I am so grateful for your wisdom and painstaking thoughtfulness. I deeply wish more public academics were as conscientious as you. Your work has been indispensable in keeping me sane this past year or so. Thank you.
Exquisite. What a gift you've shared. Everything I have always believed, now with language you've supplied to describe it. Blown away and truly grateful.
I hope that you are right and there is good reason to believe that you are. The success of the American republic in the latter half of the twentieth century delivered to current generations a remarkable - never perfect - polity that allowed a state of general welfare unparalleled in human history. But it did not occur by magic. It occurred because the generations in the early 20th century had seen the”darkness” inherent in our natural human condition: disease, childhood mortality, the Great Depression, hunger, poverty, World Wars, genocide, lynchings, racial injustice, environmental devastation…and, rather than fall into despair, acted through democratic governance to make things a little better. With remarkable - but never perfect - success. But with enough success that we began to take it all for granted. The fact that the world doesn’t - and can never - perfectly align with our individual desires and preferences became a pretext for some to rage at the very democratic institutions that allow for some measure of human flourishing at all. We forget that human existence is, always has been, and always will be precarious. But because our institutions cannot, even in principle, serve each of our individual wishes and desires perfectly, there has been a regression to a nihilistic desire to tear it all down - to allow a Trumpian bonfire of our vanities. But like adolescents who eventually come to realize that the world does not exist just for their own benefit, I think enough people are seeing that the destruction of decent democratic governance is returning us to a state of darkness. But the ascendant vanities of the current ruling class: greed, lust, resentment, hatred , fear, narcissism … by their very nature crowd out the most important characteristic of existence in the face of the human condition - which is courage. The people in Minnesota have shown us that courage still exists. It doesn’t preen and call attention to itself … but it is there. Quietly there. All is not lost.
As always, beautifully thought and beautifully expressed. I know of no one who so perceptively and eloquently expresses the existential challenge of our times. Thank you, Mike.
“What joins the Americans to one another is not a common nationality, race, or ancestry but their voluntary pledge to a shared work of both the moral and political imagination. My love of country follows from my love of its freedoms, not from pride in its armies or its fleets, and I admire the institutions of American government as useful and well-made tools (on the order of a plow, an axe, or a surveyor’s plumb line) meant to support the liberties of the people, not the ambitions of the state. The Constitution serves as the premise for a narrative rather than as the design for a monument or a plan for an invasion.”
"Richard Feynman crystallized this into a commandment: shut up and calculate."
It was Nathaniel David Mermin who said this, not Feynman. Though that's beside the point. The real questions underlying it are fundamental to physics, and where physics (particularly quantum physics) intersects metaphysics. What is the wavefunction? What does it mean to "observe" a particle? All of which Sabine covers in detail in her videos, for the curious.
I continue to quibble when you say "The Enlightenment that produced the Declaration of Independence also produced the philosophical architectures of racial classification, civilizational hierarchy...."
Travels reveal every national group believes they are superior in both breeding and culture. This is as true in India, Thailand, China and Japan as in France, England or Germany. Should we all get over this? Yes!! But it is in not attributable to "the Enlightenment." The Enlightenment was the road to being where we are now, that we can see the degree of mistake in such claims -- which is not absolute. As you show, the civilization of the Roman Republic *was* superior to the civilization of the Roman Emperors. As today many nations are far superior to Russia.
The Declaration of Independence was an Enlightenment production. The "philosophical architectures" were not new claims from the Enlightenment, but post hoc descriptions of how the world has always looked, not from the view of some sky god, but from the view from within every human culture. Our own babies are the cutest, to us.
If you are insisting that I am not sufficiently pluralistic in that other cultures and traditions can claim similar moral progress and achievements, I would say that I am no nationalist or jingoist. Nor do I assert moral superiority. I would say I take responsibility for pushing moral progress from within the political community that was born into, grew up in, and now try to influence in my own small way. That I do not hang-wring on the point that others may find me lacking the kind of global universalism they aspire to is understandable, I suppose. But I'm kind of a romantic, and I never denied being somewhat chivalrous in my nature.
One must stand somewhere. And move from that position. Others are invited to do the same. And I seek greater community with all humankind!
Was the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution not informed by Enlightenment philosophy? Is the shape of our institutions and political culture not formed inside this? I am unsure why the moral disapprobations and accusations of moral infidelity of those who framed these documents and institutions undermine my point. You are saying: These men were insufficiently pure in their ways by my sensibilities to be afforded the credit you give them.
Yet, I stand here and notice that their words remain the force of law in the republic in which I live.
I have a minor question. The tension between imagination and memory is time? Are you saying that time is not a dimension, but a construct of consciousness? That time would not exist, if consciousness did not? It seems to me that change and the march of entropy, continues whether or not there is consciousness. I am aware, that this question applies to a different essay. 16 I think
I am so grateful for your wisdom and painstaking thoughtfulness. I deeply wish more public academics were as conscientious as you. Your work has been indispensable in keeping me sane this past year or so. Thank you.
