Meta: Putnam Makes Me Think about Fandom
I continue to find Hilary Putnam's Reason,Truth, and History to be very useful and thought-provoking for my thesis. Let me state for the record that while in general I agree with Putnam's objectives, finding a position within the gap between objectivism and extreme relativism, I'm not quite sure that how he gets there--his "internal realism"--works completely. I look forward to reading many refutations and objecions in my research. (Is it bad that everything Putnam says makes me think not about Orwell, but fandom?)
"[M]etaphysical realism and subjectivism are not simple 'opposites'. Today we tend to be too realistic about physics and too subjectivistic about ethics, and these are connected tendencies. It is because we are too realistic about physics, because we see physics (or some hypothetical future physics) as the One True Theory, and not simpl as a rationally acceptable description suited for certain problems and purposes, that we tend to be subjectivistic about descriptions we cannot 'reduce' to physics. Becoming less realistic about physics and becoming less subjectivistic about ethics are likewise connected."--p. 143
Putnam (at least tentatively) divides values into various types, for example there are cognitive values (such as "justification") and there are ethical values. There are, of course, also aesthetic values, a field which Putnam has to this point almost completely ignored. This is partially understandable; as Putnam demonstrates, that at least some of our cognitive values are objective is pretty easy to demonstrate. That there are objective moral values is trickier, but not impossible. But since aesthetics doesn't seem to oblige us the way ethics does, there's no reason at all why aesthetic relativism can't be true. Now I'm an agnostic about objective aesthetic values: I don't find the concept nonsensical, but I don't have any particular reason to believe they exist, either. But as someone who treats feminism as normative, the claim that we should or shouldn't do X when writing strikes me as a claim that needs to be met with reasoned consideration and discussion, rather than being rejected out-of-hand. (If feminism isn't normative, then what is the point of it?)
Now, I don't buy Putnam's claim that moral relativism is endemic in our society. Those who do make this claim, and the most loudly--for example John Paul II and Benedict XVI of the RCC--often end up using the claim "moral relativism" for a catch-all for those things with which they disagree (because of course if they disagree with a claim than it can't have a deontological foundation). I most recently had a debate over this type of "relativism" in the question-and-answer period following a lecture by American Catholic theologian George Weigel who perversely proved unable to see how European politicians, imposing their own normative claim on others that a woman has a right to choose over her body based on an understanding of fundamental human rights,was relativism. No, buddy--your claim that your faith-based opposition to abortion should be considered as "just as right" because you disagree with logic is what is ultimately the real relativism.
(This is not to say that a free, pluralistic, and democratic society should not have safeguards built in to prevent a too-quick and too-broad application of what seems to be--but may not be--the moral right. But neither is that relativism--it too is ultimately born out of a deontological foundation.)
""Abortion is bad." "Gay marriage is an abomination." "A woman has a right over her body." "Discrimination is evil." The normative claim seems to be alive and well in our society--and thankfully so. And moral relativism isn't really a topic of fandom--while we sometimes speak and act in ways that might seem relativistic, it's also the case that we aren't really in the position to judge each other morally because our online personae aren't really capable of involved moral acts--the worst we can do, really, is to say something hurtful. When we do discuss moral claims in incidential conversation--discussions of homosexuality, abortion, or other political issues--there's no reason to believe that normativity is dead in fandom, either.
But aesthetic relativism is endemic, IMHO, and especially so in fandom. In and of itself I have no problem with this fact: I myself am inclined to believe that our aesthetic standards are prescribed by our own interpretative communities and that this is good and liberating. But when everyone agrees the possibility for a healthy dialectic is diminished, and I've seen people make normative aesthetic claims "You should [or shouldn't] do X" and be ridiculed for even daring to make a normative claim, for treating aesthetic values and facts. "Who are you to tell us that we should [or shouldn't] do X?" the person is asked,ignoring that it is every free person's right--nay, obligation!--to make normative claims. It's not treated as an opportunity to engage in dialogue or discussion, but a chance to shout "J'accuse!" at the person making the claim.
