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It's no secret that I'm a big fan of Bertrand Russell, the late 19th-20th century philosopher and mathematician. Russell had a long life, bordered at the beginning by Elizabethan sentiment and ending in 1970, long enough to have protested the war in Viet Nam on the steps of Parliament (where he was so old and feeble he had to be carried to jail on a blanket).
Russell was also a great writer on atheism, with prose so beautiful he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950. His writings and speeches are really seminal to atheist thought.
And yet, sometimes there are objections to words Russell used, like "obscurantism" or "obscurantist." This strikes me as odd.
Do you find this term useful or objectionable?
Bertrand Russell - Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech (1950)
the objections are usually in terms of making up never before used word. I do it myself to make a point. the point is valid. Is the person telling half truths? he uses the term obscurantist. propaganda, spinning, and any number of words mean the same thing.
"obscurist" is an adjective that can't be used to disprove a claim. I am sure people use it to diminish claims like some people use the words straw man, apologetic, and atheist to try and lessen the validity of the claim.
atheist and theist do it. look at anti-religious countries and theist countries as great examples. CNN and FOX are pretty good at it too.
I wasn't familiar with the term. But I'm more than familiar with the practice, just as I knew of Projection (1) before I knew that was what it was called.
Obscurantism (/ɒbˈskjʊərənˌtɪzəm, əb-/ and /ˌɒbskjʊəˈræntɪzəm/)[1][2] is the practice of deliberately presenting information in an imprecise and recondite manner, often designed to forestall further inquiry and understanding.[3] There are two historical and intellectual denotations of Obscurantism: (1) the deliberate restriction of knowledge—opposition to disseminating knowledge;[a] and, (2) deliberate obscurity—an abstruse style (as in literature and art) characterized by deliberate vagueness.[4][5][6]
The term obscurantism derives from the title of the 16th-century satire Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum (1515–19, Letters of Obscure Men), that was based upon the intellectual dispute between the German humanist Johann Reuchlin and the monk Johannes Pfefferkorn of the Dominican Order, about whether or not all Jewish books should be burned as un-Christian heresy. Earlier, in 1509, the monk Pfefferkorn had obtained permission from Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor (1486–1519), to burn all copies of the Talmud (Jewish law and Jewish ethics) known to be in the Holy Roman Empire (AD 926–1806); the Letters of Obscure Men satirized the Dominican arguments for burning "un-Christian" works.
I think that it can hardly be denied than any attempt to Bamboozle people by any kind of smoke-screen intended to make it hard for them to understand what is being Claimed is a bad thing. That of course is not the same as someone who simply does not understand something that is beyond them. I found myself there in being educated by Gaylenwoof on Philosophy. Though I will say that If and when I got what he was saying, it seemed to be a lot simpler than it looked and had been obscured (not deliberately) by a lot of explanatory detail that confused the issue a bit.
(1)I called it the 'Napoleon syndrome' Because he accused his enemies of doing or planning to do what he was intending to do himself.
Projection is I think a psychological term for the defense mechanism of attributing to others your own mental events. Obscurantism is the manipulation of perceptions by malformation of reality, but is usually deliberate. It serves a purpose, that of obscuring the truth.
You could write an interesting essay about how they're related, but they're very different, actually.
Russell's early work included material he wrote with Whitehead, Principia Mathematica, which formed the basis of modern computing. Logic is not an easy subject, and I'm sure it affected his subsequent thinking, including all the books he wrote for laypeople. The underlying structure of his prose is logical, which may account for its beauty.
(It's the clever zingers at the end of paragraphs that get to me, often devastating and unexpected but true to the subject.)
Last edited by KaraZetterberg153; 04-22-2019 at 02:05 PM..
Oh yes. I was merely saying that I was aware of both ways of ..arguing, shall we say, less than honestly, before I'd read anything about them. Not that they were in any way related, like formal and informal logical fallacies.
Oh yes. I was merely saying that I was aware of both ways of ..arguing, shall we say, less than honestly, before I'd read anything about them. Not that they were in any way related, like formal and informal logical fallacies.
I'm a big fan of yours and wasn't criticizing. Some of the folks on here write so well, I was just giving it a shot. I probably don't measure up.
I do like Russell, though, and reading him improves my own writing. Here is an example of one of those zingers I was referring to. Note the very last sentence:
Quote:
There is an idea that rubbing up against all and sundry in youth is a good preparation for life. This appears to me to be rubbish. No one, in later life, associates with all and sundry....In later life a man's occupation and status give an indication of his interests and capacities. I have, in my day, lived in various different social strata; diplomatists, dons, pacifists, gaolbirds and politicians; but nowhere have I found the higgledy-piggledy ruthlessness of a set of boys....If you walk through a farm, you may observe cows and sheep and pigs and goats and geese...all behaving in their several ways: no one thinks that a duck should acquire social adaptability by learning to behave like a pig. Yet this is exactly what is thought so valuable for boys at school, where the pigs tend to be the aristocracy.4
It's no secret that I'm a big fan of Bertrand Russell, the late 19th-20th century philosopher and mathematician. Russell had a long life, bordered at the beginning by Elizabethan sentiment and ending in 1970, long enough to have protested the war in Viet Nam on the steps of Parliament (where he was so old and feeble he had to be carried to jail on a blanket).
