Do we live in an 'enlightened' world?

[rousseau]

I bought a small book a few months ago that consists of a chronology of world history from about 5000 BC to the twentieth century. Finally I picked it up last night and it was interesting because it was easy to see recurring patterns over time. The most noticeable of them all was this:

- [x] invades [y]
- [x] conquers [y]
- [x] defeated by [y]

Over time there was consistently war and conflict between different groups.

Now if you fast-forward to closer to the modern day you'll eventually pass through the 'enlightenment' period, where philosophers became more prominent, governments once again matured from monarchy into democracy, and science gradually became more refined. The common notion then would be that yes, we are indeed living in an enlightened world.

But if you go back to the world history chronology that I was reading, some of the patterns that existed thousands and thousands of years ago are still recurring. Conflict still happens, mass destruction still happens, terrorism happens, and so on, and somehow we sub-consciously justify these events as a part of the way the world works, rather than viewing them as irrational offspring of our sick society.

So maybe the biggest trick that we've played on ourselves in the modern era is to convince ourselves that our modern, westernized nations are rational and just, and to give them our blind loyalty, despite the fact that they are still manifesting conflict that's been recurring for all of human history.

The obvious direction the conversation goes from here is whether, as individuals, we have much control over the over-arching direction of our societies, or rather they naturally move by themselves. In other words: is it sensical to even define a society as enlightened or unenlightened if it just.. is what it is and is going where it's going. To that point I would say that this is closer to the truth. Society slowly evolves in its own way and looks *better than it used to be* so we call it enlightened, but this illusion actually stops us from seeing all of the stuff that is still profoundly wrong with the world around us.

So at that point we can either try to steer the ship with the notion that what we're doing right now is profoundly wrong, or profoundly right. I'd say, to a large degree, it's profoundly wrong.

 

[boneyard bill]

I bought a small book a few months ago that consists of a chronology of world history from about 5000 BC to the twentieth century. Finally I picked it up last night and it was interesting because it was easy to see recurring patterns over time. The most noticeable of them all was this:

- [x] invades [y]
- [x] conquers [y]
- [x] defeated by [y]

Over time there was consistently war and conflict between different groups.

Now if you fast-forward to closer to the modern day you'll eventually pass through the 'enlightenment' period, where philosophers became more prominent, governments once again matured from monarchy into democracy, and science gradually became more refined. The common notion then would be that yes, we are indeed living in an enlightened world.

But if you go back to the world history chronology that I was reading, some of the patterns that existed thousands and thousands of years ago are still recurring. Conflict still happens, mass destruction still happens, terrorism happens, and so on, and somehow we sub-consciously justify these events as a part of the way the world works, rather than viewing them as irrational offspring of our sick society.

So maybe the biggest trick that we've played on ourselves in the modern era is to convince ourselves that our modern, westernized nations are rational and just, and to give them our blind loyalty, despite the fact that they are still manifesting conflict that's been recurring for all of human history.

The obvious direction the conversation goes from here is whether, as individuals, we have much control over the over-arching direction of our societies, or rather they naturally move by themselves. In other words: is it sensical to even define a society as enlightened or unenlightened if it just.. is what it is and is going where it's going. To that point I would say that this is closer to the truth. Society slowly evolves in its own way and looks *better than it used to be* so we call it enlightened, but this illusion actually stops us from seeing all of the stuff that is still profoundly wrong with the world around us.

So at that point we can either try to steer the ship with the notion that what we're doing right now is profoundly wrong, or profoundly right. I'd say, to a large degree, it's profoundly wrong.

