Re: [Futurework] Re: Not ideological (was More crap again)

[Brad McCormick, Ed.D.]

May I respectfully suggest that you have not
addressed my response to your previous posting?

My point, which I believe would be Elizabeth Eisenstein's
point also, is that, without uniform printed editions,
the greatest advances in culture, NO MATTER WHAT THEIR CONTENT,
were destined to later if not sooner, be *lost*, and,
perhaps, REDISCOVERED -- and this process of perhaps
Nietzschean/Buddhistic "eternal recurrence of the same", was logically
even if not in fact, destined to repeat itself futilely
forever or at least until all copies of whatever got
corrupted/lost.

My point is that until the advent of uniform printed editions,
the "telos" [destiny] of progress was regress.

So, before the coming
of uniform printed editions, renaissance*s* were to be expected,
but "The Renaissance" was impossible.

Needless to say,
had I lived then, I would far rather have lived during
one of the renaissances than during one of the periods of
regression!  I would far rather have lived in the
space opened up by the retreat of one of the glaciers-of-the-soul
than in a spiritual Ice Age!

It is my understanding that, if you survived the
Black Death more or less intact (or were
born i nthe 50 years after...), that was the best time before
the 20th century to have lived as a working class person,
because wages were raised abnormally due to the LABOR SHORTAGE.

Does this relate to the issues here?

\brad mccormick


Ed Weick wrote:

Brad, of course 12th and 13th Century western Europe didn't have the
printing press, but perhaps that didn't matter very much.  It was seething
with thought expressed and spread orally.  Some of that thought was written
down and has survived - I have a book of Meister Ekhard's sermons on my
shelves.  While the monks in their monastaries copied and recopied ancient
texts, and those that were more or less contemporary, and made many
mistakes, great ideas were being kicked around in town squares or the
predecessors of universities, or wherever the intellectuals of the time
gathered.  From anything I've read, the process was not methodical, and more
great ideas have probably been lost than have survived.  Few of the ideas
were original - e.g. in religion there was the debate between creationism
(Ekhard) and original sin (everyone else) which Augustine and Pelagius had
debated nearly a thousand years before.  That wasn't important.  What was
important is that it was a time of openness of ideas and social
transformation that could have led to great things had climate change,
plague and the church not shut it down.  And yes, it's too bad that
Guttenberg didn't come along a couple of centuries earlier and that we were
not more methodical then.  We've lost so much.

Ed

Ed Weick
577 Melbourne Ave.
Ottawa, ON, K2A 1W7
Canada
Phone (613) 728 4630
Fax     (613)  728 9382

Ed Weick wrote:

Brian, the book reviewers you quote seem to take a pretty dim view of

the

12th Century and the way it treated women.  It may not have been quite

like

that.  Many historians refer to it as "an awakening"

It may be relevant here to note what Elizabeth Eisenstein argued
in _The Printing Press as an Agent of Change_ (Cambridge Univ. Press).

Eisenstein argued that, before the coming of uniform printed
editions, there was a universal process of entropy of knowledge,
due to such factors as that every time a manuscript was
read, it was damaged, so that librarians tended to try to
keep their books from being read, which was an aspect of people
not knowing what knowledge [manuscripts] they had, so that,
every so often, something was REDISCOVERED that had been lost
[a renaissance!] while concurrently, present knowledge
was being lost through the destruction of existing
manuscripts and the new errors which the copying-process-
of-preservation-of-knowledge inevitably introduced into the
newly copied texts....  Get the picture?

Only under the best of circumstances:
e.g., Hellenistic Alexandria, could knowledge
could advance in manuscript culture.  The expected
~progress~ of knowledge was loss and corruption.
People before the printing press did not believe
in such things as a "Golden Age in the past" because
they were naive, but because this fantasy
expressed the ideal of a time when all
manuscripts would be available in their
original uncorrupted state.

