Criticism seeks to engage in conversations and identify error; canceling seeks to stigmatize conversations and punish the errant. Criticism cares whether statements are true; canceling cares about their social effects. Criticism exploits viewpoint diversity; canceling imposes viewpoint conformity. Criticism is a substitute for social punishment (we kill our hypotheses rather than each other); canceling is a form of social punishment (we kill your hypothesis by killing you socially). Criticism reflects the values of the Constitution of Knowledge, seeking to inquire and learn. Canceling reflects the values of propaganda, seeking to manipulate the information environment.
If the differences that are bitterly dividing American politics are ultimately about bedrock values and core identities, what could possibly induce these opposing camps to compromise with each other? Why, for example, would postmodernists want to compromise with fiscally conservative modernists who are seen as destroying the environment and oppressing workers? Or why would traditionalists want to compromise with liberal modernists who are seen as suppressing religious freedom and murdering innocent fetuses? Indeed, why would socialistic postmodernists and theocratic traditionalists ever deem to compromise with each other when their respective moral systems seem to be diametrically opposed?
The answers to these questions are vital to our collective well-being.
What general lessons can we learn from the historical study of catastrophes? First, it may simply be impossible to predict or even attach probabilities to the majority of disasters. From earthquakes to wars to financial crises, the major disruptions in history have been characterized by random or by power-law distributions. They belong in the domain of uncertainty, not risk.
Callousness has always been the besetting sin of Realpolitik, and it is not difficult to find examples of almost brutal coldness in Kissinger’s record. “It’s none of our business how they treat their own people,” he said of Moscow’s policy toward Soviet Jews. “I’m Jewish myself, but who are we to complain?” Actual human beings could get lost as power was being balanced.
Happiness is something you notice you are feeling later… after you’ve been in action for a while.
Taoism concerns itself with unconventional knowledge, with the understanding of life directly, instead of in the abstract, linear terms of representational thinking.
