[SGVLUG] Off-topic - Hans Reiser article - murder trial

[Dustin Laurence]

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Your skepticism is understandable, but there is a closer link between
postmodern thought and classical thought than most people will admit.Rae
Yip wrote:
|
| While I agree with you about Hans, are you actually suggesting that
| postmodern relativism is the direct result of Socratic philosophy,

Not "direct" in the sense of "leads inevitably to," but "direct" in the
sense of "one is a primary source of the other." There are other
sources, of course.

| ...and
| that this is responsible for all our woes?

"All" would imply that it is responsible for my back hurting today after
driving almost 5kmi on vacation, and I don't think that. :-) Let's say
"many woes endemic to our society."

The fact is that people profoundly disagree on what our woes are, so
even if I believed that one thing was responsible for *all* our woes I
can't expect you to agree without knowing what your presuppositions are.

| ...And what is 'traditional
| ethics' if Classical ethics isn't it?

Your skepticism is understandable, and the explanation for what I mean
is a bit complex. There is a closer link between postmodern thought and
classical thought than most people will admit. Mostly, the fact that
much of classical thought is categorically rejected tends to hide the
fact that certain pieces are enthusiastically accepted.

Plato's Socrates' theory of evil is not the sum total of Classical
ethics. Plato believed in objective moral reality that could be stated
propositionally; for example, that some things are wrong at all times
and all places for all men. What we have now is a popular ethic which
denies the possibility of objective ethics or of stating truth
propositionally, and couples *that* with the Socratic theory of evil,
which is very different.

Though it must be said that it inconsistently also has a de facto belief
in a very short list of things which can be known objectively, because
in fact consistent relativistic ethics cannot exist because the axiom of
relativism must itself be known objectivly. The first items on that list
are the (by unstated hypothesis) objectively true propositions that (1)
Ignorance is the source of evil, (2), nothing except the short list can
be known objectively or stated propositionally, and (3) the
inconsistency between such a list and the general principle of
subjectivity must never be stated, acknowledged, or logically defended.

"Traditional ethics" usually implies a strong admixture of Christian
ethics, which is a vast improvement on either Classical pagan ethics or
postmodern ethics. Some of the worst features of modern *and* postmodern
thought are a recovery of the worst features of Classical pagan thought.
Let's not forget that Nietzsche was a great scholar of the Greek
classics, and that the end of Classical society was a descent into
skepticism, pessimism, and relativism, and then the fervent (though
fickle) adoption of many foreign religions.

| Perhaps I am not parsing your statement correctly, but I tend to
| disagree. Let's not throw the (admittedly very old) baby out with the
| bathwater.

If the baby you mean is Socrates' theory of evil, not only will I throw
it out, I will categorically state that it is false, always has been
false, and has functioned as no more than a snare for human thought in
general. If you wish me to say good things about Plato I can do so
easily and at great length, but it will not include anything about his
theory of evil, theory of government (the closest realization of which
has been Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, or one of their spawn, I have
not tried to determined which exact totalitarian ideology has best
realized The Republic), or parts of his theory of education (which is
the operating principle of both repressive regimes everywhere and also
of the American educational establishment).

I highly recommend C.S. Lewis' lesser-known work "The Abolition of Man"
for an absolutely accurate critique of the ideology of modern education,
done by one of the last men who could do so within the Classical
tradition. His purpose is to contrast the two and so he doesn't really
make the part of Plato that modernity accepts explicit, as I remember,
but it is easy enough to fill in yourself. Read The Republic and
Abolition, and then ponder Lewis' point that "the core purpose of
education is not the teaching of facts but the transmission of value."
That assertion is quintessentially Platonic and also at the core of
modern education, but the values being transmitted are not based on an
assumed objective ethics, as in Plato, but the assumed absence of
objective ethics (except for the inconsistent exceptions mentioned above).

| ...Better education *can* help with the problem in general,

The fatal flaw in that assertion is that if you try to implement it, you
have to pick someone to choose the content of that education, and that
chooses an ideology. If you wish the state to support education, then
the state must chose an ideology, and that means that anyone who
disbelieves it will see their children taught something they do not believe.

Plato was consistent, if dangerous--he believed in objective
propositional ethics (and believed he knew what it consisted of, of
course), and so he could consistently insist that the teachers in The
Republic would teach Objective Ethics. In other words, he believed in a
unique correct ideology, and therefore had no compunction about
excluding others. Today's educators cannot even do that--they must chose
an ideology and discriminate against all others without even admitting
that they must do this or arguing that theirs is objectively better.
That makes them both inconsistent, and also much more dangerous than
Plato. Plato would tell you honestly and explicitly what he was going to
impose by force.

The real problem is that in the long run subjective ethics will *not*
sell, because in fact it is inconsistent and compels no one. In the long
run no one will change their behavior (the point of all ethics) for a
moral system they do not believe is objectively true. That is why the
Declaration of Independence appeals to God as the ground of human rights.

Modern man used to fantasize that he could choose between, say, religion
and atheism, and without some kind of higher non-physical reality there
is no such thing as objective ethics (whether most atheists will admit
this is irrelevant). What is happening is that he sees that his children
instead choose a religion that has not compromised with relativism, and
they are *far* more motivated. Secular society is, unwittingly, the
great fertile ground for religious fundamentalism (I use the popular
term, though it is flawed) and many other things.

Parts of Europe may become Islamicized simply because it's abandonment
of Judeo-Christian tradition and objective, propositional ethics has
left a vacuum to be filled by another tradition that has *not*
compromised on propositional objectivity. We could debate whether it is
*true* or *false,* but the fact that it believes that truth and
falsehood have objective meaning makes it automatically more powerful
and dynamic than modern secular society.

We have done this before--famously, when the sophisticated, skeptical,
so often relativistic, and so often pessimistic pagans encountered a
tiny, powerless movement taught by despised barbarians. Those despised
barbarians were Jewish (though many of them were Greek speakers, some
eloquently so, and therefore they were perhaps not truly barbarians in
the sense of the Greek word), and that insignificant movement was called
Christianity.

The irony of modern society is that in busily rejecting every trace of
Christianity, it makes itself ever more fertile ground for religions
that it will like far less and that will (if true to exactly the
principles that made them attractive) burn out every trace of the
society which welcomed it.

I'm going to stop now.

| ...I'll be happy to discuss this
| privately with you.

Hmm, OK, but why? I made a target of myself publicly, and just made
myself an even bigger target publicly, why be private now? :-)

Dustin
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