LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
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User ID: 657
They happen to be competitors with Christianity for a dominant ideology, but progressives don’t seem to have any problem with going to a catholic or SBC or Mormon church.
The primary problem with your own explanation is that wokeness is subversive by design. The woke "don't seem to have a problem" with someone going to a church if and only if the church is a woke church. You kind of hint at this but is important to be explicit about this. They are fine with people who go to a woke church because wokeness is subversive by design and they know that the primary focus of worship will be wokeness (Critical Social Justice), not God. They are then Catholic or SBC or Mormon in name only. Like you say "it's difficult to be a good Christian while being woke", I would go further and say, actually "woke Christian" is an oxymoron, you can only worship one God, and if you're a "woke Christian" it means you're not worshipping God of the Bible, which is why the woke don't care. There's not "woke Christian churches" but "woke churches which have the aesthetic trappings of Christianity". Liberation theology specifically was designed to do this. The Southern Baptist Convention is undergoing a major schism right now over this kind of thing. A major incident that lead to the schism was that in 2019 the SBC adopted "Resolution 9" which basically said that the SBC will adopt Critical Race Theory as "analytical tools" - except Critical Race Theory is a totalizing ideology (or part of an ideology) which can never accept subordination. It Is directly competing with Christianity.
By contrast Christianity explicitly demands that the old pagan gods be repudiated, in those words.
In practice many nominally Christian communities were functionally pagan for centuries after their apparent conversion. Pagan rituals and worship would coexist alongside Christianity in remote Alpine villages and dense Baltic forests for many centuries after conversion.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
I would disagree - Western is a perfectly apt description, or at least there's not much better. I disagree with the term of just 'Christian' because it ignores or downplays the pre-Christian Greco-Roman intellectual tradition the West inherited. The history of the West intellectually and philosophically has been attempts to attempts to synthesize Greek rationality with Jerusalemite faith. Many influential figures made this their explicit goal, such as Thomas Aquinas. These two broad schools of thought sharpened each other and I think lead to the remarkable intellectual achievements of the West. I think this is the true legacy of the West, at least intellectually.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
Well if you hate interactive novels you almost certainly hate this game. At least this game you pretty much know what you're getting into. Different strokes for different folks.
In this game's defence, it largely works because it is an interactive novel, and I feel the story wouldn't have nearly as much impact if it was a standard, uninteractive novel. I think plays to it the medium's strengths pretty well.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
Right, it's more the outcome of the choices you make. The actual story events that you experience on pro and anti revolutionary "paths" are mostly the same however, it's just how you respond to it. Whereas the noble, priest and commoner paths all have almost completely different events and story arcs, only a small overlap. Hence "main" paths.
One might say there are six main paths - noble, priest and commoner both as pro- and antirevolutionary
I was had a little mini-debate in my head about whether to say three or six main paths, but I went with three because I don't think pro or antirevolutionary are substantial enough to call them there own complete main paths, not to the same extent of the noble, priest and commoner are, at least. Most of the decisions for which side you land politically are only towards the very end of the game, and it's possible to play both sides until just before the end of the game, albeit with maybe slightly suboptimal outcomes. Basically, they're not "main" paths in that they don't have a long, separate narrative.
The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante Review
My previous game reviews on the Motte:
A (somewhat) short review for a short, but compelling game. I will try to avoid major spoilers because this is a game I can easily recommend, at a relatively low playtime with a relatively low price, especially on sale.
The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante is a text-based adventure game, where guide the life of our titular character, Sir Brante, from birth to death (or at least late adulthood). It might be more accurate to call the game an interactive novel, or more in the vain of adventure gamebooks (but no combat). Player reads about an event in Sir Brante’s life, and the player makes a choice for how Brante’s life will progress, some of which have more serious impacts than others. The game is obviously very reading heavy, though there are some nice illustrations too.
