"Edwina Taborsky" <tabor...@primus.ca>
wrote:
Helmut -
1] I said that fascism was 'leftist', because the left political ideology privileges the collective over and against the individual. Fascism and communism are the two major politico-economic modes that do that. The fact that fascism privileges the organic State, while communism privileges the collective economic class is irrelevant. Structurally and operationally- In both cases, the collective denies the singular powers of the individual. That is - both are utopian ideologies, which assume a 'perfect state of being' [pure Thirdness] and both are emotional utopias [Firstness]. Both ignore Secondness, ie, the individual.
Capitalism is a socio-political mode that privileges the individual as singular a free agent within the state [by social contract]. It considers the individual [2ns] to be capable of both emotion [1ns] and reason [3ns].
I suggest you read some of the texts - particularly Karl Popper.
2] The UN is historicist not because they pursue world peace [do they?] but because they remove decision-making from the control of the people and put it into control of ideology. As does the EU.
3] I don't see how capitalism assigns everyone a market value. Kindly explain. My definition of capitalism is purely an economic one - that puts economic activity [and ALL peoples must engage in economic activities] into the control of the free and private individual. Rather than the hereditary aristocracy; rather than the clan or tribe; rather than the state.
Do you think that a hereditary agricultural economy, where the landowners own the means-of-the-economy [the land, the animals] - while the peasants do not - assigns everyone a market value? Do you think that a tribal pastoral nomadic economy, where the tribe 'owns/has the right to use' the land, according to which kin group they belong to, assigns everyone a market value? What about a swidden horticultural system, where the kin group's Big Man, assigns food allocation according to seniority?
4] What other values and forms of social communication are you talking about ?
5] I would suggest that people review Robert Marty's lattice of Five Ascendant paths, where he shows how, using the ten classes of signs, if you move along a path that rejects the function of individual direct contact with reality [ie, Secondness, indexicality], then, you move into mythic ungrounded propaganda. Whereas, indexical dicents, with their contact with reality, provide guarantees' against utopias and ungrounded assumptions. [Sorry, I don't keep posts on my computer which has trouble with files and can't provide the exact date he provided the list with this lattice.] But socioeconomic ideologies, such as fascism and communism both move out of indexicality and become isolated intellectual constructs. This isolation from indexical reality results in a distortion of the system within the real world - where contact with the real world becomes perverted and insane.
Edwina
On Sat 04/07/20 1:56 PM , Helmut Raulien h.raul...@gmx.de sent:
Edwina, Terry, List,I think we should not exaggerate too much. I guess, you, Terry did not say, that US-capitalism was completely fascistic in the cold war era, but maybe meant Mc Carthy, who was quite close to it (fascism), I would say. Is that so? In the Mc Carthy- era everything and everyone which and who vaguely reminded the government of communism, justifiedly or not, was prosecuted. Edwina, why did you write that fascism is leftist? Mussolini did start his political career as an anarchosyndicalist, but when he turned fascist, I think he did not follow jakobinian or marxist ideas, but roman empire ones. Hitlers party was called national socialists, but later he had the elements who seemed too socialistic (SA-though they of course weren´t either) killed. How is the UN historicistic? Do they say, that world peace is a natural innate destiny of mankind, or is it not rather so, that they pursue world peace, because war is hazardous to health? And to economy too?Capitalism is not only an economic ideology, I think, but also a form of cultural hegemony, assigning to everyone and everything a market value, and putting this value in the position of sole essentiality, and neglecting and devaluating all other values and forms of social communication. It is malicious, I would say, if it is given the cultural hegemony, and is not restricted as just one, then benign, aspect of society, but it is not fascistic.Best, Helmut04. Juli 2020 um 15:00 Uhr
"Edwina Taborsky"
wrote:Terry -
Based on your outline - I'm not sure that you and I are in agreement on all points.
I'm not sure what 'fascist capitalism' means. Fascism is a 'leftist' ideology, promoting the collective vs the individual. Capitalism is an economic ideology, based around the economic enterprises of the private individual.
