Friendly Reminder: A Work In Progress

Just a friendly reminder to PRC Readers and an equally friendly heads up to those joining us for the first time. This is a fluid journal. Meaning, all of the entries here are undergoing constant revision. In short, like PRC, Writings is A Work In Progress.

One reason is that, like everyone else, I don't know all there is to know, even about what interests me. And I don't know it all for the same reason no one else does, not even the smartest among us, because we can't respond to it all. There's simply too much to know. In fact, that is one way to distinguish between primitive and civilized cultures. In a primitive culture there is more that is known than needs to be known, and in a civilization there is always more to know than in known. So, there’s always more to learn, especially in terms of what one writes about and how much time they have, or give themselves, to write about it.

But that's just a quantitative problem. Then there's the qualitative problem. The more one learns and writes about what they learn, and learns about writing, the more the quality of their responses, their ideas, and their writing, improves. And there is always more to learn about those things that interest us the most.

Another reason goes beyond both the quantitative and qualitative problems, and to the matter of time. If we want to write we have to just sit down and doggedly do it, as the great Samuel Johnson once put it. In other words, we can't wait until our quantitative and qualitative problems are solved because, in a way, they're unsolvable. We’ve got to get on with it. Otherwise we’ll never write or do anything. This is another way of saying that there are bound to be mistakes, lots of them, in both writing and in life.

Speaking of which, another reason has to do with simple editing. Few professional writers, if any, will have the temerity to publish something without having a skilled editor go over it first. But for amateur writers like myself, we're our own editors. So we face the same challenge every writer faces when writing - knowing what comes next in terms of ideas, we tend to miss the mistakes.

But, the main reason for this friendly reminder to both myself and PRC Readers that PRC is a work in progresss is because it directs attention to the fact that life is dynamic, not static, and we’re imperfect, not perfect, and that the best response to this, in my judgment anyway, is to learn, change, and grow, intellectually, socially, and morally, and to do so on a consistent basis. In short, this friendly reminder that PRC is a work in progress reflects my belief in continual renewal, a renewal justified by, and based on, the recognition of human imperfection.

From an intellectual point of view another way of putting this would be to say that I believe in, as Ludwig von Boltzmann said, the hypothetical character of all theoretical constructs.

Put bluntly, I believe in the instability of all knowledge.

There is more than enough evidence that even the best idea is, as Darwin once put it, a mental convenience. If Darwin can say that about his Origin, why can’t we say that about our ideas? Well, we can. And I'm certainly saying it here right now - for a reason.

Socially, I believe this honest approach to our limits as individuals and groups helps improve the quality of our interaction with each other. Something we’re badly in need of, now more than ever. From this perspective, it is obvious that those most in need of intellectual humility are the very ones clamoring the loudest for social justice, especially, and ironically, since they’re convinced that the best way to acquire justice for society is through that most anti-social of all means - politics.

Since when has politics ever had anything to do with justice?

Not surprisingly, they've never asked themselves that question. If they have, they've kept it a secret. But one can safely predict, from extensive experience, what their reaction would be to such a question - hostile. Like the elite they take their orders from.

Note: Besides, justice is a virtue, and virtuous is the last thing the elite is, or Cancel Culture.

In any event, the value of intellectual humility and perseverance for the purpose of developing a sensitive social sense is, from a moral point of view, obvious. And the best, the surest way, of avoiding the poison of obsessive moralizing is found in our attempt to increase the realm of moral choice. And the best means of achieving that difficult task is through self-criticism (without allowing anxiety to interfere in that self-examination).

But there's little point in talking about human imperfection if you're not going to practice it. Hence PRC Writings, which is my humble attempt at a bit of transparency. Lastly, the constant revision and editing of this journal also applies to this entry.

Thanks for joining us!

Paul Rothwell

Patagonia, Argentina

April 18th 2025

P.S. Speaking of Friendly Reminders:

PRC recognizes and celebrates the work of the great cultural historian and behavioral theorist Morse Peckham (1914-1993), late of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of South Carolina, a man very much at home in the Arts & Sciences. Much of the writing here is inspired by, based on, or derived from, the work of this extraordinarily original thinker and writer.