Within the Western Tradition there's a long history of speculation on the nature of Mind. Speculation, but not much agreement. For example, in the Modern West there are many who are aggressively anti-Religious -- in practice this usually means anti-Christian. For these persons the terms 'Soul' and 'Spirit' are meaningless, illusory, or pernicious; or a mixture of all three. There is Mind; there is Body; and there's an end of it. Other persons think differently, and find it useful to retain the three terms: 'Mind', 'Soul' and 'Spirit'.
At the moment I'm not much concerned with these particular distinctions. Those I shall be making here are much simpler, and are accepted by most. The notion of Mind I shall be using is the minimal one of common sense: that which is implicit in ordinary language; that which deals with the typical problems of daily life. There's a concentration on Judgement, Intention, Action. 'He changed his mind'. 'Make up your mind!' 'I've a mind to go on holiday'. 'Mind the gap'.
This minimal, practical notion of Mind is sufficiently well articulated to have accumulated a large body of useful self-analysis. In this Essay I'll consider Mind under four heads. The implicit metaphor is that of a craftsman, a builder.
Presuppositions: Foundations.
Logic: Good Practice.
Truth: Inspection and Criteria.
Knowledge: Materials.
***** |
The two terms, 'Presupposition' and 'Belief', can be used interchangeably, but they do have different emphases. 'Presupposition' emphasizes the Logical aspect of the Mind's Functioning. 'Belief' emphasizes the Emotional aspect, and the fact that one is deeply committed.
My terminology here is deliberately loose. I am violating various semantic niceties. But in these matters our vocabulary is pitifully inadequate and, at least for the moment, I don't want to investigate subtle distinctions, or make up new words.
I'm writing about Major Presuppositions -- for now I'll call them Absolute ones -- not the Provisional kind. An example of a Provisional Presupposition is when I consult my watch to check that I'm on time for an appointment. I Presuppose that my watch is correct. If it happens that my watch is incorrect, then this is an irritant, but no more than that. It's no big deal. Such a Provisional Presupposition, about a watch, can be lightly discarded; it doesn't affect the structure of my life.
Presuppositions and Beliefs are the Foundations of Thought and Action; they constitute the deep structure of a working Mind. However, unlike concrete or rock, they are alive. A concrete foundation, once laid down under a building, can be ignored. Its function is to be unshakeable, impassable, and inert. By contrast Presuppositions and Beliefs continually influence everything we do. For most people, most of the time, such influence is subliminal. Nevertheless, in a protracted crisis -- either of an individual or of a whole society -- it is usually necessary, for reasons of Coherence, Morale and Strategy, that one's Belief System be formally articulated.
In the 20th Century the West performed poorly in articulating its Belief System. Against the Nazis the West was mostly reactive. It defended itself, eventually, and retrospectively, but its self-justification was mainly: 'Look how badly they behaved', pointing to the Slave Labour Camps, and the Gas Chambers. To the original query of the Nazis: 'Why not?' the Western opinion leaders never gave a satisfactory answer. To formulate such an answer they would have had to have gone back to the Christian Foundations of the West. They were emotionally incapable of that; also, they were for the most part ignorant, both philosophically and historically -- intellectually unprepared.
Against the Soviets the West performed even more poorly. Not surprisingly, since Communism, the Soviet Ideology, derived mainly from the West itself, from the Totalitarian strand within the Continental Enlightenment. For most Western intellectuals the Enlightenment is One Thing; and also a Good Thing. It's only quite recently that a few of them have begun to use their brains, to separate out the different strands of the Enlightenment, and to examine the origin and justification of each of these strands.
Herewith a couple of illustrations to make clearer the nature of an Absolute Presupposition: two of the most important texts in the whole history of Western Civilization. The first is a cryptic summary and interpretation of a unique Historical Event, which is used by Christians as the Foundation of a set of Absolute Religious Presuppositions, governing the whole of Personal Life. The second is the early part of a set of Absolute Political Presuppositions, which was, and still is, used in the USA as the ultimate Reference for the whole of Public Life:--
(1) The Apostles' CreedI believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy Catholic Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. AMEN.
[ca. 340 AD]
-------------------------- |
(2) Declaration of Independence: IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America ...
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ...
§ |
Genomes :--
In studying human beings the main dichotomy we use is Body and Mind; in more abstract terms: Biology and Culture. The first is a part of Natural Science; the second a part of Praxeology. Within Biology we have come to see the Genome -- the genetic material of the organism -- as the ultimate material basis, the core. It is seen as very stable, very resistant to change.
Culture -- the more permanent aspect of Mind, both individual and public -- also has a core; and there are many indications that this core can be, and in optimal cases is, just as stable in its own way as is the Biological Genome in relation to the Body. Culture is contained in, and transmitted by, Religion, Ritual, Taboo, Custom, Tradition. And the core of all this can be collectively summarized as the System of Belief, System of Absolute Presuppositions. 'System of Belief' applies both to an Individual and to a Society. The relation between the two is a matter of huge significance -- Multiculturalism, the permissible range of variations, etc. -- but I shall not be discussing it just now. In this case I am talking about the operating System of Belief of a Society, or a loose affiliation of similar Societies, and I am assuming this System to be more or less one, more or less coherent. I allow for stresses and strains, but not for radical division. The main contemporary example of radical division is a community containing large numbers of persons following Western Law, and large numbers following Sharia -- Islamic Law. Given the consistently Imperialist nature of Islam -- as expressed dozens of times in the Suras of the Koran -- the two Systems are obviously incompatible. A community of committed Westerners containing a large bloc of committed Islamics is no longer truly a Society and the onset, sooner or later, of extreme internal violence, even Civil War, is a near certainty.
'Gene' and 'Genome' are terms which have been appropriated by the Biologists. But I don't think they have any naturally exclusive rights to them. I think that 'Cultural Genome' is a reasonable term for the whole Cultural System -- both individual and social -- of which the System of Belief is the core. Besides, since the Biologists took the main ideas of Evolution from the specialists in Culture, who got there long before the Biologists -- see the next-but-one Essay -- it's only fair that the Cultural Specialists should borrow back.
