Thoughts for the Day: Monday 28 December 2020

 

The Life of the Mind

Hannah Arendt 

The first entirely new notion brought in by the new age—the seventeenth-century idea of an unlimited progress, which after a few centuries became the most cherished dogma of all men living in a scientifically oriented world—seems intended to take care of the predicament: though one expects to progress further and further, no one seems ever to have believed in reaching a final absolute goal of truth.

The Life of the Mind

Hannah Arendt 

The world appears in the mode of it-seems-to-me, depending on particular perspectives determined by location in the world as well as by particular organs of perception. This mode not only produces error, which I can correct by changing my location, drawing closer to what appears, or by improving my organs of perception with the help of tools and implements, or by using my imagination to take other perspectives into account; it also gives birth to true semblances, that is, to deceptive appearance, which I cannot correct like an error since they are caused by my permanent location on the earth and remain bound up with my own existence as one of the earth’s appearances.

The Life of the Mind

Hannah Arendt 

Heidegger, whom Carnap singled out for attack, retorted by stating that philosophy and poetry were indeed closely related; they were not identical but sprang from the same source—which is thinking.

Essays in Understanding, 1930-1954

Hannah Arendt

All laws, including the Bolshevist and Nazi laws, become a façade whose purpose is to keep the population constantly aware that the laws, no matter what their nature or origin, do not really matter.

Dark Star Rising

Gary Lachman

What is this strange need to lead, and the equally strange one to follow? What is this will to power? Why do we pursue it? Must it always corrupt? Charismatic leaders cast a spell over their followers in the same way that a magician casts one over those he wants to enchant. The power of the image, of glamour, of one’s self-confidence, is at work in both—as it is in the confidence trickster. The medium is the imagination, whether in its traditional forms or in its new electronic version.

Nixon Agonistes

Garry Wills

Weariness and compromise—the workings of the Mixmaster “market”—have puréed all Nixon’s separate virtues to an unoffending mush.

The Ingenuity Gap

Thomas Homer-Dixon

Some people are going to be left behind, and societies with rapidly widening inequalities can’t be politically stable for long.

Thoughts for the Day: Sunday 27 December 2020

 

Commanding Hope

Thomas Homer-Dixon

For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal. ---John F. Kennedy.

Speculum Mentis

R. G. Collingwood

The historian’s business is with fact; and there are no future facts. The whole past and present universe is the field of history, to its remotest parts and in its most distant beginnings. Over this field the historian is absolutely free to range in whatever direction he will, limited not by his ‘authorities’ but by his own pleasure. For the maturity of historical thought is the explicit consciousness of the truth that what matters is not an historian’s sources but the use he makes of them.

The Complete Works of William Walker Atkinson

William Walker Atkinson

When the mind is mastered by the will, then may new territory be conquered.

The Wedge

Scott Carney

Anxiety disorders occur when autonomic systems bypass the mind and hijack the stress response. The emotions that created neural symbols in the first instance were so powerful, and tied together so tightly, that they hardwired stress into the patients’ systems.

War and Peace and War

Peter Turchin

It is important not to overestimate our understanding even of simple agrarian societies. Applying history’s lessons to the present day presents even more difficulties because we live in a different world from the one of the Assyrians, the Romans, and the Mongols. Abundant food and energy, rapidly developing technology and science, mass media, the World Wide Web, and the mobile phone make any direct comparisons between historical agrarian empires and the modern industrial states problematic. On the other hand, modernity did not remake human nature.

Thoughts for the Day: Saturday 26 December 2020 (Boxing Day)

In honor of the Feast of the Nativity (Christmas) yesterday, this quote: 

The new therefore always appears in the guise of a miracle. . . . [W]ith each birth something uniquely new comes into the world. With respect to this somebody who is unique it can be truly said that nobody was there before. If action as beginning corresponds to the fact of birth, if it is the actualization of the human condition of natality, then speech corresponds to the fact of distinctness and is the actualization of the human condition of plurality, that is, of living among equals. 

