Right on! I would add that built into most civilizations are the seeds of its own destruction, either from within or without. Our species has staggered from one pinnacle of human creativity to another. We have now arrived at a place where we have the wherewithal to, if not to end the game altogether, at least set it back several millennia.
The only way out is to recognize the corner we’ve painted ourselves into, and to implement basic cultural habits that can take us to a place where we won’t be in immediate danger of imploding. Can we do it? A bedrock condition is that this must be done in a multi-cultural civilization. What are the habits that it is now imperative that we incorporate into daily life? Can we make a list? I don’t think the sine qua non essentials are that many. Here’s a few starters:
TOLERANCE
Tolerance all around: for ethnicity, for religions, for worldviews, for individual differences and preferences, not begrudgingly, but heartfelt. Reaching this place will require adjustments that some will find hard to swallow, but not, it seems to me, impossible.
EMPATHY
A general level of tolerance is necessary but not sufficient. There must also be empathy at all levels, from the individual to the state.
EQUALITY
A state of mind that honors the birth of every human child and supports the life path of every person.
I assume that if we don’t slip into darkness, our civilization will continue to be multicultural, and that the realization of the necessary fundamental principles will take place in different ways in autonomous countries. In such a civilization there can only be a few firmly held common beliefs. At present it’s all up for grabs. Has nature and our history endowed us with minds that that can truly grasp that unless we dispel the mushroom cloud, the continuation of an Earth-based human civilization is problematic?
How wonderful that you should reply to this piece, which was after all written in response to one of our previous exchanges. I concur with your assessment that we now grapple with the risks of 'setting back civilisation' (I would probably resist that wording, but for reasons not worth exploring here). The risk of a millennia-scale setback has to be paired also with the risk of a century-scale setback. Having our conceptions of governance reset to 1924 seems to me to be a problem that we are already facing, whereas the greater disaster is merely possible.
"The only way out is to recognize the corner we’ve painted ourselves into, and to implement basic cultural habits that can take us to a place where we won’t be in immediate danger of imploding. Can we do it? A bedrock condition is that this must be done in a multi-cultural civilization."
Aye, but herein lies the roots of our problem. When Eleanor Roosevelt and her allies drafted the so-called Universal Declaration of Human Rights, she consulted primarily with Christian and Jewish thinkers. Even among the desert religions, Islam was not invited to this table until later - and this was a mistake, one that we are still reaping the whirlwind for now. Nor was this the only omission of perspective. The impulse was sound, the implementation too narrowly considered. Today, attempting the same process has become even more difficult, as even the Christian and Jewish intellectuals no longer represent a unified cultural faction.
Some comments on your 'starter' points for a future such cultural alliance.
Regarding tolerance, there are issues here that Isabelle Stengers touched upon. The risk of tolerance (the 'curse of tolerance' as Stengers puts it) is that tolerance entails a certain arrogance -"we know, you believe" and then "we tolerate your belief". As such, while acceptance of cultural difference is an important value, there are deeper problems that makes such tolerance much shallower that it needs to be. Indeed, in the shambles of the contemporary left, tolerance is vanishing faster than on the right. Social media even inculcates intolerance via its culture of blocking those you disagree with, and 'cancel culture' at large is an expression of even greater intolerance. Free speech has become a line in the sand, and many on what was once the left now seek to erase it.
While I agree with you that upholding an ideal of tolerance is not impossible, there are serious philosophical issues to solve here. The legacy media institutions, now that they have abandoned the journalistic ideals, are one of several key battlegrounds, because they monetise outrage, which fosters intolerance.
Empathy is an excellent ideal - in this regard, the arts have a crucial role that is woefully misunderstood.
As for equality, again, a fine ideal - but problematic in its details. Equality proceeds by a process of exclusion - the class of beings that are rendered equal is achieved by setting a borderline of beings not entailed in that equality. Kant and his contemporaries had their solution to this, and it is one that could still be applied... but it has 'slipped off the hook'. The moment it was decided that human rights could be overruled by evocation of emergencies, the human rights conception was quietly trashed, and now it is all emergencies from now on. Here again, the legacy media is part of the problem.
