(LONG) Sokal and Ross: Transgressing the Boudaries
Paul J. Gans
It has become quite clear that many of those participating
in the current "great debate" have not had access to Alan
Sokal's article in _Social Text_ entitled "Transgressing
the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of
Quantum Gravity".
That article raised serious questions about some aspects of
post-modern literary criticism, especially its relationship
to the physical sciences.
The main question, as raised by Sokal himself in the current
_Lingua Franca_ is "Would a leading North American journal
of cultural studies--whose editorial collective includes such
luminaries as Fredric Jameson and Andrew Ross--publish an
article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good
and (b) it flattered the editor's ideological preconceptions."
Sokal continues: "The answer, unfortunately is yes."
But a more important question is this: given that _Social
Text_ published an article "liberally salted" with obvious
nonsense, is the editor of that issue (Andrew Ross) able
to distinguish actual intellectual content from nonsense.
I suggest that the answer to this question is no. This is
a strong charge; evidence is needed. Thus as evidence I
submit the first three paragraphs of Sokal's _Social Text_
article and invite readers to judge for themselves.
"There are many natural scientists, and especially physicists,
who continue to reject the notion that the disciplines con-
cerned with social and cultural criticism can have anything
to contribute, except perhaps peripherally, to their research.
Still less are they receptive to the idea that the very
foundations of their worldview must be revised or rebuilt in
the light of such criticism. Rather they cling to the dogma
imposed by the long post-Enlightenment hegemony over Western
intellectual outlook, which can be summarized briefly as
follows: that there exists an external world, whose properties
are independent of any individual human being and indeed of
humanity as a whole; that these properties are encoded in
"eternal" physical laws; and that human beings can obtain
reliable, albeit imperfect and tentative, knowledge of these
laws by hewing to the "objective" procedures and epistemological
strictures prescribed by the (so-called) scientific method.
"But deep conceptual shifts within twentieth-century science
have undermined this Cartesian-Newtonian metaphysics (Heisenberg
1958; Bohr 1963); revisionist studies in the history and
philosophy of science have cast further doubt on its
creditibility (Kuhn 1970; Feyeerabend 1975; Latour 1987;
Aronowitz 1988b; Bloor 1991); and, most recently, feminist
and poststructuralist critiques have demystified the substantive
content of mainstream Western scientific practice, revealing
the ideology of domination concealed behind the facade of
"objectivity" (Merchant 1980; Keller 1985; Harding 1986, 1991;
Haraway 1989, 1991; Best 1991). It has thus become increasingly
apparent that physical "reality," no less than social "reality,"
is at bottom a social and linguistic construct; that scientific
"knowledge," far from being objective, reflects and encodes
the dominant ideologies and power relations of the culture that
produced it; that the truth claims of science are inherently
theory-laden and self-referential; and consequently that the
discourse of the scientific community, for all its undeniable
value, cannot assert a privileged epistemological status
with respect to counterhegemonic narratives emanating from
dissent or marginalized communities. These themes can be
traced, despite some differences of emphasis, in Aronowitz'
analysis of the cultural fabric that produced quantum mechanics
(1988b, esp. chaps. 9 and 12); in Ross's discussion of
oppositional discourses in post-quantum science (1991, intro
and chap. 1); in Irigaray's and Hayles's exegeses of gender
encoding in fluid dynamics (Irigary 1985; Hayles 1992); and
in Harding's comprehensive critique of the gender ideology
underlying the natural sciences in general and physics in
particular (1986, esp chaps. 2 and 10; 1991, esp. chap. 4).
"Here my aim is carry these deep analyses one step further,
by taking account of recent developments in quantum gravity;
the emerging branch of physics in which Heisenberg's quantum
mechanics and Einstein's general relativity are at once
synthesized and superseded. In quantum gravity, as we shall
see, the space-time manifold ceases to exist as an objective
physical reality; geometry becomes relational and contextual;
and the foundational conceptual categories of prior science--
among them existence itself--become problematized and
relativized. This conceptual revolution, I will argue, has
profound implications for the content of a future postmodern
and liberatory science."
The reader will not need to be reminded that the editors of
_Social Text_ (particularly Andrew Ross, who edited this issue)
evidently do NOT regard any of the ideas expressed by Sokal
above as nonsense.
As far as the remainder of Sokal's article is concerned, I cannot
reproduce it all. But I quote Sokal (from the _Lingua Franca_ article)
"The fundamental silliness of my article lies, however, not in its
numerous solecisms but in the dubiousness of its central thesis and
the "reasoning" adduced to support it. Basically, I claim that
quantum gravity--the still-speculative theory of space and time
on scales of a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth
of a centimeter--has profound political implications (which, of course,
are "progressive")."
Sokal continues: "In its concluding passages, my article
becomes especially egregious. Having abolished reality as a
constraint on science, I go on to suggest (once again without
argument) that science, in order to be "liberatory," must be
subordinated to political strategies. I finish the article
by observing that "a liberatory science cannot be complete
without a profound revision of the canon of mathematics."
We can see hints of an "emancipatory mathematics," I suggest,
"in the multidimensional and nonlinear logic of fuzzy systems
theory; but this approach is still heavily marked by its origins
in the crisis of late capitalist production relations.""
Sokal concludes: "_Social Text_'s acceptance of my article
exemplifies the intellectual arrogance of Theory--postmodernist
_literary_ theory, that is--carried to its logical extreme.
No wondeer they didn't bother to consult a physicist. If all
is discourse and "text," then knowledge of the real world is
superfluous, even physics becomes just another branch of
cultural studies. If, moreover, all is rhetoric and language
games, then internal logical consistency is superfluous too,
a patina of theoretical sophistication serves equally well.
Incomprehensibility becomes a virtue; allusions, metaphors,
and puns sustitute for evidence and logic. My own article
is, if anything, an extremely modest example of this
well-established genre."
Followers of the discussion of this issue on the internet
perhaps have seen some of this in the "debate".
------ Paul J. Gans [ga...@scholar.chem.nyu.edu]
David Jensen
On 29 May 1996 15:47:50 GMT, ga...@scholar.chem.nyu.edu (Paul J. Gans)
wrote:
[excellent commentary snipped]
>Sokal concludes: "_Social Text_'s acceptance of my article
>exemplifies the intellectual arrogance of Theory--postmodernist
>_literary_ theory, that is--carried to its logical extreme.
>No wondeer they didn't bother to consult a physicist. If all
>is discourse and "text," then knowledge of the real world is
>superfluous, even physics becomes just another branch of
>cultural studies. If, moreover, all is rhetoric and language
>games, then internal logical consistency is superfluous too,
>a patina of theoretical sophistication serves equally well.
>Incomprehensibility becomes a virtue; allusions, metaphors,
>and puns sustitute for evidence and logic. My own article
>is, if anything, an extremely modest example of this
>well-established genre."
>
>Followers of the discussion of this issue on the internet
>perhaps have seen some of this in the "debate".
>
> ------ Paul J. Gans [ga...@scholar.chem.nyu.edu]
>
John 1:1-5
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him;
and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and
the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the
darkness comprehended it not.
Greg
>
>Incomprehensibility becomes a virtue; allusions, metaphors,
>and puns sustitute for evidence and logic. My own article
>is, if anything, an extremely modest example of this
>well-established genre."
>
>Followers of the discussion of this issue on the internet
>perhaps have seen some of this in the "debate".
>
Indeed. In fact, this entire discussion started, if I recall correctly,
with a statement by someone that math can be pornography because language
is a logical phallus with which one penetrates the listener, and thus
must be regarded as another expression of the patriarchical hegemony.
What a perfect example of a metaphor being used in place of evidence.
For some reason, the pomo/deconstructionist types seem to often use
metaphors as evidence. Why?
Greg
Herb Huston
In article <4oieg0$e...@swsu65.swmed.edu>,
Greg <gold...@utsw.swmed.edu> wrote:
}For some reason, the pomo/deconstructionist types seem to often use
}metaphors as evidence. Why?
Because they don't know what evidence is? Because they know what evidence
is, but don't have any?
--
-- Herb Huston
-- hus...@access.digex.net
David Swanson
In article <4ohrj6$k...@news.nyu.edu>
ga...@scholar.chem.nyu.edu (Paul J. Gans) writes:
>
> The reader will not need to be reminded that the editors of
> _Social Text_ (particularly Andrew Ross, who edited this issue)
> evidently do NOT regard any of the ideas expressed by Sokal
> above as nonsense.
Nor should they. I'm not familiar with all the references, and there
seems to be a typo at the start of the third paragraph, etc., but the
general idea is perfectly on target, and is not transformed into
nonsense by the fact that its author didn't mean it.
David
"[The TV show 'SeaQuest'] has aired unfair characterizations of
entrepeneurs and has been critical of the free enterprise system." -
Family Guide to Prime Time Television, 1995-96.
David Swanson
Yep. Plenty of apparent nonsense here.
howard hershey
hus...@access1.digex.net (Herb Huston) wrote:
>In article <4oieg0$e...@swsu65.swmed.edu>,
>Greg <gold...@utsw.swmed.edu> wrote:
>}For some reason, the pomo/deconstructionist types seem to often use
>}metaphors as evidence. Why?
>
>Because they don't know what evidence is? Because they know what evidence
>is, but don't have any?
>
corporate-political-patriarical clique to maintain control.
Wouldn't it be fun to have Ross and Phillip Johnson discuss the problems
they see in the scientific process. So much agreement combined
with so much disagreement. ;-)
Christian Wagner
[Newsgroups line slightly trimmed.]
In article <Ds7wL...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
David Swanson <dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu> wrote:
>In article <4ohrj6$k...@news.nyu.edu>
>ga...@scholar.chem.nyu.edu (Paul J. Gans) writes:
>> The reader will not need to be reminded that the editors of
>> _Social Text_ (particularly Andrew Ross, who edited this issue)
>> evidently do NOT regard any of the ideas expressed by Sokal
>> above as nonsense.
>Nor should they. I'm not familiar with all the references, and there
>seems to be a typo at the start of the third paragraph, etc., but the
>general idea is perfectly on target, and is not transformed into
>nonsense by the fact that its author didn't mean it.
Parodying postmodernism via reductio ad absurdium is like throwing shit
at a coprophile, it appears.
--
And in the dawn, there came a song, | Christian Wagner
Of some sweet lady, singing in his ear, |
Your God has gone, and from now on, |
You'll have to learn to hate the things you fear. | cwa...@io.com
Paul J. Gans
Greg (gold...@utsw.swmed.edu) wrote:: >
: >Incomprehensibility becomes a virtue; allusions, metaphors,
: >and puns sustitute for evidence and logic. My own article
: >is, if anything, an extremely modest example of this
: >well-established genre."
: >
: >Followers of the discussion of this issue on the internet
: >perhaps have seen some of this in the "debate".
: Indeed. In fact, this entire discussion started, if I recall correctly,
: with a statement by someone that math can be pornography because language
: is a logical phallus with which one penetrates the listener, and thus
: must be regarded as another expression of the patriarchical hegemony.
: What a perfect example of a metaphor being used in place of evidence.
: For some reason, the pomo/deconstructionist types seem to often use
: metaphors as evidence. Why?
They have no evidence?
It is possible that pomo is the cold fusion of the humanities...
----- Paul J. Gans [ga...@scholar.chem.nyu.edu]
Gordon Fitch
cwa...@io.com (Christian Wagner):
| Parodying postmodernism via reductio ad absurdium is like throwing shit
| at a coprophile, it appears.
Tch! What would your mother say if she heard you talk like
that?
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
George Acton
howard hershey <hers...@indiana.edu> wrote:
>Because demands for 'evidence' are an attempt by the scientific-
>corporate-political-patriarical clique to maintain control.
>
>Wouldn't it be fun to have Ross and Phillip Johnson discuss the >problems they see in the scientific process. So much agreement
>combined with so much disagreement. ;-)
>
Phillip Johnson's buddy, Duesberg.
--George Acton
David Swanson
In article <4okh8p$k...@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>
howard hershey <hers...@indiana.edu> writes:
> Wouldn't it be fun to have Ross and Phillip Johnson discuss the problems
> they see in the scientific process. So much agreement combined
> with so much disagreement. ;-)
The architect???
Bowen Simmons
In article <Ds8sn...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson) wrote:
> In article <4okh8p$k...@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>
> howard hershey <hers...@indiana.edu> writes:
>
> > Wouldn't it be fun to have Ross and Phillip Johnson discuss the problems
> > they see in the scientific process. So much agreement combined
> > with so much disagreement. ;-)
>
> The architect???
>
No. The Creationist law professor / creationist.
--
Bowen Simmons
bo...@netgate.net
Paul J. Gans
George Acton (gac...@softdisk.com) wrote:
: howard hershey <hers...@indiana.edu> wrote:
: >Because demands for 'evidence' are an attempt by the scientific-
: >corporate-political-patriarical clique to maintain control.
: >Wouldn't it be fun to have Ross and Phillip Johnson discuss the >problems they see in the scientific process. So much agreement
: For a really high falsehood-to-noise ratio, you could throw in
: Phillip Johnson's buddy, Duesberg.
: --George Acton
WAIT? High falsehood-to-noise ratio? I'd expect such a ratio to
be one at all times, no?
Christian Wagner
In article <4ol3ee$1...@panix2.panix.com>, Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
>cwa...@io.com (Christian Wagner):
>| Parodying postmodernism via reductio ad absurdium is like throwing shit
>| at a coprophile, it appears.
>Tch! What would your mother say if she heard you talk like
>that?
She'd ask me "What the hell is a coprophile?". Your point?
Gordon Fitch
cwa...@io.com (Christian Wagner):
| >| Parodying postmodernism via reductio ad absurdium is like throwing shit
| >| at a coprophile, it appears.
Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
| >Tch! What would your mother say if she heard you talk like
| >that?
cwa...@io.com (Christian Wagner):
| She'd ask me "What the hell is a coprophile?". Your point?
Really? Are you sure you're the only expert on coprophilia
in the family?
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Lee Rudolph
g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
Keep this discussion of the ins and outs of coproducts to the
hoaxed paper on homological algebra we're all expecting to see
any day now, eh?
