Pro- and Re- ACTIVE systems
Follow Rome or follow Greece?
We have those that have a plan that are proactive, and then laggers who end up latched to Zeno’s cart like a dog, willy-nilly dragged along by fate.
It has been pointed out by Patrick le Roux as well as a host of others how the fate and fortunes of Rome always had ties (as such increasingly as the empire grew) to its foreign policy. Such a thing may strike us as inane, yet think about the consequences. This is a somewhat longer piece, the notion of basic forces in human society is hardly a new one, but I will argue for the realisation that we need to study Rome more in general terms, and secondly, how such an enterprise if modernised to modern standards might reveal many secrets (of how empire systems work). We have those that have a plan that are proactive, and then laggers who end up latched to Zeno’s cart like a dog, willy-nilly dragged along by fate.
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Then at one level this text has a serious research question, one which on the whole is unanswerable, at another this text might serve another purpose entirely; that of showing the uses of the classics to you (My Dear Reader).
This is not an appeal to the idea that Plutarch is very useful or that you do not fall asleep reading Plato, or that Xenophon is not a bunch of fun, no not really. This text argues as in a flow down the Mississippi. The goal, my goal in Classics is that of Jefferson, namely to reach a kind of self-ingratiating truth.
The idea then, is not to be well-read but to achieve a TECHNE — a selfisome operation of thought and feeling. Such a goal besides, is I think always (at every instant) within reach. As will come to realise (and as de Tocqueville, cf. Democracy in America part II) this path or realisation is in essence open, so just step right in… welcome! No previous acquaintance required.
Are you one of those good-for-nothing-deplorables who went for a course in cultural history? Here´s your revenge! This if anything is a start!
Then in what way can Greek culture be said to have interacted with Roman culture? My answer is a short one; they interacted like systems, but more importantly like systems of two very opposite kinds. By system I mean merely the cross-disciplinary approach, which (if modernised) engulfs newer theories, which on the whole are just orange as opposed to black. Hell, even the ancients themselves had at least some ideas about systems. Time to crack the oldest riddle out there… in fact why otherwise use these new approaches? In essence nothing is new under Phoibus, yet…
We need a new perspective on cultural difference, in some sense one which is the elephant in the room of classics studies. The view that Rome was inferior is evidently faulty but is in some sense a first glimpse of this big idea. The knowledge you have, if you only knew! Here is that door, open it! The massive passive society will have to come to an end! Find out how your knowledge is insanely powerful. Step right in.
“Then again inside the study of classics we must see this world of theirs, in opposition to our own. Generally, an idea of universality is developed as Hellenism develops and as such propagated in Alexandria. The idea that we can understand Rome is hasty, yet these are your first steps of such insight, my Dear reader. This idea is how the difference between body and mind, the main reason being a pre-stoic or plain idea at that time, seeing as the world was hostile (see further below for this cite).
Cicero´s argument — propagated into the middle ages
We are some 1000 yrs before the first advanced notions of Medieval thought. This classical world is conversational about things in an unsophisticated way of understanding. History or writing in general was often supposed to contain kernels of important ethical truth. Stoicism looked outside of the window and reflected on man´s ‘place in nature’, much like Medieval thinkers would do (as I said 1000 yrs later), the process was about similar, a self-reflection, the study of life and nature. Stoicism is often bloated, and it played up to take an important part in history, but so did kite-flying or the noble art of being kind, or plain vanilla investment plans… so let us investigate Stoicism. This is often described as a ‘religion’, and yet it has many inconsistencies and so is not all that easy to describe in a heartbeat.
My stance on Stoicism is I don´t like it, much like Plutarch didn´t like it, the problem being mostly that Stoicism is a Roman product, and as such our stance is racist, whereas the old tradition of a shared ‘culture’ of sanctity is pro-active (according to the title of this essay, a slanted approach I agree). Plutarch seems to argue against a Roman style though. The reason for Plutarch´s dislike I will contend (c.f Moralia III) is his critique of its philosophical make-up, in this matter then this is not just ‘racism’ on his part but a scientific argument. But as you can gather classicists have not solved this mystery likely then we may fail too, this is however not the time to give up, but face the wind… Rome. Tell me about her secrets.
The black and white reality of scripture those 1000 yrs down the winding road, as opposed to nature and as a detached way of percieving the world are most visible inside Stoicism. The world is separate, and the world in a sense not for all intents and purposes knowable. We must not forget that Roman culture and stoicism are part and parcel, its role as a ‘philosophy’ is often overplayed. As to its contents we have some features though. Stoicism had no generally accepted scripture but still wanted a clear idea about right and wrong, and so it imagined that Nature must provide such a simple model (although as we saw it was unknowable).
