You miss my point, I fear. I do not deny that your examples are the result of gender stereotyping, nor do I deny that they operate in these cases to the advantage of women. My claim is that they stem from exactly the same stereotypes that in the vast majority of cases operate to the advantage of men; the same prejudices that women are not worth hearing out in a discussion, operate to suggest that they are not worth arresting, and need our help in a domestic.

Excuse the graphic parody, but it is as though in the good old days, you were to justify women not having the vote on the grounds that men don't get doors held open for them. The conception of women as weak, irrational, and the opposite of all the manly virtues sometimes works to their advantage, but this does not turn misogyny into misandry. — unenlightened

You start out talking about stereotypes. Then you conclude with misogyny and misandry.

Misogyny is about hate, contempt, etc.

I do not see how stereotypes are relevant. Probably everybody is stereotyped in some way. However, most examples that immediately enter my mind have nothing to do with hate or contempt. The people of Appalachia are stereotyped as poor and uneducated, by I don't see any hate or contempt there.

No, I think that there is widespread mistrust of and hostility towards males.

A clinical psychologist said to me many years ago, "I believe that girls are socialized to hate men".

Well if I were to speculate, based on my own prejudices, I would say that this result is due to the notion that women are 'the weaker sex'. Now it is arguable whether weakness is something one necessarily dislikes - do you want to argue it? When weakness provokes aid, it becomes an advantage, and I dare say that there are other advantages to being identified as inferior, like not being seen as a threat in strange neighbourhoods. But it doesn't seem like the greatest example of misandry. — unenlightened

The author here says that microaggressions are gendered violence and that an example of such violence is women being interrupted.

And you think that being confronted by the police; members of the public not noticing or caring that you are being assaulted; etc. are not good examples with respect to men?!

However, using an extremely small portion of radical feminists as an example of women's rights is not really correct of you, now is it... — TimeLine

Every feminist source I encounter is oblivious to men suffering as men.

I think a discussion about men' rights or masculinity studies is certainly something that should be brought to attention. — TimeLine

That discussion has already been going on at least since the 1975 publication of The Hazards of Being Male: Surviving the Myth of Masculine Privilege, by Herb Goldberg, if not since the 1971 publication of The Manipulated Man, by Esther Vilar.

But it has never been the kind of dominant, mainstream narrative that feminism has been. It has struggled for relevance. Considering the attitude in the quote at the start of this thread, are the latter and former any surprise?

I wish I had a particular book with me right now. It defined evolution as the distribution of alleles in a population, or something like that. I do not remember the exact wording.

What I do know is that it contained nothing about "survival", "fittest", "adequate", etc.

Of course, a book published in 1979 is not going to be up to date now with evolutionary theory. But I doubt that anything has changed since then that now demands the use of, and a fight over the biologically-correct use of, words like "fittest".

The author even illustrated evolution as he defined it at work without "survival" being a factor: lower birthrates in wealthy countries.

The phone. That is your drug for dopamine and the source for deppression sometimes. We are getting worse at social interactions because we get the same dopamine from our phone as realtime interaction. It's your daily cheatcode to achive things and a loss of your time, soon people will realize how little they have achived compared to people that has done the opposite. They will start feeling oppressed.
Dopamine makes you feel enjoyment, as you want more of.

This could be because of stress, because of less realtime interactions. Maybe social awkwardness. — 12paul123

What is the connection between that and people in esteemed positions saying insensitive, stupid things and it turning into an uproar often ending in loss of employment?

Niall Ferguson's aforementioned controversial words were part of a speech, not anything done on a phone.

American culture is deeply neurotic at the moment. Terrified of its own shadow. The usual suspect is political correctness. But I think there's another reason. Americans have been at war in the Middle East since 9/11 and it's not going well. We've become a torture regime. We are still in Afghanistan and Iraq and several other countries too. We've spent trillions. But it's all with the "volunteer" army. The left gets busy with social causes, Use the right pronouns or we'll shame you and take away your livelihood.

They do that so they don't have to think about what their nation is doing abroad.

I always had that complaint about liberals. Toss them a bone on gay rights and they'll look the other way on torture. And now that the Supreme Court finally (and correctly IMO) put the issue to bed by legalizing gay marriage, the left needs to screech about pronouns and transgender rights. They need smaller and smaller causes as the foreign policy gets worse and worse.

And the right doesn't much care, they love the wars. The few anti-war conservatives get marginalized, like Pat Buchanan, or absorbed by the swamp, like Trump.

So we focus on pronouns and statues and virtue signaling.

Only a coincidence I'm writing this on 9/11, it would be true any day of the year. But today is sixteen years into this collective insanity. We "honor the heroes" and refuse to ask questions about where our government has taken us since that day. Where we've allowed our government to take us. — fishfry

In other words, things like a Denver, CO sports writer saying on social media that he was bothered by a Japanese driver winning the Indianapolis 500 on Memorial Day weekend; people being outraged over his words; his words being removed and him apologizing; and then his employer firing him are all distractions that keep us from seeing and thinking about the real sources of our problems, struggles and suffering.

