“Eurocentric modernist” thinking is exploding
ineteconomics.org
ineteconomics.org
I also found the criticisms of economics interesting. Other than micro-economics laws like supply, demand, division of labor and others, I've never read an economic theory that didn't have some hand-wavy aspect to it. The suggestion that the entire field has served more to dehumanize us than add to our general understanding of scarce resource distribution is a valid point to raise. Though I felt like Adam Smith was the wrong person to place the blame on, if blame need be placed. If they're suggesting that the field hasn't advanced our understanding much past the basics, then why blame the person who best crystalized the basics?
There's clearly some controversial stuff in here that's meant to be controversial, but if you can look past that, there's some unique ideas.
If this were true, then what about previous influential european philosophies, ideas and religions?
Steven Keen's Debunking Economics has some arguments that might make you revisit microeconomics (although much of the book is bad). Also, check out Misbehaving by Richard Thaler.
That doesn't make it unworthy, it just means we have to understand what we measure and why, and the limitations of it.
If you pay your mother to babysit, that goes into the GDP. If she does it for free, like most families - it doesn't go onto the GDP - yet the same amount of value was created.
The GDP also does not measure consumer surpluses, which is crazy.
It also doesn't account for the degradation of so many things. Clean water for example. A lake is polluted - unless someone is hit, economically speaking, it doesn't factor into the GDP. Well, we clearly 'value' clean water and streams on some level, maybe we should have a 'balance sheet' of 'natural assets' and put a number on them.
People tend to move around measurable things, and putting numbers on things changes hearts and minds.
Example: insurance companies are starting to change more for certain elements of climate risk. Maybe not quite 'climate change' in the grand sense, but certainly local climate issues. Then business have to respond because costs go up. I find a lot of business people are like that - once it's in numbers, measures, costs, it's easier to get on board.
If there's a real macro problem with economics, is that we need to measure something better than the GDP :)
Also, because of comparative value, it's hard to be objective with the GDP.
As a counterpoint, you could argue that the Church (and the general chaos after the fall of Rome) did the erasure and the Enlightenment was the result of rediscovering bits and pieces of it, both from historically Western sources preserved by the Arabs and Byzantines as well as trade and contact with the East.
A lot of liberal Christians view the Church as a sort of progressive force in human life, shepherding humanity towards redemption from its inherently sinful nature. If you set aside the questions of theology and just group people together based on their valuing a world that is comprehensible, ordered, and stable vs. one that is cryptic, fuzzy, and unpredictable you'd probably find similar numbers of religious and secular thinkers on both sides. The Church is a bureaucratic institution at the end of the day, and bureaucrats do love their comprehensible, orderly systems. They're both trying to 'improve' humanity, it's just a question of what they believe that 'improvement' entails.
It shouldn't be surprising, as most of the Enlightenment thinkers were, themselves, educated by clergy so of course the ones who excel will be the ones who did well under that type of approach to the world.
Sort of by default, we're looking backward at "noble savage" type societies for answers. I think we'll find that those societies didn't have the answers either, but it's kind of a first place to look as we're trying to come up with new answers and new models to live by in a modern world.
The problem with these more fascist ideologies that rely on "feelings" and our inherent human tendencies, is that our inherent human tendencies are not the natural wellsprings of wisdom that proponents of these ideologies believe them to be. We are evolved creatures with many biases and flaws, and following our biological instincts will not bring us back to some sort of natural harmony with the world as some believe. We're not getting in touch with our true selves when we listen to the prejudice in our hearts, we're just tuning into and amplifying the fear that we're biologically adapted to feel in certain situations of conceived elevated risk. It's not Capital T Truth.
The other major risk with what is happening is that as people become disillusioned with their systems, those with more malevolent agendas who have no problem with manipulating people are more easily able to exploit those doubts and gain power. I've little doubt that this is what is occurring with Trump and I only hope there is enough sanity left to see through his utter corruption that his way is not the answer we're looking for either.
Even though my political views put me on the more progressive end of the spectrum, I always come back to that quote (that I can't even seem to remember anymore) as a way of checking myself. The purpose of social organization is to foster and nurture human beings (and nature), after all, and if we keep finding ourselves running up against that we probably haven't thought through the problem deeply enough.
That lesson is as true for life as it is for writing good software it turns out. . .
1) the time period in question has experienced a vast decline in human-on-human violence. Check out Steven Pinker's book http://www.worldcat.org/title/better-angels-of-our-nature-wh...
