GAUCHE

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ERIC ALTERMAN, thenation.com, Dec 25, 2000

Ce N'est Pas un Président

All I want is the truth. Just gimme some truth. --John Lennon

Florida's electoral mishegoss lends itself to the exploration of an issue that receives no attention in the media and yet underlies virtually everything its members do. I speak to you, dear reader, of the Meaning of Truth.

Ever since Fox's John Ellis began the mistaken media stampede for his cousin George W. Bush's victory on election night, reporters, producers and executives have spun themselves silly trying to describe a situation that is ultimately an epistemological bottomless pit. There is no single "truth" about who won Florida. From the point of view of "institutional truth," we began without clear rules or precedents for measuring the vote, whether they include dimple-counting, partially punched chads or butterfly ballots. I am convinced Gore carried the will of the people, but I'm guessing that Lady Katherine Harris Macbeth would rather contract rabies than accept my admittedly subjective interpretation. From the perspective of "brute truth," however, the difference between the Bush/Gore numbers turns out to be so small that it will never exceed the count's margin of error. What we are seeing, therefore, is not a process of objective measurement but a contest of raw power. The Democrats use the courts and the law. The Republicans rely on rent-a-mobs, partisan hacks and power-hungry allies in the state legislature and Congress. Guess which side is bound to win?

Our media coverage admits none of this, because it is committed to a fairy-tale version of truth and objectivity that separates "fact" and "opinion" but cannot fathom anything in between. When Tim Russert declared on November 26 that George Bush "has now been declared the official winner of the Florida election...and therefore he is the 43rd President of the United States," he was making a statement that could not have been true when he made it. (Even Bush understood that he was only playing a President-elect on TV.) But the feared and celebrated Russert knew that his words were bound by only the narrowest definition of "truth." He could always take it back later.

The attachment to the idea of attainable objective "truth" on the part of American journalism is partially responsible for its frequent brainlessness. As NYU's Jay Rosen points out, "objectivity as a theory of how to arrive at the truth is bankrupt intellectually.... Everything we've learned about the pursuit of truth tells us that in one way or another the knower is incorporated into the known." (Remember Heisenberg? Remember Einstein?) The famous 1920s debate between Walter Lippmann and John Dewey shed considerable light on this problem, with Lippmann arguing for a "spectator" theory of reality and Dewey arguing for a more consensual one, arrived at through discourse and debate.

The notion of a verifiable objective truth received what many intellectuals considered its final coffin nail in the form of Richard Rorty's classic 1979 work, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. While the word true may have absolute correlations in reality, Rorty later argued, "its conditions of application will always be relative." What was "true" in ancient Athens--that slavery and pederasty were positive goods--is hardly "true" to us today. As Rorty explains it, we call our beliefs "true" for the purposes of self-justification and little more. The point is not accuracy but pragmatism. Moreover, Ludwig Wittgenstein has taught us that the gulf between what "is" and the language we use to describe it is so large as to be unbridgeable. "Truth" may be out there, but there is no answer to a redescription, Rorty observes, "save a re-re-redescription." Truth is what works.

Now, it's possible to contest Rorty on any number of counts. I personally find him overly generous to the extreme relativism of antifoundationalists like Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. (The antifoundationalist perspective can be simplistically summarized by the famous Surrealist painting of a pipe by René Magritte beneath the words, Ce n'est pas une pipe.) But the argument itself cannot be avoided. Truth, as Lippmann never understood but Dewey did, is a lot more complicated than a baseball box score or a Johnny Apple New York Times news analysis. What is needed to evaluate whether a report is ultimately credible is not an endless parade of "facts" that may or may not be true but a subjective marshaling of evidence. Yet because the entire media establishment treats these questions as just so much mental masturbation, the standard definition of "fact" often turns out to be any given statement that cannot be easily disproved at the moment it is made. Hence, we frequently see journalistic accounts of the mood of an entire country or even a whole continent based on little more than the taxi ride from the airport.

A second byproduct of American journalism's childish belief in attainable objective truth, Rosen notes, is the alienation it causes between journalists and intellectuals. In Europe the public profits from a two-way transmission belt between the world of ideas and that of reported "fact." But here such exchanges are nearly impossible because, as Rosen puts it, "intellectuals familiar with the currents in twentieth-century thought just can't deal with some of the things that come out of journalists' mouths." Such people, he notes, believe it "useless to try to talk with journalists" owing to their "naďve empiricism." Still, the academy is also at fault, owing to its recent retreat into a Derrida/Foucault-inspired debate that admits almost no reality at all outside the text and does not even pretend to speak intelligibly to the nonspecialist.

