Richard’s comments on Censorship:
This part Saturday I was fortunate enough to have some time to catch the POPc gathering and have a nice chat with Professor Shottenkirk. We touched on several subject (as we often do), but there are a few key points I will talk about (and perhaps clarify here). The first was brought up after a discussion about the presently tense campus climate between Zionists and SJP. Prof. Shottenkirk brought up that some people were saying that the anti-Zionist rhetoric ought to be considered as hate-speech, and that there were those that actually expressed that they felt unsafe due to the free expression of Anti-Zionist sentiments. It is worth noting that I (personally) do not have a dog in the fight. My unwavering belief in freedom of speech extends even to speech that some would classify as “hate-speech”. As I firmly believe in the old adage “while I do not agree with what you have to say; I will defend to the death your right to say it.” As such, I had to observe in response to those who “feel” unsafe as the result of some form of speech that in reality no one is guaranteed the right to “feel” safe all the time, they are only afforded physical safety of life and limb. This is an important distinction. I have a right not be physically assaulted or attacked by another person because this would jeopardize my life, liberty, and my pursuit of happiness. However, I do not have the right to have my emotions protected from injury at all times. If that were the case, then anything that upsets my emotional state ought to be guarded against via state and/or institution which would invariably result in the curtailing of free speech and freedom of expression. The responsibility to guard against the emotion of insecurity falls to the individual as the minister of his or her emotional welfare. No institution ought to have power over this solemn facet of individual liberty.
This discussion brought us around to the large issue of freedom of speech and how (as I have said in previous discussion) currently we are seeing ‘feelings’ being prized over liberty and/or truth. This is indeed a terrifying state of affairs because of its larger implications. While trying to preserve participation in democracy what this form of nanny state/campus silencing of possibly hurtful rhetoric does is it undermines a fundamental aspect of democracy which is the free flowing exchange and philosophical critique of ideas. This does democracy a disservice because although it may foster greater participation, said participation comes at the price of the curtailing free speech and in doing so actually paves the way for totalitarianism predicated on the relativistic inclinations of the arbiters of the socially acceptable speech of the period (whomever that might be). What was most interesting about the points raised in this part of the discussion was the fact that during it we brought up how the before mentioned curtainling of speech was commonplace countries like Canada, and our hostess (bartender) just happened to be Canadian. She expressed that while her country is great and the people are nice, their perpetual preoccupation with maintaining only nonthreatening speech actually prevents progress, and doesn’t allow for new innovative concepts to be brought to the floor out of fear they might offend.
Toward the end of our discussion freedom and artistic expression were a major part of the discussion, and as we were talking about how that plays into the pattern of limiting freedom of speech I decided to pose a question that I had been pondering for some time. Some students that the University of Missouri want their Thomas Jefferson memorial removed on the grounds that it is racially insensitive. The question I posed in relation to this story and the larger issue of freedom of expression in art was: What is the philosophical difference between this effort to sanitize past artistic representations of figures we have decided to remove in the name of political correctness and the terrorist organization Isis destroying ancient works of art because they do not conform with their ideological agenda? To my rationale there is in effect no difference between the two. They are both attempts to avoid contextualizing and putting history into perspective while at the same time removing anything that might threaten a new ideological framework that their respective advocates seek to impose on the larger society. Art (especially historic art) ought to be preserved and invoke critical thinking and discourse about the past. It should not be destroyed or all together removed from view because it might be upsetting to those who are unable or unwilling to engage in the mental labor needed to contextualize, and debate the philosophical nuances of the piece. To do so would not only limit future forms of artistic expression from ever seeing the light of day, but also destroy fundamental artistic works of our past, and for what? To avoid ruffling a few feathers? Isn’t that what good art is supposed to do?
Dear Richard, (in response to our earlier conversation about nominalism)
I think I know what post is yours though you decided to be mysterious and anonymous. That nicely dovetails with the content, which I know to be yours as I recognize the views! “…reflect on the eastern philosophical tradition in that we as the experiencers of this constructed reality enter into the reality of the
constructor assuming that we understand the nature of what we are experiencing, but the truth is just beyond our perceptual range.”
I, too, think we have a constructed reality. I think Goodman is right about that one. There was for him (and others at that time) a general rejection of not only Kant’s synthetic a priori but of the a priori in general. Reality was constructed by us, and it is through symbol systems that we understand those constructs. And it was the quale that was at the bottom of that construction. Goodman was trying to get to the very basic unit of his constructionalism, not unlike what Wittgenstein did in his Tractactus. For Goodman, the basic unit was a particular color, at a particular place, at a particular time. It is the perceptual unit that is at the basis of all experience. And all experience is constructed out of a bunch of those individual quales (or “qualia” in the proper – and in my view, silly – use of the plural).
So each of us build up a little system of quales, many of which are ones we have inherited from our culture and from others. Reality is a construct, but social life has built into many forms of reality that is passed down from the group to the individual. Much of what we see we see because others have convinced us to see it. This is not an argument for not seeing it the way the social construct demands. Surely we as social creatures must do that. Otherwise it would be a world of nut jobs. And nothing would get done. But what about those cases where the symbol system is not just an inherited one, but an individually constructed one? That’s what you were concerned with – the artist’s individual construct. And when we look at it, how much do we accurately parse from that constructed reality?
I think you are right to hit upon the opacity of the communication. Goodman wanted to nail it down, wanted aesthetics to be a system that was tied to the strict symbolism of semantic (linguistic) expression. So that predicates, with their extensional definitions, would be the
thing that was referred to. “The painting is sad” would have meaning because you would have this metaphorical definition of “sad” that would have its sure footing in the secondary extension of the term.
But I think you’re right – much is not translated. And that is the cherry on top. That’s the best part; if we know that we don’t completely
know, we go back over and over to explore and discover, to revel anew in someone else’s experience, the care about their point of view. If we got it all we wouldn’t do that.
And I bet a lot of those ancient Indian philosophers knew that!