This argument is weak but if Rome was dragged by her feet into the future, the emperors had increasingly sophisticated administrations at their disposal. But much like Pegasus is a complex creature, born of Medusa and Poseidon, so Rome had the roads, the roads that conquered all also led conquering armies to Rome, this led to Rome (as I noted initially) as a puppet of its foreign policy, the emperors increasingly as puppets of its administrations.
Stoics very much tend to the black and white. Not that this is necessarily a stupid idea, but in essence it may lead us astray. This precept was akin to Aristotle´s notions of the world. The material world and the gods; man it was imagined was part of the material world, the world of the gods was more perfect and ineffable (unknowable). But in emulation of this natural order, the mind should reside over the body, the notion of apatheia (to feel little or nothing and suspend emotion) was central. It copied the stance of the untouchable gods, and yet here we have perhaps the first, first-person religion (it is arguable whether this is religion, but less arguable that it is quite individualist in our ‘woke’ sense). This gives us a first little glimpse then.
What says Plutarch? On the surface much of the antique writers appear romantic and pedantic, yet in Plutarch the beauty is not complete. To Plutarch, the emphasis is almost that of Montaigne, as he seems to be faulting himself. Real-world politics is not ideal, although we might if we squint find beauty in jagged talk and in boastful poets as in the rhetorician´s deceptive chatterings of subterfuge. This it seems is Plutach´s view. This puts him apart from Stoicism which seems to search perfection not the imperfect (in which the perfect hides itself Plutarch says). Stoicism is more a moral theory, than one of ‘essence’ — this likely is Plutarch´s thrust.
Knowable unknowableness
There is a universalist claim in Stoicism. In order to achieve these things (to stick with its guns as it were) the idea of humans as part of the same ‘thing’ had to be added. All humans had to share this quality of being in control of their body — like the Demiurge was the top-dog in nature essentially. In a harsh and uncontrollable world you had to adapt to the disability and accept fate. This was the way to emulate nature, the way of the stoic. A tendency within this school is (and it is mostly impossible to say that it was limited for it was a reigning idea in Rome) to suppose that the universe is limited in the sense that it is quite KNOWABLE — this knowableness is we must remember a knowableness of the unknowable. The unknowable is knowable inside the cosmos if the structure is ordered. A Stoic dicotomy we should try and abolish outside of certain (but rather small and limited) relentless areas; of accepting limits and growing up. But there is no question we owe much to the Romans. The idea for instance of accessibility of knowledge or ‘order’ of thought, is these days mostly in disdain, and I think this is a very good thing (think about post-modernism), if possible such a relativism should be embraced (not the stoic one of a magical supposed ‘order’). The attitude of the stoics was then seemingly confused (like post-modernism in fact). The roots of stoic thought comes from scepticism, so this would be turning back to stoicism´s roots. We are after all postmoderns. We sure are not Stoics. Yet some part of us is sure to be ‘Roman’. Hrm many clues, where to start?
Then again inside the study of classics we must see this world of theirs however confused, in opposition to our own. Generally, an idea of universality is developed as Hellenism develops and as such propagated in Alexandria. The idea that we can understand Rome is hasty, yet these are your first steps of such insight, my Dear reader. This idea is how the difference between body and mind, the main reason being a pre-stoic or plain idea at that time, seeing as the world was hostile. This ‘hostility’ was perhaps of the old kind, but also one of escalated and very heightened social instability and the mixing of cultures. The idea which also contains details is evident in Epicurean, in Plotnian as in Sceptic thought, and becomes a breeding ground for much of what we refer to as hellenistic philosophy, Stoicism sucks it up and is part of this environment (e.g. Peter Brown, 1971: The World of late antiquity). Simply put stoicism is the plain vanilla philosophy (if a harsh one) of the Roman citizen and of the Empire, but seeks its roots in all manner of other exotic ideas including sceptic ideas and in harsh rivalry with the mega hit called epicureanism (i.e most prominent is so-called scepticism as a precursor, but the roots go deeper into Cynicism as well as a host of other ones as mentioned). It is not that stoicism does not have a kernel of ‘something’ but it is also a sign of the times.
“The important idea here is how Seneca may very well be a culprit of modern thought.” (cite below from the chapter about the mystic teachings in all of this — remember I am most scientific: as any man you will ever come across)
Why else study the classics? In studying the classics we become aware of such older links to our present day thoughts and actions. These ideas are at times not referred to as stoic but as neoplatonic. The most common way to describe this is to say that stoicism proper came out of Roman scepticism. As you may have noticed now, I side with liking the Greek notions more, yet they have a common root.
