LS
Great posts, . My interest in this quote,
"the crude issue of power... is always the last of the realities that
sensitive and reasonable men can bring themselves to face".
stems from a recent reading of a book on the history of pragmatism which
contends:
"The pragmatists' preoccupation with power, provocation, and
personality...signifies an intellectual calling to administer to the confused
populace caught in the whirlwinds of societal crisis, the cross fires of
ideological polemics, and the storms of class, racial, and gender conflicts."
West P5
Being by nature a "Tao Ting Thomas" ;-) this quote coupled with Pirsig's claim
"The Metaphysics of Quality is a continuation of the mainstream of twentieth
century American philosophy" [pragmatism] p366 Bantam Lila
led me to ask, First,is his claim valid? Second, If true, how do MoQ and the
pragmatic tradition correspond/differ? Third, If power, is one of the central
issues of pragmatism, What does MoQ have to say about power?
A caveat. This perspective on power and pragmatism is primarily from a single
source on pragmatism by Cornel West who's principle objective was to tie his
"prophetic pragmatism" to what he admits is a selective reading of the
genealogy of pragmatism.
I will try to quickly share my observations on the first two issues before
moving on to power.
>From Emerson to the neo-pragmatists their "word bites" on reality have a high
degree of correlation to MoQ's, for example:
"fundamental way of the world is..congenial and supportive of moral aims",
"basic nature of things is...incomplete and in flux," "scientific method as a
value-laden..activity" "contingency and revisable social practices" " no
obstructive dogma" "reconciliation of extremes" " truth is a species of good"
" test of.. present and immediate experience" "wisdom is a conviction about
values" "dynamic universe..untamed, streaming, provisional" "We cannot isolate
the world from the theories of the world" "myths give meaning and value.. if
[they] are taken symbolically, dramatically, and poetically"
That being said there are also some striking discords between the two. The big
one is that by and large, pragmatism has either rejected or at the very least
avoided METAPHYSICS.
This seems to stem from three basic sources their evasion of epistemology,
religion, and "the frontier mentality" pervasive during pragmatism's
development in America. From a
religious perspective metaphysics (basis of reality) is a matter of faith, God
did it, end of discussion. From a frontier perspective: We ain't got time for
any of that lily livered, mamy pamby, tea sipp'n, is it really real stuff.
Fo-in-stance, 'member the time ol Whitey's hos throwed him in high country
outta Bozeman...and end'd up hav'n to chaw off is left hand. It's ACTION that
counts. John Dewey's " Act first, think afterward" is still alive as
indicative in a recent "Wired" interview of an Internet CEO who's successful
corporate philosophy is quoted as "Ready, Shoot, Aim" Metaphysics is seen as
an impediment to experience, or practically dealing with experience, a
distraction from reality.
On to power, In this first post rather than trying to establish correspondence
with between power in MoQ and pragmatism I'm just going to snip some quotes on
power from pragmatist's history for all to contemplate. They range from the
mid 1800's to 1980's.
Emerson: [Glorious Power]
First..his view of power is multileveled; it encompasses and distinguishes the
power of the nation, the economy,the person, tradition, and language. Second,
he celebrates the possession, use, and expansion of certain types of power,
especially transgressive acts of the literate populace that promote moral aims
and personal fulfillment. Third.. power accentuates.. the dynamic elements
in human relations and transactions with nature.
Pierce: [Negative Power]
"1 We have no power of introspection, but all knowledge of the of the internal
world is derived by hypothetical reasoning from our knowledge of external facts.
2 We have no power of intuition, but every cognition is determined logically
by previous cognition's.
3. We have no power of thinking without signs.
4 We have no conception of the absolutely incognisable."
James: [Big Power]
" I am against bigness and greatness in all their forms, .. So I am against
all big organizations as such, national ones first and foremost; against all
big successes and big results; in favor of the eternal forces of truth which
always work in the individual.."
John Dewey [Social Power]
" The greatest educational power, the greatest force shaping the dispositions
and attitudes of individuals, is the social medium in which they live."
Sidney Hook [Limited Power]
" " a temper of mind that acknowledges the inescapable limitations of human
powers and the reality of piecemeal losses"
C. Wright Mills [Loss of Power]
" Never before have so few men made such fateful decisions for so many people
who themselves are so helpless.
W.E.B. Du Bois [Black Power]
" that the whole set of the white world in America, in Europe, and in the
world was too determined against racial equality to give power and
persuasiveness to our agitation."
Reinhold Niebuhr [Christian Power]
Neibuhr appropriated Jame's notion of " a moral equivalent of war" ..The
ethical duty of the Christian church was to provide " adequate moral
substitutes for war" and enable " the heroes of moral struggles to take the
places of the heroes of war in our own halls of fame"
Lionel Trilling [Reasonable Power]
"The everlasting question..is how to place power and reason in the same agent,
or how to make power reasonable; or how to endow reason with power. Clearly a
state-which implies power- is required because some classes or individuals
refuse to conform to reason and must be coerced for the good of the rest..."
W.V. Quin, Nelson Goodman, Wilfred Sellars,[Word Power]
>From the early 19OO's until the 60's the power of American pragmatism declined
primarily under the predominate forces of linguistic centered paradigms
centered around logical positivism. The major effect of logical positivism was
to turn attention away from historical consciousness and social reflection to
logic and physics.
Rorty [Resurrecting Power]
"Rorty..virtually singlehandly succeeded in..resurrecting pragmatism in
contemporary North Atlantic philosophy.
"For Rorty, the Western philosophical tradition can be overcome by adopting
Dewey's strategy of holding at arms's length the ahistorical..notions of
necessity, universality,rationality, objectivity and transcendentally. Instead
we should speak historically about contingent practices, transient
descriptions, and revisable theories."
Enough, it's understandable why Pirsig pulled a Lao Tzu and rode off into the
Eastern sunset.
Dave Thomas
MOQ Online - http://www.moq.org
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