Truth & Paradox
by Jason GodeskyTo call a movement “reactionary” carries denotations of backwards, repressive ideas. It first found usage in the aftermath of the French Revolution, in reference to those who supported the monarchical Ancien Régime. But all reactionary movements share a fundamental problem in their predisposition towards overcorrection. Who could argue that the “Age of Faith” had not created terrible problems—and “problems” puts it mildly. Yet the Enlightenment fell to the same proclivity. It did not merely assert the importance of logic and critical thought; Enlightenment writers posited Science as the best, or even the only, way of knowing. Today, much of primitivism suffers from an equal and opposite reactionary movement, as the Romantic movement did in an earlier reaction to the Enlightenment. At the risk of falling prey to that same trend, this provides an opportunity to make an important counter-point: why we need critical thought.
Ran Prieur points to his longer work on this matter, “The Grand Diversifying Theory,” saying:
I accept Wilhelm Reich’s orgonomy, Charles Fort’s rains of frogs, Rupert Sheldrake’s morphic fields, Halton Arp’s astronomy, and all kinds of alternative science. I think UFO’s are a hoax by fairies, and I’m not joking. What I’m getting at is a style of thinking that utterly rejects closure, that keeps looking beyond with the persistence of water flowing downhill.
More recently, Aaron at Village Blog wrote a fairly hurtful post aimed at attacking me personally, from which I’ve taken the title for this post, where he takes me to task for thinking critically. He repeats much of what Ran says, noting:
Of course combat seems to be the very nature of academic debate. It doesn’t surprise me that academic methods are destructive since academia’s first priority is to reinforce the hierarchy and it’s values (including separation from self, community and land), and this means avoiding communal style collaboration. I remember a lecturer at architecture school who taught design in a genuine collaborative environment - he was universally reviled by the other lecturers.
Never mind that academia provides nearly the only enclave of the gift economy remaining in modern civilization, the very enclave that inspired the free software movement; that kind of thinking would look for disconfirmation, for problems with our thoughts, rather than simply looking for confirmation. That would require critical thought. Critical thought asks what we can find wrong in our thought patterns. It can feel difficult to subject ourselves to that level of scrutiny, and when we do so, we might find that fascinating ideas (like morphic fields, or UFO’s, or the so-called “9/11 Truth Movement”) can’t hold up. We might even decide that the fault lies with critical thought itself, because we really, really wish that such a thing could stand up. Critical thought feels like hard work, and it often feels better to simply forego it. Aaron says he feels right at home at Ran’s site, but feels trepadation every time he visits Anthropik, “in fear of what new calamity I will encounter there.” He wonders, “How would it be if the debate could be effective without having to be so damned ‘robust’”?
Ran has often used the terms “scout” and “cartographer” to grasp at this difference. On the now-defunct IshCon forums, Chuck once posted “The Parable of The Gatekeeper and the Cartographers.” The parable seems particularly apt here. Ran readily admits, ” I often say that I’m a scout, not a cartographer, and that’s why! When it gets that technical, I lose interest and move on to something new.” That has great value. Ran has called me a cartographer, and I think that just might fit me. Ran often acts as my “Gatekeeper,” to use the terms from Chuck’s parable. Ran’s writing gives me things to think about, and ultimately, things to write about and explore. But that doesn’t mean that I always agree with him. After all, as a scout, Ran finds new leads; as a cartographer, I follow them up and see where they go. Sometimes, a path that looks promising at the outset ends up wrapping back on itself and going nowhere. He lacks the patience to follow every idea he has to its conclusion, and that poses no problem. With so many ideas, we need scouts like Ran to find those leads, to look at things a little differently, to keep coming up with new, fresh ideas.
Critical thought draws the line that divides scouts like Ran from cartographers. Cartographers begin their work where scouts end theirs. They follow up on those leads, chart them, and find out where they go. Scouts have big imaginations; cartographers feel inspired by those imaginations, but they also keep a respect for critical thought. They want to know where those imaginings lead. If I act as a cartographer, that happens only because I apply critical thought, and follow the implications of ideas set forth by scouts like Ran.
We need both. We need imagination, or critical thought simply shuts us down and leads us into stagnation. By the same token, we need critical thought, as well; without that, we accept whatever we might imagine uncritically. I’ve already mentioned some prime examples of the kinds of things we end up believing when we neglect critical thought: things like morphic fields, or UFO’s, or the so-called “9/11 Truth Movement.” Ran himself has illustrated for us where this can eventually lead recently, commenting on the 9/11 attacks: “There is no such thing as what really happened. The 9/11 operation is like quantum physics: so shifty and weird that it can only be resolved by abandoning the concept of objective truth.” Of course, it seems patently obvious what happened: 19 angry Arabs with box-cutters, and the huge, gaping holes in security that complexity makes inevitable. But that hardly “feels” right, given the magnitude of the effect, as easily as we might believe the cause. I’ll not rehash the same tired arguments here about the melting point of steel, or the supposed “free-fall” of the twin towers—you can find those arguments elsewhere in far greater detail than I can provide here, and for those unconvinced, another round of repeating the evidence will hardly change any minds—but the illustration here, with a fellow as intelligent and engaged as Ran, exactly where we end up when we abandon robust, critical thought, as Aaron wishes. We end up with many of the same problems that Robert Anton Wilson argued the verb “to be” gives us, in his essay, “Towards Understanding E-Prime“: we “begin the insidious process by which we move gradually from paradox to nonsense to total gibberish.”
