From: wojdylo@maths.uwa.oz.au (INFIDEL)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: the address of the dead josef
Date: 22 Jul 92 15:17:00 GMT
Organization: University of Western Australia



Mike Morris writes:



>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.



Reader B sees science as something more than a scheme for producing
numbers. He sees the "scientific approach" as undermining the truth he
believes makes the fabric of all things.   (He also sees science as a moral
philosophy.)

The particular thing that irks
him is:  science's reluctance to pronounce a single judgement as "the
truth" -- science always seems to waver in some void. This is damaging
to our youngfolk, says Reader B, because it distracts them from
realizing the one truth that binds us all.  

Reader B sees "suspended conclusions" all around him if he looks in the 
scientific perspective, hence science for him is "immanent" and
"pantheistic".  Thus science prevents one from knowing  certain
transcendental truths-- according to Reader B -- that is, God. 


Such a viewpoint is quite common in our societies at present; exemplified 
by the populist writings of Paul Davies (theoretical physicist) ("God
and the New Physics"). 




>Perfectly honourable callings, that is, but apt to facilitate evil on the
>applied side if grounded in bad moral philosophy.


What do you mean by evil "on the applied side" ?




>
>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?


Yes he does. A natural question is: How can it be that Mann creates such a 
noble and honourable character, only to poke fun at him? Could it be that Mann 
had been wavering between the two viewpoints  (S + N) and wrote the novel to
work out his own position?  (This would explain the somewhat positive
light with which he describes Naphtha at times, and the negative
descriptions of Settembrini -- Mann was wavering from one side to the
other as he was writing -- but the ending leaves a clear conclusion.)


It may be worthwhile to mention Mann's connections with
the Marxist riff-raff propagandist intellectual, Jozsef Lukacs (whose works were
described by Kolokowski ["Main Currents of Marxism", Vol. 1] as: "reason in the
service of dogma").

(Yes, these Marxists were riff-raff, and the detritus in our
universities still are.  Oh dear -- I am SO judgemental, aren't I.)


The following is an extract from Kadarkay's book, "Georg Lukacs", (1991).


"  [...]


	"Declaring himself in favor of the "Kingdom of Humanity" over
	reconciliation, Lukacs proposed to reverse what he called the "German
	tragedy" of Luther over Munzer, and Goethe over Lesser. Balazs gives a
	glimpse into Lukacs' _Wanderjahre_ of revolutionary faith: "Just as
	Dostoevsky described the demons of that Russian revolution, I should
	write about the demons of this revolution or the failed intellectuals'
	witches' sabbath in revolution. "


	"		Thomas Mann and Lukacs


	Nothing fascinated Thomas Mann more than the 'failed intellectuals'
	witches' sabbath in revolution.'  In the Magic Mountain, 'little
	Naphtha' -- reputed to be modeled on Lukacs - has this to say: "The idea
	of the society [of Jesus] is rooted in and inseparably bound up with the
	absolute. By consequence it is terroristic; that is to say, antiliberal.
	It lifts the burden from the individual conscience, and consecrates in
	the name of the absolute every means even to bloodshed, even to crime."


	In 1922 Mann visited Budapest and stayed as a house guest in the Lukacs'
	villa... "Of the modern essay writers, I consider the first place to
	belong to the son of Budapest, Georg Lukacs, whose acquaintance I made
	in Vienna." [wrote Mann of Lukacs.]

	...According to Mann's wife, Lukacs visited them and lectured them for
	an hour or so about his theories.

	'My husband couldn't get a word in; he just got to say, "Yes,
	yes, very interesting."...He never spoke of Lukacs again...When he read
	me the chapter about Naphtha,...I asked, "Where you thinking of Lukacs
	there?"
	"No, why?"
	"I don't know. Naphtha reminds me of him."
	"It was quite unintentional, but maybe he was at the back of my
	mind."
	...that was the remarkable thing about him: he got a complete
	picture of a person immediately.'

	...Magic Mountain...sparked the ongoing debate about whether Lukacs was
	disguised in the form of Naphtha. Lukacs conceded a physical resemblence
	to the "stranger" named Naphtha... 

	There is... evidence that Mann ... immortalized Lukacs ideas in
	the Jesuit-Marxist Naphtha. Lukacs, divorced from ordinary society,
	sought identity and meaning in dialectical extremities..[evidence sited]  
	...   One need only
	compare the author of "The Metaphysics of tragedy" with the 
	author of History and Class Consciousness [Lukacs] to see how the same
	virtuoso mind can reconcile only partially congruent ideas or
	dialectical opposites.  Mann had read both works and was thus acquainted
	with their 'savage absolutism'.    A number of Naptha's unusual ideas or
	intellectual dispositions are recognizable in Lukacs: deliverence by
	evil; violence and gusts of terror in the name of goodness; and the
	compulsive need for the transcendent.  And, like Naphtha's, Lukac's
	language spellbinds and holds captive."