The game is set in the fictional Arknian Empire, a low-fantasy word that is roughly analogous to late 18th Century Europe in terms of technological and social development. The Arknian Empire has an extremely rigid, oppressive and perhaps actually divinely ordained social system – the “Lots”. The Noble, Priest and Commoner Lots. It’s an extreme form of feudal hierarchy, where commoners are abused and exploited by their social superiors, perhaps far more than happened in our real world. You play as Sir Brante, the commoner son of noble father and a commoner mother. Your father was born a commoner and earned his nobility through service to the empire (“Noble of the Mantle”), and not by blood or hereditary rights (“Noble of the Sword”), so the nobility is not granted to you. So Brante occupies a liminal space in society, not a noble, nor a lowly commoner, at a time of great social upheaval within the Arknian Empire (again, analogous to late 18th and early 19th century Europe). Stop here and play the game if this sounds interesting to you! Some spoilers ahead.
What The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante does exceptionally well is create an incredibly believable world and honestly is one of the best portrayals of social upheaval (and revolution...?) in a fictional setting. It highlights the moral complexities of reform and revolution. There are shades of grey everywhere – oppressor nobles, nobles supporting tradition as the believe stability is critical, nobles supporting reform, devout commoners supporting the social order, humanistic commoner revolutionaries, brutal, murderous commoner revolutionaries, the Church is undergoing a theological schism. The game also raises some other interesting themes and questions – destiny, family, duty, religion and many others. Just to give one example of how clever the writing can be in this game, the most powerful noble families (including the Emperor) in the Arknian Empire are not human but are Arknians, who are more or less light blue skinned “human” nobles of great beauty who are treated with the utmost respect and deference by all humans. It’s deliberately left ambiguous about the relationship between Arknians and humans, it’s possible (if not likely) that the Arknians are in fact humans, who are blue-skinned by virtue of extreme selective breeding/endogamy, and maybe more beautiful, smarter and stronger than 'regular' humans only because of access to superior education, medicine etc. I found this to be a pretty clever commentary on real world nobility, and high-status class more generally – the Arknians may or may not be humans, but what’s important is that the commonfolk and even the lesser nobles believe in the natural, perhaps even divine superiority of the Arknians over humans.
I think another brilliant element of the writing is how it draws you into the game’s universe. You play as Brante from baby, and you learn about the world along with him as he grows up, slowly getting fed titbits of information about the world and forming a coherent picture in your mind. As Brante forms relationships with his family as he grows, so will you get attached to them. This makes it all the more heart wrenching when the suffering does happen. The Brante family does struggle and suffer throughout the game, as the title promises. I’ll admit that I teared up a couple times playing the game.
The story has some strong parallels to real world historical events, including the Protestant Reformation, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution (the developers are Russian), and generally is critical about all kinds of ideology, radical and traditional. However, I think the game’s writing ultimately leans towards a Burkeian conservative gradual reform position ideologically, where the best outcomes and endings seem to arise from approaching the political issues in the game this way. This doesn’t significantly detract from the political commentary and critique the writing offers overall, though. The game also has a surprisingly Christian message or at least mentality that I think might go over some players’ heads – the Christian part specifically, not the religious themes in general. It’s hard to comment on this without getting to major spoilers, I will just say there is an implication that the societal problems within the game are at least partially derived from the fact the in-universe religion is basically an incomplete Christianity – Christianity missing some key features.
Unfortunately, like many story-driven choice-based RPGs, the game does fall apart a bit in the last third of the game, particularly in the last act, as the writers struggle under the weight of all the choices they have to account for. Some of the choices only have real impact on certain paths. The final act feels far too short for the events that it’s portraying, the choices and stats you need to get certain endings are maybe a bit unfair and I left feeling a bit unsatisfied. Still, this is a relatively small blemish on an otherwise excellently written game. The draw of the game I think not really having an “ending” per se, but this peephole it gives you into this highly believable if sometimes fantastical world.
