I respect Martin for challenging ones intelligence. He asked on a forum: Let’s think about the persuasion of postmodernity in the presence of conflicting world views in SE Alabama. I’ve studied the philosophical views of Alasdair MacIntyre for over 20 years. A quote from his book “After Virtue” may be helpful. “My argument was thus to the effect that emotivism informs a great deal of contemporary moral utterance and practice and more specifically that the central characters of modern society – in the special sense which I assigned to the word character- embody such emotivist modes in their behavior . These characters, It will be recalled, are the aesthete, the therapist and the manager, the bureaucratic expert. The historical discussion of those developments which made the victories of emotivism possible has now reveled something else about these specifically modern characters, namely the extent to which they trade and cannot escape trading in moral fiction. But how far does the range of moral fiction extend beyond those of rights and utility? And who is going to be deceived by them?” (After Virtue, page 73)
My answer:
My answer:
The challenge to your conceit lies in the first sentence with the persuasion of post-modernity in this region. Please give an example. The successful socio-political landscape, to me, is cultivated by the strictest of traditionalists, never sowing a seed of disharmony among the majority. This region is steeped in tradition with the aesthete character being most likely to influence/emotivate popular opinion contrary to modernist views. Sadly, the aesthete overpowers the intellectual, not even listed as a character. Why? Power of persuasion, views contrary to popular opinion, and something that surely has been studied by now but I will call ease of information. I was discussing with Mitchell (son) the other night the multitude of information available, but it’s quantity over quality.
As far as the moral fiction affecting rights and utility, I see the fiction as presented by the therapist (modern day bloggers), post-internet, as a major concern. Information is consumed and reprocessed, without validation or fact from bloggers at a rate unseen before, influencing the masses with more traditionalist views, giving post-modernity little grasp on which to succeed.
