From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Sat Feb 08 2003 - 05:47:26 GMT
DMB and all,
[Both the "Practical Nightmares" and "NAZIs and Pragmatism" threads go
together, so I'll just reply to both of them here.]
I think I'll start by merely stating my 2 theses: 1) pragmatism does not
say that all interpretations (or simliar thing) are equal and 2) pragmatism
does not lead to moral paralysis. Now, DMB suggests the converse of the
first when he says:
DMB said:
"you have denied that the Nazi view is really even a distortion, and
added to other such comments, even denied that there can be such a thing as
a distortion. There seems to be something amoral about the idea that all
interpretations are equally valid, don't you think?"
and
"This is what I find so disturbing about pragmatism and other post-modern
thought. It says the fascist way is just as valid as the other ways, or at
least pretends there is no way to tell the difference between correct and
incorrect interpretations. This kind of paralysis is a moral nightmare. Its
the stuff of horror movies. Its a black abyss. Its nihilism at its worst.
And, for these reasons, I think its quite wrong, even dangerous."
Matt:
I never really said that all interpretations are valid, or that some
interpretations cannot be better than others. I think I may have given the
impression in the distant past of the first, but there are some
qualifications. All interpretations can be logically valid, for instance,
as long as they are logically valid. But this isn't what DMB is talking
about. I think what DMB is looking for is a way of objectively telling the
Nazi he is wrong, standing on the outside of all moral decisions and
picking out which choices are correct and which are incorrect. The
pragmatist denies that this objective, "God's-eye" view is possible. She
denies that we can look at all possible moral decisions and split the
choices in half, with one side moral and the other immoral. What the
pragmatist says is that, though we can't stand on the outside and judge, we
can simply stand and judge. That's why I said that only we Americans, we
Westerners, we survivors of the Holocaust might say that the Nazi's
interpretation is wrong or distorted or invalid. And I think we should do
this and feel validated. The Nazi position is wrong insofar as it commits
one to a number of atrocious positions (like killing Jews). But we aren't
condemning the Nazi from some outside, objective postion. We are standing
tall as Americans and doing it, we are standing as democratic citizens of
the world and saying that we won't put up with genocide.
The pragmatist, in this way, is not struck by moral paralysis. There are
some things that are simply wrong, but they aren't wrong in some
ahistorical way, they are wrong from the historical position we are now in,
they are wrong because of the static patterns we have accumulated. The
notion that we should give all views equal tolerance isn't a pragmatic
notion, it's a democatic one. Rorty argues, however, that we need not
tolerate all views, we need not tolerate the Nazi. The philosophical
tradition we inheirted from Plato suggests that there is a neutral ground
upon which we can debate the terms of these views, but the pragmatist
denies such neutral ground. I believe it is this neutral ground that
Pirsig and DMB demand that we have. But because there is no neutral
ground, there possibly is no common ground where we can debate rationally
and civily about the pros and cons between democracy and Nazism. Because
there probably isn't common enough ground to argue with the Nazi, we should
feel comfortable in simply rebuffing him, in feeling shocked and replused
when he says that killing Jews is the rational thing to do, and in simply
telling him that he's wrong.
So when DMB suggests that "pragmatism's rejection of so many traditional
philosophical issues only demonstates the moral paralysis inherent in
pragmatism, where moral sentiments are just attituides and plattitudes,
they're impervious, incorribigle and contingent. It is no wonder this view
has no defense against a NAZI hijacking. It treats morality just as SOM
does; it sees such things as unknowable, uncertain, unfounded and not
really real," I deny, deny, deny. Moral attitudes are certainly not
imprevious. They might be incorrigible, and I suggest our love affair with
democracy is a good candidate. And they are all contingent, as Pirsig
suggests when he erects the evolving static patterns. Pragmatism certainly
does not treat morality as logical positivism does: not really real. It
says they are real, it just doesn't see anything ahistorical about them.
To sum up, I deny that a philosophical debate between Platonism and logical
positivism or Pirsigianism and pragmatism or Platonism and pragmatism has
anything to do with Nazis. We pragmatists don't say anything collectively
on political matters. We Americans, Westerners, or survivors of the
Holocaust might, but not us pragmatists. Rorty suggests that philosophers
like Plato, Kant, and Pirsig are trying to hold reality and justice in a
single vision, are trying to find out where in reality it says that certain
things are wrong and certain things right. Rorty suggests that we keep
these visions separate. This is how the public/private split cashes out
philosophically. When Plato tries to dialectically determine what the Good
is, he conflates the public with the private by trying to make philosophy
the master over politics. Rorty suggests that we keep them separate, that
we leave philosophy for internet forums and politics for Senate floors. He
suggests that we reaffirm Jefferson's separation of church and state. That
separation would bar Socrates from entering the Senate and debating the
Good, but we should take it as a needed separation if we are to get
anything done.
Matt
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