I strongly recommend The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante to any one who likes text/reading heavy games or interactive novels. The game is relatively short, maybe a few hours long for your first playthrough if you’re not someone who agonizes over choices/restarts RPGs frequently like me. There are three main paths to play in the game, each with their own narrative arc for replayability, though the paths do converge towards the very end of the game.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
I don't get your point? No-fault divorce is the most common kind of divorce. When no-fault divorce was introduced, the rate of divorce skyrocketed. No-fault divorce increases the number of divorces, and therefore the amount spent on divorces.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
I'm curious. Why do you think Reason justifies doing what we want?
Because it is only Reason that allows us to even ask the question "what do we even want?" or "what is the moral outcome?" in the first place. Reason actually gives humans the capacity to be moral agents and make decisions. As much as I hate to lean on continental philosophy, Reason is what gives us humans (Kantian/Hegelian) autonomy.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
but their current solution is probably something like a dead-simple "no divorce allowed" stance.
How many prominent conservatives (particularly politicans) openly advocate for getting rid of no-fault divorce?
We are still experiencing the philosophical implications of the Darwinian Revolution. The implication being that humans are not apart from nature, but part of and a product of nature. Therefore the special status of humanity is questionable, we are no different from animals. We may be very sophisticated animals, but we are animals nevertheless.
We might say, as you have, that humans still have a special status by virtue of our higher intelligence, that we far more powerful and capable of changing and enacting our will on our environement and therefore have higher moral value than animals. But this is a questionable argument and presents a fleeting kind of moral superiority. Does a stronger, smarter man have more moral value than than a weaker, stupider man? That superior men should be held to different standards than inferior men? Some people seem to think so. Nietzsche certainly thought this was the inevitable outcome of the death of God. This is Raskolnikov's theory of the superior man.
We might also retreat into the safety of consciousness, that humans have unique qualia that gives us a special status. But the materialist/naturalist outlook has no reason to give special status to consciousness. Consciousness is merely just the complex interaction of chemicals in your brain. It's as much as part of nature and mechanistic as any other evolutionary biological development, one of many tools in the toolbox. Ultimately, assigning special status to human consciousness (or the soul or countless other names) and humanity itself requires some belief or argument from the metaphysical - whether that be God, Plato's Realm of the Forms or Kant's Reason.
If you marry your ideology to claims that animals aren't sapient, are stupid, are incapable of reason, aren't conscious, you're... well I think you're just already wrong based on things I've seen animals do in life and studies.
Those things are true. Animals aren't capable of reason, they aren't sapient (which is distinct from sentience). Animals are incapable of making moral judgements, asking and dealing with abstract concepts.
Like sure, a crow can pick up a stick and use it get some food from a puzzle box. That doesn't make the crow capable of reason.
There has been I think general push to present animals as capable of human like reason, to the point of fraudulent science. Infamously Koko the sign language-using gorilla's abilities were highly misrepresented to the point of fraud. Even our nearest, smartest primate cousins are incapable of human reason. They can't learn grammar, they can't understand abstract concepts, no matter how much researchs tried to make it appear so.
In some sense I would say your argument has an even less stable intellectual foundation. It's basically 'humans have power over animals, so whatever we say goes'. This argument is just weak as as if you were apply it to humans - "justice is the advantage of the stronger" or "might makes right".
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
I find this interesting in light of an ongoing debate about cthulhu theory: Whether new leftist causes are relatively obvious consequences of general principles that have already been driving the movement for a long time, or have more short-term cynical explanations. I lean towards the former and think this example supports that
A while ago, I had a thought. God granted humanity stewardship over nature. Humans are above nature and have a responsibility towards nature for this reason. But you remove God, and that's all good. Then you only have two logical conclusions. That humans are no better than animals, and that animals are raised to the same status as humans. I think that trend and this article are examples of both of that.
I used the term 'God' generally here. For any metaphysical doctrine that similarly gives special status to humans the argument stays the same. If you adopt a purely materialist or naturalist outlook it's hard not to reach the conclusion that human are no different or better than animals.
