117. Habermas

Here I start a series of items on ethics

Jürgen Habermas is exceptional, among continental philosophers, in continuing to press for rational and just debate. Conditions for it are: no asymmetric power (‘herrschaftsfreie Discussion’, in German), truthfulness, in mutual striving for truth and justice, and sincerity, meaning what one says.

This is of course a perfect ideal and goal, but the conditions are hardly realistic. There is rarely if ever a balance of power in debate. It would, for example, preclude employer-employee debate, and teacher-pupil debate. And there inevitably is strategic behaviour, in dissimulation, half-truths or outright lies to protect interests or to promote a cause. To speak with Nietzsche, there is will to power and that is part of human flourishing as well as misconduct.

I noted before (in item 50 of this blog) that power could be positive, in providing new options or room for choice, and negative, in limiting them. To limit negative power, I pleaded for measures that ensure both voluntary access and exit from a relationship. That applies also to debate. In my discussion of trust I used the notion of exit and voice. When in disagreement with arguments or actions one should say so and give the other the benefit of the doubt, and an opportunity to explain and justify. But hidden behind the stage there is a way out, an exit, when persistent efforts at understanding and acceptance fail.

In my discussion of cognition I used the notions of absorptive capacity and cognitive distance (item 57): The ability to understand, and hence rational debate, depends on cognitive structures developed in life and thus differs between people to the extent that their life paths have been different. This is a problem but also an opportunity: precisely because others perceive and think differently, there is an opportunity to learn from them and broaden one’s horizon. Cognitive distance is a source of learning and innovation (item 58).

Third parties or go-betweens may help to achieve mutual understanding, to cross cognitive distance (item 74).

Power and lies being inevitable, and partly constructive, there must be countervailing measures against negative power, striving for, though never quite achieving, balance of power, under threat of exit, and an awareness that give and take and forbearance, not grasping every opportunity at negative power, is often to one’s own advantage, instrumentally, and rewarding for its intrinsic value, as part of virtue. I discussed this in a series on trust (items 68 – 75).

For both cognitive and ethical reasons go-betweens can help, and as I will argue in the following item on debatable ethics there may need to be a jury, or forum, or bystanders to help craft understanding and adjudicate justice. But that also can be biased or prejudiced, and ways of exit must be maintained. To be a voluntary outcast, paying a price of isolation for the sake of freedom.

In a discussion of freedom (item 49) I proposed that beyond negative freedom, in not being bound or constrained by others, the highest level of freedom is freedom also from one’s own prejudice. For the latter one needs others, but when those become oppressive one needs to escape even if it means getting buried in one’s own myopia and prejudice.

116. Reason in the rise and fall of civilizations

According to Cioran[1], when civilizations emerge, the new religion, values, myths, ideology, or doctrine, are vigorous, vital, clear, hard, simple, and compelling. In time, tested by earthly realities of complexity and variability, they develop nuance, differentiation, refinement, tolerance of diversity and individuality, and become soft, more pliable. Culture strays from nature, and instincts are subdued by reflection. This is next experienced as degeneration, decadence. Too clever for its own good. Diversity is seen as confusion. And then the old doctrine becomes vulnerable to a takeover by the next more hardy vision looming on the horizon.

According to Cioran, decline is accompanied by intellectualization and erudition: myth is replaced by science, song by discourse, and emotion by reason. That may have been the case in the decline of ancient Greek culture in Hellenism and in the decline of the Roman Empire. But does it apply to current times?

It seems to me that the Enlightenment, since Descartes, especially in its radical stream, initiated by Spinoza, constituted a new culture at the peak of which, in the 17-18^th century, myth was replaced by science, finesse by geometry, emotion by reason. Central values became reason, truth, freedom, and democracy.

And now we seem to be in a stage of decline where those Enlightenment values, right or wrong, are surrendered for the return of emotion, idolatry, myth, hype, and post-modern relativization of truth and freedom. In which lies the decadence? 

Consider the supposedly ‘degenerate’ values of diversity, individuality, tolerance, nuance and change? Early, 16^th century humanism celebrated those, notably the philosophy of Montaigne. They were briefly institutionalized in the reign of Henri IV, who instituted the Edict of Nantes for the sake of religious tolerance. According to Toulmin, in his Cosmopolis, in the 17^th century those were replaced by dogmatic doctrine, and intolerance, and the Edict of Nantes was repealed, under the pressures of religious strife between Catholics and Protestants, as in the 30-year war. Under the polarization of Protestantism versus Catholicism there was no room for nuance: one had to choose sides.

Thus, in the Enlightenment we see an emerging civilization at odds with Ciorans thesis. It is not vigorous myth at the peak, followed by the decadence of reason, but a peak of vigorous reason, with universalistic, pure ideas. Presently we see, I propose, a decline, with departures from reason and argument, and a reopening of the gates for myth, emotions, hype, and delirium. There, I propose, lies the degeneration.

