Polemics & Dialogue in Cuba
by Pedro Campos

October 22, 2009
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=15341


Polemics and dialogue reflect similar but differing concepts. The clarification of these differences is vitally important, especially now in Cuba, where an intense and varied exchange of opinions is developing on the current situation and perspectives on the form of socialism to which we aspire.

“Polemic” comes from the Greek “polemikos.” It is a reference to war, and it means controversy (general public controversy or in writing) on any subject, according to the “Gran Diccionario de la Lengua Española.” Polemics was also a former military discipline that taught how to defend or attack a territory.

Polemics implies the defense of positions, retrenchment and attack after meticulous preparation. It involves techniques and methods of fighting that more than a few strategists of that branch have always wanted to impose through authoritarian means rather than through civil forms and approaches (which are quite distinct) of conducting politics and guiding the affairs of the nation - the cause of great discord and misfortune in our own history.

When people enter into polemics, they cling to their positions and look for arguments to defend themselves; if these are not found they are often invented, they are manufactured.

Polemics is proud, slippery; its terms are not always transparent, its “cards” are face down or hidden, and they usually hide pitfalls and traps that are looked to for undermining, weakening and defeating the position of whomever confronted.

Dialogue, on the other hand, is reasoning. It refers to a positive and open conversation, to a negotiation, with the alternation or exchange of words and opinions between people. In dialogue, one does not aim to defeat the other interlocutor, but to clarify, expand and modify the positions of the actors to achieve consensus, to reach agreements in a constructive and participative manner that satisfy the interests of the parties involved, where neither a winner nor a loser is sought, but the gain of all.

When one enters into a polemic, the tendency is not the clarification of each position, but the reaffirmation of one’s own, with the intent to defeat the position of the “adversary.” This is why dogmatism is contrary to dialogue and prefers the polemic and the diatribe.

This is also why, seeking the constructive character of an exchange, many choose not to respond to personal allusions. We avoid polemics and epithets and name-calling, which generally end in inducing confrontation, anger and the accentuation of differences, when what should be involved is the search for rapprochement.

To Bread, bread, and to wine, wine; but people are neither bread nor wine, but human beings.

The debate, of course, has to be based on the existence of different positions and actors in relation to the same matter, given that a “discussion” (where there is a sole position and a single expositor) can be a monologue, contemplation, a soliloquy, anything - except a debate. And when one ignores or impedes the expression of the other positions, we would now be in presence of open impositions.

Therefore debate, to be successful, must be developed on the basis of dialogue and not polemics.

In the history of the revolutionary movement, many debates have been carried out through polemics and not dialogue. They ended in tragedy and outrage that have -even up to today- marked currents on the left with deep scares of hate among revolutionaries and socialists who had previously been quite close in their positions. Among many there prevailed the spirit to win the dispute, imposing a position that in the long run was negative for all, in absence of the conciliatory dialogue.

Some who never “won” with their arguments, ended by imposing them through violence against other revolutionary and socialists tendencies. This, as we all know, resulted in sectarianism, persecution and executions, which concluded with the destruction of the persecutors themselves.

Violence always engenders more violence, as a natural law of life; since to every action there is always opposed an equal reaction, although it is not perceived. If violence is negative, as a general rule, and has only been positive in majors labors of history (like forces freeing a mother in the sublime act of birth), its use between revolutionaries and socialists is self-destructive.

To reconcile positions does not mean to betray one’s own, but to advance them to higher states. This is keeping in mind that no one lives or develops in an isolated niche, but in wide shared spaces with others. Here, the interests of the majority and minority are not mutually exclusive, nor must they be ignored, if coexistence, peace, harmony and development for all is truly desired, without this having to be at the expense of others.

I could cite many “valuable maxims,” but I prefer to appeal to the logic and wisdom possessed by the readers, which is richer than much literature.

“The Teacher” (Jose Marti), humanism personified, advocated among the Cuban people: “With all and for the good of all.” For us to arrive at this stage that he predicted will depend precisely on the capacity of each one of us to engage in constructive dialogue -not polemics- as we have been summoned to do by the current president of all Cubans, comrade Raul Castro.

A Havana Times translation with permission from the author.

* Pedro Campos Santos. Former Cuban diplomat in Mexico and at the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva. International political analyst. Head researcher of the Center for United States Studies project the University of Havana. He is currently retired. His articles can be read at the following site: [1] http://boletinspd.eltinterocolectivo.com

Message moved to "T!me Out to Chill Out" forum. You can visit it [link:www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=217&topic_id=183 | here] .

I don't know who moved your comment, but I can certainly see why they did that. I was just getting online to add a thoughtful comment to the essay you posted and start a discussion, and instead find a rant by you full of personal attacks. I was thinking "oh, good, Montag is back," and was looking forward to a fresh start with you, but then I read your post. Good grief.

"WTF?" is right.

History is not being erased and you are not being suppressed. Please.

Message moved to "T!me Out to Chill Out" forum. You can visit it [link:www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=217&topic_id=184 | here] .

