Yes, not sure I agree with arbitrary anniversaries. But still, it is a very influential book. Having not read it, I think I might. I was also thinking of commenting on Nietzsche’s disagreements with Darwin’s theory. One area I think he was mistaken. It’s kind of ironic that some people associate the two thinkers. Too tired… *yawn*
AC1
When I read this quote by C.S.Lewis today I couldnt help but feel that it applied not only to the major and obvious examples but also to the many subtle and noxious tyrannies that we are all at some point subject to or perhaps even unconciously participating in.
Some tyrannies I have in mind (and there are many others):
Militant Secularism/Atheism (that would push all religion to the private sphere)
Religious Fundamentalism (the type that seeks social conformity in belief)
Scientism (the belief that the natural sciences has authority over all other interpretations of life and fields of enquiry)
Ratio-Fascism (the assertion that only rationalism is valuable as en explanation or a field of enquiry into the world)
Political Correctness
Total Rights Assertion (the imposition of one perceieved “right” at the expense of other “rights”)
Objective Relativism (the absurd notion that all the varieties of traditions must be equal to everyone)
50% + 1 (the tyranny of the majority – the good of the many etc.)
Ethnocentrism (the viewpoint that “one’s own group is the center of everything,” against which all other groups are judged.)
countless other “isms” (I welcome contributions to this threadbare list)…
anyway here is the quote:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” C.S.Lewis
I read this qoute on another blog. It both interested and in a way inspired me to a deep reflection. I offer no comment on it for I feel it may be interpreted and appreciated in many ways by different people so I therefore reproduce it as it is.
“Tradition means giving a vote to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father.”
G.K.Chesterton Orthodoxy
Ok, I admit I have not posted for a while. But observing the news, Heraclitus was right! Every moment brings new things! My book reading project is nearing its conclusion (reading the Gay Science/Joyful Wisdom).
Anti citizen one
PS The Brits pulled out of Iraq – finally. What was the point in the war exactly? And without that, how can we judge success?
PPS Considering further comparisons of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, this is the closest(?) that FN comes to SK’s knight of faith:
When a man feels that he has a divine mission, say to lift up, to save or to liberate mankind–when a man feels the divine spark in his heart and believes that he is the mouthpiece of supernatural imperatives–when such a mission inflames him, it is only natural that he should stand beyond all merely reasonable standards of judgment. He feels that he is himself sanctified by this mission, that he is himself a type of a higher order! . . . What has a priest to do with philosophy! He stands far above it! (The Anti-Christ, FN)
In this part of my review I wish to briefly explore Harries discussions on the postmodern view of language. He is attempting to describe the views of Anthony Freeman the postmodernist theologian who has ceased to believe in a supernatural or transcendent God – seeing Him rather as being a projection of human ideals. Much of postmodernism has its roots in relativism, subjectivism and a sort of late Wittgensteinian Philosophy of Language.
A simple exposition of this philosophy goes like this:
mind is a social reality and language a public phenomenon. We see mothers bending over their prams making noises at their babies. In due course the noises are reciprocated and come to be recognized as talk. Soon this talk becomes internalized as thought. But the talk is prior and public and this enters into the very soul of our thinking. Because language is a public possession, written texts are particularly important. How those texts are intepreted or read still depends very much on the interests and outlook of the readers and these in turn will reflect the ineterests and concerns already built into the language that we use to intepret the texts. If we say we want to find out what a particular text really means, we are stymied, for the language we used to interpet it ourselves is a given, which will shape how we read…
Harries, again somewhat suprisingly is not completely anti-pomo. He accepts a certain degree of interpretative and cognitive relativism. However he rejects total scepticism and abandonment of truth and meaning notions – correctly suggesting that such a position would dissolve philosophy into just one of many methods of literary criticism.
I would just add by means of a clarification that although language is public and in turn shapes our ways of thinking this should by no means be used to suggest that speech is thought, or that absence of speech indicates absence of thought. (I could write much more here on my theories of unthought-thoughts and vocal-thought-thinking-thoughts or about the conscious and unconscious but I will digress.)
I will finish with a quote from Anthony Freeman that illustrates what one may call a postmodern view of religion – it is this view which Harries is ultimately attempting to challenge with recourse to realist arguments.
“A false distinction within Christian doctrine itself between an essential core and a negotiable husk. In presenting the faith to this generation I am bound to be presenting a different faith from that which my forefathers presented. Not just a different interpretation of the same essential core, but a different faith. This is because there is no essence of inner core. The interpretation is not like taking the shell off a nut. It is like peeling the layers off an onion: the interpretation goes all the way down. All is intepretation. That is the essence.”
Carrying on from a previous post which linked to the “Only A Game” Blog and its fascinating series of posted reviews on Charles Taylor’s “A Secular Age” – here is Part 4 “Religion” versus “Science” – It is in brief a description of the false dichotomy that the above phrase engenders not to mention the partisan psychology of many of its adherents.
Well worth a read.
I was engaged in a lively debate recently on the merits or demerits of a monarchical system. Personally I am a republican and in general I consider monarchism an outmoded relic of a bygone era of social repression.
As the debate wore on it became obvious that on most points I was possessed by the spirit of reason. The supporters of monarchy in general could only make appeals to tradition whereas mostly my arguments were based on sound pragmatic opinion.
Then they wheeled out what they consider their strongest argument. Namely “The Royals bring in so much money” i.e. through tourism and as industrial and trade ambassadors.
It is a fairly good argument. Why? Because it sounds empirical – rather than being an appeal to tradition this is an argument based on pragmatic concerns.
There is one problem – basically it is what Wittgenstein would call nonsense. The sentence or proposition though constructed in a way that is similar to an empirical proposition, a proposition about a definite state of affairs, is in fact a clever charade – and according to ‘logical’ rules is a non-argument.
The proposition reads: we must not abolish the monarchy as they provide substantial income for the nation through tourism and trade and industry ambassadorships.
The objection reads: Can you verify this – and is this open to falsification?
The conclusion is: technically one could only hope to measure the “value” of the monarchy by its abolition and subsequent measuring of financial effects.
Naturally no monarchist is going to vote for its abolition – so the argument is null.
The moral of the story – be careful of making psuedo-empirical propositions. When the falsity of their factual basis is uncovered you may find the validity* of your viewpoint eroding away rapidly.
* Validity depends on the language game being played. Just as Anselm famously said “God is a special case” one may choose to argue that psuedo-empirical propositions are in certain language games still valuable and valid as rhetorical tools.
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