The Placists Are Racists
Posted on July 1st, 2009
by Daniel McCarthy |
|
First Things editor Jody Bottum finds racism and Jew-hatred incipient in the politics of place (”…it’s always the Jews, isn’t it? Or the blacks, or the foreigners, or the diseased”), on the theory that place implies difference and difference means disharmony:
So what is this problem at the root of localism? Part of it involves the simple philosophical point that all definitions—even self-definitions—require, at some point, an assertion of what the defined thing is not. There is no such thing as an entirely positive definition. We define by genus and difference, as Aristotle put it, and the point extends as far as Spinoza’s famous metaphysical formula: “All determination is negation.”
Bottum might as well say that there’s misogyny implicit in love of one’s mother, since the definition of mother implies the negation of non-mother — of other women, indeed of all other human beings.
Love of place can be tainted with chauvinism or xenophobia, but it’s hardly necessary or inevitable that it will be, and there is no other world outlook — including Bottum’s liberalism — that is free from analogous dangers. The basic problem is not what the localist does with supposed outsiders, but what anybody in politics (liberal, localist, Communist, you name it) does with people who diverge from accepted opinion and practice. Universalisms can be at least as brutal as particularisms; the universal/particular division is not the same as the tolerant/intolerant division.
Bottum is so stuck in his universalist politics that he can’t even conceive of localism on its own terms. So he writes, “the practical part of localism’s dilemma involves, first, the fact that successful localisms attract immigrants, and the presence of immigrants undermines the localism.” Bottum seems to take for granted that success means something like economic growth. But even if economic growth necessarily attracts immigrants, it need not be a “dilemma” — Japan, for example, has had little trouble keeping immigration restricted during boom times. And if success means something other than economic growth, it may not entail attracting vast numbers of immigrants. (Bhutan may be walled off by the Himalayas, but if Chinese or Indians really wanted to inundate Bhutan with waves of immigrants, they could do it. Bhutan is a successful place, but not successful in a way that attracts determined multitudes of immigrants. I dare say that at the more local level the disjunction between “success” and attraction to immigrants is even greater; nation-states just make for convenient examples.) Lastly, living places are not Platonic forms, incapable of change or adaptation; they are not museums. Thus it is not the case that the presence of any number of immigrants undermines localism. It’s all a matter of degree and local conditions.
Bottum ought to put down Spinoza and read some Burke.
Filed under: Philosophy
Bhutan is not stupid enough to let the junks be dumped. She has her own soverignty right not to allow such. Besides, Bhutan has the patience to wait for the golden goose to lay one golden egg at a time and not kill the goose to get them all. You better look into your own plate and see who is been shitting in it. Charity begins at home.
An excellent post.
[...] read the ongoing kerfuffle over localism that has spread from PoMoCon and FPR to First Thoughts and Daniel McCarthy, the more I think a similar distinction might be useful in discussions of localism. Thus, I will [...]
[...] to cap it off, Daniel McCarthy has responses to Bottum and Reno, here and [...]
Tainted?
It would be useful if you and Bottom would introduce some concretes to your discussion. What sorts of things, exactly, do you agree and disagree about?
So, I love Pittsburgh with a passion. I know lots of my fellow Pittsburghers feel the same. Pitttsburghers are like me in a way that, say, Clevelanders or, heaven forbid, Manhattanites or Angelinos are not. My heart swells when someone says “younz.” Pierogies are yummy, especially if the girl making them has really big hair. Sandwiches should have french fries inside them. We should laugh at the fact that the Bishop keeps assigning the Polish priests to Italian parishes and vice versa (this one is kinda dated these days, unfortunately).
If there were to be a mass migration of Manhattanites here, would it be wrong, on your view or on Bottom’s view, to oppose it? If there is a subculture in Pittsburgh that looks down upon people who say “younz” and which identifies with some cosmopolitan CNN/MTV-esque superculture, it is OK to have contempt for this subculture or not? Is it OK or not OK to make outsiders feel like outsiders until and unless they comply with local norms?
How should we react to someone who was born and raised in Georgia and talks in anchorman English? The other side certainly imposes sanctions against people who were born in Georgia and who talk like Georgians. Are you saying that it is not OK to impose the opposite sanctions? What’s your plan for victory, then?
Daniel, what bullet are you willing to bite? Just how are localisms to defend themselves against the Borg if not by some sort of sanction against cosmopolitans and outsiders?
Maybe you could expand on your point about Japan. Do you think the Japanese are, like, tolerant and cosmopolitan and stuff? Or is their localism one of those tainted ones?