Deep on page 546 of his 1,839-page budget, Wisconsin’s Governor Scott Walker tucked in a crucial idea. He proposed to strip a principle from the mission statement of the University of Wisconsin, a school that attracts students from all over the nation and from 131 foreign countries. From the core philosophy that has driven the university since the turn of the last century Walker wanted to hack out the words: “Basic to every purpose of the system is the search for truth.” Rather than serving the people of the state by developing intellectual, cultural and humane sensitivities, expertise, and “a sense of purpose,” Walker prefers that the state university simply “meet the state’s workforce needs.” In the face of scathing criticism, the governor backtracked and, despite a trail of emails that led to his office, tried to claim the new language was a “drafting error.”
AlterNet
But Walker’s attempt to replace the search for truth with workforce training was no error. Since the earliest days of Movement Conservatism in the 1950s, its leaders have understood that the movement’s success depends on destroying Americans’ faith in the academic search for truth. For two generations, Movement Conservatives have subverted American politics, with increasing success, by explicitly rejecting the principle of open debate based in reasoned argument. They have refused to engage with facts and instead simply demonized anyone who disagrees with their ideology. This is an astonishing position. It is an attack on the Enlightenment principles that gave rise to Western civilization.
Make no mistake: the attack is deliberate....
In 1951, a young William F. Buckley, Jr. articulated a strategy for opposing the consensus that supported New Deal policies. Buckley’s “God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of ‘Academic Freedom’” was a sophomoric diatribe by the Catholic son of a wealthy oil magnate, published by the small right-wing Henry Regnery Press. In it, Buckley rejected the principles that had enabled social progress for centuries and laid out a mind-boggling premise: The Enlightenment, the intellectual basis of Western Civilization, was wrong.
Rational argument supported by facts did not lead to sound societal decisions, Buckley claimed; it led people astray. Christianity and an economy based on untrammeled individualism were truths that should not be questioned. Impartial debate based in empirical facts was dangerous because it led people toward secularism and collectivism—both bad by definition, according to Buckley. Instead of engaging in rational argument, Buckley insisted, thinkers must stand firm on what he called a new “value orthodoxy” that indoctrinated people to understand that Christianity and economic individualism were absolute truths. Maintaining that faith in reasoned debate was a worse “superstition” than the Enlightenment had set out to replace, Buckley launched an intellectual war to replace the principle of academic inquiry with a Christian and individualist ideology..
In 1960, a new voice added anti-intellectual populism to Buckley’s rhetoric. Political operative Phyllis Schlafly wrote “A Choice Not an Echo” to support Barry Goldwater’s quest for the presidential nomination. In her world, correct political decisions were simple: The nation was engaged in a great struggle between good and evil, and educated Eastern Elites who insisted on weighing the realities of a complicated world had enlisted on the wrong side. Elites complained that Goldwater “had one-sentence solutions” for complicated problems, she wrote, but simple solutions were the answer. Communism was bad, so anyone advocating government activism was evil. Elites arguing for government action were parasites. All they really wanted was money from government contracts, paid for by hardworking regular Americans..
By the time of the George W. Bush administration, Movement Conservatives had constructed a post-modern political world where reality mattered far less than the popular story of Conservatives standing firm against the “Liberal agenda” of godlessness and communism. As a member of the Bush administration [Karl Rove] famously noted to journalist Ron Suskind, “the reality-based” view of the world was obsolete. It was no longer viable to believe that people could find solutions to societal problems by studying reality. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” this senior advisor to the president told Suskind. “We are an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors… and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”.
When Governor Walker replaced “the search for truth” with “meet the state’s workforce needs” in the charge to the University of Wisconsin, he did not make an error. He was articulating the principle that has driven Movement Conservatives since their earliest days: Facts and arguments can only lead Americans toward a government that regulates business and supports working Americans, and they must be squelched. The search for truth must be replaced by an ideology that preserves Christianity and big-business individualism. Religion and freedom for mega-business, Movement Conservatives insist, is what America is all about.
It’s Worse than Scott Walker and Ted Cruz: Secrets of Conservatives’ Decades-Long War on Truth
Heather Cox Richardson, Salon
The Christianity thing aside, it seems like William F. Buckley, Jr. read his Nietzsche.
ReplyDeleteHe ticks all the boxes: anti-Enlightenment, anti-democracy, anti-egalitarianism.
"Instead of engaging in rational argument, Buckley insisted, thinkers must stand firm on what he called a new 'value orthodoxy' that indoctrinated people to understand that Christianity and economic individualism were absolute truths." (like when Nietzsche praises the old Greeks for creating their own master morality, versus the slave morality; or when he writes that the labour question is one of those questions people don't ask, let alone try to answer)
Isn't Nietzsche one of the leading postmodernist influences?
