PUZZLED ELEPHANT TO ROG ON JAMES, ORWELL, AND TRUTH
ROG WROTE:
According to James "The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be
good
in the way of belief, and good too for definite, assignable reasons." He
goes on to state that if believing truth led inevitably to terrible outcomes
that we would learn to shun the truth. But in general, it doesn't.....
ELEPHANT wrote:
I want to challenge James here. Is "in general" enough - or even at all
relevant? What about the (the all too familiar) cases where tact or fear
defeat truth, sometimes completely? This does actually happen you know,
it's perhaps a definition of a totalitarian state.
ROG wrote:
He is talking about believing in the truth, not speaking it in inappropriate
situations. But, I don't get your point. Is it that people can be
brainwashed? OK. His point is that truth is of value for definite reasons.
For example, Bermuda is surrounded by coral reefs. This is a truth. A
sailor without good maps traveling into Bermuda should acknowledge this, or
he risks sinking and death. The truth works well , even for Cuban
sailors....
It may keep you alive to believe communist propaganda, but if it is
untrue it lacks quality. Orwell is a perfect point of a quality-less and
untrue world.
ELEPHANT:
Firstly, it is exactly the point, and horror, of Winston's subjugation in
1984 that Big Brother requires not just the semblance of love, but the real
thing: and in the end he gets it, by making Winston completely grateful to
the monsterous state for every moment of freedom from pain - that's the
tragedy. So while it is completely true that 1984 describes a quality-less
world if ever there was one, it is not true to say that Winston only
pretends to beleive the propaganda - that's the situation for most of the
novel, but in the end he is broken: that's the whole point.
Second, I'm perplexed by the inference "if it is untrue it lacks
quality", because quality is supposed to come before truth in MOQ, so far as
I understood it: truth is a species of the good (James).
Third, if truth is a species of the good, and if the point of the novel
is that in the end, after extensive torture, Big Brother becomes good for
Winston, then the inference made in the novel is (1) that the Communist
Propoganda is actually true for Winston at the end, and (2) that it is
Winston's actually having believed that the propaganda was false which lead
to his being tortured into love for Big Brother, and not simply his
appearing to believe that the propaganda was false.
Big Brother can allow O'Brien to appear to believe that the Propoganda
is false (as a trick), but what he cannot allow is that some individual
should actually believe if to be false. That's what is problematic for this
particular state, and that's what gets Winston into trouble. A state which
cared merely about appearances wouldn't have cared about little Winston -
outwardly an effective member of the party machine (Castro certainly
wouldn't give a fig). Perhaps Orwells understanding of 'Communism' as a
kind of Religion (a religion of power), discussing it in essays alongside
the Catholicism of the Spanish Inquisition, is illuminative here.
O.K, I don't want to get off-track. What I'm interested in is this: in
saying that truth is a species of the good, do we have to be careful about
some kinds of limits to this statement? Is ALL truth a species of the good?
First, we talked before about an analytic/synthetic distinction, which
appeared to us to suggest two kinds of truth: pragmatic truth (synthetic
claims), and the truth by which pragmatism is true (analytic). Maybe we can
say that Orwellian Communism is false, not because it isn't good and true in
the synthetic sense (because it does actually become such for Winston), but
because it is false, analytically, in that it treats authority as the proper
universal method for determining the truth. From what I remember, James
analyses various methods of inquiry in terms of their truth-yeildingness,
and the method of authority is one which is rejected on just these, that is
to say analytic, grounds. Pragmatism is (analytically) true, therefore
Authoritarianism is (analytically) false.
Well, if we can say that the Orwellian state's world-veiw is analytically
false, then we don't need to argue unconvincingly that Stalin's
fellow-travellers were simply pretending. The claim which I doubted the
truth and relevance of, namely that beleiving in the truth generally leads
to positive outcomes - well, this claim can be dumped. For anyone in an
Orwellian state (and even in many ordinary consensus based soceities, like a
child's peer group, or a medieval city state), beleiving in the truth very
often leads to negative outcomes. Nevertheless, beleiving in the truth has
more quality, even where the negative outcomes result. So, in a nutshell,
I'm saying that having quality, or not having it, isn't simply a matter of
consequences. If it is a matter of consequences, then the relationship
between the consequences and the quality can be a very complex one indeed.
Maybe, given that this relationship is one which we find it hard to figure
out, and seems to be being figured out after the event anyway, it isn't
really a matter of consequences at all. I recognise that this is a little
too radical for even a radical empiricist, as it seems to break the link
with empiricism altogether. But as a Platonist exploring parrallels with
radical empiricism, I have no problem with that, obviously. In general,
it's an interesting question how 'empiricist' it is possible to be whilst
remaining a 'radical empiricist'. Because radical empiricists have come to
their present veiw from an empiricist starting point, sometimes attitudes
and approaches from that place are carried with them to the new settlement:
but that doesn't mean that they belong there.
ROG WROTE:
I think James would have little respect for martyrs. He very much was
against dogma, and very much for critical evaluation for the truth. A
martyr
is often just another dogmatist. I think James, though much respecting
Plato's contributions to philosophy, would have little use for Plato's
eternal ideas or forms. I could be wrong though. Read James.
ELEPHANT:
No, I think you are absolutely right. But I think James would have had very
different veiws on this point if life had been just a little more difficult
for him. He sometimes makes it seem easy, and as if what seems easiest was
always going to be right. Of course, we can't respect the sort of
histrionic individual who thinks it must always be difficult to get at the
truth, and then makes his life as difficult as possible as a proof of how
truthful he is. That kind of martyr we can do without. Still, I think
there can be (and are many) cases where good men suffer for the truth (both
analytic and synthetic), and to deny that seems not so much pragmatic, as
unforgivably bourgois (next subject: *Henry* James). What about Prisig
himself? OK, he does just fine now, but take a look at what he went
through.
As to James being an adherent of the theory of forms: No, I don't for a
moment imagine that he was. But there are crucial element to Plato's theory
which are held in common: the supremacy of good, the flux of basic
experience, the art by which objects are made with a veiw to the good. It's
worth reflecting here on points of similarity, differently reached. Yes?
All the best to you,
and to all patient, long suffering, Orwell-reading MOQers,
Pzeph
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