Much of this is in line with Nietzsche's concept of 'Umwertung aller Werte'- where a culture in decline reaches a stage where 'Nothing is true, everything is allowed'.
Welcome to the post-truth 21th century.
In a geopolitical context we see how the few remaining civilization states seem to be getting along just fine in spite of their huge cultural differences. It is the declining West that is incapable to deal with those differences.
A heroic attitude towards the incoherence of the events with which we are confronted is nearly impossible to achieve, because we (our brains is) are designed to manufacture coherence. We do want to know why and how things happen. This is an absolute necessity to orientate ourselves in the world - in small practical things as well as in complex interrelationships.
To abbreviate my post: The undermining or even destruction of nearly all officially accepted rules (in warfare, in human rights, in terms of religious "values", in traditions, in all what mankind had developed in the last centuries as binding rules) is unbearable for a normal developed brain.
If this destruction is intentional (for us spectators) or not: it undermines our very humanity.
Arguing Yes: John Mearsheimer, Political Science Professor at the University of Chicago and Daniel L. Davis, Retired Lieutenant Colonel, Senior Fellow and Military Expert at Defense Priorities
Arguing No: Heather Conley, President of German Marshall Fund of the United States and Paula Dobriansky, Former Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs; Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Vice Chair, Atlantic Council Scowcroft Center for Strategy & Security
The two ladies are painful to watch and listen to.
"And the bitterest of ironies, is that this is the one political crisis I can think of in the last thirty years where military intervention could put an end to the suffering in half an hour." There is one even more bitter irony here: Egypt could stop Palestinian suffering in ten minutes, by opening the gates and letting their Palestinian cousins escape hell. But this option is not on the table; no one, not even Aurelien can conceive of this compassionate act. I wonder why.
In 1793, British emissary Lord Macartney came to China in the hope of negotiating trade rights and went back to Britain with an edict from the Chinese emperor to the British king to observe certain ethical principles or something--something that made no sense to the British. Bertrand Russell (I think--he did a lecture tour of China in 1920 and wrote quite a bit about what he saw, heard, and thought) quipped more than a century later that the West will have understood China when the letter makes sense. While I don't think the West understands "China," we are certainly doing a good job emulating Emperor Qianlong's epistolary style...minus the epistle part.
Humility is not a peculiar habit of self-effacement, rather like having an inaudible voice, it is selfless respect for reality and one of the most difficult and central of virtues...Only rarely does one meet somebody in whom it positively shines, in whom one apprehends with amazement the absence of the anxious avaricious tentacles of the self.
- Iris Murdoch, "The Sovereignty of Good", p.93, 101
Even if one were to agree with your comment that there are no whys in this world, I take heart in your title that continues to make the effort. I trust we all will make that same choice.
re: "Rather, it has produced a conspiratorial world-view where nothing is as it seems, and everything is the result of the machinations of individuals and organisations that we invest with what are, frankly, superhuman powers. (An invisible demon came down and killed Jeffrey Epstein for example.)"
Mr. Aurelien,
There are many strange, documented, coincidences about Epstein's demise: malfunctioning cameras, erased video-tapes, lying guards, removal from suicide watch, etc.. His "unprecedented" plea deals, colossal wealth with no visible sources, many rich and famous "friends", links to some intelligemce operatives, and the general (enforced?) amnesia about him and his paramour /chief procurer, are also matters of public record. The probability that Epstein was the single mastermind behind all of this is less probable than your invisible demon coming down and killing him..
Seems like this "problem"" will take care of itself. Nihilists don't breed religious folks do. I've read projections that Europe will be Islamic by 2070-2100 depending on country even with no more immigration, just a 3.6 Muslim vs 1.2ish European fertility rate.
The only "European" country above holding steady 2.1 fertility is (some parts) of deeply religious Israel who have 3.1 so eventually hasidic Jews will takeover that country having 5+. Putin is pushing Orthodoxy hard for good reason and with some success increasing fertility every year but still not 2.1 yet but 1.57 is better than most European/Asian countries save the Islamic and Hindu ones.
