82,882
edits
Cynical Theories: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
||
| Line 40: | Line 40: | ||
In any case ''you can’t make an ought out of an is'', as {{author|David Hume}} told us (before he was — ahh — cancelled), and that ought to be the overriding lesson of [[post-modernism]]: there is no legitimate way of moving from ''de''scription to ''pre''scription. | In any case ''you can’t make an ought out of an is'', as {{author|David Hume}} told us (before he was — ahh — cancelled), and that ought to be the overriding lesson of [[post-modernism]]: there is no legitimate way of moving from ''de''scription to ''pre''scription. | ||
We should get stuck at a place of maximum plurality, where there are no rules and structures which can arbitrate on competing views; instead, we must resort to pragmatic [[heuristic]]<nowiki/>s: “do what seems to work best” without getting ideologically fixated on it. [[Iterate]]. Adapt. Test. Trial, and embrace error. But that requires field-work. You have to be out there, working at it; making steps forward, back and sideways. The reason the rest of us accept Newtonian mechanics is not that it is ''true'' — as it turns out, it is not — but because ''it does the job well enough''. | We should not get stuck at a place of maximum plurality, where there are no rules and structures which can arbitrate on competing views; instead, we must resort to pragmatic [[heuristic]]<nowiki/>s: “do what seems to work best” without getting ideologically fixated on it. [[Iterate]]. Adapt. Test. Trial, and embrace error. But that requires field-work. You have to be out there, working at it; making steps forward, back and sideways. The reason the rest of us accept Newtonian mechanics is not that it is ''true'' — as it turns out, it is not — but because ''it does the job well enough''. | ||
This is a brave book. It is thorough, careful, compelling — at times horrifying, at others tremendously funny. | This is a brave book. It is thorough, careful, compelling — at times horrifying, at others tremendously funny. | ||
People should read it, especially since [[Theory]] has escaped its academic confines in the last few years and begun to infuse corporate life. | People should read it, especially since [[Theory]] has escaped its academic confines in the last few years and begun to infuse corporate life. | ||