Civility

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28 minutes ago, christopher3393 said:

 

So....what do you think of the essay?

 

 

I assume he is grounding his civility in a humanism (and thus anthropology) found elsewhere.  I agree that ours is a "moralistic" age, though perhaps not compared to other eras - just that one of the myths of the the secularistic/modern mind is that it has trancended moralism.

 

One thing he did not touch on is how western civ's current prosperity (even our "poor" are rich compared to just about all of humanity even a few generations ago) contributes to an isolation (we are all alone in our houses in front of our screens/speakers - don't know the name of our next door neighbors, etc.), and this leads to a lack of practice in tolerance of each others idiosyncrasies.

 

How all this is reflected in "the forums" I am not sure.  I personally don't find the forums uncivil really at all but then I might be thicker skinned than most and/or insensitive  

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Towards the end:

 

"Even if one grants (as one should not) the relativist view that certain values are mutually irreconcilable..."

 

Reminds me of that "coexist" bumper sticker that clumsily alleges that there is some modern ground for all philosophies/religion to stand on together and "just get along" - rather patronizing to those very philosophies, each one of which claims to be that very ground.  The assertion that certain (moral) values are in fact irreconcilable as "relativist" is interesting, but I don't buy it.  Perhaps he is means from the same ground on which the "coexist" man stands?

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2 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Hoffman's (and by extension, the "Gorts") editorial style is that subjectivists always win.  Hoffman himself is an unapologetic subjectivist with lots of "friends in the business" that he doesn't want to disappoint.  Whole threads frequently vanish for what appear to be capricious reasons.  Oh, and no one is ever allowed to ask why.  I would not point to that forum as an example of what you want CA to be.

 

Is there a significant/prominent forum (even if related to a "site" that is review/business oriented) that is not this way (i.e. an objectivists always win)?

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2 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I'd never read a site that had only one point of view and I don't learn anything from separated discussions. 

 

 

True, but is there another prominent/significant site that either as a matter of explicit or implicit editorial policy, does not end up being a kind of subjectivists always win forum (to use Samuel's phrase)?  It is usually a "soft" win, but something you can pick up on.  

 

To answer my own question, I don't know of it.  This site (CA) is the only one that I know of and thus is a kind of aberration to the status quo (i.e. audiophiledom as a merely subjectivist "art").

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3 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

The internet has democratized many subcultures (for better or for worse).  For reasons I don't completely understand, audiophilia has somewhat successfully resisted that democratization.  I postulate that reverence for institutions like Stereophile and TAS (there are others) drives sales, period.

 

This is slowly changing, but the death throes of those old institutions can be deafening at times.

 

My experience with most other popular audiophile forums is that any critical comments about/to manufacturers are rarely tolerated.  LH Labs is an exception (with regards to critical comments) that comes to mind, but they failed so spectacularly that nearly no one has sympathy any more.  The more reverent might consider that "uncivil", I consider it something akin to fact. 

 

 

Nicely put.  There is a deep kind of hypocrisy in this resistance as well, in that it is these very "subjectivists" who claim to be the guardians of self expression, art, and a varied and unauthoritative and uncentralized audiohpiledom.  Thinking of Mr. Quint's "political" article, which is in truth a defense of the high priests and magisterium of the status quo.

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4 hours ago, 4est said:

I was taught that rudeness is not acceptable...

 

3 hours ago, Teresa said:

 

Sorry Samuel, but calling anyone's belief's delusional is not civil and frankly IMHO offensive.

 

 

 

 

So, if in someones world view - in their experience they find your experience "delusional", then that is "rude"?  In other words you get to define and defend your universe, but when someone else's universe tells them that your universe is unreal (or more to the point has unreal and delusional aspects) then their universe becomes persona non grata (because you are saying "I don't want to hear about your universe Samuel, you are "rude").

 

Such is the conundrum that an intractable subjectivism leads to.  It can only be resolved if and when everyone looks to the outside, something "out there" that confirms and denies the subjective experience.  Of course, such a thing would mean that the subjective is not the arbitrator of all truth.  This would mean that there is a "reality", something "out there", and that reality is not simply defined (even if it is influenced, etc.) by the mere personal/interior experience.  

 

Samuel and all other "objectivists" assume this reality, that it is real, and that it can not be ignored without self deception.  Is such an assumption "rude"?  If so, does this make reality "rude" and an offense in-of-itself to the radical subjective self?

