The Pragmatic Imperative of Justice

THE PRAGMATIC IMPERATIVE OF JUSTICE

Nature's Gift of Language

Human history can be regarded as a dramatic struggle to learn this tricky gift. The common quest to find truth and justice through conversation is complicated by "semantic" misunderstandings (about whatever folks think they are trying to say). These are common sources of injustice.

Notable disagreements arise about the definition of words. It is tempting to overlook the function of words as separately symbolic re-creations of the reality represented; and to equate them with that reality, thereby "setting in stone" their meaning. But language is naturally more flexible than that when used realistically as a practical tool to aid understanding and communication.

The linguist Wittgenstein observed decades ago (in PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS) that words take meaning from the context in which they are employed: in ordinary conversation. Dictionary definitions provide only "starters" to be developed in actual usage.

In any event, unnecessary arguments about proper definition are typical examples of semantic distraction.

Facts

The quest for truth and justice through language involves the labeling of attainable certitudes (for existential orientation and security). The "certainties" that are least debatable can be workably assumed as "facts." The sheer existence of the United States is an example. The old Roman Empire is a non-controversial fact of history. These truths change, of course, but there is no need to argue about the ones that are well documented.

Semantic kinks arise in the labeling as facts of more debatable truths. These pitfalls generate misunderstanding and then injustice typically attributable to infantile abuses of language.

Honesty and the Narrow Mind

Human infancy grows from a self-centered posture -- toward honest appreciation of others' viewpoint. (See generally Adam Smith, THE THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENT ((late 18th century).) We slowly emerge from "bubbles" of fantasy -- about one's own life story -- into a maturing ability to see these bubbles from "outside," as it were. Native mental equipment allows watching oneself on a broader stage; where the real fun of life can be appreciated.

This is evidently why Mexican Indians advised anthropologist Carlos Castaneda to forget "personal history" -- at least long enough to observe realistically whatever is going on around one. (See especially Castaneda, JOURNEY TO IXTLAN ((early 70's).) We cannot understand total situations while obsessed by our own part in them (from inside a bubble, as it were).

Psychological Mechanisms

This infantile narrowing (indeed into the retreat of Plato's cave) is compounded by the opportunities language provides for self-justification and tribal validation. Consider, for examples, the self-serving mechanisms of rationalization, "sour grapes," projection and "compensation."

Private whisperings to oneself drive these commonly existential defenses. It is tempting to be downright dishonest though--especially with oneself--about them. (Notably to egotistically "improve" upon one's own story.) This rhetorical chicanery confuses reality. Everyone gets tricked in the verbal fray (lost in muddied waters). And with misunderstanding comes injustice.

Natural Education

The existential idea of human infancy is to defeat troubling intrusions by others into one's bubble of fantasies. This dynamic of "warrior" competition drives the human drama. Injustice is inevitable as young "lions" sharpen their very teeth and verbal claws upon one another.

Avoiding the agonies thereof becomes a pervading incentive, though, for learning more objective usages -- in broader context than one's own perspective: toward the distant dream of humanity cooperating as a whole species. Still competing, of course. But mainly contracting --mutually -- for the greater enjoyment of one and all.

Ironing out kinks in language is pragmatically fundamental to the overall effort, therefore -- toward a civilized quest for objective truth and justice. Some "analytic" suggestions follow tracking back to their source in language usage some common misunderstandings leading to silly fights about differing opinions -- and then, unnecessarily, to injustice.

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Opinions

Given the tricky structure of language, it appears that any proposition formulated in words as allegation or belief can be no more than an "opinion;" to recall Plato's "riddle of the line" (introduced at the close of Book 6 and developed throughout the "cave" allegory in Book 7 of THE REPUBLIC). Any such opinion implies the very opposite of what is explicitly stated as, consequently, a half-truth at best.

Natural Logic

Under advanced (Hegelian) logic, the half-truth is a "thesis" rounded out by acknowledging its opposite ("antithesis") to produce a "synthesis." However, language can only approximate "whole-truth;" for any verbalized synthesis becomes in turn a thesis inviting antithesis -- and so forth, into new rounds of propositions combining infinitely up the abstraction ladder.

This is how Plato's "lower" mental faculties operate as facilitated by language. Only the "higher" faculties (non-verbal common sense or "animal savvy," in short) can immediately apprehend whole truths. (An abiding reference here is to the pervading "rationality" postulated long ago as the natural cornerstone of civilization.)

The "Power" of Archetypal Mythology

Joseph Campbell suggested to Bill Moyers (in "The Power of Myth" ((1988)) that the "forbidden fruit" of Genesis enabled humans to start labeling opposites artificially as "separate things" (like good or evil, mind and matter, etc.). Before the gift of language, in other words, humans were like any animal using, in the raw, what were to become Plato's "higher" faculties. They could apprehend only as "wholes" the presentations of nature; which were potentially divisible into the complementary pairings to be identified later by language.

More simply, opposites are not really "separate" things. They signify "relations" among things. This breakdown of wholes is facilitated by language -- as suggested long ago by Plato. (And by the oriental logic of yin and yang.)

Technical clarification is now needed for the current analysis to maintain a critical distinction between verbal and non-verbal mental functions; which are intermingled in everyday consciousness. In the author's experience, nonetheless, it is difficult though possible to suspend the verbal function and think with animal savvy--"pure reason"--at abstract levels dominated by archetypal/ symbolic visualizations (indeed a "movie" running constantly in the subconscious mind).

