The language game of legitimation
is not state-political
but philosophical.

There is a universal “history” of spirit,
spirit is “life,”
and “life” is its own self-presentation
and formulation in the ordered knowledge
of all of its forms
contained in the empirical sciences.
German idealism is the
narration of the his(story)
of this life-subject.

In this perspective,
knowledge first finds legitimacy
within itself,
and it is knowledge that is entitled
to say
what the State
and what society are.

Jean-Francois Lyotard
The Postmodern Condition:
A Report on Knowledge, 1979

Yesterday while waiting in traffic for a signal change to allow me to join vehicles on a left hand turn through the intersection, I observed an older, Dodge Ram pickup truck, flying an American flag from one side of the rear bed, and a Trump 2020 banner from the other side of the bed.  The signal changed, and my vehicle, and the other moved obliquely through the intersection.  I observed the fellow American depart in my rear view mirror. From the prodigious vehicle, prototype Detroit-iron, the banners were flying, muffler roaring, — a transparent assertion of aggression. 

Trump, the poster-boy for the “greed-is-good” faith propounded by Gordon Gecko in the 1987 Oliver Stone film, Wall Street, is going “all out” in the ten

days that remain until November the 3rd.  Witness the mask-less open air rallies in battleground states, the truck parades in local communities. 

What qualifies for admission to the conversation, the story that we the people, at the same time narrate and receive as listeners, the story of ourselves, who we are, what it means to belong to this society, to this country? 

The ultimate language game is that of establishing a standard of competency, of the meaning of success, of what matters, of what questions can be asked, and how they are to be asked in this society.  Does science matter?  Do the experts in epidemiology,  the researchers in vaccines and their production merit listening to?  Or does the President’s reelection take precedence, as he has decreed thirty six times, “the coronavirus will go away,” since the outbreak of the contagion.  (As reported by the Washington Post on September 16.)

Does a woman have the final say over her own body in the matter of reproduction?  Do we have a moral obligation to forge a society that treats all people within our borders with respect, with kindness, especially if they do not happen to be white Caucasian?  Are we satisfied with a “do nothing” congress, that represents corporations, rushing to install a Supreme Court judge because she is almost certain to rule in the negative in these matters? 

We are a Hunger Games nation, and you and I have been conscripted.  We are forced to compete against one another, — the event is “televised” published on social media, a winner-takes-all match… 

Is this what you want, what I want?

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To read the story of the coronavirus envelopment of a small Montana town, CLICK HERE.