian governance, which rejects individual decision-making, and insists on collective homogeneity of behaviour. This reductionism, for that is what it is, is actually disabling for an industrial economy.
This is just binary (and question-begging) thinking. I would suggest any reductionism here is yours. Ideologically, socialism is utopian; it has a seemingly ideal of progress leading to The Best Society. This is a debatable idea, for the notion of an ‘end state’ is counter to the modern understanding of societies as ‘complex adapative systems’ which can never reach an ideal ‘end state’. And, the idea of progress requires deviation from the norm – which runs counter to the socialist emphasis on conformity and group-ism.
This is a rather undialectical view of socialism, if I may say so. You seem to have stopped reading, in any case, about thirty years ago. I agree, though, that the notion of “progress,” not to mention “evolution” (in the social sense), is suspect. I use the word “progressive” these days only as a handy label, but I think it’s lost a lot of its content.
But if you merely want to define “socialism” to suit your own dislikes, don’t let me stop you. I just don’t know any such “socialists” as you quaintly describe, and I’ve been around that neck of the woods for a long, long time.
Sitting here in London, UK, I couldn’t figure out why the comments were coming in so thick and fast at such an early part of the day.
But of course! It’s Victoria Day!
Have a great day off, all my compatriots in the homeland.
This includes you too, Dr. Dawg!
Thank you, JJM, and right back atcha. It’s a miserable month in Ottawa–hail yesterday, even a little snow this morning. Nothing else to do but mix it up in the blogosphere!
Dawg – if you are going to call my analysis of socialism as ‘binary and question-begging’, I’d suggest that you provide some examples. Otherwise, all that you are doing is providing an ungrounded opinion. That’s useless.
It is neither binary thinking (do you know what that means?) nor is it begging the question. Examples please.
And ‘undialectical view of socialism’? What the heck is that? Why should an analysis of socialism be ‘dialectical’? [I can’t stand Hegel, by the way and equally, abhor Plato’s version of Socrates.] But, again, why should an analysis of socialism be ‘dialectical’?
Do you realize that you haven’t provided your own (correct?) view of socialism. All you’ve done is, without foundation, asserted that my analysis is: non-binary, non-dialectical (explain with examples and also explain why it should bother to be either)..and ‘question-begging’ (explain what is exactly ‘begging the question’).
And then, again without providing your own (correct?) view of socialism, you’ve used an ad hominem tactic against me (conclusion only to suit my own dislikes). Oh, and the fallacy of pseudo-authority (been around for a long time).
So, now, how about dropping the fallacies, dropping the ungrounded assertions, and getting into facts and reality?
Sorry Dawg (10:15 AM) lesbian, feminist, Mayor Charlotte Whitton does not fit my profile of a typical conservative. BTW, being a lesbian/feminist shouldn’t disqualify her from being a conservative either in my opinion.
I’m still confused – what is about her that makes you think that she’s conservative?
Would it be this? …, after graduation ..“From Queen’s she became the director of the Canadian Council on Social Welfare and helped bring about a wide array of new legislation to help children.”
Dr Dawg, you say that blacks feel “betrayed” because members “of their own community” voted for Bush. This is the most racist statement I’ve heard and guess what – you’re left wing. You just proved Kate right.
Oh, bullshit. Seriously, learn to read.
I described a dynamic in the “Black community.” I didn’t make it up. Where do you think terms like “Uncle Tom” originated, and how have they been deployed?
I think an apology is in order, but knowing right-wingers, I’m not holding my breath.
Dr dawg, how can you seriously try to excuse racist comments by leftists? A black person can vote for Bush. It is not a batrayal of their community. Affirmative Action, a leftist idea from the last 30 years, is racist! It is systematic, institutionalized racism, which is much worse than some person calling a black leftist or rightist columnist a bad name.
If you support affirmative action, you a left-wing racist as well. If you think a black Bush voter loses their true racial identity, that is also racist.
dr dawg, I apologize for calling you racist, if you were only stating other leftists’, rather than stating your agreement with the idea that voting a certain way comprimises political identity. (btw, it was a white cartoonist created the most blatantly racist depiction of Condi and received no denouncements from the left).
On the other hand, I consider advocates of affirmative action to be modern-day racists and sexists.
Some other noted darlings of the left from the same time period who advocated eugenics policy: Emily Murphy, Henrietta Muir Edwards, Nellie Mc Clung, Louise Mc Kinney and Irene Parlby. The Famous Five.
Hmmmm… Another example of the left’s intrinsic ability for self critisism and presumably self correction???
I find Dr. Dawgs assertation that terms like oreo are an example of “racialized discourse”, best left to the communities in which they originate, to be an interisting rhetorical twist.
So how does that work Dawg?? In the Canadian context lets say I’m 1/16 Cree and I live a traditional lifestyle. That is to say I support myself and my family by hunting and trapping. Can I call my cousin who is 100% Cree an Apple because he is an accountant for Syncrude and shops at Safeway??
Am I making racist comments or not? Does my traditional lifestyle make up for my weak Cree heritage. What proportion of ethnic heritage allows me the privledge of engaging in “racialized discourse”??
Are not you really attempting to apoligize for the “soft implied” racism that many on the left partake in??
Please explain.
Syncro
agitfact, – no, ‘laissez-faire’ would not, in my view, define conservativism. There’s no such thing as a ‘laissez-faire’ system (the two terms contradict each other), understanding it as pure individual actions.
By ‘no such thing’, I mean in nature or in a social system, for the individual is BOTH a discrete entity (individual) AND a member of a collective. It’s the ‘borderline existence’ between the two needs that is the most robust.
I think the US constitution provides a basic definition of conservativism, with its focus on common human rights (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness). A society must have a ‘collective infrastructure’ to ensure these. And, its focus on individual rights (freedom of thought, speech) etc.
The point is, any system is, by necessity, made up of a long-term infrastructure which ensures stability. This requires symmetry of behaviour. And, any system is also, by necessity, made up of short-term individual ‘articulations’ or ‘instances’ which ensures asymmetry, or, the capacity to change, to innovate, to adapt. A robust reality requires both processes. Socialism privileges only one, the symmetry-inducing collectivism.