In any case, surely even CW's mother knows the idiom "when the
shit hits the fan", reducing CW's task to explaining that the
coprophile is the fan in question.
Lee Rudolph
Lee Rudolph
Christian Wagner
In article <4onf27$6...@panix2.panix.com>, Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
>cwa...@io.com (Christian Wagner):
>| >| Parodying postmodernism via reductio ad absurdium is like throwing shit
>| >| at a coprophile, it appears.
>Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
>| >Tch! What would your mother say if she heard you talk like
>| >that?
>cwa...@io.com (Christian Wagner):
>| She'd ask me "What the hell is a coprophile?". Your point?
>Really? Are you sure you're the only expert on coprophilia
>in the family?
I could make a small, snide joke about pomo and throwing shit, but I'll
pass. The use of wit as a substitute for actual substantial debate is a
tactic I don't care for. (Although you seem to be fairly good at it, Gordon.)
Again, your point? You do understand the point of the simile, right? Are
you going to acknoledge the accuracy of it, or debate it's merits? Or are
you going to make snide comments again?
Gordon Fitch
cwa...@io.com (Christian Wagner):
cwa...@io.com (Christian Wagner):
| >| >| Parodying postmodernism via reductio ad absurdium is like throwing shit
| >| >| at a coprophile, it appears.
Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
| >| >Tch! What would your mother say if she heard you talk like
| >| >that?
cwa...@io.com (Christian Wagner):
| >| She'd ask me "What the hell is a coprophile?". Your point?
| >Really? Are you sure you're the only expert on coprophilia
| >in the family?
| I could make a small, snide joke about pomo and throwing shit, but I'll
| pass. The use of wit as a substitute for actual substantial debate is a
| tactic I don't care for. (Although you seem to be fairly good at it, Gordon.)
|
| Again, your point? You do understand the point of the simile, right? Are
| you going to acknoledge the accuracy of it, or debate it's merits? Or are
| you going to make snide comments again?
You portrayed yourself as one of a party of shit-slingers,
and I am willing to leave it at that -- we can discuss your
expertise in coprophilia on another occasion. I think your
self-portrayal is unfortunate, but you are resolute; and my
efforts to recall you to the (one must hope) tender
inculcations of polite behavior that should have graced
your earlier years proved ineffectual. You may be
interested in "substantial debate", but I am not interested
in your choice of substance.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Matthew P Wiener
In article <4ottdl$5...@bermuda.io.com>, cwagner@io (Christian Wagner) writes:
>The use of wit as a substitute for actual substantial debate is a
>tactic I don't care for. (Although you seem to be fairly good at it,
>Gordon.)
Gordon? Wit?
--
-Matthew P Wiener (wee...@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
Christian Wagner
[Excuse the nested references, they're getting deep. (Like other things.)]
In article <4ouinm$8...@panix2.panix.com>, Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
>cwa...@io.com (Christian Wagner):
>| >| >| Parodying postmodernism via reductio ad absurdium is like throwing shit
>| >| >| at a coprophile, it appears.
[Back-and-forth deleted]
>You portrayed yourself as one of a party of shit-slingers,
>and I am willing to leave it at that -- we can discuss your
>expertise in coprophilia on another occasion. I think your
>self-portrayal is unfortunate, but you are resolute; and my
>efforts to recall you to the (one must hope) tender
>inculcations of polite behavior that should have graced
>your earlier years proved ineffectual. You may be
>interested in "substantial debate", but I am not interested
>in your choice of substance.
I find it remarkably funny that you, a postmodernist, talks about
"substance", when you don't even acknoledge the point made, and instead
made snide little comments, borderline ad hominem.
Let me drop the simile, then: it is impossible to parody postmodernism by
subjecting it to reductio ad absurdium, because postmodernism is a
ridiculous pardody of actual serious human thought -already-. This can be
demonstrated by watching the alt.pomo crowd continue to support the
supposed "valid hypothesis" in Sokal's _Social Text_ article, long after
Sokal revealed that it was deliberate parody.
Now, why, exactly, am I wrong in coming to this conclusion? I presume
you're not going to agree with me, Gordon.
Matthew P Wiener
In article <4ov110$p...@pentagon.io.com>, cwagner@io (Christian Wagner) writes:
>I find it remarkably funny that you, a postmodernist, talks about
>"substance", when you don't even acknoledge the point made, and instead
>made snide little comments, borderline ad hominem.
Why is that funny? That _is_ how they regularly work.
Gordon Fitch
cwa...@io.com (Christian Wagner):
| ...
| Let me drop the simile, then: it is impossible to parody postmodernism by
| subjecting it to reductio ad absurdium, because postmodernism is a
I think this is incorrect. I think it is difficult to
parody postmodernism because postmodernism doesn't exist.
It is not impossible, however, for one can always create
something which one calls "postmodernism" and parody
_that_. Or we can wait for our esteemed academic
institutions, the government, the churches, big business,
and the rest of the Big Top to lumber forward and create
postmodernism for us. In the latter case, let us hope it
_will_ be a ridiculous parody of "actual serious human
thought," whatever that is -- so that we will at least get
some entertainment out of it.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Russell Turpin
-*-------
In article <4ovnn8$3...@panix2.panix.com>, Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
> I think this is incorrect. I think it is difficult to
> parody postmodernism because postmodernism doesn't exist.
This is one of the most stupid dodges that is promulgated in this
newsgroup. There *are* writers who write about the "postmodern"
using shared rhetoric, similar notions, and mutual reference.
Harding, Haraway, and Lyotard, all explicitly, provide three
examples. That these (and related) writers and their work exists
cannot be contested. This and related work is postmodernism.
That it is not well-defined as a cohesive set of ideas is the
common problem in discussing a group of related writers. That at
least some of these writers are sloppy thinkers (as frequently
claimed here) does NOT mean their work does not exist. That
Fitch and others don't want to call this work postmodernism or
these authors postmodernist is simply intellectual deceit.
So: postmodernism and postmodernists are as real as any group of
writers and their work. What is questionable is whether the term
"postmodern" means anything. It has meaning only if those who
are writing about it make enough sense to give it meaning. But
the stance that Fitch takes, that the idea is certain even if the
authors and their work is not, is an absurdity, made no less
absurd by the frequency with which we hear it parroted in this
newsgroup. Talk about your hypostasis!
Russell
--
Everywhere I go, I'm asked if the universities stifle writers. My
opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.
-- Flannery O'Connor
Christian Wagner
>| Let me drop the simile, then: it is impossible to parody postmodernism by
>| subjecting it to reductio ad absurdium, because postmodernism is a
>| ridiculous pardody of actual serious human thought -already-. ...
>parody postmodernism because postmodernism doesn't exist.
Word games. Lovely. I feel like I'm talking to Humpty-Dumpty.
>It is not impossible, however, for one can always create
>something which one calls "postmodernism" and parody
>_that_. Or we can wait for our esteemed academic
>institutions, the government, the churches, big business,
>and the rest of the Big Top to lumber forward and create
>postmodernism for us. In the latter case, let us hope it
>_will_ be a ridiculous parody of "actual serious human
>thought," whatever that is -- so that we will at least get
>some entertainment out of it.
So, Gordon, since "postmodernism" doesn't exist, I guess you won't mind
if we rmgroup "alt.postmodern" since there's no "postmodernists" to post
to it, right?
I suppose _Social Text_ is a figment of our deranged imaginations (or
maybe just Ross's imagination), because there's no such thing as
"postmodernism".
Obviously, this entire meta-discusion that fills about %50 of
talk.origins' bandwidth these days is arguing about nothing, because
there's no such thing as "postmodernism".
Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you're just playing word games again. Maybe
you'd like to explain what terminology they use in your world, because I
think everyone else on t.origins and alt.pomo knows what "postmodernism"
means.
Gordon Fitch
Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
| > I think this is incorrect. I think it is difficult to
| > parody postmodernism because postmodernism doesn't exist.
tur...@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin):
| This is one of the most stupid dodges that is promulgated in this
| newsgroup. There *are* writers who write about the "postmodern"
| using shared rhetoric, similar notions, and mutual reference.
| Harding, Haraway, and Lyotard, all explicitly, provide three
| examples. That these (and related) writers and their work exists
| cannot be contested. This and related work is postmodernism.
| ...
So _you_ say. And as I later remarked, one can always
declare that some category X exists and drop various beings
into it, declaring that they are examples of X. However, no
one has demonstrated even "shared rhetoric, similar notions,
and mutual reference" (a filter which would make, say, the
19th century out to be an ideology) and until this is done I
shall continue my stupid dodge of pointing out that a major
term of discussion in these threads is nearly vacuous.
I won't say _totally_ vacuous because I think some of the
people using the term are trying to talk about
_something_. For example, it's clear that many people
regard science as a kind of orthodoxy and people outside
its boundaries who are not respectful of or subservient to
the center as fools, heretics or infidels. But the objects
of their disapproval are not necessarily a coherent body.
And on the other hand, there are people who approvingly
observe a revolt against classicism and Modernism who also
talk (this time approvingly) about "postmodernism" yet
again can't say what it is. That these two conceptions,
vague as they are, are yet visibly at odds with one another,
should give you a hint about the term that refers to them.
There's more. I have in my pile a copy of _Art_in_America_
from 1987 that defines "post-modernism" as a return to
classical models.
In spite of all this I imagine that if people keep at it
long enough, they will be able to create some kind of thing
they can call "postmodernism" and set it up as yet another
obstruction to experience and understanding. Talking of
statements which don't exist, yet have attributes, is a good
start; from there, we can move on to ideologies that don't
exist yet have attributes (mostly "bad, bad" in the case of
postmodernism). Who knows? If you dig a hole, eventually
something may fall into it.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Gordon Fitch
cwa...@io.com (Christian Wagner):
| So, Gordon, since "postmodernism" doesn't exist, I guess you won't mind
| if we rmgroup "alt.postmodern" since there's no "postmodernists" to post
| to it, right?
As I pointed out before, "postmodern" and "postmodernity"
have some meaning.
| I suppose _Social Text_ is a figment of our deranged imaginations (or
| maybe just Ross's imagination), because there's no such thing as
| "postmodernism".
I don't see how the existence of _Social_Text_ derives from
"postmodernism." I strongly suspect that its existence
derives from the desire of some lit-crit types to have a
magazine about lit-crit and maybe get some grant money.
There's nothing particularly postmodernistic about that, or
even postmodern; it's been going on for generations.
| Obviously, this entire meta-discusion that fills about %50 of
| talk.origins' bandwidth these days is arguing about nothing, because
| there's no such thing as "postmodernism".
They've been mostly arguing about science, not
postmodernism. What science is, what it does, whether people
understand it, whether people should criticize it and if so
how, and so forth. Science excites people, and they like to
write about it.
| Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you're just playing word games again. Maybe
| you'd like to explain what terminology they use in your world, because I
| think everyone else on t.origins and alt.pomo knows what "postmodernism"
| means.
Let them say what it is, then. Generally when I ask people
who use the term "postmodernism" what they're talking about,
they change the subject or disappear.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Russell Turpin
-*-------
In article <4p18sf$s...@panix2.panix.com>, Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
> As I pointed out before, "postmodern" and "postmodernity"
> have some meaning.
No, Fitch has not pointed this out. All he has done is assert
it. He can quote various postmodernists who give various
explanations of the 'postmodern.' But as he HAS pointed out, in
his previous post, no one has demonstrated that they have a
common or cohesive notion of this. They DO, as I pointed out,
share some rhetorical elements, for example, their talk about the
'postmodern,' and mutual approbation and cross-reference.
> I don't see how the existence of _Social_Text_ derives from
> "postmodernism." ...
Even though I have read no articles from it, I will bet even
money that the word 'postmodern' and its variants appear in
the occassional article.
> Let them say what it is, then. Generally when I ask people
> who use the term "postmodernism" what they're talking about,
> they change the subject or disappear.
Fitch is in the curious position of believing in the "postmodern"
and in "postmodernity," without believing in the people who
advocate that these terms have some kind of meaning. I, on the
other hand, find it much easier to believe that these writers
exist than that their writing makes enough sense to give these
terms meaning. Postmodernists? I already identified three:
Harding, Haraway, Lyotard. Postmodernism? The work of these and
related writers. Now: Can Fitch tell us what "postmodern" means,
especially when applied in a scope broader than art and
architecture?
Christian Wagner
>| So, Gordon, since "postmodernism" doesn't exist, I guess you won't mind
>| if we rmgroup "alt.postmodern" since there's no "postmodernists" to post
>| to it, right?
>have some meaning.
And are you so illiterate that you cannot understand what the "-ist"
suffix means?
Obviously you are, or you're so buried in word games you can't figure it
out for yourself.
Here, I'll define my term for you, because you are acting like (as
Matthew would say) a "retard".
Postmodernist: One who promotes the notions of postmodernity.
Now, was that so #$!@ing difficult, Gordon? Sheesh.
[SNIP]
>| Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you're just playing word games again. Maybe
>| you'd like to explain what terminology they use in your world, because I
>| think everyone else on t.origins and alt.pomo knows what "postmodernism"
>| means.
>Let them say what it is, then. Generally when I ask people
>who use the term "postmodernism" what they're talking about,
>they change the subject or disappear.
Okay, now you know what it means. If you'd like, I will avoid using the
term "postmodernist" and instead use the term "proponents of
postmodernity", 'kay? Just so you don't have to think any harder than you
already are.
Now, here's my point again: you can't parody the arguments and writing
style of proponents of postmodernity via reductio ad absurdium (which is
what Sokal was trying to do, in part), because postmodernity is, by it's
vary nature, an absurd parody of normal human thinking -anyway-. The
proponents of postmodernity will absorb the parody and claim that it is
valid, as many people in this t.o/a.p discussion have already done.
Since I seriously doubt you're going to agree with this, please state
your objections, now that I've defined my terms for you?
Travis C. Porco
In article <4ovnn8$3...@panix2.panix.com>, Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
>cwa...@io.com (Christian Wagner):
>| Let me drop the simile, then: it is impossible to parody postmodernism by
>| subjecting it to reductio ad absurdium, because postmodernism is a
>| ridiculous pardody of actual serious human thought -already-. ...
