Creating Meaning

I know that none of us has enough time to write here--and, to reflect that, I'm curious what y'all think about the whole idea of 'making meaning' in life. Lex is almost done with her PhD, Steve's teaching and has a coolio family...these things are huge goals that y'all (at some point) set for yourselves and are now finding yourselves achieving.

How does that feel? Is there any sort of meaning in life apart from picking these things to do and doing them?

One of the reasons I ask is that I think that my 'meaning creation' engine has mostly been set to recognize what *not* to persue as meaningful (i.e, for me, God, buying a home, getting hitched are all things I've sort of wanted to not persue), whereas I see most other people as thinking about this stuff 'more positively'.

Incoherent or just wrong?

Religion - Discuss.

Faith as Knowledge

I've been reading The End of Faith by Sam Harris, which is on the face of it an argument that certain types of so-called knowledge, mainly religious faith, are not only misleading but ought not be tolerated because of the danger that those who believe may put everybody in. Harris is more than heavy-handed, and his arguments are steeped with question begging. Further, while he gives serious nods to the history of what I might term 'religious-inspired violonce' in a chapter that discusses the Crusades and the Jewish Holocaust (both of which he counts as religious and political), for a good chunk of the book (though I'm not finished with it yet) he focuses on Islam in particular, quoting the Koran (ad nauseum, actually) and other texts important to that religious tradition and basically saying one simply can't be a Muslim and not want to kill people who aren't Muslims. He clearly doesn't back up these sorts of claims in any meaningful way--it reminds me of when I was 19 and I would argue with Christians that they just couldn't be christians if they weren't following Deuteronomy and stoning people left and right.

Still, one of his main points does have a certain ring of truth to it for me: Are there certain ways of believing or knowing which we should always condemn? Should appeals to faith--and a subsequent definition of faith as something like 'knowledge that can't be wrong' or 'knowledge that doesn't ever need, even in principle, to be justified--be struck down as just not good ways to believe?

Big can o' worms, I know, but the whole quest for certainty-through-faith does seem to take on some dangerous consequences for all.

Thoughts?

The Tyranny of the Questioner

In a recent post on her very own Online Journal, Alexis discussed some realizations she had that came about as a result of somebody objecting to the way she was having a discussion. The complaint, as I understand it, was that she was asking questions in a leading way, using semi-rhetorical questions to lead the others on in a way that tended to allow her to dominate the conversation; in a way that Socrates is often accused of having done.

Alexis says:

...and at some point eden said something that i thought was problematic about betsy's idea. "don't you think that… ?" came out of my mouth, and when she had responded with her take i came back with "but that… how does… ?" and then betsy jumped in, and called me on the way i was having a conversation. she very flatly said that she did not want to partipate further because i was engaged in a Socratic Dialogue, to which she did not wish to participate.

The Socratic dialogues are sort of notorious regarding whether or not Socrates was really a questioner who wanted to understand things, as he professed to be, or a guy who thought he had not only figured out a bunch of stuff but figured out a good way to convince others that he had gotten it right: Ask them lots of 'questions' to which they could mostly only answer "It cannot but be so!" until he had led them to a conclusion that they hadn't agreed with at the outset--a conclusion that, some say, Socrates had in mind to begin with. (Steve Martin has a great mock Platonic dialogue about a guy talking with Socrates about taking pictures of Madonna in her backyard with her top off, coming to the conclusion that 'it cannot be otherwise' that it's ok to do so; ok, it's funnier when Steve Martin explains it.)

I'm not a scholar of ancient philosophy, so I probably shouldn't comment too much on whether or not/how much Socrates was guilty of doing that sort of thing (and if he was, well, he did get the hemlock in the end, so he paid the price now, didn't he?). Still, I have to say that I think that if I recognized that somebody was doing what Socrates if often accused of doing (whether Lex was doing it or not in the above particular case), there are many other options besides opting out of the discussion (although I understand why opting out might be the most attractive option--simplicity, for one thing, and a nice little protest against the whole Socratic(?) line of questioning for another). For instance, howabout not agreeing? There is a reason that the so-called Socratic Dialogues don't sound much like dialogues at all (a performance of such dialogues, which is something I sort of tried once, would come out about as stilted as my 5th grade story about my friend Mike and I who travelled to a mystical land to befriend elves and engage in swordfights--anybody else butcher Tolkein as a kid?)---because they're not really dialogues at all. They are a series of questions and answers, where the questioner is generally the same person and the answers are generally nodding of the head sort of answers, simple affirmatives with no discussion of possible problems with the questions. If any of Socrates' interlocutor's would have just said, "Um, Socrates, where are you going with this? It seems to me that your question sort of ignores x, y and z, and as such doesn't really tell us anything, (etc)" then the 'dialogues' would resemble their namesake a bit more.

Answering the question, questioning the questions, these seem to be viable alternatives to opting out of a discussion because one thinks one is being led down some primrose paths. And these options have the advantage in that they facilitate more talk instead of cutting off roads to inquiry. Asking "Do you really mean that as a question, or have you decided what you think and you're asking that rhetorically?" seems to be one way to go.

