I agree with you. The real problem is that Brussels has copied the French way of bureaucracy. Basically the US administration would be far more transparent and open (now with Trump isn't). There are things to improve in the EU, but in my view these problems aren't so large that we have to do away with the EU altogether. — ssu

Sure, it needs to be reformed ideally. But maybe it can't be reformed because of the forces that resist that or lack of consensus, and then it will probably have to go. My main issue is that the Commission has to much power, it should be under the Council and the Parliament which are more accountable to the people.

Yet joining the EU has done wonders to some countries. The perfect example was the economic growth of Poland compared to Ukraine as both countries started from a similar level once the Soviet system collapsed. — ssu

Ok but this has very little to do with the monetary policies it seems to me. Poland and other eastern European countries did receive a lot of development funds from the EU for one. And second their workers and companies had a competitive advantage on the internal market because they had a lower standard of living and lower wages. All of sudden a lot of building and similar jobs in Western Europe were done by Poles who came here to earn money to ultimately take it back to Poland where they invested it. And I don't necessarily have a problem with that, good for Poland, but it did undercut workers and companies here and wasn't necessarily on average a good thing for Western Europe.

I think Europe simply underestimates how much leverage it has, because seldom it acts as a solid block.

It's the classic quote from Kissinger: "If I want to talk to Europe, where do I call?".

In security issue it has been actually Washington. But now I guess Trump is disgusted to speak on the phone about European issues. — ssu

Maybe Europe could have more leverage, but this only proofs my point that there are serious problems with its organisation no? Foreign policy was for the longest time not a European competency, but a competency of the members states, but then security and intelligence are for the most part dealt with within NATO etc. Again this is the point, that everything is splintered and spread over different levels of government while these things are related and should inform each other. The end result is that you basically just don't have a proactive and unified foreign policy.

I think the US has a lot of it too, actually. — ssu

That's probably true, but that doesn't make it any less of a problem. Bureaucracy, especially because of its lack of accountability, tends to grow over time and develop its own internal logic and goals that aren't aligned with what benefits the people of the countries.

Basically the euro acts in the euro zone as a gold standard. If you have a poor economy that performs badly, you get shafted as you cannot devalue your currency. Yet the ability of devaluation supports only a segment of the economy, those in the export industries. Usually the inflation devaluation creates eats the positive effects quickly away. — ssu

I'm not sure you disagree with me here. The issue is that it takes away agency from countries to make their own policies so that they can react to their specific circumstances. For instance the austerity policy we had after the 2008 crisis was probably really bad for a lot of countries, it maybe really only made sense from a German perspective.

One can argue that perhaps the EU has been too lax in giving US firms this playground of ours freely. Usually any European company trying to get into the US market will face the "not invented here, not from here" treatment. Especially now they will feel the wrath of Trump.

Yet the whole 400 million people single market and union is not at all anything similar to the 300+ million US market. First of all, there is the language barrier, even if we talk as a second language (at least) English. Then, moving from Finland to Spain isn't something like moving from Minnesota to Florida (even if Minnesotans and Floridians might think otherwise). The European single market is still a divided market based on totally natural issues. It isn't the language barrier, it's also the culture barrier. We are independent sovereign countries with their own cultures and history. That isn't going anywhere. — ssu

It think the issue is we had this dogmatic free market ideology being pushed on member states where all barriers needed to be torn down, also to companies outside of the EU, and a lot of state aid from countries for their industries became illegal. But then the EU didn't really put something in place of that on a European level. We don't have European financing and investment banks for instance. Meanwhile China, but also the US, did subsidize their industries heavily or did have capital investment structures.... and that basically created an uneven playingfield for European companies.

So this is kind of a recurring theme. We take some measures to unify some or another policy domain, but then don't go all the way, or only take care of one side of the equation... and end up with a system that doesn't really work. If you're going to take away agency from the states, you have to make sure you organise that agency effectively on a European level.

The fact is that our prosperity today is based on globalization. How utterly dependent are we of other countries? Utterly dependent is my answer. The real answer here is just to be independent ENOUGH for the time when that pandemic / war / asteroid strike / supervolcano eruption hits and erases the global trade system for a while.