So: There was *a* renaissance in the 12th century.  BUT:
There could not be a "The Renaissance", until the coming
of uniform printed editions.  Why? Because "The Renaissance"
was not just another revolution of the wheel of scholarly
karma.  It was the launching pad for something new
in human experience:

Once we had uniform printed editions, what had been
previously *possible only under the best conditions*,
became almost inevitable *except under horrific conditions*:

    The advance of knowledge on all fronts with
    no retreats on any front.

How?  Because the process of emending the plates for
uniform printed editions removed errors without
iontroducing new errors.  Because with many identical
copies of the canonical version of a text, destruction of
any single copy or even many copies of the text was
no big deal, because there were many other copies to
take the place of the lost ones.  So librariand could
now encourage the reading of their books.  And scholars
could turn their attention away from finding errors in
new copies of texts, to comparing texts with each other
and comparing texts with "reality".  Johannes Kepler
was an early example of such a "modern" scholar.  He could
study Tycho's tables of stellar observations instead of
correcting copies of them....

--

HOWEVER!

The printing press is not a destiny of modernity.  In a
"traditional" culture, the printing press can be used
simply to stamp out prayer wheels faster so more of them
can spin around going nowhere.

And why did "The West" have a "The Renaissance" whereas
China and other didn't?  The great scholar of
Scinece and Civilization in China, Joseph Needham, who
was a humanistic socialist, at the end of a very long
life, came to the to himself lamentable conclusion
that a key factor which made the difference was: capitalism.

Needham is thus an example of how a scholar can
attribute progressive functionality to capitalism
without becoming an aplogist for it.  For we
need not subject ourselves abjectly to our
forebears' afterbirth.

\brad mccormick



> and a time of an

increasing secularization of the western world, a  period of good

climate,

good crops and the discovery or rediscovery of Greek and Arab

scholarship.

It was the time of the "grammarians" and "dialecticians" who traveled

from

town to town, teaching subjects such as grammar, rhetoric and

dialectics.

Among these was one Peter Abelard, considered by some to have been the
foremost intellect of his time, and his tragic romantic involvement,
Heloise, a highly educated woman.  There were several important lay

social

movements, both male (e.g. Beghards) and female (e.g. Beguines) and all
kinds of questioning of the established dogma and order of things - e.g.
Meister Ekhard (just a little later), the Albgensians and the

Waldensians.

The ferment continued well into the 13th Century, when the Pope finally
decided to put a stop to it in 1277 by issuing the "219 Condemnations",
which layed it out on where the church stood on the matter of faith

versus

reason.  If you wanted openness and reason, you could not have it in the
Church.  Even that didn't stop it.  What seems to have done so was the

pure

nastiness of the 14th Century, a time of miserable harvests, famines,

and of

course the Black Death.

I'd suggest that if some of the important trends at work during the 12th
Century had continued, we would have had a reformation and renaissance

much

earlier, and a very different role for women in society and academia

than

prevailed during the ensuing centuries.

Ed

Ed Weick
577 Melbourne Ave.
Ottawa, ON, K2A 1W7
Canada
Phone (613) 728 4630
Fax     (613)  728 9382

----- Original Message -----
From: "mcandreb" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Harry Pollard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Selma Singer"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Brian McAndrews" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, December 24, 2002 10:35 AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Re: Not ideological (was More crap again)


Hi Harry,
I sense you really care about this stuff that Shotter is writing about.
I think you realize what is at stake - everything. Your emporer
reference is perfect. However the emperor must be the most powerful
'way' shaping our lives presently. And for the last 150 years, in our
part of the world, that 'way' is western science. David Noble's book 'A
World Without Women' takes this type of mindset back many more
centuries.  And the child exclaiming that the emperor is naked is
Wittgenstein.