According to Scott Peck, author of The Different Drum, all truth has an inherently paradoxical quality. That kind of meaningless double-talk can hardly lead anywhere good. Paradox does not herald truth; it highlights precisely where the problems in our thinking patterns lay. Look at the development of Christian theology: the paradox of salvation by good works versus salvation by faith would never exist had Christianity greater respect for critical thought. Chief among the problems that weighed down Christianity by the end of the “Age of Faith,” requiring the Enlightenment, one finds that same “insidious process by which we move gradually from paradox to nonsense to total gibberish.” It may seem difficult to remember today, but Christian theology actually has a rich philosophical tradition. But different ideas, made by entirely different people, all became accepted as “the Word of the Lord.” Christians could not repeal scripture, no matter how little sense it made. When the early Christians compiled their Bible, they made no pretense about it as the literal word of G-d; that would not come about until the American Fundamentalist movement in the nineteenth century. They knew they had simply collected a number of important works, none of them divine in origin, and they knew they all reflected the opinions of different respected religious leaders. But in time, as the Bible became codified and increasingly difficult to question, both salvation by good works and salvation by faith, both with their separate Biblical bases, became matters of dogma, and so dogma developed a paradoxical nature. The two doctrines contradicted one another; yet both, coming from the Bible and reflected in church law, must “be true.” From thence came the “mysteries of faith,” and how we cannot understand the paradoxical nature of divinity.
Such meaningless double-talk has always provided the last bulwark of those too committed to their ideas to change their minds, who would rather the rest of us simply fall silent and do as they tell us. Truth has a paradoxical quality only when the “truth” you try to promote follows from a hopeless mish-mash of unexamined assumptions, outright biases, and lazy, uncritical thought. When we think critically, paradox tells us where we need to focus our attention; it highlights where we have accepted something too readily, something that we should never have accepted in the first place.
Ran’s work as a scout differs from my own, but I still respect what he does greatly. Aaron’s essay asks for execution of all the cartographers. We don’t need them—who needs maps, anyway? Doesn’t filling in the map just mean we have less to explore? Who does that cartographer think he “is,” telling me a mountain stands over there? I want a lake there!
As I said from the beginning, we find this strain of thought in most reactionary movements. The Enlightenment did not simply correct for the “mysteries of faith” that Christianity had introduced; it went farther, overreacting and putting forward a new religion, wherein Science stood as the best, or even the only way of knowing. No, we can hardly call science itself a religion, but science can make no claims for its own pre-eminence or exclusive claim to knowledge. Such claims seem inherently unscientific. We can certainly call those claims a religion, because they do not follow from evidence the way science itself does; they simply constitute assertions of faith.
But now we see an equal-and-opposite reactionary movement, resembling the Romantic movement that preceded it in many ways. Aaron goes on to highlight some of the problems he sees in critical thought, and why he believes it does not offer a valid or useful tool for understanding.
Where I’m going with this is that I believe that the academic method is a very flawed way of chasing the truth, not just because it zeroes in on the details and loses the big picture but also because it uses combat as a debating method.
Whilst it’s true that an argument that can withstand immense criticism must be a good one, the war-like nature of the debate puts the proponent of any new idea immediately on the back foot and they have to ‘dig themselves in’ to withstand the assault.
It’s a real waste of time and energy in it’s own right but also because the proponent of an idea is the person in the best place to be critiquing it - after all, who else knows it so well. I know this is a strange idea for our culture, I’m expecting most people will be pretty sceptical of it and I would be too if I hadn’t observed Ran doing this very thing in some of his writing.
It seems telling that in backing up his hurtful assertion that, “In all honesty I don’t think that Jason values the relationship as much as the need to win a debate,” Aaron points to public disagreements with my friends, namely, Ran Prieur and Toby Hemenway. To show how I don’t value relationships over winning debates, he points to people with whom I still have cordial, friendly and supportive relationships. Doesn’t that seem like Aaron has missed something?
Debate provides an excellent means by which to hone ideas and sharpen them; if we still have the same ideas at the end, we’ve still learned new angles, new edges, and new facets of them by having them tested. Even better, the debate may have changed our minds, and given us new ideas. To learn that an idea cannot stand scrutiny in a debate makes things far easier than to pursue that idea for years, only to fall victim, again, to “the insidious process by which we move gradually from paradox to nonsense to total gibberish.” I have followed both paths; the latter, perhaps most costly with Daniel Quinn’s conflation of horticulture and agriculture. That simple conflation cost me years of confusion as I ran in circles (hence the passion with which I now argue for their distinction).
But ultimately, Aaron’s objections come to fruition only if we act in very juvenile, even infantile, ways. In my family, we cultivated the debate almost like a sport. It had no malice in it, no personal aggrievement. We knew that our ideas did not define us. Ideas do not tell us who we “are”. We have ideas; we let them go, and we get new ones. They come to us, and they leave. How could a debate ever become a personal grudge match? Aaron cites times that I called Toby’s argument “dodgy,” or when I referred to Ran’s “loopy logic,” and from that says that I insult and attack. He writes:
I don’t have or want a problem with Jason, I gain immensely from his writing and there is far more to be gained from keeping the peace – but not at any cost. His behaviour errs on the destructive side at times and I’m hoping he will get the opportunity to see that sometime. It’s true that I wasn’t a lot different ten years ago so there’s hope for everyone.
But I never insulted, or attacked, or destroyed anyone with whom I have a relationship. I did not call Ran loopy; I did not call Toby dodgy. We talked about ideas, not people. We can describe ideas in any number of ways, but nothing said of an idea could ever constitute an insult, because we have ideas, they do not define us. Thus, the unspoken premise of Aaron’s argument seems to assume an extremely juvenile attitude that cannot distinguish between ideas and the people who think them.