So, what next? Are we in wait for a new, more vigorous culture? Would that require hard myth and ideology without nuance or differentiation, as Cioran claims? Does culture require unreason, intolerance and repression to be vigorous? Or could we, perhaps, think of, and hope for, a revival of the 16th century humanist combination of reason and tolerance, with a dynamic interplay of universals and individuals, the general and the specific, as I have argued for in several places in this blog? Could this not be vigorous?     

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[1] From Rumanian origin, Cioran mostly lived and worked in France. 

115. The success of theistic religion

 How have theistic religions, such as Christianity and the Islam, been so successful, persisting for so long?

My hunch is that this is because of a clever combination of the universal, eternal, pure, and Platonic, in a single God, or Allah, with the individual, specific, diverse, earthly, fragile, weak and human, in the form of a saviour or prophet, a Christ or Mohammed. Christ succumbs in suffering but is resurrected, re-connected with the eternal, and by his suffering offers the gift of salvation. The human need for recognition of earthly nuance, plurality, indviduality, the tragedy of contingency, and softness of compassion is satisfied but remains connected to the pure and transcendent, is reabsorbed in celestial universality and eternity.

Then, if that is correct, what about other religions or philosophies, such as Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism? They lacked the one or the other: the absolute and universal or the individual, the earthly nuance. Buddhism and Confucianism are wisdoms of life that have no absolutes of God. Taoism, by contrast, is oriented not to human tribulations but to the system of nature as a whole, in its harmony and perfection. As such it is like the God of Spinoza. It lacks nuance and tragic individuality.

The histories of these wisdoms are patchy, with intermissions and shifts, a thinning out, and their survival was precarious.

 

In attempts at synthesis between them, as in forms of neo-confucianism in China, is there a perspective for forging a unity of the supreme and absolute with earthly contingency, justice and individuality?

Totalitarian ideologies try to implement on earth the absolute and pure, of race or doctrine, and cannot tolerate the mellowness of nuance and tolerance. The craving for justice and compassion needs to be suppressed by terror. But sooner or later they will collapse for want of justice.

Theistic religions are not exempt from the need for terror to sustain the absolute, as exhibited in old Christian crusades and inquisition, and present Islamist fundamentalism, and terrorism, which have the appeal of returning to the purity of old, rejecting the niceties and decadence of democracy and diversity.

In Western society, Enlightenment ideals, inspired among others by Spinoza, have served to provide the pure, Platonic, and universal in reason and knowledge. In an earlier item in his blog (93) I noted the demise of the old culture of delving for the deep, the fundamental, the abstract, which is being replaced by the rush and race of the superficial. After that loss, what next will appear in order to satisfy the urge for the pure and perfect? Will there be a return to God, or a new ideology?

114. Remedies?

 In the preceding four items in this blog, inspired by the work of Baudrillard, I paraded a few complaints about present society. Can I also offer any remedies? I indicated a few but here I will expand on them and give a survey.

Against loss of contact with reality, in hyperreality, we can go against mere opinion, emotion, hype and ecstasy and persist in demanding arguments and facts, even if, admittedly, facts are never ‘rock bottom’ objective, never identical to reality, and are mentally and socially construed. At least they entail a commitment to grasp reality, even if that is imperfect. The imperfection of our grasp entails the need for debate, for a contrast between what you and I think we grasp. And we can step out of the virtuality of games and make-believe, to combine experience with entertainment, action with simulation, face with console.

Against loss of individual identity, in hyperidentity, we can maintain variety, utilize and revitalize cognitive distance, and insist on room for one’s own interpretation, one’s own path in the construction of the self, even if that construction is social and we need others to loosen ourselves from our prejudice. We can try to use social networks to make new connections rather than consolidate existing ones. We can resist the regimentation of ideology embedded in institutions by bringing it to light, applying the x-ray of analysis.

Against closed groups or communities we can resist myopia, intolerance, nationalism, chauvinism, and insist on their opening up, on outside connections, and on turnover of membership. This applies to boards of directors and supervisors, committees, organizations, positions, jobs, etc. Democracy is never perfect, is often a myth, but it does yield turnover of power due to elections.

Against loss of responsibility we can stop hiding the inability to exercise responsibility as a result of system tragedy, unmask and demystify managerial fables of control, accept that not all uncertainty can or should be eliminated, leave room for error, and seek new forms of control. Here I refer to item 75 in this blog, on horizontal control. The crux of that is that those controlled help to inform the control over them, with the reward of less control if they do so honestly.  

Against system tragedy due to complexity of social systems, we can reduce complexity by decentralization, with a large degree of local autonomy, in localized government and smaller, more independent organizations, collaborating rather than concentrating in mergers or  acquisitions. This is a classic solution: decompose. Another solution is to reduce strong ties, by reducing rules, untightening control. Here again I refer to horizontal control.

On a deeper level, underlying all this is the issue of universals that I discussed repeatedly in this blog. We should surrender claims of closed, complete and universal ideas and rules, applying everywhere and always, to recognize variety and contingency of circumstance, and the flux involved in life and society, the changes that cannot be foreseen and planned for. In short: imperfection on the move.