• isomorph
    48
    Our Idols Have Feet of Clay

    King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had a dream. “The king ordered the magicians, exorcists, sorcerers, and Chaldeans to be summoned in order to tell the king what he had dreamed.” Nebuchadnezzar was a true sceptic and required the interpreter to tell what the dream was before he made an interpretation. The Chaldeans engaged in obfuscation in an attempt to garner enough information to do a cold reading, but the king was having none of it. Daniel had a vision before he was summoned to the king, and when he was brought to the king, Daniel related the dream and the interpretation:
    The head of the statue was of fine gold; its breasts and arms were
    of silver; its belly and thighs, of bronze; its legs were of iron, and its
    feet part iron and part clay. As you looked on, a stone was hewn out,
    not by hands, and struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and
    crushed them. All at once, the iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold
    were crushed, and became like chaff on the threshing floors of
    summer; a wind carried them off until no trace of them was left.
    I do not want to consider Daniel’s interpretation, rather I want to consider the common phrase used today, ‘feet of clay’, how it is used and suggest it is an erroneous gloss. People often say, “All of our idols have feet of clay”, meaning we all have flaws, we should not get too disappointed when our heroes fail us, etc. However, in Daniel’s story, it was not only the feet of clay that were destroyed, but the entire idol, gold, silver, bronze, iron, and clay all became “like chaff” carried off by the wind “until no trace of them was left.”

    According to Daniel’s telling, the idol was destroyed entirely without any trace left. People today do not usually want their idols destroyed completely, but want to assuage their disappointment in a person with a phrase, but this meaning has drifted from the original story. This illustration of semantic drift shows something about the development of human thinking. Along with semantic drift, there is also misprision through linguistic interpretation as Macintyre points out, “there is no precise English equivalent for the Greek word dikaiosune, usually translated justice.” Hall and Ames deal with the problem in translating Confucius: “the most accurate picture of Confucius can be obtained if we reject the possibility of such a reconstruction and instead attempt to change lenses and sharpen our focus in such a manner that we enhance our vision of Confucius from the perspective of the present.”As languages drift and develop, not considering the Tower of Babel, humans are able to add technical sophistication to their communication, e.g., Hegel’s thesis/antithesis/synthesis as a technical development of Heraclitus 46, and, also, convoluted errors are added to our thinking, e.g., pick any conspiracy theory. Technical sophistication, misprision and convoluted errors characterize the development of civilized language and thinking, but it might be hubris to believe that modern humans can think better than our prehistoric ancestors.

    We should reconsider this metaphor of the idol and consider that our idols are provoking us to think, not telling us what to think, since our language and perspective are different, even from contemporaries using our native language. Our idols, in whatever genre, should provoke us to thought without dogma and erroneous semantic drift, or fetishes, or dreams of Arcadia or Utopia. I think humans evolved to see existence as a surd and all of our idols are attempts to square the irrational , but, like Nebuchadnezzar’s dream idol, they will all end like chaff on the threshing floor and be dispersed by the wind as idol replaces idol and our knowledge moves asymptotically toward the nature of reality. Humans depend on intersubjectivity as confirmation of our perception of reality.

    In a private conversation, Roger Ames tried to dissuade me of the notion of finding parallels between western thinking and the “classical Chinese mind.” I fully understand his point, but, as Confucius said, “By nature we are alike, by practice we have become far apart.” I think there is an atavism in our nature as modern humans that ties us to all cultures and time periods. Our prehistorical ancestors had thinking capacity equal to ours, maybe greater than ours, and this can be seen in prehistoric cave art created by intellectual masters.

    Propositions:
    1. As we progress, our idols are destroyed and replaced, e.g., Ptolemy/Copernicus.
    2. Improved instrumentation allows us to verify our perceptions and correct our thinking. Aristarchus saw a heliocentric universe before Ptolemaic geocentric universe was replaced by Copernicus’ heliocentric universe.
    3. History can be an idol to be destroyed as in the case of Pythagoras and his theorem, which was known in other cultures long before Pythagoras. Also the victor usually wipes out the history of the vanquished.
    4. Our historical idols did not spring up by the prowess of their own genius, but stood on the shoulders of giants as Newton said.
    4. We should be conservative in accepting changes, but remember the priests have always had a vested interest in maintaining status quo.
  • Tom Storm
    9.1k
    Propositions:
    1. As we progress, our idols are destroyed and replaced, e.g., Ptolemy/Copernicus.
    2. Improved instrumentation allows us to verify our perceptions and correct our thinking. Aristarchus saw a heliocentric universe before Ptolemaic geocentric universe was replaced by Copernicus’ heliocentric universe.
    3. History can be an idol to be destroyed as in the case of Pythagoras and his theorem, which was known in other cultures long before Pythagoras. Also the victor usually wipes out the history of the vanquished.
    4. Our historical idols did not spring up by the prowess of their own genius, but stood on the shoulders of giants as Newton said.
    4. We should be conservative in accepting changes, but remember the priests have always had a vested interest in maintaining status quo.
    isomorph

