> People create truths to achieve their goals, just as we make
> scalpels and other instruments so surgeons can operate
> successfully on their patients.
People make scalpels, yes, but they have to be made in certain very specific ways if they are going to be useful for successful operations. Similarly, if you want to say that "people create truths," you have to admit that they have to be created in certain ways if the goals for which they are "created" are going to be achieved. In other words, you can't just say *anything* and call it "true."
> Sure it can. It all depends on what uses we chose to put it to. If
> the
> scholarly way is to present information in journals and then
> have it critiqued and then critique the critique, it all seems like
> academic busywork to me. What is the point? To give scholars
> something to do?
The point, presumably, is to "create" truths that are actually true. It was discovered long ago that this is not the easiest thing to do. It requires the development of certain skills -- hence the existence of schools, graduate schools, scholarly journals, and, yes, critiques of critiques of critiques. Sorry, but it's hard intellectual work -- no way around it.
> How does any of this activity bring about social
> justice?
A lot of scholarly work doesn't do much to bring about social justice. That doesn't mean it isn't worth doing. A lot of art doesn't bring about justice, but it's also worth creating -- unless one is operating with a total "socialist realism" sort of aesthetic.
> If academics want to argue back in forth in their world -- kewl too.
> But the methods used to establish truth in the academic world --
> statistical models, theories and scholarly give-and-take -- are not
> the methods used in the everyday world. In this world truth is
> determined by utility. What is true is what helps us achieve our
> goals.
That's the language of political activism. In the activist's world, nothing is worth a damn unless it can change the world in the direction the activist wants it changed, and anything is justified if it can make such a change. Certainly very different from the academic world, but I, for one, am grateful that both worlds, as well as the artist's world, exist.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________ In my religion there would be no exclusive doctrine; all would be love, poetry and doubt. -- Cyril Connoll (The Unquiet Grave)