America is a sick society

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-13-2017, 12:01 PM)Mikebert Wrote: To "see" the saeculum or its elements in this way or that is to move from social science into the humanities. Is that your intent?

My intent is not to advocate for a label such as social scientist or human. No.

I see these in great part as world views. A social scientist, humanist, Republican, Whig or Alt Right person might each have a certain was of looking at the world, a certain set of assumptions that might form a world view, a certain set of worthy things to strive for, which might become values.

If we’re starting with academic labels, I might have started as a philosopher. Almost all my minor elective courses in college were from the philosophy department. One particular homework assignment regarding ‘duty’ was quite formative. There were three papers assigned, all intending to define duty. One American paper said we were created and shaped by family, and owed a duty to both parents and children. One French paper said we were created and shaped by God, and that we owed a duty to God. The last German paper proposed we were created and shaped by the Fatherland, and that we owed a duty to the Fatherland.

My idea was to throw the papers together by their similarities, and accept and even emphasize where they were entirely conflicting. At one level was a more inclusive level of how ‘duty’ was perceived. Each culture, each individual, will have a different idea of how and what created, shaped, nurtured and empowered the individual. It is natural to feel a sense of duty towards whatever this is.

At a more abstract level, it shifted my view towards philosophy. I was originally taught that a philosophical paper or theory started from certain premises which one argues are true, and that logic was used to derive new principles based on those premises. However, the ‘duty’ examples showed the arguments that the premises were true were often cultural. Depending on where one grew up, what one’s premises were, one would reach conclusions that only echoed and perhaps extended one’s home culture.

Thus, that one assignment in effect shifted my on view on philosophy and how to seek truth. Instead of pushing for some abstract ideal absolute truth, I became something of a student of cultures. This in time shifted into my obsession with culture, values and world view. Where I’ve gotten is that a given region or individual succeeded or perceived itself as succeeding by seeing things a given way, by pursing certain goals. The intensity of such belief is incredibly intense and inflexible. What might be ‘nice’ is an ability to question one’s own views and others, to determine what are the strengths and truths inherent in each way of perceiving and manipulation the world, to synthesize something which respects and builds on what is expected to be a conflicting mess.

What I’m finding quite often is extreme partisans totally committed to their home values and lacking the ability to listen.

Humanities? Social science? I don’t know. I know I left the beaten track, but never looked hard to see if I’d embraced another.

I long believed Philosophy the mother of sciences. When the questions being asked cannot be answered in a lab or measured in the real world, all you can do is conjecture. Well, perhaps you can assume premises based on one’s home culture. If you look at such a field of study and figure out questions that can be answered in the lab or observed in the wild, you’ve the potential to create a new field of science.

That would be more my objective than love of a particular label. If there are two conflicting world views and values, how does one figure out what is true and convince the believer it is so? If you have a label for that, I’d like to hear it.