--Hannah Arendt, THE HUMAN CONDITION

The Life of the Mind

Hannah Arendt 

And something very similar is true for the will, which neither reason nor desire can move. “Nothing other than the Will is the total cause of volition” (“nihil aliud a voluntate est causa totalis volitionis in voluntate”), in the striking formula of Duns Scotus, or “voluntas vult se velle” (“the will wills itself to will”), as even Thomas, the least voluntaristic of those who thought about this faculty, had to admit.

Essays in Understanding, 1930-1954

Hannah Arendt

Democratic society as a living reality is threatened at the very moment that democracy becomes a “cause,” because then actions are likely to be judged and opinions evaluated in terms of ultimate ends and not on their inherent merits. The democratic way of life can be threatened only by people who see everything as a means to an end, i.e., in some necessary chain of motives and consequences, and who are prone to judge actions “objectively,” independent of the conscious motives of the doer, or to deduce certain consequences from opinions of which the holder is unaware.

The Ingenuity Gap

Thomas Homer-Dixon

Holling asks: “Is the reserve and insurance that the resilience of nature has given us going to be the very attribute that blocks people’s abilities to perceive and adapt to abrupt change on planetary scales?”

Plato's Revenge

William Ophuls

Reason may (as Hobbes and his liberal followers argued) instruct us in virtue, but this is likely to be effective only for philosophers. The rest of us need stronger medicine. Without such medicine, the sentiment that keeps individuals law-abiding even in the absence of positive law is fated to grow ever weaker as reason succumbs to passion.

Plato's Revenge

William Ophuls

Mores are a matter not of rational calculation but of heartfelt conviction.

The Square and the Tower

Niall Ferguson

“For most of history, life has been hierarchical. A few have enjoyed the privileges that come from monopolizing violence. Everyone else has dug.”

John le Carre

 

John le Carre (1931-2020)

The recent death of John le Carre has garnered a lot of retrospective consideration of his works, and I feel that I'd be remiss if I didn't join in. I've read most (if not all) of his novels, and I've seen many adaptations of his work (more on these to come). (C has read about as much, as well.) There is something about the grittiness of le Carre that draws me into his work. Of course, there's intrigue, although surprisingly little violence (although nasty enough when it appears). Le Carre studied people in situations, sometimes in committee meetings, sometimes at gunpoint. But his granular lens is always focused on the characters. Of course, this can also make for wonderful adaption to the screen if done well (and it often wasn't). But there is one set of exceptions beyond question: the BBC productions of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People, both starring Alec Guinness as Smiley and both staffed with a terrific supporting casts. I haven't changed my opinion about this; indeed, C & I watched both series again this year during pandemic confinement. I've lost track of how many times I've watched these two series, but I don't tire of them, they're so nuanced. 

For a thoughtful reflection on the many incarnations of George Smiley--foremost of which are now those of Guinness and Oldman, but which has also included James Mason--and for contrast with Ian Fleming's (and later imitators) James Bond, read this article by James Parker in the December 20011 issue of The Atlantic. 

Guinness: My favorite Smiley

Also, here's a 40th-anniversary reflection on Tinker Tailor from The Guardian (2019). And here's a photo of the three-plus Alleline: 

A great supporting cast, especially Bernard Hepton (far left) and Ian Richardson (next to Hepton)
Hepton was even better in Smiley's People. 

So to honor le Carre and to indulge in a walk down memory lane of my own, here are some of my earlier blog posts concerning le Carre. And if you must, skip the posts and read and watch le Carre's works. 

Skeptical Anticipation: Tinker Tailor Movie Coming

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: The Movie (2012)

John LeCarre: Our Kind of Traitor

John LeCarre's A Most Wanted Man

A Review of A Delicate Truth by John le Carre

And from a list of "favorite movies" [sic] I made in 2010: 

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979) and Smiley's People (1982). Okay, C already complained that these are not movies. True, they were made for TV; however, because of the quality of the script, acting, and production design, I have to treat them as films. These are to me what the Godfather films are to C. I'm not sure that I can quote as well as her from the script (a frightening ability that she possesses when she quotes Vito or Michael to me), but still, if you want more, I'll give you an earful. Alec Guinness is superb as Smiley. The supporting cast consists of great actors.

