Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

[Michael Larson <larsonovic AT gmail.com>]

Tom,

You're not annoying me. I appreciate the dialogue. I'll try to respond.

I'll start with your question: " How does the notion of a 'hierarchy of subjectivity' come from the possibility of infinite subjective interpretations and the fact some of those interpretations are better than others?"

It comes contained in the last part of your question itself: "... the fact that some of those interpretations are better than others." If some interpretations are better than others, a hierarchy is by nature already established and an objective standard is likewise already implied.

When you speak of how you grade student writing, you are talking about evaluating their display of a rhetorical skill set, not about their grasp of the truth. Those are two different things. Either one can be judged hierarchically. Elegance and cohesiveness of communication make a scale that is independent of what is true. One person may offer an elegant defense and plenty of cohesive reasoning as to why the earth is flat. Another person might stumble through a weak defense of the spinning globe. We might rank the former ahead of the latter in the skill set of rhetoric, but we might rank the latter ahead of the former in his apprehension of the truth as to the physical nature of the earth.

The same is true when we look at a piece of literature: one person might write beautifully about something that goes quite astray of what the story means while another person might struggle in attempting to articulate what is essentially a deep understanding of that same story. Of course, we are most pleased when the two skills--communication and apprehension--are joined in a single work. Take, for example, Tolkien's marvelous essay (a lecture, actually), "The Monsters and the Critics." Prior to that lecture, many well-known scholars had failed to grasp both the artistic genius and the deep layers of meaning in Beowulf. In fact, they disdained many of the very things that Tolkien was able to rescue--and not because his subjective interpretation was more popular. It wasn't. In fact, it wasn't fully known until he put it into words, but when he did, many objective truths about the poem were made manifest to anyone who cared to see them and especially to those who had always had a sense for them but lacked the articulation. In short, Tolkien's interpretation was better than that of prior critics, and people knew it. They knew it because it is possible for humans to recognize when something is objectively true, especially when it provides relief against that which has been less than fully true.

What I am asserting here seems in direct opposition to what you say a little later in your post: "I propose to my students that the reason for objectively seeking out different interpretations is not to pick the right one." My first thought about this is that there might not be a "right one." The presence of several interpretations is no guarantee that any of them has a good grasp on what is being interpreted. Alternatively, they might all be basically "right," more or less, though perhaps with differing levels of rhetorical effectiveness. In any case, I would always encourage my students to compare and contrast, to evaluate arguments, to measure what they read against reality, insofar as they have access to it. When the object is truth, then everyone--critics and readers--is essentially working together toward the same goal, though some with more success than others.

But it sounds like, for you, the object is not so much truth as it is to work out a kind of subjective average in one's own mind. You say, "[The reason for seeking out different interpretations] is to get a non-objective sense of the center and most comprehensive comprehension of all those various interpretations." There is nothing wrong, of course, with understanding a variety of interpretations, but if the end of that understanding is merely to find the center of that variety, then we have diverted our gaze from the object under consideration and shifted it to the amalgamated opinion of the considerers. This is not exactly pure subjectivism, which would be interested only in one's own opinion, but it is a kind of preoccupation with potential means rather than the use of those means toward their natural end: to arrive at truth regarding the object under consideration.

In your paragraph about morality, I'm not sure I follow the shift from moral code to moral bond. To recognize a moral code, whether subjective or objective, is a different mental act than to trust a neighbor not to harm you. The former is concerned with classification (i.e. this is good, this is evil) while the latter is concerned with prudential judgment (I predict that you will not burn my house down). So once again, both acts can be present: I can judge (whether accurately or not) that someone's burning down my house would be an evil act even as I also judge (whether accurately or not) that I do not think you will commit this act. Then if you do actually burn down my house, I will know that my trust was misplaced; the house will go up in smoke, but the classification of arson as evil will be quite untouched by those flames.

