Once again - I read only the Introduction of a book -

So, the other day i picked up a copy of Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
Besides being once again astounded at the punctilious nature of german thinking, I was struck by a way of thinking he offered:
Weber begins by defining his terms, the first of which is 'capitalism'. To my great satisfaction - for I have been wondering this for a while - he makes very clear that wanting to accumulate as much wealth as possible, and to turn a profit from business exchanges, is NOT unique to the ideology of capitalism, but is in fact a sentiment found across almost all peoples and times. To have such a stalwart name as Weber lay this out clearly was a salve to the irritation i have felt when surface-liberals tirade against the nebulous, evil beast whose name is the C-word. Weber goes on to say though - and this is what I mean to highlight in this post - that although the desire for wealth is not unique to capitalism, the degree to which we see this ideology infiltrating every facet of both public and private life today in the West, renders the phenomenon different than the hitherto seen desire. I.e. we call it differently: capitalism. And what struck me is the form of this thinking: that as a thing changes by degrees, eventually it can change so much it changes into a different thing.
For instance, a moped is just a small motorbike, but is small enough that we give it a different name. It is different from a motorbike, even though it shares all the same characteristics. A tangentially related example that set this whole idea rolling in my head: A friend of mine was relaying to me the events of a party the night before, and said how he had been hung over that morning, but had just "turned the corner" and was now better. This struck me: how often I think of progression happening in a single direction, but the truth is: sometimes things 'turn the corner'. It is just one step past where one was one step ago, and yet - it is an entirely new direction. To awkwardly force it into the language i just a moment ago established: after 'turning a corner', one has only progressed one degree further than one has before, and yet one is upon an entirely new "thing".

This seems less profound in writing than it does in my head, but i have a sense that this concept will be useful to me as i analyze things in the future.

This may or may not be interesting

It may interest the regulars around here (hi, Ben!) to see Marilynne Robinson tackle metaphysics in the latest Commonweal.

Though it deals with some standard subject matter on this blog, the article veers between being actually interesting and [yawn]. Honestly, I stopped halfway through, concluding only that Robinson is Annie Dillard in stained glass. Still, I feel I ought to give it another run, and I thought it fair to bring it to your attention as well.

I should also mention that as intriguing and elegant as the "fine-tuned universe" theory is, I still have the damndest time getting around Douglas Adams' brilliant little puddle analogy (fourth quote down, I couldn't source it any more precisely).

Objective Truth

So, for the last few years I have taken an arm-chair interest in phenomenology. The self-proclaimed motto of this school of thought is "To the things themselves", an idea i like very much. As best I can make of it - phenomenology is trying to do away with the deep-seated western idea that there is the 'world out there' and then the ideas in my head about this world; Rather - My consciousness is inter-dependent on the world. Following this is the idea that when we claim something to be true, it actually IS true of the thing - it is not just an approximation, or a subjective interpretation: The world we speak of IS the world we live in. This is an idea i really like, and in my most critical reflections, seems to be the most truthful analysis.

Then, I realized the other day that in my simplistic interpretation - this philosophy maintains the idea of objective truth, that is - truths about objects ARE True, capital T. Now, the idea of "objective truth" has been systematically shat upon from the day I entered college, causing me to hate all notions of it, and throw away all my apologetics books proving the existence of God.

And then i thought - 'hold the phone, why has objective truth gotten such a bad rap?' and some pieces came together:

It seems to me that what happened among educated evangelicals is this - we had some notions of truth - about the world, God, etc. usually some form of platonism, and then when we realized, that, wait - we CAN'T prove objectively that God exists - we threw the whole notion of 'objectivity' out the window. But wait a second- God is not an object! I don't mean in the theological sense, i mean, literally - 'god' has none of the properties of an object. so OF COURSE we can't have objective truth about him/it/whatever idea we are defending.

But then, why did so many give up the whole game and assume the super-dumb-sounding worldview of "we can't really know the truth about ANYTHING" or in it's more refined versions, "Post-modernism has shown us that we need to be more humble in our epistemology".

Lame!

My rebuttal is in these words from Heidegger (from his essay The Origin of the Work of Art):

"Occasionally we still have the feeling that violence has long been done to the thingly element of things and that thought has played a part in this violence, for which reason people disavow thought instead of taking pains to make it more thoughtful."

hells yeh.

Side note:

This ball was getting rolling in my head - bolstering my affection for phenomenology, and then i stumbled across 'Objectivism' a school of ideas spread by Ayn Rand and her followers... Ewwwwww. It seems to be making many of the claims I want to make about the nature of the world (although oddly - doesn't dialogue with, or use any of the language of phenomenology) but 1) self-proclaimed 'objectivists' seems to be maniacal creepsters, and 2) the leaps from the nature of existence to how political structures should function seem rather arbitrary. I shall explore this more and maybe will have a follow-up post -Perhaps a manifesto of my own on the nature of existence? ...borrrrrring :)

Once again, Grammar revals all -

just a quick thought -

the phrase " to take care of someone"

Troubling!

the verb "to take" with regards to what is supposedly a compassionate sentiment?

what is being taken? shouldn't care be given?!

yes - it should. And that's why we say "to give care" when that is what is happening.

But i hear the former phrase far more often, and i think seeing the ugliness of the verb in this context gives name to what to me does feel troubling when someone says it. The idea is central to WorkOut ideology - that it does no-one any good to "take care" of them. Let individuals express need, let others try and meet it, but don't reach beyond the bounds of the other person's self-hood and think that you can manage them better than they can manage themselves. It may look like "care" but it's actually 'taking' something. What, you ask? I don't know - a sense of being in control in the world, assimilating the greatness of another person into just an object in your world, the feeling of being virtuous. something like that.

that's all. So watch out if someone says it. it's not just a matter of words. deep down we know what words mean, and we use them accordingly. Sometimes, like in this instance, our grammar reveals our concealed intentions.

If being caring is the goal, I want to be sure that it is in the poise of "giving" - a state that the giver is in, and a virtue.

that's all.