Political Philosophy and Ethics discussion

For comments in other topics about Karl Popper, type "Popper" in the search box to the right of the present post.

I have opened this topic in the event someone wishes to discuss Popper thematically. As I have not to date read any of Popper's philosophical writings, I won't be contributing to this discussion anytime soon. However, other members of this group have read much of Popper's writings and have discussed him in comments posted in other topics of this group.

During the last few days, I have read the front matter and pages 1-40 of Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies. I stopped reading it today. I may return to it later after I have studied Plato and Marx further.

Popper wrote this work during World War II. At that time, and later, he was obsessed with disproving totalitarian theories associated with Nazism and Communism. The book is divided into an attack on Plato and an attack on Marx for their contributions to totalitarian theory. Let me say at the outset that I totally understand and agree with Popper's opposition to totalitarianism, including but not limited to its Nazi and Stalinist manifestations. And it is true, as he says, that both Plato and Marx have been used by totalitarian theorists and practitioners to justify tyranny. So I sympathize with Popper's overall point of view.

The connection between Marx and totalitarianism is rather obvious, at least to those of us who grew up in the Cold War era and have read Marx, Lenin, and histories/biographies of the Soviet Union and its leaders. I also acknowledge that some of the statements in Plato's dialogues might be, and have been, construed, correctly or incorrectly, to support totalitarianism. See, for example, Ayn Rand's description of her experience attending a philosophy class on Plato at a Soviet university during the Stalinist era. Unfortunately, I last read Rand several decades ago and don't currently remember exactly where she wrote this account. See generally, however, her first novel, We the Living, which describes her experiences growing up in the Soviet Union. (As always, I must note that I do not agree with Rand's political and economic philosophy, though I understand how her experiences and observations in Stalinist Russia contributed to her views.)

As I have only read the first forty pages of Popper's book, I can only comment on some of the basic assumptions about Plato he articulated in those pages. One of the fundamental premises of The Open Society and Its Enemies is that Plato was a historicist. But this conclusion seems impossible considering the dictionary definition of "historicism":

"1 a: a theory that all sociocultural phenomena are historically determined, that all truths are relative, that there are no absolute values, categories, or standards, and that the student of the past must enter into the mind and attitudes of past periods, accept their point of view, and avoid all intrusion of his or her own standards or preconceptions

"b: the practice of writing or treating history in accordance with such a theory

"c: a theory of history holding that the development of human society is a process governed by inexorable laws of change operating independently of human wills or wishes

"2 a: a strong or exaggerated concern with or respect for the institutions and traditions of the past

"b: the use of or undue reliance upon historical forms or styles in art especially in architectural design"

Merriam-Webster Unabridged Online Dictionary, s.v. "historicism" (accessed August 29, 2016).

The most frequent use of the term "historicism" is in the context of definitions 1a and 1b. Leo Strauss rejected such historicist approaches and demonstrated that they were inconsistent with Plato's philosophy. See, e.g., Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), esp. chap. 1 ("Natural Right and the Historical Approach").

Definition 2a is also sometimes employed, e.g., with regard to the writings of Burke and his successors. In a number of writings, Strauss also demonstrated that Plato did not identify the good with the ancestral. Popper seems to differ from this conclusion, but Strauss has shown, in my view, that Plato frequently distinguished, in his writings, between the best regime and the ancestral regime.

Definition 2b appears to be irrelevant to discussions of historicism in either Popper or Strauss.

Popper seems to focus mainly on definition 1c: " a theory of history holding that the development of human society is a process governed by inexorable laws of change operating independently of human wills or wishes." He attempts to put Plato in the same box as Hegel, Marx, and their successors. He acknowledges two problems with this task: (1) Plato, unlike these modern philosophers, did not think that the inevitable historical law of change was in the direction of progress but, to the contrary, was in the direction of degeneration, and (2) Plato did not think such degeneration was inevitable, because an outstanding political leader (call him/her a "philosopher-king" if you will) could reverse the tendency toward corruption and could improve political society. Given Popper's admissions, it is very difficult to see how he could still maintain that Plato was a historicist, but then, as I say, I have only read the first forty pages. Perhaps he makes his position clearer later on. Up to the point I have read, however, Popper seems to be contradicting himself.

