Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Vote for order and stability

[Occupy Wall St's demand? No demands By Sebastian Smith (AFP) – NEW YORK — They brave the elements, the police and uncertainties of life on the street, but probably the hardest thing anyone in the Occupy Wall Street demonstration can do is join something called the "Demands Working Group."
As they enter the second month of a protest that has echoed around the world, the activists of Occupy Wall Street are under fierce pressure from the media and major commentators to do what protest movements usually do: issue demands.]

[Nenon writes that the French Revolution was taken by Kant to directly challenge two of the fundamental beliefs of the Enlightenment. The first belief was that enlightenment is compatible with order, stability, and the gradual reform of political and social institutions. The second was that progress in any one area of human endeavor would be mirrored by progress in other areas. Nenon suggests that there were two chief responses to this challenge. The “romantic view” of Fichte, the early Hegel, and Marx maintained that progress will result in the elimination of the state. The “realist position” of the later Hegel held that the rational state is not only required for progress but is itself an instance of that progress. http://www.continental-philosophy.org/2011/10/17/kant-kantianism-and-idealism-the-origins-of-continental-philosophy-reviews-philosophical-reviews-university-of-notre-dame/]

No one is very sure where it is headed, but it is fairly apparent that OWS is a new edition of WSF jamboree. We don't dispute its entertainment value, but to see it as something leading to a higher purpose is questionable.

Like the Hazare movement, OWS is nothing but way to anarchy. As we have no love for such luxuries, we vote for order and stability instead. Learning to walk along the spirals of evolution warrants perseverance, and hence eschewing mob wisdom is the need of the hour. [TNM55]

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