Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Bylaws for a Hypothetical Board of Directors...


"May you live your life as if the maxim of your actions were to become universal law."

Think what you will of Emmanuel Kant.  I like the dude.  Most of his stuff was practical, easy-to-digest philosophy that avoided the intellectual-for-the-sake-of-intellectual metaphysics that predominated his world.

I am in the midst of a nasty bit of non-profit drama, with too many egos, too much deception, and far too little communication.  Not a lot of us are looking at it like E.K., and if we as a couple of industry associations applied Kantianism to our collective actions, our Universal Law would approximate that of Sierra Leone during their civil war.

So in world of rationalists and empiricists, I find myself drawn to the deontological writings of E.K.

Or to put it more in the vernacular, from the Rodneykingsian School, "Can't we all just get along?"

Respectfully submitted,

  Canoelover

P.S.  For those of you who think Kant was a stuffed shirt intellectual, check out this pregnant and appropriate quotation:

"If man makes himself a worm he must not complain when he is trodden on."

Amen, bro.




6 comments:

Silbs said...

I have faith in you. If you kant do it, no one kan.

mk said...

D-

At the risk of minimizing your plight, I have to tell you that I had to pull the dictionary widget out no less that every three words on this post. Now, I'm going to go sign up to go back to University.

But not before I send this off to the President of a Board that I sit on. Same shit, different place.

Head up. -mk

canoelover said...

Well, I yam what I yam. Sorry. :)

Emmaunel, Emmanuel, he's our man.
If he Kant do it, no one Kan.

Rah Rah Rah!!! :-)

Pemba David said...

I heard from Bruce in the Philosophy Dept. that Emmanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE7Fe1cGLPk

Bryan said...

I'm partial to Wittgenstein, but then again I'm an empiricist.

"A man could be considered trapped in a room if it does not occur to him to push, rather than pull at the door."

A reminder that considering things from the opposite perspective will often lead to a solution, whether you understand that perspective or not.

canoelover said...

Empiricism is a luxury of the young idealist. :-)

Witt is good too. Kirkegaard rocks my world. Pascal does too, when he's taking his meds.