Did you know that Houston, TX has no zoning laws? — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Houston Is Drowning—In Its Freedom From Regulations

---

More Zoning Wouldn’t Have Protected Houston From Harvey’s Fury, But Less Sprawl Would Have Helped

It seems that no two people agree much on the nature/character of the Enlightenment and its legacy, but it seems that a dominant element of it is tearing knowledge/truth/reality out of the jaws of any authority--culture, an institution, an individual who claims to have access to the divine that no other person has, etc.--and objectifying it.

Every individual can access knowledge/truth/reality, and reason is the way. No culture, church, clergy, etc. needed.

Okay, but when you look at the results no clear knowledge/truth/reality seems to have emerged.

Pre-modern individuals were blind and in the dark, if you like those kinds of metaphors.

Maybe a lot of us are no longer blind or in the dark. Maybe a lot of us are now empowered by reason. But we sure seem to be extremely confused.

If it is not real happiness then what is it? Delusion?

I feel Monty Python should re-form specifically to answer this question: What did the Enlightenment ever do for us?

- OK, apart from inaugurating mass literacy.
- Yeh, but as well as showing us how the cosmos works even if there aren't any gods.
- No, but, aside from liberating millions of poor schmucks to enjoy art and culture and everything.

I just don't know how that scene ends. Maybe : 'Yes, but they never resolved a single important question, did they?' — mcdoodle

It sounds like you are saying, "We have been liberated to spin our wheels endlessly asking questions".

It's no so much about answering questions as it is about questioning the answers... — TheMadFool

That is not the story I get when I study intellectual history.

Western intellectual history, as it has been presented to me, is not just a bunch of critical thinking. People, movements, etc. seem to clearly have / have had agendas like trying to create the perfect society, trying to demolish certain things/structures (feminism seems like a demolition crew on a mission to destroy "the patriarchy", not a bunch of critical thinkers "questioning the answers"), etc.

Rationality doesn't guarantee answers... — TheMadFool

First, we are talking about rationalism, not mere rationality.

Second, the issue is not answers. I doubt that there has ever been a shortage of answers.The issue is definitive, conclusive answers.

but it can assess the quality of the inquiry and the answers... — TheMadFool

Anybody can employ any evaluative tool to assess the quality of his/her inquiry and the quality of its results. It depends on what one's wants and needs are.

To assume that the wants and needs of everybody--past, present and future--are the same as the wants and needs of Enlightenment founders and disciples is a mistake, not to mention an extreme form of narcissism and ethnocentrism.

Also, as Rich said, it's a work in progress. We're in the middle of a movie that hasn't finished telling its story. — TheMadFool

It is some people's work in progress.

If one is not one of those people invested in that work, why should he/she pay any attention to any of it if it does not yield definitive, conclusive answers to the questions that are important to him/her?

Speaking of rational, maybe the rational response is to say, "We have spent tons of time, money, stolen/plundered land, and other resources asking questions like what is the meaning of life, what is the origin of the universe, etc., yet we do not have any definitive, conclusive answers to those questions and we spend even more time and other resources quarreling/fighting over our disagreements about the answers. We need to get a life. I am not paying any attention or in any way giving any credence to any of it any longer".

I can't help but laugh at this. You are saying that autonomy of the individual is garbage, as well as science. How does one express themselves for you to listen without autonomy? How do you listen to non-human life and the Earth without organizing that knowledge (science is organized knowledge) into something meaningful to even talk about for others to listen? You dictating what I can talk about is contradictory to your goal of listening, and thinking that such-and-such topic is "garbage" is subjective. Maybe others don't think that and you need to listen to that.

How do you expect to change people who aren't nice, into people who are without manipulating them? How do you expect self-centered people to listen to others without manipulating them - without giving them their right to express their self-centeredness and you listen and be nice? You are simply talking about how you'd like it to be and not everyone feels the same, which means that you'd have to limit what it is that they do or think that YOU don't like in favor of what YOU do like.

Also I like to listen to others except when they become nonsensical or hypocritical. After that, it becomes a waste of my time to listen to them. Once they insult my intelligence with what they say, being nice isn't part of my response. — Harry Hindu

Science can continue outside of our present spiritual and intellectual structure, just like religion has continued after the Enlightenment.

People expressed themselves before "I think therefore I am" and the Enlightenment emphasis on the autonomy of the individual. Personal expression does not depend on those things.

How do you listen to non-human life? Go for a quiet walk outside. That's just one way.

The rest of your post is a bunch of straw men at best.

I think that this whole Enlightenment/modernist project of autonomous individual subjects​ objectifying things and using reason to manipulate, control and dominate the world needs to now be rejected. Being more in concert with and having greater respect for the non-human world, and employing empathy, compassion, intuition, cooperation, etc. for a change are alternatives I have offered. Unless you can show us an existing spiritual and intellectual plane that frees us from the former--I am now convinced it doesn't exist, I have said (see the part about how Christopher Lasch, postmodernism, the Zapatistas, etc. weren't enough)--and gives us a healthier framework, there is going to, like I said, have to be a complete rupture and departure. Or, if you are happy with the trajectory we are on then tell us something we haven't already heard ad nauseum (the world is more peaceful; the world is safer; life expectancy is greater; etc.) about why we should stay on it.

