tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post3646145727375129108..comments2024-03-23T00:59:24.057-04:00Comments on Sapping Attention: Cronon's politicsBenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04856020368342677253noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-50550016699375608572011-03-31T10:09:29.718-04:002011-03-31T10:09:29.718-04:00Hi Ben! I hope that your (1) is right. It would be...Hi Ben! I hope that your (1) is right. It would be nice to think that political theory sometimes made a difference to what people actually do. I see Gutmann and Thompson as basically orthodox Rawlsians. In their opening chapter, they suggest that even a complete endorsement of the Rawlsian view does not yield determinate answers to all relevant political questions, so there still needs to be a way of addressing what remains. Enter deliberative democracy.<br /><br />Several communitarians presented their views directly as objections to Rawls. Starting with Sandel, there was a lot of debate about whether persons could voluntarily choose features of their 'identities'. I know you don't like that term, and this debate may be a case in point for you. I think most people in the field today feel it was not a productive detour. For my part, I think liberals won. <br /><br />Gutmann herself has an early review of the communitarian literature, in which she argued that Rawls does not need the metaphysical commitments communitarians had attributed to him. Instead she interprets the Rawlsian view as supported by the overlapping consensus of a pluralistic society, rather than by any comprehensive moral doctrine. That is too concessive for my taste, but it did presage Rawls's own thinking on the issues.<br /><br />Anne--Hi! I miss those times in our tile-floored Lawrence apartment! (I'm not worried about my anonymity, although it does make me feel vaguely more important to entertain the thought that someone might try to figure it out.) Hope you are well!Ryan Davishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11723703648836738542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-8130043609298455222011-03-31T01:33:42.363-04:002011-03-31T01:33:42.363-04:00Ryan! I was just about to email you to goad you in...Ryan! I was just about to email you to goad you into posting! This is fun! I feel like I'm back in our tile-floored Lawrence. Ooops now I've given another piece away. Ryan the Rawlsian once lived in Lawrence. Now I'll read your post.Annenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-27101093495798350762011-03-30T12:07:52.790-04:002011-03-30T12:07:52.790-04:00@Anon,
Fair enough--maybe I am putting too much e...@Anon,<br /><br />Fair enough--maybe I am putting too much emphasis on proceduralism and less on communicative rationality. I agree that communicative rationality and rootedness are probably just as important for Cronon as consensus-building. For myself, I've always thought of all those thing--Habermas's communicative rationality, Gutmann's canonical DD, even communitarianism (which would be my spin on 'rootedness')--as hanging together in a kind of sphere of post-Rawls, 90s academic Liberalism (big-L). That might just be because I haven't read much of the stuff seriously since college--shoving communitarianism in may be particularly egregious.<br /><br />Relatedly, though, let me try to pull on Ryan's point that DD was an attempt to theorize a set of implicit idealized practices. I still think at least one of the strands, and an important one, in Cronon's actions is that he's appealing to those ideals perhaps a bit more strongly than other ones. That idealization of practice sketched out in the 90s academy is a useful way of justifying his actions. Of course, all that stuff tries very hard to read like common sense anyway, when colloquialized, so it's hard to prove. <br /><br />I'm waffling between three arguments here, and I don't know which one I like best:<br />1) he actually is consciously drawing on these arguments but not making them explicit; <br />2) he's hung around universities enough that he's interiorized these methods of argument as self-evident. Maybe, even, he assumed that they'd actually give more cover than they seem to for intervening in political debates.<br />3) He's never heard of Amy Gutmann, and this just happens to be a case where DD's might find a chance to see their efforts at stake. (Although it might 'just happen' so because Cronon's drawing on good means of Academic debate--back to Hank's notion of the scholar-citizen--and so were the deliberative democrats)<br /><br />Ryan- Hi! Anne was worried you wouldn't respond because "Ryan the Rawlsian" might compromise your anonymity too much. One question: how strong is the tie between <i>Political Liberalism</i> Rawls and Gutmann & co.? And thence to communitarianism?Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04856020368342677253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-83559513386827272542011-03-29T20:10:24.270-04:002011-03-29T20:10:24.270-04:00This is my second attempt at a comment. My first o...This is my second attempt at a comment. My first one disappeared after I worked hard on editing it!<br /><br />I do think this is an interesting case for deliberative democrats. As I understand your post, there are at least two reasons for thinking that deliberative democracy can help to explain Cronon's mix of positions: his prioritization of a certain procedural ideal over any particular set of political outcomes, and his emphasis on changing language. These have been the important causes of deliberative democrats at least since the the Gutamann/Thompson book that you link to.<br /><br />Why think the values implicated by procedure and language are sometimes more important than substantive political outcomes? As you note, Rawls figures into both sides of the issue here. The early Rawls (circa 1971) believed that justice required extensive changes to the basic structure--redistribution of wealth, equality of opportunity, etc. (However he didn't talk much about political conditions in the actual United States at the time.) The later Rawls retained those views, but started to think more about procedures. He argued that we ought to treat other citizens as "self-authenticating sources of valid claims." To do that, we ought to think of them as our fellow co-authors of the law. We should regard our relationship with them as a basically cooperative, even when we disagree in significant ways. The hope is that procedure and language can help secure that relationship against unraveling in the face of political difference.