We had (nearly by accident) some Jewish friends over to help us finish up the cheesecake leftover from Friday. We talked about all sorts of life-goings-on, and our guest asked how our church was. We explained a little (nothing terribly or anything) but before we knew it, we all were talking about how our respective religious population-segments have actually developed in parallel. It seems the Modernism has had a very similar effect: shifting the focus off of any transcendental identity/other, instead towards a logical ethical system. While we all have our stomachs turned at the thought of such reductionism, it seems our parents, or grandparents are absorbed in this perspective. (Note: I’ve been on about this before)

But a second, more interesting view has emerged among us youngsters. It seems there’s a tad bit of agnosticism afoot, mostly in reaction to a lack of differentiation between “faith” and “knowledge.” Oh, those two ideas have quite a history of clashing, but it seems in the more conservative camps, where “truth” is trumpeted, knowledge of it is playing in harmony. Earlier, older fundamentalists would speak clearly of their “conviction” of what is or is not truth.. but that was apparently not good enough. Now, conservatives “know” what is true. That’s great, because now everyone else is, well, stupid! ..eyes-rolling..

But do you see what has happened? In honest-to-goodness matters of the empirically unprovable nature (transcendent ontology), knowledge is now being claimed, instead of faith. Well, if you have not faith (only knowledge), how is it you please God? Frankly, I don’t find it surprising that people say they “know” God; I’m glad. What surprises me is how people seem to leave faith behind! Faith– the act, the hope — is what is common to all mankind. We were fully able to communicate with our Jewish friends because we both understood this basic nature of humanity & reality: that throughout history there have been varying ideas about what is transcendent, and some may be more reasonable, but none of them are provable. This equal-footing in the face of the dark, empty other-worldly void is where communication can occur with all people. Knowledge-claims are confidence-claims, and our confidence is only partly a matter of rationality; reason can hint, and can improve our will-to-believe, but belief is still willed.

It’s tough being human. We see only what we’re tuned into. Such selectivity is the basis for prejudice and violence — I face it daily in my Sociology classes. Sociology is committed to clarifying the reality of social-aggregates for the masses, but the masses first learn most of their sociological-reality before truth can get to ‘em. Tribalism sucks, objectivity is handy.. but so very rare – rare unto the point of non-existence; our inter-subjectivity suggests much to trust in.

It seems that Wittgenstein’s Ontology can be approached from various “sides of the philosophical hill.” I could start explaining it in pure being-and-stuff terms: that the “stuff” of this world is sufficiently atomic. Atomic, here referring to “simple” indivisible, non-complex or non-compounded entities. Whoever knows whatever each atomic entity is is irrelevant.

Now, how Wittgenstein gets to atomism isn’t a matter of empiricism or particle accelerator-colliders. There’s a parallel world which he sees necessarily requiring metaphysical atomism: semantic atomism. Maybe I should back up a bit. There is another “hill” by which Wittgenstein approaches his atomic conclusion. Human language is a very flexible thing. It’s not like machine-code, where each and every operator and label is important to the point of system-crashing. Human language also isn’t like code, since it is filled with vagaries, nuance. What human language presents itself as is a weird mix of names, relations, actions and general fluff.

Names are significant entities, otherwise known as “terms.” They’re a handy connection between language and physical, empirical reality. They are usually as clear and present as a stop-sign is (and if they’re not, well, they can be made to be so by simple presentation of the ‘thing’ they represent). Names, as signs, are just like those silly metaphysical atomic entities — simple, and undecomposable (who knew that was an actual word!) in meaning. Sure, we could try and decompose “unicorn” into words (through descriptors), for instance “A unicorn is a white horse, with a single straight, pointy horn on it’s nose, like a narwhal.” But such a description (however accurate or precise) is hardly a decomposition.. it’s really just pointing me towards the possible idea or possible reality of a unicorn, but not in any real way pointing a unicorn out. Put another way, descriptions are really good filters and painters, but really bad labels or signs.

So that’s the majority of the tough-stuff. After the clarification of what atomism is, I really just see worlds parallel to our own, in logical space and/or in language-space. And speaking of logic, Wittgenstein views the relationship of these atomic entities as logically oriented. The world’s content is atomic, so the world’s form (like language’s form) can also be parallel, and like science tries to find out the precise nature of nature, the form of nature is spelled out in logic. I may have presented logic here as secondary, contingent or as “accidental”, but really, logic is the third “way” up the philosophical hill of Wittgenstein’s ontology — were you to start with logic, Wittgenstein would expect you to also end up with atomism.

