the way is shut: the american legitimacy crisis
free
AS THIS IS THE FIRST SEMINAR OF THE ART DEPARTMENT, IT WILL BE FREE FOR EVERYONE!
IF YOU WANT TO PARTICIPATE WRITE TO: ART@GCASCOLLEGE.IE
Instructor:
Description:
American democratic institutions seem increasingly unable to meet American citizens’ psychological needs. In these talks, Benjamin Studebaker delves into the history of political legitimacy. Different states tell different stories about why their form of political order should be accepted, and each story grows out of the ways previous stories have failed. While the United States learned from the failures of ancient and medieval states, its own story is evolving. As the United States tries to draw on the power of concepts like liberty, equality, and representation to justify itself, it changes those concepts beyond recognition. Stuck in a paradigm of neoliberal globalization, the United States is unable to deliver on demanding conceptions of these terms. It desperately tries to water them down. If it succeeds, what will become of the old liberal ideals? If it fails, what will American citizens do with the despair that follows?
Schedule:
Sundays: November 20, 27 and December 4, 11 @1pm New York time.
Part I: How Legitimacy Works (Sun Nov 20 @1pm New York Time):
This session lays out how legitimacy works. Studebaker describes the structure of legitimation stories, the relationship between legitimacy and ideology, and the different abstract concepts that play critical roles. He also discusses what makes a legitimacy crisis in the United States in the 21st century different from a crisis in some other time or place.
Part II: Liberty and Legitimacy (Sun Nov 27 @1pm New York Time):
This session lays out how states have used the concept of liberty to tell legitimation stories. Studebaker highlights the tendency to frame liberty in relation to slavery. To understand how states use liberty, it is therefore necessary to understand how they use slavery. In the United States, slavery was increasingly identified exclusively with the experience of African-American chattel slaves. In contrast, in Europe, Marxist political theorists argued that the relationship between labor and capital was akin to slavery in important respects. This led to substantial differences in the demandingness of liberty in the American and European settings.
Part III: Equality and Legitimacy (Sun Dec 4 @1pm New York Time):
This session lays out how states have used the concept of equality to tell legitimation stories. Powerful interest groups have always found ways to prevent the concept of equality from having radical consequences. Studebaker walks us through several of these debates, focusing on the role of "isonomia" in ancient Athens, the active-passive distinction in revolutionary France, and the recent use of "equity" to disrupt radical movements in the United States.
Part IV: Representation and Legitimacy (Sun Dec 11 @1pm New York Time):
This session lays out how states have used the concept of representation to tell legitimation stories. When states have more capacity to act, the representatives are more plausibly framed as "acting for" the represented. But when states lose their capacity to act, the concept of representation shifts. Representatives being to "stand for" the represented, substituting symbolic catharsis for meaningful action. Studebaker explores how, as American policymakers increasingly act for the rich and powerful, they frame themselves as standing for the poor and the weak.