2) the emerging field of behavioral economics has given some nuance to the idea that human life is nothing but meat chasing paper. For example, see http://www.worldcat.org/title/misbehaving-the-making-of-beha...
3) the author's ideas about how religion has affected the western "meat chasing paper" weltanschauung are, well, weak. Max Weber's work on this still towers over the usual "hierarchy sucks" argument. Hierarchy does suck. But it doesn't affect our behavior in the ways we think it does. http://www.worldcat.org/title/the-protestant-ethic-and-the-s...
That's a funny thing to say when the 'explosion' (implosion?) of Western values (in the he Western world) could best be characterized by the steady retreat of liberty and the rapidly forming divide between rich and poor.
If you weren't on the rich side, I can honestly see how you would want to go back to when everybody was modernist and things were great. You know, to make things great again.
"Who's that then?"
"I dunno. Must be a king."
"Why?"
"He hasn't got shit all over him."
Actualy they became rich, and the eastern block falled. 28 years later I still earn one fifth as a western european.
(guess I should be as happy as a Bushman - until those filthy selfish scientist materialist people send modern medicine to my people - and be greatful to God! ;)
But I wouldn't necessarily take e.g. Trump to be a harbinger of the neoliberal apocalypse; things like TPP, the cruelty of denying people health care and letting them die miserable because "well, that's just the way the market crumbles", yes. An abusive, hateful, nasty demagogue in a position of power? Not necessarily, you will see this as well in the pre-enlightenment 'noble savage' civilizations Kanth idolizes. There are power structures there as well, even if the society is a "compact" based on "nurturing" and "feelings", and just like in neoliberal societies the nastiest people are the ones who seek out power.
+ Trump is the farthest thing from a neoliberal. He's a nationalist/protectionist, anti free trade.
I reject a lot of the author's claims about Adam Smith and 'narrow self interest'. Generally, people are concerned about their own well-being more than others, that's just a fact, it doesn't make us greedy. Knowing this, we can model human behaviour and markets etc. with some degree of rationality.
Adam Smith believed the #1 attribute of a CEO was 'benevolence' for gosh sakes :).
So much hardcore capitalist stuff is attributed to Smith, when really he was not. He was explaining how things work, not an ideologue.
Gatto, Chomsky, and perhaps Taleb are the only three talkers I've come across who talk about Smith as though they actually read him.
Inflating panic might be very trendy right now but it is a bad opener for an intended(?) think piece.
The awful things he lists are: increased migration and an US president the author doesn't seem to like. That is bearable I guess.
No says the man in california. It should be redistributed as basic Income!
No says the man in washington. It belongs as a big pile into the bubble!
No say the wretched of the earth. It should be wherever i go to!
I rejected those answers. Instead i chose something diffrent. I choose the impossible. I chose Mars.
What is it with nomads, that makes them travel? The hope to outrace the problems? The discomfort, of the group- the biggest beast waiting at the camp fires at the known horizon?
No plasmid can tame it, no weapon keep its holy instincts in checks and balances, no social construct withstand what happens once the last mammoth has been eaten.
A man choses to believe its instincts to be rational choices, a slave obeys. A man choses..
Perhaps I hung out with an abnormal crowd, but it seems that 90% of Kanth's ideas (at least as described by this article) are what typical Freshmen undergraduates consider as they begin to first reflect on their liberal education. That is, these ideas are not new. And, that's not to disparage the economist. Instead, it's meant to point at something perhaps more unstable about Human society: that no one has the time or resources to read and understand all thoughts (and criticisms) that came before them. We're a very limited species. And, this unfortunately causes the 'history repeats itself' loops.
I think Kanth's reaction is a normal one, though. Enlightenment doesn't 'feel right' at first. It's something that must be learned, understood, and accepted. And, unless one is raised within a family and culture that already embraces it, it's not obvious. If it was obvious and easy, Humans would have stumbled on it many thousands of years ago.
But, to throw it away just because it doesn't immediately make sense seems foolish and maybe even arrogant. Rationalism is a tool, just like written words. But, just because it may take years to learn to write, should we abandon writing, as well?
People have hungered for the primitive life for hundreds of years. And, it's a natural desire because our biology isn't completely adapted to this world. And, as progress continues to accelerate, we feel strange within it. I'm certainly unsettled by it sometimes, too. I sometimes feel like I'm being pushed toward a dark horizon. (And, this feeling is so common that it's been recorded in many, many works of literature, at least since the Greeks)
But, when I hunger for the primitive, I quickly remind myself of all that I have that would not have been possible, otherwise. What if these 'western' ideas had been abandoned 100 years ago or even 50 years ago? I certainly wouldn't like to live in that world. I'm happy to have medicines to cure me, be able to travel quickly across the globe, be able to talk to friends and family at any time of day, to have limitless knowledge readily available, and to even have fresh strawberries across the street (in the middle of winter)!