We can and must question our ideas. Our ideas can lead us into very bad places, if we let them. But they can also open new doors and new possibilities. Critical thought offers us a means of distinguishing between those ideas that empower us, and those that diminish us; those that hold up to scrutiny, and those that don’t. We should remember the fun and sport of contesting ideas; Ran’s demeanor shows clearly how much he loves to think and explore new possibilities. Done well, critical thought and debate can fill the same purpose. We should have the maturity to debate as fiercely as we do joyfully, a sport of the mind that sharpens us and reveals which of our ideas strengthen us the most.
I think Willem Larsen put it best when he wrote that logic and critical thought give us a tool for understanding our world. Not our only tool, nor our best tool, but a good tool, a powerful tool, and a useful tool. We should not feel afraid to use it. It can help us greatly. Neither should we mistake it for our only tool. We should use it when appropriate, and when we finish with it, we should thank it for its help and put it back in our toolbox.
You might have noticed things moving more slowly here over the past week. Some of that has to do with personal changes I’ll probably mention in more detail later, but I would lie to you if I said it had nothing to do with the unrelenting attack I’ve suffered on the intertubes this past week. As I mention here, I have no problem debating ideas, but these people have gotten mean, and they’ve gotten personal. I’ll admit: it got to the point where I felt quite helpless, and even considered closing up shop here for good. But now, it’s just gotten me pissed off. So I’ve decided to come back, and to come back swinging.
Here you have exhibit A. You can read Aaron’s post for yourself, if you like; it hit me pretty hard when I first read it, but when I read it a fourth time, it struck me as the most cowardly, double-talking piece of sophistic insinuation I’ve read in a long, long time. Try reading it critically, and I think you’ll see what I mean.
Next up, some kind words for those supportive folks who’ve had so many nice things to say to encourage me about the Fifth World, and Giuli about the Fabulous Forager.
Then, a response to “How to Save Civilization.” OK, I don’t actually have anything against Ran, I don’t feel any anger towards him, and I’d hardly call my response the kind of counter-attack launched here, but it’s a response, which kind of fits the theme here, right? Ran raises a lot of interesting points, and a lot of them I disagree with, so I’ll write out all the why’s and wherefore’s about that, ’cause that what I do.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 17 September 2007 @ 8:37 PM
jason,
i find myself often in the role that you are here inhabiting - the generous giver of hard ideas who is criticized for the hard way of arguing the ideas.
i think your main point in this answer is clear - you do what you do, and your doing contributes. so back off, critics!
if you were the person who thought things through gently or purely-collaboratively (which is an orientation to group process that of course can lead to group think) you wouldn’t be able to make the contributions you make. thus - suggestions that you change your tone or style are misguided efforts to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
i would argue, in addition, that just as you SHOULD do what you do, that others should do what they do. aaron’s comments didn’t seem to strike at your love for your friends, or your honor, or your mother - they were about your style of posting on the internet. aaron’s comment could be better read as an analysis than a personal attack - an attempt to process - from one point of view - the internet posting style of a widely quoted figure with the initials jason godesky.
one aspect of group dynamics i’ve noticed, and in some ways it is a healthy one, is the attempt to maintain a certain equality of relation. if people can’t be equal in debating theory, the people with a vaguer understanding will shift the ground of the discussion to something they do feel confident about (such as group dynamics : ).
aaron’s self-deprecating-condescending line about “10 years ago …” to the side he does make a point i’d also noticed. you always seem to be embroiled in a controversy and there’s some kind of personal antagonism involved. this is also something i can relate to. but how could it always be the other guy? you use the example of your friendship with ran - but ran is kind of an exceptional person who is pretty slippery when it comes to how he uses his time and energy - and doesn’t seem to want to be drawn into the dance of primate dominance sublimated through intellectual mastery. he’d prefer to paint with ideas. you (and i) do gravitate towards (so many mixed metaphors) these “debates”. i don’t think it does any harm to acknowledge that, examine it, and consider implications. one aspect is that polarization puts some people strongly and personally on your side! that’s better for a lot of us emotionally than some kind of spectrum of ideas with no particular commitment.
so do what you do! do it as well as you can. we are all misunderstood, we are all subject to disease, old age, and death. we all need some luck and some love and some forbearance. your gifts (and you are right, sometimes an attack is a gift) are important. thank you for sharing them.
Comment by juggleandhope — 17 September 2007 @ 9:21 PM
Thank you for your kind words. I agree basically with most of what you said, but I don’t think Aaron kept it to simply doing what he does, as you say. I see you, too, noticed how unbelievably condescending he seemed when he wrote, “It’s true that I wasn’t a lot different ten years ago so there’s hope for everyone,” but what really got me came with: “In all honesty I don’t think that Jason values the relationship as much as the need to win a debate.” That crossed the line in a big, big way.
You make a good point with Ran, but what about Toby Hemenway? Or some of the others Aaron didn’t mention, like Urban Scout? I don’t think anyone can say that Scout backs down from a challenge. Sure, I take all comers, and that doesn’t sit with some people very well. Most people don’t enjoy having their ideas challenged, and I think that explains the relatively constant controversy. The recent MetaFilter thread came about when they decided to pick on Scout, and there I stood in the middle of the firestorm. Why? Because I take all comers; I walked right into, fully knowing what would follow. So to some extent, yes, I bring it on myself, because I go where I need to go, even when I know it won’t go happily for me. Of course, my closest friends tend to come from those people who have very strong wills and very strong ideas, and enjoy having their ideas challenged as much as I do. I don’t think you can make the case that I only get along with people who bend to my aggression, or who side-step it entirely. I run with a pretty opinionated group, and the ones I feel closest to also challenge me the most. Because when you do have an honest willingness to explore your ideas and challenge them as much as you challenge others’, you do find a very strong kinship with those who do the same.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 17 September 2007 @ 9:33 PM
“I run with a pretty opinionated group, and the ones I feel closest to also challenge me the most. Because when you do have an honest willingness to explore your ideas and challenge them as much as you challenge others’, you do find a very strong kinship with those who do the same.”
