To my mind, this was a really great OP on this forum.

Thank you, @Jamal

In the 19th Century they had a far more apt name for economics. They called it "Political Economy". And that's what it is, no matter in how much in mathematics you disguise it, it is political and part of politics. It's basically a straight lie to try to make economics to be something like a (natural) science and somehow apolitical. It simply isn't that. The dominant questions have been the same since Antiquity. The story of the Grachi brothers tells that the question about redistribution of wealth isn't something we started thinking about thanks to Marx and the 19th Century socialists.

For me, the simple reason why there can be "enchantment of magic" is that these questions are moral, not something objective, which using the scientific method can give us the right answer. If it's subjective, why not have some magic in it?

To my mind, this was a really great OP on this forum — ssu

Thank you ssu, much appreciated.

In the 19th Century they had a far more apt name for economics. They called it "Political Economy". And that's what it is, no matter in how much in mathematics you disguise it, it is political and part of politics. It's basically a straight lie to try to make economics to be something like a (natural) science and somehow apolitical. It simply isn't that. The dominant questions have been the same since Antiquity. The story of the Grachi brothers tells that the question about redistribution of wealth isn't something we started thinking about thanks to Marx and the 19th Century socialists. — ssu

Absolutely.

For me, the simple reason why there can be "enchantment of magic" is that these questions are moral, not something objective, which using the scientific method can give us the right answer. If it's subjective, why not have some magic in it? — ssu

I half agree with this, but I tend not to divide things along those lines. I think we can describe things objectively without describing them on the pattern of natural science.

So I posit two somethings: a self and a spell. — Moliere

What would you say is this 'self'? Is that I that posits?

I'm not sure I follow. Religion and nationalism clearly exist in the world, so why would they be necessarily supernatural in any respect? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Do they? What are they made of? You see I think they are things that exist in the mind. And as soon as we stop thinking about and talking about and identifying with a nation, it ceases to exist.

maybe someone will find it interesting. — Jamal

I did. Nice pulling together of many threads within the thread.

What would you say is this 'self'? Is that I that posits? — unenlightened

Certainly not you. In my philosophy, only you speak for you, and "self" would be a surreptitious way of sounding authoritative if I were meaning "self" to refer to you. "self" is a generalization that doesn't really refer to anyone at all, like in the everyman plays of the medieval period. Perhaps there should be another word used, but I'm thinking along the lines of what people mean when they say "we're all like that." -- it's certainly magical, at least with respect to the dis-enchanted perspective I imagine.

Perhaps I should say, in this conversation, there's a you, and a me, and a self, and a spell. There can be other somethings, these are just the named somethings. I named two things to try and make sense of the transition from enchanted to dis-enchanted (or, thinking again along of rule 1, we were dis-enchanted and have become enchanted by the modern world) -- but I'd be more than happy to adopt other somethings.

And, as always, it's a pleasure to find something to get a conversation going between us.

Wonderful read.

I must admit when I read the OP my first thought was "Get out of my head!" :D

Magical neo-Marxism is now a thing, I think?

A lot to mull over there. I only want to add that from my brief readings about the principle of magic, the ideas of sympathy and symbol are central to it. Sympathy is the resemblances and common ground of apparently separate objects and beings, so that something done with or to one over here, has effects on the other over there. As if they are entangled, somehow :chin: . They are 'cut from the same cloth' so to speak, and so not really separate things. Part of the reason this is inimical to post-Enlightenment culture is its conception of reality - its metaphysic - in terms solely of objects driven by mechanical force, and of scientific power over those forces as the only significant form of power.

As for symbolic form, symbols, such as talismans and amulets, are used to convey, embody and invoke powers and states. In secular culture they turn up as logos and signs of cultural identity, but in traditional cultures they are invocations of the sacred.

Obviously many of these themes are writ large in counter-cultural philosophy and environmentalism - James Lovelock's Gaia theory is a return to a kind of magical thinking.

