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Charles Taylor, Philosophical Papers 2
Questions & Answers #10: "Legitimation Crisis?"

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1. What crisis does the title refer to?

A crisis in capitalism/consumerism: "endless acquisition"; "what we value in consumer society," 253.  "Thus what we value in consumer society is that it has put at (almost) everyone's disposal a mode of fulfillment which has been seen as central in our civilization for a couple of centuries, if not more. What lies behind this ideal, & how is it connected with lifting the limits to endless accumulation?" 255.  Obviously the Utilitarian model with its capitalist economic theory lie behind the putative virtue of endless accumulation.

2. On 256-7 T. makes his familiar contrast between a pre-Enlightenment Platonic outlook & a Utilitarian/atomic/mechanistic outlook.  What is the model of order in each?

"Pre-modern cosmologies thus saw the world as the embodiment of an underlying scheme," 256.  "The scheme of the totality of places is prior to the empirical embodiment of the system. * * *  And each idea is intelligible against the whole order.  The modern is more ready to identify the 'nature' of a thing with the forces or factors which make it function as it does, & these can no longer be seen as existing independently of the particulars which function this way," 257.  You can now see where this is going.  In the earlier model, human beings could be measured against the a priori standard (Plato, Christ, etc.): "For the pre-modern . . . I am an element in a larger [putatively objective] order. . . .  Outside of it, I should be only a shadow, an empty husk," meaningless because there are no relationships, such as, worth or purpose, 258.  Whereas, in the "assemble the parts" mechanistic outlook, the consumer "invents" worth on the spot from the nonconceptual level of desire/instinct.

T. predictably bends this comparison (a priori order vs. arbitrary taste) to allow the third option of pragmatism: "an extremely important part of the pattern [of meaning] for most people in pre-modern society was that they belonged to a lineage . . . . The identity of a man was bound up with his belonging to his lineage," 259.  In playing out the Platonic role of father or son, "I come close to the order of being . . . I myself exist more fully; [because] . . . this life does not depend for its value on the shape of aspirations in me or in men, but rather on an order which defines what it is to be human," 260.  There are two other metaphysical options for such order, besides the supposition that human roles, such as "father" & "son," are transcendentally defined (presumably by God).  Knowing something of social expectations, the individual consumer creates whatever pastiche appeals to her.  Without historical depth, such arbitrary roles often appear as adolescent, as trying too hard to win social approval.  Moreover, since these are social roles, the individual qua individual does not need them.  T. then sketches in the pragmatist option: "realizing one's place in the [social] pattern is bound up with . . . a place in public space.  And . . . living up to one's place is not just one's own affair; it is everyone's business.  For each one of us helps to sustain the order by which everyone lives, as essentially public order," which is created pragmatically, not frozen transcendentally, 260.

3. T. writes: "the growth of the modern identity involves the withering of community," 261.  What is the causal factor here?

The loss of belief in transcendental norms.  "A husband who has beaten his wife, or who did women's work . . . was allowing an inversion of the proper, patriarchal order.  This could not be seen just as a matter between himself & his wife; the order concerned was everybody's. * * *  . . . Whether the [transcendental] pattern is [historically] realized or not is always a public affair.  One's life was led before everyone else," 261.  With the shift to Util. consumerism, the satisfaction of my taste is no one else's business.  Privacy replaces shame as a social need: "This life requires privacy, that one's life no longer be mediated by the larger group" (262), which now threatens to merely impose someone else's arbitrary tastes (will-to-power) to make my life one of inauthentic manners & convention.

4. In the first part of ch. 3 (263--), Taylor identifies some of the Reformation thinking that was a transition between the pre-modern belief in objective transcendental values & Util./atomism/mechanism.  Identify some of these Protestant points.

5. Instead of tracing the next step as caused by the total erosion of concern for other-worldly values & a subsequent replacement with technique for its own sake, as well as for what it pays, T. traces a second force which was also responsible for producing the Util. view: Romanticism.  Here "it is not calculating reason which tells" humans what to do, but what?

"The voice of nature, a pure unsullied impulse which carries him towards benevolence, industry," etc. if that voice has not been corrupted or muted by socialization (including esp. technique), 269. Art & science now converge at the same place.  "Version I, means exercising rationality & control to follow the demands of nature, which are themselves of no more than de facto worth.  In version II, it is following the voice of nature, a source of pure, higher desire within us which induces us to act well. * * *  The first puts great value in an instrumental stance," i.e., science, technique.  The second "requires a kind of intuition," sensitivity, or genius, 270.  Ideally, these two should be reciprocating functions of a unified psyche.  "For if our ends are depraved, that is, not according to the voice of nature, the successful use of instrumental reason in encompassing them will not improve them; rather it will make us worse in committing our lives more fully in this deviant course," 271.

6. According to T., Protestantism & Romanticism both counsel a kind of detached accumulation, which repudiates the wealth being accumulated as a gross marker for spiritual values.  This is obvious in version I, Calvinism & stewardship.  How does it work in version 2, Romanticism?

