.shakti

According to Gadamer, in a successful ‘I-Thou’ relationship the text is regarded as a subject instead of an object, which is apparently atypical in positivistic scientific approaches. In other words, Gadamer suggests that the text that is being read is in a sense kind of a living thing that we develop a relationship with. There is a possibility that he might be intimating that we must look at the writer’s background, time period in which they were writing as well as their intended audience in order to have an interpretation of the text similar to what the author intended. However, that does not seem likely because that’s a “critical” approach to reading in order to understand concepts that the author tried to put forth whereas Gadamer’s attitude towards text is kind of like that of a work of art – it should be admired for what we could make of it instead of what was intended, hence the whole point of hermeneutics – the study if interpretation.

That insight into Gadamer’s way if thinking is further supported by Hans-Georg himself when he points out that if a relationship with the text is characterized by the author attempting to discover something, it immediately means that the author wants to control, manipulate or predict the text which would equate with the scientific method from which we are apparently desperately wanting to escape. If the author tries to predict what form his text will take – i.e. having an organized idea for expressing a particular musing or conclusion that the author came to – that then will somehow invalidate the uniqueness of the text and we will be right back at treating the text like an object which is quite reprehensible, according to Gadamer. Instead, the only other option left to us by Gadamer, it seems, is to just release our streams of consciousness on paper with a strong faith that something meaningful will come out of it. Better yet, it does not even have to be meaningful for that type of category or classification is just another attempt of the Establishment to control our thoughts and being through value-dependent language. In this regard, we should probably invalidate most of the books of science and discovery and turn our attention to network applications such as LiveJournal and the like where people are free to express their daily experiences without the pressure from the scientific method to conform to some structure.

Furthermore, Gadamer pushes his idea of an ‘I-Thou’ relationship in application with genuinehuman dialogue that involves not just understanding how the other feels but also ‘coming to grips with one another’. I am not certain of what that could possibly mean except for a push towards prejudice-free, unbridled acceptance of one another. While that is all well and good, it does leave out the question of morality (for even the most wicked deeds are justified in the eyes of the doers) as well as leaving no place to hide for poor scientists who constantly get spit upon by the post-modernists tradition; equating them with selfish, mentally unsound tyrants who attempt to control everything with labeling and even make up the world as they go along (i.e. the ludicrous belief that scientists are all guilty of rampant subjectivism – “I think therefore I am, therefore the world is what I think it is”).

However, back in language and dialogue Gadamer proposes us treating all sorts of texts (as well as cultures and humans) as subjects, which will ideally facilitate understanding and a means of transcending to a higher universality that will overcome particularities and prejudices. I don’t know what ‘universality’ means so perhaps it means that we should gather all humans on this planet and show them how beneficial it would be for all of us to speak one single language so that we never have to face the problems of interpretation, mistranslation, and miscommunication. That way we will have world peace and if a culture wants to continue keeping its language and a belief system, well then I’m not sure what we will do with them because post-modernism is quite convoluted and contradictory. It seems that we will just let them be because no culture is better or worse than another one so maybe we should just leave scientists alone too. On top of everything, why is it that the feminists movement has the right to destroy a patriarchal system if all cultures have their benefits and are supposed to be open to each other in this art of treating each other as subjects and not objects? Men are people too, they have feelings too and it looks like the feminist movement has simply deemed them all “bad” and is in active state of overthrowing a governance system that has been in place and has worked for thousands upon thousands of years (i.e. tribes). These are just some of the questions and conundrums that I have regarding this material. Perhaps it is just my Cartesian anxiety of wanting things to make sense so I should just probably relax, not worry about it and let things sort themselves out.

 Logos- Greek for logic, light of reason, rationality and knowledge. Aristotle is generally presumed to be the father of the rational mindset and a logical way of being. Coincidentally, most of the schools of knowledge that make up our life today have originated in Greece: medicine, philosophy, math, science, even the practice of writing down accounts of history and books in general. However, over the years a collection of ”philosophers” has come together and decided that this whole centering of one’s existence on knowledge and reason is pure bollocks and we should all collectively focus on individual life experiences and interpretations. The post-modernist movement took it upon themselves to re-define logos as language and thus focus all of our efforts on understanding individual perceptions of reality.

“We must move away from the Western disease of logo-centrism – the faith in reason and logic. We must put away our Cartesian anxiety of craving stability and certainty from knowledge and instead turn to language, because by studying language we can see the development of consciousness.” - that is the main tenant of post-modernism, a new favorite branch of philosophy. You see, according to post-modernists, the scientific method and reason is limited because knowledge isn’t universal, yet language is because it is much more context specific and tied to real, living people. 