In my view, it is incorrect to call Plato a "historicist" in any way, shape, or form. Instead of affixing such an inappropriate label to him, it would be better simply to engage him on the level of his actual philosophy. And here is where I have serious problems with Popper's hermeneutic premises. Popper assumes two premises of Platonic interpretation that I reject: (1) that it is possible and appropriate to examine Plato's dialogues developmentally or chronologically, and (2) that it is acceptable to examine Plato's dialogues apart from a careful examination of their contexts. He assumes, for example, that speeches of certain characters (neither Socrates nor Plato) in the Timaeus and the Laws can simply be considered to represent Plato's views. I won't belabor this issue here but rather refer to some of my previous posts on this subject: posts 5 and 38 here and posts 9-11, 15-16, 18-19, and 24 here. See also Leo Strauss, The Argument and the Action of Plato's "Laws" (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975 ) and the discussions of the Timaeus in Catherine H. Zuckert, Plato's Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009) (see index).

Thanks Alan,

I like Popper and I enjoyed Open Society, but he has made a career of polemic and I'm not sure it has done him any favors in the long run. I remember that while reading Open Society, I separately read a lot of criticism for this book by those who believed he had poorly handled Plato. Again I am going off of memory, but more or less I specifically remember the criticism revolving around Plato's Republic, and that Popper had Isolated the text too much and not taken into account other political works by Plato such as "Laws". Personally I have read "Republic" but I am guilty in not having read "Laws" and other works that fully epitomize his politics.

I think at best, Popper was concerned with how politics handles ideas of great philosophers. He criticizes certain aspects of Plato such as "the Noble Lie" as an idea to be exploited by different governments through history. At worst, Popper was taking these philosophers at face value as guilty contributors to totalitarianism.

If I were to revisit "Open Society", I think I would like to take the time first to read more of Plato's political work. That and I would like to read more about Popper himself. From his Essays to Open Society he has never, shied away from making points by being as critical as possible of others. I am curious as to what may have led him to take such an unabashedly critical stance on so many others work; be it classical philosophers such as Plato, or contemporaries such as Wittgenstein. I will end by saying there is a lot I admire in Open Society in that Popper questioned how certain ideas that seem admirable can be exploited, and his serious concern and desire for a society that is free and peaceful. But, as you have rightfully pointed out Alan, there is a lot in Popper's work that deserves serious critique as well.

__________________________________________
Karl Popper ....only knew facts?

Ha! Well yes maybe that was the problem Feliks.

John wrote: "Thanks Alan, I like Popper and I enjoyed Open Society, but he has made a career of polemic and I'm not sure it has done him any favors in the long run. I remember that while reading Open Society,..."

Thanks, John. I only read forty pages of the book, so I can't claim to be an expert on it. My impression from those pages, however, is that Popper only superficially understood Plato, notwithstanding that he had numerous citations to Plato and apparently read all or most of his dialogues. Plato presents a very difficult hermeneutical problem, because, with the exception of his letters (some or all of which may not be genuine, though most of them probably are), he never speaks in his own name. In his dialogues, everything is in a dramatic context, and that context must be considered carefully before one can figure out what position, if any, Plato himself accepted.

Feliks wrote: "
__________________________________________
Karl Popper ....only knew facts?"

Good one!

Heh heh. Thanks. A well-drawn cartoon is a true pleasure.

Say, I notice that there's two threads currently alive around here which talk about the nature of 'truth' or 'facts'.

And I just came across a passage in the Michael Gelven book I'm reading. Maybe opportunity for some remarks on the subject.

Immanuel Kant agreed that we can't determine the logic or reason of/for/in things around us, unless we first ask, 'what is reason in the first place?'

Gelven says that Heidegger goes in a different direction: asking 'what are the traits of our ability to even inquire what is true? In what ways do we even seek it?'

I myself am a fan of things like the 'Correspondence Theory of Truth' --or, the 'Coherence' theory--and some of the ways in which Aristotle states the dilemma. "To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true" (I love this kind of phrasing)

Feliks wrote: "Heh heh. Thanks. A well-drawn cartoon is a true pleasure.

Say, I notice that there's two threads currently alive around here which talk about the nature of 'truth' or 'facts'.

And I just came ac..."

Well, I agree with Aristotle on this one. I don't know enough about Kant, Heidegger, or Gelven to comment further.

Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction is a succinct and readable overview of the salient debates in this area of modern thought. Popper is mentioned repeatedly, as is Kuhn and several others. Lucid examples are given for each problem treated.

Was flipping through it this evening. Somewhere in here (or so I had recalled) was that very interesting premise that 'if human retinas were specifically unable to see a hidden color in the spectrum--and it was un-measurable by any of the instruments we design--there is no way we would mentally be able to detect it in the models of the universe we construct for ourselves'

Food for reflection..

Feliks wrote: "Somewhere in here (or so I had recalled) was that very interesting premise that 'if human retinas were specifically unable to see a hidden color in the spectrum--and it was un-measurable by any of the instruments we design--there is no way we would mentally be able to detect it in the models of the universe we construct for ourselves'"

Dark matter? Dark energy? As I understand it, these phenomena are inferable as a result of their effects on things we can perceive through our instruments, but we cannot perceive them directly with our senses or with our instruments--at least not to date.

Aye. That's a 'real-world' example; whereas this was merely a cogent thought-experiment (of which it was said, scientism could not easily outflank). Namely: that no matter our belief in instrumentation, if our faculties can not present our ape-brains us with certain information, then, our ape-brains are not built to assess that info in any way. 'Blind spots' can conceivable exist beyond our reckoning.

Good stuff in Alan's post #2 and John's post #3.

Should we infer that Karl Popper assumes that any 'directionality' of society leads to an undesirable end, such as totalitarianism? And when he used the awkward term 'open society' he is in praise of utter lack of form? What type of society did he favor, if any? Technocracy?

Feliks wrote: "Should we infer that Karl Popper assumes that any 'directionality' of society leads to an undesirable end, such as totalitarianism? And when he used the awkward term 'open society' he is in praise of utter lack of form? What type of society did he favor, if any? Technocracy? "''

Since I have not read very far in Popper, I cannot at present answer these questions.

I would suggest that you read Popper's The Poverty of Historicism and a good overview of his thought before you read further in the Open Society.

I would certainly like to do that. Thank you.

Craig wrote: "I would suggest that you read Popper's The Poverty of Historicism and a good overview of his thought before you read further in the Open Society."

Thanks, Craig. I may get back to Popper at some point, but for the time being I am focused on other philosophical studies.

While we're at it, any opinions on Oswald Spengler?

Or William Winwood Reade?

Popper perhaps would have violently disagreed with one or both of these writers?

Just wanted to share that Popper's book was deemed one of the top 100 nonfiiction books of all time by The Guardian (very prominent left leaning newspaper in the UK). The justification is well worth a read:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...

Sunil wrote: "Just wanted to share that Popper's book was deemed one of the top 100 nonfiiction books of all time by The Guardian (very prominent left leaning newspaper in the UK). The justification is well wort..."

There's probably not many radicals that aspire to "exemplary caution and prudence" with their thought and deeds like that Guardian article says Popper did.

I'm getting confused about Karl Popper this week. Roaming among too many threads in this group lately, I've gotten my trouser cuffs damp with all these various statements made about the man. Are all of these true?

He was libertarian.
He was against historicism.
He was against Plato (Why? Because of 'The Republic'? need a reminder)
He was against Marx.
He was against the phenomenological school of Husserl & Heidegger.
He was for the rationalization of the social sciences and therefore set against Hans-Georg Gadamer.
But Hannah Arendt shows that following Popper's thought out to its logical conclusions can result in totalitarianism (the same grounds which he criticizes Plato for)?

Can anyone clarify? Thanks!

All true, except I hadn't heard the last. Arendt is a great hero of mine (Popper not so much) so I would love to have the reference to where she argued that. His book contra Plato was pure slander.

Thanks Randal! If my memory failed me in just 1 out-of-7 then I was better served than I expected.

Perhaps the Arendt snippet is a total mental hiccup on my part.

Next question: so if someone is a vigorous libertarian, do all these other attitudes we find in Popper automatically follow suit? Sure, I can see why a libertarian would oppose Marx and 'The Republic' but why take a stance against historicism or phenomenology? Or, perhaps these are unrelated, though no less vigorous traits we find in Popper alone, since he simply had many interests and opinions?

The common ancestor of Marx, Husserl, Heidegger, and Gadamer was Hegel to whom Popper was allergic. I think this is the link to his antipathy to all the rest.

