Westside Ideas Discussion

Judith Shklar’s ideas are a great example of modern useable philosophy - easily understandable and readily applicable to real-life situations. It's about morality for individuals. Her philosophy is in the category of virtue ethics (as opposed to utilitarian and deontological ethics, in philosophy terms), but which basically means that it emphasizes common human characteristics rather than consequences or rules.

Shklar was a professor of political philosophy who taught at Harvard until her death in 1992. She is known for focusing on aspects of injustice rather than justice, which has the effect of subtly changing the objectives of her message and making it more intimate & personal. Her best known book is Ordinary Vices, in which she analyzes cruelty, snobbery, betrayal and hypocrisy. And she believes that cruelty is actually the worst of these.

Let’s listen to a podcast (45 mins) about Shklar’s ideas by David Runciman, Professor of Politics at the University of Cambridge until just this year. He produced this series of podcasts - Talking Politics: History of Ideas - during the Covid pandemic and the one we’ll use as our source is the last in that series (and his favorite, as he says):

Please read the article below about House Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who was the rare Democrat who kept her seat in a conservative, rural district (Washougal, WA in fact) during the recent election. The one thing that is glaringly obvious about her is that she and her concerns are hyper-local. The article makes it clear that she is absolutely dedicated to the welfare of the place where she lives, and all else be damned. This has to be a big part of why she was able to hold her place in the tide and win re-election. Can we draw any insights from this?

In any case, since political situations are never perfect anyway (even at the best of times), it’s important to stay realistic and focus on what seems possible. Gluesenkamp Perez, the 36-year-old mother of a toddler and owner of an auto shop, says “Democratic condescension has to go.” “There’s not one weird trick that’s going to fix the Democratic Party… It is going to take parents of young kids, people in rural communities, people in the trades running for office and being taken seriously.”

So what is politics for? Is it only for the acquisition and wielding of power? Of course it can be that, and for many that is its raison d’etre. But what should politics be for? This, clearly, depends on who you are. For example, it seems that Marie Gluesenkamp Perez has a very different conception of the purpose of politics. Let’s discuss these questions.