Lacewing wrote: ↑Thu Sep 22, 2022 5:52 pmThere are many different ideas and beliefs. Why not ask: Why does one need what they need, and why does one replace anything with anything. It doesn't really matter what one chooses. Each person believes what serves them.
I wonder,
my belovèd [I am so glad we are
talking again!] if you realize how the idea you present here is thoroughly post-modern?
Consider the ideas of Richard Weaver from
this article:
Relatedly, Weaver also attacked relativism, which applies the nominalist attitude toward classifying objects to moral values. Of course, William of Occam was not himself a moral relativist. That Occam did not believe in universal truth is certainly not Weaver’s claim, as it would be incorrect to attribute moral relativism to this medieval friar. And it would be intellectually irresponsible to simply confuse nominalism and relativism as the same thing. More responsibly, Weaver argued that what follows from nominalism is a rejection of absolute truth. In other words, Weaver identified a connection between the two ideas, suggesting that nominalism led the Western world to relativism. By denying that there are universal essences and absolutes, nominalism led to the current attitude that all values are relative. Years later, Weaver defined relativism as follows:
Relativism generally defined denies outright that there are any absolute truths, any fixed principles, or any standards beyond what one may consider his convenience. A thing is true only relative to the point of view of the individual, or to the time in which it is asserted, or to the circumstances that prevail in the moment. Truth is forever contingent and evolving, which means, of course, that you really never can lay hands on it. Relativism as a theory is actually an abdication of truth.
The article continues:
Relativism asserts that there is no absolute truth and that there is no metaphysical reality beyond the individual. Universal truths do not exist, and value judgments do not have universal validity. Writing in the 1940s, Weaver therefore put his thumb on the very essence of what would eventually be labeled post-modernism, the movement that took shape in the mid-to-late twentieth century that was skeptical of universal truth, morality, and grand narratives. Knowledge claims are, according to this view, constructed rather than discovered. Something might be true for one individual, but it may not be true for another individual—hence making knowledge claims nothing more than another point of view.
LaceWing further says:
We're on this philosophy forum, however, to question and explore and challenge everything. We are not in anyone's church -- nothing should be off-limits.
Well, I'd put it a bit differently but it would seem rather biting: We are indeed on a philosophy forum, and there are some who actually have philosophical training and philosophical habits of mind, but it is more accurate to say that it is a philosophy forum overrun by those who cannot, and will not, or who are not equipped to 'think philosophically'.
The interesting thing to examine when your phrase
We are not in anyone's church is examined closely is something that must be pointed out. If we really do understand the reality we are in; if we really do grasp what are the essential and fundamental requisites of this life in this plane of existence -- and all religions and all cultural philosophies are attempts to make statements about just that -- then what you recognize here as
a religious perspective (the way that we relate to reality, in this reality, to one another, etc.) would necessarily be clarified and recognized.
But what in fact goes on, and certainly in you, is the carrying-out of successful campaigns of opposition against people like Immanuel Can (religious fanatics) using reasoning tools and a certain
emotionalism (indignation). But then everything beyond that point
flounders. You can describe all the good (emotion-based) reasons for breaking apart systems you are in reaction to, but you have no means
to construct alternatives. Yet, and here is the weird part, your relativism has
a fundamentalist twang to it. You very definitely are dealing in positive assertions. Your philosophy is
active, determining.
And many people like you have positions in society where their ideas are also
imposed.
Your perspective is interesting and considerable because, without thinking your way to the point you operate from, you define a nearly chemically-pure post-modern and relativistic perspective -- yet without seeing the full consequences of such a state. And in a real sense, but one that you have difficulty seeing & recognizing, you are defining a church policy: a fixed and absolutist assertion about the way things are (i.e. absent universal truths).
The position is comfortable to you because, as you have revealed, you grew up in a Church dominated by the likes of *Immanuel Cans*. It was imperative, for your own survival and growth, to get away from him and to get out from under the control of men who
enacted their control against you. And rightly so. Necessarily.
You are just one among numerous: some on this thread have spoken of their religious upbringing and their need to negate it and get beyond it.
This entire episode with Brother Immanuel has been about exposing a man who is deeply invested in political and social theological forms that are, largely, social control institutions.
There is value and interest, for some, in choosing to be without attachment to certain templates/structures/ideas. Some people aren't inclined to be told what is and should be. Some people are more inclined to assess each moment and situation independently of certain concepts and people. Clearly there are many different ways of seeing and functioning.
This is, in essence, a 'girlish' intellectual position. I know that this will offend you as it would today to refer to an idea-set as uniquely feminine or female, but there you have it.
Yes, it is true that it is possible to choose no template or structure in the realm of ideas. It is possible to do away, therefore, with all thinking or all reasoning as well. It is possible that we all make choices on the basis of what *feels good to us* or what *seems right in a given moment without reflection*. Yes! I grasp what you are saying!
But that sort of world is a world where idea-structures, for different reasons, are falling apart. That is, that people are falling away from idea-structure, and what you refer to as 'templates', and down into irrationally-based definitions, or non-definitions, based on non-thought (i.e. ideas that are not amenable to rationalization).