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The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for "Robert Paul Wolff Kant." There they will be.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for Robert Paul Wolff Marx."





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Thursday, March 22, 2012

THE UNBEARABLE HEAVINESS OF BEING

I have remarked in the past on this blog that because it is just as easy to think about everything as it is to think about something, philosophers tend to think about everything.  Indeed, lately, they have taken to thinking not only about everything that is but also about everything that could be -- about "possible worlds," the actual one not providing sufficient weightiness for their thoughts.  When one tries to change the actual world, on the other hand, as opposed to just thinking about it, it turns out to be very, very difficult to make even a small change, and ten times as hard to make a slightly bigger change.  This may explain why philosophers, by and large, do not try very hard to change anything [as Marx rather tartly observed in the eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach.]

Which brings me to my brief stint this morning as a data enterer in the Obama 2012 headquarters in downtown Chapel Hill, NC.  There are a variety of tasks that the campaign needs volunteers to undertake -- phonebank calling, door-to-door doorbell ringing, voter registration table staffing, and the like.  Since I hate walking door to door, talking to people I do not know, and only slightly less dislike sitting at a voter registration table accosting passers-by to ask whether they are registered to vote, I volunteered to do data entry.

Just so we are clear, data entry means entering into an Obama campaign database on a computer the coded results of phonebanking or voter registration.  Today, I was entering the results of some phonebanking that focused on the issue of health care reform.  The callers had been given printed sheets of prospects that list the name, address, and phone number of each person to be called, and little boxes to be checked indicating whether the person was at home [or the phone number was incorrect], whether the person contacted supports Obama or is a Republican or is undecided, whether the person on the other end of the phone supports HCR ["health care reform"] and is for or against repeal of HCR, and finally whether the callee would be willing to volunteer in the campaign.

There were six names to a sheet, and I was given nine sheets, so I entered the results of fifty-four calls [a very easy task that took me perhaps half an hour -- things will heat up as the campaign progresses.]  Of those fifty-four calls, I would say that in forty or more instances, the person was not home or the phone number was incorrect.  A handfull of callees described themselves as Republicans or Undecided, Several said they were opposed to HCR [but only one, interestingly, favored repeal], and perhaps three or four were supporters of Obama.

Now, think about that for a moment.  I do not know who did the calling, but the Obama volunteers in Chapel Hill tend to be of a certain age [as we say politely] and well educated, so it is a fair bet that several mature well-educated people [myself included] spent some hours gathering and entering what added up to a tiny assemblage of usable data.  It would be easy, but it would be wrong [as Richard Nixon famously said about a different matter] to conclude that this was all a colossal waste of time.

Not a bit of it.  This was exactly the sort of labor intensive results-sparse work that goes into mounting an effective nationwide campaign for the presidency.  It takes the paid and unpaid efforts of thousands upon thousands of people doing all manner of not very elevated or inspiring tasks to create a campaign that has any chance of winning.  It is far easier, and very much less effective, to write corruscating, biting, brilliant political commentary.  Very satisfying, no doubt, but not much use in actually getting enough people to the polls to win an election.

This is, after all, as it should be.  In a nation of three hundred thirty million, it ought to require the efforts of very large numbers of people to have a political effect.  The alternative is dictatorship, or, as we now see, plutocracy.

I imagine I shall be spending a good many more hours in the pleasant, airy Chapel Hill office of the Obama campaign, making very little difference in the grand scheme of things.  If I want the big picture, I can always go back and re-read the Republic.

5 comments:

Superfluous Man said...

Thanks for the heads up on data entry. A friend just called and said the Obama team has hired our new county coordinator for the campaign and he makes his first appearance today in our County at the Democratic County headquarters so tonight we will go down to meet him and sign up to help. I used to do a good bit of door to door but that kink in my back that used to just aggravate me when I was a distance runner in college that was just a pesky little occasionally slightly painful thing of long ago has turned into a full scale congenital defect complicated by arthritic changes so I can't walk distances without suffering greatly. I do not like to do the phone calls either so I want to be the first in line to sign up for data entry as I'm a fast typist and should be able to do that kind of work for them with no problems. I know all the regional accents of the state of Carolina where I was born

Incidentally, I'm not from that thin strip of woodlands between Carolina and Virginia, although that was my Dad's home territory before he attended that College in Charleston SC where the Lords of Discipline once ruled and also that city where Leopold Bloom King once roamed, although Carolina and that thin strip of woodlands that rest upon it are said to have a much, much higher Obama approval rating than the deep south areas such as Alabama and Mississippi. That particular place where young Leopold Bloom King is said to have made his mark is the city of my birth in Carolina, at least in the world according to Conrack.

Keith said...

"Since I hate walking door to door, talking to people I do not know, and only slightly less dislike sitting at a voter registration table accosting passers-by...".

Thank you. I am not alone. Perhaps I can find a data entry job now!

Robert Paul Wolff said...

There are a thousand jobs that need doing -- walking door to door, raising money, data entry, gun running -- just find the one you like and do it.

Charles Pigden said...

Real world politics - the kind that makes a difference - is usually boring. So if the politics you are doing is not boring, it is probably not real-world politics.

Got to it data-entry man. Vile as Obama is he is a lot better than the alternatives.

High Arka said...

rac·ism   [rey-siz-uhm] noun

1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.

What makes it acceptable to sacrifice Arab children to the American Empire? Is it because they're of trivial worth?

Or do you feel that way about American children, too? Would you support Obama sending drone missiles into a neighborhood where your grandchildren live, just as long as it wasn't Romney doing it?