I recently met up with an old friend who works in tech support for a major bank. Much of the work that was once carried out in the UK by his department has now been outsourced to locations on the other side of the world. My friend was of the resigned opinion that his job would soon undergo a similar virtual migration, leaving him behind. As we conversed, he was coding on his laptop. I asked him what he was writing. He told me it was a piece of software that would encourage better coding practice among the bank's outsourced employees since they often cut corners and it was causing problems.
That didn't seem right and it still doesn't. On the face of it, the bank would seem to be willfully replacing competent employees with individuals who are either unqualified to do the work and have perhaps bluffed their way into a position, or who do not care enough to perform their duties to even an acceptable standard. My friend's program, whose aim was to encourage these new workers to carry out their role more diligently, seemed easily circumvented and doomed to failure, although I commend his effort to swim against the tide in a company for whom efficiency has become analogous with the bare minimum.
It seemed alien to me. I have never worked anything other than minimum wage jobs. Wherever I landed, I always looked for meaning: How does what I do fit in with the rest of the organisation? When I worked at a large NHS hospital, despite my strong dislike of networking, I cultivated relationships all over the site and it paid off, knowing who did what and who to talk to to resolve a given problem.
I understand what my general purpose is in the world: It's to look after chameleons and write peculiar novels. An understanding of one's purpose in the professional sphere is essential if you are to engage with the work in a way that is meaningful. Once a sufficient number of people no longer know what that purpose is, things can only fall apart.
"Once a sufficient number of people no longer know what that purpose is, things can only fall apart." To me you are describing an important source of the lack of connection and belonging of our time.
An excellent essay. The Church Fathers noted that "a man may find God while watching a fox cross a road" (paraphrasing from memory). It's a statement on the mysterious (or "sacramental", as the West refers to it) nature of life--it's connectedness. The understanding of Communion, as opposed to simply "relationship", is central to the teachings of the Church. "My brother is my life" is another statement by an Orthodox Saint that speaks to this.
Sectarianism is surely an early form of Divide Et Impera, at least when utilised in a certain way. When religion or ideology empowers one to truly love one's neighbour, that is welcome them as a guest and deeply see from their point of view in good hospitality, then it can dissolve sectarian divisions. If a religion/ideology must insist its way is the only way lest it itself collapses into incoherence, and so is unwilling or unable to entertain that which doesn't fit it's existing map of things, then that kind of religion/ideology is no long-term friend to human unity (I accept it has a short term place for emergency cases, for the sake of stability of belonging).
Now, religion didn't starte oout quite as that, if one should believe Émile Durkheim – it started as a kind of stand-in for "society". People are social animals, we can't exist without society, but yet society is notoriously difficult to imagine. All we see around us are people.
So religion was invented, probably in an evolutionary way. All religions are different, but in every single one of them there are rites – things people do together. These rites stand as substitutes for society where people also do things together. And the wonderful trick is that by doing rites together we feel stronger, more connected (to use the word in this essay) and more powerful, and dare to do what we wouldnt dare to do alone.
Then, of course, professional intellectuals arose to explain why one would do these particular rites, weaving the most bizarre theories around this and gaining power from that. But it is a secondary development.
I believe Durkheim was right... for the Western experience. I don't think he knew much about Islamic, Indigenous or Confucian history. Projecting/universalising the experience of one's own culture to that of others is understandable.
PS. Interaction Ritual Chains eh… I like it. Let's see if we can't forge one here together, so that we both can come away energised.
I like Mr Collins's emphasis on the symbolism in sexual exchanges too, as it is an area that modern culture needs to be educated on again I believe. I will definitively have to follow up on your referral, inshaaAllah.
I'd like to start again, if you are comfortable. Firstly I responded too quickly with a (failed) defensive counter up there. If I was slower I might have understood you better, and in turn understood that you may not have fully understood what I was saying really either. Do you think that might be the case?
Again, if you wish to continue, for the sake of a check that we aren't just talking past each other, can you summarise for me in your own words what my original comment was saying? I want to apply a "disambiguation protocol" for clear communication, in good hospitality.
Your first comment? That different parts of the world had different histories and different experiences? I couldn't read in much more than that in it, probably I'm dull.
Now the usual intellectual game is between lumpers and splitters. There are always likenesses as well as differences. But, as I pointed out earlier, regardless of the differences between religions, rites is what they have in common.
