I admit that I have thought before about being utterly honest in a post or two about the trends that I am seeing in western culture, particularly in the so-called North Atlantic countries. Criticizing the prevailing culture is in the Biblical tradition being prophetic, and being prophetic is not generally a very stable or highly-regarded activity, either in the days of Jeremiah or in our day. Why? Well, of course, one can always be wrong about what one says. But that is not the main irritant, for people don't much want to hear prophetic things even if one might get things right. Criticizing one's contemporary cultural and intellectual horizon is always disruptive, appearing to some to be a deranged activity, like being "anti-vax." "What is it about these people?" some would say. "Clearly, they have gone off the deep end, believing conspiracy theories and all kinds of other nonsense. It's a shame that people like this guy (me?), have fallen for such BS."
Being prophetic demands a certain grasp of history. Cicero once said that the study of history allows us to escape the tyranny of the present. To critique one's culture demands one can envision other ways that one's culture might have gone. Unfortunately, we know very little history these days, and we have forgotten what we once knew about the effects of history upon our own self-understanding. Truly, in America in this very cold third decade of the 21st century it is as if Dilthey and Gadamer had never lived. We, who our products of the historical development of culture and its civilization, now operate as if we have reached a position above history and can thus ahistorically morally judge objectively (somehow) the historical processes from which we are birthed. This has taken us in the direction of censoring history for the sake of a good that somehow lies above history. But I get ahead of myself, for truly most of the new men and women of our age -- the young mostly in the cities -- have no way to conceive or make sense out of a good that putatively lies above history, a good that operates as its source and goal.
Let's be honest, folks. The best days of the West, and maybe the world itself, are likely behind us. Before you think that I rant as an old guy, let me offer evidence for my claim. The two points I make below are the results of my own thinking which, like all thinking, thinks within a stream of thinking. I know generally what many others have thought and think, but I have not here cited the specific thinking of particular thinkers. This is what I think, given that no thinking is entirely one's own.
Here are the two points about which this post is concerned:
- Human power and facility are diminishing.
- Since human beings no longer can appeal to anything above or beyond life to ground their life of diminishing power, they increasingly regard traditional existential questions as irrelevant.
1) We are faced with an accelerated diminution of human power and facility. Once upon a time in the west, there were a few that were educated. They could read books and, having gone to college or the university, they could think and write books. Accordingly, they could talk to each other. The educational idea once embraced was that the kind of informed discussions that could happen with the few might happen with the many if civilization were to adopt universal literacy. The idea was that if more people went to college, there would be more people who thought like people that once went to college.
But clearly this did not, and could not, happen. Just as there are few people that can hit a baseball 400 feet or play a Beethoven sonata beautifully, there are few people who can really read Newton, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Einstein, etc. While it is exceptionally hard work and it takes great discipline to think like the great thinkers, hard work and discipline are, nonetheless, not sufficient to think like these people. One must have a bit of genius, and there is nothing so rare and anti-democratic as genius. Some people have it but most don't. Since most in our universities and colleges don't have much genius, the conversations they now undertake are generally neither deep nor penetrating. Discussions within our universities now must moor themselves to the current cultural consensus because there are few in the conversation who can see to the very heart of the contingency of that consensus.
It is a simple matter of mathematics. Suppose that genius is distributed at a rate of one in 10,000. (I will regard 'genius' here to mean the ability to apply creativity of a certain kind and imagination of a certain kind to a whole range of issues.) Suppose that many people of genius find themselves in deep conversations about fundamental issues. When there were perhaps 3,000 people in the conversation when there were 50,000,000 people, there was a supply of 5,000 people of genius to potentially be in that small conversation of 3,000. But now let us imagine 10,000,000 in the conversation in an underlying population of 500,000,000. There is now potentially 50,000 people of genius in a conversation of 10,000,000. While before there were 1.6 people of genius for every conversational partner, now there is .05 for each partner.
What I am saying is that the conversation now is arguably very diluted with respect to creativity and imagination with respect to what it once was. Emerson once quipped, "Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." As the number of people available to think deeply falls, the form of the conversation is elevated over substance. The idea is simple enough: If we can get a very determinate arena to investigate and and agreed-upon rules for that investigation, then real work of an academic nature can advance even if the people engaged in such work are not particularly creative, imaginative, brilliant or insightful. Under the conditions of what Kuhn called "normal science," most who are educated in what passes for education now in the west can potentially make significant scientific contributions. The task of thinking deeply in "normal periods" seems to be counter-cultural and potentially disruptive of the public good. Genius is not needed, and can even seem dangerous, when the task is pedestrian.
None of this is to suggest that great scientists don't have genius. Clearly, they do and they are great because of it. It is just that many in the conversations no longer have the genius to appreciate the greatness of the great scientific minds. They cannot see the creativity and the synthesis involved in laying out a theoretical vision of the world. Since they cannot see this, they are lulled into thinking that science is a continuous project of discovering what really exists in the world. They think this without thinking how problematic it is to claim that what really exists can be discovered at all. What means the phrase, "what really exists?"
