Am I the only one to 'feel' that essay ended on a bit of a condescending note. It 'felt' like my Opinion of current and recent events is shaped by my personal work experience so they are more valuable than your 'Opinions' probably developed by 'feelings' however much analysis and logical thinking you may have applied to them. Bluntly, I'm more likely to be right.
It reminds me of Naked Capitalism, which I know you value highly, where Yves adopts exactly the same tone, which tends to spoil an otherwise excellent blog.
No you are not alone James. The essay is interesting to read, as usual. The position Aurélien takes reminds me the one of a « manager » ( - a member of the ruling class that Aurélien criticizes often -) not capable to accept the fact that a rational argumentation, any topic, must take into account the fact that non rational things happen when humans are involved. This simple reality shapes our lives.
A person was « not exactly doing what was expected » from the manager who had dozens of logical arguments to do this, now, and how. What most irritated the manager is that the person could not see by himself all the reasons and go forward by accepting at least one of them.
The person simply did not feel like working on that day …
It wasn't meant as a troll; I could have been more nuanced admittedly. It is a felt pet peeve of mine: in English culture (I am born in Australia) it is "polite" to often say what one does not mean, because certain words are "magic" so to use them anyway. But this tends to confuse the essence of what one is actually feeling, further disrupting coherent thought, let alone muddying real hospitality.
It's not even necessarily mal-intended. The use of this kind of language embedded nominalism is, above all, an attempt to protect (/be faithful to) feelings. It's just that there is poor recognition that perfidiousness to Principle in doing this pays a heavy cost.
The Wes Studi character in Last of the Mohicans said it well:
Duncan: You there, Scout! We must rest soon, the women are tired.
Magua: No, two leagues, better water. We stop there.
Duncan: No, we'll stop in the glade just ahead. When the ladies are rested, we will proceed. Do you understand?
Magua: [speaking Huron] Magua understands that the white man is a dog to his women. When they are tired, he puts down his tomahawk to feed their laziness.
Duncan: Excuse me, what did you say?
Magua: Magua say... he understand English... very well.
Likewise. NC went to the dogs when Covid came along (I had my doubts about it prior to that as well). So much "astute, scientific reasoning by people purporting to be experts;" all of it dead wrong.
Very good , i think of myself as left wing i want world leaders to make sure everyone in the world has enough to eat and clean water and a roof over their head i think by now 2025 its not a lot to ask.Also we should by now be trying to make sure everyone in the world can see and be treated by a doctor and be able to go to school these are things that can be done there,s enough of these things in the world to go around.
Have i ever changed my mind ? you bet i have , i was an "army kid" lived in Germany several years 1950s 60s then Libya several years 70s my dad sent to fight in Aden then Northern Ireland a few years late 60s early 70s, ive disliked these places initially then grew to appreciate the differences and the people they are just people all wanting a nice safe life like us.
I used to think that UK government tried to do good and aimed to be honest but now i know thats not true , did it ever ? i dont know but i doubt it , in my opinion they destroyed Libya and Muammar Gaddafi because he was trying to free Libya from using the USA dollar and he was tring to form a group of African countries to do the same , trade overseas using their own currency.I was in Libya when King Idris died and Gaddafi took over the first thing he did was make the UK military leave and he then took back control of their oil.
I was in Lisburn Belfast during the troubles tar and feathering and car bombs i was driven to Lisnegarvey high school on an army bus with an armed guard soldier sitting at the front holding a loaded SLR and wearing a bullet proof vest , my school uniform not so protective.
Political views are formed by the life you live practically everyone i meet thinks i will support the British government and British military because of my background but i despise both , i want Scottish independence i hope an independent Scotland will do things differently not go to war at every opportunity not go to war at all , its laughable that governments refer to "defence" when all they do is attack other countries and the idea that they need to repeatedly attack other countries to keep UK safe is just illogical as we have seen it just grows a generation in the countries we attack that want to get us.Revenge.
Can i be persuaded to think differently ? Yes i think i can , but i need to be persuaded with evidence that i believe and so much evidence put forward by so many people and in so many places cannot be beleived so i understand why so many people stick with their incorrect views even in the face of good evidence , theyve been convinced time and again that the new evidence is the one , the one that is truly correct only to then find that its not.The BBC the UK radio stations and ALL the UK newspapers feed us with lies every single day they dont even try to hide that they purposely tell lies .