Nonetheless, these are all fine touchstones for the values that need preserving or re-igniting.
"I assume that if we don’t slip into darkness, our civilization will continue to be multicultural, and that the realization of the necessary fundamental principles will take place in different ways in autonomous countries. In such a civilization there can only be a few firmly held common beliefs."
A federalism of nation states is Kant's solution in a nutshell. But what we are facing now is a covert political pressure for internationalised governance - this indeed lies behind 'the New Normal'. Nations have come to be seen as 'problematic', which means of course that tolerance, empathy, and equality are all under threat. I still prefer Kant's solution, even with all the difficulties that come on that path.
"Has nature and our history endowed us with minds that that can truly grasp that unless we dispel the mushroom cloud, the continuation of an Earth-based human civilization is problematic?"
Isn't it interesting that this issue, once so central to protest, has become side-lined? There's a fascinating story to be told here too, and it is not the technological triumphalism that tends to dominate here.
Many thanks for such a stimulating contribution, Frank! Greatly appreciated.
"we require a solid background of shared presuppositions, without which disputes are impossible to resolve and effective communication becomes entirely inconceivable." No doubt this is the case; but I'm not sure there's a way to hold onto any "shared presuppositions" any longer. So far as I can tell, our education systems simply quit teaching these things and started promulgating the tantalising notion of social construction without noting that notions of murder and rape for instance are also social constructs. We're not the fist civilisation to fall apart. And as I keep pointing out, it seems to be a natural cycle. This fragmentation may even be a good thing, though it is difficult to navigate. While our civilisation is on the decline, it may be interesting to note that the other half of the world is prospering. There's something ecological to it, something even poetic. And yes, also tragic. The image of trying to stitch fallen leaves back to trees comes to mind. On that note, I'll leave you with this poem... which I wrote a few years back:
Fall Awakening
What wedding? What armistice? What coterie
has brightened the woods with such vital confetti?
The canopy alight with gold and glowing eerily
illumines path and grove with chill festivity.
Must have been the wicked winds and slanting rains
that laboured under darkened skies
and all their crafty hands that took the pains
to bring this musky, fecund fall alive.
Yet, I dread the arid grid of days that plots
the month, the bony fingers that tap the clock.
If I could, I’d reattach the flowers to their stalks,
return each leaf to linger at its knot.
I awaken from the drag of the metro train,
from the turnstiles, tunnels, revolving doors,
awaken from the tedium of passageways,
quicken in the midst of this elemental roar.
Here I am at last, I think; hold tight
and do not sink away again in watery might’ves;
do not fly off again in a hot air flight
toward that horizon and its widening bite.
Linger here as the last colours flutter,
as the maple keys twirl and putter;
celebrate with the victors the end of a war you’ve lost,
We have definitely have run into trouble on the 'shared presuppositions' front, but I decline to presume that there is no escape from the oubliette. I share the sense of a civilisation on the brink, but I remain cautiously optimistic that transformation, rather than collapse, is still a possible path forward. To some extent, that's why I'm writing Stranger Worlds. And I suspect that you could not engage so fully with the topics you explore at Analogy if you didn't harbour at least some hope that 'all is not yet lost'. 😉
Many thanks for this thoughtful comment, Asa - and for sharing the poem! Greatly appreciated.
I am capable of foreseeing the inevitable demise of this civilisation without believing "all is lost." Other civilisations have died and not all was lost, certainly not in the long run. In short, I suspect my optimism is of a different stripe from yours. I don't think there's anything to save, but I trust in the natural cycles under which we toil. Consequently, my aim is to speak to those who may be interested in what comes next: the next evolution in consciousness and the grassroots springing up in the wake of the fire presently consuming the late-stage forest we presently inhabit.
That's fair. I'm hedging my bets in this regard... investing in a future I cannot foresee is another motive for writing Stranger Worlds, and I suppose this is the parachute I am packing in case we cannot stop the nose dive. 😁
Right on! I would add that built into most civilizations are the seeds of its own destruction, either from within or without. Our species has staggered from one pinnacle of human creativity to another. We have now arrived at a place where we have the wherewithal to, if not to end the game altogether, at least set it back several millennia.