I believe that that sound you hear is all of the wise, rational, clear-thinking people in the world collectively nodding their heads in agreement.

I thought John Maynard Keynes did not care about the long term because, his words, "in the long run we are all dead". Makes sense to me. But in any case, is it true that JMK didn't care about the long run ahead? My guess is that some gay and or childless people care little about the long run than some others, just as it is certain that some heterosexual people with many children do not give a rat's ass about the future. If I was speaking at a large education conference and said "some parents have too many children because they don't care about the future" I would expect to get tarred and feathered (and maybe lynched) even though the statement is (to the best of my knowledge) true... — Bitter Crank

I have not heard anybody in the social sciences or humanities say it, but surely somebody other than me--especially someone who makes his/her living studying human behavior--has observed that neoclassical economics tells us that we are all wired to be rational maximizers making marginal decisions. In other words, a philosophy that says individuals and organizations are wired to approach everything like "How much am I willing to pay for one more candy bar?" has dominated for several centuries in the West, therefore it probably should not surprise anybody when people do not see the big picture and the long-term.

— darthbarracuda

The bottom line is that we are not living within our means.

New technologies often are the result of the need to cope with problems created by previous technologies.

More significantly, as Richard H. Robbins organizes, outlines, and conveys so effectively in Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, the culture/system that has dominated the globe for the past 500 years, capitalism, requires perpetual economic growth. For the system to work, more and more things have to be commodified.

I would argue that when Silicon Valley designs and makes a new printer, a new gadget, a new operating system, etc. it is because something--anything--new has to be made to get consumers to consume, earn returns for investors, and the many other things that keep the system functioning. Hence, Steve Jobs said "It isn't the consumers' job to know what they want".

Whether it's McDonald's french fries, the latest printers, or a lot of things in between, how often do people in the affluent Global North really like, need or want the products that they consume? A lot of it collects dust and barely gets used, ends up in landfills, etc.

The problem is not "technology". The problem is stuff. See Annie Leonard's "The Story of Stuff".

We have things being made and consumed for the sake of being made and consumed so that more "value" can be calculated by economists and added to GDP. We have a system that now dominates the entire globe and requires perpetual economic growth and is completely incompatible with sustainability or any other living within our means. You should not be surprised by the meaningless, random stuff that such a system produces.

I highly doubt you "see" the actual person that she is and would be motivated by a number of other reasons to make it worth your while to get to know her as a friend. — TimeLine

I hope that "you" is being used generically there and does not refer to me.

I don't agree with how she worded it but if I interpret it charitably I suppose her point is that it all boils down to gender stereotpying (instead of mysogyny) and that's a result of juxtaposing men and women. So when I say "women should be [x]" its corollary "men should be [y]" is probably implicit and vice versa. (Don't cry cuz you're a guy --> I'm a girl so I can cry).

If she didn't mean that, I'll have to disagree with her conclusion. — Benkei

I think that it is clear that she is saying that hate/contempt for men does not exist and that all gender-based problems/issues are the result of misogyny.

Is feminism a sort of tribalism? — Jake Tarragon

I don't know.

What do you think?

It seems that we have people saying here that procedures and products to enhance physical attractiveness are an instrument of the dehumanization and oppression of women.

They leave out the fact that men are also investing in things like cosmetic surgery because attractive people have higher incomes.

Forget for a minute about cosmetic surgery that costs tons of money. Think about all of the advertisements targeting men with promises of solutions to gray hair, hair loss, low testosterone, etc.

There are even men suffering from eating disorders due to body image issues.

Yet, apparently we are supposed to believe that it is all due to our contempt for and hate for women.

I don't see the correlation.

No evidence has been presented that shows that it can all be traced back to misogyny.

And has anybody else noticed that no matter what ideal physique is presented or pursued it is called misogyny? If black men like women with excess body fat, we are told that that is compromising women's health to satisfy men. If Hollywood presents thin women as ideal we are told that that causes body image issues and eating disorders in women.

It is horrible that girls and women feel like they have to compromise their health to please and appeal to men.

But is it any different for men? We have men literally destroying their brains playing the game of American football. I think that it is safe to say that a lot of football is boys and men meeting the requirements to be considered masculine and that girls and women encourage it.

Yet--again--we are somehow supposed to believe that all of it is due to systematic, widespread, epidemic, often subconscious contempt for and hate for women. And--again--evidence showing that all of it leads back to such misogyny is not presented.

If the physical ideal that women are asked to meet varies that seems to me to suggest that our obsession with pleasure and our culture that requires people to compete with each other probably has as much, if not more, to do with it as any misogyny.

If we are being honest we will recognize and acknowledge that the most talented, most dedicated, hardest working, etc.--the most qualified--people often don't get the admission to college, jobs, promotions, loans, public offices, etc. Even straight white men lose to less-qualified people. Yet, apparently we are supposed to believe that everything is rigged so that being female and average looking keeps you oppressed, dominated/subjugated, etc.