>I think this is incorrect. I think it is difficult to
>parody postmodernism because postmodernism doesn't exist.
This is one of their favorite lines, part of their big war
whoop. We all know that there is not supposed to be any
coherent "postmodern" doctrine (and Lord knows there's not),
but only disjointed fragments, successors to disciplines that
used to be called philosophy, and so forth. But the English
suffix -ism does not need to refer to such a coherent way of
thinking.
According to the Oxford American dictionary, the suffix -ism
is "used to form nouns meaning action as in _baptism_, condition
or conduct, as in _heroism_, a system or belief as in
_conservatism_, a peculiarity of language as in _archaism_, or
a pathological condition, as in _Parkinsonism_".
(Of course, I vote for the last of these.)
The point is that we can refer to "postmodernism" without
believing that it is a "system or belief". They are welcome
to make the clarification occasionally since we might mean to
imply that it is when we use the word. So they can clarify
the ambiguity, but sometimes they seem to verge on insider
jargon and humpty-dumptyism.
--Travis Porco
my views only
Gordon Fitch
po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
| This is one of their favorite lines, part of their big war
It is? May I ask you to give me a few references? I'm not
denying that there may be several people who deny the
existence of any coherent entity called "postmodernism",
but I seldom run across them, either on the Net or in the
media, and I be curious as to what they say.
I must say "Nobody home" doesn't sound much like a war
whoop to me, but I like the idea.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Gordon Fitch
cwa...@io.com (Christian Wagner):
| ...
| Matthew would say) a "retard".
|
| Postmodernist: One who promotes the notions of postmodernity.
Postmodernity is a condition, not a set of notions. That
is, if you believe that, historically speaking, we're at
the end of the modern era, and you're talking in terms of
history. If you don't, you probably shouldn't use the word
because it doesn't mean anything to you. I haven't seen
_postmodernity_ used to categorize postmodern art much,
which is the other common non-propagandistic use of
"postmodern."
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Gordon Fitch
Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
| > As I pointed out before, "postmodern" and "postmodernity"
| > have some meaning.
tur...@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin):
| No, Fitch has not pointed this out. All he has done is assert
| it. ...
Oh, well, maybe I omitted to repeat myself enough for you.
In the arts, "postmodern" refers to the set of artistic
styles which were different from, and largely supplanted,
Modernism in the 1960s. They are not easily categorized
otherwise. They are called "postmodern" because they became
prominent _after_Modernism_.
In history, "postmodern" is supposed to refer to
the end of the modern era, not a particular ideology;
perhaps it is a bit anticipatory, but I find the idea
passably meaningful.
So now I have supplied easily understood meanings for
"postmodern" and "postmodernity" which refer to entities in
the so-called real world, whereas you and your buddies have
yet to come up with any for "postmodernism" or
"postmodernist". Which is kind of surprising, given all
the huffing and puffing that's gone on. How about
"low-lying, left-leaning, swamp-breeding, sarcastic
yellow-dog destroyer of Western Civilization?"
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Jason Walsh
I am in the process of setting up a webpage looking at this issue.
To view the page, go to:
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~jwalsh/sokal
Feel free to email me back with any suggestions or sources.
Thanks,
Jason
______________________________________________________________________________
Jason Walsh To each his little cross. Till he dies.
University of Washington And is forgotten.
Philosophy --Didi, S. Beckett's _Waiting for Godot_, Act II
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gordon Fitch
| ... [ postmodernism doesn't exist ] ....
po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
| This is one of their favorite lines, part of their big war
| whoop. ...
It is? May I ask you to give me a few references? I'm not
denying that there may be several people who deny the
existence of any coherent entity called "postmodernism",
but I seldom run across them, either on the Net or in the
media, and I have to be curious as to what they say.
Travis C. Porco
In article <4p2vcp$k...@panix2.panix.com>, Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
>| ... [ postmodernism doesn't exist ] ....
>po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
>| This is one of their favorite lines, part of their big war
>| whoop. ...
>It is?
...
I'm referring mainly to you and your word game. Perhaps I
should have simply said that it was one of _your_ favorite
lines.
>I must say "Nobody home" doesn't sound much like a war
>whoop to me, but I like the idea.
"Nobody home" unfortunately isn't really it. There are plenty
of people who like to say things like, "Ah, we are now in the
postmodern period, and all our cherished western metaphysics
has crashed down," and so forth. There are books discussing
the fine points of it, and large edited readers brimming with
Baudrillard, Lyotard and the usual suspects. By postmodernism
we mean "all that stuff".
Gordon Fitch
po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
| ...
| of people who like to say things like, "Ah, we are now in the
| postmodern period, and all our cherished western metaphysics
| has crashed down," and so forth. There are books discussing
| the fine points of it, and large edited readers brimming with
| Baudrillard, Lyotard and the usual suspects. By postmodernism
In other words, "postmodernism" is that which deprecates
established institutions and authority. The common name
for this body of thought, feeling, experience, and interest
is "the Left" and there's nothing particularly postmodern
about it.
However, on several occasions I've seen Net leftists attack
"postmodernism" for upholding established institutions and
authority, so it would be interesting if you and they could
get together sometime.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Travis C. Porco
In article <4p3p6f$f...@panix2.panix.com>, Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
>po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
>| ...
>| "Nobody home" unfortunately isn't really it. There are plenty
>| of people who like to say things like, "Ah, we are now in the
>| postmodern period, and all our cherished western metaphysics
>| has crashed down," and so forth. There are books discussing
>| the fine points of it, and large edited readers brimming with
>| Baudrillard, Lyotard and the usual suspects. By postmodernism
>| we mean "all that stuff". ...
>In other words, "postmodernism" is that which deprecates
>established institutions and authority.
Your words, not mine. I mean, go to Moe's Books or some other
good bookstore, and go to the philosophy section. Gather
every book that has "postmodern" in the title, and every
journal that has articles about the postmodern. Eliminate
articles or chapters written by people who say things like,
"Postmodernism is nonsense," to screen out reactionary
critics. The collection of articles that
remain and the authors who are left are more or less typical
of postmodernism (given some assumptions about the
representativeness of the sample).
Galileo and Voltaire for instance were critics of established
institutions and authority, but they would hardly count as
postmodernists or prepostmodernists or whatever.
>The common name
>for this body of thought, feeling, experience, and interest
>is "the Left" and there's nothing particularly postmodern
>about it.
>However, on several occasions I've seen Net leftists attack
>"postmodernism" for upholding established institutions and
>authority...
Perhaps not unreasonably. What distinguishes the Left is that
it is the party/philosophy of the "ignorant many" (as opposed
to the Right, the party of the "corrupt few"). The left
opposes privilege and inequality, and to do so successfully
almost always requires a strong moral feeling that injustice
is wrong and should be destroyed. The Quaker dictum "speak
truth to power" is more in the spirit of the left than the
relativism and cynicism of the "postmodernists".
The leftists who embrace postmodernism enjoy having some acid
that will eat away at conservative pretensions at eternal
truths. The problem is that it dissolves away their own
standards as well.
As an experiment, get into a discussion with a
postmodern-sympathizing leftist, and play devil's advocate.
Suggest that doctor-assisted suicide is wrong, or defend some
covert action by the CIA. Wait until you get the inevitable
"who is to say?", or "those are just your values". Later, use
the same words to criticise them. For instance, you might
say, "But who is to say that slavery is wrong? Many cultures
accept slavery, and it is only the white christianized
European perspective that deprecates it." Or you could try,
"But many cultures accept female circumcision, and it is only
when seen from the warped perspective of western logocentrism,
with its emphasis on `equality', that causes you to ignore the
unique value of these practices." It is extremely easy to use
this sort of rhetoric to defend practices that everyone
finds reprehensible.
However, often they don't understand the concept of "reductio
ad absurdum", and they will think that you are _actually_
advocating slavery or mutilation. They will not understand
that you are showing that their philosophy and their ethical
goals are not in agreement.
This is not a refutation of their philosophy though. But it
makes you wonder really what it is that is giving so much heat
and earnestness to something that is a bad idea--especially
for a leftist.
Of course, hate-filled rightists can _also_ embrace such
cynical and nihilistic views. This is something that actual
fascists or their sympathizers like Celine understood
perfectly clearly.
That cynicism and relativism and "Who is to say"-ism don't
always serve the interests of the left (the party of the poor
or the many) very well has not been lost on thoughtful
leftists--like Sokal.
--Travis Porco
po...@stat.berkeley.edu
my views only
> }"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Gordon Fitch
| postmodern-sympathizing leftist, and play devil's advocate.
| Suggest that doctor-assisted suicide is wrong, or defend some
| covert action by the CIA. Wait until you get the inevitable
| "who is to say?", or "those are just your values". Later, use
| the same words to criticise them. For instance, you might
Your problem comes from identifying your own values with
universals, and thus supposing that everyone must do the
same thing. But it's possible to have values ("I don't
like slavery") without universalizing them ("God says that
slavery is bad"), which leads to obvious ontological and
epistemological problems ("Is there a God? And if there
is, how do you know what she says?" And so on.)
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
moggin
Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
...cynicism of the "postmodernists."
Another inaccurate generalization -- go and read Delueze and
Guattari's _Anti-Oedipus_ and Peter Sloterdijk's _Critique of Cynical
Reason_.
-- moggin
Christian Wagner
In article <4p2kfg$t...@panix2.panix.com>, Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
>cwa...@io.com (Christian Wagner):
>| Here, I'll define my term for you, because you are acting like (as
>| Matthew would say) a "retard".
>| Postmodernist: One who promotes the notions of postmodernity.
>Postmodernity is a condition, not a set of notions. That
>is, if you believe that, historically speaking, we're at
>the end of the modern era, and you're talking in terms of
>history. If you don't, you probably shouldn't use the word
>because it doesn't mean anything to you. I haven't seen
>_postmodernity_ used to categorize postmodern art much,
>which is the other common non-propagandistic use of
>"postmodern."
Gordon. Gordon, Gordon, Gordon.
You know what I am talking about, here. You know who am I talking about
here. You are deliberately playing word games. You are doing a damn fine
imitation of Humpty Dumpty.
Now, we can do one of two things. I can either declare that you are a
moron for not understanding what I am referring to, and drop the subject
entirely, or you can drop the pretenses and get on with a legitimate
discussion.
Here's a hint: What are the subjects of the crossposts between t.o and
alt.pomo?
Russell Turpin
-*-------> Postmodernity is a condition, not a set of notions. ...
That there is such a condition, and that it is as those
who believe so describe it, and that it is sufficiently
different from what came before in the ways so thought,
these are ALL notions.
> ... That is, if you believe that, historically speaking,
> we're at the end of the modern era, and you're talking in
> terms of history. ...
Which assumes some NOTION of what modernity is, and some
NOTION of what has or will supersede it.
Postmodernity is NOT defined by the gods. Before saying it
is a condition, it has to be adequately well defined and
motivated. When Fitch looks to who is doing this, then he
will be on the trail of the postmodernISTS.
Gordon Fitch
| ... [ "postmodernism" ] ....
cwa...@io.com (Christian Wagner):
| You know what I am talking about, here. You know who am I talking about
| here. You are deliberately playing word games. You are doing a damn fine
| imitation of Humpty Dumpty.
I am quite sincere in saying that I do not know what people
mean when they say "postmodernism" and "postmodernist." And
I doubt very much if anyone can point to an identifiable
ideology to associate with these words. (If it is a
pathological condition, etc., then there is hardly any use
in arguing about it as if it were an ideology. I'm willing
to be instructed, but every time I ask for enlightenment
I'm refused, as by you above.
| Now, we can do one of two things. I can either declare that you are a
| moron for not understanding what I am referring to, and drop the subject
| entirely, or you can drop the pretenses and get on with a legitimate
| discussion.
|
| Here's a hint: What are the subjects of the crossposts between t.o and
| alt.pomo?
Various aspects of science, I would say. Some of the usual
what-is-really-real rigmarole. No? You certainly shouldn't
feel inhibited about calling me a moron, given the practices
of the present discursive community. It seems practically
_de_rigueur_.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Christian Wagner
In article <4p6ddj$k...@panix2.panix.com>, Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
>| ... [ "postmodernism" ] ....
>cwa...@io.com (Christian Wagner):
>| You know what I am talking about, here. You know who am I talking about
>| here. You are deliberately playing word games. You are doing a damn fine
>| imitation of Humpty Dumpty.
>I am quite sincere in saying that I do not know what people
>mean when they say "postmodernism" and "postmodernist." And
>I doubt very much if anyone can point to an identifiable
>ideology to associate with these words. (If it is a
>pathological condition, etc., then there is hardly any use
>in arguing about it as if it were an ideology. I'm willing
>to be instructed, but every time I ask for enlightenment
>I'm refused, as by you above.
<sigh> Never mind. I give up. You're not worth it. If you want to play
the idiot, it's fine by me, but I've got no interest in being the
straight man to your fool.
>| Now, we can do one of two things. I can either declare that you are a
>| moron for not understanding what I am referring to, and drop the subject
>| entirely, or you can drop the pretenses and get on with a legitimate
>| discussion.
>| Here's a hint: What are the subjects of the crossposts between t.o and
>| alt.pomo?
>Various aspects of science, I would say. Some of the usual
>what-is-really-real rigmarole. No?
What -started- the whole t.o/a.p crosspost-fest was Sokal's article in
_Social Text_, and it's bearing on the postmodernists' attacks on moden
methods of scientific inquiry. Can you please tell me what particular
ideological group Ross and the crew at _Social Text_ belong to?
>You certainly shouldn't
>feel inhibited about calling me a moron, given the practices
>of the present discursive community. It seems practically
>_de_rigueur_.
I feel bad about calling you a moron/retard/whatever, because I know you
aren't one. I know that you're playing word games, feigning ignorance
because you don't want to talk about the real issues. You say "What's
postmodernism?", when every single person reading the t.o/a.p threads
-knows- what particular philosophical constructs make up "postmodernism".
You, like Ross and the crew of _Social Text_, mistake word games for
debate and engage in massive evasion of the issues when pressed.
