an interview with david stash

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you have called yourself a sophist. why?

i call myself a sophist to acknowledge right off that i am not that original, though i wish were, of course, for reasons of vanity.

but are you a sophist to the degree that you actually teach the art of rhetoric to paying clients?

no. it’s not a perfect analogy.

i suppose you attribute to the sophist a similar doubt about “rationality.”?

let’s not play the game of guessing what the sophists privately thought. i refer to them positively in contrast to plato, who painted them as the enemies of truth.

are you an enemy of truth?

in some ways yes. in other ways i am only refining the concept.

what is your concept of truth?

the truth is what we believe.

that simple?

it is, really. of course the word is used in various ways, but, essentially, the truth is what we think it is.

perception is reality?

yes, but that’s not all. the key word here is persuasion.

you have said that “the only proof is persuasion.”

right, because it all comes down to votes or violence, unless a person is content with a private vision of truth.

are you?

yeah, i’m content.

i assume that you lump what is traditionally called persuasion with what is traditionally called argument or debate.

that’s exactly it. i think that “logic” is just one kind of persuasion. i’m attacking the apparent difference between persuasion and argument.

you think that “logic” is over-rated?

“logic” is not over-rated if we consider the persuasive power it has on a certain kind of personality.

the logical type?

yes.

but of course the logical type don’t want to hear that logic is not privileged, that it is only a style of persuasion.

you’re right. they don’t.

where did this attitude of yours come from? how did you arrive at this interpretation of logic?

everyday life. just think of all the folks out there for whom philosophy means nothing. they don’t read it or think about. it’s just a vague pretentious term to them. they live and die that way, without it.

but not without logic?

they do still respond to “logic” but more often perhaps to other forms of persuasion, emotional persuasions, mythological persuasions.

so you think “logical” persuasions are those preferred by self-proclaimed intellectuals.

exactly. but look how much they disagree. it’s the lack of agreement in general that helped me realize the futility of so called logic. i was and still perhaps am the logical type. i’ve been using the logical type of persuasion in this interview. the thing is, you realize you’re almost alone. you find a few writers who convince (persuade) you but more often you find misunderstanding, disagreement. why?

different axioms?

i think it’s less “reasonable” than that. i think we should turn to onanismo’s theory of the personal hero myth to answer that.

could you go into that?

well, onanismo thinks that each individual person has an idea of heroism that they imitate in their lives. we adopt these hero myths according to circumstance, inborn talent, for instance, and the pressure and opportunity of the environment.

so myth is more of the force than “rationality.”

exactly. we are not rational animals, not primarily. we are rationalizing animals.

and you include the “great” philosophers in this.

yes, yes, yes. everyone. it’s a theory about human nature. it’s a unified field theory. we should be able to study anyone and get an idea of their hero myth.

what’s yours?

let’s see. the psychologist, the rebel, the poet, the individual. a mash of those. i can trace my hero-myth to the romantics, for one thing.

the byronic-satanic hero?

yes. i confess it immediately. i cannot shake the power of that sort of hero. it’s what i find most sublime. it’s what i’m “forced” to imitate.

are you saying that we become, to the best of our ability, that which strikes as most sublime, most beautiful?

right, it’s as if we were sculpting ourselves, but with different aesthetic principles.

i can only assume that effective persuasion appeals more to the hero myth of the audience than to their rationality.

exactly, but there audiences whose hero myth is “rationality” itself. this is kind you must use a logical style of persuasion with.

the audience of this interview perhaps?

yes, and intellectuals in general. anyone who prides themselves on skepticism. let’s look at how twisted this is. the “rational” person has a taste for the universal. he wants to connect to a truth with power, to a truth that is not just vanity.

but you are saying that such truths don’t exist.

that’s an overstatement, but yes. i’m at least trying to point out the element of “vanity” in what we believe. but if “vanity” is really that prevalent, it can’t be the demon its supposed to be. the word “vanity “ means emptiness, basically. the metaphor of emptiness was applied to self-love. that’s a rough sketch. but if “self-love” is at the root of how we view the world, it’s not so empty.

