--- Kenneth MacKendrick <kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca> wrote: > At 07:33 AM
8/1/01 +0100, you wrote:
>
> You see, doesn't this joke provide us with an example of systematically
> distorted communication? You've left it open: the moral of the story is
> holding the place of the ideal (holding place of, not is the ideal).
>
That's my point; I'm trying to suggest that Justin's pyramid example doesn't really prove anything about communication.
Justin wrote:
> I am clueless, This seems to beg all the questions that I said it it. I am,
> say, a slavemaster. I say, Slave, build me a pyramid. You, the slave, say,,
> You know, Habermas teaches that you can't say that and expect to be
> understood without implicitly presupposing that we are free and equal
> particpants in a noncercive speech situation, so even talking to me shows
> that you are committed to the view that you have no right to give that
> command.
>
> Well, apart from the fact that we have nothing but assertion tos hwo that
> there is any such presupposition, the master says, that's nice, even if so,
> I am not motivated to treat you equally in a noncercive situation, and so
> the ideal to which you refer is idle because you have shown nothing through
> which it could be realized. It is utopian in the bad sense. Therefore
> (threatens with whip), get cracking on that pyramid!
So in this example, Justin is playing the part of a pharoah who wants a pyramid. Not understanding anything about Egyptian burial rites, however, I do the best I can; I go off and build him a pyramid-shaped folly. The difference is important. A pyramid is a monument and a glorious resting place for a dead important person. A folly is slightly ludicrous and a waste of money. Any of the pharoahs would have been happy at the thought that they would be laid to rest in a pyramid, but angry at the thought that they would be laid to rest in a folly. Justin would almost certainly have me thrown to the lions if he ever found out that I had built a folly instead of a pyramid.
I think that I could come up with similar stories about refined versions of the same case if I had to, given time. I think that what this shows is that the fact that Justin can force me to pile rocks onto one another means just that; that he can make me pile rocks. It doesn't necessarily mean that he does so by means of communicating his meaning to me; it doesn't have any implications for communication at all.
dd
===== ... in countries which do not enjoy Mediterranean sunshine idleness is more difficult, and a great public propaganda will be required to inaugurate it. -- Bertrand Russell
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