What I worry about the most is that these ideals are fading, people are reacting rather than appreciating, and that the forces are strong enough to put us into a dark age. I don't know exact numbers, but I'm guessing that only 10-15% of the world are keeping Human progress alive, and that it's slowly being erased.
I can only really speak for America, but the pervasive feeling I get is almost 'every man for himself' or 'I've got mine jack'
Any sort of hand out is looked down on, getting anything for free is wrong. These are ideas that are just ingrained in our society it seems for better or worse
We spend a pitiful amount of money on basically every social service and it's easy to get a feeling for how low we value them.
I'm sure everyone feels the health care system does not really care about helping people. Insurance is tough to come by, people go broke paying medical bills. Health care workers are poorly paid. Even R&D investing is super risky and almost guaranteed not to pay off unless your investing in some new hair loss treatment or erection pill.
Education, also a place we entrust to teach our young to be the best is invested in the least. Being a teacher is not a successful or prestigious position. The support you get from the administration and parents is almost non-existent. Burn out rates are high. We value public education so low, we just don't care that anyone is educated except ourselves and our own children.
We see taxes as wasteful. No one really sees them as helping the common good. Or the more we pay the more we help our own society. We just see the potential waste, or if a single dollar is not spent the right way then all taxes are wrong.
This almost black and white thinking of right and wrong is the same attitude we instill on our law enforcement and judicial system. The compassion there is almost non-existent. Prison is not about rehabilitation it is about punishment. We don't care about criminals and they deserve to basically live in hell for their crimes.
Ok.. one more point. I've just had this feeling for a while and want to write it all down... Homelessness... In LA there are tent cities in downtown. It just follows the same line of reasoning as my previous points - as a society we just don't care about the 'collective' everyone else as long as we are good. Doing anything to help or comfort another human being that is not our direct friend or relative is not in our best interest.
The lack of compassion we have turned into a virtue - it makes us stronger, tougher, more resistant, but does it? At least that is the line of thinking. I am so ingrained in this society that when I see any sort of hand out I automatically think that is bad, that people should work for what they have, and anything else for any other reason is just wrong...
It is such an asshole attitude that we are basically a country of assholes. Some more that others of course. And it has now personified itself to the point where we 'a group of assholes' have elected an asshole as president. What is wrong with us?
When it comes to "huddling", Heidegger's "Sein & Zeit" (Being & Time) at the very latest emphasised the importance of being-in-the-world and being-with-others, rendering being entirely social (and this is despite the fact that the book remained, in essence, a fragment). Similarly, Wittgenstein's "Philosophischen Untersuchungen" (Philosophical Investigations) also highlights the shared nature of language games and the importance of society when he ponders the overall possibility whether private language(s) can exist. In doing so, both remain thoroughly wed to the modern world and do not harken back to a "simple society" or some such.
However, this list seems to suggest a different bias by describing the Western World chiefly as one designed by Smith & Hobbes, leaning on a relatively narrowly defined notion of anglophone philosophy to define the status quo as a direct consequence of the Enlightenment. It also betrays a fairly narrow focus on the US, since, as one comment on the site itself rightfully asks, this fails to account for developments such as the modern welfare state in various places outside the US, which would have to be impossible for a strictly isolated and/or egoistic society that forgot the importance of living together. And while the review off-handendly discounts both capitalism and communism, it fails to account for any of the real-world examples of societies located somewhere between these two polar opposites, as these social contracts seem to fulfil exactly the kind of "moral economy" that seems to be at play. That said,because these countries, in turn, face their own turmoil and challenges, this would seemingly get us back to where we started, except that we would already have gotten rid of an overly simplistic dichotomy that seems to have Smith and Lenin as their respective strawmen-come-cornerstone. In that case, however, we're faced with an interesting conundrum: If neither capitalism nor communism is the right answer, and if seemingly moderated in-between states face similar challenges, what exactly does the book advocate that is not yet another utopia that somehow safeguards the individual's freedom while also including it in a network of social interaction, responsibility and mutual assistance without being like any of the discounted examples or extremes?
