Well, I don't know if this blog is the place to debate the values of war versus
no-war, and I know I'm almost a lone voice among a blog that seems heavily
slanted towards 'the left' ideologies which to me, are always utopian rather
than pragmatic, but I'm certainly not a pacifist. That's because I support the
rule of law versus the rule of thugs.
Phyllis, I don't think that your dandelion analogy can really be compared with
fascist and fundamentalist ideologies. You seem to be saying that rather than
confronting them and denying their legitimacy, one should 'just leave them
alone'. The problem is, that this moves to the Rule of Thugs. Dandelions can be
far more powerful and invasive than grass. Now, does grass have any 'rights to
life'? Or is it just 'whichever is more powerful'?
The interesting thing is that nature doesn't function by 'whichever is more
powerful. Naturally, those dandelions would be eaten by browsing herbivores,
supplying a certain amount of protein and other minerals.
I feel that fundamentalist ideologies - if they keep their ideologies and
actions confined to themselves - well, I'd agree with 'who cares'. But when
their ideology includes as a basic axiom, the actual necessity to kill others,
to enforce their beliefs and way of life on others - well, I think that the
State and humanity - have the duty, moral as well as legal, to step in and
stop them. Otherwise - it's 'rule by thugs'.
The Taliban and their fundamentalist ideology were far greater in power than
the people of Afghanistan. Should such a regime - with its stoning of women,
its refusal to allow education, be allowed to do this?
Should ISIS - with its crucifixions, beheadings, stonings, mass slaughter,
openly stated agenda of taking over villages and towns and forcing people into
fundamentalism - should it be allowed to continue to do this to people who
simply don't have the strength to defend themselves?
I'm sure you've heard of the term of 'Just War' . There's a nice book by Jean
Bethke Elshtain (who also wrote a superb book on 'Sovereignty: God, State and
Self). The book is 'Just War Against Terror: The burden of American power in a
violent world'.
She refers to Camus' The Plague, where people refuse to see evil; they have
simply banished the word 'evil ' from their vocabularies. (Heh, rather similar
to renaming terrorism to 'man-caused disasters'; or 'work-place violence' or
calling ISIS 'just JV players'). But evil exists and we can't hide from it.
Taking over a population by ruthless force, dictated by an ideology of
biological or religious or ideological racism, i.e., exclusionary - and
repressing by force, expelling, murdering anyone who does not submit to this
ideology...I don't think that pacifism is the moral response to such thuggish
behaviour.
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
From: Phyllis Chiasson
To: Gary Richmond ; Eugene Halton
Cc: Peirce List
Sent: Monday, October 13, 2014 2:19 AM
Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Re: PEIRCE-L] "More Pragmatism, Not Less"
Main
Benign neglect was a policy proposed in 1969 by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who
was at the time on Nixon's White House Staff as an urban affairs adviser.
I see the problem of wars in the way I see the problem of dandelions. I admit
that I feel a sort of visceral hatred of dandelions. I want them gone from my
life. Several years ago I began a campaign to extract them from the yard. I was
not allowed to use chemicals, as neither my husband nor i support the use of
chemical pesticides or herbicides.
So, I bought a nifty little dandelion extractor and began pulling them out by
the roots. For a short time (very short considering all my efforts) I had a
dandelion free yard. Then POW! A plethora of dandelions. I tried a new
approach, a weed burner, guaranteed to work. And it did work, but not as I
wanted; weed burning resulted in even more dandelions than before. I tried an
all organic herbicide, but without any luck at all. We vetoed salt, as that
would kill the grass too.
It was around that time of the salt discussion that Hal pointed out to me
that the empty lot next door to us was practically dandelion free. Someone
comes around every year with a big mower to keep the grass down and that is the
sum total of gardening work on that lot.
Of course, it did not require a degree in horticulture for me to understand
what i had been doing by means of my exertions. I had been preparing the soil
for to receive and sprout ever more of the very things that i didn't want.
(Yes, i know dandelions have herbal and medicinal uses; I have even read Ray
Bradbury's book, Dandelion Wine, several times.)
However, I still think there is a big connection between my attempts to
eradicate dandelions and our country's attempt to eradicate radical Muslim
organizations. We are just preparing the ground for more dandelions, only in
this case, dandelions with bombs and rocket launchers. So, to me, the most
problematic effect of our military/industrial/congressional complex is that
they just keep tilling the soil to encourage more and more dandelions to take
root.
Based on intentions measured against results, which I see as the essence of
pragmatism, we are not really eradicating ISIS; we are recruiting for them. We
have prepared the soil by previous wars and skirmishes and every time a drone
hit produces collateral damage we are blowing fluffy dandelion seeds to take
root all over the world.
I don't have THE solution; but I do think it resides in Retroduction, not
just in pragmatism.
Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com> wrote:
Gene Halton wrote:
I find the both the letter to the New York Times from Joseph Esposito and
Gary R’s claim that Brooks misused Mumford uninformed and misguided and yet you
continue, Gene, that "Mumford’s allowance of the emotions was closer to
Peirce's outlook, and in that sense Brooks’s understanding of “pragmatism,”
whatever he meant by using the term, was shallow." So which is it Gene? Did
Joseph and I perhaps get a sense of Brooks' shallowness as you termed it? Our
"take" was certainly more about Brooks than Mumford.
I thought I made it quite clear that I have been "generally" quite
sympathetic to Mumford's arguments (one of the reasons why I posted the group
of quotations of his which I did), but, again, I found, as did you, "Brooks's
understanding of 'pragmatism' . . . .shallow." So Joseph and I agree with you
at least in that.
It is possible that when I read your book Bereft of Reason a few years ago I
may have concentrated too heavily on such lines as the one you just quoted
regarding the USA's involved in the WW2 that "Perhaps American involvement did
lead to the military-industrial-academic complex and McCarthyism after the war.
. ."
Now, am I so "uniformed and misguided" if indeed our involvement in WW2
perhaps led, as you wrote, "to the military-industrial-academic complex"
(Truman was strongly advised to leave out the third term of that diabolical
triad, btw, which was NOT "academic" but "Congressional")? And what have we now
in American and, indeed, global 'culture' but precisely the
military-industrial-congressional complex writ large: the military-global
corporate--governments-corrupted-by-power-and-money complex? And the women and
children still suffer, as Camus wrote. Thanks for all those "good wars," those
"wars to end all wars," etc., etc., etc., etc.
Your modifying the last passage from your book which I quoted above with
"perhaps" suggests to me that even you too may have some reservations about how
throwing millions of American military lives into the WW2 fodder (and the
Korean War fodder, and the Vietnam War fodder, and the Iraq wars fodder, and
the Afghanistan fodder, and, and, and--who knows what the future may bring in
the way of human fodder offered to the war machine?), that these wars may have
proved historically, at least, problematic, especially given the fact that
those resolved nothing, and that we have been and are still slaughtering
children and young men and women and old men and women in battle, soldiers and
civilians send to there deaths for. . .. what values?--to what end? (certainly
in this sense at least, I completely agree with Dewey and Tori Alexander, most
recently, that there is a case to be made for pacifism).
So to my way of thinking--after all the Brooks' nonsense is cleared
away--it's not just a black and white issue that Mumford was completely correct
and Dewey completely wrong, say. And, btw, I consider myself considerably less
"uniformed and misguided" than you present me, and Joseph Esposito, whom I
greatly respect, as being. I doubt that you or anyone has all the answers to
the question of war and peace.
Best,
Gary
Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690
On Sun, Oct 12, 2014 at 7:03 PM, Eugene Halton <eugene.w.halto...@nd.edu>
wrote:
I read David Brooks’ piece in the New York Times, and have had a long term
interest in pragmatism and in the work of Lewis Mumford. I actually discuss
Mumford’s essay described by Brooks in my book, Bereft of Reason, on page 147
forward.
I find the both the letter to the New York Times from Joseph Esposito and
Gary R’s claim that Brooks misused Mumford uninformed and misguided, and
Helmut’s claim that Mumford’s position is close to ISIS to be amazingly
thoughtless, 180 degrees from the truth, missing Mumford’s point in this
context being described that living for immediate pleasure gratification
regardless of purpose is wrong. In my opinion Mumford’s position regarding
intervention against Nazi Germany was correct and Dewey’s at the time before
World War II was incorrect. Mumford’s allowance of the emotions was closer to
Peirce's outlook, and in that sense Brooks’s understanding of “pragmatism,”
whatever he meant by using the term, was shallow. And the term Mumford was
using was "pragmatic liberalism."
Ironically, by the very same logic, Mumford came to condemn the United
States' use of the atomic bomb at the end of World War II, and became a critic
of the US military megamachine and political megamachine, and turned against
the Vietnam War by 1965-6, one year after he had received the Presidential
Medal of Freedom from President Lyndon Johnson. I would like to see what
conservative David Brooks would do with that.
I have quoted some excerpts from my chapter in Bereft of
Reason, on “Lewis Mumford’s Organic World-View” below.
Gene
excerpt from Bereft of Reason: “The second confrontation with Dewey and
pragmatism occurred on the eve of World War Two, and concerned what Mumford
termed “The Corruption of Liberalism.” Mumford believed that fascism would not
listen to reasonable talk and could not be appeased, and urged strong measures
as early as 1935 against Hitler and in support of European nations which might
be attacked by Hitler. By 1938 he urged in The New Republic that the United
States “Strike first against fascism; and strike hard, but strike.” His
militant position was widely attacked by the left, and he lost a number of
friends in the process, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Van Wyck Brooks, Charles
Beard, and Malcolm Cowley among others.