Again, this whole misogyny paradigm is extremely oversimplistic.

Interestingly enough I don't read a conspiracy in it if you refer to the type of article that the OP referred to. It seems pretty obvious white men in Western countries have had it very comfortable for quite some time historically speaking. And although many men are aware of that historical inequality and try to remedy existing inequality, a lot of how we treat each other is so automatic and ingrained; implicit association tests reveal this time and again. Even when we rationally pursue equality we are confronted with media that perpetuates gender stereotypes (and racist stereotypes)... — Benkei

Everybody is stereotyped.

"All men are jerks" seems to be a popular stereotype.

If you want something from the media, there's all the men in advertisements being portrayed as Pavlovian dogs in the presence of attractive women.

Yet, you never hear that part. You just hear how women are being objectified, or something like that.

And now we have a writer saying that men being stereotyped is entirely the result of misogyny and has nothing to do with any beliefs, feelings, attitudes, etc. about/towards men.

So women can't be strong, should look pretty, should let men talk but may be interrupted themselves, should take care of kids more than men, and still get paid less etc. etc. I don't think we should be defining it as mysogyny but it's definitely socially harmful as it condones a lot of unfairness as "natural"... — Benkei

But, according to the aforementioned quote, men should be strong, men should sacrifice their bodies, men should be assertive, men can't be trusted with kids, a man should have a job and a woman should not have to support him, etc. are the result of our hate for women. In other words, condoning unfairness against men as natural is a sign of the oppression of women.

And you can test this in your surroundings. Invariably, if you talk about successful women at some point their looks will be discussed. Last month I wanted to talk about Dafne Schippers (a successful Dutch athlete) and one of the first things one of my female colleagues said: "Yeah, she looks pretty good". Really? That comes before being the world champion for the 200 m sprint this year? I consider that pretty telling as it's not just an anekdote but happens constantly in various ways. The message to our kids is: it doesn't matter what you do if you're a girl as long as you look pretty. As a father of one, I find that highly worrying. — Benkei

And unattractive men are on a level playing field with attractive men?

I can think of plenty of examples where women's accomplishments are celebrated with no reference to their looks. ESPN spends plenty of airtime covering the University of Connecticut women's basketball program, and in that coverage I have never heard any reference to anybody's looks. I could think of plenty of other examples, I'm sure.

And if we are going to talk about physical beauty and sex/gender, let's not forget that men are judged by the attractiveness of their wives/girlfriends. And I think that it is safe to say that a lot of women exploit that. But if you say that a beautiful woman will only marry a "successful professional" and won't marry a plumber you will be told that she is doing what she has to do because she is oppressed for being female.

It's all due to misogyny, remember.

This argument (against the implicit social contract) has also been made here and in the PF.

Those who find truthfulness in "Taxation is theft" almost certainly will not not see the truth in "Property is theft."

Personal question: Do you see yourself as a citizen of the country in which you reside and therefore are obligated to accept the social contract that applies AS IF you had formally signed it?

I see myself as a citizen by birth of the U.S., and an unofficial signee of the social contract which seems to bind citizens of a given nation together. I may even be a literal signer of an oath in which I said I would support the government of the United States and would abide by its lows. I can't remember for sure, but if I did sign the oath, signing hasn't prevented me from obeying most laws but flouting a few others, or engaging in political speech that was extremely critical of the United States Government.

Whether I like the government or not, I believe that there is an inchoate, implicit social contract which we learn about and sign on to as we are gradually socialized from childhood into responsible adulthood. It sort of works the same way that baptism does: the baptized become a part of the mystical body of Christ whether they jolly well like it or not. By staying in one jurisdiction long enough to become a resident, one becomes a signatory to the social contract--like it or not.

If this country, state, county, city, or township is the place where you live, then you are part of the social contract. (It protects you to some degree; it isn't all coercive demands.)

Are you now, or have you ever been, a libertarian? — Bitter Crank

No, I have never been a libertarian.

I simply objectively stated a self-evident fact as a reply to the assertion that residing in a place is some kind of tacit or explicit consent: very few people have much or any control over where they reside much of the time.

Unless you live in an absolute dictatorship, you have implicitly assumed the responsibilities of citizenship, one of which is supporting the government. You have probably never voted for candidates who promised to eliminate taxes altogether, or to make taxes a purely voluntary act.

You, and everyone else in whatever nation you live in, have similarly consented to be governed by the laws of the nation.

Because you voluntarily live in a society where governments collect taxes, then no one is stealing anything from you when you pay taxes. — Bitter Crank

But some people argue that they have never consented to any act of any government and that everything, from contributing to national defense to sending one's children to school, is coerced.

And it makes no sense to say "By living here you are consenting to the responsibilities of citizenship here". People don't choose where they are born. Governments regulate migration, so nobody is free to travel and/or reside wherever he/she wants to.