One profound difference is of course between the axial religions and the pre-axial ones. That is, the ones created as a kind of defence for common society and people in general against ravaging empires some time between a thousand and two thousand five hundred years ago, and the ones that up to recent times were dominant among hunter-gatherer societies. (About this see fore example Daniel Hoyer & Jenny Reddish: Seshat history of the axial age.) There are of course differences among them too, but once again, existence of rites unite them.
(PS. I know both Aussie and Asabiyyah, but what does the combination stand for? That Aussies keep together?)
I first read “The Machine Stops” around forty years ago - it was part of the English Literature syllabus at my school. It does sum up a lot of modern life.
Rupert Sheldrake’s “The Science Delusion” (you may have recommended it?) seems very consistent with a more spiritual and holistic approach to “science” but is seemingly regarded as heretical by the lovers of the “mechanistic” or “clockwork” approach to the world.
Of course, our society thinks it knows all the answers and that everyone else in the past and everyone alive today elsewhere in the world who has different approaches was / is wrong and even immoral. But why do we have all the answers? In reality, we do not.
A fine piece, but a quibble concerning the famous remarks by Thatcher – of whom I was certainly no fan – about society. The excerpt from that interview (with Woman's Own in 1987) makes things a little more nuanced:
"I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand “I have a problem, it is the Government's job to cope with it!” or “I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!” “I am homeless, the Government must house me!” and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families, and no government can do anything except through people, and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations, because there is no such thing as an entitlement unless someone has first met an obligation..."
So you're right to suggest that this is of a piece with a broader Liberal mindset that sees human connections as transactional, but it's not quite as stark as the much-quoted "There is no such thing as society." Indeed, she talks elsewhere in the interview about society, and at one point suggests that society's connections are a little richer than just transactional:
"[Some say] if children have a problem, it is society that is at fault. There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate."
It is so easy to say " it is up to some people to pull themselves up by their boots srtrap when ones have their families legacy and backup and don't have to worry about obstacles such as ethnicity, systematic racism and oppression. It is not that simple.
It's not easy without these handicaps either. And this is what the essay is about. Individuals are nothing without connections. Some have many, others few.
But what stinks particularly is that these self-labelled Liberals usually have lots of connections to already powerful people, on which they ride. But they condemn connections for others.
Suffers from significant drawbacks, namely addressing:
1. Was it an evolution of human thought or was it a form of "color revolution"?
2. What are origins of liberalism?
3. What was the purpose of liberalism?
Civilization applies to a community not individuals. A deep rooted civilization is proof of a successful evolutionary process in which the community’s long term wellbeing and survival is prioritized. It is the historical survival of a particular community that develops it into a civilization; otherwise it will disappear from history.
Liberalism with its focus on the individual as opposed to the community cannot therefore be considered as a phase of civilizational development, rather it is a destroyer of civilizations and promoter of nihilism.
Liberalism was promoted in Western Europe to replace Catholicism which placed restrictions on money power by imposition of morality on business transactions and the prohibition of usury.
Thus, liberalism developed with the advent of mercantilism and the hollowing the West European millennial civilization, by marginalizing Catholicism and replacing monarchic governance with parliamentarian democracies, which was essential for the rise of the Money Powers that usurped sovereignty of Western nations.
Neoliberalism and associated globalization era in the 1980s provided Money Powers with a free reign, accelerating the assault on remnants of civilizations globally, leading to the spread of nihilism, with its ultimate form ‘wokeism’.
At least 150 years ago Liberalism was quite another thing than today. Swedish economist Carl Hamilton quipped that today Liberalism is "Scientific Liberalism", with obvious connotations, while it in the mid 1800s (at least in the peasant dominated Sweden) was just a movement to make industrialization and division of labour possible.
And by the way, the word Socialism has an equally chequered history. It began as a self-description by the French charity bourgeoisie – they considered themselves "social", not "asocial" as some of their class brethren. Then it was appropriated by the labour organizations after 1848 because they considered themselves to be better at redistribute money than the charity organizations were. And finally in the 20th century all and sundry could call themselves Socialists – Mao, Attlee, Stalin, Nehru, Mitterrand, and even Hitler... Probably it was too much, the word fell out of use about 1990.
It seems to me that political words have a half-life of a few generations, and they are wonderfully adept in changing meaning during the way. So I wouldn't speak of Liberalism, not even neo-liberalism, I would speak of market dictatorship.
Liked this: "political words have a half-life of a few generations".