When the experience is reported in words though, the game of language kicks in again: with limitations demonstrated as follows on stating with finality the whole-truths ("universals") that were seen thereby at higher levels of consciousness. Thus when these are witnessed beyond language there is no way to question them as "false." Like dream images they just are. Yet in a way the experience is no more exotic than looking at the same old world but without any way to judge it.

In a diminished way we see these universal truths all the time subconsciously, as revealed in dreams while asleep (although we pay decreasing attention upon "waking"). In any event language can only approximate them—as the author is here struggling to do-- in the form of half-true opinions: as "theses" inviting the infinite progression described above.

The author has been practicing all of this for some thirty years since reading works of anthropologist Carlos Castaneda (especially JOURNEY TO IXTLAND). They report the Mexican Indian technique of suspending one's "inner conversation"--thereby dreaming-while-awake—as a threshold to enlightenment. Similarly the Book of Psalms advises that the way to really pray is "be still:" shut up and pay attention

Natural Law and Free Speech

Now recall the "marketplace of ideas" central to Jeffersonian democracy. Differing opinions expressed by citizens combine into greater approximations of truth than anyone alone can formulate. The interplay of liberal and conservative opinions imparts the common sense (zeitgeist) of a people. Their opinions must differ to produce this "common denominator" effect.

Natural reality is rigged, thus, to demand respect for the opinions of others. The more cautiously conservative ones provide an "anchor" for those of a more enthusiastically liberal bent.

This natural marketplace dynamic is upset, however, when people take too seriously their own opinions; and start believing them to be exclusively whole-truths. This produces a lunatic fringe at either end of the liberal-conservative spectrum.

Elemental School

Humans start learning in the likes of kindergarten that we cannot always have our own way. Those on either lunatic fringe have not matured sufficiently as individuals to learn this lesson; considering nonetheless that we all have much yet to learn about language in this school of life.

Obviously humans shift the mind into a new gear when embarking upon the game of language; which carries structural demands differing from raw animal sensibility. The pleasures of adulthood can by reaped only by playing the game fairly.

For the good life of each is achieved by exchanging opinions -- honestly -- with others to produce pragmatically better ideas than anyone alone can. It takes mature individuals to maximize this collective benefit. Down deep, there is no natural conflict between the individual and society. The parallel maturation of both is driven by a natural dynamic of competition and cooperation toward bigger truths (progressing up the abstraction ladder to the elusive "universals" sought by philosophers starting in the middle ages; recently identified as "archetypes" by Carl Jung).

Civilization is a struggle upward, accordingly, out of animal infancy. Maturation demands a more balanced parity between our primordially higher (non-verbal) faculties and the lower (verbal) faculties that sharpen the higher ones. It requires both left- and right-brained (visual) thinking. The resulting holistic thought must take with a grain-of-salt those lessons of nature which language tempts us to regard as "factual" truths -- as though they were "be all and end all" subjects of inflexible belief.

Abstraction

For the bigger truths -- up "Jacobs ladder" toward the universals -- come from thinking about the lessons of nature in symbolic terms (the unraveling of riddles, as in dream interpretation). That is, they are susceptible of interpretation in more ways than any one "factual truth." There is always the potential of reaching better opinions than the ones in which we are currently inclined to believe.

If beliefs are held with that venerable grain-of-salt -- functioning essentially like scientific hypotheses about the infinite ambiguity of nature -- the human mind remains open to improving upon one's own opinions by listening to others about their experience; "exchanging notes." This is the essence of Platonic education -- which is the model of civilization that has been unfolding for ages under our very noses.

In summary, intellectual maturity entails tough-minded skepticism toward verbalized "factual" truths. For they are opinions more or less subject to the ambiguous flux of nature and the notorious unreliability of even eyewitness evidence. The closest we can really get to "certainty" comes from using the higher (non-verbal) faculties in order to read natural riddles symbolically (like Campbell did in his interpretation of Genesis; to get "outside" of language long enough to asses its effects on the mind).

Again, facts are subject to change. The more enduring (universal) truths are products of refined "animal" rationality. Language provides (analytic) tools for organizing these lessons pragmatically.

We can thereby understand -- better than animals -- the inscrutable drift of things. We can do this still better by "apologizing" -- like Socrates -- that we cannot know for sure what the hell is going on; regardless of however much we "think" we know.

This reduction to uncertainty continues an acknowledgment in the main website that humanity is far from figuring out everything around us. The author's perceptions of "universals" carry an intuition of common rationality behind them, but are still clouded by unique coloring from personal experience: apparently re-composited like ordinary dream imagery. No way appears for humans to attain absolute certainty; although closing subsections of the site's main "Abstraction" essay express hope that science will find out more about the matter someday: under a New Paradigm relieved of current "verbal" suppositions.

Rugged Humanhood

Individual maturity obviously entails embracing the great adventure of uncertainty. Like seasoned warriors -- swashbucklers -- preferring a civilized setting of peace and justice within which to plot one's own survival and enjoyment of the adventurous life.

When the mythologically-rumored state of mind called enlightenment is reached, it seems, thinking about reality merges into the actual experience of it. The dramatic panorama of nature becomes transparently obvious. The proliferation of differing opinions about whatever is (still always mysteriously) going on becomes part of the fun: a "divine" comedy. A colloquial refinement of our basic teaching increasingly makes common sense: live and let-live, naturally. Justice prevails.

McCord
Stone County
August 25, 2003