It's not realistic to categorically say that anybody tacitly or directly consents to anything by being in a particular location. Even when people have the freedom to relocate, such as within the U.S., it doesn't necessarily mean that they consent to anything by being in a location. A person located in San Francisco, CA isn't necessarily consenting to any legal responsibility under San Francisco city/county law or California law. It could be that he/she does not have the resources to move to any other location.

You put the word "period" at the end of the thread title for emphasis, — John Days

It was all that would fit in the thread title field.

It had nothing to do with "emphasis".

followed by an ellipses, as though there's actually a little more after the period. — John Days

There was a lot more after "Period". There's a categorical statement about the non-existence of misandry.

I've heard plenty of statements about particular things, such as indifference to male rape victims, not being due to misandry. But never before had I seen or heard it stated categorically that misandry does not exist.

Is it really thought we were "better" people in pre-Enlightenment times? — Ciceronianus the White

No.

But any honest, objective evaluation of the epoch of the last several centuries in the West must consider everything in that epoch, not cherry-picked anecdotes about science eradicating certain infectious diseases.

I don't think that we have the tools to undertake such an honest, objective, thorough evaluation. We'd have to account for all suffering, such as all of the suffering of animals on factory farms that made it possible for only a small percentage of the population to be employed in agriculture and freed other people to do things like develop vaccines. And so many other things, like the nearly complete destruction of the indigenous people of the land that is now the United States of America.

Not only is it not acknowledged that a thorough accounting is not possible, most accounting that can be done, such as the treatment of Native Americans by Europeans and the United States of America, is almost never brought into the conversation and is something that 99.9% of people are oblivious to.

But nobody is oblivious to science, technology, modern medicine, etc. We are socialized from the moment of birth with constant messages in education and the mass media about how great science, technology, etc. are.

The more that I write about it the more that this whole epoch in the West from the Renaissance through the Enlightenment to present looks like a very long, drawn-out episode of extreme narcissism.

For several years now I have wondered if the ethnographic record shows any people more self-congratulatory than the people of the modern West. That question now seems especially appropriate.

And, almost predictably, discussions of the legacy of the European Enlightenment always seem to include at least one reference to how pre-Enlightenment people were worse or no better. My guess is that they did not see life, society, the world, etc. in terms of moral superiority and inferiority. I don't know if moral superiority was an Enlightenment goal or is just a byproduct of other Enlightenment developments, but it seems to be an irrational obsession among the disciples and heirs of a movement that supposedly epitomizes the appreciation of rationality.

Well, not a very good case, I think. We're the cause of the problems which afflict us, not science or technology. The Enlightenment can't be blamed for the fact that we're corrupt, stupid, greedy, selfish, cruel, ruthless, ignorant, immoral etc. — Ciceronianus the White

Therefore, science, technology and the Enlightenment are the creations of corrupt, stupid​, greedy, selfish, cruel, ruthless, ignorant, immoral people.

Yet, apparently we are supposed to believe that science, technology and the European Enlightenment are somehow exceptions to or somehow transcend humanity.

Heck, it wouldn't surprise me to find that "humanity" is itself a creation of the European Enlightenment and that no such concept existed before it.

If we really believe​ that science and technology somehow transcend humanity then I guess it is no surprise that we now have transhumanism and people calling for decision making by humans to be replaced by AI.

I would say that anybody who thinks a human creation like science is some innocent being that has done nothing but good in spite of its creators is really desperate to deny reality and find something to cling to.

Science, for the most part, is actually quite boring and the occasional interesting discovery that bubbles to the surface does so surrounded by the mundane. In fact most of the interesting scientific discoveries are interesting because they are philosophically relevant. The theory of evolution is hugely relevant to how we perceive ourselves. The size of the universe puts our significance into doubt. But the atomic mass of a carbon atom? The structure of a liver cell in cows? The chemical composition of martian soil? — darthbarracuda

I suppose if a person is looking for entertainment, comfort, a distraction, an escape, etc. science is not one of the better options available. Pop music is light years ahead of pop-science in entertainment value.

But the notion that science, philosophy and religion are only as valuable as their ability to ask and answer certain big questions is hogwash.

Science--even "the atomic mass of a carbon atom"--can be as beautiful as any work of poetry, fiction, art, architecture, historical narrative, etc.

Just the other day I was having a conversation with someone about what I took from a college physical geography class about how the Great Lakes were formed. Water filled crevices in the Earth's surface. That water then froze and expanded, froze and expanded, and froze and expanded. Gradually large chunks of the Earth's surface were loosened. Then glaciers passed over and ripped out of place a bunch of those loosened chunks. Then rain and snow filled the big holes that were left. Now we have the Great Lakes. It's not "pop-science" written to be on best-seller lists--it is what I learned in the geography department of a public research university. And thinking and talking about it is as enjoyable and satisfying as reading good poetry, reading a well-crafted argument in metaphysics, taking in an impressive work of architecture, etc.

