Tody's blog posting is a "Note To A Friend." The guy pictured above, though, the Refrigertor Repair Man, is not the friend to whom my blog posting is directed. I do have a friend, however, who has objected, on a number of occasions, to what he perceives to be my lack of interest in trying to describe and delimit exactly what has gone wrong in our contemporary "political world" - and that Refrigerator Repair Man has come up, in an email exchange between us.
My friend's most recent complaint is, apparently, that I told him that "I am not much interested in trying to figure out what is happening." In other words (I think), I must have told this friend that I was not much interested in spending a lot of time describing all the things that the Trump Administration is doing wrong, and analyzing all of them.
In fact, I have forgotten exactly what I said to my friend, but as you will see from his comment, immediately below, whatever it was, my statement seemed way "off base" to him. Here's the note I received:
Gary, come on. If you don't know why the refrigerator is broken you don't have a CLUE how to fix it! If you don't like to read manuals ("I am not much interested in trying to figure out what is happening") you might need someone trustworthy to tell you what's broken; then YOU can act and fix it!
This comment, just reproduced, is rather similar to an earlier communication I also received from my friend, which was more or less along the same lines. Here is that earlier note:
Before I write something offensive because I don't understand, please clarify: In your use of the word "facts" does that mean the same as "reality"? If something exists, it is. But from what you're saying we can make it something else by wishing it so? We briefly discussed this before but it slipped past and I'd appreciate it if you would clarify your thinking here.
A fair request, and here, in response, by way of a clarification, is a note to this friend, which might be helpful, or of interest, to anyone who reads my daily blog postings.
oooOOOooo
Friend,
You have put your finger on a key way I observe the world, and how I think about it. “Facts” are what exist, what we see, what “is,” right now. However, many people succumb to what I call the “is” fallacy. They just assume that what “is,” right now, is “inevitable,” and that the way things “are” is the way that things “must be." The “facts,” thus, are often, seen as a final statement of “reality,” meaning that “what exists” is “true,” and must be accepted. However, it is my contention that this common way of thinking about things is a misunderstanding of “reality.” To believe that what “exists,” the “facts,” is, or are, what must exist, is to make a mistake. That’s just not true - at least not in the “human world” that we most immediately inhabit.
My difference with those who are focused on the “facts” and “observation" is that they sometimes concede to “the facts” a power that "the facts" don’t actually have. “Reality,” which is what we see when we look around and find the facts, is something that exists (in our human world) because of past human action. We live, most immediately, in such a “human world,” a world that we create ourselves. In that human world, the current state of which has been defined by the outcomes of past human choices and actions, the future is not a given. Current “realities” are not any kind of inevitable “reality” at all. “Possibility” defines the nature of our world. Anything is possible, going forward, since the existing “facts” can be changed by human action, starting right now, and moving ahead.
I am always most interested, personally, in what I would like reality, and the facts, to be, and I like to focus, mostly, not on “finding the facts,” but on thinking what I (and others) might be able to do to make sure that the future - both “facts” and “realities” - will be what I think they ought to be.
There is also, of course, what I sometimes call the “World of Nature,” and even, sometimes, “The World God Made.” I keep insisting that we “live,” actually, and simultaneously, in TWO Worlds. Those two worlds are totally different. The “World of Nature,” which is the world that we ultimately inhabit, is not subject to change by human action. “Facts,” in that world, are absolutes. The “Law of Gravity” tells us what must and will happen with respect to lots of things that are very important in our world (and the “Law of Gravity” is just one example). It is important to understand that the laws that prevail in the World of Nature are totally different from our own human laws. In the “Human World,” the laws don’t state what must and will happen, and they don’t define what “reality” must be. In our world, the laws state what we WANT to happen, and what we want the truth to be. And we can, of course (and do), change our minds about that. Our world is a world that is defined by human choice and human action, and is the result of the exercise of human freedom.
It is my view that we tend to think that we can ignore the laws that actually do bind us, those laws that define the World of Nature (our failure to deal with Global Warming in any adequate way is a go-to example). On the other hand, we also, largely, defer to “the facts” and the so-called “reality” of our human world, and these “facts” and “realities" do not actually bind us, in any ultimate way, since we can change them.
Our world, which I think is properly understood as a “political world,” is defined and determined by the “political” actions we take together. What I am most interested in, personally, is working to decide what I think should be the “reality” we should be attempting to create, and then thinking of how we might actually create it. I am not nearly as interested (though it is important) in trying to figure out the dimensions of the “reality” that exists now.
In other words, I think “action,” not “observation,” should be our main line of work. My preoccupation is something different from trying to observe, and discover, and describe the “facts” that currently exist, with the thought that these “facts” constitute a “reality” that (because we do call it “reality”) we must all accept, and to which we must all defer.
I hope this helps you understand my perspective. I am not so much interested in "trying to figure out what is happening," compared to figuring out what I might be able to do (and what we all might be able to do together, collectively) to change the current reality into something better.
My daily blog postings make a lot more sense if someone understands that this is how I see the world.
All the best,
+Gary