All politics in europe and usa is neoliberal it would take more than the snp to turn that around , sometimes you have to run with the pack if you are to survive , there is plenty that the SNP do differently to labour lib dems conservative and im proud of that so whilst you appear to have made a negative judgement of the snp its not a realistic one given that snp do way beyond what any other political party would be doing in the same circumstances , i therefore take your advice with a pinch of salt.In 2026 we will see what the people of Scotland make of the snp and what they think about the labour party who have once again lied about what they would do once in government.It is the widely hele view in Scotland and the rest of the uk that this labour government is more right wing than the conservative government they took power from.It is also a widely held view in Scotland that the snp is doing much better than the reat of the uk in keeping rents and council tax lower than the rest of the uk and also paying parents £27 a week for every child they have whereas the rest of the uk only pay for the first two.There are many other benefits to living in Scotland that people elsewhere in uk do not have .The choices we have in Scotland are not perfect but they are better than you get in other parts of uk.
But for the original professed aim of the SNP - independence - not only has no progress been made since the referendum, but the whole concept has been consigned to the trash bin. The SNP is a confidence racket.
Possibly James , you might be right , we will see for sure the next time we in Scotland vote in Scottish government elections which is 2026 , i think there are a lot of people thinking what you are thinking about the SNP.We will see , a large number of the SNP MPs in the Scottish parliament have said they intend to retire or not stand for re election , there might be many reasons why they have chosen to leave , im guessing its because NS is no longer going to be in Scottish government she isnt standing either.
So if a huge number of people do vote for SNP ( and ALBA 2nd vote ) we will undoubtedly see the voters taking action to force the issue because as you rightly say since 2014 the SNP have done zilch for Scottish independence.
Great piece. But you can't separate 'feelings' from thought. It is my feelings that made me think about events. In the end I came to the conclusion that most of what my country does is based on the 'feelings' of a small group of people in MI6. And they are, mainly, wrong.
Feelings are the foundation of thought. Thought then disparaging feelings anyway is a precise analogy indeed for kids being disrespectful and lacking hospitality for their parents, and vice versa.
"The simple answer, according to psychologists, is that our opinions generally have emotional rather than intellectual roots, and indeed rationality largely functions as a post hoc justification. Our political opinions, ultimately, are what we feel about the world, not what we think about it. And in turn, our opinions about particular events have a lot to do with how we feel about the world in general. It’s not an exaggeration to say that most people’s views about the kind of things that happen today are extensions of concerns of their own ego. And consequently, invitations to change their minds because new facts emerge, or because old ideas are discredited by new evidence, are in fact a threat to the strength and even survival of that ego."
At risk of repeating myself....For most humans most of the time, the fastest and surest way to wind up dead or seriously disadvantaged has been at the hands of our fellow humans. At the same time, "our group", whether by faith, family, tribe, regiment, whatever, are the people we can trust to have our back.
Therefore, whatever else happens, whatever we have to do, believe absurdities, blindly follow barking insane leaders, parrot obvious lies to our detriment, do or suffer terrible things, but please whatever you do, please don't kick us out of the group!
What this also means is that when we are presented with incontrovertible proof that the group narrative is wrong or that the group leaders are mad or charlatans or worse, rather than change leaders or change beliefs or change groups, most people, most of the time will instead double down. Witness the behavior of cultists.
The process is called "cognitive dissonance" and it is abundantly documented. As alluded to earlier, there are entire religions organized around the principle.
Cognitive dissonance is not limited to stupid people. In fact, the intelligent are at least as prone, perhaps because they are better at rationalizing. In fact, much so-called "knowledge work" is basically learning symbol manipulation in order to rationalize something.
"Cognitive dissonance", yeah - but check out the "identity threat" literature, it is so fun!
One chunk of "identity threat" research I found particularly enlightening:
People with moderately-extremist views, who are completely resistant to evidence and rational arguments, can be swayed towards a less-extreme position by being presented with a radically-extremist version of their own views.
Counterintuitive, right? Yet true.
The mechanism is "identity threat": people get a feeling that their precious in-group is edging towards a qualitatively different (and dangerous) identity; so they adjust their views away from it.
The trick is to carefully design the above "radical-extemist position" in such a way that it is perceived as coming from WITHIN the current in-group, yet is so fringe as to make the person uncomfortable. In this case, it doesn't trigger the habitual "rejection-of-outgroup" response - instead, the person intuitively protects their in-group core identity by moderating their position.
Needless to say, this trick doesn't work with raving-mad, "长iII-them-all" kinds of extremists.
" It’s not an exaggeration to say that most people’s views about the kind of things that happen today are extensions of concerns of their own ego."
To say this is to make the same mistake as unemotional 'scientific' materialism, but in the opposite direction. It may be an alien concept to you, but many (ok, some) people try to make ethical choices. In many cases they make the wrong choice, but this is more to do with (deliberately) distorted informational input than deliberate deviation.
I like the football analogy - reminds me of being dragged off by my Dad & 3 great uncles in the 70's, who all had a huge commitment to a certain 4th division club. " Bloody Ref ", " That was offside ", " Foul !!! " etc. I often didn't see it that way but thought it diplomatic not to say so.
