The Outer Banks: A Follow-up
March 24th, 2007 by 
drunkentune
I realize now that my past few posts have been a bit off. Here’s one that begins at the limits and hopes to bring it back to a basic point.
I.
I hope it’s clear from what I initially wrote that in a tradition of poetry, the audience loses itself. One cannot pull back and see with a critical eye. What is required is a distance. Thus, this becomes a meta-conversation about distance and observation. We rely on eyesight, not listening. We don’t listen to the poet tell a story of a triangle and imagine; we discuss the triangle, an open conversation. We observe triangles, close our eyes, and think. This does not mean that listening or empathy is irrational while eyesight and discussion is rational, but this distance is one of critical thought and analysis. This is the Socratic method.
In modern physics textbooks, there usually is in the introduction a definition of ‘physics.’ It usually goes along the lines of, ‘Physics is…’ and then there is a list of things the class will cover, such as the study of light, sound, or movement. This means that physics is generally considered to be what physics do.
II.
Now, with this in mind, I turn to Jeremy Bentham. Bentham was concerned with the dangers of certain legal histories in England, that of case law. If justice, like physics, is its practice, then justice is what justice does. Justice is then about case law and precedents, building on the authority of previous judges and court ruling that act out of time immemorial. Each ruling is then tackling one nuance after another. The history of every previous case is reworked on every nuance, forming a slow development over time.
A follower of Bentham, James Mill, is Bentham’s Plato. But Bentham had a bizarre approach to things. He produced a thought experiment: Imagine someone who gets in trouble and is standing accused in front of a judge. The only way we know he has done something wrong, at least under a system of case law and precedents, is that he’s violated a sense of community, since there is no law, but the practice of law. There is only a sense of purpose. Suppose you are this man — how do you know what you did is wrong? The lawyers look at precedent, the judge thinks for a bit, and gives punishment. Bentham thought that this was insanity. This judge, acting out of time immemorial was Charlie. Charlie was 45, balding, had a wife and two kids to feed. Charlie knew a man in government that got him an easy job, and just happened to believe in the stability of society, so easily became a judge. Charlie has his own ideas, desires, biases. Charlie has halitosis and a hangnail on his thumb. He is just Charlie.
We must build our own values of justice, and not allow the Charlie to control justice. We must have statutes. This is nominalism, that things are only reality when you point to them. There are no ducks but this duck, and that duck, &c.
III. Division
Bentham didn’t trust experience because it’s always Charlie, not the law; Plato didn’t trust experience because it was particular, and searched for the deepest abstraction and principles. No matter how we look at the universe around us, by Plato’s idealism or Bentham’s nominalism, we see that there is a divide – a split – between what we observe and reality. To be good, we must not be persuaded by the good act, but by the good idea. To be just, we must not follow the just act, but the just idea.
We then have:
(2) Loyalty vs. Justice
There are four divisions in total, as I see it (I’ll be covering the next two at some later point). They may all be the same divide, or four significant others. So it’s important to look for the limits of reason, to go towards the questionable. I acknowledge that there are important things we do that are not about reason, but when you play reason’s game, it’s a fundamental notion of detachment.
IV. Fiction vs. Nonfiction
What are the differences between fiction and nonfiction? Sometimes you can’t tell when you’re reading fiction or nonfiction. Sometimes fiction gives us a way to a better truth. That is, at east that’s what some people think. I once read a story to a child about Edward Hicks. At the end of the book is a picture of his house and a plaque outside the door. This child could not believe that Edward Hicks once lived. He said, ‘No, really. Whose house is this?’ He thought he had been listening to a fictional tale. So the two of us drove to his house in Pennsylvania. The two of us looked at the plaque, he read the inscription, and turned to me. ‘I’m satisfied,’ he said.
Now, facts are dirt-cheap. Humans are mammals; I live in North America; I’m writing down facts as we speak. Fiction and nonfiction both can have facts, but what’s different in nonfiction is that there is a quality of analysis, a significant divide. With nonfiction, you’re putting yourself in a situation where someone can take a photograph of the plaque and put it in the back of the book. It’s not about truth and falsehood, but something different – establishing something false. Those that survive the search for the photograph are nonfiction. Those that survive a discussion or argument in an arena is nonfiction. With fiction, you can’t have an arena of discussion, other than the facts of the story.
