From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Sat May 14 2005 - 16:15:35 BST
Hi Matt,
On 12 May 2005 at 15:13, Matt Kundert wrote:
msh said (on May 3):
The social level consists of entities like the university and the
church and the presidency, but it also consists of Aristotle's
rational animals, like you and me. As rational animals we bump
against and sometimes penetrate the ceiling between the Social and
Intellectual levels. But the Intellectual level is itself composed
of an infinity of IDEAS making up its own internal hierarchy: some
ideas are better than others. So, some of us, blame it on the
biology of intelligence, bump a little higher into the hierarchy of
ideas. It's an accident, a freak of nature, pure luck, or dismal
misfortune, depending on one's personal perspective, but it's still a
fact.
When I said "social-level thought" I meant all thought that is static
and therefore protective of the status quo. I meant all thought that
retards rather than enhances evolution.
matt replied:
I can’t see that you’ve changed your position significantly from the
one before. My criticisms were designed to attack the usefulness of
a distinction between social-level thinking and intellectual-level
thinking. You’ve saved the exact idea being attacked in the
distinction between “static thinking” and “Dynamic thinking.”
I said before that the problem with the distinction between levels of
thinking is that both you and your opponent will describe yourselves
as working at the higher level, both claiming the moral high ground,
which trumps your opponents arguments (because they are at a lower
level). In my view, the distinction between levels does no actual
work in either person’s argument: its an idle wheel set spinning, but
no where does it connect with the subject material. The other things
you and your opponent say may do work, but any addition of the kind
“You’re thinking statically” or “That’s a static argument” is
basically just calling your opponent stupid (as you basically admit).
And that’s not an argument.
msh May-14-2005:
Is it useful to make a distinction between a good idea and a bad
one? If my argument is with someone who understands the MOQ, I use
the static-dynamic distinction as an argument starter, not a
finisher. A true MOQer will know what I mean, and may be able to
anticipate the direction I plan to take, and therefore save us both a
lot of time. As you suggest, it is still up to me to show WHY I
think my opponent's position is static or retardant of evolution. In
some cases, such as the "rising tide lifts all boats" idea, it is a
simple matter to break out wealth-gap statistics for the period of
the New Deal up to the 80's, and compare them to the current
numbers.
In arguing with someone who's never heard of the Metaphysics of
Quality, I would of course not use the static-dynamic distinction at
all. I'd simply ask them if they think it's a good idea to provide
everyone an equal economic footing. They might say No, in which case
the argument either ends or moves away from "lifts all boats" toward
a more general ethical discussion. But if they say Yes, then I can
break out the stats and, if they are reasonable and interested in
truth not dogma, they may be persuaded to my point of view.
As this answers most of your post, I'll snip a lot of the rest, and
intersperse a few comments below:
matt before:
An argument ensues. But how has a distinction between two types of
thinking helped us?
msh:
It helps us by establishing the metaphysical framework for the
argument.
matt;
You argue that the Randian is thinking statically because he’s
protecting the status quo. But the Randian replies that it is you
who are thinking statically because 1) Isn’t it static to be told
what to do with your money rather than freely choosing on your own?
and 2) Your economic plan will halt the rising tide, making it static
(and it’ll probably even fall).
msh:
I wouldn't use the static-dynamic distinction in arguing with a
Randian, unless he calimed to be an adherent of the MOQ. In response
to 1) I'd say the evolution of society is more moral than your
personal self-satisfaction. You are not free to do whatever you
want, if what you want to do has a degenerative effect on society as
a whole. As for 2), it's easy to show that the rising tide does not
lift all boats and, in fact, swamps and sinks the majority of them.
matt:
So, if the rich and powerful have been in control over this time
period, and there’s been good change, why shouldn’t we contribute
this change to them? Why don’t we view this as a well-functioning
system, the rich and powerful in control, slowly changing things as
need be?
Sure, this is a crappy argument, but someone smarter and more
creative than I (also someone who actually believed it would help)
could probably come up with a pretty convincing argument and context
where this all makes sense.
msh:
Well, I'd welcome the debate with that imaginary smarter more
creative person. My experience, here and elsewhere in life, has
been, that such people assiduously avoid such debate, unless it's
with straw-men in a highly restrictive faux-discussion environment.
Matt said:
I still can't imagine how one would use the distinction in a
political discussion. Start from abstract principles like "freedom"
and "human rights" and you'll get agreement from everybody,
Mark cut off:
Right. Then you attempt to show through evidence and argument that
some ideas promote freedom and human rights better than others. Does
a law against gay marriage increase or decrease freedom? Does
allowing wealth to influence policy decisions expand or restrict
human rights? On and on.
Matt:
So you start fleshing out freedom and human rights with evidence and
argument—let’s pick a tougher case: abortion. Say you’re pro-choice,
believing in the freedom to choose. What about the baby’s right to
live? What about the baby’s right to grow up and exercise her own
freedom? That’s where the fight occurs—the fleshing out of the thin
concepts of freedom and rights and equality with evidence and
argument. And how does the distinction between static and Dynamic
thinking help here?
msh says:
Just about everything you say in this post, regarding my method of
debate, derives from the false premise I've discussed above, that is,
that I use the static-dynamic distinction as the KO punch in the
argument, rather than as the initial white glove slap to the face.
The question of abortion is an interesting one, which I wouldn't mind
taking to another thread. You, and others on this list, might be
surprised by my current stand on the issue.
matt:
To my mind, your argument for using the distinction, your argument
for thinking it helpful, hinges a lot on two other notions: the
notion of “immediately accessible ideas” and “fully realized human
beings.”
msh says:
That's right. But I also say that, due to a number of external
forces, some people more than others are further along the path to
being FRH. It is the external forces that I find most worthy of
exploration, but as long as we limit our discussions to metaphysics,
we're never gonna get around to addressing those problems. Which is
why, as you've noted, your interest in this list, and mine, are quite
different.
matt:
I think the reason for this, despite the fact that all of us may
retain some notion of “following the better argument” is because
sometimes people are just plain wrong by a person’s own (current)
lights.
msh:
Right. Their current lights being brightened (or dimmed) by the
externalities I mentioned above. On the whole, metaphysics can't
shape or eliminate these externalities. But FRH-influenced social
policy can, and has, though progress here is always under threat by
nonFRH-influenced power.
matt:
It’s a convenient way to wipe the playing field of people we have no
hope of convincing, but if an idea is really immediately accessible,
shouldn’t people be able to access it, Nazi or not? I think we do
need to wipe the (argumentative) playing field of people we have no
hope of convincing (Nazis, psychopaths, etc.), but I think its
philosophically disingenuous to invoke the notion of a “fully
realized human being” and claim that the other person isn’t smart
enough to work at your higher moral level, and if they just weren’t
so stupid, they’d see the light.
msh says:
It would be disingenuous if my argument was limited to claiming that
"that the other person isn’t smart enough to work at [my] higher
moral level, and if they just weren’t so stupid, they’d see the
light." But since I offer TONS of evidence and argument in my posts,
I don't see how this particular criticism can be leveled at me. This
is why it's disappointing to me that you're not interested in reading
posts that deal with how the MOQ might be applied to real-world
issues.
Best,
Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
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