[MD] Trust in Philosophy

[John Carl]

Matt,

Well, I for one am most fascinated of all by the social dynamics of
philosophy.  As Socrates will attest from the beyond, this stuff can get you
killed!


Matt:
> Can I just say that if I had marked the above paragraph "DMB said to
> Matt:" people wouldn't have thought twice?  That Dave has been
> saying the same thing to me for years now?
>
>
John:

Yes, I know what you mean.  An infuriating tactic I've witnessed many times,
so frustrating because you just wanna reach through the keyboard and
throttle the guy.  I'm banging on my head going, "JUST ANSWER THE DAMN
QUESTION!" about a hundred times.  And that's not even counting his
dialogues with me.

So yes, I feel your pain.

Matt:

I want to point this out to point out how important _trust_ is to any
> piece communication.




John:

I think that is key.  It's one reason I swooned over Tim's formulation of
"the faithful-I" and found it met my needs and mood precisely.   There is a
necessary aspect of sincerity to selfdom.   We all have to try, in order to
be.  Lies, disbelief and mistrust destroy relationship and without
relationship, there is no "I".

Fascinating stuff, this "social dynamics of philosophy".  Fascinating
indeed.

Matt:


>  In this case, it is trust in the sincerity and
> earnestness of a Question or Response.  Dave does not trust that
> Marsha was being sincere or in earnest, and so took her to be trying
> to simply score rhetorical points by implying he's unclear or muddled.
> The devolution of trust between participants seems to me to be a
> regular pattern in the course of a participant's stay at the MD.  And
> trust is terribly difficult to repair.
>
>

John:

Boy, you said it, right there.  Even being flippant and silly, as I have
been, is a degredation of trust to a degree and it's damaged my own
"reputation" to an extent I certainly never intended.

Oops!

Oh well.  Back to the drawing board. Perhaps we can attribute some value at
least in a "I piped, and you did not dance, I mourned and you did not weep"
kinda way.

Matt:


> My relationship to Dave can be taken as a good case history for how
> trust works and how differing perspectives function in it.  In my
> history with Dave, our trust has nearly completely evaporated.  I think
> I have tried as much as one can reasonably try to put the past behind
> at various stages and take Dave's comments and questions as sincere
> and in earnest and not simply part of some rhetorical game of scoring.
> Dave doesn't think I have, but the only way to tell who has tried harder
> to repair our relationship, me or Dave, would be to look back minutely
> at the evolution of our relationship.  In the MD Archives, we actually
> do have a track-record at our disposal, but who really has time for
> that kind of thing?


John:

Yes, it's funny (but wonderful) you put it so plainly.  I like the archives
as a sort of physical backup, but really the archives of import are the ones
we keep in our heads.  We remember.  And it's the community of memory that
defines relations.  The social dynamics of philosophy.  Fascinating indeed.


Matt:



> So both of us rest on our sense of the situation,
> which happens to vindicate whoever's perspective is taken.  I have no
> way to reconcile our perspectives, only a defense of why mine takes
> the form it does.  If anything at all, I am merely better at articulating
> the rhetorical parameters of our situation and, additionally, my
> position in those parameters.  But it does not eliminate or even
> attempt to contradict the direct, incorrigible sense that Dave has of
> being frustrated with me.
>
>
John:

The only way I can understand it, comprehend it, is make a mental picture
that fits all the known facts of experience, and in that mental picture, dmb
has so much energy invested in being "the guy" that he can't brook
contradiction or defeat on any point, even small ones.  It's actually
something to be pitied, rather than censured.  A man trapped by the social
expectation of greatness, conferred in a generous spirit, perhaps, but
nevertheless a debilitating act in the end.

Sad, really.  And he'll probably take this as an insult, but I really do
feel sorry for him.

Matt:

So these days, I now don't take Dave's questions or comments to be
> in particular earnest.  When Dave used to ask in the past, I'd explain
> as best I could.  And eventually the conversation would break down
> (for various reasons, some good, some bad).  Dave was always
> consistent: I never answered him directly.  I don't think this is true,
> but Dave was at least consistent in his perception of the situation.
> And so, when Dave recapitulates events, he likes to imply that I am
> unreasonable in my wearied refusal to explain myself anymore
> because I _have never_ explained myself successfully.  Of course,
> I _haven't_ had success at explaining myself, because here success
> is defined by Dave's ability to understand (which is merely
> convenient for his rhetorical case).  I resist as much as is possible
> the implication that Dave shares more of the responsibility in this
> particular communication-circuit than I do, though Dave does not
> resist much in implying that it is rather I who shares most of the
> responsibility.
>
>
John:

You really do need social confirmation in such cases.  One vs. the other
never works in the end.  Royce and Peirce agree on this point that dyadic
relations are inherently unstable and tend always to spin into
out-of-control conflict.   It takes three, at least.  The tripod is stable,
the motorcycle dynamically non-so.  Meditate with me and Marsha upon
"mediation".

The social dynamics of philosophy are SO fascinating, I agree.



Matt:


> _Who_, in fact, does isn't even a good question if the conversation
> is ever to be renewed in earnest.  If ever I detected that Dave was
> in earnest in relationship to questions or comments he posed me,
> I would take them up in earnest as best I could.  (And whenever I
> do so reengage, it is because--against my better judgment--I sense
> this to be the case.)  But _saying_ one is in earnest does not _mean_
> one is in earnest, and there is always the possibility that one lacks
> the social sense of being able to tell the difference.
>


John:

Well, I dunno Matt.  I grasp your point completely, but I guess there's a
big part of me that just wants to kick that ball so bad, that I approach it
willingly, again and again.  Even though lucy-goosey dmb has got that gleam
in his eye, as usual.

Thanks for some high-quality plains talk Matt.   I think we oughta give him
a chance again, but I'm waiting to see what he says.  If he really doesn't
want dialogue, I'm willing to shut up and let the hair-apparent reign
unmolested for a while.  See how that looks.

Thanks for the good stuff,

John