Cohen on Justice and Equality Non-Reading Group
Blahdy blahdy twenty nine quid book. This thread is exclusively for the use of people who haven't read the text, but who nonetheless wish to comment on it. Personally I think the souffle recipe is finicky.
Update: Also don't forget the "Monday Swearing Board
You can't afford a 29 quid book? Are bonuses this year really that bad?
ReplyDeleteI probably could afford it, but in the new credit crunch environment I think it would be sending out profoundly the wrong signal to the country at large. Although my employer hasn't actually received any bailout money, the average taxpayer doesn't want to see a load of City boys walking around with their flashy new political philosophy books.
ReplyDelete(The expense would be even more unjustifiable given that there is no way on earth I'd be able to spare the time or concentration to actually read it, so what we're talking about here is a twenty nine quid doorstop and paperweight)
I'd wager the "average" taxpayer doesn't want to see City boys full stop, in the current climate.
ReplyDeleteWell, the "average" taxpayer is hanging round the wrong fucking blog then, isn't he?
ReplyDeleteThirty quid for an academic hard back is pretty cheap though. I wrote a book that was published 8 years ago at about 55 bloody quid. Even I've never bought a copy.
ReplyDeleteI clicked on your (Updated!) link for the foul language enthusiasts, and was briefly confused by the absence of anything resembling a comments-posting interface, or any link to similar, but then I realized I could just have a go at yelling all my pent-up invective directly at the screen, and I must say, I feel much better now.
ReplyDeleteAh, wrong Cohen. For a second I though this was a pointed Decentist joke rather than a weak one; apols.
ReplyDeleteMarc - yes, it is really I suppose, and I've actually bought quite a few of those books at even more scandalous prices. But that was in a different economic climate. What's the resale value like?
ReplyDeleteIs this one of those things with the word 'Rawlsian' in every paragraph? I hate those.
ReplyDeleteI see from Amazon that you can buy my old book for a sweet 85 quid. It's an investment! I also notice that, at some point, Palgrave seems to have re-printed in a different binding (or, now I think about it, it must be that re-print on order thing they do). I never knew!
ReplyDeleteI only ever look it up on Questia, the cheapskate's friend. A bit like ABB1, I go a bit glassy eyed as soon as someone mentions justice. Cohen will have to wait until Questia put him on before he has the high privilege of me reading his latest.
A £30 return over 8 years on a £55 investment is 5.6% a year. Pretty good compared to anything else.
ReplyDeleteIf only we'd have launched a highly leveraged hedge fund and bought a billion of them.
I see from Amazon that you can buy my old book for a sweet 85 quid. It's an investment!
ReplyDeleteYou wish. I have an artsy limited edition £10 book that I bought with the proceeds of a college book prize that's listed on Amazon at about £200, but the market has so little liquidity that the valuations are frankly worthless.
Academic monographs are priced on the same model as Photoshop and business-class air fares: if you pay full whack, it's an institutional purchase and probably tax-deductible.
(And the royalties generally don't amount to enough that you could buy a copy of the damn thing.)
I wrote a book that was published 8 years ago at about 55 bloody quid. Even I've never bought a copy.
ReplyDeleteDidn't they do you a freebie copy? Not even one?
but the market has so little liquidity that the valuations are frankly worthless
ReplyDeleteWe are never gonna make a hedge fund manager of you, are we Nick?
Yeah ejh, I got 3 copies I think. Thus my never shelling out for any more.
ReplyDeleteOT: But I do love how your accents post on CiF has produced comments that precisely prove your point...
ReplyDeleteIt's wonderful isn't it. To be honest, this was pretty blatant trolling - the whole subject of regional accents in the UK is manna from nirvana for bores and arseholes, and when you combine it with a bit of racial politics, a bit of apologia for chavs, it's pretty much tailor-made for the worst elements of the CiF peanut gallery. My main aim was to destruction-test the view that having a lot of comments on an article makes it more likely to become an "Editor's pick" and get some money.
ReplyDeleteIf you're going for the most comments, how about 'I received a letter from an Israeli Rabbi (born in Scotland) the other day arguing about the existence of God. You wouldn't believe how bad his grammar was, and therefore, this proves that the Iraq war was right.'
ReplyDelete... and it appears that I have just earned the cash, so you may in fact see that one in print! (this does not constitute a contract or offer of royalties).
ReplyDeleteHmmm. You should be glad I recently left one of the Big Four, or else I'd be seeking to recover my full chargeout rate.
ReplyDeleteGood troll. Its mostly bollocks mind...
