Maybe it should be Metaphysical Club instead of Old Life Theological Society, so impressed as I am by Louis Menand’s book about pragmatism and more. I have not read a history book that has been so hard to put down, so vivid in its depictions of characters, so plot driven as it were, and so accessible in presenting difficultly complex ideas. In fact, I was prepared to dislike the book partly because of a distrust of Pragmatism and partly because of the hype the book received. But now I not only think Menand deserved a Nobel Prize to go with his Pulitzer, but he also has me thinking about the value of what pragmatists did (not to mention presenting William James as one of the most intriguing intellectuals to walk the greatest nation on God’s green earth).
One reason for finding pragmatism appealing is the way that folks like James and Dewey recognized that w-w won’t work either as the motivation for w-w holders or for explaining how people live and specifically live with thoughts. Menand explains:
People reach decisions, most of the time, by thinking. This is a pretty banal statement, but the process it names is inscrutable. An acquaintance gives you a piece of information in strict confidence; later on, a close friend, lacking that information, is about to make a bad mistake. Do you betray the confidence? “Do the right thing” — but what is the right thing? Keeping your word, or helping someone you care about avoid injury or embarrassment? Even in this two-sentence hypothetical case, the choice between principles is complicated — as it always is in life — by circumstances. If it had been the close friend who gave you the information and the acquaintance who was about to make the mistake, you would almost certainly think about your choice differently — as you would if you though that the acquaintance was a nasty person, or that the friend was a lucky person, or that the statute of limitations on the secret had probably run out, or that you had acquired a terrible habit of betraying confidences and really ought to break it. In the end, you will do what you believe is “right,” but “rightness will be, in effect, the compliment you give to the outcome of your deliberations. Though it is always in view while you are thinking, “what is right” is something that appears in its complete form at the end, not at the beginning, of your deliberation.
When we think, in other words, we do not simply consult principles, or reasons, or sentiments, or tastes; for prior to thinking, all those things are indeterminate. Thinking is what makes them real. (The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America, 352)
Is w-w, then, simply a justification for a process that is otherwise indeterminate, inscrutable, and hidden?
Raising this question may make 2k the pomo side of contemporary Reformed Protestantism. That is, 2k may be pomo in the sense that the certainties of one kingdom cannot be extended as certainties to the other kingdom (which is most of life). Peter Lawler made a point about postmodern conservatism that made me think much of the grief that 2kers receive comes from people who expect orthodoxy outside the church. In other words, 2kers are unwilling to provide the kind of certainty or absolute standard that so many who take their cues from the culture war want. Lawler puts it this way:
The modern world has now ended only in the sense that we have now seen enough of it to judge it. Although we have reason to be grateful for the wealth, health, freedom, and power that modern achievements have given us, we know that the individual’s pursuits of security and happiness will remain always pursuits—and not possessions. So even as the modern world continues to develop, we can be free of its characteristic delusion, its utopianism. We can speak of its strengths and its limitations from a perspective “outside” modernity, and that perspective is the foundation of conservatism today. Conservatives can be (perhaps the only) genuinely postmodern thinkers. The reason we can see beyond the modern world is that its intention to transform human nature has failed. Its project of transforming the human person into the autonomous individual was and remains unrealistic; we can now see the limits of being an individual because we remain more than individuals. The world created by modern individuals to make themselves fully at home turns out to have made human beings less at home than ever.
Conservative thought today is authentic postmodernism, but it is, obviously, not postmodernism as it is usually understood. Most allegedly postmodern thought emphasizes the arbitrary character of all human authority, the freedom of each human being from all standards but his own will or creativity, and the death not only of God but of nature. These allegedly postmodern characteristics are really hypermodern; they aim to “deconstruct” as incoherent and so incredible any residual modern faith in reason or nature. They shout that everything modern—in fact, everything human—is nothing but a construction.
Postmodernists in the usual sense often do well in exposing liberal hypocrisy, but they can only do so in the name of completing the modern project of liberating the individual’s subjective or willful and whimsical perspective from all external constraints. Conservative postmodernism, by acknowledging and affirming as good what we can really know about our natural possibilities and limitations, is radically opposed to liberated postmodernism—and to the modern premises it radicalizes.
