User talk:WHEELER/discussion of cultural imprint on politics

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Contents 1 Essay? 2 Keys of this Blood 2.1 Part II 2.2 Part III 2.3 Part IV 3 References 4 Title 5 Move

[edit] Essay?

In its present form, this seems to me more like an essay than an encyclopedia article. Part of the problem is that it seems to me to present one side of an argument and ignore the other. I'm not putting it on VfD, because I believe it has potential (although I'm not sure even the title itself qualifies as NPOV). I'd be interested in what others have to say about this. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:12, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

It looks very much like original research to me. The article is collating citations from a wide variety of sources in support of a synthesis which doesn't derive from any of its sources. (Certainly its anti-materialism is not compatible with the claim that it derives from Gramsci, a claim for which I don't see any justification in the article and which my reading in Gramsci does not support.) -- Rbellin|Talk 20:23, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Google-searching on the long unatttributed quote below yields a scouter.com forum thread in which this subject is discussed by (I assume) the same WHEELER in what is, there, a personal essay. (The quote is there attributed to "The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor" -- which is not, I should add, any kind of authority on Gramsci.) This is not encyclopedia material; it's idiosyncratic and unsupported by any sources. Remember: Wikipedia is not for original work or personal essays. VfD or transwiki it somewhere original research is accepted. -- Rbellin|Talk 23:31, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for checking up and the comments. Change the materialism aspect then. I didn't see anything like this in wikipedia articles but the concept that culture defines politics is there. Antonio Gramsci did formulate the principle. In classical books like Edith Hamilton, J. F. Kitto, and many others, their wonder on the Greek legacy leads them to discuss the "cultural" environment of the Greeks such as the racial stock, the physical geography, such as mountains or plains, the religion, the economics, such as the poverty of the Greeks lead to their creativity. All these factors go into creating a culture that creates the politics. It is Antonio Gramsci that does write about this.

Also, knowing the Germans, they would have created a single word for this concept which takes three words in English.

Give it a chance someone out there might know something I don't know.WHEELER 22:13, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Also check how I have dovetailed it in the page of romanitas.WHEELER 22:14, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I need this page to have people understand concepts in order to understand the Classical definition of republic and how the Dorian Greeks developed their sort of republican government from their peculiar culture.WHEELER 22:30, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"An essential element of Gramsci’s strategy was to replace the religious (or Christian) inclinations in a targeted society with a social gospel (i.e., a Marxist-Christian dialogue, liberation theology, etc.) which is totally devoid of all supernatural content. Gramsci did not want to destroy religion, but rather to neutralize all spiritual aspects and use what remains as a vehicle for the pollitical struggle and socialism. Worship, faith, prayer, the sacraments would be replaced with what Gorbachev calls human values, human solidarity, abolition of social injustice, and the end to oppression of women, children, blacks, native peoples, homosexuals, the disabled, etc." from another source.

This says that "spiritual" values are replaced with "materialism" or did I confuse the word Materialism with something else?WHEELER 22:47, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Mr. Rbellin, Can you work with me here. I noticed that you put your comments at the top of the page. I am wondering if you read anything below and considered my concerns. In what article in Wikipedia, if I can't get anything else, can I reference to Romanitas and Classical definition of republic to convey the idea of the culture forming the politics? Instead of talking around me can you talk to me and take the courtesy of responding to my concerns. I have done the favor of responding to your concerns in the reference section below.WHEELER 00:59, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Mr. Rbellin, Please check out Family/State paradigm that I created. It is in the same mode as this page. I use the article to make a point on the classical definition of republic. I need these pages to support the classical definition of republic.WHEELER 01:22, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a vehicle for "making points" of your own, nor for personal essays, nor the exposition of personal theories. This article presents an interpretation of, and a synthesis of, many historical sources; it does so in a novel way, without citing sources for its synthetic interpretation even though it cites a lot of primary texts as evidence. (As far as I know:) The article does not present a standard or common historical explanation, and these texts are not commonly juxtaposed by professional historians of ideas. Therefore, it represents original research -- that is, it expounds a non-notable, non-encyclopedic interpretation of historical sources. I do not have any inclination to respond further, so please improve the article to encyclopedic standards instead of arguing with me here; instead, I'll refrain from listing this article at VfD myself, and wait and see if other editors agree with me that it belongs there. -- Rbellin|Talk 01:56, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Part of making this article encyclopedic would be (1) to present opposing views as well (this is not, after all, a universally agreed-upon view) and (2) to make clear any specific (especially acknowledged) influence of these thinkers on one another, or to show how various separate currents of thought all arrived at similar conclusions. The mere listing of several vaguely-but-not-quite concurring opinions on one side of a controversial matter does not, in my opinion, make an encyclopedia article. Like Rbellin, I'm not going to VfD this: I think it has potential, but I think that so far the article is an essay, not an encyclopedia article. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:34, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