Typical. Annoying as all get-out, but typical. Which is why I'm not going
to try to spoon-feed things to you; if you don't know what the hell I'm
talking about when I refer to "postmodernism", then you shouldn't be
involved in -any- of the t.o/a.p discussions.
Good day, sir.
Patrick Foley
In article <4p4t73$m...@bessel.nando.net>, mog...@bessel.nando.net (moggin)
wrote:
Moggin, at least, has some idea what Travis means by "postmodernism" -- or
if not "what Travis means" then "what Travis should mean" (maybe even what
_he_, moggin, means) -- it is an intellectual movement that numbers among
its contributors Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari and Peter Sloterdijk.
Would you debate the point with moggin, Gordon?
Btw, who said "postmodernism" must denote an ideology. I'd say many
post-structuralists, self-identifying post-modernists, deconstructionists,
and cultural theorists of various stripes share some family resemblances,
some debt to traditions that share some family resemblances, and of course
disagree strongly on some points, on approaches, methods, goals, etc.
Which doesn't mean there's no such thing. The same description applies to
analytical philosophy, to philosophy as such, to literary criticism, to
science. It is an intellectual enterprise.
I would certainly agree with you, and with moggin here, that
generalizations are, as usual, prone to error. On the other hand, they
elicit -- in this case, from moggin -- positive claims about what
"post-modernism" means to someone who takes it seriously, and thus debate
is furthered. I submit moggin here has taken intellectual ground a little
higher than yours, Gordon, by referring at least indirectly to ideas he
may be prepared to defend, at least to some degree.
Perhaps I have misread you, but it seems that once you had elicited from
one or two of us the claim that indeed non-existent objects may have
attributes, and that non-existent statements may have truth-values, you
declared victory and left the field.
Are we to understand that _you_ have an ideology but you're keeping it to
yourself? The debate seems to have ended at exactly the point where it
should have begun in earnest. Or does discussion, in your view, only
serve to show that people disagree, and once _this_ is established they
have nothing more to talk about?
<pfo...@earthlink.net>
Gordon Fitch
cwa...@io.com (Christian Wagner):
| ...
| _Social Text_, and it's bearing on the postmodernists' attacks on moden
| methods of scientific inquiry. Can you please tell me what particular
| ideological group Ross and the crew at _Social Text_ belong to?
Only the latest spate of cross-postings were occasioned by
the Sokal hoax. Carl Lydick was calling me "shit-for-
brains" in these same newsgroups many months ago. So you
have this terribly important piece of social history all
wrong. However, your question can still be answered. In
fact it was answered already, by me, a few weeks ago, when I
gave a political analysis of the affair. The first
paragraph after a brief intro reads,
The previous discussion has portrayed the editors of
_Social_Text_ and their attackers as enemies. But the two
"sides" are part of the same system, the system of
bourgeois authority. The function of _Social_Text_ and
organs like it is to act for the authority as forward
defenses, pickets, distant early warning systems, against
radical and subversive ideas, not necessarily to suppress
them but often to absorb them, vitiate them if they are
dangerous, put them to work if possible. They would hardly
be given checks by their employers if they were not seen to
be of service in some way. ....
Modesty forbids me to reprint the whole. Besides, now that
I have access to the whole hoax text and Sokal's comment on
it, I might want to revise my opinion. In the article to
which I allude, I pictured Sokal as standing closer to the
center and disciplining _Socal_Text_ for possible pollution
through contact with its targets. However, Sokal may turn
out to be a true subversive, even a subversive in spite of
himself. One thing I have found out by reading the
beginning of it is that, contrary to report, it's not
outright nonsense. Instead, it's constructed like many
hoax texts, starting out with widely-believed ideas and
established facts and gradually drawing the reader into
increasingly odd terrain.
By the way, if you _want_ to call _Social_Text_ and the like
"postmodernist", please do. If you drop a lot of disparate
entities into the bag, though, I'm going to continue to not
know what you're talking about.
gcf:
| >You certainly shouldn't
| >feel inhibited about calling me a moron, given the practices
| >of the present discursive community. It seems practically
| >_de_rigueur_.
cwa...@io.com (Christian Wagner):
| I feel bad about calling you a moron/retard/whatever, because I know you
| aren't one. I know that you're playing word games, feigning ignorance
| because you don't want to talk about the real issues. You say "What's
| postmodernism?", when every single person reading the t.o/a.p threads
| -knows- what particular philosophical constructs make up "postmodernism".
| You, like Ross and the crew of _Social Text_, mistake word games for
| debate and engage in massive evasion of the issues when pressed.
| ...
Why isn't refusing to state what you mean by
"postmodernism" as much an evasion of an issue or a word
game as anything else? Not that I mind -- I'm just
curious.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Travis C. Porco
In article <4p4s3g$4...@panix2.panix.com>, Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
>po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
>| As an experiment, get into a discussion with a
>| postmodern-sympathizing leftist, and play devil's advocate.
>| Suggest that doctor-assisted suicide is wrong, or defend some
>| covert action by the CIA. Wait until you get the inevitable
>| "who is to say?", or "those are just your values". Later, use
>| the same words to criticise them. For instance, you might
>| say, "But who is to say that slavery is wrong? ....
>Your problem comes from identifying your own values with
>universals, and thus supposing that everyone must do the
>same thing.
This is quite false. I am accusing some postmodern leftists
of having failed to realize or take seriously the fact that
moral relativism applies to them.
>But it's possible to have values ("I don't like slavery")
The point is that given moral relativism, this has exactly the
same status as "I do like slavery". Whether ethical
philosophers or scientists will be able to use reason or
(scientific) anthropology to place ethical statements on a
more secure footing, I don't really know.
The challenge for the leftist is to explain why anyone else
ought to share his/her moral values. If you think that "I
don't like slavery" is a mere personal value, akin to "I don't
like ketchup", you've got a big problem if you want people to
stop enslaving people or using ketchup.
>without universalizing them ("God says that
>slavery is bad"), ...
It might be possible to have universal or at least objective
ethical standards for humans without invoking God. However,
the burden of demonstrating this rests with the moralist or
the leftist. By their own standards, the postmodern leftists
should be disregarded. If reason and science cannot show that
slavery is immoral, then why should anyone have listened to an
abolitionist? Why should anyone listen to any other
protesters?
Remember it is not necessary for the establishment to justify
itself; it is already here and working. It is the default.
If someone wants to change the system, it is up to them to
show why we should interfere with something that is working.
What if the proposed changes interfere with the economy and
lead to massive starvation, for example? It is a lot easier
to break a complex system than it is to fix it; it is a lot
easier to smash a watch than to repair one.
> }"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Matthew P Wiener
In article <4p7k4b$h...@panix2.panix.com>, gcf@panix (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>One thing I have found out by reading the beginning of it is that,
>contrary to report, it's not outright nonsense. Instead, it's
>constructed like many hoax texts, starting out with widely-believed
>ideas and established facts and gradually drawing the reader into
>increasingly odd terrain.
What poppycock. The first paragraph is mild gibber. The second
paragraph is then deep doodoo gibber.
>By the way, if you _want_ to call _Social_Text_ and the like
>"postmodernist", please do. If you drop a lot of disparate entities
>into the bag, though, I'm going to continue to not know what you're
>talking about.
Like, duh. You deny it has any meaning anyway.
--
-Matthew P Wiener (wee...@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
Russell Turpin
-*------
In article <4p7mrg$i...@agate.berkeley.edu>,> ... If reason and science cannot show that slavery is immoral,
> then why should anyone have listened to an abolitionist? ...
Science cannot show this. At most, it can refute positive claims
associated with the moral theory being fought. As to reason,
... well, I am not going to get involved in a discussion as to what
that means.
Gordon Fitch
po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
| >| As an experiment, get into a discussion with a
| >| postmodern-sympathizing leftist, and play devil's advocate.
| >| Suggest that doctor-assisted suicide is wrong, or defend some
| >| covert action by the CIA. Wait until you get the inevitable
| >| "who is to say?", or "those are just your values". Later, use
| >| the same words to criticise them. For instance, you might
Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
| >Your problem comes from identifying your own values with
| >universals, and thus supposing that everyone must do the
| >same thing.
po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
| This is quite false. I am accusing some postmodern leftists
| of having failed to realize or take seriously the fact that
| moral relativism applies to them.
Well, some of almost any sizeable set of people can be said
to have failed to realize something. I don't know if this
is a particular characteristic of postmodern leftists. A
lot of the Left stuff I read about or hear these days is as
dogmatic and absolutistic as ever. In fact, with the rise
of the politics of identification, I'd say it's gotten worse
(for my notion of good and bad, of course).
Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
| >But it's possible to have values ("I don't like slavery")
po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
| The point is that given moral relativism, this has exactly the
| same status as "I do like slavery". ...
| The challenge for the leftist is to explain why anyone else
| ought to share his/her moral values. If you think that "I
| don't like slavery" is a mere personal value, akin to "I don't
| like ketchup", you've got a big problem if you want people to
| stop enslaving people or using ketchup. ...
I don't think moralizing is going to stop them. In any
case millennia of moral absolutism did not prevent
slavery. In fact, slavery was usually justified by appeals
to some absolute, universal set of values or other, from
Aristotle right down to God-fearing John C. Calhoun. So if
I want to stop slavery, absolutism doesn't look like the
way to go.
Probably, the most practical action will be to encourage
and arm potential or actual slaves to resist slavery or
revolt against it. In theory, they will see it as in their
self-interest. Then the trick will be to keep those who
get loose, from enslaving someone else (or themselves --
that's a favorite).
One might hope that a Godless, uncertain, relativistic
universe would give some people the idea that slavery might
be a bad thing because they might wind up at the wrong end
of the chain (either one, actually, but you know what I
mean). But probably I am overly optimistic.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Travis C. Porco
In article <4p7t6q$6...@peaches.cs.utexas.edu>,
Russell Turpin <tur...@cs.utexas.edu> wrote:
>In article <4p7mrg$i...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
>Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>> ... If reason and science cannot show that slavery is immoral,
>> then why should anyone have listened to an abolitionist? ...
>Science cannot show this. At most, it can refute positive claims
>associated with the moral theory being fought.
Someone might be at least able to show how certain moral views
have aided human survival, social cohesion, etc. This would
not prove a moral theory, but it would be important to the
debate.
>As to reason,
>... well, I am not going to get involved in a discussion as to what
>that means.
Analytic philosophers at any rate are not in universal
agreement that all moral speech is the expression of personal
preferences.
I have no opinion on the debate on the nature of ethics; I
just wonder why reformers on the Left want to keep their moral
indignation and have their relativism too. You can say, "I
hate slavery, though this is just my personal opinion," and
work to abolish slavery. It hardly seems a view to become
enthusiastic over; I think the left is good at sawing off the
branch it is sitting on.
>Russell
--Travis
my views only
Noel Smith
po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco) wrote:
>In article <4p4s3g$4...@panix2.panix.com>, Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
>>po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
[deletion]
>>Your problem comes from identifying your own values with
>>universals, and thus supposing that everyone must do the
>>same thing.
[deletion]
>>But it's possible to have values ("I don't like slavery")
Ethics are not anything like values. If someone murders my mother, or
yours, it is not adequate to say "I don't like murder."
>The point is that given moral relativism, this has exactly the
>same status as "I do like slavery".
Agreed. If it is possible to not "like" murder, then it is also
possible to like murder.
[deletion]
>>without universalizing them ("God says that
>>slavery is bad"), ...
The problem with using the language of personal likes and dislikes
with ethics is that likes are relative, but ethics are universals. "I
dislike murder" fails as an ethical statement because one's personal
values can't legitimize saying "I like (and at my option practice)
murder."
In these areas, reason and philosophy can analyze, and possibly
illuminate, but they cannot conclude. There can be no legitimation of
murder, or of denial of political freedom, or of government without
the consent of the governed, by argument.
The universal wrongness of murder, etc., can neither be established or
negated by reason, because it is part of the human condition, like
being bipedal; and beyond alteration by either personal likes or
impersonal reason.
These do not have to do with God (except for the religious, where
anything, arbitrarily, may have to do with God), they are, again,
grounded in the human condition; in being, with no choice in the
matter, a social animal. Hanna Arendt may have been referring to this
class of concepts when she said, What is not right cannot be true.
From a later post:
Travis Porco:
>>> ... If reason and science cannot show that slavery is immoral,
>>> then why should anyone have listened to an abolitionist? ...
Russell Turpin:
>>Science cannot show this. At most, it can refute positive claims
>>associated with the moral theory being fought.
[deletion]
>>As to reason,
>>... well, I am not going to get involved in a discussion as to what
>>that means.
Exactly. Reasoning about ethics takes place within an older, prior
framework which is larger than reason, and not mutable by reason.
[remainder deleted]
>>Gordon Fitch
>-Travis Porco
- Noel
Travis C. Porco
In article <Dsnun...@eskimo.com>, Noel Smith <nsm...@eskimo.com> wrote:
...
>The universal wrongness of murder, etc., can neither be established or
>negated by reason, because it is part of the human condition, like
>being bipedal; and beyond alteration by either personal likes or
>impersonal reason.
I think this makes good sense. Yet the reason we have certain
likes and reason a certain way--like bipedalism--can
conceivably be better understood through genetics, physiology,
evolutionary biology. At the present day, we are far
from such understanding.
The human condition is not a constant, unchanging thing, but
is mutable over time and differs between people. It is
important to understand the ways that biological and cultural
evolution continue to occur and to influence each other.
...
>Exactly. Reasoning about ethics takes place within an older, prior
>framework which is larger than reason, and not mutable by reason.
I don't see how reasoning can take place in a framework larger
than reason. What does this mean?
moggin
moggin:
>> Another inaccurate generalization -- go and read Delueze and
>> Guattari's _Anti-Oedipus_ and Peter Sloterdijk's _Critique of Cynical
>> Reason_.
Patrick Foley <pfo...@earthlink.net>:
>Moggin, at least, has some idea what Travis means by "postmodernism" -- or
>if not "what Travis means" then "what Travis should mean" (maybe even what
>_he_, moggin, means) -- it is an intellectual movement that numbers among
>its contributors Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari and Peter Sloterdijk.