At the risk of sending​ my own thread way out on an unrelated tangent, I will remind everybody that when the institution of slavery was still at the front of Westerners' conscious minds some thinkers said that wage labor costs less than maintaining slaves.

That seems to support the idea that wage labor is slavery in a different form.

The Clenched Fist of Reason — Wayfarer

Just now I read many paragraphs. I'll have to finish later.

Very informative.

Thank you for that link.

Also science, in defining the field of maximum probability explanations for observed correlations in empirical experience tends to have the effect of also assigning probabilities to those things defined as 'how'. Both how and why are questions that touch on categories of causation, which is implicitly defined above only 'why' implies a level above the initial scope of explanation - a how questions seems to be causation within a defined scope or limit. It actually interesting to consider for example that the 'why' of life was, until the 19th century, generally defined as vitalism or some kind of force separate from those known at the time - gravity, electricity and magnetism - read Kant or Hegel or other German idealists and lot of the weirdness (and frankly on some level irrelevance) in their presentation of natural science comes from these presumptions of the age. The 'why' of life can be found, as can it be within any other system inside the natural universe.

Now when people talk about 'why' they mean an ontological why specifically, namely the purpose or meaning of the universe. In an obvious sense, the reason science cannot answer this is that its whole ediface is constructed on probabilistic, self-reinforcing observations within the closed system of empirical reality and our universe. However, rationality in the form of logic and its highly formalised and decontextualised applications in mathematics are in one sense grounded in reality - it is why we have evolved to be able to use them as they are useful for modelling our environment and come from and are made possible by the universe's causally predictable patterns occurring in our thought process. On the other hand, as Kant well documented it can easily break loose of its constraints and entertain purely hypothetical entities based on logical capacities - such as a being unconstrained by the conditions of reality around us - namely some kind of God figure. So in a trivial sense science cannot answer this question... but it is suggestive in two ways. First of all that it has repeatedly defied our pure reason in the past. The rationalist science of Aristotle, admirable and incredibly inventive in its way, was not able to stand the pressure of empirical observation which is well know. This strongly suggests that the probability of our being wrong on something which we do not know and has been constructed based on logical axioms that are ultimately rooted in well documented psychological and evolved states of assumed thinking (such as towards animism and spiritualism) which have benefited us in the past should be held with suspicion on probabilistic grounds. Secondly, the general drift of the evidential structure is towards a universe more grand and un-teleologic than ever, a reduced role for the importance of humans and human volition (if it even exists) and the fact that life in some way a complex arms race game that has been played between aggregating quanitities chemicals as a sort of fluke with little more meaning that that. On these bases I would suggest that they 'why' of the universe is probabilistically favoured towards a lack of meaning, and if that is true then any unveirifyable and sense-less statement about entities outside the ambit of empirical reality is essentially a meaningless question. — Sam Keays

Why is all of that the case?

"Why?" still remains.

Anyone here familiar with John Michael Greer? — Wayfarer

I believe it was him who I discovered a few months ago and him who inspired a moving blog that I then read, but I can't find it again.

People need to find the area in which they can make a difference, and go do it. Become informed, but don't keep listening to and reading the same old bad news every day. It's just too demoralizing. Keep abreast of what is happening, but that doesn't take a lot of time. Things, like the disasters, don't change that much from month to month... — Bitter Crank

An introductory course that I took in the Family Studies department in college was titled "Individual, Marriage and Family".

In other words, it takes healthy individuals to make healthy marriages, and it takes healthy marriages to make healthy families. In other words, we make mistakes when we think marriage will make an unhappy individual happy; when we neglect the relationship between husband and wife and make everything child-centered; etc.

I think that that parallels social life in general.

Work on your own self. Then work on your local community. Then work on your national community. Then work on the global community.

That means only trying to control what you can control: your own self. It means not trying to manipulate and control things and other people through science, business, government, etc.

And it means taking complete, personal responsibility for one's life, not living in constant victim status.

Tune in to one's own self a lot more. Tune in to the people one directly interacts with a little more. Tune in to the non-human elements in one's environment a little more. The remaining balance can then be spent on "news", "current events", etc.

Do I believe that 'the people' can change the direction away from certain disaster that we all seem to be heading for? Sure I do. Do I think 'the people' will rise up, smash the corporate dictatorship, take over the government, and usher in a period of progressive ecological, economic, educational, et cetera policy which will get us all collectively out of the shit hole we seem to be sliding into? No, I think that is fairly unlikely... — Bitter Crank

Is it not enough to withstand it and absorb it well enough to keep on ticking?

Attrition rather than revolution, for once?

Let the stone pass through the kidney, and save all of the resources you can for moving on afterwards, maybe?