I think you summed it up. Jesus, please don’t stop. Don’t ever stop. You don’t know how excited I get when I read some of your responses to people, like over in the nature of cities article. Your responses are so good they make me tingle with joy. I’m serious. I literally feel elated with excitement when I read them. So, from my own selfish reasons, please don’t ever, ever stop writing and debating.
I see these kinds of discussions like the last scene in The Story of B when Jared finds himself challenged by one of the other B’s. That’s how I saw those battles on Ishcon too. Though we did get pretty personal sometimes, we have proved to relate in a way that feels priceless and hard to find.
By the way, I think “Machine Gun” sounds a lot cooler than “Cartographer.”
Comment by Urban Scout — 17 September 2007 @ 11:05 PM
Also…
Critical thinking includes “looking beyond with the persistence of water flowing downhill.” Any serious critical thinker will look beyond the evidence, always keep an eye out for something that doesn’t match what they previously thought. In fact, that’s exactly what critical thinking is; going over and over and over the evidence looking for more or counter arguments and loop holes. Looking beyond means having your facts there but also remaining open to change. What could you be “looking beyond” but your current thoughts on a subject. That’s why we have debate for chrissake; to have others help us stretch and look beyond our current thoughts.
The statement “a style of thinking that utterly rejects closure” sounds cute, but means nothing at all. It sounds rather like saying, “A style of eating that utterly rejects digestion.” I would call it “loopy logic” but than, someone might write a scathing blog about how mean I am, and I can only handle so much internet bashing at a time. I’m just now getting over the meta-filter crap!
Comment by Urban Scout — 17 September 2007 @ 11:31 PM
off-topic, but possibly of interest:
“An appeal filed by Pitt’s Environmental Law Clinic is among those being considered by the U.S. Forest Service as it reviews comments on a land management plan for the Allegheny National Forest.”
(break)
“The Environmental Law Clinic’s appeal, filed on behalf of the Allegheny Defense Project and Heartwood environmental groups, Tionesta Valley Snowmobile Club and five individuals, is among those that remain under review by the Forest Service, which has targeted a Dec. 10 response date, Miller said. In addition to its own 180-page appeal, the law clinic has submitted responses to several other appeals that were submitted to the Forest Service.
The law clinic’s appeal calls for the forest plan to be withdrawn and redone, outlining a number of perceived shortcomings. The largest, Buchele said, centers on how oil and gas development issues were handled in the plan. Other prime issues were the Forest Service’s failure to address climate change, air pollution and recreation.
The 180-page appeal states in part, “Although the revision process purported to deal with the biggest and newest issues impacting the forest, the Forest Service failed to include oil and gas development as such an issue. The Final Environmental Impact Statement, as part of its cumulative effects analysis, does document somewhat the explosive growth in such development over the past few years and into the foreseeable future. But the alternatives analysis and the revised plan do almost nothing to address this huge adverse impact on the forest in any sort of comprehensive or mandatory way. … Climate change is another issue that the FS has almost completely ignored in the revision documents.””
http://mac10.umc.pitt.edu/u/FMPro?-db=ustory&-lay=a&-format=d.html&storyid=7706&-Find
we got bigger fish to fry ’round these parts. there is no time for in-fighting.
Jason & Guili, i do believe your hearts are in a good place, and i also believe (hope?) that Aaron did not mean anything personally, i’m sure that Ran’s head doesn’t work that way. sometimes us “old” people (nearing the 40’s mark for Pete’s sake) maybe feel pressured more by the urgency of the times, and react differently than younger people? i don’t know. but whatever you do, don’t stop doing your thing…just maybe try to see how sometimes your real goal may not be best served if you come on too strong? i’m not sure how much time we have for debating the particulars, you know?
you teach me how to make a bow drill, and i don’t care if we *ever* agree on the theory of WHY that’s the best way to make fire, that’s all i’m saying!
: )
(sorry yinz missed the hide-tanning class, too! i’m still thinking about trying to talk Patrick into letting me–and possibly Ran–do the Advanced Primitive Weekend without having taken the Pre-Req!)
-patricia
Comment by patricia — 18 September 2007 @ 2:55 AM
NOTE–that was supposed to be an old school smiley up there, where you see the pointless parenthesis, but somehow the colon got et up…aye? old people, what can i tell you? damn interwebs.
-p.
Comment by patricia — 18 September 2007 @ 3:03 AM
Jason,
There’s a few corrections I want to make. I’ll stick to the less emotive ones for the time being and hopefully get back on the other stuff a bit later.
You wrote that my post was ‘aimed at attacking me personally’. This is not the case. My aim was to do some thinking out loud and while it’s true that this included some criticism of your approach to debate it was certainly not the aim of the piece, nor was it the sole focus. I of course understand that my comments could be taken personally but causing injury is not what I ever seek to do - especially not for it’s own sake.
Because it implies a great many things I’ll also clarify the “Aaron says he feels right at home at Ran’s site” comment: I was attempting to
make a point about how a writer can debate someone without belittling them in the process. I thought Ran does this well which is why I used his site as an example.
I was not taking you to task for thinking critically. You are welcome to view it in that light of course but I do not have a problem with critical thinking, and nor was I trying to say that critical thinking is problematic. To be honest I don’t know how I would even mount such an arguement. I do however have a problem with the combative approach to debating, - which is what a large portion of the article was about. I also do not think that Ran’s leaving-doors-open approach necessarily excludes critical thinking (ultimately, however that is for him to say).