>Would you debate the point with moggin, Gordon?
You're saying Gordon should debate with me because he doesn't
accept some idea I've got about what Travis means by "postmodernism"?
-- moggin
Patrick Foley
In article <4pb2qs$p...@bessel.nando.net>, mog...@bessel.nando.net (moggin)
wrote:
Tough room, whew, you folks from out of town?
All I was saying, moggin, was that plenty of people were getting nowhere
with Gordon arguing about whether postmodernism exists, and that _you_,
unlike Gordon, very nearly implied there might be something out there you
might be willing to call postmodernism that you might be willing to
defend. That glimmer of a positive claim looked to me like the fucking
holy grail after wading through threads featuring Gordon Fitch. I don't
care if you or Travis call it "postmodernism". If you had asked me, when
I read ANTI-OEDIPUS in the mid 80s, if it was "postmodernist", I would
have suggested you were thinking of Lyotard or Baudrillard and that D & G
were up to something very very different (and something worth being up to
:-).
In short, the label doesn't matter. I was tired of arguments about
whether the label had an empty extension. I thought maybe a better way to
talk about postmodernism would be if someone (say, you) said, "This is
what postmodernism means to me as an intellectual enterprise. . . What do
you think?" instead of the game of "outsiders" iteratively characterizing
it and being told they were wrong (again and again and . . .). "You pomos
--" "No we don't--" "But postmodernism--" "No it isn't--" "But every
postmodernist--" "Not all of them--" "Well if postmodernism--" "No such
thing--"
Couldn't we try something else?
Cheers,
Pat
Gordon Fitch
Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
| >>Your problem comes from identifying your own values with
| >>universals, and thus supposing that everyone must do the
| >>same thing.
nsm...@eskimo.com (Noel Smith):
| Ethics are not anything like values. If someone murders my mother, or
| yours, it is not adequate to say "I don't like murder." ...
When you say "adequate", are you giving a value judgment?
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
moggin
Gordon:
>>Your problem comes from identifying your own values with
>>universals, and thus supposing that everyone must do the
>>same thing.
Travis:
>This is quite false. I am accusing some postmodern leftists
>of having failed to realize or take seriously the fact that
>moral relativism applies to them.
Gordon:
>>But it's possible to have values ("I don't like slavery")
Travis:
>The point is that given moral relativism, this has exactly the
>same status as "I do like slavery".
You know, of course, that slaveowners have been known to make
moral arguments on behalf of slavery. For example, the debate in the
United states prior to the Civil War included moralists on both sides.
-- moggin
Travis C. Porco
In article <4pcuc5$q...@bessel.nando.net>,
moggin <mog...@bessel.nando.net> wrote:
> You know, of course, that slaveowners have been known to make
>moral arguments on behalf of slavery. For example, the debate in the
>United states prior to the Civil War included moralists on both sides.
Of course it did. I venture to say that most people who
opposed slavery were more shocked that it continued than the
slavery advocates were shocked by its abolition. If the moral
arguments are deleted entirely, the pro-slavery faction in
such a situation is left with power and the status quo, and
then the job of the abolitionist is more difficult. Moral
argument and feeling exist for a reason, and doing away with
them entirely because they are merely "values" as some say, or
because they are not scientifically verifiable, is likely
to be a mistake.
It is not logically inconsistent to say, "I object to meat-eating
though I recognize that there is no grounds whatever for my
preference. Nevertheless, I want you to undertake to share my
views at any cost to yourself." I would think long and hard
before I chose such a position, to make sure there is nothing
more persuasive or solid first.
The truth is that the "progressives" are very moralistic and
expect others to be as well. If you were (hypothetically)
tell a progressive that you did not give a twopenny damn about
some genocide somewhere, they would be shocked. If they
really bought their relativism, this would be no more shocking
than any other personal preference. The point is not that
they are shocked by immorality, but that they expect others to
share their view.
They want to keep the ghost of morality past. They want
people to continue to be shocked by rape, murder,
discrimination, and so forth. Yet their own words suggest
that such shock should make no real sense to them.
It is because they can only think of conservative moralists
when they think of morals that blinds them to their own way of
thinking.
>-- moggin
--Travis
my views only
moggin
moggin <mog...@bessel.nando.net> wrote:
>> You know, of course, that slaveowners have been known to make
>>moral arguments on behalf of slavery. For example, the debate in the
>>United states prior to the Civil War included moralists on both sides.
Travis:
>Of course it did. I venture to say that most people who
>opposed slavery were more shocked that it continued than the
>slavery advocates were shocked by its abolition.
I'm not following. Because they were more shocked, they were
more moral? Or what are you saying here?
>If the moral arguments are deleted entirely, the pro-slavery faction
>in such a situation is left with power and the status quo, and then
>the job of the abolitionist is more difficult.
But moral arguments _were_ in play, on both sides, and as a
matter of history, the pro-slavery faction _did_ have the power and
thus the status quo until midway through the Civil War.
>Moral argument and feeling exist for a reason, and doing away with
>them entirely because they are merely "values" as some say, or because
>they are not scientifically verifiable, is likely to be a mistake.
Please be more specific. Who says that we should do away
entirely with "moral argument and feeling" because they're "merely
values," and what do they say when they say it?
-- moggin
moggin
Patrick Foley <pfo...@earthlink.net>:
>All I was saying, moggin, was that plenty of people were getting nowhere
>with Gordon arguing about whether postmodernism exists, and that _you_,
>unlike Gordon, very nearly implied there might be something out there you
>might be willing to call postmodernism that you might be willing to
>defend. That glimmer of a positive claim looked to me like the fucking
>holy grail after wading through threads featuring Gordon Fitch. I don't
>care if you or Travis call it "postmodernism". If you had asked me, when
>I read ANTI-OEDIPUS in the mid 80s, if it was "postmodernist", I would
>have suggested you were thinking of Lyotard or Baudrillard and that D & G
>were up to something very very different (and something worth being up to
How about we split the difference? I don't feel like making
any positive claims about post-modernism, or at least none that comes
to mind right now, but I'll be glad to defend anything congenial -- I
mean, to me. So now all we have to do is find something that you want
to attack that I can agree to defending. What are you in the mood
for? We both like D&G, so that's out. de Man? I've been having fun
reading one of Eagleton's ritualistic attacks.
In short, the label doesn't matter. I was tired of arguments about
whether the label had an empty extension. I thought maybe a better
way to talk about postmodernism would be if someone (say, you) said,
"This is what postmodernism means to me as an intellectual
enterprise. . . What do you think?"
It means many different things to me, although not as many as
it has meanings. I'm not as reluctant as Gordon to bandy them about,
but none of them is a definition or an orthodoxy. This isn't a topic
that allows you to put your ducks in a row -- you can only watch them
dive and swim, and toss your bread upon the waters.
-- moggin
Travis C. Porco
In article <4p7tom$5...@panix2.panix.com>, Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
>po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
>| of having failed to realize or take seriously the fact that
>| moral relativism applies to them.
>Well, some of almost any sizeable set of people can be said
>to have failed to realize something.
True enough.
>I don't know if this
>is a particular characteristic of postmodern leftists.
It would be hard to quantitatively find out. However, I have
not met many who really realize the consequences of what they
are saying.
...
>po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
>| The point is that given moral relativism, this has exactly the
>| same status as "I do like slavery". ...
>| The challenge for the leftist is to explain why anyone else
>| ought to share his/her moral values. If you think that "I
>| don't like slavery" is a mere personal value, akin to "I don't
>| like ketchup", you've got a big problem if you want people to
>| stop enslaving people or using ketchup. ...
>I don't think moralizing is going to stop them. In any
>case millennia of moral absolutism did not prevent
>slavery. In fact, slavery was usually justified by appeals
>to some absolute, universal set of values or other, from
>Aristotle right down to God-fearing John C. Calhoun. So if
>I want to stop slavery, absolutism doesn't look like the
>way to go.
Usually a form of natural law. "Absolutism" is less the issue;
the question is whether an ethical statement like "slavery is
wrong" is equivalent to "I hate slavery." I don't think there
is any consensus among moral philosophers that ethical
statements are meaningless or emotive.
>Probably, the most practical action will be to encourage
>and arm potential or actual slaves to resist slavery or
>revolt against it. In theory, they will see it as in their
>self-interest. Then the trick will be to keep those who
>get loose, from enslaving someone else (or themselves --
>that's a favorite).
How is such an action justified? For the record, rational
self-interest is a fine thing, but it is not good enough. The
ideal person according to such a view is the scheming
psychopath who will stab you in the back as soon as there is a
positive expected return on their action. (If you have read
the Rama books by Arthur Clarke and Gentry Lee, the Francesca
character is an excellent portrait of such a person.)
>One might hope that a Godless, uncertain, relativistic
>universe would give some people the idea that slavery might
>be a bad thing because they might wind up at the wrong end
>of the chain (either one, actually, but you know what I
>mean). But probably I am overly optimistic.
You will always need some sort of view that people are in some
sense equal to make moral reasoning work. Equal fundamental
rights, or equal before God, or perhaps a postulate like Rawls in
which you must consider that you might take any place in the
hypothetical society (you could be anyone, so everyone is
equal in this sense that you must put yourself in their place
and fairly consider the consequences).
> }"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Travis C. Porco
In article <4pd5h9$1...@bessel.nando.net>,
>>Of course it did. I venture to say that most people who
>>opposed slavery were more shocked that it continued than the
>>slavery advocates were shocked by its abolition.
> I'm not following. Because they were more shocked, they were
>more moral? Or what are you saying here?
The abolitionists had a greater moral commitment to abolishing
slavery than the slaveholders had in keeping it. Before the
war, moral arguments got abolitionists to strongly protest
slavery at cost to themselves, even though they did not
necessarily stand to benefit personally. In contrast, defense
of slavery was a defense of property; we do not see people now
agitating and protesting to start slavery again. The moral
argument for slavery in not convincing in the absence of
slavery in the way that the moral argument against slavery was
convincing in the presence of slavery.
>>Moral argument and feeling exist for a reason, and doing away with
>>them entirely because they are merely "values" as some say, or because
>>they are not scientifically verifiable, is likely to be a mistake.
> Please be more specific. Who says that we should do away
>entirely with "moral argument and feeling" because they're "merely
>values," and what do they say when they say it?
If a moral judgment is merely a personal value, it has no
binding force on anyone. When you say, "Slavery is wrong",
you mean that a slaveowner should be disgraced in the eyes of
others by their action, and that they should cease being a
slaveowner. In this way, a moral judgment is unlike claiming
that "ketchup is bad": a ketchup lover is not disgraced, nor
do they need to toss away their ketchup.
--Travis
my views only
Gordon Fitch
po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
| >| This is quite false. I am accusing some postmodern leftists
| >| of having failed to realize or take seriously the fact that
gcf:
| >I don't know if this
| >is a particular characteristic of postmodern leftists.
po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
| It would be hard to quantitatively find out. However, I have
| not met many who really realize the consequences of what they
| are saying.
The rhetorical consequences or the practical consequences?
I worry about the latter sometimes -- like, I can write
about moral individualism or autonomy and some idiot might
read it and go and murder an old woman with an axe, after
which an overwrought novel might be written about it and
forced upon millions of students.
Usually I decide that if someone does murder, it's what he
was going to do anyway regardless of what anyone said, but
who knows? It's troubling. However, the alternative is to
allow absolutism to run rampant, with _its_ axe-murderers.
In my life, I've had more trouble with apparent absolutists
-- teachers, cops, Christians -- than I have had with
apparent relativists.
po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
| >| The point is that given moral relativism, this has exactly the
| >| same status as "I do like slavery". ...
| >| The challenge for the leftist is to explain why anyone else
| >| ought to share his/her moral values. If you think that "I
| >| don't like slavery" is a mere personal value, akin to "I don't
| >| like ketchup", you've got a big problem if you want people to
| >| stop enslaving people or using ketchup. ...
gcf:
| >I don't think moralizing is going to stop them. In any
| >case millennia of moral absolutism did not prevent
| >slavery. In fact, slavery was usually justified by appeals
| >to some absolute, universal set of values or other, from
| >Aristotle right down to God-fearing John C. Calhoun. So if
| >I want to stop slavery, absolutism doesn't look like the
| >way to go.
po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
| Usually a form of natural law. "Absolutism" is less the issue;
| the question is whether an ethical statement like "slavery is
| wrong" is equivalent to "I hate slavery." I don't think there
| is any consensus among moral philosophers that ethical
| statements are meaningless or emotive.
The two statements are not equal. "I hate slavery" doesn't
involve the nature of the universe or the gods. Hence it
can be said and acted upon sooner. This is why there were
slave revolts long before there were liberal philosophers.
gcf:
| >Probably, the most practical action will be to encourage
| >and arm potential or actual slaves to resist slavery or
| >revolt against it. In theory, they will see it as in their
| >self-interest. Then the trick will be to keep those who
| >get loose, from enslaving someone else (or themselves --
| >that's a favorite).
po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
| How is such an action justified? ....
For me, existentially. I can give a rationale, but
everyone can give a rationale.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Patrick Juola
In article <4pasrv$b...@agate.berkeley.edu> po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco) writes:
>>Exactly. Reasoning about ethics takes place within an older, prior
>>framework which is larger than reason, and not mutable by reason.
>
>I don't see how reasoning can take place in a framework larger
>than reason. What does this mean?
Well, think about it this way. As C.S. Lewis pointed out (several
times, in several essays), there's no "rational" way to get an
imperative statement "Do <this>" from a set of indicative statements
"<This> is good" by formal logic alone. And ethics, of course, is
almost entirely driven by imperatives.
That's fairly easy to see if you observe how all logical formalisms
since Aristotle (and certainly since Boole) have hinged on propositional
content, and imperative statements don't have any. "Do this" is neither
true nor false, and thus can't even be used in a syllogism.
What is the framework that provides us with operators to work on
imperatives?
Patrick
David Swanson
In article <4pfn47$p...@panix2.panix.com>
g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
> po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
> | >| This is quite false. I am accusing some postmodern leftists
> | >| of having failed to realize or take seriously the fact that
> | >| moral relativism applies to them. ...