Russell was also a great writer on atheism, with prose so beautiful he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950. His writings and speeches are really seminal to atheist thought.
And yet, sometimes there are objections to words Russell used, like "obscurantism" or "obscurantist." This strikes me as odd.
Do you find this term useful or objectionable?
Bertrand Russell - Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech (1950)
Hmm. Interesting clip. Not about Obscurantism. But about ideals vs. needs. Machivelli vs Thomas More in the famous play, A man for all seasons. 'Every man has his price'. The last remark on the clip about the need to understand our needs (or evolved drives, i might say - and to what extent is duty perhaps one of these?) is a good one as too much instinctive thinking right up to the top (if they are being honest with us) just accepts that we will do our duty as it's the right thing to do.
Too simple as Russell says. And how soon before the starving man says 'sod duty' and takes the bread? Being a Concrete thinker as Mystic put it, I think the clues lie in evolutionary biology, and not in Philosophy trying to reason it out with that human construct as artificial as counterpoint and fugue; ethics.
Steps back and waits for applause; not a sossidge.
And yet, sometimes there are objections to words Russell used, like "obscurantism" or "obscurantist." This strikes me as odd.
Do you find this term useful or objectionable?
I tend to use simpler terms like "obtuse" or "vague" or even "obscure" because I don't see a reason to use a word that most people would have to look up when there are perfectly adequate alternatives. Other than self-aggrandizement.
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not above using a word like that if there *aren't* sufficiently precise better-known alternatives.
Of course the counter-argument is that adding the compound suffix "antist" to "obscure" is pretty clear in meaning to anyone with the slightest grasp of etymology -- it is one who obscures things as a matter of course. Assuming he's intending that plain meaning and not some technical philosophical elaboration, I can live with it. But I would personally say "obtuse person" for most audiences.
I'm a big fan of yours and wasn't criticizing. Some of the folks on here write so well, I was just giving it a shot. I probably don't measure up.
I do like Russell, though, and reading him improves my own writing. Here is an example of one of those zingers I was referring to. Note the very last sentence:
I know that you weren't criticising and I'm grateful for the clarification. Russell is of course an icon for we atheists, even if he isn't the hate figure that Dawkins is for Theist apologetics. It must be quote humbling for him to be called 'the Pope of Atheism'. Which of course, he isn't. Dawkins isn't even the atheist notable that we most agree with. But Russell's analogy of the orbiting teapot is as much part of atheist wisdom as 'No True Scotsman is -and that was Anthony Flew who was at one time the brightest 'Convert to Theism' that they had.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant
I tend to use simpler terms like "obtuse" or "vague" or even "obscure" because I don't see a reason to use a word that most people would have to look up when there are perfectly adequate alternatives. Other than self-aggrandizement.
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not above using a word like that if there *aren't* sufficiently precise better-known alternatives.
Of course the counter-argument is that adding the compound suffix "antist" to "obscure" is pretty clear in meaning to anyone with the slightest grasp of etymology -- it is one who obscures things as a matter of course. Assuming he's intending that plain meaning and not some technical philosophical elaboration, I can live with it. But I would personally say "obtuse person" for most audiences.
I tend to use simpler terms like "obtuse" or "vague" or even "obscure" because I don't see a reason to use a word that most people would have to look up when there are perfectly adequate alternatives. Other than self-aggrandizement.
I realise this is your personal preference and there is no right or wrong when it comes to our likes or dislikes but I've always found this attitude puzzling. The only reason I can think of why is because English is my second language, so the act of looking up things I don't understand has become second nature to me.
My current employers are in the process of modifying their communication style in an effort to simplify it for the common folk. I call it dumbing down. Not only are they removing all business jargon but they are also replacing words they consider to be too formal. They hired a third party to rewrite their letter templates and now they all sound like they had been written by a second grader. All uses of third person pronouns, which were considered to be too pretentious were excised leaving nothing but the 'I' and 'you' type sentences that god forbid should exceed 5 words. Even the words like 'date' and 'venue' had been replaced with 'on' and 'the place where'.
Their argument is that all communication should be reduced to the lowest common denominator, so, instead of treating people like individuals and catering to their specific needs given different circumstances, they made blanket assumptions and depreciated everyone to this comical stereotype of 'Me Tarsan. You Jane.'
So, you see, this line of thinking - assuming that most people would not want to look up a word or will get frustrated by new concepts - can be just as corrosive as treating everyone like they should telepathically know exactly what you mean. Personally, I'd much rather someone gave me the benefit of a doubt than dismissed me as someone incapable of google or dictionary search.
I appreciate that I am not 'most people' and can't speak for others. But perhaps that's the trick - not projecting our personal preferences onto the world at large and not dismissing other people's choices simply because we may not know the reasons behind them. In the end, it's all a matter of context.
Last edited by Itzpapalotl; 04-23-2019 at 08:22 AM..
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is a bad thing. That of course is not the same as someone who simply does not understand something that is beyond them. I found myself there in being educated by Gaylenwoof on Philosophy. Though I will say that If and when I got what he was saying, it seemed to be a lot simpler than it looked and had been obscured (not deliberately) by a lot of explanatory detail that confused the issue a bit. 
