[MD] Hypocrisy and Belief (and Action)

[ian glendinning]

Arlo, and Scott (and Khaled mentioned),

Spelling blind spots. Actually I have several, (at least 15 I'd say,
one of which is in fact "maintenance" too, another is "it's") but I've
concluded the blindness has nothing to do with the brain or mind (the
words I spell wrong are those I KNOW how to spell). It's a feature of
keyboards and delegated neurone programming somewhere between the
spinal cord and my fingers. But I'm no expert :-)

Scott, can I just say "tetralemma", ...

... and yes I think it is one of the sources of "insanity". It's an
inability to deal with it, but of course you don't have this problem
until you can first see it. (Genius close to madness, etc. before you
can stand on the shoulders of giants you have to be able to see them,
etc ...)

Some random additional thoughts - I think the Monkey trap (brought up
by Khaled) is indeed an easy to visualise example. I think in the more
complex real world where the binary trap is seen as the "tetralemma" -
the need to do both and neither - the key dimension is "time" -
dynamics - doing some of either some of the time - swapping levels in
strange evolutionary loops - to do otherwise is the gumption trap.
(The clever monkey works on how to get more chances to solve his
problem, rather than either being caught or losing the
once-and-for-all opportunity.)

Ian


On 4/8/06, Scott Roberts <jse885 at localnet.com> wrote:
> Arlo, Ian,
>
> This sounds a lot like Gregory Bateson's (who, if memory serves, got it from
> R.D. Laing) "double bind" situation as a source of insanity. I would also
> say that the logic of contradictory identity is a recognition of such a
> double bind/hypocrisy in trying to think about Quality or Consciousness. One
> cannot go the DQ route alone,  one cannot go the SQ route alone, nor can one
> go both routes at the same time, nor can one ignore both routes.
>
> - Scott
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Arlo J. Bensinger" <ajb102 at psu.edu>
> To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
> Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2006 7:52 AM
> Subject: [MD] Hypocrisy and Belief (and Action)
>
>
> Ian (Khaled mentioned),
>
> [Ian]
> J'accuse Arlo - first degreee sarcasm, no less.
>
> [Arlo]
> Et j'avouee, Ian. Forty lashes and off with my head!
>
> [Ian]
> But you make a great point.
> Hypocrisy is my current buzzword (seemingly necessary hypocrisy in a
> pragmatic organisational / institutional context, where complex
> situations require dealing with)
>
> [Arlo]
> This word, "hyprocrisy", is my lexical arch-nemesis. Somewhere deep in my
> cognitive core is a blindness to the letters in this word. While I have, at
> times, struggled with "separate" (because it is colloquially pronounced
> "sepERate") and interestingly "maintenance", which I have found myself
> warping
> in various ways. At the least, I can point to this word, hypocrisy, having
> made
> Oxford's list of Commonly Misspelled Words. Sigh.
>
> Without being adequately versed with Brunsson's book (on Organizational
> Hypocrisy), a quick review reminded me directly of Peirce's essay The
> Fixation
> of Belief. To sum, for Peirce "doubt" is an irritable condition of the mind,
> and one to which the mind seeks immediate relief. Among the ways proposed to
> handle doubt, the two "quickest" (not Peirce's term) ways are "tenacity" and
> "authority". On the episodic level of the specific doubt, this can create a
> holistic dilemma whereby two distinct doubts are resolved in such a way as
> to
> create an internal conflict (externally perceived as "hypocrisy"). The
> individual can then add another layer of "tenacity" or "authority" in an
> attempt to resolve the "meta-doubt" (again, this is my term extending Peirce
> a
> bit). Peirce had, of course, felt that eventually, these conflicts would
> lead
> the individual to resolve their doubts in such a way as to look for an
> relief
> that would not only solve episodic doubt, but integrate holistically and
> without conflict into the larger structure of belief.
>
> Hypocrisy, then, is evidence of episodic doubt being handled in such a way
> as to
> result in holistic inconsistency, and evidence that the individual has not
> (yet, Peirce would add optimistically) sought doubt resolution via more
> "superior" (his word) means ("a priori", which is still inferior to,
> "scientific methodology"). A "post-Peirce Pirsigian perspective" (say THAT
> four
> times fast) would suggest Peirce was operating in an SOMist perspective
> (Peirce-spective?) and should be appropriately extended.
>
> Peirce, too, felt that doubt was a powerful force and should NOT be seen as
> irritable, but as the first step towards growth. Without "doubt", we do not
> progress. As Data paraphrases Holmes in Star Trek, "The most elementary and
> valued statement in science, the beginning of wisdom, is 'I do not know.'"
>
> Pirsig calls the inability, or perhaps desire to stay free of doubt, the
> "gumption trap of value rigidity". In describing this, he presents a
> scenario
> where doubt is positive, "Watch it the way you watch a line when fishing and
> before long, as sure as you live, you'll get a little nibble, a little fact
> asking in a timid, humble way if you're interested in it. That's the way the
> world keeps on happening. Be interested in it."
>
> This segment, of course, leads right into the topic Khaled had proposed,
> namely
> the monkey-caught-in-a-trap. You could say, oddly worded but correctly, that
> the monkey is in a state of "hypocrisy". That is, two of its "beliefs" are
> in
> internal conflict, one being the desire for food, and the other being the
> desire for freedom. Externally, we see this as hypocrisy, internally it is
> the
> result of the monkey fixing his beliefs in a way that has proven
> holistically
> contentious.
>
> We could say to the monkey, besides Pirsig's advice, "your holistic belief
> structure is in conflict because you have fixed two beliefs via means that
> are
> incompatible in the whole, and you have to make the choice to either
> re-evaluate the manners in which you've resolved your beliefs, or you can
> add
> another layer of tenacity (stubborn clinging to) your beliefs." One way
> would
> free the monkey, the other leaves it ensnared. The same could be said,
> metaphorically, about those who appear hypocritical. They have two choices.
> To
> either seek holistic resonance, or remain ensnared by avoiding doubt via
> tenacity and authority.
>
> Some thoughts anyway.
>
> Arlo
>
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> moq_discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
>
> moq_discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
>