Word count:  431.

Money (in the West) is directly tied to security. We buy expensive houses to be in “safe” neighborhoods. Rent’s cheap if there’s daily gunfire across the street. Lose a job? That’s ok, you’ve got a savings account, right? Retiring? You’ll be fine with that retirement account you’ve been feeding since you were 25.

Now take that perspective and apply it to other things hoards of money are spent on. Case in point: weddings.

Ok, so not everyone who spends lots of money on their wedding doesn’t get divorced. That’s not exactly what I’m saying. And of course daddy’s usually gonna drop as much as he can for “his little girl.” But is there a chance, and underlying view of money & worth that says, “If I have/fund an expensive wedding, maybe that’ll keep ‘em together.” That doesn’t sound right, I’m sure. Perhaps nearly mercenary too.

But instead of looking from the top-down, try the bottom-up. “Man, that wedding cost someone lots of money– ya don’t wanna go through that again..” I’d wager 2nd, 3rd & 4th weddings are less costly than the first. And even independent of re-marriage, wedding-costs go up the more reminders of it you have laying about. And it’s those reminders which can help secure a marriage (even though there’s plenty of other ones too).

Now, don’t get me wrong. Plenty of people get married for under $50 and stay together for over 50 years. Fact is, they have something going, independent of money. But for those people out there who aren’t sure they have that same something, fear can be a great motivator to do silly things like spend $30k on a wedding. I’m really writing about those silly people who never decided to think twice about what marriage really is about.

Upon reading Wittgenstein’s own preface, I am hit with the question, “Just what are the problems of philosophy (which Wittgenstein sees and solves)?”

Ultimately, I find the analytic nature of this text to be much clearer than 18th century continental philosophy. Was ist Begriff? I fear reading the entire work of Hegel would be required to understand it. Wittgenstein however states clearly “Fact is..”, “Propositions are..”, “Objects are…” As much as I can handle vague and amorphous ideas while reading texts, I often feel I cannot speak, let alone level critique on such writings. If I am to write even remotely definitively about my knowledge of a text, I must have relatively determinate, morphous knowledge, lest I fill pages with nonsense. The trouble to analytic writings however, is the summary nature of them. Wittgenstein is effectively creating a logical dog-pile the size of the universe. Few minds are capable of keeping in memory all the labels and precise definitions he uses. Outlines & notes will prove useful.

As to Schroeder’s writings, I am at once thrilled and relieved to read his works (especially chapter 2) as a vorwort to the actual text. So very often I have been instructed by the instructor to dive into the text of philosophy, only to have absolutely no clue what is the basic assumptions, language, or final end of the text. Regarding such assumptions and approach, I did begin to notice some of what Schroeder later elucidated as the tension between logic and metaphysics in the Tractatus. That is to say, is logic all that is, or naive realism, upon which logic builds? To some degree it sounds like a chicken-and-egg problem.

Later, Schroeder explicates Frege’s Bedeutung and Sinn. Simple referentialism seems weak in matters of all the words which are not nouns. Yet words like “all”, “each”, and even “like” can be referencing a logical function which precisely defines the term. Yet Schroeder’s problems with referentialism seem to be one of description over and against definition. Referentialism deals well with the latter; horribly with the former.

Word Count: 344.

If there is any way to acquire information about the economic stratification (or at least the GDP) over the last 500 years, I would be thrilled.

Why? It seems that while there is “more wealth” in the world, there are more people of course, and I wonder if the ratio, as well as the ratios of stratification, are at all remotely constant over a long-period. In times of the nobility, town-and-countryside conditions for Europe were much like middle-Asia is today. By today’s Western standards, this is beyond poverty, yet by today’s Western standards, even kings lived without a/c, fast or reliable transit, respectably clean showers and toilets, etc. They just had gold (ok, maybe not, but they had plenty of “huge tracts of land”), and people that listened to them.

I know that any social-strat expert will say the rich are getting richer, and I don’t doubt that over the 20th century, but what and where has this been the case before? Where and when has it not been the case? Anyone, anyone??

Mediate Transcendentalism: that’s my new title for the secular approach.