Such as the rules are. Hard to write rules, and there was a time not so long ago I was asking everyone to participate and help out with the task. That was met with vitriol and hostility.

Here is what you said. We would not want to suppress important "history." I think everyone should be able to read what you wrote - entirely unprovoked.

[div class="excerpt"]Where are the Socialist Codependents?

What where are the know-nothing loud mouth blowhards, like Chlammy, this Sunday (hmmm... probably engaged in counterrevolutionary bourgeois capitalist and decidedly non-proletarian American leisure activities such watching football, or even worse, roflmfao, tennis; or perhaps they've wandered off to new message boards that they can eviscerate such as Rigorous Intuition or Old Elm Tree)? I guess they crawled back into whatever hole they subsist in, while not spewing pablum on internet discussion boards (we certainly know that they aren't helping anyone in need have a brighter today or in the future; that wouldn't be even be close to revolutionary or dare I say radical).

Not really a surprise, it's what I've thought about these people from the first. Sometimes I even surprise myself on how capable I am to judge human (and I use that term loosely) character.[/quote]

You damn yourself with this post, and destroy whatever credibility you may have ever had.

I post at Old Elm Tree, and the members there are glad that I do and there are not any problems. Who here has damaged RI in any way?

Are you really seriously suggesting that an interest in sports somehow invalidates someone's political views?

Many of the people you are attacking here are extremely involved in various political actions off line, more so than any group of people I have ever known.

In short, you have made a fool of yourself here, and I think it is very sad and pathetic that you are this obsessed and are so inexplicably hostile.

You demanded an explanation for your posts being moved. I hope this response is sufficient.

:shrug:

Your posts seem to be in the time-to-chill-out room...

.

Message moved to "T!me Out to Chill Out" forum. You can visit it [link:www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=217&topic_id=185 | here] .

I don't "moderate the board." I am tired of all of that, as your little unprovoked temper tantrum here today so vividly reminds me, and think we should have the boards be member owned and admined. I have however, created, admin-ed and mod-ed about 15 boards over the years with great success. There are no burned bridges from any of those projects.

Chlamor has a strong following and support at RI, and I never had a problem there. I stopped posting as a protest against the pervasive racism expressed by a few there. I think that so poisons the well that it is impossible to have serious discussions. But that is just me.

"Tinoire's pet monkey" - LOL.

I don't have a problem, but I know what your problem is... You are convinced that you are right and that you (and yours) hold sole possession to 'the truth' of the world; and that all who won't come to the same boorish, limited understanding that you have of the world can go fuck-all. You should read about Marx and the Lasalleans, they were basically proto-authoritarian socialists like yourselves (SI people). Marx said about them, that if they are Marxist then I most certainly am not!

Do you think Karl Marx would like you people and what you're about (if in fact you are about anything, which I haven't concluded is an impossibility)? The man was a scholar and intellectual for fuck's sake (who was mentored by a wealthy Prussian aristocrat whose daughter he married, Ludwig von Westphalen, and Marx's benefactor, Engels was the son of wealthy German industrialist). Have you ever even read a line of Hegel?

I mean on a day in the park with his children he read them Shakespeare for chrissakes (what a bourgeois thing to do, I guess he should have been reading them Nechaev or something, probably, quick I'll let you run and Google Nechaev who you no doubt have never heard of; but I'm jest, anyway, that was of course not possible Nechaev was younger than Marx)!

If I do have a problem it's that my posts are being given 'separate dining', they are being couried in through the back door, I am being told they are separate but equal; but I don't find that to be true.

p.s. Actually you really should know about Nechaev, I do not believe you people are in fact Marxists, you are more like Nechaevians (or whatever it would be called). I had never met any before I had the displeasure of running across you people (once again I use that term loosely).

I have always appreciated you comments, even though I may not have always agreed.

When discussion becomes a circle jerk it becomes worthless.

I think you have this backward. The things you are complaining about are the result of my realization that I was not right, and that I needed to learn. What we ran into was a group of people who are convinced that they are right and threw a fit when anyone suggested they might not be.

You think I am authoritarian? No authoritarian person would be having this discussion with you. They would be calling for you to be banned, or at the very least returning your insults in kind.

I just want to confirm that what you people are doing is Stalinist (well certainly Stalin-esque), good luck burning books and wiping the records clean, you're going to need to be very good at it; to keep up your unflinching commitment to your pathetic little mutual admiration society/tree-house...

p.s. Lest anyone should think that I'm reproducing materials from the Heritage Foundation or Cato Institute or other far right wing groups or websites. Beacon for Freedom Expression is Norwegian (Norway one of the most progressive countries on the planet, not that I guess that means anything on the Socialist Codependent discussion board or the PI that you have so successfully razed to the ground; nice one SCers!) group that works for freedom of expression.