It is best to study things within the overall context. As you mentioned correctly, the word socialism took a big hit about 1990. The context was the fall of the Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics, and the Eastern socialist countries. Neoliberalism was roaring like a bulldozer. Now some 30 years later, Neoliberalism is approaching its "half-life" as its socioeconomic and political destructiveness is out for all to see. Socialism on the other hand is being slowly resurrected, with the fantastic socioeconomic achievements of China.
Similarly looking at "liberalism" when it was introduced, it is necessary to study the context in which it emerged, and always useful to see who the beneficiaries were of this transformation. Clearly it was mercantilism and colonialism. French "revolution" called for Liberte - Egalite - Fraternite.... what it ushered in Europe were the Napoleonic Wars and internationally genocidal colonialism, France was the second colonial power after Britain.
So "Liberalism" just as the lofty ideals of the French "revolution" were merely putting lipstick on a pig to make it look pretty. In its essence it was used to destroy the existing sociopolitical order and give rise to a new order that of Money Powers.
Iwouldn't write history exact like that. The word liberalism was coined by some in opposition to the Spanish monarchy in the early 1800s. It spread, probably because people recognized the ills of the Spanish monarchy – crony power, rigidly restricted entitlements – as pertinent to their own governments. In Sweden it was exactly like that, liberals wanted an extention of suffrage, equal rights to official offices and equal taxation, regardless if one belonged to one of the traditionally ruling families or not. At that time, it was all that was.
And colonialism was not something invented in the 1800s, it was old as bedrock. The particularly European variety was invented by the Spanish in America in the 1500s, and England and France followed suit a hundred years later.
It is clear he [John Locke] is a world-class plagiarizer. Almost all of his economic theories are taken (sometimes almost verbatim) from the Salmancans, his social contract theory is cribbed from Althusias, and even his premier philosophical work, the Essay Concerning Human Understanding (of notorious Tabula Rasa fame), is nothing more than an elaboration of Paolo Sarpi’s L’Arte di Ben Pensare (The Art of Thinking Well). There is almost nothing original in any of his works.
In 1526, 34 years after Columbus’ first trans-Atlantic voyage, the Spanish Dominican scholar Francisco de Vitoria was appointed the Chair of Theology at the University of Salamanca in Spain. For the next 20 years, Vitoria recruited a group of followers, who produced a vast body of work encompassing theology, economics, natural law and jurisprudence. Taken together, these individuals and their writings became known as the School of Salamanca.
Not sure how relevant it is whether the accepted "father of liberalism" used the word "liberalism" or not?
Check out the references I posted, they are both fascinating reads and extremely informative and of relevance in understanding the world we are in today. You may download the for free.
1. C.S. Lewis described the "Materialist Magician" as the ultimate satanic creation. The magician does not believe in God but talks endlessly of "spirits" and "forces".
2. You get a degree in "business" because you want to get a not-too unpleasant job that can hopefully support a middle-class lifestyle and you don't want to have to work too hard at anything too uncertain. "Finance", less so, because finance tends to involve more math.
Lewis is basically describing Faust. And "belief" in the One is less relevant than fidelity to (I'm avoiding the words "faith" and "God" for their equivocations. The One created Heaven, so doesn't live there).
Spengler had some interesting things to say about Faust and Western people's. A Faustian soul with a Magian ideology (God vs the Devil) = a lot of unnecessary tension, which in turn leads to pursuing destructive infinity projects - like (Christian DNA) atheism and (Christian DNA) Liberalism.
All fine analysis; however, to presuppose that 'traditional' has ever been founded on Reality is at the core of our collective confusion, dysfunction and insidious fear (of the unknown). Absent the truth of our Source, purpose and potential we will continue in ignorance of the Actual Nature of our appearance in space-time.
As long as we seek answers in the 'light show' - an illusion detected by our 5-senses as 'solid and whole' - we ignore the obvious Oneness/Singularity of energetic space wherein the universe appears. To discover the One Self of Pure Conscious Presence, we require Real Education to 'bring out from within' our Divine Knowingness.
Indeed, the Realisation sought is simply that Consciousness is Love of exploration-investigation-discovery playing all characters in Its Play. This is the Truth vital to dispel our entrapment in the delusion of individual subjectivity as we awaken to the awe and gratitude of Truth, Beauty and Goodness.