As others have noted, your final paragraph suggests that only ‘experts’ are entitled to opinions. I see a number of problems with that:
- Experts are subject to conflicts of interest like everyone else. Expertise is easily purchased by powerful economic or political interests.
- Experts can be just as dogmatic, egotistical and petty as the rest of us. Witness bitter academic disputes between opposing schools of interpretation.
- No amount of expertise allows for accurate predictions or even perfect understanding of the recent past.
- Decisionmaking by experts (which is a necessary corollary if only experts are allowed to have opinions) is fundamentally authoritarian and undemocratic.
I think that with the deracinating of society, the atomization of the people in them, and the internet wonderful ability to let people with the most outrageous beliefs find whole groups just like them, the ability to create the solid emotional and intellectual foundation is lost for many people. If you don’t have an understanding of yourself, which is a reference point a person uses when figuring out the world, nor do you have any people that you connect with and trust in real life, which is how you can reference your own actions and beliefs, how can you be reasonable? Then add the many governments, corporations, and organizations that have whole departments of experts on how to manipulate people emotions and thinking. I am almost surprised that anyone can think clearly at all.
Whatever the circumstances (like the availability of social media, the extent of corporate and governmental powers to use propaganda and influencer/cult techniques to hack our nervous systems etc) I put forwards that a normal human upbringing makes one more or less immune to all but all of these.
I suspect the British were the leaders in gaining worldly power by disrupting the normal human upbringing (or "deracination") of their own people's however. The addicted and partial (think Eton boarding school) can be very motivated and dynamic indeed. It does run out of steam eventually though, as the cumulative incoherencies begin to stack up.
Confucian Principles come to mind from the outset, and staying with them makes a lot of the following unnecessary. The emphasis indigenous cultures put on family and wholesome initiated upbringing too.
Of course emotional identification is fully human. A culture that takes this properly into account however simply does not have any significant "teenage rebellion" stage at all. By drawing on the inner wisdom of midwifery and childrearing traditions amongst women, it so fully encompasses the types that arise and their varying needs that it is rare for any to reach adulthood feeling the need to play out their alienation.
Ivan Illich's "Gender" comes to mind too. The nuclear family is not an organically wholesome institution; it was from the outset an economic one where the name of the game was centralisation and control. The inviolable Domus satisfies both man and woman, but also parent and child, in a way that the human capital mobility advantages of the nuclear family simply do not compensate for. Emotional identification of the type described is a direct outcome of this Domus violation.
"Deracinated patriotism" is merely an extension of "de-gendered culture".
"Of course emotional identification is fully human. A culture that takes this properly into account however simply does not have any significant "teenage rebellion" stage at all."
Hear, hear.
Even the Anglo-Saxon culture didn't have that in the not too distant past. My wife is doing a lot of genealogy work and stumbled on some workhouses records from 1830s. My gosh. Children over 2 years old were separated from their mothers and put to work. No teenage rebellion among that lot. Aurelien described in one of his latest essay the spirit of the 1968 going throughout the west, including US (Woodstock).
The food, the conditions, the dehumanization, incredible. Marx was right to describe the life of serfs in eastern Europe, like Romanian principalities, as luxurious, compared to the cultured, educated, technologically advanced, sophisticated west, like England.
Presumably that was a typo in regards to the 2 year olds separated from mothers... sounds like interesting work your wife is doing though.
Closeness to the land, as Spengler saw peasants and nobility shared, are what separate them from the truly mass man. Another aspect of deracination.
I saw this recently, perhaps you will appreciate too:
----
The conformity merely expected has a certain feel. The conformity accepted in recognition of its encompassing of all that arises, is clearly of a different nature. Which do you think better grasps root Principle, in humility and authenticity? And which one leads to the alienation of its own children, no matter the face it wears?
There was an article some years ago on NakedCapitalism describing the fathers of British liberalism, who push strongly for the enclosure (The Enclosure Acts) of communal land (because in private hands the land would be more productive!), their intention was to have villagers moving to cities to fill the new factories for low wages, and arguing that kids start to earn their keep starting with the age of 3. And I guess that if you were in a Workhouse, then the age was reduced by one year...
My understanding is that the result of this may indeed be no teenage rebellion, but that these individuals would not agree to raise their own kids in the same way. In effect they are rebelling against what was put on them, but later. It still means no stability in culture intergenerationally.
The old way of leaving child rearing to the inviolable women's sphere and traditions would look at a suggestion like this as utterly insane.
While it's true that the demand for sufficient emotional sustenance is great, what seems to me to be changing with today's profusion of instant media is precisely the use of these emotions for political ends. In fact, the actions of democracies are often constrained by public opinion. The unbridled development of propaganda in democracies (the last straw!) enables leaders to exacerbate these emotions to justify their objectives and decisions. This is how we see the "binairization" of Western societies. Everything becomes black or white... no subject is gray. Thank you Aurélien for this wonderful post.