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9 minutes ago, 4est said:

The title of this thread is "Civility", and I do not promote anyone stating another is delusional outright. It is simply, as he put it, rude, regardless of how I think or feel. This goes both ways IMO. One can have dissent without fanning the flames using ad homenims. Chris has stated that this sight is to be like a neighborhood bar. I dunno what it is like where you are from, but around here one is more apt to start a brawl than an understanding by using terminology that way.

 

I think I see your point.  How then could Samuel (or any other objectivist) express his experience?  I quick look at an online thesaurus has me thinking that most synonyms would be objectionable...

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1 hour ago, esldude said:

 

Not being personal firedog, but I particularly dislike this post. 

 

If you go to see David Copperfield (or other magicians), the novelty and entertainment is being tricked into perceiving that he made an elephant disappear.  You don't then go out and proclaim he can do 'real magic'.  You simply think it is a craftily done illusion.  One that tricked you.  One that made use of the imperfection of human sensory perception, and the subsequent world building that goes on inside your mind. 

 

The issue with those who think it uncivil to point out ethernet cables aren't changing the playback quality is not that those who think they heard it did experience that as so.  It is to insist the perceptual process is sacrosanct and calling it into question is a personal affront to the perceiver.  That explaining how your subjective perception was necessarily in error is somehow uncivil.  The problem is less with those pointing out the way ethernet works than with the insistence of the perceiver claiming special status that should not be questioned.  

 

If one likes distortion or coloration or effects I wouldn't call that snake oil.  The snake oil with such devices is to deny they are changing the signal or to claim they are closer to the accurate rendition of the signal.   Tubed products come to mind.  For some music and to some preferences they can sound better.  To claim they have some closer version of fidelity rather than admit they have a coloration that tricks perceptions is how things go off rails.  

 

Real snake oil is to charge money for an object or device or process that actually doesn't change the sound while preconditioning the customer to hear what he wants to hear.  Some people are addicted to the feeling they get following such activities.  If they find the price acceptable that is fine, but giving them equal footing in figuring out good audio practices or in denying how things work is not a wise path to take.  

 

16 minutes ago, vmartell22 said:

 

 

A couple of things

 

1) In general,  we don't "think" it defies science. We know it defies science, and it will be the case until a peer reviewed scientific process proves otherwise. Then, it will be accepted. Until challenged again. 

 

That is the nature of the process. I balk at any suggestion that science is a belief system.  It is not. Both subjectivists and objectivists will splatter on the ground after a fall. That is gravity. That is the knowledge we obtain from science. It will happen because it is not a belief system; gravity is an objective fact, understood thanks to science. Whether you "believe in science" or not!

 

2) Problem is the that subjective won't accept scientific process, so claims will continue to be made!

 

3) Re: "the switch the cables, heard a  difference" situation, my guess is that the sticky point is when the cable in question is an ethernet cable. Someone put it very succinctly in another thread: "people, an ethernet cable is DATA cable,  NOT AN AUDIO CABLE"   It definitely drives me crazy that fact tends to be forgotten/overlooked, etc. I assume it also drives other people that agree crazy too... therefore have to get into it! 

 

4) I commend you and your very civil  post and you are right; snide comments, put downs, etc come quick and easy in the conversation. In my opinion is currently there is a lot misunderstanding about science and Audio has become another battleground...

 

v

 

 

 

I want to second these two posts.  The subjectivist position at the end of the day appears to reject the objectivist position (obviously and expectedly) but also want to carve out a special status for itself, a kind of "don't tread on me" and even more,wants to exclude views that don't agree with it as some kind of "personal" affront.

 

I asked for a synonym that would be acceptable to subjectivists upstream for "delusional" because if you switch out one in spec CAT 5 cable for another, and claim even minor auditory benefits (putting aside the possibility that you made some other significant change in the process in some way you are not aware), I submit you are delusional (or whatever the civil synonym for the term is).  That's "ok", I have been and will continue to be deluded myself about many things.  

 

I recognize the need for civility, and even recognize that particular objectivists can use and abuse things like "science", etc.  However, subjectivism appears to be doing something different in that it appears to want to be handled with kid gloves otherwise a criticism becomes personal and uncivil.

 

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23 hours ago, christopher3393 said:

Should we abandon the "quest for civility"? Is it a hopelessly romantic, historically fanciful and vague ideal?