If we like to be scientific, we must not take sides. Most people do not understand anything about this, the scientific apatheia I would argue, is another apatheia altogether; I support the one Russell calls ‘science’ as opposed to teleology, Bertrand Russell has a smart way of defining it. Stoicism takes a double apatheia both of the mind and of science, this first kind I dare say is unnecessary. Stoicism takes a double road of conciliation, sorry NOT scientific!
CONSUMER LOGIC — semper fugit gloria mundis
Egotistical self-importance has enveloped a whole tranche of the polpulation; after all the mobile phone promotes the idea that YOU are at the centre of things. That you are must be said to be highly unlikely, doubtful and even unscientific. This would be a spot to apply stoicism and scientific scepticism, but alas no one does. But then there is Michel de Montaigne, a rather well-read gentleman. We know him from his essays, but as a first glimpse of how we redirect history allow me to show how we wrongly pin the invention of ‘the essay’ (I myself think of myself as a follower of Montaigne).
Plutarch I think in some of what he writes has a similar tone as does Michel de Montaigne, likely then the essay is merely a modernisation of this way of writing, a reasoning and arguing style. Real-world politicks as Montaigne was well aware, for he was a NEGOTIATOR by profession, is hardly ever ideal. In the face of a complex totality of jumbled facts, the world remains unpredictable. This view we can recognise as in essence stoic/ Stoic as described in the above. If Plutarch is living inside a prison of the Roman world, Montaigne is the prisoner of the real world (the unsafe and unstable world of warring noblemen which employed him, back there in the 16th century), and You my Dear Reader is prisoner of the CONSUMER society — the massive passive society. Stoic attitudes might apply then, or don´t you think? This might be yet another application of stoicism.
Montaigne as on a side note, was not the inventor of ‘the essay’ at least not if we read his writings. You see the answer is one we often confront in history of labeling things for ease of use. The word essayer/ essaier is in the title of Montaigne´s work, yet by it the author has quite another intent. The writer implies a hostile world, an unsafe world and his ‘trials’ inside this world of ours — in early editions of his work we see it in small caps. With time the essay is plastered on our collective cultural memory and hitched on Montaigne´s struggle or trial with the world, which was his real intention in using it. In later editions it takes a capital E.
We have now come to understand that the Romans thought of themselves as trapped inside society, and as an aside that Montaigne did not invent the essay at all. What is certain is the popular book-series Que sais-je? in French took the expression from Montaigne, also how both William Shakespeare AND Michel de Montaigne likely read (Parallel lives publ. 1579, it was available to a Latin speaker before the year 1500, printed 1470) Plutarch and were inspired. So who is this fella?
A new science based on the classics — why Cicero?
The world, pardon me for saying so, is NOT made up of blacks and whites! But as you will soon notice (end of this essay) the duality of the 1890s is very heavy on classics studies. Now begins the complications. This influence is not heavy but heavy in the sense that it lies a heavy hand on the science of Rome and Athens. In the case that the Reader will agree, we can go on to say something about the late 19th century (the aim after all is to learn something about ourselves). The history of Classics as a science.
Ruth Benedict takes science via a language-route, saying that cultures are different makes for difficulties, but in line with William James this allows for a scientific method, I follow this method. This same route is visible in Sombart as in Weber, both of whom take concepts (note though that Sombart uses the dichotomy Verstehen/ Begriff where begriff is the ‘conceptual’ as opposed to the humanistic relativist way of understanding (=verstehen, which implies emotional compassionate understanding)). To see this connect with Weber we can see the method in all of the social thinkers of this time (late 19th and early 20th century).
cite from WIKI
Like Weber, Sombart makes double-entry bookkeeping system an important component of modern capitalism. He wrote in “Medieval and Modern Commercial Enterprise” that “The very concept of capital is derived from this way of looking at things; one can say that capital, as a category, did not exist before double-entry bookkeeping. Capital can be defined as that amount of wealth which is used in making profits and which enters into the accounts.”He also coined the term and concept of creative destruction which is a key ingredient of Joseph Schumpeter’s theory of innovation (Schumpeter actually borrowed much from Sombart, not always with proper reference).
These approaches (the comparative relativist language approach) fell in disfavour, I am now reviving it.
My argument is a late version of classics as seen in the 1920s one which is sometimes called Victorian should be emulated.
Caesare Foligno makes the comment that as Toynbee says, we tend to search for a happy past or a super future. This is an interesting subject for it shows our attitudes to the past (in this case antiquity) often reveals our innermost thoughts — the psyhoanalyst might be thrilled. Foliogno writing in the 1920s (like Ferrero, my hero) is not sophisticated enough to see the problems herein, for on a deep level latinity is a boon, my argument puts that all on its head and says it was also changing the cultures of Europe. In fact Hitler and many 19th century activists were debating this very point. And it is an interesting story all in itself, but let’s move on.
