Oh that it should come to this
The Earth War -part two of the story of Yuval Harari, Daniel Bell and the PROPHETS — Hugo Meynell can inform us on the use of SYSTEMS (in art) as will become clear in another one of my stories (An American century, Meynell will prove pivotal in creaming out how possibly we may be facing an American century of philosophical thought, see it here at Medium.com). But forget about H.A. Meynell right now. In our long winter check out this series on how to NOT deal with thought-leaders, and how to handle Shakespeare ICONS.
No one has a previliged position, this in a sense is the message of the PC movement on which the Procedural Control movement is also based, this structure rests however on a loose foundation, for the idea is in essence post-modernist. Place this inside hegelianism and modernism and (incidentally post-modernism) it becomes placed inside a structure of predictive knowledge. PC also points to positioning control. The Heisenberg. As we will see further on my critique of the PC movement is mainly in how it copies a rational outlook (see further). One of my main targets of criticism is overly relying on rationalism, we see this trait in Stoicism too (see further 5 and 6).
The love of Shakespeare is decidedly odd, his world is destroyed, he himself dreams of it, so why should we? THe oDD thing about that, is it’s odd. In a sense we read into the ICON what we see fit not what is REALLY there.
But we are here to shut down the big-whigs too. Daniel Bell for one, how can he be useful to us right here right now, I admit he isn´t and only in part. William Shakespeare that illustrious Illuminati will also come under fire, not because of his secret brethren of Rosecrucians or any other, Wisehaupt is so much later, and so is Jonathan Swift. I think the idea that he did not write his own plays idiotic, and his skill is superior, yet I criticise the way we handle ICONS. The writing of Shakespeare is similar to the writings of Reformation England, much if not all of writng was dipped in the idea of poetry, and of stanzas. We tend to forget that writing had this common thread in that time. The critique is over ICONS which we use as dummies of poor thought, think for yourself instead, use it; that free thought, you can you know you can! The critique is merely using this ICON of ours to prove a point!
Let us restate the obvious;
Let us define ICON then, what is that? Da Vinci is one, and we say he was unique; IN THAT FAIRY-TALE YES LIES AN ABSOLUTE AND GREAT FAIRY-TALE NO, SO THAT WE CAN SAY THIS MY DEAR READER COULD NOT BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH!!! In the environment of Leonardo were these ideas, he was good at putting them down on paper, great guy!! But we have hundreds of texts exposing contemporaries of Da Vinci with these same ideas and proto-types, we just prefer the fairy-tale ICONS, they make it simple. (cited from part one)
Yuval Harari gives prophetic fuel to the fire as he attacks in similar terms as McLuhan, or Bell or Heilbroner — less the media landscape and its inner workings on the minds of our ‘consumer’ (the hero of the tale), and oh so much more on the global ecological results of this (cf.Homo Deus).
Yuval Harari as ICON
His insight comes perhaps from living in a fragile desert environment (i.e Israel). For as he says he is a historian, and a detached observer (a prophet?), more to the point, and this (as we saw in the case of McLuhan who was a REnaissance specialist inside literature) might surprise us; he is a medievalist! Now there is a wasted heap of nonsense!
Being a medievalist Harari could apply to the crusades his ecological mindset. The cities inside the Holy land were like arks on a salty crust, fragile in that it might easily topple and be devastated. The structures of man, or ideas of man were the safety-valve which held all in place (at the time of the crusades, or in Napoleonic time for that matter, or today he seems to claim). This is all well, but we who live off better and more fertile soils, should not heed the word of prophets! Our societies are not at all like those of that time and place, sure? Why listen to him? Harari´s idea stems in part from cognition and sociology (which shamefully delves in the mysticism of despair and social alienation), for Harari asks the social question;
HOW DOES SOCIETY WORK?
Pardon me, but that is sociology 101. Most people would say that this is beyond them, but think of it this way. There is a tribe in Australia which says that the world, or rather that as we dream, or sleep, the world is held into place. Think then about a more simple society, as Tom Wolfe points to (cf. Wolfe The Kingdom of Speech, 2016) language was likely what created man, and his brain was created simultaneous. Think about that for a while, interesting, the dream the dream the dream, who would have thought that? Merrily, merrily. merrily life is boatdrinks! What the…this is ONE argument that takes the ICONS away, we can think ourselves, we have LANGUAGE!!
