Andrew Yang, Collingwood, Technology, Prospero, & the Sorcerer's Apprentice: Random Thoughts & Questions

Micky, the Sorcerer's Apprentice, eases his burden & all seems good 

Just thinking out loud after listening to an interview of Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang by Ian Bremmer and then coming upon the quote bellow from R. G. Collingwood.
Consider this quote:

I knew that for sheer ineptitude the Versailles treaty surpassed previous treaties as much as for sheer technical excellence the equipment of twentieth-century armies surpassed those of previous armies. It seemed almost as if man’s power to control ‘Nature’ had been increasing pari passu [with equal step; hand-in-hand] with a decrease in his power to control human affairs.  

R. G. Collingwood, Autobiography (1939)

Regarding the second sentence of the quote, please consider & comment upon the following questions and propositions:

1. Do you agree or disagree with Collingwood's assessment?

2. Collingwood lived during the First World War & the Treaty of Versailles (he worked in the Admiralty during the war), and he wrote this piece on the eve of the outbreak of the Second World War. Do you think if he was writing today, his conclusion would be different? State the grounds that support and that challenge your answer.

3. Has humankind displayed "moral progress" throughout history? Or, as Rousseau contended, have our morals declined from those of "noble savages?"

4. Are you optimistic about the ability of continued technological change to improve the lot of humankind, or do you fear for the future because of the increased powers that it places in human hands? Explain and justify your conclusion.

5. Prospero the magus in Shakespeare's "The Tempest", decided to "abjure" his "magic" (power) and

"break my staff,

Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,

And, deeper than did ever plummet sound,

I’ll drown my book."

Gielgud as Prospero: could we "break our staff" & "drown our book" even if we wanted to? 

Could humankind, or at least a thoughtful majority, simply bury our technological magic or even just the most lethal possibilities that it creates? Or are their constraints that prevent us from taking this action as a species? Provide the grounds for your conclusion.

6. I have referred to technology as a form of magic. Is this an appropriate means by which to describe technology? Is this an appropriate metaphor or analogy, or is the relationship inherent in our understanding of what constitutes magic? State your grounds for agreeing or disagreeing with the designation of technology as magic.

7. The "Sorcerer's Apprentice" (think Micky Mouse in "Fantasia") loses control of his

magical technology (the hands-off floor cleaner). The apprentice loses control of the process because he doesn't know the proper spell to stop it. The run-away process is only brought to a halt when the wizard returns and provides the proper incantation to break the spell. If humankind is Micky, who is the Wizard? God, Nature, Enlightened Humanity? Or is there a Wizard or higher power that can rescue us from any folly that we might perpetrate with our technological magic? And if a "higher power" intervenes, will that higher power act as gently and beneficently as the Wizard does toward Micky, or will the Wizard (for instance, "Nature") respond in an angry, aggrieved manner? Consider and respond to these propositions.

Happily, no one has qualified me as a teacher, and if you've read to the end of this, I"m surprised and I'm more than happy that you've done so. Hell, I'd give you an "A" for simply getting this far. And if it's caused you pause to stop and think a bit, all the better. Enjoy the day.

The Wizard returns, peeved but no punitive. Will we be so lucky?

Quotes from Ophuls, Pt. 6

A day ago, I thought I'd write a post-election blog today. But I don't have the heart to write something now. So continuing the quotes from Ophuls, with their insights and provocations to deeper thought, must suffice.

[T]o use Marxist language to make a point contrary to Marx, the state, not the private capitalist, was the true expropriator, and increased national and state power was both the end and the means of this expropriation.This is one powerful reason, among many others, why the Marxist solution to the problems of Hobbesian political economy has failed so badly: by appealing to the original agent of expropriation for salvation, it puts the fox in charge of the chickens. Seizure of the means production by the state does not alter the fact of expropriation; rather, it  replaces one class of exploiters, the monopoly capitalis ts and their political lackeys, with a "new class"of appartchiks and commissars, such as the corrupt nomenclatura that ran the former Soviet Union. 111

The free market is therefore an ideological fiction. Not only did the market system have to be created by the government in the first place, but it can continue only to operate with continuous government intervention and support thereafter. However, because of the disproportionate power of corporations, the economic tail wags the political dog. The upshot is the worst of both worlds: a top-heavy and heavy-handed state bureaucracy layered over a distorted and somewhat corrupt market economy. 118

An especially pertinent point:

Ironically, the supposed "conservatives" of American politics, that complain the loudest about many of these changes, especially moral decay, are the most laissez-faire with respect to the economic enterprise and technological innovation that produce them. In return for higher levels of production, we have to pay the price in lost social cohesion and political autonomy, as the values of "efficiency" and "exchange" implicit in achieving greater productivity have invaded the sociopolitical realm. (The supposed "liberals" of American politics are just as deluded as the "conservatives": equally addicted to material progress, they also want to conquer nature with technology; but they foolishly believe that economic production as possible without economic power, that ordinary citizens can call the political and social tune when, in fact, it is economic and technological enterprise that pays the piper. In short, with the collaboration of all parties, the technological servant has become the political master.) 171