 One central aspect of post-modernism, although terribly flawed, should not be completely dismissed. The idea is that everyone is inherently biased based on the environment in which they grew up and asserted themselves in. Although it is true that most neurotypical individuals do exist in a state of ignorant bliss about the true nature of the world and simply trust in internal emotion and social proof for their decision-making; however, in reality those individuals who look to reason and a scientific way of thinking divorce themselves from their emotions when it comes to the nature of reality because so often facts of what actually happened do not correlate with emotions and, of course, it is the facts that we must look to in order to determine reality. Post-modernism, at best, attempts to warn us that there are many different ways of interpreting reality and that one viewpoint is not necessarily superior to another one.  

When post-modernist trademark of name-dropping begins, Foucault and Heidegger are often cited as the main forces behind the critique of our reason-based thinking. Heidegger had contempt for a life “stuck” in the mind and that “scientific knowledge cannot be our final goal”; Foucault claimed that knowledge always means authority. In other words, whenever a person asserts anything about anything else, that person is exercising their authority and is, in essence, callously denying validity to those who happen to fall under a given classification. Thus psychiatry, education, and all of sciences are breeding authoritarian bastards who crave to exert their dominant control over the world by the virtue of calling a cup a cup. By shying away from assertions and relying on interpretation of truth, post-modernists are at a risk of never recognizing something as evil (see: destructive) which will ultimately lead to utter destruction and chaos. Some post-modernists claim that all this faith in science and technology has given us more cunning ways to continue in our barbaric nature of killing and nothing more. To cite an exemplary work of fiction that rests on invaluable life lessons – “a knife is not good or evil, it simply exists for a purpose. It is the intent of the knife wielder that makes it either the instrument for good or for evil.” So if we were to follow the post-modernist tradition of validating interpretations of reality instead of reality itself, the knife will soon become the evil thing because any justification of an evil intent will be accepted at an equal level with honorable actions.

 ”The problem of meaning” as they call it, exists in everyone and that only focus on language can open up our minds to questioning instead of asserting. It is often said that “faculty of reason is not universal” so a push for a more experience-oriented way of thinking about the world must be employed and a focus on language would presumably fix everything. Knowledge is not universal, yet language is? … That is just one of the many contradictions of post-modernism.

Most post-modernist philosophers claim that truth is whatever works and whatever is centered on experience. For example, to us a cup of water might be boiling at such a latitude at such a temperature but to another culture it is actually the god of water that is sending forth his fury from a sacred ceramic cup-shaped vessel. To post-modernists, both accounts are equally as valid because they are equally valid in those people’s minds. However, if you think something is true without direct evidence or supporting structures of its connection to the rest of the world, is it NOT true simply by the virtue of you thinking it is. Truth is something that exists without human intent or involvement. If the whole planet went extinct of sentient life-forms, molecules and chemicals would still interact with each other and be capable of being put together in specific ways to create something solid. Truth is defined by the conclusions of all connections and interactions in nature. Truth exists outside of our “right and wrong”, outside of human experience and it is disastrous to call interpretations of truth – reality.

Adding human experience to the mix makes it more difficult because human thoughts are truly sanctioned by experience; thus their perceptions of the world automatically go through a filter that many of them are not even aware of. Experience, on an individual basis, is central to that individuals’ understanding of the world however no single person has experienced absolutely everything that there is to experience. There is always an unlimited number of ways to interpret a given situation and we would be utterly lost if we continued to examine each one and question all. It is also true to human belief about “what happened” is flawed as well because our senses aren’t precise in sensing the world - our perception often changes actual input of information and, finally, our subconscious mind has a great deal of influencing in twisting our perceptions. That is why we need science. Science continually strives to improve our flawed perceptions and align them more with concrete reality, it strives to eliminate human context that is not necessary in order for truth to exist.

The question of morals should be approached very carefully and context should be taken into consideration; however, morals do not dictate truth. Instead, morals should be governed by truth which is based on an understanding of how the world works. Sure, murder is wrong but not unless someone who was proven to be highly dangerous has threatened to kill you and your family so you defended your existence. Death is a part of life and only when we understand all of the connecting aspects to form one whole congruent picture of the world can we dictate morals; in fact, intelligence is defined by being able to connect events and thus accurately predict how things will work. At a certain point, the constant uncertainty of post-modernism and their reliance on experience and emotion will fall short for they will not predict or create anything of value or that which will improve life.