-Joseph Choonara, "Confronting Britain's far-right problem" IN International Socialism, 184, Autumn 2024, pp. 3-22 AT p. 3.
Choonara proceeds to discuss a recent moment when, by contrast, the tide was turned but let's stay with his opening sentence which unintentionally encapsulates Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History:
contemporary society, as of the time of writing of the opening instalment, "Marius," is overwhelmed by World War III;
the Psychotechnic Institute is overwhelmed by the Humanist Revolution;
the Humanists are soon overwhelmed by a counterrevolution which, however, does not restore the Institute;
the Solar Union and the Order of Planetary Engineers are overwhelmed by the Second Dark Ages;
the Stellar Union and its Coordination Service are overwhelmed by the Third Dark Ages;
despite all that has gone before, psychotechnicians mentally control cosmic energy in a far future Galactic civilization.
19 comments:
History is not 'controllable'. It's a tissue of low-probability accidents with drastic, enormous consequences.
Even very powerful people, ones who can make consequential decisions, are unlikely to get what they -want- from their decisions.
Eg., a low-probability accident in 1914 gave the German Supreme General Staff the power to push successfully for war.
But they -- rather obviously -- didn't get the war they wanted!
We can't stop trying to control the future; what you need to do is realize that you very probably won't get what you want. Sometimes the mass of happenstance will turn out well, more often very badly indeed.
We are like a driver steering a bus where there is no brake, the accelerator is permanently pressed down and the speedometer doesn't work. We have to try to avoid collisions by avoiding other vehicles and turning corners on time.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: Exactly! Which is why I don't believe in Utopian dreams and hopes. The best we can ever hope for is something not too terribly, given how quarrelsome and flawed human beings are.
I'm also disgusted with the German General Staff. They actually cut out Kaiser Wilhelm from the loop when he was trying to help defuse the Sarajevo Crisis.
Paul: The best such a bus driver can do is find a place to safely drive the bus till it runs out of petrol!
Ad astra! Sean
We can aim for something better although without any guarantee of arriving there.
Kaor, Paul!
In theory. But I firmly believe the best we can ever hope for is something not too terribly bad.
Ad astra! Sean
I firmly believe that, given all that we have achieved so far, we are capable of much more.
Paul: the history of people aiming for X and getting anything -but- X is rather large.
That I am all too aware of! Decades ago, I had thought that things might be better in the 21st century. Either we are going backwards before going forward or we are just going backwards and the latter is certainly possible.
Paul: I don't think history goes "forward" or "backward". Change is constant; progress just means "changes I happen to like". Sometimes you get that; more often, not.
It's just 'one damned thing after another'.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And that makes more sense than mystical notions of inevitable, ineluctable "progress." If we discount (as I do not entirely do) divine providence, it was pure chance that Judaism/Christianity and certain other factors contributed so enormously for whatever "progress" has been made since the rise of Western civilization.
Ad astra! Sean
There is no inevitable progress. But there has been some evitable progress toward industrial, technological civilization with a measure of freedom, equality, rule of law, scientific knowledge and the possibility of further progress. I think that we can try to move events in a preferred direction.
Kaor, Paul!
I would prefer to say equality before the law and avoid anything to do with an impossible leveling of everybody down to the same level.
Further "progress" will be possible only if the right conditions exist or continues to exist. And that requires Catholic Christianity, free enterprise economics, and the limited state, in whatever form.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Of course equality before the law, equality of opportunity, racial and sexual equality, not levelling down.
Free enterprise will be redundant when wealth is abundant. Catholicism is certainly not a condition for progress.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I can agree with your first sentence.
I disagree with your second sentence. Free enterprise works, and nothing else has. And will still be needed, even when "wealth is abundant," to most efficiently make use of and distribute resources, goods, and services of all kinds.
Disagree, what you said about orthodox Christianity, as would Anderson himself in works like IS THERE LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS? The Catholic respect for reason, logical thought, etc., was crucial for the rise of a true science, along with certain other factors. And avoids unconvincing things like dogmatic materialism, the obsolete hermeneutics of evangelical Protestantism, or the passive fatalism of Buddhism/Hinduism.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But free enterprise involves buying and selling which will be unnecessary when the technological production and equitable distribution of abundant wealth makes money obsolete.
But to say that Christianity has contributed something historically is not to say that it is a necessary condition for progress in future.
Materialism is not all dogmatic. Eastern philosophies are not all passive or fatalist. Christianity can certainly be dogmatic.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
No matter how advanced the tech used by an economy becomes it still needs such basics as demand and supply, division of labor, economies of scale, financial analysis, etc., simply for people to decide how best to allocate use resources of all kinds. I also believe there will be scope for buying and selling goods and services, if only rare/obscure ones. Such as antique bookstores selling rare copies of Anderson's works!
The Catholic respect for true reason, as opposed to the debased/warped "rationalism" of our times will always be a necessary factor needed by a true science.
I don't believe in materialism. The moderate dualism expounded by Mortimer Adler in works like THE DIFFERENCE OF MAN AND THE DIFFERENCE IT MAKES was far more convincing. Also, since I also believe in divine revelation, that too contradicts materialism.
But Buddhism/Hinduism has never been transformative, never been truly revolutionary in any positive sense.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Financial analysis will be redundant when money is obsolete. We have said all this before. Buying and selling rare books is not the same as an economy dominated by money and by the competitive accumulation of profit.
Respect for reason, yes. Its basis specifically in Catholicism, no.
You can't believe in materialism but materialism does not have to be dogmatic. All it means is that being has not always been conscious but has become conscious through a series of qualitative changes. Organismic sensitivity became sensation: a qualitative change.
Christianity has been revolutionary? Partly. Some of the time. No tradition is static. Hinduism includes the teaching of nonattached action. I value Buddhism for its meditation practice, not because I think that it can transform society.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Then I will simply say I don't believe in the realism and plausibility of your economic hopes.
And I believe it will continue to need the Catholic Church to preserve the true balance reason and the sciences will need to remain balanced in this age of woke lunacy.
And I will continue to believe the first and eternal conscious Being was and is God. And Who acted in the universe to create other beings.
And I don't believe Hinduism and Buddhism will ever truly outgrow the factors that makes them so passive and fatalistic. To say nothing of how I don't believe in reincarnation or the nothingness of nirvana.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
The Church inherited rationality from Greek philosophy.
Woke lunacy? I think we need to understand new ideas in an age of change, not just reject them.
I do not believe in reincarnation and think that "nirvana" is here and now, not nothingness. The Buddhist tradition that I have linked to gives me a meditation practice that is worth having.
When abundance is produced, it will no longer be appropriate for individuals or minorities to accumulate and own wealth and deny it to others. That generates very destructive conflicts and, in any case, ceases to be necessary.
Paul.
Post a Comment