I can assure you that the comment: “Aaron’s essay asks for execution of all the cartographers” is not what I have in mind. Not even a partial maiming in fact:-)
Your quite right that the “I was like that ten years ago” comment was condescending. Really it shouldn’t have been in there, it’s very hard to say that sort of thing without coming over like a patronising old bugger - perhaps a reason to leave such things unsaid.
I also would like to agree with the other comments people made to not stop what you’re doing - obviously I’ve added a bit to that something about proceeding more gently but I’d be mortified if I ended up being the person who put an end to the body of work you’re producing here. As I said, I benefit greatly from it.
Comment by Aaron — 18 September 2007 @ 4:19 AM
Hey –
And so it comes around again, eh? Same think over at IshThink this last week. Matt and I have been labeled ‘bullies’ and taken to task for standing up for a certain set of ideas… ah well. Surprised, I am not.
The Scout/Cartographer metaphor is a good one. And YES, damn it, we need our cartographers, too! I think, in fact, that you have allowed me to finally begin to grasp, just a little, WHY debate gets so many people upset. Still don;t agree, and even though I sometimes get rather invested in a debate and even emotionally riled up, I still see it as an exercise, a game, a way to test ourselves mentally just as a sporting event might test us physically. No one would criticise a runner for trying to win a marathon, but when one gives everything they’ve got to a debate, they become ‘mean’.
Crap… I’m babbling a bit… been a rough couple ‘o weeks. Point is, as nasty as it gets and as much as you need to pull yourself away a breathe sometimes, you also need to wade back in again. For you, for us, for life…. remember there’s always gonna be someone around to help if you need it!
Janene
Comment by janene — 18 September 2007 @ 8:45 AM
Wow.
After reading Aaron’s blog entry last night, then Jason’s reply this morning, I half expected to find bloodshed in the comments.
I must say, I’m pleasantly surprised.
Comment by jhereg — 18 September 2007 @ 9:04 AM
The way I look at it, the intuitive mind and the rational mind (some people like to say “right-brain and left-brain”, but that reflects an oversimplified conception of how the brain works, and besides, we’re talking about the mind more than we are the brain anyway) both act as a check and a balance on one another. The problem I have with the skeptizealots is that their worship (yes, worship) of science and the rational-mind approach over everything else is that this mindset is a tool of dominator-culture and a concomitant refusal to honestly look at the catastrophic havoc this culture has wrought upon the planet. The imperial arrogance with which far too many of them promote their worldview attests to their being part and parcel of dominator-culture’s tyranny.
Comment by venuspluto67 — 18 September 2007 @ 9:45 AM
One of the major hurdles I’ve personally faced getting into primitivism is the sheer amount of “mystical” thinking often involved. For example, I was really interested in the 5th world project, until I got to the “and magic returns to the earth” I still wonder, can we have a primitive way of life without animism, if we can become closer to nature without personifying it. I don’t mind it, per se, but my own experience tells me that I can usually grok things just as well without it.
Critical thinking absolutely has a place in rewilding; it was critical thinking about civilization and it’s myths that go most of us here in the first place.
I have a thousand thoughts to share on “subjective reality”, but after a 10 minutes of typing I realize this either needs to be an essay, or a real chat with friends. The medium of message board comments is a poor place to share the concepts. But the basic Idea it this: Reality itself exists as it is, it isn’t some waveform waiting for us to look at it. But what we know, what we CAN know, about reality is limited to ideas. How well those ideas match up with reality determines how useful they are. But no idea can ever be the truth, even though the truth does exist; Because the truth isn’t an idea, it’s reality.
I think your “cartographer/scout” analogy is mixed up. The idea men, like Ran, they sit and draw maps. Lots of maps. Whatever looks good and fun. The critical thinkers, they go out and see, well, is there really a mountain where this map says there is?
Comment by Andrew Jensen — 18 September 2007 @ 10:20 AM
OK, but the fact that critical thinking has been used to cut down alternatives to dominator culture doens’t mean that critical thinking is only good for that. Those who worship skepticism rarely apply critical thinking to the areas that would undermine their own world view, in fact, they are poor critical thinkers in that regard. The mistake they make is beleiving that there has to be one right answer, that there can only be one explanation for things. Critical thinking merely determines how consistent a model of thought is, not how “right” it is.
Comment by Andrew Jensen — 18 September 2007 @ 10:26 AM
Man, I wish I could edit.
This is where the “all elements of truth have some paradox” comes in. Or As I’ve always said “If it all makes sense, you are missing something.” Our ideas of reality are always incomplete. There will always be some real thing outside the scope of our imagined models. And thank god, because a universe simple enough to understand would be boring.
Comment by Andrew Jensen — 18 September 2007 @ 10:29 AM
I hope I’m not drifting too far off-topic here, but I just thought I’d take this moment to volunteer the thought that I don’t understand why so many evangelical Christians need the creation account in Genesis to be literally true. The books of The Bible were meant to be teachers of spiritual truths, not a biology or physics textbook. It makes a lot more sense to look at the creation account renedered in Genesis to be poetry saying that God created the universe and nature, and he put a great deal of care and thought into doing so. Viewed that way, Genesis is relating a spiritual truth without trying to force the creation myth to be something it is not and can’t really be.
Comment by venuspluto67 — 18 September 2007 @ 11:00 AM
Back to the important stuff, man this summer my beans grew like wildfire! So many beans…green peppers turned out crap, and I realize that you can grow tons of stuff w/ compost even when its not completely finished turning into black gold.