The general atrociousness and wordsaladness of the piece aside - the complete strawmanning of Romanticism is infuriating -it's unclear to me what the position being put forward even is. The author says that basically humans have a responsibility to reduce the suffering of wild animals, but then she also says that humans basicially have no right to violate the autonomy of said animals? The solution (?) seems to be that the entirety of nature (which doesn't exist anyway according to the author) should basically be turned into a giant zoo, where humans are meant to be an invisible guiding hand for all animals. It has some pretty hilarious implications, like presumably we'd have to give all rabbits birth control drugs or something (in a way that doesn't violate their supposed autonomy?) so they don't... well... breed like rabbits. But honestly the whole exercise reads to me just as an excuse to berate humanity because the author hates humanity.
It's articles like this that really make me embrace Idealism and express outright pro-anthroprocentrism. That humanity is distinct and apart from nature, and that humans are more than mere animals, but are capable of Reason which is what seperates and makes us superior to animals. Animals are stupid and much less important than humans. I don't care how much people make appeals to animals' supposed sentience. They are not sapient and not capable of Reason. It's not clear if they have any conciousness (and they probably don't, save for maybe our closest primate cousins). Animals do not deserve the same rights as humans, they are stupid beasts. I don't think anyone has ever said that to the author. We humans have decided that we want to preverse nature because we believe it has value - economic, aesthetic, moral etc value. But that value is ultimately derived from our human Reason something those animals are completely incapable of doing.
It's been said it's much harder to refute a really stupid argument than a smart argument because the really stupid argument has such stupid prepositions and poor logic that it's hard to know even where to begin or how to formulate a counter argument, the whole thing is just rubbish. This article seems to be one of those really stupid arguments. There's some hilariously stupid lines in this article such as:
when what we ought to do is respect animals’ choice of a way of life
As if animals have the capacity to make such choices!
I recently saw Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, Guy Ritchie's latest film. I had reasonably high expectations going into the film. Not that it would be high art or anything, but I thought it would be a fun action spy film in the vein of Mission: Impossible, with a pretty star studded cast. I left pretty disappointed. The film was incredibly mediocre, although not completely awful. I would say Guy Ritchie has lost his touch, but in hindsight now looking at Guy Ritchie's more recent filmography has been less than stellar. Some spoilers ahead.
The film was more or less trying to follow the formula of a film like Mission: Impossible albeit in a more tongue-in-cheek, more humorous way, but it fell short at basically every hurdle and failed to form anything cohesive. Jason Statham was Jason Statham, more or less doing what you expect, though I felt the film misused Statham, and forced him into the role of playing comedic foil to some of the comic relief characters which doesn't really work. Statham is there to punch people and deliver one-liners, he's not a comedic actor. Aubrey Plaza was awful, playing the primary comedic relief in the film while also being the spy-damsel-seductress while also being the team tech expert. Granted, I don't like her brand of frankly juvenile humour to begin with but this film it felt particularly bad, with her delivering constant sexual innuendos to her male-costars that would never be allowed to fly today if a male actor was delivering it to his female costar. Josh Hartnett's performance as the "fish-out-of-water civilian recruited into spy team" was acceptable, but heavily let down by the mediocre script that did nothing with the character. Cary Elwes plays exposition-man "M" type role and minor comic relief, there's nothing really to say. Basically the only standout performance was Hugh Grant's performance as a sleazy, creepy, yet charismatic British arms dealer (although it's kind of weird how they just make in kind of a good guy in the end unearned). Grant's performance honestly carries much of the film, and his character was just fun to watch on screen, even if the script went nowhere. All other minor roles were unremarkable, except I would say that Bugzy Malone, playing the supporting role as the team's 'henchman' field support or whatever. Not a lot of lines, but he played it well.
It's hard to describe exactly why the film and script failed, but everything just felt off. It felt like I was watching a first draft of a script that somehow actually made it into production. To give one example of how I think the film fails in trying to be a MI like spy film, at the start of the film we get the obligatory "we need to a team to deal with issue" scene to introduce the characters (We need Orson Fortune, he's the best!). Whereas in better films this would cut then to our star at the end of some other mission to introduce his character (like in Mission Impossible, or in Indiana Jones, or Bond or countless other films), instead we just get a scene of Cary Elwes in Jason Statham's hotel room trying to get him to come off holiday early with some not-so-witty banter. That's it. No action scene (talk about misusing Statham!).