John le Carre: RIP. 

Thoughts for the Day: Wednesday (again) 23 December 2020

 

The Master and His Emissary

Iain McGilchrist

The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis has partial truth – if you don't have the word, you are likely to lose the concept; but this research demonstrates that the concept can arise without the word, and is therefore not dependent on it. So thinking is prior to language.

Essays in Understanding, 1930-1954

Hannah Arendt

According to Mannheim, all human thought is “existentially bound” and can be properly understood only by taking into account the particular situation from which it arises. This applies even to philosophical thought, which claims to be unaffected by particular points of view and to embody truth as such, thus assuming absolute validity for itself.

Commanding Hope

Thomas Homer-Dixon

Nestled inside the worldview component of this “growth WIT” [worldview, institutions, technology] is the dominant intellectual rationalization of today’s world order: conventional economics. This elaborate apparatus of theory, empirical evidence, mathematical gymnastics, value judgments, and self-congratulation legitimizes globalized capitalism and the social power of its elites.

History Man

Fred Inglis

Central to interpretation (whether by cop or by prof) is question-and-answer logic, which may be better thought of less with the daunting severity of the logician and more as a series of consequential inquiries arranged, so to speak, with the connectedness (and logic) of a tree-diagram.

From an old lawyer: yes.

Leadership and Self-Deception

The Arbinger Institute

"Self-betrayal" 1. An act contrary to what I feel I should do for another is called an act of "self-betrayal." 2. When I betray myself, I begin to see the world in a way that justifies my self-betrayal. 3. When I see the world in a self-justifying way, my view of reality becomes distorted.

Thoughts for the Day: Wednesday 22 December 2020

 

Commanding Hope

Thomas Homer-Dixon

But this notion of value [“utilitarian values”] reflects an astonishingly impoverished understanding of human beings: it’s based on the assumption that we’re nothing more than decision-making machines choosing among options based on how much they satisfy our hedonistic desires.

Essays in Understanding, 1930-1954

Hannah Arendt

The law of movement itself, Nature or History, singles out the foes of mankind and no free action of mere men is permitted to interfere with it.

If you've followed what I've written from time to time, you should know that I'm a big fan of history as a form of knowledge (or a way of knowing), but I'm not at all a fan of "History" as a replacement for human thought and decision-making, a "plan" that we must recognize, reveal, and realize. So, I contend, say Arendt and Collingwood, among others.

The Ingenuity Gap

Thomas Homer-Dixon

"It’s the integration of cognition with affect that appears to be key to self-awareness.” [Dr. Donald Stuss.]

“You seem to be suggesting,” I [Dr. Thomas Homer-Dixon] “that affect, or emotion, is very important for the brain’s high-level integrative and executive functions. Yet conventionally people think of emotion as a primitive aspect of human psychology. They believe the highest level of human intellectual function is rationality—cold, detached, and instrumental. And this conventional perspective suggests that, ideally, we should strip emotion out of our decision-making and cast it aside.”

“Exactly. I’ve [Stuss] spent decades studying the role of frontal lobes in logical cognition, but I’m now bringing in affect. We’ve shown that the polar region of the right frontal lobe—a region long regarded as useless—is a place important for humor and intentionality. The frontal lobes are also the source of our ‘gut feeling,’ which is something largely dissociable from knowledge and logic. The essence of human life is the integration of these things.”

Thoughts of the Day: Monday 21 December 2020

 

Hannah Arendt

Commanding Hope

Thomas Homer-Dixon

The great political philosopher Hannah Arendt captured the sentiment [the beginning of the Cold War with the threat of nuclear war] brilliantly, with language that resonates eerily today. “Never has our future been more unpredictable,” she declared. “Never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest— forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries.”

The Ingenuity Gap

Thomas Homer-Dixon

Eventually, reality does correct such self-indulgence. But this reality hits home hardest not at the top of the capitalist heap, but at the bottom.