ReplyDeleteMarc, 55 quid is still pretty good. The worst offenders are Elsevier, and Kluwer who take the piss. £110, with no chance of a paperback!
Academic publishing is one of the best cons out there. Like pharmaceuticals, but where the marks can be safely ignored. Truly, Captain Bob was a genius...
If you're going for the most comments, how about 'I received a letter from an Israeli Rabbi (born in Scotland) the other day arguing about the existence of God. You wouldn't believe how bad his grammar was, and therefore, this proves that the Iraq war was right.'
ReplyDeleteYou missed out "cats v dogs" which is usually good for several hundred postings, not least due to the surprisingly high percentage of cretins who prefer the "woof" things to the little gods with wavy tails.
True. Also PCs vs Macs vs Linux, and cyclists vs cardrivers.
ReplyDelete(A surprisingly effective troll is to get onto the boundaries of the 'pie' class. Coming up with a consistent definition that incorporates both, say, pumpkin pie and shepherd's pie, can lead to heated debates.)
Way back in the day, I used to have hours of fun by simply correcting someone who used the phrase "signal/noise ratio" by saying "no, you mean lower the signal/noise ratio, you want more signal and less noise, so the ratio is lower", and then pretending not to understand the dozens and dozens of nerds who took it upon themselves to correct me.
ReplyDeleteahhh happy days.
Incentives, Inequality, and Community [PDF]
ReplyDeleteIf you want to have fun, download Cocoa booklet and a long reach stapler and that's it.
But of course he's an idiot. It's amazing that people are still trying to do with representational language what Bertrand Russell couldn't even do with math. But it allows him to rationalize sending the kids to prep school, where they're still safe inside the bubble. Empiricism -and curiosity- would mandate the experience of people outside your tribe. But then again you can read about those people in books, can't you? And experience is not a viable heuristic, it's just fun, in a cheap kind of way. The real world is the world of ideas.
I was raised thinking it my responsibility to know the history of American foreign policy. Is it "just" that a housewife who doesn't even read the sports-pages and who votes her priest's commandments has as much say as I do in the running of the country?
No. But I still defend her right to vote because it's in the best interests of the country to pretend we're all equal. That is it's in the best interests of society as a whole. People like me are fucked. Society is a collections of aporias. There are no solutions, only coping mechanisms.
Another: A military in the service of a democracy is a dictatorship in defense of freedom. What holds the relationship together is not laws but trust. Trust is a sphere or a zone of ambiguity, not a rule.
When rules are all that's left it's over. I want a return of the draft because I want every soldier to see -to feel- himself as being subject to contradictory imperatives. I want every soldier to feel that weight. Rules are never primary. What is primary is the need for and a need to teach from a self-aware ironic intelligence. Gerry Cohen? You're kidding me.
Is the life of the Amish unjust? Is it unjust to mandate voting? If education were free and civics and civil service mandatory, regardless of economic status, would it be "unjust" to limit the vote to those who've passed a difficult test? There is no right answer to those questions.
The debate at CT is over the objective ideal of hemlines -above the knee? how far?- rather than the history of British fashion. It's called the fucking Scandinavian model because there's such a thing as Scandinavian culture. Ask a Swede about Janteloven. Are the Norwegians free?
Idiots still trying mightily to straighten the Crooked Timber of Humanity.
Here's another one:
We are taught as children not to be greedy. [At least I was.] Greed is a commonplace. In order to navigate our way in the world, we learn to understand not what only we want the world to be but what it is. When does our acknowledgment of the facts become passivity and acquiescence? It is a mistake to assume that the wish to be better than we are, even as a wish largely unfulfilled, has had no impact on our behavior or our history.
That is: dreams -as hopes- affect the world. That needs to be plugged into any analysis, otherwise we end up with an analysis only of what is and with a Panglossian celebration of stupidity and greed. Technocratic intellectualism is an oxymoron.
And as I've said before BBoy, I read you for the same reason I read Htchens, not because you're right but because you take personal responsibility for your words. You're an advocate for your assumptions and you defend them as well as you can to the best of your ability. Are you objective?
Gimme a fucking break.
Tell chris I said hi.
We are never gonna make a hedge fund manager of you, are we Nick?
ReplyDeleteI doubt you'd make a hedge trimmer out of me. (danke, btw.)
"Jimmy go out to the truck and get the PHD!"
ReplyDelete"Jace, get the Mohel!"
The second one comes from an electrician I used to work with.
A military in the service of a democracy is a dictatorship in defense of freedom.
ReplyDeleteOr, looking from a slightly different angle: 'democracy' and 'defense of freedom' have nothing whatsoever to with it; the military is in service of the ruling class protecting and advancing its interests and power.
