From: abahn@comcast.net
Date: Mon Nov 03 2003 - 17:25:15 GMT
Hello Platt,
True to form Platt pulls out the PIrsig quote on James again with the intention of dismissing everything James ever said: "James would probably have been horrified to find that Nazis could use his pragmatism just as freely as anyone else, but Phaedrus didn't see anything that would prevent it." (Lila, chp.29)
Andy: And Nietzsche would have been mortified to learn that his own sister used his ideas to back a Nazi ideology. Matt has addressed this quote in some detail. Is there anything else we can draw out of this quote besides your single-minded condemnation, Platt? Come on, get those intellectual juices flowing.
Platt (11/03/2003): "Proposing moral equivalence between Stalin, Hitler, Gingrich, Bush and the U.S. Supreme Court is despicable on its face."
Andy: No it's not despicable, it is honest, and in my mind True. And, with any luck, history will judge, long after you are gone, the moral equivalence of these individuals. If intersubjective agreement does not lead society to this truth than "so much the worse for all of us," in the words of one philosopher (Satre?) Matt quoted awile back.
Platt: Thanks to Andy and Matt, apologists for Rorty -- whose philosophy
contains "no measure to measure it" and no moral principles to guide
one's judgments -- the root of problem has been unearthed for all to
see. This lack of a moral compass, indeed this seeming pride in the
lack of "measurement," reminds me of Joseph Conrad's novel, "The Heart
of Darkness."
Andy: That's the best you can do. Pull out your old stanby, "no moral principles." How about lessening cruelty and suffering in the world? How about do no harm unto others. THe only moral principles you are looking for are the ones that provide you with the justification for doling out more suffering in the world. You want a moral justification for having a military pres in 120 of 189 member countries in the United Nations and large deploiyments in twenty-five of them. You want a moral justification for cutting social services in the US while asking for $87 billion more dollars to continue our presence in Iraq. For cutting taxes on the most wealthy in the country at the same time. A moral justification for rolling back environmental regulations, for withholding information on investigations into 9/11 by this administration, for dropping out of the Kyoto agreement, and on and on. From where I sit you don't have a moral compass. And if you do, it is broken. It does work.
Platt: No further explanation of Rorty's "dangerous ideas" seems necessary.
Andy: and no further explanation of your "dangerous ideas" is necessary either.
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
> Platt said:
> Remember that the Russians and Germans had enough "intersubjective
> agreement" to put Stalin and Hitler in charge.
>
> Matt:
> And we had enough "intersubjective agreement" to put Gingrich and the
> Bushes in power.
>
> Andy:
> And the US supreme court had enough intersubjective agreement to put
> GWB in power. There is also nothing infallible about "intersubjective
> agreement." There is no measure against which to measure it.
>
> PIrsig:
> "James would probably have been horrified to find that Nazis could use
> his pragmatism just as freely as anyone else, but Phaedrus didn't see
> anything that would prevent it." (Lila, chp.29)
>
> Platt:
> Proposing moral equivalence between Stalin, Hitler, Gingrich, Bush and
> the U.S. Supreme Court is despicable on its face. But as Pirsig
> suggests, postmodern neo-pragmatists have "never come forth with a
> single moral principle that distinguishes a Galileo fitting social
> repression from a common criminal fighting social repression. (They
> have), as a result, been the champion of both. That's the root of the
> problem. (Lila, chp.24)
>
> Thanks to Andy and Matt, apologists for Rorty -- whose philosophy
> contains "no measure to measure it" and no moral principles to guide
> one's judgments -- the root of problem has been unearthed for all to
> see. This lack of a moral compass, indeed this seeming pride in the
> lack of "measurement," reminds me of Joseph Conrad's novel, "The Heart
> of Darkness."
>
> No further explanation of Rorty's "dangerous ideas" seems necessary.
>
> Platt
>
>
>
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