There are plot threads that go nowhere - Statham's team has some rivalry with other ops team that goes nowhere and is meaningless - most characters are bland and uninteresting, are poorly introduced and have no character development. For example, Josh Hartnett's character, a Hollywood star who is recruited (blackmailed to join) the team as their "in" to get access to Hugh Grant's character. In better films, Hartnett's character would have a proper character arc, where he's an arrogant and selfish Hollywood star that only cares about himself and his wellbeing, to the end of the film where he becomes a true member of the team and asks when the next mission is. Except... they kind of forget to do that second part, and he just goes back to being the same, goofball Hollywood star except a bit less arrogant. It's what I mean but when I can see the film is trying to follow the formula of action spy films but drops the ball. They even managed mess up the MacGuffin, we don't even know what the MacGuffin actually is until 3/4 through the movie, and even when we do find out it's completely meaningless, the MacGuffin is so MacGuffin to the plot you can basically just substitute any big bad weapon or whatever, I was so uninvested in the plot. Action scenes has very little tension, the protagonists either managed to either easily defeat 30 guys, or lose to 2 guys. There were no really awesome tense scenes like Mission Impossible's cable drop scene, or MI:2's vent drop scene. There were also actual plot holes in the film, where arms dealer Hugh Grant wants to be paid his commission in currency... when it turns out the MacGuffin is a AI that the villains are going to use to crash the global financial system while they have hoarded gold to make themselves rich (Hugh Grant is literally assisting in deal that will wipe out his wealth). The film end quite abruptly. I was expecting some major twist and final fight at the end of the film, but it just never happens. It honestly felt like there was like 10-15 minutes missing from the end of the film.
The last thing to mention (and Culture War related) is that some of the villains in the film are Ukrainian, the film was reportedly reedited after the war broke out in Ukraine to be 'sensitive to current events', just as the film was nearly ready for release. It's hard to know for certain but it's very possible that large parts of the film were butchered because of this, and this new edit ruined much of the film. Still, even if that's true I think the film would still be pretty mediocre regardless.
Did read them and enjoyed it, and kept meaning to make a comment questing some of Gottfried's defintion/analysis of fascism (particularly the lack of acknowledgement of the metaphysical/spiritual elements of fascism) but that required a bit of an effort comment on my part (and also looking up some old sources) so everytime I thought I might have the time and feel like making the effort like 4 days had already past and I didn't feel like replying to an old thread.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
I would imagine there is an extremely strong correlation between the length of a post and the amount of effort put into a post (and theoretically, quality). Writing a long post that isn't complete gibberish at least requires some effort and forethought.
I guess where I disagree with most people here is that I don't believe that war with Russia was a certainty and that peaceful scenarios where everyone benefits was possible (that doesn't require Ukrainian submission to Russia), had the last 30 years of foreign policy and geopolitics in Eastern Europe had been handled better. And that pursuing a road to peace asap now is ideal rather than trying to 'destroy Russia'.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
Forgive me, but I don't think the war devistating Ukraine and absolutely crippling their country in the hopes that maybe a couple decades from now they join the EU (who knows how the EU is doing in 10 or 20 years anyway) and hopefully get something out it economically is/was the most optimal of all possibilities.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
I agree with your application of this version of progress to the Cthulhu swim, if "problem" is understood correctly: In the version I believe, what counts as a "problem" for the sake of progress in a field is determined by the field itself. Not us, or an "objective observer", looking at the state if the field and thinking something is bad, but the internal criteria that are already present in the field.
Yes, this is more or less the case, but you're right I could have clarified it, though I hope my examples were sufficient to get the point across.
One related issue is that's not exactly clear how define when one thought or historical period ends and another begins and thus when it is appropriate judge progress and when it is not. For some divisions it may be pretty clear cut (e.g. French Revolution) but it's not always the case. I guess you can just make a spectrum argument where the further away from our thought and society the harder it is to evaluate.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
looking at history theirs a huge difference between being in American sphere of influence and in Russias sphere. Russians sphere well has things like Holodomore happen to them. The American sphere even when we do bad things has limited bad things happen to the people of the country.
