(Nick to Chris 10/13)
bq.. I was glancing at the UgP changes and saw your Nietzsche addition,
including the bit on arrogance. I’ve probably asked you this
before-in fact I’m almost positive I have-but do you regard yourself
as arrogant? Or merely as a conuisseur of arrogance?
Also, speaking of pretentious people with strong opinions, you should
read some Zizek. You’d like him, or dislike him. You’d also have at
least as good a chance as I do of understanding him, though in his
denser moments he’s probably the least comprehensible writer I’ve ever
read, except for Hegel, and possibly Foucault.
Here’s a few snippets from the ZwikiTips file, all quite
straightforward (for Zizek); pardon the formatting. You might like the
one from pp45-46 in particular. Also, I should point out if I haven’t
before that Zizek’s most recent patch of newsworthiness was when he, a
leading Lacanian and Marxist theorist, penned copy for an Abercrombie
and Fitch catalog. God, I love this man:
The Fragile Absolute, p. 23 - In the case of caffeine-free
diet coke, nutritional value is suspended and the caffeine, as the key
ingredient of its taste, is also taken away-all that remains is a
pure semblance, an artificial promise of a substance which never
materialized. Is it not true that in this sense, in the case of
caffeine free diet coke, we almost literally ‘drink nothing in the
guise of something’?
*The Fragile Absolute, p. 44 - As Lacan indicates…this
lack of tragedy proper paradoxically makes the modern condition even
more horrifying: the fact is that in spite of al the horrors, from
gulag to Holocaust, from capitalism onwards there are no longer
tragedies proper-the victims in concentration camps or the victims of
the Stalinist show trials were not in a properly tragic predicament;
their situation was not without comic-or, at least,
ridiculous-aspects; and for that reason, all the more
horrifying—there is a horror so deep that it can no longer be
‘sublimated’ into tragic dignity, and is for that reason approached
only through an eerie parodic implication/doubling of the parody
itself.
*The Fragile Absolute, p. 45—Marx’s famous ‘corrective’ to
Hegel’s notion of historical repetition…(history repeats itself, the
first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.)
*The Fragile Absolute, p. 45-6—...he is like a crook who
thinks that he redeems himself by publicly acknowledging his
crookedness (or, one is tempted to add, like a highly paid professor
of cultural studies in Western Academia who thinks that his incessant
self-condemnatory critique of Eurocentrist, etc., bias of Western
academia somehow exempts him from being implicated in it.
The
guilt here concerns the tension between the subject of the statement
and the subject of the enunciation (the subjective position *from
which one speaks): there is a way in which one can lie in the guise
of (telling the) truth, that is, in which the full and candid
admission of one’s guilt is the ultimate deception, the way to
preserve one’s subjective position intact, free from guilt. In short,
there is a way to avoid responsibility and/or guilt by, precisely,
emphasizing one’s responsibility or too readily assuming ones
guilt in an exaggerated way, as in the case of the white male PC
academic who emphasizes the guilt of racist phallagocentrism, and uses
this admission of guilt as a stratagem, not to face the way he as a
“radical” intellectual, perfectly embodies the existing power
relations towards which he pretends to be thoroughly critical…
The Fragile Absolute, p. 58—Havel’s statement is thus the
strongest association of what Ulrich Beck, in an article in *Die
Suddeatsche Zeitung in April 1999, called “militant humanism” or even
“militaristic pacificism”...
The problem (with this is) that this
purely humanitarian-ethical legitimization (again) thoroughly
depoliticizes the military intervention…what we need is not a
“true” (demilitarized) humanism (pacifism), but a “militaristic”
social intervention divested of its depoliticized humanist (pacifist)
veneer…
The subject to be protected is identified from the
outset as a powerless victim of circumstances, deprived of all
political identity, reduced to stark suffering…not a political
subject with a clear agenda, but a subject of hapless suffering,
sympathizing with all…sides in the conflict, caught up in the
madness of a local clash that can be pacified only by the intervention
of a benevolent foreign power.
The Fragile Absolute, p. 79-80—Truth is neither
“subjective” nor “objective”: it designates simultaneously our active
engagement *in and our exstatic openness to the world, letting
things come forth in their essence. Furthermore, truth as the
epochally
p. (Chris to Nick 10/13)
bq.. Your questions make me realize that “arrogant” might not be the right
word—although it still might. Basically, I think my fascination is
with people who, justifiably or not, think that they are superior to
great swaths of humanity. (I don’t mean “superior” as in, e.g., I can
run faster than you. I mean it in some sense much more dripping with
morality.) I’m not sure if I’m shocked that they could be so wrong, or
shocked that they might actually be right. In any case, I think the
fascination is because I do see a difference between these “arrogant
people” and myself. I find it very hard to admit than anyone is either
better or worse than anyone else (“better”, again, in the
morality-drenched sense). But then, I look at someone like Nietzsche,
and I wonder if his approach isn’t somehow superior.
Do you think “arrogant” is a close enough word to be throwing around
to paraphrase all this?
p. (Nick to Chris 10/14)
bq.. It’s probably the word I would use-though I distinguish at least in a
de facto way (i.e., this is how I use the word, though it may not be
the right way) between arrogance, which I think of as negative-i.e.,
other people suck, and egotism, which I think of as positive-i.e., I
rock. (Obviously not negative/positive in the good/bad sense, but in
the negate/posit sense) For me, as a person who self-identifies as
arrogant, neither arrogance nor egotism intrinsically contains the
evaluative element-i.e., I* am better than *you. (Or nonspecified
others) But obviously this diverges from the normal common-language
parameters of arrogance, just as my preferred definition of
“understanding” has little hold over actual usage, including mine.
