Terry - please see my comments below:
1] I don't think my understanding of fascism is a 'small minority
conception'. I won't take a Wikipedia definition as legitimate and
refer you to such works as Robert Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism;
Roger Eatwell: Fascism: A History. Of course, there's Mussolini's
definition. See also Popper's long definition and analysis in his
books: The Open Society and Its Enemies.
. All of them focus on the definition of fascism as a collective
ideology [which is what makes it 'left' rather than 'right' - for the
'right' ideology promotes the individual while the left promotes the
collective'. ]. The point about fascism, with its rejection of
individual reason and freedom, is its focus on the organic nation [of
which you are just an inherent member] as a determinant of the
future. This also puts it firmly in the area of 'historicism' with
that notion of a determined future utopia. Its rejection of
individual reason and freedom and its focus on a 'higher authority as
embedded in the State' puts it within the ideology of the
collective.[See Plato's Republic; an outline of fascism - so, it's
hardly a modern ideology!!!]. The fact that it is commonly opposed
to communism is superficial - for both reject the individual reason
and freedom; both are utopian and focused on an a priori 'future goal
of perfection'. Both function within, if I may compare: the
emotionalism of Firstness and the pure intellectualism of pure
Thirdness. Totally alienated from the realities of Secondness - and
the 'lesser' Thirdness.
2] I agree - fascism [and communism] reject and deny the famed
Social Contract. Since they reject the individual, then, of course,
they are not interested in any contractual participation of these
individuals in their own governance.
3] I don't see that capitalism is toxic. In fact, I see that
capitalism, which means that economic production is in the control of
private and free individuals - rather than the State or an
aristocracy - has moved more people out of poverty than any economic
system in the world. And note - that capitalism doesn't emerge from
fascism!
4] I also don't understand your term of 'fascist capitalism'. You
haven't explained it.
5 I have no idea what you mean by 'alt-right fascist
pseudo-Christianity and fascist capitalism.'. Capitalism, in my
definition, can't be fascist [or communist] since its operation is
focused around the individual, while that of fascism and communism
rejects individual freedoms and economic decision-making. I refer you
to Fernand Braudel's magnificent histories of the development of the
market economy in the 15th-17th centuries in Europe. See also Milton
Friedman's work [eg, Free to Choose]. And F. Hayek's famed 'The Road
to Serfdom]
A data source for exploring which nations operate within individual
freedoms, is to examine the number of inventions, patents, new
enterprises in each nation. The USA is the strongest in these fields.
6] Democracy is a messy system - as many have attested, for aligning
the freedom of the individual [Firstness and Secondness] with the
restraints of the collective habits-Rules [Government] is always
contentious - but- to have only ONE of these three
universes/categories in operation is disastrous. All three have to
interact. Furthermore, to reject historicism, or an a priori destiny
and leave the future open - is emotionally difficult for it involves
risk - and most of us prefer security, even under a 'gentle tyrant'
rather than risk. So democracy has to be always an active process,
one which we cherish and support - and where we reject any hints or
efforts to remove these freedoms.
Edwina
Edwina
On Sat 04/07/20 12:27 PM , Terry L Rankin rankin.te...@hotmail.com
sent:
From: Edwina Taborsky
Sent: Saturday, July 4, 2020 9:01 AM
To: tabor...@primus.ca; 'Peirce-L'
; g...@gnusystems.ca; Terry L Rankin
Subject: Re: RE: RE: [PEIRCE-L] The Pragmatic Trivium
ET> Based on your outline - I'm not sure that you and I are in
agreement on all points.
Apparently I was mistaken to suppose we were.
ET> I'm not sure what 'fascist capitalism' means. Fascism is a
'leftist' ideology, promoting the collective vs the individual.
Capitalism is an economic ideology, based around the economic
enterprises of the private individual.
That’s a pretty small minority conception of ‘fascism’ –
actually, from Wikipedia, the more common and widely acknowledged
conception is that it’s “a form of far-right, authoritarian
ultranationalism [1] [1] [2][2] [3] characterized by dictatorial
power, forcible suppression of opposition, as well as strong
regimentation of society and of the economy[3] [4] which came to
prominence in early 20th-century Europe.[4] [5] The first fascist
movements emerged in Italy during World War I, before spreading to
other European countries.[4] [6] Opposed to liberalism, Marxism, and
anarchism, fascism is placed on the far right within the traditional
left–right spectrum.[4] [7][5] [8] [6] [9]” [emphasis added]
ET> What I rejected in James was, as you point out, a totalitarian
process, based on his idea of 'the perfect state' - an idea which
Popper outlines as found in the ideology of 'historicism'.