Censorship in the USSR period: 1917 - 1988
http://www.beaconforfreedom.org/about_database/russia.html


The Russian State Library in Moscow, the former Lenin State Library, holds the largest collection of banned publications published after 1917 in Russia. The collection was kept in the Department of Special Storage, founded at the Lenin State Library in 1922 (Decree of December 14, 1921). Simultaneously, the central censorship office - Glavlit - attached to the Council of Ministers of the USSR., was established. The Department of Special Storage received publications directly from Glavlit, authorised to withdraw literature from open collections and from bookstores.

Initially, the collection was modest, containing mainly religious, anti-Bolshevist and anti-Leninist publications. The collection soon grew, following internal party conflicts of the 20s and 30s and the Stalin purges. The majority of banned books were written by persons who were purged during the reign of Stalin. Also publications deemed to contain other "defects"; such as a preface written by a purged political figure or a photograph of the same person, or quotations from his or her works. Also minute "defects" in seemingly quite innocent books could be placed in the closed storage.

After World War II, the Department of Special Storage began receiving foreign books and periodicals on a regular basis from Glavlit; foreign "Rossica-Sovietica", social-economic and military publications, and all literature by Russian emigrant authors, irrespective of subjects.
By 1988 when "perestroyka" began, the Department of Special Storage was closed down. The collections then contained app. 27,000 Russian books, 250,000 foreign books, 572,000 issues of foreign magazines, app. 8,500 annual sets of foreign newspapers and 8,000 publications.
The collections of the Department of Special Storage, secret to the general public and of restricted use, was never recorded in any other form than a manual catalogue card archive. All annual deposits by the Glavlit of banned foreign publications (books and magazines/newspapers) were listed. Glavlit also prepared an alphabetical index of banned Russian books. The relevant lists of banned foreign and Russian books are available at the Russian Émigré Literature Department, successor of the former Department of Special Storage.

The longest lasting censorship
Censorship in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics remains the longest lasting and most comprehensive censorship in the 20th century. In the 19th century Imperial Russia, censorship was also extensive. Russia's long history of censorship has been well documented in numerous publications both by Russian and Western experts. However, the actual records of the vast number of books and newspapers that were subjected to strict censorship in Imperial Russia and the USSR are mainly still only accessible in special collections, Russian language manual catalogue card archive and printed lists deposited in the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg (pre-revolution period) and the Russian State Library in Moscow (the USSR period).
Since the end of the 1990s, both libraries have undergone formidable changes concerning Information Technology and are presently converting their data bases to on-line catalogues, their truly staggering general collections naturally being a first public service priority. Considering the pressing duties and limited resources of the libraries, they can hardly be expected to solely undertake the task of making publicly available the data of Russia's long history of censorship.

Literature:
Historical Information on Censorship in Russia, attributed to the author P. Schebalsky, published in 1862
Essays about History of Russian Censorship, A. Skabichevsky, published in 1892.
Union Catalogue of Russian Illegal and Forbidden Publications of the 19th Century, published in 1971
List from the database: literature on censorship in the Russian Federation
List from the database: literature on censorship in the USSR.

(1) In the early 1920s during the time of Lenin and Trotsky, writers and artists were granted creative freedom, provided they observed the rule of not engaging in overt political dissent. Thus the visionary Avant Garde aesthetic movement, formed already in 1915 by Russian artists having embraced the ideals of the European Modernist Movement, did survive until 1932.
(2) Published in Brokgauz's Encyclopaedic Dictionary, some time later publishing the article Censorial Penalties by Bogucharsky, wherein the index of books censored and destroyed during the period of 1865 - 1902 for the first time was published.
(3)The transcribed Union Catalogue, representing one major source on censorship in 19th century Russia, has been included in the "Beacon for Freedom of Expression" data base.

However, arguing that you are "right" when you make personal attacks does not change the fact that rather than responding to the messages you are going after the messengers. That is the problem. It is always disruptive to the discussion, no matter which "side" it comes from and whether or not the person making the attacks is "right" in their characterizations. Beyond that, you have also smeared all for the alleged sins of any one person, and created some arbitrary "group" that you claim are all the same, and then inisnutaed repeatedly that there is some hidden agenda at play. All of those assertions are unsupported by any evidence, and you are unabke or unwilling to defend them, so I suspect that your hope is that if you repeat them often enough they will "stick."

had nothing to do with the "authoritarianism" of the LaSalleians. Marx whole-heartedly supported the Communards serves as perhaps the most obvious example.

Further, Marx was most definitely NOT a rareified intellectual as you try to make him out to be. You may know that he had very little contact with other "leading lights" of his day other than Engels even though he was actually in the same city as some of them for 20 years or more!! Reading Hegel..? Marx MADE Hegel. Without Marx and Engels, what is Hegel's lasting significance? What is the import of his system? Outside of its own time and place..nil.

As for Nechayev, Marx was very acquainted with Bakunin (and by extension his "little friend") which, again, I suspect you know. Further we have talked about Sergei, in fact I posted his Catechism (or Bakunin's depending on who you trust) not that long ago..and caught shit for it, maybe from you even yourself

Finally bourgeoisie?? You could maybe argue that his wife Jenny was a wannabe bourgeoisie, but you know that Marx pissed money away constantly and typically lived in fairly abject conditions, yes?