Overview from Nisargadatta Maharaj
"The point is that man freed from his fetters is morality personified. Such a man therefore does not need any moralistic injunctions in order to live righteously. Free a man from his bondage and thereafter everything else will take care of itself. On the other hand, man in his unredeemed state cannot possibly live morally, no matter what moral teaching he is given. It is an intrinsic impossibility, for his very foundation is immorality. That is, he lives a lie, a basic contradiction: functioning in all his relationships as the separate entity he believes himself to be, whereas in reality no such separation exists. His every action therefore does violence to other 'selves' and other 'creatures,' which are only manifestations of the unitary consciousness. So Society had to invent some restraints in order to protect itself from its own worst excesses and thereby maintain some kind of status quo. The resulting arbitrary rules, which vary with place and time and therefore are purely relative, it calls 'morality,' and by upholding this man-invented 'idea' as the highest good–oftentimes sanctioned by religious 'revelation' and scriptures, society has provided man with one more excuse to disregard the quest for liberation or relegate it to a fairly low priority in his scheme of things."
Our non-separation from the Divine/Heavens has been the underlying assumption of Chinese culture for at least 2500 years. It's working as well today as it did when Lao Tzu walked the earth.
Well, you're getting a lot of book recommendations, and I don't know if you even read the comments on your essays, but I wonder if you would enjoy The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist.
It's only a minor point with little connection to main point of the essay, but I should sound a note of caution about invoking "quantum physics" in an argument such as this. (I feel obligated, anyway, since I'm a physicist who regularly teaches quantum mechanics.)
Yes, you can run into people trying to use metaphors deriving from 19th century conceptions of mechanism in order to promote their social (or anti-social) ideals. But their basic error is, perhaps that they're still tethered to a more ancient view where the fundamental patterns of nature can be a source of potent social or interpersonally relevant metaphors. With modern physics, particularly quantum physics, that becomes even more dubious. Fundamental physics today is so far removed from our everyday realities dominated by human interactions that you should be very suspicious of any attempt to use it even as a source of metaphor. Quantum physics is alien to everyday, social thinking. Any attempt to press it into service beyond what physicists do almost inescapably results in New Age dreck.
Our problems you so ably describe are social, political. Physics, when correctly understood, is of almost no use one way or another in solving such problems.
Aurelien, I recommend the body of complex systems science literature by Santa Fe Institute authors like Stuart Kauffman and (more recently) Sara Imari Walker. Their project is to re-frame science away from reductionism and towards interaction, connection, and emergence. I think you'd find it relevant to your post.
Perhaps it explains the estimated 9 million out of 66 million Eleonor Rigby's of both sexes who presently live alone in the UK, - which I guess is a state of affairs that will likely only get worse.
I wonder about when we passed " If it ain't broke don't fix it ".
If anything, recent trends in scientific thought have been toward greater connectivity. In the life sciences, particularly, first order thinking is being routed by the emergence of levels of inter-related complexity which, while stunningly beautiful, are forcing / enabling us to reconstruct entire models and even philosophies of science. The concept of specificity, for example, a hallmark of medicine, is falling away.
The ultra-specificity of the mRNA Covid shots, from this perspective, may be the last dreadful hurrah of the old 'magic bullet' idea. The drug companies would deny this, of course, for the obvious reasons, but they are already dead, they just don't know it yet.
As for the human-scale of connectivity, I'm sure that the well-read Aurelien has read Marshall McLuhan. His hot and cold sensoria were quite persuasive, at least to me.
I think you are right – but it may take a long time before this is translated to the language people understand and carried by the media they use. And there is probably a lot of exeptions from the rule – neo-classical economics being one of these.
I recently met up with an old friend who works in tech support for a major bank. Much of the work that was once carried out in the UK by his department has now been outsourced to locations on the other side of the world. My friend was of the resigned opinion that his job would soon undergo a similar virtual migration, leaving him behind. As we conversed, he was coding on his laptop. I asked him what he was writing. He told me it was a piece of software that would encourage better coding practice among the bank's outsourced employees since they often cut corners and it was causing problems.
That didn't seem right and it still doesn't. On the face of it, the bank would seem to be willfully replacing competent employees with individuals who are either unqualified to do the work and have perhaps bluffed their way into a position, or who do not care enough to perform their duties to even an acceptable standard. My friend's program, whose aim was to encourage these new workers to carry out their role more diligently, seemed easily circumvented and doomed to failure, although I commend his effort to swim against the tide in a company for whom efficiency has become analogous with the bare minimum.