In respect of Culture the level of the West's self-understanding is not similar to the case of Biology, where we've got some justification for thinking that we've got it fairly right -- at least in outline. In the case of Culture it's obvious that our understanding is confused, patchy, inadequate. Moreover, I think such inadequacy is wilful. I don't think Culture is inherently any harder to understand than is Biology. However, since the 18th Century it has been forbidden, to most formally educated people, to think intelligently about Culture. They have been warned off Religion, have been told that they -- as mature, sophisticated persons -- must regard it as a childish Delusion. But, as David Stove so eloquently puts it -- see the Previous Essay: Theory I -- for at least several millennia Religion has pervaded Culture at every turn. And therefore proscription of the study of Religion makes impossible any deep understanding of Culture.
§ |
Biological Genome :--
The idea of Evolution in general was developed mainly in the latter half of the 18th Century, and especially in Scotland, by Historians, Linguists, Economists, Moral and Political Philosophers: David Hume, Adam Ferguson, Adam Smith, etc. The English Philologist William Jones, a prodigy of learning and a pioneer in the study of all aspects of Indian Culture, made a decisive contribution -- because of the precision of the material, and the large body of detail -- with his demonstration of the likely role of Sanskrit in relation to the Evolution of what became known as the Indo-European group of languages:--
The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists. (William Jones: 1788)
In the first half of the 19th Century the idea of Evolution of Biological Species was made familiar to educated people by various writers. Charles Darwin's Origin of Species was merely the last, although by far the most thorough and most cogent, presentation of the case for Biological Evolution, which has from that time been accepted as fact by most persons, and not only in the West.
So much for the fact of Biological Evolution. What of explanation, in terms of causative structure, mechanism? Darwin had an explanation, viz. Natural Selection. Although his presentation of the explanatory thesis of Natural Selection was poor, although in that presentation he claimed far too much, and although he ignored, then and later -- as was his wont -- several obvious criticisms, Darwin did make a good case for the view that, in certain circumstances, and over a very long period of time, it was possible for a new species to arise, as a modification of an old one.
Gregor Mendel was concerned, not with change, not with evolution, but with fixity. The generations come and go, and yet the group entity, the species, appears to stay the same. He answered the question: What is the precise way in which the species breeds true? His findings came out in 1865. His work was remarkable -- Science at the very highest level -- and yet his findings were not taken up; in effect they sunk without trace. Why? Anybody's guess, but I'll have a go.
Firstly: Biologists are not comfortable with clear ideas, simply and briefly expressed. They prefer their ideas very thinly spread, presented at enormous, repetitive length, and not too clearly. (Darwin got it just right; intuitively he understood his audience very well; he was at one with them. In British parlance: he was a sound fellow.) Sometimes the ideas are not presented as such at all: they are to be inferred. Certainly they are never to be set forth succinctly, sequentially and lucidly, so that they can be easily examined and criticized.
The contrast is with the Mathematicians and the Theoretical Physicists. Compared with the grandeur and extraordinary imaginative power of 19th Century Mathematics (Karl Gauss and Bernhard Riemann, to name just two out of a few dozen practitioners), and the formidable achievements in, say, 19th Century Thermodynamics (Sadi Carnot, Rudolf Clausius, James Clerk Maxwell, Josiah Willard Gibbs), the Biologists seem a pedestrian lot. I think that any of the half dozen mentioned above would have understood in five minutes what Mendel was up to, and appreciated the significance of his work.
I'm saying, in effect, that Mendel was too intelligent, too clever for his own good.
Secondly: Mendel was a Monk. Bad enough to be a Christian. But a Monk! According to the Enlightenment Consensus you might as well expect to find Scientific insight amongst a flock of sheep as in a Monastery.
In their heavy-footed way several biologists did get round, about forty years later, to rediscovering Mendel's Laws of Heredity. And then various workers did quite a good job of refining them, modifying them, filling in details, especially with the work of T. H. Morgan and his colleagues on the Fruit Fly, commencing in 1908 and going on for several decades.
Throughout the first half of the 20th Century this kind of work continued, much aided by developments in physics, which led to great improvements in microscopy and other branches of visual analysis. By the 1950s the Biologists succeeded in getting pictures of the causative structures of heredity. (The Double Helix, etc.) One could say that Biology had achieved the characteristic goal of a European-type Natural Science: the discovery of Causal Mechanisms. All in all a reasonable achievement, spread over one hundred and fifty years, and illumined by one episode of genius, the work of Gregor Mendel.
§ |
Cultural Genome :-- The Biological Genome of Homo Sapiens is the system of genetic materials which enables us, as a species -- even though all the individuals change: they pass through the stages of the cycle of birth and death -- to stay steady over time, throughout the generations. Biologically we breed true. You could call this, rather fancifully, the System of Absolute presuppositions of the Body. The natural question: Do we breed true Culturally? Manifestly the answer is 'Yes'. (I have pre-empted the answer by using the term 'Cultural Genome'). For the present I shall merely summarize a few of its characteristics, including some of the similarities and differences between Biology and Culture.
***** |
Is about how to think straight; it's about the working of a well-ordered Mind. There are two fundamental Laws:--
First, the Law of Non-Contradiction: It is not possible for something to be, and at the same time not to be.
In other words, the Universe is a place where Thought is possible; because Identification is possible; because there is a sufficient degree of Stability and Sameness over time. Things don't flicker in and out of existence.
My dog Kyra is a Golden Retriever.
One of the above two statements is wrong.
My dog Kyra is not a Golden Retriever.
Second, the (Categorical) Syllogism. This Law is a procedure of intellectual efficiency and arises because, in going about the world, we notice that there are many repetitions, many sets of similars: that many entities can be classified into groups. Within each group the individuals have packages of characteristics in common. And therefore, once you have assigned the correct label, you can relax a bit; you don't have to put in the hard work of detailed observation each time.
The Law is about inclusion, exclusion and overlap.
Here's one variant of the Law: If A is B, and B is C, then A is C.
Amanda is a Feminist.
