Re: bad poetry?

You're still not really listening, Luke :). No one was arguing against
the concept of "aboslute truth," so I don't understand your felt need to
defend it. Neither was anyone arguing for an absolute principle of
non-discrimination, but you still keep harping on that.

There's also a vast difference between an "absolute truth" and a
"generality." (It just occured to me that you felt the need to defend
absolute truth because you identify them with generalities.)
Generalities apply to classes of subjects, covering wide cognitive
territories. Absolute truths make discreet statements about specific
things (the word "things" is used broadly) that, as you correctly
observe, stand in agreement or disagreement with other discreet
statements.

For example, if Christian monotheism is true, then the universe exists
within God and God transcends it, God being ultimately distinct from the
universe though having an immanent relationship with it. If the theology
of the Upanishads is true, then there's no ontological distinction
between the universe and God.

Neither of these are generalities, both present themselves as absolute
truths, and neither are compatible.

Some people value truth in itself, and not as a means to another end
(happiness). To be perfectly honest, both the Christian and the
tradition represented by the Upanishads tend to take a dim view of
happiness. Not that it's a bad thing, but that it's not worth living
your life for. It may come, it may not; all that depends upon the world
around you and its willingness to tolerate/supplement your real goals,
which is either attainment of the image of Christ or detachment from the
world around you.

It is possible to make distinctions between the "good" and the
"superlative" not based on an absolute truth, but on a value judgment
relative to contingent ends. In other words, a "superlative" racing
horse may only be a "good" war horse and may be an even worse cart
horse. A superlative cart horse may be a terrible war horse. Horses of
all uses may be "good" or "superlative" in their dispositions, and even
those probably vary from person to person.

To be quite honest, I can't imagine speaking of a "good" or
"superlative" horse in terms of any absolute truth, but I don't recall
the story you mentioned either, so.... But this is the nonsense you get
when you speak in "generalities." You lose track of your real subject
and tend toward ridiculous statements about them, statements you'd
reject in a minute if you ever thought about them in any specific terms.

But you'd miss all this, of course, if you insisted on talking in vapid
"generalities." Generalities (as a method of discourse) tend to reveal
the ignorance of the speaker and his/her stubborn demand to make
pronouncements on issues about which he or she has no knowledge. Those
with knowledge of a subject speak in more detail and tend to shy away
from generalities about their subject, as they can almost always be
qualified to the point of meaningless.

Blake, of course, put this more succinctly.

Jim

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Received on Sat Jul 5 12:41:03 2003