Good and evil are needlessly mystified. If you have a values based
ethic, which is the only ethic that makes sense and produces
measurable results, good and evil can be seen as a spectrum that is an
index that moves from the depth of evil which is willful injury and
inflicting death to selfishness and good which runs through
mindfulness, tolerance, helpfulness all the way to acting to create
truth and beauty. This index is universal and applies in all contexts.
It is a dynamic spectrum. Good and evil are values that signify modes
of behavior that we enact all the time. Life is the sum of such
actions, achieving mega force when people act in concert through
various means. The demythologizing and acceptance of our
responsibility to know what is good and what not is the project of
this century as folk from Nietzsche to Nozick have suggested.
*@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*
On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 3:57 PM, Helmut Raulien <h.raul...@gmx.de
<mailto:h.raul...@gmx.de>> wrote:
Hi Edwina!
I am completely with you, no objections. There is the reality of
evil, and human societies do not have an innate knowledge base to
distinguish between good and evil. But I think, humans have,
because they are creatures of: "God", say religious people,
"evolution" say agnostics. God is "logos", logic, and "evolution"
is based on logic too. So I think, it does not matter whether one
is religious or is trying to understand the world by logical
analysis. It is a matter of temperament or which way one can grasp
it better, by allegoric pictures or by abstraction. Angels or the
power of compassion, the devil, or the evil logic of a vicious
circle? I myself believe in God, but do not know, what "to
believe" is. Because I think, that all you can believe in you as
well can reach by thinking, reflection, the capacities God has
given us. Now this is a circular argument, I admit. But I (sort
of) believe, that we also have the capacity (God-given?) to
uncover evil as false. I think, there is something wrong with
evil. It is false. And with logic (logos, God) we are able to
prove it like that. So: Evil is real, but not true. Its reality is
only temporary, and lasts only until it is proven for wrong,
falsified. This is what I believe in, not knowing, but only
intuitively feeling, what "to believe" is. How to overcome evil?
See, that it is real, but not true, and look for ways to prove it
wrong, but it is homeostatic, self-affirming, self-keeping. It has
the form of a circle, a vicious one. So, how to break a circle,
that is not based on truth? I think, with truth. Truth is an
universalist concept, such as the value of life. Pragmatism is the
quest for truth, and triadically, I would say:
cat.1, iconical: beautiful, ugly
cat.2, indexical: technically good (making things work),
technically bad (things do not work)
cat.3, symbolical: moralically good: Providing reasons for beauty
and good working, evil: Reasons for ugliness and failure.
And I think, that as you have said, social systems are not wise.
Their nature is nothing but to make them more powerful, as this is
the nature of any system, left to its own. This is something one
can learn from Luhmann. Sytems take advantage of anything they
can, be it good or evil. They even pervert, mix the concepts, and
create super-evil situations, like: seemingly beautiful (utopies,
huri-heaven, "arian" lunacy, to whom ever this may be attractive),
technically good, providing reasons for good working, but in the
end, they are a reason for extreme ugliness and total failure.
This is eg. the isis and the nazis. So, never trust a system I
would say. That is why I think, systems theory is good: Know the
enemy. For my taste, Mumford is a bit too fascinated by cities.
Cities are a sort of systems. I am writing too much.
Best!
Helmut
"Edwina Taborsky" <tabor...@primus.ca <mailto:tabor...@primus.ca>>
Helmut - I don't think the issue is simply over a commandment of
'Thou shalt not kill'; it's over several other issues.
First, the reality of the human capacity for reason and thus,
evaluation of 'what is good and what is bad'. Since human
societies do not have an innate knowledge base but must develop it
within that society, then, they must have an evaluative capacity.
Second, is the reality of evil. It exists in humans; whether it
exists in the non-human world is debatable but I, for one, can't
see it. This requires evaluation on our part.
Cultural relativism denies evaluation. So does pacificism. Both
refuse to acknowledge the reality of evil.
Third, is the fact that we are now, globally, by virtue of our
electronic informational network and our networked global economy
- a 'world society'. Therefore, what goes on in one area is known
- and we cannot stand by and ignore the reality of evil. This is
the technical articulation of Peirce's synechism; we are actually
physically (Secondness) connected.