It's true that if this happened, I would no longer trust you not to burn my house down. And yes, it's also possible, depending on how much I trusted you to begin with, that I might start to doubt, in general, my judgment of who is trustworthy and who is not. But to lose trust in others or in one's ability to assess the trustworthiness of others is not the same as losing the sense that some things are moral and that other things are immoral.

I too find Lance and Margot to be untrustworthy in serious ways. The acts that reveal their untrustworthiness are also acts I understand to be objectively immoral. I would argue further that to even speak of trust and distrust once again implies an objective sense of morality in the one who trusts or distrusts. What makes us trust someone are typically things understood to be morally good: honesty, forthrightness, patience, stability, etc.. What makes us distrust someone are typically things understood to be morally bad: lying, deception, short-temperedness, fickleness, etc.. We know these things. Deep down.

Mike

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Percy-L Digest, Vol 161, Issue 15 (Thomas Gollier)


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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2020 09:28:39 -0700
From: Thomas Gollier <tgollier AT gmail.com>
To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion"
        <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [percy-l] Percy-L Digest, Vol 161, Issue 15
Message-ID:
        <CAMVPF1FqFOEQ+=pwp=-0LA9cqbgMwXndurQoeVMw1-Z7xEKTjw AT mail.gmail.com>
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Mike,

I hope I'm not annoying you, or others, by pushing this discussion further,
but I haven't had an
exchange online like this since the good old days of the Peirce list, and
I'm getting to the point
where I'm thinking it would be worth the time it would take to scan in
'Lancelot' and go through
it paragraph by paragraph as if it were a philosophical treatise on the
nature of confessions in
general.

With that said, then, I was floating comfortably along in your message
until I hit the sentence:

    So when we admit a hierarchy of subjectivity, we admit as well the
existence of an objective
    truth, else the hierarchy of subjectivity has no basis against which to
be measured.

How does the notion of a "hierarchy of subjectivity" come from the
possibility of infinite subjective
interpretations and the fact some of those interpretations are better than
others?  It's more like the
"better" comes from a sense of the center of those possibilities.  I
realize, for instance, that I have
to grade my students' interpretations of an argument on a hierarchical
scale, but I never grade them
on whether I think their interpretations themselves are better or worse.  I
grade them on whether
their interpretations are consistent and complete.  These are what I would
consider "objective
realities" suitable to a hierarchical measurement.  And, I propose to my
students that the reason for
objectively seeking out different interpretations is not to pick the right
one.  It is to get a non-objective
sense of the center and most comprehensive comprehension of all those
various interpretations.

So when we shift to the question of a "moral code" ? I'd prefer to call it
"moral bond" ? with my
neighbor, I see that morality as a non-objective matter of trust.  I trust
my neighbor not to burn my
house down (1) because I will not burn his house down, and (2) because he
has shown no inclination
to burn mine down.  It's an act of faith, so long we don't look at "faith"
as believing in miracles, precisely
because there is no "objectivity" to it.  If he does burn my house down,
the reality of it ? and I do think
there is a reality to it, the medieval reality of universals ? disappears
in the smoke as if it was never
there in the first place.  And what's more important, and what Percy brings
out so forcefully with Lancelot
and his wife, is not only that I can no longer trust him or her ? that's
obvious ? it's that I can no longer
trust myself as a judge of trustworthy persons and the possibility of such
relationships.  I probably wouldn't
go to a priest or a psychiatrist myself, but I would certainly need some
kind of confessional confrontation
with myself.

