Category: Epistemology and Method

LITERATURE AND MEANING VS TRUTH AND DECIDABILITY

Statements are not arguments.

And literary arguments are of necessity false.

Santa Clause will in fact make you happy – as a child.

The Iliad and Odyssey will educate you.

The arthurian legends and the Lord of the Rings inspire you.

But Achilles, Arthur, and Aragorn and all the saints,

Have far less power than truth, testimony, natural law, and physical science.

Only truth is persuasive, everything else is but informative.

Myth for the children who must learn.

Religion for the weak, dim, and hopeless who must labor.

Literature for the able who must organize.

Science for the self directed who must calculate.

Truth, Law, History, Economics for the wise who must decide.

Fairy Tale ethics for child who must learn.

Virtue ethics for the young adult who must follow.

Rational ethics for the adult who must act.

Outcome ethics for the leaders who must calculate.

Science for the wise who must decide.

The bible ‘works’ because its central tents are:

You can ignore the secular, your peers, and others.

You can do what you can with what you have.

You will be reasonably happy if you do so.

Because with love, acceptance of fate, and not stealing from others, you will be of no burden to them, no threat to them, and can survive generation to generation insulated from the storms of man.

But the bible only survives because the warriors decide,

Because the financiers calculate

Because the burghers organize.

And the clerks coordinate and measure.

And the labor acts accordingly.

The west is polytheistic and always has been.

We have a literature for every class.

We have a history for every class.

We have a role for every class.

But the wise decide.