It’s the Stupid Economy Stupid: Part II

The Personal-Interpersonal Ramifications
Embedded in the Economic Reconstitution of Identity?
(A Second Working Paper)*

The apparent simplicity of harmonized complexity…

1.   Introduction

	In this second working paper let me again examine possible changes in the constitution of identity as found reflected in and through recent changes in the nature of the economic market place. Human identity is a continual work in progress and our intersection with others in our economic interactions with others would appear to be as good a place to start in order to investigate changes in how we might go about go about perceiving and re-perceiving the apparent nature and value of each other, and, the apparent nature and value of our own sense/s of identity. (1)

	As both passive and active participants in the marketplace and its economic circulation of value, in and through self-reflection, by various means, our own sense/senses of identity must forever remain a ‘work in progress’ subject to a fluctuating intersection of apparent continuities of value and discontinuities within the same along with the emergence of new directions and the re-emergence of older directions in these processes of value-formation. In this second working paper I would like to argue that rather radical changes in the current economic and political scene, both here in Australia and overseas (in Particular USA and Europe), will be reflected in similar shifts in how we see others and in how we come to see ourselves. Moreover, I would like to argue that such relative discontinuities are both passively reflective of these contemporary shifts in identity and actively instrumental in enlarging these same shifts in the constitution of identity (initiated through chaotic promotion and/or reversal of a collective miscellany of prior trends). (2)

	As much economic discussion is taking place in the media, along with even more accompanying commentary but less debate, this area of concern, is I believe, a good place to investigate recent differences in the constitution of personal and interpersonal identity. Closely allied to such shifts in economic perceptions are closely associated political innovations in dealing with the same (although these aspects of the economic and the political need not necessarily be completely isomorphic in emphasis or attitude or temporally coincident with each other). Such concentrated concerns on economic matters is natural in an economic crisis, especially one that is global in extent. I would like to argue that such concerns also heavily implicate matters of personal and interpersonal identity (and thence the primary objective of this project, namely, to what degree do changes in such issues re-constitute personal and interpersonal identity). (3)

Latest version paper: www.homestead.com/noelshomepage/noelshomepage3.html 
	How are such texts to be read in order to have our reading of such texts throw a light on these recent discontinuities in identity formation as claimed by myself? I would like to argue that we should concentrate on changes of emphasis and/or innovations in the exercise of key-metaphors within this open-ended set of economic texts (as found in the economic reporting of our newspapers and their commentaries upon the same) as features that would highlight areas of recent concern along with associated re-directions in identity formation. However, it could be easily argued that we would find very few overt metaphors in economic texts by virtue of their mathematical basis in quantitative forms of evaluation and commentary (that may or may not also allude to qualitative issues). Instead, I would like to propose that we should look at changes in mythic emphasis and/or innovation. Myths are comparative idealizations of certain positions that are used either for promotion of a certain stance or a demotion of the same; i.e., encapsulated and symbolic arguments that attempt to illuminate what we should strive for or what we should not strive for (dependent upon our perception of their positivity and/or negativity of connotative influence). Effectively, they act as metaphorical-like structures in this comparative regard. Furthermore, clashes between sets of myths are often demonstrated by the use of negative connotative language at those points of intersection that are currently found to be controversial (regardless of their objective merit or non-merit).  A deep refusal to modify or radically alter our beliefs being highlighted by these clashes between those people who subscribe to different ontological commitments (and epistemological commitments) as symbolically represented in these truncated arguments. Thus this critical investigation in current changes in identity formation, occurring in these moments of economic crisis, are perhaps best revealed through our examination of these clashes between retrospective and/or prospective mythic assemblies maintained or promoted by these clashing parties. In these investigations let me explore this aspect of our research, namely, clashes in mythic metaphors as a set of loci for these points of transition (despite some parties ‘conservatively’ declining to make, rightly or wrongly, these ‘radical’ transitions in identity formation). (4)

	Let me demonstrate this type of clash between mythic sets of metaphors. (5)