The idea of total self-dependence sounds reasonable at first for the ignorant, but is a huge disaster if really taken as economic policy. — ssu

Yeah I fundamentally disagree with this. It only works, especially for strategic sectors and resources, if you assume everything will go well for the rest of time and countries will keep having good enough relations going forward. It's fragile and temporary.

And I think it's naïve to think that would be the case, because we know from history that geo-politics is a ruthless game that won't go away.

Maybe some amount of interdependence is unavoidable, I would agree with that, but the issue is that the balance is totally skewed so that the US and China have a lot of leverage over us while we have little leverage over them.

Immigration-policy had been a problem, but it's not only that right. There are major structural and organisational problem too. The decision process is very slow and cumbersome, and also lacks democratic accountability. It grew to fast to wide without deeper integration of the EU-states that were already in it and without the necessary structural reform to various decision processes. Because of this it seems especially ill-equipped to deal with a fast changing world.

Another 'mistake' is the monetary union that took away the power from the states to have their own monetary policies that suited their situation, and was very bad for the likes of Greece for instance.

And look, the biggest selling point, aside from it being a force for peace within Europe, was its free internal market and the economic prosperity that would bring. Maybe that was true for some time, but now we have to conclude that the European economy isn't doing that great. We basically missed the whole digitalisation/AI train, aren't creating any new companies that can compete on the world stage, and are even loosing more and more existing industries we used to be world-leaders in.

If you find yourself utterly dependent on other countries for your security, for your energy and natural resources, and more and more for basically most of your goods production and digital services, then something has gone wrong right?

Europe will likely stick to the rules based international order and liberalism, hence it will be an ideological nemesis towards American right-wing populism of the MAGA-movement. Hence it's no wonder that the Trump administration is so eager to get right-wing populist into power in Europe to dismantle the EU. I believe that Trump, as the ignorant idiot he is, truly thinks that the EU was formed to compete with the US. This ignorant view I guess can be popular in the US and the real reason, the two absolutely catastrophic World Wars that killed tens of millions of Europeans, is totally sidelined. Yet when you actually read the history, the actual reasons are obvious. Think just why the integration process in the Shuman declaration, was started from steel and coal production. — ssu

The union was successful in preventing intra-European war, and that was a fine idea at the time, but its disfunctions and those of liberalism become clearer with the day.

For Trump getting rid of the EU and the global liberal elites that come with it, makes sense from a domestic politics point of view, because it weakens his political adversaries.

I don't think this particular rules based order can survive the most powerful country and architect of it, leaving it behind. And the EU can't maintain it on its own, and so will be forced to adapt sooner or later.

I wish Europeans weren't so slow in realising where this is going.

Do you have any proof of this? What seems to be the case isn't the erosion of gender roles, its the enrichment of society vs the cost of having children combined with birth control. Many people opt out of having kids because they value their luxury time more as well. Some men stay at home and take care of the kids now while their wives work, which is an erosion of gender roles. I'm just not seeing evidence that the decision to not have kids is because of the removal of gender roles in marriage. — Philosophim

There certainly is evidence that the religious have more children. But sure, it's one of those things that is very difficult to isolate from other factors to study it in isolation... still I think it makes sense that it would have an influence. If women have many other possibilities, like say careers, or are otherwise not encouraged to have children, it seems reasonable to presume that they would feel less of a need to have children.

But maybe I'm missing something. I'm curious to see what other people think. — Philosophim

I think you are missing that genderroles were part of a culture that got us to where we are now. And that every modern society where they are being eroded, seem to be experiencing problems replacing itself with a next generation.

It think this runs a lot deeper ideologically than people think. For a number of reasons that may be a bit much to expand on here, liberalism is waning and will continue to do so. The US will not get back to 'normal', this process will only get more pronounced as the younger generations come of age and come into power.

It seems to me if anything Europe will follow the same direction with a couple of years delay, and the EU will fracture or will be drastically reformed.

But what do you think?
Is the Trans-Atlantic link now permanently eroding? I think it will limp onwards, because there's still too much invested in the relationship. Even if you think this isn't worth commenting, I really urge to take the time a read what the Trump administration seriously thinks the guidelines ought to be for US security policy. — ssu

It will erode if Europe sticks to liberalism and the current form of the EU.