>
> gcf:
> | >I don't know if this
> | >is a particular characteristic of postmodern leftists.
>
> po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
> | It would be hard to quantitatively find out. However, I have
> | not met many who really realize the consequences of what they
> | are saying.
>
> The rhetorical consequences or the practical consequences?
> I worry about the latter sometimes -- like, I can write
> about moral individualism or autonomy and some idiot might
> read it and go and murder an old woman with an axe, after
> which an overwrought novel might be written about it and
> forced upon millions of students.
It's one thing to post long boring tirades, or "gibberish," or stuff
that's over everybody's head, or insults to other users, but
bad-talking Dostoievski steps over the line. I think an apology is
owed to the entire internet. You're not fit to shine his shoes.
David
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
David Swanson
In article <4pfkgt$q...@agate.berkeley.edu>
po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco) writes:
> If a moral judgment is merely a personal value, it has no
> binding force on anyone. When you say, "Slavery is wrong",
> you mean that a slaveowner should be disgraced in the eyes of
> others by their action, and that they should cease being a
> slaveowner. In this way, a moral judgment is unlike claiming
> that "ketchup is bad": a ketchup lover is not disgraced, nor
> do they need to toss away their ketchup.
If THAT's an argument for "absolutism" over "relativism," sign me up as
an absolutist.
Gordon Fitch
dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson):
| It's one thing to post long boring tirades, or "gibberish," or stuff
| that's over everybody's head, or insults to other users, but
| bad-talking Dostoievski steps over the line. I think an apology is
| owed to the entire internet. You're not fit to shine his shoes.
g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
Curb your god.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Travis C. Porco
In article <4pfn47$p...@panix2.panix.com>, Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
>po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
>| >| This is quite false. I am accusing some postmodern leftists
>| >| of having failed to realize or take seriously the fact that
>| >| moral relativism applies to them. ...
>gcf:
>| >I don't know if this
>| >is a particular characteristic of postmodern leftists.
>po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
>| It would be hard to quantitatively find out. However, I have
>| not met many who really realize the consequences of what they
>| are saying.
>The rhetorical consequences or the practical consequences?
The logical consequences, taken to heart.
...
>Usually I decide that if someone does murder, it's what he
>was going to do anyway regardless of what anyone said, but
>who knows? It's troubling.
Yes it is. Ideas _do_ have consequences, and if you teach
children that murder is not wrong, don't be surprised when
they start murdering.
People have an inbuilt conscience that must be trained and
developed in the human society just like any other. We should
not feel the slightest embarassment in teaching children to
share and share alike, or not to twist the tail of the kitty,
or not to take a 9mm gun to school because somebody dissed his
homeboy.
Once people learn to put themselves in other's places and to
be kind and considerate, that usually carries over later, so
that even philosophical skeptics are still kind and
trustworthy people for the most part. The few percent who are
intrinsic sociopaths are not likely to be affected either way,
but I would rather live in a society where sociopathic
behavior is condemned than where it is lauded.
They are reaping the benefits of earlier moral training, but
they are often _not_ replanting it for the next generation.
Ironically, this sort of thing is often alluded to by
Dostoyevsky, as in _The Devils_.
>However, the alternative is to
>allow absolutism to run rampant, with _its_ axe-murderers.
>In my life, I've had more trouble with apparent absolutists
>-- teachers, cops, Christians -- than I have had with
>apparent relativists.
Our "apparently absolutistic" authority figures are a good
sight better than relativistically trained authority figures,
who would lack even such brakes or scruples as the absolutists
have. I might not like dealing with "absolutist" authorities,
but God have mercy on the poor fellow who falls in bad with
organized crime or Marxists or the Gestapo.
--Travis
my views only
moggin
Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>Our "apparently absolutistic" authority figures are a good
>sight better than relativistically trained authority figures,
>who would lack even such brakes or scruples as the absolutists
>have. I might not like dealing with "absolutist" authorities,
>but God have mercy on the poor fellow who falls in bad with
>organized crime or Marxists or the Gestapo.
Excuse me, Travis, but are you seriously suggesting that the
Gestapo was run and staffed by relativists?
-- moggin
Julian Pardoe LADS LDN X1428
Does anyone have a copy of the offending article? There's been very
little coverage of this in the British press.
An on-line copy would be best, but otherwise I can probably arrange
a US postal address or fax number.
Please reply by mail.
-- jP --
Russell Turpin
-*-------
In article <4piknj$b...@agate.berkeley.edu>,> Naziism was based on might and the idea that the master race
> could do whatever was necessary to secure its vitality and
> Lebensraum.
>
> Moral relativism ...
???
For what it is worth, I can only concur with his other
respondents that Porco is using "moral relativism" in a
fashion foreign to any that I have heard.
Silke-Maria Weineck
moggin (mog...@bessel.nando.net) wrote:
: Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
: >Our "apparently absolutistic" authority figures are a good
: >sight better than relativistically trained authority figures,
: >who would lack even such brakes or scruples as the absolutists
: >have. I might not like dealing with "absolutist" authorities,
: >but God have mercy on the poor fellow who falls in bad with
: >organized crime or Marxists or the Gestapo.
: Excuse me, Travis, but are you seriously suggesting that the
: Gestapo was run and staffed by relativists?
That's an implicit assumption that, bafflingly, seems to crop up ritually in
these debates -- cf. "Postmodernists embarrassed by Sokal."
Silke
Travis C. Porco
In article <4picvk$b...@bessel.nando.net>,
>>Our "apparently absolutistic" authority figures are a good
>>sight better than relativistically trained authority figures,
>>who would lack even such brakes or scruples as the absolutists
>>have. I might not like dealing with "absolutist" authorities,
>>but God have mercy on the poor fellow who falls in bad with
>>organized crime or Marxists or the Gestapo.
> Excuse me, Travis, but are you seriously suggesting that the
>Gestapo was run and staffed by relativists?
Naziism was based on might and the idea that the master race
could do whatever was necessary to secure its vitality and
Lebensraum.
Moral relativism is not at all inconsistent with political
absolutism. If moral grounds are vacuous, you have no grounds
to oppose tyranny as such.
Certainly Naziism promoted [some] values, and also pretended at
first to be allied with Christianity. But the core of Nazis
were more attracted to a kind of Nordic mysticism in which the
power and life-force of the master race was the preeminent
value and in which morality as we commonly know it had no real
part.
It is worth remembering again that association of something
with Naziism does not refute it; the fact that the Nazis did
not believe in morality does not prove that moral statements
are valid.
My point is that moral teaching is useful and that people
should be trained in common sense morality as children. The
few experiences we have had with overthrowing traditional
morality at the high levels of power have resulted in such
fever-swamps of tyranny, oppression, and suffering that we
should consider the consequences of teaching relativism to
children.
Noel Smith
po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco) wrote:
>In article <Dsnun...@eskimo.com>, Noel Smith <nsm...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>...
>>The universal wrongness of murder, etc., can neither be established or
>>negated by reason, because it is part of the human condition, like
>>being bipedal; and beyond alteration by either personal likes or
>>impersonal reason.
>I think this makes good sense. Yet the reason we have certain
>likes and reason a certain way--like bipedalism--can
>conceivably be better understood through genetics, physiology,
>evolutionary biology. At the present day, we are far
>from such understanding.
>The human condition is not a constant, unchanging thing, but
>is mutable over time and differs between people. It is
>important to understand the ways that biological and cultural
>evolution continue to occur and to influence each other.
The humanities (excluding their current postmodernist Babylonian
captivity) assume that biological and cultural evolution don't matter
that much, at least in the time scale covered by written language, and
history. If the human condition had changed materially since the time
of the Old Testament and Homer, for example, presumably we would not
be able to understand them. "I go the way of all the earth," says a
dying patriarch to his sons in the OT; and we not only understand him,
his language illuminates our understanding of our own mortality (we
do, however, think differently about gender privilege).
The fundamental impulses which create such institutions as marriage
(universal) and sanctions against murder (also virtually universal)
show, for me at least, a continuity and universality which argues for
the constancy of the human condition.
>...
>>Exactly. Reasoning about ethics takes place within an older, prior
>>framework which is larger than reason, and not mutable by reason.
>I don't see how reasoning can take place in a framework larger
>than reason. What does this mean?
The framework is our biology, constant for practical purposes; and our
being social animals, also constant for practical purposes. It is not
a _thing_ which reasons, but a human being. Pure isolated reason,
which ignores social codes, or inverts them as in Jeff Inman's
provocative article on Nietzsche, produces monstrous things. We have
seen some of this in the twentieth century.
In the preceding article I argued that reason cannot legitimately
"prove" that the arbitrary taking of human life is legitimate; or that
treating human beings as property is legitimate; or that government
without the consent of the governed is legitimate; or that societies
who do not grant political freedom to their citizens are legitimate.
These barbarisms violate the human condition: reason can enlighten us
about the human condition, but can't change it.
Any chain of reasoning begins with something which is not reason. With
science, for example, observation, intuition, and experiment precede
or alternate with reason; and I say this as one who considers science
our most rationalistic activity, excluding the pure formalisms such as
math and computer programming.
We reason properly as human beings if we begin with humane precepts,
such as the sanctity of life, and concern for the common good. We
reason improperly if we begin with what Stephen Schwartz calls
"paranoid and agonistic" views of things. In either case, reason
operates within a larger framework.
Reasoning ability does not equate to possession of good judgment; we
know people who are brilliant, but lack judgment. The Rights of Man,
the principle of government by consent of the governed, and the
principle of human equality, rose out of rationalist Enlightenment
philosophy. But reason did not produce such universalisms, so much as
commend them to our attention. Their origin, again, is in a larger
pre-rational framework, which includes our innate altruistic impulses,
and standards of social conduct which evolved long before written
history.
>-Travis Porco
- Noel
Travis C. Porco
In article <4pirpj$d...@peaches.cs.utexas.edu>,
Russell Turpin <tur...@cs.utexas.edu> wrote:
>In article <4piknj$b...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
>Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>> Naziism was based on might and the idea that the master race
>> could do whatever was necessary to secure its vitality and
>> Lebensraum.
>> Moral relativism ...
>???
>For what it is worth, I can only concur with his other
>respondents that Porco is using "moral relativism" in a
>fashion foreign to any that I have heard.
By moral relativism I mean the idea that morals are not
universal truths (of some status) applicable to all in some
fashion, that determine how humans should behave in society.
That is, a moral relativism teaches that morals are relative
to the person or society; what is _good_ for one is not
necessarily so for another. Hence, it was right for the Nazis
to destroy Jews, cripples, etc., in their own view; the master
race had its morals which it used to serve its interests,
and the `inferior races' (as the Nazis put it), had _their_
morals.
Most definitely Naziism contained a core of moral relativism.
It is possible that outright moral nihilism played a role in
complicity to fascism. After all, why not just go with the
apparent winner, rather than compromise oneself by principled
opposition?
A moral view that claims that the strong should
serve their interests unconditionally is less a single moral
theory than a suggestion that every strong person or nation
develop their own morality or immorality, i.e. the denial of a
universal set of standards or rights applicable to all.
Having no morals does not mean having no purposes or goals,
of course.
That said, both Naziism and Soviet communism did not hesitate
to appeal to older notions of duty, honor, patriotism, heroic
sacrifice for a common good, and so on, to assist them in
their war efforts. I don't believe any collective of humans
can last long without any moral or ethical code of any sort,
even if that code contains strong elements of relativism.
The totalitarian societies provided less of an example of
complete relativism, than an example of a modified version of
preexisting morals and laws, with elements of moral relativism
(duty of the master race, or historical mission of the
proletariat). These views were instrumental in creating the
concentration camps which characterized both societies.
Anarchy, organized crime, and sociopathic behavior are more
typical of moral relativism in a more thorough form.
Sourcerer
On Tue, 11 Jun 1996, Noel Smith wrote:
> The humanities (excluding their current postmodernist Babylonian
> captivity) assume that biological and cultural evolution don't matter
> that much, at least in the time scale covered by written language, and
> history. If the human condition had changed materially since the time
> of the Old Testament and Homer, for example, presumably we would not
> be able to understand them. "I go the way of all the earth," says a
> dying patriarch to his sons in the OT; and we not only understand him,
> his language illuminates our understanding of our own mortality (we
> do, however, think differently about gender privilege).
Does the English bible's profound influence on English occur to you at
all? Do you wonder why you understand him and why it illumines your
understanding?
(__) Sourcerer
/(<>)\ O|O|O|O||O||O "It is not I who calls into non-being
\../ |OO|||O|||O|| the non-existence of insubmission."
|| OO|||OO||O||O - C Ogden (w/ permission)
Russell Turpin
-*--------
In article <4pj3cq$g...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
> By moral relativism I mean the idea that morals are not
> universal truths (of some status) applicable to all in some
> fashion, that determine how humans should behave in society.
> That is, a moral relativism teaches that morals are relative
> to the person or society; what is _good_ for one is not
> necessarily so for another. Hence, it was right for the Nazis
The problem with Porco's analysis is that virtually every moral code
is relative in *this* sense. The Catholic Church, for example,
believes that it is bad for priests to marry, but good for most others
to do so. American law forbids foreign residents from voting, but
encourages citizens to do so. Porco should note that the idea that
the strong should protect the weak is relative in exactly the same
sense as the "moral view that the strong should serve their interests
unconditionally."
It is very difficult to find in history, or even contrive, a rich
moral code that fails to pay attention to *any* characteristic of
people. Imagine writing a moral code where every rule talks only
about person A and person B, and *every* qualifying phrase -- "the
sick," "the rich," "the strong," "the educated," etc. -- is forbidden.
Moreover, one must excise rules that use relativizing language without
naming groups, e.g., "exercize appropriate to your abilities and
health" is a rule that is *explicitly* relative to people's health.
Now, Porco will complain that he has something more sinister in mind
when he speaks of a relative moral code than the naive relativism I
have described here. But where he has begun and what I have seen from
those who start down this path do not make me optimistic that this is
a fruitful direction.