Anyway, thanks again for pursuing these things with me,
Tom

On Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 9:17 AM Michael Larson <larsonovic AT gmail.com> wrote:

> Tom,
>
> Thanks for your comments.
>
> Yes, if we are talking about Percy's vision in *Lancelot, *then we cannot
> ignore his Catholicism as a framework for the "reality" the novel exposes.
> If, on the other hand, we are talking about readers making their own
> meaning, then his Catholicism and even its implications for the characters
> may be safely ignored. But this brings us back to that same issue of
> objectivity. Readers are free, of course, to make whatever subjective
> meaning they want to make of any piece of literature. But as soon as we
> admit this freedom, there arises, once we begin to see the interpretations
> rolling in, a kind of hierarchy of subjectivity. That is to say, some
> readers come nearer to understanding the heart of the story than others.
> This is inevitable, and even people who do not admit much in the way of
> objective reality seem to know intuitively that one interpretation of a
> story is better, nearer to the truth, than another. But what do we mean by
> "the heart of the story"? What do we mean by "the truth" of it? Why do we
> know that one critique comes nearer to it than some other and not as near
> as another? We know it because there is indeed an objective meaning that
> hangs around a story, and we can tell when somebody's notion gets nearer or
> farther from that meaning, maybe even to the point where the notion is
> simply a private flight of fancy, having nothing at all to do with the
> story in question. So when we admit a hierarchy of subjectivity, we admit
> as well the existence of an objective truth, else the hierarchy of
> subjectivity has no basis against which to be measured.
>
> The same is true for morality. Subjective moral orders do exist, of
> course. But their existence in no way precludes the existence of an
> objective moral order as well. You and I and many others might agree that
> it is morally wrong to burn down a neighbor's house and especially so when
> the neighbors are inside. We might find a few people who see no moral
> problem with burning down buildings so long as they feel sufficiently
> angry, but most people would agree that arson in general is wrong. That
> popular agreement, however, is not what makes it objectively true. Popular
> agreement about a moral issue is merely, as you say, intersubjectivity. But
> reality is not a democracy. It cares not what the prevailing subjective
> opinion happens to be at a given moment and in a given place. Either there
> is something objectively wrong with arson, or there is not. Either there is
> an objective moral law that precludes malice against one's neighbor, or
> there is not. Whether or not an individual believes in the existence of
> such a moral order has no bearing on whether or not it exists.
>
> Lancelot provides a good example of the coexistence of subjective and
> objective morality. He has designed his own subjective moral code, and he
> believes it to be "right," which implies that he believes it to coincide
> with an objective moral order. He even says that he will give Percival's
> God some time to act in accordance with his perceptions (256). Percival, on
> the other hand, has adopted (or readopted, perhaps, after listening to
> Lancelot's chilling tale) the moral order proclaimed by the Catholic
> church. You could say, of course, that the Church's moral theology is just
> another subjective moral order, and that would be true in the sense that it
> is articulated by a particular body. But its subjectivity in no way
> prohibits it from aligning with the objective moral order as well. The same
> is true for Lance's morality. The fact that it is subjectively his does not
> in itself preclude it from aligning with reality as regards the true nature
> of things in their moral context. Lance's read on God's world is like a
> reader's interpretation of Percy's *Lancelot*. It may be close or far or
> somewhere in between with regard to the reality of the thing being observed.
>
> Though Lancelot and the Church (via Percival) do not agree exactly on what
> the objective moral law entails, they both believe it exists. The modern
> world, however, does not. That final conversation on the final page of the
> book: "But you know this! One of us is wrong. It will be your way or it
> will be my way." *Yes.* "All we can agree on is that it will not be their
> way. Out there." *Yes.* "There is no other way than yours or mine, true?"
> *Yes*.
>
> Lance is asserting, and Percival is agreeing, that there is a "right" way
> and that the modern world is not on it. The world's new motto is, "IF IT
> FEELS GOOD DO IT" (255). The whole idea of an objective moral order has
> been rejected, and the cascading consequences for that are described in
> great detail in the pages of the novel. Although both men (Lance and
> Percival) reject the modern mantra, Lance's reaction is characterized by
> anger and disdain (and eventually coldness), whereas Percival's is
> characterized by sorrow mixed with the hope of repentance and its flower,
> redemption.
>
> Best,
> Mike Larson
>
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