Good point. But when we say that perceptual or felt experience is pre-conceptual, this doesn’t have to indicate there is no ideal component to it. Rather, conceptuality understood as formal, representational predication is a derivative modification of the more primary idealizing process of sense-making. — Joshs

I probably agree, though I'm not sure what you exactly mean with 'ideal' or 'idealizing'. I think there's a directional or agentic component to it, but not necessarily a conscious one.

I think you missed my point or you're using this paradox "without context".
My issue is not that I haven't found a way to control my feelings. My issue is that they are illusionary because they were built upon a worldview others forced me to undoubtedly accept. It's not that I reject their existence. It's that they were manipulated because I was told when and how to feel them. Thus, I'm looking for something that will allow me to feel them as something honest, transcendent, coherent and "real"...like pain does, as I argued in the first discussion.

I used this paradox to explain how reality stripped away this "box of thought". I used to show how it uncovered the fake. How my hate derived from this idea "i'm perfect", in short, interfered it with the real which is me feeling and being actually lonely, which is painful. And pain felt real because it showed me this "hate" was justified by a fake worldview. — GreekSkeptic

Ok I've read you first post now, and I think I understand it better now.

If you're asking for philosophers who might have something relevant to say here, the first one I though about is Nietzsche. When he speaks about philosophising with the hammer, he means a tuning hammer to sound out ideals and whether or not the are "real"... he found many of the conventional ideals we hold dear to be empty. His whole philosophy is essentially an attempt at re-evaluation of values.

If you're talking of pain showing you what is real, he also did view suffering as something necessary for life, from the Gay science :

"Only great pain is the ultimate liberator of the spirit…. I doubt that such pain makes us ‘better’; but I know that it makes us more profound." — Gay Science

"Better" in quotes I think is to indicate to what is conventionally deemed as better, but not necessarily what he would consider better.

And then if you talk about stripping away the "boxes of thought", Nietzsche also has a lot to say about that. It's a bit much to expand on here, but that was basicly his issue with Socrates/Plato who started putting the conceptual first to the detriment of the tragic view on life that came before (where the Dionysian was fundamental).

Dostojevski has similar psychological insights as Nietzsche but takes it in another direction, one that might interest you perhaps more as you say that helping other people was one of the things that felt the most real to you. I hope you don't mind me saying but the way you discribe it, it did made me think of the orginal teachings of Christ (not necessarily the institutionalised variety of the Church). Anyway a lot of Dostojevskis protagonists, like for instance in Crime and punishment, go through similar fever dream/unreal episodes where they are being let astray by 'fake ideas' to ultimately end up - typically after a lot of hardship - turning to Christ.

And Kierkegaard is another one in a similar vein I suppose, though i'm not all that familiar with his philosophy.

Here's the paradox. I was governed by two illogical premises. The first was that I was too perfect to hangout with anybody. The second was that I deserved human company and affection. I felt extremely lonely and extremely good-for-everything to be with anyone. The simultaneous hypocrisy was that there were people I'd name "friends", people I hanged out and did everything together. And in the mean time I thought all of the above while with them. — GreekSkeptic

They are not illogical because they stem from feelings... feelings just are and they can direct you in different conflicting directions, but are not illogical themselves, but a-logical.

What the one tells you is that you have a drive to aim high, that you are ambitious. That is not necessarily bad if you don't take it to far to the detriment of everything else.

What the other tells you is that you do have a need to be with other people, which is also perfectly fine by itself as long as you don't feel entitled to it. This need not be in contradiction with a healthy amount of ambition.

The trick is to align your drives into a more coherent whole, because they will probably stay with you in some way or another.

Also, being humbled by life is to some extend to be expected and necessarily for personal growth, don't sweat it to much.

The issue only arises if you put language first, as something properly basic. We have experiences of the world, feeling and intuitions etc that are pre-conceptual. And those don't come neatly pre-packaged in fixed conceptual boxes.

The X in X=X is already an abstraction from the world we perceive because nothing remains the same from one moment to the next. If we take that pre-linguistic understanding to things like logic, truth and the law of non-contradiction, then its easy to see why these would have limits.

If someone questions truth or the law of non-contradiction, they are not looking to make a statement that can be evaluated by the very tools they are questioning... they are looking to make an evidentiary statement about how truth and logic seems to relate to the world they experience.

Historically in most mythologies around the world Chaos (Nun,Tiamat, etc) seem to have came before order (Logos, Maat, dharma etc).