2kers see the hollowness of the modern project by virtue of knowing that this world is not all there is and that the believer’s ultimate comfort comes in the world to come. Critics of 2k regard this skepticism as a betrayal of Christianity or the church’s mission when in fact many critics of 2k are simply dressing up modernity and its narrative of liberty and progress in Christian clothing.
I understand that 2k is not inspiring or optimistic about what we do in this world. But you would think that people who take human depravity seriously would understand the delusions of inspiration and optimism.
Old Life 
Maybe
But golly gee thanks for adding another book to my already full list, I just got notice this one is on the shelf for me to pick up. There’s no keeping up with the dude.
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” But you would think that people who take human depravity seriously would understand the delusions of inspiration and optimism.”
Actually, they take seriously the depravity of *others* while largely exempting themselves in the intellectual realm. As for as they go, it’s not clear to me whether they think the Holy Spirit grants academic insight or whether the selection and implementation of correct presuppositions is largely exempt from the depravity that plagues others. The 2k can live in the world he posits; the neo-Cal seems to be exempt from it.
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Nah, just keep Old Life, we’ll still be here decades from now, while the:
a) Fundamentalist (manque) then
b) Emergent (manque) then
c) Evanjellyfish (manque) then
d) Reformed Baptist (manque) then
e) currently Neo-Calvinist (soon to be manque)
crowd move on to the next fad of Evangelicalism.
Must be fun to invent a new groovy happnenin’ thang every 5 years that embraces new thoughts about almost-Christiainity. Kind of like my hippie uncle’s generation playing with EST and Rolfing and Primal Scream and whatever new fad came along during the early 1970s.
Apparently I have the Menand book in the shelf already, might dust her off and give it a read on this long weekend.
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Sounds like another book for my ever growing book list and every shrinking funds. I think it was Erasmus that said something like “When I have money I buy books. If I have anything left I buy food and clothes.”
I’ve been interested in Charles Peirce for decades since I read “How to Make Our Ideas Clear” and “The Fixation of Belief.” I don’t know why it seems almost nobody has heard of him.
Given “But you would think that people who take human depravity seriously would understand the delusions of inspiration and optimism.” I’ve always been puzzled as to how conservatives can put much stock into business regulating itself (Enron and GM would seem to disprove that) and be so strongly against environmental regulation (BP fiasco would seem to argue against that). It seems given the fall I’d expect people to muck things up in every inch, including the Gospel Allies, neo-Calvinists, and Kuyperians.
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The Baylys will have a hard time understanding these many words, but will be quick to condemn them nonetheless.
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” It seems given the fall I’d expect people to muck things up in every inch, including the Gospel Allies, neo-Calvinists, and Kuyperians.”
If it’s inevitable people will muck things up in every inch, is it worthwhile to even attempt to fight for change? 2k might not be inspiring or optimistic about what we do in this world, but is it apathetic as well?
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Cletus, we don’t waste time trying to defend ourselves much in 2K. Almost like we are too busy trying to work, raise a family, be faithful church goers, and keep it together in a quiet and decent way during our productive years….
And please don’t define us by how our enemies embellish everything, especially when they are complete rockheads.
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Cletus,
Dude.
We look to the new heavens and new earth. You need to read David van Drunen if you want to take on 2k proper, and not just reformed-dom.
yo.
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Correct AB, and the beginners should start with the smaller and easier to read book by DvD on the topic…
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Cletus: “is it worthwhile to even attempt to fight for change?”
Was it worthwhile for the Israelites to make bricks? Sure, the Egyptians made some pretty cool monuments. Besides, they had to eat, and they did like the food better than manna. [The redeemed food apparently wasn’t as appetizing as the Egyptian food] Did they take the bricks to the promised land.? No, but they did take Joseph’s bones.
I fight for change every day at work. Pun intended.
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kent, you know it. And at 9.39 United States legal tender, it’s really not asking much for all the learning that goes on here, in between the banter. I’d wager there ain’t a blog like it around anywhere, all the more reason to keep our old name. I think the big D is just yanking our chain with the changing the name business. I mean, what becomes of old vanity plates?