<br /><br />Regarding the exchange in the comments, it's worth pointing out that deliberative democrats seldom expect citizens to articulate these values explicitly. But they hope that even if participants don't identify as deliberative democrats, the theory can still help explain what they are doing. The theory aspires to be something like an idealization of current practice.<br /><br />You note that most people often don't act this way because other goals seem more important. That seems true to me. Something can be said for the theory, though. Political scientists seem to believe there are better and worse ways of facilitating toleration for opposing views. So relationships with other citizens might be at least one thing that people care about.<br /><br />Anyway, after reading your links I feel sympathetic to Cronon's project. But I do wish other parts of life were more like the academy, so I could be biased.Ryan Davishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11723703648836738542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-19358763531037437982011-03-29T19:45:08.126-04:002011-03-29T19:45:08.126-04:00I don't think that his claim to the center is ...I don't think that his claim to the center is disingenuous at all. I think it exemplifies what he takes to be his commitment to seeing and hearing all sides of an issue, i.e. the importance he gives to debate and discussion, the belief that we learn from the other side -- -- let's call it communicative rationality -- and even a desire to hold himself aloof as a free thinker from the failures and fallacies of parties (which in a way is how he made his name in environmental circles -- by holding aloof from them in order to critique their beliefs about wilderness, etc). That seems related to DD as you've described it, but also stopping short in a key respect, the emphasis on politics as about consensus forming and townhall meetings. I don't read him putting emphasis so much on consensus, as you do, as on certain ethical standards (the importance of defending freedom of thought vs intimidation, the importance of deliberation and debate vs the Republicans rushing something through that the electorate didn't even know they were voting on, etc) that would constrain political discourse. An emphasis on openness, transparency, and discussion, that is, doesn't entail seem to entail DD.<br /><br />Hesitation about ALEC's self-obfuscation seems fully in line with such a belief in the importance of communicative rationality for politics, as does the point (really not a Burkean position in any strict sense, though one that I think borrows something from Burke's emphasis on the importance of the what the past has given us) that one should deliberate and debate before changing a major and long lasting institution. This is someone, after all, who despite having tenure at Yale decided to return to Wisconsin because of the fact that he wanted to be there. Rootedness is clearly important to him in a way that, I think, resonates with the importance of a certain notion of conserving, or at least respecting what the past has bequeathed to the present.<br /><br />(I don't have much at stake in this either besides curiosity. And you may be right that to think of him as a DD is more productive when thinking about the role of academics... I should also clarify that I wasn't claiming strong first-hand knowledge of his political beliefs, I was saying how I imagine him based on my contact with him. I could be totally wrong.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-79949106889803790642011-03-29T16:15:57.857-04:002011-03-29T16:15:57.857-04:00@Hank,
"disaggregation?" Are you subtly...@Hank,<br /><br />"disaggregation?" Are you subtly accusing me of being a poor <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Age-Fracture-Daniel-T-Rodgers/dp/0674057449" rel="nofollow">Rodgersian</a>? Let me try to slip the knot by disagreeing with your own fracture of the blogs from political discourse. I want to elide the difference between the blogosphere and the public sphere, because I don't really see much unique about blogs for historians intervening in debates. This is just a different place they can intervene, and so we don't need to worry so much about blogs, per se; nor do historians who don't blog about contemporary politics need to take much fear from this. (I may yet come to regret that sideswipe at David Cameron in my last comment, though).<br /><br />@Anon,<br />I certainly can't argue with firsthand knowledge, but I've tried to be clear I'm not saying he <i>is</i> a DD, but that I find that understanding makes more sense of and better justifies his actions than anything else for me right now. Particularly on the blog, though in the NYtimes as well. Even if he's not one, I think it's a productive way for academics to think about what his intervention might mean and what academics can contribute to the public sphere: I think it also inculcates him somewhat against charges of political partisanship.<br /><br />I suspect you're right that at heart, Cronon is something of a maverick with various strongly held beliefs about lots of things. But you seem to think "just positioning himself in the center" is somehow disingenuous, rather than an important stance on its own. I think that if he actually all over the map in his substantive positions, he's done quite well for himself by adopting language of democracy as consensus.