AYRES VS LERNER: A REPLY
AYRES vs LERNER: A Reply PLANNING AND MEANING By C. E. Ayres This article by Professor Ayres is an answer to an article we printed last week by Professor Abba Lerner which waa an answer to...
...The question is whether to set up a mythical dignity, or sacredness, as an absolute from which In derive a set of tribal commandments with regard lo freedom and the like, or whether to derive our conception of human dignity and individuality, along with our conceptions of freedom anil our programs ol economic planning, from the secular life process...
...I realize that it is tactless to enlerain ideas which, if they are right, mean that a great many other people, some of them quite important people, must be wrong...
...We hope he wilL And, similarly, this is an extended invitation to Professor Ayres and all readers of The New Leader to* discuss the important issues involved...
...This doesn't mean that human life is without dignity...
...My chips are down, and in conclusion I offer a toast...
...and secondly, I hoped that my reasoning would speak for itself, without the assistance of authority...
...He is right of course, appointing out that I said a number <>f things which are quite different from what is commonly believed...
...I wisli I knew how to do so more gracefully...
...It is commonly believed that such activities as planning are tin...
...But gracefully or not, I feel thai I can do no other...
...So far as we know, the debate is scheduled to end with thia article unless Professor Lerner wants to help probe into thia important problem still further...
...Those who missed the preceding...
...If I failed to cite my sources, that was for two reasons: first, I didn't want to insult my readers, all of whom, I thought, would identify my position without the aid of footnotes...
...But at this point I should like to ask him a question...
...IN response to Professor Lerner's expostulations, I ran only say that 1 meant what I said...
...At any rate, we invite those who...
...Professor Lerner reproaches nie for what a priest would doubtless call my-sinful pride...
...is "taking thought"—is a further continuation .of tho same process...
...I should have said "is," since this conception of individuality is identical with the metaphysical, or animistic, conception of life...
...It is also commonly believed that human life and individuality are sacred...
...That is the universe of discourse, or aspect of society, from which, it seems to me, we must dissociate rational analysis and planning...
...Day-to-day experience reveals no generic difference beI tween "means" and "ends...
...articles can obtain copies gratis by writing as...
...It is indeed regrettable that our efforts (o be rational and to take-thought-in-action (two aspects of the same activity) should bring us into collision with the immemorial and still stubborn beliefs of the community...
...However, I am not altogether alone...
...Alas, it Is not even an occasion for surprise to find tribal irrationalities deeply and persistently imbedded in the vocabularies of the sciences...
...Generic difference appears only when legend projects some consuimnatory state into the infinite as an over-all "end," such as "salvation," or "Deutschland iiber alles...
...If that is the case with economics, as I am sorry to say I think it is, it only means that economists are no less fallible than astronomers and zoologists...
...But such activities do not belong in the universe of discourse of tribal myths...
...AYRES vs LERNER: A Reply PLANNING AND MEANING By C. E. Ayres This article by Professor Ayres is an answer to an article we printed last week by Professor Abba Lerner which waa an answer to the original article by Professor Ayres...
...My only question is whether that fact is decisive...
...In an essay which has only recently appeared in Knglisli, Ortega y ('.asset uses this word (taking it over from Cicero,) to refer to community acceptance of supreme authority...
...in the end, it must...
...University of Texas...
...It was my point here that the conception of freedom which the social philosophers of the 18lli century incorporated into classical political economy was this conception, and I am glad to have this confirmed by Professor Lerner...
...They have been held by a considerable number of serious investigators, some of whom have been held in high esteem by their contemporaries...
...ami everything is an end in relation to what, in that relationship, has been a means...
...Everything is a means in relation to some other thing which -* is, in that relationship, an end...
...So strong is this tradition that it has been thought to apply to wholly rational activities, such as economic planning...
...means" to the achievement of certain "ends" — commonly, but incorrectly...
...We must do so because rational analysis is an instrumental process and as such a part of the tool-using continuum ol human life, and because planning—which, after all...
...But surely this is no occasion for surprise...
...On the contrary, the ideas on which I drew in my recent article have all been in circulation for many years...
...a I is line thai concord means different things...
...On the) contrary, thev are a part of the means-ends-means-ends continuum of our secular life process, and therefore we must find their meaning in that process...
...But again, economic planning is quite foreign to the whole universe of discourse of which this conception is a feature...
...Planning and liberty, now and forever, one and inseparable...
...Do you think that a person who finds his inquiries leading him to differ with, say, the large majority of his contemporaries should therefore straightway desist...
...have read the first two presentations to continue the debate here...
Vol. 30 • February 1947 • No. 6
