"...human beings can weather whatever storm as long as they are living a life aligned with their values." Far too many have delegated their values choices to the deities of modern culture. A life with more responsibility, discipline and stoic acceptance of the real world vs. the wanted pseudo-reality would also lead one towards a better grasp of the future possibilities. This is a small slice of today's culture.
Bottom line, hope for the best, plan for the worst, make the best of the place and time you are in.
Maybe the appropriate Attitude is neither optimism nor pessimism, but simply humility. Being humble, we still try to know what we can do and feel compelled to do so when we see the need for it, but we never forget, that our agency is fundamentally limited.
We can make decisions within our limitations to focus our agency towards particular goals and particular ways of approaching them, but we will always pay a price for doing so in other regards.
Having agency fundamentally requires choice, which requires sacrifices, after all. So let's try to choose wisely what is worthy of sacrifice and what is worth losing.
Nice response, Grant. I think the key part of your critique was, "It also means that optimizing for the accuracy of your model above all other factors will systematically undercut your agency and reduce the probability of achieving the outcomes you most desire." This is a good point, and we can look at the figure of the Great Man as exaggerated examples of this principle, men like Julius Caesar or Napoleon or even figures like Jobs who molded history as much as they were affected by it. As Julian Assange wrote, "I think first it’s necessary to have an understanding that one is either a participant in history or a victim of it, and that there is no other option. It is actually not possible to remove oneself from history, because of the nature of economic…and intellectual interaction. Hence, it is not possible to break oneself off….Because no one wants to be a victim, one must therefore be a participant, and in being a participant, the most important thing to understand is that your behavior affects other people’s behavior, and your courage will inspire actions. On the other hand, a lack of courage will suppress them.” And: “Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love. In a modern economy it is impossible to seal oneself off from injustice. If we have brains or courage, then we are blessed and called on not to frit these qualities away, standing agape at the ideas of others, winning pissing contests, improving the efficiencies of the neocorporate state, or immersing ourselves in obscuranta, but rather to prove the vigor of our talents against the strongest opponents of love we can find.”
With that said, I do think Ellul and Kaczynski are correct in that modern technological society has decreased our agency to a large extent. This conjured materialist, atheistic societal Machine reduces everything down to the level of technique efficiency -- anything that does not improve efficiency of a process, whether that is moral, ethical, religious, environmental or cultural objections, are ruthlessly discarded. We participate in society to the extent we are willing to dehumanize ourselves and engage in this process (I have an upcoming post on Ellul), or otherwise we can exit society and have no impact - there is very little middle ground. Even Christianity has been impacted by this process, per Kruptos: https://www.seekingthehiddenthing.com/p/managerial-christianity . You say it is better to have an impact and use ones agency to promote good -- okay, but where and how? How has that worked out in the past, do you have examples of dissident success that effectuated long-term positive change? (I think of Solzhenitskyn, perhaps, but Russia remains under the same globohomo forces that ruled it during the Soviet era). And I don't mean this as a critique on a personal level, we should all try to impact our own lives and the lives of those we know where we can. It is rather a question of *impact* based on both current and historical trends.
You also write, "Focusing on accurately forecasting the future to the extent that we neglect our own agency is an abrogation of our duty", but I don't think this is quite right. The focus isn't just on accurate forecasting (the the extent we can), but also in trying to get others to understand the nature of the environment in which we all operate. An enemy that isn't seen or understood can't be fought. Pretty much everyone's way of seeing and understanding the world is skewed from relentless, unending globohomo propaganda. The Nouvelle Droite blogger Kynosarges argues, "The profound change that is now necessary is not genuinely political but belongs to the cultural, metapolitical sphere." My Substack, despite its unrelenting pessimism, is in some sense an act of optimism because it hopes that, at least for a very small number of people, that changes and upgrades in one's worldview might (probably won't, but might) lead to positive change down the road. I agree with you that being passive and sitting back is wrong, even if the odds of meaningful positive change are low.
Oh, lastly: you do look optimistic in your profile photo, so ultimately this may just be a personality disagreement based on physiognomy. I look pessimistic and dour in real life.