Flexible cooperation is a special trait of humans, but Harari asks how, do we do that? This is a BIG quest for a BIG answer, on the other hand we have a hunch already, language perhaps, well says Harari we are willing to believe in BIG stories, that is about it. Often enough the hard bit is to ask the question, and Harari did that — we have collective illusions, that´s our strength. Odd indeed. Yuval Harari supports the idea then that we should be weary of ICONS!!!
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Instead of fights over these niceties of science and language, we can if we want take a psycho-historical view of culture history. Such a view is fateful in that it follows in a Jewish trajectory of thought, which inscribes ‘meaning’ to history what would be an eventual impetous to nationalism. On the other the whole of our past is now written inside our world history very much despite the Bible. Common sense. Cursing aside history always contains nuggets of truth. My thoughts often go to Hellenism which created Christianity. Another example would be John K. Galbraith. Or the air-dryer…
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DIVERSIO
Plotnius, or Karl Krauss, or both inspired McLuhan. But who knows? Krauss inspired by Jean Paul, and Leibnitz and the Talmud inspired Horkheimer, and likely Wittgenstein too — but ideas can be rediscovered, thus all ideas matter and can become matter — this is why Appian has such a bad press… You do not know the dog by its fur as the Swedish saying goes. A dog-eared book?
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HOW LANGUAGE CAN SAVE US
Who cares if there is a tribe in Australia? Well not really, but Lyell as Wolfe explains who sent his manuscript to Darwin made a mistake. But this idea that Wolfe presents, is an infringe on the usefulness of Darwin, and Lyell too.
Now My Dear Reader, I say it is possible to make sense of our tragedy (as the debauché Michel Foucault might have said) for we have only to dream up the world — like those Australians. Kahneman points to our limitations in cognition we are all a bit stupid I am afraid, which is why I think thinking matters all that much more. For Darwin is replaced by spirit, and not by TECHNOS although this is surely a threat too, this threat is secondary only. Velikovsky replaces a lot of all of these prophets by showing our DEEP dependance on our thinking myths. Our fear of zombies is justified, but it is the brain which is eating our world — our cognition is in fact THE ENEMY.
Thinking about Shakespeare matters here. It matters because Nessim Nicholas Taleb matters, because soft or weak definitions matter(cf. H.A.Meynell,1986) matter; citing Herman Göring. “When I hear the word culture I uncock my revolver!” (in actual fact comes from Hanns Johst (8 July 1890–23 November 1978) a Nazi-ideologue and playwright) Just to put things straight. America for instance seemes back-water to arrogant Europeans. Look then beyond Shakespeare, we see how the mind reels and history distorts, for time is also memory for beyond some point we loose grip. The Middle Ages are not too distant, but the REnaissance as I insist on calling it is so much closer. How many Westerners does it take to put up a light-bulb? Still many historians romanticise the Renaissance, they I can only conclude, are putting up light-bulbs.
Shakespeare has language at his grip, but as Swift alludes to language has a hidden sauce; it allows for change. Language is the go-between beween us and our environment, language then is IMPORTANT, a benevolent reason why Machiavelli is wrong. Inside our time TYRANTS grow like mushrooms as the mouth-pieces of political slander, lies and obfuscation. Read Shakespeare his time was all that — a terrible mess! A real and very terrible mess! Not some romantic dream, no not that. Not at all!
The usefulness of Bell is in doubt, but the idea that society undergoes change is a constant and true ringer. The usefulness of Hugo Meynell is seeing like Yogi Berra the external factors to a problem, and how not seeing it hides our view (cf. Meynell 1986).
WIKIPEDIA ON THE CCC
In The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976), Bell contends that the developments of 20th century capitalism have led to a contradiction between the cultural sphere of consumerist instant self-gratification and the demand, in the economic sphere, for hard-working, productive individuals. Bell articulates this through his “three realms” methodology, which divides modern society into the cultural, economic and political spheres.
Bell’s concern is that with the growth of the welfare state throughout the post-war years, the population is beginning to demand the state fulfill the hedonistic desires that the cultural sphere is encouraging. That dovetails with the ongoing requirement for the state to maintain the kind of strong economic environment conducive to continual growth. For Bell, the competing, contradictory demands place excessive strain on the state that were manifest in the economic turbulence, fiscal pressure, and political upheaval characteristic of the 1970s.
Thank you for reading this!
