Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I agree, but this is the core question I'm trying to get at. My understanding is that the main branch of the Enlightenment is specifically based on the assumption that this is not, in fact, true. It holds that human problems are not separate from non-human problems, and that human problems can be solved the same way we solve polio. My argument is that this specific question is a pretty good predictor of the large-scale split in values between the tribes. One side of that split believes that human problems are intrinsic to humanity and thus cannot be solved. The other side believes that human problems are an engineering failure, and if we get the engineering right they go away.
I don't think "fundamental" is a word game. Humans have been stealing for as long as they've existed. If you change things to the point that humans actually stop stealing, that's a fundamental change. Ditto for all the other goods and evils. That's my understanding of what "progress" means, from direct observation of progressives. Again, "war on poverty", "smash the patriarchy", "teach men not to rape", "give peace a chance", "New Soviet Man", and so on.
This is true. And yet, the hedonic treadmill appears to also be true, such that our desires and ambitions auto-adjust to whatever level of abundance we have and whatever level of hardship we face. I don't think people in the modern world are significantly happier than people in the ancient world. I think people in the ancient world laughed and cried more or less the same as we do, just over different things, and I think that based on reading their own descriptions of their lives.
The example is of a queen, because queens are notable enough to make it into the histories. I maintain that the core of the experience generalizes to all humans, and of all ages too. Kamikaze spite is a very human reaction to losing a conflict. I don't think wealth or status or anything else has any significant impact on the story. Honor does not seem to have been the exclusive preserve of the ultra-wealthy, then or now. If you disagree, we could change the example to the siege of Masada, which is essentially the same story without the involvement of royalty.
And yet, they still die disproportionately young, and the things they die of are generally described as "deaths of despair". If our absurd abundance is actual progress, why would "deaths of despair" be a meaningful category?
All of this is true. And yet:
...All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time. No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them.
...The above seems deeply true, based on my own experience. It also seems entirely incompatible with the concept of "progress".
I wouldn't call them a failure, exactly, just that our circumstances are getting ever further away from the original specification. And it seems to me that both sides generally agree with this, the difference is in what we're supposed to do about that, the options being RETVRN or re-engineering. And while the latter has proven much more difficult than some early optimists envisioned, the former seems to me to be entirely intractable.
Moving the entire society back to any desired pre-Enlightenment mode could only work if you can coordinate the whole world to play along with you. If they keep the nukes while you revert to crossbows then the outcome of any future conflict is pre-determined. Given that such coordination is miles away from the Overton window anywhere, let alone everywhere, what choices are there other than attempting to adapt or die?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link