So is everyone here pretty much just reading/writing/learning and waiting around for the modern world to start snowballing a bit quicker?
So much conflict, so little time.
Comment by Bubba — 18 September 2007 @ 12:58 PM
anyone in the P-burgh area looking to network with local/regional organic food, craft, art & other similar types, and/or mark the Fall Equinox, or look for new tribe members, etc., may wish to stop by here on Sunday noon-5ish:
“Join a Fresh Crop of Local Artists at the 2nd Annual Co-op Art Harvest!
Our local block party celebrating the local community and the autumn harvest- right in front of the Co-op on Meade Street.
Over 30 local artists displaying and selling their handmade work including jewelry, painting, glasswork, cool stuff made from recycled materials, pottery, knits and more!”
http://www.eastendfoodcoop.com
if you can find the corner of Penn Avenue and Braddock Avenue, i’m guessing you can just follow the sound of drums from that point!
Comment by patricia — 18 September 2007 @ 1:38 PM
A few questions that may or may not seem ridiculous:
When we speak of Critical Thought are we talking about a universally developed human quality, or of something that could only have grown from civilisation? Did pre-conquest indigenous peoples have the opportunity to discover ideas that they didn’t like, before civilisation came along to give them a whole raft of absurdities to reject and move on from? Would they even have been capable of thinking outside their own ‘cultural bias’ (and why should they want to)?
Why would the powerful within civilisation have permitted the ascendency of rigorously applied logic when it can so obviously be turned back onto the lies they rely on to keep the population in check? My guess is that it’s use in pushing science forward (science always in service to the economy - so far but no further) outweighed the possible blowback which, at any rate, would be limited to the intellectual / literate minority. Finally, will we have the occasion to use our hard-won critical faculties once they are no longer required to defend us against civilisation’s onslaught?
…
‘True words seem paradoxical’ - Tao Te Ching, v.78
Is this “a hopeless mish-mash of unexamined assumptions, outright biases, and lazy, uncritical thought”? I find that my favourite truths are those that disappear like optical illusions when you focus too much attention on them, or perhaps the wrong kind of attention on them like a creature wriggling away from under the surgeon’s knife.
…
Quinn said he felt like Leif Erikson tramping around on a whole new continent of thought that nobody from his culture would care about for hundreds of years. Whether we’re scouts or cartographers, we should take our time over it and enjoy our pioneer status. We should however be careful with what habits we bring with us from over the seas. We’re not conquerors now, are we?
Comment by Ian M — 18 September 2007 @ 2:40 PM
YOu take knowledge personally. It’s unfair for people to criticize from the computer chair about who a person is and what their motivations are. Taking knowledge personally means incorrect information is a personal offense. How could a commitment like this offend? When it comes to sorting out what is correct and incorrect, feelings ARE very much at play, whether we care to admit our weaknesses or not.
Jason, I wouldn’t read and post on this site if it weren’t of the handful, truly, worth reading. From one crazy man to another, I hope Anthropik is the last thing I ever read on the internet if it all goes down.
The great thing is, I don’t agree with your perspective on cities, either, Jason. But I’m not foolish enough to engage you in an intellectual manner; I would have to earn another degree in readind and research.
I think the problem is here there is no way to properly acknowledge Jason because his contribution defies conventional types of recognition.
How empty are the replies of ‘great post’?
I can tell Jason gets excited because it happens when people get close to operating at his level.
Why can’t we all just say and recognize Jason is the smartest person in the room, until it’s been proven otherwise? Because even he would trade all his knowledge for a moment of pure being. AN so, like walking contradictions, we, along with leaders like jason, continue to grasp at that which makes our goals even more elusive.
ON Rewild.info, there was a post quoting Tamarack Song talking about Qualitative skills, skills only a few of us have actually gone out to hone.
I think people should quit worrying and learn to love the crash, so importantant, intelligent people like Jason can use their energy to bring new dreams to life.
In a way, Jason is a medicine man who is stuck serving the will of the tribe, with this vision in the back of his head that gets cooler by the hour. Without people elavating their expectations of a great man beyond the ability to discern the depths of cultural and personal denial of our living slavery, then that is all thsi great tool in our community will be used for. Until people get brave and admit some people can produce any answer to any question, because that is their gift, and start asking new questions, all we will get is the same solution.
I wouldn’t be afraid of Jason and crew if it didn’t mean me changing my bioregion. reading about Penny Scout’s desire return to the mountains of her home helps me realize that becoming a part of the penn crew or oregon crew won’t matter. It’s that painful realization that it takes more than one, and here we all are, still, individuals, slaves, lonely, disaffected, ineffectual…
I wish I could find a way to give my appreciation better than ‘great post, Jason’ but I’m here, you’re there, I hope friends come easier in Pittsburg than they come in Indiana….
Comment by TOnyZ — 18 September 2007 @ 2:59 PM
Honestly, critical thinking is Something any human being at any point in history could have come up with, given the time to think. In it’s most simple form, it’s merely asking “does this make sense? what are the implications of this? do those implications match my experience?” A whole lot of tricks for answering those questions have been developed, and a whole lot of poor practices have been cataloged, and studying them makes you a better critical thinker. But all you really require is a simultaneously curious and skeptical approach to any idea, even (especially) your own.
The powerful have NEVER liked critical thinking. It is a skill that is poorly taught in all mass education. We are told to accept what our leaders tell us. These days we’re told the leaders are great critical thinkers, and we should leave such critical thinking up to them. But we, the commoners, shouldn’t do any critical thinking ourselvs, because we’re not smart enough. And its become a self-fufilling prophecy, because we don’t think critically, we become poor at it.