What I rejected in James was, as you point out, a totalitarian process, based on his idea of 'the perfect state' - an idea which Popper outlines as found in the ideology of 'historicism'. Historicism is a view based around an innate destiny of a natural [or God-given] destiny of mankind/or a special group - and the path towards some kind of ultimate utopian perfection. Whether found in Plato, or Hegel or Marx - or Mussolini or Hitler or the UN - it relies on an ideology based, as I see it, in the emotional vacuity of a bond between Firstness and Thirdness. That is - it's removed from pragmatic reality. And it is inevitably disastrous.
I prefer Popper's 'piecemeal' bricolage which is based around the individual. I think the US Declaration of Independence, which is one of the greatest documents in history, to be an excellent example of this view. The individual is, of course, an entity grounded in Secondness [as well as 1ns and 3ns] - but all three interact and constantly confront each other with their data and perimeters.
Edwina
On Fri 03/07/20 11:48 PM , Terry L Rankin rankin.te...@hotmail.com sent:Edwina & list,
It seems you and I are in agreement to at least some extent, Edwina, on common Peircean and Popperian grounds.
In my Peircean philosophy of science and theistic view, James’ and Dewey’s co-opting and corruption of Peirce’s pragmat(ic)ism facilitated the hybridization of anti- and post-Peircean utilitarian pragmatism with the neopositivist scientism imported from Europe’s Vienna Circle between the Great War and WWII. The subsequent ascent of USAmerican fascist capitalism through the Cold War era to become the contemporary domestic police state and global neoliberalism ruling the world today under its new (World Economic Forum) “ Great Reset” from “state (fascist) capitalism” through “shareholder (fascist) capitalism” to its latest (as of January this year at Davos) “stakeholder (fascist) capitalism” is, I suggest, exactly the seed of totalitarianism you sense in James, spread now a century later like a genetically engineered toxic kudzu to destroy the planet and most of the life on it in what’s widely acknowledged to be the anthropogenic 6 th mass extinction level event on Earth (‘MELEE#6’). The demon seed that spawned the fascist capitalist Fourth Reich we’re in today is that neopositivist scientism fertilizing the pragmatism ovum of utilitarianism to destroy the world and the lifeforms it sustains, including us.
Peirce was an existentialist good-faith road not taken at a crossroads that now turns out to have been a fatal mistake. Taking the other path, what James, Dewey, Carnap, Neurath, and others unleashed instead is the worst-faith tyranny of global fascist capitalism to carry the day and humanity’s future into that MELEE#6 truth and reality, the signs of which have just begun to appear in common experience. COVID-19 may in fact be the first death scything in the onrushing bad night into which most of us will go anything but gently before the end of the century if not much sooner. With that ‘perfect society’ delusion as the future agenda, small wonder Harvard all but buried ‘the American Aristotle’ in ignominious penury during his life and beyond his death. That strikes me as an alluring Occam reduction despite the improbability of the elitist power and wealth conspiracism it would require.
To the extent that we are in fact aligned on at least some elements of Peirce and Popper in light of the contemporary states of nature, union, and the world at large we’re in today, Edwina, I appreciate the corroboration, however limited it may be. You surely know Peirce far better than I, so wherever you may doubt or dispute my views as stated in this message, please share your thoughts further so I may sharpen my own. Thanks!
Still in One Peace,
Terry
From: Edwina Taborsky
Sent: Friday, July 3, 2020 3:45 PM
To: 'Peirce-L' ; g...@gnusystems.ca
Subject: Re: RE: [PEIRCE-L] The Pragmatic Trivium
I personally find the comments by Henry James the elder rather ..I'm not sure of the word. Not merely naïve but possibly alarming.
I consider that the agenda to develop a 'perfect society' has always been a basis for totalitarian subjugation - whether it be the socialism of fascism or communism; whether it be an isolate cult or an ideology.
Such an agenda, in my view, ignores that we are material, finite entities, and as such in a mode of Secondness, which is a mode of 'brute interaction' - and diversity rather than homogeneity. Furthermore, we cannot ignore that there is no such thing as 'perfection' - whatever that means. Instead, I prefer the 'bricolage' of Karl Popper, his rejection of 'historicism' [vs a theistic interpretation, ie by recognizing God as the author of the play performed on the historical stage" [The Open Society and Its Enemies, p8]. AND the open evolution of both Popper and Peirce, where, with the reality of both Firstness and Secondness and Thirdness - there is no such thing as 'perfect'.
