Hi.
In the interest of brevity—and in an attempt to avoid undue solipsism—I’ll keep my introductory post short.
I graduated from the University of Iowa in May and plan on enrolling in graduate school next fall. My background is in journalism (I worked at The Daily Iowan in various capacities throughout my college career) and political science; my multifarious interests include: political philosophy, ideological history, democratic education, political discourse, journalism and the corporatization of news, the history of education reform, unionism, labor history, and left-libertarian coalitions. As evidenced by the Dilla video above, I love underground hip-hop. (Also: hard bop jazz and indie rock.)
Ideologically, I’m a leftist and a small-d democrat. I believe deeply in the ability of democratic citizenship to empower the marginalized. I’m a decentralist that both distrusts technocratic elites and loathes anti-intellectualism. I believe our political systems enriches elites and our workplaces are depressingly authoritarian. A bottom-up re-ordering of the present political and economic paradigm is in order. The New Left—especially as manifested in the early SDS and SNCC—is perhaps the fullest real-life articulation of my ideological proclivities. I hate vacuous, unthinking partisanship, inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom, and Thomas Friedman. My favorite writers/ commentators are Chris Hayes, Freddie deBoer, E.D. Kain, Tim Carney, Reihan Salaam, Glenn Loury, Will Wilkinson, Glenn Greenwald, Radley Balko, and Ned Resnikoff. A good bloggingheads pairing makes my day, as does a fine craft beer.
So that’s me. It’s truly a pleasure to enter such a vibrant intellectual community. My hope is that I’ll contribute a few edifying, thought-provoking blog posts every month and be relatively active in the comment section. Thanks in advance for reading.
Welcome!Report
Dude, Welcome to the league
I’m a decentralist that both distrusts technocratic elites and loathes anti-intellectualism
Now there is something to talk about. It is not clear that one can both distrust technocratic elites and loathe anti-intellectualism. Because to be intellectual is to be elite. And a good technocrat is one who knows the boundaries of policy as knows the best policies to implement. To suppose that lay people have better knowledge than technocrats is to be anti-intellectual.Report
I’d quibble with your assertion that “to be intellectual is to be elite” (unless you have a super expansive definition of “elites”). I assume that many technocrats *do* have better knowledge than many lay people. What I wish to inveigh against is anti-democratic veneration of these elites. Politics is about ideological clashes; technocracy seeks to negate politics through (ostensibly) non-ideological analysis/ data crunching.Report
Politics is about ideological clashes; technocracy seeks to negate politics through (ostensibly) non-ideological analysis/ data crunching.
And is this not a good thing?Report
It is, where it is possible. But as Hume put it, reason must be slave to the passions and similarly the detached logic of the technocrat must be in service to the terminal preferences of the public.Report
“And this is not a good thing?”
Nope. Politics are an essential part of a modern, heterogeneous society. Technocracy is a softer former of tyranny, but it’s tyranny all the same.Report
Politics are an essential part of a modern, heterogeneous society
unless you are saying politics is inevitable (which I consider defeatist) you cannot at the once say that politics is about ideological clashes (i.e. clashes/differences which are not corrigible by reason) and at the same time, an essential aspect of society which we ought to embrace (if I’m reading you correctly) If not outright engaging in a contradiction, you are advocating irrationality.
Technocracy is a softer former of tyranny, but it’s tyranny all the same.
Technocracy is only tyranny if we non-evaluatively label all non-democracies as tyrannies. In which case to the degree which constitutions/judiciaries protect the rights of minorities against the interests of majorities, then they too are tyrannical, in which case I am in good company.
If you are saying that they are essentially tyrannical in the normative sense, then you are simply assuming that democracy is intrinsically justified, not exactly demonstrating it.
In so far as you are a minority as far as your conception of justice goes, then you are going to find that justice demands certain undemocratic things. But you could not consistently hold this view and at the same time say that democracy is intrinsically justified. If you are an intellectual, you are likely to disagree with majorities on a number of issues.
None of this is to say that I am not open to justifying democracy instrumentally. But, if were to do so, not only would we be far less confident about the justice of democracy, but we would cease to think that saying something is undemocratic is a pro tanto criticism of it.Report
Welcome.
I always wonder what people are actually talking about when they discuss technocrats. It seems definitions are in order firstly. People who dislike technocrats tend to roughly define them as unelected overlords controlling society while those of us more positively deposed to technocrats see it more as hiring a person with disaster management experience to run FEMA as opposed to a crony.Report
I’d say “technocracy” as commonly used is a system where our best and brightest tell us what we should be doing. I oppose this. On the other hand, the jury’s still out on other possible definitions of technocracy. I might support technocracy if we’re talking about rule by technology: a skin-job might make a good leader. Seriously though, a lot of our economic policy could benefit from more automaticity. I’d support technocracy if it meant a system where our best and brightest don’t tell us what we should be doing.Report
I think a technocrat is someone like James K, and I would so want to live in a place where lots of people like James K set policy. Why? Because that policy would be smart and efficient. And even if they were not libertarians like James K, because policy was smart and efficient, tax rates would be low and seriously evil policies would not be set because that would lower immigration rates (which in turn would be detrimental to the economy.Report
technocracy is like socialism in that the definition depends on whether you mean it as a compliment or an insult.Report
Greginak,
I agree, and I think the call for a definition is also in order when it comes to “bureaucrat.”Report
Welcome!Report
I should also add that I’m going to put the education coverage quiescence to an end.Report
Welcome, Shawn!Report
Woot woot. Welcome. Very much lookin fwd to yr work.Report
Welcome aboard Shawn.Report
Looking forward to reading you. Nice to have a bit more ideological balance on this site.Report
“Nice to have a bit more ideological balance on this site.”
Huh?
Welcome. I’m all for a limited government Left.Report
It will be good to read your stuff and argue with you.Report
Welcome aboard!Report
Hi there fellow. I’m for limited gummint too. Can you talk about the 14th amendment? Can anyone talk about the 14th amendment.Report