To give an idea of the opinions and climate of the prewar debate, just
consider the titles of commentaries published in the March, 1939 issue of
Common Sense on the question “If War Comes--Shall We Participate or be
Neutral?”:
Bertrand Russell, “The Case for U.S. Neutrality;” Max Lerner, “`Economic
Force’ May Be Enough;” Charles A. Beard, “America Cannot ‘Save’ Europe;” John
T. Flynn, “Nothing Less Than a Crime;” and Harry Elmer Barnes, “A War for ‘Tory
Finance’?”. Dewey’s contribution was titled, “No Matter What Happens--Stay
Out,” and it could not have been more opposed to Mumford’s piece, “Fascism is
Worse than War.” Mumford believed that the inability of the left to see that
rational persuasion and appeasement were inadequate to stem Hitler’s Hell-bound
ambition indicated a corruption in the tradition of what Mumford called
“pragmatic liberalism.” The fatal error of pragmatic liberalism was its
gutless intellectualism, its endorsement of emotional neutrality as a basis for
objectivity, which he characterized as “the dread of the emotions.” He
illustrated why the emotions ought to play a significant part in rational
decisions with an example of encountering a poisonous snake: “If one meets a
poisonous snake on one’s path, two things are important for a rational
reaction. One is to identify it, and not make the error of assuming that a
copperhead is a harmless adder. The other is to have a prompt emotion of fear,
if the snake is poisonous; for fear starts the flow of adren[al]in into the
blood-stream, and that will not merely put the organism as a whole on the
alert, but it will give it the extra strength needed either to run away or to
attack. Merely to look at the snake abstractedly, without identifying it and
without sensing danger and experiencing fear, may lead to the highly irrational
step of permitting the snake to draw near without being on one’s guard against
his bite.” Emotions, as this example makes clear, are not the opposite of the
rational in the conduct of life, and therefore should not be neutralized in
order for rational judgments to be made. The emotion of fear in this example is
a non-rational inference which provides a means for feeling one’s way in a
problematic situation to a rational reaction before the rationale becomes
conscious…
… In my opinion Dewey’s concept that the “context of situation” should
provide the ground for social inquiries remains an important antidote to empty
formalism and blind empiricism. Yet the clearest evidence of its shortcomings
in the practice of life was Dewey’s belief on the eve of World War II that the
United States should stay out of the impending war against Nazi Germany,
because it did not involve the American situation. As he put it in 1939, “If we
but made up our minds that it is not inevitable, and if we now set ourselves
deliberately to seeing that no matter what happens we stay out, we shall save
this country from the greatest social catastrophe that could overtake us, the
destruction of all the foundations upon which to erect a socialized democracy.”
Dewey criticized the idea that American involvement was “inevitable” while
simultaneously assuming such participation would somehow produce inevitable
results.
Perhaps American involvement did lead to the military-industrial-academic
complex and McCarthyism after the war--though the former would likely have
emerged in any case--but Dewey’s localism blinded him to the fact that Western
and World civilization were being subjected to a barbaric assault, an assault
from fascism and from within, which would not listen to verbal reasoning. By
ignoring the question of civilization as a legitimate broader context of the
situation and the possibility that the unreasonable forces unleashed in
Hitler’s totalitarian ambitions could not be avoided indefinitely, Dewey was
unable to see the larger unfolding dynamic of the twentieth-century, and was
led to a false conclusion concerning American intervention which only the brute
facts of Pearl Harbor could change.
Was Mumford the reactionary that the pre-war left attacked him for being?
Consider that by the end of World War two Mumford was attacking the allies’
adoption of Nazi saturation bombing, both in the firebombing of Dresden and in
the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He decried the fall of military
standards and limits in the deliberate targeting of civilians. Mumford was
among the earliest proponents of nuclear disarmament, having written an essay
on the nuclear bomb within a month of the bombing of Hiroshima and a book
within a year, as well as helping to organize the first nuclear disarmament
movement. He was an early critic of the Vietnam War, expressing opinions
publicly in 1965 which again cost him friendships. Mumford’s last scholarly
book, The Pentagon of Power (1970) was, among other things, a fierce attack on
the antidemocratic military-industrial-academic establishment.”
Eugene Halton, Bereft of Reason, University of Chicago Press, 1995, pp147f.
---
On Sun, Oct 12, 2014 at 12:10 PM, Helmut Raulien <h.raul...@gmx.de> wrote:
My post was a bit polemic, because I was mad at Mumfords neglection of
the value of life and that he called that "universalism". And I was indeed
thinking of the nazis. I think, a culture that is not based on the value of
life is not universalist, but the opposite: Particularist. Universalism for me
is eg. Kants categorical imperative, and Kants other imperative, that humans
(so also human life) should be treated as aims, not as means. And scientists
like Kohlberg and pragmatists like Peirce were scolars of Kant. So my
conclusion was, that, when someone is attacking scientists and pragmatists, his
"universalism" is in fact particularism. And his concept of "culture" too,
because for him, culture is not based on the value of life, but vice versa. But
I was refering to a quote out of its context, maybe.