I'm not sure about putting a tag like "right" or "wrong" on what appears to be inherent human nature. You seem to be endorsing the Christian concept of original sin. We are bound to sin because we are fallen animals unlike the lower creatures who do not have any moral sense. This is actually more Platonic than Biblical. Plato taught about a "perfect" heaven and an "imperfect" earth. The perfect heaven included a moral code which we mortals are incapable of attaining. This was actually a significant departure from the thought of Plato's day because the gods of the ancient Greeks, though very powerful and in need of appeasement, were not particularly moral beings. This entered Christianity as the Fall of Man when Adam and Eve tasted of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And this became the doctrine of Original Sin. In Jewish theology the Christian "fall" of man is actually an event that lifts man up. Knowledge of good and evil is a good thing.

Christianity taught peace and love, self sacrifice and self forgetfulness. Yet most Christians have not acted that way in practice. Indeed, the Pope became an imitation of the Roman Emperor, and some popes even led armies into battle. Christians have had little problem fighting wars with other Christians. Sometimes religious differences were even the motivation for those wars.

In Buddhism we see the same pattern. Despite the teachings of the religion, Buddhists have fought wars with other Buddhists and Buddhism even emerged as the official religion of the Samurai who were professional warriors.

The Enlightenment should be seen the same way. It is yet another movement that urges peace and compassion for all people. Like Christianity and Buddhism, it teaches that all people are equal. And yet, it has not succeeded in bringing about a peaceful world any more than its compassionate predecessors.

I would even go so far as to say that it is also no more correct in its cosmology than its predecessors. The modern scientific world-view is filled with unresolved contradictions. We don't know what the universe is like. Most modern scientists, especially theoretical physicists, will acknowledge this fact but still cling to the view that we are somehow closer to the truth than the ancients. I don't think this is true. A world-view is a holistic thing. If you have some of the parts wrong, then your whole world-view is wrong, and the problem with the modern world view, is that it doesn't mesh very well with the modern ethical view.

Naturally this gives rise to post-modernism which is more or less the idea that we're just guessing about virtually everything, and any choice is simply an arbitrary decision to see things in this way or that but entirely lacking in any truly objective foundation.

 

[rousseau]

Well put.

So you would agree that the 'enlightenment' era was not an 'enlightening' of society, but rather an attempt to improve it.

Would be interesting to find some more high-level academic perspectives on that period of history, but I think you've worded it well.

At the same time, apart from the enlightening or not from the enlightenment period, it seems like much of the collective consciousness today believes we've reached some type of 'enlightened pinnacle'. We mistake technological refinement for progress.

 

[boneyard bill]

Well put.

So you would agree that the 'enlightenment' era was not an 'enlightening' of society, but rather an attempt to improve it.

Would be interesting to find some more high-level academic perspectives on that period of history, but I think you've worded it well.

At the same time, apart from the enlightening or not from the enlightenment period, it seems like much of the collective consciousness today believes we've reached some type of 'enlightened pinnacle'. We mistake technological refinement for progress.

Absolutely! The ancients made technological progress as well, but that didn't mean they knew more about the ultimate nature of existence. The same is true today. We have a different model than the ancients, but I don't think it is necessarily more accurate. Of course, when it comes to the size of the universe, the number of galaxies, etc. we have the technological equipment to discern such things better than the ancients did although the Hindus had made a pretty good guess at it compared to Western science.

Our current model will fall, is suspect, by the end of the century. It is difficult to say, however, what kind of new moral code it will give rise to, if any.

Ultimately, however, what the major religions of the world really say is that we will not find or create some kind of perfection in this world and can only seek it in an afterlife in heaven or nirvana or some such condition. I wouldn't be surprised if that view survived any new scientific paradigm.

 

[bilby]

Well put.

So you would agree that the 'enlightenment' era was not an 'enlightening' of society, but rather an attempt to improve it.

Would be interesting to find some more high-level academic perspectives on that period of history, but I think you've worded it well.

At the same time, apart from the enlightening or not from the enlightenment period, it seems like much of the collective consciousness today believes we've reached some type of 'enlightened pinnacle'. We mistake technological refinement for progress.