A short look at the history of the subject. My argument is a late version of classics as seen in the 1920s, one which is sometimes called Victorian should be emulated. Western early industrial society in the 19th century was I think a dualistic society; less so in America, more so in Europe. The notions of progress were losing steam, it might surprise us how a French-German conflict had made the future most dim (1871) this was also the year Chicago burned but that My Dear Reader is another story entire. The economy was not doing all that great in Europe. The American pessimism was steeped mostly in TOO LITTLE progress and was less marked by war than by economic factors, the European pessimism was a retrenchment of TOO MUCH progress. In the culture of mysticism and fin de siècle decadence in Vienna or Paris, or even London. Yes, I am not making this up, a new new romanticism sprouted, art of the period will reveal the feelings of gothic longing... Why must someone like You, my dear reader be involved in these niceties of history? Winckelmann (dies + 1768) had already invented the subject of Classics why add the subtleties? Well the classics had to change too, after 200 yrs of development and inquiry. Since the classicists have this scar-tissue; the Classics was mostly a European affair, and hence has the water-mark of Europe. Then what are its outlooks? It is hardly a surprise. The Europe of that day was as I said very dualistic for it longed to a heroic past (the one Hitler was sadly steeped in along with everyone else) but was at the very same time in the midst of explosive technological and productive development (and growth, of cities, trade etc). This explains the growth of H.G. Wells’ popularity, or Albert Robida’s, developing futurescapes of the imagination. This water-stamp I will argue will NEVER go away from studies of the classic past (for better or worse). Let us move on, weiter as the Germans say… This point is important. I think any man of a perceptive mind can study the classics, remember I do not know Latin nor Greek apart from bits, just tiny little morcels here and there. I do not expect you remember any of the scholars I have mentioned either, that is not the point of this. My idea is we retie to an older tradition.
Cicero´s argument, and it is pronounced ‘Kikero’ during Cicero´s time, is now more clearly visible. In the thought of a host of thinkers of the late 19th century much drivel is brought forward, but it might be crystallized via one of these ‘Victorians’. I am here thinking of The Great Chain of Being, by Arthur O. Lovejoy (William James lecture, 1933) who expresses a great concern and hostility towards the increased specialisation in the humanities. The dreams were not to come true, as this pigeon-holing has only increased. But I hope Cicero observes with scorn how the world as it suddenly finds use for a more broad approach, must be more than surprised in this FACT. So sit down at the altar and pray vehemently for a new science. This science I argue is already at hand, it is called classics. A science for better or worse available to Lafayette, to Hamilton and Jefferson as to the strange fellow we know as Napoleon. We may note this with some apprehension, for they are closer to us if we retie to this tradition. Many have shunned Hegel and even lovejoy for fear of the universialist slant, this is a very reasonable reaction, whatwith Hegel’s bad rep and leanings to the far right.
Take-down of the classics
In a Roman stoicism we should imagine a dry religion of self-hatred and one which rhymes well with the harshness of puritanism, an off-shoot of calvinism and presbytarianism. I think most people have been affected by these movements as they lie in our past, these were the first ‘ideologies’ of Western Europe. Here is yet on new reason for studying these things. This is one relation to our ‘classic’ past in terms of ideas bequeathed. There are no two ways about this, but my claim is we now need to do the classics again more than ever. Rome as the founding fathers saw it was the guide, my take is more sophisticated for my aim is SCIENTIFIC, not political. This detail will be made clear as we advance on our investigation. We are now entering the Roman or classic past, for after all it is our guide.
The rough and ready idea
Such was the secular thrust in the yrs following the 2nd World War that the Church and the church lost their grip on the population. It is in this situation of change we should see Plutarch. I think as we read Plutarch (of Cheroneia) we may feel a literallist scholar facing us, one who believes in the very letter of the word — his quotes are chosen so as to prove some point etc. But if we read him closely this is very contrary to his ideas.
One strange thing about christian ideas is its emphasis on freedom of choice (and on conversion), so freedom someway or other engages us all. Plutarch was writing in a time of decay, and his seeming literalism has this single cause that he is trying as well as he might defend ‘the tradition’. So his ideas are not there just as an embellishment. I find in Stoicism a strange inkling toward science, this same strange quirk hides in Christian faith (i.e Middle Ages). We have a combine of Socratic reason and Catholic Stoic chastity.