(In the response to the recent conversations about whether all of the finger-pointing we do in our meta truly has an object, let me say that the conversations I have in mind took place over last summer. I couldn't name names without excessive wading through metafandom--nor am I sure that I would name names even if I could--but I still remember them quite distinctly, and even more the feelings of frustration in me that they caused.)
"It should go without saying that it is not possible both to have standards of rational acceptability and not to accept them, or to stand at arm's length from them. (The kind of scepticism which consists in refusing to have any standards of rational acceptability commits one to not having any concepts at all. As Sextus Emiricus ecognized, that kind of empiricism ultimately is unexpressable in language. We have just as much right to regard some 'evaluational' casts of mind as sick. But to say this is not to reject pluralism or to commit oneself to authoritarianism.
[. . .]
Nor should commitment to ethical objectivity be confused with what is a very different matter, commitment to ethical or moral authoritarianism. [. . .] Respect for persons as autonomous moral agents requires that we accord them the right to choose a moral standpoint for themselves, however repuslive we may find their choice. According to the philosophy of political liberalism, it also requires that we also insist the government not preempt individual moral choices by setting up a state religion or a state morality. But diehard opposition to all forms of political and moral authoritarianism should not commit one to moral relativism or moral scepticism. The reason that it is wrong for the government to dictate a morality to the individual citizen is not that there is no fact of the matter about what forms of life are fulfilling and what forms of life are not fulfilling, or morally wrong in some other way. (If there were no such thing as moral wrong, then it would not be wrong for the government to impose moral choices.) The fact that many people fear that if they concede any sort of moral objectivity out loud then they will find some government shoving its notion of moral objectivity down their throats is without question why so many people subscribe to a moral subjectivism to which they give no real assent."--pp. 147-149
The relativism in fandom comes from a truly well-intentioned (if misguided) place. We are (and I include myself here) good feminists and postcolonialists, good poststructuralists and deconstructionists. We've seen the damage that "Because God said so" can do, and we realize that "Because Reason said so" is rarely any better as an alternative. We've been confronted with enough false gods and false reasons to be anything but suspicious, as well we should be. But if we allow that to make us abandon the quest for truth, Putnam argues--and to my mind persuasively--then we have made ourselves into "mere animals" subjet to the mode of production, the Oedipus complex, the will topower. The paradox of the postmodern moment is that we must somehow reconcile the fact that we are in a sense "mere animals" with a commitment to ethics that doesn't result in moral suicide. A feminism which is not normative is not, IMHO, a feminism at all.
We recognize in the voices of those making normative claims the voices of our patriarchal oppressors, and we do well to be well aware as the patriarchy is excellent in its ability to adapt and coopt. But this brings us to a fundamental fannish truth: "You shouldn't write slash" is not the same sort of claim as "You shouldn't write slash, or else I'll come to your home at night and murder your children." The claim "You shouldn't write slash" can be seen as oppressive in an Althusserian, post-Marxist sense, but I firmly believe that it does absolutely no good to blame people for the ideologies they may hold, no matter how repressive as apparatuses of the patriarchy. The only response is to engage with the claim, to open a discussion, to humbly give reasons and refutations and objections, and to hope that perhaps if we are truly lucky, this dialectic will lead us to the truth.
"Hume said he left his scepticism whenever he left his study; and relativists are likely to do the same with their relativismm. But this only shows that no one can consistently live by relativism; if this is all that can be said in response to relativism, then we are just pushed from relativism to 1945 style existentialism ('it's all absurd, but you have to choose'). And is that so different?
In order to fix our ideas, let us recall a remark by a philosopher of the last [i.e. 19th] century whose Utilitarianism actually covered a good bit of relativism. I am thinking of Bentham, and of Bentham's challenging judgment that 'prejudice aside, the game of pushpin is of equal value with the arts and sciences of music an poetry'. Prejudice aside, pushpin is as good as poetry. [. . .] Stating the position so baldly already makes it look implausible."--p. 141
This is one of the few places that Putnam mentions aesthetics. His refutation of Bentham is involved, but I'll side with him in wanting to refute Bentham, even if I'm not quite sure I understand how he thinks he does it. At the very least, I want to, in the name of an open dialectic, entertain the possibility that Bentham is wrong.
