gdp's Comments

Caracas Chronicles : Mental Health View From Quico\'s Window

Wed, 9 Dec 2009 15:35:34 +0000

Enough ideological combat...I'm off to play in the snow

Caracas Chronicles : Subverting Chavismo\'s Discursive Standard

Wed, 9 Dec 2009 14:29:24 +0000

It's really rare that you and I disagree about somethng this much, Juan. Which I guess means I screwed this up somehow. I can't really see it yet. My sense is that, paradoxical as it may seem, the defense of a tolerant discursive order demands absolutely rigid inflexibility in marginalizing certain kinds of engagement in the public sphere, kinds of engagement that are incompatible with democratic decisionmaking. Greg Wilpert has to be fought, because he defends a system of rule that makes the kind of debate he offers impossible.

Caracas Chronicles : Subverting Chavismo\'s Discursive Standard

Wed, 9 Dec 2009 12:34:04 +0000

Oh, it's a desperate gambit, for sure. Nobody's disputing that. But then desperate times... Listen, it's easy to moan. 20 years ago, regular people like you and me had no possibility to participate in these kinds of debates at all. The internet, within a fairly clear set of constraints, allows us to joint he fray and contribute something substantive. Obviously, it's constrained...but it's also fun, so it's worth doing!

Caracas Chronicles : Subverting Chavismo\'s Discursive Standard

Wed, 9 Dec 2009 12:31:53 +0000

Well, it's certainly a gradualist strategy - but then, the task I'm talking about here is the work of a generation. But to the degree that even people in the Venezuelan elite often fail catastrophically at the basic rudiments of critical debate, I don't think starting online is preaching to the converted.

Caracas Chronicles : Dictatorship means never having to say \"the reason is...\"

Wed, 9 Dec 2009 04:27:54 +0000

Oh certainly. But Greg works actively, day in and day out, to try to bolster the Chavez regime. That's not sympathizing with some facet of chavismo. That's spending your working life buttressing a dictatorship.

Caracas Chronicles : Dictatorship means never having to say \"the reason is...\"

Wed, 9 Dec 2009 04:25:38 +0000

Oh for sure. Discursive standards are always a matter of degree. It's a continuum, really, with a socratic dialogue on one end and a nazi concentration camp at the other. Extremely few human interactions are at one extreme or the other. Which doesn't mean there aren't substantial differences between different positions on the continuum.

Caracas Chronicles : Dictatorship means never having to say \"the reason is...\"

Tue, 8 Dec 2009 22:58:07 +0000

Sorry, Greg, I'm sure you're a nice guy and genuine in your offer. But you support a government that is irreducibly opposed to the kind of engagement you're offering. The extent to which you manage to engage people you disagree with is PRECISELY the extent to which you are unable to act as an actual spokesman for chavismo, because chavismo has left really no doubt as to its indefatigable opposition to any type of intellectual engagement with those who disagree with it. Your PETA Meat Processing Company shtick is cute and all, and I bet it's heartfelt. But it's schizophrenic, and basically a distraction.

Caracas Chronicles : Dictatorship means never having to say \"the reason is...\"

Tue, 8 Dec 2009 22:52:05 +0000

Calling chavismo undemocratic is like calling the sky blue, Juan. And no, I don't have any interest in lending a fake patina of legitimacy to a fake debate with a personally nice guy who, through his own willingness to engage those he disagrees with, demonstrates he's far, far out of the chavista mainstream. Sorry to get all torquemada on you here, but there IS a price you have to pay at the door to this debate: you have to disavow disqualifying, authoritarian discourses. Thing is, by the time Greg is finished disavowing authoritarian discourses, there's nothing of chavismo left for him to avow, because Authoritarian discourses are basically all there is to chavismo anymore! I wish Greg all the fun in the world trying to work out the little laberynth his position has backed him into. By the time he's processed it, he's going to realize that he can either support the revolution or support discursive democracy, but he can't do both.

Caracas Chronicles : Dictatorship means never having to say \"the reason is...\"

Tue, 8 Dec 2009 22:46:24 +0000

I think you have a basic misunderstanding about what the post was about, Juan. This is not about engaging "the other side" at all! That would be a hopeless endeavour, given that with the sole, individual and rather idyosincratic exception of Gregory Wilpert the other side is militantly committed to the rejection of reasoned debate. Greg is a fun oddity at best, though really his shtick is more like a distraction. But chavismo as a political movement has really let there be no doubt that they are committed to the destruction, as an organized political force, of people who fail to snap to attention when the president barks out an order. You can't engage an ideology marked out, from the ground up, by a militant rejection of the practice of communicative rationality. What you can do to such an ideology is resist it, and try to subvert it, by practicing communicative rationality around and about it. The time for engaging "chavismo lite" is in the past, Juan.

Caracas Chronicles : Dictatorship means never having to say \"the reason is...\"

Tue, 8 Dec 2009 22:40:13 +0000

I can no more take seriously the concept of a "frank exchange of ideas" with a chavista than I can have a substantive conversation on the details of evolutionary theory with a creationist. The virulent, insult-laden rejection of discursive democracy isn't some incidental frippery attached to chavismo. It isn't some stylistic flourish. It's what chavismo is about; its heart and soul. I've thought about this a lot, but Greg's claim to want a frank debate from an unapologetically pro-Chávez perspective, even if it's put forward in good faith, is hopelessly self-contradictory. I'm sure he's a nice guy and all...but animal rights activists don't get to work in abatoirs.