Edwina
On Fri 03/07/20 1:39 PM , g...@gnusystems.ca sent:Gary R, list,
I just came across a piece of the reverse side of Turning Signs that strikes me as relevant to the “ways in which Peirce's philosophical trivium might help inform the aesthetics, ethics, and critical thinking of the world as it emerges from the coronavirus pandemic” — and relevant in a way that I don’t think has been discussed in this thread before. It’s only a 3-to-5 minute read: http://www.gnusystems.ca/TS/snc.htm%23x14&data="">" target="_blank"> http://www.gnusystems.ca/TS/snc.htm#x14 .
Gary f.
From: Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com>
Sent: 13-Jun-20 16:04List,
In a recent op-ed piece titled "The End of College as We Knew It" ( https://tinyurl.com/ybha8mhb), Frank Bruni reflects on something I've been informally discussing with friends and colleagues now for years; namely, that "A society without a grounding in ethics, self-reflection, empathy and beauty is one that has lost its way” (Brian Rosenberg, recently president of Macalester College). It seems to me that this has happened in the United States.
It has long seemed to me that America today has largely abandoned what might be called the normative trivium of aesthetics, ethics, and logic -- Peirce's three Normative Sciences, not the classical trivium (for which see Sister Miriam Joseph's 2002 book, The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric) that he generalized to serve as the three branches of Logic as Semeiotic.
This philosophical trivium points to the possible application of Peirce's three Normative Sciences -- not their theoretical forms, but rather their ordinary and potentially pragmatic guises as they appear in life practice, including reflection and action upon what is beautiful in art and nature, what is ethical in our behavior in the world, and how we can apply 'critical commonsenseism' in our quotidian lives. Bruni writes: " We need writers, philosophers, historians. They’ll be the ones to chart the social, cultural and political challenges of this pandemic -- and of all the other dynamics that have pushed the United States so harrowingly close to the edge. In terms of restoring faith in the American project and reseeding common ground, they’re beyond essential. "
Bruni's op-ed reflection came in part in response to a recent article by Rosenberg in The Chronicle of Higher Education ; see "How Should Colleges Prepare for a Post-Pandemic World" ( https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-Should-Colleges-Prepare/248507). Rosenberg writes: “If one were to invent a crisis uniquely and diabolically designed to undermine the foundations of traditional colleges and universities, it might look very much like the current global pandemic.” In a similar vein, Professor Andrew Belbanco, president of the Teagle Foundation which gives as its purpose promoting the liberal arts, writes: “This is not only a public health crisis and an economic crisis, though Lord knows it’s both of those. It’s also a values crisis. It raises all kinds of deep human questions: What are our responsibilities to other people? Does representative democracy work? How do we get to a place where something like bipartisanship could emerge again?”
Commenting on the economic divide of the American university, Bruni notes that "the already pronounced divide between richly endowed, largely residential schools and more socioeconomically diverse ones that depend on public funding grows wider as state and local governments face unprecedented financial distress. A shrinking minority of students get a boutique college experience. Then there’s everybody else." Gail Mellow, former president of LaGuardia College of the City University of New York (where I taught for decades before my retirement) is quoted as saying, “We always knew that America was moving more and more toward very different groups of people," to which Bruni adds, "that movement is only accelerating."
Confronting all this will undoubtedly be one of the great challenges that America -- and for that matter, the world -- will have in the years and decades to come. The question I pose is: Can Peirce's version of pragmatism (or pragmaticism) -- which he also calls 'critical commonsenseism' -- creatively contribute to these enormous challenges? And, if so, how? And are there ways in which Peirce's philosophical trivium might help inform the aesthetics, ethics, and critical thinking of the world as it emerges from the coronavirus pandemic? If so, how?
[Note: I have Bcc'd this post to several former members of this forum, a few members who rarely if ever post but who have stayed in contact with me offlist, and a few friends and colleagues who have not been members but who may have an interest in this topic. Those who are not current members of the forum may send your thoughts on the topic off-list to me letting me know if I have your permission to post them.]
Best,
Gary
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