The primacy of consciousness and its connection to violence
Each week, there is a weekly meetup called Meeting of the Minds where a given topic is presented with additional commentary from participants on the private forum called The Harry Binswanger Letter. The previous MOTM discussed the philosophical significance of the Hamas terrorist attacks on October 7th and the ransacking of the capital on January 6th. This article is an exact post of mine on this forum responding to that online recording.
I resonated greatly with the previous MOTM. I share the same grave concerns with these new “earthquakes” that are shaping the culture — for the worse. I was thinking about what was the fundamental connection between the rationalizations of the Hamas terrorist attack and the Trumpist mob that (senselessly) attempted to overthrow an election. What was the similarity between these collective actions that inspired such violence?
Both movements are immune to facts. When apologists for Trump’s involvement in the capitol riot are presented with the 61 cases thrown out — some by judges appointed by Trump no less — this fact carries no weight. Why? Well, those judges clearly had a bias against the former president, and either they were already predisposed to throw out these suits, or had betrayed the president.
Similarly, pro-Palestinian apologists — whether crazed protestors on the street or esteemed presidents of the most elite universities — when confronted with the brutal atrocities committed by Hamas, may evade these facts under the guise of moral neutrality about how “complex” this situation is, or — more consistently — affirm these atrocities outright. Such evasions and explicit affirmations would, in principle, mean the destruction of civilization — and their own lives.
How then can these mentalities maintain these views in the face of overwhelming evidence? I think it’s because each person who advances such views thinks on the premise that consciousness creates reality. If enough people coalesce and advance a particular view in the face of opposition (such as Trumpists challenging unfavorable results of an election or pro-Palestinians overthrowing the “apartheid” state of Israel), then such coalescence creates a movement of change that becomes real — and then true. Appeals to a moral standard based on reality, to these mentalities, is artificial. Everything becomes a power struggle between competing perspectives — even truth itself.
If logic has been undercut at its fundamental base, meaning its function to identify facts — including facts related to human survival — then no appeal to any objective standard, moral or otherwise, is possible. It’s all a matter of what each power group can get away with, whether that takes the form of justifying Trump’s lies by pivoting to the lies of the Democrats, or justifying the hatred of the IDF by showcasing Israeli soldiers playing with Gazan citizens’ clothing on a field of victory. Arguments become a parlor game to catch one’s opponent being hypocritical according to their professed standards.
What then happens to a society that has abandoned the rules of reason? The only way competing forces can: violence. When an epistemology grounded on the primacy of existence is substituted by the primacy of pretenses, only the competing force who screams the loudest, feels the strongest, and has the will to make their right the right will win.
Fortunately, that doesn’t have to be our fate. A philosophy of reason exists. The question remains: do we have enough time to penetrate the culture before more earthquakes abound?
