The Known, the Strange and the New

[C C]

http://iainews.iai.tv/articles/the-known...w-auid-667

INTRO: It’s now just three weeks to HowTheLightGetsIn, our annual festival of philosophy and music in the magical setting of Hay. So for the latest issue of IAI News we’re looking forwards to give you a taste of things to come. The theme of this year’s festival is 'The Known, the Strange and the New'. In an age when knowledge appears at the click of a button, it is easy to think we largely understand the world and know what is right – even if we do not always act accordingly. Yet a time will come when our current beliefs are thought mistaken and our morality is seen as prejudice. So it is that the IAI seeks to challenge the assumption that the accepted wisdom is the truth and sets out to uncover its flaws in search of alternative and better ways to hold the world. And it is when there is almost universal acceptance of an opinion that we should surely be at our most vigilant.

In this issue of IAI News, we start with a thorough interrogation of that strangest of concepts, the self. Novelist Joanna Kavenna explains why we need to accept the unknowable nature of the self, but that takes courage. Likewise, neuroscientist Parashkev Nachev argues that science too often overlooks the strangeness of the self. In searching for the self, he says, we deceive ourselves. From the strange to the new. The west may be richer and better connected than at any time in history, but something crucial has been forgotten along the way: freedom. For US historian and economist Deirdre McCloskey, without freedom there would be no new ideas. And it is ideas that change the world. For Brendan O’Neill, this freedom is now under threat from global elites and a new “phoney internationalism”. Meanwhile, art critic Julian Spalding asks whether art might replace religion in teaching us how to live, while philosopher and politician Rupert Read argues that we should learn to live in a world we don’t understand....

[Yazata]

In an age when knowledge appears at the click of a button, it is easy to think we largely understand the world and know what is right – even if we do not always act accordingly. Yet a time will come when our current beliefs are thought mistaken and our morality is seen as prejudice. So it is that the IAI seeks to challenge the assumption that the accepted wisdom is the truth and sets out to uncover its flaws in search of alternative and better ways to hold the world. And it is when there is almost universal acceptance of an opinion that we should surely be at our most vigilant.

I agree with that. It's what feeds my skepticism about religion historically, and more recently scientism.

In this issue of IAI News, we start with a thorough interrogation of that strangest of concepts, the self. Novelist Joanna Kavenna explains why we need to accept the unknowable nature of the self, but that takes courage.

If the 'self' is unknowable, why are so many people so convinced that they possess a 'self'? Why is Western culture so fascinated with the idea of freeing, expressing or realizing the self? Does 'self' name something that exists ontologically, as Descartes apparently thought? Or does it always get back to how we conceive of things and how we consequently behave?

Likewise, neuroscientist Parashkev Nachev argues that science too often overlooks the strangeness of the self. In searching for the self, he says, we deceive ourselves.

The Buddhists would agree, though probably for different reasons.

From the strange to the new. The west may be richer and better connected than at any time in history, but something crucial has been forgotten along the way: freedom. For US historian and economist Deirdre McCloskey, without freedom there would be no new ideas.

I'm inclined to agree. Throughout history, agreeing has been far more welcome than disagreeing. In today's academia, writing what people want to hear gets the writer labeled 'brilliant', while writing what people don't want to hear destroys their careers. The whole social media 'likes' and 'followers' thing simply exacerbates that high-schoolification of our culture.

For Brendan O’Neill, this freedom is now under threat from global elites and a new “phoney internationalism”.

Again I agree. The freedom in which new ideas can flourish depends on there being spaces where differences can exist. That calls for cultural diversity, as opposed to one-size-fits-all enforced uniformity. The whole idea of there being some kind of post-national 'global' cultural consensus (defined by the elites and reflecting those elites' beliefs, naturally) is more than a little totalitarian. It's what has radical Islam so up in arms and so willing to fight in bloody jihad against a cultural consensus that would exclude and discredit their whole way of life.

Meanwhile, art critic Julian Spalding asks whether art might replace religion in teaching us how to live

Does art have the necessary cognitive content? Religion provides people with a rough metaphysical worldview and usually a moral code as well. I'm not convinced that art provides either one.

while philosopher and politician Rupert Read argues that we should learn to live in a world we don’t understand....

Do we have any choice? We live in a world that we don't understand whether we like it or not. It's just a fact of human existence.

Maybe our choice is whether we admit it to ourselves (a big part of the philosophical life, as I conceive of it) or try to obscure it with phony certainties.

[Secular Sanity]

Meanwhile, art critic Julian Spalding asks whether art might replace religion in teaching us how to live

Does art have the necessary cognitive content? Religion provides people with a rough metaphysical worldview and usually a moral code as well. I'm not convinced that art provides either one.

while philosopher and politician Rupert Read argues that we should learn to live in a world we don’t understand....

Do we have any choice? We live in a world that we don't understand whether we like it or not. It's just a fact of human existence.

Maybe our choice is whether we admit it to ourselves (a big part of the philosophical life, as I conceive of it) or try to obscure it with phony certainties.

Art has been utilized by all the religions of the world.  Art is simply transcribing reality through our sense of perception and imagination. It’s a subjective form of communication. Religion has mistakenly taken value out of this world by elevating their subjective reality to a sacred reality.  Religion isn’t the source of value.  The connection between our environment and other human beings are.  The strive for certainty and absolute good and evil has forced the separation of man.  We can use art to communicate that this is all we are and all we have.  We may be the product of circumstance but ultimately we ourselves are art.

Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy name,
Thy kingdom come,
They will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.  

I know-I know.  From what I’ve been told, my only humor lies in my unawareness of the lack thereof.