From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sat Mar 27 2004 - 11:21:50 GMT
Hi Matt
See M.Houellebecq's moral novel Elementary Particles or Atomised.
and Arthur Gibson's discussion of physics and intentionality in God and the
Universe
for some useful/dynamic stuff, the line between static identity and dynamic
transcendence
is always on the move, sure you can do some static stuff for a while but why
try and shore up static stuff? I suppose the argument comes down to: are you
getting
creativity or causing chaos. But one man's revolution is anothers law and
order breakdown.
Matt:
> Yes, as I already noted, it is a contingent matter. My further prediction
is that the only way to keep up liberalism is with secularism.
DM: OK you've given me enough flexibility to accept your temporary right to
talk secular if you want to, problem
is, as Rorty accepts, things are not looking very good for liberalism.
Problem is real solutions are not on the agenda,
the call is to arms, and we've got millions of them! We continue with a
lesser of many evils approach, is there a path
to something that is actually good? Can we just walk away from the edge of
the abyss? What do you think would be
the result of us letting the oil go? Can the US do without access to the
world's resources? Does the US/West have a right to them? Looks like all
those anti-democracy regimes we propped up from the cold war are coming back
to haunt us.
Can the tide turn in Iraq do you think? Can something good be achieved? I
think we may be in more trouble than hanging or to liberalism can handle,
because we are probably are going to be able to hang on to it. Your
thoughts...
----- Original Message -----
From: "MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT" <mpkundert@students.wisc.edu>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2004 11:25 PM
Subject: Re: MD secular humanism and dynamic quality
> David,
>
> David said:
> What you say seems deeply inaccurate and inconsistent to me. Quite simply
what are these strange isolated vocabularies that you are referring to? Once
upon a time we all spoke using metaphors developed within a religuious
context, then we gained new secular and scientific metaphors that have done
a great deal to change religious conversation in turn. Tomorrow the most
exciting part of our culture might be some new religious metaphors and off
we go in a post-secular direction. You seem to want to erect artifical
barriers hat cultural history shows do not and cannot exist.
>
> Matt:
> This is a misunderstanding of what I mean by a distinction between
vocabularies. Yes, vocabularies aren't isolated. The simplest way to erect
the practical division between different vocabularies, different on-going
conversations in our culture, is to note, for instance, that "particle" is a
word and concept that comes up a lot in physics, but not in ethics, and that
"intention" is a word and concept that comes up a lot in ethics, but not in
physics.
>
> Can we redescribe ethics to fit in the word "particle"? Sure, but I take
the postivists and Skinnereans as trying to do that and nobody really thinks
they succeeded. Can we redescribe physics to fit in the word "intention"?
Sure, Aristotle did and Pirsig is the obvious recent example of somebody who
does. Does he talk about it a lot? No. I take it to be because he was
making a point about redescription, not a point about how we should
resurrect the notion of telos when we are using a particle accelerator.
"Particle" in ethics and "intention" in physics just don't turn out to be
that useful. The more you can note the remoteness of a large batch of
concepts and purposes in one area of your vocabulary from another area, the
more it becomes useful to speak of "different vocabularies."
>
> David said:
> It is one great value market, the main thing is to stop claiming that we
can justify our positions in terms of something other than value. You
certainly can't justify me not using any vocabulary I want, sure you can say
you don't understand, but we have that problem all the time anyway. We are
bound to talk politics based on our values, these have many sources, one key
one being religion, if we disagree about values we are probably going to
have to understand each others religions to progress our dialogue and
attempt to reach compromise/agreement.
>
> Matt:
> Again, I think you are misunderstanding me. 1) Of course I agree that "it
is one great value market," but there comes a point when it may be useful to
make a distinction between the value market of say, physics, and the value
market of ethics. I'd like for you to point me to where I claim that "we
can justify our positions in terms of something other than value." 2) You
certainly do have the right to use any vocabulary you want, that's what I
called sincerity. However, when we talk politics, the nature of such
discourse is to reach commensuration and to do stuff. If it weren't, the
entire 2500 year philosophical dialectic from Socrates to Pirsig and Rorty
would have occured in the political arena. So, when we are talking
politics, we need a vocabulary we can agree on, and in the face of diversity
it's going to end up being thin. The only strategy we've come up with so
far to help us stick to a vocabulary we can agree on is secularization. 3)
Yes, our values have many
> sources and it might be a good idea to understand them, but is it really
all that efficient for our Senators to hold Intro to Religion seminars on
the Senate floor, or might it be more efficient to have them attend them at
night _before_ they hit the Senate floor to debate about what they are going
to do about it (whatever "it" is). As I said to Sam, the Senate floor isn't
even a _good_ instrument for consciousness-raising because nobody _watches_
C-SPAN.
>
> David said:
> In the end I wonder if views like 'being kind to each other' or 'avoiding
cruelty' may in fact prove to be shallow, or hard to really make sacrifices
for.
>
> Matt:
> You are right to wonder, but Rorty and I hope not because those thin kinds
of views are the only types of things we can see a culturally diverse
population agreeing on. One's reasons for being kind may differ, but we
take the view that cruelty is the worst thing you can do as the least common
denominator of the type of people we want running around.
>
> David said:
> You are suggesting we may find more common ground on secular ground but
that is only a contingent matter that may be true today and false tomorrow,
it is not entirely looking like common ground at the moment on a world
(rather than a US) basis.
>
> Matt:
> Yes, as I already noted, it is a contingent matter. My further prediction
is that the only way to keep up liberalism is with secularism.
>
> Matt
>
>
>
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