Absolutely! The ancients made technological progress as well, but that didn't mean they knew more about the ultimate nature of existence. The same is true today. We have a different model than the ancients, but I don't think it is necessarily more accurate. Of course, when it comes to the size of the universe, the number of galaxies, etc. we have the technological equipment to discern such things better than the ancients did although the Hindus had made a pretty good guess at it compared to Western science.

Our current model will fall, is suspect, by the end of the century. It is difficult to say, however, what kind of new moral code it will give rise to, if any.

Ultimately, however, what the major religions of the world really say is that we will not find or create some kind of perfection in this world and can only seek it in an afterlife in heaven or nirvana or some such condition. I wouldn't be surprised if that view survived any new scientific paradigm.

The scientific method is a ratchet; once models are being arrived at via science, each one is necessarily more accurate than the previous one. We most certainly do know more about the ultimate nature of existence than the ancients - although by 'we' I of course only mean those who bother to examine the knowledge we have, which excludes most people.

Our best models are identifiable using science, and are demonstrably better than the models our scientific predecessors had; whether our most commonly held models are better or worse than those of the ancients is another story altogether of course - lots of people firmly believe total bullshit today; and lots of people firmly believed different total bullshit in the past. Of course, the people in the past had more of an excuse, because their ignorance was not dependent on ignoring the publicly available and demonstrably accurate models put forward by the scientific community.

Political and moral ideas are typically completely unrelated to the scientific method; On the rare occasions that such models make an appeal to science, it is as an emotional hook to attract self-identified 'rationalists', rather than as a bedrock of facts on which a genuinely rational edifice might be based. Our politics has not taken advantage of the enlightenment, largely because the general public are inherently irrational, superstitious and emotional. Tribalism trumps reason, because everyone is inherently tribalistic to a great extent, and very few people are reasonable to any extent.

Look at the Western Front of WWI; millions of men killing each other for no particularly good reason were unable to sustain a successful mutiny, because their political and military commanders pressed every possible emotional and tribal button to get them to keep fighting against their own best interests. They were grouped into 'pals' battalions, so that the men alongside them were likely to be lifelong friends; they were fed propaganda about the viciousness and brutality of the enemy, and how awful it would be if he won; and if all else failed, the most mutinous individuals were publicly executed to scare the others into obedience. The one thing that was absolutely denied to the men at the front, above all else, was facts. Rationality needs facts to survive. The political commanders couldn't make a rational decision to stop fighting either; Having stoked the tribal and emotional fire in the bellies of their people, any failure to continue to act irrationally would have been ruthlessly crushed by the populace.

Society is doubtless better as a result of the enlightenment. But to expect more than subtle and glacially slow change, is to underestimate the huge inertia inherent in the tribal/emotional complex that has the vast majority of the world population enthralled.

 

[boneyard bill]

bilby writes:

Absolutely! The ancients made technological progress as well, but that didn't mean they knew more about the ultimate nature of existence. The same is true today. We have a different model than the ancients, but I don't think it is necessarily more accurate. Of course, when it comes to the size of the universe, the number of galaxies, etc. we have the technological equipment to discern such things better than the ancients did although the Hindus had made a pretty good guess at it compared to Western science.

Our current model will fall, is suspect, by the end of the century. It is difficult to say, however, what kind of new moral code it will give rise to, if any.

Ultimately, however, what the major religions of the world really say is that we will not find or create some kind of perfection in this world and can only seek it in an afterlife in heaven or nirvana or some such condition. I wouldn't be surprised if that view survived any new scientific paradigm.

The scientific method is a ratchet; once models are being arrived at via science, each one is necessarily more accurate than the previous one. We most certainly do know more about the ultimate nature of existence than the ancients - although by 'we' I of course only mean those who bother to examine the knowledge we have, which excludes most people.

