FALSE DEMOCRATIC CONSCIOUSNESS: Real and Artificial Antagonisms in America

I suppose I shouldn’t be trying to make any critical or historical points regarding politics or government on a local call-in talk show. Scott Leffler continues to remind me of that at least every third time I call his show on WLVL radio in Lockport, N.Y. Last Friday he told me I used three too many “…izations” during my comment. I can accept that. I do consider it an inadvertent form of censorhip but I understand Leffler’s problem as a talk-show host. He runs a good, necessary and fun show. After all, there are appropriate languages for different domains of discourse. Talk radio is not one I’ve mastered by a long shot.

The question nevertheless might be asked whether such “appropriateness” is not either another form of political correctness or another form of unintentional censorship. Those, of course, may be two sides of the same coin. Just because a certain way of speaking is “appropriate” doesn’t mean it’s adequate to the situation or the issue. I am in no way objecting to Scott for his quip regarding my 10 syllable words ending in “ization” no matter what his conscious intent. I’ll take full responsibility for not being able to my own satisfaction express my thought and convince my audience. Pretending my audience can or should change to my vocabulary or style first in order to “get” what I’m saying is both naïve and idealistic if not arrogant.

But the problem here is not really about speaking “correctly” or “appropriately.” It’s not about fitting in linguistically. In fact what the censorship of language and the demand to conform to “ordinary everyday language” is all about is politics. When language, speakers or venues of discourse are censored, suppressed or even ridiculed what is operating behind the scenes are political if not ideological assumptions. Leffler’s assumption arose when our discussion turned toward the political status of our country. He insisted we are a “republic” and I said, “no, a democracy.” As luck would have it the show was ending and this very difficult but essential issue couldn’t be pursued. Not that he would have let me pursue it. He probably wouldn’t for probably legitimate reasons. Nevertheless, after my call was disconnected Leffler quipped that he really hates when has to re-teach his kids when they come home from school. Leffler’s sarcastic point was that I at least was teaching my students at NCCC all wrong, misinforming them that we live in a democracy as opposed to a Republic as clearly stated in the Constitution. At worst he implied that I didn’t know what I was talking about. Well, I invite Scott to my venue any day to find out if that’s true. What we should have talked about, however, was the false opposition between “democracy” which he defined as having to be necessarily pure democracy and a “republic” which he seems to define as at least excluding democracy, apparently constituted by professional, “effectively” functioning servants, I guess. Thus, we were beginning to be engaged in a typical kind of debate that falsely divides people, abstract and artificial conflicts and oppositions which function essentially to separate people who belong together as a class, a political force and a new vision for America, local and national.

However my point is that his Libertarianism is showing through. I’ve written a little about Libertarianism below in this blog. I won’t go into this more deeply here but one point needs to be made. The “effective” government that he and the Libertarians yearn for will never exhibit such “effectivity of government,” whatever that is, until an educated and socially self-conscious populace that understands and values its own interests can confront government and provide the necessary opposition and feedback. In philosophy such power of confrontation is called “negativity,” meaning the subjective force of a self-determining social body that stands for and politically fights for its real interests. Such “negativity” is in reality positive because it posits its own material existence as the really existing antagonism which the co-opting force of government pretends doesn’t exist. It pretends that it represents this negating force when in fact it does not. The social body that discovers its 'negating' force can represent itself in the face of its erasure by government ideologues. Effective government can be defined only if we can determine who it is effective for and who it is not for. We ought to be asking what interests, values, purposes and ways of life it is trying to “effect” and for whom?

As in Leffler’s own town of Lockport a recent issue discussed on his show illustrates the problem of government being out of control because the democratic corrective of an ‘effective’ populace is lacking. The Lockport Council is requiring businesses to conform to standards of historical heritage correctness. The town is trying to showcase and sell the community in light of its apparent historical heritage and thus is trying to preserve or reconstruct simulated historical sites. Or something like that. As Leffler points out, it seems the Council may be making it more difficult for businesses to succeed. For example, Leffler asks whether the local laundromat should conform. But, conform to what? How? And there are other examples as to how other more contemporary businesses with a modern theme should be made to conform. It’s a considerable problem for Lockport. In response Leffler calls for, yearns for, “effective government.” So far so good. But again why isn’t the government more “effective,” or, let’s say more considerate of the tough business climate.

My answer to the question is that the inadequate level of participation, concern, input, feedback and critical questioning by the people beforehand, before laws are passed and action is taken, is why government is inadequate,“ineffective” and out of control. There are systematically too many "done deals" as may well have also been the case in North Tonawanda with the Wal-Mart albatross that may soon be coming to town. The “done deals” syndrome is itself the function of a virtual social class of people who find it well in their interest to stick together, work together and get what they want. Locally the usual suspects of incumbent politicians, lawyers and business men form a virtual social class who preponderate toward actions and interests that do not benefit the majority of the community. Their insular actions certainly do not benefit the democratic process that is constitutive of the ideals of the American political culture that we have soldiers dying for in the Middle East.

So, to conclude, radio talk shows, blogs, sound bite TV, superficial press coverage, etc. is all well and good. And if it’s not at least it’s here to stay. But this is not to say that we shouldn’t keep abreast of the assumptions, ideological beliefs, attitudes, and willingness that colludes unknowingly with predominant power and ideology preventing us from seeking out the forest which often gets lost amongst the many trees that get in the way. Much contemporary local political discourse is myopic, lacking sufficiently large and refined contexts that would enable discussion to not only deal with substantive issues and problems but also reflect upon the process by which these issues are dealt with. But to deal with this process, a democratic process of self-determination, the myth that we are a mass society of individuals first and foremost and that government, whether local or national, will take care of us must be debunked. National government is already “effective,” as we speak, for those whom they wish to be effective. The New International Political Class (the New Class for short), as John McCain points out, is doing “the economy” quite proud. The Iraq war is enormously profitable for this New Class, this social class of empire and war. Halliburton would love McCain’s suggestion that we could be in Iraq for another 100 years.

But the “forgotten man,” so to speak, has been left out of the equation. Without reconstituting a substantive, participatory, self-determining democracy, grounded in the forgotten class of disenfranchised and exploited, call it the Client Class, our "participation," in reality pseudo-participation, in determining the outcome of decisions at the National level especially, but also at the local level, is simply as spectators who might even get to “call in” and “participate interactively” but will never play a materially determining part in the decisions before the decisions. The real decisions are made by this power elite of New Class empire builders, warmongers and globalists who then in ritual elections engineer supportive votes for their tyranny in order to continue to appear as if their exploitation and manipulation of the masses is legitimate and democratic. It is not. Nor is such political manipulation legitimate at the state and local levels where the New Class “wannabees” imitate and support the bureaucratic centralist ideology of the power elite at the State and Federal level. The local and state epigones and sycophants of “government” march lockstep to ideas and models that progressively disenfranchise the marginalized, the ‘forgotten man,’ the dwindling middle class, in short the disempowered of America.

To pretend that we can be a republic that works effectively for the people without a radical restoration of democracy, a democracy that even such as James Madison in the Federalist Papers saw as the ground and heart of a republic, is to build our political foundation on mud. In dry weather all looks well and good. But when the storms hit the very structure does not likely hold. To pretend that democracy can be merely procedural and formally legitimating and still be democracy is delusional and politically self-defeating for the mass majority of Americans. To pretend today that America is democratic at any level of politics or government may be comforting or heartwarming but substantively false and materially subversive of the very republic originally foreseen as possible and desirable but unrealized by the founding fathers.