It seemed alien to me. I have never worked anything other than minimum wage jobs. Wherever I landed, I always looked for meaning: How does what I do fit in with the rest of the organisation? When I worked at a large NHS hospital, despite my strong dislike of networking, I cultivated relationships all over the site and it paid off, knowing who did what and who to talk to to resolve a given problem.
I understand what my general purpose is in the world: It's to look after chameleons and write peculiar novels. An understanding of one's purpose in the professional sphere is essential if you are to engage with the work in a way that is meaningful. Once a sufficient number of people no longer know what that purpose is, things can only fall apart.
"Once a sufficient number of people no longer know what that purpose is, things can only fall apart." To me you are describing an important source of the lack of connection and belonging of our time.
An excellent essay. The Church Fathers noted that "a man may find God while watching a fox cross a road" (paraphrasing from memory). It's a statement on the mysterious (or "sacramental", as the West refers to it) nature of life--it's connectedness. The understanding of Communion, as opposed to simply "relationship", is central to the teachings of the Church. "My brother is my life" is another statement by an Orthodox Saint that speaks to this.
Peace,
Sectarianism is surely an early form of Divide Et Impera, at least when utilised in a certain way. When religion or ideology empowers one to truly love one's neighbour, that is welcome them as a guest and deeply see from their point of view in good hospitality, then it can dissolve sectarian divisions. If a religion/ideology must insist its way is the only way lest it itself collapses into incoherence, and so is unwilling or unable to entertain that which doesn't fit it's existing map of things, then that kind of religion/ideology is no long-term friend to human unity (I accept it has a short term place for emergency cases, for the sake of stability of belonging).
Peace.
Now, religion didn't starte oout quite as that, if one should believe Émile Durkheim – it started as a kind of stand-in for "society". People are social animals, we can't exist without society, but yet society is notoriously difficult to imagine. All we see around us are people.
So religion was invented, probably in an evolutionary way. All religions are different, but in every single one of them there are rites – things people do together. These rites stand as substitutes for society where people also do things together. And the wonderful trick is that by doing rites together we feel stronger, more connected (to use the word in this essay) and more powerful, and dare to do what we wouldnt dare to do alone.
Then, of course, professional intellectuals arose to explain why one would do these particular rites, weaving the most bizarre theories around this and gaining power from that. But it is a secondary development.
Peace,
I believe Durkheim was right... for the Western experience. I don't think he knew much about Islamic, Indigenous or Confucian history. Projecting/universalising the experience of one's own culture to that of others is understandable.
Peace.
Actually, he wrote about the Australian variety because he saw it as the most pristine.
Randall Collins has resurrected the idea in Sociological insights. Religions are of all kinds, but the only thing they have in common is rites.
PS. Interaction Ritual Chains eh… I like it. Let's see if we can't forge one here together, so that we both can come away energised.
I like Mr Collins's emphasis on the symbolism in sexual exchanges too, as it is an area that modern culture needs to be educated on again I believe. I will definitively have to follow up on your referral, inshaaAllah.
Cool.
I'd like to start again, if you are comfortable. Firstly I responded too quickly with a (failed) defensive counter up there. If I was slower I might have understood you better, and in turn understood that you may not have fully understood what I was saying really either. Do you think that might be the case?
Again, if you wish to continue, for the sake of a check that we aren't just talking past each other, can you summarise for me in your own words what my original comment was saying? I want to apply a "disambiguation protocol" for clear communication, in good hospitality.
Peace.
Your first comment? That different parts of the world had different histories and different experiences? I couldn't read in much more than that in it, probably I'm dull.
Now the usual intellectual game is between lumpers and splitters. There are always likenesses as well as differences. But, as I pointed out earlier, regardless of the differences between religions, rites is what they have in common.
One profound difference is of course between the axial religions and the pre-axial ones. That is, the ones created as a kind of defence for common society and people in general against ravaging empires some time between a thousand and two thousand five hundred years ago, and the ones that up to recent times were dominant among hunter-gatherer societies. (About this see fore example Daniel Hoyer & Jenny Reddish: Seshat history of the axial age.) There are of course differences among them too, but once again, existence of rites unite them.
(PS. I know both Aussie and Asabiyyah, but what does the combination stand for? That Aussies keep together?)
I first read “The Machine Stops” around forty years ago - it was part of the English Literature syllabus at my school. It does sum up a lot of modern life.