In any case, George W. Bush may be our next President. But it won't be because he outpolled Al Gore in Florida in any remotely objective sense. It will merely be because he might have, and we decided to call it "true."

* * *

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), December 12, 2000

Answers

What could have been an interesting essay was defaced by uncontrolled emotionalism. Looks like the author might benefit from a little less "Waaaah!" and a little more detachment. Time to schedule a retreat, Erik.

Alterman is awarded one thousand bonus points for working mental masturbation into the piece. 'Tis one of my favorite phrases.

-- Rich (howe9@shentel.net), December 13, 2000.

What piqued me in this article was the following paragraph---

The notion of a verifiable objective truth received what many intellectuals considered its final coffin nail in the form of Richard Rorty's classic 1979 work, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. While the word true may have absolute correlations in reality, Rorty later argued, "its conditions of application will always be relative." What was "true" in ancient Athens--that slavery and pederasty were positive goods--is hardly "true" to us today. As Rorty explains it, we call our beliefs "true" for the purposes of self-justification and little more. The point is not accuracy but pragmatism. Moreover, Ludwig Wittgenstein has taught us that the gulf between what "is" and the language we use to describe it is so large as to be unbridgeable. "Truth" may be out there, but there is no answer to a redescription, Rorty observes, "save a re-re-redescription." Truth is what works.

Is there such a thing as objective truth? Isn't it a contradiction to say that "it is true that there is no truth"? Maybe we should start on a thread about the nature of truth. I say that all objective truths are statistical and that all abstract truths are matters of faith.

BTW Rich, I also enjoy that expression. Trivia maven that I am, I can even recall the first time I ever saw it. It was in a book that I read in 1960. God knows how far back it goes.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), December 13, 2000.

A thread about the nature of truth would be a gas, Lars. Fortunately for everyone I have little to offer on the subject. Please get one going. I look forward to it.

For starters, here's Merriam-Webster's entry:

Main Entry: truth

Function: noun

Inflected Form(s): plural truths /'trü[th]z, 'trüths/

Etymology: Middle English trewthe, from Old English trEowth fidelity; akin to Old English trEowe faithful -- more at TRUE

Date: before 12th century

1 a archaic : FIDELITY, CONSTANCY b : sincerity in action, character, and utterance

2 a (1) : the state of being the case : FACT (2) : the body of real things, events, and facts : ACTUALITY (3) often capitalized : a transcendent fundamental or spiritual reality b : a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true c : the body of true statements and propositions

3 a : the property (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or reality b chiefly British : TRUE 2 c : fidelity to an original or to a standard

4 : capitalized, Christian Science : GOD - in truth : in accordance with fact : ACTUALLY

-- Rich (howe9@shentel.net), December 13, 2000.

Rich, I'd love to see a thread on Truth but I am not intellectually qualified. Maybe Eve, or one of the other brains will lead the charge. Then, after the 200 squabbling posts are made, we could do one on Beauty.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), December 13, 2000.

Check out this thread about truth from the beginning of the year.

The Great Deception - What if what we know was chosen deliberately to deceive us? ---

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002Hae

It's thorough and thought provoking. A must-read.

-- (links@r.us), December 13, 2000.

>> " What was "true" in ancient Athens--that slavery and pederasty were positive goods--is hardly "true" to us today. As Rorty explains it, we call our beliefs "true" for the purposes of self-justification and little more. <<

This is a misleading word salad.

Good and bad are judgements based on values. You can say it is "true" that ancient Athenians valued slavery and pederasty. It is still true that they did. But we do not share all their values or agree with all their judgments.

There is a valid reason why the words "belief" and "truth" were coined. They do not refer to the same thing. However, there is a fairly large body of objective truth. It is scarcely conceivable to me that in an age where science has defined so many natural laws and verified them by so many varied means, that anyone could say that there is no such thing as truth!

All it means is that this particular "philosopher" regards philosophy as so emasculated that it no longer has anything to say about objective truth, because then philosophy would have to acknowledge the positive accomplishments of scientific method and discover a way to add value to that realm - which is much harder than playing around with subjectivity and pretending you are profound.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), December 13, 2000.

Lars,

Thanks for the vote of confidence, but realize you're talking about a chick who found herself at work one morning with a big dab of toothpaste in the middle of her forehead. Really, though -- as I get the time, I'd love to get deeply into "truth" or almost any other philosophical topic.

And, "links", thanks for hooking us up to what was, IMHO, one of the greatest threads ever.

Rorty is really simply peddling cultural relativism as "truth", which is not only completely at odds with truth in any objective sense, but is really sick. I mean (taken to an extreme), it would defend extermination of Jews as a good thing at one time and place -- but not in this country right now.

