MDMD(2): Deflation and Friendship flip-flop

[Sojourner]

At 04:10 PM 7/2/97 -0400, jporter wrote:
>Andrew notes:
>
>> Anyone who thinks Pynchon takes the White
>>Visitation psy or psi wierdos seriously has got to be kidding.
>>
>
>Of course he takes them very seriously, which is what you meant, but that
>he doesn't necessarily believe in what they believe in. Is there a danger
>in their "potty theories" from his point of view? Probably, and not only
>because such explanations can be used to "connect the dots" and rationalize
>genocide, but also, because in more benign groups, they provide easy
>answers to hard questions, which then go left unanswered, except in a banal
>way.
>

<clipped section reiterating Nazi science being very outrageous>

>Okay, but that is easy to say. Science, worth the name, is neutral, and
>there seems to be no special reason why the objective understanding of the
>world, and the subsequent power inherent therein, should be granted only to
>those who have paid "careful attention to the political and morale
>rationale" behind their theorizing, except in the objectivity of
>measurement itself. That, in fact, is the dilemma. 

Before you continue to proselytize, I challenge you to prove to me that
science is neutral in any sense of the word.  It is not neutral, objective,
or anything of the sort, and never has been.  I think Pirsig proved that
beyond a shadow of a doubt.

>The truth does not make
>us free. It doesn't care whether we are free or not. 

I imagine we could have this discussion for centuries.  Free?  Free from
what?  And "it", the truth, has feelings?  It cares?  Then what is "it"?
Besides a crappy song and super-generalized cocktail party discussions of
metaphysics?

>It has no point of
>view. It is we who are left to connect the dots, as best we can. And as far
>as we know, there is no other agency in or around capable of doing the job,
>or of even deciding whether it should be done- i.e., refusing to theororize
>is as much a theoretical stance, as spinning a world in its entirety,
>especially in a world where there are numerous groups waiting for the
>opportunity to subject as many as possible to their particular version of
>the truth.
>
>Short of irresponsibility, what choice is there?
>
>jody
>

hahahahahha i will continue laughing the rest of this day.

The choice we have is that we can choose anything, and we always do.