<br /><br />You're right that I can only point to a lucky coincidence of factors. I would emphasize above it, though, that some commitment to deliberation explains the laser-focus in his first post on ALEC better than Burkeanism. <br />Why did he think that was a better position policy to begin with--if he was actually against striking it down, he might have expressed a stronger blanket condemnation of the bill than he does. The Times editorial, two, refers to the procedural and communitarian reasons as "deeper" than historical ones and emphasizes "openness and transparency" quite a bit more than simple Burkeanism would suggest. Whether we choose to take that as strategic, rather than heartfelt, is of course open for debate. Usually I take such claims cynically (although I almost take Burkean claims cynically too). From Cronon, though, I simply find that I don't--I think he actually believes the stuff. So I'm saying that if we put that at the center of his claims, it casts his actions in a different light, one that distinguishes him from the Left, as you want, without making him look bad at all. Anyway, I don't have much at stake here, but I just wanted to throw it out.Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04856020368342677253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-65630309194602593182011-03-29T12:34:25.494-04:002011-03-29T12:34:25.494-04:00It isn't clear to me why you think that Cronon...It isn't clear to me why you think that Cronon is a DD. These are what I take to be your major evidence:<br /><br />1) "From the start, he has argued for a particular type of public discourse, and he has stayed basically within its bounds at all times."<br /><br />2) "A lot of readers, Republican and Democrat, I think, have either been put off by the points he keeps making about the tradition of Wisconsin Republicanism, or ignored them as boilerplate"<br /><br />3) "He's trying to set the terms of debate around political discourse, rather than legalism."<br /><br />None of these points strike me as necessarily or even probably evidence that he is a DD in the way you've defined it here. I gather you are saying it is not these points in isolation that mark him as DD, but their overall preponderance. But I think there are a number of other possible explanations.<br /><br />From what I know of Bill personally, I'd resolve these a different way. He is someone who has a firm commitment to hearing out the other side. He is also someone whose firmly held positions do not always match those of the left-liberals. He is being serious when he touts not the virtues of conservatism, not just positioning himself in the center because "that's the only position appropriate for political debate." <br /><br />I think his main arguments about unions are 2: 1) the Burkean point that public unions have long been a fabric of WI, and to do away with them with the speed and manner that WI has is unwise and foolish, 2) the appeal to Republicans that theirs has not always been a party so given to the crass politics of today. (2) of course is right of the basic historian's playbook.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-73213249071600958762011-03-29T12:13:56.420-04:002011-03-29T12:13:56.420-04:00Hi Ben: You've done well to draw out what'...Hi Ben: You've done well to draw out what's behind Cronon's original (and subsequent) thoughts - and I think you're right to point out (as you did <a href="http://americanscience.blogspot.com/2011/03/on-cronon-history-law-and-public-2-of-2.html?showComment=1301414110656#c7587198764435972916" rel="nofollow">here</a>) that he's out in his own limb in certain ways.<br /><br />That said, I don't want to let that disaggregation get in the way of the more general thinking this should spur about the boundary between politics (personal or otherwise) and scholarship, on the one hand, and the relationship of all of this to the blogosphere on the other. <br /><br />All this to say: your <a href="http://americanscience.blogspot.com/2011/03/on-cronon-history-law-and-public-2-of-2.html?showComment=1301414110656#c7587198764435972916" rel="nofollow">point</a> about academics' way of thinking being well-suited to online commentary and elaboration is well-taken, and I hope we can use this episode to do more thinking along these lines in the weeks to come.Hankhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02841787256060612291noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-62945917684611712942011-03-29T10:02:48.715-04:002011-03-29T10:02:48.715-04:00Jamie,
Yeah, I had a paragraph about what this me...Jamie,<br /><br />Yeah, I had a paragraph about what this means for public universities but cut it since it's too depressing. Thinking about public university faculties as government officials is bad for them; if we're encouraging faculty who, like Cronon, can pick their university, the slow motion collapse of the great public institutions will continue. (Which is better than what we're seeing in Britain right now, where <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/mar/27/academic-study-big-society" rel="nofollow">the universities are told to concentrate their research on a campaign slogan</a>.)Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04856020368342677253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-82160659652249820152011-03-29T02:33:06.536-04:002011-03-29T02:33:06.536-04:00To draw out a point we discussed at lunch yesterda...To draw out a point we discussed at lunch yesterday, too: another reason we are *not* "all Bill Cronon" is that only faculty at public universities have to worry about being subject to this kind of overreactive scrutiny. Paul Krugman joked in his Tuesday column about how he has occasionally used his .edu address for personal business, but he will never actually have to deal with the kind of exposure that Cronon's being threatened with, nor with the other forms of accounting that come with being an employee of the state.<br /><br />Of course there's a real benefit to seeing Cronon's dilemma as our shared responsibility to have the kinds of conversations that the AmericanScience guys are talking about. It could at least underscore what is a significant gap between the public and private academies.Jamie https://www.blogger.com/profile/13542022273476075921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-82253798213957686452011-03-28T23:03:26.025-04:002011-03-28T23:03:26.025-04:00Thoughts: https://goosecommerce.wordpress.com/2011...Thoughts: https://goosecommerce.wordpress.com/2011/03/28/triumphant-return-et-laffaire-cronon/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com