In the interesting times we are currently living in, it seems many Anglo-Saxon political philosophers and other analytic academics are creating a theory Continental philosophy already figured out during the second half of the 20th century. (I see something similar with the current developments AI and Heidegger - Dreyfus phenomenology, but that's a bit off topic since this focuses on politics) Why? Is the difference in language the two schools use to communicate ideas too big? Did so many dismiss the esoteric writing as nonsense without even reading it, or worse, believe the Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory? The result is now an identity crisis of people disaffected by the machinations they used to defend. The actualization of ideas only modern and post-modern critics used to lament. The things the Frankfurt School[0], Foucault, Derrida and Lacan used to write about in ridiculed corners of academia are now actually affecting these people and they have no idea what is happening.
[0] For anyone wanting to know more, the New York Review of Books just published in their latest edition a great article that summarizes their ideas. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/03/23/frankfurt-school-...
Continental philosophy may have done well at identifying the problem. I'm not sure that they figured out a solution, though.
This might very well be the slightly awkward clash between a generally anglophone audience and their regular focus on the US and, to a lesser degree, England, combined with the spectre of "evil" Marxism.
Well, the first part is kinda true and the second is reasonable.
"Kanth realized that people are not at all like Adam Smith’s homo economicus, a narrowly self-interested agent trucking and bartering through life."
"Narrowly self-interested agent" is a pretty good model. A problem is the prescient, hyper-intelligent part.
"For every benefit we received, there came a new way to pit us against each other."
Because prior to the Enlightenment, everything was rainbows, butterflies, and puppies?
"He notes that when we replace the vital ties of kinship and community with abstract contractual relations [...] we become alienated and depressed in spirit."
Or perhaps we realize that someone who isn't related to us might not be the enemy.
"Kanth points out that the Bushmen do not have a Mars rocket, but they do have a two-and-a-half-day workweek — something that most modern humans can only dream of."
Speaking as someone who would be dead in a hunter-gatherer society, I'm not sure about that. Further:
"Although Sahlins' theory [...] has become a staple of popular anthropology and among alternative medicine aficionados, it has been challenged by a number of scholars in the field of anthropology and archaeology who have found that most hunter-gatherer societies were not in fact "affluent" but suffered from extremely high infant mortality, frequent disease, and perennial warfare. This appears to be true not only of historical foraging cultures, but also prehistoric and primeval ones."[1][8][9][10]
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society
[8] Keeley, Lawrence. War Before Civilization
[9] http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/life_history/aging_evolu...
[10] https://condensedscience.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/life-expec...
>Women, he emphasizes, have retained the instinct to nurture because the human child is especially vulnerable compared to the young of many animal species. They have to create peaceful, nurturing conditions or the human race can’t survive.
>“There is no other fount of social morality itself,” says Kanth. He faults Eurocentric modernists for centering on male aggression and taking it to represent everybody, which is unfair.
No, nope, sorry. Take your armchair anthropology to the Rudolf Steiner Appreciation Society, but spare _me_. Maybe the piece picks up again after this, but I could not read on.
Since you have already committed to disagreeing with me i'll make the deductive leap that the article is comensurable with your worldview and assume that you personally believe that morality can only come from the nurturing mother (as stated in my quotation). From this i'll take the liberty to conclude that your opinion on the matter is... freudean at best, and disregard it completely. What a fruitful discussion we're having.
> No, nope, sorry... spare _me_... I could not read on.
You dismiss his entire argument simply because he has a different viewpoint. That's too dismissive, in my opinion. People are very good at seeing things as black-or-white and creating an us-vs-them mentality. From this post and the post before it, it seems like you have that binary mentality against people with different views on gender and sexuality. It's fine that your opinions differ from mine and the author's, but please don't dismiss and belittle us because of that. _Argue_ with us, use your logic, and teach us otherwise. There are many people who will have deaf ears, but if you open yourself up, you may teach some people stuff & you may gain a different perspective on things yourself.
I consider myself open to other world-views (you may not, that's fine), but a criticism of my world view (me being a modern european and all) that starts the conversation in 18th century terms (from a european modernist perspective) is a non-starter. There is to much ground to cover between then and now, and if that ground is covered in the book, then that's certainly not reflected in the article.
"many" "some" "like/or" "may" "soon"
That's about the safest prediction I've ever seen; whatever discontinuity the future brings Kanth and his "many" are right!
And no, the Western world is not a failure because Trump got elected. Calm yourself. A little push back on the Progressive Project (tm) isn't the end of the world. The truth is that if you could find some way to tolerate not overwhelming your precariat with foreigners you could have your way for the foreseeable future, unchallenged. But what good is power if you can't inflict "our values" on the plebs, right?