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Kent,
“Cletus, we don’t waste time trying to defend ourselves much in 2K.”
Except taking the time to defend by replying here.
“Almost like we are too busy trying to work, raise a family, be faithful church goers, and keep it together in a quiet and decent way during our productive years….”
So people who are active for greater change in the world cannot also be those? It’s not mutually exclusive.
Mark,
“I fight for change every day at work. Pun intended.”
So why say ” I’ve always been puzzled as to how conservatives can put much stock into business regulating itself (Enron and GM would seem to disprove that) and be so strongly against environmental regulation (BP fiasco would seem to argue against that). It seems given the fall I’d expect people to muck things up in every inch, including the Gospel Allies, neo-Calvinists, and Kuyperians.”
Is it wrong for people to fight for business regulation (or against it) or wrong for people to fight for environmental regulation (or against it)? It just seems your point is we should just shrug and be apathetic about it. Note I said “seems”.
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Mark G, Menand’s treatment of Peirce is poignant and wonderful. The man had a few warts.
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vd, c, change is a dirty word. You manage the muck, you never remove (until glory). Find your inner Augustine. If you pray to him, I’m sure he’ll pass it along to Joseph, then to Mary, then — let’s not forget the Holy Ghost — then to Jesus, and then to God. Talk about an interweb.
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So people who are active for greater change in the world cannot also be those? It’s not mutually exclusive.
CvD, didn’t learn ANYTHING from Cheryl Barnes when she sang “Easy to be Hard” in “Hair”?
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“Is it wrong for people to fight for business regulation (or against it) or wrong for people to fight for environmental regulation (or against it)? It just seems your point is we should just shrug and be apathetic about it. Note I said “seems”.
No, not at all. I just don’t think I’ll be taking it with me into the kingdom of heaven or bring the KoH into this present evil age. Hopefully I may be a witness to the KoH in this present evil age, and the Holy Spirit may supernaturally transfer some folk from this present evil age into the Kingdom of the Son. I like my Scion FRS and feel no need to have it transformed into a Lamborghini, even if gas is free in heaven.
I tend to be somewhat cynical, especially when it comes to worldly transformationism, so take that into account. I have a lot of faith/hope in Christ though.
DGH: Thanks for the lead on the book and CSP. I don’t feel the need to transform CSP, warts and all; too late for that. Gotta take the fish and leave the bones.
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Ski-Bop-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop
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Thanks Mark.
Zrim,
That would carry more weight if you could show everyone involved in large-scale humanitarian or philanthrophic or social justice work are neglectful of their families and friends. Some may be, sure, but not all are. Just as some 2k’ers might be guilty of apathy or intellectual/spiritual monasticism, but not all are.
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Pretty apathetic not to use one’s own name when discussing things like religion..
just sayin’
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if you are wrong, then I am right
the arguments come later if ever
http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/luw0ia/jonathan-haidt?xrs=playershare_fbshare
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I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, BECAUSE the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done. (Genesis 8:21)
Humans are evil, therefore humans need to be able to kill other humans. That illogical conclusion is the moral Obama gave in his anti-pacifist speech at his Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony, before he killed a lot more people in Afghanistan. And by clone.
Until Jesus Christ comes back to earth, it only gets worse from now on in…
Updike, Self-consciousness, p 215—-Paul rejected the Gnostic idea that the resurrection had already taken place (II Tim 2:18) and in I Cor 15;14 rebuffed doubters within the early church—if Christ be not rise, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is also in vain…Our brains are no longer conditioned for reverence and awe. We cannot imagine a Second Coming that would not be cut down to size by the televised evening news.
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AB,
“I’ll ease up and take Cletus Van Damme at his word.”
Oh well. Hope springs eternal.
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Mark M,
“Until Jesus Christ comes back to earth, it only gets worse from now on in…”
Just because it “only gets worse” does not mean one can’t or shouldn’t fight. I don’t see how that follows. You’re going to die. So I guess you shouldn’t fight to be healthy.
And how on earth Obama is supposed to some all-encompassing example or point escapes me.