let’s get to “vanity” in a moment. any other points about “logic” and “persuasion“?

i think the “truth” or “persuasiveness” of my theory is obvious. one can just look around. but the self proclaimed “logical” type will try to refute it.

how does one refute a persuasion?

with a counter-persuasion, which is just more persuasion.

persuasion in the opposite direction?

right. the “logical” type will phrase their counter-persuasion in a “logical” style.

would you consider yourself right and the “logical” type wrong?

no. it’s not that simple. truth is a what a person believes. rationality exists, if only as a fantasy.

are fantasies as real as realities?

that’s just it. there are only fantasies. when enough fantasies overlap, we call them reality. if you are alone with a fantasy you are either an artist or insane.

i can see why your views are not popular.

they are compatible with a certain hero myth. other hero myth either have no need of such a theory or are directly threatened by it.

onanismo said the same thing about his hero myth theory, that the theory itself was a threat to the hero myths of many.

it is. because the do-gooder is convicted of “vanity.” a do-gooder wants to be the opposite of selfishness, not a hypocritical example of such.

are do-gooders hypocrites?

that depends on what kind of myth-scope you’re looking through.

you really believe the truth is that relative.

yes, but at the same time i live my life according to personal taste. still, i want my theory applied consistently, which adds to its persuasiveness.

why persuade in the first place?

vanity.

you just want attention?

yes, but i’m willing to earn it. of course i am also still a victim of the truth-hero-myth. like i said, i offer this anti-logical theory in logical form.

you also said you weren’t the enemy of truth so much as a reformer of the concept.

right, so ultimately we are talking about an expansion of consciousness as well the sense of power.

does psychology have any power when not applied to the real world?

would you enjoy having x-ray vision even if you were not allowed to interfere with what you saw?

yes.

we have a tendency to think of power as involving objective reality, which of course it often does, but that leaves something out. like you said earlier, perception is reality. you can take nietzsche’s “will to power” and tweak it into something like the “will to feel powerful.” x-ray vision makes a person feel powerful. they might not use it for anything. the main thing we seek is to see ourselves as successful incarnations of our hero myth.

so your theory gives you pleasure by helping you believe that you are indeed the psychologist-poet-rebel.

right. it’s hard to play the hero convincingly for yourself if you never have anything to offer other humans.

so you come out with an unpopular theory to actualize your hero myth.

right, because my hero-myth is not the daydreamer but the poet, in the broad sense of the word that includes psychology and romanticism.

it matters then how you are socially received?

yes. it matters to almost everyone. if i convince others, i further convince myself.

that reminds me of a certain definition of a fanatic, that they resolve their doubts by convincing others.

which is true, but it applies to most everyone. we all benefit from treated with respect, from being like the hero we are trying to become, or at high moments think we are.

we have come back to persuasion then.

yes. we should not that self-persuasion is not only as important but perhaps more important than the persuasion of others.

because it’s the last step.

right. “it little profits that a man gains the whole world and loses his soul.”

subversive application of christ!

it all connects. it’s all re-usable. it’s like melting statues to make bullets.

i can see that person now, adored by many, despised by himself.

not a happy camper. who doesn’t go through that though?

why do we doubt ourselves?

we are bombarded by persuasions in the service of others. then of course there is objective reality.

i thought you said there wasn’t.

in the absolute “logical” sense, there isn’t. but in the practical sense there is. one can persuade in the logical sense. one lives in the practical sense.

most people persuade in the practical sense as well as live in it.

that’s true. only an elitist hero myth would motivate us to be so sceptical, so critical. philosophy is a blood sport for the cerebral.

now we are talking about aggression, i take it.

we’ve all been to grammar school. think about insults. an insult is a primitive persuasion, the most basic kind. it’s the renaming of a person.