So, I continue doing what I can do and recognizing that my power to effect change in the world is quite limited. It's more limited than I would like, but there's not much I can do about it. Got a magic ring or something you could give me to enhance my powers? — Bitter Crank

The important thing is that nobody allow any kind of inertia--even if it is something like our faith in and praise for Enlightenment ideals, values and institutions--to hold him/her in place.

Strength and courage, not a magic ring, are all that is needed.

A contraction in output due to decreased consumer demand will likely result in unemployment, — WISDOMfromPO-MO
Absolutely not. The problem is wealth concentration not of production... — Rich

Straw man.

Conventional thinking is making this world into one polluted mess. The top 1% had sure been successful in messing with everyone's thinking... — Rich

Red herring.

So what is the point of the OP?... — Rich

Collective psychotherapy.

We are trapped in destructive, self-defeating patterns of thinking, communicating, and relating.

We need to completely break out of those patterns.

Not hit "Reset" and start over. Find the biggest, sharpest knife we can, cut through the cord that tethers us to all the garbage (feminism, "progress", religious fundamentalism, trickle-down / supply-side economics, globalization, neoliberalism, queer theory, dualism vs. non-dualism, spiritual vs. material, free will vs. determinism, scientism, culture wars, the sexual revolution, marijuana anti-prohibition, ecological collapse, defense of traditional marriage, etc., etc., etc., etc.) and turn our backs and don't even watch as it drifts away out of sight and out of memory.

A good, but not perfect, analogy is the thesis of Grassroots Post-Modernism: Remaking the Soil of Cultures, by Gustavo Esteva and Madhu Suri-Prakash. While the West struggles over the messes that we have created with things like neoliberalism, the world's oppressed majority have put all of it in their rearview mirror and are moving beyond it.

If you still don't know what I mean, think of it this way: You can worry about ecological collapse, you can appeal to emotion or ideology to deny the threat or possibility of ecological collapse, you can write objective, scholarly material arguing that ecological collapse is a fiction/myth, or you can decide to no longer filter anything through the concept of ecological collapse. The latter is the kind of rupture and departure that I think we need.

Probably the biggest things we would be giving up is wanting to and feeling the need to manipulate and control everybody and everything, and our belief that we have the ability to manipulate and control everybody and everything.

You still are buying into all of the marketing junk pouring through the media. When it comes right down to it, you are still quite conventional. — Rich

Conventional--whether it is from academia, the mass media, business, government, or strangers on the internet--is wanting to and feeling the need to manipulate and control people and things and believing that by manipulating and controlling people and things we can eradicate problems.

If we'd just tax this, cut that, research that, legislate that, enforce that, self-improve that, etc., etc., etc., the problem would be solved, the thinking goes.

Of course, there's the other extreme: "I can't control it. I can't do anything about it. So I am going to ignore it. I am going to tune it out".

The latter is still seeing everything in terms of what can be manipulated, controlled and/or dominated.

We need a complete rupture and departure from that and everything (feminism, religious fundamentalism, "free markets", queer theory, "progress", Marxism, neoliberalism, economic justice, etc., etc., etc., etc.) that comes with it.

Robert Edgerton wrote Sick Societies: Challenging the Myth of Primitive Harmony. We need to give up the myth of modern harmony. We need to give up the delusion that if we would just tax this, ban that, redistribute that, stop believing in that, become more literate in that, tear down / remove that, enforce that, etc., etc. that everything will be restored to the right order.

President Ronald Reagan said "Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem." Well, maybe more capitalism, science, philosophy, etc., etc. is not the solution to our problem. Maybe it is the problem.

Specifically, maybe our reliance on and obsession with rationalism/reason, empiricism, individualism, argumentation/debate, persuasion, competition, innovation, change, "progress", etc., etc. is the problem.

There are plenty of alternatives. Listening. Empathy. Compassion. Cooperation. Contemplation. Quiet reflection. Self-control. One day at a time. The beat of one's own drum. Etc. Etc.

Like I said, most of us are just too over-exposed to all this stuff, most of which is way beyond our capacity to control, affect, stop, change...

Once you've become informed, you don't need fresh doses of this stuff. It's like if you eat a healthy diet, there is no need to take vitamin pills. For instance, there is nothing new to say about Marxism; liberalism; "progress"; conservatism; Enlightenment rationalism, autonomy of the individual, rule of law; empiricism/"science"; technology; transhumanism; postmodernism; feminism; queer theory; identity politics; neo-liberalism; "the logic of free markets"; globalization; populism; "democracy" vs. "tyranny"; dualism vs. non-dualism; overconsumption vs. prosperity; Malthus vs. Adam Smith, etc. etc. etc.
It's pretty much all been said. Several times a day it is repeated. Unplug, tune out, turn off (as opposed to Timothy Leary's advice to Turn on, tune in, drop out). — Bitter Crank

Okay, then we need the conversation to be about how to tune it all out.

As far as I know, no such conversation has ever taken place.

And we will be talking about a formidable opponent, because no matter what you do--shop, go for a walk, eat a meal--or where you go--work, church, the gym--you will be on that aforementioned trajectory and from every direction something or someone will be reminding you of it.