Look, Montag, is your complaint that talk on here is a little too doctrinaire for your sensibilities? Shiiiiiiit..whatcha gonna do when we actually start talking working class politics? So every single thing said on here about Marx and socialism and revolution isn't 100% correct and accurate. Big deal, thats just minutae and, besides, we're all learning and getting better as we go.

If you think Marx was some detached, remote intellectual..think again.

... gas bag. If you read this shit just to debate the Marxists, that's OK. The fifth rate John Bircher slanders are even OK.

But, say some more slanderous shit about people and you are gone, gone, gone...

Who decides? I do, for one.

Try me, again.

Make sure you type a whole lot when you do.

PI had become an echo chamber. I think that is what motivated Tinoire to start making some changes. Unfortunately, the handful of people in the echo chamber did not want to lose it, and apparently felt threatened by any outside points of view being expressed. That led to the worst temper tantrums and shit fits I have ever seen on the Internet. Apparently some are still obsessed and angry, to an extreme degree. The claim that this all happened the other way around is transparent and absurd.

In any case, the goal is not popularity but rather quality. I don't think any of the members who threw a fit about the return of old members can claim that the quality has gone down. They can't challenge any of the work, so they attack the people.

I remember the days of dialogue on PI.

Here is a good discussion over there -

http://oldelmtree.com/discussion/index.php/topic,4607.0.html

You do realize that it is you and only you who drove your own thread irretreivably off topic, don't you? Or maybe the topic of "those Socialists are all assholes" was what you really wanted to talk about, and the OP was just a dishinest gambit. You did, after all, react before there was anything posted to react to.

My point about Marx is not that he was some detached intellectual, it's that he loved intellectualism and intellectual rigor and a vigorous exchange of ideas. Marx could never aspire to teach in a university, because he wouldn't have been allow to because of his beliefs/opinions. Just like what you all are doing, by excluding the opinions you find yourselves at odds with.

I'll get back to you on the quote, truthfully that is not a quote I'm familiar with (I'm not sure of its source), but I'm basing what I stated on what I was told by someone who I know has read nearly ever work ever drafted by Marx (even letters to friends and things of that nature that are not as widely read as his major works)...

There are some really good threads and discussions, and articles that you should weigh in on. Some of the best ever here.

Environmental and farming issues -

http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=220&topic_id=1490

http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=220&topic_id=1477

http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=220&topic_id=1401

http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=220&topic_id=1482

These articles are interesting, I think.

On immigration and private prisons -

http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=127&topic_id=6323

On Capitalism and corruption in Alabama -

http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=127&topic_id=6320

On Labor unions -

http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=127&topic_id=6300&mesg_id=6300

On global Capitalism and agriculture, the WTO, colonialism, etc. -

http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=127&topic_id=6294

You posted an article (that's probably interesting, although to be honest I've been so distracted by everything else on this thread I haven't read it yet) and an hour later you posted [link:www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=217&topic_id=183&mesg_id=183|this crap].

Gee, welcome back. Let's see how many more times you can post about 'you people' or 'you folks'. 'Defects', montag, really? This is ridiculous. You call this a reasonable approach to having a conversation?

Give me a fucking break.

In recent weeks some have been personally attacked and vilified many times for their beliefs and statements, even though according to the bylaws that's a no-no. "STFU or go away" as one of many examples. I agree if one needs to defend a position based upon emotion, hype or boiler plate it means nothing.

TO QUOTE: "PI is an adult board. The Admin/Moderator Team has no interest in baby-sitting or wasting time on "hurt" feelings. Rudeness, pettiness and/or vindictiveness towards other posters WILL get you banned from this board."

http://progressiveindependent.com/mission.html

Let's try and keep it civil.

Not sure why the links to it are live though...

Here's the re-worked 'about us' page:

http://www.progressiveindependent.com/shalom/pia/about.htm

The problem with the ongoing PI discussion about Marx and Capitalism is that it amounts to only abstract academic discussion by a handful, when what America and the world really needs is major political action that replaces the elite with populists. Not that the best ideas can't come forth from a handful.

What we need are policies that provide opportunities for those with less and loss of government gimmees to those who already have more.

Polemics and Dialogue are both Greek, and both parts of rhetoric. The one is oppositional (in "debate") and the other is not. They are equally legitimate.Santos is full of shit when he (crudely) sets them in opposition to each other, but it goes much further than that. He has an agenda... as do do most people who focus on style over content, etiquette over substance, and "freedom" above import. He is selling something (and it is not hard to guess what).

The Cubans allow many points of view, unlike American liberals.

Jacques,
The stuff about personal attacks is just your classic straw man (it reminds me of the people who say the liberal and conservative crazies are exactly the same, I may not like either Glenn Beck or Keith Olbermann but I know which one is certifiable!). Those that agree with the views of the owners and administrators of the site can engage in personal attacks all day long (and say the vilest and most detestable, disrespectful, degrading things to other human beings); and those who do not get banned, censored, expunged from history, kicked to the curb, etc... Do you see much of the other side left here? Who do you think is the offending party?

p.s. They are not even sincere, they have always wanted a circle jerk anyway; and now that they've got it, I don't understand their problem...