Anyway this is all very temporary. In 100 years only people left will be as religious as before the cultural revolution of the 1960s.
Seems to me that some of all this is because too many people especially those with the most resources to do so flat out refuse to think because it can be difficult, uncomfortable, even painful, and so they do not. I get that thinking about something differently can be almost impossible, but it can be done, and requires nothing except a chair or a long walk, perhaps some paper and pen. If that is too hard, read a book that slightly challenges your beliefs.
But doing any of this just might make you realize that change is necessary and force you away from your coffee and cellphone.
It is much easier to use that pseudo liberalism called neoliberalism to reduce everything into unreality unless it above money of course. Liberalism, at least the classical form, was meant to channel conflict, not eliminate it, nor was it supposed to reduce religion, economics, philosophy, nationalism, or anything else into a nonentity. But reducing everything except money to nothingness is a great way to delegitimize everything that could reduce the pillaging. It also makes thinking less necessary. It reminds me how science has been repurposed from a means of study to the religion of Scientism.
What makes me the most angry is not that anyone might be wrong about something, but the refusal to see anything else that might maybe challenge even the smallest of their beliefs; allowing people to suffer and to die in order to avoid any mental or emotional discomfort is a great crime or sin to me.
Much of this is in line with Nietzsche's concept of 'Umwertung aller Werte'- where a culture in decline reaches a stage where 'Nothing is true, everything is allowed'.
Welcome to the post-truth 21th century.
In a geopolitical context we see how the few remaining civilization states seem to be getting along just fine in spite of their huge cultural differences. It is the declining West that is incapable to deal with those differences.
As usual, most stimulating, I am profoundly grateful Aurelien2020. The breadth and type of references make me nostalgic of a time when they formed a common cultural background where I live, enabling a shared vision and the construction of a coherent intellectual framework.
If I may add, it seems to me that Camus went beyond Absurdism and found the answer to why with la révolte (L'homme révolté). Some of his thoughts in the last chapter of that book go along well with your essay:
"Qui se donne à cette histoire ne se donne à rien et à son tour n'est rien (shades of Darkness at Noon, here, to go with the Marxist strand you're talking about). Mais qui se donne au temps de sa vie, à la maison qu'il défend, à la dignité des vivants, celui-là se donne à la terre et en reçoit la moisson qui ensemence et nourrit à nouveau...Il y a un mal, sans doute, que les hommes accumulent dans leur désir forcené d'unité..." I won't quote at length, but it seems to me there's another step to take after that collective suicide
“vulgar Marxism, with its myopic emphasis on purely material and economic explanations for everything”
Firstly: what’s known as ‘marxism’ today is purely a university product. So it’s a product of the establishment, of polite society, not at all vulgar.
(Btw: I think the old term establishment is a much better label than PMC because as a pre ml classical political economic marxist I consider the phenomenon too far removed from production to be a class and too incoherent to be a caste.)
Secondly: the explanations given by so called marxists are never materialist in the political economic sense, ie tied to the mode of production, and if they reference economics it’s all about haves and have nots.
Now that is social liberalism, that is not marxism. The distinguishing feature of the working class is not that it is poor, but that it is the class that does the actual producing in a capitalist system.
What goes for marxism today is a blend of french establishment postmodernism and American university style anarchism, some times decorated with some curious artefacts found in the cellar of the abandoned homes of Marx and Engels.
So what it really is is a product of the liberal brand, designed to cater to a specific audience: disgruntled (or even genuinely concerned) members of the establishment.
Great line: "Declining power structures still clinging to inflated ideas of their own importance have always been good material for satirists..." NATO, anyone?
Much of this is in line with Nietzsche's concept of 'Umwertung aller Werte'- where a culture in decline reaches a stage where 'Nothing is true, everything is allowed'.
Welcome to the post-truth 21th century.