But I think Lex's larger investigation is an even more interesting one:

...if an individual asserts an interrogatory position (while others do not), then the conversation becomes more about answering that individual's line of questions (socratic or otherwise), than about the more egalitarian flow of ideas (or the opportunity for letting one's ideas flow) among all participants. this is important for me to understand, and, i think, explains for me precisely how it is that i (or anyone else, for that matter) can dominate a conversation. good to know, good to be aware of as i'd like to be intentional about such things.

I myself have been accused of dominating conversations in this way (probably was accused of it more often after I read some Plato!), and I've gotten the sense that Alexis has dominated conversations in the past this way (although more often than not any domination I feel regarding conversation with Alexis is the prevelance of non-sequiter humor--or simply references I don't get :). Then again, it seems like most of my friends have 'dominated' conversations this way...which may just show that I've got a skewed sample.

I think that it would be a mistake to think that questioning in the way that Alexis seems to have questioned ought always be considered 'dominating' a conversation. (Not that Alexis is claming this, exactly, I'm just taking what she said and riffing on it.) That is to say: It's more complex than that. First of all, there can be very good conversations where one person dominates, I think, in this way. Sometimes when one person really does know a lot more than another the conversation can go this way for a while and be very productive for both people. Which brings me to my second point, which is that the timing involved is important, I think. Asking a question may indeed highlight the questioner's contribution, make the conversation focus on the questioner and the like, but it's extremely important for the concept of domination of a conversation, I think, for that sort of thing to happen for some extended period. Imagine if nobody ever asked a question during a conversation (i.e. if nobody ever 'dominated' the conversation in this way)...certainly those conversations can be had and can be worthwhile, but so can ones where people genuinely (or not!) ask questions.

I suppose a more simple way to put my point is this: If asking questions is always dominating a conversation, then it seems to me we have to also add that dominating a conversation is sometimes/often something that's ok to do, at least for a little while.

Hierarchies and Webs

So I've been thinking about the notion of hierarchies (in part because of our discussion of what it is like to really know what somebody else's experiences ar e like. In that discussion, I pointed out that:

I tend to think the whole 'knowing what it is like to be "x"' in terms of concentric circles radiating out from myself (or from individuals in general). Nobody can "know exactly" what it is like to be *me*--starting with the fact that they can't have lived my exact life and branching out from there--but white, middle-class men will probably have a better (initial) idea about what it is like to be me than, say, rich white men

and Alexis added:

i think your "circles of understanding" is pretty good, and add to it that circles are not nested in a strict hierarchy: the middle class black man may share a lot of perspectives with you, but the rich white man may share different perspectives with you.

I think this is a good example of how thinking in terms of hierarchies does a lot of work, but then only goes so far (and can be a detriment, in the final analysis).

Take for instance, friendships and other intimate relationships. I had several invitations to Thanksgiving dinner, not all coming at the same time, and I had to choose which one I wanted (if any) to take people up on. (First of all, I feel lucky/thankful(!) that I had invites at all--could have gone down very differently.) During the choosing, I got to thinking that there is a way in which I'm placing my friendships on a hierarchy--if I go to T-day with Kareem, Jessie and Max, that places my friendship with them somehow 'above' my friendship with, say, Jen. But of course it's not that simple--there are other factors, but more importantly there are different facets of each friendship that I value, and T-day is involved in some of those facets but not all. That is, one of the things I value about J, K and M is that I like feeling like their extended family, and I sort of like doing the more adult-ish traditional things with them (in part becuse I know they're not very adult in ways that I'm not very adult). I like hanging with Jen for slightly different reasons, and Thanksgiving Day doesn't (as closely) address those reasons.

Of course there are more forceful examples, generally having to do with *even* more intimate relationships, but I thought the T-day one would be a good jumping off point.

Does anybody else struggle with remembering that hierarchies aren't as strict as they sometimes seem? What does it mean when you get married (for instance)--is part of getting married putting your betrothed 'on top' (snicker) in various ways?

Thoughts?

Enemy Mine - Translations

I was discussing race and gender with some students the other day, and asked the question of (five black female students): "Could I ever really (added the "ever" and "really" for emphasis) understand what it is like being a black woman in America?"

They were in general more optimistic than me about it, suggesting that I do some reading, and talking with black women. "What if suddenly, I were to look like a black woman, and people treated me that way. Would I then understand better?" Again, they were more optimistic than me. When we talked about early life experiences and such, they mostly became less confident. They all agreed it would be absurd for anyone to want to undergo such a transformation.

One student (my favorite this year I think) was dismissive of any real differences between us, and imagined that anyone who was interested, introspective, and sincere could learn pretty much all there was to know.

I am torn. On one hand I am willing to take a Wittgensteinian approach and say our communication is necessarily public and straightforward, that there are no 'private' experiences incapable of expression. On the other, sometimes it seems like we are engaged in this lasting project to learn a common language.

Discuss.

Introductions?

Just thought I'd introduce Jen to y'all...and then let her introduce herself, I suppose, in whatever way she'd like to.

Jen is a friend of mine that I met at a job I useta have. She's smart and witty and I have had many a philosophic-ish conversation with her. Please be nice to her. You know, at least at first. :)

i'm here, i'm queer...

...thanks for inviting me to your humble blog, all you's. it was this dude sholtz that locked it in for me, i mean after reading homie g's comments i feel right at home.

i think we should let all comment. here, here.