Yves, the woman who runs Naked Capitalism has a deep understanding of finance and financial chicanery. She is less sure-footed when it comes to international affairs and the military. She is a very well educated woman of about 80 (my age) who is unmarried with no children and she has recently moved to Thailand. Like many self-exiles she has become a bit un-moored from her homeland. I wish her well but I've become more cautious about her judgements and her tendency to conflate legitimate disagreement with what she calls "Making Shit Up". But NC still calls attention to sources I'd otherwise miss. She to some degree has become an example of Aurelien's emotionalism-not-thinking, which is too bad.
Yeah. In my opinion she has become un-moored from reality. She expressed to me psycho-jargon the fact that she has "a strong desire for domination". These sorts of people are best left to play their own games with themselves.
But what about this. From psychology we know that “feelings” do have some roots in reality. It’s just we didn’t consciously process it.
Without disputing the main points of the article, I’d wonder - are the feelings of people that irrelevant? For example, I know people on both sides of Ukrainian conflict, who committed something, even their life, not based on deep knowledge of history, geography or what not, but on “the feelings of duty”, with no further questions asked or research done.
Stalin did have a green thumb and grew orange trees (or where they lemon trees?) and Hitler was vegetarian and loved animals. And likely both killed people, personally. Hitler in war, and Stalin in his underground activities (the famous bank robbery in early 1900s to get funding for the party).
Nevertheless, what we read here is not far from what Louis Armand de Lom d’Arce, baron de Lahontan describes in his conversations with Kondiaronk (Adario in the book): http://www.professorcampbell.org/sources/kondiaronk.html
I always look to David Graeber and David Wentworth's The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity as the best cure against the Boss, the big dictator/hero that can come and solve all the issues. The only dictator that I kind of like, as presented by Colleen McCullough is Julius Caesar and I don't think he ever got that function. The other one, fictional one, is Emperor Leto II of DUne Arrakis, the Emperor-God that lived of thousands of years and could see in the future and became a sand-worm...
As for the very emotional apes we are, I am always amazed especially about British press on how the very carefully choose emotion laded words to describe this or that. The Economist is great at it. RT is devoid of much emotions when presenting news or even opinion pieces. Anglo-American MSM is just chock full of emotions as the 9/10th of the iceberg. The English started early, during the Civil War, with the Parliament side really publishing yellow articles about the King.
This is why Gorgias was right: Know thyself is an imperative...
He seeked glory on the battlefield, the only way to aquire funds and power to run Rome. He was bad for his enemies indeed, but I wouldn't call him psychopatic. He was deified by Romans, lower classes, because he did right by them.
Even wanted to put a cap on the interest charged to territories under Roman control...
Few are counting the bodies caused by the entrenchment or defense of a system run by oligarchy, in war or by its effects... It is all about these bloody autocrats!
We live in an age of ultra-nationalism, so the patriotism we feel can be affected by the level of commitment to "our" nation, and that runs the gamut from weak to strong, correctly influenced by emotion rather than reason. I myself have not been patriotic about the government of the USA since the Kennedy assassination, so I constantly look for evidence of its weaknesses and brutality (there is much, as you well know).
However, my feelings for my fellow citizens is strong and is the bedrock of my "patriotic" feeling- it is for them, not the government. It is , for me, a short stretch to understand how people from other countries probably feel about their closest citizen-friends, and their need for security and a level of prosperity. The real defeat of any global cause is the misplaced patriotism to the government and not to fellow citizens, which is a difficult hurdle in this most nationalistic world. Is it only an emotional response that I wish people to survive the stupidity of their governments?
So, all the discussion of borders, fights for resources, identity, sovereignty, ad nauseam, adds to this deep crisis of global dependence we all have versus national independence mythology we all believe, and how nations cannot confront this issue. There are many reasons for that, mostly corporate advantage in separate nations vying for a deal, but the goal of resolution without eliminating national borders scares the hell out of 98% of people.
Am I the only one to 'feel' that essay ended on a bit of a condescending note. It 'felt' like my Opinion of current and recent events is shaped by my personal work experience so they are more valuable than your 'Opinions' probably developed by 'feelings' however much analysis and logical thinking you may have applied to them. Bluntly, I'm more likely to be right.
It reminds me of Naked Capitalism, which I know you value highly, where Yves adopts exactly the same tone, which tends to spoil an otherwise excellent blog.
Sorry for the criticism , I do value your essays.
No you are not alone James. The essay is interesting to read, as usual. The position Aurélien takes reminds me the one of a « manager » ( - a member of the ruling class that Aurélien criticizes often -) not capable to accept the fact that a rational argumentation, any topic, must take into account the fact that non rational things happen when humans are involved. This simple reality shapes our lives.