Feminists dislike men.
Therefore Amanda dislikes men.
These two simple Rules, of speech and thought, are used, by each of us, hundreds of times a day. The Rules, especially the first one, of Non-Contradiction, are often broken. Usually knowingly, for a purpose: to increase the power of the rule-breaker.
The three major Ideologies of the modern world have been, and still are, Marxism, Darwinism, and Freudianism. Although these Ideologies may be by now, to most people, excruciatingly boring, they are not old hat: contrary to what a lot of people casually think, they remain very important. Each of them has been shown, many times, to be intellectually incoherent and fatally flawed; also empirically inacccurate and unworkable in practice; but that doesn't necessarily restrict their mass appeal. Their grip is slowly weakening, but very slowly. Major doctrines and social forces don't disappear overnight. They will be embodied in institutions, and institutions have inertia. Also, the doctrines resist intellectual attack since they are tied in with the human life cycle: after a certain age not many people are capable of changing their minds -- individuals too have inertia. These three Ideologies are still with us as members of the small set of main structuring elements of the modern Western climate of opinion. They may be invisible, may have retreated into the woodwork, but unless, and until, we burn the house down, they are going to be there for some time yet. Therefore it's a good idea to grimly endure the tedium, and take the trouble to understand them well; else we are likely to remain too dim-witted to recognize their successors; we will not have the confidence to refuse admittance to them when they come sauntering along dressed, as they will be, in clothes of the latest fashion.
[This is precisely what has happened. The two major successors, of the initial three Ideologies, are Feminism and Environmentalism. As it happens, all five Ideologies were actually born around the same time -- between 1750 AD and 1800 AD. This was the seed-time of the Modern World: the Industrial Revolution; the American Revolution; the French Revolution; the Anglo-Scottish-American Enlightenment; the French Enlightenment. Although born around the same time each of the five Ideologies matured at a different speed, since each had to wait until social conditions were propitious, which happened at various points of time over the next two centuries].
Each of the three original Ideologies violates the Law of Non-Contradiction, in much the same way, but with surface variations. As follows:--
It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.Meaning that a man's thoughts derive from, and are fixed by, his social and economic position. He cannot help himself. It follows that the processes and results of thinking and reasoning are in no way fundamental. Altogether they constitute no more than an efflorescence, an epiphenomenon [epi = upon, above, in addition]. They don't get to the root of the matter.
(Karl Marx: Critique of Political Economy -- 1859).
By contrast with Marx's theory of Consciousness, as outlined above, Das Kapital contains many detailed presentations of evidence, and episodes of sustained reasoning. Large sections of this book stay within the Classical Western Tradition of Valid Thought. I'll call this Tradition the Way of Aristotle.
There are, then, two parallel presentations here, and underlying them two different theories of consciousness: the one explicit, the other implicit. There is a violation of the Law of Non-Contradiction, since the book is not an addition, a complementary extra; instead it's a contradictory, as follows:--
(Explicitly): My thinking is determined by my social being. [The Way of Marx].
(Implicitly): My thinking is not determined by my social being, but by the rules of evidence and deduction, together with the facts; and these -- both rules and facts -- are impersonal, not connected to me and my social being. [The Way of Aristotle].
The Classical Western Tradition is here implicit. Marx is presupposing that I, the reader, can be persuaded to change my mind, and eventually agree with him, by reading the detailed argumentation in Das Kapital. But in that case I have transcended my social being, which is thereby revealed as not an inexorable determinant.
(1) The double, and incoherent, attitude to Mind and Culture.
(a) The evolution, of all species without exception (and therefore the evolution of Man: Homo Sapiens) is explained causally, deterministically, using concepts like drive, instinct, etc. and without any recourse to concepts like Mind (Individual), Culture (objective, externalized Mind), and Freewill. None of these latter concepts are mentioned.
(b) Darwin's life centred on the writing of books; most notably the Origin of Species. These books were instruments of exposition and persuasion, and therefore presupposed as fundamental (but without explicitly saying so) Mind and Freewill on the part of the reader.
The contradiction spelt out formally:--
Mind and Freewill are not fundamental to Life since all Life (thereby including Darwin's life) can be explained deterministically, without referring to these two entities.
Mind and Freewill are fundamental, at least to one form of life -- the species Homo Sapiens -- since they are presupposed by all works of literary exposition and persuasive argumentation. These works include the magnum opus of Darwin, which was central to his life.
(2) The next illustrative item centres on a gross fault of Scientific Method: viz. the failure of Darwin to test his Theory (Natural Selection) on all of the obvious cases (species) whose development it is supposed to explain. The species so conspicuously absent is Man : Homo Sapiens. If you do include that species then it becomes immediately obvious that, in applying the Theory, you would be landed with a multitude of flagrant violations of the Law of Non-Contradiction. I have spelt this out, with many examples, in the essay entitled Darwinism. I'll remind the reader with just one of these examples, centred on Incest.
(a) First, the words of the Master, the definitive text:--
[W]e may feel sure that any variation in the least degree injurious [to procreation, to the numerical increase of the species] would be rigidly destroyed. This preservation of favourable variations and the rejection of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection. [Origin of Species / p 130]
(b) The Taboo on Incest refers to the prohibition, within a society, of sexual relations between close blood relatives. The taboo takes many forms: there are many definitions of what constitutes a close relationship. This kind of taboo is the rule rather than the exception within human societies and, while not always strictly maintained in practice, there are, and have been, many societies in which it is far more honoured in the observance than in the breach.
(c) The Taboo on Incest severely restricts the range of sexual partners easily available to a person, and therefore is a factor [a variation] inimical to the numerical increase of a species.
The contradiction spelt out formally:--
"Any variation in the least degree injurious [to procreation] would be rigidly destroyed".
The Taboo on Incest is a variation (in species behaviour), and is manifestly injurious to procreation. Yet it has not been destroyed: it flourishes.
Darwinism centres on Biological Being. The key Unit of observation and analysis is the Species.
Marxism centres on Social Being. The key Unit is Human Society, considered as a network of Economic Production Relations.
