From: wojdylo@maths.uwa.oz.au (INFIDEL)
Subject: Re: the address of the dead josef
Organization: University of Western Australia
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 09:22:36 GMT





I received the following from Mike Morris today via email; I would,
however, prefer to keep our discussion public. 



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Date: Wed, 22 Jul 92 00:01:36 EDT
From: msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca (Mike Morris)
Message-Id: <9207220401.AA16478@watsci.waterloo.edu>
To: wojdylo
Subject: A, B, C, and M

John Wojdylo
wojdylo@maths.uwa.oz.au

                                  Tuesday, the 21st of July, 1992

Dear John,
I started whittling on what follows for a follow-up post, but I think
it just chops up your text with personal response, so I'll mail
it to you instead of posting it.
                       Yours,
                           Mike Morris
                       (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)

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I offer some responses to John Wojdylo's caricatures
of Readers A, B, and C.  I'll just interleave Reader M
with parts from John's text.
  
  >to me, Settembrini seems [...] wedded to reason, liberal democracy, and high 
  >culture, but
  >is overwilling to carry his science into realms where science don't go.
  
  Reader A:
  "There's nothing wrong with thinking logically about anything you want.
  It's what you do with your model, how you affect others,  that matters.
  
  I keep an open mind, even witchcraft is possible, though if it does turn
  out to be real, then many other unlikely events are possible - so
  withcraft is unlikely to be real.  "

Reader M:
I agree with A that even a systematization of human suffering is thinkable
and nothing wrong.
  
  Reader B:
  "Science attacks the foundation of the description of the world that is
  correct because it secularizes rather than unifies. I agree
  with Mr. Morris's assessment of Herr Settembrini."

Reader M:
I do not think that sociology, psychology, political science, economics,
are sciences in the same 10-decimal place predictive accuracy sense that
physics is a science. I think rather they are branches of moral philosophy.
Perfectly honourable callings, that is, but apt to facilitate evil on the
applied side if grounded in bad moral philosophy.

But that's me, not Mann. He points to a dichotomy where I see at least
three distinct philosophical lineages.

This reminds of John Polkinghorne in his book _one world: the interaction
of science and theology_. Now, I classify Christians into fundies, cultural
Christians, and thoughtful Christians, and Polkinghorne, a theoretical
particle physicist turned Anglican priest is one of the (all-too-rare-in-
these-parts) thoughtful breed. Polkinghorne writes:
      The thinkers of the Enlightenment sought by cold clear
      reason to comprehend an objective world of determinate
      order. They saw themselves as self-sufficient and were
      confident of their powers and of human perfectibility.
I think Polkinghorne is both very right and very wrong here. The question
I think he's right on is whether or not human perfectibility is possible.
He's Christian, and believes it is not, that man is imperfectr by nature.
I believe that the Christians get that much approximately right.
To me, however, he's wrong about assigning this belief in human perfectibility
to the Enlightenment. Voltaire had a lot to say about human foibles,
Jefferson and Madison and Adams and company tried to design a government that
would hamstring itself whenever the bad guys got into power, precisely
because they believed the bad guys would get into power. I think a belief
in *human* perfectibility, mistake that I believe it to be, came *after*
the Enlightenment, with the rise of the so-called ``human sciences''.

This makes me think that maybe *Mann*'s dichotomy in S&N has to do
with a belief in human perfectibility (Settembrini) v. disbelief
in the same (Naphtha).
  
  >I find this (and Mann's disapproval of this progressivism)
  >particularly symbolized in Settembrini's absurd encyclopaedic project,
  >_The Sociology of Suffering_. 
  
  Reader A: " His was an honourable undertaking, somewhat ambitious,
  though worthy of respect. Perhaps his work will enlighten us all.
  Three cheers for Herr Settembrini. Jeers for Mr. Morris. "

Reader M:
I do agree his was an honourable undertaking, any evil would
of course depend on action taken after the books were written.
But isn't Mann poking no small fun at Settembrini?

  >Settembrini's rational hubris then seems to me to
  >conjure up Herr Naphtha by antithesis.
  
  Reader B: "I think Herr Naphtha ought to feel insulted. Nonetheless, I
  see how Mr. Morris arrived at his view, since he quite rightly believes that
  Settembrini's project is absurd."

Reader M:
Of course I agree that Herr Naphtha is morally responsible for himself.
But, I think architectonically (i.e. the structure of the book),
as well as historically (history of ideas) I'm right.
  
  Reader A: "You are both full of shit. There does not need to be any
  connection between anything. _Supposing_ that one thing is true,
  however, other things _may_ follow. Naphtha's program is dubious in the
  extreme. There are too many connections forced by his insistance that
  everything follows from a single truth."