A person was « not exactly doing what was expected » from the manager who had dozens of logical arguments to do this, now, and how. What most irritated the manager is that the person could not see by himself all the reasons and go forward by accepting at least one of them.
The person simply did not feel like working on that day …
regards, Philippe Lerch
Even saying "sorry" like this is an Anglophone habit, where feelings and logic lose coherent prioritisation.
Awa an bile yer heid!
It wasn't meant as a troll; I could have been more nuanced admittedly. It is a felt pet peeve of mine: in English culture (I am born in Australia) it is "polite" to often say what one does not mean, because certain words are "magic" so to use them anyway. But this tends to confuse the essence of what one is actually feeling, further disrupting coherent thought, let alone muddying real hospitality.
Yes, that is 'being English'. Perfidious Albion.
It's not even necessarily mal-intended. The use of this kind of language embedded nominalism is, above all, an attempt to protect (/be faithful to) feelings. It's just that there is poor recognition that perfidiousness to Principle in doing this pays a heavy cost.
The Wes Studi character in Last of the Mohicans said it well:
Duncan: You there, Scout! We must rest soon, the women are tired.
Magua: No, two leagues, better water. We stop there.
Duncan: No, we'll stop in the glade just ahead. When the ladies are rested, we will proceed. Do you understand?
Magua: [speaking Huron] Magua understands that the white man is a dog to his women. When they are tired, he puts down his tomahawk to feed their laziness.
Duncan: Excuse me, what did you say?
Magua: Magua say... he understand English... very well.
If you don't like doing it, maybe just stop doing it?
+1 re both this essay and NC
Likewise. NC went to the dogs when Covid came along (I had my doubts about it prior to that as well). So much "astute, scientific reasoning by people purporting to be experts;" all of it dead wrong.
On the contrary it was one of the few useful places where technical evaluation of the nature and consequences of the virus was to be found.
Very good , i think of myself as left wing i want world leaders to make sure everyone in the world has enough to eat and clean water and a roof over their head i think by now 2025 its not a lot to ask.Also we should by now be trying to make sure everyone in the world can see and be treated by a doctor and be able to go to school these are things that can be done there,s enough of these things in the world to go around.
Have i ever changed my mind ? you bet i have , i was an "army kid" lived in Germany several years 1950s 60s then Libya several years 70s my dad sent to fight in Aden then Northern Ireland a few years late 60s early 70s, ive disliked these places initially then grew to appreciate the differences and the people they are just people all wanting a nice safe life like us.
I used to think that UK government tried to do good and aimed to be honest but now i know thats not true , did it ever ? i dont know but i doubt it , in my opinion they destroyed Libya and Muammar Gaddafi because he was trying to free Libya from using the USA dollar and he was tring to form a group of African countries to do the same , trade overseas using their own currency.I was in Libya when King Idris died and Gaddafi took over the first thing he did was make the UK military leave and he then took back control of their oil.
I was in Lisburn Belfast during the troubles tar and feathering and car bombs i was driven to Lisnegarvey high school on an army bus with an armed guard soldier sitting at the front holding a loaded SLR and wearing a bullet proof vest , my school uniform not so protective.
Political views are formed by the life you live practically everyone i meet thinks i will support the British government and British military because of my background but i despise both , i want Scottish independence i hope an independent Scotland will do things differently not go to war at every opportunity not go to war at all , its laughable that governments refer to "defence" when all they do is attack other countries and the idea that they need to repeatedly attack other countries to keep UK safe is just illogical as we have seen it just grows a generation in the countries we attack that want to get us.Revenge.
Can i be persuaded to think differently ? Yes i think i can , but i need to be persuaded with evidence that i believe and so much evidence put forward by so many people and in so many places cannot be beleived so i understand why so many people stick with their incorrect views even in the face of good evidence , theyve been convinced time and again that the new evidence is the one , the one that is truly correct only to then find that its not.The BBC the UK radio stations and ALL the UK newspapers feed us with lies every single day they dont even try to hide that they purposely tell lies .
Yes. And don't trust the SNP either - they sold out long ago. Bunch of Neo-liberal stooges.
All politics in europe and usa is neoliberal it would take more than the snp to turn that around , sometimes you have to run with the pack if you are to survive , there is plenty that the SNP do differently to labour lib dems conservative and im proud of that so whilst you appear to have made a negative judgement of the snp its not a realistic one given that snp do way beyond what any other political party would be doing in the same circumstances , i therefore take your advice with a pinch of salt.In 2026 we will see what the people of Scotland make of the snp and what they think about the labour party who have once again lied about what they would do once in government.It is the widely hele view in Scotland and the rest of the uk that this labour government is more right wing than the conservative government they took power from.It is also a widely held view in Scotland that the snp is doing much better than the reat of the uk in keeping rents and council tax lower than the rest of the uk and also paying parents £27 a week for every child they have whereas the rest of the uk only pay for the first two.There are many other benefits to living in Scotland that people elsewhere in uk do not have .The choices we have in Scotland are not perfect but they are better than you get in other parts of uk.