Many of the feminists I know are, ultimately, existentialists, relying on their own existential commitment to motivate their commitment to feminism without any need for a foundation. This may bear some relation to Spivak's "strategic essentialism" which was pointed out to me by girlfriend. These strategies have their appeal, certainly, but I'm just not convinced that they are in the end tenable.
"If we think there are objective (or warranted) value judgments at all, very likely we think some hotly disputed judgments are objectively right. The Nazis disputed the judgment that wanton killing of Jews just because of their racial affiliation is wrong, but anti-Nazis did not regard their disagreements with Nazis as 'subjective.' Those who think homosexuals should have full rights in our society violently disagree with those who think homosexual activity or civil rights of homosexuals should be legally proscribed; but neither side of this dispute regards its own position as 'subjective'. Indeed, disagreement frequently makes people more sure their moralposition is warranted."--p.153
Yes, Putnam went ther, making us all wondfer how the history of 20th-century analytic philosophy would be different if they had been aware of Godwin's law. There are those who would claim that any extrapolation from Hitler to debates over slash is on the face of it illegitimate, but I consider this passage to be an important indication of the need for a vigorous and healthy dialectic, even in fandom.
I hadn't quite finished the book when I made this post, and it turns out that Putnam has one more thing to say that I want to quote, his ultimate response to the Bentham's "claim that 'prejudice aside' the game of pushpin (an ancient children's game similar to tiddlywinks) is just as good as 'the arts and sciences of music and poetry":In Bentham's view the only reason poetry is better than pushpin, ultimately, is the brute fact that poetry gives greater satisfaction than pushpin (or gives satisfaction to more people, or both). There are, basically, two things wrong with this view: one thinbg wrong is that 'satisfaction' (or 'self-interest') itself cannot be an aim of any being who does not have other aims. If I had no aim other than 'my welfare', then 'my welfare' would be a meaningless notion, a point which goes back to Bishop Butler. More important, some satisfactions are better and 'nobler' than others, and one can give reasons why. Poetry and music give solace, they enlarge our sensabilities, they provide important modes of self-exression to many people, including many gifted people the human race has produced."--p.214
It is a good thing that people (and even moreso, that those people who actually do) write femslash. It is a good thing that people write m/m slash. It is a good thing that people write het. It is a good thing that people write meta. These are normative, universalist claims that are borne out of my ideological commitments, e.g. my commitment to feminism.
"[M]etaphysical realism and subjectivism are not simple 'opposites'. Today we tend to be too realistic about physics and too subjectivistic about ethics, and these are connected tendencies. It is because we are too realistic about physics, because we see physics (or some hypothetical future physics) as the One True Theory, and not simpl as a rationally acceptable description suited for certain problems and purposes, that we tend to be subjectivistic about descriptions we cannot 'reduce' to physics. Becoming less realistic about physics and becoming less subjectivistic about ethics are likewise connected."--p. 143
Putnam (at least tentatively) divides values into various types, for example there are cognitive values (such as "justification") and there are ethical values. There are, of course, also aesthetic values, a field which Putnam has to this point almost completely ignored. This is partially understandable; as Putnam demonstrates, that at least some of our cognitive values are objective is pretty easy to demonstrate. That there are objective moral values is trickier, but not impossible. But since aesthetics doesn't seem to oblige us the way ethics does, there's no reason at all why aesthetic relativism can't be true. Now I'm an agnostic about objective aesthetic values: I don't find the concept nonsensical, but I don't have any particular reason to believe they exist, either. But as someone who treats feminism as normative, the claim that we should or shouldn't do X when writing strikes me as a claim that needs to be met with reasoned consideration and discussion, rather than being rejected out-of-hand. (If feminism isn't normative, then what is the point of it?)
Now, I don't buy Putnam's claim that moral relativism is endemic in our society. Those who do make this claim, and the most loudly--for example John Paul II and Benedict XVI of the RCC--often end up using the claim "moral relativism" for a catch-all for those things with which they disagree (because of course if they disagree with a claim than it can't have a deontological foundation). I most recently had a debate over this type of "relativism" in the question-and-answer period following a lecture by American Catholic theologian George Weigel who perversely proved unable to see how European politicians, imposing their own normative claim on others that a woman has a right to choose over her body based on an understanding of fundamental human rights,was relativism. No, buddy--your claim that your faith-based opposition to abortion should be considered as "just as right" because you disagree with logic is what is ultimately the real relativism.
