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Regime Philosophers on the Lies They Like and the Lies They Don’t

by James Alexander
29 September 2024 1:00 PM

It is of philosophers and freedom of speech that I want to talk about. Here are two major and important philosophers: Jeremy Waldron, who had held positions at Oxford, Edinburgh, Berkeley and Columbia, and is now at the New York School of Law; and Cass Sunstein, who holds a position at Harvard Law School. Both are 70 years old. They are grand figures, oft-celebrated, well-remunerated: they are, in a word, regime philosophers. If you doubt, consider their recent work.

Cass Sunstein has written a book Liars: Falsehoods and Free Speech in an Age of Deception (Oxford University Press, 2021), and Jeremy Waldron has written an article entitled ‘Damned Lies’, Political Philosophy 1 (2024), pp. 39-71. Let me go through their pages before consigning them to the flames.


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Tags: Cass SunsteinCOVID-19Donald TrumpJames WaldronTrump derangement syndrome

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32 Comments
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MajorMajor
MajorMajor
7 months ago

I must admit it’s not entirely clear to me why we should pay the slightest attention to these “philosophers” and their burbling.

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kev
kev
7 months ago
Reply to  MajorMajor

Apparently they are learned, and being academics they are obviously right about everything they think and say. Their biases are not subjective, they can only be objective, and you can’t question academics – apparently!

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
7 months ago
Reply to  MajorMajor

I kept reading that Plato’s “Republic” was really important so I read it. My abiding memory of it is that it’s an argument for why people like Plato should be in charge of everything. He probably started a trend that continues to this day; hard to take these people seriously.

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RW
RW
7 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Did he actually write that? Or is this just what you believe he must have meant? Writing books and ruling states are rather different occupations and someone who does the former might not want (and possibly wouldn’t be particularly good at) dealing with all the real world hassles involved in the latter.

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
7 months ago
Reply to  RW

It must be at least 20 years since I read it but that’s certainly what I took away from it

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RW
RW
7 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Judging from the Wikpedia summary, the book posits that the best form of government would be rule by a ‘wise’ king. I concur with that, however, I neither believe to be partiuclarly wise nor would I want to rule anything. So, if Plato doesn’t explicitly stated that he envisioned himself as such a wise king – which he apparently didn’t, as the book is reportedly written in form of a fictious dialogue between synthetic people – why do you think it’s appropriate to assume that he must meant himself?

Further, ignoring the issue of the ad hominem being justified, what’s wrong with the concept? If there’s nothing wrong with it, then, the ad hominem is pointless because a wise king named Plato surely wouldn’t be worse than a wise king named Marcus, and if there’s something wrong with it, the ad hominem is useless because the concept would be faulty regardless of person of the king.

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
7 months ago
Reply to  RW

I think it’s reasonable to assume he regarded himself and people like him as wise. Whether he personally wanted to be a ruler I don’t know. Anyway, I am not a fan of the concept. Who decides what “wise” is?

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RW
RW
7 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Nobody decides what “wise” is. That’s a state people are supposed to approach without ever actually reaching it by earnestly seeking the truth and earnestly seeking to lead virtuous lives, with virtues being defined as prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance.

In the given context, the question is a bit bizarre because a king is a hereditary ruler and hence, there’s no “wisecrack competition” to determine who’ll become the next king where some somehow defined tribunal passes judgements of some set of candidates.

Let’s recap the recent absurd episode of Thuringian Antifascist Madness¹ here: There used to be a law in Thüringen that the strongest party in a new parliament had the right to suggest a candidate for the position of what would be called speaker of the house in England. A vote would then take place and other candidates could only be nominated if the candidate who was nominated first lost this vote.

Due to unfortunate circumstances for democracy, the AfD became the strongest party faction in Thüringen after the recent election. Because of this, the self-appointed “democratic parties” turned the first session of the newly elected parliament into a disorderly shouting contest demanding that the rules they created themselves must immediately be changed to stop them from having to vote down an AfD candidate first before being allowed to propose their own candidates. Ultimatively, this ended in front of the supreme court of Thüringen which was asked to pass a judgement on the constitutionality of the existing law created by the very people asking for this judgement.

