John Woods said:
"So let's try to never take too seriously any particular solution or
conclusion. There in no absolutely right way to do anything. We
struggle, we learn and then we do that some more. We have the gift of
being able to realize this about ourselves and maybe even enjoy the
process sometimes."
It is a question today whether or not we live in an objectively ordered
reality and whether or not there are any natural (social) laws, any
"truth." While I can agree that social reality is tremendously complex
with variety approaching infinity, and therefore we cannot model social
reality accurately with our existing mathematics, unless we make
tremendous assumptions and create abstractions that reduce the variety;
and while I can therefore agree that social reality is inter-subjective --
I want to be very careful that we don't abandon a search for 'the truth.'
Even if there are no right ways, surely there are ways that we like better
than others and ways that seem to work better than others (whatever 'work'
means)? Surely then it is important to disagree, to critique, to dialogue
-- surely learning in an inter-subjective social reality has to be
interactive? However if we don't take ourselves, our lives, our work, our
disaggreements seriously, then what are we doing? I fear that naive
notions of 'consensus' and 'human relations' perspectives on
communication/dialogue and 'postmodernism' could lead towards solipsism
and the abandonment of reality by the social sciences. This could be
interpreted as a maladaptive response to turbulence (dissociation) which
from a pragmatic perspective could be suicidal. Thus I favour
argumentation and continuing to knock out what it is we think we know
about the nature of social reality, and what it is that we think will work
to create a better society.
-- deguerre.don@syncrude.com