As sedentary civilisations and writing gradually became the norm, Chaos starts to disappear in these mythologies and notions of order become more primary.

The most straightforward explanation for that historical evolution seems to me simply that ideologies evolved in tandem with changes in the societal organisation, from oral nomadic groups based around movement to the more static hierarchical organisation of civilisations.

For those interested I got this from Thomas Nail who is writing a book on the subject:

I’m tempted to get into a rational, nitpicky non-Taoist discussion of the intricacies of what Taoism means, e.g. The human world is not part of the Tao because the Tao doesn’t have parts. All
I can tell you is it doesn’t feel that way to me. There is the Taoist idea of return. The Tao continually manifests as the 10,000 things—the multiplicity of the human world—which then continually returns to the Tao. It’s all happening over and over again all the time.

I don’t think I’m really disagreeing with what you said though. — T Clark

I don't think we disagree either, it's just difficult to speak about. Language fails to some extend, hence that what can be named is not etc...

About the human world being a part, I was looking for the right words, but I'm not necessarily committed to it being an actual quote unquote 'part' of it. What I think I would commit to is that the Tao is ontologically prior to our conceptions of it.

The idea of returning to "the source" is important IMO, that is to some extend what is missing it seems to me in Western tradition where we get hung up on fixed conceptions without returning.

I don’t know enough about the Socratic or Christian view of life to make an intelligent comment on this. — T Clark

That's fine, it's basically Nietzsches idea of how nihilism was already inherent in the Greek and Christian root of the Western tradition and the reason why we eventually ended up with the "dead of God". It do think he's onto something, though it's probably only part of the story.

On the other hand, Taoism is full of seeming contradictions and paradoxes. This is from Verses 25 and from Mitchell’s translation.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness…

Mystery and manifestations—as I understand it, the Tao and human conceptualized reality—come from the same place. The Tao it’s not above or better than the human world, they arise and return together. — T Clark

I wouldn't say the Tao is above or better than human conceptualisation of it in a directly valuative sense, but prior ontologically... the human world is part of it. And insofar conceptualisation is only partial/perspectival, and presumably can lead us astray for that reason, maybe it is a reason to put a little less stock in it.

EDIT: To make the point a bit more salient for this discussion maybe, that is the issue with the Socratic view on Life, and Christianity consequently, that it presumes that it can box in Chaos, conceptualise the whole of it and make life entirely predictable and planable on the basis of these fixed conceptions.

From revelations, 2.1

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”[a] for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea (read 'no more Chaos'). 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”


Blinded by the light!

UFC has certainly been on the rise the past couple of years. I don't know if we'd see a show where actual lifes are put on the line because human life is still a core value of Western Christian tradition, and things perhaps don't change that fast, but maybe if it's about lifes that aren't considered part of the group. MAGA Christianity for instance seems to be develloping a pagan heresy where Christian universality is questioned.

The current conversation isn't about morally black (bad) people, but about morally gray people. That is, those who live entirely outside the good/bad paradigm. The phenomenon I'm talking about has a somewhat different nature. These heroes seem bad, but they are a reflection of us—they're just like us, with everyday problems. And we no longer know whether they're bad or not, or whether we can justify them (because we're all a bit like Walter White). — Astorre

Won't this usher in a "moral decline" we can't even imagine? — Astorre

That's presumably exactly what will happen over time... gradually from one generation to the next.

They are a reflection of the world that has created them, and is creating us... The subtext of the series is that the world is an a-moral place, and therefore Walter White's actions seem justifiable to some extend, or at least an improvement on being a moral do good guy everybody takes advantage of.

It's not that different from ancient Greece. Plato also saw the necessity to curb the influence of the poets, and advocated for a turn to rationality to anchor morals anew. In Nietzsche's analysis that turn to rationality was not an improvement on what came before, but a symptom of the Greeks desperately trying to ward off a decadence that had already set in.

I certainly don’t want to go back to the pre-enlightenment world, the world of the divine right of Kings. That doesn’t mean I don’t recognize some of the issues you highlight. I have made the argument here a number of times in several different contexts that man is the measure of all things. That’s right at the center of my understanding of what Lao Tzu has to tell us. Taoism recognizes both the human and non-human worlds without conflict. As I sometimes put it—the world is 1/2 human.