Rupert Sheldrake’s “The Science Delusion” (you may have recommended it?) seems very consistent with a more spiritual and holistic approach to “science” but is seemingly regarded as heretical by the lovers of the “mechanistic” or “clockwork” approach to the world.
Of course, our society thinks it knows all the answers and that everyone else in the past and everyone alive today elsewhere in the world who has different approaches was / is wrong and even immoral. But why do we have all the answers? In reality, we do not.
Interesting essay, as ever.
A fine piece, but a quibble concerning the famous remarks by Thatcher – of whom I was certainly no fan – about society. The excerpt from that interview (with Woman's Own in 1987) makes things a little more nuanced:
"I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand “I have a problem, it is the Government's job to cope with it!” or “I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!” “I am homeless, the Government must house me!” and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families, and no government can do anything except through people, and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations, because there is no such thing as an entitlement unless someone has first met an obligation..."
So you're right to suggest that this is of a piece with a broader Liberal mindset that sees human connections as transactional, but it's not quite as stark as the much-quoted "There is no such thing as society." Indeed, she talks elsewhere in the interview about society, and at one point suggests that society's connections are a little richer than just transactional:
"[Some say] if children have a problem, it is society that is at fault. There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate."
It is so easy to say " it is up to some people to pull themselves up by their boots srtrap when ones have their families legacy and backup and don't have to worry about obstacles such as ethnicity, systematic racism and oppression. It is not that simple.
It's not easy without these handicaps either. And this is what the essay is about. Individuals are nothing without connections. Some have many, others few.
But what stinks particularly is that these self-labelled Liberals usually have lots of connections to already powerful people, on which they ride. But they condemn connections for others.
Excellent discussion of a most pertinent issue.
Suffers from significant drawbacks, namely addressing:
1. Was it an evolution of human thought or was it a form of "color revolution"?
2. What are origins of liberalism?
3. What was the purpose of liberalism?
Civilization applies to a community not individuals. A deep rooted civilization is proof of a successful evolutionary process in which the community’s long term wellbeing and survival is prioritized. It is the historical survival of a particular community that develops it into a civilization; otherwise it will disappear from history.
Liberalism with its focus on the individual as opposed to the community cannot therefore be considered as a phase of civilizational development, rather it is a destroyer of civilizations and promoter of nihilism.
Liberalism was promoted in Western Europe to replace Catholicism which placed restrictions on money power by imposition of morality on business transactions and the prohibition of usury.
Thus, liberalism developed with the advent of mercantilism and the hollowing the West European millennial civilization, by marginalizing Catholicism and replacing monarchic governance with parliamentarian democracies, which was essential for the rise of the Money Powers that usurped sovereignty of Western nations.
Neoliberalism and associated globalization era in the 1980s provided Money Powers with a free reign, accelerating the assault on remnants of civilizations globally, leading to the spread of nihilism, with its ultimate form ‘wokeism’.
https://fadilama.substack.com/p/clash-of-civilizations-with-nihilism
At least 150 years ago Liberalism was quite another thing than today. Swedish economist Carl Hamilton quipped that today Liberalism is "Scientific Liberalism", with obvious connotations, while it in the mid 1800s (at least in the peasant dominated Sweden) was just a movement to make industrialization and division of labour possible.
And by the way, the word Socialism has an equally chequered history. It began as a self-description by the French charity bourgeoisie – they considered themselves "social", not "asocial" as some of their class brethren. Then it was appropriated by the labour organizations after 1848 because they considered themselves to be better at redistribute money than the charity organizations were. And finally in the 20th century all and sundry could call themselves Socialists – Mao, Attlee, Stalin, Nehru, Mitterrand, and even Hitler... Probably it was too much, the word fell out of use about 1990.
It seems to me that political words have a half-life of a few generations, and they are wonderfully adept in changing meaning during the way. So I wouldn't speak of Liberalism, not even neo-liberalism, I would speak of market dictatorship.
Liked this: "political words have a half-life of a few generations".
It is best to study things within the overall context. As you mentioned correctly, the word socialism took a big hit about 1990. The context was the fall of the Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics, and the Eastern socialist countries. Neoliberalism was roaring like a bulldozer. Now some 30 years later, Neoliberalism is approaching its "half-life" as its socioeconomic and political destructiveness is out for all to see. Socialism on the other hand is being slowly resurrected, with the fantastic socioeconomic achievements of China.