It seems to me that the more prudent thing to do to would be to use whatever power and resources one has to change the conversation, not ignore the conversation or have a preliminary conversation about how to ignore the conversation.

There's nothing that says anybody has to accept the way things are and should not do anything to disrupt the order of things. That sounds like fatalism or something else from ancient times.

This is 2017. We believe now that we can change course, not that it is some kind of blasphemy to not accept the way things are.

Capitalism, science, technology, etc. are sorry excuses for the sacred anyway. Blaspheme against them all you want to. I doubt that many people will care. They'll probably say, "The most that I do is curse at my laptop or the grocery store self-checkout. You are more honest than me!".

Now that might be the conversation we need to be having. Instead of splitting hairs over things like free will vs. determinism, we probably ought to all be having open, honest conversation about how we really feel about this way of life we have been told repeatedly since our birth that we are extremely fortunate to experience. Just getting it off of our collective chest will likely yield a lot more good than hours and hours of debate over, oh, dualism vs. non-dualism.

It's true that is we consume less we will need to produce less, which is fine. The only one hurt will be the profiteers. They'll have to live in billions instead of 10s of billions. The point is, if one is if one is concerned with pollution just consume less. — Rich

The problem is that consumption isn't the sum of the choices of individuals.

It is an indivisible whole that is part of a system and is required​ for that system to function.

As consumption behavior changes the system adjusts--and takes all of us with it.

A contraction in output due to decreased consumer demand will likely result in unemployment, crime, more incarceration, more military conflicts, and other misery to bring things back to equilibrium. It is not likely that it will merely result in common people living happily with less and the owners of capital not missing a beat as economic inequality contracts.

We need to think outside of that system, not tell the system "We are changing the rules! Deal with it!".

The way the system deals with it probably won't be pleasant for many people.

If subverting the system is your game plan, things like quietly restoring local economies, quietly restoring the extended family, and quietly restoring local communities and anything else local--control of education; neighborhood churches (as opposed to mega-churches); culture; etc.--would probably be a more prudent strategy.

If we were all wise, or even most of us, there would be no problem. The solution to climate change is well known, and not difficult to implement. But wise people have been turning away from consumer society and promoting sustainable living at least since the sixties. Indeed vilifying and condescending does nothing, but nor does being wise unless wisdom acts to become vegan, stop using fossil fuels, reduce transport by consuming local products, insulate homes, fit solar panels and learn to live without waste.

But all that is straightforward. It is the wisdom that is in short supply. And that is what I am interested in trying to manufacture. — unenlightened

It sounds like more of the same.

It sounds like more Enlightenment faith in our ability to intervene and manipulate and control things to optimal circumstances/conditions.

I would argue that it was such faith that led to climate change in the first place.

Maybe it's pride. For whatever reason, we can't seem to admit that objectifying everything and removing ourselves from everything else and thinking that we can be some third person molding our bodies and the rest of the world to create great stories has failed miserably.

Culture wars, disagreements between strangers on internet philosophy forums, etc. are simply people quarreling over how the story should be written.

We can't go back.

We can't go back to existing like the first primates or something like that.

But we don't have to be trapped in the present way of existing either.

If we have ever listened rather than dictate, I have never heard any account of it.

There's probably a lot--from past humans, other forms of life, and the non-living Earth--that we have not heard because we were not and are not listening.

Reason--specifically, Enlightenment human reason--has spoken. It has been a very long monologue. Maybe it's time for it to hand the microphone over and listen for a change.

All people have to do is consume less, but industry/government have become very good at marketing consumption. Let's take a look at the sales pitch of the medical device industry: "Take this test, or you will die!". Pretty effective sales pitch especially when the lobbyists have successfully passed laws to help them push their products and drugs.

Maybe environmentalists can take less trips to the environments they are trying to save? There are many ways to look a simple, healthy, interesting life without constantly consuming. — Rich

But then we will be told that if consumption is dramatically decreased then the whole system will collapse, prosperity will disappear, and we will all be living short, miserable lives like feudal serfs or prehistoric cave dwellers.

Someone will then reply that if we don't dramatically reduce consumption the whole biosphere will implode and all life, not just humans, will become extinct.

Ad nauseum.

We need to break out such patterns. We need to stop spinning our wheels.

We need a completely different conversation.

This is so typical of the socialist/liberal logic of making oneself feel good about themselves by promoting the idea, "can't we all just get along?", "can't we just be nicer and more respectful to each other?". Sure, those are great ideas, but all I see are these ideas without any means of getting there. Is it because we already know how to get there but realize that the means would be the manipulation of others, which is what you all are saying you want to depart from? Wouldn't you need to start determining who gets born and how children are raised and wouldn't you need a deep state to do that (and it seems that is what we are heading towards)? People are the way they are as a result of their genetics and upbringing. To change that would mean that you'd need to manipulate them (their genes and upbringing). — Harry Hindu

Apparently I am not making myself clear.

I will try again.