From Kirkus Reviews

Noble (History of Science and Technology/York Univ., Toronto; Forces of
Production, 1984, etc.) challenges the commonly held assumption that
modern science developed in opposition to an authoritarian Church,
claiming instead that the celibate, male- dominated Catholic tradition
provided both support and inspiration for the scientific tradition that
would virtually supplant it--a provocative thesis backed by a
painstakingly detailed history. Christianity originated as a potentially
egalitarian religion, Noble says--but almost from the beginning, he
explains, women were forced to struggle against political and cultural
forces aimed at pushing them out of the spiritual mainstream and into
the home. Though occasional early heretical movements supporting
spiritual unity between the sexes--as well as the undeniable power of a
wealthy, female, medieval elite--exerted some counterforce to the
Church's generally anti-female development, the 12th century saw the
virtual end of fully empowered female spiritual counselors and a great
emphasis on male clerical celibacy. It was this male- dominated,
misogynistic Church, then, that established the European colleges from
which modern science sprang--colleges in which the pursuit of knowledge
was considered a sacred act, scholars were treated as a kind of monk,
celibacy was encouraged, and women were categorically excluded. These
origins have led to today's curiously anomalous scientific priesthood in
which, Noble says, women continue to be discriminated against,
dismissed, and even supplanted as a species (through the development of
artificial insemination, robot technology, and other forms of artificial
creation)--an unnatural legacy in need of profound revision. Both Noble
and Joseph Schwartz (The Creative Moment, reviewed below) describe the
world of modern science as an insulated, priestly, and discriminatory
culture--but their explanations of how and why it got that way (and
particularly their antithetical depictions of Galileo and Newton) remain
strikingly and intriguingly opposed. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus
Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Book Description
Why is it that Western science evolved as a thoroughly male-dominated
enterprise? As philosopher Sandra Harding has noted, "women have been
more systematically excluded from doing serious science than performing
any other social activity except, perhaps, frontline warfare." In A
World Without Women, David F. Noble provides the first full-scale
investigation of the origins and implications of the masculine culture
of Western science and technology, and in the process offers some
surprising revelations.

Noble begins by showing that, contrary to the widely held notion that
the culture of learning in the West has always excluded women--an
assumption that rests largely upon the supposed legacy of ancient
Greece--men did not thoroughly dominate intellectual life until the
beginning of the second millennium of the Christian era. At this time
science and the practices of higher learning became the exclusive
province of the newly celibate Christian clergy, whose ascetic culture
denied women a place in any scholarly enterprise. By the twelfth
century, papal reform movements had all but swept away the material and
ideological supports of future female participation in the world of
learning; as never before, women were on the outside looking in. Noble
further demonstrates that the clerical legacy of a world without women
remained more or less intact through the Reformation, and permeated the
emergant culture of science.

A World Without Women finally points to a dread of women at the core of
modern scientific and technological enterprise, as these disciplines
work to deprive one-half of humanity of its role in production (as seen
in the Industrial Revolution's male appropriation of labor) and
reproduction as well (the age-old quest for an artificial womb). It also
makes plain the hypocrisy of a community that can honor a female
scientist with a bronze bust, as England's Royal Society did for Mary
Somerville in the mid-nineteenth century, yet deny her entry to the very
meeting hall in which it enjoyed pride of place.

An important and often disturbing book, A World Without Women is
essential reading for anyone concerned not only about the world of
science, but about the world that science has made.

Take care,
Brian

Selma,

As someone mentioned it was a speech to his fellows, which affected
the
words. It often seems like an old boy's club, with everyone quoting
each other.

However, I don't think there was a whole. He rambled a lot, didn't
really
make any point in a satisfactory way. It is assumed quite often that
if
something is presented in cabalistic fashion, it must be profound.

We may need that little boy who saw the Emperor wore no clothes.

I concede that I may simply not be intelligent enough, nor perhaps
well-read enough, to understand the deep significance of what he
wrote.

So, perhaps someone will tell me.

Harry
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Selma wrote:

Harry,

It seems to me you've taken Shotter's quotes out of context and

interpreted

the pieces in a way that doesn't fit with, at least my reading, of

the whole

of what he had to say.

I don't think he is saying that testing or science is bad or

unnecessary; I

don't think that is what he was saying at all. What I did read

sounded not

entirely different from what people like Wittgenstein, Bateson and

others

argue and that is that you cannot know about something until you get

outside

of it. You cannot deal with the problems of a theory unless you are

willing

to acknowledge that there may be problems with it and thereby allow

yourself

to get outside of it in order to have some perspective on it.