Freudianism centres on Sexual Being. The key Unit is the Individual within the Family.
(a) The corpus of Freud's writings is vast -- twenty three volumes in all -- and, as with Marx, there are many episodes of argumentation in accord with the Way of Aristotle.
(b) There are also many passages where it is firmly implied that a man's behaviour and thinking are inexorably governed, deterministically, by his Sexual Being. This constitutes the Way of Freud. Just as with Marx, the Way of Aristotle and the Way of Freud are never adequately reconciled.
(c) With Darwin and Marx it is maintained that Power and the 'Struggle for Life' -- that these constitute the primary realities governing the relations between creatures. Since, on the other hand, the Religion of Christianity sees Love, not Power, as the primary reality, the vision of Darwin and Marx amounts implicitly to a complete rejection of that Religion.
Such rejection of Christianity is uniformly explicit in Freud. In Civilization and its Discontents he names and dismisses Love out of hand. It is described as a mere epiphenomenon, a euphemism for the basic reality, which is Sexual Desire.
[Note 1 :-- Since, as I have already indicated, Marxism is merely the Revolutionary variety of Socialism -- it is also the most thoroughly articulated variety -- the above criticisms of Marxism apply equally to Socialism in general.
Note 2 :-- The relation between an Ideology and the work of its founder is never simple. One can respect the quality of some of the work without going along with the main drift of the Ideology.
Darwin makes an admirably strong case for the plausibility of Species Evolution. As part of this exposition he gives many examples of Species adaptation -- the Stick Insect, etc. -- and the presentation is often superb. It's his insistence on the universality of Natural Selection, and his exclusive concentration on Biology -- ignoring Culture -- these are the aspects which are not cogent.
Although in his argumentation Marx is never bothered by considerations of mere honesty -- he is flagrantly one-eyed and selective in his use of historical sources -- nevertheless he does bring out with great force one of the central tendencies of Capitalism: everything and everyone, including your Mother and your Lover, as a commodity. If he had clarified his Hegelian terminology a bit, and then had pursued this line further, locating it in contrast to the Western Religious Tradition and in relation to Western Literature -- for example: Shakespeare and Jane Austen -- he would have been an interesting thinker.
Freud was arrogant, and intransigently bigoted; he had large gaps in his understanding; he was a wild, reckless theorizer. Nevertheless he did invent Psycho-analysis which, with all its faults, does include the Psycho-analytic Consulting Room, together with its idiosyncratic procedures. This kind of Consulting Room is an arena both for Therapy and for the pursuit of Knowledge. It has elements of both Clinic and Laboratory; but it is a modification of the Physicist's Laboratory, a modification in accord with the difference between a Thing and a Human Being. The Psycho-analytic Consulting Room is an invention within the realm of Method, a profoundly fruitful invention, which alone is enough to qualify Freud as a great Scientist.
Note 3 :-- Salvation.
Christianity has it that Man, as a creature of Nature, is deeply flawed. He is born Sinful, Evil, and is therefore not deserving of good treatment by God. This part of Christian Doctrine goes under the name of Original Sin. Fortunately that's not all; there's a way out of the gloom and doom. By his act of supreme Self-Sacrifice -- the Crucifixion, the Blood Offering of himself -- Christ ransomed, redeemed from eternal damnation, that otherwise miserable creature Man.
There are similarities and differences beween Christian Redemption and the ancient custom of Blood Money -- the Anglo-Saxons called it Weregild (Man Price) -- the payment, to the relatives of the victim, of money as compensation for a killing or a maiming.
In the case of Weregild there is an act of violence (a killing, say) followed by a one-off transaction, a handing over of money from one Kinship Network (that of the Perpetrator) to that of another Kinship Network (that of the Victim).
Firstly, it's a transaction between two groups, not between individuals.
Secondly, once the money has been paid, there's an end to it.
Thirdly, it's a purely external, behavioural affair. Motive doesn't count: it doesn't matter, for example, whether a killing is deliberate (murder) or accidental (manslaughter).
In the case of Christian Redemption the guilt is already there, being inborn. That's just how it is; there's no help for it; no specific act of evil or violence is necessary. However, Christ has redeemed us all by offering up himself as Blood Money. Of course there are specifications and conditions.
Firstly, it's an affair between individuals -- between Man, a single man, and God.
Secondly, there's never an end to it. It's like paying off the mortgage on a house, but just covering the interest, so that the Capital sum owed never diminishes. The actual payment consists of Belief (I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth ...) plus the Good Actions which follow naturally from heartfelt Belief.
Thirdly, it's clearly not a purely external affair -- not even mainly -- since there is also this internal matter of Belief, generating and underpinning the Good Actions. Grace, Faith and Works are the technical terms. Grace -- being Saved, being in God's good books -- follows on, at least sometimes, from Faith in the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus.
As with Christianity, the concept of Salvation is central to both Marxism and Freudianism. Christianity has a theology whose main elements were worked out over more than a thousand years -- say, from St. Paul (d. 67 AD) through St. Augustine (d. 430 AD) to St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274 AD). Each of these three was a superb theologian. Marxism is only one hundred and fifty years old, Freudianism about one hundred years old. Quite short periods. The theology within each of them is implicit; in neither of them is it overtly articulated. The two theologies -- although personally very significant for believers -- are both crude and nebulous: not notably coherent, and so not easy to specify. However, such as they are ...
Marxism:-- Man is born into one of two main Social Classes: either Proletariat, Working Class (Good), or Non-Proletariat, not Working Class (Bad). The Bourgeoisie is part of the Non-Proletariat and is dominant within it.
The Class, not the Individual, is the significant Unit.
The Proletariat itself is subdivided into two sections: the Higher Proletariat, and the Lower Proletariat. The Higher Proletariat consists of those, a small group, who know the Glorious Historical Destiny of their Class. They are 'Class Conscious'; they are the Vanguard of the Future; the Forerunners of the Classless Age of Utopia.
{This two-tier division of the Proletarist -- a small tightly-disciplined Vanguard section, plus the main bloc of followers -- was Lenin's addition; it is not in the original Marxist set of texts}.