Travis C. Porco
In article <DstnJ...@eskimo.com>, Noel Smith <nsm...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco) wrote:
>>In article <Dsnun...@eskimo.com>, Noel Smith <nsm...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>>>The universal wrongness of murder, etc., can neither be established or
>>>negated by reason, because it is part of the human condition, like
>>>being bipedal; and beyond alteration by either personal likes or
>>>impersonal reason.
>>I think this makes good sense. Yet the reason we have certain
>>likes and reason a certain way--like bipedalism--can
>>conceivably be better understood through genetics, physiology,
>>evolutionary biology. At the present day, we are far
>>from such understanding.
>>The human condition is not a constant, unchanging thing, but
>>is mutable over time and differs between people. It is
>>important to understand the ways that biological and cultural
>>evolution continue to occur and to influence each other.
>The humanities (excluding their current postmodernist Babylonian
>captivity) assume that biological and cultural evolution don't matter
>that much, at least in the time scale covered by written language, and
>history.
Surely not culture, which has changed markedly over time.
Biology is trickier. Even between individuals, there are
profound temperamental and biological differences in a single
society. How large-scale averages of groups change over a
period of several thousand years is not so clear at this time.
>If the human condition had changed materially since the time
>of the Old Testament and Homer, for example, presumably we would not
>be able to understand them.
Why is this?
>"I go the way of all the earth," says a
>dying patriarch to his sons in the OT; and we not only understand him,
>his language illuminates our understanding of our own mortality (we
>do, however, think differently about gender privilege).
>The fundamental impulses which create such institutions as marriage
>(universal) and sanctions against murder (also virtually universal)
>show, for me at least, a continuity and universality which argues for
>the constancy of the human condition.
Marriage can differ markedly; Islamic civilization sanctions
polygamy; Christian civilization did not. This aside, I agree
that there are commonalities, but I don't think you can argue
for constancy from them. There are wide commonalities, but
also marked divergences between people and between nations.
Travis C. Porco
In article <4pju26$i...@peaches.cs.utexas.edu>,
Russell Turpin <tur...@cs.utexas.edu> wrote:
>In article <4pj3cq$g...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
>Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>> By moral relativism I mean the idea that morals are not
>> universal truths (of some status) applicable to all in some
>> fashion, that determine how humans should behave in society.
>> That is, a moral relativism teaches that morals are relative
>> to the person or society; what is _good_ for one is not
>> necessarily so for another. Hence, it was right for the Nazis
>> to destroy Jews, cripples, etc., in their own view ...
>The problem with Porco's analysis is that virtually every moral code
>is relative in *this* sense. The Catholic Church, for example,
>believes that it is bad for priests to marry, but good for most others
>to do so. American law forbids foreign residents from voting, but
>encourages citizens to do so. Porco should note that the idea that
>the strong should protect the weak is relative in exactly the same
>sense as the "moral view that the strong should serve their interests
>unconditionally."
A clarification, then. Under Catholicism, the priest believes
that it is wrong for him to marry and perhaps right for a
layperson to marry; the layperson believes that it is perhaps
right for him to marry and wrong for the priest to do so.
They both agree on what is best for each other; the moral
truths are not relative to the person holding them.
In the other example, a Nazi believes that it is right to
destroy the Jews, and believes that the Jews would rightly say
that it is right for them to fight him. What is morally
right depends on the person, and the disagreement can be
settled _only_ by force.
Terry Smith
po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU wrote in a message to All:
> Usually a form of natural law. "Absolutism" is less the
issue; the
> question is whether an ethical statement like "slavery is
wrong" is
> equivalent to "I hate slavery." I don't think there is any
> consensus among moral philosophers that ethical
> statements are meaningless or emotive.
I think walking out of a bank after finding $50,000 that isn't
mine, with the intention of keeping it, is wrong.
I am so not certain that I would find it an unpleasant
experience.
Terry
moggin
po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
>| In the other example, a Nazi believes that it is right to
>| destroy the Jews, and believes that the Jews would rightly say
>| that it is right for them to fight him. What is morally
>| right depends on the person, and the disagreement can be
>| settled _only_ by force.
Gordon:
>I partly agree with Travis on this question. That
>is, I think that insofar as Naziism could be said to
>have a philosophical basis, at least in its earlier
>manifestations, it disdained other-worldly, idealistic
>values. If man is a fighting animal, then his truth is
>to fight and prevail or die, and it is established
>existentially, not by reference to the absolute.
National Socialism wasn't one of those martial arts flicks
where everyone fights, and the last one alive is the winner -- or
rather, that's _just_ what it was, since the winner was decided by
reference to the script, not to the "truth" produced by the fight.
(As things turned out, history was filmed according to a different
screenplay -- but that's another matter.)
-- moggin
Russell Turpin
-*------
In article <4pl3g6$n...@panix2.panix.com>, Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
>> I partly agree with Travis on this question.
In article <4pl4a8$i...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
> <blink> ...can this really be happening? :-)
Of course. Porco should realize that where I think him confused,
Fitch will think him enlightened.
Gordon Fitch
po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
| ...
| In the other example, a Nazi believes that it is right to
| destroy the Jews, and believes that the Jews would rightly say
| that it is right for them to fight him. What is morally
| right depends on the person, and the disagreement can be
| settled _only_ by force.
I partly agree with Travis on this question. That
is, I think that insofar as Naziism could be said to
have a philosophical basis, at least in its earlier
manifestations, it disdained other-worldly, idealistic
values. If man is a fighting animal, then his truth is
to fight and prevail or die, and it is established
existentially, not by reference to the absolute. In other
words, I do not think that relativism or moral autonomy is
any absolute proof against anything, any more than idealism
or absolutism are. That would be an absolutistic thought.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Russell Turpin
-*-----
In article <4pkfm2$8...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
> that it is wrong for him to marry and perhaps right for a
> layperson to marry; the layperson believes that it is perhaps
> right for him to marry and wrong for the priest to do so.
> They both agree on what is best for each other; the moral
> truths are not relative to the person holding them.
>
> destroy the Jews, and believes that the Jews would rightly say
> that it is right for them to fight him. What is morally
> right depends on the person, and the disagreement can be
> settled _only_ by force.
For both moralities, what is right depends on the person. In the
Catholic morality, it is right for priests to remain celibate and
for lay Catholics to marry. In the second example, it is right
for Nazis to destroy Jews, and for Jews to fight Nazis.
In his last statement, Porco seems to impute some special
meta-moral significance to the fact that violence results from
everyone acting rightly. I fail to see the relevance of this to
the issue at hand. Consider the morality below:
ANTI-PACIFIST MORALITY: Resolve all disputes through fights
between the disputants.
Note that this morality is NOT relativistic. Yes, it results in
violence. Yes, if people act rightly, disputes are settled only
by force. *That* is the moral rule, after all! The SAME moral
code applies to everyone, uniformly. This morality does NOT
distinguish different classes of people. There are no priests
and lay people, no Nazis and inferior races. Everyone is viewed
the same. Those who settle their disputes in combat are good
(whether they win or lose); those who settle their disputes in
other fashion are bad. No relativism here!
Travis C. Porco
>| In the other example, a Nazi believes that it is right to
>| destroy the Jews, and believes that the Jews would rightly say
>| that it is right for them to fight him. What is morally
>| right depends on the person, and the disagreement can be
>| settled _only_ by force.
>I partly agree with Travis on this question.
<blink> ...can this really be happening? :-)
>That is, I think that insofar as Naziism could be said to
>have a philosophical basis, at least in its earlier
>manifestations, it disdained other-worldly, idealistic
>values. If man is a fighting animal, then his truth is
>to fight and prevail or die, and it is established
>existentially, not by reference to the absolute.
--Travis
my views only
Travis C. Porco
In article <4pl62l$j...@peaches.cs.utexas.edu>,
Russell Turpin <tur...@cs.utexas.edu> wrote:
>In article <4pl3g6$n...@panix2.panix.com>, Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
>>> I partly agree with Travis on this question.
>In article <4pl4a8$i...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
>Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>> <blink> ...can this really be happening? :-)
>Of course. Porco should realize that where I think him confused,
>Fitch will think him enlightened.
But you may still think that I'm claiming that any moral
code that distinguishes people is a relativistic code, which I
clarified earlier.
I say there was a strong component of nihilism and amoralism
in Naziism, not just moralists. We see examples of that sort
of nihilism today in neo-nazi skinheads. Fascist
fellow-travellers like Celine also exhibited that point of
view in some of their writings, very distinctly.
Part of the problem is that, ever since _The Authoritarian
Personality_, fascism/Naziism have been confused with
conservatism in many people's minds. We are led think of stodgy,
authoritarian people as fascist-like, and free-spirited
bohemian folks as very un-fascist. This caricature may have
been plausible in the uphevals we had in this country in the
60's, but it is exceedingly misleading when it comes to
understanding the many factors and strains that combined to
form the great totalitarian systems of our century.
We are getting far from the original point of the thread,
however.
Travis C. Porco
In article <4plhnp$3...@peaches.cs.utexas.edu>,
Russell Turpin <tur...@cs.utexas.edu> wrote:
>In article <4pkfm2$8...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
>Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>> A clarification, then. Under Catholicism, the priest believes
>> that it is wrong for him to marry and perhaps right for a
>> layperson to marry; the layperson believes that it is perhaps
>> right for him to marry and wrong for the priest to do so.
>> They both agree on what is best for each other; the moral
>> truths are not relative to the person holding them.
>> In the other example, a Nazi believes that it is right to
>> destroy the Jews, and believes that the Jews would rightly say
>> that it is right for them to fight him. What is morally
>> right depends on the person, and the disagreement can be
>> settled _only_ by force.
>For both moralities, what is right depends on the person. In the
>Catholic morality, it is right for priests to remain celibate and
>for lay Catholics to marry. In the second example, it is right
>for Nazis to destroy Jews, and for Jews to fight Nazis.
But the celibate and the priest are part of a moral structure
which recognizes that the others obligations are correct for
him. They share the same moral system, but have different
obligations. An orthodox layperson would disapprove of a
priest's getting married; a priest would encourage and bless a
marriage by an orthodox layperson.
In the second system, there is no overall moral system
encompassing both. The Nazi would believe it his duty to
brutalize Jews, but they would not claim seriously that the
Jews had a moral duty to obey them and be destroyed.
This is consistent with a kind of authoritarian moral code as
well as with nihilism. Of course there were elements of both
in the Nazi ranks and propaganda.
>In his last statement, Porco seems to impute some special
>meta-moral significance to the fact that violence results from
>everyone acting rightly.
This is not the issue at all. The point is that in the first
case, a moral code is shared, and in the second it is not.
The moral statement, "a priest should not marry", is not
relative to who states it. It is just as true for a layperson
as for a priest. Only the priest is affected by it directly,
but it is not at all relative, even though it makes different
claims on each person.
Hugh Young
In <4pj3cq$g...@agate.berkeley.edu> po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C.
Porco) wrote:
>Anarchy, organized crime, and sociopathic behavior are more
>typical of moral relativism in a more thorough form.
>
>--Travis Porco
>my views only
What? You mean they're not universally applicable? What does that
make you?
--
Hugh Young *************************
Pukerua Bay * Avoid RSI/OOS! *
Nuclear-free Aotearoa / NEW ZEALAND * Take regular breaks *
* Watch your posture *
The opinions expressed above * Support your arms *
are damned good ones! * Listen to your body! *
*************************
Michael Andrew Turton
In article <4pl4a8$i...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
>
>>That is, I think that insofar as Naziism could be said to
>>have a philosophical basis, at least in its earlier
>>manifestations, it disdained other-worldly, idealistic
>>values. If man is a fighting animal, then his truth is
>>to fight and prevail or die, and it is established
>>existentially, not by reference to the absolute.
>
>
>--Travis
>my views only
Sorry Travis, can't agree. Hitler's ideology of Kultur was
based originally, as Norman Rich observed, on idealistic vague views
of humanist culture common in Germany. But Hitler restricted culture
to the Aryans. Instead of making Nazism nonsense, it made it more
popular: accepting it became an act of faith, but one open only to
Germans. This particularist religion was in fact a rejection of all
universal values save the cultural unversalism of the Aryans themselves,
who deserved world dominion based on their cultural superiority.
World dominion was a moral right. World dominion called for war, which
itself was a value; war would cleanse and improve Germany. "War is
life," said Hitler in '32. "War is the origin of all things." War
is linked to Nazi racial ideology, because wars are not about economics
or bureacracy or interests but are great struggles between races,
or so Hitler thought.
I don't think we can call Nazism a form of relativism, at
least as we know it; but it is hard to see it as a form of absolutism
either; values applied only to the Germans. There is a sort of nascent
postmodernism in Nazism with its rejection of universals, but postmodernists
would laugh at Hitler's totalizing regard of history as the unfolding of
racial struggles. For me, there remains some streak of madness in Nazism
which resists analysis and placement in neat boxes labelled "relativism"
or "absolutism."
Mike
--
Michael Andrew Turton
Russell Turpin
-*-------
In article <4plimq$o...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
> encompassing both. The Nazi would believe it his duty to
> brutalize Jews, but they would not claim seriously that the
> Jews had a moral duty to obey them and be destroyed.
I am not sure what you are getting at here. You previously
claimed that the Nazis thought the Jews would rightly fight back.
But even if the Nazi morality prescribes no action at all for
the Jews, I do not see how that makes it relative, except in the
sense previously defined by which virtually all moralities are
relative.
Perhaps it would be better if, instead of trying to work with
this real example, you were to define what you mean for a
morality to be relative. "A morality is *relative* if it ..."
To help illustrate the definition, you can make up an example,
preferably as simple as possible, as I did with the FIGHT
morality, and not worry about the extent to which any actual
moralities fit the example. I have no interest in arguing over
Nazis. I do have some interest in understanding what you mean by
a morality being relative.
Travis C. Porco
In article <4pn16b$m...@peaches.cs.utexas.edu>,
Russell Turpin <tur...@cs.utexas.edu> wrote:
...
>Perhaps it would be better if, instead of trying to work with
>this real example, you were to define what you mean for a
>morality to be relative.
Gladly!
>"A morality is *relative* if it ..."