Nomdenet:
“An arch social conservative, however, Whitton’s opposition to more liberal spending on the unemployed in the 1930s placed her increasingly on the margins of Canadian social work.”
Source: http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0008570
Check out: “No Bleeding Heart: Charlotte Whitton, a Feminist on the Right” (Rooke and Schnell, UBC Press, 1987).
ET:
I’m probably more conversant with binary thinking and its critiques than you are. When you define socialism as all collective, no individual (not to mention the companion notion of authoritianism vs. libertarianism), that’s classic either-or binary thinking.
By “undialectical,” I mean that you see no creative interplay between the individual and the collective. What on earth do you suppose the collective is made up of? Each enriches, or should enrich, the other.
By begging the question, I mean just that. You start from a position that requires proof (socialism is of necessity authoritarian and rejects individual decision-making in favour of homogeneity) and proceed to the conclusion that socialism is therefore reductionist and harmful to an industrial society. Circular argument. Classic petitio principii.
My empirical statement about socialists isn’t argument by authority, by the way. It’s a plain statement of fact about my personal experience. I’ve never met the caricatures you describe.
I don’t like top-down approaches to this. Lenin (and vanguardism)are dead. But you assume, in your black-or-white way, that every socialist must be an authoritarian. That gives you license to throw Hitler into the mix (but not Pinochet or Franco). At that point, “socialism” becomes a floating signifier, of little value in a political discussion. It means whatever you want it to mean.
I wish I could figure out what triggers Kate’s filter. Two responses to ET have now ended up in it. And I’ve been no more abusive than usual. 🙂
Just a quick response to Angela and to Syncrodox:
I don’t espouse identity politics, but you don’t get rid of the phenomenon by engaging in it. If members of the Black community want to encode their opposition to conservative policies as inauthentically Black, I don’t think it would be helpful if I were to jump in and join them.
Affirmative action is a whole nother discussion, as they say. Let me just note that in a racialized society where practices of exclusion have been historically present, such counter-practices are not necessarily a bad thing if they lead to inclusion.
Syncrodox: everything depends upon the community with which you identify. It is to that community that you will find yourself accountable if you want to use epithets like “Apple” to tell them who is, and who is not, to be considered a member. Other community members may have something to say about that. The ensuing debate is not likely to be very productive, but, in any case, I wouldn’t participate in it.
It is my belief all humans have some racist tendencies,it is a”tribal”instinct.But,how we deal with these”leanings”in modern society helps define us as individuals.
I can’t help but think that if these writings were uncovered as the work of one of our history’s prominent rightists,we would instead be commenting on the MSM’s artificial moral outrage as they dis’conservatives in general.In fact it is unfair to judge anyone from another era by today’s standards.
Having spent 10 yrs of the recent Liberal dynasty in Alberta,I know first hand what it is like to be constantly tagged by the left as racist(not to mention anti-Canadian,rednecked,etc).BTW,that was with NO other Canadians bothering to rally to our defense,NO apologies.
What amazes me to this day,is the very act of LABELLING us as racist was BIGOTTED!How’s that for irony?
Western conservatives especially,know better than most others that the left shouting racist or un-Canadian accusations at those who dare disagree has become a predictable part of their MO.If any libs have a problem with this logic,just look at your party’s dispicable and divisive tactics this past election for starters!
Dawg – your provided several quotes and asked if I agreed with them. No, I don’t.
First, by the way, Hitler’s axioms that you refer to, are in no way the same as ‘the right holds dear’, and it is incorrect of you to assert that they are. You are merging definitions – a basic fallacy. The right’s view of women is quite different from Hitler’s view. The right are not anti-gay, although they may be anti SSM (and sorry, but being against SSM does not mean that one is anti-gay). As for ‘pro-patriotism’ – what’s that supposed to mean? Paul Martin thundering on about how much he Loves Canada? Same with anti-abortion. It’s far too complex to define as a ‘left’ or ‘right’ view.
Now- your quotations. The first one I’d agree only with the promotion of ‘men of brains’ but not with its denigration and strange definition of ‘the masses’ and its rejection of democracy (its statement against ‘allowing the multitude to rule).
The above quotation is quite totalitarian; fits in with Popper’s ‘closed society’.
Statement two is equally problematic and is actually historically wrong. The ‘mass’ or decision of the majority, is the basic political mode in human societies (hunting and gathering). When the population gets larger, you cannot have a mass decision-making process (takes too long and you cannot get a consensus).
This quote sets up a binary analysis, where you must focus on Either the community majority OR the individual. No society can operate within an either-or infrastructure. A robust society requires both modes of organization because it requires both continuity, provided by the majority, and discontinuity, provided by the individual.
Quotation three – what’s your point? Do I agree with it as an analysis of Marxism? I certainly disagree with communism and I disagree with the rejection of hierarchies in society.
I also disagree with rejecting a parliamentary form of government – by which I understand a government that is both elected and that debates and takes decisions.
I am certainly completely opposed to unions. I think they had a role to play in the last century, but now, are completely parastic on the workers and have become private corporations in themselves. They don’t help either the workers or the economy but damage both.
“But this posthumous (insert name of favorite dead murdering racist), in any case, is egregiously unfair. He was a man of his time.”
This quote sets up a binary analysis, where you must focus on Either the community majority OR the individual. No society can operate within an either-or infrastructure. A robust society requires both modes of organization because it requires both continuity, provided by the majority, and discontinuity, provided by the individual.
My goodness, can we have arrived at a point of agreement? Of course a robust society requires a dynamic interplay between the individual and the collective. That’s precisely what my own vision of socialism necessarily entails. I would respectfully suggest that your caricature of socialism died well before the final collapse of the Soviet project.
Dawg – are you more conversant with binarism than I am? Why the need for the ad hominem? Why not just discuss why you considered my analysis as ‘non-binary’. By the way, I outlined my view of a robust society above, so I won’t repeat it.
No, my definition of socialism as ‘all collective’ isn’t ‘classic binary thinking’. It’s a critique of the key problem of socialism, which is that it privileges only ONE mode of behaviour, the collectivist. In order to privilege collectivism, a socialist system must also be authoritarian. Again, that’s not binary thinking; it’s a critique of the problems of socialism.