I don't necessarily disagree with your general point but this is just a lazy argument. There are obviously breaks in political continuity in Russian history that aren't present in American history. For better or worse, contemporary Russia isn't the USSR or the Russian Tsardom.
If I made an argument that a country being under German influence today is a bad thing because Nazis and Holocaust, people would rightfully laugh at me.
This is not to say that being under contemporary Russian influence is a good thing - it's probably not - but actually make the argument about why this is the case and don't just make lazy appeals to history. And preferably an argument that doesn't refer to the supposed 'innate barbarity' of the Russian people that I've seen crop up a lot.
As someone who has previously argued that the situation leading up to the invasion Ukraine is far more complicated that most pro-Ukrainian warhawks would like you to believe, and you do make a few valid points I still strongly disagree with your post, and more specifically your responses in this thread.
While I previously defended Russia's actions in a realist sense (and still stand by that post), that doesn't make Russia's actions moral. Make no mistake, invading another country and causing death and destruction is still an immoral act, even if one wants to argue it's the least worst option for Russia's future geopolitical prospects even when counting the risk of failure. Ukraine is of course going to defend itself and it has a right to do so, regardless of questionable geopolitical circumstances leading up to the invasion.
If you want to critique the uncritical pro-Ukrainian warhawkish-ness, you are far better of criticising American foreign policy in Eastern Europe for the last three decades. While Russia obviously bares primarily responsibility for the invasion, the US also bares responsibility for creating an extremely hostile geopolitical environment, and has pursued policy that has not at all been conducive to peace and prosperity to everyone involved (certainly not the Ukrainians), to provide dubious geopolitical benefit to themselves (and when you consider the impacts to the global economy and the US itself is probably a net loss, to say nothing of the billions of dollars spent actually funding the war). Additionally it seems that that much of the 'international community', especially the US, seems more interested in prolonging the war than actually finding a path to peace. Lip-service to peace may be given, but it seems like that there is always a more 'favourable position' to achieve before peace should be negotiated. There is also a certain subsection of ultra-warhawks who seem more motivated by wanting to completely destroy Russia, as if that would be any way moral, and of course only good things have ever come out of failed states, right?
Anyway, the point is that Russia isn't the 'good guy' in this situation, even if there are genuine criticisms to make against the US and the pro-Ukrainian warhawks. You made a few good criticisms in the original post, some of which I echoed above. You should stick to those core criticism and stop with the more blatant Russia apologia.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
My apologies, I wrote this pretty fast and I have a bad habit of dropping words as I jump from idea to idea! Edited.
R.G. Collingwood and the Idea of Historical Progress
Every so often a discussion about the nature of progress, why society seems to trend ‘leftwards’ or similar teleologically related questions. In the past I have given my own answer to such a question. However, I recently came across the book the Idea of History by historian and philosopher of history R.G. Collingwood, one of the more interesting philosophies and theories of history and what it means or if it is even possible for society to ‘progress’. But first, some context.
R.G. Collingwood was a British historian and philosopher of history during the early 20th century (I will admittedly simplifying his ideas here for brevity). Collingwood was a major and influential figure in neo-idealist or British idealist movement. The neo-idealists, as idealists, believe that human actions and events, and therefore history, is driven by human thought, ideas, or reason. This is contrasted with materialist or naturalists who aim to explain human action and history through laws or law-like processes, the classic example being Marxist historiography. Collingwood believes the analogy between human history and natural processes is wrong. For this reason, Collingwood history proper is the study of human thought, ideas or reason over time. Natural history (e.g. geological history) is not true history, because it is driven by natural processes and laws. It is no more history than a mathematical equation or scientific theory is history.
