There was always going to be some debate about how to proceed. To think otherwise is to fall into the trap of believing that one can resolve essentially human problems by technical means.
Wonderful piece as always; I love seeing a new Convivial Society in my inbox!
This week's got me thinking that, for Montesquieu, a democracy had to be founded/supported on virtue. He'd certainly agree that regardless freedom is no freedom at all. In Sprit of the Laws: "It is true that in democracies the people seem to do what they please; but political liberty does not consist in an unrestrained freedom... Liberty can consist only in the power of doing what we ought to will, and in not being constrained to do what we ought not to will."
Thank you for another insightful piece, I appreciate the direction that draws us away from a typical political discussion and towards deeper discourse. Regardless Power and Regardless Freedom are apt concepts for revealing our society's point of view, and implicit in that is perhaps the most salient point: they are egoistic. The pandemic has exposed the underlying reality that we are not in control of nature and that we are all connected. Our manufactured sense of reality has persuasively convinced us otherwise, in the service of other ends. Metamodern thinking has no framework to deal with this, while ancient Eastern philosophies do, since they evolved largely to deal with situations such as we are in now.
Wonderful piece as always; I love seeing a new Convivial Society in my inbox!
This week's got me thinking that, for Montesquieu, a democracy had to be founded/supported on virtue. He'd certainly agree that regardless freedom is no freedom at all. In Sprit of the Laws: "It is true that in democracies the people seem to do what they please; but political liberty does not consist in an unrestrained freedom... Liberty can consist only in the power of doing what we ought to will, and in not being constrained to do what we ought not to will."
Thanks much for your writing & all the best!
Thank you for another insightful piece, I appreciate the direction that draws us away from a typical political discussion and towards deeper discourse. Regardless Power and Regardless Freedom are apt concepts for revealing our society's point of view, and implicit in that is perhaps the most salient point: they are egoistic. The pandemic has exposed the underlying reality that we are not in control of nature and that we are all connected. Our manufactured sense of reality has persuasively convinced us otherwise, in the service of other ends. Metamodern thinking has no framework to deal with this, while ancient Eastern philosophies do, since they evolved largely to deal with situations such as we are in now.
Excellent and helpful work, Michael. Thank you.
Playing catch-up on the backlog once again, here... thanks for this piece in particular, which pushes a bunch of my own theoretical buttons on topics that go beyond the pandemic (and all the way back to my doctoral work). My notes-in-response to this issue (episode?) of TCS are here, if you're interested: https://www.velcro-city.co.uk/technologies-that-place-me-in-a-seemingly-promethean-position-regardless-power-regardless-freedom-and-the-desire-for-excession/ Or you might want to go straight to a talk I did back in 2017, which lays out some of the foundational arguments of the same theoretical project in the guise of jousting with transhumanism: https://www.velcro-city.co.uk/how-does-the-rabbit-end-up-in-the-hat-or-what-transhumanism-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about-infrastructure/
Of course, you might very well decide not to look at either, and I have no expectation that you will. :)