(This is not to say that a free, pluralistic, and democratic society should not have safeguards built in to prevent a too-quick and too-broad application of what seems to be--but may not be--the moral right. But neither is that relativism--it too is ultimately born out of a deontological foundation.)
""Abortion is bad." "Gay marriage is an abomination." "A woman has a right over her body." "Discrimination is evil." The normative claim seems to be alive and well in our society--and thankfully so. And moral relativism isn't really a topic of fandom--while we sometimes speak and act in ways that might seem relativistic, it's also the case that we aren't really in the position to judge each other morally because our online personae aren't really capable of involved moral acts--the worst we can do, really, is to say something hurtful. When we do discuss moral claims in incidential conversation--discussions of homosexuality, abortion, or other political issues--there's no reason to believe that normativity is dead in fandom, either.
But aesthetic relativism is endemic, IMHO, and especially so in fandom. In and of itself I have no problem with this fact: I myself am inclined to believe that our aesthetic standards are prescribed by our own interpretative communities and that this is good and liberating. But when everyone agrees the possibility for a healthy dialectic is diminished, and I've seen people make normative aesthetic claims "You should [or shouldn't] do X" and be ridiculed for even daring to make a normative claim, for treating aesthetic values and facts. "Who are you to tell us that we should [or shouldn't] do X?" the person is asked,ignoring that it is every free person's right--nay, obligation!--to make normative claims. It's not treated as an opportunity to engage in dialogue or discussion, but a chance to shout "J'accuse!" at the person making the claim.
(In the response to the recent conversations about whether all of the finger-pointing we do in our meta truly has an object, let me say that the conversations I have in mind took place over last summer. I couldn't name names without excessive wading through metafandom--nor am I sure that I would name names even if I could--but I still remember them quite distinctly, and even more the feelings of frustration in me that they caused.)
"It should go without saying that it is not possible both to have standards of rational acceptability and not to accept them, or to stand at arm's length from them. (The kind of scepticism which consists in refusing to have any standards of rational acceptability commits one to not having any concepts at all. As Sextus Emiricus ecognized, that kind of empiricism ultimately is unexpressable in language. We have just as much right to regard some 'evaluational' casts of mind as sick. But to say this is not to reject pluralism or to commit oneself to authoritarianism.
[. . .]
Nor should commitment to ethical objectivity be confused with what is a very different matter, commitment to ethical or moral authoritarianism. [. . .] Respect for persons as autonomous moral agents requires that we accord them the right to choose a moral standpoint for themselves, however repuslive we may find their choice. According to the philosophy of political liberalism, it also requires that we also insist the government not preempt individual moral choices by setting up a state religion or a state morality. But diehard opposition to all forms of political and moral authoritarianism should not commit one to moral relativism or moral scepticism. The reason that it is wrong for the government to dictate a morality to the individual citizen is not that there is no fact of the matter about what forms of life are fulfilling and what forms of life are not fulfilling, or morally wrong in some other way. (If there were no such thing as moral wrong, then it would not be wrong for the government to impose moral choices.) The fact that many people fear that if they concede any sort of moral objectivity out loud then they will find some government shoving its notion of moral objectivity down their throats is without question why so many people subscribe to a moral subjectivism to which they give no real assent."--pp. 147-149
The relativism in fandom comes from a truly well-intentioned (if misguided) place. We are (and I include myself here) good feminists and postcolonialists, good poststructuralists and deconstructionists. We've seen the damage that "Because God said so" can do, and we realize that "Because Reason said so" is rarely any better as an alternative. We've been confronted with enough false gods and false reasons to be anything but suspicious, as well we should be. But if we allow that to make us abandon the quest for truth, Putnam argues--and to my mind persuasively--then we have made ourselves into "mere animals" subjet to the mode of production, the Oedipus complex, the will topower. The paradox of the postmodern moment is that we must somehow reconcile the fact that we are in a sense "mere animals" with a commitment to ethics that doesn't result in moral suicide. A feminism which is not normative is not, IMHO, a feminism at all.