    I'm not sure that idol is a useful metaphor personally, but I understand the general sentiment. I tend to hold that what we call knowledge is contingent, a product of social practices and linguistic frameworks rather than a reflection of an objective reality.
  • isomorph
    48
    I would say that knowledge comes under several headings (scientific, cultural, literary knowledge, social knowledge, etc.) but water freezing at 32 degrees (caveats for saline content, etc.) would be scientific knowledge and could never be considered a social or linguistic framework. I think we have a mediated knowledge of reality, but what I'm really trying to explore is the human condition without the culture that seems to make us all different. I've been working on Arendt's book The Human Condition for awhile and it is strictly about the human condition from the perspective of western philosophy. It is thorough and quite prescient even into the 21st century (written in 1958), but I'm also cognizant of Confucian humanism which had thousands of years culture behind it at the same time that the basis for western culture was in its infancy.
  • Tom Storm
    9.1k
    what I'm really trying to explore is the human condition without the culture that seems to make us all differentisomorph

    Are you positing an essentialist project? What do you mean by different?
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    which had thousands of years culture behind it at the same time that the basis for western culture was in its infancyisomorph

    People are often under the impression that China is this super old civilisation like Egypt and Babylon but in fact it is barely younger than Greece.

  • isomorph
    48
    Yes, that is what I am positing. I am currently thinking of culture a a cloud. That is not an exhaustive metaphor, but it serves the purpose of explaining why we can't see other cultures, or even our own nature. As Confucius said, born alike, but by practice far apart. It is an obvious generalization since even within cultures, many of us are different with differing capacities, and abilities, but I think autochthonous humans spent several hundred thousand years before the culture cloud developed, so there was evolutionary value in what we were. I'm not saying culture is bad, it gives us enjoyment, enrichment, etc., but our evolutionary instincts suffer from the cloud. There is no logical reason why we can't solve many problems.
  • Tom Storm
    9.1k
    I'm still unclear why any of this matters.

    Are you saying that you want to identify the nature of the human (beyond culture) in order to determine who we are and what commonalties we have which might be useful to solve some of the challenges we face?
  • kudos
    408
    People today do not usually want their idols destroyed completely, but want to assuage their disappointment in a person with a phrase, but this meaning has drifted from the original story.

    Firstly, welcome to the forum. Secondly, I agree. Especially the point that idol worship seems to carry along with it a type of ego-repression. The worshipper venerates the idol, and assigns feelings of elation and subsequent inner guilt and/or disappointment symbolic meaning as co-narratives; they have almost become metonymical with the idea of the idol. This is probably why the term 'idol' has generally been used negatively. The same way some take pleasure in violent or aggressive behaviour, I think these contradiction-narratives allows us to experience the missing antithesis in our daily lives. To experience a simulacrum of spiritual life through a return to childhood ego-narratives, while still appearing in the apparent form of rational necessity. It is the basic form of religion itself, only represented as purely incoherent content.
  • isomorph
    48
    China is a cradle civilization and Confucius came out of the culture that sprang from Emperor Yao and Emperor Shun, both legendary and from the third millennium b.c.e.
  • isomorph
    48
    It only matters in relation to human existence. In an absurd universe, nothing we do ultimately matters, but if our survival abilities are clouded, we will never be able to adapt, and that is what I think has happened.
  • Kizzy
    136
    edit: HI isomorph, I am kizzy. I like your post, I was thinking "what a cool delivery!" I am excited to learn more detail from your posts! I originally said: "lounge no? I cant tell what category this is in" but that was in no direction towards your post. I want to genuinely know before I respond to it, if I do. A pleasure, nonetheless!
  • Tom Storm
    9.1k
    In an absurd universe, nothing we do ultimately matters, but if our survival abilities are clouded, we will never be able to adapt, and that is what I think has happened.isomorph