All of this Marxism; liberalism; "progress"; conservatism; Enlightenment rationalism, autonomy of the individual, rule of law; empiricism/"science"; technology; transhumanism; postmodernism; feminism; queer theory; identity politics; neo-liberalism; "the logic of free markets"; globalization; populism; "democracy" vs. "tyranny"; dualism vs. non-dualism; overconsumption vs. prosperity; Malthus vs. Adam Smith; etc.; etc.; etc. needs to be stuffed in a box, bound with several layers of duct tape, and fired on a rocket as far out of our sight and memory as possible.

Garbage in, garbage out.

If we are tired of getting garbage then we need to grow up and throw away the garbage.

The garbage is gone, what do we do now?

How about listening.

Listening to each other.

Listening to non-human life

Listening to the Earth.

How about empathizing.

I said let's break the garage-in-garbage-out cycle, and you responded with more of the garage.

We don't need more politics, laws, philosophy, science, technology, etc. We need to get a grip.

We need to try, gasp, being nice.

Well with all due respect to one who cannot read a few paragraphs of another without becoming angry... — unenlightened

I didn't say that a few paragraphs made me angry.

I haven't​ been angry enough for 45 years.

A few seconds of anger after suddenly becoming fully conscious of a lifetime of denial amounts to the inability to "read a few paragraphs of another without becoming angry"? If you say so.

I'd be disappointed if I wasn't angry or disgusted. I probably haven't ever been angry enough.

But feminism, identity politics, etc. have probably more than compensated for my lack of anger. They seem to be based almost entirely on anger, and not just their radical elements. Like a ball carrier in football who looks for contact, they seem to look for something to be angry about at all times.

Maybe little respect is due to me. But it's silly to say that because of some temper that I don't have and have never had--especially when there's no evidence of me having it or ever having it. If there's any reason that I am due little respect it is because I apparently have been extremely naive my whole life.

I think that is what you are suggesting, that we must master our own being so as to end conflict? — unenlightened

No.

I am suggesting that we all cooperate, respect one another, respect non-human life, and respect the Earth as the home of all life.

I am suggesting that we stop seeing humans and non-humans as things to be manipulated, controlled, and dominated.

But this simply recreates the conflict internally; the master is angry at his own anger and another's anger, and so anger is sustained in him even as he fights it. — unenlightened

Making mutual respect in all human relationships and respect for non-human life and the Earth in all dealings with them may not end conflict, but it will be more realistic.

No more Enlightenment promises of a better world through power--the power of the autonomous individual, the power of reason, the power of science and technology, etc.

Just a simple non-pre-modern (superstition, mysticism, ecclesiastical authority, etc.), non-modern (freedom, rationalism, technology, etc.), non-postmodern (diversity, multi-culturalism, local narratives​, etc.) idea: we can choose to do our best to all get along, or we can choose not to.

The first step is for thought to understand completely that it cannot solve this problem, because itis the problem. And if that is clearly and completely understood, then there is an end. Thought stops. And it is the silence that follows that is the solution. But one must be very clear that this silence cannot be reached by any kind of effort or mastery; it cannot be practiced or achieved. All one can do by way of approach is to seek to understand the limits of thought and will. — unenlightened

I think that the first step is to break free from the shackles of denial.

Who is in greater denial, people who do not heed what science tells us about​ human activity and climate change or people who try to pin the whole problem on the latter behavior of the latter group when there's abundant evidence that the entire modern Western lifestyle--insatiable consumption; preoccupation with and obsession with the individual's "pursuit of happiness"; reliance on objectifying and manipulating everything through math, empiricism, etc.--is the problem?

I am saying that for the first time I no longer buy any of it. We don't need more science, more of the philosophy of the past thousand years, more laws, more institutions to enforce and implement those laws, more technology, more social movements, etc. We need a complete rupture and departure.

In other words, a wise person does not respond to climate change by ignoring or denying science and praising the virtues of unregulated business, nor by vilifying business and being condescending towards common people while praising science as the breathtakingly amazing arbiter of safety, longevity, justice, etc. A wise person responds to climate change by recognizing that it is the creation of both business and science and looking for ways to act outside of business and science. A complete rupture and departure from the worldviews that have created and sustained modern business and science might be a no-brainer once people start looking outside of them.

It has always been, since the dawn of time, a matter of some trying to dominate others because that is what that they are good at. The Mongols a good case study. Nowadays it is different. If people want to retain freedom to choose they have to be aware of how it is being continually taken away, mostly via a collaboration between big industry and the government they control. — Rich

So Enlightenment progress means "Thanks to medical advances some of you get to live longer lives and therefore get to be manipulated, controlled and dominated even longer. You get to live in a fool's paradise even longer."?

The info and amusements businesses probably don't want to destroy indigenous cultures -- they probably wouldn't gain much if anything from doing that. What they do want to get rid of trade barriers of any kind. (Granted, the effect is the same.)

And the info and amusements businesses don't have to do anything special to have a destructive effect. All they have to do is show up. What they sell will do the rest. (And what they sell is in many cases, a good thing in itself.) — Bitter Crank

One person in this thread has urged the reading of Chomsky.