What can you say? That Bambi’s mother survived? There is no possibility to dispute the text, other than in cases of overly broad poetic passages — that it was allegory, implicit meaning, sacred language? — but then, all we are left with are overly broad poetic passages and a story without a picture we can point to. And to bring it back to a base, I’d like to think for a minute about a text many believe to be holy. Do these implications on the distinction between fiction and nonfiction, between poetry and geometry, apply to the Bible? I think so. Far too much is either poetry (even if it is beautiful) or just plain wrong on matters of basic science, such as biology, physical cosmology, geology, and physics. Far too much is fiction.
But it makes for good poetry.
Does this mean God does not exist? Far from it. It is only that the evidence many believers see, that of the Bible, isn’t evidence. It’s a book, a work of fiction that didn’t stand up to scrutiny in the arena of debate. It’s only after we realize that it is a work of poetry can we hope to put that distance there. Poetry isn’t triangles. But this God many believe in then becomes much greater. Instead of shackled by text to cairing about a small nomadic people, this god becomes the unmoved mover of the thinking Greeks. Can this be tested? No, but plenty of religious people don’t mind. Believers are safe in their tower, only after giving up a flawed holy text that limits their god’s abilities and attributes.
But then, there’s always Occam’s Razor and reason chipping away at the foundation of this tower, for without the Bible, poetry, intuition and revelation as ways of gaining reliable knowledge, we have this:
The commitment to naturalism is not merely the expression of a kind of scientific imperialism; for supernatural explanations are as alien to detective work and history or to our everyday explanations of spoiled food or delayed buses as they are to physics or biology. And the reason is not that supernatural explanations are alien to science; not that they appeal to the intentions of an agent; not that they rely on unobservable causes. The fundamental difficulty (familiar from the central mystery of Cartesian dualism, how mental substance could interact with physical substance) is rather that by appealing to the intentions of an agent which, being immaterial, cannot put its intentions into action by any physical means, they fail to explain at all. (Susan Haack, Defending Science - Within Reason)
Posted in definitions and descriptions, epistemology, ethics, philosophical issues | 
March 25th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Are you basically saying that “the triagle of conversation” is a means to determining truth?
Are you saying that a distance is required in order to ascertain perspective is required and that this “distance” can be best provided through the scientific method?
March 25th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
beep,
The second part, yes. You’ve hit the nail right on the head. The first part is similar to what I had in mind. I’ll try to make it clearer: Geometry is abstract, but it can explain the deeper aspects of experience. Geometry means seeing with the mind’s eye certain concepts, not the body’s eye, which only sees the surface. Debate gets under the surface. We can’t use poetry as a way of exacting justice, because it only stays on the surface. Or, for that matter, experience.
March 25th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
Ok, thanks for the further explanation. It was a bit heavy going for me, which was why I was deterred from commenting.
As a parallel, is poetry a language of religion?
I have to say, I often think of it that way. There is a delight that people get from paradox. It is the desire to imagine that 2 discrete concepts can remain valid, though they are in contradition with each other.
Things like “the world is perfect in its imperfection” or “They have ears but hear not.”
They allude to some special “emotional code” that is required to unlock and decifer meaning. Where in reality, each person provides their own code. There is no universal code by which a paradox is interpreted.
March 28th, 2007 at 2:22 am
drunkentune:
Upon reflection, I think you and I would again run into the issue of just how absolute values, morality, laws, etc. could be. We’ve found this difference between us before. Though I share Bentham’s concern at being at the power of Charlie, I do not, on the other hand, have much hope for us coming up with absolutely just statues and enforcing them fully equitably and efficiently as long as humans participate in the system. We do, in this country, have law codes and statutes that rule this and that, but still justice is not always (seldom?) served. You would think as many times as this has been attempted, if it was currently possible, someone would have done it by now, (or would some say it might be the direction we should evolve?).
I see a third option, which I’ve mentioned before beyond standardizing or relativizing. To me justice should be aggressively missional, attempting to move far beyond the concerns of preventing the trespass against individual rights. Such is to me only organizing publics for the benefit of consumerism. I would see a justice (=righteousness) that aggressive shapes reality for the good of all. I think the best hope for justice is not in Bentham’s or Plato’s thought, but in the recent work towards “restorative justice” [wiki].