    Is it not possible that our 'survival abilities' are a double edged sword? What makes us strong could also be what can takes us out. Are you saying that our ability to address issues like climate change and political tribalism are fraught unless we can get back to some 'more pure' state?
  • isomorph
    48
    Thank you for the welcome. It seems culture and religion are tow sides of the coin. I am reminded of what Carl Sagan said about religion, i.e., we should be careful of how we condemn it because of the enrichment and enjoyment it has added to life. I'm not advocating a search for aboriginal religion.
  • L'éléphant
    1.6k
    People are often under the impression that China is this super old civilisation like Egypt and Babylon but in fact it is barely younger than Greece.Lionino
    Sources, please.
  • isomorph
    48
    Tom, I am not advocating a return to a natural state, golden age, Arcadia, etc. I did not mean to imply that. I have to go back to the cloud metaphor. Some recent archeology in Central America indicates that some of the civilizations were so successful that they depleted their resources. I think that is culture and not a result of our survival instincts.
  • isomorph
    48
    Kizzy, I posted this in feral philosophy. It's my first post and I'm just learning how to work this. Thanks
  • Tom Storm
    9.1k
    Some recent archeology in Central America indicates that some of the civilizations were so successful that they depleted their resources. I think that is culture and not a result of our survival instincts.isomorph

    Is it not possible that our 'survival abilities' are a double edged sword? What makes us strong could also be what can takes us out.Tom Storm

    We seem to be in agreement.

    I guess I'm trying to understand what you want the focus of this thread to be about.
  • Kizzy
    136
    Lmao got ya!
  • isomorph
    48
    Tom, my intention is to clarify my ideas about the human condition that have been inspired by Arendt's work. As I said, her book was from the perspective of western philosophy.
  • ENOAH
    843
    if our survival abilities are clouded, we will never be able to adapt, and that is what I think has happened.isomorph

    Here's how I read your ideas. There's "two" of us, but not in the conventional "dualism" sense. One alone is real. The other one, in the words of your narrative, a (multi)cultural construct. So far I'm with you. Though in narrative expressed from my "unique" locus.

    The real one you seem concerned about. Again, I'm with you that the "cultural" Narrative has displaced the natural aware-ing of the real one. But I don't think the Real one, organic us, ever loses it's instincts or drives. Because natural aware-ing has its natural attunement "turned away" and "facing" (almost):exclusively "culture" it--real us--is under the "illusion" (not illusion per se, but it seems to be a popular term) that natural drives and senses and feelings are replaced but, as I think you "said" they are clouded over, displaced.

    In other words, don't worry* we're still here. We always were and always will be.

    *in fairness to your compelling idea, I realize you still raise a valid concern, but, in case you meant, beneath the covers, we were losing our True Being, we can't. But within the "realm" of culture it's a valid concern to think, we could use a little more natural aware-ing, this culture thing is out of hand, yes.

    Confucius said, born alike, but by practice far apart.isomorph

    I think "Confucius" was constructing some of the Foundations in culture for that very point you make (and I currently believe) that there is the natural us and the cultural and eventually (both individually and as history) culture takes over (clouds/displaces). But in practice not far apart. Are we kidding? We're the same in nature and in culture. Ignoring nature for now. These variations in culture are minor. We are structured on the same foundational signifiers, we all move by the same dialectical processes, include the subject/object, settle at beliefs, and so on and so on and so on. They only appear to be something different in the given moments along their fleeting manifestations and movements through time. Culture is one thing everywhere. I personally think of it as History or (Universal) Mind. Not in either a mystical nor new age sense. But I won't elaborate.

    My point, to wrap, is I agree with you that the natural we, is overshadowed by the cultural we. But I think the natural we is at no risk and is doing fine. And I think the "multi" part of the cultural we is not as multi or mutually exclusive as we think. In fact, it is virtually not at all when viewed structurally.
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    You could easily look up that the first piece of writing in Greek predates the first in Chinese by some 200 years.
    Farming villages are not enough to establish "civilisation".
  • isomorph
    48
    Yes, I think you are reading it correctly, however, I should perhaps make it more clear that I think culture is a natural part of human nature/existence. I think all humans are 'authentically' human, there is no need for humans to discover themselves to be authentic. I think the quest for 'true nature' or 'authenticity' results from an idealist program. Arendt talks about Ancient Greek thinking that anyone who had to "labor', that is do things that support life was no better than a slave - slaves were for cooking, cleaning, taking care of the garden, etc. Slaves gave the Greeks time to think of things like the 'true world of forms', etc.