I think we need people with interests other than personal power, self-aggrandizement, and doing favors for cronies and friends in positions of power. These type of people have been and continue to be in power in both Socialist and Capitalist countries. So it's not as simple as developing the perfect model to implement at a national or international level, and expect to have Utopia from there. I have great respect for many socialists in history Guevera, Castro, Allende, Julius Nyerere, Patrice Lumumba, the Sandinistas, Kwame Nkrumah and many others (and a few capitalists, Pierre Trudeau and Jacobo Arbenz weren't that bad, to name just a couple). But I know they (nor anyone who would lead a system based upon similar founding principles) are a panacea; and that anyone advocating any other kind of approach/philosophy to social and/or radical change, is spewing half-truth/deceit.

Where is this - "Those that agree with the views of the owners and administrators of the site can engage in personal attacks all day long (and say the vilest and most detestable, disrespectful, degrading things to other human beings)"

Since no two of the returning members, mods, nor the owner are in agreement on everything, I don't know how there can be a way that we all think. The banned and departed members are the ones who seem to agree on everything and who were completely intolerant of any contrary opinions. So much so that they went half crazy, like I have never seen anywhere online.

The "other side" left in order to throw a tantrum, to make a melodramatic statement, because they could not get their way. Others were banned for among other things hijacking the board, or merely doing everything they could to smash everything up, as you have done here today yourself. Mainly, though, their arguments were being quite thoroughly demolished, and all of the uproar was created as a distraction from that uncomfortable fact. Right here today you are unwilling or unable to make your case, to present and support and defend an argument, and instead are doing everything you can to start a flame war.

I'd say you're on borrowed time by now

Sorry I had to work today. Hope that's okay with you. Maybe one day we could meet in person to discuss this further. I live in Upstate NY.

Why are you such a hysterical coward? Ever wonder about that?

Hey Montag again- What do you know about Pedro Campos the source for your article?

crying buddies how "horrible those terrible commies are over there"! This is such a pitiful display; sad, really. He has no greater goal in his retched little life than to make faces at people he isn't capable of understanding. He wants us to respect him, but he knows he isn't of a sufficient mental/ethical/moral caliber to earn any respect on this board, so he resorts to these shabby antics. Let him stay and whine outside the door, it will be a good object lesson for others...

Polemics, Politics and Problematizations
This interview took place in order for Foucault to answer questions frequently asked by American audiences. It was conducted by Paul Rabinow in May 1984, just before Foucault’s death.

Paul Rabinow: Why is it that you don’t engage in polemics ?

Michel Foucault: I like discussions, and when I am asked questions, I try to answer them. It’s true that I don’t like to get involved in polemics. If I open a book and see that the author is accusing an adversary of “infantile leftism” I shut it again right away. That’s not my way of doing things; I don’t belong to the world of people who do things that way. I insist on this difference as something essential: a whole morality is at stake, the one that concerns the search for truth and the relation to the other.

In the serious play of questions and answers, in the work of reciprocal elucidation, the rights of each person are in some sense immanent in the discussion. They depend only on the dialogue situation. The person asking the questions is merely exercising the right that has been given him: to remain unconvinced, to perceive a contradiction, to require more information, to emphasize different postulates, to point out faulty reasoning, and so on. As for the person answering the questions, he too exercises a right that does not go beyond the discussion itself; by the logic of his own discourse, he is tied to what he has said earlier, and by the acceptance of dialogue he is tied to the questioning of other. Questions and answers depend on a game—a game that is at once pleasant and difficult—in which each of the two partners takes pains to use only the rights given him by the other and by the accepted form of dialogue.

The polemicist , on the other hand, proceeds encased in privileges that he possesses in advance and will never agree to question. On principle, he possesses rights authorizing him to wage war and making that struggle a just undertaking; the person he confronts is not a partner in search for the truth but an adversary, an enemy who is wrong, who is armful, and whose very existence constitutes a threat. For him, then the game consists not of recognizing this person as a subject having the right to speak but of abolishing him as interlocutor, from any possible dialogue; and his final objective will be not to come as close as possible to a difficult truth but to bring about the triumph of the just cause he has been manifestly upholding from the beginning. The polemicist relies on a legitimacy that his adversary is by definition denied.