Just askin' :-)
Makes me wonder what the absolute truth was before the earth came along ....?
ReplyDelete'Monkey on our back ....'
jrbarch,
ReplyDeleteIt seems not many people can actually provide a sworn testimony, along the lines of "Put your left hand on the Bible and raise your right hand. repeat after me, do you swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God"
"Christianity and economic individualism were absolute truths."
ReplyDeleteWell if this is true I would challenge him to show me either in the teachings of Jesus to Israel or Paul to the nations where this is taught...
In fact the opposite is taught by both Jesus and His commissioned Apostle to the nations Paul...
The way it looks is that they want "economic individualism" (greed) and then using "church" doctrine, the "individuals" happening upon possession of over-sized portions of the surplus, would provide freewill "charity" in an attempt at self-justification... thus completely nullifying the cross of Christ...
This is 100% diabolical.
I have no faith in the academic search for truth. Clean up the corruption, first.
ReplyDeleteOne view is that humanity is engaged in a search for truth cooperatively, and sometime competitively, but no one has the ocean in their bucket. This is the spirit of enquiry that underlies the liberal intellectual tradition, including the scientific method, which is based on skepticism.
ReplyDeleteThe other view is one party has the ocean in its bucket. this view is characteristic of dogmatists and is based on absolutism.
I can see the second view (pun intended) in Nietzsche, but not the second.
ReplyDeleteHe was very clear, to the point of being aphoristic. There was room for one view: his view (and presumably, his peers'). Which is only to say that he was anti-democratic.
His view was privileged, because he, like the old Greeks, say so (which is only to say he was anti-egalitarianism).
Reasoning is not the point: which is only to say he was anti-Enlightenment.
Doesn't this rule out the first view?
Nietzsche on truth and knowledge
ReplyDeleteOne can read this as either a precursor of postmodernism or as influenced by Buddhism.
The element of postmodernity that potentially promises Buddhist voices access to contemporary culture is implicit in Jean-François Lyotard’s simplified but seminal definition of ‘postmodern’ as ‘incredulity toward grand narratives.’2 The grandest of all these grand narratives for Lyotard and others is the European Enlightenment Project itself: the certainty of human progress through reason and science, which began in the 18th century. As soon as conviction in this myth wavers, a host of other assumptions are thrown into question. Through focusing on change and uncertainty rather than assured continuity, through emphasizing contingency, ambivalence and plurality, postmodern thinkers have come to hear voices of the Other: those the Enlightenment Project has either suppressed, ignored, or disdained: women, citizens of the Third World, non-European systems of thought such as Buddhism.
As a Buddhist I find myself reading erudite texts on themes such as the nature of the ‘self,’ which explore ideas quite familiar to me as a Buddhist yet fail to make even a passing reference to the fact that this kind of analysis and discourse has been pursued in Asia for more than two thousand years. I sense at these times what women must feel about texts that blithely assume a male perspective as normative.
Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism and PostModernity
In section 203 of Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche offers his criticism of the democratic movement that was then sweeping, and now dominates global ideologies. Nietzsche sees democracy as a movement in the wrong direction. He sees it as a step toward “mediocritizing” and “depreciation”. While this criticism may seem counter to all the values of modernity, it is certainly in line with Nietzsche’s over-all philosophy.
ReplyDeleteDemocracy, like religion and all embodiments of “slave morality”, is a threat to human potential. Nietzsche fears that these ideologies will tame us and drive humanity into mediocracy. Nietzsche believes that these thing will “dwarf man.” The establishment of forced equality is directly counter to Nietzsche’s understanding of the how the world should operate. All of his qualms with religion apply to democracy, but it is seemingly made more dangerous as this democratic ideal is imposed and enforced by the state, rather than accepted as faith.
The establishment of democracy would force humanity to live in denial of the will to power.….
Joshua Evans, Nietzche's Criticism Of Democracy
The term “postmodernism” first entered the philosophical lexicon in 1979, with the publication of The Postmodern Condition by Jean-François Lyotard. I therefore give Lyotard pride of place in the sections that follow.…
ReplyDeleteWe also find suggestions of de-realization in Nietzsche, who speaks of being as “the last breath of a vaporizing reality” and remarks upon the dissolution of the distinction between the “real” and the “apparent” world. [Several paragraphs on Nietzsche follow.]
