[percy-l] Percy-L Digest, Vol 161, Issue 15

Thomas Gollier tgollier at gmail.com
Fri Jul 24 12:28:39 EDT 2020


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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