Jay took the time yesterday to brush off my gloom and doom comments in
favor of a sunnier view of the world. Perhaps I should be more generous
given the bad weather the Midwest and East Coast. However, given the
fact we are expecting more rain before the end of the day, I think I'm
going to keep poking at some claims that I feel are more expressions of
optimism than reality.
Jay writes:
>"Phosgene gas (WW1) and the Final Solution (WW2) are the excesses
>of rationalism. They kick us in the butt and say, if we forget
>_communitas_ we are going to drive ourselves extinct.
Uh Jay, need I remind you that the Allies could have very easily *LOST*
either war? Had the Nazi's had gained control of Europe, they would have
continued their very methodical extermination of the Jews. In doing so,
the Germans would have pursued their own visions of community: an aryan
one.
It seems to me that Jay is trying to sneak in a universal assumption in
his expression: _communitas_. Sorry, had Hitler developed the nuclear
bomb before the West, God would not have come down from Heaven and
stopped the Germans.
On the contrary, Both World Wars were what all wars are: a clash to two
peoples and belief systems. We (the winner) can retroactively label the
loser as: morally wrong or even irrational. Guess what, if the war had
gone the other way - who would have been labeled as morally wrong?
Jay goes on to write:
>(Rationality is, after all, just a
>system for setting up and deciding among alternatives.)
But is it? Is Rationality nothing more than "formal logic?" If it is
then we've got serious troubles because 'formal logic' is considerably
weaker than the type of reasoning that typically goes on here.
In the West we use the word Rationality is ways that allows a great deal
of morality to sneak in. For example, our society considers suicide to
not only be irrational, but a sign of a mental defect. Is anyone
prepared to produce an argument to show that there are absolutely *NO
CIRCUMSTANCES* where a human being could logically conclude that it is
appropriate to end his/her own life? Yet, we have a large
institutionalized infrastructure operating on that very premise.
>But yes, our rationalism and its tools are quite subversive the
>deeper _communitas_ on which our survival, and maybe that of some
>ecosystems, depends.
*Sigh*, but where does this assumption about our survival come from?
Yes, we are biologically programmed to try to survive - unfortunately
this is a rather useless observation. The Nazis in World War II were
trying to survive. To this day Western cultures vigorously seek to
destroy all Nazis communities. The survival instinct alone is precisely
the engine for the world in which life is "Nasty, mean, brutish, and
short" (according to Hobbes.)
So how should we "cash in" this survival instinct? It is simply some
sort of optimization issue? - How many human beings can we cram on to one
planet of 5.979x10^24Kg? How does the natural environment fit it? How
many human beings have to die so that we can preserve 20 some odd percent
of the natural landscape?
The problem isn't that we have no way to solve this problem - we *ARE*
solving this problem. In China, babies are being allowed to die, and
1000 year old traditions are being trashed. In Africa, millions are left
on the edge of starvation. In Euro Western countries, we grope with
abortion and birth-control - we also have a class system that ultimately
controls populations through violence and misery.
This is why I am hammering so vigorously with the "arbitrary stick." Any
place where we "naturalize" an arbitrary relation is a potential
"loop-hole" in which to impose oppression.
My concerns are two fold: First, I have absolutely no confidence that
the marginized peoples have been identified. We need tools to look for
the margins we haven't uncovered yet. Second, we desperately need to try
to avoid repeating our own mistakes. We are in the process of
"naturalizing" a whole slew of "democratic values" into "the new world
order." Most of us would be very hard pressed to argue with any of those
values - but, Foucault has presented an interesting case for why a subset
of those values are actually quite sinister. When this is combined with
the very incestuous relationship between democratic rule and capitalistic
economies . . . . . I think we all should be hammering at all sorts of
things with the arbitrary stick: from school curriculums to international
politics.
Jay brings up the issue:
>A thermodynamic
>pessimism should make allowance for the fact that quite a lot can
>be done, and matter, along the way to endpoints on various
>fractal scales of organization of matter: a human life, a
>community's span, a culture's history, a planet's bio-phase, a
>universe between fire and ice.
Again, what is being presumed here? What constitutes "a lot can be
done"? I think Jay is assuming precisely what has to be proved. Consider
the following scenarios: Suppose that our bent toward democratic rule
results in paralysis (we aren't far from that now.) As a result,
legislators could take a page from the Roman Senate and be vigorously
debating the sex of angels when the sun goes supernova. In contrast,
perhaps if the Nazis or Stalinist Russia had taken over, they might have
managed to get enough resources marshalled to master interstellar space
flight before the big bang. I certainly would not take it for granted
that "a lot will be done," or that we have the slightest idea of how to
"get something done."
These final comments are incredibly mysterious to me:
>We play it safe by using rationality
>selectively, but inevitably it colonizes more and more territory.
>We don't want to know the origins and functions of rationality
>too clearly, or why it is so antagonistic to communitarian values
>that long antedate it and without which we know we will perish at
>our own hands.
Wait, Rationality is supposed to be a logical engine without content?
Yet, now this engine is perceived as a threat??? I'm afraid I disagree
with Jay's presumption here. Rationality cannot be held responsible for
actions in the world. It is absurd to suppose that humans are "logical
lemmings." Human beings stampede for many reasons, but logic has never
been among them.
At stake here is something far more insidious and scary to me. What are
the skeletons in the closet that analysis could discover, but that we are
so unwilling to face? At a time of supposed enlightenment, are we
actually refusing to confront the fundamental causes for our own
enslavement?
Martin Luther King once said: "A man who isn't willing to die for
something, doesn't deserve to live." If the human race isn't willing to
confront issues that could cause its demise - does it deserve to live?
Edouard
. - - - . . . - - - . . . - - - . . . - - - . . . - - - .
: Edouard Lagache :
: lagache who-is-at violet.berkeley.edu :
:...................................................................:
: For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who :
: lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will :
: save it. :
: Mark 9.35 :
. - - - . . . - - - . . . - - - . . . - - - . . . - - - .