Sunday, July 7, 2013

Truth is what sells

The unquestioned acceptance of the market value of commodities as the true value, the value by which ethical decisions must be made, is today’s most conspicuous form of self-imposed immaturity. I may adopt a ruler as ersatz parent. I may adopt a majority. Or I may adopt the market. No matter. All these forms of childish obedience are obstacles in the way of developing independent judgment in matters of conscience.

A leader intent upon advancing her career, rather than advancing the good, is unlikely to lead followers to noble actions. When I attach myself to a successful leader, I often forget to ask myself, does her success arise from virtue? Or does it arise from a ruthless determination to succeed?

Of course when my rulers ask me to do something blatantly immoral, I say no. But when they ask me to do something other than searching for the best way to express my love of my neighbor and my love of truth, I bow down and say yes. Why? Of course conscience demands that I avoid ignoble acts. But doesn't it also demand that I devote myself wholeheartedly to noble ones? To spend a day obeying my rulers, rather than obeying my conscience, is already ignoble.

When I wake up tomorrow, should I adopt the same role in the division of labor that I adopted today? Friends, family, colleagues, supervisors, all expect that I will honor my commitments and report to work. Are my commitments justified? Do they represent commitments to good or commitments to evil? I must ask the question each day. The answer may not be the same as yesterday.

We are uncomfortable in the presence of words like truth and virtue, and would like to declare them obsolete, or, better yet, list them on our index verborum prohibitorum. We have made ourselves servants of the marketplace and are uncomfortable with dimensions of value that make no reference to the marketplace. These other dimensions are illusory, we assure ourselves, relics of the childhood of humanity, to be abandoned along with foolish beliefs in Santa Claus and God.

But in fact we haven't abandoned the concept of truth. We have only redefined it. Truth is what sells. We haven't abandoned the concept of virtue. Virtue is whatever the market demands. Words like truth and virtue make us uncomfortable because they force us to admit these are the definitions we live by.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Bind thy heart to the love of truth

Much as I value sound logic in its proper place, I’m sure it is not the sole instrument needed to combat falsehood. Logic may detect error, but it cannot give so much as a glimpse of the glory of truth. It may refute fallacies, but it cannot bind the heart to the love of truth.

American philosophy departments don’t seek to impart or cultivate a passion for truth. In fact, the few students who have this passion will find it frustrated at every step. A passion for truth does not respect the artificial boundaries the academy erects between disciplines. It sees them only as obstacles in its way.

The philo sophos, the genuine lover of truth, finds poetry that expresses the passion to learn and bear witness to the truth at least as relevant as the rules of logic. Yet poetry is about as welcome in America’s philosophy departments as in its engineering departments. The faculty who teach in our philosophy departments are hardly less philistine than engineers.

Two sorts of students are often confused but are really quite opposite. The first has such a profound store of intellectual integrity that she must see for herself the arguments and evidence to support every claim. For her, books are guides to help her teach herself. She does not learn from books. She learns with the help of books. The second has such a paltry store of intellectual integrity that she wants to hold on to beliefs that are comforting and convenient to her. She is not prepared to call them into doubt. She mistrusts books not because she fears they may contain what is false, but because she fears they may frustrate her attempt to conceal her lack of intellectual integrity from herself.

George Ripley, a contemporary of Emerson and Thoreau, declares his opposition to book learning in an 1839 letter. He writes in reply to a correspondent’s claim that “extensive learning is usually requisite for those who would influence their fellow man on religious subjects”:
Jesus certainly did not take this into consideration in the selection of the twelve from the mass of the disciples; he committed the promulgation of his religion to 'unlearned and ignorant' men; the sublimest truths were entrusted to the most common minds. ... Christ saw that the parade of wisdom, which books impart, was nothing before 'the light that enlighteneth every human mind.'
This passage is typical in that it never seeks to resolve the ambiguity in question. What books impart is nothing compared to the light that enlightens every human mind. I agree. But why shouldn’t this light shine on books as well as other things? In other words, even if we accept that the individual human mind is always to be the arbiter of truth, does it follow that the individual mind may never examine the works of other human minds? If we accept that the individual mind must examine the works of nature or God directly, does it follow that it may never allow other minds to point it toward what they have seen?

Schopenhauer, a German contemporary of Ripley, expresses the objection to pedantry eloquently:
Truth that has been merely learned is like an artificial limb, a false tooth, a waxen nose; at best, like a nose made out of another’s flesh; it adheres to us only because it is put on. But truth acquired by thinking of our own is like a natural limb; it alone really belongs to us. This is the fundamental difference between the thinker and the mere man of learning.
Just as in Schopenhauer and Ripley’s time, today’s academics are very often pedants. They do not try to kindle the light of understanding within the soul. They merely attach the waxen nose to each student and send her on her way.

What we need is neither more nor less book learning. We need a better kind of book learning. We need to use books to inspire our own thinking, not to replace it.

First paragraph is based loosely on Ripley's Letters on the Latest form of Infidelity (1839)