Also, I think the categories of “fiction” and “non-fiction” are harder to use on ancient texts. The Bible does not fit well into the category of fiction according to the best scholarship even in the most liberal thinking, though they would say some of the elements and interpretations do not meet our current standards of non- fiction. Honestly, I think saying it didn’t stand up to scrutiny, as if it is something past, is a little premature. For example, using a similar situation, I could read to a child the construction of the Temple. They could say, “no way.” We could get on a plane and go to the Wailing Wall and they could say, “o.k., that’s good enough for me.” But to say what the people did or thought, even in the case of Edward Hicks is notoriously hard, yet does not correctly fit into fiction as if it was based on nothing. Even the liberal Jesus Seminar concluded Jesus was a real man, as least on the level of many other historical figures which have left no physical evidence of themselves save accounts of observers [i.e. Socrates]. In this way he is not fiction, but the question can legitmately be asked did interpretation and embelishment get added to the real story? While I think it right that people differ in opinion about this, I think its quite different than debating about Bambi’s mom. (But then again, Felix Salten did put non-fiction biological themes into his book, and Disney attempted to use science to make it realistic, so perhaps fiction and non-fiction are a spectrum and not a dichotomy).
beebeep:
I would say poetry is a potential language for and of religion and spirituality. Of course, it is used much more broadly. Being a writer who uses poetic methods and imagery and knowing many poets, I would think of it as an invitation into interaction which touches on the base images, stories, colors, and rhythms of the human soul (psychology).
I would say for most people, paradox seems to work. Take for example the quote of the Prophets and Jesus you use, “They have ears, but hear not.” Most people get this. It is silly biologically, so people know, for the most part it can’t mean that. Most quickly conclude, though these people can hear, they refuse to listen to what is said — they ignore it. If you are right in saying that an “emotional code” is required, it is conspicuous to me in this case how frequently people seem to be using the same code. I would say then, that such a paradox is an effective means of communication. In fact, it might be much better than saying, “they choose to be ignorant” because the initial paradox burns it into your memory.
March 28th, 2007 at 10:20 am
soulster,
Historical fiction is a genre I’d place much of the Old Testament in; other parts are myths; others are statements of law.
I. Historical non-fiction
For instance, I read a book a while ago on how the archiological evidence contradicted evidence that the early Israelis were a vast nation. In fact, they were likely a small city-state ruled by a local lord. Kings David and Solomon may have existed, but what is written on them is grossly different from what probably occurred; their conquests may have been invented, their death-tolls fabricated.
II. Myths
The six-day creation, Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel, Noah & the Flood, the Tower of Bable, much of Exodus and Numbers: they are all myths; origin stories, mythologies.
III. Laws
Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
I don’t see how the bible is anymore historically accurate than say - “The egyptian Book of the dead.” - or any other religious text for that matter.
April 2nd, 2007 at 8:02 am
Tagged.
April 6th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
beepbeep:
With respect, I think it is wrong to equate the two books in regards to historicity. The Bible spends much time attempting to recount historical events in the material world (versus much of the BOTD [view here] in what might be called dream world or the spirit world). The Book of the Dead does not have much in the way of historical text types and is mainly hymns and poetry. While it might be fair to compare it to the “Wisdom Books” of the Bible, it does not contain much of the historical narrative of the Bible, some of which is verifiable (such as the location and names for real places and appoximate dates for the existence of real people).
April 11th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
soulster:
The book of the dead IS an integral part of their history. It is an account of their religious history and their religious practices.
There is no way to ascertain which account is “more true” than the other. What each of them require is faith that they are true.
April 12th, 2007 at 11:27 am
I don’t think it likely that we’ll agree on this. The entire field of comparitive religious studies would seem to suggest that it is possible to take a critical stance towards religious documents and establish a base historicity for each according to text type. Such studies show that not all are equal and that there is some history to many. I agree faith is involved in the jump from historical to inspired literature, but to say that all religious documents in are the same and that faith must be required to believe any word in them is not fair. I think it’s fair to say a host of scholars close to the issue — and many atheist, agnostic, and secular — have established the quest for historicity as a fruitful enterprise in religious documents. Afterall, there are very few anicent historical documents that are not religious.