Nietzsche's Critique of Truth

Nietzsche has made many paradoxical remarks about truth, including the claim that truth does not exist. Philosophers have attempted to tease out various theories of truth from his scattered remarks. This piece argues that Nietzsche had no interest in a theory of truth, rather he is interested in the rhetoric of truth; how claims of truth are used to coerce agreement and conformity, to hide expressions of subjective wills behind alleged objective facts. This kind of analysis is predicated on understanding Nietzsche’s various prima facie conflicting pronouncements by finding their intended audience. Nietzsche is not interested in finding eternal truths, rather his pragmatic concern is to move various audiences from their complacent beliefs. What is needed to move one target audience might be the opposite of what is needed at another time to move another targeted audience. Nietzsche is aiming at local interventions rather than global philosophical truths. This suggests a general model for Nietzsche interpretation: To understand a given Nietzsche text, first try to find who his intended audience/ audiences is/are and from what beliefs is he trying to pry them, and in what direction he seeks to move them. The general thought behind this piece is that Nietzsche should be regarded more as a psychologist or Kulturkritker than as a philosopher in the modern sense (one who is interested in questions of ultimate ontology, epistemology, etc.). I also suggest in this piece that careful attention be paid to Nietzsche language, in particular his use of the metaphoric of degeneration. To this end I analyze his use of martial and forensic metaphors. Footnote 14 touches on the highly important and vexing question of his responsibility for his subsequent use arguing that Nietzsche's culpability lays not so much in his particular claims but in his very language.Article (Reprinted in "Oxford Readings in Philosophy: Nietzsche", edited by B. Leiter and J. Richardson, Oxford University Press, 200

Keeping GM Van Nuys Open

[Excerpt] In Van Nuys, for the past four years, we have been building a movement of our own local union, the Chicano and black communities, clergy, intellectuals, students and small businesspeople to demand that General Motors keep open a profitable plant it has threatened to close. The basic premise of the struggle—that we do not recognize GM\u27s plant as private property but see it as a joint venture between capital, labor and minority communities — flies in the face of GM\u27s worldview and the dominant business ideology of the times. Our impressive organizing successes indicate that a revitalized labor movement can rebuild powerful coalitions in opposition to big business. It is a small, but hopeful, example of grass-roots regional planning — from the bottom up. But, as we will describe, recent efforts by General Motors, representatives of our International union, and a company-oriented faction of our local have been pursuing a strategy of competition with other UAW locals to try to save our plant at the expense of others. If this strategy of company-unionism succeeds over the strategy of community-based demands for corporate responsibility, then once again a declining labor movement will have rescued corporate greed from the jaws of defeat

The Return of the Poor Man: Jude the Obscure and Late Victorian Socialism

This essay examines Hardy\u27s decision at the end of his career as a novelist to return to the striking socialistic themes which had defined his first (unpublished) novel. Jude the Obscure is Hardy\u27s exploration of the spiritual and intellectual deprivation that attends the condition of the working-class poor. While the novel was reviled at the time as blatantly anti-marriage, its fiercest polemic is reserved for the soul-destroying economic and social systems which continued to keep the class structure rigidly intact. While Hardy was never a socialist himself, his final novel has much in common with the numerous socialist and radical movements that were emerging, merging, and dissolving during the final decades of Victoria\u27s reign

Transatlantic consumptions: disease, fame and literary nationalisms in the Davidson sisters, Southey, and Poe.

This article supplements Lawlor’s Consumption and Literature by demonstrating the complex relationships between disease and literature. Lawlor shows how the consumptive American poetesses, sisters Margaret and Lucretia Davidson, became famous for their consumptive condition and early deaths on both sides of the Atlantic, and were feted as such by prominent (mostly male) literary figures like British Poet Laureate Robert Southey and the Americans Washington Irving and Samuel Finley Breeze Morse. Edgar Allan Poe took the opportunity to convert the issue of American critics fawning over Southey’s praise from the literary motherland of Britain, into a critical space for distinctively American criticism, as dictated by himself. Poe observed that the actual quality of the Davidson sisters’ poetry was poor and that critics both British and American were seduced by the image (highly popular at the time) of consumptive femininity, poetic or not. Poe, perhaps unusually for the period, argued that a distinction should be made between text and biographical context. Lawlor suggests that the literary disease consumption became a lever for Poe to intervene in the national politics of literary criticism at a time when America was attempting to establish a distinctive national and literary-critical identity for itself

