tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22902519.post9004897176796435060..comments2013-02-18T10:00:48.778-05:00Comments on The Journal of Winston Smith: What Went Right? Part IIIWinston Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14125695655203465930noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22902519.post-32995284348622396502006-11-20T22:40:00.000-05:002006-11-20T22:40:00.000-05:00No, I am not an agent of Goldstein, but Old Major ...No, I am not an agent of Goldstein, but Old Major -- a predecessor of Napoleon and no ally of Snowball:<br /><br />"Beast of England, Beasts of Ireland,<br /><br />Beasts of every land and clime,<br /><br />Hearken to my joyful tidings<br /><br />Of the golden future time."<br /><br />(Page 32)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13888935223893390024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22902519.post-44265247206555607812006-11-20T11:50:00.000-05:002006-11-20T11:50:00.000-05:00Thank you, Outer Party Comrade Phil!
I thought Ju...Thank you, Outer Party Comrade Phil!<br /><br />I thought Julia and I were alone here at the Ministry of Truth.<br /><br />P.S. Are you an agent of Goldstein and do you where the Underground is located?<br /><br />P.P.S. Must run -- Time for the Two Minute Hate on CNN.Winston Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14125695655203465930noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22902519.post-51692107481165182922006-11-19T22:21:00.000-05:002006-11-19T22:21:00.000-05:00Causes of Cultural Movement other than Pure Philos...Causes of Cultural Movement other than Pure Philosophy:<br /><br />Most Objectivists, unlike most modern historians, understand the hidden but deep power of "pure philosophy", of the major answers and arguments expressed by Aristotle, Plato, Kant, Descartes, Rousseau, Hobbes, Locke, Nietzsche, Hegel, Dewey, the analysts, the existentialists, the postmodernists and others. Even if not consciously or fully accepted, they condition the culture, set the tone, the premises, the types of debate and create (and man) the institutions.<br />And they have done this down the centuries.<br />But what happens when pure philosophy has become discredited, when it has reached a dead end? When it is bankrupt and is -seen- to be bankrupt by anyone intelligent? When it is laughed at, and its major figures no longer command public respect, unlike nearly a hundred years ago when John Dewey could write for major newspapers and have his pragmatist theories debated across an entire nation by the intellectuals and by educated laymen? What happens when the universities find it hard to fill their philosophy classrooms and when the "pure theory" professors are ignored, even largely by their own (dwindling and unemployable) students? "I have a degree in philosophy, Mr. employer." "Great, that and a couple bucks will get you a ride on the New York subway, not a job with me."<br />Philosophy is -potentially- powerful and determinative of the direction of a civilization and it has been in the past. And may be again.<br />But can philosophy, sometimes in unique historical eras, for a time lose, not its full power, but a **great measure** of its power to build (or to destroy, as in the case of nihilist, relativist, and skeptic philosophies of the last century or more)? Does the explanation for the non-collapse of civilization rest in the fact that humans have free will and no one who is himself enormously influential as a transmission belt is taking seriously the ideas of the most recent generations of philosophers?<br />Does the vacuum today get filled by those who offer actual answers to the problems of life: religious movements, self-help books, counselors and therapists, by the paterfamilia and elders in more traditional societies (or traditional enclaves of advanced societies)?<br />Humans have free will.<br />That is why pure philosophy -alone- does not and cannot deterministically cause history.<br />Objectivists, for example, have chosen to reject totally all the malign philsophical influences they have been taught. And many of us were impervious to these ideas or were "a-philosophical" before reading Ayn Rand. Human beings can -choose- by the millions to reject or ignore a deep and fundamental theoretical doctrine, or the need to study them. (Whole societies have at certain points in the past rebelled against the deep philosophical wisdom of the times.) People may never have heard of the mind-body dichotomy, skepticism, intrinsicism, and a whole host of other positions and debates. They can drift, it is true, and be subject to random philosophical winds from past centuries. But they can also simply live with "market-driven" substitutes for the philosophies taught in the academy. They can and do live in a practical, everyday Aristotelian world of their professions and friends and families...and roll their eyes and shut their minds when they hear some Kantian or relativist or anti-common sense position advocated.<br />There once was a time in the West when major philosophers were treated with awe and respect by the educated public of their day: Dewey in the U.S., Kant and Hegel and Heidegger in Germany, Locke and Hume and Hobbes in England, Rousseau and Descartes and Sartre and Camus in France. And this made them enormously influential, simply because they spoke for the Queen of the Sciences, they were occupying the intellectual "commanding heights" and their ideas trumped or determined *every other idea* that would be accepted.<br />But if they are no longer respected (at least in America, other Western countries such as France and Germany may differ to some measure) because they have been preaching nonsense for a hundred years, if no one (or virtually no one) is listening, it doesn't matter how powerful and fundamental their pure philosophical ideas are.<br />What we are seeing - and have seen for a good portion of the last century - is a rebellion against academic and fundamental philosophy. It is laughed at and loathed. And to some extent, if an academic philosopher says something, even many prominent intellectuals are likely to not only be skeptical but believe the opposite. When something collapses and stinks to high heaven there is a tendency to rebound toward the opposite (which is one reason why religion - the best known alternative to pure or academic philosophy - and the less rational alternatives such as superstition, witchcraft, magic, cults, etc. are seeing a resurgence: from Islam worldwide to various fundamentalisms in the West).<br />Your civilization can't be destroyed by those whose ideas you as a culture are to a significant degree unwilling to listen to or take seriously.<br />This is not true of religion right now (it is not the object of widespread ridicule), but it does seem to be true of fundamental philosophy.<br /><br />--Philip Coates<br /><br />[I posted the above today to the solopassion.com website.]Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13888935223893390024noreply@blogger.com