From: Terry W. Colvin (fortean1@mindspring.com)
Date: Sat Jul 19 2003 - 16:14:27 MDT
The following excerpt is from my textbook, _Ordinary Ecstasy: The dialectics
of humanistic psychology_ by John Rowan:
"It would mean moving into the dialectical thinking which comes so naturally
to psychotherapists but not so easily to business people, academics or
politicians. It would mean moving into the ways of thinking which Beck and
Cowan (1996) describe as the Green, Yellow and Turquoise levels of action,
moving into the second tier of social and political development. And with
this would come a new attitude to morality, which has been spelt out very
clearly and helpfully by John Kekes.
"I have been struggling with postmodernism for some time now. Attracted
by its opposition to the tyranny of the one big truth which is true for
everybody at all times, and which therefore must become oppressive sooner
or later. Repelled by its empty relativism, which has no point of purchase
to say that anything is better than anything else, and therefore leaves us
avoiding the tyranny of the one big truth, and also the fragmentation of
postmodernism.
"It is a book of philosophy. It says that there are three basic attitudes
to morality: monism (the one big truth or the one big ordering of truth);
relativism (the proliferation of many little truths, each good in some
area or other); and pluralism, where we allow for more than one truth, but
want to know precisely how the various truths relate and make sense in
relation to one another. I want to say that it is pluralism which comes
most naturally to people within humanistic psychology."
The pluralism attitude appeals to me. Any comments on monism, relativism,
pluralism or postmodernism in general?
Would anyone in Fort/Forteana land care to look up postmodernism in the
Fortean Times index. This would save me time thumbing through my back
issues and I'm too cheap, I mean frugal, to buy an index at this time.
Terry
-- Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1@mindspring.com > Alternate: < fortean1@msn.com > Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html > Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB * U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program ------------ Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org >[Vietnam veterans, Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Jul 19 2003 - 20:29:25 MDT