One point Alterman is missing, though (equal treatment issues aside for the moment), is that even if his favorite counties would have been assumed to have given Gore the lead in Florida -- he oversimplifies. An election really can't be meant to imply an obsession with picking up every miscast vote -- almost as an end in itself. It has to entail practical time (and thus recount) constraints. I mean, the absence (or even loose treatment) of these constraints could create a chaotic, potentially disastrous situation.

The building in of time (and other practical) constraints simply implies psychologically accepting the fact that the goal of obtaining a precise, absolute vote count that would be exactly coterminous with the intent of every voter in the country, is...well...Disneyesque, to put it mildly.

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), December 13, 2000.

Holy Shit!!! That's the thread to end all threads! Thanks for the link, anon.

-- Rich (howe9@shentel.net), December 13, 2000.

By the way, IMHO, one of the greatest philosophical achievements in the past 2,000 years was the bridging of the "is-ought" gap. Until recently, philosophers have tried and failed to derive normative ("ought") statements from factual ("is") ones. In other words, values (using "value" in a carefully precise sense) are types -- subsets, really -- of facts. I know this sounds wild, but Ayn Rand solved this problem some decades ago.

I don't have the time now to present any proofs of this, but if anyone's interested, I think I can dig up some stuff from the web, or refer you to writings on it.

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), December 13, 2000.

Eve, yes, I'd be interested.

-- Peter Errington (petere@ricochet.net), December 13, 2000.

Oh yes. I'm most definitely interested. Post that pic of you with the dab of toothpaste on yer noggin, post haste. And make it snappy too. Was it the bi-colored kind? You know, like the stuff with peanut butter and jelly in the same jar, only toothpaste.

This wouldn't happen to be Friday, would it? Somebody pass the jug of sangria, please. I'm a runnin' on empty.

-- Rich (howe9@shentel.net), December 13, 2000.

Brian, I am surprised and pleased at your careful defense of Objective Truth because I thought that the concept of Relative Truth (a la Alterman and Rorty) was dirigueur on the Left. I am glad if I am wrong.

I never got involved in "The Great Deception" thread because it was too far along by the time I became aware of it. Well, maybe we should re-discuss important ideas every other year or so. Unc, please enter this subject in your PDA for review in Jan 2002.

Eve, I mentioned your name specifically because I know that you have a background in and an interest in Philosophy. I did not know about your toothpaste fetish.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), December 13, 2000.

Toothpaste is actually quite a good skin conditioner. I'm sure that's what Eve was doing. She just forgot to rub it in fully. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Toothpaste also removes glue off glass like nobody's business. That's the truth.

-- Rich (howe9@shentel.net), December 13, 2000.

Seriously -- the toothpaste thing really happened -- and to this day, I have only theories as to how it got there. But, you know -- just picture yourself in a blind, mad rush to brush your teeth and get out the door. I don't know...maybe I whipped the toothbrush around and/or upwards with enough force, coupled with a loose dab on the brush. The dab was loosened and flew off -- and I didn't have time to look for it, so I put another on the brush...

I have a recent a charcoal portrait of me (still too paranoid to post a photo) that I could try to post -- then y'all could draw the dabs on, to get a really good idea of what I looked like. I use Viadent.

I'll try to get the philosophical stuff posted as soon as I can.

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), December 13, 2000.

"A little dab'll do ya". OK, what long-ago TV commercial?

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), December 13, 2000.

A little dab'll do ya? Brylcream, of course!

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), December 14, 2000.

Mornin' y'all...

Reconciling the "is-ought" dichotomy involves far more than I can possibly do on a post or two. But maybe I can throw out a few hints and add a book recommendation or more.

We start with a premise -- that life is our fundamental purpose and is the all-encompassing standard of values.

So, Rand's theory is naturalistic in that values are an outgrowth of certain facts about the nature of life. You could say that values are really "conditional" facts. So for example, IF one seeks life and/or happiness and/or flourishing (yes -- it's an egoistic ethics -- but this version includes benevolence and respect for others' rights as virtues), THEN things become valuable (good or bad) on the basis of their impact on that goal (or subordinate goals).

We -- as human beings -- have got to pay attention to facts about ourselves and our surroundings in order to determine how to achieve our happiness -- which means: achieving our lives and all subordinate goals. And not merely in the bare-bones survival sense -- in a flourishing sense. So we've got to identify values (things that are good for us) and act to secure them.

You see, reality doesn't permit us to NOT reason about morality. If we don't reason to identify life's requirements and if we don't act as reason dictates, we'll either die, or at best end up living a "life" of misery.