I hear you both. There must be somebody out there with more info than I do. Please give it some time. Thanks for your appreciation. and please add "the other side".

2nd point. Knowledge is in pyramid mode. In order to reach the pinnacle certain other concepts have to be known first. One can't reach the pinacle, the point of it all, without stepping on the lower stones.WHEELER 14:38, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Keys of this Blood

Point 1: The Keys of this Blood by Malachi Martin, has a whole chapter called "Antonio Gramsci: The Haunting of East and West". Malachi Martin was a Jesuit priest. There are 32 pages in this chapter.

"Gramsci still nourished the Lennist conviction that the final birth of the "Paradise of Workers" would take place. But he knew that the way to that peak of human happiness had to be completely different from the Lennist concept of armed and violent revolution. He knew there had to be another process." (pg 246)

"As it happened, the failure of Lenin's efforts in Germany and China not only confirmed Gramsci in his convictions; it also meant time was running out for him in the Soviet Union. His point of view was not overly popular in the Soviet Union."

"Gramsci's willingness to face the fact that the idea of a violent worldwide proletarian revolution was bankrupt from the outset allowed him to rethink and reapply the most powerful of the ideas of his Marxist predecessors." pg 247

"Gramsci-intellectually a product of the Roman Catholic society of Italy--was far more advanced than either Hegel or Marx in his understanding of Christian metaphysics in general, of Thomism in particular, and of the richness of the Roman Catholic heritage. That understanding and his own insistently practical mind, allowed him to be far more sophisticated and subtle in his interpretation of Hegel's dialectic philosophy of history than Marx had been. (pg 247)

"A key element of Gramsci's blueprint for the global victory of Marxism rested on Hegel's distinction between what was "inner" or "immanent" to man and what man held to be outside and above him and his world--a superior force transcending the limitations of individuals and of groups both large and small." pg 247.

"Nevertheless, while Gramsci's basic ideas were repudiated by Moscow, they did begin to find their way into practical field operations around the world. Over time, there was a gradual, if unspoken, rapproachement between the "official" Lennist process and the process set in motion with the spread of Gramsci's ideas. Even as early as the late 1940's and early 1950's, it began to dawn on some that the stealthier process of revolution by infiltration that the dead Sardinian had bequethed to them was exactly the means of spreading Lennist Marxism throughout the world." (pg 252.)

"What better scenario than that could Gramsci have written into his blueprint? It is the perfect stage for his process--long since adopted by European Marxists--to promote the growth of social democracy within the society of European nations and to occupy the spaces left vacant by the bourgeois culture itself. (pg 267)WHEELER 14:38, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Part II

"The immanent. The transcendent. For Gramsci, the two were unavoidably paired and yoked. Marxism's "transcendent", said Gramsci, was the utopian ideal. But he understood that if Marxism could not touch the transcendent motivation presently accepted as real by men and women and groups in the largely Christian society that surrounded him, then Marxists could not get at what made those individuals and groups tick, what made them think and act as they did.

