Hi Matt the E:
I'm having trouble reconciling two statements of yours. In a post to
Squonk on 19 Sep you wrote:
"He (Rorty) would, however, protect or individual private right towards
self-perfection, be it religion or philosophy or something in between. Our
final vocabulary is our own; our route to self-perfection is our own."
This ringing endorsement of private rights and individual freedom
appears directly opposed to the following statement you made in a post
to me on the same day:
"Validity is not measured against objectivity, but against solidarity,
intersubjective agreement."
In the first statement, establishing truth appears to be a personal,
private matter, like Pirsig's choosing paintings in an art gallery that are
of highest value to the individual viewer. In the second statement,
establishing truth seems to be a matter of group opinion. I cannot be
right if my social group disagrees with me. I must test what I think is
true against what others think.
This "group-truth" idea I find threatening not only to individual liberty but
to Dynamic Quality. The story of the brujo and the Zuni tribe that Pirsig
describes at length is a classic case in point. As Pirsig wrote:
"A tribe can change its values only person by person and someone has
to be first."
If "solidarity" had always been held as the measure of validity in the
past, the Zuni wouldn't have survived and we would have never escaped
from church-dominated Dark Ages. Arguably, the Islamic world is a
victim of such rigid social solidarity.
So the word "solidarity" is troubling. It smacks of a totalitarian mind-set
where agreement with the mob constitutes "truth" and a tyranny of the
majority becomes canonized. It conjures up stifling impositions like
speech codes and political correctness.
When you say, "Our final vocabulary is our own," meaning "I have an
absolute right to my opinions and to express them freely" I agree whole-
heartedly. But when truth becomes "what everybody says," then we part
company.
Platt
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