Until that reading happens the authorities for me on global capitalism are Global Problems and the Cultures of Capitalism, by Richard H. Robbins, and Grassroots Post-Modernism: Remaking the Soil of Cultures, by Gustavo Esteva and Madhu Suri-Prakash.

Also, I have skimmed 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep, by Jonathan Crary.

Basically, the perspective I have formed can be summed up this way: For 500 years a system that requires perpetual economic growth and the commodification of more and more things has dominated the globe; nothing, including sleep, is safe from this system's insatiable need for expansion and commodification; and almost every malady that has afflicted the globe the past 500 years--mass starvation; pandemics such as the bubonic plague and, more recently, the spread of HIV; the destruction of ecosystems; terrorism; etc.--can be attributed to that system's need for perpetual growth and commodifying everything in its path.

Uh, yeah, they don't want trade barriers.

They don't want any barriers.

But no matter how many stories we like to tell about the successes and benefits of global capitalism, and no matter how much we like to sugar-coat or downplay its abuses by saying things like "Corporations are simply making and selling what consumers want", its destructive legacy cannot be denied and people's resistance to it should be understandable to anybody with empathic abilities.

Chomsky has documented the machinery of the globalist agenda. What they're doing and how they do it. "Manufacturing consent." — fishfry

I have been wanting to read Chomsky but have not had the chance to even scratch the surface.

You were expecting... something else? — Bitter Crank

The article is the first time that I have heard of capitalists directly disrespecting indigenous rights, sacred landmarks, tradition, etc.

Before that article every threat to indigenous lands and cultures that I knew of was manifested through indirect means such as colonialism.

Countries making laws specifically to protect local producers of art, film, literature, etc., and corporations using trade agreements to target those specific laws. Wow.

But you seem to implying these companies want to limit choice, as opposed to supplying willing consumers with their product... — prothero

Straw man.

A global economy and interconnected world in theory gives people more choice but often everyone chooses the same products. — prothero

Red herring.

I think a lot of people simply don't perceive a way forward that offers a lot of promise. — Bitter Crank

I would argue that they need to join the 21st century.

It has been common knowledge as far back as I can remember that the days of completing one's education and then retiring with a pension after 30-40 years of service to the same employer are long gone. It is common knowledge that most people will change jobs several times and must continuously acquire new knowledge and skills.

It may sound harsh, but if people don't have a plan to acquire certain marketable knowledge and skills and a plan for how to market them, that's their own irresponsibility, not any kind of failure in public policy or bad economic circumstances.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" doesn't work anymore. There's nothing waiting for anybody no matter how he/she answers that question. The more appropriate question now is, "How are you going to contribute to a global, volatile economy that favors nothing except efficiency?"

Is it the role of government to limit the choice of their citizens... — prothero

Apparently it is.

From the article:

"Companies such as AOL Time-Warner and Disney have powerful friends on Capitol Hill and in the White House. They work closely with the government, which in turn has taken a very aggressive stand in protecting their interests..."

— Anonymys

Be careful there.

Anecdotes about your own subjective educational experience and the seemingly superior preparation of students from foreign countries cannot be the basis of an objective evaluation and rational response to the state of elementary and secondary education in the U.S.

Nor can the subjective opinions of strangers on the internet.

Where are the objective facts?

I would not be surprised to find that the objective quantitative and qualitative measurements of the performance of U.S. schools do not show alarming failure and may even show reason to be pleased. The alarmism about failing schools may just be ideologues trying to justify their pet interventions such as privatization, charter schools, school choice / vouchers, destroying teachers' unions, etc.

Parents, teachers and school administrators need help and support, not criticism and shame. You'd probably be surprised how much of their own money teachers spend on students; the lucrative careers they forgo to be teaching in elementary and secondary schools; etc.

My advice would be to take every opportunity you get to thank a teacher for everything he/she does. That small gesture might be the shot in the arm--the second wind--that he/she​ needs to overcome any adversity that schools face.

And the source of that adversity is external, not internal. I would argue that it boils down to asking schools to do everything from reducing poverty to eliminating discrimination and inequality when the only thing they should be asked to do is mold lifelong learners.

So if someone asks you why 1 +1=2, then you would reply that it is necessarily so. It has mathematical inescapability.

What then when fundamental physics discovers the same lack of alternatives? Particles like quarks and leptons simply have to be as they represent the simplest possible symmetry states. Nature can't be broken down any further. Like cubes and tetrahedrons, ultimate simplicity has mathematical inevitabilty. And that is then the why. It is just a formal constraint that something has to be what is left after everything has got broken down to the least complex possible basics.

This isn't the ordinary notion of a telic goal or purpose. But it is a scientific one. And it places a limit on infinite regress. There actually is a simplest state in the end. You wind up with quarks and leptons as they are as simple as it gets. — apokrisis

But the question of "Why?" remains. People want to know the truth and the complete truth. People want the whole story of reality.

Instead of playing word games saying things like "How" questions are the only ones that matter, why can't people just be honest and say that science can't answer every question we have?