So, do we reform rationalism? I am not at all sure that’s possible. On the other hand, I don’t want to go back to the values of the old way, as if we could. — T Clark

Isn't one of the first things the Dao de jing tells us that 'the Dao that can be named is not the real or eternal Dao', essentially indicating that logos or reason cannot be primary.

You have similar ideas in most of the oldest creation myths where the formless, the indeterminate Chaos, often symbolised by the sea (for instance Tiamat), almost uniformely comes before order.

With Greek philosophy and later Christianity the West took another turn, where the eternal forms and the logos became primary.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"

It seems to me that Descartes and the enlightenment is merely downstream from this essential (mis)valuation.

And so a 'reform of rationalism' would come from putting it in it's propper place, a recognition that reason is not the be all, end all.

Opium for the people... crowd control.

We might take that as something unequivocally bad, like Marx for instance... or as something that is a part of a society, but not necessarily for everybody, like Nietzsche.

Yes the greening-effect of CO2 by itself is real enough, but it doesn't seem like it will compensate for the other negative effects of climate change, i.e. the more extreme temperatures and droughts etc.

There is also concern about the opposite issue: data from orbiting satellites indicates that the earth is getting greener, probably due to increased CO2 in the atmosphere. Humans don't do well in the kind of hot, humid conditions that will prevail in some areas, and that's because of microorganisms and parasites. I think it's actually easier to live in semi-desert conditions than in a jungle. I live in an area where parasites are becoming more of a problem because they don't die out in the winter anymore. — frank

The greening effect is interesting, I'm not sure how it interacts and combines with all the other changes, but it certainly is a factor.

What we’re doing to insects in particular is striking. It’s not all due to climate change, of course — but it’s a very serious issue that is exacerbated by it. — Mikie

Yes this is I think one of the most underestimated risks we face. People seems largely uninformed on this particular issue and kindof assume we stand apart from nature and will be able to insulate ourselves from it's deterioration... but that seems very optimistic to me.

I'm curious how you came to that conclusion? It seems to there's to much uncertainty of what all the consequence could to be to make such definite statements with any confidence.
— ChatteringMonkey

I think this. But the failure of climate models to-date (and Antarctic ice recession) gives me hope. — AmadeusD

What failure are you pointing to exactly? Aren't they generally a bit conservative in their estimates in that they don't really account for the complexity of feedbacks and such (which seem more likely to be positive than negative)?

A mass extinction is an event in which there's a breakdown in a biosphere's ability to support life. I don't think there is any reason to believe that kind of event is likely due to global warming. — frank

It's not only about the ability to support life in a general sense, and it's not only about global warming. It's the rate of change that will cause a lot of species to die on top of those that are already gone and will go because of other factors. If it will qualify as a mass extinction will depend partly on how you define that and on how bad it will get... But even in a moderate case scenario, a lot of life will be gone for a long time, so we will have to live in an impoverished biosphere for the foreseeable future which is bad enough already.

There should be a large spike in the global temperatures that will last for a couple of thousand years, then a long ramp down as the CO2 is absorbed into the oceans. Civilization has never faced that kind of volatility. I'm guessing that cultures that remain high-tech will adapt and ride it out. I could see some areas regressing culturally. In other words, I don't think the human species is going to go through this as a global community. The present global scene might disappear. — frank

Who knows right? The big wildcard is human agency itself, how will the global system deal will all these added tensions is kinda anybody's guess.

We have no food. You have food > War. Planning ahead would be nice and there are schemes in place already to try and diversify. I doubt it woudl be truly global tbh, but I can see some nations losing out if farming became unpredictable for several staple crops in just one season. — I like sushi

Yes some countries rely on imports for a lot of their needs already, and it is hard to see how some places would still be viable for agriculture if we get another couple of degrees of warming and more irregular weather.

This is hyperbole. — I like sushi

It's not hyperbole, but a possibility... I don't know what the chances are, but the speed at which we are changing the climate, together with other factors of course (like just taking over ecosystems for ourselves), could result in the kind of mass-extinction that would take millions of years to recover from. Maybe it wouldn't take millions of years to have something good enough for civilisation to be viable, but it would take a while let's say.

