Mind's Eye Something Allan Said

Some time back Allan said (more or less) 'everything is a point of
view' - very Nietzsche - but also science. A bloke called Myrdal was
arguing such in the 50's.

I'm jaded by academic argument. After a while the major feeling it
leaves me with is how self-serving it is and how excluding it is. You
can end up in the sanctimonious position of 'wishing everyone else
would get up to speed on learning'. Nearly all academic argument is
sterile and corrupt. The promises remind me of 'religion for dupes',
promising pre-supposition-less states and varieties of 'objectivity'
that cannot be achieved much like salvation. Much of the
argumentation ends up with suck-egg assertions we should look at the
human world as about "power". The only pre-supposition-less humans
I've met weren't breathing. None of the ones alive were objective
(this includes all scientists and my view of myself as one) - but some
met lower criteria like being fair, decent, tactfully honest and
prepared to give the other an even break, hospitable, generous ...

Allan is right - but perspectivalism leaves us with choices between
perspectives. In science we have given up on phlogiston theory and
astronomy (despite internal consistency) and have a big record that
can be read and followed in practice much as we might do cooking,
gardening and so on following books and mother's-knee experience as we
go along (this is the tropical fish version of scientific practice).

What we are taught at school is largely about supplication - to be
able to convince employers we are employable, reliable, malleable to
their interests - much academic argument is supplication - the writing
has much in common with dress codes. Various closed circles reference
holy scrolls, occasionally arguing the toss on what the prophet
actually meant.

I'm for de-schooling and the removal of debt-burdening education - we
need to get back to work and learning by living with each other. I
think most of the best academics would prefer that to the current
parasitic cloisters. Given current technology we could ask people
what they want to do. I see no sign of that.

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