In a geopolitical context we see how the few remaining civilization states seem to be getting along just fine in spite of their huge cultural differences. It is the declining West that is incapable to deal with those differences.
A heroic attitude towards the incoherence of the events with which we are confronted is nearly impossible to achieve, because we (our brains is) are designed to manufacture coherence. We do want to know why and how things happen. This is an absolute necessity to orientate ourselves in the world - in small practical things as well as in complex interrelationships.
To abbreviate my post: The undermining or even destruction of nearly all officially accepted rules (in warfare, in human rights, in terms of religious "values", in traditions, in all what mankind had developed in the last centuries as binding rules) is unbearable for a normal developed brain.
If this destruction is intentional (for us spectators) or not: it undermines our very humanity.
Thank you for this essay.
An embodiment of your argument can be seen in this very recent debate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdtCyiKHtqE
Should Congress Stop Funding the War in Ukraine?
Arguing Yes: John Mearsheimer, Political Science Professor at the University of Chicago and Daniel L. Davis, Retired Lieutenant Colonel, Senior Fellow and Military Expert at Defense Priorities
Arguing No: Heather Conley, President of German Marshall Fund of the United States and Paula Dobriansky, Former Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs; Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Vice Chair, Atlantic Council Scowcroft Center for Strategy & Security
The two ladies are painful to watch and listen to.
"And the bitterest of ironies, is that this is the one political crisis I can think of in the last thirty years where military intervention could put an end to the suffering in half an hour." There is one even more bitter irony here: Egypt could stop Palestinian suffering in ten minutes, by opening the gates and letting their Palestinian cousins escape hell. But this option is not on the table; no one, not even Aurelien can conceive of this compassionate act. I wonder why.
In 1793, British emissary Lord Macartney came to China in the hope of negotiating trade rights and went back to Britain with an edict from the Chinese emperor to the British king to observe certain ethical principles or something--something that made no sense to the British. Bertrand Russell (I think--he did a lecture tour of China in 1920 and wrote quite a bit about what he saw, heard, and thought) quipped more than a century later that the West will have understood China when the letter makes sense. While I don't think the West understands "China," we are certainly doing a good job emulating Emperor Qianlong's epistolary style...minus the epistle part.
Perfectly describes why I get my news from the Babylon Bee.
Humility is not a peculiar habit of self-effacement, rather like having an inaudible voice, it is selfless respect for reality and one of the most difficult and central of virtues...Only rarely does one meet somebody in whom it positively shines, in whom one apprehends with amazement the absence of the anxious avaricious tentacles of the self.
- Iris Murdoch, "The Sovereignty of Good", p.93, 101
Even if one were to agree with your comment that there are no whys in this world, I take heart in your title that continues to make the effort. I trust we all will make that same choice.
re: "Rather, it has produced a conspiratorial world-view where nothing is as it seems, and everything is the result of the machinations of individuals and organisations that we invest with what are, frankly, superhuman powers. (An invisible demon came down and killed Jeffrey Epstein for example.)"
Mr. Aurelien,
There are many strange, documented, coincidences about Epstein's demise: malfunctioning cameras, erased video-tapes, lying guards, removal from suicide watch, etc.. His "unprecedented" plea deals, colossal wealth with no visible sources, many rich and famous "friends", links to some intelligemce operatives, and the general (enforced?) amnesia about him and his paramour /chief procurer, are also matters of public record. The probability that Epstein was the single mastermind behind all of this is less probable than your invisible demon coming down and killing him..
Seems like this "problem"" will take care of itself. Nihilists don't breed religious folks do. I've read projections that Europe will be Islamic by 2070-2100 depending on country even with no more immigration, just a 3.6 Muslim vs 1.2ish European fertility rate.
The only "European" country above holding steady 2.1 fertility is (some parts) of deeply religious Israel who have 3.1 so eventually hasidic Jews will takeover that country having 5+. Putin is pushing Orthodoxy hard for good reason and with some success increasing fertility every year but still not 2.1 yet but 1.57 is better than most European/Asian countries save the Islamic and Hindu ones.
