Comments on: OUR SHADOW IN THE SUNLIGHT SEEMS TO US TO MOVE http://dublinopinion.com/2009/03/01/our-shadow-in-the-sunlight-seems-to-us-to-move/ It's a group blog. What more do you need to know? Wed, 23 May 2012 11:32:32 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.1 By: Binding Briars « The Punishment of Sloth http://dublinopinion.com/2009/03/01/our-shadow-in-the-sunlight-seems-to-us-to-move/#comment-71814 Binding Briars « The Punishment of Sloth Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:21:30 +0000 http://dublinopinion.com/2009/03/01/our-shadow-in-the-sunlight-seems-to-us-to-move/#comment-71814 [...] slashes welfare payments and community sector services and programmes. As Conor McCabe notes here: ‘try to count the number of times you hear the debate about Ireland’s economic situation [...] […] slashes welfare payments and community sector services and programmes. As Conor McCabe notes here: ‘try to count the number of times you hear the debate about Ireland’s economic situation […]

]]> By: Conor McCabe http://dublinopinion.com/2009/03/01/our-shadow-in-the-sunlight-seems-to-us-to-move/#comment-69622 Conor McCabe Wed, 04 Mar 2009 01:52:40 +0000 http://dublinopinion.com/2009/03/01/our-shadow-in-the-sunlight-seems-to-us-to-move/#comment-69622 The title of the post comes from Lucretius, who abhorred religion, and whom Marx studied for his dissertation. The way I square my own contradictions between a materialist approach to the study of human affairs and a belief in the metaphysical is that while the affairs of humanity can be studied and explained in material terms, as far as existence goes, well, that's a little bit bigger than our gig. But it's a logical contradiction. What can I say? I'm only human :) Sean, you're right, it's a monster, but one I'm hoping to get to grips with before Pittsburgh in June. The title of the post comes from Lucretius, who abhorred religion, and whom Marx studied for his dissertation. The way I square my own contradictions between a materialist approach to the study of human affairs and a belief in the metaphysical is that while the affairs of humanity can be studied and explained in material terms, as far as existence goes, well, that’s a little bit bigger than our gig. But it’s a logical contradiction. What can I say? I’m only human :)

Sean, you’re right, it’s a monster, but one I’m hoping to get to grips with before Pittsburgh in June.

]]> By: Garibaldy http://dublinopinion.com/2009/03/01/our-shadow-in-the-sunlight-seems-to-us-to-move/#comment-69621 Garibaldy Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:55:53 +0000 http://dublinopinion.com/2009/03/01/our-shadow-in-the-sunlight-seems-to-us-to-move/#comment-69621 Hegel is enough to drive anyone to see the metaphysical everywhere Hegel is enough to drive anyone to see the metaphysical everywhere

]]> By: Conor McCabe http://dublinopinion.com/2009/03/01/our-shadow-in-the-sunlight-seems-to-us-to-move/#comment-69619 Conor McCabe Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:41:40 +0000 http://dublinopinion.com/2009/03/01/our-shadow-in-the-sunlight-seems-to-us-to-move/#comment-69619 :) Always a pleasure , sonofstan. :) Always a pleasure , sonofstan.

]]> By: sonofstan http://dublinopinion.com/2009/03/01/our-shadow-in-the-sunlight-seems-to-us-to-move/#comment-69618 sonofstan Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:31:57 +0000 http://dublinopinion.com/2009/03/01/our-shadow-in-the-sunlight-seems-to-us-to-move/#comment-69618 Don't mind me. A day of teaching Hegel with a bad cold and pumped full of Nurofen (me not H.) left me with a case of Dialectical Diarrohea Don’t mind me. A day of teaching Hegel with a bad cold and pumped full of Nurofen (me not H.) left me with a case of Dialectical Diarrohea

]]> By: Conor McCabe http://dublinopinion.com/2009/03/01/our-shadow-in-the-sunlight-seems-to-us-to-move/#comment-69617 Conor McCabe Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:56:16 +0000 http://dublinopinion.com/2009/03/01/our-shadow-in-the-sunlight-seems-to-us-to-move/#comment-69617 By the way, I have a weakness, if that's the word, for the metaphysical anyway. By the way, I have a weakness, if that’s the word, for the metaphysical anyway.