I think I have hold of a slightly different portion of your problem,
as a person with deeply grained egalitarian values and habitual
beliefs coupled to a practical arrogance born of empirical observation
in daily life. This is one of the reasons I am compelled to believe in
education—the idea that people could be equal even if they’re not
usually in practice forces one to hope in the possibility of better
education.
What’s interesting (or maybe not) is that my egalitarian values only
took the first hit to their ramparts at Brown; all through my k-12
education I assumed that everyone was intrinsically equally
intelligent but my oppressed neighbors were ill-served by the system.
This was supported by what I felt was a strong native intelligence in
many of the most ill-educated that I believe was really present. At
TASP, everyone was essentially elite in one or more senses, and, while
there were a number of assholes, the feeling that we were all peers in
our capabilities was very strong. But at Brown I encountered people
who had every advantage and were hard to classify as other than highly
educated, and who obviously were academically high-performing, but
were also dense as a fucking post. After a couple of years at Brown, I
began to realize that I no longer believed in that one unassailable
politically correct assumption-untouched even in the question-heavy
atmosphere of PhilEd-that everyone always has something worthwhile to
contribute.
But of course I’ve just noticed that I’m talking about intelligence
(which is how I always think of arrogance, because that’s the kind of arrogance that connects to my burden of egalitarian guilt) while
you’re talking about moral arrogance-I think morality is a less good
term than valuative-particularly when talking about Nietzsche, who
believed in things of greater and lesser value, but not in morals. (Or
me, as I believe there’s a quasi-inverse relationship between morality
and intelligence)
I find it interesting that you don’t identify as arrogant, though not
by that token unbelievable-with your eccentric tastes, unusual
intelligence, and particularly your acute observations, I have trouble
imagining how you could maintain a sense of human equality without it
being a tenent of faith-and I know that you’re even worse at
believing in things than I am. But perhaps again this is simply
because of your use of the moral as opposed to the valuative
connotation—i.e., even you are better in some measure, you feel you
have no authority to hold up that measure as more “real” than the
theoretically infinite range of other measures that could be used to
balance it
p. (Chris to Nick 10/14)
bq.. Your note is too interesting to tackle all at once, but here’s a start: ::
> I find it interesting that you don’t identify as arrogant, though not
> by that token unbelievable-with your eccentric tastes, unusual
> intelligence, and particularly your acute observations, I have trouble
> imagining how you could maintain a sense of human equality without it
> being a tenent of faith-and I know that you’re even worse at
> believing in things than I am.
Ho ho! Something about the word “faith” here seems right on, as far as
describing my attitude goes. Assuming such faith is something that one
acquires, though, I’m not too clear where I acquired it. Probably in
part from the Unitarians. Probably in part from my mom’s family and
their anti-elitist (especially anti-rich-and-elitist) sentiments. In
any case, I don’t think it can really be said to be rooted in my
experience with actual people, the bulk of whom I usually haven’t
found particularly enjoyable to be around. (Or should I say
particularly noteworthy?) ::
> But perhaps again this is simply
> because of your use of the moral as opposed to the valuative
> connotation—i.e., even you are better in some measure, you feel you
> have no authority to hold up that measure as more “real” than the
> theoretically infinite range of other measures that could be used to
> balance it.
Yes that is a pretty good analysis of the situation. I think this
misses of one the things that strikes me as odd, though: that I have
some trouble with almost any claims about “betterness”, whether it
be so-and-so is a better person than so-and-so, a better writer, a
better runner, or whatever. This makes me wonder whether I’m just
not willing to accept that obvious, namely that people can differ from
one another in any important ways.
But maybe I’m not quite so obviously pathological. After all, I can
admit some better-than claims, e.g. that William James is a better
writer than some of the students at the Met School.
I guess I’m still confused about what to make of myself. =)
p. Nick to Chris 10/20
bq.. Bob!
So, it seems to me, upon reviewing our discussion of arrogance, that
your discomfort with arrogance (regardless of your semi-contradictory
enchantment with it) seemingly stems from your intense skepticism
regarding value, and my ability to live comfortably with arrogance
stems from my very slightly less intense skepticism regarding
value—i.e., I am ever so slightly more willing than you to believe
that some things are “really” good and some things are “really” bad
and that, by implication, some human beings (by either having “good”
qualities or “doing” good things) may be in some sense “better” than
others.
So, I’ve been looking into some of my old thoughts and some of my
favorite authorities on the subject of values. For example, here’s
(some of) what that John Dewey: Dic. has to say about Morality />

2. Morals has to do with all activity into which alternative
possibilities enter. For whenever they enter a difference between
better and worse arises. Reflection upon action means uncertainty and
consequent need of decision as to which course is better. [Human
Nature and Conduct]
3. All moral judgment is experimental and subject to revision.—ibid

bq.. This seems to me to more or less some up the arguments that would sway
me on this subject (and which I’ve previously marshalled against you
and Andrew on the subject of linguistic relativism (cf.
http://kukkurovaca.objectis.net/upp/LanguageAndValue ), though they
won’t necessarily sway you—nor do they address the more complex
question of whether human action is transparent enough for us to feel
even moderately sure which acts are better and which are worse. But I
thought I’d throw them out there.
There’s also this:
http://www.fluble.com/cgi-bin/fluble/vault.pl?date=19980430 , which of
course bears the highest authority of western culture…
TODO: Wow, is this markup still broken or what?