reason & al.

[Jukka Laari]

Ralph, 

thanks for the answers. 

> >What is this fundamental simplicity?
> 
> I don't know what to say to a person asking such a question,
> except to shake my head.  Fundamental simplicity means rootedness
> in reality, and some kind of non-mystified coherence and
> centeredness, so that you don't get lost in a mass of slopped
> together, inchoate ideas that aren't rooted in anything but the
> ability to manipulate concepts, or, in other words, grasdate
> student syndrome.  (...) One can intuitively tell the difference.  
> I can.  Can you?  What's your fucking problem?

1. Precise definion, I'd say. (In the first instance, however, I had 
a difficulty to follow you because you simply told that coherence and 
concentration, self-possession and self-awareness should be based on 
fundamental simplicity.) 

2. I can't when I'm reading or listening some foreign language. 
Attention is usually caught by the technical issue of translating 
what's been said. It doesn't leave much room for intuitions. 

3. Whenever I might have fucking problems I make sure I won't chat 
them publicly. 

> >Isn't there a danger (in your discussion) to reduce theoretical
> >(phil. & scientific) questions into 'social positions' and, also,
> >to psychologise them?
> 
> But you must know by now that as a materialist I reject this.  But
> when a person is devoted to nonsense there must be a reason, and
> for intellectuals to be even dumber than ordinary folks there must
> be a reason, and that reason lies in alienation and the lack of
> rootedness in reality, the ultimate sources of mental paralysis.

I see your point. 

> >Isn't there a need for further elaboration of division of labour
> >in order to find out the instances or institutions and structures
> >behind, for example, repression?
> 
> Be my guest.  Isn't it interesting, though, how those who worship
> the holy trinity of race, class, and gender don't bother to
> question the fundamental role of the division of labor that
> governs the intellectual life of all constituencies who have a
> stake in the academy's strategy for diversity management?

It's interesting, and unfortunately almost evident. I mean, when the 
whole educational system is adjusted to reproduce and strenghten the 
division of labour, and 'ideological' humiliation begins very early 
in childhood, then it's pretty hard for an individual to recognise 
how one is steered by all these 'discourses' even in academia. 

Yours, Jukka L