Exquisite. What a gift you've shared. Everything I have always believed, now with language you've supplied to describe it. Blown away and truly grateful.
I hope that you are right and there is good reason to believe that you are. The success of the American republic in the latter half of the twentieth century delivered to current generations a remarkable - never perfect - polity that allowed a state of general welfare unparalleled in human history. But it did not occur by magic. It occurred because the generations in the early 20th century had seen the”darkness” inherent in our natural human condition: disease, childhood mortality, the Great Depression, hunger, poverty, World Wars, genocide, lynchings, racial injustice, environmental devastation…and, rather than fall into despair, acted through democratic governance to make things a little better. With remarkable - but never perfect - success. But with enough success that we began to take it all for granted. The fact that the world doesn’t - and can never - perfectly align with our individual desires and preferences became a pretext for some to rage at the very democratic institutions that allow for some measure of human flourishing at all. We forget that human existence is, always has been, and always will be precarious. But because our institutions cannot, even in principle, serve each of our individual wishes and desires perfectly, there has been a regression to a nihilistic desire to tear it all down - to allow a Trumpian bonfire of our vanities. But like adolescents who eventually come to realize that the world does not exist just for their own benefit, I think enough people are seeing that the destruction of decent democratic governance is returning us to a state of darkness. But the ascendant vanities of the current ruling class: greed, lust, resentment, hatred , fear, narcissism … by their very nature crowd out the most important characteristic of existence in the face of the human condition - which is courage. The people in Minnesota have shown us that courage still exists. It doesn’t preen and call attention to itself … but it is there. Quietly there. All is not lost.
As always, beautifully thought and beautifully expressed. I know of no one who so perceptively and eloquently expresses the existential challenge of our times. Thank you, Mike.
Keeping the tradition 🧡📌 :
“What joins the Americans to one another is not a common nationality, race, or ancestry but their voluntary pledge to a shared work of both the moral and political imagination. My love of country follows from my love of its freedoms, not from pride in its armies or its fleets, and I admire the institutions of American government as useful and well-made tools (on the order of a plow, an axe, or a surveyor’s plumb line) meant to support the liberties of the people, not the ambitions of the state. The Constitution serves as the premise for a narrative rather than as the design for a monument or a plan for an invasion.”
- Lewis Lapham
"Richard Feynman crystallized this into a commandment: shut up and calculate."
It was Nathaniel David Mermin who said this, not Feynman. Though that's beside the point. The real questions underlying it are fundamental to physics, and where physics (particularly quantum physics) intersects metaphysics. What is the wavefunction? What does it mean to "observe" a particle? All of which Sabine covers in detail in her videos, for the curious.
Very good on Rome.
I continue to quibble when you say "The Enlightenment that produced the Declaration of Independence also produced the philosophical architectures of racial classification, civilizational hierarchy...."
Travels reveal every national group believes they are superior in both breeding and culture. This is as true in India, Thailand, China and Japan as in France, England or Germany. Should we all get over this? Yes!! But it is in not attributable to "the Enlightenment." The Enlightenment was the road to being where we are now, that we can see the degree of mistake in such claims -- which is not absolute. As you show, the civilization of the Roman Republic *was* superior to the civilization of the Roman Emperors. As today many nations are far superior to Russia.
The Declaration of Independence was an Enlightenment production. The "philosophical architectures" were not new claims from the Enlightenment, but post hoc descriptions of how the world has always looked, not from the view of some sky god, but from the view from within every human culture. Our own babies are the cutest, to us.
If you are insisting that I am not sufficiently pluralistic in that other cultures and traditions can claim similar moral progress and achievements, I would say that I am no nationalist or jingoist. Nor do I assert moral superiority. I would say I take responsibility for pushing moral progress from within the political community that was born into, grew up in, and now try to influence in my own small way. That I do not hang-wring on the point that others may find me lacking the kind of global universalism they aspire to is understandable, I suppose. But I'm kind of a romantic, and I never denied being somewhat chivalrous in my nature.
One must stand somewhere. And move from that position. Others are invited to do the same. And I seek greater community with all humankind!
Was the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution not informed by Enlightenment philosophy? Is the shape of our institutions and political culture not formed inside this? I am unsure why the moral disapprobations and accusations of moral infidelity of those who framed these documents and institutions undermine my point. You are saying: These men were insufficiently pure in their ways by my sensibilities to be afforded the credit you give them.
Yet, I stand here and notice that their words remain the force of law in the republic in which I live.
What am I to do with this?
Thank u Mike, what a gift. The "now" is love! I know it in my bones and now you have given words to it. Can't thank u enough.
Mystical Christianity, the god within, has always been supressed.
I have a minor question. The tension between imagination and memory is time? Are you saying that time is not a dimension, but a construct of consciousness? That time would not exist, if consciousness did not? It seems to me that change and the march of entropy, continues whether or not there is consciousness. I am aware, that this question applies to a different essay. 16 I think