 

Given how nasty and intractable the conflicts on this forum can be,  is it  naïve to imagine we can somehow transcend our clashing sets of values and miraculously agree on what counts as acceptable behavior and tolerable opinion? After all, if we could find common ground on something as fundamental as that, would we have the sort of nasty and intractable conflicts we call on "civility" to manage in the first place?

 

Is the common ground here may be thinner than some of us think? Does "civility" require that we develop thicker skins in responding to other people’s rudeness or disrespect?

 

Any way one looks at it, I think civility is a challenge in a number of ways.

 

 

Samuel (with consumerism), wgscott, and others have built upon this post.  

 

The modern project and our western, liberal societies and selves (don't think we have many, or any, folks from truly anti-liberal or anti-western cultures in this thread) have this built in contradiction.  On the one hand, we are products of the scientific view of reality, a "technological ontology" (think Hans Jonas here Christopher3393).  On the other hand, we are also radical individualists - Cartesian Selves who think that we/reality can be anything we can think ourselves as, and by extension reality "out there" has to submit to our Self or it becomes something to be overcome (i.e. a violation and affront to who I am).  This tension defines our modern lives so profoundly that I wonder if it is itself not the very essence of being modern.

 

This is a whopper of a contradiction and it comes apart in all sorts of ways culturally, legally, technologically, etc.  Recently (i.e. in the last 30 years or so) a lost "Civility" has been very lamented in all sorts of spheres (e.g. politically, the media, etc. - everyone is noticing an ever increasing coarseness).  

 

Perhaps Audiophiledom is simply a reflection of this wider unravelling.  Whereas before there has was this polite toleration of contradiction, the tension has overcome and SNAPPED us out of our happy place and what was being swept under the rug before is now out in the open?

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1 minute ago, lucretius said:

Wow!  This thread is really evoving into craziness.  Unless I'm mistaken, we are not discussing toleration of different races, cultures, religions, or politics -- just differing views on audio.  How about posters simply apply the Golden Rule: "Treat others how you would like to be treated."

 

If only that worked, but it (i.e."the golden rule")  is a manifest failure even on the insignificant level of an unimportant, consumerist/luxury "hobby" such as audio.  When applied to more important things such as your list, it's failure becomes even more obvious.

 

Why does the Gold Rule fail?

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2 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

No one is suggesting the "golden rule" as a moral philosophy; just a practical rule of thumb on an Internet forum about audio.  (Why make this more complex than it has to be?)

 

I don't think it is complex to see that "treat others how you would like to be treated" assumes a commonality of self and understanding of reality that does not exist.  When I treat "the other" like I would be "treated", it turns out that they don't like it because they have a contradictory view (to mine).

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9 hours ago, christopher3393 said:

 

This probably sounds wildly idealistic...

 

 

I would not say it is idealistic, though I do believe it presupposes a "con-sensus" (i.e. "with"-"sense", or the same sense, understanding, and view) of what it means to be part of the city (thinking of the entomology:  civilis).  

 

In other words the devil is in the details.  Anyone (and I submit just about everyone) can and does agree to the outline as you describe it.  What then happens is a topic or particular fact/situation/experience comes up in discussion that happens to be a kind of "non negotiable" in that overspills the boundaries of "civil disagreement".  Examples are easy to point too:  "science" vs. "creationism", whether one should stand for or burn the flag, who and what is a human being, and what is Reality (with a capital R) and what is not. 

 

These kinds of stressors then reveal that the participants are not all from the same city, and thus what is "civil" to one is not nothing more, and nothing less than, uncivil too another.  At this point these citizens-in-discussion can then try to look at these kind of foundational presuppositions - but this almost NEVER happens.  Turns out, people are not very good at the ground they walk on - they are usually too busy, too anxious, too fill-in-the-blank to do anything other than keep their eyes on the horizon.  

 

So, in the modern world you get this kind of endless debate between the city's and it really is a proxy for a power struggle - which con-sensus is going to define the terms of the "civil" debate...

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15 minutes ago, tmtomh said:

Argument and debate are by definition a collective endeavor. Self-centered speech with no regard for others' feelings is performance art, not discussion...

 

I like the way you put that.  I would say however that "feelings" is not quite the right word.  It has to be something larger, more significant than "feelings" because people can and do have feelings that don't deserve much (e.g. they can be childish, etc.), and sometimes it is necessary and good to if not directly challenge those feelings, to at least not allow them to control the discussion. 