]]> By: Conor McCabe http://dublinopinion.com/2009/03/01/our-shadow-in-the-sunlight-seems-to-us-to-move/#comment-69616 Conor McCabe Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:52:51 +0000 http://dublinopinion.com/2009/03/01/our-shadow-in-the-sunlight-seems-to-us-to-move/#comment-69616 The point I was trying to make with the use of "rights" in juxtaposition with "justice" was to try to draw attention to the use of "justice" in Irish intellectual discourse, and its appeal to a greater authority. I see what you're getting at with regard to my use of "rights" and the use of "universals" in the discourse of domination, and it's true as well. Having said that, the hostility to universals as it was used by the left in the 1960s is quite different to the way it's used by the right today. Relativism has been used in the past twenty five years or so as an excuse for the status quo. What matters, I think, is the social relationships that are going on in the way the words are used, and from that we can draw out the use of the language. So in terms of southern Ireland and this jurisdiction what I was trying to draw out was the heavy reliance on the language of Catholic social teaching, and even today Fintan O'Toole is at it again with appeals to fair play and so forth. But, I don't exist outside of that. I'm a product of the Irish education system, and lived the guts of 40 years on the island saturated with this language as well, so yeah, it is hard to rise above it, it's a struggle alright, and I do find myself falling back on my linguistic comfort zones. But even with all of that, we shouldn't lose sight of the recent use of relativism as a lexical cloak to protect the status quo. The point I was trying to make with the use of “rights” in juxtaposition with “justice” was to try to draw attention to the use of “justice” in Irish intellectual discourse, and its appeal to a greater authority. I see what you’re getting at with regard to my use of “rights” and the use of “universals” in the discourse of domination, and it’s true as well. Having said that, the hostility to universals as it was used by the left in the 1960s is quite different to the way it’s used by the right today. Relativism has been used in the past twenty five years or so as an excuse for the status quo.
What matters, I think, is the social relationships that are going on in the way the words are used, and from that we can draw out the use of the language. So in terms of southern Ireland and this jurisdiction what I was trying to draw out was the heavy reliance on the language of Catholic social teaching, and even today Fintan O’Toole is at it again with appeals to fair play and so forth. But, I don’t exist outside of that. I’m a product of the Irish education system, and lived the guts of 40 years on the island saturated with this language as well, so yeah, it is hard to rise above it, it’s a struggle alright, and I do find myself falling back on my linguistic comfort zones. But even with all of that, we shouldn’t lose sight of the recent use of relativism as a lexical cloak to protect the status quo.

]]> By: sonofstan http://dublinopinion.com/2009/03/01/our-shadow-in-the-sunlight-seems-to-us-to-move/#comment-69614 sonofstan Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:49:46 +0000 http://dublinopinion.com/2009/03/01/our-shadow-in-the-sunlight-seems-to-us-to-move/#comment-69614 Bang on about Rerum Novarum and its influence on Irish public life - and the notion that 'fairness' is something doled out from above out of good conscience rather than wrested from below: however in this sentence: <i>Justice is given to us from someone who is usually in a position of power and judgment, whereas rights we have simply because we exist.</i> I think you might be guilty of a little metaphysical smuggling in yourself - the notion of universal inalienable rights always strikes me as a secularisation of the notion of the soul, or of Catholic universalism (if that's not a tautology). Firstly, we don't have rights the way we have hands and feet, they are a social construct, and it seems to me, in the terms which they are usually set out, to unite all that is worst in the two great totalising narratives of western hegemony - Christianity and capitialism. In positing 'rights', 'common humanity' and so on as an ethical imperative it sets out to trump politics in the name of a resolution beyond the political - a resolution that will always serve to vitiate the class struggle. It's a formula that for me always recalls Deleuze's description of Capital's modus operandi - deterritorialisation to reterritorialise. Capital loosens the chains of feudalism, of agrarianism of tribalism in order to create the wage labourer: human rights speak, in positing abstract rights inherent in being human, devalues complex social realities that stand in the way of the universal discourse of aggressive liberal (in both senses) democracy. It also, like capital performs the 'equality in inequality' trick - the old 'equality of opportunity' lie is replayed as equal rights that hide the structural and absolutely necessary inequality of capitalist production. And finally, in affirming identity of rights between the rich westerner and the dollar a day labourer, it - outrageously - suggests that, by virtue of our common humanity, our interests are the same, against those we define as inhuman (Axes of evil and so on) - human rights speak, indeed, seems to find its most forceful expression in allowing the US and its allies to present its wars as humanitarian; certainly it becomes muted when the rights of Gazans are set against the rights of Israelis. 'Universal truths' are very nearly always the truths of domination. Contrary to this, the notion of 'Justice' or judgement can be the instrument by which new reality is created - for while the rule of law may be the mere subsumption of instances under the rules, Judgment/ 'Justice' may involve a decision about the previously unknown, the setting forth of principles previously un-thought, even unthinkable, to govern the radically new. This hostility to universals doesn't BTW, preclude internationalism - internationalism is an internationalism of class, and an internationalism with an enemy, not a universal. Bang on about Rerum Novarum and its influence on Irish public life - and the notion that ‘fairness’ is something doled out from above out of good conscience rather than wrested from below: however in this sentence:
Justice is given to us from someone who is usually in a position of power and judgment, whereas rights we have simply because we exist.
I think you might be guilty of a little metaphysical smuggling in yourself - the notion of universal inalienable rights always strikes me as a secularisation of the notion of the soul, or of Catholic universalism (if that’s not a tautology). Firstly, we don’t have rights the way we have hands and feet, they are a social construct, and it seems to me, in the terms which they are usually set out, to unite all that is worst in the two great totalising narratives of western hegemony - Christianity and capitialism. In positing ‘rights’, ‘common humanity’ and so on as an ethical imperative it sets out to trump politics in the name of a resolution beyond the political - a resolution that will always serve to vitiate the class struggle.