That's one of the really great failings of modern civilization - hubris. A model is a whole. If one of the facts in the whole is wrong, then the entire edifice crumbles. But modern science doesn't allow it to crumble. It ignores contradictory evidence. The prevailing paradigm is not abandoned just because it is falsified. Read Thomas Kuhn's, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." Scientific paradigms are only abandoned when they are replaced by another paradigm. Newton's theory of gravity was not abandoned even though it failed to account for the orbit of the planet Mercury. It wasn't abandoned even after the Michaelson-Morley experiment called into question the idea of absolute space and absolute time upon which Newton's theory was based. It was only abandoned when Einstein came up with an alternative theory. For scientists to abandon a model, they must admit that they don't know anything about the subject, and that destroys the claim to expertise.

So, when a new theory is developed, it is not an incremental addition to the old theory. It is a "scientific revolution." It is not a new twist on an old subject. It is a completely new way of looking at the data.

Our best models are identifiable using science, and are demonstrably better than the models our scientific predecessors had; whether our most commonly held models are better or worse than those of the ancients is another story altogether of course - lots of people firmly believe total bullshit today; and lots of people firmly believed different total bullshit in the past. Of course, the people in the past had more of an excuse, because their ignorance was not dependent on ignoring the publicly available and demonstrably accurate models put forward by the scientific community.

As Einstein said, "Theory determines fact." What you begin with is meaningless data. You organize into a meaningful whole, the data then turns into fact. It attains meaning. So the model isn't built on facts. The model changes the facts. The world acquires an entirely new significance.

Political and moral ideas are typically completely unrelated to the scientific method; On the rare occasions that such models make an appeal to science, it is as an emotional hook to attract self-identified 'rationalists', rather than as a bedrock of facts on which a genuinely rational edifice might be based. Our politics has not taken advantage of the enlightenment, largely because the general public are inherently irrational, superstitious and emotional. Tribalism trumps reason, because everyone is inherently tribalistic to a great extent, and very few people are reasonable to any extent.

More hubris. Morals derive from our understanding of what the world is really like. In some cases, Catholic theology for example, that effort is quite consciously undertaken, but in most cases it is simply pre-supposed. We do not kill our own. But in most primitive or early cultures, the word for "human being" was the same as the name of their tribe. So they saw no problem in killing other people who were not "human beings."

In modern culture we regard each person as an autonomous and separate individual possessed of a personal and independent "will," and possessed of "rights" to express that will as we choose. That is not the view held by most cultures throughout history and it is easily demonstrated to be false. But our view of our "self" and our view of the universe cannot be separated. Newton's atomistic, billiard ball universe has come to pervade our sense of who we are and what our place in this universe is.

Look at the Western Front of WWI; millions of men killing each other for no particularly good reason were unable to sustain a successful mutiny, because their political and military commanders pressed every possible emotional and tribal button to get them to keep fighting against their own best interests. They were grouped into 'pals' battalions, so that the men alongside them were likely to be lifelong friends; they were fed propaganda about the viciousness and brutality of the enemy, and how awful it would be if he won; and if all else failed, the most mutinous individuals were publicly executed to scare the others into obedience. The one thing that was absolutely denied to the men at the front, above all else, was facts. Rationality needs facts to survive. The political commanders couldn't make a rational decision to stop fighting either; Having stoked the tribal and emotional fire in the bellies of their people, any failure to continue to act irrationally would have been ruthlessly crushed by the populace.

Earlier cultures held their armies together because their members were, quite literally, from the same tribe or at least the same ethnicity. The idea that the people's loyalties to their kin required a similar loyalty to their government was not a strong element of ancient cultures. The idea of nationalism is a modern one. It is a product of this "rational" enlightenment that you refer to.

Society is doubtless better as a result of the enlightenment. But to expect more than subtle and glacially slow change, is to underestimate the huge inertia inherent in the tribal/emotional complex that has the vast majority of the world population enthralled.

Rationalism was one side of the enlightenment. The other side was Romanticism. Rationalism gave rise to Marx, Lenin, and ultimately to Stalin. Romanticism gave rise to Hitler. These people are responsible for vastly more deaths than even the most ruthless of the ancient despots. Of course, they had the advantage of the technology that we acquired during and after the enlightenment.

