Comments: Said
The West has a difficult job. It must maintain it's faith in doubt yet act as if all was certain.
Doubt is one of the reasons the acadamy is rarely involved in the real world. They better than any one know how doubtful our state of wisdom is. What no one in the West has come to adequate terms with yet is that the relativists are absolutely correct. Yet one still has to go to school, work, etc. every day.
It is why we like entrepeneurs so much in this culture. In the face of uncertainty they can still act.
http://www.sierratimes.com/03/09/24/simon.htm
We do not yet have an adequate philosophy of course correction. We are hung up on right and wrong rather than being proud of muddling through.
Posted by M. Simon at September 25, 2003 08:09 PM
Right and wrong are to a certain extent arbitrary and dependent on the technology and the culture of the age.
Where the relativists go wrong is in thinking that because standards change that no standards are necessary.
The truly moral person in the modern age must act according to his beliefs. With a nod to the fact that some of those beliefs may not be eternal.
We must judge by what we know. Decisions must be made. Yet we must also be pepared for error. The life of doubt is much harder than the life of faith.
The core of the Western problem is that the relativists are correct. The Occam's razor for this question is simply the engineer's question. "What works?" Of course this pre supposes you have answered the deeper question: "Where do you want to go?"
Posted by M. Simon at September 25, 2003 09:09 PM
Here is are links to the Said birth place controversy.
http://incontext.blogmosis.com/archives/014150.html
Posted by M. Simon at September 26, 2003 12:44 AM
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