Dissenting Voice on the isolation of theory

Jackie laughlin

Who came up with the idea to isolate political theory? Theory is an integral part of politics. Stripped of theory, politics becomes gossip about politicians. Isolated from the "real" world, theory loses its relevance.

DadaKopf

Forget that. More fragmentation means boards.ie loses its revevance. I didn't even support the splitting up of Humanities into Politics and Humanities, and now Philosophy and Political Theory.

oscarBravo

Yeah, everything should be in After Hours.

oscarBravo

Moved from Political Theory. I don't mind a discussion on whether Political Theory should be separated from Politics, but not on the Political Theory board itself.

sceptre

Jackie laughlin wrote:

Who came up with the idea to isolate political theory?

See thread in the 'Forums' forum.

Theory is an integral part of politics. Stripped of theory, politics becomes gossip about politicians. Isolated from the "real" world, theory loses its relevance.

Of course. From a certain perspective the Political Theory forum is politics without the gossip. And, yes, to a certain extent the forum is intended to be isolated from the real world or at least the particular particulars of particular aspects of it.

gandalf

Well as far as I am concerned we are going through a test period. If the forum works then great. If it dies a death and effects the quality of the main board then we will revert to how it was.

Hobbes

Some people here are probably still too young to remember the Political cartoons forum too.

sceptre says it best.

Stabshauptmann

There was a satire sub forum as well at one stage wasnt there?

Jackie laughlin

I can see that there are reasons for categories. They usually aid ordered thinking. However, to isolate political theory in this way is to side with those who would see "political science" as a subject distinct from political philosophy.

As far as seeing how the new division goes, how could it be evaluated? Those who like to reduce politics to the abstract will thrive and there will certainly be lively debate but it will be lost to politics.

hullaballoo

I would have assumed that the idea was to bring in theoretical, abstract and academic discussion to the melting pot. From what I can see from the Politics forum, most of the discussion is about ongoing live policy issues around the world.

But what if I want to discuss my political beliefs from a hypothetical point of view?

simu

gandalf wrote:

Well as far as I am concerned we are going through a test period. If the forum works then great. If it dies a death and effects the quality of the main board then we will revert to how it was.

Good call. There seems to be a strong urge amongst users to have new forums created where they're not strictly necessary and the above idea is the only way to make sure we don't end up with dozens of tumbleweed zones.

r3nu4l

hullaballoo wrote:

I would have assumed that the idea was to bring in theoretical, abstract and academic discussion to the melting pot.
But what if I want to discuss my political beliefs from a hypothetical point of view?

That's what I would think as well tbh.

I haven't visited the forum but I would have assumed that it should be a place to discuss academically. A place for debating pros/cons of intellectual political theories or schools of thought on various political arenas.

Not a place to say 'Blair and Bush are stupid' or 'Bertie really is da man, he's great so he is'.

So on the surface it seems like a good idea, in practice...I'd better visit the forums/fora and see what the fuss is about

Jackie laughlin

"Blair and Bush are stupid" and "Bertie is da man ..." have no place in any discussion. Well, perhaps there's a "celebrities" section or similar somewhere here?

My interest is political theory and I've not the slightest difficulty with it "going deep". However, if it is abstracted to the point of irrelevance, it has no value. Theory/Philosophy is the very basis of politics and that's where it belongs.

r3nu4l

Theory/Philospohy may be the basis of Politics but I wonder how many of our fine upstanding politicians can quote from political theory? Not many I suspect.

The general publics' view of politics does not involve theory and to be honest from what I've seen in Politics, many posts are based around the central premise that '[insert politician name/policy] is stupid' albeit dressed up in nicer, more flowery language as if that hides the underlying theme. :rolleyes:

Also theory is the basis of Mathematics but you don't need to understand Mathematical theory in order to add/substract/multiply/divide or use a calculator which is all most people seem to be able to do these days. Hell, I have a minor degree in Mathematics and there's a lot of theory I wouldn't attempt to delve into.

Therefore, political theory has a place in politics but on a more academic (BBC4 type academia) level. There is nothing wrong with discussing political theory with reference to current or ongoing political affairs, that's great but equally there is nothing wrong with purely intellectual based discussion of political theory without the need to refer to any party and/or event, past, present or future. I think the latter would be quite boring after a while but there you go.

I do think that there is a mix to be had here: bringing theory into a post in the politics forum is not such a bad thing and there is probably no need to move a thread to theory just because of one post...if 90% of posts are based on theory then a thread should be moved, the other possibility is to begin a thread in the theory forum outlining political theory based around a comment in another thread on the polotics forum.

[ASIDE]
Also, while you think that comments such as "Bertie is da man/a spanner" have no place in political discussion, I'm afraid that I find that view to be exclusionist.

A large part of the whole reason for public apathy for politics stems from social exclusion of certain demographs, the so-called 'deprived/disadvantaged...use any words but poor or excluded' people.

To deny these people an opportunity to speak (however badly) or be heard is wrong. We can't all have fantastic education and vocabulary or families that engage our brains and excluding rather than reaching out and (non-condescendingly) engaging will only worsen this situation.
[/ASIDE]
I've digressed enough , methinks that there is room for both of these fora.

oscarBravo

Jackie laughlin wrote:

My interest is political theory and I've not the slightest difficulty with it "going deep". However, if it is abstracted to the point of irrelevance, it has no value.

Check your premises. You're working on the assumption that there is a requirement for discussion in the PT forum to be so abstracted. Thus far, this hasn't been the case - so I fail to see what the problem is.

Jackie laughlin

It is strange indeed that I should be accused of being elitist by someone who wants political theory isolated for "academic" discussion.

A democrat wants as many citizens as possible included. That is not inconsistent with being dissmissive about incompetent comment. It is absolutely elitist to assume that studidity is confined to the poor. It is utter blindness to assume that everyone's point of view should be taken seriously.

r3nu4l

Ah Jackie, I think you mis-read my intention. A more 'academic' type of discussion does not mean isolating or excluding anybody.

'Academic' does not necessarily mean using big-words, flowery language and studying political theory in university. You don't need a good education or to be wealthy to discuss something in an academic manner.

I hope that my post didn't imply that stupidy is confined to the poor...because I came from a (very) poor background myslef and have a PhD in molecular biology and don't consider myself to be stupid.

I'm not saying that everyone's point of view should be taken seriosuly but I feel that sometimes a poorly phrased opinion is immediately dismissed when the intended point may be valid.

Also, as Oscar Bravo said, so far discussion has not been so abstract so as to be completely obscure or irrelevant.