2.   Putting these Investigations into Practice

	In the recent American presidential election the conservative Republicans ran a number of ‘negative’ slogans against the Democrats in general and against Barack Obama in particular. E.g., Republicans claimed that the Democrat candidate was “going to spread the wealth around” and that “he was a “socialist”. Now, personally, I would be quite happy to have some of the wealth spread around. This slogan was also accompanied by the positive assertion that the Republicans under John McCain were “going to grow the economy” and, by implication, would do so by not spreading the wealth around in a socialistic fashion. However, such slogans appear to have had, on balance, little traction in persuading swinging and undecided voters to go Republican and not vote Democrat. One might say that from the near seventy percent unpopularity of the Bush presidency, the Republican narrative was effectively handicapped and rendered relatively inoperative for the majority of swinging voters and those few who were left undecided on election day itself. John McCain argued he was an agent of change. Barack Obama argued that he too was an agent of change. It would appear that as the basic mood of the electorate was for change, that Barack Obama was more successful in capitalizing on this issue. Cynically we might say, Democratic spin was more often ‘swallowed’ than Republican spin, and, that the McCain brand was not able to differentiate itself sufficiently in that regard from Bush Junior’s presidency. Ironically, the Democratic ad wherein John McCain was supported by the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, was effectively used to re-establish a re-connection with the unpopularity of the Bush presidency and to suggest that this McCain brand could not be differentiated from the same. Indeed, other ads were also skillfully used to reinforce just that point, e.g., pointing out that McCain’s voting record often reflected the stated aspirations of George W. Bush, a fact reinforced by comments to that effect McCain himself had said about the same. (6)

	The above analysis, more or less accepted, we might say there was an slightly uneven context between a Democratic set of myths and a Republican set of myths in a context that was seen to favour the former. How might one define these two sets of political myths? One might say of this Republican myth that it retrospectively and retroactively favours emphasis upon the individual, a de-emphasis on social welfare along with the call for smaller government (i.e., many former government practices to be cut and/or privatized). The Democratic myth might be construed as placing less emphasis upon the individual, perceiving a need for social welfare and a broadening of public access to medical facilities, etc., and, a consequent privileging of the community or society without necessarily favouring the rights of the state in this regard. Interestingly enough, as a qualification to this general observation, the conservative stacking of the Supreme Court was seen, among a number of things, to favour the rights of the corporation or state over the individual, e.g. (7)

	We may judge these myths as relatively deep-seated by virtue of their accompanying tenacious ontological commitments as evidenced in the vehemence displayed by those who privileged such hermeneutic structures, i.e., ways of interpreting the world and giving it its perceived value (though its associated referential sense, meta-textual meaning and existential meaningfulness). Hence the clash of myths when a different set of styles and preferences are bundled together in an organized mythic assembly and contrasted with a radically different set. Thence the intimate connection between economic and political myths and metaphors in the constitution and re-constitution of personal-interpersonal identity (and national and international senses of identity), etc. (8)

3.   The Australian Scene

	Do we find a similar type of situation in the Australian context? I.e., a mythic clash between a conservatively oriented individualistic sense of the ‘Right’ and a relatively more liberal, socialistic sense of the ‘Left’? (9)

	Although these expression of ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ have been called into question in a Contemporary framework, in my opinion people’s preferences generally do take either an idealistic or a realistic tack along with a conservative or liberal outlook hence this contest, both political and economic, remains essentially bi-polar in its configuration regardless of whether we have a conservative Left or a conservative Right, or, a liberal Left or a liberal Right, etc. Although configured differently from generation to generation this divide remains essentially bi-polar (or with the advent of a viable Centre in a unstable, temporary tri-polar form and format albeit still on this continuum between a Left and a Right). (10)

	Why is this clash usually so vehement? As demonstrated by such negativity, competitiveness and persistence, etc. By a general intransigence in ontological commitments demonstrated by adherents of this type of bi-polar/tri-polar positioning. (11)

	It would appear that healthy democracies persist by virtue of this ebb and flow between a so-called Right and Left. Even coalitions and their constituents take a position upon a spectrum between this sense of Left and Right. Not that this alternation between a ‘Left’ and a ‘Right’ in turn does not find some sense of an oppositional and opportunist re-constitution through time (as each side in this spectrum gathers the middle ground into its temporary fold). It would appear that the Australian political scene is not much different in this regard. If there were neither Left nor Right they would be invented! However their re-constitution would take on other flavours in keeping with the ethos or spirit of the times. E.g., ecological openness/conservativeness, innovativeness/return to traditional attitudes in a re-writing of retrospective modes of practice and aspiration, fiscal exuberance/rectitude, along with a number of other characterizations in keeping with the ‘spirit of the times’, etc. In this tendency to take either an idealistic, synthetic or collective orientation or a realistic, analytical and individualistic orientation in a reading of reality, the Australian political scene conforms to the same types of expectations in this regard. Similarly, economical concerns follow the same, and v.v.  Well we may wonder as to which might come first - economic action in the light of political vision, or, political action in the light of economical vision? However, be that as it may, in processes of critical reflection and action, differences and differentials in time set up the conditions for reversals of such overall preferences once they become de-centered in theory and practice. About what point or points do these shifts and reversal usually occur in these closely corresponding economical/political cycles? (12)

4.   Finding an Objective Political Center?   

	How might one find some degree of economical and/or political objectivity in the marketplace or state, and, some degree of a harmonization of this difference along with a diffusion/defusing of ideological tensions? (13)

