Sorry.  It’s one of those words I use because I thought everybody ELSE knows 
what it means.  I guess I meant, “To cause what had hitherto been seen as 
straightforward to be thought of as a problem.”  To undermine a consensus.   N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> 
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Friday, January 27, 2017 6:40 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com>
Cc: penny thompson <penny.thomp...@earthlink.net>; Bruce Simon 
<bjs...@yahoo.com>; Dix McComas <dixmccom...@gmail.com>; Grant Franks 
<grantfra...@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan

to see as problematic?

 

On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 5:57 PM, Nick Thompson <nickthomp...@earthlink.net 
<mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net> > wrote:

Hi everybody, 

 

I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to keep coming back to 
this topic, even when we are  talking about globalism.  

 

So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I think 
the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to problematize 
(Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the elements of that 
consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if we gather 
inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully, investigate 
rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my 
coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years, a 
position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan position seems to be 
something like, “There is no truth of the matter; there is only the exercise of 
power.  He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins the truth.  Truth is 
not something that is arrived at; it is won.”

 

So.  My sense of trump is that in fact, he is not lying.  On the contrary, he 
does not share the view of discourse that makes lying a possibility.  From 
Trump’s point of view, “Whatever I can win with is true.”  Hence, if he wins 
with what we call “a lie”, it is true.  

 

I feel we are straying along the edge of some Nietzschean chasm here.  
Unfortunately  I haven’t read any Nietzsche .  A brief rummage in Wikipedia, 
led me to The Parable of the Madman 
<http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/nietzsche-madman.asp> . And THAT led me to 
wonder if the TV Series, Madmen <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Men> , about 
marketing execs in the 60’s, was written with Nietzsche in mind.  In any case, 
if there is ever a domain in which the truth is that which wins, it would be 
marketing.  

 

So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that he 
lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win.  

 

Heavy lift. 

 

Nick 

 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 


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