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CvD, when will you learn to link to your comments, so as for it to make sense for future readers? Of course I said that. But who on earth knows what we are talking about but me and you (our little secret)?
Do hang around, James. I like you (wink).
Peace.
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CvD, the point isn’t to show that everyone involved in large-scale humanitarian or philanthropic or social justice work are neglectful of their families and friends. It’s to say that human beings are created better for small scale responsibilities, like families and local communities.
The typical American religionist is very long on sentimental ideal but quite short on ordinary piety. Ironically, in his proneness to “care about strangers, to care about evil and social injustice” he actually ends up risking the neglect of those who are actually ordained into his reach who are close, known and entrusted to him. Much as it might irritate, the truth is that each of us really only affects our more immediate environment, and even then only imperfectly. Even those who are afar off must be brought near and made ours first before having any lasting consequence upon them. And it just might be that a superior advocacy could actually be more ordinary, organic, local and familiar than extraordinary, panoramic, distinct and remarkable.
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Clete,
Every day when I wake up I ask myself what I am going to do that day to change it and rearrange it (per Obama’s instructions).
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Zrim, that was quite possibly the most sensible response I could imagine giving. If Clete objects to that then I am befuddled to my socks.
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Zrim,
Agreed. As in all things there can be balance and spheres/hierarchies of priority – we don’t vote in national elections nor donate to foreign disaster relief for nothing.
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Nate, well when one can’t even get his drive-through orders not to return to him void (not to mention getting those who he’s actually ordained over to pick up their blessed rooms for once), he really starts to wonder about his alleged powers of influence.
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Zrim, “human beings are created better for small scale responsibilities.”
So what are you doing going through drive-through?
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Mark G: ” I’ve always been puzzled as to how conservatives can put much stock into business regulating itself (Enron and GM would seem to disprove that) and be so strongly against environmental regulation (BP fiasco would seem to argue against that). It seems given the fall I’d expect people to muck things up in every inch, including the Gospel Allies, neo-Calvinists, and Kuyperians.”
Obviously you have failed to grasp and internalize the party line. Left on their own, employers would maximize wages after a fair profit, would make sure their workplaces are safe and be scrupulous about the environment. But there’s a reason why we have unions, wage laws, workplace safety laws and environmental laws. But guess what? Unions and regulators overreach and abuse their power. SNAFU.
I thought I had made a trivial change years ago when I changed my party from Republican to independent, but maybe something else happened, like slowly being released from the grip of political ideology. Dropping out of the either/or options presented by the noisiest among us has decreased the noise in my head. There’s a bit of freedom as one turns his back on alternative talking points.
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Darryl, because like you once said, I live a more compromised than victorious life.
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Zrim, well when you place your orders like this http://youtu.be/gXQhdB1y674
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Nate, but because my compromised and drive-through life owes to kids:
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And, Darryl, imagine your interest in philosophy attracting more philosophy types (hello Bryan Cross). I’ve heard it said (maybe by you?) that pragmatism is the only American born major thought system (something like that). I’m looking forward to the library collecting this book for me, and emailing me when ready.
Good post, sir.
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mikelmann: I know the story. I grasp it just fine.. That’s why I don’t believe it. What’s puzzling is how Christians who ought to know about the fallen nature of mankind and the curse could buy into it.
I’ve never been a Republican or Democrat and don’t claim fie myself conservatism (including religious right, teapot or evangelicalism) or moderate camp or liberalism. I’m an alien in a foreign land.
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This was very helpful, DGH. Thank you.
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MM — Actually, they take seriously the depravity of *others* while largely exempting themselves in the intellectual realm.
WDO — From the rather caustic Dissidens:
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WDO, there’s some funny snark going down at Bindlestiff.
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Mikel, concur. I am also guilty of clicking.
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Is there a relationship between the gradual dismantling of philosophy departments in academia and the exponential rise in casino construction? Peirce, James, and Dewey (to quote Menand), “(all) regarded a belief as a kind of bet in a probabilistic universe, and successful beliefs- winning bets- as habits…they reduced philosophical terms like ‘matter’ and ‘identity’ to their cash value.”
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