<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><title></title><style type="text/css">p.MsoNormal,p.MsoNoSpacing{margin:0}</style></head><body><div style="font-family:Arial;">Nick mentioned earlier a concern about relativist talk in this thread. and Eric is using the term in his post. Lest hermeneuticism — a position I have been advocating — be confused/conflated with relativism (perhaps an unfounded fear), I wish to note the following:<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Hermeneutics (intellectual genealogy in previous post) asserts that all is interpretation. A corollary of that assertion is there are no "facts," no objective truths. A second corollary: there are no grounds to "privilege" one interpretation over another. (The point of deconstruction is, simply, exposure of the chain of interpretations and the reasons that they were adopted over alternatives.)<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">A hermeneuticist would <u>not</u> assert that "competence-incompetence, stupid-smart" lack tangible meaning. Nor would they say that "no point of view (interpretation) is better than another. Of course, "better" is a matter of interpretation.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Asserting that all is interpretation is an invitation to engage in a conversation about "meaning" or "reality" from a level playing field — i.e. absent any grant of privilege to one interpretation over another; and, any expectation that somewhere, somehow, even the most consensual and widely shared interpretation can, or will, morph into some kind of "fact" or "truth."<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">davew<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div>On Fri, Nov 15, 2019, at 12:47 PM, Eric Charles wrote:<br></div><blockquote type="cite" id="qt"><div dir="ltr"><blockquote style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:40px;border-top-color:currentcolor;border-top-style:none;border-top-width:medium;border-right-color:currentcolor;border-right-style:none;border-right-width:medium;border-bottom-color:currentcolor;border-bottom-style:none;border-bottom-width:medium;border-left-color:currentcolor;border-left-style:none;border-left-width:medium;border-image-outset:0;border-image-repeat:stretch;border-image-slice:100%;border-image-source:none;border-image-width:1;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;"><span style="color:#3d85c6" class="colour">" <span style="font-family:Calibri, sans-serif" class="font"><span style="font-size:14.6667px" class="size">A nihilist might adopt a campaign slogan like Any Functioning Adult 2020, because the truly objectionable things are incompetence and stupidity.</span></span> "</span><br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>But there's the rub in this conversation. "Any Functioning Adult 2020" could be intended as a joke, pointing out that the current president is so incompetent that literally any functional adult would be better. OR, it could be a low-level nihilistic joke, made by someone who knows full well there are no functional adults in the race, and even if there were that person wouldn't be elected, and we are all going to die meaningless deaths no matter who wins. (I imagine that is what it sounds like translated into Russian, based on my deep love of Dostoevsky). BUT, neither of those positions is a relativist. <br></div><div><br></div><div>The relativist asserts that competence-incompetence and stupid-smart have no tangible meaning. <br></div><div><br></div><div>Who is competent and who isn't? Eh, it depends on your point of view, and no point of view is better than another. The designation of "competence" is a colonialist activity providing illusory justification for the marginalization already oppressed groups, and while it has a valence, it has no basis in "reality" (i.e., it is bad, you should stop doing it, and you should deeply hate yourself for ever having had done it). To label the president as incompetent is to inappropriately invalidate his way of being in the world; ways of being are all equally valid. <br></div><div><br></div><div>Who is stupid and who isn't? Eh, it depends on your point of view, and no point of view is better than another.....<br></div><div><br></div><div>If you believe that SOME people ARE competent and/or smart, then you can't be a relativist. If you believe there is still some chance that competent and smart people can make a difference, you are not a nihilist. <br></div><div><br></div><div>Old Soviet Joke: A man walks into a shop and asks, "You wouldn't happen to have any fish, would you?". The shop assistant replies, "You've got it wrong – ours is a butcher's shop. We don't have any meat. You're looking for the fish shop across the road. There they don't have any fish!"<br></div><div><br></div><div><span style="font-family:sans-serif" class="font"><span style="font-size:14px" class="size"></span></span><br></div><div><span style="font-family:sans-serif" class="font"><span style="font-size:14px" class="size"></span></span><br></div><div><div><div class="qt-gmail_signature" dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-family:Arial;">-----------<br></div><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-family:Arial;">Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Department of Justice - Personnel <span>Psychologist</span><br></div></div><div>American University - Adjunct Instructor<br></div><div><br></div></div><div dir="ltr"><a href="mailto:echarles@american.edu"></a><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div></div></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div class="qt-gmail_quote"><div class="qt-gmail_attr" dir="ltr">On Fri, Nov 15, 2019 at 12:13 AM Marcus Daniels <<a href="mailto:marcus@snoutfarm.com">marcus@snoutfarm.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0.8ex;border-left-color:rgb(204, 204, 204);border-left-style:solid;border-left-width:1px;padding-left:1ex;" class="qt-gmail_quote"><div lang="EN-US"><div class="qt-gmail-m_-1648815169288488197WordSection1"><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri, sans-serif" class="font"><span style="font-size:11pt" class="size">Nick writes:<u></u><u></u></span></span><br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri, sans-serif" class="font"><span style="font-size:11pt" class="size"><u></u> <u></u></span></span><br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri, sans-serif" class="font"><span style="font-size:11pt" class="size">< <span style="color:rgb(31, 73, 125)" class="colour">What I see in much relativism is not fallibilism, which I endorse, but nihilistic fatalism**, which I deplore. I am not sure I can argue either for my endorsement OR my condemnation, but them’s my values. Nihilistic fatalism is
endorsed opportunistically by people like Putin because, while they themselves are planning for the “inevitable” collapse, they are arguing that there is no future in planning. </span>></span></span><u></u><u></u><br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri, sans-serif" class="font"><span style="font-size:11pt" class="size"><u></u> <u></u></span></span><br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri, sans-serif" class="font"><span style="font-size:11pt" class="size">IThere can be goals without ideology. I think a nihilist would also have to agree there is also no harm in one value system stomping on another value system since they are
both just value systems and so impoverished and arbitrary. In that spirit, a progressive can be a nihilist simply to collect a partial ordering of different kinds of premises that serve one defined purpose or another, without taking those purposes too seriously.
A nihilist might adopt a campaign slogan like Any Functioning Adult 2020, because the truly objectionable things are incompetence and stupidity.<u></u><u></u></span></span><br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri, sans-serif" class="font"><span style="font-size:11pt" class="size"><u></u> <u></u></span></span><br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri, sans-serif" class="font"><span style="font-size:11pt" class="size">Marcus<u></u><u></u></span></span><br></p></div></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">============================================================<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"> to unsubscribe <a rel="noreferrer" href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"> archives back to 2003: <a rel="noreferrer" href="http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/">http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/</a><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"> FRIAM-COMIC <a rel="noreferrer" href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a> by Dr. Strangelove<br></div></blockquote></div><div>============================================================<br></div><div>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv<br></div><div>Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College<br></div><div>to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com<br></div><div>archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/<br></div><div>FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove<br></div><div><br></div></blockquote><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div></body></html>