Best,
Helmut
"Gary Richmond" <gary.richm...@gmail.com>
Ben, Helmut, Stephen, list,
I certainly won't defend Brooks because I think he misuses Mumford. and
even in the choice of this early material taken out of context, to support his
argument contra Pragmatism in the article cited. I have always had a generally
positive take on Mumford's ideas, although I don't believe I have ever read an
entire book by him.
This evening as I browsed through a selection of quotations from his
books I found more which resonated positively with me than did not--which is
not to say that I agree with him in each of the ideas expressed. Still, some of
his ideas do not seem opposed to philosophical pragmatism, although his
critical purposes aren't much attuned to it, at least as I see it at the moment.
See: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lewis_Mumford
Best,
Gary
Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690
On Sat, Oct 11, 2014 at 8:13 PM, Benjamin Udell <bud...@nyc.rr.com>
wrote:
Helmut, list,
I seldom am inclined to defend Brooks. I haven't read Mumford,
although I have somewhere his book on Melville that I meant to read. For what
it's worth, I'll point out that Mumford wrote the Brooks-quoted remark in 1940,
when the horrors of WWII had not fully unfolded yet. Maybe he never backed down
from it, I don't know. In a box somewhere I have another book that I meant to
read, about how in the Nazi death camps sheer survival, fighting just to live,
became a kind of heroism. The higher ideals ought to serve life, not tell it
that it's full of crap, only to replace the crap with other crap, a.k.a.
brainwashing and Mobilization (quick flash of Pink Floyd's marching hammers).
"They want politics and think it will save them. At best, it gives direction to
their numbed desires. But there is no politics but the manipulation of power
through language. Thus the latter’s constant debasement." - Gilbert Sorrentino
in _Splendide-Hôtel_.
Best, Ben
On 10/11/2014 5:41 PM, Helmut Raulien wrote:
Hi! I think, that Mumford, to whom Brooks refers, is quite close to
the Isis: "“Life is not worth fighting for: bare life is worthless. Justice is
worth fighting for, order is worth fighting for, culture ... .is worth fighting
for: These universal principles and values give purpose and direction to human
life.” That could be from an islamist hate-preaching: Your life is worthless,
so be a suicide bomber and go to universalist(?) heaven. Brooks and Mumford
are moral zealots and relativists who project that on the people who have
deserved it the least. They intuitively know that they havent understood
anything, the least the concept of universalism, and bark against those who
have, because they are jealous.
Gesendet: Samstag, 11. Oktober 2014 um 20:38 Uhr
Von: "Gary Richmond" <gary.richm...@gmail.com>
An: Peirce-L <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
Betreff: [PEIRCE-L] "More Pragmatism, Not Less"
List,
Joseph Esposito responded to David Brooks' Oct.3 New York Times
column, "The Problem with Pragmatism," with this letter to the editor today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/11/opinion/more-pragmatism-not-less.html?ref=opinion
To the Editor:
David Brooks paints an all too convenient caricature of American
pragmatism (“The Problem With Pragmatism,” column, Oct. 3). Even the slightest
reading of Charles Peirce, William James, John Dewey and Sidney Hook will
reveal pragmatists who were passionate about values as well as the means of
realizing them in enduring democratic social institutions.
The problem the United States confronts in the Middle East is not
paralysis or doubt but the adherence to many years of contradictory and
self-defeating values and policies that will make matters worse. What is needed
is more pragmatism, not less.
JOSEPH L. ESPOSITO
Tucson, Oct. 4, 2014
The writer is a lawyer, philosopher and former student of Sidney
Hook.
Brooks
' article,
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/03/opinion/david-brooks-the-problem-with-pragmatism.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar%2C%7B%221%22%3A%22RI%3A10%22%7D
which quotes heavily from some of Lewis Mumford's critiques of Liberalism, may
have a different kind of Pragmatism in mind than that which Esposito points to,
perhaps what Susan Haack in Evidence and Inquiry terms "vulgar Pragmatism"
(182-202) by which she means especially Richard Rorty's version.
Apropos of the theme Brooks takes up, near the end of the chapter
"Vulgar Pragmatism: An Unedifying Prospect," she quotes Peirce as writing: ". .
. if I should ever tackle that excessively difficult problem, 'What is for the
true interest of society?' I should feel that I stood in need of a great deal
of help from the science of legitimate inferences. . ." (
op. cit.
201). Here, as everywhere, Peirce shows himself to be essentially a
logician.
Best,
Gary
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