No, my argument that socialism is collectivist and is therefore harmful, is not begging the question. If you claim that, then, all of your assertions are equally circular and therefore fallacious arguments. After all, you are making unfounded claims and also evaluating them, e.g., your arguments about affirmative action.
Pseudo-authority is an argument claiming validity by the authority of another factor, such as time; you mentioned some thirty years of experience in socialism. So?
No, I am not throwing Hitler’s national socialism into the mix by my own ‘licence’. It was a leftist, socialist political infrastructure. I think you misunderstand the definition of ‘left’ and ‘right’ as metaphors.
I haven’t said a word about Pinochet or Franco, so why do you claim that I did or did not define them as right or left? Kindly stick to the facts.
By the way, you still haven’t defined socialism.
Dawg, I’m still confused. You say Whitton, a lesbian, is “An arch social conservative”. Is that possible?
I’d say you also have a bit of an oxymoron with “a feminist on the right”.
Dawg, let me cut to the chase, we’re all guilty of lumping left/right and dipper/conservative into nice tight little packages.
It can’t be done. People are too complex. That’s what Tommy couldn’t appreciate.
Dippers and conservatives want the same compassionate results on matters like poverty and the environment. The debate should be about how to govern ourselves in a way that optimizes the best chances of low poverty and a clean environment. Now that we got rid of the Liberals for awhile maybe we can dissent again and let ideas compete for the best solution
I doubt if we are ideologically similar, Dawg. Your view of the individual and the collective are probably very different from my view.
After all, my view of a robust society does not include a health care system that rejects private treatment, a federalism that is centralist, and I reject any program of equalization. I reject anti-capitalism, I’m all for enabling disparate wealth levels. I’m against unions. All of the above are dear to the socialist ideology.
Excellent analysis and a pretty lively discussion in the comments at the link too.
While the conclusions TD draws and the language he uses are disturbing, contrary to the conclusions Debris Trail makes, TD was not out of step with alot of those both on the left and the right during that time. If he had been I suspect he would have been rebuked by his superiors.
What it does damage in TD’s image is, as Debris Trail points out, is that of his scholarliness in that it was very poorly researched. And that TD felt it was perfectly okay, check that, morally imperative that those in power should control the lives of others. Thus the moral foundation for government-run health care.
Those who’d like an in depth look at eugenics as it was advocated by liberals, progressives and socialists in the early twentieth century should visit:
http://www.inklingbooks.com/inklinguniversity/
And those who’d like to read a criticism of British eugenics can do no better than read G. K. Chesterton’s 1922 classic, Eugenics and Other Evils.
Eugenics had similar demographics as today’s abortion debate. It was championed primarily by the political left (such as Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger) and opposed primarily by religious conservatives (such as the Catholic Chesterton). The New York Times praised eugenics in 1912, calling it a “wonderful new science.”
–Mike Perry, Seattle
I think the two previous postings were spot on.
This sort of eugenics stuff, along with a corresponding fixation on “ethnology” is part and parcel of that bastard child of Charles Darwin: Social Darwinism.
It was a line of crank science that developed through the late 19th Century and ultimately manifested itself in the rise of Adolf Hitler.
It is true that Douglas’s ideas would not have been out of place at the time he wrote them.
The conflict with Nazi Germany has conveniently obscured our view of the period leading up to the Second World War. It was a time when odd racial notions had wide acceptance not simply in countries like Germany, but also amongst the intelligentsia of Europe and North America.
The point about Douglas is, I suppose, not that he had rather “interesting” ideas but that he should be made a “Canadian icon.” Dr Norman Bethune is another example; his communist leanings are always conveniently glossed over.
The Left of the political spectrum is always so ready to rubbish the traditional “Great Canadians” of history based on some perceived transgressions in their lives.
So why do the heroes of the Left always seem to get a by on their past peccadilloes?
What else do you expect from sociology? It’s not a real scholarly discipline and merely serves as an academic cover for marxists, much like “political economy.” Check out any sociology department and I guarantee you’ll find almost no professor or student who is not a marxist, communist, socialist, etc.
A typical response from those on the left amounts to “A greater good”.
There was a greater good that came from these people so their transgressions are ignored. Kind of like Castro. His abuses are ignored because of what he represents, or Che Guevera, or Lenin or Stalin in his day was given the whitewash treatment.
See people and the world for what they are, not what we wish them to be, then work to move it toward what we want it to be.
The headline (and eulogy) for eugenicists, socialists, abortionists, communists and others who would like the power to plan every gene and moment of our lives should be “sounded great in theory… I had good intentions”
When Gwyn Morgan makes a quite sensible and factual comment about violent gangs in Canadian cities, he is considered unfit for an unpaying job serving Canadian taxpayers and his accomplishments are ignored. Tommy Douglas gets his multitude of ugly ideas and comments ignored, while being name the greatest Canadian for causing decades of healthcare problems and expense for Canadian taxpayers.
Re: the comments on C-Junk’s TC Douglas expose’:
I always find it humorous how the stilted zealots of sacred lefty dogma must give knee-jerk defense to any lefty dogma….no matter how old or discredited.
In this case what we have is purely Tommy Douglas’s unqualified, socially bigoted opinion masquerading as a legitimate social thesis….this is the “legacy” piece of “the greatest Canadian”….a classist and bigoted essay on who is fit to reproduce….phhhhttt, how we set our standards so low when it comes to cannonizing political leaders…..must be the celebration of mediocrity the left encourages.
Eugenics had similar demographics as today’s abortion debate. It was championed primarily by the political left (such as Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger) and opposed primarily by religious conservatives (such as the Catholic Chesterton).
This comment distorts history. Eugenics was championed all over the political spectrum, but became the property of the extreme Right, which racialized an already invidious set of ideas. Angus McLaren has done a history of eugenics in Canada called “Our own master race : eugenics in Canada, 1885-1945” which is worth a read.