Similarly looking at "liberalism" when it was introduced, it is necessary to study the context in which it emerged, and always useful to see who the beneficiaries were of this transformation. Clearly it was mercantilism and colonialism. French "revolution" called for Liberte - Egalite - Fraternite.... what it ushered in Europe were the Napoleonic Wars and internationally genocidal colonialism, France was the second colonial power after Britain.
So "Liberalism" just as the lofty ideals of the French "revolution" were merely putting lipstick on a pig to make it look pretty. In its essence it was used to destroy the existing sociopolitical order and give rise to a new order that of Money Powers.
Iwouldn't write history exact like that. The word liberalism was coined by some in opposition to the Spanish monarchy in the early 1800s. It spread, probably because people recognized the ills of the Spanish monarchy – crony power, rigidly restricted entitlements – as pertinent to their own governments. In Sweden it was exactly like that, liberals wanted an extention of suffrage, equal rights to official offices and equal taxation, regardless if one belonged to one of the traditionally ruling families or not. At that time, it was all that was.
And colonialism was not something invented in the 1800s, it was old as bedrock. The particularly European variety was invented by the Spanish in America in the 1500s, and England and France followed suit a hundred years later.
Quote: "The word liberalism was coined by some in opposition to the Spanish monarchy in the early 1800s"
Actually it is necessary to 250 years back, to early 16th century:
John Locke is considered “the father of liberalism”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke
It is clear he [John Locke] is a world-class plagiarizer. Almost all of his economic theories are taken (sometimes almost verbatim) from the Salmancans, his social contract theory is cribbed from Althusias, and even his premier philosophical work, the Essay Concerning Human Understanding (of notorious Tabula Rasa fame), is nothing more than an elaboration of Paolo Sarpi’s L’Arte di Ben Pensare (The Art of Thinking Well). There is almost nothing original in any of his works.
In 1526, 34 years after Columbus’ first trans-Atlantic voyage, the Spanish Dominican scholar Francisco de Vitoria was appointed the Chair of Theology at the University of Salamanca in Spain. For the next 20 years, Vitoria recruited a group of followers, who produced a vast body of work encompassing theology, economics, natural law and jurisprudence. Taken together, these individuals and their writings became known as the School of Salamanca.
https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Anglo-Dutch-Empire-Evolution-Anti-Human/dp/B08T43FN9H
Did they really *use* the word "liberalism" or is it grafted on them later?
Not sure how relevant it is whether the accepted "father of liberalism" used the word "liberalism" or not?
Check out the references I posted, they are both fascinating reads and extremely informative and of relevance in understanding the world we are in today. You may download the for free.
"Neoliberal Economists Must Die"
(Timothy J. Gawne)
https://read.amazon.com/sample/B00HK3KLDQ?f=2&l=en_US&r=4861ca46&rid=TSQ462Y6J2WBNANQFTVM&sid=146-1165571-1161623&cid=A39NJMOJTX1THZ&ref_=litb_m
1. C.S. Lewis described the "Materialist Magician" as the ultimate satanic creation. The magician does not believe in God but talks endlessly of "spirits" and "forces".
2. You get a degree in "business" because you want to get a not-too unpleasant job that can hopefully support a middle-class lifestyle and you don't want to have to work too hard at anything too uncertain. "Finance", less so, because finance tends to involve more math.
Lewis is basically describing Faust. And "belief" in the One is less relevant than fidelity to (I'm avoiding the words "faith" and "God" for their equivocations. The One created Heaven, so doesn't live there).
Spengler had some interesting things to say about Faust and Western people's. A Faustian soul with a Magian ideology (God vs the Devil) = a lot of unnecessary tension, which in turn leads to pursuing destructive infinity projects - like (Christian DNA) atheism and (Christian DNA) Liberalism.
Italian translation...
"Connettiti soltanto ....
Ci siamo persi in un bosco infestato."
https://trying2understandw.blogspot.com/2024/10/connettiti-soltanto-ci-siamo-persi-in.html
All fine analysis; however, to presuppose that 'traditional' has ever been founded on Reality is at the core of our collective confusion, dysfunction and insidious fear (of the unknown). Absent the truth of our Source, purpose and potential we will continue in ignorance of the Actual Nature of our appearance in space-time.
As long as we seek answers in the 'light show' - an illusion detected by our 5-senses as 'solid and whole' - we ignore the obvious Oneness/Singularity of energetic space wherein the universe appears. To discover the One Self of Pure Conscious Presence, we require Real Education to 'bring out from within' our Divine Knowingness.