 

[Kharakov]

The scientific method is a ratchet; once models are being arrived at via science, each one is necessarily more accurate than the previous one. We most certainly do know more about the ultimate nature of existence than the ancients - although by 'we' I of course only mean those who bother to examine the knowledge we have, which excludes most people.

The only way to get people to care about existence, their actions, and themselves is to recreate semi-primitive conditions for them to grow out of.

Science? All is known. The young need to struggle to come out of their own ignorance, to fit into the world around them, spoon fed they lose the will to live. They need to hunger for things, and at an early level of knowledge, primitive wealth and scientific knowledge are easier for them to understand. Sitting at a refined buffet with those who have lived for 1000s of years? Not for me.

So your claim that the scientific method is a ratchet is true, but it is a ratchet of motivation, a ratchet to grow the will, a ratchet to screw the young into society when they are overwhelmed by how advanced others are and feel like dropping out. All is know scientifically. Heaven is real. New souls need a bit of pain to give meaning to their actions.

And you know what.. the ancient ones harass me. Bunch of fuckers.

 

[bilby]

bilby writes:

The scientific method is a ratchet; once models are being arrived at via science, each one is necessarily more accurate than the previous one. We most certainly do know more about the ultimate nature of existence than the ancients - although by 'we' I of course only mean those who bother to examine the knowledge we have, which excludes most people.

That's one of the really great failings of modern civilization - hubris. A model is a whole. If one of the facts in the whole is wrong, then the entire edifice crumbles. But modern science doesn't allow it to crumble. It ignores contradictory evidence. The prevailing paradigm is not abandoned just because it is falsified. Read Thomas Kuhn's, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." Scientific paradigms are only abandoned when they are replaced by another paradigm. Newton's theory of gravity was not abandoned even though it failed to account for the orbit of the planet Mercury. It wasn't abandoned even after the Michaelson-Morley experiment called into question the idea of absolute space and absolute time upon which Newton's theory was based. It was only abandoned when Einstein came up with an alternative theory. For scientists to abandon a model, they must admit that they don't know anything about the subject, and that destroys the claim to expertise.

So, when a new theory is developed, it is not an incremental addition to the old theory. It is a "scientific revolution." It is not a new twist on an old subject. It is a completely new way of looking at the data.

Yes. Nothing in what I said suggests otherwise. The important thing is that the new model is better than the old - if it isn't, it isn't adopted. So the newer a scientific model is, the better it is.

Our best models are identifiable using science, and are demonstrably better than the models our scientific predecessors had; whether our most commonly held models are better or worse than those of the ancients is another story altogether of course - lots of people firmly believe total bullshit today; and lots of people firmly believed different total bullshit in the past. Of course, the people in the past had more of an excuse, because their ignorance was not dependent on ignoring the publicly available and demonstrably accurate models put forward by the scientific community.

As Einstein said, "Theory determines fact." What you begin with is meaningless data. You organize into a meaningful whole, the data then turns into fact. It attains meaning. So the model isn't built on facts. The model changes the facts. The world acquires an entirely new significance.

Well clearly you have a different definition of the word 'fact' than I do.

Political and moral ideas are typically completely unrelated to the scientific method; On the rare occasions that such models make an appeal to science, it is as an emotional hook to attract self-identified 'rationalists', rather than as a bedrock of facts on which a genuinely rational edifice might be based. Our politics has not taken advantage of the enlightenment, largely because the general public are inherently irrational, superstitious and emotional. Tribalism trumps reason, because everyone is inherently tribalistic to a great extent, and very few people are reasonable to any extent.

More hubris. Morals derive from our understanding of what the world is really like. In some cases, Catholic theology for example, that effort is quite consciously undertaken, but in most cases it is simply pre-supposed. We do not kill our own. But in most primitive or early cultures, the word for "human being" was the same as the name of their tribe. So they saw no problem in killing other people who were not "human beings."