Collingwood's The Idea of History

Peter Johnson

Collingwood wishes us to see that history is systematic knowledge. Its purpose is not to provide emotional satisfaction, but ‘to command assent’ (PH 73).

The Principles of Art

R. G. Collingwood

Now, if a person acquires the ability to express one kind of emotions and not another, the result will be that he knows the one kind to be in him, but not the other.

The Idea of History

R. G. Collingwood

...as Socrates urged against Glaucon, the individual character considered in isolation from its environment is an abstraction, not a really existing thing. What a man does depends only to a limited extent on what kind of man he is. No one can resist the forces of his environment. Either he conquers the world or the world will conquer him.

The Best and the Brightest

David Halberstam

It [the "loss" of China to the communists] caught this country [USA] psychologically unprepared. It was natural for a confused country to look for scapegoats and conspiracies; it was easier than admitting that there were things outside your control and that the world was an imperfect place in which to live.

Apologies to the Grandchildren

William Ophuls

Bluntly put, when democracy no longer delivers the goods, it will be consigned to the dustbin of history by an angry mob.

On Liberty

John Stuart Mill

The practical principle which guides them to their opinions on the regulation of human conduct is the feeling in each person’s mind that everybody should be required to act as he, and those with whom he sympathizes, would like them to act.

Thoughts for the Day: Sunday 20 December 2020

Alternate cover

 

The Principles of Art

R. G. Collingwood

It has sometimes been said that what we feel is always something existing here and now, and limited in its existence to the place and time at which it is felt; whereas what we think is always something eternal, something having no special habitation of its own in space and time but existing everywhere and always.

Commanding Hope

Thomas Homer-Dixon

For every selfish creep, there are many who use business entrepreneurship to make the world better in some way. Also, selfishness can be a good thing. Adam Smith was right that the individual’s pursuit of self-interest can, when directed through a well-functioning market, hugely benefit broader society. Modern market economies are prodigiously creative; and that creativity, when pointed in the right direction, can be an extraordinary force for good.

Commanding Hope

Thomas Homer-Dixon

The fourth principle that should be at the center of any positive vision of the future and worldview is a strong commitment to a shared identity that encompasses not just all of humanity, but in some respects all life on the planet too. This is the matter of who we see as “we.”

The Wedge

Scott Carney

Neuroscientists and lifelong meditators have long known that our minds slip from past to present to pondering the future, often without any obvious connection between reference points.

The Ingenuity Gap

Thomas Homer-Dixon

The important thing about positive feedbacks is that they are inherently unstable: they create self-reinforcing spirals of behavior, and can cause systems to become overextended or unbalanced.

Lost Knowledge of the Imagination

Gary Lachman

Where the new way of knowing demanded that the observer remain detached, isolated from the observed, so as to capture it in complete ‘objectivity’, thereby making what was under observation an ‘object’ – denying it had any ‘inside’ – Goethe knew that such objectivity was impossible. Well before Werner Heisenberg, Goethe had grasped this central truth, that ‘the phenomenon is not detached from the observer, but intertwined and involved with him’.

The Inevitability of Tragedy

Barry Gewen

“Socrates himself fell victim to the popular prejudice against philosophy.” There was worse. Philosophers needed to be able to think freely and to follow their ideas wherever they might lead. There was a kind of sociopathic madness to their endeavor. They were the ultimate iconoclasts, subversive by their very nature, because social and political activity was based on popular opinion, public dogma, and unexamined tradition, whereas philosophy existed to scrutinize all opinions, dogmas, and traditions.

The Inevitability of Tragedy

Barry Gewen

The Nazis distributed photographs of Hitler’s hands with the caption, “The Führer’s hands organize his speech.” Memorably, the philosopher Karl Jaspers asked his friend Martin Heidegger, Germany’s most influential philosopher, how he could support a philistine like Hitler. “Culture is of no importance,” Heidegger replied. “Just look at his marvelous hands.” The friendship did not last.