I hate that "two cows" bullshit. It's transparent capitalist propaganda (the only good scenario is the "traditional capitalist" one) that's unable or unwilling to differentiate capitalism from a market economy, or likewise socialism from a command economy.

However, I still feel that the prevailing narrative as ‘life as the outcome of a biochemical accident’ will never make for a coherent social philosophy. Humans need to feel as though they’re part of a story, not the result of an accident. Maybe we can spin an entirely new story, one that makes no reference to the cultural traditional of the past, but somehow I doubt it - the attempt will always result in the sense of being ‘stranded in the present’. It also implicitly dishonours all of the ancestors whose ways we now see as being antiquated and superstitious. — Wayfarer

We have the past we deserve and make for ourselves. The archive of history is filled with forgotten debris which never had the chance to become valorised as 'our' past. The worry that we'll ever not feel as part of a 'story' is largely a boogie-man; we'll make stories up staring at a blank wall if we have to. The question is not whether we'll have a relation to the past and to 'culture'; it's what kind of relation we'll have to it. Most efforts to say 'we're losing our relationship to the past' are reactionary covers for 'we're losing the relationship to the past I like'.

:up:

Humans need to feel as though they’re part of a story, not the result of an accident — Wayfarer

Is the story of an unplanned child abandoned in the wilderness who nevertheless somehow survives and goes on to become a great hero who reshapes the future for the better not a noble enough story? Does the child have to have been a planned birth of noble parentage to count?

So we weren't planned, weren't cared for, were left alone as infants in a harsh cruel world to fend for ourselves and probably die ignoble deaths to be remembered by nobody. But what if we defy that fate? What if despite that low birth we go on to become the saviors of the world anyway? I think that's a pretty great story.

saviors of the world anyway? I think that's a pretty great story. — Pfhorrest

What’s a ‘savior’ without ‘salvation’?

What’s a ‘savior’ without ‘salvation’? — Wayfarer

What is salvation but being saved? And who says we need some special predestined chosen one of divine birth to do the saving? That's a bit of a trite and uninspiring old story TBH. The nobody-turned-hero seems like it should be much more captivating to the many masses who were born as nobodies (as most people are), who might take away the moral that they could help save the world, and don't just have to wait on someone else to do it for them.

Since, collectively, there isn't anyone else to do it for us, that's really the kind of inspirational story we need if we want salvation, since it's going to have to be us all together who do the saving.

Blatent Last Jedi apologism. She's Palpatine's granddaughter and that's that! ;)

It's an interesting point, not one I've thought a lot about, although it's parallel to the outdatedness of 'if King, tragedy; if commoner, comedy' too.

I suppose if your culture perpetuates secret King narratives, that's what you'll find more compelling. I wonder what this has to do with the usual placement of believers on the right. Feels like a lot.

What is salvation but being saved? — Pfhorrest

From what, and to what, is the question. What is salvation beyond a nice house in the suburbs?

Is the story of an unplanned child abandoned in the wilderness who nevertheless somehow survives and goes on to become a great hero who reshapes the future for the better not a noble enough story? — Pfhorrest

Got any particular story in mind, there, or is it just a hypothetical?

What is salvation beyond a nice house in the suburbs? — Wayfarer

Being friends with your neighbors, having no enemies, finding love, exploring the beauty of nature beyond the comforts of your nice house in the suburbs (knowing that home is always there to come back to), exploring more generally as in learning and experiencing all there is to learn, creating great works for others to explore, doing all there is to do, and making sure that you and everyone else get to keep doing all of that forever.

Don't need whoever manages to enable all of that to be preordained to do so. Just someone willing and able to do so. Which could be us, collectively, and in all likelihood has to be us, or else nobody.

Got any particular story in mind, there, or is it just a hypothetical? — Wayfarer

Just a story archetype. Romulus and Remus kinda came to mind as I wrote that but I didn't mean them specifically, and there is some divine intervention in their story too.

My point is just that we often like stories of underdogs defying the odds and rising to greatness. Even the Jesus story has elements of that, born into poverty, worked a humble job. Take away the "only son of God" part of it and is it less inspirational? Well okay the part where he dies tragically at the end is a downer. But imagine a variant on that story where some kid born to a poor family works hard to get by and in the process comes up with or just popularizes some idea that starts a movement that changes the world. I'm sure there are plenty of real-life examples of that that history buffs in the audience can supply.