    I prefer to think we make good and bad choices, and hubris, of course leads to tragedy (homo sapient hubris). Gnothy sauton written on the walls at the Oracle of Delphi, usually translated 'know yourself' has the meaning of 'know your place', that is the guard against hubris.
  • isomorph
    48
    Agriculture requires laws, not writing. The Inca civilization left no written records that have been found, but they built Machu Picchu. They recorded their history in a system of knots called quipus. Civilization is a human organization and I don't believe there was a Hobbesian war of all against all.
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    Agriculture requires laws, not writingisomorph

    Agriculture requires crops and irrigation. Incas were a unique exception in world history where a society fulfilled all criterions of civilisation except for a widespread writing system. Then again, Chinese civilisation is not 5000 years old.
  • Joshs
    5.7k


    ↪L'éléphant You could easily look up that the first piece of writing in Greek predates the first in Chinese by some 200 yearsLionino

    This is what I found. Does it jibe with your sources?

    The oldest Greek writing, syllabic signs scratched with a stylus on sun-dried clay, is that of the Linear B tablets found in Knossos, Pylos, and Mycenae… some of which may date from as far back as 1400 bce (the date is disputed) and some of which certainly date to 1200 bce.

    The earliest examples of writing date to 7,000 BCE when Neolithic Period humans in China and elsewhere began producing glyphs and ideographics—symbols representing objects and ideas. Markings which some archaeologists have identified as examples of proto-writing first appeared in China in approximately 6600 BCE, evidence of which has been discovered at the Jiǎhú archaeological site in Henan, China. Pictograms have also been found in China dating from the 5th century BCE. Despite these very early examples of proto-writing, it was not until 1400 BCE that a near-complete writing system was developed in China.
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    The earliest examples of writing date to 7,000 BCE when Neolithic Period humans in China and elsewhere began producing glyphs and ideographics—symbols representing objects and ideas.Joshs

    I imagine this source is referring to what amounts to cave paintings. Not writing by any stretch, especially the case when 7000 BC the ancestor of the Chinese language wasn't even thinking about existing yet — in fact that was at least 3000 years before there were organised societies by the Huang He Valley. But do tell me otherwise.

    In any case, the earliest recognisably Chinese piece of writing is the Oracle bone inscription from the 13th century before Christ. Mycenaean Greek (not Greek but Hellenic) is first attested in the 14th century before Christ.

    As a sidenote, Minoans in Crete were writing for over 500 years by that time. They were not Greek, but they were to the Greeks what the Greeks were to the Romans.
  • Fooloso4
    6.2k
    In a private conversation, Roger Ames tried to dissuade me of the notion of finding parallels between western thinking and the “classical Chinese mind.”isomorph

    I agree with him regarding comparative analysis.

    ...as Confucius said, “By nature we are alike, by practice we have become far apart.”isomorph

    I think culture or practice is an essential part of our nature. Part of what it means to be social beings. To the extent that is true the distinction between what we are by nature and what we are by practice collapses.
  • isomorph
    48
    The age of languages or civilizations is not to my point. My propositions imply that we are not necessarily smarter than our prehistoric ancestors, just more technically sophisticated. I think it is evident, without citation, that civilizations rise and fall. Why? What can be done to prevent it? Nietzsche, in The Gay Science, talks about our instinct for survival, That is what I am talking about. Humans never would have made it from prehistory to writing history if we did not have organizational skills. Ants have no writing, but have organizational skills; E. O. Wilson has stated that ants outnumber humans in sheer numbers and bio-mass. Humans are a blip on historical radar and we are likely to be obliterated by natural cataclysm or, according to the current prophets, by our own hands. If we are smart, we should be able to fix at least some problems. According to CNN there are 35 billionaires, each of whom has more money than the US. The reason why we can't fix it, in my opinion is the cloud of civilization, i.e., hubris - we are smarter and better than everyone else. I have to go with the christian thesis that we are born flawed, however, I don't think there is a savior coming to help us. I think humans are able to learn much more, but I don't think we are as smart as we think we are. Don Lincoln at Fermi Labs said that we know some things well, but it is only a small percentage of what there is to know.
  • isomorph
    48
    Yes! We are able to achieve technical sophistication and gross errors.
  • Fooloso4
    6.2k
    We are able to achieve technical sophistication and gross errors.isomorph

    I think this is at the root of difference between Confucianism and Daoism.
  • Joshs
    5.7k
    As a sidenote, Minoans in Crete were writing for over 500 years by that time. They were not Greek, but they were to the Greeks what the Greeks were to the Romans.Lionino

    The Minoans were an amazing culture. Their art had a lightness and playfulness that was almost modern in character.
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