In modern culture we regard each person as an autonomous and separate individual possessed of a personal and independent "will," and possessed of "rights" to express that will as we choose. That is not the view held by most cultures throughout history and it is easily demonstrated to be false. But our view of our "self" and our view of the universe cannot be separated. Newton's atomistic, billiard ball universe has come to pervade our sense of who we are and what our place in this universe is.

Indeed. And it has continued to dominate a century after Einstein, which just goes to show that most people are totally ignorant of science - and hence unable to use it to guide their decisions in any meaningful way.

Look at the Western Front of WWI; millions of men killing each other for no particularly good reason were unable to sustain a successful mutiny, because their political and military commanders pressed every possible emotional and tribal button to get them to keep fighting against their own best interests. They were grouped into 'pals' battalions, so that the men alongside them were likely to be lifelong friends; they were fed propaganda about the viciousness and brutality of the enemy, and how awful it would be if he won; and if all else failed, the most mutinous individuals were publicly executed to scare the others into obedience. The one thing that was absolutely denied to the men at the front, above all else, was facts. Rationality needs facts to survive. The political commanders couldn't make a rational decision to stop fighting either; Having stoked the tribal and emotional fire in the bellies of their people, any failure to continue to act irrationally would have been ruthlessly crushed by the populace.

Earlier cultures held their armies together because their members were, quite literally, from the same tribe or at least the same ethnicity. The idea that the people's loyalties to their kin required a similar loyalty to their government was not a strong element of ancient cultures. The idea of nationalism is a modern one. It is a product of this "rational" enlightenment that you refer to.

There is nothing rational about nationalism; it is just tribalism writ large - and modern communications allow people to have a larger view of who is part of 'us' rather than part of 'them' than they had in the past.

Society is doubtless better as a result of the enlightenment. But to expect more than subtle and glacially slow change, is to underestimate the huge inertia inherent in the tribal/emotional complex that has the vast majority of the world population enthralled.

Rationalism was one side of the enlightenment. The other side was Romanticism. Rationalism gave rise to Marx, Lenin, and ultimately to Stalin. Romanticism gave rise to Hitler. These people are responsible for vastly more deaths than even the most ruthless of the ancient despots. Of course, they had the advantage of the technology that we acquired during and after the enlightenment.

Political and moral ideas are typically completely unrelated to the scientific method; On the rare occasions that such models make an appeal to science, it is as an emotional hook to attract self-identified 'rationalists', rather than as a bedrock of facts on which a genuinely rational edifice might be based. Our politics has not taken advantage of the enlightenment, largely because the general public are inherently irrational, superstitious and emotional. Tribalism trumps reason, because everyone is inherently tribalistic to a great extent, and very few people are reasonable to any extent.

The 'rationalism' that gave rise to Marx, Lenin, and ultimately to Stalin was exactly the emotional hook I describe here; the philosophies of these individuals used a pinch of rationalism to leaven an otherwise stodgy diet of tribalism and emotion, and in doing so poisoned the view of rationalism as a political tool. Rationalism cannot be successfully used in politics until the population are sufficiently educated; and it is doubtful whether that condition can ever be achieved - it most assuredly is not anywhere near to coming to pass right now. Until people are sufficiently aware of how things really are to spot the emotional manipulation their leaders use on them, emotion and appeals to tribalism will always defeat any attempt to act rationally, where such action is not in the immediate interests of the people in power.

 

[untermensche]

We are rapidly making the planet less and less habitable.

We are in a gilded age of masters and near slaves and still many actual slaves.

We've moved a hair from the jungle, even if some do live in large houses.