 

No, it has to be a regard and respect for people as a thing-in-of-itself.  Not sure how to phrase it.  It is a weakness in our modern technocratic and "meritocratic" societies in that we tend to judge people (and everything else) in a kind of utilitarian way - in a  "what are you doing for me now" sense.

 

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21 hours ago, christopher3393 said:

 

I think you make important points for discussion. Regarding one of them, "what is "civil" to one is nothing more, and nothing less than, uncivil too another", what do you see as prime examples on this site? 

 

All the complaints on this thread, those who complain of "packs", etc. 

 

Note that I do not find this site "uncivil" in that I understand that I am a stranger in a strange land and that my cities culture does not apply here in Rome.  At the end of the day, this site is "civil" only in the eyes of Chris C since he is the (benign) dictator of what is and is not civil.  

 

In the quite recent past, Western Civ had a kind of underlying consensus (here in America it has been called the "Protestant Consensus") as to what it meant to be part of the city, the minimum requirements and basic boundaries of "decency" (a term nobody could define but in which everybody understood).  This agreement/consensus died in the 1960's (though it was in the ICU long before that).  In Europe, this agreement (which had a more Roman Catholic and "Continental" flavor) was dead by the end of WWI.  

 

Western Civilization is thus now "multicultural" and thus "multi-civil".  To some that is a good thing.  To others, it is a (non-shooting) "civil war" - a struggle between the cities over whose understanding of civil (and Reality, etc.) gets to dominate.

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20 hours ago, christopher3393 said:

 

Here at CA, do we recognize enough goods in common to give us a real stake in cultivating the capacity for tolerance across what divides us?

 

Probably not...not in the usual course.  There will be exceptions, but in general our modern life is characterized much (much much) more by what divides us (and these divisions are all too real) than by what we have "in common".  Indeed, modernity is trying to make these divisions the very thing that unites us (i.e. "multiculturealism, etc.).  While it might be in a (very) limited sense clever, It is irrational and even desperate...

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17 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

And for the record, I don't consider myself the member of any tribe other than perhaps, "free thinker".

 

 

 

The idea that "free thinker" is not a tribe or a tribe that transcends other tribes, is in a word "delusional"

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48 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Yes, I saw this coming and expected this tit for tat because of my "monk-splaining" comment.  Thanks for the reply.  I appreciate the time you put into composing it.

26 minutes ago, mansr said:

I belong to the tribe consisting of people who cannot be assigned to a tribe.

 

2 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

20+ years ago, someone said to me, "Everyone is either a monotheist, polytheist, atheist, or pantheist. which are you?"  I of course answered, "free thinker".

 

 

"There are two kinds of people in this world, those who divide people into two kinds and those who don't"

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13 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

I took Bill's post as his opinion, rather than a strong scientific claim. 

 

 

This sounds right to me.  However, it leaves the objectivist in a rather "subjectivist" position, at least on the surface.

 

10 minutes ago, lasker98 said:

 

+1

Great post! This really gets to the heart of so many issues that seem to happen over and over in different threads imo. I don't remember

ever seeing a "subjectivist" refer to another poster as delusional or some other equally disparaging term. That type of response seems to come solely from the "objectivist" side. 

 

 

This is largely true, but then "delusional" to an objectivist is merely a description of the reality of another's perceptions.  In this, the subjectivist is imposing his self/view on the objectivist by "taking it personal".  On the other hand, the objectivist is imposing his self/view on the subjectivist by "disparaging" their view because they "own" the delusion in that they make it part of themselves.

 

and worlds collide...

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40 minutes ago, lasker98 said:

 That's an interesting perspective, although I see it as another example of the "objectivist" attempting to impose his beliefs on others.

 

 

That's right!  From the subjectivist perspective, the objectivist is "imposing".  At the very same time, from the objectivist perspective, the subjectivist is "imposing".  

 

40 minutes ago, lasker98 said:

 

 That's an even more interesting perspective imo. Just to be clear, I'm using interesting in the same way as odd, strange, etc.. if someone in virtually any context is calling me delusional, it's pretty hard not to take it personal. Pretty hard to make a case for civil discussion when that's the starting point.

To me, that quoted sentence would be more accurately written as "In this, the objectivist is imposing his self/view on the subjectivist by "making it personal".