The human population is full of many different personalities, learning styles, thinking styles, communication styles, etc. Just like how musical palates vary from one person to the next, people's spiritual and intellectual palates vary.

Philosophy, as it is usually presented, may not be for everybody.

Philosophy presented with a diverse audience in mind might appeal to more people--even the scientists who dismiss it as useless.

If something has value and that value could be appreciated by many people, it is up to the people who already appreciate that value to show that value.

If people want to say that scientists are horrible at public relations and fail to show the value of their ideas to diverse audiences, fine.

But let's not conflate a lack of appreciation with a lack of value.

More importantly, if appreciation is lacking, like when Neil deGrasse Tyson says that philosophy is useless, vocalizing further lack of appreciation (firing back with "Science is boring") is not a prudent, diplomatic response. We've all heard "Kill them with kindness". Well, kill the non-appreciators with appreciation.

Maybe I am alone, but I see no reason not to appreciate and enjoy all of it as much as I can.

And the people who are able to appreciate things like "the structure of a liver cell in cows" would probably be a joy to listen to.

If science is "boring" it is because the person who is presenting it does not appreciate it or is not good at conveying appreciation.

If nobody appreciated it--if everybody really thought it is "boring"--the work would end.

When will people understand that science is philosophy?

As I saw one person once put it, "Science is a nicely-packaged philosophy".

— Bitter Crank

I have not attended church regularly for more than 20 years. But before that I was active, from my earliest years as a teenager through graduating from high school, in a Southern Baptist church in a blue county (Obama got the majority here in '08 and '12; democrats always get the majority here in presidential elections) in a red state (Bush in '00 and '04; McCain in '08; Romney in '12; Trump in '16). I regularly interacted with some of the people you characterize as sociopaths, and they were from college-educated middle-class families, not families with little education and living in poverty.

Even when I have not attended church I have regularly interacted with some of those Evangelical Christians you would characterize as sociopaths. Again, middle class, college-educated people living and working in a county that always ends up on the electoral map in blue.

Although I have not regularly attended church in a long time, I have on a few occasions visited churches. Some of them are known for their strong conservative, anti-abortion, anti-same-sex-marriage evangelical credentials. Again, suburban mega-churches in an affluent city, and pews filled with affluent, educated, middle class people living the American Dream.

I think that the narrative about religion in the United States of America that has developed since the start of the culture wars in the 1970's grossly oversimplifies, stereotypes, and distorts social reality.

I have also interacted with a lot of Christians who have aligned themselves with left/liberal/progressive positions and who give as much love to the conservative evangelical Christians as the conservative evangelical Christians give to their enemies. Neither group is nice. I would not wish life with either group on anybody.

But there are also the secular humanists, anti-theists, etc. in that aforementioned narrative. They are not nice people either. I would not wish life with them on anybody either.

I do not have a PhD in psychology, but my subjective experience and anecdotal evidence tells me that no group has a monopoly on sociopathy.

I would say that the difference is in how organized, well-funded, visible, etc. each group is. The secularists humanists, anti-theists, etc. are a small minority in the U.S., I think it is safe to say.

That barely scratches the surface. I could write for several more hours about all of the oversimplification, prejudice, stereotyping, etc. that that increasingly popular narrative contains. Look at this essay titled Blinded by the Right? How hippie Christians begat evangelical conservatives.

It's a whole series of things, not one thing. Among them...

hand washing and antiseptics
trained midwives
pre-natal care
antibiotics
C-sections can help, but only in surgical setting, and not just for the convenience of the doctor.
better diet (healthier mothers)
better sanitation (fewer infant GI infections)
electrolyte drink (salt, a little sugar, clean water) for infant diarrhea

Stuff like that — Bitter Crank

I would say that those and anything else that has reduced or eliminated maternal mortality and infant mortality has changed the lives of humans more than anything else.

I don't have exact numbers, but it is my understanding that before all of that men lived longer than women (that has flipped) and most newborn children--even if we control for infanticide--did not live past a very young age.

What is the most life changing technology to effect the quality of human life so far? — Ponderer

Whatever has reduced or eliminated maternal mortality (the death of women due to pregnancy and childbirth) and infant mortality.

Well, one thing it provided me was the ability to explore the question on my own terms. That should never be taken lightly. However, it took me a lot of study and reading to understand the sense in which Biblical Christianity is concerned with 'spiritual freedom' at all, because that kind of terminology is foreign to their lexicon. I was more interested in the Eastern idea of liberation which I learned about through the 60's counter-culture - think Sgt Peppers - although in the end, I have come to understand that there is perhaps more in common between the two approaches than meets the eye... — Wayfarer

Freedom through Christ.