Historicism is a view based around an innate destiny of a natural
[or God-given] destiny of mankind/or a special group - and the path
towards some kind of ultimate utopian perfection. Whether found in
Plato, or Hegel or Marx - or Mussolini or Hitler or the UN - it
relies on an ideology based, as I see it, in the emotional vacuity
of a bond between Firstness and Thirdness. That is - it's removed
from pragmatic reality. And it is inevitably disastrous.
Here, you seem to align James more closely to the common
understanding of fascism as given in Wikipedia and quoted above …
and, IMHO, rightly so. I struggle with the idea that ideologies (be
they religious, philosophical, political, social, scientific,
cultural, or whatever) are “removed from practical reality,”
however. I find it difficult to reconcile that with the pragmatic
maxim Peirce expressed, for example. For me, fascism is the
abrogation of the very idea of any form of social contract, which is
how and why it is inherently a totalitarian ideology that, as you
say, is inevitably disastrous. Indeed, fascism is the tyrannous
ground from which the toxic fruits of rapacious unfettered capitalism
inevitably spring in abundance. Hence my view that fascist capitalism
is the black heart of the global regime running the world today.
ET> I prefer Popper's 'piecemeal' bricolage which is based around
the individual. I think the US Declaration of Independence, which is
one of the greatest documents in history, to be an excellent example
of this view. The individual is, of course, an entity grounded in
Secondness [as well as 1ns and 3ns] - but all three interact and
constantly confront each other with their data and perimeters.
On paper, The US DofI indeed is a magnificent manifesto. In
practice, especially 244 years later, however, it’s an irrelevant
relic – an anachronism – relative to the truth and reality of
USAmerica in the 21st century. Along with the Constitution and its
Bill of Rights (also a magnificent document), the US DofI is a
symbolic cornerstone of our civil religion and its pseudo-patriotic
mythology. Together with the red-white-and-blue iconically symbolic
US flag and emblematic Eagle, they’ve been completely expunged
from social, economic, cultural, and political truth and reality in
the US, displaced by the tyranny of alt-right fascist
pseudo-Christianity and fascist capitalism. Meanwhile a bitterly
divided citizenry stumbles around in the semiotic dissonance of
still clinging to the USAmerican mythology and its civil religion,
which blocks all discernment of truth and reality, both individually
and collectively, with temperamental allergy to rational bricolage
being just another pandemic in the world, most virulent and morbid
in USAmerica.
My apologies for reading into your post to the list what apparently
wasn’t there.
One Peace,
Terry
On Fri 03/07/20 11:48 PM , Terry L Rankin rankin.te...@hotmail.com
[10] sent:
Edwina & list,
It seems you and I are in agreement to at least some extent, Edwina,
on common Peircean and Popperian grounds.
In my Peircean philosophy of science and theistic view, James’ and
Dewey’s co-opting and corruption of Peirce’s pragmat(ic)ism
facilitated the hybridization of anti- and post-Peircean utilitarian
pragmatism with the neopositivist scientism imported from Europe’s
Vienna Circle between the Great War and WWII. The subsequent ascent of
USAmerican fascist capitalism through the Cold War era to become the
contemporary domestic police state and global neoliberalism ruling
the world today under its new (World Economic Forum) “Great Reset
[11]” from “state (fascist) capitalism” through “shareholder
(fascist) capitalism” to its latest (as of January this year at
Davos) “ stakeholder (fascist) capitalism [12]” is, I suggest,
exactly the seed of totalitarianism you sense in James, spread now a
century later like a genetically engineered toxic kudzu to destroy
the planet and most of the life on it in what’s widely acknowledged
to be the anthropogenic 6th mass extinction level event on Earth
(‘MELEE#6’). The demon seed that spawned the fascist capitalist
Fourth Reich we’re in today is that neopositivist scientism
fertilizing the pragmatism ovum of utilitarianism to destroy the
world and the lifeforms it sustains, including us.
