From Chantal Mouffe’s Agonistics: Let me briefly recall the argument I elaborated in The Democratic Paradox. I asserted that when we acknowledge the dimension of ‘the political’, we begin to realize that one of the main challenges for pluralist liberal democratic politics consists in trying to defuse the potential antagonism that exists in human relations. … Continue reading Agonism overview
It’s difficult, painful and uncanny to argue across fundamentally different worldviews. Not everyone can do it and even fewer will do it. It requires collaborative agon, and too much desire to avoid conflict or to make one’s own position prevail will destroy the conditions of success. Recognizing a conflict that requires collaborative agon and conducting … Continue reading Collaborative agon
Agonistic pluralism is perhaps the most important political concept I’ve learned in the last ten years. It holds that all liberal-democratic political positions are uneasy bundles of internally contradicting principles (or, more accurately, heuristics) which will, inevitably, be interpreted differently by different people at different times, and which therefore must be resolved through a flexible … Continue reading Intellectual infanticide, Ares’s handpuppets, and agonistic homeopathy
What if I cast left versus right in terms of effort required to maintain equality or inequality? The further left one’s ideology leans, the more one believes that equality with others should require no effort. Enforced preexisting equality of all people is the ideal. The further right one’s ideology leans the more one believes inequality … Continue reading Agonistic centrism?
Agonistic pluralism recognizes that pluralism entails conflict, but the goal is to constrain the conflict to disagreement between adversaries, not violence between enemies. Tragic pluralism acknowledges that pluralism will never result in a final harmony, and normalizes discord not only in the process but in the outcome. Discontent is a permanent part of the human … Continue reading Agonistic and tragic pluralism
I’m meditating on design-related expressions I have coined. These ideas orbit a central concern, which makes the difference between a project that is for me and one that is not. Practical fantasy — The idea that our favorite tools project a world around us — a potential story-field — and within it, ourselves as protagonist. … Continue reading Crossing design with Kabbalah
There is room for disagreement on immigration policy. As a staunch agonist, I honor even extreme, bitter conflict on such issues. Those who disagree with current policy have every right to protest it publicly. There should be less room around enforcement of current policy. Policies are designed to narrow possibilities into practical particulars of enforcement. … Continue reading Red Card
I get excited when I meet service designers who entered the discipline from practical need. Such service designers encountered some problem or set of problems they recognized as beyond the reach of their own methodology. This is much harder than it sounds: The adage “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a … Continue reading Knowing the absence of knowing
For the record, I have been overusing em-dashes for over two decades. I picked it up from Nietzsche, whose abuse of em-dashes would makeChatGPT blush. But now every jackass out there has hopped on the em-dash shaming bandwagon, side-eyeing every em-dash and insinuating if the suspicious em-dash wasn’t AI generated it is probably an attempt … Continue reading Em-dashes
There is much to hate about Boomers, but their most hateful fault is their sexuality. This sexuality is characterized by two equally unfortunate ideals: frankness and naturalness. Deployed in tandem, these ideals destroy everything mysterious and fascinating about love, and reduce it all into stinky, sweaty, hairy, biodegraded mess encapsulated by the Boomer’s favorite word … Continue reading Word torture
I remain enamored with Habermas’s framing of system versus lifeworld. It seems to me that our popular philosophy seeks to project a semi-concealed systems-metaphysic beneath our lifeworld. We want to uncover the secrets of this system in order to understand finally how this semi-chaotic lifeworld emerges. The philosophers I gravitate toward do the opposite. They … Continue reading Hyperorder metaphysics
Inspired by Kat Rosenfield’s hyperambiguous pan of Coppola’s Megalopolis, I went with my filmmaker cinephile son-in-law to see it firsthand and participate in this very weird reflection on this very weird moment in history. Her review brought to mind the failed tightrope walker from Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The tightrope walker tried to cross over to … Continue reading Megalopolis
Ideologies of hate often present themselves as ideologies of justice. The justice is invariably justice for some group or set of groups. But the ideology’s concern for these groups can seem inconsistent and illogical. The groups may suffer all kinds of tragic events. But only some of the events are noticed and inspire energetic response. … Continue reading Ideologies of hate
You are not empathic. I’m sorry, it is true. This is mainly because you have become confused about what empathy is. What you experience when you believe you are being empathic is the exact inverse of empathy. In empathy, we approach an actual person with the intention of acquiring a new or modified understanding of … Continue reading You are not empathic
I think the big difference between me and many people I know is that I see war as caused by general cultural conditions, rather than by any particular faction. The cultural conditions leading to war produce mutually-antagonistic factions, which naturally regard one another with suspicion. Each faction’s partly-understood, mostly-imagined reaction to the other provokes a … Continue reading Hostility system
When I was agnostic, religious believers and atheistic nonbelievers would sometimes accuse me of being noncommittal. Eventually, I found my stance: devout agnosticism. My devout agnosticism was not on the same plane as factual conviction. It was a commitment to epistemological integrity — and that commitment was every bit as passionate as any atheistic or … Continue reading Militant pluralism
I read strangely. When I read, I work hard at understanding the material, but I do not put much effort into retaining the material. Rather, I use the effort to understand to repattern my conceptions. As I read, I look for signs of textual attunement or misattunement. I pay close attention to when I am … Continue reading Dematerializing
Jan Zwicky: Loss is perhaps the ultimate philosophical problem — and death, only incidentally and to the extent it is experienced as loss by those who remain alive. The great absolute architectonics of systematic thought are intended to secure the world against loss. Maturity is achieved when things are let go, left to be on … Continue reading Loss and honesty
We have ideas we use for thinking, and we have ideas we think about. We are normally only aware of the thoughts we think about. When someone asks us what our philosophy is, these are what we list. They are the objective content of our thinking. But the ideas we use for thinking are far … Continue reading The rough game
This seminal essay was written by Beatrice Warde in 1955. I need a reliable way to link to this essay, and so I am posting it here. The Crystal Goblet, or Printing Should Be Invisible Imagine that you have before you a flagon of wine. You may choose your own favourite vintage for this imaginary … Continue reading Beatrice Warde: “The Crystal Goblet, or Printing Should Be Invisible”