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

[John Carl]

Happy Labor Day, Dan,

On 9/6/15, Dan Glover <daneglover at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dan:
> Or with large swaths of the United States. Donald Trump for President?

Jc:  He reminds me of two other politicians, both hugely successful -
Reagan and Putin.  Reagan was laughed at by the intellectuals and  his
own party elite  but had the last laugh and Putin with his
bigger-than-life self-promotion all the time.   In a way, I hope it
happens.  I think the leader should reflect the character of the
people and think Trump captures where America is at today.  Yuck, I
know, but there it is.

I actually have a brilliant campaign strategy for the Donald.  He
should turn the search for the right veep, into a reality tv show -
American Apprentice, and let people vote just like on American Idol.
It's a win/win.  He runs an effective election campaign and actually
makes money off of it.  People would eat that shit up.

Dan:

> County clerks withholding marriage licenses because of their religious
> convictions? Really? The christian fundamentalists are no different
> than radical islam.

Jc:  Exactly.  Unfortunately, intellectuals don't have any effective
means of dealing with either.  Intellectuals are too smart to get
their hands dirty by talking about religious things, so religious
things are allowed to grow and fester in the dark, uncriticized.
That's a mistake  I believe and  Bagginni's article  confirms my
belief.

Dan:

>They all demand obedience to THEIR notion of god
> and anyone who dares to differ is damned to hell for all eternity. So
> yeah... if you really want to start a religious discussion, start with
> that.


Jc:  Religion is the means of absolutizing social patterns.  It's an
effective means of keeping them stable and growing them.  what would
arabs be without Islam?  Africans don't have a unifying religion and
so their social patterns cannot compete against modernity - Islam is
taking over Africa.  Now when we speak normally of our western
advanced society, we mainly refer to Science, but science was never
intended as a means of social conformity.  Science is founded upon
criticism and analytic thinking.  People who think you can have a
society based upon scientific values are, as we all know, SOMists and
wrong.  Yet that is the kind of thinking that has been growing in
authority over the last century.  It devolves into a kind of pragmatic
self-ism, which is why I think the discussion of Personalism is an
important one to have.

>
>> Jc:  I guess it depends upon what you mean by truth.  A novel is an
>> expression of a person's story. Perhaps what you mean by truth is
>> "factual".
>
> Dan:
> No, not really. Again, by definition, a novel is a fictitious story.
> We all need to recognize definitions to the terms we use, otherwise
> all we're doing is sowing confusion.
>

Jc:  Some terms need to be negotiated.  For instance, we understand
that the word "reality" has definitional problems in the language we
use.  Thus "fictitious" falls under the same category, since  fiction
means "unreal".  In an MoQ discussion, Truth is not a matter of
Reality.  Truth is a matter of 4th level value - what is
intellectually good.  Thus a novel that is intellectually good, is
true, in the highest sense of the MoQ.

The following example of Ron's, is both truth and fiction:

ORPHEUS with his lute made trees
And the mountain tops that freeze
   Bow themselves when he did sing:
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung; as sun and showers
   There had made a lasting spring.

Every thing that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
   Hung their heads and then lay by.
In sweet music is such art,
   Killing care and grief of heart
   Fall asleep, or hearing, die.



> JC:
>> That's "a" definition, I guess.  But I don't subscribe to that
>> particular aspect of SOM.  No, by "truth", I mean the value of the 4th
>> level, which is ultimately indefinable as a discreet concept, but rather a
>> sort of urge toward, conceptualization itself.
>
> Dan:
> Well, again, we don't get to pick and choose how we define our terms.
> That's what a dictionary is for. Now, if you want to define 'truth' in
> terms of the MOQ:
>
> "The tests of truth are logical consistency, agreement with
> experience, and economy of explanation. The Metaphysics of Quality
> satisfies these." {Lila]
>

Jc: He's using the scientific definition of truth to affirm the MoQ,
there.   He's not absolutizing the scientific methor, nor it's
definitons by doing so.  The enterprise of the MoQ is to create a new
mapping for truth.

Dan:

> "... one doesn't seek the absolute "Truth." One seeks instead the
> highest quality intellectual explanation of things with the knowledge
> that if the past is any guide to the future this explanation must be
> taken provisionally; as useful until something better comes along."
> [Lila]
>

Jc:  Amen!  And with that flexibility, we can use the term "truth" in
a new and practical way that doesn't get too hung up on Objective
categories.  The "problem of truth" disappears and the solution of
truth becomes practically available for use.  Right in line with
classical pragmatists.


> Dan:
> Truth, according to the MOQ, is not some sort of urge or even the
> value of the 4th level. As you can see, there are parameters defining
> truth in specific terms. Truth is not a sort of anything goes, which
> is what you seem to infer.
>


Jc:  It's certainly not anything, that goes.  what works, is what goes
and for that we need past and future experience as well as immediate.
 But that's along a different topic...


>>JC:
>> Thus a novel can be, and often is, A truth.  It helps us conceptualize in
>> our own lives, then that is what truth is all about.
>
> Dan:
> Again, no. A novel is a fictional story. If we find it somehow relates
> to our own lives, that doesn't make it true. It simply adds appeal.
>
>

Jc:  if something is true for me, but not for you, then the truth is
that some things are true for some people, but not for others.  if
this statement is true, then logically speaking, it's not true.

