the dialectics of Clinton

[Lance Murdoch <marxisml@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>From an interview with Dick Morris:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/clinton/interviews/morris2.html

[...]

Frontline: You develop a theory that comes to be known as "triangulation"
after the '94 elections. And just very briefly, what was your thinking?

Morris: Well, we were locked into a very sterile conflict between the left
agenda and the right agenda. And it was like going into a restaurant and
not being able to order a la carte. If you wanted to have pro choice, you
had to vote for the Democrats and accept high taxes. If you wanted to have
pro life, you had to also accept government--less environment. There was a
coupling here on both sides that was inappropriate.

And I felt that what you should do is really take the best from each
party's agenda, and come to a solution somewhere above the positions of
each party. So from the left, take the idea that we need day care and food
supplements for people on welfare. From the right, take the idea that they
have to work for a living, and that there are time limits. But discard the
nonsense of the left, which is that there shouldn't be work requirements;
and the nonsense of the right, which is you should punish single mothers.
Get rid of the garbage of each position, that the people didn't believe
in; take the best from each position; and move up to a third way. And that
became a triangle, which was triangulation.

For those of your viewers who are into philosophy, it really is Hegelian
in concept: the idea of a thesis, an antithesis, and a synthesis. And when
we originally discussed it, we did so in terms of Hegel, which we had
studied at Oxford. But in American politics, we spoke of triangulation.



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