The Most Liberalist College in America

The Most Liberalist College in America

Devils IN the Details

Consider the difference between General Truth

and Specific Truth— truth of a forest, say, and

truth of a specific tree, truth of a class, say,

and truth of a member, truth of a community

and truth of a citizen, truth of humanity and truth

of a person, truth of a team or band and truth of

a player…the individual on the one hand, the

collective on the other.

The two truths represent different  levels of

Logical Type (Whitehead, Russell), as wholes

are to parts; and they are incommensurate: the

terms and values and standards of the part do

not apply (except in error and projection and

by habit of convention) to  the standards of the

whole, and vice  versa.

But I collapse and confuse the 2 sets  of values

and the General  Truth dominates  the Specific –

where differences and  diversity fragment &

eclipse general truth so that it is also the case

that the Specific truths  obscure Generality.

General Truth dominates the values of Specific

truth.  Specific truth obscures the values of

General Truth.      

It is the gap between General and Specific that

makes history  unpredictable: between social and

individual, common sense and  idiocy.

But I am convinced that GENERAL TRUTH

is more true than my  specific individual

experience and so I  rely on statistics  and

probabilities to urge me to check my colons

and breasts and lungs for cancer, go to college

rather than avoid the bother…

General Truth  seduces me even as my Specific

Truth resists and rebels and succumbs to popular

 opinion. and SACS standards. Just describing here,
not a whine or complaint.