Caracas Chronicles : Dictatorship means never having to say \"the reason is...\"

Tue, 8 Dec 2009 22:35:27 +0000

I'm sure you're right, P.I. It can't really be helped. Public reason is hard and demagoguery is easy and the demagogues have an inbuilt advantage, doubly so in the era of 24-hour-news cycle. Hard? Yes. Impossible. Very probably. But also the best idea around, and so worth trying despite everything.

Caracas Chronicles : Dictatorship means never having to say \"the reason is...\"

Tue, 8 Dec 2009 22:31:11 +0000

There is no possibility for debate with a movement that takes the uselessness of debate as a basic tenet. The extent to which Greg debates us in good faith on this forum is exactly the extent to which he is not a credible representative of chavismo, because chavismo has made it clear at every chance it's gotten over the last 11 years that the refusal to engage with opponents in good faith is at the very center of its worldview. What we need to do, instead, is maintain the possibility of debate alive among those of us who value it enough to resist a government that's demonstrated its implacable opposition to the discursive practices that underpin it.

Caracas Chronicles : Dictatorship means never having to say \"the reason is...\"

Tue, 8 Dec 2009 16:55:03 +0000

See, one nice thing about the new website is that it will allow side-threads like this to go on in "Hidden Mode" without detracting from the main thread. I think this is a fun off-shoot of the main debate, but obviously it's way off topic. When we start running the new software we'll be able to have it out, but quietly, without the main thread going to all shit.

Caracas Chronicles : Dictatorship means never having to say \"the reason is...\"

Tue, 8 Dec 2009 16:50:04 +0000

There's all kinds of intellectual detritus in the saco-de-gatos opposition, from straight-out-nutters to people who'd love to engage if given a chance. It's on your side, Greg, where there is a chilling, absolute unanimity generated by the automatic acceptance of the dictator's line: we are your class enemies, remember, and no reconciliation is possible. Editing a pro-Chávez web-site and saying you yearn for a space that would allow real debate is like working day-shifts down at the abattoir and spending your evenings at PETA. Take it to your shrink, Greg, I'm not interested in the kilo de estopa between your ears anymore...

Caracas Chronicles : Dictatorship means never having to say \"the reason is...\"

Tue, 8 Dec 2009 16:29:10 +0000

You're absolutely right. Stand by. Caracas Chronicles 2.0 is in the works.

Caracas Chronicles : Dictatorship means never having to say \"the reason is...\"

Tue, 8 Dec 2009 16:28:34 +0000

Doesn't bear thinking about, US politics, in this context. Sad.

Caracas Chronicles : Dictatorship means never having to say \"the reason is...\"

Tue, 8 Dec 2009 15:30:14 +0000

Wouldn't it be great if we could think up some software mechanism designed to help a community defend its own discursive standards? One that would help tamp down on arguments that appeal to authority and keep discussions centered on appeals to good sense? Wouldn't it be cool to create a positive feedback loop for democratic habits of thought and argument?

Caracas Chronicles : The three-legged stool

Mon, 7 Dec 2009 17:54:39 +0000

Yup. Never fear: by the start of next year we'll be on the much shinier new blog platform. For now, break it down into chunks.

Caracas Chronicles : The three-legged stool

Mon, 7 Dec 2009 14:19:40 +0000

The real "fourth leg" is the financial bolibourgeoisie, which is getting pummelled in a way I never ever thought I'd see. Amazing! The only question left for me is whether Diosdado is shitting his pants right about now, or whether he's orchestrating this whole thing - baptism-scene-in-the-Godfather style.

Caracas Chronicles : Rules for Subversives

Sun, 6 Dec 2009 21:09:10 +0000

I think this is a really infuriatingly ignorant comment, Tor. "Accepting defeat in an election" means accepting the implications of defeat in an election: in 2007 Chavez accepted that our side had more votes than his side, but never accepted that his proposal had been defeated. He just went ahead and named the vicepresidents he had sought authority to name, and failed to secure authority to name. He went ahead and stripped BCV of the autonomy he'd asked for authority to strip it of, and failed to get the authority to strip it of. And right down the line, he just did everything he'd sought authority to do and been denied it in 2007. Same goes for 2008. Accepting the 2008 election results means accepting people like Ledezma and Perez Vivas as they exercise the offices people elected them to exercise. What Chavez has done is not accept defeat, it's subvert the constitution when people aren't paying attention! By now, "No Volveran" is burned into the center of official discourse, often accompanied by the kind of apocalyptic discourse about how allowing the other side to take power would imperil LIFE ON EARTH - nothing less. This kind of messianic, religiously-tinged discourse about the absolute inadmissibility of alternation is not something you get on the fringes of chavismo, or something you get sporadically. Sentiments like this are on a kind of constant loop on VTV, including in the mouths of the ladies newly chosen to count our votes! Overall, I think your little riff is about 3 years past its sell-by date. At this point, the only way you can really hang on to it is through a studied refusal to actually listen to the pledges chavistas make loudly, repeatedly, vehemently, in public every single day. I have no particular reason to believe that Chavez and all his supporters are lying every single time they vow to go to war before they'll allow (what they see as) agents of unadulterated evil to take over the country.