Peirce was an existentialist good-faith road not taken at a
crossroads that now turns out to have been a fatal mistake. Taking
the other path, what James, Dewey, Carnap, Neurath, and others
unleashed instead is the worst-faith tyranny of global fascist
capitalism to carry the day and humanity’s future into that MELEE#6
truth and reality, the signs of which have just begun to appear in
common experience. COVID-19 may in fact be the first death scything
in the onrushing bad night into which most of us will go anything
but gently before the end of the century if not much sooner. With
that ‘perfect society’ delusion as the future agenda, small
wonder Harvard all but buried ‘the American Aristotle’ in
ignominious penury during his life and beyond his death. That
strikes me as an alluring Occam reduction despite the improbability
of the elitist power and wealth conspiracism it would require.
To the extent that we are in fact aligned on at least some elements
of Peirce and Popper in light of the contemporary states of nature,
union, and the world at large we’re in today, Edwina, I appreciate
the corroboration, however limited it may be. You surely know Peirce
far better than I, so wherever you may doubt or dispute my views as
stated in this message, please share your thoughts further so I may
sharpen my own. Thanks!
Still in One Peace,
Terry
From: Edwina Taborsky
Sent: Friday, July 3, 2020 3:45 PM
To: 'Peirce-L' ; g...@gnusystems.ca [13]
Subject: Re: RE: [PEIRCE-L] The Pragmatic Trivium
I personally find the comments by Henry James the elder rather ..I'm
not sure of the word. Not merely naïve but possibly alarming.
I consider that the agenda to develop a 'perfect society' has always
been a basis for totalitarian subjugation - whether it be the
socialism of fascism or communism; whether it be an isolate cult or
an ideology.
Such an agenda, in my view, ignores that we are material, finite
entities, and as such in a mode of Secondness, which is a mode of
'brute interaction' - and diversity rather than homogeneity.
Furthermore, we cannot ignore that there is no such thing as
'perfection' - whatever that means. Instead, I prefer the 'bricolage'
of Karl Popper, his rejection of 'historicism' [vs a theistic
interpretation, ie by recognizing God as the author of the play
performed on the historical stage" [The Open Society and Its
Enemies, p8]. AND the open evolution of both Popper and Peirce,
where, with the reality of both Firstness and Secondness and
Thirdness - there is no such thing as 'perfect'.
Edwina
On Fri 03/07/20 1:39 PM , g...@gnusystems.ca [14] sent:
Gary R, list,
I just came across a piece of the reverse side of Turning Signs that
strikes me as relevant to the “ways in which Peirce's philosophical
trivium might help inform the aesthetics, ethics, and critical
thinking of the world as it emerges from the coronavirus pandemic”
— and relevant in a way that I don’t think has been discussed in
this thread before. It’s only a 3-to-5 minute read:
http://www.gnusystems.ca/TS/snc.htm%23x14&data=02%7C01%7C%7C197c0bee948f4a6d64b208d81f89951c%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637294023054795065&sdata=/SahKb602KmoK8pzD3QB5QExXhxXRzioBzF6XXL7wAY%3D&reserved=0
[15]" target="_blank">
http://www.gnusystems.ca/TS/snc.htm%23x14&data=02%7C01%7C%7Cf5edc387b4384606f5c908d8201a4cda%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637294644619326583&sdata=uYBEhDId04/YjrwZ4vpwOgRUycr1SX1WekzEdhMy8SA%3D&reserved=0
[16]" target="_blank"> http://www.gnusystems.ca/TS/snc.htm#x14 [17] .
Gary f.
From: Gary Richmond
Sent: 13-Jun-20 16:04
List,
In a recent op-ed piece titled "The End of College as We Knew It" (
https://tinyurl.com/ybha8mhb [19]), Frank Bruni reflects on something
I've been informally discussing with friends and colleagues now for
years; namely, that "A society without a grounding in ethics,
self-reflection, empathy and beauty is one that has lost its way”
(Brian Rosenberg, recently president of Macalester College). It
seems to me that this has happened in the United States.
It has long seemed to me that America today has largely abandoned
what might be called the normative trivium of aesthetics, ethics, and
logic -- Peirce's three Normative Sciences, not the classical trivium
(for which see Sister Miriam Joseph's 2002 book, The Trivium: The
Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric) that he generalized to
serve as the three branches of Logic as Semeiotic.