The only way out is to recognize the corner we’ve painted ourselves into, and to implement basic cultural habits that can take us to a place where we won’t be in immediate danger of imploding. Can we do it? A bedrock condition is that this must be done in a multi-cultural civilization. What are the habits that it is now imperative that we incorporate into daily life? Can we make a list? I don’t think the sine qua non essentials are that many. Here’s a few starters:
TOLERANCE
Tolerance all around: for ethnicity, for religions, for worldviews, for individual differences and preferences, not begrudgingly, but heartfelt. Reaching this place will require adjustments that some will find hard to swallow, but not, it seems to me, impossible.
EMPATHY
A general level of tolerance is necessary but not sufficient. There must also be empathy at all levels, from the individual to the state.
EQUALITY
A state of mind that honors the birth of every human child and supports the life path of every person.
I assume that if we don’t slip into darkness, our civilization will continue to be multicultural, and that the realization of the necessary fundamental principles will take place in different ways in autonomous countries. In such a civilization there can only be a few firmly held common beliefs. At present it’s all up for grabs. Has nature and our history endowed us with minds that that can truly grasp that unless we dispel the mushroom cloud, the continuation of an Earth-based human civilization is problematic?
Dear Frank,
How wonderful that you should reply to this piece, which was after all written in response to one of our previous exchanges. I concur with your assessment that we now grapple with the risks of 'setting back civilisation' (I would probably resist that wording, but for reasons not worth exploring here). The risk of a millennia-scale setback has to be paired also with the risk of a century-scale setback. Having our conceptions of governance reset to 1924 seems to me to be a problem that we are already facing, whereas the greater disaster is merely possible.
"The only way out is to recognize the corner we’ve painted ourselves into, and to implement basic cultural habits that can take us to a place where we won’t be in immediate danger of imploding. Can we do it? A bedrock condition is that this must be done in a multi-cultural civilization."
Aye, but herein lies the roots of our problem. When Eleanor Roosevelt and her allies drafted the so-called Universal Declaration of Human Rights, she consulted primarily with Christian and Jewish thinkers. Even among the desert religions, Islam was not invited to this table until later - and this was a mistake, one that we are still reaping the whirlwind for now. Nor was this the only omission of perspective. The impulse was sound, the implementation too narrowly considered. Today, attempting the same process has become even more difficult, as even the Christian and Jewish intellectuals no longer represent a unified cultural faction.
Some comments on your 'starter' points for a future such cultural alliance.
Regarding tolerance, there are issues here that Isabelle Stengers touched upon. The risk of tolerance (the 'curse of tolerance' as Stengers puts it) is that tolerance entails a certain arrogance -"we know, you believe" and then "we tolerate your belief". As such, while acceptance of cultural difference is an important value, there are deeper problems that makes such tolerance much shallower that it needs to be. Indeed, in the shambles of the contemporary left, tolerance is vanishing faster than on the right. Social media even inculcates intolerance via its culture of blocking those you disagree with, and 'cancel culture' at large is an expression of even greater intolerance. Free speech has become a line in the sand, and many on what was once the left now seek to erase it.
While I agree with you that upholding an ideal of tolerance is not impossible, there are serious philosophical issues to solve here. The legacy media institutions, now that they have abandoned the journalistic ideals, are one of several key battlegrounds, because they monetise outrage, which fosters intolerance.
Empathy is an excellent ideal - in this regard, the arts have a crucial role that is woefully misunderstood.
As for equality, again, a fine ideal - but problematic in its details. Equality proceeds by a process of exclusion - the class of beings that are rendered equal is achieved by setting a borderline of beings not entailed in that equality. Kant and his contemporaries had their solution to this, and it is one that could still be applied... but it has 'slipped off the hook'. The moment it was decided that human rights could be overruled by evocation of emergencies, the human rights conception was quietly trashed, and now it is all emergencies from now on. Here again, the legacy media is part of the problem.
