From: Elizaphanian (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Sat Feb 08 2003 - 11:37:10 GMT
Hi DMB, Matt, anyone,
Two comments on this.
The first relates to the Nazi problem. DMB writes:
"This is what I find so disturbing about pragmatism and other post-modern
thought. It says the fascist way is just as valid as the other ways, or at
least pretends there is no way to tell the difference between correct and
incorrect interpretations. This kind of paralysis is a moral nightmare. Its
the stuff of horror movies. Its a black abyss. Its nihilism at its worst.
And, for these reasons, I think its quite wrong, even dangerous. The fact
that conservatives and christians tend to use the MOQ as their own personal
Rorschach test is nothing to be happy about."
It seems to me that underlying this perspective is a search for intellectual
certainty; that is, for a knock down argument that says 'you can't believe
that'; that only an intellectually compelling argument can save us from the
'black abyss' and 'moral nightmare' of unrestrained relativsm. Normally
unstated is the underlying assumption 'on pain of self-contradiction'. This
approach gives to the reasoning intellect the ultimate authority in ethical
(and religious) questions, ie to all considerations of value. The trouble is
that any point of view, no matter how barbaric or bizarre can, as a matter
of logical principle, be made intellectually coherent. That doesn't make it
true or good or even sane, it merely exposes the limits of intellectual
reasoning and the fact that our decision making faculties (our discernment
of value) is separate to the reasoning intellect. Thus there is no immediate
logical incoherence between Nazism and the MoQ. That there might be an
incoherence in terms of underlying values is something different and much
more interesting.
At the risk of resurrecting dead threads, this is a conceit that goes back
to Socrates, and the search for the definition of the good. When Socrates
seeks a particular definition, he is precisely seeking that intellectual
certainty which cannot be found - and, in fact, using his dialectical method
politically, to overthrow those who articulated the values of Athenian
society at the time. We cannot avoid making judgements of value, and those
judgements of value come before questions of logical coherence (questions of
logical coherence are, of course, one particular class of judgements of
value). One of the best books I've read which serves to overcome this
approach is one that people here might be familiar with. It has as its
'motto' the following highly relevant question: "And what is good Phaedrus,
and what is not good- Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?"
Second. As a reasonably prominent Christian on this site, I would like to
point out that I don't consider the MoQ (as articulated by Pirsig) to be
compatible with Christianity. I do consider it to be compatible with a
conservative political stance (and a liberal stance as it happens - I don't
think it precludes either, although I agree with Platt that, as expounded by
Pirsig, it precludes state socialism). Anyone interested in why I think
those things is referred to the Sophocles not Socrates thread, and the
Conservatism thread, from last autumn.
Sam
"I am not altogether on anybody's side, because nobody is altogether on my
side, if you understand me... And there are some things, of course, whose
side I'm altogether not on; I am against them altogether." -- Treebeard
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