Perhaps, someday, a long history will have to be written of polemics, polemics as a parasitic figure on discussion and an obstacle to the search for the truth. Very schematically, it seems to me that today we can recognize the presence in polemics of three models: the religious model, the judiciary model, and the political model. As in heresiology, polemics sets itself the task of determining the intangible point of dogma, the fundamental and necessary principle that the adversary has neglected, ignored or transgressed; and it denounces this negligence as a moral failing; at the root of the error, it finds passion, desire, interest, a whole series of weaknesses and inadmissible attachments that establish it as culpable. As in judiciary practice, polemics allows for no possibility of an equal discussion: it examines a case; it isn’t dealing with an interlocutor, it is processing a suspect; it collects the proofs of his guilt, designates the infraction he has committed, and pronounces the verdict and sentences him. In any case, what we have here is not on the order of a shared investigation; the polemicist tells the truth in the form of his judgment and by virtue of the authority he has conferred on himself. But it is the political model that is the most powerful today. Polemics defines alliances, recruits partisans, unites interests or opinions, represents a party; it establishes the other as an enemy, an upholder of opposed interests against which one must fight until the moment this enemy is defeated and either surrenders or disappears.

Of course, the reactivation, in polemics, of these political, judiciary, or religious practices is nothing more than theater. One gesticulates: anathemas, excommunications, condemnations, battles, victories, and defeats are no more than ways of speaking, after all. And yet, in the order of discourse, they are also ways of acting which are not without consequence. There are the sterilizing effects. Has anyone ever seen a new idea come out of a polemic? And how could it be otherwise, given that here the interlocutors are incited not to advance, not to take more and more risks in what they say, but to fall back continually on the rights that they claim, on their legitimacy, which they must defend, and on the affirmation of their innocence? There is something even more serious here: in this comedy, one mimics war, battles, annihilations, or unconditional surrenders, putting forward as much of one’s killer instinct as possible. But it is really dangerous to make anyone believe that he can gain access to the truth by such paths and thus to validate, even if in a merely symbolic form, the real political practices that could be warranted by it. Let us imagine, for a moment, that a magic wand is waved and one of the two adversaries in a polemic is given the ability to exercise all the power he likes over the other. One doesn’t even have to imagine it: one has only to look at what happened during the debate in the USSR over linguistics or genetics not long ago. Were these merely aberrant deviations from what was supposed to be the correct discussion? Not at all—they were the real consequences of a polemic attitude whose effects ordinarily remain suspended.
http://foucault.info/foucault/interview.html

Drag out the French Filosophers of the Sixties to explain how polemics are "bad". That is certainly one authoritative source you've got there. Maybe Tim Leary, next?

"And now his own history has been written. What does one learn from these books? Chiefly that Foucault's relativistic outlook can be applied to Foucault himself. He used to say that the 19th century was to Marxism what water is to a fish. Increasingly his own work makes sense only when seen as a product of the Sixties. Not that Foucault would have denied this. He never suggested that he wasn't an interested being too. But one should ask of a body of philosophical work that it has a longer shelf life than a couple of decades. Nine years after his death his achievements, such as they are, are so much historical jetsam, their final worth little more than sweet Foucault."

Christopher Bray, 1993

"I have never effectively understood what he was talking about."

Noam Chomsky, 2003


The irony is that your quote is a polemic against "polemicists", but don't let that slow you down.

Not a single comment on what he wrote in the excerpt, I see.

Attack the person. Attack the person.

Free Press you don't know these cretins, Foucault is way over their head. He wasn't a Marxist anyway (probably to them a counterrevolutionary, not a thoughtful philosopher), he was involved with the French communist party for a short time... I'm not sure what he was a communitarian? Some of his ideas seem kind of anarchistic, but I don't think he ever used the term or label anarchist to describe himself. These people (SI) would put folks like Foucault into the Gulag (or have them executed), just like what happened to the rebels at Kronstadt.

Free Press, as I said before the only thing these people understand is Nechaev (and depraved things of that nature). Their relativistic brand of 'communism' makes them a laughing stock. They would be laughed out of any venue that addresses at all whatsoever the ideas that they are always talking about (but which they actually have a rather limited/poor understanding of)...

:)

Message moved to "T!me Out to Chill Out" forum. You can visit it [link:www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=217&topic_id=186 | here] .

"The polemicist , on the other hand, proceeds encased in privileges that he possesses in advance and will never agree to question. On principle, he possesses rights authorizing him to wage war and making that struggle a just undertaking; the person he confronts is not a partner in search for the truth but an adversary, an enemy who is wrong, who is (h)armful, and whose very existence constitutes a threat. For him, then the game consists not of recognizing this person as a subject having the right to speak but of abolishing him as interlocutor, from any possible dialogue; and his final objective will be not to come as close as possible to a difficult truth but to bring about the triumph of the just cause he has been manifestly upholding from the beginning. The polemicist relies on a legitimacy that his adversary is by definition denied."

What does he say here? The discussion of "right" has no meaning. He has already reduced "right" to a relative acceptance by both parties in the paragraph above. By now, no ability to complain about presumed right remains. According to the author, both cases have the same relative merit (Foucault loves to both have and eat the same piece of cake - this is by no means an isolated example).

What do we have left? An assumption by the polemicist that the "person he confronts is not a partner in search for the truth but an adversary, an enemy who is wrong, who is armful, and whose very existence constitutes a threat. For him, then the game consists not of recognizing this person as a subject having the right to speak but of abolishing him as interlocutor..."