Anyway the more important point is I think that we really don't know what the consequences will be. We have crude models that point to a couple degrees of warming, but how certain changes (like say the amoc-collapse, burning down of forests, loss of ice-caps, acidification of the oceans etc etc) will amplify changes or not, is unclear I think.

A potential globewide famine is kind of serious. — I like sushi

It is serious, but I can see solutions to that... there's ways to adapt and produce even more, in more resilient and sustainable ways.

Biospheres being wipedout is not ideal, but nature would recover faster than I imagine human civilisation would in the event of widespread famine. — I like sushi

Yes as long as you have enough of it left, it could recover quite quick. But biospheres rely on enough bio-diversity as a kind of network to keep itself going. If you go below certain thresholds of bio-diversity the whole network could collapse, and then we're talking millions of years to recover.

The only serious threat from climate change--and it is serious--is unpredictable weather cycles that disrupt farming. Other than that there will be bumps in the road not a a collapse of civilisation. — I like sushi

I'm curious how you came to that conclusion? It seems to there's to much uncertainty of what all the consequence could to be to make such definite statements with any confidence.

I think the effects of climate change on bio-diversity for instance might be a very serious problem going forward, not just for the loss of the intrinsic value we might attribute to it, but as something that civilisation tacitly relies on.

Yes by and large, but i don't think they come to these convictions by reasoning or considering evidence.

This is probably way beyond the scope of this thread, but the way I see it, is that we inherently/biologically have an emotional wireing, of shame, guild, empathy etc etc that isn't formed or shaped yet in the sense that it is tied to specific moral rules.

Then we get educated into tying these emotions to more specific moral rules according to what the group one gets educated in, deems important. Usually there some people who, rightly so or not, have more of a say in determining what those are.

Because of the interplay of human biology and certain structural demands the world places on us, these will often be similar across different groups. That is maybe a bit similar to something like convergence evolution where different species develop similar attributes, like say wings, because the physical demands are the same.

After all of that we get adults with already formed moral intuitions, moral intuitions that are not properly basic, but the result of biology and eduction. If nothing's going particularly wrong they tend to follow that moral 'programming' by and large the rest of their life.

And then some become philosophers for whatever reason, and question these things incessantly, but one shouldn't presume that everybody is like that.

I also think it is natural, once someone starts thinking for themselves, to require evidence for beliefs. — Janus

I generally agree, but not for moral beliefs because those are not or at least not easily verifiable with evidence. How many people do actually change their minds about those when confronted with evidence or rational argument? Not that many I'd say, even on this forum, and if they change their minds it's often because of some life-changing experience they had, not because they examined their beliefs rationally.

Forget the moral or ethical challenges―given all the physical challenges humanity faces, do you believe human life will look anything like it does today in a couple of centuries? I mean do you believe there will still be a huge population, technological societies, preservation of historical culture, religion? — Janus

No, I think a lot will change given the physical challenges, how that exactly will look like I wouldn't know... But I do think these changes will inevitablely also included societal organisational and ideological changes. That is what I see myself doing, looking at a different ideas and how they might fit with a changing world.

The problem is that religion asks people to believe things for which there is no evidence. That works as long as people give lip service because they are cowed by fear of punishment, as was the case in the Middle Ages, or as long as they are illiterate and impressionable, which was also the case for most of human history, or as long as they are not capable of critical thought.

So what do you propose? A return to imposed beliefs, theocracy?

I really don't have a concrete proposal in mind, I'm mostly exploring the possibilities... But since religion (and not necessarily organised religion like we have had it) has been an important part of most of human history except maybe for this small slice of Western history we happen to be living through, it seems like something worth thinking about.

I think the picture you paint of religion there is a bit one-side, evaluated from a perspective of the Western tradition that elevates reason or critical thought itself as the summum bonum. It's also merely a belief that it is good that everybody be taught critical thinking skills in order to make up their own minds... as we estabilished earlier, not everyone can or is even interested in doing that.

We "impose" beliefs on people anyway, no matter what societal and religious organisation, just by virtue of the fact that humans don't suddenly pop into existence as blank slate adults.... there's allways a set of beliefs and underlying assumptions people are enculturated in. And if secular states teach people they should look for evidence and examine their beliefs critically and rationally, then yes that would make any mythopoetical belief problematic.

None of this is to say we should do away with critical thinking, if such a thing were even possible, just that perhaps we have overvalued it.

