THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE WITHOUT DUALISM

Cross Currents, Vol. 48, Issue 1 ^ | Spring 1998 | Elizabeth Newman

[unspun]

For thanks to these folks, rational discourse is becoming increasingly impossible.

"Irrelevant."

It's very concerning, true. But as for the philosophers such as Hegel, and Derrida whom you cite (and the vast number of philosophers) how much do they drive culture compared to reporting it by its rationale? They may mean to cause, but are they more effect?

Who is driving our culture lately? The brunt of it seems to be the practitioners, the Hugh Hefners, John Lennons, Martin Scorseses etc., who lean an elbow on the rationale of their philosophy of choice.

[unspun]

So I don't know how much the philosophers are to blame, compared to a basic (or base) "market appeal" which provides both the market drivers that "entertainers" command and the lure for those most prone to be pop-culture, media movers, shakers, and celebrities (frothier, more groundless people, whether in entertainment, "news," "self-help," etc.).

I tend to think that our cultural decline if you will, is in large part an effect of the easy froth of pop culture and the lure this has for those most prone to be "postmodern" by attitude: entertainment marketeers.

I think that "Gypsies" if you will, are driving our culture, based upon powers of mass Gypsie shows. They have the gambling booth under one tent, the veil dancer in another, the snake-oil salesman under another, the opium merchant under another, the loremaster under another, the fortune teller... and so it goes for a people with the newer more powerful and newer still technologies to bring idle people into the tents.

I think this creates a spread of groundlessness and people look for rationale that matches their sense of life, driven by this desire for titillation, quick fixes, and escape from accountability.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your very engaging analysis! This particularly rings true to my spirit:

I think this creates a spread of groundlessness and people look for rationale that matches their sense of life...

Indeed. I perceive many are adrift, unwilling to anchor, self-justifying each desire - from moment to moment - with no regard for continuity in their thinking.

[cornelis]

I perceive many are adrift

There are moments of tragedy even for the best. The human predicament is not an us-them situation.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for sharing your view!

[unspun]

Indeed. I perceive many are adrift, unwilling to anchor, self-justifying each desire - from moment to moment - with no regard for continuity in their thinking.

Seems we may have even heard from just this attitude among those who took a look-in at this article/thread.

[unspun]

Good points. One may even find in an intellectually honest, honestly objective pursuit of truth, that it has been there all along in history. Now wouldn't that be nice?

BTW, as to choice and knowledge, "The Oracle" in Matrix-2 told "Neo" that knowledge is only gained by the choices we make. Postmodernist moviola hoakiness aside, I think this is a very good point.

[unspun]

...a good point, once basic perceptions are made. And of course one has to choose whether or not to believe them, too, more importantly choose how to regard them.

[unspun]

You know all about that, I'm not informing. I suppose I'm musing on the most basic aspects of the problem, something I'm prone to do.

It's so much more about how we regard and what choices we make, whether or not the truth slaps us in the face.

[cornelis]

I thought the first Matrix film was a blatant recusal of beauty.

[unspun]

The second second movie becomes the same, to religion (naturally) -- recusal of any real subject of religion. Kind of "there is no God and if there is it doesn't matter, so party on, dude."

[unspun]

Now there's an origial thought.

[unspun]

original

[unspun]

...so maybe the producer intended to aim at the ancient marble wall set and shoot beauty with the first movie and truth with the second.

[Alamo-Girl]

Indeed. Thanks for the reply!

[unspun]

As you may note from my most recent posts, I need more sleep. ;-` Appreciated your post on things spiritual, earlier on.

[Alamo-Girl]

I haven't noticed any problem at all with your posts - and I very much appreciate all of them! It is particularly a joy to discuss spiritual matters with you!!! Hugs!

[unspun]

An article that may be challenging to those who believe they've enlightened themselves, including our fans of dope merchandising -- "pass it on."

rnm, great to get your pings.

[Stultis]

bookmark for later...

[betty boop]

Our self-respect overwhelms the courtesy of others. Instead of recognizing others, we claim a special right to dispense with history and substitute just any word we like. This is an unbelief of language to be meaningful.… Dismissal of one’s opponent is part of debate. But a typical sham dismissal is the assumption that one knows the opponent's position merely on the basis of a conviction that one’s own position is right…. Analysis allows us to isolate the difficulties in dualistic thinking, however it does not allow us to exempt ourselves from the other difficulties that we participate in as historical and social beings.

Indeed, cornelis; and such “difficulties” certainly pile up when we deliberately gut the meaning of words, of language – which is certainly the very object that the “deconstructed self” (e.g., deconstructionists such as Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, et al.) has in view.

On the deconstructionist view, words don’t mean anything intrinsically; they are merely modes of domination. They have no real objective reference to things in the world, but are merely by-products of social construction by self-interested individuals and groups who seek domination over others. They are thus “hegemonic” and violent in intent.

The self-alienation and alienation from society and the world implicit in this view is breathtaking. In essence, it says that genuine communication with others is impossible. All language is or ever can be, is a field of conflict, in which competing “ideologies” contend for power and influence. Such is the “difficulty that we participate in as historical and social beings” in our time: As I mentioned already, rational discourse increasingly becomes impossible, as this view of language increasingly becomes “fashionable” among our leading academics and “thought leaders.” (And these "fashionable ones" are legion these days.)

Thus we see that truth fundamentally is an ethical problem. To the deconstructionist, there is no truth in language because there is no truth in the world; all there is, is self-interest, and the violence to which it necessarily leads. Needless to say, this post-modernist recapitulation of the ancient error of gnosticism utterly destroys the basis for civil society.

How far we’ve come from the “primitive” understanding that language, which Professor Newman so brilliantly explores in this essay. On this view, language -- words – are strongly associated with “deeds,” with action that has a “covenantal” quality to it. There is an English phrase still extant that recalls this understanding: “His word was his bond.” Thus again we see the ethical dimension of the truth of language, in this case striving for fidelity to its objects, the honesty of its representation to the others to which it is being communicated, and the implication that the speaker is willing to be bound by his own representation.

This understanding of language does not bespeak alienation from the self, society, world. On the contrary, it roots the speaker in the very context of existential reality, society, and the world. Arguably, this understanding of language is essential, indispensable to the conduct of civil life – and is also the understanding that undergirds historical American institutions and civil society at large.

Perhaps it is no mere accident that the “moral inversion” implicit in deconstructionist “theory” makes life in civil society impossible. Indeed, that may be the entire point of the exercise.

cornelis, increasingly we are drowning in irrationality, driven by the ideological constructs of gnostic narcissists who do not wish the human individual or liberal society well. Thank you so much for writing.