"Andersen: I think the problem for me, coming at this as a layperson, is that when you're talking about the explanatory power of science, for every stage where you have a "something,"—even if it's just a wisp of something, or even just a set of laws—there has to be a further question about the origins of that "something." And so when I read the title of your book, I read it as "questions about origins are over."

Krauss: Well, if that hook gets you into the book that's great. But in all seriousness, I never make that claim. In fact, in the preface I tried to be really clear that you can keep asking "Why?" forever. At some level there might be ultimate questions that we can't answer, but if we can answer the "How?" questions, we should, because those are the questions that matter. And it may just be an infinite set of questions, but what I point out at the end of the book is that the multiverse may resolve all of those questions. From Aristotle's prime mover to the Catholic Church's first cause, we're always driven to the idea of something eternal. If the multiverse really exists, then you could have an infinite object—infinite in time and space as opposed to our universe, which is finite. That may beg the question as to where the multiverse came from, but if it's infinite, it's infinite. You might not be able to answer that final question, and I try to be honest about that in the book. But if you can show how a set of physical mechanisms can bring about our universe, that itself is an amazing thing and it's worth celebrating. I don't ever claim to resolve that infinite regress of why-why-why-why-why; as far as I'm concerned it's turtles all the way down. The multiverse could explain it by being eternal, in the same way that God explains it by being eternal, but there's a huge difference: the multiverse is well motivated and God is just an invention of lazy minds...' (emphasis mine)


Like I said, science is ultimately not concerned with why. Above it is implied that "Why?" does not matter.

Galuchat — Galuchat

The aforementioned article associates communications technology like this online forum with extroversion and says that communications technology has and continues to reinforce and expand modern life/culture's emphasis on extroversion.

It sounds like no particular tradition, subject-matter, discipline, etc. is the province of either introversion or extroversion. If one personality trait is disproportionately represented in philosophy it might be due to philosophy's small, relatively obscure role in modern life, not the inherent nature of philosophy. If introverts are disproportionately represented in science it might be due to the long hours that success in science demands (I suspect that it is not physics graduate students doing much of the partying on campus), not the inherent nature of science. Someone who needs a lot of socializing could probably do good at philosophy or science if he/she applied him/herself, but may not have the patience for it. In other words, it is the methods/techniques, not content suited for certain brain wiring, of work like philosophy that likely explain any disproportionate representation of introverts.

Natural selection may not have a purpose but it certainly has reasons.

Every human that I know of is able to experience this kind of beauty, so I am wondering why it has been selected for.

As it is a positive sensation, arising at particular moments, that the body seems to have a reason for delivering, why would it not make sense to look for the evolutionary reasons? — Daniel Sjöstedt

The part in bold is the problem.

Science, which evolutionary theory is a part of, does not ask or answer why. Science, including evolutionary theory, only asks and answers who, what, when, where and how.

Maybe this is your question: what in human evolution was advantageous about being able to appreciate things like music?

Well, I would say that appreciating music is learned from culture, not contained in genes.

If you do not mean appreciation--if you simply mean having one sensation or another--then that departs from "beauty". Having sensations is simply having sensations, not recognizing or appreciating some concept such as "beauty".

Why do we have sensations? If you are looking for an evolutionary explanation then variables like mutations, environment, reproductive isolation, etc. are going to have to be accounted for and controlled. I don't see how that can be done in an informal discussion of philosophy.

It is the psychological concept of introversion-extraversion... — Galuchat

But I am never sure what other people have in mind when they bring up that concept.

I have said what I have in mind: directing energy inward or outward.

The essence of philosophy?

It is asking and attempting to answer the most fundamental questions in the Western intellectual tradition.

There is, of course, things like Asian philosophy.

But defining the essence of philosophy with Western civilization is not being ethnocentric--it is answering what most people mean by "philosophy" while being cognizant of the fact that the picture does not end there.

The picture does not even end with civilizations or their traditions. I believe that I was practicing philosophy when 10-year-old me asked a certain question even though I knew nothing about, and had no concept of, any intellectual tradition.

In other words, the question "What is the essence of philosophy?" is too vague.

It could probably be said that my 7-year-old great-niece practices philosophy, but she knows nothing about Aristotle, logic, science, ethics, etc. and has no concept of "the West".

I would conclude, therefore, that if you want to describe philosophy at its irreducible core then it is this: it is humans navigating by using things like ideas and concepts. Where a navigator is and where he/she wants to go depends on things like circumstances, personal values, strength of character, etc. The most successful navigators--represented by people of all kinds of circumstances, personal values, strengths of character, etc.--are considered to have wisdom.

Thoughts on the essence of ‘philosophy’ and ‘science’? — Samuel Lacrampe

I believe that it is in The Story of Philosophy where Will Durant says that science reduces and analyzes things while philosophy synthesizes things.

And that's why I asked about tragedy - I wonder what the reason might be for getting a "good" feeling from something tragic.

The feeling is certainly "awe inspiring", but awe before what? And why? — Daniel Sjöstedt

I sense teleology here.

I believe, therefore, that your OP was on the wrong track before you wrote it.