Let’s start the tale at the lowest level though, and tell it through the lives of most of us: the daily worker. I hated my job in accounting, mostly because it was rote, but my interest here is in the fact that we eight would subject ourselves to each other, the boss and the working conditions.  One could explain our behavior through all means and sorts of 17th or 18th century social logic with terms like “common good” or the like. And that is my point: the early modern approach to society was one of a larger-than-self to which the selfish individual sacrifices. This “larger-than-self” isn’t fully transcendent like a Neo-Platonic God, but rather still very immanent: we see everyday those for whom we are to be sacrificing. Despite this direct vision, modern economic secularism advocates indirect sacrifice.. “for the masses, for society, for the Ideal!” not “for you” or “for him.”

The trouble I see with secularism isn’t it’s half-way transcendentalism, as if it’s not good enough, or as if it’s a poor attempt at deity-replacement or something. Rather, my complaint for any transcendental way of life is that no one really wants to be indirectly loved. I especially don’t want to be “loved” because someone, something, or some ideal is telling them to love me.. that’s the late 20th century interest in “authenticity” (thank you very much Habermas). Fully immanent love/sacrifice is direct, personal and soul-filling (and perhaps soul-emptying!!). And despite how energy-taking it may be, it is at the same time never life-energy taking. A level of confidence must exist lest sacrifice be used as a tool for selfish ends.

k. that’s all I’ve got so far..

Louis Gabriel Ambroise de Bonald.

Never heard of him until today. Apparently a highly conservative French counter-revolutionary. Aka, not in vogue today.

His significant contribution to the world of ideas is primarily in “a universal triadic logic of faits sociales which are ‘general’, ‘external’ and ‘visible.’ The universal ratio pouvoir/ministre/suject is found expressed as I/you/he, father/mother/child, sovereign/executive/subject and God/priest/faithful (Milbank, 56: ISBN: 978-1405136846).”

At modern first-read, this is preposterous. There are many more options available by which society can structure itself. Of course there are. This is one man’s motif applied in all things. A singular perspective, against and of which the late-Modern perspectivalism desires more. But let’s say there’s something to his view, instead of just reacting against it. Let’s take a non-Catholic, “Biblical” approach to this triad.

First, there are Christian New-Testament makes much more frequent claim to Jesus being our priest, and still claims that “the faithful” are ourselves all priests, as well as children of God, and furthermore representatives of God and clearly executives on this planet. That leaves us with the triad initially replaced with God/Jesus/faithful into God/Jesus::faithful. Now what of the other triads? The sovereign is never to be the head of power alone; the master is the direct, executing servant (not the indirect, apersonal, theoretical, rationally justified “public servant”). Second, in terms of family, we are left with either the ‘mother’ being pushed down into child-level, or raised up into father-level. Guess what? Jesus came down to us not to keep us as children, and certainly not just to diminish God, but to raise our own pouvoir: fathers and mothers are categorically equal. This is obvious.

Regressing for a moment, we can say that de Bonald’s triad is a rather standard-religious approach, as well as a standard-secular approach. Yes, secularism is likely more neo-religious than it would like to be. Thereby, were we to take this conservative Catholic, as well as standard-secular sociology as final in de Bonald, Christ comes and radically alters the power-structures in society, and thereby creating a wholly other and new sociology. Is it any wonder why there are Christian statements of co-equality of slaves, masters, husbands, wives, etc. This is not simply a new edition of the old; something new entirely, worthy of study, lived-ness and enjoyment. Altogether curious.

Aside:
It is not enough to say that conservatism & liberalism are the same, and thereby positivism is “the way” (As my idealistic self is prone to do!). Christian theology comes with specific content and form which finds similarity in all of them. One can always conform Christianity into any given smaller idealism, but that takes the fun out of theology.

Adulthood occurs when one produces more than he consumes. Culturally-acceptable Adulthood occurs when one’s production is of a locally accepted form.

My RSS feed gave me this gem today:

I recommend taking a larger perspective than this overly-simple graphic displays. Note that it is without any credits to actual pyschological or sociological research, as well as being an example of the “slippery slope” logical fallacy .

Rather, the “real world” is filled with people who are managed into any one (not necessarily all!) of these positions by circumstances which themselves seem overly challenging, or have proven worthless. These can be seen as personal failures. Note also that self-confidence, cirumstances/environments of empowerment are NOT on this list, nor are they suggested to be on this list. Instead, Mr. Holmes presents the beginnings of a ‘blame-game’, a triage by which to score, judge and rate workers. Those who are already succeed will continue, those who fail will continue. Mr. Holmes offers no direct or clear recommendations or means of change. Such a false-dichotomizing info-graphic leads the viewer into negative feelings of self or worse, sets a keen eye to look out for and against the “fixed” folk. Enemy-creation is hardly the hallmark of civil society, yet it is the nature of Modernist thought.