Thx! Very helpful, Rand Man!

Now may be a timely moment to reference Popper's famous quote about the world being divided between 'clouds' and 'clocks'. To Popper, Hegel must have been an entire cloudbank. I can't find a proper source for it, so instead I will use this article which references...
https://www.wired.com/2010/04/st_essa...

Feliks wrote: "Perhaps the Arendt snippet is a total mental hiccup on my part. ..."

I have checked the index to my copies of Arendt's own books: The Origins of Totalitarianism, The Human Condition, On Revolution, Between Past and Future, Eichmann in Jerusalem, The Jew as Pariah, The Life of the Mind, Crises of the Republic, and Responsibility and Judgment and Elisabeth Young-Bruel's two biographical studies of Arendt. No references to Popper.

But at the end of a study of Arendt's approach to totalitarianism, by Stephen Whitfield, Into the Dark, Hannah Arendt and Totalitarianism, the author comes to a useful comparison with Popper:

"Yet the theme of her book (The Origins) was not only the characteristics of total rule but its origins in racism, pan-Germanism, pan-Slavism, imperialism and bureaucracy. Arendt not only assumed that a phenomenon corresponded to a word; after having personally experienced totalitarianism, she provided evidence at some length for the correctness of her assumption. Arendt's subject was not a fixed essence but "the dynamics of the decay of Europe's public life," and her analysis was therefore rooted in social experience and historical specificity. In this respect it is useful to contrast the hypothesis of Karl Popper, who traced totalitarianism all the way back to Plato, or Norman Cohn . . . or Voegelin . . .or Bertrand Russell . . . . Here were assertions scarcely subject to verification."

Exactly. Arendt's The Origins and Popper's The Open Society and its Enemies were both written in the desperate years after WWII. Where Arendt sees a breakdown of public life leading to an unleashing of evil, Popper goes back to blame it all on Plato (and Marx)! Popper was a great proponent of democracy and an opponent of Plato for that reason, but Hitler's party was after all elected (not by a majority). Plato had first hand experience of democratic judgment of his teacher. Evil has deeper roots than in political philosophy.

It is telling and probably intentional that Whitfield uses the word "verification" here, because Popper's main claim to fame in the twentieth century was his first major book, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, which was a full frontal attack on the "verification" approach to philosophy of science. He proposed, instead, the "falsification" approach, which has been widely influential. His first book was titled "Logic" but I find his grasp of logic to be pretty pedestrian. Hence my comments on him here.

I spent a lot of time trying to understand Popper. Besides, The Logic and The Open Society and its Enemies, his most widely-praised books are The Poverty of Historicism, Objective Knowledge and a collection of essays, Conjectures and Refutations. There is an online Popper-praise society, The Critical Cafe in which I participated until I finally understood that Popper and his followers were dogmatic libertarians with not much grip on reality. One of the last arguments that I read was by a libertarian who argued that the only way to stop global warning was to declare private ownership of the air above our heads. That prompted my final withdrawal.

I find Popper a dogmatic libertarian and not a very good philosopher. An interesting popular book including him is the tale of his exchange with Wittgenstein in W's rooms at Cambridge, Wittgenstein's Poker. Here you see an argument between two very unpleasant men, one a dogmatic libertarian and one a brilliant Asperger's sufferer. Neither one is a very good role-model for good behavior. But Popper was nowhere near to W's level, IMHO. And I prefer Arendt to both.

I read Walter Kaufmann's articles against Popper at an impressionable age.
"The Hegel Myth and its Method"
From Shakespeare to Existentialism

As a result, I have probably been prejudiced against Popper as a philosopher.

I did read The Poverty of Historicism, which is short, but I was disappointed to find that Popper's historicism is something of a straw man compared to Strauss's historicism.

And I have Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge around somewhere, but I haven't read it.

Sunil wrote: "Just wanted to share that Popper's book was deemed one of the top 100 nonfiction books of all time by The Guardian (very prominent left leaning newspaper in the UK)...."

But the leading newspaper in the world --the flagship newspaper if the world financial community--leans to the right, favoring markets and globalization. That is the London Financial Times. Can't get more prominent than that...

Feliks wrote: "While we're at it, any opinions on Oswald Spengler?

Popper perhaps would have violently disagreed with one or both of these writers?"

To answer my own question, I found Popper was against Spengler, as he was against so many others as well.