Reader M:
But Mann is immersed in the loud left-right debate that especially
dominated European thought up until the world show of rejecting
fascism mid-century.
  
  >I don't think his [Naphtha's]  program is easily dismissable.  He knows
  >that human suffering comes from a deeper source than any ``ology''
  >can touch. 
  
  Reader B: "My words exactly. What's more, what's needed is universal
  suffering so that people realize what binds them."

Reader M:
Avoid pain. First Commandment of the Church of Evangelical Hedonism.

No, I think it's an evil program. But I also think that to say this I
have to carry about with me some powerful notion of what evil is,
and that no glorious moment of human achievement, no Napoleon
at Austerlitz, no Michelangelo painting the ceiling, is worth
this evil. I have to hold the ethical imperative higher than any
aesthetic. I think I do do this. I'm not convinced that the Zeitgeist
does.
  
  Reader A: "It's never easy to dismiss what one's colleague believes in
  so passionately; one hopes that one's own perception of what he is
  saying is inadequate. However, every conclusion he comes to makes me
  uneasy, because it is not really a conclusion -- it is a decree. A
  dogma. I hope for his sake that there is reason behind it. perhaps he
  just isn't expressing himself properly."

Reader M:
Naphtha ultimately dismisses reason---he reasons that it's too logocentric.
  
  >Yes, I think your ``beautiful'' precisely correct. I don't think
  >Naphtha was interested so much in justice as in making suffering
  >beautiful. 
  
  Reader B: "Suffering is beautiful: I recommend it."
  
  Reader A: "If it is better to suffer, why bother with being civilized?
  Supposing even that one means "suffering in one particular thing", is it
  possible that that suffering here does not flow over into other aspects of
  suffering?   No it is not, because there is a situation in
  which this suffering causes the suffering of another, hence  suffering of 
  another part of oneself, since others are part of one's own consciousness. So 
  the suffering spreads among all people. And, by corollary,  people like 
  Reader B wish suffering on us all. To hell with his proposition."  
  
  Reader C:" But he seems to really mean it.  "
  
  Reader A:" Then let him live with his own kind. His conviction makes him 
  grotesque. "
  
Reader M:
I see myself as liberal, that is, both anti-left and anti-right. This means
that I feel I have reasons (and ultimate faith) for rejecting both left
and right. But I still can recognize both left and right as deeply deep
endeavours. For all I *know* maybe the faith of the faithful, or
Michelangelo's ceiling, or loyalty to the fatherland is worth a mountain
of skulls. For all I *know* maybe an endtime socialist worker's paradise is
worth another such mountain.

Fashionable people argue right now that no absolute morality is possible,
usually they claim that all moral systems are cultural reflections. I
think these people face one or the other mountains of skulls.

Of course an advocate in human freedom faces the possibility that
some nut is going to gun down or blow up yet a third mountain.
Anarchy is to liberalism as fascism is to right-wing-ism as
communism is to left-wing-ism.

Reader A goes much, much too far. There is a middle way I think between
legislating (I remind Readers A and B that all legislation at present,
no matter how seeming innocuous, means the application of deadly force
by gun-toting police officers) away human suffering and legislating
that humans must suffer. Of course this middle way rejects the notion that
B's suffering *causes* (in any scientific sense of the word) any other
person's suffering (assuming always that B didn't go out and bloody somebody's
nose). Other people may *choose* to feel for B when they read his
exposition of his plight, but they are *free* to choose not to as well.
  
  >Settembrini plays the noble role in the duel, yes. But the point is,
  >I think, that the duel still ends disasterously. 
  
  Reader C: "A human life lost. Disaster. Tragedy."
 
Reader M:
Sad for Settembrini, too, I should think.

  Reader A: "He wished a position of influence so that he could realize
  his vision of moral anarchy and desolation, for a transition to his
  anti-intellectual new world that'd enslaved us all.  Good riddance. May
  he burn in hell."

Reader M:
There is indeed more than one path to slavery. ``May he burn in hell''
betrays you.
  
  Reader C: "Two threads have run their course and come to resolution;
  I've seen glimpses of the vista of my political nature, but I can't comprehend
  the whole. I feel uneasy; and events are sweeping me with them. Why am I
  about to fight? What will I think when I bury that bayonet into the
  enemy's side? Am I fighting for justice, or for freedom, for intellectual 
  honour , for mankind -- some vista I can only partially see? Or what's this 
  feeling of omnipotence welling up inside me? Where is it from... a distant
  memory of Grumwald, tragic defeat. Will I know myself better after
  fighting? Asserted and proud of the fatherland and myself?  "
  
Reader M:
Castorp doesn't choose so much as watch S&N being swept away by their
argument.

                   Mike Morris
             (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)
  

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