Unfortunately this framing is hard to use as a springboard for pompous bullshit.
"A military in the service of a mythical ideal of democracy is a dictatorship in defense of freedom."
ReplyDeleteIs that better?
And please stop dividing the world between us and them. We're the problem; they don't exist.
Fair enough, in that case - tribal interests and power.
ReplyDeleteStill I don't see what a particular mechanism of tribal governance has to do with it, not to mention the vague concept of 'freedom'.
Abb, sometimes I think you're a Turing bot.
ReplyDeleteA community of equals where every adult votes on every issue may in time of war put an army under the authority of a general who is in turn under the authority of the community. Every soldier is bound to follow his commander but in this case as citizens every soldier is a member of the community to which the general must answer. But they must obey him.
"Does not compute!! Does not compute! Illogical Illogical!!
...I'mmm...mellll...ting!!"
Or exploding. whatever.
Cohen is trying to construct an internally consistent logic out of human experience. Maybe you are too.
Give up.
I'm not an egalitarian, my politics are egalitarian, I'm an elitist.
You figure it out.
A (hypothetical) community of equals where every adult votes on every issue is also a community where every adult is bound to follow and obey whatever it is the outcome of that vote demands.
ReplyDeleteThe difference between a collective decree and an order issued by dictator is but a technicality; there is no more freedom in a democracy than in a dictatorship as both are based on coercion; citizen in a democracy is a soldier.
I just don't see a paradox there.
BTW, I read somewhere a few days ago that the most successful turing bot managed to fool 25% of the judges by pretending to be a turing bot. Cool, huh?
ReplyDeleteAh! Kaspar Hauser. Sorry I'd never realized you were this much of an idiot.
ReplyDeleteLibertarians if they stood by their word should abandon their children at birth to fend for themselves -in the woods where no one can find them- to spare them the tyrannies of family.
From now on please only communicate in grunts. If you try to use our language I'll just ignore you.
Freedom is for sociopaths and newborn babies, gurgling and rolling in their own shit. The rest of us face obligation. Some face it willingly, some not. I try to write "well"; that is in itself an acknowledgment of the judgement of others. Horrors! Evil! Eeeevill!
I've never been free. No one has. And as far as I can remember I've never wanted to be. I desire communication; everything else is subsidiary. Business is is banal necessity not a Panglossian heaven. I'm really tired of descriptions of bourgeois existence as Platonic ideal.
It's just self-love.
That's all Cohen's interested in. You too Abb.
No, you don't understand, I'm not interested in Platonic anything; I think maybe you are. I just don't see the bright line where you see it, apparently.
ReplyDeleteI'm just saying that it's all the same shit; I'm not dreaming about some perfect ideal shit.
For example, the Bolsheviks had a democratic army for a while there, it was ruled by the soldiers' soviets. To me it would make no difference if the order to kill or to die is given by the general, or a council made of elected soldiers or even a direct vote - it's the same freakin' order, what's the difference?
"I'm just saying that it's all the same shit;"
ReplyDeleteOnly for a libertarian.
Libertarian, huh. Make an observation - earn a label.
ReplyDeleteYou're a funny guy, Seth.
If all you value is personal freedom then the label is good enough.
ReplyDeleteOn Cohen, again for a minute:
The parallel would be that since everyone goes to McDonald's an eats cardboard meat and mealy tasteless tomatoes then there's no need to know what good meat tastes like. There's no need for "perspective" when the facts themselves will do. People are greedy so I am as well. Choosing curiosity over careerism is illogical. "No one does that!" Wouldn't it simply be more honest to say that if you're so rich you're simply not an egalitarian?
If words can mean so much more than actions doesn't that mean that they've become meaningless?
hmm?
The observation of mediocrity does not require mediocrity. Brad DeLong argues that people eat lousy tomatoes because they prefer them. Does he therefore eat lousy tomatoes? No. He's proud not to and talks about it all the time. He flips back and forth from relative to absolute value when it suits him. Aristocrat one day, proud vulgarian the next.
But Joseph Lieberman is the sort of moderate who would defend moderation among his fellows under any circumstances. If he weren't Jewish I'd say he'd be the perfect moderate in 1938 Berlin. And he certainly would have been a moderate under Petain.
That's what it means for moderation to be an absolute value. At least DeLong is smart enough be a confused
On to ACDC
Hey, it wasn't me going on and on about the military defending your freedom under democracy.
ReplyDeleteYes, I am annoyed by this kind of bullshit; if I wanted it, I'd turn the TV on instead.
Stop disintegrating, come up with some higher quality bullshit and we'll be friends again.