In other words it mixes Rome and Greece. The battle for Plutarch is already lost, in much of a similar way paradigmatic change happens after the 2nd World War. Somewhat spuriously one might argue Roman tradition is scientific about the community and polity, whereas the Greek tradition is scientific about the personal and about psychology/ religion. Such a simple scheme is to be taken like Plutarch’s quotes, not all that literally, with a grain of salt. Here are more clues to our title question.
Enter the STOA (the pillar walk)
Lucius Seneca who invented the SENECA CLIFF (the deterioration of a phenomenon might be quick and ruinous) proves the principle of dichotomy, “the raise is gradual, the ruin is precipitous” (Lucius Anneus Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, 91–63). For what he proclaimed in his philosophy was not brought out until Calvin seized upon it, although it is true Seneca is the true blue Stoic his plays are the very opposite. The notion that we easily understand Rome is far from true, it takes a keen anthropology or cultural radar to do so. The double nature of Seneca is indeed very strange. And it is not that much of what stoicism proclaims is not reasonable, but it should be seen against the mostly murky back-drop of contemporary Rome. How was that city then?A city in which for one thing the debaucheries of the elites continued, and to hide this fact the official lie was that this was a new Republic created in harmony by Augustus (as we can read in Tacitus´succinct annals with some irony). The beard might be long but life is short (we might allow for a joking attitude to ‘the beard’ in our own day and age for is it in some sense not an ‘ideologic’ facial hipster extension, even we moderns have ethnographic attitudes and strange ideas). This must be one of the deep lessons of the study of the classics; men are variable and can appear in different ways with quite different outlooks. That beard fell into favour under Emperor Aurelius, a sign of enlightenment and purity of heart, in emulation of the barbarian Germans. The romantic longing for some or other true world outside of the drab sceneries of flippant Rome is visible in the sly smiles of contemporary writers, such as Martialis, or Juvenalis. We may or may not have heard of this, be that as it may. Marcus Aurelius (dies + 180AD) could observe how the barbarians were long but that he caught the short straw of it. In the barbarian wars his fate was sealed for he was fated to fight endless wars. The emperor Marcus Aurelius had a philosophy of fatalism and black and white. But there are models of thought we can use today, I myself think sometimes I am all about engaging in self-mirroring or so-called stoic APATHIA. There is much to like about stoic ideas, but on the whole there are holes in the theory. The take-down of classics, might be that we should emulate the expression of taking many view-points, which is heaped in rhetoric language. This point is deep truth and one you will realise as you come further into the study. The benefit of having too little information we in fact share with the poor Romans, who mostly lived in a world of imperfection. Here is an interesting link between IMPRECISE attitudes and the science that I will now propose. This was EXACTLY what Lovejoy was looking for, and fate has it we are now able to use it. If that´s not fate, then I don´t know what is…
This must be one of the deep lessons of the study of the classics; men are variable and can appear in different ways with quite different outlooks
Drawbacks to being a philosophising man
The positive is we can answer the question of our title, the draw-back is we might dislike the answer. The quest is so old even the Romans dabbled in it, and for good reason. The Greek influence aught to have been strong, the 700s BC saw the creation of far away colonies, as the one of Marseilles and that of Cumae close to Rome. But we should not make a fuss over it I think. The years went by. During the Republic the word went to never trust a Greek money-lender, but time went on even further and the Romans learned the Greek art of accounting and adapted. They accomodated Greece into Rome. But the character of stoicism marks our Rome, the Rome we know. In Rome the Greeks show no passion for record-keeping and budget-keeping like the Romans, here is one nation inventing Finance only to be beaten at their own game! Strangely it seems we have the start-off of a Protestant ethic (cf. Werner Sombart), yet this is an aside. I will contend this, and I merely express an opinion. This duality seems to have been plaguing Western culture ever since; the Greek or the Roman way of life? The Greeks were generally lauded in times of European crisis, and the Romans were put to the fore in better and happy days. But let’s go back to Rome. There is no complete conversion from Roman to Greek, but their veneration for all things Greek, was deeply engrained and entrenched. The answer of the title is only answerable inside the notion of ‘SYSTEM’. Remember this is an essay, so let´s see where we go. A quite pedestrian idea is to say that Nietzsche was Roman as opposed to his guru Schopenhauer who was Greek in temper, but this does not even begin to grapple the horns of our dilemma.
I will agree I took a load on my conscious MIND to divert energy enough to see how we must separate these two ‘types’ of systems in order to improve the theories I am tinkering on. The Greek on the one hand and the Roman on the other. Oh Athena!!
