tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post2162211026104436892..comments2024-03-28T00:11:33.489-04:00Comments on bensozia: Politics Since the End of the Cold WarJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-21069573911211006802018-05-07T09:22:48.499-04:002018-05-07T09:22:48.499-04:00Okay, I read the essay, and I was wrong: Purdy is...Okay, I read the essay, and I was wrong: Purdy isn't saying that the current conflicts are a non-event. He is saying that some norms, like presidential dignity, aren't terribly important to the survival of democracy. He's essentially arguing against the fogey-ish, David Frum line that Trump is simply too vulgar to hold the office. Other norms are "really essential," especially accepting the legitimacy of electoral results. Purdy sees in Trump and the current Republican party a racialized rejection of the legitimacy of votes for Democrats (eg, the contention that Trump really won the popular vote).<br /><br />Purdy in turn would like to see liberals challenge a different norm: the idea that democracy and "the versions of capitalism that have emerged in the last forty years" are compatible.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08993570411881726772noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-21636631998340097852018-05-07T08:20:20.422-04:002018-05-07T08:20:20.422-04:00I haven't read the essay, but I don't find...I haven't read the essay, but I don't find Purdy's arguments that you're describing here persuasive either. The "Cold War brought harmony" argument I find particularly thin. So far as I can tell, Americans have been bitterly divided for the last fifty years, and the issues haven't really changed during all that time, which includes the last twenty years of the Cold War. Further, again so far as I can tell, the idea of Cold War consensus largely reflects (a) the background impression of harmony created by 20 years of continuous prosperity post-WWII (itself a major and probably unrepeatable historical exception) and (b) a short period around 1960 when the commentariat was in love with the idea of "consensus."<br /><br />I would agree with Purdy that deep social divisions and some level of social conflict are more the historical norm than people often admit. But if Purdy is suggesting that social division and conflict are mostly non-events, that's rubbish. I would argue that, for one thing, those divisions and conflicts are a major part of a society's life together; how a society handles them is a major part of what defines it. For another thing, some conflicts really do lead to major change, and it's pretty hard to tell in advance whether a given phase of conflict means crisis and major change, or just more conflict. Hostility, the cranky defense of privilege, and even rebellion were pretty common reactions to royal taxation in early modern Europe--but 1789 ended up being, you know, different.<br /><br />Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08993570411881726772noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-50239451017557961762018-05-07T07:20:00.968-04:002018-05-07T07:20:00.968-04:00I didn't find this essay particularly persuasi...I didn't find this essay particularly persuasive. Norms are not laws, as Trump has so vividly demonstrated. An interesting area to explore would be the nexus between norms and laws. When and why are some norms codified into law and others not? <br /><br />I don't consider abortion (Rowe v. Wade) a norm. It's the law based on a judicial ruling and years of judicial precedence, but the social wars over abortion are too passionate to be calling abortion either a social pr political norm. Shadowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05353532874773316117noreply@blogger.com