Is this a false assumption? Do adversaries exist or is everything a matter of missed opportunity for dialogue? What about political adversaries? What about objective interests? Do different people have different objective interests or does their humanity transcend all that? What about classes? Do they exist? What about political ideologies? Are they simply mis-communication?

Again, are antagonistic viewpoints simply the product of unenlightened people... who don't accept dialogue... like Foucault... or you?

Foucault is specifically complaining about the polemics directed against him (as you are), but his specialty is the dishonesty with which he does it.

I'll bet you ten bucks that you will respond (if at all) with, "Your mother wears Army boots..."

Nooooo..

You're not like the 100 billionth poser to quote this jackoff on how "argumentation" should be done or anything..

I'm starting to think this particular passage is passed out in some University handbook upon enrollment.

Foucault needed a better sense of aliteration: rather than polemics, try pablum

Shit was trite when Foucault wrote it. It was laughable when people first started referring to it. Now? You can probably find it on every fifth "intellectual" wanker's Facebook.

Sign o'the times..

(PS I hope this isn't another "I haven't read Foucault, but my friend who knows him inside and out says this passage is gold" Yeah, so does some 21 year old stroking the peach fuzz on his face..or is that your point?)

Foucault? No, fook you

Why don't you make an argument as to why defects is ridiculous? I agree with Montag, what you people are doing is similar to actions taken in the Soviet Union.
dasvidaniya,
Luther

p.s. I have a football match (what you Yanks call soccer) I've got to get to, talk to you all later...

Whoever the hell you are.

Welcome to PI, where we have been struggling to make changes for months as the original founder is no longer focused on running the site.

[link:www.progressiveindependent.com/shalom/pia/about.htm|This is what we're about.] This is what people who were willing to invest the time and energy in contributing to keeping this site alive came up with.

Are you interested in this or not? If not, then find another board to fuck around on. Seriously.

Yo uare either a generic troll (finds a board and starts shit just for shits and giggles) or you are a disgruntled member (current or former) who can't handle the fact that we are actually having some in-depth conversations that you don't find interesting.

God forbid some random people happen upon our site, or get directed here, and like what they see, and start participating. Because then, like clockwork, someone like you shows up and starts shit like this and makes it all look like a mess again.

There are zillions of fucking discussion boards all over the net. If you don't like what we are doing, then leave us alone to our defective circle-jerk doctrinaire blah blah blah...It has nothing to do with you.

Hmmm... Perhaps I should stay on continental European football boards, there seems to be less bedlam; and it's more like good conversation with a mate over a Guiness and Manchester United at the pub.

Obama has just so invigorated me with his talk of change, I feel for the first time there are more important things in life than football matches; and I want to work to help you Yanks with health care reform or bring peace to Middle Eastern region. Obama is an agent of change, he is a fabulous orator. I wish we had someone like him in Leeds.
Cheerio,
Luth

You go on and on and seem only interested in causing disruption. The reason I have dismissed you is that you have shown yourself to be without value in a reasonable conversation - that, and you are an apologist for the capitalist and imperialists. Oh, you will sputter and bluster about your "lefty creds" and such, but you are just carrying water for your "betters". You may not even realize it, which makes it all the more regrettable. You have not had any interest in discussions with anyone who disagrees with your weak-ass view of reality - mainly because you are led by what you "believe" and not what you experience and see. You know, there have been a couple of discussion boards where I came to realize that I was no longer "meshing" with the members and I just stopped going to those boards. I didn't get mad or start flame wars are call names or anything; I just stopped going, stopped posting and stopped reading there. DU is an example. I have been sucked into one or two DU bashing extravaganzas, but, by and large, I have just stopped even thinking about DU and the other one or two boards I have lost interest in. I came here, primarily because of Tinoire. I have always understood that on most of these "progressive" boards you could not advance any real leftist discussions, unless it involved "feel good" sentiments and ended with all the upscale "lefties" feeling superior. So, I kept my head down and conformed. When the heathen commies came on board, I was at first upset that they were so rude. Then I realized that they were not being rude, they were being blunt, they were being working class, they were telling the truth - and I suddenly felt at home.

So, if I have to choose between anax (I assume that is who you mean) or you, it is no choice, at all. You cannot even stand in his shadow without being brought to your knees by the weight. This is what so mystifies me with all of you liberal Americans: you cannot begin to accept nor even start to comprehend the idea that your whole outlook on life is wrong. That everything you think is based upon a belief system that is handed to you in whole cloth. The idea that you should read and study and not take things on face value is anathema to you folks. You don't need to study anything, you already "know" the truth. How do you know it? Well, to be asked such a question just makes you angrier than you already are. You don't want to know things that are different from your beliefs - thems is fightin' words...

Let us just agree that we will each ignore the other. I will have no difficulties with that arrangement. I hope you get to feeling better.

Um, you are the one who just showed up after a couple months and started shitting everywhere. What the fuck is your deal? Don't like it here? THEN GO SOMEWHERE ELSE.

I know you want to force our hand, get yourself banned so you can call us fascists. But your absurd behavior speaks for itself. You are being ridiculous.