"At the same time, however--and precisely because the immanent and the transcendent are paired--Gramsci argued that unless you can systematically touch what is immanent and immediate to individuals and groups and societies in their daily lives, you cannot convince them to struggle for any transcendent.

"As far as Gramsci could see, therefore, the call of Marx and Lenin to impose their "transcendent" by violent force was a futile contradiction in human logic. It was no wonder that,even in his time, the only Marxist state that existed was imposed and maintained by force and by terrorist policies that duplicated and even exceeded the worst facets of Mussolini's Fascism. If Marxism could not find a way to change that Formula, it would have no future.

"What was essential, insisted Gramsci, was to Marxize the inner man. Only when that was done could you successfully dangle the utopia of the "Workers' Paradise" before his eyes, to be accepted in a peaceful and humanly agreeable manner, without revolution or violence or bloodshed." pg 248. WHEELER 17:03, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Part III

From The War against the Family, A Parent Speaks Out on the Political, Economic, and Social Policies that Threaten Us All, by William D. Gairdner, PH D, graduated from Stanford University in literature and philosophy. The book is 653 pages long with 739 footnotes.

• "At any rate, because a revolution from the bottom would never work here, our dreamlanders sought instead to impose it from the top, through the "gradualism" of writing, lecturing, and teaching."

• "The most famous (and still thriving) society created for the implementation of socialist gradualism in the West was the British Fabian Society, established in 1884 by radical leftists."

• "In 1905, this society opened a branch in America, calling itself the Intercollegiate Society. John Dewey was one of the founders, and after changing its name to the League for Industrial Democracy in 1921, Dewey became its president. Its state purpose was "education for a new social order, based on production for use, and not for profit." Pg 211. WHEELER 17:43, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Part IV

"What Marx and Lenin had got wrong, Gramsci said, was the part about an immediate proletarian revolution. His Italian socialist brothers could see as well he did that, in a country such as Italy--and Spain or France or Belgium or Austria or Latin America, for that matter--the national tradition of all the classes was virtually cosubstantial with Roman Catholicism. The idea of proletarian revolution in such a climate was impractical at best, and could be counterproductive at worst.

"Even Stalinist terror methods, Gramsci predicted, could not eleminate what he called "the forces of bourgeois reaction". Instead, he warned, those reactionary forces--organized religion, the intellectual and academic establishment, capitalist and entrepreneurial circles--all would be compressed by any such repression into dense streams of tradition, resistance and resentment (Ed. note---sounds like Iraq). They would go underground, no doubt; but they would seek converts in the Leninist structure. They would bide their time until, at the opportune moment, they would thrust to the sufurce shattering Marxist unity and ripping open the seams of the Leninist structure.WHEELER 22:04, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] References

• Course guide at university
• Transformation of society by Gramsci
• Freire, P. (1972). Education as Cultural Action. Penguin.
• Friedman, G. (1981). The Political Philosophy of the Frankfurt School. Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press. (I know for a fact that the Frankfurt School uses this paradigm to shape culture in America here.)
• Race and Culture, A World View, Thomas Sowell (It is not explicit but the idea is implied.)

• Agrarianism, Jefferson The Agrarian movement is very big and that it's intellectuals have always regarding their occupation has having an affect on culture and politics.WHEELER 23:05, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Title

I haven't read the article, but I think the title is inappropriate because it makes a statement. Maybe "Culture as definition of politics" would be better. Maurreen 16:10, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. I tried to think of the smallest phrase as a title. But let's wait and see, Maybe there is a German word for this or a more technical term in English. But yes your title is much better.WHEELER 17:06, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Without understanding this concept, there is no understanding of much I put into the Classical defintion of Republic. Government is not some mechanical movement stripped of cultural and spiritual antecedents. Government is a "living" thing.WHEELER 17:46, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Government is a mirror of the people it represents.WHEELER 17:48, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