Will we have occasion to use critical thinking after Civ’s fall? Hell yes. In fact, the more we become responsible for our selves, the more we will benifit from our individual abilities to think critically. Critical thinking is a tool for honing our ideas, which are themselves tools we use to predict real world outcomes. Critical thinkers are better problem solvers.
One last thing I want to point out: don’t confuse academic thinking with critical thinking. Academic thinking can use critical thinking, but it doesn’t always., and it’s not the important distinction. Academic thinking requires that you frame your experience to the existing models. This is not a feature of critical thinking. In many ways critical thinking is at it’s best when you have to fit your model to your experience.
Comment by Andrew Jensen — 18 September 2007 @ 3:23 PM
I never see anything combative about your debate style. I can see how people feel attacked sometimes by how persistent your arguments come out. Maybe sometimes you don’t know when to let things settle on their own accord (for the sake of the person at the other end of the argument) but that’s usually because you see the need for further hashing out the issues.
The problems I see come from people not “getting” your style. You and Scout both seem to have that working against you. I “get” both of your and love both of you for your uniqueness.
Unlike Scout, though, for some reason you come across as not having a sense of humor (I think you know this about yourself) and it may make you seem more combative and less personal. Where as Scout’s sense of humor makes him seem like a douche bag. So, you’re damned whether you do or don’t.
You could try to tone down the degree of your debate style. Maybe that would make you less open to attacks. But I hope you don’t. I think we need the strength and potency of your style, and I hope you don’t change. I think the fact that you responded to Aaron’s comments by arguing the need for your arguments, though, means you won’t ever change a damn thing — and that makes me happy.
Scouts and cartographers, eh? Is that how Peter and Willem came by their respective internet personas? Although, I think I have to agree with Andrew that Ran’s style is a lot more like fantasy cartography than like scouting. Which is probably why I get tired of visiting his site. I love his essay work, but his blogs leave me feeling lost. But I’m definitely glad for both of you.
Comment by Rix — 18 September 2007 @ 3:50 PM
Critical thinking, Academic thinking … when is it just Thinking? Why the distinction? Is it not just an indication of the robust walls we have to throw up when under threat of invasion - digging ourselves in to withstand the assault as Aaron said?
In a pre-conquest culture, what would be the use of a skeptical approach to an idea; where is the need for anything other than curiosity and its satisfaction if you’re not being called to defend your position against missionaries intent on your conversion? When you live in a culture that isn’t based on world-denial, there’s no danger of coming across anything that doesn’t ‘match your experience,’ because your culture is based on, in fact deeply embedded in that experience in the first place.
I don’t think the powerful (or even academics for that matter) ever particularly liked critical thinking. My point was that it’s been grudgingly accepted in those circles since the Enlightenment because of the advances it led to in the efficient exploitation of natural resources to meet the needs of Empire. Einstein was too much of a free thinker to be liked by the establishment, but his work was useful for the production of the atomic bomb.
Comment by Ian M — 18 September 2007 @ 4:53 PM
Remember, monsignor cartographer, “The map is not the territory”
Comment by drew — 18 September 2007 @ 5:12 PM
Like jhereg, I expected to see some bloodshed down in here; like jhereg, I’m pleasantly surprised. First and foremost, thank you to all of you who’ve expressed your support here; it means a good deal to me. Now, specifics…
Amen. What I write about doesn’t necessarily have much correlation with what I’m doing, mind you; I can only write so much about issues in the Allegheny National Forest, far less than I do about said issues. But certainly, we can’t let things like this distact us from the problems at hand.
I can vouch for you, if it’d help. It would be great to see you guys there.
It may not have been your aim, but it was your sole focus. You could have written a general piece about the nature of academic debate, and that might have referenced me as an example, but that would have been a very different piece from the one that you wrote. What you wrote was about me. All of your examples were mine. You mentioned your ideas about academic debate in passing, but from introduction to conclusion, you talked about me far more than you talked about the nature of academic debate.
What you label “combative” are all examples of simply challenging ideas. The “insults” you cite to prove my “destructive” nature are nothing more than questioning people’s ideas. If you want to know how you could mount an argument against critical thought, read your article again. Paradox signals truth, and questioning ideas amounts to combat. Hell, in the comments you even said that I’m your blog’s only troll, because I dare to post disagreements with you.
We’re very much on the same page there, Janene. Just because a debate isn’t personal doesn’t mean it isn’t heated and passionate. Heated, passionate debates are the best kind! But “heated” is not a euphemism for “personal.” Heated debates are fun; when it gets personal, well, even from a viewpoint of pure logic, that’s still an ad hominem fallacy, which is really just the fancy Latin way of saying what I wrote in the article: people are not clusters of ideas, and ideas aren’t the people who espouse them.
I can almost guarantee that you and I have very different ideas about “magic.” I really do need to write a long, feature-worthy article about animism one of these days, but in the meantime, I cannot recommend David Abram’s Spell of the Sensuous enough, and if you can’t take the time to read the book, at the very least read the sample chapter online, “The Ecology of Magic.” There’s nothing mystical about magic.
That said, I’m very much with you. I don’t like the mystical strain in primitivism. In fact, my interest in animism began precisely when I began how un-mystical it is, and how it’s really just about basic, pragmatic relationships, rather than any of the “spirituality” we’ve projected onto it. Abram really helped me understand that; that’s when it really clicked for me, the same way Ishmael made the state of our society click for me.
Heh, Giuli said that should be my primary argument in the article.
