At this point, I should be doing the usual “philosophy by numbers” game; that is, I should be investigating how IT relates to epistemology, to rationality, to morals etc. However, it doesn’t take much to see the obvious flaw in this: a way of perceiving is initially developed BUT it must then be reconciled with pre-existing (philosophical) categories which, in effect, render it useless. Any insights/power it may have had are lost as the makar of this way of perception attempts to link it into (traditional) ways of formulating rationality, knoweldge and morality. These “established categories” (would ‘establishment’ be a more accurate choice of word here?) act as a kind of final line of defence; indeed, we’ve seen this over the past decade in regard to ‘truth’ and “fake news”: what emerged was a distinctoon between “rational truth” and “emotional truth”, in that what most of us would call ‘truth’, a category which exists independently of the human person’s desires or wants (maths is the most obvious example) began to be dispalced by “emotional truth”, the idea that X is true because I want it to be true, I desire it to be true, regardless of there being no evidence or ‘logic’ (which is a whole other argument in itself) underlying my belief. Quite simply, “I want X to be true, therefore, X is true”. To put it in traditional, rational terms, I have no evidence or proof to support my claim to truth other than my desire that X be true. This is decidedly not what most of us have been trained to do when investigating the truth of a proposition – See? Even the language I’m using to describe this is “pre-ordained”. The suggestion is that the grounds for making a rational case for truth must exist independently of me as a human person. They must not include a human element. Thus, when calculating the worth of something and its relation to the defining characteristic of profit, we can make (or so we’re told) no allowance for the human (cost). For example, if Arts degrees do not turn a profit, they must be scrapped, despite my questioning whether this is the right decision or arguing that we cannot apply the same criteria to Arts degrees as we apply to business degrees. According to rationality, to be fair we must apply the same criteria of judgement across the board; this is the ultimate sleight of hand. It makes no rational sense to argue that the same criteria be used for different kinds of degree…because they are different kinds of degree – they set out to do different kinds of thing, to achieve different ends. If it were the case that Arts degrees had colonised the concept of rationality, then business degrees would start to disappear.
My point here, to put it bluntly, is that the “one size fits all” approach does not work, is characterised by irrationality…is logically contradictory which, in turn, makes a mockery of democracy.
Capitalist democracy is a sham. The shell of this capitalist democracy will be preserved, provided it does not get in the way of profit. Should this occur, the mask falls and capitalist brutalism returns. Take the current Writers Strike in the USA; a memo has been leaked which states, unashamedly, that there will be no offering of terms until writers begin to lose their homes, their partners, their children, and are unable to pay their bills. Once this has taken place, the employers can enter ‘negotiations’ from a position of strength. All pretence of reasonable, democratic practice is sacrificed on the altar of profit. The conclusion to be reached is not new: Capitalism and Morality are incompatible. Life in the former is a vicious struggle against others, using any tactic available. In the latter it’s about talking to other people, about concern for their welfare, about respect.
Of course, philosophy is about clarity. In pursuit of this, there is a tendency to examine the history of philosophy, looking for connections with, and between, past writers. Take the role that reason plays in aesthetics. Both Kant and Hume cite reason as a means to escape from the emotional (hardly a surprise, given that Enlightenment philosophers use reason as a kind of “magic bullet” when pursuing knowledge). The emotional is regarded as a kind of ‘pollutant’, skewing “proper judgement”. This attitude has fed into our society, whereby emotion is now generally regarded as a weakness (a reason to dismiss others’ arguments), a kind of betrayal of self. Look at the ways in which this format is built into both patriarchial and colonial thought: in the former, reason is the preserve of the male, a hierarchical distinction that holds that the male control of reason is the reason for their superiority. In the latter, this pattern is repeated; the colonised are at the mercy of their emotions, thus, they are feminised, seen as a group over whom control must he exercised for their own good.
In a similar, but more convoluted way, we can identify this use of reason in aesthetics. Firstly, there tends to be an assumption as to what reason is – a kind of negative definition too. We identify what reason isn’t. Secondly, reason is class-based – defined as a quality possessed in virtue of one’s position (which dispenses with the need to give reasons as to why one is in control of reason).
For example, Kant and Hume both make an appeal to reason, by trying to identify what it isn’t, and by defining emotion. In Hume’s case, we also see the introduction of the persistence-over-time argument. For example, if X is still recognised as an artefact in 100 years’ time then it qualifies. However, what Hume does not offer is an explanation as to why this might be the case – what ideological purpose does X serve?
In Kant’s case, what underlies his system, whether of morals or of aesthetics, is the idea of a benevolent god. So his system of reason is built on a supremely unreasonable premise: the existence of a character that is supernatural.
How does this connect to the main subject of this blog? Well, I’m trying to show how discourses operate by controlling the terms of the debate, by creating ideas of success and failure on the grounds that their system is objective…when it’s not. Every system contains, within itself, the criteria of success and failure, attempting to pass these off as objective when they have, in fact, been generated by this system. Analyses’ will reveal that ‘objectivity’ is itself a product of the respective system that claims to possess it.
Murmurs from the Forest 