You're compressing an awful lot into a single paragraph. I will see if I can unpack it a bit. First - 'personal spiritual encounters' - I do believe that these are the basic substance of the Bible (not that I am well versed in the Bible.) But I think they have an existential depth and immediacy which most of the 'cultured despisers of religion' are blind to, as they reflexively reject the entire narrative as myth (and 'merely' myth)... — Wayfarer

Just looking at the Gospels--although I am sure the same theme could probably be found in the Old Testament and the rest of the New Testament--we don't seem to get a picture of illiterate masses at the bottom and top-down teachings, doctrine, etc. from a few people at the top. We seem to get a picture of Jesus constantly on the move ministering directly to whoever he encounters, crowds following him, etc.

But on the other hand, it has to be acknowledged that the Church exploited its position as the self-appointed sole custodian of the faith for immense political power. That was one of the major motivations behind Protestantism. And their aim was to restore the purported rightful relationship of man to God through faith rather than through priestly intermediaries and the vast machinery of the Church. But then, the Protestant God tended to vanish into the heaven of abstractions, leaving us in an 'all or nothing' position - either blind submission, 'salvation by faith alone', or wholesale rejection. I see a lot of what grew out of the Enlightenment, therefore, as an historical reaction against Christian dogma, conceived of as a regressive political apparatus, peddling superstition to maintain its power... — Wayfarer

That states it more clearly--and unbiased--than anything I have seen before. Very helpful.

I think that Protestant fundamentalism can be understood the same way: a reaction to the excesses of science and capitalism.

I think that was what Kant had in mind when he wrote his famous essay which is one of the foundational documents of the enlightenment, aptly named 'What is Enlightenment'?

Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! [Dare to know!] "Have courage to use your own reason!" – that is the motto of enlightenment. — Immanuel Kant

I have to say, I can't see a lot wrong with that, except that when it became allied with positivism and the rejection of all religious metaphysics, it naturally tended towards scientific materialism. But it really didn't have to; Kant was an absolutely implacable foe of materialism, he never would have endorsed such an idea. It was he who said 'I had to declare a limit to knowledge to make room for faith' (although his faith would never be any kind of fideism, or clinging to dogma)... — Wayfarer

I think that the "not in lack of reason" part needs to be emphasized more.

In other words, it's not like Europeans suddenly discovered reason and the ability to use it in the 18th century. Reason was simply elevated, brought to the forefront, for the first time. At least that is the way that I, nowhere near having a PhD in History, would characterize it.

you might recognize that certain things have been resolved. For example, with regard to what have previously been fatal diseases, like malaria, polio, smallpox, typhoid fever, tetanus, diphtheria. Of course, the resolution of diseases merely saves and prolongs life, and you may consider that insignificant. — Ciceronianus the White

I hope that it is correct that certain diseases are "resolved", but I don't think that anything is that simple.

For one thing, a case could be made that modern science and technology have only corrected problems that they created. And that while some people have lived longer and healthier lives other people have been made worse off.

And it could ultimately be a losing battle. All of the antibiotic use, vaccinations, etc. could result in a superbug that costs more than the sum of the benefits we have accumulated to date.

There's a wild card out there. It's called "It may be a zero-sum game".

Altruism.

I have had the subversive thought, that the whole aim of liberal democracy is to make the world a safe place for the ignorant. (I mean 'ignorant' in the spiritual sense.) It provides everyone with the freedom to do what they want, but at the same time has lost the philosophical or spiritual sense of what 'freedom' actually implies or requires. I mean, in classical cultures, it was understood that to be a 'slave to the passions' was philosophically and ethically harmful; say that to the proverbial man in the street nowadays, and they wouldn't have a clue what you're talking about. I think this is the meaning of that well-known 60's counter-cultural manifesto, Marcuse's One Dimensional Man, although at the time that was popular, I wasn't into leftist stuff, so had no idea what it was about.

But the 'forces of oppression' are not 'the system', and they're nowhere outside yourself. Sure, modern culture has no concept of spiritual liberation, but they don't have the means to deprive us of freedom; spiritual freedom is something we have to discover ourselves. — Wayfarer

I don't know of anything that can be attributed to the European Enlightenment that aids in that discovery.

People like to point to the Gutenberg Bible, the printing press, mass literacy, etc., but that implies that pre-literate societies and illiterate individuals had/have no spiritual life. It also ignores that literacy is often used to consume entertainment and "information" rather than to pursue anything spiritual or intellectual.

Speaking of the Bible, it seems to be full of stories of personal spiritual encounters, not puppets being manipulated by authorities and needing liberation through becoming autonomous agents​ of reason.

I can't think of any work that has helped me grow spiritually and intellectually that owes its inspiration to the European Enlightenment.

The crucial issue is that secular humanism/scientific materialism has torn the Western intellectual tradition from its moorings in the Judeo-Christian tradition... — Wayfarer

Yes, it does strongly feel like personal and collective spiritual and intellectual life are now in the clutches of narrow secular worldviews that may be backed by more oppressive government control and funded by more resources than the pre-Enlightenment oppressors could have ever began to imagine or dream of.