The outcome was that the court ruled that MPs ought to be allowed to make aribtrary proposals for the house to vote on before parliament had formally constituted itself. The rules for electing the speaker were thus changed and a guy from the CDU was elected for this position, exactly what would have happened if this tempest in a toy-thimble hadn’t taken place.

German MSM reportedly presented this as “Violent Nazi take-over akin to 1933 barely averted!”

Our present mode for selecting who’s to govern us certainly doesn’t favour wise people for any definition of wise. More self-centered manic pencil-pushers who are as convinced of the overwhelming importance of their silly procedural games as they’re clueless about and disinterested in anything which could be of concern to ordinary people.

Maybe, that’s not such a good idea and we would fare better with wise kings.

¹ Spackengräber füllen sich, holde Pest wir grüßen dich! Oder schön wäre das jedenfalls.

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
7 months ago
Reply to  RW

How would you select a “wise” ruler then?

“book posits that the best form of government would be rule by a ‘wise’ king. I concur with that”

Or do you just hope that a king happens to be “wise” according to your definition?

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RW
RW
7 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

In a hereditary monarchy, that’s all you can hope for as the king isn’t selected by his subjects. Tradition and education go a long way in helping with that, though. Even Prussian monarch with a fairly poor record like Friedrich Wilhelm III. managed to steer his country – with a fair lot of help by other people, not the least the queen – through the humilations following the defeat of 1806 to eventual restoration in the wars of liberation about ten years later.

But that’s really besides the point which was not “Given a universe composed Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, how to we chose a good ruler²?” but “How would an ideal state be organized and led?”. That’s an entirely theoretical consideration whose answer neither depends on such an ideal state having ever existed nor of it being achievable at all.

² Throw up our hands in despair and emigrate to Mars, obviously.

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
7 months ago
Reply to  RW

I think discussions about ideal states are only useful if they lead to some useful conclusions about how the current state of affairs could be made better – which doesn’t necessarily mean that the ideal state needs to be achievable, but some approach towards it needs to be achievable. I can’t remember how Plato reckons these wise philosopher kings should be chosen, if indeed he speculates on that at all. I think unless you have some kind of plan for that, it’s not an overly useful suggestion. Hereditary monarchies evolved over a long time, and eventually their power was more and more limited. That worked well sometimes but not others.

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
7 months ago

Sort of on topic, senior US “Democratic” Party bigwig John Kerry isn’t fond of freedom of speech:

”But look, if people go to only one source and the source they go to is sick and has an agenda and they’re putting out disinformation, our first amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to just hammer it out of existence.”

https://rudolphrigger.substack.com/p/lurching-towards-tyranny

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Jack the dog
Jack the dog
7 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

He’s such a cupid stunt that he doesn’t realise that you’re not supposed to say that part out loud.

3
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
7 months ago
Reply to  Jack the dog

Yeah you’ve got to think it will put off a few swing voters who might otherwise have supported the Dems

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stewart
stewart
7 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Doesn’t everyone have an agenda?

1
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
7 months ago
Reply to  stewart

Almost certainly. Some are probably more honest about it than others though

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Mogwai
Mogwai
7 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

I think the biggest irony is that the main source of ‘misinformation’ ( code word for ‘lies’, basically ) is the government and all their associated entities. I mean, you could name any organization or collective; e.g, WHO, UN, WEF, Big Pharma, MSM etc, in addition to any sock puppet governments, and these shysters are the biggest peddlers of lies. But it’s we that get persecuted and censored because we represent a threat when we oppose them, challenge them or share contradictory evidence or facts which debunk their propaganda and falsehoods. Their lies must stay protected at all costs and no admission of wrongdoing will ever be admitted to. After all, they wouldn’t be putting away people who share memes or anti-narrative views online if these ordinary people, these concerned citizens, did not pose a threat. Better for them that the criminals be walking the streets than the people who hold anti-establishment opinions and aren’t afraid to share them. It might just catch on..

