From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Fri Mar 19 2004 - 17:47:08 GMT
Matt,
Matt K said:
I will grant that to a certain extent political deliberation is short-_term_. But I think this a bonus. It allows succeeding generations to correct the follies of their forefathers and mothers.
Matt P said:
I really , really dont see how this is a good thing. It is fact, that I (my generation) will have to deal with many of the environmental legacies of the previous generations (ex. babyboomers). I don't think that this is some wonderful gift, for my generation to cherish, in labour, the cleaning up of many sticky situations. Yet, it will be / is necessary
Matt K:
I think you might be caught up in a possibly justified pessimism (which is shared with many other political deliberators on both sides of the spectrum), which too often turns into cyncism. I see pessimism as politically useless. I may or may not be privately pessimistic about the current incarnation of Western political power's chances of righting our society's ship, but for public purposes you have to remain optimistic about the idea of "Western political power," the idea that liberal, social democracy will have a positive effect on the world. If you are not optimistic, and you don't have any other better ideas, then I think you are doomed to be a cynical spectator, rather than an involved participant.
I opposed Wim's "short-sighted" to "short-term" to make this exact point. Our vision _is_ sometimes short-sighted, and that is to be lamented. But the fact that social democracy is also short-_term_ allows us to get corrective lenses. I see nothing opposed in having a great, expansive social vision and pushing the short-term, reformist policies that will eventually get us there. You say, I think rightly, that we need to "create something newer, and more dynamic" and that we are currently too focused on the status quo, the "static repertoire of human civilizations," but I don't see this as opposed to liberal, social democratic politics. We should lament the fact that we have to correct the environmental excesses of our parents, but we should rejoice the fact that we don't need a bloody revolution to do so.
Matt
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