"...human beings can weather whatever storm as long as they are living a life aligned with their values." Far too many have delegated their values choices to the deities of modern culture. A life with more responsibility, discipline and stoic acceptance of the real world vs. the wanted pseudo-reality would also lead one towards a better grasp of the future possibilities. This is a small slice of today's culture.
Bottom line, hope for the best, plan for the worst, make the best of the place and time you are in.
Maybe the appropriate Attitude is neither optimism nor pessimism, but simply humility. Being humble, we still try to know what we can do and feel compelled to do so when we see the need for it, but we never forget, that our agency is fundamentally limited.
We can make decisions within our limitations to focus our agency towards particular goals and particular ways of approaching them, but we will always pay a price for doing so in other regards.
Having agency fundamentally requires choice, which requires sacrifices, after all. So let's try to choose wisely what is worthy of sacrifice and what is worth losing.
Nice response, Grant. I think the key part of your critique was, "It also means that optimizing for the accuracy of your model above all other factors will systematically undercut your agency and reduce the probability of achieving the outcomes you most desire." This is a good point, and we can look at the figure of the Great Man as exaggerated examples of this principle, men like Julius Caesar or Napoleon or even figures like Jobs who molded history as much as they were affected by it. As Julian Assange wrote, "I think first it’s necessary to have an understanding that one is either a participant in history or a victim of it, and that there is no other option. It is actually not possible to remove oneself from history, because of the nature of economic…and intellectual interaction. Hence, it is not possible to break oneself off….Because no one wants to be a victim, one must therefore be a participant, and in being a participant, the most important thing to understand is that your behavior affects other people’s behavior, and your courage will inspire actions. On the other hand, a lack of courage will suppress them.” And: “Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love. In a modern economy it is impossible to seal oneself off from injustice. If we have brains or courage, then we are blessed and called on not to frit these qualities away, standing agape at the ideas of others, winning pissing contests, improving the efficiencies of the neocorporate state, or immersing ourselves in obscuranta, but rather to prove the vigor of our talents against the strongest opponents of love we can find.”
With that said, I do think Ellul and Kaczynski are correct in that modern technological society has decreased our agency to a large extent. This conjured materialist, atheistic societal Machine reduces everything down to the level of technique efficiency -- anything that does not improve efficiency of a process, whether that is moral, ethical, religious, environmental or cultural objections, are ruthlessly discarded. We participate in society to the extent we are willing to dehumanize ourselves and engage in this process (I have an upcoming post on Ellul), or otherwise we can exit society and have no impact - there is very little middle ground. Even Christianity has been impacted by this process, per Kruptos: https://www.seekingthehiddenthing.com/p/managerial-christianity . You say it is better to have an impact and use ones agency to promote good -- okay, but where and how? How has that worked out in the past, do you have examples of dissident success that effectuated long-term positive change? (I think of Solzhenitskyn, perhaps, but Russia remains under the same globohomo forces that ruled it during the Soviet era). And I don't mean this as a critique on a personal level, we should all try to impact our own lives and the lives of those we know where we can. It is rather a question of *impact* based on both current and historical trends.
You also write, "Focusing on accurately forecasting the future to the extent that we neglect our own agency is an abrogation of our duty", but I don't think this is quite right. The focus isn't just on accurate forecasting (the the extent we can), but also in trying to get others to understand the nature of the environment in which we all operate. An enemy that isn't seen or understood can't be fought. Pretty much everyone's way of seeing and understanding the world is skewed from relentless, unending globohomo propaganda. The Nouvelle Droite blogger Kynosarges argues, "The profound change that is now necessary is not genuinely political but belongs to the cultural, metapolitical sphere." My Substack, despite its unrelenting pessimism, is in some sense an act of optimism because it hopes that, at least for a very small number of people, that changes and upgrades in one's worldview might (probably won't, but might) lead to positive change down the road. I agree with you that being passive and sitting back is wrong, even if the odds of meaningful positive change are low.
Oh, lastly: you do look optimistic in your profile photo, so ultimately this may just be a personality disagreement based on physiognomy. I look pessimistic and dour in real life.
I love this conversation!!!
“ hopeless and inept our would be allies may appear suffering under the yolk of evil sniveling shitweasels,”