Who Was Laclau, Philosopher Supporter Of Populismo K

[Rich One]

Laclau, the intellectual who laid the theoretical foundations of populism

(Google Translation)

Historian, philosopher and political scientist, Ernesto Laclau, died yesterday in Spain, was an intellectual referent for Kirchneristas,, one of his books is identified as the theoretical support for the governments of the region called populist.


Argentine political debate, favored a constitutional amendment that would allow indefinite reelection of presidents.

Some of the definitions are as follows:
- "Populism is not in itself neither good nor bad: the effect of constructing the political arena on the basis of a division of society into two camps can advance in a fascist direction or can advance a left.".

- "When the masses who had been excluded are incorporated into the political arena, appearing forms of leadership that are unorthodox from the liberal democratic point of view, as populism But far from being an obstacle, populism guarantees democracy. preventing it from becoming mere administration. "

- "The classic critique of populism is closely linked to a technocratic conception of power, according to which only experts should determine the formulas that will organize the life of the community."

http://www.infobae.c...s-del-populismo

 

[Chet]

Laclau, the intellectual who laid the theoretical foundations of populism

But far from being an obstacle, populism guarantees democracy. preventing it from becoming mere administration. "

democracy in a pure form would be nothing but mob rule.
2 wolves and a sheep decide whats for dinner. Now whats for dinner on day 2?

 

[Rich One]

democracy in a pure form would be nothing but mob rule.
2 wolves and a sheep decide whats for dinner. Now whats for dinner on day 2?

Is this a riddle? Would it be Lamb Stew? Or some other Romanian mutton kebab ?

 

[Rich One]

No one commented on this Crucial issue referring to the fundamentals of the Populismo and the Nac & Pop Argie culture that affects all of us.

Guess more interest on recipes for Apple Pie and yoghur

 

[ElQueso]

I didn't see this post previously, although I did see the apple pie one...heh.

I didn't read the article, I'm about to take off, but I did see the translation above.

Like any other kind of political creed, populism only does as good as upon what ideals the movement that brings it is based in.

Populism had a hand in the American Revolution, but it was restrained by a set of objectives that were concrete at their base - freedom from a foreign power and representation of the citizens in government and enforcement, removal of foreign tyranny and acknowledgment of the inherent nature of freedom that should be the right of every human. Even then, the populist movement didn't quite extend far enough to cover black slaves, for example, at the time of the foundation of the US, but at least a lot the core concepts were shared and propagated forward into the future that enough people caught that up and took care of it later. The elites were the British King and his troops in that case. It wasn't their fault that the newest US populist movement is basically the reverse of that - riding the wave of people who have finally realized they can go beyond affecting how things are run to realizing they can get money voted into their pockets from the pockets of others. Obama may not be a Marxist, be he sure as hell is riding a populist wave.

I don't believe populism had much to with the American Civil War, and the result of that war, the purported objective of which was to free slaves (but was really more about extending a lack of choice to States who thought differently than other States), came about before enough people were really willing to actually free the slaves AND treat them as equals - on both sides (although obviously the South was more strongly attuned to this lack of feeling). Although it could be said that the Union government could be seen as elitists tyrannizing the South, but the term elite, related to populism, seems to be more related to rich, un-hearing and uncaring elite rather than a government elite that is trying to ensure that a country stay together at all costs.

I think populism here in Argentina, and much of South America, with it's "universal inclusion" and war against the elites, has mixes of the American Revolution and the American Civil war. But the foe here is internal, much more like the civil war in the US than the revolutionary war, which was against a foreign elite. But even then different because there were two different sides with two distinct purposes in the American civil war.

Populism within a country against its own members is dangerous and when the people aren't ready for such a change and the direction is scattered amongst a general class of "elites" - kind of like the early 1900s in Russia really. It can be a force dictated by populists with whom many may not agree, particularly if there is no thought as to what the inclusion of all actually entails - should be more than just universal suffrage, but rather universally equal treatment and opportunity. Unfortunately, most of that has to have a common and strong foundation to produce a good result and here the people who are riding the populist wave (or have created it) are not at all worried about the status of the people (as far as I can tell) or how well their efforts are moving towards true universal inclusion. And taking from the rich and giving to the poor really never helped anyone outside of legend.

It seems a lot more Marxist and corrupt and demanding than everyone working together to see what universal inclusion really means. And I don't see a whole lot of that universal inclusion actually going on.

 

[Redpossum]

Populism had a hand in the American Revolution, but it was restrained by a set of objectives that were concrete at their base - freedom from a foreign power and representation of the citizens in government and enforcement, removal of foreign tyranny and acknowledgment of the inherent nature of freedom that should be the right of every human.

(above quote edited for brevity)

Sorry, but no. It was not "every human". The franchise was extended only to white males. Furthermore, at that time Senators were not elected at all, but appointed by the Governor.

This is dangerous historical revisionism.

 

[ajoknoblauch]

Laclau was a well-meaning but clueless academic.

 

[London2Baires]

Hi All!