Fourth- within this synechistic 'complex networked society' - the
global world - we cannot have extremes of lifestyle. This ONE
global society, each part existing as it does within vastly
different ecological realities - from desert, to rainforest, to
deciduous forests, to savannahs and plains to mountains to
ice..to... nevertheless cannot expect its population (which has
increased exponentially in so many areas) to live within extremes
- extreme poverty - as is found in the Middle East, Africa,
Central America and elsewhere - to extreme wealth - as is found in
these same countries as well! And - we can't have extremes of
lifestyle where, in one domain, women are enslaved and forbidden
to get an education while in another, they are free. And so on.
The world is now too economically and informationally small to
functionally handle such extreme variations. This economic and
societal imbalance and its resultant economic and political
vacuums is why we are seeing the various implosions around the
world. [No, they aren't due to the big bad USA].
What we see with ISIS, one type of vacuum filling implosion, for
example, is an extreme, violent utopianism, where IF ONLY they
were in power, THEN...perfection? Can't work for reasons which I
won't go into here. But to attain that power, requires massive
brutality and killing. And massive repression, where a huge
section of the population are reduced to slavery.
Am I my brother's keeper?
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Helmut Raulien <http://h.raul...@gmx.de>
*To:* peirce-l@list.iupui.edu <http://peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
*Sent:* Monday, October 13, 2014 1:22 PM
*Subject:* Aw: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: PEIRCE-L] "More Pragmatism,
Not Less"
Hi! Eugene Halton was right with saying, that my post was
amazingly thoughtless- or rather ignorant, because I havent
known anything about Mumford but these quotes by Brooks. Now,
when I see that what I have called "neglectiion of the value
of life" in the context of his position against appeasement
poilicy towards the nazis, I can understand it- but still I
think, that saying "life is worthless" is an overreaction.
There are dilemma situations, in which pacifism does not work,
or even produces very bad results. But not being a pacifist
anymore does not mean that you must throw the principles you
have had when you were one over board: You still can say, that
the value of life is the most important thing, and usually
"thou shalt not kill". But in case of nazis or isis, it is
better to kill them, because, if you dont, they kill far more
people. So this is blending some utilitarism (highest
advantage for the highest number of people) into the else no
more working categorical imperative. But all this is still
universalism based on the value of life. A psychologist I like
very much, who has explored human morality in dilemma
situations, is (was) Lawrence Kohlberg.
Best,
Helmut
"Stephen C. Rose" <stever...@gmail.com
<mailto:stever...@gmail.com>> wrote:
And of course the iconoclast, obedient to the First
Commandment, will add "and none" while adhering to these sage
rules..
*@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*
On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 11:26 AM, Edwina Taborsky
<tabor...@primus.ca> wrote:
Thanks, Stephen. [ I had expected to be 'flung to the
wolves' for my views]. That quote on synechism, from
Essential Peirce, vol 2, p 2 is indeed relevant. As he
continued, "All men who resemble you and are in analogous
circumstances are, in a measure, yourself, though not
quite in the same way in which your neighbors are you".
That is, we are both necessarily individuals (Secondness)
and also, members of a vast collective (Thirdness). We
have a duty to live within both modes. Not just one mode
of isolation of the individual self. Nor one mode of
denying that self and submerging it within the utopianism
of 'communal submission'. But both; it's not an easy task.
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Stephen C. Rose
*To:* Edwina Taborsky
*Cc:* Peirce List
*Sent:* Monday, October 13, 2014 11:06 AM
*Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: PEIRCE-L] "More
Pragmatism, Not Less"
This is not a blog it's a list. You are not a lone
voice. Peirce himself said. “Nor must any synechist
say, 'I am altogether myself, and not at all you.' If
you embrace synechism, you must abjure this
metaphysics of wickedness. In the first place, your
neighbors are, in a measure, yourself, and in far
greater measure than, without deep studies in
psychology, you would believe. Really, the selfhood
you like to attribute to yourself is, for the most
part, the vulgarist delusion of vanity.”
*@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*
On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 10:43 AM, Edwina Taborsky
<tabor...@primus.ca> wrote:
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
<http://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>
<http://gary.richm...@gmail.com>
*An:* Peirce-L
<peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
<http://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
<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>,”
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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