However, things get complicated, or at least ambiguous, because we can never know the Absolute, even though we can't do without it. Rather, it exists for us like an implicit placeholder for wholeness and totality. It is like the cognitive sun around which we orbit, except it is a sun we can't literally see. Still, it's always there.
I am reminded of a book conveniently called The Book of Absolutes: A Critique of Relativism and a Defence of Universals. One anthropologist has identified 311 human universals, which are defined as "observable cultural features, practices, behaviors, or beliefs that appear in all human societies in history."
But we're actually talking about something deeper -- something that serves as the prior condition or deep structure of these surface universals, analogous to the "universal grammar" said to underlie all human languages.
Off the top of my head, I would say that these surface universals are to the Absolute as existence is to Being. A thing only exists because it partakes of a Being that is prior to it. Being is necessary, while contingent existents not only partake of Being, but only exist to the extent that they do.
I am at a crossroads. This subject is so full of implications that it could go in a dozen different directions. Let's briefly touch on our civil war. Why are we amidst one? Well, it really comes down to a war between absolutists and relativists. Except with a twist, since the relativists give a pass to their own relativism, and elevate it to a pseudo-absolute.
To repeat an aphorism from yesterday, The progressive believes that everything soon turns obsolete except his ideas. For The relativist rarely relativizes himself.
Really, there can no such thing as an honest relativist, because if there is no truth there can be neither honesty nor dishonesty. So, never ask why this or that leftist politician is "dishonest," for in their universe this is irrelevant. For them, a statement can be expedient, or convenient, or "empowering," but its truth is literally beside (or outside) the point.
So, To scandalize the leftist, just speak the truth. Literally.
Example.
Okay, here is one from When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment. Anderson notes that this movement "promotes a radical subjectivity in which individuals should be free to do whatever they wish and to define the truth as they choose" -- BUT -- at the same time call for "enforced conformity of belief in transgender dogma."
Not only is the totalitarian nature of the left clothed in relativism, but relativism is always a prelude to totalitarianism, because with no appeal to truth, power rushes in to fill the vacuum. It's really a heaven-and-hell situation, because hell is any place where truth is not only irrelevant and impotent, but caricatured as a kind of monstrous authoritarianism.
In this inverted cosmos, someone like a Justice Scalia is the authoritarian monster, instead of the bullying anti-intellectual mob of Ginsberg-Kagan-Breyer-Sotomayer.
People say "metaphysics is dead." What they should say is that it is deadly. Anderson correctly notes that
We live in a postmodern age that promotes an alternative metaphysics. At the heart of the transgender moment are radical ideas about the human person -- in particular, that people are what they claim to be, regardless of contrary evidence. A transgender boy is a boy, mot merely a girl who identifies as a boy.
Thus, their rhetoric "drips with ontological assertions: people are the gender they prefer to be." Think for a moment about the implications of a metaphysic in which "I wish" is utterly conflated with "It is." This is a radical subjectivism, but again, opponents -- people who live in the objective world -- are not accorded the same privilege of elevating our wishes to reality.
Now, in reality, I Want must always be parasitic on It Is. For example, perhaps I want a pet unicorn. Well, unicorns Are Not, so my I Want is utterly beside the point. It is just an impotent wish.
I'm also thinking of how the Absolute-Relative complementarity bears on the Appearance-Reality axis. For these same activists transform the reality -- one's biological sex -- into a mere appearance, and the appearance -- what I imagine I am -- into the reality.
It also reminds me of the first principle of economics, which is scarcity, meaning that there is always going to be a tension between I Want and It Is, or desire and desirable. In other words, there is never enough of the latter to satisfy the former.
Think of Venezuela, where they literally can't print enough paper money to satisfy the most simple want. Inflation is verging on "a million percent," but that's just an abstraction rooted in the insane belief that government can satisfy infinite desire. In order to do so, it must itself become absolute, AKA totalitarian.
Socialism can drive away It Is -- including human nature -- with a pitchfork, but it always returns.
12 comments:
I recently came across an acquaintance along with his pregnant wife. They mentioned they just has an ultrasound, so I inquired about the gender. The wife's response: "She's anatomically coming out as a girl, but she can decide what she wants to be in her life."