Why can't the story of mankind be that kind of story -- we were "born nobody" and then made ourselves great and noble anyway -- and still be inspirational and satisfying? Why do we as a people need "noble birth" (chosen people of God, etc) to feel good about ourselves and our place in the world?

Well okay the part where he dies tragically at the end is a downer. — Pfhorrest

:facepalm:

Why can't the story of mankind be that kind of story -- we were "born nobody" and then made ourselves great and noble anyway -- and still be inspirational and satisfying? — Pfhorrest

But I think it needs a sustaining narrative to become meaningful. That is why there are such themes in literature, drama, and art, throughout the ages. That is what the epic poems of ancient cultures provide. It is also why the 20th Century was the story of existential angst and the death of meaning. It doesn't have to be 'theistic' in the literal sense.

While I was typing my earlier reply to you, out of the blue came a message from my son, saying, 'ever heard of the term 'Ikigai'? Hadn't, so googled it.

Ikigai (生き甲斐) (pronounced [ikiɡai]) is a Japanese concept that means "a reason for being." The word refers to having a meaningful direction or purpose in life, constituting the sense of one's life being made worthwhile, with actions (spontaneous and willing) taken toward achieving one's ikigai resulting in satisfaction and a sense of meaning to life. The concept of this idea comes from a larger and more inclusive philosophy used within the Japanese traditional health system called the Wuxing that was introduced into Japan in the early 6th century from China and embraced by local folk religion and culture. — Wikipedia

The Aristotelian 'eudaimonia' also comes to mind

Eudaimonia (Greek: εὐδαιμονία [eu̯dai̯moníaː]; sometimes anglicized as eudaemonia or eudemonia, /juːdɪˈmoʊniə/) is a Greek word commonly translated as 'happiness' or 'welfare'; however, more accurate translations have been proposed to be 'human flourishing, prosperity'[1] and 'blessedness'.[2]

In the work of Aristotle, eudaimonia (based on older Greek tradition) was used as the term for the highest human good, and so it is the aim of practical philosophy, including ethics and political philosophy, to consider (and also experience) what it really is, and how it can be achieved. It is thus a central concept in Aristotelian ethics and subsequent Hellenistic philosophy, along with the terms aretē (most often translated as 'virtue' or 'excellence') and phronesis" ('practical or ethical wisdom').[3] — Wikipedia

Maybe that's all that is needed, but where are the wellsprings of that, in modern technological culture? You can say, 'virtue ethics' - perfectly sound answer. Just point me to where in modern political theory this is esteemed.

75 million voters silenced and ridiculed
re-education camps will have to outsource to China
someone should see how they feel about religious freedom and gender neutrality
Joe will have some splainin to do to the squad
cause he's good at splainin

Say what you will about people like Hayek or Schumpeter or anyone from the Austrian school. One could very much disagree with what they were saying and in fact provide evidence as to why such ideas (encasing markets- a Quinn Slobodian puts it) don't work out in practice. But such ideas like Hayek arguing that we have imperfect knowledge of most situations, and therefore markets unite all our knowledge and thus "knows best", has some sophistication.

Mises was at least consistent. He didn't want governments to do anything during The Great Depression, just let the markets find a solution -even if it includes massive suffering. Other neoliberals, like Röpke, saw the problems with laisse-faire and consciously attempted to create legislation (through the WTO, etc.) that would help insure power and privileges' to certain economic actors.

But today, talking about Bannon or Spencer and there ideas are so crude, so tribal and obviously deranged, you don't need to exercise a single neuron to reply to them.

Exactly. There's just no ideas one can engage with that may be of some interest. I'm forgetting who it was that said this, but the argument was along the lines of "Japan has one of the most homogenous societies in the world" and thus they have very little internal conflict. Yeah ok, they have plenty of other problems. They're out of substantive things to say.

Maybe that's all that is needed, but where are the wellsprings of that, in modern technological culture? — Wayfarer

Actually you'll find plenty of it in modern technological culture. Schools being forced to end subjects that aren't vocational, people encouraged into wage slavery, "the American consumer"... You're either an owner of the means of production, a worker, or your life is meaningless or, worse, cancerous.

The sinister side of telling people their lives must have meaning is that, when they fail to discover it for themselves, there's plenty of people ready to answer it for them, not for the benefit of the asker but for the answerer.

It seems like a wrong-headed question to me. Better: you are privileged to be alive this short while Inna fascinating universe. What will you do with your time?