We recognize in the voices of those making normative claims the voices of our patriarchal oppressors, and we do well to be well aware as the patriarchy is excellent in its ability to adapt and coopt. But this brings us to a fundamental fannish truth: "You shouldn't write slash" is not the same sort of claim as "You shouldn't write slash, or else I'll come to your home at night and murder your children." The claim "You shouldn't write slash" can be seen as oppressive in an Althusserian, post-Marxist sense, but I firmly believe that it does absolutely no good to blame people for the ideologies they may hold, no matter how repressive as apparatuses of the patriarchy. The only response is to engage with the claim, to open a discussion, to humbly give reasons and refutations and objections, and to hope that perhaps if we are truly lucky, this dialectic will lead us to the truth.
"Hume said he left his scepticism whenever he left his study; and relativists are likely to do the same with their relativismm. But this only shows that no one can consistently live by relativism; if this is all that can be said in response to relativism, then we are just pushed from relativism to 1945 style existentialism ('it's all absurd, but you have to choose'). And is that so different?
In order to fix our ideas, let us recall a remark by a philosopher of the last [i.e. 19th] century whose Utilitarianism actually covered a good bit of relativism. I am thinking of Bentham, and of Bentham's challenging judgment that 'prejudice aside, the game of pushpin is of equal value with the arts and sciences of music an poetry'. Prejudice aside, pushpin is as good as poetry. [. . .] Stating the position so baldly already makes it look implausible."--p. 141
This is one of the few places that Putnam mentions aesthetics. His refutation of Bentham is involved, but I'll side with him in wanting to refute Bentham, even if I'm not quite sure I understand how he thinks he does it. At the very least, I want to, in the name of an open dialectic, entertain the possibility that Bentham is wrong.
Many of the feminists I know are, ultimately, existentialists, relying on their own existential commitment to motivate their commitment to feminism without any need for a foundation. This may bear some relation to Spivak's "strategic essentialism" which was pointed out to me by girlfriend. These strategies have their appeal, certainly, but I'm just not convinced that they are in the end tenable.
"If we think there are objective (or warranted) value judgments at all, very likely we think some hotly disputed judgments are objectively right. The Nazis disputed the judgment that wanton killing of Jews just because of their racial affiliation is wrong, but anti-Nazis did not regard their disagreements with Nazis as 'subjective.' Those who think homosexuals should have full rights in our society violently disagree with those who think homosexual activity or civil rights of homosexuals should be legally proscribed; but neither side of this dispute regards its own position as 'subjective'. Indeed, disagreement frequently makes people more sure their moralposition is warranted."--p.153
Yes, Putnam went ther, making us all wondfer how the history of 20th-century analytic philosophy would be different if they had been aware of Godwin's law. There are those who would claim that any extrapolation from Hitler to debates over slash is on the face of it illegitimate, but I consider this passage to be an important indication of the need for a vigorous and healthy dialectic, even in fandom.
I hadn't quite finished the book when I made this post, and it turns out that Putnam has one more thing to say that I want to quote, his ultimate response to the Bentham's "claim that 'prejudice aside' the game of pushpin (an ancient children's game similar to tiddlywinks) is just as good as 'the arts and sciences of music and poetry":In Bentham's view the only reason poetry is better than pushpin, ultimately, is the brute fact that poetry gives greater satisfaction than pushpin (or gives satisfaction to more people, or both). There are, basically, two things wrong with this view: one thinbg wrong is that 'satisfaction' (or 'self-interest') itself cannot be an aim of any being who does not have other aims. If I had no aim other than 'my welfare', then 'my welfare' would be a meaningless notion, a point which goes back to Bishop Butler. More important, some satisfactions are better and 'nobler' than others, and one can give reasons why. Poetry and music give solace, they enlarge our sensabilities, they provide important modes of self-exression to many people, including many gifted people the human race has produced."--p.214
It is a good thing that people (and even moreso, that those people who actually do) write femslash. It is a good thing that people write m/m slash. It is a good thing that people write het. It is a good thing that people write meta. These are normative, universalist claims that are borne out of my ideological commitments, e.g. my commitment to feminism.