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These ideas are also being elaborated in The Great Quickening — here at Medium.com. The sad thing is as I develop elsewhere (Oh that it should come to this — here at Medium.com), in this story I draw the inevitable conclusion that the revival of systems and systems-thinking has certain possible draw-backs or problems attached. These ‘methods’ are inexact.
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If Social science does it, so can you — ETHNOGRAPHIC COMPARISON
The morphology of this is the one Spengler develops, almost a dialectic. But the way to understand bodies with shapes, is to view them as two things which we compare. Morphology then is NOT the grammar of a language for I have another mening in mind. It is the mere fact that grammar is not important, but a body or shape, as compared to another shape or body is. This reveals just how UNIVERSAL this idea of SYSTEM is. Shapes, almost a joke if we think of it. But I think the core of all classics studies is quite simple; WE COMPARE OUR CULTURE WITH THEIR CULTURE. Or better formulated; we compare things that are similar, the ‘act’ of comparing is the activity. How do we on the back of all of these ENTAGLEMENTS ever come to grips with this inter-meshed cultural meeting? The use of the morphological, here, the analogy as way of investigation e.g of the economic system with the male body — such vain body-state speculation seems outmoded to say the least, and also we have these ideas nascent in Castells but more prominently in another social scientist; Talcott Parsons. Parsons is on the verge of saying that man is visible in the universe, yet his interpretations of sociology have lost ground of late, there is close affinity to older ‘victorian’ views. The big difference is sociology is strongly positivistic or dererministic, a sensation we do not experience in most other humanistic sciences. It is with Parsons that we get reaction to his theory. But there is less likeness in this text to Parsons and in my thinking much more to C. Wright Mills, but this ‘science’ is inexact to be sure. Mill´s has had few followers. This is new ideas but in old bottles, sure, yet these are some standard-bearers.
The dark spell of sociology
In Mills we see an idea of relativism, and of systems. I merely mention this in passing, and for the record. In Pierre Bourdieu the speculation, much as in Niklas Luhmann, is even closer to the goal of a new new theory of systems; canisters within society that interact. What is this but Medieval thought, or so it seems. In fact post-modern modes of thinking in a round-about way end up in a systems logic very much despite a theory of systems. This is welcome, but can we push it further? Do we find answers to questions? Why an ode to the IMPRECISE as opposed to the precise? Habermas sees Parsons’ theory as in essence useful but he develops it. Forget the names, but the insights from this says Habermas is how language replaces religion. More on this later; but think about this, what was MOST important in Rome; yes language as expressed inside rhetoric. There are many observers that see Rhetoric as the new new. In times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me…
What would a theory of systems look like? We have a trend in contemporary society as predicted by McLuhan of the increase of the TACTILE over and above the cognitive or cerebral. The paradox is how television can develop in society a new primitivism, for unlike letters the picture is tactile he says. Television debases culture he says! I think this devolution is not a bad thing, but you be the judge. Hold on to the beard.
Forget the names, but McLuhan sees history as indicative of attitudes that we can reestablish as cultural traits of Western culture, the telegraph, the car, or the printing-press require new cultures or ‘relations’ to technology. Samuel Butler’s being the most perverse (cf. Media-the extensions of man, Marshall McLuhan). The car is depicted by McLuhan as a strong response, he calls it ‘a mechanical bride’, and hangs etnography on the fender, this is the kind of approach surely that crosses boundaries, one Cicero [kikero] would like.
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Escape via the science of systems — CLASSICS
Yes I was a bit quick to draw the reader into the end-result of this our situation, and yet the title has nothing much to do with this. The important thing to note is 1) certain thinkers have proto or pre or even complete notions of the SYSTEM such as Bourdieu or Luhmann, and McLuhan 2) systems rely on analogous thinking so that they compare ANYTHING with ANYTHING — a better way of putting this is childish comparison. I call it simply Systems thinking. The mind likes to analogise things. But in this observation lies a hidden third 3) as Gregory Bateson develops in his book Steps to an ecology of mind our brain is made up this way, and has an operation WHOLLY dependent on this faculty, which incidentally is why I find promoting it a good and beneficial activity in our blasted world of uncanny idiocy, and rampant or curtly over-ingeniousness, gracious rapacity and very much as Yuval Harari points to of an intelligence which kills the planet — in my own poetic words; AS IN A SCIENCE AGAINST SCIENCE we would be better off. We would be striving this way to root out the rationality which leads into a mouse-trap of sorts. The sarcasm here is Cicero is useful, or rather an improved kind of wholism á la classique. More simply put; back to basics. I find in the CLASSICS this same idea of how the world works, seeing this is seeing more than meets the eye in the study of the classics. The point two is what concerns us mostly here; 2) anology has consequences, both good and bad. From this categories emerge, but also the idea that we must categorise with descretion and caution and how sometimes categories BREAK DOWN (cf. R. Sapolsky). The more important idea here is perhap that systems is not a cure-all theory, and even more importantly for the title of this essay (which will delve on inside- and outside dynamics of systems) how the reults are FUZZY and RELATIVIST when we rely on systems theory. This is the draw-back. As I said we can use these ideas but will the results make us happy? Let´s see.