This is an entirely sad “info”-graphic, placing all responsibility for change upon the individual, who likely is by now numb and blind to opportunity, having missed prior occasions for success. I fail to see how blaming the “victim” here solves any problems or moves anyone beyond self into sociable environments. Management means helping – something that was lost in the industrial revolution’s genocide of apprenticed trade-workers. People are moved by experience more than simple frameworks, however wonderful and cleanly presented they may appear.

Most of these statements I have made are likely familiar to sociologists; a field which is likely unfamiliar to much of the outstanding public. My reccomendation: Read Mark Schneider’s Theory Primer book.

Ahh the “New Media makes you dumb” debate. The WSJ has it going, and Slashdot picked it up.

My spin agrees with both sides, in the context of actor-responsibility/meaningless-drone. That itself is a rough divide for humanity; I mean, how many of us are *fully* determined in our thought patterns? Most of us are in small ways, but not in all ways. Further, we are only as determined by what is available to us. If no one is ever forced to turn off the TV, read a book, or read a full webpage, they never will. Humanity is *that* fickle. We’ll live in the present, assuming the past isn’t consequential. The Internet has only “given the people what they want” in that regard.  To this end, Shirky did a wonderful job with the history of new media; theories are only good if they hold water across time & place.

But this consistently distracted state is in some ways my own life. I have trouble filtering out background conversations when in a restaurant, among other examples. I’m sure it’s giving rise to affective disorders (let’s not get beyond simple parole: dis-order = out of order). How can someone know what to love if there is no order or priority to in and out-flow of info, people, experience, etc.

The spiritual consequences are huge then. Jesus’ 2 commands of love God & fellow-man could be well-undermined by this novelty. That’s why I’m agreeing with a friend’s recent Facebook status: “Discipline is remembering what you love.” Discipline isn’t about saying “no,” so much as remembering, and remembering & reflecting is being killed off.

Reflection is a time-intensive activity, one which now-now-now-or-you’ll-miss-it-or-get-too-far-behind media won’t allow for, and as noted, is required:

“The researchers were surprised by the results. They had expected that the intensive multitaskers would have gained some unique mental advantages from all their on-screen juggling. But that wasn’t the case. In fact, the heavy multitaskers weren’t even good at multitasking. They were considerably less adept at switching between tasks than the more infrequent multitaskers. “Everything distracts them,” observed Clifford Nass, the professor who heads the Stanford lab.” — Nicholas Carr

This is exactly what the other side of the debate agrees with as well:

“Reading is an unnatural act; we are no more evolved to read books than we are to use computers.”–Clay Shirky

But what I like about Clay’s statement is the next line: “Literate societies become literate by investing extraordinary resources, every year, training children to read.” Resources maybe anything from mothers to educators, from $ for private tutoring to the publishing industry.. but it is always about time. My own time reading is only worth it if I spend the time to stop every other paragraph or so. Ideas need to sink in for any foundation to be placed. Who wants a skyscraper built on unset, wet concrete? That’s the best analogy I can give for what the Internet is doing: providing shortcuts for our memory, and keeping us from remembering anything. Even the act of scrolling a webpage is vague. Turning a page is much more definitive. I can’t glance-back as easily as I can scroll back & forth. (Ok, maybe not the best example..)

I suppose what this means for future information-design is clearspace. Data can also be held better when it is interacted with. Static graphs are visualization of too many numbers; interaction/overlays, compare-contrast is a beginning for too many graphs. Fickle “daily info-graphics” sent to my inbox or RSS reader only clog my mind, unless they spark interest  for further research (assuming I know where & how to research it!). I’d much rather have the data in contrast with something else, both of which are in connection with present values and personal states of knowledge. This way graphics could be delivered to my inbox for me, which overlap/redundant, and over-time help me learn and meat specified goals.

And finally for a sociological perspective. This little idea about remembering can be expanded further to include any binary-division, even gender-roles. While there’s a pressure from amongst egalitarians to “be equal” between/across genders, there is also a consequence of each gender doing everything, overburdening itself with too much. But that is still no “win” for anyone who would espouse a fascist (Modernist) sociology, where each person must fit the role assigned 100%. (I’m looking at you SB-preachers!)

Update: NYT picked this up too with their own spin that sounds like a good middle ground/awareness campaign.