[lit-ideas] Re: Giving Thanksgiving/Adorno and TAP
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2010 10:35:00 +0000 (GMT)
--- On Mon, 6/12/10, Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On a dark and stormy night, Donal McEvoy wrote:
It was dark, I grant you. Night here generally is.
> > So how does pseudo-kinship furnish a specific
> explanation for fascist tendencies as opposed to
> anti-fascist ones?
>
>
> Even though we haven't really defined "fascist tendencies,"
> except as a disposition toward something we generally
> dislike, cheering on an extremely bossy government for
> example, one is pressed why we seek a "specific explanation"
> for it. Why should we look for it except as an expression of
> one's personal ideology, i.e., an expression of the need to
> look down and dominate those with whom we disagree?
The point of my question is that if 'pseudo-kinship'[or kinship for that
matter] is merely 'explanatory' in that it is a speculation consistent with
[i.e. not refuted by] the facts pertaining to fascist tendencies, and as
speculation remains equally consistent with the facts pertaining to
anti-fascist tendencies, it is illusory to think it gives an acceptable
explanation - any more than 'act of God' would be an acceptable explanation,
once we accept that such an 'act of God' may be consistent with any set of
facts. Such an explanation might be described as a pseudo-explanation. What
appears to explain all possible facts, in fact explains none.
> Gaston: There should be a world government.
> Alphonse: You have fascist tendencies.
The logic escapes me here.
> Sunlight, for example, can be used to explain plant life
> and atmospheric motion.
This is not analogous: the analogy might be using sunlight to explain plant
life and also plant death [as opposites; as fascist and anti-fascist, however
defined, are opposites]. This is acceptable if the explanation is specific and
gives rise to differential predictions that may be tested: so that plant life
is predicted only if a certain level of sunlight obtains, and plant death is
predicted otherwise [because of lack, or excess, of sunlight]. Similar
considerations apply insofar as sunlight is used to explain both atmospheric
motion and lack of motion.
Where is the specific explanation of "fascist tendencies", by way of
'pseudo-kinship', where 'pseudo-kinship' would not be equally consistent with
the absence of "fascist tendencies" or indeed with "anti-fascist tendencies"?
> What level of explanation is required for fascist
> tendencies?
A possible level would an explanation by way of pseudo-kinship that used a
testable model giving rise to differential predictions as to when
pseudo-kinship would give rise to "fascist tendencies" and when it would not,
and when it would give rise to anti-fascist tendencies and when it would not.
Donal
Awaiting the gathering storm
London
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