Krimel, Platt and dmb, Krimel, I agree that science is not to blame for the social malaise that Pirsig describes, that Platt and I concur with.
I think dmb makes a good case for the problem being the interaction of science and religion. From my perspective, of a background in studying religious problems, I see the biggest problem being religion. I think its religious ideas that are responsible for the mess we're in, and heading for worse. One specific idea in particular, covers a whole host of evils - the doctrine of original sin. This doctrine says that man is inherently evil. That because of the fall, man has sin encoded into his dna. Because of sin, all nature is fallen and evil. Because of sin, there is only one possible solution - acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. Even though this idea might be a clever marketing ploy and helped fill the pews with backsides, it's had disastrous effects on the church and the world. In the church, it's tended to coddle the worst of the worst individuals. Since we're all sinners, it's ok to be a sinner. Hence you end up with preachers, deacons and leaders of the congregation who are venal populists, child molesters, adulterers, and greedy assholes. Since salvation by works is wrong, then we can only be saved by being convinced of our evil, right? And who is most convinced of their own evil? Those who are the most evil. Also, those with the most to cover up in their private lives, have the most incentive to appear righteous publicly. Instead of sincerity and truth, church life is full of hypocrites and liars. Those with the most to hide, put on the most pious covering. "Whited sepulchers" Christ called them. Guess what. They're back. Second, the idea of the creation being "fallen" means that believers can pretty much rape and pillage the land and the "lower" animals all they want. Since they believe we all have selfish, sinful natures, the only sensible philosophy is that which helps us grab all we can for ourselves in competitive power politics. Since the world is evil, and intended for nothing but destruction, then we can do what we want with it, right? Hence environmental degradation and prayer breakfasts in the white house go hand in hand. Especially under the last administration. That this untenable metaphysical mess led science to adopt a values-free philosophical stance is hardly surprising. And practically admirable. This lead then to another problem, which is in the modern era, the most moral interaction with nature is to leave it alone. That is, instead of a creation which God pronounced "good" in Genesis, featuring man as the tender and manager of gardens, the namer of things; we have scientists and politicians urging an almost Buddhist non-involvement between us and the environment. A complete abnegation of stewardship which leaves man as the passive observer. Preferably through some means of filming which leaves no trace. What a travesty! Nature suffers from the lack of man, and man suffers from the lack of nature. John On Mon, Sep 6, 2010 at 11:00 AM, david buchanan <[email protected]>wrote: > > Krimel said to John and Platt: > ...It is religion and philosophy that have failed to guide us in what kind > of Gods we ought to become. Reactionaries and fundamentalists are the > fall-out of that failure. The result is a moral vacuum we fill with money, > the true measure of all Value. What money can't buy, it can rent. That is a > what has made a husk of the modern soul. Blaming it on science and the > classical understanding is just too obvious and too obviously wrong. > > > > dmb says: > > It seems wrong to blame science but it seems equally wrong to think we > ought to become gods through science. And it's not very helpful to disparage > one discipline while praising another because the problem exists at such a > basic level that all disciplines are implicated in it. Since the root of the > problem is the basic metaphysical assumptions behind philosophy, science and > common sense, the diagnosis and treatment will have equally broad effects. I > mean, it's important to realize the scope of Pirsig's diagnosis. Ultimately, > he traces the problem all the way back to the beginnings of science and > philosophy but we'd do pretty well to focus on the last 500 years or so, > when the disciplines in question first became distinguishable as separate > fields of inquiry, each with their own domains, methods and standards. When > we're talking about SOM as a problem and the MOQ as a solution, we're > talking about intellectual history and what to make of it. > > As I read it, becoming a disciple of scientism and becoming an > anti-intellectual reactionary are among the worst responses. I think both of > those positions are extremely objectionable even if you never heard of > Pirsig. > > > If memory serves, it was Kant who first articulated the idea of the > differentiation of art, science and religion. Up until the modern period, > these domains were still aspects of a single cultural outlook, a single > social structure. In the pre-modern world there was no distinction between > church and state. Art and science were servants of religion. Ken Wilber > makes use of this idea and calls it the differentiation of the big three. As > he paints it, art, religion and science make sense as distinct domains > because art is about the "I", about individual expression. Religion is about > "we" because it deals with collective behavior, the moral domain and science > is about "it". You'll notice that morals and values will play a central role > in the domains of "I" and "we" but not so much with the "its". For > historical and political reasons, science and religion made a deal. Science > said to religion, I'll take the brain and you the heart. And they both > laughed at the artist, although for > different reasons. > > > This separation is not the problem. Each field of inquiry should have its > own domain and its methods but the problem is that they have not just become > differentiated from each other, they have become hostile to each other. In > the United States, for example, it's like the Scopes Monkey trial never > ended. There is an anti-intellectual streak that runs through our culture > and it is almost exclusively motivated by religion. Just the other day, Glen > Beck was on the Mall in Washington re-dedicating this country to God. Just > the other day, I saw a Youtube video of a preacher explaining how the > pragmatism of William James was the work of the devil. I mean, this clash > still goes on as we speak. We're talking about a cultural problem that is > centuries old and it's still in your face this election season. We have > Senate candidates who think women should be forced to give birth to their > rapist's child because God has a plan. It's pretty sick out there. > > What's happened is that science doesn't just study the its. Scientific > materialism has become the basic worldview of educated people in the West. > What's happened is that the methods of science, which are very well suited > to studying physical realities, have been exported into other domains, the > domains of the "I" and the "we". In all kinds of subtle and not so subtle > ways, objective science colonizes these other areas. By treating everything > as an "it" the methods of physics are used to explain everything in physical > terms. The result is scientism and reductionism and nihilism. > > > "From the perspective of a subject-object science, the world is a > completely purposeless, valueless place. There is no point in anything. > Nothing is right and nothing is wrong. Everything just functions, like > machinery." (Lila, 22) > > > Pirsig's aim is to show that science is not value-free, not outside the > realm of morals or individual expression. Quite the opposite. Physicists are > artists and so is the motorcycle mechanic. Truth is a species of the Good, > the most moral level of static quality. The idea here is to improve and > expand both philosophy and science, to expand our notion of rationality by > incorporating Quality or Value as a central feature. And so the attack on > SOM is not only a rejection of the Cartesian self, the correspondence theory > of truth and a rejection of the old-school empiricism, it is also an attack > on our attitudes of objectivity and our basic cultural outlook. It's an > attack on scientism and reductionism and the pretense of an objective point > of view. James and Pirsig both say, basically, that philosophy is biography > and there is no such thing as an objective point of view, an objective > reality or a single exclusive truth. Perspective is everything and science > and philosophy have ne > ver been anything but works of art. > > > > > > > > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
