That is a of a question, IMO. Trying to lead the way for a new form of international morality through international organizations ignores that all countries are out to protect their vital interests and ignoring that and using a different approach is not going to make them follow but simply allow ones own interests to be overridden.
Which does what? Might as well point out that there is no "up" without "down", no "in" without "out".
Which begs the question of how one is to "move beyond" these ins utions. Your earlier Derrida post underlied that exclusivity is natural and world-wide. How does one get past "community"?
If said systems of oppression and violence bear the kernel of their own undoing, why does it require an outside influence to realize the undoing?
Fair enough then - I inferred it.
Not as farcical as the appearance of a doctrinaire Derridean in this forum.
(Guffaw!)
Also, some more quackery from Derrida:
Is he pulling this out of his arse? Why not use percentages instead of raw numbers? Even when using raw numbers, I would think that times of the black plague and others may rival it.no degree of progress allows one to ignore that never before, in absolute figures, never have so many men, women, and children been subjugated, starved, or exterminated on the earth. .
Additionally, what about the degree of suffering? Hardship? Toil? Is Derrida arguing that all of these are greater than in the past?
Fair enough. You're gonna have to get in line with all the other haters.
Gift of Death is one of my favorite pieces of philosophy.
That being said, I'm not a fan of your take on his reading of the Abraham story. He reads Abraham as being moral (i.e. obeying God) by being immoral (killing his son Isaac). The point here is that one's responsibility to one moral order engenders irresponsibility to another; by obeying one moral command to do God's bidding, Abraham disobeys another moral command to not kill. Derrida uses this to show how responsibility "deconstructs" (I hate using that word) itself. For example, by intervening in Libya, we spend time, resources, manpower, etc... that could be used elsewhere. Selective intervention is our reality - and simultaneously - places a greater responsibility on us (the West, the US, international organizations, what have you) to do something about those others who we foresaked.
Truthfully, I don't know how I feel about the NGOs, simply because they're not constrained by the charters, proclamations, and other legal do ents of the international organizations I listed. I'm not so sure you can simply roll those in with the list I gave.
The reason why international ins utions are preferable is because they have the potential to move us beyond the political unit "nation-state" into something that is more inclusive. For Derrida, these ins utions problematize the notion of state sovereignty by asking us to think of political organizations that do not revolve around the nation-state. As a starting point for a politics of an increasingly globalized 21st century, I'd say that begins to explain why it's preferable.
Keep in mind this is being translated from French, so that may not necessarily be what he means. But I dunno the original French, so I'm guessing here.
I'm pretty ashamed tbh
I would argue moving past the nation state is far far less inclusive.
What that means is that every political organization is founded on a violent act of exclusion - knowing what cons utes the "we" necessarily entails knowing what isn't a part of that "we." America's founding and the resultant extermination of the native population is an example.
I know that the rhetorical flourish can be annoying to some.
Two things: 1) he concedes the impossibility of getting past conceptions like "community" and notes that exclusion is inevitable; 2) he posits that our ethical obligation is to work through said ins utions despite such inevitability.
There is no outside influence. That's his point.
He definately would think his philosophy attacks the notion that dichotomies are stable, matter of fact propositions. In fact, the quote you highlighted is meant to show that, by being responsible, we are at the same time irresponsible. In other words, embedded within "responsible action" is irresponsibility. He'd extrapolate that to show that there is no responsible-irresponsible dichotomy because irresponsibility is embedded within responsibility.
Inclusion is an unqualified good?
It does nothing of the sort. You can barely explain it yourself, except in sop ric bromides: inclusion, globalization, perfectibility of international ins utions.
I don't know the answer to that.
I haven't read any of this for years, so cut me some slack. What haven't I been clear about? Keep in mind some of the vagueness is intentionally placed on his part ... but I have a feeling you're going to take an issue with that too.
You just described old-timey social democracy. Modernismo, bro.
Which is my whole point. He implicitly states that obeying God is moral, ipso facto, prima facie, insert other Latin terms here.
Does he justify this point? If I don't already believe his premise, it renders the whole argument moot.
Of course, it's easy to deconstruct when you create a strawman.
But that says nothing to the moral/immoral dichotomy in the first place, which I reject as false. You can't judge morality based off some fantastical premise.
It's much the same with the whole "Would you push someone into a bus to save 3 children?" morality question. In some frameworks, it's valid. For me, it holds no purpose, for either choice can be viewed as morally correct.
Using your argument, the most fair choice would be strict non-intervention: by not intervening anywhere that does not directly serve our interests, we do not burden ourselves with responsibility to others. Of course, some people would say that would be morally reprehensible, as we aren't using our greater resource to help.
The only sane AND moral answer therefore (in my eyes), is a rational policy that intervenes only when necessary, with the realistic expectation that some countries might be left out.
America does not have enough gum for every country in the world.
Can't back up your own bs? Too bad.
il n'y a pas de hors-texte, bro.
Under the cir stances, I think I've done a fairly good job. Sorry if you disagree.
Again, by claiming that an act of exclusion is "violent" is begging the question. Humanity without exclusion is no longer humanity; it's part of what makes us what we are. Might as well argue that humanity has violently excluded itself from the act of growing wings, or violently excluded itself from growing another head, etc etc.
Extermination of native peoples is a completely different factor than the act of exclusion itself.
And yet, you still follow him, while noting that he acknowledges something as an impossibility, but advises doing so anyways?
1) Growing another head using thought alone is an impossibility
2) That said, our ethical obligation is to work our hardest at achieving 1)
Makes about as much sense. His faulty premises lies in his faulty assumption that concepts like "community" are inherently immoral.
Yay! I can deconstruct Derrida! :p
Go tell it to the Libyans.
He's looking at a particular moral order. Under that moral order - Christianity - I think that obeying God would be considered "moral, ipso facto, prima facie." But then again, I'm no Christian.
I don't think that's not right - by not intervening, we condemn people to death by not helping out. I think his philosophy is centered around an argument for intervention - with the recognition that said intervention also engenders violence, death, etc... because, as you say, America does not have enough gum for everyone in the world.
He'd extrapolate that because he is a quack.
Derrida did a good job of showing certain biases in the system, as well as some dichotomies that we do have in society. But as I said upthread, he then tried to break everything down into some "x has y and y has x and they are at conflict" scheme, which doesn't always work.
Said "responsible" action is only "irresponsible" if one has infinite resources and time. Otherwise, it's called "reality". In Derrida's world, there is NO way to be moral. Either you do nothing (which is immoral) or you do something (which is immoral, because you did X instead of Y). The only MORAL answer (doing everything) is obviously impossible. Which is why it's stupid.
Yep.
"Transcendent" international authority will be experienced as exclusion by the political community(s) it transcends. Hard to see how that's avoidable.
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