Salvation consists in becoming Class Conscious (Faith) and in Revolutionary Action (Works), thereby achieving a kind of Revolutionary Immortality.
Although born Sinful, a few members of the Non-Proletariat -- notably some Intellectuals -- achieve Salvation by disowning their origins: breaking away from the Bourgeoisie and becoming Honorary Members of the Higher Proletariat.
Freudianism:-- At the centre of Christianity are the age-old concepts of Good and Evil. Man is born Evil (Sinful). He can be saved, become Good, by Believing in Christ. The transformation is symbolized by the Rite of Baptism. He is washed free from Sin. It is a rebirth: he is Born Again.
Marxism also retains the concepts of Good and Evil -- although usually only implicitly: the words themelves are seldom used; there is a certain unease.
With Freud there is a major shift. Good and Evil are banished. Both the words and the concepts are conspicuously absent. Their place is taken by Sickness and Health. Essence (Evil and Good) is replaced by Function (Sickness: Mal-functioning; and Health: Well-functioning) as is appropriate in an age of ubiquitous Technology.
Below: Human Nature and Possibility, according to Freud.
Man is born (Psychically) Sick. There are degrees of illness, but the condition is inescapable. As with Christianity, but unlike Marxism, at birth there is only one condition, one possibility.
The significant Unit is the Individual, not the group.
Freud goes back to the dialogue method of Socrates (d. 399 BC), with modifications. Salvation is achieved by Knowledge ('Know Thyself') under rigorously constrained conditions. The Postulate (Analysand) is guided by the Master /Mistress (Psycho-Analyst). There is a self-transformation -- over several years: there are no revelations, no quick fixes.
Psycho-Analysis is a grey, gloomy Doctrine and Movement. The concept of Sickness is central and dominant. I have used the word 'Health', but it would be more accurate to call it 'Sickness made Bearable'. The notion of Joy is entirely absent.]
***** |
(1) Definition.
In the stricter sense 'Definition' is usually taken to mean explanation in simpler terms, or operational terms. 'A circle is a curve in a plane; it is the set of points equidistant from a particular fixed point.' And so on. In this sense -- simpler terms -- 'Truth' is indefinable, since it is a Fundamental Term, a Primitive Term: you can't go beyond or beneath it; in talking about Truth you will find yourself already presupposing an understanding of the idea. [Try it and see.] However, in a looser sense we can define the term; meaning that we can bring to light our understanding of it, can illustrate it, make our understanding more self-conscious.
Truth is Correspondence with Reality. This is the core, interpreted according to situation. A sentence, such as 'I am sitting in this chair', symbolizes a physical reality. If it is a fact that I am actually sitting in a chair, then there is a correspondence between the sentence and the fact. The sentence is therefore true.
§ |
(2) Corroboration.
This is the first main test of Truth. Several statements, from different perspectives, fit together; they corroborate (make stronger) each other . It is a two-way effect: there is a mini-system, a network, of statements. If I claim that I left my house on foot at 10:45 a.m., and another person says that he saw me enter Caledonian Road Tube Station (about one third of a mile away) at 10:53 a.m., then the two claims are compatible. The second statement corroborates the first, the claim; and vice versa. Here's another example.
9/11:-- On the morning of September 11th, 2001, at 8:46:30 a.m. local time, a hijacked commercial airliner -- American Airlines Flight 11 -- crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre in New York. Soon after, at 9:02:59 a.m., another hijacked airliner -- United Airlines Flight 175 -- crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Centre. Both buildings caught on fire and soon collapsed. Two other hijacked planes also crashed that morning: one in Pennsylvania, and one in Washington, DC. As a result of the four hijackings about 3000 persons died.
Most people believe the above paragraph to be a true statement. They believe it because of the enormous number of univocal cross-checking corroborative statements by eye-witnesses, plus photographic records of the four episodes.
[Note 1.
'Most people' habitually get their information from the MainStream Media (MSM). And although -- (see Essay: History 8) -- in our time the MSM are not noted for reliability, in this case there was agreement from a wide range of sources, including the Webloggers on the Internet.
Note 2.
Correspondence (Definition) and Corroboration (Testing) are the commonsense ways of handling Truth used by the overwhelming majority of people. There are variations and alternatives, devised by academic philosophers. I am not here concerned with them.]
§ |
(3) Pragmatic Test.
This refers, not to an event in the past, not to History, but to the present and the future. A claim is judged to be true if some setup or entity delivers the goods, works, predicts correctly. As follows:-
I repair a minor fault in the starting mechanism of a motor car. 'I fixed it.' 'Are you sure?' 'Let's see.' I try to start the car; it goes. 'I did fix it.'
'Streptomycin will cure Tuberculosis.'
It was given a rigorous trial, in 1947, and it worked.
The Pragmatic Test is the main way in which Technologists and Scientists (multiple independent verifications) decide the truth of a claim.
[Note:-- On Scientific/Industrial Truth and Social Truth.***** |
Knowledge:--
(1) Evidence: Direct.
Looking out of the window on to the garden I see a jay, perched in the neighbour's pear tree. The colouring on the wings is beautiful. It is early spring, and I remember that I saw one there about the same time last year. I store the incident in my memory. This is first-hand, direct Knowledge.
§ |
(2) Evidence: Indirect (Information.)
Language and Humanity grow together: they are coeval. A late stage of Language is the development of Writing, which makes recording and information possible. A large difference between a Primitive Society and a Civilization is, in the latter case, the enormous amount of Information floating around.
Information is not Knowledge, but it can lead to Knowledge. Information is a material thing, a record; it is also immateral, in that it is a symbolic, meaningful thing. It is inert, whereas Knowledge is alive, being part of the Mind of a person. I look up a reference book, and read that 'A carburettor is a device that blends air and fuel for an internal combustion engine.' That is a piece of information. When I read it, understand it, and accept it, it becomes something different. Understanding can transform a piece of Information: either temporarily into partial, superficial Knowledge, or permanently into true Knowledge.