Anyway this is all very temporary. In 100 years only people left will be as religious as before the cultural revolution of the 1960s.
Seems to me that some of all this is because too many people especially those with the most resources to do so flat out refuse to think because it can be difficult, uncomfortable, even painful, and so they do not. I get that thinking about something differently can be almost impossible, but it can be done, and requires nothing except a chair or a long walk, perhaps some paper and pen. If that is too hard, read a book that slightly challenges your beliefs.
But doing any of this just might make you realize that change is necessary and force you away from your coffee and cellphone.
It is much easier to use that pseudo liberalism called neoliberalism to reduce everything into unreality unless it above money of course. Liberalism, at least the classical form, was meant to channel conflict, not eliminate it, nor was it supposed to reduce religion, economics, philosophy, nationalism, or anything else into a nonentity. But reducing everything except money to nothingness is a great way to delegitimize everything that could reduce the pillaging. It also makes thinking less necessary. It reminds me how science has been repurposed from a means of study to the religion of Scientism.
What makes me the most angry is not that anyone might be wrong about something, but the refusal to see anything else that might maybe challenge even the smallest of their beliefs; allowing people to suffer and to die in order to avoid any mental or emotional discomfort is a great crime or sin to me.
Much of this is in line with Nietzsche's concept of 'Umwertung aller Werte'- where a culture in decline reaches a stage where 'Nothing is true, everything is allowed'.
Welcome to the post-truth 21th century.
In a geopolitical context we see how the few remaining civilization states seem to be getting along just fine in spite of their huge cultural differences. It is the declining West that is incapable to deal with those differences.
Sorry for the delay...
Here an italian translation:
https://trying2understandw.blogspot.com/2024/04/smettere-di-avere-senso-non-ci-sono.html
As usual, most stimulating, I am profoundly grateful Aurelien2020. The breadth and type of references make me nostalgic of a time when they formed a common cultural background where I live, enabling a shared vision and the construction of a coherent intellectual framework.
If I may add, it seems to me that Camus went beyond Absurdism and found the answer to why with la révolte (L'homme révolté). Some of his thoughts in the last chapter of that book go along well with your essay:
"Qui se donne à cette histoire ne se donne à rien et à son tour n'est rien (shades of Darkness at Noon, here, to go with the Marxist strand you're talking about). Mais qui se donne au temps de sa vie, à la maison qu'il défend, à la dignité des vivants, celui-là se donne à la terre et en reçoit la moisson qui ensemence et nourrit à nouveau...Il y a un mal, sans doute, que les hommes accumulent dans leur désir forcené d'unité..." I won't quote at length, but it seems to me there's another step to take after that collective suicide
Thought provoking, as always, thanks!
But I find this line a bit problematic:
“vulgar Marxism, with its myopic emphasis on purely material and economic explanations for everything”
Firstly: what’s known as ‘marxism’ today is purely a university product. So it’s a product of the establishment, of polite society, not at all vulgar.
(Btw: I think the old term establishment is a much better label than PMC because as a pre ml classical political economic marxist I consider the phenomenon too far removed from production to be a class and too incoherent to be a caste.)
Secondly: the explanations given by so called marxists are never materialist in the political economic sense, ie tied to the mode of production, and if they reference economics it’s all about haves and have nots.
Now that is social liberalism, that is not marxism. The distinguishing feature of the working class is not that it is poor, but that it is the class that does the actual producing in a capitalist system.
What goes for marxism today is a blend of french establishment postmodernism and American university style anarchism, some times decorated with some curious artefacts found in the cellar of the abandoned homes of Marx and Engels.
So what it really is is a product of the liberal brand, designed to cater to a specific audience: disgruntled (or even genuinely concerned) members of the establishment.
Great line: "Declining power structures still clinging to inflated ideas of their own importance have always been good material for satirists..." NATO, anyone?