This is a hoot!
"like good conversation with a mate over a Guiness and Manchester United at the pub." So is "Manchester United" a drink? A "brew"? I thought it was a football team. You want to help us "Yanks" with health care reform? What? With good vibes? You "couldn't vote" because you're "in Europe"? If you were "in the US" could you vote? You wish Obama was in Leeds? What, you mean as mayor? We wish he was your mayor, too!

Oh, and Cheerio!

:rofl:

This is really priceless...

:rofl:


:booga:

Given his position, he could not be anything else. What change he is initiating is towards a more efficient capitalism, more efficient imperialism.

Yes, he is something of an orator, and he has used that skill to beguile and to obfuscate his actual purpose, giving the impression that he supports that which is desperate fan base wishes to believe.

Health care reform and peace in the Middle East, you've got to be kidding me. I thought you people had better information over there. The health care which you Brits enjoy is noting like the hash which is about to be inflicted upon us. Peace in the Middle East is more distant with every move this administration makes, consider Afghanistan, Pakistan, the fake withdrawal from Iraq.

Honestly, judging from your post, I think you'll find conversation more to your liking at Democratic Underground, there's a bunch there who swallow that Obama nonsense hook, line and sinker at that place.

Yes, I know of imperialism,
I remember that concept from my primary school. I didn't know Obama had anything to do with that kind of treatment, but if it is a recent development, truthfully, I haven't been reading the Mail. I wouldn't think Obama would support anything to do with controlling and bringing negative consequence to other people, he has dedicated his life toward the goal of Hope (for those that are in bad circumstance). His family is Kenyan, I have played many matches in his home country Kenya! It is a beautiful land! Obama is beautiful like his people's country!

Blindpig you did not support the campaign of Barack Obama? What did you like about John McCain, could you please tell me? Because John McCain is not well liked in Britain. I do not always go with what others tell me, but I feel that I don't like John McCain also.
-Luther

which is to say he is a capitalist. As such, no one here supports him in the least. If you are looking for a pro-Obama site, check out Democratic Underground, they looooove him there. Here, not so much - there is almost no difference between Obama and McCain only in the little, technical areas that won't amount to much in the long run...

Message moved to "T!me Out to Chill Out" forum. You can visit it [link:www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=217&topic_id=187 | here] .

Obama and McCain the same? During your election I did not see it, nor did the Mail report about that. Our Labour Party is not capitalist, I have often supported it, but I was not an admirer of Tony Blair (he let us down by supporting your Bush). I am not happy with the options given us here in Great Britain, I probably will not vote for at least a few years to come. We don't have any kind of politician like Obama.

Maybe I will see this DU that you mentioned (I'm new to the internet as well your Yank political discussion forums, as I say my knowledge is for football), it sounds like more will probably have an understanding of Obama at that website. I will let all of you know about DU and if it promotes important discussion. Apparently you all know something about it, because you keep telling me to go there, I'm not sure why you're not there, if it is so good for discussion of these things.
good hopes, good fortunes,
-Luth

And come back and give us your report on DU!

:ciao:

What is anyone doing that is "Stalinist?"

Do everything you can to pick a fight, and then blame the ones you are attacking for the fight.

it won't surprise me if we meet again...

Luther Blissett is a multiple-use name, an "open reputation" informally adopted and shared by hundreds of artists and social activists all over Europe and South America since 1994.

On the Usenet, the first reference to the Luther Blissett Project appeared on 7 November 1994. It was a trumped-up report on alleged uses of the multiple name all over the world, and—albeit written in a somewhat clumsy English—it was posted by a "Luther Blissett" from the University of Missouri-Columbia[1]

For reasons that remain unknown, the name was borrowed from a 1980s English football player of Afro-Caribbean origins[2]


---snip---


A limited selection of Blissett's stunts, pranks and media hoaxes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Blissett_(nom_de_plume)

Thanks Meg...

earth-moving equipment and the relocation of a couple of hundred thousand workers and their families, but other than that, I have no idea.

:shrug:

If you are so unaware of everything as you claim to be, then what is the basis for this statement?

"...what you people are doing is similar to actions taken in the Soviet Union."

I can't imagine that anyone who was really from the UK would feel the need to keep dropping all of the little hints about the Mail and soccer, etc. to convince people of that.

Would you really have us believe that there is no Left in Britain, no anti-war movement, no one pointing out the similarities between Bush and Obama, that all of this is news to you?

If so, then where could your comment about Stalinism possibly come from?

Your schtick is not holding up very well to scrutiny.

... how can you possibly justify <crickets>?

You baited me into this conversation which was supposed to be about two-sided conversation. The lack of response is simply dishonest and an intentional waste of time...

You might as well tattoo, "I am disingenuous and full of shit" on your forehead.

.

He must have a large forehead (some form of "defect", no doubt...) ;)

Horace said something like (very paraphrased), 'No mind can work well without having had the slow process of education.' I think ol' Free Press needs to hit the books some...