While there are fewer geniuses in the important conversations these days, there are many in the conversations who, judged by earlier standards, should not be in these conversations at all. One hundred years ago, I would argue, most in scientific discussions were pretty good at basic mathematics. Euler continued to do thousands of mathematical computations in his head after he lost his eyesight. We once as a culture had to master basic mathematical skills to survive.
But all of that changed with the invention of calculating devices and now computer programs. Many people now, both within and outside science, are incapable of performing simple mathematical calculation either in their minds or on paper. Since they need a calculator to calculate, they cannot autonomously see probabilities, inferential schemas or even functions. They can occupy the mathematical landscape only by placing themselves within mathematical machine space. They come armed now with machine guns where the fight used to be among gentlemen with swords. They genius of the mathematical sword fight has been replaced by the use of mathematical machine guns. Thinking mathematically on one's own has become as irrelevant for mathematical progress as learning the art of thrust and parry for winning twenty-first century wars. We all know that many of our young cannot calculate basic things such as how to make change, and we understand that this would have been disastrous in an earlier age for success in business. But we act as if this is no longer the case. After all, one can get a MBA from an Ivy League school without knowing how to calculate. But despite this, I claim that the loss of basic mathematic skill is a fundamental diminution of human power and facility. Doing business demands that one can work the numbers wherever and whenever one needs to do so. One cannot do it from the outside, as it were, from a position mediated by an external machine. One needs to see the numbers, not have them reported to you.
But what else is around the corner, dear friends? Think about it a moment. AI will do for human writing and reasoning what the calculating device did for basic mathematical computational skills! AI programs already write well, and we are in our infancy with such programs. Soon our secondary school students will learn that they have programs that will actually write the paragraphs and give the reasoning. Just as mathematics has marginalized simple mathematical calculation, thinking and writing will soon marginalize simple rational justification. Giving reasons in logical space for positions adopted can be turned over to computer programs. In fact, must means-ends thinking can so be turned over. Technical reasoning, including both mathematical calculation and the giving of reasons in logical space can be done through the writing and implementation of appropriate algorithms. Just as the invention of large machines during the industrial era meant that there was less and less work to do by hand, so too the invention of AI machines during this computational era will mean that there will be less and less work to do by human thinking. So what will be left for humans to do?
In any means-ends algorithm, the ends are already given. Paul Tillich called ontological reason that activity of human thinking by which the ends are first established on the basis of which the proper means are selected for success. Computational machines and AI programming cannot reason to what ought be the ends of human thinking and calculation. Traditionally, questions such as these have fallen within the province of religion, value, morality and philosophy widely-conceived. Deeply pursuing these questions would seem to be an important activity for our time. But unfortunately, it is becoming increasing difficult for human beings to recognize that the questions of the ends of human life are important questions and ought to be pursued in their own right. Maybe it takes some genius to see this, and there are few today with genius. These considerations bring us to the second point:
2) We are faced with the increasing conviction by many that the traditional questions of human existence are not legitimate and not worth pursuing. There are vast cultural regions, mostly urban, where a type of unthinking scientism prevails. To see this, let us look to the lives of the young urban elite and attempt to generalize to their values from the specifics of that form of life.
For many in what might be called "safely blue areas" within contemporary urban life, religious life is considered mere superstition. Sirens of the new atheism, which is neither new and arguably still commits to some of the old gods, claim that the physical is all there is and that religious people are deluded, and quite possibly weak and devoid of courage, not to embrace what is: The world is all that is the case. Accordingly, there is no "more-thanness" (Jaspers) to which we are related and must deal. Since no values are simply given in an unthinking universe, any values that we have must be constructed and perhaps have been sedimented into the genes through our evolutionary history. While nature often takes the long way to get to where it needs to go, it eventually gets there, and one ought to be able to provide an explanation for what seems to be the universal nature of some human values by pointing to stories about what furthers or hinders human survivability in the face of natural environmental pressures.
The young in cities know that the values they are likely to encounter in life will have to be constructed by themselves in ways that are basically consonant with their own survivability. In this environment, it makes no sense to hold abstract views on human life that do not immediately connect to their survivability and that of their friends. Questions like, "Is it morally permissible to engage in sexual activity with members of one's own sex?" make no sense at all. Why, they wonder, would anyone ever be concerned with this? Since, there is no God to judge this or abstract metaphysical principle for which homoerotic behavior is disconsonant, the question can only be interpreted by them as posed by people being somehow intrusively interested in something that clearly makes no difference to anybody's everyday life. The only question that arises for them is why would somebody be concerned about this.
The new urban dweller understands death or disease as a bad thing because both carry with them concomitant human suffering, and suffering is unpleasant. But many activities, they believe, can be pursued which don't issue in human suffering. While it is interesting to study the actual sexual activity of the young -- it is up slightly with significant increases in those reporting "none at all" -- what they regard as morally permissible of proscriptive seems to be changing. There are many indicators of this, although I must admit that the data can be read in different ways. However, I will boldly claim that the reports that most young people believe that their friends are sexually active and that they ought not judge them for it, means something. The reports buttress the notion that sexual activity is increasingly regarded as a physical thing that carries with it little of relevance to the traditional loci of love, marriage, family, and God that were once associated with it. Young women increasingly speak of "body count" as a good or empowering thing, endeavoring in such speaking to catch up with the historically greater promiscuity of the male. The logic seems to be this: Males have been traditionally more promiscuous than woman and males have had the power in society over and against women. Thus, if women become more promiscuous, then they will have greater power in society over and against men. Clearly, this is a fallacy of denying the antecedent and affirming the consequent, but logic is powerless to break the spell of the association.
