[MD] Julian Baggini: This is what the clash of civilisations is really about

[John Carl]

Dan!

the busy man.

On Tue, Jun 9, 2015 at 12:06 AM, Dan Glover <daneglover at gmail.com> wrote:

> John,
>
> > Jc:
> > The way Pirsig said it was, I believe, that individuals react to DQ where
> > committees, don't.
>
> Dan:
> That could be but I don't recall him saying that. Could you provide a
> quote?
>
>

Jc:  No.  But maybe you could :)  I think it was a comment in Lila's
Child.  Too bad Platt's gone.  He always used to chime in with the correct
attribution.  I rely on my aging memory, but if it's in there, I take it as
a sign of significance, and its in there.






> JC:
> > evolutionary jumps are made at the individual level
> > first, one person at a time.
>
> Dan:
> If I understand evolution, it does not occur "at the individual
> level." Rather, it occurs across generations.



Jc:  Well, intellectual evolution different because ideas "make jumps", on
an individual basis.  I think for an idea to take off, it has to resonate
with a lot of different individual basis's.  es.  But its still a *personal*,
insight that connects a concept to significant attachment.  And thus always
an individual assent, in order for intellectual patterns to evolve.

An ongoing topic of interest, I'm sure.





> An example: birds that
> live near highways are evolving shorter wingspans as time goes by.
> Why? Because those with longer wingspans are being hit by cars since
> it takes them longer to become airborne, thus they don't survive to
> pass on those specific genetic properties. See? It isn't that
> individual birds are somehow evolving shorter wingspans, but the
> species.
>
>
Jc:  I don't think individual competition is a good analogy for evolution.
That's for sure.  Co-Evolution, is a better explanation of what goes on at
the biological level.  Everything that lives, serves some life, in some
way.  The more life you have, the more life you have.  the organic matrix
is illimitable and fascinating and humanistic science wants to cut it all
up into manageable bits, but it doesn't work very well at the ultimate
levels.  Makes many ontological errors, as any MoQist
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0waMBY3qEA4> is aware.


> JC:
> > If so, then the individual vs social
> > conflict, is often also, an intellectual vs. social conflict, no?  So I
> > agree  you can't completely conflate the intellect-individual, but you
> can
> > relate them.
>
> Dan:
> "Whatever the personality traits were that made him such a rebel from
> the tribe around him, this man was no "misfit." He was an integral
> part of Zuni culture. The whole tribe was in a state of evolution that
> had emerged many centuries ago from cliff-dwelling isolation. Now it
> was entering a state of cooperation with the whites and submission to
> white laws. He was an active catalytic agent in that tribe's social
> evolution, and his personal conflicts were a part of that tribe's
> cultural growth." [Lila]
>
> Note: the whole tribe was in a state of evolution. The individual
> acted as a catalytic agent, sure, but without the right time and place
> the brujo would have just been a window peeping drunk with really long
> thumbs.
>
>
>

Jc:  The individual vs. the community is always an important and ongoing
creative conflict.  You can't have a good community without good
individuals and you can't have good individuals without good community.
The way intellectual evolution fits into all this, is that it seems to
attach to the individual's efforts to solve a social conflict - which
creates the need for new formulations of ideas.     Which boils down to...
respect your degenerates?

May be.  I think in a video of a speech by Hilary Putnam, he said something
very much like that.  The importance of heeding the minority complaint, or
something along those lines.


> Jc:  I see that as problematic.  "Nothing is sacred" comes down to the
> > Nihilism that Baggini describes!  It doesn't have to, maybe, but it does
> in
> > the way it actually works out.  Where the rubber meets the road, so to
> > speak.
>
> Dan:
> So you're saying we have to hold onto some sort of absolute? Or
> believe in nothing? Isn't there some middle ground in between those
> two extremes?
>
>

Jc:  I think we treat certain concepts *as* absolute.  That it's more
pragmatic to consider truth as an absolute, rather than something
relative.  As Royce put it:

"For in case I say to you: 'The sole ground for my assertions is this, that
I please to make them,' — well, at once I am defining exactly the attitude
which we all alike regard as the  attitude of one who chooses *not* to tell
the truth.

And if, hereupon, I offer a theory of truth upon generalizing such an
assertion, — well, I am defining as truth-telling precisely that well-known
practical attitude which is the contradictory of the truth-telling
attitude. The contrast is not one between intellectualism and pragmatism.
It is the  contrast between two well-known attitudes of will, — the will
that is loyal to truth as an universal ideal, and the will that is
concerned with its own passing caprices."


> Jc:  I can't see jumpoing off into nothingness, as any sort of attraction.
> > Old ways wear out, and need to be dropped.  But I can only let go of the
> > old if I see a better alternative to latch onto.  Knowing that the new
> > betterness is also a latch that will some day get old, is important.
>  But
> > all we can do here an now is take one step at a time - and climb, rather
> > than jump off.
>
> Dan:
> I joined this group way back in the stone age. 1998 or there about. I
> like to believe that my thinking has evolved over the years, not as an
> individual, but as part of a group. I could never have made these
> leaps without the input of others too numerous to mention. Yet during
> all those years I never once thought we were jumping into nothingness.
> Granted, sometimes we wander away from the MOQ but we always come back
> to it in the end.
>
>
Jc:  I agree.


