> Pope Clement VII was so influential that King Henry VIII had to leave the church and invent in Anglicanism just to escape.
This is so amazingly reductive I can't take anything else in the post seriously.
This is so amazingly reductive I can't take anything else in the post seriously.
>The LSD has an estimated $5B in annual revenue, with an estimated $100B in funds, and protestants can make claims to nearly every US president.
Importantly, this is the LDS, not the LSD. Do rationalism's thinkers engage seriously enough to be able to make important cultural contributions? Or do they have such a surface-level view of everything (too much breadth, not enough depth – too much depth is unpractical, and practicality is key for rationalists) that even in this post they cannot be bothered enough to cross the t's and dot the i's enough to avoid a confusion between a psychoactive substance and an influential religious institution?
More to the point, rationalism's great age has passed. Rationalists did carry import in the post-Reformation era, but in philosophical concepts, we have long left the era of classical Enlightenment behind. We have even left Modernism behind, which was arguably born out of Rationalism. We are at the tail end of postmodernism – of course you don't find "highly successful" "rationalists" in the post-modern age. While you don't necessarily have to be conversant (or even aware) of Barthes' structuralism, "success" (at least, in the sense that is discussed in this post – cultural import, legacy, etc.) is dependent on living and breathing postmodernism.
Like a fish in water, you don't have to know what postmodernism is, exactly. I do not think any TikTok star knows what postmodernism is. But they intuit that they must be a chimera that is the product of its audience, that the signs they create must be readily meme-able and able to live a life outside of their author. Rationalists do not breathe in this water – their hierarchical approach is stuck at the turn of the last century, and so they will not find themselves carrying import at the beginning of this one.
I guess the flip side of that argument also lives in British politics: the PM's advisor Dominic Cummings, who fulfils a Rasputin-like role of being on the one hand a magnet for criticism and on the other hand someone the PM will go to unprecedented extremes to continue to receive advice from[1]. He's also someone that has Overcoming Bias and Yudowsky in his short blogroll and sniggers at his detractors that "don't understand epistemological uncertainty" when his comments that his priorities "in some possible branches of the future... will be an error" get media attention. An archetypal 'rationalist' who is incidentally currently the UK's most influential policy wonk.
[1]Usually British PMs don't accept their Chancellor's resignation so their adviser can fire his staff, or refrain from firing advisers whose actions become the #1 subject of public outcry from their core voter base.
Also, the situation with Cummings isn't remotely odd. What confuses people is recent history. Blair/Brown was the archetype of why you don't want a powerful Chancellor: Brown briefed against Blair and the govt constantly, his advisers used to attack other ministers, it was insane. Osborne's relationship with Cameron was a function of seeing Brown attempt to destroy Blair.
But that isn't always the case when there are issues with other Ministers or the Civil Service (both of which were true when Johnson took power). Thatcher is the prime example: almost everyone in the Tory party hated her, her 1981 Budget was made by Alan Walters not Howe, Lawson resigned when she opposed ERM (again, due to advice from Walters). Equally, in foreign policy she ignored her Ministers and, more importantly, the Foreign Office (who gave uniquely terrible, bizarre advice in this period...even by FO standards).
Our system is built with this tension in mind. Cameron had a strong policy unit. Blair didn't have one but he relied on a small circle of Ministers so it wasn't necessary. It is very normal, and quite necessary, for a Prime Minster to be hostage to no-one. The Prime Minister is always responsible to Parliament, that hasn't changed. But the growth of the media, growth in complexity of policy, and growth in suspicion of the Civil Service (particularly after the 70s) has led to this requirement.
And btw, I don't think most people in the public understand how ludicrous the situation with Javid was (it generally wasn't reported because the person in question was liked by the media because they leaked). Javid's advisers were actively briefing against the govt daily. When Javid was sacked, his advisers were out there literally the day after briefing against the govt. It wasn't close. It wasn't even remotely close. It is a very good thing that SPADs get taken down a peg because the massive proliferation in their number since the early 90s has meant some attempting to adopt a remit that vastly exceeds their purpose.
None of the political intrigue itself has anything to do with rationalism of course, but it does show a pretty archetypical 'rationalist' whose counsel was ranked unusually highly by a global leader
As for Clement, I never said he feigned disinterest, I agreed with the original blogger that that this was one of many examples of ecclesiastical orders getting involved in all the City of Man stuff the Church's founding mythology placed them outside; often excommunication was even more transparently nothing to do with spiritual matters. Sure, excommunication proved no impediment to Henry VIII resolving his domestic issues at the cost of only a few centuries of religious strife and antagonistic relations with Catholic states, but unless your argument is that this proves the Church wasn't any more influential on the politics and economics of the Middle Ages than LessWrong on the politics and economics of the world today, I'm not really sure why you're twisting my original statement to make that tangential point
What you don't answer is why you believe that a PM wouldn't fire an adviser briefing against the govt? The only instance where this has occurred was Brown (and remember, pretty much every person around Blair asked repeatedly for Brown to be sacked,and most people ended up leaving because they couldn't deal with Brown). Indeed, this occurred under Cameron (with one of May's closest advisers) and the person was fired, no questions. The odd thing was that Javid refused to sack the people in question (I remember the day it happened the advisor was briefing the press that Johnson was going to fire Cummings...it was utter insanity, and this was after it was well known that they had leaked govt documents...this is typical for the Tories but Javid was given plenty of room, and chose to shoot himself).
Being "a focus for public outrage" is neither here nor there (thankfully). Some people are perpetually outraged, doing what they demand doesn't affect things.
Advisers also aren't supposed to be invisible. Again, when anyone has advised the PM, it has caused problems (with backbenchers, with the Civil Service, etc.). Under Blair, everyone complained about his advisers. Under Cameron, everyone complained about his advisers. Under Thatcher, everyone complained about her advisers. Under Brown, particularly, everyone complained about his advisers. Under May, particularly, everyone complained about her advisers. They are not supposed to be doing interviews and briefing the media (openly), and they clearly aren't supposed to be briefing against ministers in other departments...but they aren't invisible either.
It isn't tangential, the original point was: Clement was influential...saying that he wasn't influential is not a tangential point.
Suffice to say you are also perhaps in a minority of one in believing that Clement VII had no influence on the Middle Ages. Especially when the point of reference the Church's influence is being compared with is a collection of moderately popular blogs and think tanks.
Anglicism was a branch born of cynical political power struggles and everyone knows it.