Here's a couple of ways we already reason from facts to values:

We reason that IF we want our new car to perform well (our goal) and regular oil changes enhance performance (a fact), THEN we ought to change its oil regularly (the value judgment).

Or IF we want our students to learn as much as possible (our goal) and students learn more when they're motivated (a fact), THEN we ought to try to motivate them (a value judgment).

The really significant lesson regarding the relationship between facts and values is that we CAN use reason to generate moral judgments. In fact, we HAVE TO use reason to figure out how to live.

I know that this (hopefully not too disjointed) little teaser of a post will generate all kinds of questions. As I have the time, I'll try to post more to color in the framework somewhat.

But here's a great, new book that covers this thesis in depth:

"Viable Values: A Study of Life as the Root and Reward of Morality" by Tara Smith, associate professor of philosophy, University of Texas at Austin; Rowan and Littlefield, pubs.

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), December 14, 2000.

Would it be too simplistic (of course it would, dummy) to state that according to Rand right action should be birthed from proper analysis of empirical data?

What role, if any, does intuition play in Rand's philosophy? Did she acknowledge it as a legitimate source of information upon which to act?

Thanks for posting this Eve. Please excuse my ignorance of her philosophy.

-- Rich (howe9@shentel.net), December 14, 2000.

Brian, congratulations. After consultation with Arthur Fonzarelli, here are the lyrics to the Brylcreme jingle. ---

Brylcreme, a little dab'll do ya

use more only if you dare

Watch out, all the girls'll pursue ya

They'll love to get their fingers in yer hair

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), December 14, 2000.

LOL!! From politics, the election and truth to toothpaste on foreheads to bridging the "is-ought" gap in philosophy to Brylcreem in just 19 posts! I love it!!

Rich -- I didn't forget about ya -- back atcha as soon as I can on your questions...

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), December 15, 2000.

Rich,

Regarding intuition -- I don't recall Rand specifically addressing this, but here's a perspective from psychologist and expert on self- esteem, Nathaniel Branden (her associate for almost 20 years) that I think she'd agree with...

Very often -- especially, for example, in making complex decisions -- the number of variables that need to be processed and integrated are far more than the conscious mind can handle. Complex, super-rapid integrations can occur beneath conscious awareness and present themselves as "intuitions." The mind can then scan data for supporting or conflicting evidence.

Men and women who have a context of being highly conscious and highly experienced sometimes find themselves relying on these subconscious integrations, since a record of success has taught them that in doing so they succeed more often than they fail. However, when and if that pattern of success shifts and they find themselves making mistakes, they go back to more explicit and conscious forms of rationality. Because the intuitive function often allows them to make unexpected leaps that ordinary thinking may be slower to arrive at, they experience intuition as central to their process; high level business executives sometimes credit intuition for many of their achievements. A mind that has learned to trust itself is more likely to rely on this process (and manage it effectively with appropriate reality testing) than one that has not. This is equally true in business, athletics, the sciences, the arts -- in most complex human activities.

Intuition is significant relative to self-esteem only insofar as it expresses high sensitivity to, and appropriate regard for, internal signals. Early in this century Carl Jung stressed the importance of this respect for internal signals to creativity. More recently Carl Rogers linked it to self-acceptance, authenticity, and psychological health.

(from "The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem" by Nathaniel Branden, p. 46)

I'll get back to you on the other issue you brought up...

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), December 15, 2000.

And, within this broader essay, another perspective on intuition -- one that I also think Rand would support...

Essa y

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), December 15, 2000.

Rich,

You asked,

"Would it be too simplistic to state that according to Rand right action should be birthed from proper analysis of empirical data?"

Actually, Rich, I think your question is excellent. And I think it does pretty much sum up her perspective, albeit in an extremely economical way. It's just that since it's so concise, it would need a great deal of elaboration. But just from having asked a question like this, Rich, I think you may understand her philosophy better than you think.

For the best elaborations, I'd refer you to "Atlas Shrugged" (by Ayn Rand), plus "Unrugged Individualism" and "Truth and Toleration" -- both by David Kelley -- absolutely essential extensions and elaborations of her philosophy, IMO.

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), December 15, 2000.

A little JAB'll do ya.

-- (nemesis@awol.com), December 15, 2000.

Busy day hasn't allowed me to look in until now. Thanks for the info, Eve. I'll check it and the Fountainhead thread over the weekend.

Enjoy the weekend everyone!

-- Rich (howe9@shentel.net), December 15, 2000.

To the top...

-- Rich (howe9@shentel.net), December 16, 2000.