But for the original professed aim of the SNP - independence - not only has no progress been made since the referendum, but the whole concept has been consigned to the trash bin. The SNP is a confidence racket.
Possibly James , you might be right , we will see for sure the next time we in Scotland vote in Scottish government elections which is 2026 , i think there are a lot of people thinking what you are thinking about the SNP.We will see , a large number of the SNP MPs in the Scottish parliament have said they intend to retire or not stand for re election , there might be many reasons why they have chosen to leave , im guessing its because NS is no longer going to be in Scottish government she isnt standing either.
So if a huge number of people do vote for SNP ( and ALBA 2nd vote ) we will undoubtedly see the voters taking action to force the issue because as you rightly say since 2014 the SNP have done zilch for Scottish independence.
Im ready to fight for independence.
Are you ?
Great piece. But you can't separate 'feelings' from thought. It is my feelings that made me think about events. In the end I came to the conclusion that most of what my country does is based on the 'feelings' of a small group of people in MI6. And they are, mainly, wrong.
Gabor and Daniel Mate come to mind strongly here.
Feelings are the foundation of thought. Thought then disparaging feelings anyway is a precise analogy indeed for kids being disrespectful and lacking hospitality for their parents, and vice versa.
Kids thought the ages have from time to time been "disrespectful and lacking hospitality for their parents". It goes back, traceably to ancient Egypt.
Yes, this phenomena is not new. The degree of ignorance of how to prevent it dominating is though I think
"The simple answer, according to psychologists, is that our opinions generally have emotional rather than intellectual roots, and indeed rationality largely functions as a post hoc justification. Our political opinions, ultimately, are what we feel about the world, not what we think about it. And in turn, our opinions about particular events have a lot to do with how we feel about the world in general. It’s not an exaggeration to say that most people’s views about the kind of things that happen today are extensions of concerns of their own ego. And consequently, invitations to change their minds because new facts emerge, or because old ideas are discredited by new evidence, are in fact a threat to the strength and even survival of that ego."
At risk of repeating myself....For most humans most of the time, the fastest and surest way to wind up dead or seriously disadvantaged has been at the hands of our fellow humans. At the same time, "our group", whether by faith, family, tribe, regiment, whatever, are the people we can trust to have our back.
Therefore, whatever else happens, whatever we have to do, believe absurdities, blindly follow barking insane leaders, parrot obvious lies to our detriment, do or suffer terrible things, but please whatever you do, please don't kick us out of the group!
What this also means is that when we are presented with incontrovertible proof that the group narrative is wrong or that the group leaders are mad or charlatans or worse, rather than change leaders or change beliefs or change groups, most people, most of the time will instead double down. Witness the behavior of cultists.
The process is called "cognitive dissonance" and it is abundantly documented. As alluded to earlier, there are entire religions organized around the principle.
Cognitive dissonance is not limited to stupid people. In fact, the intelligent are at least as prone, perhaps because they are better at rationalizing. In fact, much so-called "knowledge work" is basically learning symbol manipulation in order to rationalize something.
"Cognitive dissonance", yeah - but check out the "identity threat" literature, it is so fun!
One chunk of "identity threat" research I found particularly enlightening:
People with moderately-extremist views, who are completely resistant to evidence and rational arguments, can be swayed towards a less-extreme position by being presented with a radically-extremist version of their own views.
Counterintuitive, right? Yet true.
The mechanism is "identity threat": people get a feeling that their precious in-group is edging towards a qualitatively different (and dangerous) identity; so they adjust their views away from it.
The trick is to carefully design the above "radical-extemist position" in such a way that it is perceived as coming from WITHIN the current in-group, yet is so fringe as to make the person uncomfortable. In this case, it doesn't trigger the habitual "rejection-of-outgroup" response - instead, the person intuitively protects their in-group core identity by moderating their position.
Needless to say, this trick doesn't work with raving-mad, "长iII-them-all" kinds of extremists.
" It’s not an exaggeration to say that most people’s views about the kind of things that happen today are extensions of concerns of their own ego."
To say this is to make the same mistake as unemotional 'scientific' materialism, but in the opposite direction. It may be an alien concept to you, but many (ok, some) people try to make ethical choices. In many cases they make the wrong choice, but this is more to do with (deliberately) distorted informational input than deliberate deviation.
The populace, maybe, but rulers who make choices based on ethics are quickly replaced by the more ruthless.