Good stuff. I don't know enough about the study of magic and you've given me a direction for further study. Sympathy and symbol on the surface almost seem to go against my focus on thisness and the non-identical, but my guess is they can be made compatible. In Adorno the significant concept here is mimesis: in magic the symbol imitates the thing but does not abstract from it to a generality, or something like that.

Magical neo-Marxism is now a thing, I think? — Moliere

I've just noticed there's a book: Magical Marxism: Subversive Politics and the Imagination by Andy Merrifield. Also, Mark Fisher and hauntology might fit.

Yeah, no, not me, not you, fair enough. But you posit self and spell. I am asking about the ontology.

Let's say a spell is made of words, or maybe possibly a picture, some communication – I assume that; you can correct me. What is a self made of? My inclination is to say that a self is a narrative self — also made of words, images associations, identifications'.

A tiger doesn't proclaim his tigritude, he pounces. — Wole Soyinka

By which I understand that my unenlightenment is a proclamation, whereas the tiger's tigritude is his pounce. Just as the enlightenment was/is a mass proclamation, and not an act (of what? Compassion?).

Here's another proclamation:

We have all been processed on Procrustean beds. At least some of us have managed to hate what they have made of us. Inevitably we see the other as the reflection of the occasion of our own self-division. The others have become installed in our hearts, and we call them ourselves. Each person, not being himself either to himself or the other, just as the other is not himself to himself or to us, in being another for another neither recognizes himself in the other, nor the other in himself. Hence being at least a double absence, haunted by the ghost of his own murdered self, no wonder modern man is addicted to other persons, and the more addicted, the less satisfied, the more lonely. — R.D. Laing, The Politics of Experience/The Bird of Paradise

Thisness—which is also known by medieval philosophers as haecceity—has its own special version in the work of Adorno, namely the non-identical. It’s the part of the thing that remains unique to it when you bring it under a category or think of it in terms of concepts, but which is lost sight of in this process. The singular thing is non-identical with the specimen, the latter being an instantiation, an example defined by categories, universals, or concepts. But the thing is not exhausted by any category you put it in, any abstract universal you bring it under, or any set of concepts you apply to describe it. — Jamal

:ok:

Thisness—which is also known by medieval philosophers as haecceity — Jamal

Tathata, which means "suchness" or "thusness," is term used primarily in Mahāyāna Buddhism to denote "reality," or "the way things truly are". It's understood that the true nature of reality is ineffable, beyond description and conceptualization.

Tathata is the root of Tathagata, which is an alternate term for "Buddha." Tathagata was the term the historical Buddha used most often to refer to himself. Tathagata can mean either "one who has thus come" or "one who has thus gone." It is sometimes translated "one who is such."

Tathata is used interchangeably with śūnyatā to denote the true nature.

I can't help but also notice the resonances with Heidegger's 'presencing'.

Outside the web of discursive thought and conceptualisation.

Tathata

Cool.

I can't help but also notice the resonances with Heidegger's 'presencing'.

Outside the web of discursive thought and conceptualisation. — Wayfarer

Yes, and Kant had a version of it too of course, the thing in itself, although I suppose the difference is that for Kant, it exceeds our grasp (almost) entirely, not only intellectually. Philosophers, using thought, are always trying to get beyond thought (except Wittgenstein, who said stop trying).

Unrelatedly…

What we have now in postmodernity (or “liquid modernity”) is the negative disenchantment, without much of the positive, critical disenchantment, which was at its height with the socialist challenge to capitalism and the supporting Marxist theoretical challenge to ideology. — Jamal

It occurs to me that things are even worse than this. Maybe people are increasingly escaping the spell of ideology—it’s just that there seems to be nothing they can do about it.

I think Russia is a good example of this. There is very little trust in authority in Russia, whether at the federal or local level, and yet authority is unchallenged. The attitude is not critically engaged so much as cynically disengaged. The people are to a significant extent under no illusions about the situation, and it’s the fact that they do not feel themselves to be political actors, citizens of a polis, that prevents any change. They made a deal with the State years ago: ensure stability and prosperity and stay out of our lives, and we’ll let you get on with it.