People should really try to get a sense of history. If you go far enough back, you can find leftists making shockingly racist comments–check out Karl Marx’s “The British in India,” for example. A little more recently, leftists made shockingly sexist comments (SDS activists like Mark Rudd come to mind). At the same time, though, and in fairness, the Right continues to make sexist and racist comments, if usually highly coded–some of the comments around Katrina were a real eye-opener, even for me. The Left repudiates both racism and sexism, including those elements in its own history.
The Left and the Right have evolved over time, or there would be no such categories today. At least the Left (speaking, I know, over-broadly) seems to have the capacity for self-criticism.
But this posthumous Tommy-smearing, in any case, is egregiously unfair. He was a man of his time. Check out Charlotte Whitton sometime if you want to do a real> trash job. Eugenicist. Anti-semite. Etc.
Err , since Margaret Whitton hasn’t won the CBC’s most famous Canadian award I’d forgotten who she was and had to google her. How could I possibly have forgotten that she was Mayor of Ottawa 1951-56 …
She is famous for the quotation: “Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.”
Whitton never married, but lived for years with her partner, Margaret Grier. I can see why the Dippers would like her … or am I missing something?
Well, I don’t know about the rest of the audience, as much as I dislike the idea of government eugenics; the idea of people who are mentally retarded/damaged (to the point of being sub-marginally functional as adults, or less) or the lunatic (I’m thinking institutionalized or on heavy daily drugs) reproducing doesn’t fill me with warm happy thoughts. The world does not need more of either.
Dawg, with due respect, most of the modern left isn’t exactly free of their racist/eugenic wing/past either.
It’s not too far to Cambodia, China, India (various South American) or Russia were not only committing racist, but “classist” genocides (often the two are tightly related) within my not so long lifetime. (and I’ll not mention Africa becaused the racism there predates and transcends ideology. But I’ll note that many of the worst offenders espouse a marxist cant.) Even the soft socialists in Sweden (and elsewhere) were busily sterilizing “morons” and what-not, well into the late 70’s, if I recall correctly.
Give me right wing racists any day, their retail, muttering, approach to racism is a relief, obvious, and more easily countered and challenged compared to recent leftist slaughter.
As to Katrina, and the “rights” coded comments, I agree, but I’ll note that the left (US or international) wasn’t entirely free of “coded comments” either, no less racist. There’s plenty to go around.
(And you have to watch about about “coded commnets” that you aren’t reading into things, things that aren’t there. I’ve seen some egregious examples of people saying “that’s coded racism” for things which are not (necessarily) so. You’ll find what your looking for, if you really want to.)
Ask Michelle Malkin to share some of her email with you, Dawg, if you are of the opinion that the modern left reject racism.
You might ask any number of black Republicans, while you’re at it.
If the thesis was defended and accepted in fulfillment of the requirements for a degree, and absent evidence of fraud or plagiarism, what’s the point of attacking the author’s scholarship 70-odd years later (besides politicking?)
We may not like the methods, stated views and conclusions, but academe at the time apparently had no problem with them.
agitfact 10:04. Which I will accept as proof that the Fabians and fellow travellers had infiltrated academe by that time.
No, the “Dippers” don’t like Charlotte Whitton. I was trying to point out, obviously too elliptically, that she, as a lifelong conservative, was pro-eugenics and anti-Semitic. I think I’ve made the point, over at CJ’s if not here, that eugenics was a fashionable notion at the time, right across the political spectrum. There are a lot of reasons for that, which I won’t go into here, but it’s a bit smarmy to pillory Douglas for engaging with a widespread public notion in the early 1930s.
Kate: idiots sending emails to Malkin don’t represent the Left. There are all kinds of confused people in the world who don’t have fully-integrated, consistent political ideologies, like you and me. 🙂
The Black Republican matter (if you’re thinking of the same cases I am) is maybe a little more complex. There are Blacks who feel betrayed by members of their own community who support Bush, and they’ve been pretty vocal about that sometimes. Blacks have called such Congressmen and Congresswomen “Oreos,” “Toms” and so on, but that’s within the community. Outsiders should just keep their yaps shut, it seems to me, unless they want to talk issues.
For heaven’s sake, Dawg, please use correct definitions for your political theories.
Eugenics is NOT an idea of the ‘right’. It’s a top-down authoritarianism, focused around a utopian idea of purity of a population. That’s socialist. Fascism is not a doctrine of ‘the right’. It’s pure socialism, i.e., a centralist top-down governance, focused around a homogenization of a population.
Fascism is a ‘left’ ideology. Got that? Never mind that the German fascism was actually titled “National Socialist German Workers’ Party’. Just understand that the ideology of fascism is a socialist ideology.
Basic concepts of fascism include ‘the primacy of the group, towards which one has duties superior to those to the individual”; the focus on the group as supplying all of one’s needs; the focus on the authority of the leadership of the group, with this leadership speaking for all members of this homogeneous group. These are socialist ideals.
No, the ‘left’ doesn’t have any innate capacity for self-criticism. In fact, it might be said to have less capacity, because it grounds its policies in utopian idealism rather than in pragmatic realities.
Dawg,
What about gun control? That is one of the most left-wing socialist ideas out there. The Federal NDP hold that up a sacred cow. Hitler was all for it.
But even if Hitler wasn’t a socialist, like you claim. Let us say that he did just “borrow” the term to get “credibility” and win over millions of “fair minded” socialist voters. This is what you would like us to believe, correct? Well if that were to be true, you have to remember that Hitler was only one man! In your twisted argument you openly admit that Hitler’s followers were socialists; his followers are the ones that ran the concentration camps! It took MILLIONS of people – most of them left-wing socialists according to you – to commit the mass murders under Hitler.
And by the way, no right-winger would EVER let anyone call him/her a socialist. That would be paramount to spitting in her/his face.
So, ET, I take it you would agree with the following comments:
“Therefore not only does the organization possess no right to prevent men of brains from rising above the multitude but, on the contrary, it must use its organizing powers to enable and promote that ascension as far as it possibly can. It must start out from the principle that the blessings of mankind never came from the masses but from the creative brains of individuals, who are therefore the real benefactors of humanity. It is in the interest of all to assure men of creative brains a decisive influence and facilitate their work. This common interest is surely not served by allowing the multitude to rule, for they are not capable of thinking nor are they efficient and in no case whatsoever can they be said to be gifted. Only those should rule who have the natural tempermant and gifts of leadership.”