The term “postmodern” came into the philosophical lexicon with the publication of Jean-François Lyotard's La Condition Postmoderne in 1979 (in English: The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, 1984), where he employs Wittgenstein's model of language games (see Wittgenstein 1953) and concepts taken from speech act theory to account for what he calls a transformation of the game rules for science, art, and literature since the end of the nineteenth century. He describes his text as a combination of two very different language games, that of the philosopher and that of the expert. Where the expert knows what he knows and what he doesn't know, the philosopher knows neither, but poses questions. In light of this ambiguity, Lyotard states that his portrayal of the state of knowledge “makes no claims to being original or even true,” and that his hypotheses “should not be accorded predictive value in relation to reality, but strategic value in relation to the questions raised” (Lyotard 1984 [1979], 7). The book, then, is as much an experiment in the combination of language games as it is an objective “report.”
On Lyotard's account, the computer age has transformed knowledge into information, that is, coded messages within a system of transmission and communication. Analysis of this knowledge calls for a pragmatics of communication insofar as the phrasing of messages, their transmission and reception, must follow rules in order to be accepted by those who judge them. However, as Lyotard points out, the position of judge or legislator is also a position within a language game, and this raises the question of legitimation. As he insists, “there is a strict interlinkage between the kind of language called science and the kind called ethics and politics” (Lyotard 1984 [1979], 8), and this interlinkage constitutes the cultural perspective of the West. Science is therefore tightly interwoven with government and administration, especially in the information age, where enormous amounts of capital and large installations are needed for research.….
Postmodernism in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Novice philosophy students read different thinkers from the vantage of who agrees with their own views.
ReplyDeleteMature students read to understand the position being put forward and to view through its lens. Practice at this enables one to shift one's perspective at will. as well as as to capture the point of phase transition between perspective, or to hold several perspectives simultaneously and compare and contrast them.
Philosophy professors write papers on various interpretations of a thinker's position, since a text or corpus can be viewed differently, especially when a thinker has not revealed specific intentions.
Those who seek to be philosophers themselves put forward a position or a variation on an existing position and to justify it based on rational criteria or rhetorically based on morality or aesthetic appeal.
The Christianity thing aside, it seems like William F. Buckley, Jr. read his Nietzsche.
ReplyDeleteHe ticks all the boxes: anti-Enlightenment, anti-democracy, anti-egalitarianism.
I don't think that this implies either that Buckley was a Nietzschean or even influenced by Nietzsche. It's traditional conservatism. Modern "conservatism" is often really liberalism in the traditional sense.
But Nietzsche didn't hold a high opinion of traditional conservatives either, since Nietzsche was also anti-traditionalist. He would have regarded Buckley as merely bourgeois rather than heroic.
Little kids learn how to lie at a very young age because it keeps them out of trouble (everybody thinks its cute when they do so transparently). Teenagers lie because it saves face. Adults lie to manipulate the fulfilment of their desires in an ocean of competing desires. Then they die with desire unfulfilled. Hardly anyone admits its not worthwhile! Or considers the possibility that we could actually spend the time enjoying our existence – first! Then maybe desire may become more humane and intelligible. People might understand the value of kindness. But ahhh no – all we listen to is the monkey on our back …..
ReplyDeleteTo hear the human heart, you have to stop for awhile; down tools, and listen …....
"One can read this as either a precursor of postmodernism or as influenced by Buddhism."
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't make postmodernism look better: it makes Buddhism look a lot worse.
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The next quote (from Joshua Evans)
"In section 203 of Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche offers his criticism of the democratic movement that was then sweeping, and now dominates global ideologies. Nietzsche sees democracy as a movement in the wrong direction. He sees it as a step toward 'mediocritizing' and 'depreciation'."
That sounds like the Fascist critique of democracy, if you ask me. Don't get me wrong: that's alright if one is so inclined and one is the Fuehrer, the Duce, Caudillo or someone close to them (or their Philosopher Prime-Minister, puppeteer or éminence grise, I suppose).
For the rest of us, things look much less promising: hence, my concern with the anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian thought of Nietzsche.
Incidentally, is it me or that critique of democracy looks strangely self-serving? Like Nietzsche saying: it is you people, who are mediocritizing, and depreciating. Not moi. Therefore... (fill the blanks)
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On the last quote, from "Postmodernism in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy".
Frankly, I got lost when I stumbled upon "We also find suggestions of de-realization in Nietzsche". De-realization!!??
"The last breath of a vaporizing reality"!!??
However, this...
"Where the expert knows what he knows and what he doesn't know, the philosopher knows neither, but poses questions."
... did bring an association to my mind:
"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."
http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=2636
For completeness, I'd add that we also know that there are unknown knowns. Apparently, this is what the author of that article had in mind..
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Incidentally, do you guys remember Corey Robin's "Nietzsche's marginal children"? At the time, most people were horrified about Hayek, Mises and the whole psychopathic gang's "elective affinity" to Nietzsche.