But when you can incarcerate massive numbers of people who are not useful in the oppressors' system and subdue everybody else with anti-depressants and an entertainment industrial complex (opening​ Saturday of college football tomorrow!), who needs heretics to burn at the stake? And you can congratulate yourself for how progressive and humane your methods are compared to the "barbarism" of those less civilized pre-Enlightenment people!

Kind of like how you get to congratulate yourself for how your weapons of mass destruction and your mutually assured complete destruction of each other has created unprecedented global peace!

I'm not seeing anyone suggesting that AI ought to govern, I think that idea is science fiction... — Wayfarer

"In particular, it is supposed, a hundred million dollars from Peter Thiel put toward the project of making a benevolent super-AI will do far more to improve the world than any political movement, since the first super-AI will, in Yudkowsky’s view, be the last form of government humans will ever know. AI is either the solution to all of humanity’s problems, or its final solution..." -- Problems of Transhumanism: Liberal Democracy vs. Technocratic Absolutism

Gee thanks. I thought I provided one - but, no response. — Wayfarer

Maybe I overlooked it.

Not a good time for me with respect to mental health.

Speaking of time, not much of it. Two jobs, a lot of hours, very little time off.

I don't care what the source is--a prophet, a coin toss, dumb luck, an accident, carefully designed rigorous empirical science--I want the truth.

If truth is not like postmodern theorists say--completely situated/contextual--and if, as Enlightenment champions seem to insist, it is something that all rational minds can arrive at, we have a problem.

If you follow intellectual life in the modern world you wouldn't know that there is any truth that a significant number of people, let alone all rational minds, have arrived at. Instead you find--from my vantage point, at least--nothing but confusion.

And I asked at the beginning of this thread for one--just one--definitive, conclusive question and answer that this whole Enlightenment/modernist epoch has produced. No response.

I would quite like to know what form of government is the closest to being perfect? — Sigmund Freud

Whichever one the people being governed trust the most.

What kind of system of government might be better than a system where the citizenry elects representatives. — Wayfarer

Apparently, according to what I have been reading, elites have never trusted common people with any role in government and some of today's elites are taking that to the extreme of saying that democracy is a failure and that we need powerful AI to replace all humans in the job of governing.

"...you still might get your entire plan chucked into the round file because some computer has determined your business plan will attract automobile traffic in excess of the carrying capacity of nearby roads".

Uh, GIS?

This animation shows the manner in which Boston filled in the bay to achieve the present (mostly by 1900) size/shape of the city. — Bitter Crank

And it conveys information that sociology, political science, economics, psychology, etc. barely, if at all, convey.

Portland has done some good things like their bicycle promotion, light rail and traffic management. They also (I've heard, never been there) avoided building more freeways. Minnesota was at one time an example of good planning. The legislature chartered the Metropolitan Council to conduct the boundary crossing affairs of 2 large, 10 medium, and a dozen small towns in the metro area, plus 5 counties. Water, sewers, sewage treatment, and mass transit are their bailiwicks. It does give them leverage, but over the several decades it has existed, it seems to have lost some of its clout. Metro Twin Cities may not be quite as scattered as Houston--there just aren't nearly as many people here. Back in the 80s the bicycle clubs always said "every year you have to ride another mile to get out of town" and that seems to have held true since then.

I have been reading the history of Boston and New York City Mass Transit, and the middle-history of Boston --1850-1920. I was a bit relieved to discover that 150 years ago the cities took about as long to get projects off the ground and completed as they do today--5, 10, 20, 30, sometimes 50 years. Plans were drawn up, everybody's support was marshaled, legislature approval was gotten, then at the last minute the coalitions would fall apart, and another decade or two would pass.

And once they finally got going, it took them about as long as it does now--certainly not much longer. New York laid their first subway (20 miles worth) in about 3 years, if I remember. That was in 1904, +/-. Most of it was cut and cover, and some of it was blasting through tough or dangerous rock. And, once it was finished, it worked -- and it's still working. The problem now is that it is old and working harder to move ever larger numbers of people.

I was particularly interested in how small Boston was originally -- not population wise, but acreage wise. So much of the central part of the city is reclaimed bay. That started in the 1700s. "Boston" (also known as Shawmut) was originally a small square patch of land in the bay connected by a long narrow neck of land. Once rail became available (1840s?) they started infilling in earnest, hauling gravel in from a fair distance (at the time) and dumping it into the bay. The Beacon Hill above Boston Commons where the State House sits, was a once much higher hill and was cut down a great deal, and the rubble was dumped into a piece of what would become the Public Gardens. Later it was decidedly the toniest of neighborhoods when the filing in was finished. Beacon Street runs on top of what was a very wide dam across the bay -- they were going to use the bay for water power -- didn't work out.