 

[boneyard bill]

Posted by bilby:

bilby writes:



That's one of the really great failings of modern civilization - hubris. A model is a whole. If one of the facts in the whole is wrong, then the entire edifice crumbles. But modern science doesn't allow it to crumble. It ignores contradictory evidence. The prevailing paradigm is not abandoned just because it is falsified. Read Thomas Kuhn's, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." Scientific paradigms are only abandoned when they are replaced by another paradigm. Newton's theory of gravity was not abandoned even though it failed to account for the orbit of the planet Mercury. It wasn't abandoned even after the Michaelson-Morley experiment called into question the idea of absolute space and absolute time upon which Newton's theory was based. It was only abandoned when Einstein came up with an alternative theory. For scientists to abandon a model, they must admit that they don't know anything about the subject, and that destroys the claim to expertise.

So, when a new theory is developed, it is not an incremental addition to the old theory. It is a "scientific revolution." It is not a new twist on an old subject. It is a completely new way of looking at the data.

Yes. Nothing in what I said suggests otherwise. The important thing is that the new model is better than the old - if it isn't, it isn't adopted. So the newer a scientific model is, the better it is.

No. Because the model is a whole. For example, Newton's model led to a materialistic and deterministic view of the world. Everything, including the human will, was determined by the laws of physics. Einstein's view altered that slightly because space and time were not absolutes so you can't actually determine cause and effect in a 3 dimensional universe. You need to factor in time. You need a 4 dimensional approach. Is this because the evidence demands it? No. It only demands it if you are determined to retain the law of cause and effect. Other models can account for the data, but where is science without cause and effect? So Einstein's theory became accepted because of the needs of science, not because it was the only way to satisfy the data.

On the other hand, Quantum Physics is threatening to jettison the materialist view altogether. The existence of the universe cannot be explained without the participation of a conscious observer. This is much closer to the metaphysic of ancient Hinduism and Buddhism. So our "advances" lead us back to a very different model, but one which was accepted and promoted thousands of years before modern civilization.

The model is a whole, so a transformation in understanding physics has an influence on many other areas of science and of culture generally. We don't necessarily learn more. We learn and relearn. Or perhaps, in some situations, we merely relearn.

Our best models are identifiable using science, and are demonstrably better than the models our scientific predecessors had; whether our most commonly held models are better or worse than those of the ancients is another story altogether of course - lots of people firmly believe total bullshit today; and lots of people firmly believed different total bullshit in the past. Of course, the people in the past had more of an excuse, because their ignorance was not dependent on ignoring the publicly available and demonstrably accurate models put forward by the scientific community.

As Einstein said, "Theory determines fact." What you begin with is meaningless data. You organize into a meaningful whole, the data then turns into fact. It attains meaning. So the model isn't built on facts. The model changes the facts. The world acquires an entirely new significance.

Well clearly you have a different definition of the word 'fact' than I do

.

That isn't what I said. That's what Einstein said.

Political and moral ideas are typically completely unrelated to the scientific method; On the rare occasions that such models make an appeal to science, it is as an emotional hook to attract self-identified 'rationalists', rather than as a bedrock of facts on which a genuinely rational edifice might be based. Our politics has not taken advantage of the enlightenment, largely because the general public are inherently irrational, superstitious and emotional. Tribalism trumps reason, because everyone is inherently tribalistic to a great extent, and very few people are reasonable to any extent.

More hubris. Morals derive from our understanding of what the world is really like. In some cases, Catholic theology for example, that effort is quite consciously undertaken, but in most cases it is simply pre-supposed. We do not kill our own. But in most primitive or early cultures, the word for "human being" was the same as the name of their tribe. So they saw no problem in killing other people who were not "human beings."

In modern culture we regard each person as an autonomous and separate individual possessed of a personal and independent "will," and possessed of "rights" to express that will as we choose. That is not the view held by most cultures throughout history and it is easily demonstrated to be false. But our view of our "self" and our view of the universe cannot be separated. Newton's atomistic, billiard ball universe has come to pervade our sense of who we are and what our place in this universe is.

Indeed. And it has continued to dominate a century after Einstein, which just goes to show that most people are totally ignorant of science - and hence unable to use it to guide their decisions in any meaningful way.


