Ideology of Power

Note: An individual who advocates a position for no other reason than that his immediate neighbour does so is no better than an automaton.

I owe this brief discussion to an extract from Roberto Mangabeira Unger's 'The Critical Legal Studies Movement' (1983), pg 331-343. In it, Unger scopes out a legal theory and describes a programme he says represents a 'superliberalism' which 'pushes the liberal premises [of various concepts] to the point at which they emerge into a larger ambition'. In this, Unger displays a gross misunderstanding of fundamental human concepts - shared concepts which have perpetuated throughout history. From birth to death, human life has been seen as a striving, a going-somewhere. No credible movement has upheld stagnation as the means to perfect society or utopia. Rather, 'change' has been the norm, and Unger does correctly point out that '[a]ll contemporary versions of the democratic ideal... share a minimal core: the government must not fall permanently hostage to a faction...' Yet his answer is to sweep away all established social constructs, subs...

A ‘modern’ life, steeped in so many distractions, is one which stays unfulfilled because it is unfocused. From the moment we enter into the world, we are beset by distractions of all kinds, sourced from technological marvels that steal the better part of life and vitality; and we think we make sense of it, but only superficially. Worthless information is processed in billions upon billions of man-hours – the wasted potential of a stagnating society bent on self-gratification. Those hours fill a void created by boredom. Here is a loveless world, where love has less meaning because life has less meaning to individuals. Ultimately, our ability to feel love - romantic love between people as well as love of doing things (which I call craftsmanship) - is ruined.