Of course, Spengler (and Reade too) are somewhat historical curiosities (or even flat-out 'dead-ends'); but one theory which Spengler had some decided influence on is 'social cycle theory' which is gaining new life in contemporary times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_...

Its offering some febrile data for today's number-crunchers. This kind of thing might even give some fresh hope to followers of Henry George.

I'm looking for a citation for Randal's reference to Lewis in post #26 above. In this post, there is a paragraph on Popper ending with a link. In this link, there is a reference to Lewis: "In `What is Dialectic?' he [Popper] repeats Lewis's `proof' that from a contradiction any proposition can be derived, without addressing the truly problematic element of this argument, namely its use of disjunctive syllogism."

Where does this Lewis "proof" appear?

I'm guessing Lewis is David Lewis, about whom I know little. If so, I assume the Lewis "proof" comes after Popper's "What is Dialectic," which appeared before Lewis was born if I'm not mistaken. In other words, I assume Popper "repeats" in the sense that he says something similar to what Lewis "proves" later. in any case, this "proof" is what I'm interested in finding.

My guesses, of course, may be wrong.

In any case, thanks for any help anyone can provide.

For a question about Popper's falsification principle, see "Reason, Informal Logic, Evidence, and Critical Thinking," post #252, which refers to a Houdini practice described in post #250.

Popper continually rubs me the wrong way. Below is a (possibly out-of-context quote) taken from 'The Open Society and Its Enemies' which (whether out-of-context or not) seems to be 'catching on' lately among firebrands and hotheads.

begin quote

“The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato.

Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.”

― Karl R. Popper, 'The Open Society and Its Enemies'

end quote

My own reaction to it: I don't like it; I like it even less if it is mis-used or twisted by anyone.

My question is: who decides what is intolerant? Better by far (than this need for a 'dividing line') is the idea of the 'open forum'. That's what I would rather support than this hedge he wants to erect.

Feliks wrote: "Popper continually rubs me the wrong way. Below is a (possibly out-of-context quote) taken from 'The Open Society and Its Enemies' which (whether out-of-context or not) seems to be 'catching on' la..."

As explained in my posts 2 and 6 above, I have read only a very limited amount of Popper but, from what I have read, disagree with his interpretation of Plato, albeit I understand and agree with Popper’s opposition to totalitarianism and also understand how Plato has been misinterpreted to support totalitarianism.

I specifically had not read the discussion(s) to which Feliks is referring. However, since I have the book in Kindle (the page citations herein are to this edition), I just did a word search for “paradox of freedom” and “paradox of tolerance.” These are my thoughts from such selected reading:

Popper says (page 117): “In his criticism of democracy, and in his story of the rise of the tyrant, Plato raises implicitly the following question: What if it is the will of the people that they should not rule, but a tyrant instead?” This is, indeed, an important question of political philosophy, and it was answered by James Madison and other Framers of the Constitution and Bill of Rights by erecting constitutional barriers to unlimited majority rule. See my comments, passim, in the United States Constitution and Government topic. Such constitutional constraints were unknown to Athenian direct democracy, and the absence of same were, according to Madison, the reason that the Athenian democracy fell. Plato well understood this, though he unfortunately did not contemplate such constitutional barriers to majority rule as were later implemented in the US Constitution.

Your quotation from Popper about the “paradox of tolerance” is on page 581 of the book. American political theory and constitutional law have also addressed this issue. See, for example, the following excerpt from chapter 8 (page 225 and endnote 37 on pages 475-76) of my book The First American Founder: Roger Williams and Freedom of Conscience:

Did Roger Williams also believe that the mere expression of anarchic views should be prohibited by the civil state? This letter has sometimes been so interpreted, perhaps accurately enough. Again, however, we must remember that Williams lived in a simple seventeenth-century political society in the midst of a wilderness. The Town of Providence and the Colony of Providence Plantations were exposed to real external military threats and devastating internal dissension. During later centuries, especially in the twentieth century, the U.S. Supreme Court would address such questions and develop complex constitutional standards to deal with them. By then, the United States had a strong national government that could afford to permit the expression of radical political opinion insofar as it was not a clear and present danger to its very existence. But what was and was not a clear and present danger to the existence of Providence and Providence Plantations was not so apparent to Roger Williams, especially considering the history of military threats against, and internal disunity within, that town and colony.37

37. In Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919), the U.S. Supreme Court, in an Opinion of the Court by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, held that the distribution of leaflets to cause insubordination and obstruct recruiting and enlistment in the military and naval forces of the United States during the First World War, in violation of the 1917 Espionage Act, was not protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Among other things, the Court stated:

“We admit that in many places and in ordinary times the defendants in saying all that was said in the circular would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. . . . The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. . . . The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree. When a nation is at war many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right.”