> >
> >
> >> Dan:
> >> In my opinion, most of the anti-scientific vs scientific debates
> >> centering around evolution, global warming, religion, and so forth,
> >> arise not because people are stupid, but because they've been
> >> indoctrinated into believing in the myth of the absolute.
> >
> >
> >
> > Jc:  Hm.. yes, well... I've been reading a bit more.  It's a tricky term
> > "absolute".  what you mean by it is probably a long way from what I've
> been
> > reading in Royce.
> >
> > From what I see, for the most part, Royce agrees with you there.  And he
> > goes along for a while with what he calls Instrumentalism.  But he stops
> at
> > the extreme view which says there is no absolute.  He uses logic and math
> > to demonstrate the existence of absolute truths in the sense that "within
> > the given system" equations can be absolutely true.  And this
> > "absoluteness" then, demonstrates the possibility and experience of what
> we
> > mean by the term.
>
> Dan:
> I'm not sure, but doesn't that run counter to the uncertainty principle?
>
>
Jc:  No, not really.  The fact that observation has a creative relation to
matter, confirms idealism rather than not.  But what Royce was getting at
was absolutizing truth from within a given system.  I think what most
people hear when they hear the term is some sort of absolute that is
outside of any system and Royce didn't preach that.  His fictional ontology
makes this point clearly.



> >JC:
> >
> >  People on a mass social scale, have a tendency to absolutize.  This is
> > because absolutization is extremely expedient.  Absolutization is the
> > enforcement of the standard upon all.  Absolutization is the rule of
> > conformity to the social needs of economically significant industrialism.
> > That's how we get large populations all on the same page - in a form of
> > inculcating of centrally-defined values.  The religious-industrial
> complex
> > in an ongoing conflict with pluralism and hedonism.
>
> Dan:
> No argument here. But is this a good thing?
>
>
Jc:

That's a tricky question.  The evolution of industrial society, is this a
good thing?  It's a mixed bag.  We've got lots of great stuff - this
computer which enables me to communicate with people a thousand miles
away... that's good.  The eroding of local community values, the alienation
and angst of modern society... maybe it was all a good and necessary
development to get us here, but I think we need to go in a different
direction for a while.  It was good then, but it's the wrong thing now.  We
need new ways of thinking, imho.




> >
> > Dan:
> >
> > It's
> >> especially pervasive in Western culture. Much of what Robert Pirsig
> >> says about subject/object metaphysics falls into that category.
> >> Subjects and objects are all there is. Absolute. Period.
> >>
> >> It works well.
> >
> >
> >
> > Jc:  Yes indeed.  Exactly my point.  Pragmatic then?
>
> Dan:
> Subject/object thinking is a high quality intellectual pattern. Does
> it have pragmatic value? No, otherwise we wouldn't be discussing the
> MOQ, would we?
>
>

Jc:  Where it falls down is at the intellectual level.  Up to then, it
works fine.  So I'd say it has high pragmatic value for society, but not
for intellectual evolution and without intellectual evolution, human
society is doomed to exemplify the evolutionary patterns of the ants or the
bees.





> >
> >
> > Dan:
> >
> >
> >> The English language is grounded in that myth, as is
> >> our court of laws, our educational system, just about everything we
> >> think, see, hear, and feel relates to the absolute-ness of objective
> >> agreement.  And you are right, John. To try and argue one's way out of
> >> that box is virtually impossible. There is always someone who can come
> >> along and use our words against us... just like you are doing here.
> >> But that doesn't mean we should throw up our hands and surrender.
> >>
> >>
> >
> > Jc:  Well, I'd rather think we are using our words together, in seeking a
> > common goal of better communication about betterness.  Some of that is
> > going to be analytic and critical, sure.  But I don't know that it's
> > "against".  And which "us" are you referring to, white man?
>
> Dan:
> Those of us who subscribe to the MOQ and seek to better understand its
> implications. It is easy to demean the process by introducing terms
> not comporting to the ideas underlying the MOQ. I see it happen all
> the time. There are then two choices: either go all the way back to
> the beginning and and start over, or simply give up. I prefer the
> former to the latter but I understand the frustration too.
>
>
Jc:  I think Royce has helped me see the importance of interpretation.
Other people have helped me see this too, but from the negative end - when
you can't see the need for interpreting, you are stuck with dogmatism.
That is the path to the ants and the bees.



>> Dan:
>> The thirst and the wish for the absolute are force fed to us from the
>> time we're born. Experience goes beyond that.
>>
>>
>
> Jc:  Well, that's not absolutely true.  For instance I had very
> free-thinking parents who basically followed their bliss and let me do the
> same.  I don't recommend it as the perfect parenting style, but oh well,
> we're all different.  I certainly had no idea about any absolute imposed
> upon me.  I was exposed to what  different religions had to say about the
> subject, but I came to the conclusion that if there is any absolute then
> it's this - choice.  If it wasn't for the ability to choose, there would
be
> no reason or rationality or language or anything to talk about.  So choice
> is absolute and it makes good pragmatic sense to absolutize choice and
call
> it "Quality"  Otherwise I guess I wouldn't even be here.

Dan:

> Your parents had little to do with the cultural assimilation you
> experienced for they too were enmeshed within it. Same with all of us.
> We are submerged in culture. And then we ask: what culture?
>
>
Jc:  A good question, as long as its asked sincerely rather than
rhetorically.  Philosophy could be said to be the study of our culture and
its assumptions - with a special emphasis upon clarifying concepts.

Thanks for clarifying yours, Dan.

John