What the Fabian school is doing is changing the culture in order to change the politics of the country. How can this be fiction if this is truly a "scientific" methodology being used by these organizations. What turned me onto this fact was Ayn Rand and Socrates. It's all right there in Plato's republic. If this wasn't true, they why are they using this methodology and shouldn't this methodology's philosophy be put into an enclopaedic entry.WHEELER 17:53, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Socrates laid down the philosophy, without concepts, one cannot know anything. One must know it in order to know it. One must have the concept first before one can really know a thing.WHEELER 17:56, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

A couple of questions on the title:

1. Might we turn it into a question (Who is a Jew? is an example of this).
2. Is defines really the right word? It seems too strong to me. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:28, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

If we were German it would be easy. They have a knack of creating funky big names. Let me try to coin a Greek word for this? Let me read Plato's republic in the Loeb and see what hits me.

I would also like to point out that this information is very important. If I was George Bush's counselor, I would have advised him against going into Iraq. There is nothing so stupid as seeing some Afghan woman who doesn't know anything, illiterate, getting the "right to vote" because we imposed it. I saw this in Vietnam. When I was a kid watching it on TV, I saw that it was impossible because the Vietnamese didn't have our cultural background. If these counselors in our government knew this principle would we be there now?

I would also point out that when reading the Classicists and their work, Hamilton, Kitto, Muller, Jaeger, et al, You run into this all the time. The cultural element jumps out at you. Reading the Greeks themselves. Aristotle talks about the racial character of the Greeks--They are the "golden mean" between the extremes of the highly intelligent Eastern peoples and the northern European peoples who are "high spirited". The Greeks have an "intelligence mixed with high spiritedness" that caused their self-government and art. I'm sorry.

Not only is our government dumb in pushing democracy they don't know a damn thing. That is what happens when Classical education disappears.WHEELER 21:47, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Form, ascertain, assign, characterize, construe, decide, delineate, denominate, construe, describe, designate, detail, determine, dub, elucidate, entitle, etch, exemplify, explain, expound, formalize, illustrate, interpret, label, lay it out, represent, specify, translate.WHEELER 22:13, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Culture articulates politics", formulates, WHEELER 22:16, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• I'm still not convinced this is an encyclopedic topic. It seems more and more that we are headed toward something like "Is the possible range of political systems determined by the underlying culture?" which is a fine topic for an essay or a discussion or a debate, but doesn't seem to me like a Wikipedia article... -- Jmabel | Talk 22:25, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

I could move it to Wikinfo I guess.WHEELER 22:30, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It honestly might be better there. Some of this material could go into any number of articles (perhaps adding a little more detail to Gramsci's article, perhaps?), but collecting it all under one heading turns the article into a POV thing in and of itself. Interesting idea, I admit, but not really a "phenomenon" or "ideology" which can be given an article to detail it. Jwrosenzweig 00:34, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you Jwrosenzweig. Can it be incorporated in a seperate heading in the Antonio Gramsci article? Can I see what will be said? And before it gets deleted I would like to save the article and talk page. Thanks.WHEELER 00:46, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Please do not incorporate text from this article in the article on Antonio Gramsci. I have read a fair bit of Gramsci. None of this article's (or this Talk page's) cited sources' claims about Gramsci are remotely credible; none of them comes from anyone who could reasonably be called a Gramsci scholar; none of them even quotes more than a few words from Gramsci's work to justify their conclusions (nor does this article quote him directly even once my mistake; it quotes him just once, without providing a citation). -- Rbellin|Talk 05:16, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

But is it not interesting in the history of my difficulty in presenting the classical definition of republic that this is a perfect situtation that displays the truth in the Gramsci ideology. How Susan McManus a PHD in Political science says we are a democracy and that our founding fathers started a democracy. Don't you think "democratic republic", an oxymoron is really an act of doublethink? WHEELER 00:51, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

As to Original research, I think not. Fr. Martin refers to "professional counterintelligence experts". He specifically mentions a John Dziak. That is where this need to go. Find him---You find the "original research". You need to look in the intelligence and counterintelligence fields. Happy Hunting.

