Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 alpha 4/15/85; site ubvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!mtuxo!drutx!ihnp4!cbosgd!ukma!psuvm.bitnet!psuvax1!burdvax!sdcrdcf!hplabs!pesnta!pyramid!decwrl!amdcad!cae780!ubvax!tonyw From: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Reason gets no respect from Berman Message-ID: <398@ubvax.UUCP> Date: Mon, 13-Jan-86 16:11:05 EST Article-I.D.: ubvax.398 Posted: Mon Jan 13 16:11:05 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 18-Jan-86 17:44:37 EST References: <1538@hound.UUCP> <1671@cbsck.UUCP> <334@l5.uucp> <709@spar.UUCP> <350@l5.uucp> <951@mmintl.UUCP> <382@l5.uucp> Reply-To: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) Organization: Ungermann-Bass, Inc., Santa Clara, Ca. Lines: 93 In article <382@l5.uucp> laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton) writes: >I can often discover that what I want becomes clear because I was not >thinking clearly when i thought that I wanted something. A common mistake >I make is to think that I want *something* when what I really want is *to >deserve something*. When I remember this, a lot of disappointment goes away. >Sure, i would like to have had that job, but the person who was hired was >better than I was and deserves the job. Can I persist in wanting it while >realising that this would mean that I want for someone better qualified than >I to go without...nope. Aha -- I thought that I wanted a job, and what I >wanted was to deserve a job. A "whiggish" approach to history is to interpret history as the reason one deserves to be where one is today, as a rational, natural development. A realist approach to history is to ask how, as a concrete process, people got to where they are, and how, as concrete processes which actually took place, events came to be. Now where jobs are concerned, do whigs make more money and get to better positions, or do realists? I don't know, but I'm a realist at heart. If I conclude that whigs do better, I may put on the hat of a whig. If someone needs someone else for a job, and I'm there, I'm very happy to say, "I will do the best I can at this job." I will not stick my reason out to the point of saying, "and no one better than me happens to be applying." I don't know. Nor will I stick my reason out to say, "someone better than me is applying." Nor will I worry that my ability to persuade might bring the interviewer to an opinion of my competences which might be different from the opinion I have of myself. Nor will I worry that the politics of the firm involved might favor a less-than-best qualified person. If I see the job and I like the job and I'm looking, I want it. Once I've promised that I will do the best I can, and once I've clearly laid out what I believe I can reasonably offer a firm, the moral responsibility of choosing is out of my hands. I believe in carrying out promises. I usually assume the person who gets the job is not the most qualified, because I can see many reasons I would not choose the most qualified person if I were sitting where the person doing the hiring sits. For instance, less qualified people may have more enthusiasm and loyalty. They may be faster learners. Laura's belief about "deserving a job" depends on a rational form of organization which gives out jobs on some sort of merit. Keynes once said that most common-sense is the thoughts of some long-dead economist. My experience is that most common-sense about merit is the thoughts of some long-dead rational organizations theory. I don't believe the evidence supports much at all of that sort of common sense. >Reason is wonderful if you consistently apply it. You get rid of a lot >of frustration through understanding. And nearly all apparant conflicts >go away under its application. What I find left is injustice. > >-- >Laura Creighton >sun!l5!laura (that is ell-five, not fifteen) >l5!laura@lll-crg.arpa How people want to organize their memories is a deeply personal choice, which I'd not want to change. So I'll just state what I think here. I think most individual conflicts are sad, healthy, short, and worth remembering. There are many different reasons which argue with different positions and voices, they don't add up to harmony, and wisdom comes from balancing and nurturing the good reasons, not from suppressing or systematizing them. Applying reason consistently is a mark of technical skill and extremism, but not of wisdom. To get broad, I think most conflicts are conflicts of interests, not conflicts of reason. Reason often overextends itself into making such conflicts appear more adversarial and eternal than they ever were before reason was applied. I prefer compassion, respect, and diplomacy to reason in many cases. And if life makes less sense viewed through such lenses, there's no will of God that life should make sense to us when we view it as a whole. Some people come up with a division of actions into just or unjust categories, such that justice and injustice is all around us, the balance justice, I guess. I think most actions involving people have little to do with justice. The determination of justice or injustice is a remedy, not a fact. The most successful society is probably the one where this remedy needs least be applied. Tony Wuersch {amdcad!cae780,amd}!ubvax!tonyw