Excellent point, and one I very much agree with. Civilized ideologies have swung, pendulum-like, between philosophies like the Enlightenment and the Romantics; both exhibit the same, reactionary tendency towards overreaction, both support civilization in their own ways, and both miss the point entirely. We have capacities for both rational and poetic/mythic/intuitive thought, and we’re at our best when we use them both. All this nonsense about which one is better is just that: nonsense. If you actually believe that one is better than the other, get a lobotomy, since that’s what you’re trying to mimic. For the rest of us, I don’t see how cutting ourselves off from half the human experience makes any sense.
It’s been a bad year for my mother’s tomatoes, but a good year for us rewilding. We have a bow now, and I made my first bow drill. Lots of other firsts, too. I don’t see much opportunity for jumping out the window just yet, though, if that’s what you mean. Give it a few more years.
Interesting. I’ve been thinking of becoming a Co-op member for a while now (of course, since I’ll probably be moving out towards the airport soon, that might not be such a good idea anymore; even from Squirrel Hill, I had trouble finding the time to get over there with any kind of regularity). But this, I’ll have to see, we might be able to swing by.
I’d say that tracking demands a great deal of critical thought, and I’ve listened to no small sample of hunter-gatherers reason criticially, so I don’t think it’s a purely civilized phenomenon by any means.
Sure; something as simple as, “The deer went west; I’d thought he’d gone east,” can be an idea you don’t like, because it means you were wrong.
No one’s really capable of thinking very far outside of their cultural idiom … culture constructs our mind in some very powerful ways. For instance, being able to recognize a photograph as being a depiction of the flesh-and-blood person in front of you, is cultural. The way we see and hear is cultural. Even understanding how powerfully culture puts you together doesn’t free yoy from those limitations.
Because they really didn’t have much of a say in the matter. Leaders don’t have that kind of control.
There’s a big difference between a koan and a mystery of faith. The thing about koans is that they only seem paradoxical superficially; when you pry deeper, they make perfect sense, just like your passage from the Tao Te Ching. Compare that to salvation by good works vs. faith, which is just a plain old paradox.
I don’t know if that’s true, but I have lost a lot of time because of uncritical thought in the past, which is why I’m so quick to correct: I want to spare others the things I’ve had to put up with.
I think part of it’s the medium; I figure, if you can’t deal with it now, the comment will always be there for you later. I don’t hesitate to leave a thread and come back later when I’m feeling a little more up to it. Someone who feels like they need to answer immediately, on the other hand, yeah, I can see where that would begin to get sore.
The irony here is—and ask someone who’s met me in the flesh for confirmation—I’m something of a joker in real life. But absolutely none of it translates online. I can’t write comedy. It shocks people who meet me online first, because it’s like night and day; they can’t even tell it’s the same person. But yes, I know what you mean, because whether you have no sense of humor, or just can’t write it, doesn’t make much difference when you’re talking about a purely written medium, eh? I’m certainly not humorless, but my online persona certainly is.
Heh heh heh, yes; I don’t really plan on changing anything any time soon.
Funny; I like his blog much more than his essays. I still think he’s right calling himself a scout, though. He finds new, interesting ideas, but he doesn’t necessarily follow them up very much.
Same reason you have mammal animals and bird animals and reptile animals. Whatever way you think, you’re thinking one way or another. There will always be some modifier that will apply.
I figured that responding would open me up to the charge that I’ve proven his point, but if you think about it for a moment, it’s not much of an argument. That’s really where I started to get pissed off with Aaron’s article: it’s unfalsifiable, because it never makes any solid claim, just insinuations.
Tracking dinner, for one.
Einstein very much was the establishment of his time.
That’s true, but neither are a scout’s reports. We do the best we can.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 18 September 2007 @ 6:14 PM
No No No!
Pleeeeease don’t call Ran a “Scout.” It will ruin my rep! A Scout is someone who goes ahead of their community to gather information that will shape how the community acts. Critical thinking and observations lie at the heart of the Scout; their communities survival depends on it.
Some Scout’s look deeper than others… Those are the ones that survive in the long-run.
Comment by Urban Scout — 18 September 2007 @ 7:47 PM
Oh, Ran makes some excellent observations. That’s why he’s on my daily reading list. Critical thinking, too; he just doesn’t follow it for too long. Like he wrote, “When it gets that technical, I lose interest and move on to something new.” You’re right about the value of scouts, but scouts don’t entirely explore the places they search out and discover, either. You wouldn’t have the time to find all the other new things if you did, would you?
Comment by Jason Godesky — 18 September 2007 @ 8:16 PM
oy vey
i’ll need to respond to a few things, but i’m too fried to do it now
Comment by jhereg — 18 September 2007 @ 8:22 PM
“In a pre-conquest culture, what would be the use of a skeptical approach to an idea; where is the need for anything other than curiosity and its satisfaction if you’re not being called to defend your position against missionaries intent on your conversion?”
Challenging an Idea is something one should do by reflex because an idea can always be improved apon, made more useful. You don’t need competing ideas to test an idea. Hell, you don’t have to abandon an idea just because you’ve found a flaw in it. This is part of what I loved about studying psychology in college; they don’t have a single, workable theory of psychology. They have five or six different theories that are individually internally consistent and are useful about 80% of the time. It’s just that each given theory is better for specific circumstances. So when treating one kind of illness a cognitive model is used, when treating another a pharmacological approach may work better, and when you try to affect a social situation, a behavioral model might be better. Actually, each model has been show to have serious flaws, but each one is still useful.
Simply put, all ideas are wrong. All of them. They are attempts by our puny minds to find patterns in a world immensely more complex than we can comprehend. Ideas are NEVER, EVER true. NEVER. But they can be useful. Critical thinking is the tool we use to determine if our ideas are still useful.