Is that what you'd like to see? — Janus

No ideally not, but I'm just not convinced that the current way of doing things will work out in the long run, if you project that forward say a couple of centuries. What I don't want to see is things devolving again like they did in the 20th century.

I disagree with you that the state is "value neutral"―the laws of the state reflect the most significant moral injunctions. So, what is missing according to you? Are you advocating something like the "noble lie" when it comes to instilling religious belief in children?

I don't see why we would need a transcendent authority (God) as lawgiver, when we already have the state as lawgiver, and I think it is arguable that most people do not think murder, rape, theft, corruption, exploitation and so on, are acceptable. So just what is it that you think is missing? — Janus

The noble lie maybe doesn't work anymore, after the 'dead of God'. But the need religion fulfilled before the dead of God presumably hasn't gone away. What is missing in secular states is a sense of the mythopoetical, the Dionysian or however you want to call it... something that moves or inspires people to des-individuate into or unite with the group. There is still some kind of tribal desire if you will to be more than atomised individual subjects of a rational state.

And what we precisely don't want it seems to me, is the state taking up that role, because that is to road to nationalism or worse... fascism. If you don't have some other force like religion, you always risk some great leader type stepping up and using these unfulfilled desires for his ends.

Not according to this site:

Europeans who consider themselves atheists are a small minority, except in France and in Sweden, where about 20 per cent say that they are atheists; a vast majority of all Europeans nominate themselves as religious persons. — Janus

These numbers maybe are a bit surprising, not for south and east-central Europe, but certainly for North and Western Europe where I'm from. Very rarely is religion something that is discussed or practiced in public, not with people I meet, but also not more generally in various public media. So in so far they are religious it certainly seems something more private and individual.

Further down the site it says the following:

With the word of the sociologist Grace Davie, it’s a kind of ‘believing without belonging’. People pick and choose religious beliefs, doctrines, and practices and they are mixing and matching them, as they would select food in a cafeteria, so we can talk of ‘cafeteria religion’, or as ‘church-free spirituality’. Europeans remain religious, their approach is eclectic, and they borrow ideas from several traditions. Meanwhile, many institutionalized churches are running empty, especially in the West.

I'd say maybe they are 'spiritual' rather than religious. It seems to me religion implies something more public with practices and institutions that curate a certain tradition. It's Protestantism, the lack of central organisation, but then without the Book or local church even.

Maybe one could just say that is fine, people can make up their own minds. But as I alluded to earlier I doubt that is true, maybe for the philosophical types it is, but not for most.

I think a lot of people learn by mimicking and copying others (children certainly do), hence the success of all these influencer types today. And so if you don't have organised religion anymore and the state is supposed to be secular and value-neutral... the only ones left with enough resources can almost only be commercial actors, who end up molding the minds of people, for their interests.

My child likes to play a game where she points her finger at me, almost touching my face, but stops just an inch away, saying, “I’m not touching you, I’m not touching you.” This is trolling. By contrast, when she sits in the back seat arguing with her brother, and I tell them to stop, she might protest, “I’m not touching him.” That is bullshit. The latter feigns innocence for the sake of impression management. The former goes beyond this and delights in provoking a reaction. — Colo Millz

This was very funny, especially the dry serious way you conveyed it.

I would say if it weren't for Plato rethorics would be considered the 'natural' way of using speech. And Protagoras would consider appeal to truth just another form of sophistry.

Bullshitting then is perhaps a more honest self-conscious way of using speech in that it recognizes and plays with the inherent rethorical nature of speech. And trolling would be a way to actively undermine the force of the rethorical game the sophists that appeal to truth play.

If rethorics was the name of the game in pre-socratic Greece, than there is nothing essentially nihilistic about it.

Right, but it is not as though religion, as opposed to theocracy, has been "done away with" (in the West). — Janus

Well in Europe that's probably more the case than in the US. Most non-muslim Europeans are secular nowadays. There have been concerted efforts to do away with it, from different groups over the past few centuries (bourgeois liberals, socialists, academia, hippies etc etc). And that's not to say they might not have had good reason to do so, but there hasn't really come anything in its place.

I think that what the OP complains about...the disenchantment of Nature due to a supposed decline of reverence for nature is a furphy, a strawman.

