Hugh wrote that:
One response would be : it is the (objectivist and absolutist) model
that
invokes the idea that we can know, without dependence upon any (
partial or
constitutive) mental model, what actually happened. It is the model
that
denies undecidability and thereby accommodates monism, fanaticism and
tyranny in all its myriad forms.
Two issues - is there a real 'reality'? and what are the political
implications of thinking there is/is not?
the first is obviously a big philosophical issue, but I'll acknowledge
my own materialist bias and suggest that even if we cannot fully
comprehend reality through the veil of our senses, we can strive to
approach 'better' understandings of reality.
On the political issue, I agree that tyranny can lie in trying to
impose our own 'truth' on others, but I'm strongly of the opinion that
tyranny also lies in casting off the anchor of searching for 'truth'.
Justice, compassion, and mobilizing collective action for change can be
based upon our search for understanding the 'reality' of how others
live and how the economic and political system 'works'- how it produces
the poor, the oppressed, the privileged, their identities as well as
the social conception of these categories (e.g. the privileged as
deserving or exploiters). I see our role as critical scholars precisely
in this area.
In recent days, there has been a flap in the US election campaign about
a senior Bush aide deriding opponents for living in "the reality based
community". Like Goebbels, it seems that some of Bush's minions prefer
that we live in the myths of presidential infallibility and
decisiveness, the meritocracy and egalitarianism of the US economy, the
importance of conquering Iraq, the fairness of the election system etc.
This quote has been making the rounds here:
The aide [to Bush] said that guys like me were ''in what we call the
reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe
that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible
reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment
principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the
world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and
when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that
reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other
new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort
out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to
just study what we do.''
Our search for 'truth' is perhaps the most important way we can
struggle against the looking shadows of tyranny....
David
--
David Levy
Professor, Department of Management
University of Massachusetts, Boston
100 Morrissey Blvd., Boston, MA 02125, USA
Tel: 617-287-7860
http://www.faculty.umb.edu/david_levy/