Over the past few days we've had some fun expressing differing views on the nature of "the truth" and that is good. Everybody likes a good fight, especially those on the sidelines who are merely spectators. I learned some things and shared some insights, too.
In a recent phone conversation I learned that hate is neither a big part of Lawrence's philosophy, nor is it a big part of mine. I'm not going to sit here and lie to you by saying that we didn't have differences; we still do. But they don't focus on personality. They don' t even focus on symbolism. That's just the current trendy topic at hand.
What we are dealing with here is a tiny pimple of an age-old problem, perhaps the most fundamental conceptual divide since the Renaissance. Whom are we to believe? The annointed who speak with the authority of revelation, or the men and women who have studied the natural world around them and postulated theories based upon demonstrable evidence. We're talking about types of thinking, right down to the base line of what constitutes reality.
On one side we have absolutism and certainty and on the opposing side we have empirical and scientifically-based analysis which usually leads to further doubt and more specific questions. If you stop and think about types of thought and where they lead it's not hard to follow the dichotomy through many of our most historic and recent events. It's just another tiny scene in a bigger drama that is being played out in the minds and policies of mankind.
It was there in the Scopes trial. It was the core issue in determining whether witches should be burned at Salem. As a matter of fact the Nazis brainwashed themselves into believing the absolutist nonsense ideology of National Socialism and used this as a basis for killing 11,000,000 non combatants, mostly women and children, from 1940-1945.
Am I saying that anyone who doesn't see things my way is a witch-burning Nazi. Absolutely not. Am I saying that absolutist thinking is without-a-doubt the most unproductive and potentially misleading and dangerous type of thinking known to mankind? Yes. I am absolute in my distrust of absolutism.
Absolute idealism is an especially dangerous mode of thought. I'm not a name dropper, but a philosopher of this bent whom I especially detest is Hegel. Google him up for a quick refresher. He even used his omniscient deductive thought to "prove" that there could only be so many planets in the galaxy. A few years later the astronomers added one more. Yet, you can trace his pattern of thought right through the holocaust. It was not Darwinian concepts that fueled the fires, but unrestrained idealism. The pedigree is pure and traceable in the world of ideas. That's why we rationalists hate it, in all forms, and in the smallest degrees. We believe that a bad idea is like cancer. You don't ignore it; you don't tweak it; you don't get an "adjustment." You cut it out, as soon as possible. Alan G. apparently had the same type of rigorous teachers as I did.
I will certainly concede that anyone has the right to be an oracle of symbolism if that is what they like. All I ask is that, to guys like us, words like "perhaps," "may" "likely," "suggests," "offers support for," or "lends credence to," keep us tuned in, while terms like "is," "shows," "must be," and, worst of all, "proves," make the bull $#*& detectors immediately go off in our narrow minds, and we are going to continue to call you on that. If you call us ignorant, we are going to call you a liar. If you give me just this much, I, for one will never question the comment.
Oh, for the phone message on my recorder. Soren Kierkegaard was an early 19th century Danish philosopher. His thought is rooted in the individual as subject. Son of a Lutheran minister, he studied deeply Christian thought and quickly came to the conclusion that reason, common sense, science, etc, could never be used to prove that God existed. One had to make the "leap of faith." in order to be a believer. He said, "I believe, because it is absurd." The father of Christian existentialism. Some who have actually studied his ideas find his thoughts comforting and useful because they use them to form a dichotomy between their "secular" life and their "sacred" life. They take the leap each Sunday. Others find it quaint that this stuff was all pretty well detailed 200 years ago. Read Either/Or and his later book Concept of Dread. Be prepared to look into the abyss of darkness which is your own soul. Not for beginners. JWHeckert