Look at the Western Front of WWI; millions of men killing each other for no particularly good reason were unable to sustain a successful mutiny, because their political and military commanders pressed every possible emotional and tribal button to get them to keep fighting against their own best interests. They were grouped into 'pals' battalions, so that the men alongside them were likely to be lifelong friends; they were fed propaganda about the viciousness and brutality of the enemy, and how awful it would be if he won; and if all else failed, the most mutinous individuals were publicly executed to scare the others into obedience. The one thing that was absolutely denied to the men at the front, above all else, was facts. Rationality needs facts to survive. The political commanders couldn't make a rational decision to stop fighting either; Having stoked the tribal and emotional fire in the bellies of their people, any failure to continue to act irrationally would have been ruthlessly crushed by the populace.

Earlier cultures held their armies together because their members were, quite literally, from the same tribe or at least the same ethnicity. The idea that the people's loyalties to their kin required a similar loyalty to their government was not a strong element of ancient cultures. The idea of nationalism is a modern one. It is a product of this "rational" enlightenment that you refer to.

There is nothing rational about nationalism; it is just tribalism writ large - and modern communications allow people to have a larger view of who is part of 'us' rather than part of 'them' than they had in the past.

Society is doubtless better as a result of the enlightenment. But to expect more than subtle and glacially slow change, is to underestimate the huge inertia inherent in the tribal/emotional complex that has the vast majority of the world population enthralled.

Rationalism was one side of the enlightenment. The other side was Romanticism. Rationalism gave rise to Marx, Lenin, and ultimately to Stalin. Romanticism gave rise to Hitler. These people are responsible for vastly more deaths than even the most ruthless of the ancient despots. Of course, they had the advantage of the technology that we acquired during and after the enlightenment

.

Political and moral ideas are typically completely unrelated to the scientific method; On the rare occasions that such models make an appeal to science, it is as an emotional hook to attract self-identified 'rationalists', rather than as a bedrock of facts on which a genuinely rational edifice might be based. Our politics has not taken advantage of the enlightenment, largely because the general public are inherently irrational, superstitious and emotional. Tribalism trumps reason, because everyone is inherently tribalistic to a great extent, and very few people are reasonable to any extent.

Totally wrong. Political and moral ideas are closely related to our scientific understanding. "God said, "Let Newton be," and all was light." That's Alexander Pope, a poet who knew nothing about science celebrating the new understanding that Newton had brought to our world. It not only changed our understanding of world, but also of ourselves and our place in the world. And, I have to say, that the new understanding was not for the better, or at least, not entirely for the better.

The 'rationalism' that gave rise to Marx, Lenin, and ultimately to Stalin was exactly the emotional hook I describe here; the philosophies of these individuals used a pinch of rationalism to leaven an otherwise stodgy diet of tribalism and emotion, and in doing so poisoned the view of rationalism as a political tool. Rationalism cannot be successfully used in politics until the population are sufficiently educated; and it is doubtful whether that condition can ever be achieved - it most assuredly is not anywhere near to coming to pass right now. Until people are sufficiently aware of how things really are to spot the emotional manipulation their leaders use on them, emotion and appeals to tribalism will always defeat any attempt to act rationally, where such action is not in the immediate interests of the people in power

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Why shouldn't we be tribalistic? It seems to me that what matters most to most of us are our family and close friends, our neighbors, and our local community. It seems to me that your complaint is not about tribalism at all but about nationalism which is pretty much the opposite of tribalism. But nationalism is the product of the very Enlightenment that you otherwise seem to endorse. It is the belief that we are all solitary individuals equal in rights and part of a larger human brotherhood that leads to the identification of the individual with the state and weakens the individual's connection to local loyalties. This is a product of Enlightenment rationalism.

 

[Tom in Napa]

untermensche, very nearly my thoughts too.
I find it helpful to remember we are the offspring of the most aggressive pond scum.