I remember feeling almost a gut distaste when those things were mentioned. I felt ill! I felt I had stomach ulcers! It was like feeling that the whole ground you are standing on is about to give way. It was like seeing your life's problems in front of you as a terrible tangle that I could never solve even in a lifetime.
I thought that there were indeed some terrible ideas that science had managed to banish from everyday life (eg. witchcraft, magic, I thought), notions that should be banished, on peril of making the world worse. (This is similar to Sagan's later banishing the 'demon-haunted world').
I do not feel that it was 'group think' as such. I was scientifically oriented, but knew that I could still change things in science by new discoveries. I could imagine changing the way the group thinks, just like my heroes of Faraday, Maxwell, Einstein, etc. (I may have been naively optimistic about the likelihood of that, but I knew it possible, so I was not committed to group think.)
For the same reasons I was not just about preserving the status quo, as such. I could change that. Perhaps I was still preserving science or scientism, though at the time I did not see it.
On reflection now, I conclude:
Each of us has adopted some various ideas as unconditionally true (whether about science, or religion, or agnosticism, or whatever). And that these ideas become attached to our manner of feeling what is good and what is distasteful. We develop a feeling for those ideas as good, and 'good' becomes defined as what agrees with those ideas. Conversely, any opposing ideas give rise to distaste and unease and uncertainty and anxiety. So we fight back! That is what the pseudo-skeptics are doing. They are fighting back against ideas which (in their own minds) are upsetting.What should we do?
You may well ask whether this is the correct way that our affections and ideas should be organized? Should we be able to become so emotionally attached to ideas which have (in the end) a high chance of being wrong? Should not we keep some kind of flexibility?Now in my life I can generalize that each of us, as we grow up, is seeking for something to be taken as 'unconditionally good'. Something that be a foundation on which to build one's life. It may be religion, or science. It may be 'creativity as such' (it was for me at one point), or art, or community commitment, or saving the whales, or whatever.
Theistic View
Even taking a religious viewpoint, this is necessary. We have to make some kind of commitment or other: some kind of affirmation of trust in what is good and faith in what is true. On a religious view, humans are 'designed' to have to make such affirmations: preferably to what is good in God and true from God of course.
Though, as we see so often these days, these same kind of commitments are now being made to other things that should not be affirmed in the same way. Nowadays, there is so much seemingly-angry commitment to atheism or materialism or science. We are intended to make some commitment.
Adapted from a skeptiko post.
On reflection now, I conclude:
ReplyDeleteEach of us has adopted some various ideas as unconditionally true (whether about science, or religion, or agnosticism, or whatever). And that these ideas become attached to our manner of feeling what is good and what is distasteful. We develop a feeling for those ideas as good, and 'good' becomes defined as what agrees with those ideas. Conversely, any opposing ideas give rise to distaste and unease and uncertainty and anxiety. So we fight back! That is what the pseudo-skeptics are doing. They are fighting back against ideas which (in their own minds) are upsetting.
Regarding the underlying functionality, see the opening statement of AC 129, DP 195.2-3, and the concluding statement of TCR 622.3.
Wow, that was fast; I realized I ought to have at least indicated how I see those references as relating to the quotation, so I returned, and... well, here:
ReplyDelete1. Opening statement of AC 129 -- everyone is governed by the principles he assumes;
2. DP 195.2-3 -- a person tends to see good as being that which is enjoyable to his will, to see truth as being that which is pleasing to his understanding, to see evil as being that which "kills" the enjoyment of his will, and to see falsity as that which "kills" the pleasure of his understanding; also, if what is good by virtue of being enjoyable to a man's will is at odds with what is truly good in and of itself, a person may mistakenly see genuine good as evil (with similar inversions or 'reverse conceptions' applying re truth, evil and falsity); and,
3. concluding statement of TCR 622 -- heterogeneity is torture.
You say "a person tends to see good as being that which is enjoyable to his will, to see truth as being that which is pleasing to his understanding, to see evil ...[as the opposite]".
DeleteIs this good? Should it be this way? Or should we have a sense of good that is distinct from our enjoyment and understanding?
Is this good?
ReplyDeleteIt depends. If genuine good is enjoyable to my will, then there isn't any problem with seeing as good that which is enjoyable to my will. OTOH, if evil is enjoyable to my will, then seeing as good that which is enjoyable to my will -- evil in this case -- is, to understate the matter, somewhat of a problem.
Should it be this way?
The functionality itself generic and indiscriminate (i.e., it applies both in the case of a good person and in the case of an evil person).
Or should we...
When I say "a person tends to see...", I am paraphrasing what I understand is being said in DP 195.2-3. If the reference is read, however, it'll be seen that the paraphrasing involves an attenuation of what DP 195.2-3 actually says.
For example, while the paraphrasing is "a person tends to see good as being that which is enjoyable to his will", DP 195.2 actually says "everyone calls that good which he feels in the love of his will to be enjoyable". Clearly, DP 195.2 is stronger, and does not obviously allow for any wiggle room.
I see this stronger view of the matter, which stronger view clearly appears to be devoid of latitude and leeway, as being inconsonant with some other things Swedenborg has something to say about. For example, in DLW 244 he writes that, "...the understanding does not lead the will...but only teaches and shows the way--teaching how a man ought to live, and showing the way in which he ought to go."
However, to "call that good which..." is to name as good "that which...", and naming is an operation of the understanding. But if the understanding inexorably names as good that which is enjoyable to the will (as the actual wording of DP 195.2 clearly seems to imply is the case), then when what the understanding calls good is, in fact, not good, how can the understanding first know, then go on to teach and show otherwise?
No, it must be that that which a man feels to be good, that that which he tends to see as being good, can be seen by the understanding for the not-good that it actually is (when such is the case); if not, then neither reformation not regeneration would be possible (and this for the reason that the person's understanding would be locked into a single, fixed and unalterable view ("it is enjoyable to the (affections of the) will; therefore, it must be good")).
Taking into consideration that some people do actually reform and regenerate, it clearly cannot be true that "everyone calls that good which..."; thus the attenuation in the paraphrasing.
To "tend to see good as..." is to have a tendency "to see good as...", and a tendency can be, when it is called for (and with assistance from the appropriate source), overcome, gotten around and/or not acted on or from -- which isn't possible when the understanding is locked into the hard-and-fast rule of "call[ing] that good which..."
So, yes, we should -- indeed, need to -- as you rightly put it, have a sense of good that is distinct from our enjoyment and understanding. **
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** This is true when our enjoyment (of the will) and (the pleasure of our) understanding have yet habitually to be of what is genuinely good and genuinely true; if it should happen to be that they habitually are (a big 'if', admittedly), then the distinction would be relatively seamless.