so when the bully calls little timmy a bad name, he wants to persuade others to perceive timmy that way.

yes. that’s all it is. he wants to persuade timmy and others and perhaps himself that timmy is something nasty. it’s psychological warfare. adults do it to of course.

adults are just harder to convince.

depends on their situation. an effective insult is one that finds the point of self-doubt already vulnerable in the insulted.

which we tend to be good at.

our eyes are in the front. we are the world’s most intelligent killer ape.

so we have positive hero-myth persuasion for our self, including our allies, and negative inferiority-myth persuasions for our enemies.

right. it’s really that simple.

what about someone with a christian hero myth who attempts not to have any enemies?

i suppose they repress their tendency to make a negative hero myth for others. i relate to that myself.

are a christian?

is some sense of the word, i guess i am.

that’s surprise.

“wise as a serpent, gentle as a dove”

i see. you consider the serpent and the dove compatible.

why not? as a poet i’m the “serpent.” as a “mystic” i’m a dove.

the line you quoted is a non-logical sort of persuasion.

right. it’s metaphorical, directly mythological. i love that sort of persuasion. that’s another reason i had to acknowledge that rationality was just one sort of persuasion, and not necessarily the best.

you expanded your notion of truth.

right. i think there’s an urge in us to fuse things, to simply. that’s why mysticism appeals to us.

how so?

take parmenides, for instance. “all is one and one is all,” which is also a led zeppelin lyric. there is power in that statement. but to prove it logically is difficult and questionable.

i take it you don’t feel the need to prove it logically.

not at all. “logical” in the old sense is no longer part of my hero myth.

but it was once.

yes.

so hero myths change.

oh yes. we see it all the time. people change. they re-invent themselves.

why?

because the grass is greener on the other. because they were persuaded to change.

do they choose a new myth because it’s easier to realize than the old one?

that’s one reason. but sometimes we are simply seduced by a new “god,” a new vision of the sublime and beautiful.

and poetry is the vehicle of this sublime?

the primary vehicle, i guess, but the plastic arts and music are nothing to scoff at.

so think a visual image can modify our hero myth?

yes. some people are more sensual-minded than others. you have word people, picture people, sound people. of course all of us respond to all three, but it’s reasonable (persuadable) that we all respond to all the mediums to some degree.

how can music influence a hero myth?

those who are moved by music are of course going to see composers and performers as potent individuals. then you may have a visual --verbal movie about a composer or performer. in real life, sound image and text are often mixed.

so it’s not just music but the verbal concept of the musician and the visual “flattery” of the musician.

right, because a poet knows how to glamorize anything. so does a plastic artist. art focuses on the hero as much as anything else. it’s natural to do so, because the hero is so important to us.

we have music for heroes, poems for heroes, and pictures of heroes.

yes, yes, and yes. you might say the primary theme of art is the hero, that artist reveal heroic possibilities to us.

something like a shopping mall at which we buy personality.

exactly, that’s an excellent metaphor.

we’ve gotten deep into the hero myth, which i suppose is mr. onanismo’s territory. he’s a friend of yours?

a close friend. the fact is that we both sort of developed the hero-myth and persuasion theory of truth simultaneously, together. we sort of agreed to split the difference, divide and conquer.

you ended up getting known for the persuasion theory, he for the personal hero myth.

right, but the two are conjoined twins. one leads to the other. if truth is persuasion, then how are we persuaded?

then we find the personal hero myth determines what persuasions we accept and resist.

right, and if you start with the personal hero myth as primary, then you realize just how irrational humans are, that they think in terms of myths, that arguments are secondary to faith.

which leads to the persuasion theory of truth.

you can see how they are born conjoined.

yes.

what now?

let’s see. as a “matter of taste,” what personal hero myths offend you?

the moralist offends me most, i think.

why?

because the moralist does not pride themselves on individualism but rather the opposite. the moralist is just a cell in a mob. not only that, but i think most moralists do not manage to manifest their heroic ideals.