Krishnamurti explained: a critical study

The acclaim accorded Jiddu ‘Krishnamurti’ (1895-1986) – as an apparently major figure in our modern understanding of all things spiritual – shows just how shallow western popular culture is when it tries to extend its reach beyond science, materialism and celebrity. Krishnamurti liked to portray himself as a wholly independent thinker, and as someone who encouraged similar independence of thought in others, yet he milked the role of an oriental guru tirelessly, discoursing from on high in an autocratic and commanding manner. At best his vast body of transcribed teachings is diverting nonsense; at worst he’s wasting our time. keywords: criticism critical analysis critique Jiddu Krishnamurti assessment evaluation appraisa

Ecoso exchange newsletter : ecological, sociological and political discourse 2/40; Aug. 1996

Contents: 1. News from the Crow Collection 2. A Heartfelt Plea for Smaller Schools 3. A Year Seven Student Project on Environmental Planning 5. "A Fair Day's Pay a for Fair Day's Work" 8. "Painting the Future Real" Multi-mdia Project Hope for Reconciliation Public Housing Issues 9. Poems by Jenny Lane and Tina Green 10. Information about Ecoso (back cover

Setting the record straight on the Malayan counterinsurgency strategy: interview with Karl Hack

You are a long time researcher and observer of the Malayan Emergency. What were the core key ingredients that broke the back of the communist insurgents in the Malayan Emergency? The primary cause for putting the campaign on a firmly winning path? The game changer that helped at the end of the day to regain the initiative

Three Big Ideas for a Future of Less Work and a Three-Dimensional Alternative

The objective of this study is to examine how entrepreneurs in North Rinkeby perceive the Enterprise zone (EZ) program suggested by the Swedish government. The purpose of implementing an enterprise zone program is to revive the economic and social condition of deprived areas. This study analyzes the perception of this proposal by examining it on a regional level.  What are the entrepreneurs’ knowledge about the proposed policy and their perception on how it will influence their decisions of employment or relocation? The method of the research is a case study of North Rinkeby area, which is one of the areas under consideration for becoming part of the proposal.  Survey questionnaires were conducted in North Rinkeby, and the neighboring areas Tensta and Bromsten. 38 respondents were surveyed regarding their perception of how the enterprise zone proposal would influence factors such as employment and entrepreneurial start-ups. The results show that many of the entrepreneurs in the North Rinkeby area are in favor of a proposal such as the Enterprise zone program which the government have suggested. Many of the respondents had little or no knowledge of the proposal of the enterprise zone program. Many of entrepreneurs found that the proposal to be unfair in terms of competition between firms in North Rinkey and its neighboring areas. At a regional level many of the entrepreneurs welcomed the proposal and agreed that if it were to be implemented, it would have a growth enhancing effect for many firms. This in turn, would lead to a positive change in firm’s employability and profitability. The respondents also thought that the proposal would increase the amount of start-ups in North Rinkeby if it were to be implemented. The investigators of this proposal have argued that relocation to the chosen area would be large from the neighboring areas. The result were mixed among entrepreneurs in the neighboring areas as how they view the relocation factor.  Even though the enterprise zone program was recently rejected, many of the entrepreneurs in all of the three areas perceived this proposal as welfare enhancing

Whose Job Is It, Anyway? Capital Strategies for Labor

[Excerpt] When corporate mergers and takeovers create massively debt-ridden new entities, with the resulting pressures to sell off assets, reduce costs (especially wages) and close marginal operations, it is the company\u27s workers and their communities who suffer. And, when corporate managers accept, and even encourage, huge levels of waste, or ignore obvious opportunities because they aren\u27t profitable enough, workers and their communities end up paying for the resulting inefficiencies and lost potential. I believe that a hallmark of the new economic era we seem to be entering will be that workers and unions will be forced to actively concern themselves with all aspects of an employer\u27s business — with the intricate details of corporate structure, finance, and operations. In the process, they will have to evolve a comprehensive approach to the process of production and distribution, to investment and financial issues, as well as to corporate organization and control. In short, they will need to begin learning how to organize economic resources themselves and evolve what have been called capital strategies