There is a tendency in all transcendence-based eschatalogically motivated religions to disvalue this world as the source of suffering, the veil of illusion or the vale of tears in favour of an imagined perfect realm.

So it is not really a case of the disenchantment of Nature, but of the disenchantment of the transcendent accompanying a return to nature. This begins with Aristotle...think of Rafael's painting 'The School of Athens'...Plato points to the heavens and Aristotle points to the ground — Janus

Yes I agree with that I think. A lot of these analysis of the crisis of meaning gloss over the fact that Christianity might itself already have been a part of the problem. They kindof loosely equate Christianity with any religion, whereas it was already a very peculiar kind of departure from the mythological polytheistic religions that came before. Those did enchant the natural world by embellishing it, not by transcending it.

But the societies we are a part of aren't recognized as being an end in themselves, they are just there to fulfil the desires of it's members.
— ChatteringMonkey

If the desires are conditioned into the people rather than being critically realized by them, then of course that's a problem. We come to be blind followers instead of critically active members in our communities.

Today we might say we are brainwashed by culture in the form of advertising and popular media, whereas in the past, in theocratic and aristocratic societies, and today in autocratic societies, critical thinking is not only implicitly discouraged, but explicitly banned under penalty of punishment. — Janus

Yes I agree, that's why I've always thought this whole free speech debate we had recently was a bit of a red herring.

The idea that we are these autonomous free agents self-determining what we will be and want to do based on this market of free ideas seems fundamentally misguided. By the time we are mature enough to really begin to discern we have already been enculturated in some or other mores and have inherited certain hierarchies of values we use to discern... doing away with religion only creates a void for advertisers to jump in. Edward Bernays certainly figured that one out.

Science remains indispensable, but it cannot by itself tell us what anything means. One can retain plenty of respect for science while recognising that fact, which is built into the very foundations of the method. — Wayfarer

Maybe you can't. Religion and myth is build on a certain non-literal and wholistic understanding of the world, where the values and meaning naturally flows from.

Literal use of language to describe the world and to accumulate knowledge eventually ends up dissolving that mythical super structure.

Okay, that's an assertion―can you provide an argument for it? I mean, we all, as members of a society, and to one degree of consciousness or another, play a part in a larger whole―we have no choice but to do that. — Janus

But the societies we are a part of aren't recognized as being an end in themselves, they are just there to fulfil the desires of it's members. And maybe that works to some extend for those that have their desires met for the most part, probably not so much for those that are less fortunate.

What counts as evidence? In the 20th century you had a couple of big ideologies fighting it out and trying to fill the void left by religion. People do seem to crave being a part of a larger story, if it isn't religion, than maybe nationalism, or maybe just supporting a sports club or saving the world from climate disaster etc etc...

I'm not the most religious person, but even I do also intuitively feel like just fulfilling my individual desires doesn't quite do it.

Maybe because meaningful is only really meaningful if it transcends mere individual preferences, because it plays a part in a larger whole... that would be the reason for it.

Yes ok you were making another point indeed, namely that improving welfare would be hindered by not also making the mitigation efforts.

My point was that the goal of improving welfare is itself something that goes against the goal of mitigation, because in practice you end up using more fossil fuels, illustrated by the graph @frank posted.

If Asia-Pacific coal consumption is surging because of poverty alleviation and industrial development, then mitigation isn’t optional. It’s the condition for those gains to be sustainable. With no mitigation, alleviation efforts become attempts to refill increasingly rapidly leaking buckets. — Pierre-Normand

I can see how one gets to this conclusion, the reasoning makes some sense. It does assume however that we can increase welfare and reduce the use of fossil fuels at the same time, which seems like a big leap considering that the whole system we build after the industrial revolution is build on the energy from fossil fuels.

Isn't the more straightforward conclusion that increasing welfare for 8 billion people isn't possible without destroying the earths biosphere (which would eventually also destroy our welfare)?

Accepting that conclusion is a big ask however, because it is essentially incompatible with progressivism.

In other words, the very process of filling other buckets (economic growth, poverty reduction) is widening the hole (climate destabilization). This makes Hayhoe’s metaphor vivid, not refuted. — Pierre-Normand

Aren't you essentially making the same point here, that resolving our problems (growth and poverty reduction etc) makes the problem worse (cause more warming because of CO2)?