Foundational Dialectics

My first two theme articles are titled Rich Theory and Foundational Dialectics.

Rich Theory is my Affirmative statement. The thesis starts with the observation that we live in multidimensional universe and that, to thrive, we need a rich multidimensional system of thought that lets the billions of people on this planet expand on the different levels in this universe.

NOTE, the theme page simply states the word. It will take a great deal of other articles to explain what I mean with the thesis.

My negative term is "Foundational Dialectics." Foundational dialectics is not a rejection of the dialectical argument. The dialectical argument in the western tradition is a effective tool that can be used to draw out and overcome conflicts.

Modern thinkers have developed techniques that magnify conflicts until they become deep divisive issues that tear societies apart. The goal of the stipulated definition "Foundational Dialectics" is to differentiate between good and bad dialectics.

The Culture Warrior

I listened to a Book on Tape by Mr. Bill O'Reilly of Fox News called The Culture Warrior. In this book, Mr. O'Reilly gives a short biography of his journalistic career where he saw a concerted effort on the part of the media to give traditional American culture the shaft. Seeing that the news was extremely onesided, Mr. O'Reilly realized correctly that there was a very big need for a balanced approach to news that brought out both conservative and progressive views. Mr. O'Reilly apparently remembered reading The Art of War in school (Both Machiavelli and Sun Tzu are in vogue). Anyway, Mr. O'Reilly took his career one step further. Rather than just filling a need, Mr. O'Reilly has declared himself a General Sun Tzu in the great Culture War. He further invites his readers to become Sun-Tzus in the culture war.

Bill O'Reilly makes some very good points in his work and is doing a world of service in showing how overboard the secular progressive left has become. The problem I find is that by declaring himself a General Sun Tzu, Mr. O'Reilly seems to have forgotten which culture he is fighting for.

Sun Tzu was a warlord from ancient China. His wisdom is a formula for armies to follow in their domination of other armies.

The Sun Tzu warlord model for organizing a society ends up pushing the vast majority of people into a state of subserviance with just a few powerful overlords that dominate.

The real strength of the American system is that we had found ways out of the system of domination and submission that characterizes most socio-economic systems. Conservatives who've become enamored with Machiavelli and Sun Tzu have a tendency to become part of the forces which are undermining the culture they claim to be defending.

How to put it another way?

There is something really wierd with the secular progressive movement.

If you start tracing back the trends of the secular progressive movement, you will find that it went through a similar fascination with alternative philosophies Machiavelli and Sun Tzu.

Both Machiavelli and Sun Tzu said wise things. The problem is that these things are out of sync with the classical liberal tradition. The conservatives who march off to defend traditional Amerrican against the evil secular progressives end up being part of the game that erodes the classical liberal traditions that made the United States great.

BTW, have you noticed that since O'Reilly came out with the Culture Warrior that secular progressives have come out with the same idea of being generals in the culture war.

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Now, the theme of the culture war is that modern American society is divided into two warring factions. These are the traditional Americans and the secular progressives.

Again the problem with this type of thinking is that it is out of character with the founders of this nation who were hoping that we could reason through issues and not let the issue carve the deep divides that they do today.

Martyrs for Freedom

Sheikh Mujbil al-Sheikh Isa, Dhamin Hussein Ileywi and Aziz Ibrahim were Sunni members of the Iraq Constitutional Committee. They were gunned down in an effort by the insurgency to stop the process of forming a government.

Murdering your own people for being engaged in the process is a sign of the poor quality of debate that defines these modern times. I do suspect that future generations will look back at the thugs running the insurgency as evil, misguided people. The hard part, as always, is living through these modern times.

Unfortunately, Bush's war has translated into shrillness in debates. It is easy to imagine the shrillness dominating discourse taking place in the Western World escalating into wide scale violence. The loss of people who are authentically trying to engage in the process is temendously sad.

For that matter, the primary reason why I dislike both the left and right is that the extremes are generally set on preventing discourse.