I have to say this response left a chill in my bones. What have we wrought?!
What an unspeakable injustice. They have no right to do that to a child.
A struggle against reality. Reminds me of that Monty Python sketch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFBOQzSk14c
Ted, that is horrendous. The only response I can imagine to such a statement is to smile, nod, and back away slowly while scanning for an exit.
Think for a moment about the implications of a metaphysic in which "I wish" is utterly conflated with "It is."
Taken literally, there could be no communion between persons; or more succinctly, there could be no reality, as desire has no upper limit.
There are about a gazillion things "I want," some small few of them even fairly pressing and reasonable. Nevertheless, "It is," and if "I want" is even attainable, it is only so by acting accordingly, and not merely by wishing it so.
Though sometimes, if you ask very very nicely, the Man Upstairs makes the "I want" just a little more attainable.
"Really, there can no such thing as an honest relativist, because if there is no truth there can be neither honesty nor dishonesty. So, never ask why this or that leftist politician is "dishonest," for in their universe this is irrelevant. For them, a statement can be expedient, or convenient, or "empowering," but its truth is literally beside (or outside) the point."
Precisely.
"Thus, their rhetoric "drips with ontological assertions: people are the gender they prefer to be." Think for a moment about the implications of a metaphysic in which "I wish" is utterly conflated with "It is." This is a radical subjectivism, but again, opponents -- people who live in the objective world -- are not accorded the same privilege of elevating our wishes to reality."
Just to be certain that we put Descartes before d'whores, what comes first, metaphysically, is the consciously deliberate statement of "I Doubt" (as opposed to natural doubts that well up on their own). Adopting that as a legitimate conscious method of thought, doubting what is, on no basis beyond your desire to pretend that it might not be, is what enables and ushers in "I Wish" to be taken 'seriously'.
'Is gender an IS? Oh I Doubt that the conscious mind, has to conform to the physical body. I Wish people would stop forcing that on us!'
Viola! I think, therefore I am (The I Am)!
Doubt is parasitic on certitude, not vice versa.
Course disputes idea that heterosexual sex is 'natural'. Yesterday's parody is today's orthodoxy.
New word of the day: we know about orthoparadox, but now there's orthoparody.
If heterosexuality isn't natural, then there's no such thing. Which I guess is the point.
Gagdad said "Doubt is parasitic on certitude, not vice versa."
Definitely. My point was only that prior to people feeling confident in their ability to place their 'I wish' over reality, they first move to discount reality and all certainty about it, with the all disoulving power of Descartes' 'Method of Doubt', which advises you to, without any basis at all, to 'doubt' it is as it is, and demand 'proof' of not only conceptual, but even perceptual, realities.
Natural doubt is an honest expression of a claim conflicting with your certainties or presumptions about it. But Descartes' method of artificial doubt, advises and empowers each person to place reality at the mercy of their whims, where reality must submit to your approval, and is then prostrate to your wish for it being otherwise.
It is, how we got to where we are.
Hello All: The caveat to the post, is "What I wish becomes it is," has some truth to it.
Remember the "The Secret," a book which described visualization as a tool which created reality? It came out some years ago. Sounded like pure relativist bunko.
However....uh hem....in practice a very clear, precise image of a desired outcome, constantly meditated on and reinforced in a precise manner, does have a tendency to manifest around 25-50% of the time. The desired outcome has to be a realistic formulation. No unicorns can be involved.
The manifestation is shockingly congruent to the image in many instances. Anyone can either say "I already know this, it has happened to me," or they can try for themselves.
The old saw "Be careful what you wish for...you might gt it," stems from some deep wisdom indeed.
How does this relate to the post? It brings in a new hypothesis to consider, which is the human mind has an impact on physical reality, aside and apart from the usual planning and executing functions of the intellect and volition. The mind can directly change reality via the holding of a visualized image. A "co-creator" function, if you will.
It won't change someone's gender, but within reasonable parameters it is powerful.
Don't knock it until you've tried it. I'm telling you, there's something there.
Post a Comment