Skillz = Fail
These are tough times for a political theorist amateur sociologist. I, for instance, utterly lack the resources of a Yuval Levin, a Jim Manzi, or a Noah Millman: I have no deep, information-rich skill set pertaining to economics or finance.
I am no Tim Carney: I cannot explain AIG in terms I understand.
When confronted with A Situation Like This, I feel more subject then ever to Rorty’s claim that philosophers are pro pitchers of platitudes.
All of which is no big deal, except that the commentary cycle we’re all living in makes it doubly hard to take a step back, take a deep breath, and ponder how A Situation Like This might be accounted for in terms of the big movements and features of our culture — not just our spending habits or our institutionalized risk but our ‘lifeworld’, our deep list of convictions and priorities. A while ago somewhere I suggested just a little glibly that the political dynamics of this campaign had slipped out ahead of the ken of the commentariat, that we were all really in pure reactive mode. Now more than ever…! As painful as it is to realize.
The uncritical faith in the market certainly has to be part of the “lifeworld” that led to this. All of the financial shenanigans that created this crisis were justified as “financial innovations” created by the market to magically make credit cheaper, and all regulations of them were dismissed as stodgy bureaucrats standing in the way of innovation. Speculation was seen as exactly equivalent to more traditionally creative work and innovations — a new security was like a better mousetrap. In spite of the obvious and glaring problems with e.g. the bond ratings system.
— MQ · Sep 22, 06:41 PM · #
Philosophy; one wonders (a bit) what Aquinas, he of the just price, would make of CMOs and leveraging.
Re the campaign, it’s a puzzle. Out-of-control outrageous on one side and cool, calm, and quiet-spoken on the other, holding to a 3-point spread. It’s incredible theatre and its outrageousness encourages the conspiracy theorist’s need to make a logical narrative out of it all. They must be doing that for a reason! It must make sense! It’s all part of some masterfully crafted fiendish plan to, well, you know, take over the world and enslave us all.
Just stick a meta- in front of it and it’ll be fine.
Really?
No.
— felix culpa · Sep 23, 05:55 AM · #
I think that the “uncritical faith in the market” is a definite indication of the passing of the depression era generation. That generation was not one to take on debt bad or good.
— mr · Sep 23, 09:33 PM · #