On the other hand, the Russian media, which since last year has been cleansed of its critical, independent elements, spreads the ideological orthodoxy every day, and for those who are disengaged it must become easy to accept it.

I think we can describe things objectively without describing them on the pattern of natural science. — Jamal

I agree. Objectivity isn't limited to the scientific method used in natural sciences.

With an engineer, who designs a machine for some intended purpose and the machine works flawlessly doing that, it's a bit hard to argue that she's totally wrong, she has had the wrong ideas when designing the machine and in overall her thinking in engineering doesn't work. She can just point to the machine and say it works.

But with economics! We can argue all the above. We cannot even decide what is happening. It's not only the complexity, it's the vagueness of the concepts we use to describe the economy. What actually is gross domestic product and what is it's validity? What actually is inflation or stagflation? We can only find some definitions, but the reasons behind or the validity of the terms can be argued about.

Maybe people are increasingly escaping the spell of ideology—it’s just that there seems to be nothing they can do about it. — Jamal

Because without the magic, there is only the bald monkey? 'The naked ape does not (any more) proclaim his naked-apeitude, he throws his shit about.'

Disenchantment seems to be done in one of two ways, though. This looks like the other way:–

Bankei, a Zen teacher, was giving a talk to a gathering of students interested in learning from his wisdom.

In the midst of the talk, a follower of another teacher arrived and expressed their doubtsabout Bankei’s authority in comparison to their own teacher. The individual interrupted Bankei and began speaking proudly of the impressive feats of their own teacher…

”The founder of our sect can stand on one side of the river, hold a brush in his hand, and write calligraphy on a scroll on the other side of the river. He has many miraculous powers.”

He then asked Bankei, ”Can you perform such miracles?”

Bankei gently replied, ”These are impressive tricks, but that is not the manner of Zen. My miracle is that when I feel hungry I eat, and when I feel thirsty I drink.”

Whereas the naked ape eats when not hungry, and lies awake when tied.

A summary. I propose/suppose:—

1. Enchantment. The magician, or the enchantress, tells you that you are Mummy's special little boy, or God's beloved creation, or a terrible sinner, or whatever, brave or cowardly, smart or stupid, rich or poor, a Roman or a Jew. You believe.

2. Disenchantment. The magician, or the enchantress, tells you that you that The Enlightenment has happened and you no longer believe anything except the truth. You believe.

3. Enlightenment. There is no you, no belief, no enchantress or magician, and no enlightenment, and yet there is sleeping and waking and eating. The narrative has stopped.

But you posit self and spell. I am asking about the ontology. — unenlightened

A particular self is an existential bundle of powers: what we do, collectively, provides examples of the self beyond anything we might say about our self. The self is this third-person imaginary model that's never the same as any one instantiation into a self, where I think it begins to make sense to speak of powers (some can walk, some can speak, some can hear, etc.). Powers can be developed or lost. The third person notion of a self is merely the narrative boundary: what can be said at all while still making sense, and so isn't definitive of any one self, and is also a fluid boundary being created in the conversation, rather than a transcendental condition. We modify our conversation to accommodate individuals rather than modify individuals to accommodate our conversation (this all happening within the conversation, still -- exploring the power of narrative between us).

A summary. I propose/suppose:—

1. Enchantment. The magician, or the enchantress, tells you that you are Mummy's special little boy, or God's beloved creation, or a terrible sinner, or whatever, brave or cowardly, smart or stupid, rich or poor, a Roman or a Jew. You believe.

2. Disenchantment. The magician, or the enchantress, tells you that you that The Enlightenment has happened and you no longer believe anything except the truth. You believe.

3. Enlightenment. There is no you, no belief, no enchantress or magician, and no enlightenment, and yet there is sleeping and waking and eating. The narrative has stopped. — unenlightened

Attempting to use my little set up above in interpreting your summary:

Enlightenment is achieved when a self stops exercising their power of narrative in favor of eating when hungry, drinking when thirsty, and sleeping when tired. In a conversation it can only ever be a theoretical end-point, due to the description of a lack of belief.