“Though all human civilization has resulted exclusively from the creative activity of the individual, the principle that it is the mass which counts–through the decision of the majority– makes its appearance only in the administration of the national community especially in the higher grades; and from their downwards the poison gradually filters into all branches of national life, thus causing a veritable decomposition.”
“Marxism represents the most striking phase to eliminate the dominant significance of personality in every sphere of human life and replace it by the numerical power of the masses. In politics the parlimentary form of government is the expression of this effort. We can observe the fatal effects of it everywhere, from the smallest parish council upwards to the highest governing circles of the nation. In the field of economics we see the trades union movement, which does not serve the real interests of the employees….”
Just to counteract your revisionist history.
Hitler, of course, stood for every value the Right holds dear: anti-feminist, anti-gay, pro-patriotism, anti-abortion, you name it. Of course, if you want to play with that other political axis (libertarianism vs. statism), you need to be consistent. Augusto Pinochet, much beloved by Margaret Thatcher, was no anti-statist, and neither is George W. Bush.
Trent:
Lowell Green supports gun control. Is he a socialist? I oppose it (at least the gun-registry nonsense). Does that make me a conservative?
Get a grip, man. You’re raving.
ET: my response to you was caught in Kate’s filter. It should appear sometime today.
“There are Blacks who feel betrayed by members of their own community who support Bush, and they’ve been pretty vocal about that sometimes. Blacks have called such Congressmen and Congresswomen “Oreos,” “Toms” and so on, but that’s within the community. Outsiders should just keep their yaps shut, it seems to me, unless they want to talk issues.”
Where to even start with this, Dawg? It’s a black thing, we wouldn’t understand? That’s one step away from “black people (or insert other ‘minority’) can’t be racist’.” It’s a statement that manages to be both condescending and intellectually spineless at the same time. When someone is called racist names for making a political choice, we have no right to call it what it is if we’re not of the same skin complexion?
And the people who call Malkin names aren’t generally posting in self-identified leftist forums, don’t generally hold a group of beliefs, fully-integrated or not, that they themselves would probably call leftist or “Democrat”?
And how old is your Monopoly game definition of a conservative? You seem to find it comforting to imagine conservatives as some kind of cross between Bull Connor and Henry Ford – the conservatives I know tend to be rigorously opposed to racism of any kind, anti-Semitism in particular, while the religious conservatives consider eugenics to be a sort of ideological original sin.
The fact is that the standard-bearers of so much historical leftist thought – the Fabians, so many social “progressives” like Sanger and the five women immortalized on Parliament Hill – considered the poor and marginal to be the disease, not the symptom, and felt that discouraging them from procreating, preferably through legislated social programs and medical procedures, was the cure to so many social problems. I think the sheer, inhuman idiocy of this idea is patently obvious, even to someone like yourself.
I’d agree with agitfact that it’s irrelevant to attack Douglas for his ‘academic scholarship’ if such a document, with its inadequate research, was accepted by the university. I assure you, I’ve seen similar theses accepted – by which I mean, scantily referenced and inadequately researched, documents accepted.
And certainly, the arguments of the era about our species focused around whether behaviour was genetic or was culturally determined. There were lots of followers of both sides. During WWII, for example, a famous example was Ruth Benedict’s book, outlining different innate ‘personality types’ – the Apollonian, the Dionysian, the Paranoid. These were connected to nations, and whole societies (such as the Japanese) were examined for ‘national behaviour’.
The notion of scientific betterment of our species was an inevitable offshoot of Darwinism – something that he, himself, didn’t engage in.
By the way, after WWII, Turing, the brilliant computer scientist, who broke the Enigma code, was forced to take ‘medication’ against his homosexuality; it led indirectly, to his suicide.
There was another viewpoint, advocating that our species’ behaviour was learned, rather than innate. A famous example was Margaret Mead, who wrote a naive book about Pacific natives in Samoa, explaining that there were ‘no problems’ there, because every child was essentially, allowed to do whatever they wanted.
Both sides are fallacious, but, my point is that Douglas’s perspective did fit into the 1930-1970 era.
What IS the problem, however, is socialism. Socialism isn’t just a ‘spreading of the wealth’. In order for socialism to operate, it must act within a centralist, authoritarian governance, which rejects individual decision-making, and insists on collective homogeneity of behaviour. This reductionism, for that is what it is, is actually disabling for an industrial economy.
Ideologically, socialism is utopian; it has a seemingly ideal of progress leading to The Best Society. This is a debatable idea, for the notion of an ‘end state’ is counter to the modern understanding of societies as ‘complex adapative systems’ which can never reach an ideal ‘end state’. And, the idea of progress requires deviation from the norm – which runs counter to the socialist emphasis on conformity and group-ism.
Douglas’ thesis, which is focused on these two basic components of socialism: the centrally enforced collective ‘best type’ and the idea of progress to this ‘best mode of life’, which are basic axioms of socialism, are what should be debated.
You know Dawg, why are you using Hitler, the former leader of “The National SOCIALIST and German Workers Party”, and a bunch obscure local politicians to justify and defend Tommy Douglas? Is it because of the similarities of these people?
“Where to even start with this, Dawg?”
You don’t need to start. It’s textbook leftist racism, taking the form of identity politics. It’s so fundamental to their ideology, even well-meaning lefties like Dawg buy into it without fully examining their own racist assumption that _skin colour alone_ should qualify an individual’s right to criticize, right to associate, right to speak freely.
Having to explain the obvious is beginning to bore me. Sorry to take it out on you, Rick, but enough is enough.
The word “Oreo” means Black on the outside, white on the inside. It’s an insult that people in the Black community have used against some of their own members who appear to have adopted values that they consider harmful to the community. I find it hard, in that context, to call the term “racist,” although, in the American context, it is certainly racialized discourse.
My argument is that people not identified with that community shouldn’t throw around terms like that. I thought that was simple enough.