The neo-idealists could broadly be described Hegelian but deviate or disagree with Hegel’s philosophy of history in several ways. Collingwood, like Hegel, was a historicist – that all human culture or nature is contingent on its historical period, and therefore all historical events are unique. This lends itself towards a kind of historical moral subjectivism, though I would argue in Collingwood’s case it is a weak form of subjectivism. According to Collingwood, as part of truly understanding history, one must attempt to inhabit or relive the experience of historical figures to understand them. To understand Caesar and crossing of the Rubicon, we must put ourselves in Caesar’s shoes. But we can still understand empathise and reason as those figures did (at least to some degree) and make judgements about their behaviour relative to their context, hence ‘weak’ subjectivism.
Collingwood’s best-known work is The Idea of History in which the majority is dedicated to how the idea of history has developed across time, from Thucydides to Collingwood’s fellow neo-idealist contemporaries like Croce and Oakeshott. Essentially, a history of history. However, I admit I have not read much of this part of the book. It is the final third of the book (the “Epilegomena”) which I found most interesting, in which Collingwood explains his philosophy and theory of history, including in which he addresses “Progress as created by Historical Thinking”.
Collingwood denies the existence of historical progress, primarily by his argument that historical progress is not a natural process. He argues that the belief in historical progress arose out of this false analogy to natural progress (particularly natural evolution). It is here where Collingwood deviates from and contradicts Hegel and earlier idealists the strongest. Collingwood does not believe in a teleology of human history - that human history is leading or progressing towards something. However, human thought still changes and develops (and thus history occurs) over time. Collingwood believes it improper to conceptualize history as a whole as progressing because it is impossible to evaluate a historical period as a whole. This is for both practical and philosophical reasons – the historian can never have complete data to truly recreate (relive) the entire historical period, and even if the historian did have enough data, he will be unable to truly grasp the historical period as a whole. Collingwood provides the example of Christianity being ‘progress’ on Roman paganism – such an evaluation would require us to understand the entire internal religious experience of the Romans, which is inaccessible to us, even if we have a robust understanding of their rites and myths.
Collingwood does believe that progress can occur, however. For Collingwood, progress can only ever occur within a limited field or scope. Progress occurs when a change occurs to solve a problem with no loss of the essence of the original. As Collingwood puts it:
If thought in its first phase, after solving the initial problems of that phase, is then, through solving these, brought up against others which defeat it; and if the second solves these further problems without losing its hold on the solution of the first, so that there is gain without any corresponding loss, then there is progress.
This is essentially a form of the Hegelian dialectic. A thought is formed – thesis. It has problems – antithesis. The problems are solved while preserving the essence of the original thought – synthesis. An example of where Collingwood believes progress can occur is progress in science. We can say Einstein is progress on Newton because Einstein is able to solve the problems of Newtonian mechanics while retaining its essence. It is appropriate to say that Aristotle provides progress on Plato so far as Aristotle resolves problems within Platonic philosophy, but it would be inappropriate to say that it is progress when Aristotle rejects Platonic philosophy. We can apply this idea of progress to other fields, e.g. economics, law, morality etc. - A new precedent in common law for a previously unresolved issue is progress, but we cannot say whether the idea of common law itself represents progress from other systems of law.
What does this mean for us online who constantly argue about the nature of progress? I’m not really sure but I think it might be wise to keep this dual notion of progress in mind. That progress can and will occur within a certain part of history and society but it cannot progress (or be said to progress) as a whole. That Cthulhu does indeed swim leftwards, but only within a given scope. A Liberal society will continue to solve problems within its society and progressively become ‘more liberal’ until the liberal period ends, after which we cannot tell which way he swims from our perspective.
If you want to hear some more about Collingwood’s philosophy of history and clarify my butchered attempt to summarize it, I recommend this video lecture which got me to read Collingwood in the first place. The Idea of History is also available on the Internet Archive to read.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
I have had to take "aptitude" tests before as part of job application processes and some of the types of questions in that practice test are familiar to me (I am not American either).
It's not an internal culture war when America is the largest cultural exporter in the world, it's become a global culture war. Those fights are being exported all over the globe. There were BLM protests in places like Finland and Ireland. The rest of the world (or the West, at least) is part of the fight now whether you or they want it or not.
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