	In previous papers I have argued that there is a current political center and an objective political center. The former, on one hand, marks that psychic spot halfway between current political alignments and oppositions, whilst, on the other hand, an objective center marks a true sense of a political center. I have argued that a pragmatic politician should seize the current political center and move it as skillfully as possible to the objective sense of a center. How are these ‘centers’ to be determined? In and through, respectively, an overall transcendental suspension of the apparent phenomena of actual political configurations as currently in play and an overall transcendental suspension of their mere configuration considered without such weightings of preferences actually in play. (14)

5.   How is the Current Economic Crisis Rewriting the Realm of the Political?

	Massive state intervention in the economy is usually symptomatic of a centrally planned economy or a socialistic economy. We may well ask to what extent nationalization in part or in whole, temporally or for an indefinite period of time, is not actually rewriting a relative return to the Left/being instigated through a relative return to the Left? Conservative, so-called individualistically oriented governments of the Right have in many countries been recently replaced by those on the Left or about to be replaced by more left-leaning styles of government. E.g., in America with a de facto nationalization of half the mortgage writing market, its largest Insurance company, possible bailouts of the car-industry, etc., a conservative, free-market agenda has been complete eclipsed by such actions! Similar processes occurring in Britain, Europe, possibly in China to some extent, and, also definitely in Australia. (15)

	A socialist-style agenda has been put in place. The market now insists on better supervision. This troubling flaw in our recent free-market ideology, noted as disturbing by Greenspan in recent Congressional Hearings, and globalized along with a globalization of trade, has seriously destabilized not only the U.S. economy but also much of the First World along with the Second and some aspects of the Third? What is this flaw? The ideological belief that ‘markets can take care of themselves’ has been demonstrated to be false. Human nature being what it is, supervision needs to be present in some form or other. The question now is to what extent? How do we institute proper supervision and appropriate oversight without returning to too much regulation? (16)

	This problem is now compounded because it is human nature to proliferate habitual practices and so how do we institute supervision in a climate where regulation is already proliferating even if not adequate supervised. Given this desire to re-institute supervision how are we gong to dismantle ineffective, disruptive or stultifying practices already present? (17)

My solution to this type of problem is to adopt a complex process of resolution in keeping with the following three headings: namely, first, ensure that which entails a greater degree of transparency in both practices and supervision is put in place; second, ensure a greater degree of supervision; and third, ensure an adequate degree of meta-supervision with the ability to both supervise and unwind forms of proliferation that are judged to be relatively unproductive and non-profitable (be that in what ever terms considered to be relevant, e.g., pragmatical, deontological, aesthetical, etc.). This process of ongoing resolution recognizing a need for the recognition of complexity and the associated consequences of such a position/meta-position. (18)

	In essence, complexity is, more often than not, something that is already worked out for us. Still, despite that, without an appropriate degree of transcendental reflection, remedies will remain to be derived as an ongoing works in progress. Arriving at resolution proffers a sense of apparent (and phenomenal) simplicity in our treatment of that phenomenon or set of phenomena. An indication that we might be on the right tract in our treatment of the same. A response that appears integrated and to possess a profound degree of integrity. A response that appears to be adequate to the task to hand, namely, that it be properly constituted, appropriately exercised contextually and generally valid in its execution. This response being negotiated on a meta-textual level of genre to the extent that we find it to be already indicated through past practices and accompanying modes or directions of adaptation. (19)

6.   Conclusion: How are Economic and Political Changes Rewriting Identity?

	The nature of the economic market place is being radically re-written in and through recent economic changes. Sometimes economic changes precede political changes and at other times economic changes lag behind associated political changes. I would like to argue that a reconstitution of identity is realized about these chaotically controlled moments of re-direction. That such points are manifested as mythic clashes on a spectrum between a relative Right and a relative Left. These clashes are indicative of deep ontological commitments tenaciously adhered to those who adopt and adapt, rightly and/or wrongly, these relatively de-centered acts of positioning. As individual and as members of society I would argue that it is better that we head towards the current political center in a society or organization and thence move it towards an objective sense of a center. That both manoeuvres are conducted in and through overall transcendental suspensions. Such resolutions being complex in their deeper nature whilst being manifested with a relatively superficial sense of simplicity. Despite such deeper complexity we need not despair as modes of resolution, generally, are already worked out for us. Relatively radical changes being manifested in and through those individuals able to shift their economical and political attitudes along this spectrum between a relative sense of Right and a relative sense of left. An openness to such shifts in economic and political fashion/s re-directing our own sense/s of value through such differentiated processes of re-constitution. Hence temporally formed differences in attitudes towards our own sense/s of self, our relations towards others and the manner of how we might define and act upon national and nationalistic allegiances and attitudes towards international considerations. Of course such shift, when present, will generally remain upon this continuum until in turn re-written in keeping with present exigencies. 

							  Noël Tointon, Sydney, 14.11.08.