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
7 months ago
Reply to  Mogwai

Always a good trick to accuse others of exactly what you’re guilty of

1
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Mogwai
Mogwai
7 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Haha, yeah, projection. There’s a few on here that could give lessons on that.

0
0
RW
RW
7 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

It’s not only a trick: People tend to find their own character deficits in others, presumably, because they’re already very familiar with them. That’s an observation I’ve made frequently in earlier times, when I was still dealing more with people (instead of just trying to keep them off my lawn).

Whenver someone accuses someone else of something, it’s therefore a good guess that the accuser is guilty of this something himself, but – if I may paraphrase something you wrote a fairly long time ago – responsibly so¹.

¹ The statement was about people who only broke COVID rules responsibly, ie, not like everybody else.

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
7 months ago
Reply to  RW

Ah yes the “sensible” rule breakers, much more virtuous than those horrid people who broke the rules in the “wrong” who should be punished.

1
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Mark Splane
Mark Splane
7 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

I long since came to the conclusion that dis/misinformation is much like flatulence: he who smelt it, dealt it.

0
0
Kone Wone
Kone Wone
7 months ago
Reply to  Mogwai

“Lies, Damned Lies, and (Government) statistics”

-with a nod to Benjamin Disraeli

1
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RW
RW
7 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

That’s the point of it: Stop politicians from hammering those with whose political opinions they disagree out of existence.

The core idea behind so-called pluralistic society is that a plurality of viewpoints and opinions on everything ought to exist because even assuming everyone is being perfectly honest, man is fallible and thus, likely to get stuff wrong even when being motivated by the best intentions. Social order must thus enable experimentation to work out what is sound and what isn’t and must be ready to accept that what everyone (+/-) believed to be sound yesterday might turn out to be wrong today because something hiterto unknown was discovered.

The idea that he could be wrong about something doesn’t seem to occur to Kerry. It’s easy to be wise about contrived examples constructed for the purpose of showing one’s wisdom. But the real world is messy and complicated and our understanding of it is very much limited.

Last edited 7 months ago by RW
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Kone Wone
Kone Wone
7 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

That’s why he perpetually seems to have a long face.

1
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Jon Garvey
Jon Garvey
7 months ago

Two philosophical axioms of our time:

“Vaccines are safe and effective.”
“Governments are never corrupt.”

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stewart
stewart
7 months ago
Reply to  Jon Garvey

I don’t think anyone tries even to believe the second.

I would replace it with “People in government despite their flaws try to do the right thing for the country.”

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Kone Wone
Kone Wone
7 months ago
Reply to  stewart

And fewer and fewer believe the first.

1
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Jeff Chambers
Jeff Chambers
7 months ago

As I’ve mentioned before, there’s a group of people who believe that they possess the magical super-power of Wise and Numinous Knowledge – W.A.N.K. for short – and that their possession of it gives them complete command of the difference between lies and truth. There’s a collective name for such people … w… wan… regime apparatchiks.

4
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WillP
WillP
7 months ago

What’s a good metaphor or collective noun that neatly captures the instance when people revered for their sagacity step out of their bubble and reveal themselves as complete asses?

0
0
Crouchback
Crouchback
7 months ago

Quite the book review! I enjoyed that! I hope James is now recovering his zen with some sweet black tea.

0
0
harrydaly
harrydaly
7 months ago
Reply to  Crouchback

Yes, I enjoyed it too. I think I enjoy all his contributions. I love the idea of ‘the regime’ (not his alone, of course), especially when you can have not only regime politicians and regime journalists but regime philosophers or even (why not?) regime endocrinologists (endoctrinologists maybe?). It strikes me that this Professor is more deeply a sceptic than even Toby Young himself. His very style mocks the regime, never mind what it is he is saying in particular.

1
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