The stuff being accumulated in version 2 are things comparable to tubes of paint, canvasses, studio space, gallery space, etc.  If this stuff becomes centrally important, then one is no longer an artist/Romantic, but a business person (a Utilitarian consumer).  "The higher source [of value], which the good man must be in touch with [through sentiment/feeling], is not a cosmic order, but nature within.  Virtue is understood as identical with freedom," 271.  Here the Romantic is almost Taoist.  The Taoist advocates poverty, simplicity, & wu-wei (non-attachment) in order to be responsive to the slightest nuance of Tao, which the clods are insensitive to because of their fatuous preoccupations. The Romantic, however, requires social support (a patron, an indulgent & wealth dad) to provide the materials necessary to trace inspiration into artifact.

Next, T. suggests 2 or 3 variants of the Romantic project.  "With Rousseau, the voice of nature . . . is relatively simple . . .; it is the voice of conscience & goodness."  19th c. artistic genius -- Goethe, Beethoven -- heard more profound voices.  At the end of the 20th c. everyone in the West seems tuned into ceaseless, self-indulgent babble: "We come to the idea that each man (& also nation) [& also race, ethnicity, gender, etc.] has a nature within him (it) that has to be explored & revealed.  This only comes to light in its articulation," 272.  We might add, "natural articulation" with the least cultural refinement, which in Romantic theory, can only mar the voice of nature.  Welcome to Oprah's world.  Now go back to the title, "Legitimation Crisis?"  Who do we listen to in those rare moments when we are not tuned into radio narcissus?  Whose voice, besides our own, is authoritative?  The Util. answer is the voice of advertising & political slogans; the voice which merely echoes yours.

7. Doesn't Oprah's world wind down into addiction & anarchy, dumb & dumber?

Yes, but I am free to be dumb.  Apparently we in the West care much more about freedom, even when it is the freedom to act like monkeys.  On 274-5, T. sketches 3 social models.  1) "Hierarchical [aristocratic] societies are justified on the old conception of a cosmic logos," 274.  After following versions 1 (Protestantism) &  2 (Romanticism), we know this no longer attracts believers.  2) Survivalist/militia anarchy or pseudo-anarchy: "as a free subject, he is owed respect for his rights, he has certain freedoms guaranteed [by whom or what instrument?] .  He must be able to choose & act within limits free from arbitrary interference of others.  The modern subject is an equal rights-bearer."  3) Pragmatic citizenship (by way of Aristotle's ethics): "collectively we determine the course of social events.  The modern West has taken up this ancient tradition, that only the citizen is a full man, capable of acting & making a name for himself in men's memories," 275.  Money & technique offer instrumental views of this comprehensive culture: "As producers, in the broadest sense, we belong to a whole interconnected society of labour & technology, which has immense efficacy in transforming nature. * * *  In so far as we belong to this society, work in it, take part in it, contribute to it, we have a share in this efficacy; we can think of it as partly ours, as a confirmation of ourselves," 275.

8. Pragmatism tries to avoid either/or demands & reductionist substitutions (all this phenomena is really caused by economic determinism, will-to-power, testosterone, etc.).  Can you find evidence of T.'s pragmatism at work on p. 276?

Yes it is a complex (social) world.  "The first version of the modern identity (Protestantism) stressed 3 things: autonomy [we are Kant's creatures who reason], fulfillment of our nature [relatively free to meaningfully exercise reason in projects of the will, instead of praying for heavenly mansions], and efficacy."  Version 2 makes us "Romantics in our private existence, our love lives are drawn by a notion of Romantic mutual discovery, we look for fulfillments in our hobbies, in our recreation; while the economic, legal & political structures . . . are largely justified instrumentally."  The "compromise between versions I & II," defines us as "the equal bearer of rights, who is producer and citizen."  This involves us in at least 4 largely discrete discourse communities, which often vie with one another for at least theoretical or rhetorical supremacy.  No wonder this compromise can be "racked with tension. Now is one of those times," opines Mr. T.

9. What exactly is the compromise that causes the crisis in legitimation?

Perhaps this is a bit dated, but T. believes, "The compromise consists in accepting alienated labour [this is a Marxist concept] in return for consumer affluence," 279.  This is why Marx called capitalism "substantively irrational."  The 4th angle necessary here is supplied by Bentham, who said human nature is an instinct to consume pleasure (& of course avoid pain).  Acquisitiveness in Bentham's model is not a yardstick used to measure more elevated values; it is simply hoarding & addiction or satisfaction.  Marx thought this model was substantively flawed.  He thought human nature had 3 characteristics so that what make people satisfied was a kind of Romantic productivity; freely chosen, creative, & socially useful labor.  The tensions & crisis come from crossing boundaries, from raising questions in one of these 4 models & then pointing out how inadequate the answers are in one or another of the competing models, "so we get the culture that moral critics [grounded in any of the 3 communities except Util.] object to: the fixation on brute quantitative growth, unalloyed by jugdements of priority.  The justification of this [in Util.] has to be an image of the good life, in which the acquisition of more & more consumer goods . . . is seen as a central purpose of life," 280.  Obviously this looks inadequate after a day or a decade at the mall when we have not found exactly what we were looking for.  Of course, the critics say, because we know better than you what it is that you are looking for.  Now we get at least 3 soapbox orators eager to explain what you need: you need Jesus; you need more freedom &/or daring; you need the kind of therapy supposedly available in a workers paradise, which is not quite Cuba, nor China, nor North Korea.  Most of us don't "buy into" these 3 models very deeply & yet the ennui remains. (The Buddha also had an answer, but we will follow T.).

10. Beginning on p. 282, T. makes 5 points about the complex issue he has raised, without necessarily settling the dust.  What are they?

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