Political Philosophy

This is a segment of a longer article I wrote for Harbinger: Journal of Social Ecology that was published in October 2019. It’s entitled “Jordan Peterson, Carl Jung, and the Challenge for Social Ecology.” The first part of the article is a critique of the limitations of Peterson’s political stands, which will take about 10 minutes to read, but much of the article explores a comparison of the ideas of Social Ecology founder Murray Bookchin and psychologist Carl Jung. This segment is on Jung’s political ideas with a little help from some of Charles Taylor’s concepts. Reflecting on Peterson’s take on politics, we find that Carl Jung’s ideas on what causes ideological extremism is quite a bit more penetrating as he goes back to the Enlightenment and trends like industrialization and urbanization as the underlying causes of dangerous ideological movements, dehumanizing economics and overbearing governments. Here’s the link to the article. https://harbinger-journal.com/issue-1/jordan-peterson-carl-jung-and-the-challenge-for-social-ecology/ I’ve written a book on Carl Jung’s political thought: Ideological Possession and the Rise of the New Right, published by Routledge this year. Here’s a link to the book: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ideological-possession-and-the-rise-of-the-new-right-laurie-johnson/1130304013;jsessionid=304D1663654FB1CC42CB9D69B17719D8.prodny_store02-atgap10

In this conclusion to the series on Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue I think about the significance of MacIntyr’e’s views on modern liberalism/capitalism (neoliberalism) and his ideas for the elements of stronger community. MacIntyre argues that we have entered a new Dark Ages without recognizing it, and that we need new, and probably very different, St. Benedicts to create ways of life to rebuild and preserve community in difficult times. The new Dark Age, as MacIntyre sees it, is a product of the amoral hyper-bureaucratization, technical rationality and fragmented responsibility characteristic of our times. After Virtue does not have all the answers about how to get past these problems, but his views on the elements involved in stronger community are definitely a start. I am Professor of Political Science/Political Philosophy at Kansas State University, and the author of seven books, including the latest, Ideological Possession and the Rise of the New Right: The Political Thought of Carl Jung (2019). Much of my work has revolved around a critique of neoliberalism as corrosive to community, honor and moral obligation, humane economics and environmental health. The task, as I see it, is to re-invent community in the modern context to withstand the challenges we are facing now and in the future. Books: http://www.lauriemjohnson.com Blog: http://www.politicalphilosophy.video.blog

I’m setting aside After Virtue for this week to deal with the problem of “fake news.” It appears to be a real threat to democracy. Is fake news the threat we should focus on, or is fake news the result of a larger problem–our excessive gullibility. And, what causes the excessive gullibility of ideological ciphers, fan-boys, shills, tools and zealots? Books: http://www.lauriemjohnson.com Blog: http://www.politicalphilosophy.video.blog

In chapters 13-15 of Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue, we get to contemplate the idea that we are much more affected by our personal story and and our history than we want to admit. Are we capable of making ourselves into just anything we want to be, regardless of the cards we were dealt? Are we free of responsibility for what we’ve done in our personal past or what our ancestors have done? MacIntyre’s answer is that the existential self, capable of being radically chosen at any given point, is a fantasy which, rather than freeing us, can leave us aimless and depressed. What, then, is the benefit of seeing ourselves as MacIntyre wants us to–benefited but also burdened by the context into which we are born? And how do the virtues fit into all of this? Books: http://www.lauriemjohnson.com Blog: http://www.politicalphilosophy.video.blog

This video covers ideas in chapters 10-12 in Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue. In pursuit of an alternative to value neutrality and the fragmented responsibility characterized by modern bureaucracy, Alasdair MacIntyre attempts to reconstruct a history of Western moral development. His aim is to help society re-learn Aristotelian teleology and virtue ethics. But to locate what he’s advocating he goes back to the Homeric Greek heroic ideal, then traces the emergence of a new kind of self (one that is self-conscious and aware of the distinction between self and society) in democratic Athens. Out of this society emerged Aristotle, whose thought came closer to what seems to be MacIntyre’s ideal–one that consciously deals with ethics both at the level of the particular society and at the level of universal claims. MacIntyre distances himself from Aristotle’s “metaphysical biology” and therefore from Aristotle’s claims that there are biologically determined natural roles and different virtues for different people, claiming that Aristotle mistook his society’s particular cultural norms for eternal truths. But can MacIntyre have Aristotle’s teleology and virtue ethics without his biological determinism? That is yet to be seen.

In Chapters 8 and 9 of After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre argues that social science cannot approximate the physical sciences in predictability and that the bureaucratic manager, king of “customer service” technique is therefore full of, well, something other than expertise. It turns out that freedom entails a lack of predictability, that Machiavellian “Fortuna” is better than being oppressively managed and that complete efficiency produces the breakdown of efficiency in employee/constituent revolt. In Chapter 9, MacIntyre begins the journey away from Nietzsche, whom he considers at least an honest nihilist, and towards Aristotle.

MacIntyre’s argument in chapters 6 and 7 of After Virtue moves further into the problems caused by the fact/value distinction, the development of social science, and the managerial/bureaucratic approach to dealing with people. The threat to democracy posed by the social engineering mode of thinking begins to take center stage. Along the way, unicorns and witches are unmasked so that we can see that, in MacIntyre’s view, without adequate grounding for moral reasoning, there is no justification for rule other than the will to power.

In Chapters 4 and 5 MacIntyre begins his critique of modern political thought, going backwards from existentialism to the early modern period, tracing the steps that led to the disconnect with the older Aristotelian/Christian tradition. After finding that no modern political thought has been able to adequately ground its preferences for certain moral principles in anything solid, he argues that most of these philosophers operated with unacknowledged preferences for traditional values but had no good argument for them. He then begins the process of arguing for a teleological perspective–the idea that we can judge things (and people?) good or bad based on whether or not they fulfill their natural function. This is, of course, the most controversial element in MacIntyre’s argument so far, because it may be construed as threatening the freedom of the individual to invent himself.

In Chapters 2 and 3 of MacIntyre’s After Virtue, we learn what “emotivism” is and why MacIntyre dislikes it. In particular, he identifies emotivism as the primary way people now think about moral arguments, and he blames emotivism for our inability to reach any moral agreement. Even more interestingly, he sees in the modern bureacratic/managerial organization an expression of emotivism that leads to a lack of agency and responsibility. This is because the emotivist “self” is basically empty–moving from feeling to feeling but with no real grounding–and this emptiness is then filled by stronger forces in society–political and commercial. MacIntyre argues that in a traditional society the self is filled by pre-ordained social roles–but is this any better? The latter is a question we’ll ask as we move on into MacIntyre’s defense of Aristotelian virtue ethics.

Alasdair MacIntyre developed a method that promised a third way, avoiding the problems of both moral absolutism and moral relativism. He makes clear in his Prologue to the third edition of After Virtue that he borrows from counter-Enlightenment philosopher Giambattista Vico in developing his methodology of empathetic imagination with the aim of creating a way to gain an understanding of the flaws in the liberal system and the possible cures for those flaws in an older Aristotelian framework.