In this case (carburettor) let us assume a simple, ideal chain of record. A mechanic sits down to write the reference item. He knows about internal combustion engines (motor cars, etc.); he is competent in the English language ; he desires to be truthful and accurate. These are the three essential qualities, the sine qua non of the Recorder: Knowledge of the subject; skill in Communication; a will to Truth. The two essential qualities in the Reader are the capacity to understand and the desire to understand. In this case, of minimal transmission and understanding, the sequence goes:--
Knowledge (Recorder) --> Information --> Minimal Understanding (Reader).
§ |
(3)Teaching and Learning.
In this case there's a bit more added -- to Recording and Understanding. There are extra elements, of attitude and feeling.
A true Teacher is more than a Recorder. He has a reverence for his subject, is uplifted by his knowledge. When he looks at an internal combustion engine he is -- at least intuitively, and sometimes consciously, and however hard-headed his self-perception -- aware of the vast amount of loving care, of persistent thinking and patient, arduous craftsmanship, by hundreds of people over several decades, that went into getting it all just right. And because he is so moved, he desires to share it with others, at least with those who want to know. Likewise for the true Learner. Absorbing some of his Teacher's reverence for the subject, he desires to emulate him -- he wants not only to understand, but also to understand deeply, and to retain this understanding.
In the case of Teacher and Learner the amended version -- of transmission -- now goes as follows:--
The Teacher knows about internal combustion engines (motor cars, etc.); he is competent in the English language ; he desires to be truthful and accurate; he is moved by his subject and desires to share his knowledge with others. These are the four essential qualities of the Teacher: Knowledge of the subject; skill in Communication; a will to Truth; a desire to Share this truth. The three essential qualities in the Learner are the capacity to understand; the desire to understand; the will to retain this understanding. In this second ideal case of transmission the sequence now goes:--
Knowledge + Attitude (Teacher) --> Information --> Knowledge (Learner).
§ |
(4) Information versus Knowledge.
The invention of Writing was a huge achievement. And therefore, as is the way of things, it made for a correspondingly large number of negative possibilities: corruptions, degradations, pathologies.
The 19th Century, especially in England, was the heyday of the Fact: Pure Information. Below Charles Dickens (in Hard Times,1854), gives us a picture of 'Education' in a northern English mill town. Here is Mr. Thomas Gradgrind in the classroom :-- "Now what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them." ....................
"Bitzer," said Thomas Gradgrind. " Your definition of a horse."
"Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth."
Thus ( and much more ) Bitzer.
" Now girl number twenty," said Mr. Gradgrind. " You know what a horse is. "
Thomas Gradgrind has had many descendants; they are all about us. In the 21st Century there's no need for a Bitzer, an exemplary pupil, because young children can learn, very easily, how to use a Search Engine on the Internet.
[Note:-- The Academic mode of the vision of Thomas Gradgrind is called Logical Positivism. It was perfected in Vienna in the first quarter of the 20th Century, but much earlier versions existed in England and France. In the strict sense of the word 'insane' it is just that: i.e. it is Fantasy rather than Reality; it is non-viable; those who profess it are parasitic on those in society who are sane. However, Academia has alway been a sheltering place for an innumerable variety of mad ideas, some of them clever, and formulated by people of great verbal skill who build their working lives around the profession of such strange doctrinal monstrosities. (That's what they profess. At home in the kitchen many of them are much the same as the rest of us -- i.e. more or less sensible). The trouble is, that as yet we haven't developed much of an Immune System for the Mind: Mankind has no immunity to cuckoo ideas. Plato and Aristotle had a go, way back, and -- even if Plato stumbled a bit in that chilling horror story, The Republic -- in the main they did well. In the 19th Century a few intelligent thinkers -- e.g. Richard Whately, Arthur Schopenhauer -- added to this with some good work. But all of that was for the already highly educated. And even there it was obviously very patchy in its effects; else surely none of the pitifully inadequate Ideologies of the last one hundred and fifty years -- Darwinism, Socialism, Freudianism, Feminism, Environmentalism -- could have gotten off the ground].
Nowadays children are innoculated against a small set of infectious diseases during the first 6 years of life. These procedures of innoculation -- now routine in many parts of the world -- are the culmination of about two centuries of painstaking and intelligent work by medical workers and scientists of various kinds. (Almost all of them from the West, of course. When the Ideologues talk about the evils of Imperialism and Colonialism they leave out bits like this.) In spite of the arguments of the Eugenicists -- Francis Galton, his cousin Charles Darwin, et al -- this work seems to me a great good, a credit to the human species. An incalculable amount of desperate human unhappiness has been prevented. Only those who are now quite old will thoroughly understand this, and remember how the words 'Diphtheria' and 'Polio' could once upon a time strike terror into the hearts of mothers and fathers.
Innoculation is only a small part of a regimen of child health. There is also attention to clean air, water; adequate sunlight; good food; enough sleep; exercise. And all within an ambience of Love. For the most part this is ancient wisdom: there are many people who are not stupid. In the 20th Century these various items were translated into the jargon of Modern Science -- numbers, graphs, norms, etc. -- even, finally and reluctantly, the last, most obvious and most essential bit, about Love: a substantial degree of continuity of loving care of a young person, over a period of years, by one or more other persons. All of this was sensible enough, and we learnt a few new things: e.g. about deficiency diseases.
Vaccines were developed against attacks on the human body by pathogens -- agents of disease. Is it possible to do something similar for protection against mental pathogens? A dozen large questions come to mind. I'll come to some of them later, but for now a few remarks, to illustrate some of the difficulties.
The Mind is like the Body in that the most important time for development and growth is the period of infancy and childhood. That is when patterns and foundations are laid down. The food of the Mind is Truth. And, even more than with the Body -- at least with the very young -- Truth will only be ingested in an ambience of Love: you must Trust the speaker, must believe that he wishes you well.
A quarter mile away from me is a main shopping street: Holloway Road. There is a Supermarket, which I occasionally visit. There is also a Hardware Shop, which sells tools: hammers, chisels, electric drills. The two shops are very different.