Disenchantment and enchantment are the same kind of spell -- in either case there is a magician or enchantress, who use their magical power to influence a self to instantiate a self's powers in particular ways -- perhaps this is what it means when a self adopts some kind of belief.

In the story towards enlightenment it seems dis-enchantment is a necessary intermediate step, because it's a dis-spell meant to sent an enchanted one on a quest or path which will unfold the original enchantment which set the need-for within us. In the place of Mom-God-Sin-Good-Virtue-Tribe the grammar slips in Truth as something over and above these individual enchantments, another end to pursue, another attachment or belief: And that quest pulls the threads apart of the original Enchantment. However, coming to experience a change in enchantments, so the enlightened path warns us, is not the same as becoming enlightened -- something we might call, in the language of belief, True Enlightenment, or True Disenchantment. As long as we keep talking we're still enchanted and have yet to achieve the goal of enlightenment.

So one of the unnamed somethings that's still part of a self, I'm seeing in the above, are needs construed as anything. The enlightened one manages not just beliefs, but also their needs, so that they are satisfied with nothing more than eating, drinking, and sleeping. Magical spells, perhaps, operate on needs, make them more enticing or less enticing, in order that a self is inclined to use their powers in particular ways. That might be a sufficiently rich enough ontology to discuss the phenomena: selves as bundles of powers and needs, and spells as a power of particular selves.

I think the free-and-easy depiction of Zen Buddhism propagated by popular books in the West is nothing like the lived reality.

Those few who took the trouble to visit Japan and begin the practice of Zen under a recognized Zen master or who joined the monastic Order soon discovered that it was a very different matter from what the popularizing literature had led them to believe. They found that in the traditional Zen monastery zazen is never divorced from the daily routine of accessory disciplines. To attenuate and finally dissolve the illusion of the individual ego, it is always supplemented by manual work to clean the temple, maintain the garden, and grow food in the grounds; by strenuous study with attendance at discourses on the sutras and commentaries; and by periodical interviews with the roshi, to test spiritual progress. Acolytes are expected to develop indifference to the discomforts of heat and cold on a most frugal vegetarian diet and to abstain from self-indulgence in sleep and sex, intoxicating drinks and addictive drugs. Altogether Zen demands an ability to participate in a communal life as regimented and lacking in privacy as the army. — Harold Stewart

From here

Yes, it wasn't my intention to suggest that enlightenment was easy. Rather to bring out the contrast between the enchantment of talk, and the disenchantment of disciplined silence. But You're probably right to disabuse the reader of any romantic notions.

In the story towards enlightenment it seems dis-enchantment is a necessary intermediate step, because it's a dis-spell meant to sent an enchanted one on a quest or path which will unfold the original enchantment — Moliere

Not really, the way I'm telling it. Which is that 'disenchanted' is the identification of the 'gritty realist' who stalks the boards explaining to us primitives how our beliefs keep us detached from reality. Instead of examining their own beliefs – 'Life has no meaning' as a meaningful fact. It is a step off the path, rather than a step on it, like Bunyan's Slough of Despond. But everything one reads about a real enlightenment suggests that there is no path. One requires a disciplined intention to strip oneself of unnecessary baggage, but the step out of oneself is a single step, not a journey; a step that one cannot take oneself, but that is given by grace, or comes as a sudden insight, unexpectedly when the ground has been prepared.

In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My existence led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow

[Refrain]
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now — Bob Dylan

The attainment of youth, you see, is the real cure. One dies every day and thus remains Forever Young.

Not really, the way I'm telling it. Which is that 'disenchanted' is the identification of the 'gritty realist' who stalks the boards explaining to us primitives how our beliefs keep us detached from reality. Instead of examining their own beliefs – 'Life has no meaning' as a meaningful fact. It is a step off the path, rather than a step on it, like Bunyan's Slough of Despond. — unenlightened

I've filled in some details and gone too far in my description then. And come to think of it it was foolish of me to outline a path to enlightenment when I'm not enlightened, even in sketch form. There is this seeming that dis-enchantment is enlightenment. And that could go some way to explain the prevalence of our gritty realists meaningfully declaring that there is no meaning -- it feels like enlightenment.

