Lambert has kindly invited me to write this week’s installment in our PB2.0 series and I am happy to do so, although I live in a Central Time area so, my post will probably be up around 6pm, Eastern.
My contribution will focus on what I think should be central to PB2.0: social justice
(Lambert and I have a slight difference of view on this, so, I’m sure / I hope he’ll explain in the discussion).
Social justice is important to me as a progressive (and as an old-fashioned European social democrat) because it encompasses issues of inequalities in terms of distribution on rights, opportunities and resources (all terms I’ll define tomorrow) and I really think that PB1.0 threw social justice concerns out the window during the primary in terms of race, gender and class: by throwing around accusations of racism, trivializing gender and deriding social classes (especially the bottom of the social ladder).
To put it pretentiously, I would want us to start thinking about having / adopting / developing a theory of social justice as the foundation of PB2.0. This would take us away from strict electoral politics but would get us to better define what PB2.0 should stand for.
Once we have that theoretical / conceptual basis in place, then we can start thinking about how we promote social justice, on and offline, beyond the usual - and often vain - admonitions to call our representatives and Senators on this or that issue (I am not trivializing this, but how often have we gotten our way with this in the past, oh, 4 to 8 years?).
The point, for me, to have a strong theoretical / conceptual basis is to avoid falling into the ever-tempting trap of repeating (and therefore thinking in terms of) right-wing, media-shaped narratives that are detrimental to progressive causes. In a sense, I’m asking us to learn a new language (and not just a superficial Lakoffian framing). For instance, I always prohibit my students from saying / writing "cheap labor"… labor is neither magically nor naturally cheap. I require them (and then, they do it on their own once they "get it"): it’s "labor made cheap" or "labor kept cheap" to underline the social-structural foundations of labor/wage structure.
Anyway, I hope you’ll all join me and that we’ll have stimulating discussions as we have had in the past two weeks.
Disclaimer: the views expressed in the post will be mine only, not those of Lambert or the Corrente Fellows.
Front page
yay!
finally, a pb2.0 in my time zone! also, the preview is much appreciated.
goat rope challenge
awhile back, i started a kind of stream-of-consciousness project along these lines — [here be lemmings!] — but never picked it back up.
i’m really looking forward to seeing where pb2.0 goes with the subject of social justice.
Justice as Fairness
John Rawls.
He has a pretty simple theory of justice (you have to read “Political Liberalism” in addition to the first book).
You're right
Social justice should be an integral part. I’m fond of a certain theory, but we can probably debate other theories as to why social justice is critical. We need to be able to counter the libertarian philosophy that Obama/PB1.0 is starting to embrace. I think their libertarianism is the biggest threat to liberalism.
the "common good"
—that’s what it boils down to for me.
We all do better when we’re all well-housed and healthy and educated and have multiple opportunities to thrive and grow, and when our shared infrastructure and services and institutions are maintained and expanded, and when we’re all able to enjoy and rely on the Constitution’s pledges of equality and rights.
…
(and all these things are the responsibility of our government, and must be its #1 priority always—serving all of us)
related, i think--
“… it’s good to remember that when one discriminated-against group is lifted up, everybody tends to rise. …” — timely column on Gay Marriage — http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/opinio…
the "common good"
amberglow said:
“We all do better when we’re all well-housed and healthy and educated and have multiple opportunities to thrive and grow, and when our shared infrastructure and services and institutions are maintained and expanded, and when we’re all able to enjoy and rely on the Constitution’s pledges of equality and rights.”
That’s kind of my definition of feminism.
…
that would be my definition of human rights, maybe,
but my definition of feminism would be much narrower: gaining power and autonomy and freedom for women, even to the point of women becoming ’more equal’ than men.
if any other group benefits, that’s just icing on the cake, or gravy on the biscuit, if you prefer.
The default setting...
… is that every contributor speaks for themselves, and not for Corrente (except on administrative matters). In fact, I can’t think of another example of speaking for Corrente than Leah’s post on Diamond, and that was a lawsuit.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
Is PB2.0 principles/process or substance?
I know the two are intertwinned, but if the principles are there isn’t the substance also? By that I mean, if a site that strove to be PB2.0 was mainly about (for example) alternative energy, or knitting, or health care, or even just documenting the atrocities isn’t that enough? Isn’t a committment to honesty, linky goodness, etc., enough? My belief is that honest blogging is IN ITSELF an act of social justice. Which is not to say that blogs which are interested in promoting different aspects of social justice aren’t PB2.0, but there have been plenty of blogs that THINK they promote social justice which have NO INTENTION of being PB2.0 (and I don’t link to those).
Not everyone is expert in every issue, and blogs that focus on their own area of expertise are the most interesting and valuable (at least to me). In fact, my observation is that where many PB1.0 blogs went off the rails is when they started speculating about (i.e. making shit up about) things where they had no idea what the hell they were talking about. They let their “naiviness” and “progressiviness” lead them to “truthiness”, and every progressive issue, including social justice was (and is still currently being) gravelly damaged in the process. Plus, some social justice issues might actually be in conflict (or some might have honest and conflicting opinions), I hope two honest blogs can disagree about some issue but still be committed to PB2.0 principles and one not be seen as a “winner and loser” in terms of being MORE PB2.0. PB2.0 should be about creating a fair playing field rather than determining a winner.
Anyway, that’s my ramble.
Excellent point about “cheap labor”, the same can be said about “cheap energy”, etc.. Cheap just means someone (or something) ELSE is getting screwed.
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Around these parts we call cucumber slices circle bites
FrenchDoc
Great to have you doing this, thanks!
Two quick points
As I am painting and cleaning in RL:
1. At some level, I think method is key. I’m certain you can’t fight for “progressive” policies from a basis of right wing talking points, and I’m almost certain you can’t do it from a basis of truthiness (See under, Bolsheviks). For example, I would support banning for propagating right wing narratives IFF (if and only IFF) they could be categorized and applied to content by the community (Drupal’s categories would help there), there was a glossary, so we could name/label the smear, and there was an appeals process of some sort. (See comments on this post.) Since the smears are, essentially, manufactured, that should not be hard to do. Censorship? Or a public health measure?
2. Re justice: It seems to me that any form of justice is, by definition social justice. And “justice for all” is a powerful and intuitive concept that we should not lightly cast aside. Also, I put matters like wealth distribution under the heading of justice. For example, when the very rich can buy life extension — which they already, in a de facto way, can do — and when the poor cannot, would that be just? I don’t think so.
Further, I see social justice as a subset of justice, so we should be aiming for the more powerful good.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
would someone please explain
what p.b. 2.0 means, other than that p.b means “progressive blogger”.
what’s the history behind this?
what was pb 1.0?
is p.b. 1.0 a “real” thing, like an understanding or a compact?
or is the term just terminology commonly shared by some group or other?
and who would be in that group?
is this unique to corrente?
truthiness
I would like to see a definition, I see the term used a lot.
Horselover Fat