In the Hardware Shop there are no arts of salesmanship; there is no Rhetoric. Those behind the counter are knowledgeable about the goods they sell, and carefully accurate. Most of the customers are artisans -- carpenters, builders, plumbers, decorators. They know what they want, and will be angry -- and will not return -- if they are in any way misled.
By contrast, information -- product description -- in the Supermarket is systematically biassed and manipulative. Examples:--
A large number of packaged goods are priced at £1.99, £3.99, etc. Not £2.00, £4.00.
In the large greengrocery section there are several overhead cards telling you that this store is 'The Best Greengrocer in Town'. A ludicrously implausible claim -- London is a very large city. Not only implausible, but immediately disputable. About 30 yards away, out on the main road, is a very busy street stall selling fruit and vegetables. Very busy because it is so good. The prices average out at less than 2/3 of the Supermarket prices, and the quality of the products is, in my experience, at least as good -- although the packaging is less colourful.
When we teach little children we tell them the truth, and that's that. We don't -- we shouldn't -- ask them to have a critical faculty. This can only come much later, when they already have accumulated a body of accurate knowledge. And even then, in some subjects, e.g. mathematics, we spend almost no time in teaching them to discriminate error. It's a tedious waste of time: 7 x 8 = 56, and there's an end of it; likewise the derivative of the function sin(x) is cos(x). Of course you can verify the truth of statements, but you learn how to do this as you go along. Your critical faculty is developing, slowly but quietly; for the most part it just purrs along: you're not walking through a jungle, alert for danger and deception. And if you think it is a jungle you won't have time or energy to learn much.
[In a Scientific Industrial Society, ultimately based on meticulously precise Applied Mathematics -- think about the hardware and software in the computer you use, or the laser operation you are about to undergo in the hospital -- this kind of uncomplicated teaching, and the resultant set of habits and assumptions, is fundamental. There's no practical alternative. Which is why the gradual erosion of intellectual probity and the pervasive ideological corruption of so many Natural Scientists is so ominous. Note, however, that large numbers of Natural Scientists are sleepwalkers. Their training is ludicrously lopsided: outside their labs they are infantile. When they open their mouths to speak on anything other than their speciality they're not aware of how mindlessly one-eyed and unexamined are their opinions. However, quite often Truth will out over time, and one consequence of the above is an entirely justified steady increase of suspicion amongst the general public of all Government Factual Claims and Statistics. The great Global Warming 'Debate' is merely the most sordid recent example of heavy bullying from on high. Fortunately, because of the existence of multiple sources -- most obviously the Internet -- we the Citizens are now armed more effectively than we were a couple of decades back; but otherwise, especially in the matter of Official Information, we are not much better off than were the Russians under the Soviets.]
To get back to the Supermarket, and advertising. Advertisers tell lies -- more or less; Governments tell lies -- more rather than less.
In regard to Commercial Advertising the theory goes that the Market Order will handle that: over a period of time the Consumer will not be fooled. The theory is at least partially correct. There are many worries -- especially the incessant interference of Government, with a multitude of Regulations, ostensibly to protect the Citizens -- but matters could be worse.
In regard to Government sponsored Information -- and specifically in the case of the British Government -- I think that matters could not be much worse.
To contrast the three cases:--
Mathematical theorems are presented as indubitable Truths. We accept them because the arguments are cogent and because, up to now, no one has produced credible alternatives. You could say that the 'Corporation of Mathematicians' has a Monopoly; but it's a pretty open Monopoly, and members don't derive much money or power from it: you won't make your fortune from teaching Mathematics.
It hasn't always or everywhere been so. Way back, several thousand years ago, in the Near East and North Africa, the Mathematicians of Sumer and Egypt were also the Priests -- there was a Guild, very tightly controlled -- and they had a lot of power. The Dictator Napoleon had tendencies in this direction -- across the centuries tyrants understand each other. If he had been successful things might have been different. There's a minor parallel in the modern world. If you're well trained, but are either lazy, or find the job of producing original Mathematics, either Pure or Applied, a bit too difficult, you can make a good living by hiring yourself out as an Economist, an adviser to Government, helping Bureaucrats and Cabinet Ministers devise Regulations to cream off extra cash for the benefit of parasites both great and small, at the same time making life harder for those who actually do the work and produce the wealth.
The second case: Commerce.
Commercial Advertisers present their claims. The presumption is that Consumers are adults, capable of choosing; and because of this it is considered legitimate for Advertisers to use a range of rhetorical devices to persuade us. How wide this range should be, and how ubiquitous and dominant Advertising should be -- what portion of social space, and therefore of our habitual perceptions, it should be allowed to engage -- these matters are both important and arguable. But, so long as there is a genuine spread of choice there's a strong case for leaving Advertising alone; at least -- an important point -- within some assigned Domain. Certainly it's a good idea to keep away the deadly blight of positive Government Regulation.
The third case: Government.
To function at all well, Representative Government depends at every turn upon a fairly good and widely dispersed range of accurate Information and actual Knowledge amongst a large proportion of the People. Along with this, in a modern Society, based as it is on Private property and Division of Labour amongst a large variety of human types and conditions, Representative Government is necessarily and thoroughly anti-Monopolistic, anti-Uniform. It's not an accident that for so long England -- the home of Representative Government -- was also known as the home of eccentrics. Up until aboout 1900 AD these conditions held, more or less, in this country. No longer.
It's not an exaggeration to say that the English invented modern Representative Government. For about seven centuries -- say from 1200 AD to 1900 AD -- the English worked out, both in theory and in action, the nature and practice of it. Other peoples contributed, particularly the Citizens of the Low Countries of the Continent, but none came near, in breadth and depth, to matching the contribution of the English in Britain and, latterly, the other Nations of the Anglosphere. However, since 1900 AD there have been few positve developments in Britain, and some huge negative ones. To allow one's Nation to be conned into joining such an essentially anti-English Institution, and such an ersatz construct, as the European Union indicates an extreme failure of self-belief and spiritual vitality.
