<There are times when I wish I could view the world with your absolute certainty of not only how things are but how they should be.

How comfortable it is to have a corporatist certainty that saves having to examine and experience the discomfort of searching for the best possible solution.



Whew...getting a bit windy again, aren't we? Not sure what a "corporatist" is. That's a new one on me.

And there's a big gap between absolute, godlike certainty and the vague, blobby, "who are we to know?" philosophy that you seem to be advocating. If I read your post right, you feel that our society is all about searching for answers, except of course if you find one, then you're "certain" of something, and you're in trouble.

I don't need omniscience to be able to tell that if I stand in front of a truck speeding at me at 70 mph, that it will not be good for my health. I know one hell of a lot of other things too that, while not the philosophical Absolute Certainty you are deriding, are certain enough to bet the farm on.

While "democracy" is searching for solutions, I dare say we can safely throw a few rotten apples out that have been thoroughly tried. Nazism, for example, probably should not be adopted as a solution, although one might risk being accused of some form of "certainty" for being adamant about it. Given its record this century, I feel quite comfortable in kicking the Marxism (advocated by most of the groups in the list I gave) out the third floor window as well. Our society has been searching for solutions for some time. We've found quite a few, thanks, and we know what the other ones are trying to sell.

Many leftists, faced with the actual results of their philosophy demonstrated again and again over the past century, have retreated into a comfortable place--quite far from the "psychic discomfort" you are talking about--where reason and thought are optional, and no real decisions ever have to be made, so no one can ever make a mistake.

The beauty of "non-certainty," particularly in the academic field, is that once the premise is accepted, no one can legitimately tell you you're full of shit.

Anyway, if you're that "uncertain," how do you know I'm not right?