I haven’t followed Malkin’s emails, to be honest, but I can imagine what some of them might contain. I haven’t sent any, myself. Why not check out the emails that Black leftists get? Why not check out what people have to say about them on Stormfront.org? This whole side-discussion is getting a bit stupid, frankly.
Back to eugenics, though, for a moment. I think it’s safe to say that most people these days consider eugenics discourse suspect–Hitler had a lot to do with that. So asking people today to comment on thinking that’s three-quarters of a century old might yield embarrassing discoveries for people right across the political spectrum.
It is impossible, in any case, to read into Douglas’ writings and speeches any notion that the poor are to blame for their own poverty. That’s a conservative notion.
Dr. Dawg says…
“At least the Left (speaking, I know, over-broadly) seems to have the capacity for self-criticism.”
Ah yes, the “capacity” for self-criticism.
Dr Dawg, you say that blacks feel “betrayed” because members “of their own community” voted for Bush.
This is the most racist statement I’ve heard and guess what – you’re left wing. You just proved Kate right. You assume that every black person should have the same ideology, and that if they vote differently from other members of their race, that they’re betraying their race. Are you seriously using that as an excuse for the racist cartoons and comments people like Condoleeza Rice have experienced?
There is the same type of sexism on the left. A woman who is anti-abortion, or not openly socialist is called a traitor to her sex, an “anti-feminist” or a man. Thatcher experienced this quite a bit. Condi gets both sexism and racism from the left.
And Dr. Dawg: the left advocates affirmative action, i.e systematic racism and sexism. Reverse racism is still racism. The right advocates individualism.
ET, you seem to be the lady for political theory.
I’ve been trying to come up with a bare-bones definition of Conservatism. Seems to me that it is an unshakeable belief in individual laissez-faire except where the interests of the conservative himself are concerned, when criminal law, protectionism, subventionism etc. are called for.
Is that a fair distinction from the socialist ideals you have described?
Dawg,
You are trying to change the discussion to who was a left-winger and who is a right-winger; you even have me in on it.
The discussion is about Tommy Douglas’ thesis, and the sick mind behind it. It is not about some obscure mayor that no one has ever heard of and whether or not they supported eugenics.
A lot of people want to divert attention away from Tommy’s thesis, convolute and fragment the discussion so that they can keep people from knowing the truth about Tommy, the CCF and the modern NDP. Let’s not allow that, this time.
Kate:
Actually I reject identity politics. I don’t believe in reifying culture and gender, and I don’t like the notion of “race” at all. Read my piece on “Table Manners” for yourself.
But because I reject such politics doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. In the heavily racialized political climate in the US they are fairly prominent.
If people are defined by others as communities, they will come to define themselves as communities. Hence the “Black community” — for example.
One doesn’t have to approve of this phenomenon to be very wary indeed of making things worse by ploughing into that milieu from the outside and making inappropriate comments. I was actually agreeing with you, for once, or thought I was: people outside that community have no business throwing around words like “Oreo.” I thought it was incidents like that to which you were referring.
So, if a black Bush voter is an orea, Dr dawg, what do you call someone who looks like a westerner on the outside (i dont mean racially, i mean in terms of freedom and affluence), but is really a socialist or fascist on the inside and is therefore a threat to their community?
Dawg – have you ever read G. B. Shaw? A lifelong socialist, supporter of Stalin, and founder of the Fabian Society? A darling of progressives everywhere? Have you ever read his blistering, hateful contempt for the poor, and his belief that they were a social liability, to be flushed from a healthy society like a disease?
So much for the conservative monopoly on that idea, as you see it.
As for Douglas, how else do you interpret a thesis that frames poverty as a product of inherent, bred in the bone weakness? Douglas, like so many social reformers, saw the poor as congenital, a blood-borne pathogen that was dragging down a healthy society – the metaphor alone is pernicious and repulsive, don’t you think? While no one is advocating eugenics today, aren’t we allowed to use its advocacy as a yardstick by which to measure so-called “heroes” like Douglas – or are you extending your charming theory about black conservatives to the past as well, and insinuating that we have no right to criticize Douglas if we weren’t alive at the time?
What IS the problem, however, is socialism. Socialism isn’t just a ‘spreading of the wealth’. In order for socialism to operate, it must act within a centralist, authoritarian governance, which rejects individual decision-making, and insists on collective homogeneity of behaviour. This reductionism, for that is what it is, is actually disabling for an industrial economy.
This is just binary (and question-begging) thinking. I would suggest any reductionism here is yours.
Ideologically, socialism is utopian; it has a seemingly ideal of progress leading to The Best Society. This is a debatable idea, for the notion of an ‘end state’ is counter to the modern understanding of societies as ‘complex adapative systems’ which can never reach an ideal ‘end state’. And, the idea of progress requires deviation from the norm – which runs counter to the socialist emphasis on conformity and group-ism.
This is a rather undialectical view of socialism, if I may say so. You seem to have stopped reading, in any case, about thirty years ago. I agree, though, that the notion of “progress,” not to mention “evolution” (in the social sense), is suspect. I use the word “progressive” these days only as a handy label, but I think it’s lost a lot of its content.
But if you merely want to define “socialism” to suit your own dislikes, don’t let me stop you. I just don’t know any such “socialists” as you quaintly describe, and I’ve been around that neck of the woods for a long, long time.
Sitting here in London, UK, I couldn’t figure out why the comments were coming in so thick and fast at such an early part of the day.
But of course! It’s Victoria Day!
Have a great day off, all my compatriots in the homeland.
This includes you too, Dr. Dawg!
Thank you, JJM, and right back atcha. It’s a miserable month in Ottawa–hail yesterday, even a little snow this morning. Nothing else to do but mix it up in the blogosphere!
Dawg – if you are going to call my analysis of socialism as ‘binary and question-begging’, I’d suggest that you provide some examples. Otherwise, all that you are doing is providing an ungrounded opinion. That’s useless.
It is neither binary thinking (do you know what that means?) nor is it begging the question. Examples please.