As far as the Title goes, I refer you to Antonio Gramsci himself ""**the cultural superstructure determines the political and economic base**"" It is already titled by the words of Gramsci himself. Instead of the word "determine" I used the word "define". Culture determines politics. or Culture defines politics.WHEELER 16:04, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

And where did Gramsci write that, WHEELER? It directly contradicts most of his writing that I know. Google on this quote reveals only other message board postings by WHEELER, and references to his source "The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor" as a survivalist/conspiracy-theory newsletter. -- Rbellin|Talk 16:36, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Can you not read any higher. I asked that you look up John Dziak. Since that was too hard for you, please here is his website, http://www.iwp.edu/faculty/facultyID.4/profile.asp WHEELER 17:24, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Please provide a citation for the quotation "the cultural superstructure determines the political and economic base" which you attribute to Gramsci. -- Rbellin|Talk 17:26, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

All I have for the quote is the MacAlveny Advisor. You said yourself, you have not read "most" of the works of Gramsci. Somebody out there can find it. The Internet is not the be-all of research.WHEELER 17:40, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Look up the books of John Dziak, the info should be in there. I have two sources of the effect of Antonio Gramsci, the Protestant MacAlveny Advisor, I have Fr. Martin Malachi and I that one internet site in the reference section above. Their sources came from somewhere. Three different streams of this knowledge I have. WHEELER 17:45, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Try this---Mouffe, C. (1979). Hegemony and Ideology in Gramsci. Gramsci and Marxist Theory Ed. Mouffe. RKP. .WHEELER 17:49, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have to conclude at this point that this is the work of either a very creative troll or an individual unaware of standard intellectual honesty. (I've read the Mouffe book; do you have a page number, or are you simply pulling titles out of the air?) A survivalist newsletter as the only source for a purported quote from Gramsci? I am very surprised that other Wikipedians think this material should stand, or even be moved into Gramsci's article, but I'm not going to respond further here. -- Rbellin|Talk 18:09, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think you are correct Mr. Rbellin. I will change it to an "encapsulation of Gramsci's thought and do reconsider the name of the title until further research. Sorry.WHEELER 18:57, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

My most humble apologies to Mr. Rbellin and to the rest of you, I jumped to conclusions with it being a direct quote. The Title can be reconsidered. Most definitely. But for a phrase it is catchy and captures in a nutshell the concept most beautifully. WHEELER 19:35, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The footnote in the Loeb is large. It continues: Plato illustrates the commonplace in a slight digression on national characteristics, with a hint of the thought partly anticipated by Hippocrates and now identified with Buckle's name, that they are determined by climate and environment. Cf Newman, Introd. to Aristot. Pol. pp.318-320.

Can someone look up Buckle for me and Newman's Introduction. Also Paul Shorey, translator for this edition of the Loeb recognizes this principle. This is not original research but this in information lost due to obscurantism---of the manipulation of knowledge. WHEELER 14:22, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This is NOT ORIGINAL RESEARCH. This is information widely known in the 19th and early 20th century. It is just some people want to cover this information up. If you want more information on this subject pick up Classiciscts books from the 19th century and leave that hooey called "modern", which is code word for "marxist", alone and pick up untampered knowledge.WHEELER 15:00, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I can already see that this article will have to be divided in two. One article titled [Culture defines politics] and the other [Revolutionary Cultural Transformation Strategy] or something similar to these lines. Please reserve the right of seperation and creation of the second page to me. Thanks.WHEELER 15:16, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Move

It was quite inconsiderate to move the page while it was on Vfd. This move means that the article/personal essay no longer links to the Vfd thread. I am going to move it back. 172 19:38, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If you notice 172, I left the deletion notice on the page. Several people asked for a name change. Jmbel, Maureen, Sam Spade, and Wetman asked for a name change. I did so. It was of no insidious move on my part. It really was my attempt to be collaborative and open to criticism of the object at hand. It was done on the most honorable decisions. It took time to meditate and find just the right type of title and I think I found one. Please move it back. People can find it by going to the Vfd list anyway. WHEELER 19:54, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)