7. Truth?

 

"The method of science and technology, in their developed forms, implies a sterilization of the self, an elimination, as far as possible, of the human bias and preference(24)…."

–Lewis Mumford, "Technics and Civilization"

"The method of the physical sciences rested fundamentally upon a few simple practices. First: …the reduction of the complex to the simple by paying attention only to those aspects of events which could be weighed, measured, or counted, and to the particular kind of space-time sequence that could be controlled and repeated…(28)."

–ibid

 

 

 

"[W]ords are not mirror-like reflections of reality, but expressions of group convention(29)."

–Kenneth Gergen, "The Saturated Self"

"To be sure, the words may stand for something. Events do occur, after all. But there is no description or label that is uniquely pictoral, that mirrors the world as it really is, no perspective-free position, no final voice that speaks beyond the interests of some community(30)."

–ibid

 

 

 

"It's true that we always live within a certain perspective. Practice is about learning to live in that relative reality, enjoying it, but seeing it for what it is(43)."

–Charlotte Joko Beck, "Nothing Special:living Zen"

 

 

"The real reveals itself in culture in much the same way gravity reveals itself to the inhabitants of a structure when its ceiling caves in on them(51)."

–McKenzie Wark, "Virtual Geography: living with global media events"

"Many of the things conveyed in what George Gerbner calls the media’s ‘instant history’ of the [gulf] war were distortions or outright lies. Quite a few people know that now. How do we know? Through the media. Slower and more considered media, like articles in the highbrow monthlies, or earnest, truthful, hour-length documentaries, but media just the same. Both the dangers and our ability to do anything about them tie into our everyday experience of the vector(52)."

–ibid

 

 

"There can be no possible exercise of power without a certain economy of discourses of truth which operates through and on the basis of this association. We are subjected to the production of truth through power and we cannot exercise power except through the production of truth(53)."

–Michal Foucault Quoted in Mark Poster, "The Mode of

Information: poststructuralism and social context"

 

 

"In the United States and parts of Europe, the Pope notes, moral relativism pervades the culture, as it did in Germany just before the rise of Fascism in the 1920’s and 30’s. Of course, today’s rationale is very different — that relativism is the only safe ‘foundation’ for tolerance. That, says the Pope, is self-deception.

"A commitment to relativism means that reason is ultimately irrelevant, that there is only preference. In such a world, power trumps. …Only a commitment to concrete truths, to argument in the light of evidence, makes humans free. Why? Because civilized people regard one another as reasonable and free and wish to persuade one another only in the light of evidence. Barbarians use clubs(70)."

–Michael Novak, "It’s Not All Relative"

 

 

"Some differences are playful; some are poles of world historical systems of domination. Epistemology is about knowing the difference(54)."

–Donna J. Haraway, "Simians, cyborgs, and women : the reinvention of nature

 

 

"Pasted to one corner of my monitor screen I have a card that says,

NO CAUSES

NO EFFECTS

MUTUAL EMERGENCE

Which is also an extreme position(55)."

–Allucquere Rosanne Stone "The war of desire and technology at the close of the mechanical age"