The new life of the new urban man or woman is a life without God or overall purpose in which pleasure can be pursued for its own end. Clearly, there is a prima facie rationality to this view. If we are physical beings only, then what is important for us ultimately is our having of pleasant or unpleasant physical sensations. It is arguable that having sex without guilt is more pleasurable than experiencing unpleasant psychological experiences associated with misplaced guilt and regret about something that is quite natural. And that which is true of sex is true of many other things we do in life. Why exactly would one sacrifice? For what reason would one be loyal if it does not issue in increasing the pleasantness of life? It is clear that a predilection towards hedonism, though not necessarily crude hedonism, likely accompanies for many commitments towards physicalism and a denial of God and the life of the spirit. While questions of individual suffering and happiness make sense to those without God, questions as to the rightness or wrongness of sexual practice (extra-marital sex, polyandry, etc) make little sense. It all depends, one hears, of who the people are and what makes them happy.
The questions of life (abortion, euthanasia, etc) are not likely to weigh heavily upon those who regard themselves as fully physical and who believe that physical pleasure and displeasure constitute the barometer of morality. Why exactly does one not terminate the fetus -- even if the fetus is nearing nine months? After all, having a baby will like contribute to the pain and suffering of the mother's existence and the fetus will not recall not existing. While it might have some unpleasantness at termination it does not have the complicated psychological structure to recall and live again its suffering. In fact, while it is sad to have to put down a dog, this sadness ought not limit the happiness of the dog's owner if he or she thinks about matters properly. What is good for the dog is also good for the fetus. To regard the two in fundamentally different ways is to presuppose some external point that allows us somehow properly judge human activity like terminating pregnancies. But if there is no external point, then why not let one's life and experience judge it? And who is anybody else to walk in the shoes of the one to have to make this choice.
In the absence of religion, who properly determines our ends? Clearly us! And to the point: There is no abstract view from the top or from nowhere (Nagel) that can make this judgment for another. The ends to which one ought to strive are highly individual. The answer to the question of "What are the ends of human life" is easy: "It depends upon who is asking the question." But this answer undermines the very force of the question -- at least in how it has been traditionally asked.
In this time where most who think and write are not men and women of genius, two things are clear: (1) We have machines now that help us carry out the means by which we reach an end, and (2) the ends of human life are now highly individual, connectable finally to the particularity of the men and women in question.
We no longer live in the days where moral questions arise for us clearly. We can no longer as a society think them through. This is why the ends of human life are increasingly given to us by those who would think for us. We hear that "Everyone knows that global warming is a bad thing," and we are taught somehow that sacrificing here for "the good of the planet as such" is a wonderful virtue. We are taught this despite the fact here that the science on global warming is not settled, and the models show that increasing renewable energy sources in the North Atlantic countries will have little effect on greenhouse emissions or global temperature over the coming decades. The new urban young believe that global warming must be slowed by any means possible without connecting that belief to the other beliefs that they might have regarding the basic physicality of life and their propensity to maximize physical pleasure as the good of that life.
We knew that "wearing masks is a good thing," and that "we ought be vaccinated," though the science upon which this was based was flimsy or nonexistent. The young seemingly believe these judgments without giving them serious thought about their ultimate support or the degree to which they properly cohere with their other views.
Traditionally, death has been viewed in the North Atlantic countries as a bad thing. Lutherans have talked for 500 years about reality of "sin, death, and the power of the devil." Luther wrote passionately about how in the midst of life there is death. If ever there was an end to human life it was, for most of our experience, that death is not our friend and that we can be saved from death. But now there is no death to be saved from because increasingly we are coming to believe that death is part simply of the great cycle of life. There is no tragedy in death. Rather, death is just a natural part of life and should not be given more importance than it has. If we could but grasp that death is part of life, then we would be freed to make the important personal decisions that give to us physical beings a greater quantity and quality to life. It makes no sense to think that some religious conversion on the way to death has any more importance than simply giving to the person a greater chance for pleasure in the life that one has yet to live.
So this is our plight: We are increasingly losing our capacity to think lucidly, the percentage of truly imaginative people of genius is diminishing within most important conversations, and as a society we are finding it difficult to find a place from which properly to judge our experience. Simply put, how is it possible now to arrive at the proper ends of human existence when all such putative ends are simply reducible to the pleasure or displeasure of the individuals asking the question?
I want anyone reading this to understand that I myself am not a hedonist, and that I do believe that moral reasoning and even moral knowledge is possible. I am speaking here about what is happening in North Atlantic culture right before our eyes. I invite people to take issue with what I have written not by pointing out that hedonism is a very unsatisfying position intellectually, but by showing that I have misread the current cultural and intellectual presuppositions of the life of the urban young.