I like the football analogy - reminds me of being dragged off by my Dad & 3 great uncles in the 70's, who all had a huge commitment to a certain 4th division club. " Bloody Ref ", " That was offside ", " Foul !!! " etc. I often didn't see it that way but thought it diplomatic not to say so.
As others have noted, your final paragraph suggests that only ‘experts’ are entitled to opinions. I see a number of problems with that:
- Experts are subject to conflicts of interest like everyone else. Expertise is easily purchased by powerful economic or political interests.
- Experts can be just as dogmatic, egotistical and petty as the rest of us. Witness bitter academic disputes between opposing schools of interpretation.
- No amount of expertise allows for accurate predictions or even perfect understanding of the recent past.
- Decisionmaking by experts (which is a necessary corollary if only experts are allowed to have opinions) is fundamentally authoritarian and undemocratic.
You really should add footnotes and bibliography: as is you hint at a lot of literature and research which would equally fascinating to explore!
I think that with the deracinating of society, the atomization of the people in them, and the internet wonderful ability to let people with the most outrageous beliefs find whole groups just like them, the ability to create the solid emotional and intellectual foundation is lost for many people. If you don’t have an understanding of yourself, which is a reference point a person uses when figuring out the world, nor do you have any people that you connect with and trust in real life, which is how you can reference your own actions and beliefs, how can you be reasonable? Then add the many governments, corporations, and organizations that have whole departments of experts on how to manipulate people emotions and thinking. I am almost surprised that anyone can think clearly at all.
Whatever the circumstances (like the availability of social media, the extent of corporate and governmental powers to use propaganda and influencer/cult techniques to hack our nervous systems etc) I put forwards that a normal human upbringing makes one more or less immune to all but all of these.
I suspect the British were the leaders in gaining worldly power by disrupting the normal human upbringing (or "deracination") of their own people's however. The addicted and partial (think Eton boarding school) can be very motivated and dynamic indeed. It does run out of steam eventually though, as the cumulative incoherencies begin to stack up.
Very nice to read and full of information that was nice to get. But what was it all about?
That we get our opinions from our instincts? And then refuse to change them because we are invested in them?
Confucian Principles come to mind from the outset, and staying with them makes a lot of the following unnecessary. The emphasis indigenous cultures put on family and wholesome initiated upbringing too.
Of course emotional identification is fully human. A culture that takes this properly into account however simply does not have any significant "teenage rebellion" stage at all. By drawing on the inner wisdom of midwifery and childrearing traditions amongst women, it so fully encompasses the types that arise and their varying needs that it is rare for any to reach adulthood feeling the need to play out their alienation.
Ivan Illich's "Gender" comes to mind too. The nuclear family is not an organically wholesome institution; it was from the outset an economic one where the name of the game was centralisation and control. The inviolable Domus satisfies both man and woman, but also parent and child, in a way that the human capital mobility advantages of the nuclear family simply do not compensate for. Emotional identification of the type described is a direct outcome of this Domus violation.
"Deracinated patriotism" is merely an extension of "de-gendered culture".
"Of course emotional identification is fully human. A culture that takes this properly into account however simply does not have any significant "teenage rebellion" stage at all."
Hear, hear.
Even the Anglo-Saxon culture didn't have that in the not too distant past. My wife is doing a lot of genealogy work and stumbled on some workhouses records from 1830s. My gosh. Children over 2 years old were separated from their mothers and put to work. No teenage rebellion among that lot. Aurelien described in one of his latest essay the spirit of the 1968 going throughout the west, including US (Woodstock).
The food, the conditions, the dehumanization, incredible. Marx was right to describe the life of serfs in eastern Europe, like Romanian principalities, as luxurious, compared to the cultured, educated, technologically advanced, sophisticated west, like England.
Presumably that was a typo in regards to the 2 year olds separated from mothers... sounds like interesting work your wife is doing though.
Closeness to the land, as Spengler saw peasants and nobility shared, are what separate them from the truly mass man. Another aspect of deracination.
I saw this recently, perhaps you will appreciate too:
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The conformity merely expected has a certain feel. The conformity accepted in recognition of its encompassing of all that arises, is clearly of a different nature. Which do you think better grasps root Principle, in humility and authenticity? And which one leads to the alienation of its own children, no matter the face it wears?
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No error in the number.
There was an article some years ago on NakedCapitalism describing the fathers of British liberalism, who push strongly for the enclosure (The Enclosure Acts) of communal land (because in private hands the land would be more productive!), their intention was to have villagers moving to cities to fill the new factories for low wages, and arguing that kids start to earn their keep starting with the age of 3. And I guess that if you were in a Workhouse, then the age was reduced by one year...
That's amazing.
My understanding is that the result of this may indeed be no teenage rebellion, but that these individuals would not agree to raise their own kids in the same way. In effect they are rebelling against what was put on them, but later. It still means no stability in culture intergenerationally.