249 U.S. at 52. Although the "clear and present danger test" was later, over the dissents of Justice Holmes and others, expanded to restrict further the applicability of the First Amendment, the Court eventually adopted "the principle that the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action." Brandenberg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969). See also Richard L. Wilson, "Schenck v. United States," in Encyclopedia of the U.S. Supreme Court, 3 vols., ed. Thomas T. Lewis and Richard L. Wilson (Pasadena, CA: Salem, 2001), 3:833; Wilson, "Brandenburg v. Ohio," in ibid., 1:95-96; and Stephen F. Rohde, "Clear and present danger test," in ibid., 1:183-84.

Feliks, you state that Popper’s argument is currently being used or misused by present-day polemicists. Please explain, as I am unfamiliar with this disputation.

That was a savory analysis, Alan. Enjoyed it. Makes me feel better about the whole question.

Misinterpretation of Popper which I stumbled across yesterday --if you will pardon me for posting a link to a much less palatable image floating around --see below. From what I can gather, it's yet one more tiny morsel of the casual hate-mongering which the internet provides in plenty and which aptly suits the taste of some citizens.

Again, my apologies; this is really crude:
https://www.conspiracy-cafe.com/l6eC9...

Feliks wrote: "That was a savory analysis, Alan. Enjoyed it. Makes me feel better about the whole question.

Misinterpretation of Popper which I stumbled across yesterday --if you will pardon me for posting a lin..."

It's not clear to me what this cartoon is trying to say. In any event, to my mind, the greatest threat to American democracy right now is that posed by the current president and his minions. For example, he may invoke the current pandemic as an excuse to postpone the November elections. Or, if the elections are held and he loses in the Electoral College, he may refuse to recognize the result on the ground that his loss was caused by alleged (fictional) voter fraud. In such scenarios, which are plausible, everything will depend on the U.S. Supreme Court and the military. As Thomas Paine wrote in 1776, "these are the times that try men's [and women's] souls."

Feliks, if the cartoon refers to muslims in general, it is clearly wrong. But if it refers to muslim extremists, i do agree with it. I have a female friend that had to work with a man that was an intolerant muslim - that man refused to work with women. I don't think we should tolerate such behavior.

A good text on stubborn minorities: https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-i...

It is certainly a muddled screed. I also dislike the way the captions try to 'force' my thoughts down a particular path. "If you believe this, then you must also believe this". No! I do not go along with that.

In general, I usually 'recuse' myself from all matters of the Middle East. I don't consider myself knowledgeable enough to weigh in on it. It's always so 'volatile' --even in moderated discussions. A Gordian Knot.

Going back to the right-wing cartoon above, I find the flaw in the second panel, descending downward through the screed. In my opinion, the cartoon attempts to show that 'liberal views of law and order', are inconsistent.

In panel #2 the assertion is that 'a society which extends tolerance to intolerant sub-groups ...results in the destruction of the society'. To me, that assumption is not firmly grounded. The USA and some other liberal nations grant hate-groups protected speech and civil rights. Do Nazis still hold parades in Illinois? Just one example. There's many others which demonstrate that a modern country can uphold values of 'open-ness' while at the same time, not risking domestic security.

I went back to examine all this just now because I happened to land on this horrible site www.redstate.com (while searching for something else earlier this week) and was astounded at the slant.

'Crazy liberals now fear pick-up trucks' or something like that. 'The irrational left now fears assassins'.

Thus: the extreme right seems never satisfied with any reaction taken by democrats no matter what they do. If Dems are tolerant towards militants, its wrong. Dems calling for tighter restrictions on such groups, well, that's wrong too.

If one would fault liberal inconsistencies, shouldn't the accusations themselves always exemplify consistency?