Throughout the 20th Century the Intelligentsia of Britain were overwhelmingly Socialist. They still are, in a half-hearted, fudging, evasive sort of way. Socialism is, and always has been, predicated on Government having a Monopoly, not just of Production and Distribution, but also of Information. The Fabians, those Apostles of Obedience -- the Monolith, the Machine, Bureaucracy -- they have prevailed. Sidney and Beatrice, those éminences grises, conjoined Divinities -- the God and Goddess of Committee and Calculation, Planning and Targets -- they have triumphed. Over the decades their vision of Uniformity and Control has had its devastating effects. The Juggernaut of Cumulative Regulation is very slow, but even now, even as late as the 21st Century, via Multiculturalism and Political Correctness, it still keeps on rolling, and crushes everything alive and spontaneous in its path.
However, even in a period of relative decline a rich Culture, like that of the English, will sometimes mobilize its defences. Sidney Webb was one of the most skilful manipulators of his age. It is appropriate that the epitaph of Sidney and his type has been written by someone just as skilful, but within a higher Domain :--
The first-class brains of a senior civil servantIt doesn't matter that the current British Nomenklatura is riddled with factions and internal squabbles; there are several factional labels, but the names are not worth mentioning since the variation in outlook is so very small. Many of the members of this Nomenklatura are adept at using the Rhetoric of Freedom and Choice -- this is the hardest to stomach -- but it is fraudulence, mere façade. They are at one in either promoting, or else standing aside and failing to check, the growth of Monopoly and the Single Vision.
Shiver and shatter and fall
As the steering column of his comfortable Humber
Batters in the bony wall.
All those delicate re-adjustments
"On the one hand, if we proceed
With the ad hoc policy hitherto adapted
To individual need ...
On the other hand, too rigid an arrangement
Might, of itself, perforce ...
I would like to submit for the Minister's concurrence
The following alternative course,
Subject to revision and reconsideration
In the light our experience gains ..."
And this had to happen at the corner where the by-pass
Comes into Egham out of Staines.
That very near miss for an All Souls' Fellowship
The recent compensation of a 'K' --
The first-class brains of a senior civil servant
Are sweetbread on the road today.[John Betjeman ... 1966]
§ |
(5)The Little Children.
Even in the most developed countries of the West, as recently as three generations ago, for most people most of the time the external world and the public places were both fairly quiet. And inside the home even more so: no telephone, radio, television. There were no disturbing distractions. One result of this was that children learnt from what was near at hand. Usually from their parents for the first few years, and then at the local school. In favourable circumstances this allowed for both an extreme degree of individualism and a rock-solid intellectual and emotional foundation. If a child was fortunate in having a good micro-environment then both Trust and Naivety were in order and, as a consequence, for many children learning was easy and unproblematic.
Contrast with now. The Public Domain is saturated with Messages, many of them conflicting. It is mostly oriented towards adults, who are presumed capable of mature and disciplined choice amongst a multitude of alternatives, each of them presented with sophisticated Rhetoric. This Public Domain is ubiquitous and inescapable. It presses in on everyone, including each impressionable and avidly absorbent child, as soon as such child is capable of perception and speech. In such an ambience there's no possibility of maintaining Innocence, or retaining an automatic Trust in Authority. Anything other than a guarded and wary attitude to a Public Message becomes mere foolishness. This attitude will tend to spread to encompass all Messages, and a crude and premature cynicism becomes inevitable. This may be OK for mere survival, but it's a poor foundation for the larger development of Mind, Heart and Soul.
Consider a simple case: the Multiplication Table. It's not possible to explain to a small child -- the profound reasons are the hardest to put across -- why it's a good idea to learn the Table by heart, and to learn it very well. The child only has his Teacher's word for it -- and a Teacher is nowadays a mere Authority figure, not to be given Trust. And anyway, there's always the electronic calculator, so why bother. And as for the deep ritual satisfactions of Nursery Rhymes -- in reality the most effective consolidators of linguistic skill ever invented -- what antediluvian nonsense.
Along with the change in Message -- from mainly Private, Personal and Individual to Public and Mass-Produced -- there's also been a shift in the predominant Medium. Western Intellectual Culture from, say, 1500 AD to 1950 AD, was for most people a Culture of the printed Word. Literacy -- Reading and Writing -- was overwhelmingly important. The most significant Cultural entity was called, simply, the Bible, i.e. the Book. The Book, the printed Word -- although no longer the Christian Bible itself -- is still important for most people, but it's no longer primary. First place goes to the Screen. Originally it was the Big Screen, the Cinema, but now it's the small Electronic Screen.
And, on the Television Screen, above all it's the pictures that count. A TV Screen is mostly a pictorial, visual medium; to a lesser extent it's an oral, spoken medium, and it's hardly at all a written medium. The implications of this shift -- in the dominant medium -- are profound.
A picture is an analogue; it is similar to what it represents. We perceive it. It is a percept, and it is not hard to understand. We move fairly easily between Representation and Reality.
A written word -- or a number -- is not an analogue. It is a highly abstract conventional representation -- it could have been otherwise: consider the different languages -- and the correspondence, between the word and what it represents, is not obvious. It is hard to understand. We have to be painstakingly taught such correspondence. Words -- and most patently the nouns -- stand for concepts. To understand words we must conceive; we must do some mental work. In the case of written words, two lots of work: one must first understand the concept, and then one most further understand its written representation. All this is difficult for little children. Most of them need a lot of help from adults, and at the right time. Delay a few years and it may be too late.
Judiciously used, Electronic Screens can be immensely valuable. Injudiciously used, especially with the very young -- the percept crowding out, preventing the development of the concept -- they are one of the most anti-educational devices ever invented. If the parents don't help their children, if they shirk or evade, absent themselves; if, instead of a personal relationship, it is arranged that most of the children are placed in front of TV Screens for several hours a day, each day, for those critical first few years of life, then it's not surprising that a good fraction of these children will never become adept at conceiving, will not develop the muscles of the Mind necessary for it, and later on they will be either semi-literate and semi-numerate, or even quite illiterate and quite innumerate.
On the part of the adults this is a large dereliction of duty.
***** |
| <<Theory I | Theory III >> |