The old way of leaving child rearing to the inviolable women's sphere and traditions would look at a suggestion like this as utterly insane.
While it's true that the demand for sufficient emotional sustenance is great, what seems to me to be changing with today's profusion of instant media is precisely the use of these emotions for political ends. In fact, the actions of democracies are often constrained by public opinion. The unbridled development of propaganda in democracies (the last straw!) enables leaders to exacerbate these emotions to justify their objectives and decisions. This is how we see the "binairization" of Western societies. Everything becomes black or white... no subject is gray. Thank you Aurélien for this wonderful post.
Yves, the woman who runs Naked Capitalism has a deep understanding of finance and financial chicanery. She is less sure-footed when it comes to international affairs and the military. She is a very well educated woman of about 80 (my age) who is unmarried with no children and she has recently moved to Thailand. Like many self-exiles she has become a bit un-moored from her homeland. I wish her well but I've become more cautious about her judgements and her tendency to conflate legitimate disagreement with what she calls "Making Shit Up". But NC still calls attention to sources I'd otherwise miss. She to some degree has become an example of Aurelien's emotionalism-not-thinking, which is too bad.
Yeah. In my opinion she has become un-moored from reality. She expressed to me psycho-jargon the fact that she has "a strong desire for domination". These sorts of people are best left to play their own games with themselves.
But what about this. From psychology we know that “feelings” do have some roots in reality. It’s just we didn’t consciously process it.
Without disputing the main points of the article, I’d wonder - are the feelings of people that irrelevant? For example, I know people on both sides of Ukrainian conflict, who committed something, even their life, not based on deep knowledge of history, geography or what not, but on “the feelings of duty”, with no further questions asked or research done.
That was a breath of fresh air.
Stalin did have a green thumb and grew orange trees (or where they lemon trees?) and Hitler was vegetarian and loved animals. And likely both killed people, personally. Hitler in war, and Stalin in his underground activities (the famous bank robbery in early 1900s to get funding for the party).
Nevertheless, what we read here is not far from what Louis Armand de Lom d’Arce, baron de Lahontan describes in his conversations with Kondiaronk (Adario in the book): http://www.professorcampbell.org/sources/kondiaronk.html
I always look to David Graeber and David Wentworth's The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity as the best cure against the Boss, the big dictator/hero that can come and solve all the issues. The only dictator that I kind of like, as presented by Colleen McCullough is Julius Caesar and I don't think he ever got that function. The other one, fictional one, is Emperor Leto II of DUne Arrakis, the Emperor-God that lived of thousands of years and could see in the future and became a sand-worm...
As for the very emotional apes we are, I am always amazed especially about British press on how the very carefully choose emotion laded words to describe this or that. The Economist is great at it. RT is devoid of much emotions when presenting news or even opinion pieces. Anglo-American MSM is just chock full of emotions as the 9/10th of the iceberg. The English started early, during the Civil War, with the Parliament side really publishing yellow articles about the King.
This is why Gorgias was right: Know thyself is an imperative...
Unfortunately, Julius Caesar turns out to be just another psychopathic war criminal, if you read his memoirs.
He seeked glory on the battlefield, the only way to aquire funds and power to run Rome. He was bad for his enemies indeed, but I wouldn't call him psychopatic. He was deified by Romans, lower classes, because he did right by them.
Even wanted to put a cap on the interest charged to territories under Roman control...
OK, don't count the bodies. It's a western habit.
Few are counting the bodies caused by the entrenchment or defense of a system run by oligarchy, in war or by its effects... It is all about these bloody autocrats!
We live in an age of ultra-nationalism, so the patriotism we feel can be affected by the level of commitment to "our" nation, and that runs the gamut from weak to strong, correctly influenced by emotion rather than reason. I myself have not been patriotic about the government of the USA since the Kennedy assassination, so I constantly look for evidence of its weaknesses and brutality (there is much, as you well know).
However, my feelings for my fellow citizens is strong and is the bedrock of my "patriotic" feeling- it is for them, not the government. It is , for me, a short stretch to understand how people from other countries probably feel about their closest citizen-friends, and their need for security and a level of prosperity. The real defeat of any global cause is the misplaced patriotism to the government and not to fellow citizens, which is a difficult hurdle in this most nationalistic world. Is it only an emotional response that I wish people to survive the stupidity of their governments?
So, all the discussion of borders, fights for resources, identity, sovereignty, ad nauseam, adds to this deep crisis of global dependence we all have versus national independence mythology we all believe, and how nations cannot confront this issue. There are many reasons for that, mostly corporate advantage in separate nations vying for a deal, but the goal of resolution without eliminating national borders scares the hell out of 98% of people.
"I made myself mildly unpopular by asking if I could have some."
Ha!! :P