Another thing I dislike about the cartoon. If the point is to suggest that "liberals have inconsistent goals with regard to modern immigrant peoples". The illustrator is perhaps suggesting that liberals 'childishly' wish for equality when --if liberals were 'realistic' as conservatives-- we would view these immigrant groups as the dangerous threat they pose; and we would respond to them from only one perspective rather than two.

Well --setting aside the latent absurdity --what would be the alternate strategy then? Liberals in government should abandon ideas on civil rights and agree with conservatives in simply rounding up anyone ...in a robe? In a turban? Wearing boots? With swarthy skin? How to even define the boundaries of what a 'militant group' is? You can't deport every Muslim in the USA on the worry that there's 0.00099% who might be a militant extremist. You can't deport every member of any group; it's not possible. "Groups" of people don't have finite boundaries.

Fascinating discussion. Trump's manipulation of the media will force us to examine the role of allowable speech. Do we want the owners of platforms to decide what is, or is not, appropriate, or would we rather have the government decide.? It's not at all clear to me what the right balance is. Fox News was just as bad as Trump (indeed might have created his fake positions). How should they be held accountable?

In my view, the First Amendment prohibits the government from regulating speech on a private platform, period, end of story, except there may be an exception for advocacy of violence. Government should not be in the business of figuring out what is and is not a lie (a concern of the Left) or what is or is not biased (a concern of the Right). Private media companies should have a free hand in doing this, subject, of course, to the jurisprudence of defamation, invasion of privacy, etc. I suppose that Congress can, if it wishes (and subject to presidential veto), eliminate the immunity from liability for those companies that merely provide platforms, but the result of such elimination will be goodbye to Facebook, Twitter, etc. There is no way such companies could survive such elimination of immunity: there would be a new lawsuit filed against them every minute of every day. That is no great loss, in my view; it might be conducive to a return to reason and sanity. But both Republicans and Democrats must face the consequence of such legislation: the elimination of a huge segment of current political and other discussion and argument. Trump would still not have his Twitter account, because there would no longer be Twitter.

Somehow this topic has morphed far away from Karl Popper. I don't have time to figure out right now (I'm extremely busy for the next 24 hours) to which topic it belongs: perhaps the "United States Constitution and Government" topic or perhaps a new topic entirely. I'll reconsider it sometime over the weekend.

I'm chagrined if we've strayed off course here due to my posts. I had thought we were still cleaving to the topic of Karl Popper's perspective on 'open' society. To me, it still seems worth some palaver; in light of recent events. Are we a society that protects even vicious internal sub-groups ...as long as they remain peaceful and civil?

I have now created a new “Freedom of Speech” topic here. Please use this new topic for any further discussion of issues regarding freedom of speech. This directive does not apply to discussions of Karl Popper’s writings about fascist or Marxist totalitarianism, which can be addressed in the present topic. Please, however, reference Popper’s specific remarks when discussing such matters here.

I'm waist-deep into the sections on Plato just now. Regarding his 'mistreatment' of Plato, there is a foreword in my version by E.H.Gombrich, apparently a friend of Popper who was very involved in helping Popper get "Open Society" published. According to Gombrich's story, publishers *also* took umbrage with Popper's treatment of Plato, and Popper perhaps edited some of his more vitriolic language toward Plato in order to appease those gatekeepers who held reverence for the classics.

I have just finished Vol1.Ch5.§3 of Open Society in which he, taking a break from bashing Plato, introduces his concepts of moral relativism. He goes to some lengths to assure readers that his moral relativism is not anti-religious, and is perfectly compatible with Christian teachings or Greek Homeric religion as your case may be. I can't help but get the feeling that this is all kind of disingenuous, though, and it's merely a concession to enable him to push his rhetoric on what would otherwise be an unwilling audience. Does anyone know anything about Popper's religious leanings? Also, thoughts on his willingness to say things he didn't entirely mean/believe in order to get across a important (to him, obviously, extremely important) point?

You might find Bruce Caldwell's new biography of F.A. Hayek (first of a projected two volumes) of interest. If I remember correctly, Hayek helped with the publication of the Open Society and with Popper's moving from Australia to England/US, and frequently references Popper. jim vice

As discussed in preceding posts in this topic, Karl Popper severely criticized the totalitarian scheme of Plato’s Republic. For my response, see post 289 (February 21, 2023) in the “Plato” topic of this group. See also my two immediately preceding comments in that topic.