This philosophical trivium points to the possible application of
Peirce's three Normative Sciences -- not their theoretical forms, but
rather their ordinary and potentially pragmatic guises as they appear
in life practice, including reflection and action upon what is
beautiful in art and nature, what is ethical in our behavior in the
world, and how we can apply 'critical commonsenseism' in our
quotidian lives. Bruni writes: " We need writers, philosophers,
historians. They’ll be the ones to chart the social, cultural and
political challenges of this pandemic -- and of all the other
dynamics that have pushed the United States so harrowingly close to
the edge. In terms of restoring faith in the American project and
reseeding common ground, they’re beyond essential. "
Bruni's op-ed reflection came in part in response to a recent
article by Rosenberg in The Chronicle of Higher Education ; see "How
Should Colleges Prepare for a Post-Pandemic World" (
https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-Should-Colleges-Prepare/248507
[20]). Rosenberg writes: “If one were to invent a crisis uniquely
and diabolically designed to undermine the foundations of traditional
colleges and universities, it might look very much like the current
global pandemic.” In a similar vein, Professor Andrew Belbanco,
president of the Teagle Foundation which gives as its purpose
promoting the liberal arts, writes: “This is not only a public
health crisis and an economic crisis, though Lord knows it’s both
of those. It’s also a values crisis. It raises all kinds of deep
human questions: What are our responsibilities to other people? Does
representative democracy work? How do we get to a place where
something like bipartisanship could emerge again?”
Commenting on the economic divide of the American university, Bruni
notes that "the already pronounced divide between richly endowed,
largely residential schools and more socioeconomically diverse ones
that depend on public funding grows wider as state and local
governments face unprecedented financial distress. A shrinking
minority of students get a boutique college experience. Then
there’s everybody else." Gail Mellow, former president of
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York (where I taught
for decades before my retirement) is quoted as saying, “We always
knew that America was moving more and more toward very different
groups of people," to which Bruni adds, "that movement is only
accelerating."
Confronting all this will undoubtedly be one of the great challenges
that America -- and for that matter, the world -- will have in the
years and decades to come. The question I pose is: Can Peirce's
version of pragmatism (or pragmaticism) -- which he also calls
'critical commonsenseism' -- creatively contribute to these enormous
challenges? And, if so, how? And are there ways in which Peirce's
philosophical trivium might help inform the aesthetics, ethics, and
critical thinking of the world as it emerges from the coronavirus
pandemic? If so, how?
[Note: I have Bcc'd this post to several former members of this
forum, a few members who rarely if ever post but who have stayed in
contact with me offlist, and a few friends and colleagues who have
not been members but who may have an interest in this topic. Those
who are not current members of the forum may send your thoughts on
the topic off-list to me letting me know if I have your permission to
post them.]
Best,
Gary
Links:
------
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultranationalism
[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#cite_note-authoritarian-and-authoritarianism-1
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#cite_note-2
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#cite_note-3
[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#cite_note-RoutledgeCompanion-4
[6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#cite_note-RoutledgeCompanion-4
[7]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#cite_note-RoutledgeCompanion-4
[8]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#cite_note-University-Aristotle-Hartley-Wilhelm-Hawkesworth-5
[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#cite_note-6
[10]
http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(\'rankin.te...@hotmail.com\',\'\',\'\',\'\')
[11]
https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/now-is-the-time-for-a-great-reset/&data=02%7C01%7C%7Cf5edc387b4384606f5c908d8201a4cda%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637294644619301617&sdata=O63SduI%2BVvM8b5Qk7Gle3FIXsAv3AzE3YF8UN92MsjQ%3D&reserved=0
[12]
https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/12/davos-manifesto-2020-the-universal-purpose-of-a-company-in-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/&data=02%7C01%7C%7Cf5edc387b4384606f5c908d8201a4cda%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637294644619316601&sdata=WE/GuGBhmL/tmwnKKB6wgpkypsr93IxenGly5KmJzps%3D&reserved=0
[13]
http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(\'g...@gnusystems.ca\',\'\',\'\',\'\')
[14] http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(
[15] https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=%3Ca%20href=
[16] https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=<a href=
[17] http://www.gnusystems.ca/TS/snc.htm#x14
[18] http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(
[19]
https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https://tinyurl.com/ybha8mhb&data=02%7C01%7C%7Cf5edc387b4384606f5c908d8201a4cda%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637294644619331574&sdata=aqXlo8WTQuJIydDhL3hpltDMY3KOoqydd0acNc/L0XM%3D&reserved=0
[20]
https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-Should-Colleges-Prepare/248507&data=02%7C01%7C%7Cf5edc387b4384606f5c908d8201a4cda%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637294644619356532&sdata=qjWd4n2MqpnmohRUgVF6iOri5gIqd7SLEWyWt4nzKV8%3D&reserved=0
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