It’s a formula that for me always recalls Deleuze’s description of Capital’s modus operandi - deterritorialisation to reterritorialise. Capital loosens the chains of feudalism, of agrarianism of tribalism in order to create the wage labourer: human rights speak, in positing abstract rights inherent in being human, devalues complex social realities that stand in the way of the universal discourse of aggressive liberal (in both senses) democracy. It also, like capital performs the ‘equality in inequality’ trick - the old ‘equality of opportunity’ lie is replayed as equal rights that hide the structural and absolutely necessary inequality of capitalist production. And finally, in affirming identity of rights between the rich westerner and the dollar a day labourer, it - outrageously - suggests that, by virtue of our common humanity, our interests are the same, against those we define as inhuman (Axes of evil and so on) - human rights speak, indeed, seems to find its most forceful expression in allowing the US and its allies to present its wars as humanitarian; certainly it becomes muted when the rights of Gazans are set against the rights of Israelis.

‘Universal truths’ are very nearly always the truths of domination.

Contrary to this, the notion of ‘Justice’ or judgement can be the instrument by which new reality is created - for while the rule of law may be the mere subsumption of instances under the rules, Judgment/ ‘Justice’ may involve a decision about the previously unknown, the setting forth of principles previously un-thought, even unthinkable, to govern the radically new.

This hostility to universals doesn’t BTW, preclude internationalism - internationalism is an internationalism of class, and an internationalism with an enemy, not a universal.

]]> By: Donagh http://dublinopinion.com/2009/03/01/our-shadow-in-the-sunlight-seems-to-us-to-move/#comment-69612 Donagh Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:08:15 +0000 http://dublinopinion.com/2009/03/01/our-shadow-in-the-sunlight-seems-to-us-to-move/#comment-69612 Yep, the Catholic Church, thoroughly unlikable. Meanwhile, that high priest of the moralising Irish left is on about <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0303/1224242144730.html" rel="nofollow">fairness again</a>. Although he does make a good point about AVC and the fact that tax relief on private pensions means that they are just as subsidised as a public sector pensions. Yep, the Catholic Church, thoroughly unlikable. Meanwhile, that high priest of the moralising Irish left is on about fairness again. Although he does make a good point about AVC and the fact that tax relief on private pensions means that they are just as subsidised as a public sector pensions.

]]> By: Hugh Green http://dublinopinion.com/2009/03/01/our-shadow-in-the-sunlight-seems-to-us-to-move/#comment-69611 Hugh Green Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:36:49 +0000 http://dublinopinion.com/2009/03/01/our-shadow-in-the-sunlight-seems-to-us-to-move/#comment-69611 The Catholic Church. A child-abusing imperial patriarchy that never came across a bourgeoisie it didn't want to fellate. What's not to like? The Catholic Church. A child-abusing imperial patriarchy that never came across a bourgeoisie it didn’t want to fellate. What’s not to like?

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