Nonetheless, these are all fine touchstones for the values that need preserving or re-igniting.
"I assume that if we don’t slip into darkness, our civilization will continue to be multicultural, and that the realization of the necessary fundamental principles will take place in different ways in autonomous countries. In such a civilization there can only be a few firmly held common beliefs."
A federalism of nation states is Kant's solution in a nutshell. But what we are facing now is a covert political pressure for internationalised governance - this indeed lies behind 'the New Normal'. Nations have come to be seen as 'problematic', which means of course that tolerance, empathy, and equality are all under threat. I still prefer Kant's solution, even with all the difficulties that come on that path.
"Has nature and our history endowed us with minds that that can truly grasp that unless we dispel the mushroom cloud, the continuation of an Earth-based human civilization is problematic?"
Isn't it interesting that this issue, once so central to protest, has become side-lined? There's a fascinating story to be told here too, and it is not the technological triumphalism that tends to dominate here.
Many thanks for such a stimulating contribution, Frank! Greatly appreciated.
With unlimited love,
Chris.
"we require a solid background of shared presuppositions, without which disputes are impossible to resolve and effective communication becomes entirely inconceivable." No doubt this is the case; but I'm not sure there's a way to hold onto any "shared presuppositions" any longer. So far as I can tell, our education systems simply quit teaching these things and started promulgating the tantalising notion of social construction without noting that notions of murder and rape for instance are also social constructs. We're not the fist civilisation to fall apart. And as I keep pointing out, it seems to be a natural cycle. This fragmentation may even be a good thing, though it is difficult to navigate. While our civilisation is on the decline, it may be interesting to note that the other half of the world is prospering. There's something ecological to it, something even poetic. And yes, also tragic. The image of trying to stitch fallen leaves back to trees comes to mind. On that note, I'll leave you with this poem... which I wrote a few years back:
Fall Awakening
What wedding? What armistice? What coterie
has brightened the woods with such vital confetti?
The canopy alight with gold and glowing eerily
illumines path and grove with chill festivity.
Must have been the wicked winds and slanting rains
that laboured under darkened skies
and all their crafty hands that took the pains
to bring this musky, fecund fall alive.
Yet, I dread the arid grid of days that plots
the month, the bony fingers that tap the clock.
If I could, I’d reattach the flowers to their stalks,
return each leaf to linger at its knot.
I awaken from the drag of the metro train,
from the turnstiles, tunnels, revolving doors,
awaken from the tedium of passageways,
quicken in the midst of this elemental roar.
Here I am at last, I think; hold tight
and do not sink away again in watery might’ves;
do not fly off again in a hot air flight
toward that horizon and its widening bite.
Linger here as the last colours flutter,
as the maple keys twirl and putter;
celebrate with the victors the end of a war you’ve lost,
the resignation of all colour marrying the frost.
Dear Asa,
We have definitely have run into trouble on the 'shared presuppositions' front, but I decline to presume that there is no escape from the oubliette. I share the sense of a civilisation on the brink, but I remain cautiously optimistic that transformation, rather than collapse, is still a possible path forward. To some extent, that's why I'm writing Stranger Worlds. And I suspect that you could not engage so fully with the topics you explore at Analogy if you didn't harbour at least some hope that 'all is not yet lost'. 😉
Many thanks for this thoughtful comment, Asa - and for sharing the poem! Greatly appreciated.
I am capable of foreseeing the inevitable demise of this civilisation without believing "all is lost." Other civilisations have died and not all was lost, certainly not in the long run. In short, I suspect my optimism is of a different stripe from yours. I don't think there's anything to save, but I trust in the natural cycles under which we toil. Consequently, my aim is to speak to those who may be interested in what comes next: the next evolution in consciousness and the grassroots springing up in the wake of the fire presently consuming the late-stage forest we presently inhabit.
That's fair. I'm hedging my bets in this regard... investing in a future I cannot foresee is another motive for writing Stranger Worlds, and I suppose this is the parachute I am packing in case we cannot stop the nose dive. 😁