I wonder why? What is this feeling of enlightenment? And surely it can go in reverse, too, though perhaps they aren't the exact same spell, then -- but they both end in belief. It's that belief which is important, and seen as important. Which is what you said, but I'm just tuning into it now. (I'm afraid I wanted to put too fancy a conceptual bow on top in my first reply)

The move you describe -- when one tells another that their belief detach them from reality. That's at least a philosophical move. And at times it could function as a spell, because no one has authority over reality itself, and yet that way of talking is claiming authority on the real -- at least enough authority to be able to tell you that your beliefs detach you from reality (thereby knowing enough about how beliefs work, how you work, how reality works, and the relationships between all those three all through some internet posts -- seems quite the stretch, when you put it in rational terms, that anyone could possibly know that much. But disenchantment is more my bag after all :) )

But everything one reads about a real enlightenment suggests that there is no path. One requires a disciplined intention to strip oneself of unnecessary baggage, but the step out of oneself is a single step, not a journey; a step that one cannot take oneself, but that is given by grace, or comes as a sudden insight, unexpectedly when the ground has been prepared.

In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My existence led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow

[Refrain]
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now
— Bob Dylan

The attainment of youth, you see, is the real cure. One dies every day and thus remains Forever Young. — unenlightened

Nice :).

↪unenlightened I think the free-and-easy depiction of Zen Buddhism propagated by popular books in the West is nothing like the lived reality. — Wayfarer

I interviewed for admission to the Zen Buddhist monastery on Vaughan Road in Toronto in 1990. I was invited to dinner (vegetarian lasagna) and invited to join in the washing up, then chatted with the teacher. It is certainly a rigorous discipline.

Thus a disrespect for power does not lead, as in the days of the socialist movement, to an actual challenge to that power, or even a notion that it could be challenged. Isn't this what we saw in fascism, and more recently in the Trump presidency: the desire instead to see the replacement of "generic bores" with "powerful, awe-inspiring and even terrible individuals"? — Jamal

:up:

are people today enchanted by magic spells? — Jamal

It'd be odd if we weren't. Are magic spells heroic tales ? The return of the king ? The return of the hero who goes under to return ? You left out art (strictly speaking, taste) which can be thought of as one way the ruling class mystifies itself and others. Have you seen Bourdieu's Distinction ? How does an elevated soul interpret the world ? With taste, which may float very high indeed above a world enjoyed as spectacle. Bordieu himself floats even higher, looking down on all this looking down, suggesting tacitly (to me Elvis-suspicious elevated mind) that philosophers too manifest Taste. For they bathe more often even than the soldiers.

Perhaps philosophy 'is' not-necessarily-false conspiracy theory. Whose narrative is most inclusive and plausible ? Whose narrative, probably by incorporating rivals, affords a sustainable enchantment ? Self-devouring criticism (us) is the last god, the last hero. (?) Doesn't 'Taste' come back in now ? The theories are tales of heroes and dragons. Nuanced blah blah blah puts us to sleep, can't cut through the noise of the 'clickbait industrial complex.'

Max Weber, to whom we owe the concept of disenchantment in sociology, had the dialectical idea of re-enchantment via disenchantment, identifiable in a society marked by "incommensurable value-fragmentation into a plurality of alternative metanarratives" (SEP) in the vacuum left by the disenchantment of the Enlightenment.

The fact that these narratives are incommensurable somewhat goes against the thought that because there are so many of them competing, they cannot be incontestable. With the fragmentation of values, ostensibly competing narratives do not compete rationally, judged by the same standards and according to the same logic. They are a matter of personal taste, and nobody can argue you out of what you like. — Jamal

:up:

I like to think of this (esp. in the USA ?) as the meta-religion that governs religion proper. That they are a matter of personal taste is not itself a matter of personal taste. It's the condition for the possibility of pluralism, a sort of matrix of self and freedom in which options hang like ornaments. Of course this is fragile.