Oh I know that is a big hole of rampant moralist assertions. But many are those who point this out, yet understanding yourself as it says on the (still extant) temple of Apollo at Delphi KNOW THYSELF should interest all of us. This in a limited sense is the promise that systems theory holds out. It might also revive some of the thinking of the late, or long 19th century, to coin a phrase. These fuzzy organic views were quite common. Trust me on thisone! It is only in allowing for our own idiosyncracies that we can really appreciate the gore and realism of Rome, both the good and the bad.
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Being an amateur comparative historian — the classics
I can but see benefits of systems theory, yet we still need to develop terminology and ideas on what determines and pinpoints this (i.e the theory of systems). Being the amateurish seeker is a very good thing, it humbles the MAN in front of CREATION to be hesitant and sagacious as we observe the world and make value judgements. The old saw. But I try to show what the old saw is. Being a bit of a historian I see how the title of this essay has a dual nature; let us be specific, and let us indeed be very specific. In a sense the categories are put into question as ‘being Roman’ is being put into question. We will not in detail explain this systems way here, but it underlies a solution to this nagging quest of identity. The whole deal is to go Roman?
The answers we keep in old bottles
This ageold quest for the intellect of the Greek inside the body of the Roman Republic is just as dated as the Stoic categories. The Greeks were Proactive and the Romans were Reactive; now comes the question of proving this eye-opening conjecture without a hitch. As I have stated the systems way is often enough RELATIVE and fluffy, and will let some people down. I will promise hitches, yet systems-theory teaches us to think in new ways, and can reveal how Western culture (theoretically any civilised or civilisational human society) as perhaps Hegel implies, can take on these Ideal types, or ‘states’ of the system. What states? The expansive or Roman state and the regenerative or city-states state, the Greek state. Pun intended. C.W. Mills points to how psychology and history are intertwined, mostly intricate, but to his mind in ways we can see and judge. This may sound complex, well it isn´t, the trick is to be broad, as are all of the Roman writers (and poets). One very clear way to describe it is speech.
The spoken rhetorical argument, has a structure of subjective and unruly logic, this then was what we were looking to, is this a possible point of similarity? The classics teach us to be flexible (remember the Apollo!!), but we might think we can pinpoint Cicero as the outlet of these ‘insights’ — but the idea that we ‘seize’ the moment in rhetoric is not due to Cicero nor to Hortensius. The preciscion with which a speaking rhetorician suades the crowd comes down to detail (the technical term is called chairos) as in the right pitch perhaps, but more better still in a quick glance at the crowd beforehand. This quick glance is the trying of the waters, call it dipping one´s toe if you will or opening a window to take stock of the wind. Atticus (if my memory serves me) taught his daughter to be a sublime rhetorician. The mood is one, the moment is also one; but the real point is a BIGGER point still. When in Rome speak like the Romans, i.e if the crowd has a certain make-up so be prepared to change the phrases, and to shift out certain words so as to attune yourself to the plebs. The notion inside systems is wider still; WHAT MAKES SYSTEMS TICK? The fact then is a surprise; systems jitter and shift constantly. The last works of Plato lack the enthusiasm of his earlier writings, see the world is a mirror, and always will be. This lies as it were at the foundation of Kahneman´s work, the assessment is a psychological ability says Daniel Kahneman, in statistics as in rhetoric as in life likely (point 3 above). Drew Westen draws on it too. Hold on to the beard. We may dislike or laud the Romans but they all shared an interest in rhetoric (for all the wrong reasons), our interest lies in the wholism of it. Why this new approach?
The political brain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoqeRfcXr8I&t=155s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz2yn_kiH_A
The main take-away is that critical thinking (i.e science) is preferable, the prophetising truth — yes we must fear over-unity truth (i.e belief). And yet I side with Russell and Wittgenstein, namely that science is not enough — both of these ICONS of ‘truth’ changed their mind independently. The detachment of the rarefied elites in Rome was used to serve one purpose only, our purpose should not be theirs. Ours is science, theirs was politics and power. Forget about Wittgenstein, much like Russell he was merely an aide-mémoir.
