How are we to decide between conflicting traditions?

Violence or conversation? — Banno

We cannot decide between any traditions, we remain situated within our own.

Diplomacy is always preferred at first, but if we are attacked first, then we must decide if we are to engage in a just war, or not.

Again, that is simply the realist, not utopian, position.

We cannot decide between any tradition, we remain situated within our own. — Colo Millz

Yeah, we can. And do.

Violence is a choice.

Yeah, we can. And do. — Banno

Gadamer and MacIntyre, for example, seem to say otherwise.

Again, that is simply the realist, not utopian, position. — Colo Millz

The lie here, over this whole thread, is that you are making a choice and advocating an attitude, while pretending that it is the inevitable consequence of the human condition.

Any ideology, including your conservatism, is ideologically and normatively loaded.

You set out a faulty description of how things are, and then conclude that this is how they ought to be. This can bee seen quite explicitly. Take a look.

1. Men are born into families, tribes, and nations to which they are bound by ties of mutual loyalty. — Colo Millz

Yes, we are born in to families; you slide into the ought of loyalty.

2. Individuals, families, tribes, and nations compete for honor, importance, and influence, until a threat or a common endeavor recalls them to the mutual loyalties that bind them to one another. — Colo Millz

Yes, we compete. We can also cooperate. Your leaning on competition is a choice. Your leaning on violence, more so. Again, the"is" of competition slides into he "ought" of conflict.

3. Families, tribes, and nations are hierarchically structured, their members having importance and influence to the degree they are honored within the hierarchy. — Colo Millz

Yes, we tend to hierarchies. We can also build democracy and cooperation. Which ought we do? Again, it's a choioce.

4. Language, religion, law, and the forms of government and economic activity are traditional institutions, developed by families, tribes, and nations as they seek to strengthen their material prosperity, internal integrity, and cultural inheritance and to propagate themselves through future generations. — Colo Millz

Yes, Institutions evolve to stabilise society. But we change those institutions over time. We decide how they ought be.

5. Political obligation is a consequence of membership in families, tribes, and nations. — Colo Millz

This presumes that obedience to inherited authority is morally required. It isn't. Again, this is a moral stance masquerading as a fact.

6. These premises are derived from experience, and may be challenged and improved upon in light of experience. — Colo Millz

Even here, the “openness” is circumscribed to preserve the conservative framework, ideology is still being smuggled into the discussion under the guise of empiricism.


The naturalistic fallacy pervades your posts. You are not a realist, but an ideologue.

you slide into the ought of loyalty. — Banno

"Ought" appears nowhere whatsoever in the list. Point it out.

The list simply describes the way things are, not the way things "ought" to be.

All human understanding is historically effected. We cannot step outside our historical and linguistic horizons.

There is no absolute or neutral standpoint outside tradition.

Neither are prejudices necessarily distortions - they can be enabling conditions of understanding.

As for "leaning on violence", I think you are drifting into a straw man.

We can also build democracy and cooperation. Which ought we do? — Banno

Understanding through tradition can be sufficient for emancipation and truth.

Real understanding always takes place within history, language, and culture; there is no pure, ideology-free space from which to critique.

You are not a realist, but an ideologue. — Banno

Those are the options?

Can I be a "hermeneutical" ideologue, at least?

Reason is immanent in tradition.

It can never be "transcendent".

Any ideology, including your conservatism, is ideologically and normatively loaded. — Banno

That is indeed the whole point.

Always, already, loaded and situated. Always immanent, never transcendent.

"Ought" appears nowhere whatsoever in the list. Point it out. — Colo Millz

Are you saying we ought not respect tradition? Of course not. That you did not use the word is irrelevant. It is a normative list, pretending to be factual.

The list simply describes the way things are, not the way things "ought" to be. — Colo Millz

That's the lie. You want to pretend that you have no choice, yet it is clear that you could become a Muslim, or an Atheist.

And we could decide what to do by discussing our needs and capabilities, instead of by waving a gun. It's a choice.

yet it is clear that you could become a Muslim, or an Atheist. — Banno

Yes, I could. But if I did it would not be because of some isolated “choices,” but in terms of understanding, tradition, and belonging.

We always begin within a historically effected consciousness: our language, culture, and inherited prejudices shape how we encounter possibilities like Islam or atheism.

You cannot step outside your horizon and objectively choose between belief systems as if you were shopping for one. You can only encounter them through the horizon of your own tradition

instead of by waving a gun — Banno

You seem a little fixated on this whole violence thing.

You speak as though understanding were an act of choice, but every understanding arises from your own historical horizon.

You do not “choose” beliefs like consumer goods.

I may indeed find yourself drawn toward Islam, or away from faith - but this will not be a choice made from nowhere.

It will be an event of understanding, in which my horizon is transformed.

You cannot step outside your horizon and objectively choose between belief systems... — Colo Millz

Sure. But you conclude that there fore we cannot choose between traditions. That doesn't follow. The choice may not be objective - what choice is? - but we can so choose...

But even that wording is framing the discussion in a way that presupposes traditions as monolithic. Protestants do become Catholic, Irishmen do become American, and conservatives can learn.

You seem a little fixated on this whole violence thing. — Colo Millz

Not I. I'm suggesting we can talk about our differences and reach an accomodation. You seem given to understand that no accomodation is ever possible. Violence is implicit in that approach.

conservatives can learn — Banno

Well thank you for throwing me such a nice bone from such a high table.

we can talk about our differences and reach an accomodation — Banno

I'm not sure reaching an "accommodation" is the point.

After all, if both of us are understood by the other, wouldn't that automatically transform our horizons?

“To understand is to be transformed by what we understand.”

Violence is implicit in that approach. — Banno

That's sounds a little hysterical. Reasonable people can disagree. Isn't that what you advocate? That everyone living in a state can adhere to their own traditions, but nevertheless thrive?

you conclude that there fore we cannot choose between traditions. That doesn't follow. The choice may not be objective - what choice is? - but we can so choose... — Banno

Reason is dialogical and historical. It is never "abstract". Reason is indeed a dialog, a back and forth. It requires an opnnness to being addressed and a willingness to be changed - providing real understanding can indeed be reached.

So reason is like Hegel's dialectic, it is the capacity to listen and respond meaningfully - in a dialog.

To that extent, we don't "obtain" understanding, we "undergo" it. We "stand under" something. In a dialog, that something is the (temporarily) fused horizons of two persons. Thus understanding is an “event”, not an act of control. It happens to us - through language, history, and tradition.

We are always already participants in the ongoing dialog, never outside of it. Thus reason, since it is the same as dialog, is participatory.

Rather than, that is, instrumental, which is the Enlightenment or positivistic type of reason. That is, participatory reason does not calculate or "choose" a means to an end. It does not operate by control or deduction.

That form of reason is far more prone to your "violence". That form of "choice" is a way of dominating nature.

You seem to be meandering. Thanks for the chat.