Evolution by natural selection, as I understand almost all biologists and philosophers of science will tell you, is not teleological, and its operation and the outcomes we observe do not include any "purpose".

Evolution by natural selection is simply a model that humans have constructed through observation and experimentation of the mechanism through which genetic diversity is generated and distributed.

Evolution favors nothing. If finding a symmetrical face to be "pleasing" is advantageous today, it could be a disadvantage tomorrow. Being obese may be a disadvantage in the dating and marriage market in the U.S. today, but tomorrow ecological collapse could start to unfold and all that energy stored in all of that excess body fat could then be an advantage--an obese person might then be everybody's preference for a romantic partner.

Therefore, if you want to place the recognition and appreciation of beauty--any kind of beauty--in evolutionary perspective then such recognition and appreciation has no "purpose". It is simply what has been selected until today and may no longer be selected starting tomorrow.

I think that characterizing beauty as a result of evolution by natural selection and then looking for a "purpose" or telos in something that "purpose" and telos have nothing to do with is the source of your confusion.

I believe that Susan Haack has identified one of the characteristics of scientism as the preoccupation with and obsession with demarcating what is and is not science.

Scientism or no scientism, has anybody been able to successfully demarcate science and non-science to the satisfaction of everybody else?

There is no airtight definition or demarcation of science.

Science?

I once saw somebody once put it this way: "Science is a nicely-packaged philosophy".

I actually think I would describe those experiences as pleasing. — Daniel Sjöstedt

The same way that an evolutionary psychologist describes a symmetrical face as pleasing?

I suppose if everybody thought that happiness was a purely interior state that could exist without respect to material factors, then everybody could be happy.

However, most people (I am guessing -- no evidence, sorry) connect happiness to both material and purely interior states. That's a problem, because unless everybody is satisfied with respect to their material wants and needs, some people will be unhappy.

Worse, there can't be very much change in peoples' material wants and needs because there is only so much material to go around, and if one group develops greater wants and needs and can not meet them, they will be unhappy. If they take material away from somebody else, that group will be unhappy.

Universal happiness requires that the world be a rather static place, and that just seems extraordinarily unlikely. — Bitter Crank

I have never heard anything from the humanities or social sciences about cultures other than modern, Enlightenment-inspired cultures highly valuing happiness and making it a top priority.

Maybe it is not coincidence, therefore, that modern, Enlightenment-inspired, happiness-worshiping cultures are the ones consuming, polluting, altering and destroying the Earth in a short timespan to a degree that it and the life it supports may never recover from.

Now that I am able to read the article again, I see that my memory of it was very accurate:

"The shy are frequently thoughtful and occasionally brilliant. They are often sensitive to the needs, and the gaze, of others. The problem is that they live in a world that, despite the commonality of shyness, has extremely little patience for it..."

"He also knows what a quietly radical proposition it is to celebrate shyness. The far more fashionable thing—particularly in Britain, where Shrinking Violets was initially published, and even more so in the United States—has been to treat shyness as a problem to be treated and then, if at all possible, never mentioned again. Shyness, so emotionally adjacent to shame, is often also regarded as a cause for it. Within a culture that so deeply values self-confidence—and that takes for granted that social skills are external evidence of one’s internal self-regard—shyness is seen with suspicion. Quietness, in a world that is loud, can make for an easy enemy..."

"Dalton’s ideas live on, today, in the broad recognition, within anthropology and far beyond, that shyness will have cultural components as well as physiological. They also live on, however, in the notion that shyness is best understood not just as the complicated interplay between the human brain and the social world, but also, more simply, as a deviation. Sociability is normal; shyness, it must follow, is abnormal. After all, we humans are—it is a cliché because it is so deeply true—social animals. We define ourselves as a species through our shared garrulousness as much as our shared DNA, through the fact that we put our opposable thumbs to work not just building shelter and creating art, but also writing letters and grasping phones and punctuating the making of evening plans with some enthusiastic dancing-lady emojis. We are human, in some small but profound part, because we are human together.

It is on those social-evolutionary grounds, though, that shyness is sometimes suspected, and sometimes pathologized. Shy people, the sociologist Susie Scott argued, are not merely choosing solitude over companionship, or small groups over larger ones; they are conducting, each time they beg off or turn away, an “unintentional breaching experiment.” They are, in their very shyness, deviating from the broader social order..."

"Moran, in his book, has summoned insights from the ancients to their successors to prove what he, as a shy person, has already lived and known, all too well: that the world, for all the strides it has made when it comes to progress and acceptance, still does not look kindly on timidity..."

"Just as schools and businesses, as Cain argued, are generally built for extroverts—because, indeed, they are so often built by extroverts—so, too, Moran suggests, are the world’s social structures generally most accommodating of the lusty and the loud.

Squeaky wheels, as it were, get the cultural primacy. And that may be especially so now, as American culture not only offers more ways to talk than ever before, but also as it tends to emphasize talking as a panaceatic requirement of modern life. Good and constant communication, many assume (or hope), will help to ensure successful business ventures, and successful romantic partnerships, and successful educational performance. Extroversion will save us..." (emphasis mine)