		_._   end of quotation  _._


[Beware of your sensibility when reading this book]



By including this quote, I'm not trying to solve the problem of whether
or not Lukacs and Naphtha are the same person.  The quote does, however,
support or help explain:


 	-  my general assessment of what Mann thought were the important ideas 
	about Naphtha ;
 	-  why Mann often spoke of Naphtha in a glowing way (Mann was
	also impressed by similar things about Lukacs; and he had a
	fascination with failed intellectuals -- he was one himself (I
	have a quote from Hermann Hesse stating something to this effect. I will
	fetch it if you want.);

I have a hunch, also , that -- given Mann's fascination with failed
intellectuals --  Naptha was spawned in Man's mind before Settembrini.

Here's a further quote from Kardakay's book:

	"Appealing in 1928 to ... to protect Lukacs against extradition,
	mann had this to say:

	'The banishment, if upheld, would be the end of him... He would
	have nothing to eat... I have come to know Lukacs himself in person. In
	Vienna, he propounded his theories to me for a whole hour. As long as he
	was talking, he was right. Even if the impression he left behind was of
	an almsot hairraising abstractness, it was also one of purity and
	intellectual nobility."


Lukacs had indeed made a great impression; moreover,  the last sentence
reveals that Mann had not quite mastered Lukacs' lecture, so had
recommended Lukacs here partly on the basis of brilliant appearance.

(c.f. the final uttering of Reader C in my previous post, and an
impression of mine about Castorp, about what impressed him most, and
how much of the complete "vista" he really understood.)


In my readings of Mann's correspondence with Herman Hesse, together with
his other work, I have come to the impression that Mann was a somewhat
conservative intellectual who dabbled with Marxist ideas in the way that
many Western academics dabble with them today, in the name of
"objectivity", but with an underlying feeling that "this is the truth",
a dishonest snuggling up to power.




My interest in him and his work ?  I'm astounded at how so flawed a
writer and intellectual  could have won the Nobel Prize. (Good luck to
him, though.)  From an artistic viewpoint, I think the novel (MM) is clumsily 
written; from the intellectual viewpoint, I find Mann's wavering 



>
>  >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.


Naphtha and Settembrini always appear together. I have a hunch that
either Naphtha was conceived before Settembrini, or they were both
conceived together, as a dialectical opposite pair.  [See Above.]


>  
>  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.


Reader A is speaking of the role of reason in debates about truth. There
are still philosophy departments that think this. 





>  
>  >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.


Mann seemed to be interested in Lukacs' ideas, which included Reader B's
elixir (more or less) : "the communion with the absolute".




>
>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. 


Is it worth laying waste a country in the name of your good?

If not, then perhaps your notion of evil (and therefore, good) is not as
strong as you think.




>I have to hold the ethical imperative higher than any aesthetic. 


This is a complex proposition: I won't expand on it here.




>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.


No he doesn't.  He's always "in comunion"  with two opposites, and he varies
between the two  One of them happens to deny reason.  He doesn't ever
consciously dismiss reason: he just thinks that he's being reasonable.

(Yes, I am prepared to debate any or all of these points! ... if I have
the time.)




>  
>  >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.

... while denying responsibility for it.  I agree with you.





>
>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. 

As caricatures tend to.




>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) 

Your "gun-toting police officers" have the mandate of the people. The
officers that beat up that guy in LA were placed in that position of
power by the people of LA.  


>away human suffering and legislating
>that humans must suffer. 

I don't think that the current situation with respect to legislation and
law is all that bad in the *general* sense. i.e. there's a huge problem
with aborigines in the system in Australia,  but that's not going to be
solved by throwing the system out the window and introducing a Marxist 
(god-help-us) or whatever  system.   




>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.


Your proposition is questionable.  First:  They may very well be programmed by
society to feel like shit when they see it;  or they may be desensitized
by overexposure to films like "Silence of the Lambs".   In neither case
is a choice  willed.

Second:  legislation doesn't give a damn about a lot of things that are
patently unjust when they occur. It's the job of the magistrate to
interpret the law and precedents, and to create precedents, to make the
system fairer.



>  
>  >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.

He is not bound to feel remorse.  You may feel sad if he doesn't, but so
what? 


>
>  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.

Tsk. Tsk. Reader A said it, not I.

Given that a man whose views can create untold destruction has shot himself,
why should Reader A feel remorse ?


Incidentally, you are Left enough to have whistled (or at least hummed)
the tune to which the following line is sung in one of the verses:

	"May the furrows of our fields
	be filled with the blood of our enemies..."


Guess which popular tune they're sung to.


Do you really have a strong notion of good and evil?  

Why do you give evil a second chance?  Why do you condemn your children
to facing this evil, just because you didn't have the guts to overcome
your pity?    Your pity makes you, ultimately, evil's accomplice.



See a film called "Ju Dou", made in 1989 in PR China, banned there ever since.



>  
>  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.


Reader John:  He doesn't choose; he's transfixed with his own indecision;
fights like some schizophrenic, first believing one thing, then another.




>
>                   Mike Morris
>             (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)
>




John Wojdylo



  
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