Thomas Khun also deals with some of these issues when he talks about

the

ways in which paradigms change; they cannot change unless the context

in

which they are being used allows for the possibility that they may be
inadequate; one has to think "outside the box" and that's not

possible as

long as one is locked into the theory itself.

Selma


----- Original Message -----
From: "Harry Pollard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Brian McAndrews" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;

<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;

<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, December 20, 2002 9:13 PM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Re: Not ideological (was More crap again)

Brian,

The "way of the theory" isn't at all bad.

You observe, and see a possible relationship.You make a

hypothesis, which

you test. If it tests out positively, you might raise it to a

theory. If

your theory shows invariability, you might well raise it to a law,

but

that

isn't so likely - though to be desired.

As I said, it doesn't seem at all bad to me.

Yet Shotter feels we must throw it out to make room for - actually

nothing,

not even a theory. In fact, worse, he doesn't seem to climb past

that

worst

of all possible worlds, the untestable hypothesis

He quotes Kitto:

"the universe, both the physical and the moral universe, must not

only be

rational, and therefore knowable, but also simple; the apparent
multiplicity of things is only apparent"

Well, you know the two assumptions I suggested preceded every

science.

They

don't have to stated. They are just assumed, because they must be.

"There is an order in the universe."

"The mind of Man can discover that order."

If the opposite is assumed, there can be no science. In fact,

anyone must

fear the very next moment, for it might be chaos. So the scientist

proceeds

as if the assumptions are correct.

He says:

"the way of theory suggests to us that the primary source of all

of our

human activities is, supposedly, to be found in mental

representations

inside the heads of individuals"

Manifestly ridiculous. We may hypothesize that is going to rain.

But the

source of the hypothesis is observational. We see circumstances

that lead

us to expect rain - from what we already have observed at other

times.

He says:

"This leads on to a second point, a worry to do with the forming

of human

communities: For the way of theory suggests to us that they come

into

being

through the forming of rational agreements - Rousseauian 'social
contracts'. In other words, it suggests that new forms of social

relations

can be argued or administrated into existence. But, as Richard

Bernstein

(1983) remarks, all attempts to implement 'the idea that we can

make,

engineer, impose our collective will to form [new] communities...

have

been

disastrous"

Again, rather doubtful, but he sets up a situation then argues

against it.

Agreements follow the establishment of a community - agreements

not to

harm

each other, for example.

But, in the "collective will" area, utopian communities are

plentiful.

They

fail mostly, but not necessarily, when the charismatic leader

dies.

Religious communities often last for generations - and longer.

If he refers to the failure of government power to do things,

that's

another matter.

His "eyes of a stranger" bit is much ado about nothing. The

Pollards talk

to everyone, at any time, under all conditions. Our lives are

enriched by

these contacts. Yet, we haven't lately met any Others, or

Othernesses up

on

the mountain recently.

Today, by the water, we passed the time of day with a family we

haven't

met

before. We discussed the paths up the mountain, an alternative

trail to

the

top from Glendale, rain, snow, and whether the little girl took

care of

the

two twin sons.

Then we went on up, and the family presumably went to their car.

We

enjoyed

the meet, but there was nothing darkly significant about it.

I intended to cut him to pieces, but it's wearisome.

I don't think he says very much, but he wraps anything he does say

in a

torrent of words that obfuscate rather than announce any

profundities.

The amusing ting about what he says is that (as I said above) it

is

couched

in the manner of an hypothesis - an untestable hypothesis.

If it were testable, it would perhaps march onward toward "the way

of a

theory".

Which would no doubt send him into a tizzy.

Harry

******************************
Harry Pollard
Henry George School of LA
Box 655
Tujunga  CA  91042
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Tel: (818) 352-4141
Fax: (818) 353-2242
*******************************



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              that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)

  Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)

<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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