One of my particular interests and specialisations happens to be the political sciences. I was therefore somewhat surprised to recently see several national newspaper articles on this supposedly world famous Laclau. I personally had never come across his work and so decided to do a little digging a few days ago. As far as I understand it he tries to fix certain deficiencies within classical Marxist theory by attempting to incorporate certain post-modern 'methodologies' (drawing heavily from Derrida) as well as taking other 'insights' from the psychoanalytical tradition of Lacan and to a lesser degree relying also on Saussure, Barthes and Gramsci's work (and to an ever lesser degree Kant's).

The resulting theoretical model of 'Discourse Analysis' attempts to go beyond a flawed Marxist class antagonism based paradigm and tries to set up a new antagonism between a 'dominant' neo-liberalism discourse on the one hand and a deconstructed populism discourse as its countervailing pole on the other.

Personally I am not convinced either by the theoretical underpinning of Discourse Analysis or by Laclau's conclusions and related praxis.

For those of you who are interested but who also have some previous understanding of the field (and a fair bit of patience!) you can watch the youtube video of Laclau's key note address at a University Of Brighton Conference on youtube (its 1 hour long, good luck!). Also for anyone who managed to watch the youtube you may also want to read the brief written critique on Discourse Analysis Theory [both links below]

Cheers!


Links:

Thinking The Political : The Work of Ernesto Laclau - University Of Brighton
.

https://www.youtube....h?v=KqzN7cLPW2c


A Brief Critique of Discourse Analysis:

http://struggleswith...ourse-analysis/

 

[Redpossum]

a flawed Marxist class antagonism based paradigm

(above quote heavily edited for brevity)

This is something I have done a lot of thinking about in recent years.

I'm not sure whether Marx and Lenin were wrong in Europe 100+ years ago; I wasn't there, and I don't trust contemporaneous records of that time. But I do agree that their model is badly flawed in terms of the world today, simply because they misidentified the enemy. Classic Marxist doctrine speaks of the middle-class as the enemy of the working class. Obviously, in the world today, it is the ultra-rich who are the implacable enemies of everyone else. The great struggle of our time is the 1% against the rest of us, and the virtual destruction of the American Middle Class in the last 15 years is ample evidence of this.

The problem is that Marx and Lenin assumed antagonism between middle and working classes as a foundational principle, and all their conclusions which proceed from that point are based upon an at-least-partially flawed premise. But this does not mean that the basic concept of class struggle is invalid. It simply means that one who wishes to be a Socialist in the modern age must re-think the entire body of classical Socialist doctrine and examine it for flawed conclusions. Much of the body of work is still entirely valid, and many of the basic concepts are sound. Much of the dialectic still has vibrant relevance for our time.

In closing, I would note that many of the great thinkers of the 19th and early 20th centuries created works which contain certain flaws. Sigmund Freud certainly committed errors, many of which stemmed from his hatred of women, yet we do not discard the entire body of his work.

The challenge is in rising above the generations of virulent propaganda which have obscured the basic nature of the debate.

 

[Matiasba]

Hi All!

One of my particular interests and specialisations happens to be the political sciences. I was therefore somewhat surprised to recently see several national newspaper articles on this supposedly world famous Laclau. I personally had never come across his work and so decided to do a little digging a few days ago. As far as I understand it he tries to fix certain deficiencies within classical Marxist theory by attempting to incorporate certain post-modern 'methodologies' (drawing heavily from Derrida) as well as taking other 'insights' from the psychoanalytical tradition of Lacan and to a lesser degree relying also on Saussure, Barthes and Gramsci's work (and to an ever lesser degree Kant's).

The resulting theoretical model of 'Discourse Analysis' attempts to go beyond a flawed Marxist class antagonism based paradigm and tries to set up a new antagonism between a 'dominant' neo-liberalism discourse on the one hand and a deconstructed populism discourse as its countervailing pole on the other.

Personally I am not convinced either by the theoretical underpinning of Discourse Analysis or by Laclau's conclusions and related praxis.

For those of you who are interested but who also have some previous understanding of the field (and a fair bit of patience!) you can watch the youtube video of Laclau's key note address at a University Of Brighton Conference on youtube (its 1 hour long, good luck!). Also for anyone who managed to watch the youtube you may also want to read the brief written critique on Discourse Analysis Theory [both links below]

Cheers!


Links:

Thinking The Political : The Work of Ernesto Laclau - University Of Brighton
.

https://www.youtube....h?v=KqzN7cLPW2c


A Brief Critique of Discourse Analysis:

http://struggleswith...ourse-analysis/

Very interesting videos. I studied Laclau and frankly it was quite interesting concerning the way a society is broken into two antagonist parts. How the demand, the social demand and the consequent alliances, happen till turn into two separate fields.

Laclau was one of the most important intellectuals Argentina had abroad. And its rare that given the influences the intelectuals historically recieved in this country, and the historical bonds with universities abroad, one of our most important figures studied, lived, teached and got impregnated by anglo saxon culture and mentality.

He was sooooo much than a K ideologist, as the media said. In fact, he was 68 when Kirchnerism was born, and most of his work done.