Ethical foundations of the left

[Daniel Davies]

 --- 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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