And ‘undialectical view of socialism’? What the heck is that? Why should an analysis of socialism be ‘dialectical’? [I can’t stand Hegel, by the way and equally, abhor Plato’s version of Socrates.] But, again, why should an analysis of socialism be ‘dialectical’?
Do you realize that you haven’t provided your own (correct?) view of socialism. All you’ve done is, without foundation, asserted that my analysis is: non-binary, non-dialectical (explain with examples and also explain why it should bother to be either)..and ‘question-begging’ (explain what is exactly ‘begging the question’).
And then, again without providing your own (correct?) view of socialism, you’ve used an ad hominem tactic against me (conclusion only to suit my own dislikes). Oh, and the fallacy of pseudo-authority (been around for a long time).
So, now, how about dropping the fallacies, dropping the ungrounded assertions, and getting into facts and reality?
Sorry Dawg (10:15 AM) lesbian, feminist, Mayor Charlotte Whitton does not fit my profile of a typical conservative. BTW, being a lesbian/feminist shouldn’t disqualify her from being a conservative either in my opinion.
I’m still confused – what is about her that makes you think that she’s conservative?
Would it be this? …, after graduation ..“From Queen’s she became the director of the Canadian Council on Social Welfare and helped bring about a wide array of new legislation to help children.”
Dr Dawg, you say that blacks feel “betrayed” because members “of their own community” voted for Bush.
This is the most racist statement I’ve heard and guess what – you’re left wing. You just proved Kate right.
Oh, bullshit. Seriously, learn to read.
I described a dynamic in the “Black community.” I didn’t make it up. Where do you think terms like “Uncle Tom” originated, and how have they been deployed?
I think an apology is in order, but knowing right-wingers, I’m not holding my breath.
Dr dawg, how can you seriously try to excuse racist comments by leftists? A black person can vote for Bush. It is not a batrayal of their community. Affirmative Action, a leftist idea from the last 30 years, is racist! It is systematic, institutionalized racism, which is much worse than some person calling a black leftist or rightist columnist a bad name.
If you support affirmative action, you a left-wing racist as well. If you think a black Bush voter loses their true racial identity, that is also racist.
dr dawg, I apologize for calling you racist, if you were only stating other leftists’, rather than stating your agreement with the idea that voting a certain way comprimises political identity. (btw, it was a white cartoonist created the most blatantly racist depiction of Condi and received no denouncements from the left).
On the other hand, I consider advocates of affirmative action to be modern-day racists and sexists.
Some other noted darlings of the left from the same time period who advocated eugenics policy: Emily Murphy, Henrietta Muir Edwards, Nellie Mc Clung, Louise Mc Kinney and Irene Parlby. The Famous Five.
Hmmmm… Another example of the left’s intrinsic ability for self critisism and presumably self correction???
I find Dr. Dawgs assertation that terms like oreo are an example of “racialized discourse”, best left to the communities in which they originate, to be an interisting rhetorical twist.
So how does that work Dawg?? In the Canadian context lets say I’m 1/16 Cree and I live a traditional lifestyle. That is to say I support myself and my family by hunting and trapping. Can I call my cousin who is 100% Cree an Apple because he is an accountant for Syncrude and shops at Safeway??
Am I making racist comments or not? Does my traditional lifestyle make up for my weak Cree heritage. What proportion of ethnic heritage allows me the privledge of engaging in “racialized discourse”??
Are not you really attempting to apoligize for the “soft implied” racism that many on the left partake in??
Please explain.
Syncro
agitfact, – no, ‘laissez-faire’ would not, in my view, define conservativism. There’s no such thing as a ‘laissez-faire’ system (the two terms contradict each other), understanding it as pure individual actions.
By ‘no such thing’, I mean in nature or in a social system, for the individual is BOTH a discrete entity (individual) AND a member of a collective. It’s the ‘borderline existence’ between the two needs that is the most robust.
I think the US constitution provides a basic definition of conservativism, with its focus on common human rights (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness). A society must have a ‘collective infrastructure’ to ensure these. And, its focus on individual rights (freedom of thought, speech) etc.
The point is, any system is, by necessity, made up of a long-term infrastructure which ensures stability. This requires symmetry of behaviour. And, any system is also, by necessity, made up of short-term individual ‘articulations’ or ‘instances’ which ensures asymmetry, or, the capacity to change, to innovate, to adapt. A robust reality requires both processes. Socialism privileges only one, the symmetry-inducing collectivism.
Nomdenet:
“An arch social conservative, however, Whitton’s opposition to more liberal spending on the unemployed in the 1930s placed her increasingly on the margins of Canadian social work.”
Source: http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0008570
Check out: “No Bleeding Heart: Charlotte Whitton, a Feminist on the Right” (Rooke and Schnell, UBC Press, 1987).
ET:
I’m probably more conversant with binary thinking and its critiques than you are. When you define socialism as all collective, no individual (not to mention the companion notion of authoritianism vs. libertarianism), that’s classic either-or binary thinking.
By “undialectical,” I mean that you see no creative interplay between the individual and the collective. What on earth do you suppose the collective is made up of? Each enriches, or should enrich, the other.
By begging the question, I mean just that. You start from a position that requires proof (socialism is of necessity authoritarian and rejects individual decision-making in favour of homogeneity) and proceed to the conclusion that socialism is therefore reductionist and harmful to an industrial society. Circular argument. Classic petitio principii.
My empirical statement about socialists isn’t argument by authority, by the way. It’s a plain statement of fact about my personal experience. I’ve never met the caricatures you describe.
I don’t like top-down approaches to this. Lenin (and vanguardism)are dead. But you assume, in your black-or-white way, that every socialist must be an authoritarian. That gives you license to throw Hitler into the mix (but not Pinochet or Franco). At that point, “socialism” becomes a floating signifier, of little value in a political discussion. It means whatever you want it to mean.
I wish I could figure out what triggers Kate’s filter. Two responses to ET have now ended up in it. And I’ve been no more abusive than usual. 🙂
Just a quick response to Angela and to Syncrodox:
I don’t espouse identity politics, but you don’t get rid of the phenomenon by engaging in it. If members of the Black community want to encode their opposition to conservative policies as inauthentically Black, I don’t think it would be helpful if I were to jump in and join them.