>To help illustrate the definition, you can make up an example,
>preferably as simple as possible, as I did with the FIGHT
>morality, and not worry about the extent to which any actual
>moralities fit the example.
...
A morality is relative if it includes the claim that moral
truths it includes are relative. Or it may be better to say,
"person A is a moral relativist if person A believes that
the truth of a moral statement depends on the person holding it."
Before we go much further, I'm going to look up "moral relativism"
in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy and see if I'm using the
expression in the usual way, or if I am guilty of
humpty-dumptyism.
Now "relativity of truth" is, IMHO, not a sensible way to
talk. But that does not keep people from talking that way.
There follows a simple example about the relativity of truth
which may help clarify some of what I was talking about
earlier; the example will be obvious to you, or if it is not,
it will at least show where I am making a logical goof if I am
making a goof (always an easy thing to do):
Suppose that John's weight is 3 standard deviations
above the mean weight for his height, but that Joe's
weight equals the mean weight for his height.
When John says, "I am fat", it means, "John is fat".
"John is fat" is true when John says it, and when Joe says it.
But if John says, "I am fat", it is true; if Joe says "I am
fat", it is false.
But this is not an example of relativity of truth of the
statement, "I am fat", because the statement means two
different things when said by two different people.
"I am fat" is neither true nor false until we know who "I" is.
Similarly, "I should marry" is neither true nor false until we
know who "I" is.
"Dominican Father John may marry" is false, and false for
everyone (given Catholicism); "Joe, a never-married
adult layperson, may marry" is true, and true for
everyone.
"I may marry" is neither true nor false until we know who "I"
is. That it is false when Father John says it, but true
when Joe says it, does not indicate that the truth of the
statement "I may marry" is relative, because such a
statement cannot be true or false.
Brief analysis of statements made by several people,
illustrating moral relativity. (More to follow in a
subsequent post, perhaps.)
Suppose Zog and Zorag are from a culture that permits murder,
and that they have a discussion with Father John (a moral
absolutist from our culture), and Jerry (a relativist
from our culture). Jerry says, "For me, murder is wrong, but
it is not wrong for Zog and Zorag because their culture
permits murder." Father John says, "Murder is wrong, but Zog
and Zorag say that it is not."
Statement Zog's Comment Jerry's Fr. Johns's
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Zog may murder" "This is true" "This is true "This is false"
for Zog, but
false for me."
"John may murder" "This is true" "This is false "This is false."
for John, and
false for me."
Sorry for such a long-winded post, but I don't see how it
could be otherwise. I'll bet the issue is getting tiresome on
alt.postmodernism
--Travis
my views only
Travis C. Porco
In article <4pm8fc$o...@cortez.its.rpi.edu>,
Michael Andrew Turton <tur...@cortez.its.rpi.edu> wrote:
>... For me, there remains some streak of madness in Nazism
>which resists analysis and placement in neat boxes labelled
>"relativism" or "absolutism."
This might be the best way to leave the discussion.
I suppose I brought up the issue in the first place because
many people seem to view politics in an oversimplified way,
something like this:
Hippies Very tolerant, amoralistic, wore tie-dye shirts
Liberals Tolerant, relativistic, "laid-back"
Conservatives Less tolerant, moralistic, "up-tight"
Rightists Intolerant, very moralistic, very "up-tight"
Nazis Genocidal, extremely moralistic, marched in uniforms
Thus, they conclude, getting rid of morals takes us farther
from Naziism and similar philosophies. This is a view I take
sharp issue with, for reasons I tried to make clear earlier.
(Where do neo-Nazi skinheads fit into the picture, for
example?)
Russell Turpin
-*------
In article <4po547$3...@agate.berkeley.edu>,> ... Or it may be better to say, ...
Yes, it is better. What preceded this seemed circular to me.
> ... "person A is a moral relativist if person A believes that
> the truth of a moral statement depends on the person holding
> it." ...
I am starting to see what Porco intends, so let's proceed.
> Now "relativity of truth" is, IMHO, not a sensible way to
> talk. ...
That may depend on what one means by "true." Let me ask a
question. Is there truth in the claim that a particular
painting is beautiful? Or to put it another way, if one
person claims a painting is beautiful, and another claims
it is quite ugly, what does it *mean* for one of them to
be right and the other wrong?
Travis C. Porco
In article <4po78j$h...@peaches.cs.utexas.edu>,
Russell Turpin <tur...@cs.utexas.edu> wrote:
>In article <4po547$3...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
>Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>> ... Or it may be better to say, ...
>Yes, it is better. What preceded this seemed circular to me.
>> ... "person A is a moral relativist if person A believes that
>> the truth of a moral statement depends on the person holding
>> it." ...
>I am starting to see what Porco intends, so let's proceed.
>> Now "relativity of truth" is, IMHO, not a sensible way to
>> talk. ...
>That may depend on what one means by "true." Let me ask a
>question. Is there truth in the claim that a particular
>painting is beautiful? Or to put it another way, if one
>person claims a painting is beautiful, and another claims
>it is quite ugly, what does it *mean* for one of them to
>be right and the other wrong?
In this case, the relativity, I believe, lies with the concept
of beauty. Suppose Zorag and John view a picture of a bloody
crime scene. Zorag says, "the crime
scene is beautiful", which perhaps could be translated, "the
crime scene is beautiful-for-me", which then means, "the crime
scene is beautiful-for-Zorag". Then this sentence is true,
for both Zorag and John.
Similarly, John's view could be translated to "the crime scene
is ugly-for-John", and this is again true for both.
Instead of saying that the _truth_ of "the picture is beautiful"
is relative to the speaker, it might be better to say that the
_beauty_ of the picture is relative to the speaker.
Instead of:
"'The picture is beautiful' is true for Zorag, but false for
John", it could be rendered, "It is true that 'the picture is
beautiful for Zorag' and 'the picture is ugly for John'", and
both could agree on this statement. Zorag can say, "the
picture is ugly for John".
Beauty, and hence aesthetic judgments, are relative to a
certain extent, but I believe it would be misleading here to
say that truth is relative.
--Travis
my views only
Bruce Salem
In article <4po5i4$3...@agate.berkeley.edu> po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco) writes:
>This might be the best way to leave the discussion.
>
>I suppose I brought up the issue in the first place because
>many people seem to view politics in an oversimplified way,
>something like this:
>
>Hippies Very tolerant, amoralistic, wore tie-dye shirts
>Liberals Tolerant, relativistic, "laid-back"
>Conservatives Less tolerant, moralistic, "up-tight"
>Rightists Intolerant, very moralistic, very "up-tight"
>Nazis Genocidal, extremely moralistic, marched in uniforms
>
>Thus, they conclude, getting rid of morals takes us farther
>from Naziism and similar philosophies. This is a view I take
>sharp issue with, for reasons I tried to make clear earlier.
>(Where do neo-Nazi skinheads fit into the picture, for
>example?)
There is the potential here to confuse authoritarianism
with morality. The two are not the same. I have been arguing with
respect to Creationism and Christianity that is an authoritarian
form of the latter that sets up the former in all its absurdity.
But morality is simply that ability to act according to
the empathy one has for one's fellows. It gets confused with
convention and custom, and worst of all with some kind of logically
consistant universality of terms and arguments, some kind of
ethical calculus. Given the tendancy of the rationalistic theocrats
in our history to draw political power from manipulating people,
we have the mistaken notion that morality is absolute and a matter
for basing it is authority and in universals. There are universals
in morality, but they are due to values that spring independantly
from human social biology and reproductive stretegy rather than
some transcending absolute.
One cannot confuse ideological consistancy with morality.
Any person who lived through the Nazi times should come away with
shame for how it mistreated people, because he is a person like
those hurt and killed. In a real sense a person who is too cold
and calculating while formulating an ethical system may be able
to become amoral, having detatched his person from the fate of
his fellow man. Others, thinking themselves moral because they
consistantly adhere to some ideology may be blind to the double
standard many ideologies create in which amoral conduct is
intentionally perperptrated on non-believers. "No one expects
the Spainish Inquisition." :-)
Finally the idea of getting rid of morals is absurd, not
because wonton violence would result, it wouldn't, even street
ganes have some morals, but because it settles so much confusion
to have some issues defined in tradition and in advance. The
problem is usually a disagreement over which tradition pervials.
Bruce Salem
--
!! Just my opinions, maybe not those of my sponsor. !!
Sourcerer
On 13 Jun 1996, Russell Turpin wrote:
> That may depend on what one means by "true." Let me ask a
> question. Is there truth in the claim that a particular
> painting is beautiful? Or to put it another way, if one
> person claims a painting is beautiful, and another claims
> it is quite ugly, what does it *mean* for one of them to
> be right and the other wrong?
What if they both agree it is beautiful, but disagree about whether the
predication is a statement about the painting's effect on the viewer or
about the painting itself? Can they both be right or can they both be
wrong?
Russell Turpin
-*--------
I had asked:
>> That may depend on what one means by "true." Let me ask a
>> question. Is there truth in the claim that a particular
>> painting is beautiful? Or to put it another way, if one
>> person claims a painting is beautiful, and another claims
>> it is quite ugly, what does it *mean* for one of them to
>> be right and the other wrong?
In article <4pocta$6...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
> In this case, the relativity, I believe, lies with the concept
> of beauty. Suppose Zorag and John view a picture of a bloody
> crime scene. Zorag says, "the crime scene is beautiful", which
> perhaps could be translated, "the crime scene is beautiful-for-me",
> which then means, "the crime scene is beautiful-for-Zorag". Then
> this sentence is true, for both Zorag and John.
I am not quite ready to fully accept Porco's relativization of
aesthetics to the perceiver. Perhaps, without settling the question,
we could pursue this a little bit back in the context of morality. It
seems to me that Porco has relativized beauty in exactly the same way
that he says cannot be done for morality. There, he wrote:
> ... "person A is a moral relativist if person A believes that
> the truth of a moral statement depends on the person holding
> it." ...
>
> Now "relativity of truth" is, IMHO, not a sensible way to
> talk. ...
Porco relativized beauty when I asked him what it meant for an
aesthetic claim to be true. Now I will ask him: What does it *mean*
for a moral claim to be true? And why is the notion of what is
morally good different from the notion of what is beautiful, in this
regard? It might be worth thinking about his passages above, where in
the first, instead of relativizing the concept of beauty, one
substitutes the concept of the good, and in the second, instead of
talking about moral truths, one substitutes aesthetic truths.
Travis C. Porco
[Russell]
+I had asked:
+>> That may depend on what one means by "true." Let me ask a
+>> question. Is there truth in the claim that a particular
+>> painting is beautiful? Or to put it another way, if one
+>> person claims a painting is beautiful, and another claims
+>> it is quite ugly, what does it *mean* for one of them to
+>> be right and the other wrong?
+In article <4pocta$6...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
+Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
+> In this case, the relativity, I believe, lies with the concept
+> of beauty. Suppose Zorag and John view a picture of a bloody
+> crime scene. Zorag says, "the crime scene is beautiful", which
+> perhaps could be translated, "the crime scene is beautiful-for-me",
+> which then means, "the crime scene is beautiful-for-Zorag". Then
+> this sentence is true, for both Zorag and John.
+I am not quite ready to fully accept Porco's relativization of
+aesthetics to the perceiver. Perhaps, without settling the question,
+we could pursue this a little bit back in the context of morality. It
+seems to me that Porco has relativized beauty in exactly the same way
+that he says cannot be done for morality. There, he wrote:
Actually, there are two things going on here.
One concerns the issue of whether or not the difficulties in
ascertaining moral or aesthetic truths lie with the concept of
truth or not. I don't believe that it does; I think in both
of these cases, we don't need to assume the relativity of
truth.
What the example of the crime scene picture shows is that
aesthetic relativism is possible without claiming that truth
is relative. So it seems likely that my definition of moral
relativism was too stringent, and that moral relativism is
possible without anyone having to claim that truth is
relative.
A complete aesthetic relativist, it seems to me, might claim
that "beauty" always means "beauty-for-X", and that for two
different people, "beauty-for-X" and "beauty-for-Y" have
nothing in common but the word "beauty". The extreme
relativist would be claiming that "The Mona Lisa is beautiful"
is a statement that cannot possibly be true or false.
I think I would disagree with such an extreme assessment; the
essay that convinced me of this is in Martin Gardner's
_The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener_.
But similarly with moral relativism. I think now that a person
could be a moral relativist by denying the possibility of
objective moral judgments at all, and that this is what is
meant by saying, "Moral judgment X is true for person Y, but
not for person Z": it means "Y thinks judgment X is true, but
Z does not, and there is no rational way to resolve the
disagreement."
+Porco relativized beauty when I asked him what it meant for an
+aesthetic claim to be true.
Not so fast. The next question would be, "how are the
concepts of beauty-for-different people related"? If they are
very strongly related, then beauty would be only weakly
relative.
+Now I will ask him: What does it *mean* for a moral claim
+to be true?
In this case, it is trickier than it is for factual
statements. I'd rather give examples of things I consider to
be morally true, than try to venture a definition for
something that has been disputed by great philosophers for
milennia. Here, we're using the word _true_ in a different
sense than we were in the case of facts.
+And why is the notion of what is morally good different
+from the notion of what is beautiful, in this regard?
...
Another good question that has been disputed for ages.
Travis C. Porco
In article <4pq3k3$c...@agate.berkeley.edu>,>[Russell]
>+I had asked:
>+>> That may depend on what one means by "true." Let me ask a
>+>> question. Is there truth in the claim that a particular
>+>> painting is beautiful? Or to put it another way, if one
>+>> person claims a painting is beautiful, and another claims
>+>> it is quite ugly, what does it *mean* for one of them to
>+>> be right and the other wrong?
>+In article <4pocta$6...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
>+Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
...
>What the example of the crime scene picture shows is that
>aesthetic relativism is possible without claiming that truth
>is relative. So it seems likely that my definition of moral
>relativism was too stringent, and that moral relativism is
>possible without anyone having to claim that truth is
>relative.
But now this may go too far. I want to say that a moral
relativist is not simply a _moral skeptic_, but rather that a
moral relativist wants to concede that moral judgments are
possible but not universally binding.
--Travis Porco
speaking for myself