 What we mean by truth is what works out to be true for all of us.
sometimes that takes time to work out so truth is a process.  It
doesn't work solely on appeal, because appeal is so various.  But it
doesn't work without appeal,  because nothing does.  Caring is as
fundamental as Quality.

>
> Dan:
> We don't get to pick and choose the truth. My point was that there was
> a reason why ZMM was called a novel.

Jc:  Of course, it was injected into a SOM world that demands these
categories and it's easier to go along than fight over every term.
But honestly Dan, I've found ZAMM in more categories at the bookstore
than I can name, from Travel to Religion to Mechanics.  The one place
I never seem to find it is in the Novel section.  Usually it's in
philosophy, to tell the truth.



>
> Dan:
> Past and future are convenient fictions. To accomplish anything, one
> must be present, not ensconced in tomorrow and yesterday.
>

Jc:  The present is a convenient fiction.  It certainly doesn't exist
in actual experience!  Nothing is less concrete than immediate
experience.  "whoosh!"  there it goes.  There it went, leaving only
the scant memory of its passing, .0023 microseconds ago.  Where is it?

Where was it, is more like it.  And where will it be tomorrow, or in
the next minute.  When I do anything, from eating to breathing to
cooking or exercising, I am doing in the hope of an expected or
desired outcome.  All my immediate experience is then, is expectation
and memory.

>
> Dan:
> In the MOQ, experience is synonymous with Dynamic Quality.

Jc:  Hmmm... I guess I'm going to challenge you on that one.
Experience is of static patterns.  Perhaps it could be said that
experience is the static fallout of DQ.    I believe Pirsig said
"immediate experience"  in which he was following along with James in
dialogue.  But experience as a whole is roughly equivalent to
"reality" but without the Cartesian baggage.

> Dan:
> "This classification of patterns is not very original, but the
> Metaphysics of Quality allows an assertion about them that is unusual.
> It says they are not continuous. They are discrete. They have very
> little to do with one another. Although each higher level is built on
> a lower one it is not an extension of that lower level. Quite the
> contrary. The higher level can often be seen to be in opposition to
> the lower level, dominating it, controlling it where possible for its
> own purposes." [Lila]
>
> Dan comments:
> Now, if we want to discuss the MOQ, it behooves us to use the terms as
> laid out in Lila. Otherwise, what are we talking about?

Jc:   I admit I'm arguing with the author a bit.  I take his system as
a whole, but disagree with the terms he uses here "dominate" and
"control".  Often the relationship can be seen to be plainly creative
and harmonious and should be more.  I think Pirsig held a grudge
against society, and who can blame him?  If I'd been institutionalized
and tortured, I'd certainly hold a grudge that would color my
perceptions of the system that did that to me.   But especially in the
area of the 1st and the 2nd levels, there is this tremendously rich
interplay that is "oppositional".  And while intellect is critical of
certain social patterns, it can't criticize social patterning as a
whole, for it's very life is as dependent upon social patterns as
social patterns are dependent upon biological beings for their
instantiation.

We've been over this before, sorry if it's getting boring.


>
> Dan:
> Well, unfortunately the quote has mysteriously vanished (is that part
> of your Jr. College logic course? Destroy conflicting evidence? :-))
> and so I will reproduce it here.

Jc:  'twould be a rather cheap ploy since referal back is so easy, but
don't mistake logical argument with debate team tactics - you sophist
you ;)

>
> "I also have a concern of my own. This is the concern that
>>> philosophers, instead of coming to grips with the philosophy at hand,
>>> sometimes dismiss it by saying, “Oh he is saying the same as someone
>>> else,” or “someone else has said it much better.” This is the latter
>>> half of the well known conservative argument that some new idea is (a)
>>> no good because it hasn't been heard before or (b) it is no good
>>> because it has been heard before. If, as has been noted by R.C.
>>> Zaehner, once the Oxford University Professor of Eastern Religions and
>>> Ethics, I am saying the same thing as Aristotle; and if, as has been
>>> noted in the Harvard Educational Review, I am saying the same thing as
>>> William James; and if as has been noted now that I may be saying the
>>> same thing as Spinoza: then why has no one ever noticed that Aristotle
>>> and Spinoza and William James are all saying the same thing?"
>>>
>>> [Robert Pirsig, A Brief Summary of the Metaphysics of Quality,
>>> http://robertpirsig.org/Intro.html]
>
> Dan comments:
> Now, how does he start off? "I also have a concern of my own." He is
> NOT saying that he's pulled together all the great thinkers. In fact,
> he is saying precisely the opposite. He is claiming his ideas are
> dismissed because academics are saying how someone else said it
> already and said it better.
>


Jc:  Then why has nobody else noticed that (x,yz) are saying the same
thing?"  That's the conclusion to his whole argument and it's implied
that the significance of Pirsig's MoQ is in unifying these threads.
That is the job of philosophy, btw, to unify, to universalize.    Art
is more of a personal process but when lots of people love a work of
art, then that art is unifying to them and thus "philosophical" in a
sense.  Great Art is also great philosophy and vice versa.

But lets be clear here.  The main thrust of Pirsig's argument is
directed against the academic critics who rejected his work or took it
seriously.   Comparing his work to those whom they DO take seriously,
can only be of benefit now.  RMP is right, somebody who unifies
Spinoza, James and  Aristotle is a fascinating thinker.  And has a lot
in common with Royce, also long-neglected.   It starts to make one
wonder, what social force is it that fears and keeps in check the
philosophers that would free people from their SOM-induced prisons.

The Trump card wins again.

John