 

Ah, you lost it ("it" being the one that sees both sub/obj positions as "provincial" )  and stepped back into your own provincial perspective.  The reason is that to place a moral valuation on "delusional" (this is what you are doing when you exclude the term from civil discussion) is to do so from within the subjectivist position (or some third perspective which is not explicated).  In the objectivist view, "delusional" is a perfectly valid, useful, and most importantly morally acceptable term.  Not only that, from the objectivist position, your attempt to declare the term morally unacceptable is itself a moral offense!  

 

Another way to say this is that you have an unexamined understanding of "civil" and a common ground of understanding (what you call a "starting point") and thus are unconsciously "imposing" it on everyone (objectivists, subjectivists, and anyone else).

 

Until both subjectivists and objectivist see/think beyond this basic impasse, it is just a bunch of talking past one another...different cities with different assumptions about what is moral and civil...

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18 minutes ago, mourip said:

 

Agnostic:  a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.

 

 

13 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

Actually, agnosticism is merely the doctrine that gods are unknowable. The last part you stated, "a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God" is not part of agnosticism, at least as Huxley coined the term.  One can be both an agnostic and an atheist.

 

Aldous Huxley coined the term?  Did not know that.  I am going to disagree:  The first part of his sentence is not agnosticism, it is materialism.  The second part of his sentence is agnosticism.

 

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4 minutes ago, christopher3393 said:

 

actually, the other Huxley, T.H. Huxley. The term is modern, but the viewpoint, while not named that, is ancient.

 

Too true.  Bellerophon mounted Pegasus and flew up to Olympus to see for himself if the gods really existed, and thus was accused of atheism, as well as being punished  by Zeus - by being made blind (much meaning in that if you think about it)...

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9 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

The first part of the first sentence is agnosticim, "that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God".

 

The last part of the first sentence is ambiguous,  "or of anything beyond material phenomena". It could be asserting materialism or it could be just stressing the "unknowability" -- from the context, I would say the latter.

 

From the Wikipedia page:

Agnosticism is the view that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable.

 

In my view, the Wikipedia correctly interpreted Huxley. As for the second part, "a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God." -- so many people have associated this with agnosticism that I believe some dictionaries accept it.  But it doesn't make sense:  Atheism is the lack of belief, where theism is belief; this is a binary condition -- there is nothing in the middle.

 

In a nutshell, agnosticism is about knowledge, atheism/theism is about belief.

 

 

 

Interesting!  Even if you limit agnosticism to a mere epistemology (not that I would grant that), the second part of the sentence (i.e.  "or of anything beyond material phenomena") I assert has to be taken on the same terms  - and thus you are back to a materialism even if not a strong, explicated metaphysical one.  

 

Dialectical reasoning (how you push agnosticism/belief into a "binary condition") is not the only kind of reasoning, though in the modern era the usual understanding of "rationalism" does lead to this (ironically, this is largely because RCatholicism in the middle ages and its "Scholasticism" invented modernism).  In other words, belief can not be separated from knowledge in that at the bottom of all philosophy (epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics, etc.) are first principals that themselves can not be examined with the (rational) apparatus that is built upon it.  All knowledge then implies an underlying "belief".

 

The agnostic who "claims neither faith nor disbelief in God" is doing another kind of reasoning - I would label it an ontology (i.e. a way of "being") or an existentialism...

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mansr said:

 

"Atheism is the belief that there is no god(s)"

 

lucretius said:

 

"No.  Atheism is the lack of belief in gods."

 

Wikipedia says:

 

"Less broadly, atheism is the rejection of belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities."

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2 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

 

Two points:

 

Belief does not imply knowledge.

and

Agnosticism is not knowledge -- it is a doctrine about knowledge.  Therefore, agnosticism does not imply belief.

 

 

  

Your logic is correct, but it rests on a "belief".  Or as you put it, a "doctrine" about knowledge which is a belief that your logic rests upon and without your logic would be "empty" as it were...

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29 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

You see where it says "less broadly"?  Silly Christians invented that narrower definition, which atheists reject.  Christians, or any theists for that matter, do not get to define atheists.

 

No offense but this is an error on several levels - historical is what I will address here:  Christians did not "invent" the "narrow definition" that agnosticism implies an atheism.  I quoted Greek Mythology earlier.  The Roman's main beef with Christians (and to some extent Jews) before Constantine was that their theology and practice denied the gods of Roman civil religion (which by that time included the emperors themselves) - the most common thing the said of Christians was that they were "atheists".

 

Don't get me wrong, I am not denying your "right" to hold to the narrower definition. - I am just pointing out that the term is not precise as you would have it in the larger community of a diverse world...