It just amazes me what energetic and effective civil engineers they had back then. — Bitter Crank

This reminds me of a story I saw recently. There's a bunch of tunnels underneath Cincinnati, OH and most people don't know about them (I didn't). They were going to build a subway system--early 1900's, I believe--but an interruption in funding or something like that prevented the project from ever being completed.

If I had any clout I would funnel everything towards infill and towards pedestrian-friendly, bicycle-friendly developments that encourage people to keep their automobiles parked. I'm sure that the heirs of that earlier civil engineering could pull it off.

Houston was a mess before the flood, but lots of cities have failed to do any strategic planning for their growth. For instance, large developments generally won't get built if the city says, "No, we are not putting water and sewer 10 miles into rural countryside." Instead, they just lay the lines wherever some developer wants them, whether it's on top of an earthquake fault, in a flood plain, below unstable mountain sides, or next to a poorly managed high-level radioactive waste dump. Liars, thieves, knaves, and scoundrels all. — Bitter Crank

I was just showing how a tidbit from my own personal inquiries into geography now has some context.

Notice that the two commentators have different views on the role of zoning.

It's the first time that I have heard of Houston being an example of sprawl and poor planning. I had always heard Atlanta, GA being the go-to example of sprawl.

And Portland, OR seems​ to be the go-to example of good planning.

It seems like our dominant geographic patterns, such as most of the population living on coasts, will increasingly be things that can no longer be absent from our conscious minds. Things like aesthetic desirability may now take a back seat behind physical safety and security in people's choices of where to live. If the electoral college remains in the U.S. Constitution all of that relocating could dramatically affect politics. Etc. Etc.

Who would have thought that a small variable like zoning laws might have such far-reaching consequences?

Hopefully our lessons from Hurricane Katrina and other previous disasters will help the victims of Hurricane Harvey.

In the 1600's there were about half a billion living humans. Today there are over seven billion living humans...

Life expectancy in 1600 was about 40 years of age. Today global life expectancy is over 70- years of age, and over 80 in first world countries.

The enlightenment lead to an understanding of how to live healthier and longer lives, in much greater numbers. That's an important advancement. But I would also say that the enlightenment is in and of itself a resolution to a particular problem: "how do we reliably gain useful knowledge and discard falsity?". If you weren't taught by someone to explicitly and inherently question things, and if you were never offered an understanding of the material world produced by science, would you have ascended to your current state of avant guarde critical prowess?

I reckon you would be stuck in a rural farm, worrying mainly about this year's crops and whether or not your wife will die as a result of her pregnancy (or you from yours), and any notions of objective truth and meaning would remain mostly out of sight and mind and culturally moored by the authority wielded over you by your lord, and his lord over him.

I believe I've offered this explanation to you before, but the since the enlightenment we've come to realize that just because it fell out of a king's ass doesn't make it sweet. We learned to question things and test them for their validity and utility, and also to innovate in spite of dogma and tradition. Everything that you wave off as unimportant is to someone else priceless. Curing even a single disease is important, and we have cured many. The double edge of modernity causes some suffering and poses continuing risks, but the payoffs have been worthwhile and we've done more good than harm according to the statistics. We could go back to merely scrounging in the dirt to sustain our existence; would you like that? If it's not a return to some kind of hunter-gatherer primitive lifestyle that you envision, what is it you believe is the way forward?

How do we become more knowledgeable by blindly and emotionally discarding anything that is not perfect in every way? — VagabondSpectre

In other words, the ends justify the means.

On the other hand, again, those "means"--slavery, child labor, genocide, colonialism, cruelty to non-human animals, etc.--are almost never acknowledged, and on the rare occasion that they are acknowledged they are viewed as nothing more than hiccups on the march of "progress" and "liberty", not as necessary contributors to the outcomes that we congratulate ourselves for ad nauseam.

Your selection of what you consider to be unresolved is interesting. I'm not certain those questions/issues will ever be resolved to the satisfaction of everyone, but I don't consider that to be particularly damning of the Enlightenment. — Ciceronianus the White

I thought that it is not about subjective satisfaction. Most people are subjectively satisfied being dumb, ignorant, passive fools who never question anything.

I thought that it is about objectivity and intervention.

We sure have intervened a lot--so much so that our activity is believed to be dramatically altering the Earth's atmosphere (climate change).

But the objectivity part seems to have resulted in individual and collective confusion and chaos, not any significant clarity or order.

The impact of the Enlightenment can best be assessed by considering achievements in, e.g., medicine and science which have taken place since the year 1600, and comparing them with achievements before then. Wikipedia has its faults, but something like this is interesting and suggestive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_discoveries — Ciceronianus the White

I think that it is best assessed by people's experiences, not by taking a few "achievements" out of historical, geographic and sociological context.

In Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations, Steven Best and Douglas Kellner state that modernity has caused much untold suffering.

It has also caused a lot of known suffering. Just ask the Native Americans.

But that larger context seems to always get left out. It is always just a self-congratulatory story of independence from tyrants, conquering disease, unprecedented economic productivity, long periods without military conflict, etc.