Explaining his understanding of how America can reimagine the
democratic project, Lebron praises Otto Neurath for his ship metaphor, which
ultimately demonstrates that democracy cannot be restarted, but instead it must
be built upon our existing structures. Neurath's extended metaphor portrays a
ship at sea that needs improvement to continue its voyage, but also cannot
return to its port. Lebron praises Neurath for the concept of "continuing
[to] build the ship at sea" (141). He argues that like the ship, democracy
cannot be abandoned and must be improved in "unfamiliar or uncomfortable
circumstances...that requires attention to navigate it properly. This endeavor
is attended by perils as well as promise" (141).
This understanding of democracy is valuable because of its
practicality; it affirms that not revolution is needed to attain racial
equality. However, Lebron’s praise of Neurath's metaphor draws some questions
for me. Lebron describes the ship as "good enough to get us going, but
nevertheless imperfect," which is why the ship must be continually improved
(141). This concept of improving the ship led me to question: At what point
have we improved or changed the ship so much that it is no longer the same ship
that we left at the port? By this
question, I mean to ask if there any parts of the ship that are fundamental. If
any part of the ship can be rebuilt and improved, it seems to me that the type
of ship we begin with is insignificant. To apply this to Lebron’s theory, it
seems that the principles we identify at our founding, such as the principles
in our Constitution, are not necessarily the principles that need to persist as
we continue to modify our democracy. As a result, I believe that the ship
metaphor opens the possibility of moving completely away from the kind of original
democracy or founding principles that Lebron insists that we rely on.
I also took issue with Lebron's analysis of the ship as unfit
"to get us to our final destination” (141). From my understanding of
Lebron’s theory of shame, a society that is racially just is one that is
continuously checking its adherence to its principles through processes of
shame. This constant flux is inconsistent with the concept of a ship that
reaches a port, because this implies that at some point, the ship will be
perfect, or at least good enough for us to leave the ship. This idea of
eventually abandoning democracy once we have reached “the promised land” seems
incompatible with Lebron’s emphasis on continually improving the ship. To be
consistent with his argument, I think Lebron would need to abandon the idea of
an “end point” that the ship is attempting to reach, or more clearly identify what
this “promised land” would look like.
Posted on the behalf of Cesco:
ReplyDeleteHey Nisha!
I want to take a stab at answering your questions from what I take to be Lebron’s perspective. You claim that unless we can identify some fundamental aspects of the ship we leave the initial dock aboard, then the structure of this ship—the one we begin with—is insignificant. Since Lebron directs us to continually rebuild the ship (now that we’ve realized its inability to take us to our desired destination), you hold that we might actually open up the possibility of moving away from our core Constitutional principles.
Yet if we’re operating within the metaphor of a ship at sea, certain portions of the ship cannot be altered. The foundations (hull, etc.) could not be rebuilt at sea without necessarily sinking the ship. Or at least, it would be near impossible to restructure some fundamental aspects of the ship without grounding it. Therefore, our democratic foundations—autonomy, equal regard for all people, etc.—are not malleable or subject to questioning. In fact, Lebron lauds our democracy, holding that the principles underlying it are very “good.” Rather than altering core principles, through shame we hope to identify the instances where we fail to apply these principles consistently—most notably in instances where race is involved.
As for your second question regarding a final destination, I believe that although presenting a non-ideal theory, Lebron does identify an end goal. You are right to identify that Lebron holds a society to be racially just only when it “continuously check[s] its adherence to its principles through processes of shame,” yet it appears to me that this can fit into his metaphor. We will have reached port—keeping in mind that this ship rebuilding, etc. is only pertinent to how we interact with race, so this is not the perfect ship that will fix other problems of bad character—when the vast majority of Americans have been reeducated so they do not fail to apply their previously affirmed democratic principles when dealing with race. While continuous checking will be necessary, acute instances of individuals failing to apply principles could be treated as deviance once we reach the further shore. It is unrealistic to expect perfect compliance with any principle, yet we tend to believe that when we’ve reached certain milestones we can justify claiming ourselves to have changed.