I don't think that Asma's article had anything to do with pragmatism. Was he
defining pragmatism correctly? No, I think his definition is merely 'if it
works for me, then, it works' which is not merely denying the societal
realities but moves into the 'might-makes-right' mode of existence and
reduces other people to 'slaves' (master-slave format).
I think it was instead just a rather typical 'academic leftist' attack on
America, defining American interactions with 'people/others/things/ as 'too
religious' - and how does he define 'religious'?
"By contrast American ethics (and foreign policy) is still too religious in
its perspective, and even our democratic traditions are asserted with
dogmatic gusto. As it's been pointed out many times, someone who thinks he
has God on his side is capable of almost anything. Of course, we've seen
lately that atheists can be just as dogmatic, and China herself proved this
in the Mao era. But China is very different now, and aligns more with the
pragmatic insight that dogmatism (whether religious or atheist) is the
bigger problem."
I would point out that 'what works for me' is even more capable of 'almost
anything' but I wonder if God can be redefined as this author seems to do,
as an infallible transcendent, alien Magical Power that is, as an absolute
power, 'capable of almost anything', i.e, arbitrary and indifferent. Full
disclosure: I'm an atheist, but I certainly don't define God in such a crude
and ignorant manner; I'd define a belief in God as an acceptance of human
fallibility ( we are units-of-finite-Secondness) and an acknowledgement of
the constraints of reality (Thirdness) and of our capacity to search for the
truth of this reality (Thirdness). Hmm. I believe what I just said. Does
this mean that I believe in God?
By the way, for a great book on the misuse of this notion of
'God-as-Sovereign', there's Jean Bethke Elshtain's wonderful book on:
"Sovereignty: God, State and Self', which explores the notion of both God
and the state as a sovereign Will that is absolute and 'above the law'
versus the view of God in Augustine and Aquinas where "God created the
universe in accordance with the spirit of love and the principles of
justice. Even God's omnipotence was not 'sovereign' or arbitrary but bound
by his benevolence to a structure of laws". This seems rather similar to
Peirce's agapasm.
At any rate, for someone to reduce pragmatism to 'what works for me', an act
which reduces 'others' to mere puppets, and to ignore that life actually
involves the self and the not-self within an evolving interactional
network - is quite a cynical view of people.
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Awbrey" <jawb...@att.net>
To: <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2014 10:30 AM
Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Re: NYTimes : From China, With Pragmatism
If we must re-import our pragmatism from overseas these days, I think that
Finland might supply a higher quality re-cycling, at least a far as
Dewey-eyed
education goes.
cf.
http://dianeravitch.net/2014/06/09/pasi-sahlberg-speaks-in-massachusetts-on-finnish-lessons/
Regards,
Jon
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