From: Erin N. (enoonan@kent.edu)
Date: Tue Feb 11 2003 - 19:03:53 GMT
>===== Original Message From moq_discuss@moq.org =====
>Erin asks:
>Well I do have Rorty on my reading list and
>do like a lot of what I hear about him.
>But I am still lost about this call for action.
>Can you give me examples of the actual action?
>The whole public private split AND the call
>to stop debating and take this out to the public sincerely confuses me.
>Right now the call for action without any concrete examples of the
>action being done by the callers are leaving me with the same
>feeling of when I hear a Jehovah Witness knocking at
>my door.
>
>Kevin:
>As I read him, I hear the call to be simply his determination to empower
>people to stop looking for the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe and
>Everything _before_ they start working towards their vision of a better
>society, particularly Intellectuals.
>
>Why Intellectuals? Because they are too often guilty of endlessly
>debating the finer points of metaphysics in search of the Ultimate
>Foundation before they become actively engaged in performing good works.
>It's the endless search for the Ultimate Context, the Final Secret that
>will tell us how everything fits together so we know what do with
>ourselves that keeps us from actually _doing_ something with ourselves.
>
>Despite Platt's protestations, I see nothing in Rorty's call to action
>to be an endorsement of Marxism. As I read it, he's saying if you share
>Wilde's vision of Utopia, start building it. If you share Rawls' vision,
>get to it. If you share Mill's vision....and so on.
>
>In the essay in question (and a couple others I've read) he speaks
>highly of Authenticity. The old notion of "Choose Thyself". To look at
>all the options for human vision and pick one. His endorsement of a
>Literary Culture is based on the fact that Intellectuals read books to
>tell them what is possible for humans. Through Literature we see an
>endless variety of human choices and we enjoy the luxury of passing
>judgment and deciding with of those choices suits us as well. The
>endless exploration of Literature (and other artistic endeavors) points
>to the endless exploration of what we can do with ourselves. Our endless
>search for Context, for Meaning, for Truth. Literature can now serve
>this function in place of Religion or Philosophy.
>
>Instead of expecting a Terminus to this Inquiry or Quest, we can simply
>expect to discover endlessly new ways of coping. New choices. New
>visions. New Truths.
>
>In this regard, I think Rorty's theme (as laid out in the essay in
>questions and others I've read--he obviously has mountains of work that
>I've yet to read) is very similar to Pirsig's theme.
>
>If I can be so bold as to quote myself from the Thread on Absolutism
>(where Nazism came up again, interestingly enough):
>
>Kevin said in that thread:
>As I see it, the real power of Pirsig's ideas is to empower us as
>fallible humans with incomplete data to stop being dominated by our
>doubts and start choosing. Exploding the notions that we are somehow
>distant from some Ultimate Reality and therefore incapable of Ultimate
>Knowledge is one of the central themes of his project. He says (as you
>are always wise to point out) that our immediate experience _IS_
>reality. In fact, it's all the reality we need to make all of these
>tough decisions. Not only can we feel comfortable that our immediate
>experience is enough to choose what is Best, but we can rationally
>justify such choices because reality itself is constituted of such
>choices. Pirsig provides a means of learning to trust our choices in
>spite of doubt.
>
>Waiting for the absence of doubt is moral paralysis.
>
>The absence of doubt is NOT the realization of Absolute Truth. It's
>merely an exercise in delusion. To lack doubt is to refuse to accept
>additional data. It's a closed system. It's incapable of change. It's
>unresponsive to DQ. It's dead. To assume Absolute Truth from all
>available data is folly at best and tyranny at worst.
>
>Kevin now says:
>I think it would be a mistake to ask Rorty for a list of 10 commandments
>or for the recipe for Perfect Living. I suspect his answer would echo
>Pirsig's--only you know the answer to that and no one needs to tell you.
>
>So Platt might think Rorty shares Wilde's vision of a Socialist Utopia
>(although I'm not convinced that he does share it). That doesn't mean
>it's a prescription for the rest of us. Platt is interested in finding
>the One Size Fits All Metaphysical Construct. Rorty isn't. I don't think
>Pirsig is either. I know that I certainly am not.
>
>-Kevin
>
see this is what is confusing me, I ask for examples of action and i
get a long talk about stopping the talk. Now I enjoyed the talk a lot. I don't
want you to think I don't appreciate it. But I don't like this guilt trip
that is layed on me for talking about metaphysics when I don't see much more
from the callers of action. I would be interested in the "pratical"
application ideas thrown around here BUT I don't see the value in the repeated
lecture of stop talking, and do something. It reminds me of a parent spanking
a child to teach them to stop hitting their sibling.
Erin
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue Feb 11 2003 - 18:55:58 GMT