Democracy, evolution, and progress

[the "democratic" fetish is merely the zealous servant of the banks. Its real name, its technical name, as I have argued for some time, is capitalist-parliamentarianism...But we will resuscitate communism, in its new-found clarity. Badiou on the financial crisis Le Monde. posted by it 3:50 PM]

[David Harvey (whose book on The History of Neoliberalism I actually liked in some ways) asks Naomi “Why aren’t people more angry?” Angry about the bailout, the cronyism, and all the rest?... But in traditional leftist economic thought it’s still really all about managing people from a top-down engineering model. I can’t help but feel the Harveys and Kleins of the world secretly (or maybe not so secretely) are in some perverse way really drawn to people like Greenspan because that is what they wish they could be doing–controlling the great events from the top-down. Bailout Meets Marx
from Indistinct Union by cjsmith]

[What is the American mind, anyway? Tocqueville described Americans as natural Cartesians, even though most have never read Descartes. To consider a contrast, French thought falls under two types — the Cartesian, and the Pascalian. One stands for reason, the other for revelation; one for science, the other for piety; one for clarity, the other for passion. While Europeans have sentiments informed by literary traditions, the American is a man of rational principles. As a result, anybody can be an American; in principle there are no natural outsiders. Our story has been one unbroken, ineluctable progress toward freedom and equality. The Closing of the American Mind
from Thoughts, Books, and Philosophy by jhbowden]

[Sri Aurobindo's yoga is unique in that it integrates certain aspects of the phenomena of the Enlightenment, with its ideals of democracy, evolution, and progress that are Western in origin. Re: The Lives of Sri Aurobindo: the aggrieved victim Rich]

After a long time this rounded post by Richard Carlson, not uncontaminated though; but he is capable of producing far superior propositions, his skewed political stance notwithstanding. The genealogy he carelessly asserts here is factually inaccurate and Sri Aurobindo himself has dwelt upon at length on these specific points. [TNM]