Why is that only a worry when it is "them", the crazies, who are affected?
http://www.thenation.com/article/174219/nietzsches-marginal-children-friedrich-hayek
(Btw, elective affinity, if I understood Robin, does not mean N was H or M's precursor or that they read him and took ideas from him; it means they thought similar things)
That doesn't make postmodernism look better: it makes Buddhism look a lot worse.
ReplyDeleteOf course, Buddhism and postmodernism have nothing to do with each other. But their method of analysis is similar, as well as different in important respects.
Just because one thing is similar to another in certain ways doesn't imply that they are related either historically by influence or more directly through causation.
In my view, that is from the point of view of the historical dialectic as I view it, modernity had run its course in the mid-19th century and was in the process of giving why to "post-modernity." Here "post-modernity simply means after the modern era, that is to say, antiquity, the axial age, the classical age, the the dark ages, the middle ages, the renaissance, the modern age and the post-modern age. This is from the POV of the West, of course. "Postmodernity" is just one aspect of the post-modern age.
In broader picture, the ancients were concern with the question, what is there? The moderns were concerned with the question, what can be know about what there is. The question now is what can we say about what there is and what we know about this.
The ancient world was concerned with being; the modern age with knowledge, and the post-modern age is concerned with information.
Frankly, I got lost when I stumbled upon "We also find suggestions of de-realization in Nietzsche". De-realization!!??
ReplyDelete"The last breath of a vaporizing reality"!!??
The presumption of the ancients and moderns is that knowledge is about reality.
Post-modernity, and also its aspect postmodernity, realizes that what human take to be "reality" is socially constructed through information. Information is the result of data selection and processing rather than the mind being a mirror of reality and language the communication of what mind mirrors. The latter is now considered the naïve common sense view.
Tom,
ReplyDeleteThis is the reality, you may refuse to acknowledge it, but I see you ignored this question:
"Incidentally, do you guys remember Corey Robin's 'Nietzsche's marginal children'? At the time, most people were horrified about Hayek, Mises and the whole psychopathic gang's "elective affinity" to Nietzsche.
"Why is that only a worry when it is "them", the crazies, who are affected?"
Or my comments on the Fascist critique of democracy.
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Tom Hickey said...
One can read this as either a precursor of postmodernism or as influenced by Buddhism.
March 2, 2015 at 3:12 PM
So, they have something in common.
Tom Hickey said...
Of course, Buddhism and postmodernism have nothing to do with each other. But their method of analysis is similar, as well as different in important respects.
March 2, 2015 at 8:49 PM
So, they have nothing in common.
Makes sense, right?
Further,
"The element of postmodernity that potentially promises Buddhist voices access to contemporary culture is implicit in Jean-François Lyotard’s simplified but seminal definition of ‘postmodern’ as 'incredulity toward grand narratives'."
Incidentally: It seems to me what constitutes a grand narrative is in the eye of the beholder.
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"Post-modernity, and also its aspect postmodernity, realizes that what human take to be 'reality' is socially constructed through information."
I guess I belong to the Pre-Post-modernity or maybe the Post-Post-modernity co-existing with Post-modernity, because for me, Post-modernity is simply an artificial, conventional distinction, which I do not accept (not unlike the year 0 or 1 CE as the threshold for a new era). And the presence or absence of the hyphen in "Post-modernity" and "postmodernity" seems strangely appropriate: simply arbitrary.
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I'll tell you a little true-life story:
My father died at the age of 54, of a heart attack. As a journalist, he used to drink in excess, smoke in excess and work in excess (two full-time jobs). He never cared much about diet. That is data.
For years well-informed people urged him to see a doctor. The symptoms were there for anyone to see: physical weakness, tiredness after minor physical efforts, pains in the left side of the body. That, too, is data.
He, however, didn't see those symptoms, so he refused to see the doctor. His mind (ours, too) refused to mirror reality, as you say.
When he finally went (for a different reason), he was given at most a few years, if he completely changed his lifestyle. There was no real treatment, no coronary bypasses would do the trick, nor would my father survive surgery; medication would not save him. That is the information based on the data.
He died about a month later.
It wasn't the doctor's diagnostic that killed my father; it wasn't the data or the information: it was coronary disease.
Sure, you can refuse to acknowledge reality, but you don't "vaporise" the reality of disease, because you refuse to acknowledge it. That didn't work for my father.
He wouldn't have survived any better without the diagnostic. The diagnostic did not cause the disease or my father's death, but the disease that caused the diagnostic.
Sure, you can manipulate information (the doctor could have told my father "don't worry: you're just fine"), that doesn't substitute for a treatment. You can't cure terminal coronary disease by denying it. You don't change reality by looking the other way. That, too, is the reality.
You won't "construct" your reality through information (or lack thereof), but you may kill yourself trying.
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Now, as I am sure this won't convince you and my comments go unanswered (and, in fairness, there's no way you can convince me), we better leave things here.