Indeed, the Realisation sought is simply that Consciousness is Love of exploration-investigation-discovery playing all characters in Its Play. This is the Truth vital to dispel our entrapment in the delusion of individual subjectivity as we awaken to the awe and gratitude of Truth, Beauty and Goodness.
Overview from Nisargadatta Maharaj
"The point is that man freed from his fetters is morality personified. Such a man therefore does not need any moralistic injunctions in order to live righteously. Free a man from his bondage and thereafter everything else will take care of itself. On the other hand, man in his unredeemed state cannot possibly live morally, no matter what moral teaching he is given. It is an intrinsic impossibility, for his very foundation is immorality. That is, he lives a lie, a basic contradiction: functioning in all his relationships as the separate entity he believes himself to be, whereas in reality no such separation exists. His every action therefore does violence to other 'selves' and other 'creatures,' which are only manifestations of the unitary consciousness. So Society had to invent some restraints in order to protect itself from its own worst excesses and thereby maintain some kind of status quo. The resulting arbitrary rules, which vary with place and time and therefore are purely relative, it calls 'morality,' and by upholding this man-invented 'idea' as the highest good–oftentimes sanctioned by religious 'revelation' and scriptures, society has provided man with one more excuse to disregard the quest for liberation or relegate it to a fairly low priority in his scheme of things."
Fantastic essay!
Our non-separation from the Divine/Heavens has been the underlying assumption of Chinese culture for at least 2500 years. It's working as well today as it did when Lao Tzu walked the earth.
As in many parts of Africa, at least this one
-the connections to the collective are immediate and overwhelming, conceived as to the past and to the future, to the living and to the dead
Well, you're getting a lot of book recommendations, and I don't know if you even read the comments on your essays, but I wonder if you would enjoy The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist.
+1
Also this rhymes:
https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/balanced-intelligence-and-knowledge
It's only a minor point with little connection to main point of the essay, but I should sound a note of caution about invoking "quantum physics" in an argument such as this. (I feel obligated, anyway, since I'm a physicist who regularly teaches quantum mechanics.)
Yes, you can run into people trying to use metaphors deriving from 19th century conceptions of mechanism in order to promote their social (or anti-social) ideals. But their basic error is, perhaps that they're still tethered to a more ancient view where the fundamental patterns of nature can be a source of potent social or interpersonally relevant metaphors. With modern physics, particularly quantum physics, that becomes even more dubious. Fundamental physics today is so far removed from our everyday realities dominated by human interactions that you should be very suspicious of any attempt to use it even as a source of metaphor. Quantum physics is alien to everyday, social thinking. Any attempt to press it into service beyond what physicists do almost inescapably results in New Age dreck.
Our problems you so ably describe are social, political. Physics, when correctly understood, is of almost no use one way or another in solving such problems.
Maybe biology is a better field for producing metaphors then?
Biology beyond the genome | Denis Noble
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzXFSufDDn8
Wolfgang Smith might disagree, but he is a Neoplatonist....
It depends on the frame one uses. If limited by modern frames, I can't disagree with what you say.
Aurelien, I recommend the body of complex systems science literature by Santa Fe Institute authors like Stuart Kauffman and (more recently) Sara Imari Walker. Their project is to re-frame science away from reductionism and towards interaction, connection, and emergence. I think you'd find it relevant to your post.
Perhaps it explains the estimated 9 million out of 66 million Eleonor Rigby's of both sexes who presently live alone in the UK, - which I guess is a state of affairs that will likely only get worse.
I wonder about when we passed " If it ain't broke don't fix it ".
If anything, recent trends in scientific thought have been toward greater connectivity. In the life sciences, particularly, first order thinking is being routed by the emergence of levels of inter-related complexity which, while stunningly beautiful, are forcing / enabling us to reconstruct entire models and even philosophies of science. The concept of specificity, for example, a hallmark of medicine, is falling away.
The ultra-specificity of the mRNA Covid shots, from this perspective, may be the last dreadful hurrah of the old 'magic bullet' idea. The drug companies would deny this, of course, for the obvious reasons, but they are already dead, they just don't know it yet.
As for the human-scale of connectivity, I'm sure that the well-read Aurelien has read Marshall McLuhan. His hot and cold sensoria were quite persuasive, at least to me.
I think you are right – but it may take a long time before this is translated to the language people understand and carried by the media they use. And there is probably a lot of exeptions from the rule – neo-classical economics being one of these.