For the last few months all discussions between Ron and Ken have not surprisingly centred on Trump. Yesterday our conversation moved in a slightly different direction.
Is chaos the absence of a pattern? Or is chaos the absence of an observed pattern? For some Trump represents chaos, but what if the chaos is intentional? In which case chaos here hides something. What it has to hide is a pattern. That's to say something has been thought out here, not just on the surface but, so to speak, underneath as well.
So we intend to seek the pattern(s) in what appears to be our chaotic world, at the moment, symbolised by Trump.
If we consider Trump as not just a man-child fool; if we consider that he like anyone else is controlled by both his unconscious and outside forces then we can begin to look for connections. If we look at what he does rather than ponder what he says then a pattern emerges. We can begin to join the many dots. To begin with, what he has said can be seen as a distraction, both during the election campaign and subsequently.
A distraction against his political naiveté, his diminished place in the Washington community, and his subservience to the coal and oil lobby which prompted his withdrawal from the Paris agreement.
Maybe, but maybe not. The pattern that can be discerned in his various pronouncements may be perceived as the truth according to him. It possibly is the media class that is distracted. They don't take seriously enough the network, the crisscrosses between the right wing gun and fossil fuel lobbies on the one hand, and the out of work men in the rust belt towns, the working class families that feel disenfranchised and diminished by poor health and poverty on the other. It is not hard to imagine how this latter disparate grouping might construct a fantasy of a 'strong man' who will express for them their anger and resentment and direct it at the very groups they mistrust, the East Coast elites and Washington. In which case, the constant deprecation of Trump in the media only serves to strengthen the disconnect between the middle class intellectual elite media culture and this large disparate group which believes it lacks any representation except that offered by the angry father figure; someone like Trump.
But is this the pattern we are seeking?
It is of course possible to regard the daily articles on the Trump regime, Brexit and so on as distractions. That it is the distraction which is part of a pattern, that obfuscates and takes attention away from something else. The something else is the breakdown or collapse of neo-liberalism. There is no side in the present political firmament that is able to deal with this.
Is chaos the absence of a pattern? Or is chaos the absence of an observed pattern? For some Trump represents chaos, but what if the chaos is intentional? In which case chaos here hides something. What it has to hide is a pattern. That's to say something has been thought out here, not just on the surface but, so to speak, underneath as well.
So we intend to seek the pattern(s) in what appears to be our chaotic world, at the moment, symbolised by Trump.
If we consider Trump as not just a man-child fool; if we consider that he like anyone else is controlled by both his unconscious and outside forces then we can begin to look for connections. If we look at what he does rather than ponder what he says then a pattern emerges. We can begin to join the many dots. To begin with, what he has said can be seen as a distraction, both during the election campaign and subsequently.
A distraction against his political naiveté, his diminished place in the Washington community, and his subservience to the coal and oil lobby which prompted his withdrawal from the Paris agreement.
Maybe, but maybe not. The pattern that can be discerned in his various pronouncements may be perceived as the truth according to him. It possibly is the media class that is distracted. They don't take seriously enough the network, the crisscrosses between the right wing gun and fossil fuel lobbies on the one hand, and the out of work men in the rust belt towns, the working class families that feel disenfranchised and diminished by poor health and poverty on the other. It is not hard to imagine how this latter disparate grouping might construct a fantasy of a 'strong man' who will express for them their anger and resentment and direct it at the very groups they mistrust, the East Coast elites and Washington. In which case, the constant deprecation of Trump in the media only serves to strengthen the disconnect between the middle class intellectual elite media culture and this large disparate group which believes it lacks any representation except that offered by the angry father figure; someone like Trump.
But is this the pattern we are seeking?
It is of course possible to regard the daily articles on the Trump regime, Brexit and so on as distractions. That it is the distraction which is part of a pattern, that obfuscates and takes attention away from something else. The something else is the breakdown or collapse of neo-liberalism. There is no side in the present political firmament that is able to deal with this.
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