Affirmative action is a whole nother discussion, as they say. Let me just note that in a racialized society where practices of exclusion have been historically present, such counter-practices are not necessarily a bad thing if they lead to inclusion.
Syncrodox: everything depends upon the community with which you identify. It is to that community that you will find yourself accountable if you want to use epithets like “Apple” to tell them who is, and who is not, to be considered a member. Other community members may have something to say about that. The ensuing debate is not likely to be very productive, but, in any case, I wouldn’t participate in it.
It is my belief all humans have some racist tendencies,it is a”tribal”instinct.But,how we deal with these”leanings”in modern society helps define us as individuals.
I can’t help but think that if these writings were uncovered as the work of one of our history’s prominent rightists,we would instead be commenting on the MSM’s artificial moral outrage as they dis’conservatives in general.In fact it is unfair to judge anyone from another era by today’s standards.
Having spent 10 yrs of the recent Liberal dynasty in Alberta,I know first hand what it is like to be constantly tagged by the left as racist(not to mention anti-Canadian,rednecked,etc).BTW,that was with NO other Canadians bothering to rally to our defense,NO apologies.
What amazes me to this day,is the very act of LABELLING us as racist was BIGOTTED!How’s that for irony?
Western conservatives especially,know better than most others that the left shouting racist or un-Canadian accusations at those who dare disagree has become a predictable part of their MO.If any libs have a problem with this logic,just look at your party’s dispicable and divisive tactics this past election for starters!
Dawg – your provided several quotes and asked if I agreed with them. No, I don’t.
First, by the way, Hitler’s axioms that you refer to, are in no way the same as ‘the right holds dear’, and it is incorrect of you to assert that they are. You are merging definitions – a basic fallacy. The right’s view of women is quite different from Hitler’s view. The right are not anti-gay, although they may be anti SSM (and sorry, but being against SSM does not mean that one is anti-gay). As for ‘pro-patriotism’ – what’s that supposed to mean? Paul Martin thundering on about how much he Loves Canada? Same with anti-abortion. It’s far too complex to define as a ‘left’ or ‘right’ view.
Now- your quotations. The first one I’d agree only with the promotion of ‘men of brains’ but not with its denigration and strange definition of ‘the masses’ and its rejection of democracy (its statement against ‘allowing the multitude to rule).
The above quotation is quite totalitarian; fits in with Popper’s ‘closed society’.
Statement two is equally problematic and is actually historically wrong. The ‘mass’ or decision of the majority, is the basic political mode in human societies (hunting and gathering). When the population gets larger, you cannot have a mass decision-making process (takes too long and you cannot get a consensus).
This quote sets up a binary analysis, where you must focus on Either the community majority OR the individual. No society can operate within an either-or infrastructure. A robust society requires both modes of organization because it requires both continuity, provided by the majority, and discontinuity, provided by the individual.
Quotation three – what’s your point? Do I agree with it as an analysis of Marxism? I certainly disagree with communism and I disagree with the rejection of hierarchies in society.
I also disagree with rejecting a parliamentary form of government – by which I understand a government that is both elected and that debates and takes decisions.
I am certainly completely opposed to unions. I think they had a role to play in the last century, but now, are completely parastic on the workers and have become private corporations in themselves. They don’t help either the workers or the economy but damage both.
“But this posthumous (insert name of favorite dead murdering racist), in any case, is egregiously unfair. He was a man of his time.”
This quote sets up a binary analysis, where you must focus on Either the community majority OR the individual. No society can operate within an either-or infrastructure. A robust society requires both modes of organization because it requires both continuity, provided by the majority, and discontinuity, provided by the individual.
My goodness, can we have arrived at a point of agreement? Of course a robust society requires a dynamic interplay between the individual and the collective. That’s precisely what my own vision of socialism necessarily entails. I would respectfully suggest that your caricature of socialism died well before the final collapse of the Soviet project.
Dawg – are you more conversant with binarism than I am? Why the need for the ad hominem? Why not just discuss why you considered my analysis as ‘non-binary’. By the way, I outlined my view of a robust society above, so I won’t repeat it.
No, my definition of socialism as ‘all collective’ isn’t ‘classic binary thinking’. It’s a critique of the key problem of socialism, which is that it privileges only ONE mode of behaviour, the collectivist. In order to privilege collectivism, a socialist system must also be authoritarian. Again, that’s not binary thinking; it’s a critique of the problems of socialism.
No, my argument that socialism is collectivist and is therefore harmful, is not begging the question. If you claim that, then, all of your assertions are equally circular and therefore fallacious arguments. After all, you are making unfounded claims and also evaluating them, e.g., your arguments about affirmative action.
Pseudo-authority is an argument claiming validity by the authority of another factor, such as time; you mentioned some thirty years of experience in socialism. So?
No, I am not throwing Hitler’s national socialism into the mix by my own ‘licence’. It was a leftist, socialist political infrastructure. I think you misunderstand the definition of ‘left’ and ‘right’ as metaphors.
I haven’t said a word about Pinochet or Franco, so why do you claim that I did or did not define them as right or left? Kindly stick to the facts.
By the way, you still haven’t defined socialism.
Dawg, I’m still confused. You say Whitton, a lesbian, is “An arch social conservative”. Is that possible?
I’d say you also have a bit of an oxymoron with “a feminist on the right”.
Dawg, let me cut to the chase, we’re all guilty of lumping left/right and dipper/conservative into nice tight little packages.
It can’t be done. People are too complex. That’s what Tommy couldn’t appreciate.
Dippers and conservatives want the same compassionate results on matters like poverty and the environment. The debate should be about how to govern ourselves in a way that optimizes the best chances of low poverty and a clean environment. Now that we got rid of the Liberals for awhile maybe we can dissent again and let ideas compete for the best solution
I doubt if we are ideologically similar, Dawg. Your view of the individual and the collective are probably very different from my view.
After all, my view of a robust society does not include a health care system that rejects private treatment, a federalism that is centralist, and I reject any program of equalization. I reject anti-capitalism, I’m all for enabling disparate wealth levels. I’m against unions. All of the above are dear to the socialist ideology.