EVEN CICERO CHANGED! Change in the whims of history is the constant not thoughts of men. Remember the soup that men swim in is called society. History too has some of these properties, for the era of the social war was ended as Cicero comes forward, although he is often lumped together with this poorly understood era in Roman history (though Appian covers it) on a very broad scale Cicero is riding a crest of change of immense size, reducing the importance of Cicero to an expression of that change — very much like his insights stem from Hortensius in his later yrs, and is expressed as hatred in his youth (case against Quintus, his first winning case), we have reason to take these things ever with a grain of salt. Put another way; IT ALL DEPENDS. This is worrisome, is this a science? What is this coming to? Oh Vulcanus!
Nietzsche or not Nietzsche that is the question
This essay will try to find the difference between the Greek and Roman modes of life in terms of culture, or cultural biases (are we kicking open half-closed doors? No, and I hope not). The shifting sands of the expanding system are visible in the hatred that Nietzsche shows against rationalist detachment and philosophising, this strain you will find in Marshall McLuhan as well. A system sets as Nietzsche might contend, its own rules, but in Nietzsche we have no such awareness of systems, as such Rousseau is more ‘woke’ than is he. To Nietzsche Christianity was the question, but this mostly is not our concern as we read Nietzsche, which shows that times change. The Barbarian says things inadvertently, but the self-conscious Greek or Roman understood the rhetoric idea, the idea that all considered ‘it all depends’ — the self-conscious philosopher reanalyses the text; if McLuhan is right this comes about as an expression of the introduction of written text, and of writing generally. Some religious scientists these days imply parts of the New Testament was black-ops work by the Romans, propaganda stuff. But this is a harsh statement (cf. Apple). There is in McLuhan a hatred of this modern invention which destroys culture via rational analysis, if we follow that line of thought all the way through we end back in Rome I think…Socrates is in that sense a culprit, but a culprit of a wider change as we saw history has these moments of deep and visible change; Cicero as well as Socrates point to such ‘pivots’, and we might say as says Nietzsche; the PHILOSOPHER writ large points to these moments (but hey, that´s Nietzsche! still changes occur, and that much we all know). Has our modernity imploded on itself; yes it has! We need a new science, classics provides the core of that science.
The answer to the question of Greekness or Romaness will strike some people as unsatisfactory, yet such is the limitations that systems thinking set up that any and all results by definition are relativist (one might divert the blame to Hegel and say hegelian idealist thought is to blame, but that would be to permit a comfortable lie). This might in fact be a way of killing two giants with one stone (Oh birds, I know…).
What tool do we use to investigate?
One way to clarify this debate is if history is best expressed via economics or via some other means — such as plain old history; kings and queens stuff, or some third, fourth or fifth way. Thomas ab Aquino collects from the Old Testament (Esdras 3 and 4) the notion that categories are not compatible; what is strongest, the wine, the king or a beautiful woman? Neither says Thomas, so how do we describe history if we postulate two types of history ROMAN HISTORY as opposed to GREEK, such a dichotomy is needlessly pedantic, but come along with me and I will show you where I am going with it! These categories I think are like wine and water, so that sometimes we have the one sometimes the other. The joke being that Knights invited to parties always went for the wine and drank it without diluting it with the water(cf. Martialis). In the modern world and to reappropriate the old saw we might fiddle with Japanese food as a metaphor. Rice rolls attest to the alchemy of starch and vinegar (and sugar), what pray tell, is the alchemy of history? Hold on to the Stoic beard.
The conservatism inside the study of the classics is in a sense in doubt. You can study anything dilligently and get no results. That is unless you think critically. Quite incidentally thinkers in the 1920s were seeing the Western world falling apart and thus were revoquing real events as they read the classics. This must be accepted, for unless we do this we are blind to our own biases. They would not take the CRAZY notion that rhetoric behaves like history serious which I have argued for in the above, but in practice they belived in moderate RELATIVISM, this they had learned I think from the classic writers and historians. The idea that relativism is a scientific idea from Kroeber and Benedict is half-right only. The reading of history this way is decidedly biased, or shall we say ‘dated’ by the times in which it developed. The economic busts of the 1880s and 1890s will shine through even before this, inside the literature, but actually the Great War as it was called was a watershed less perhaps of the thinly lit rooms of classics scholars, but more a watershed of Western modernism, of surrealism; slightly later but zipped together with it is an idea of functionalism as a reply to First World War dystopia. Function would hold sway inside the 1940s and 1950s. I am now recollecting this thread, this Victorian thread-bare. These ideas are systems-based. But the temperament changed after the 60s away from it. But hey times change, not so My Dear Reader?
The Greek plague — stoicism belives in the unity of all men
Now follows as is usually the case with my ramblings a bit of speculation. The problem of universals is mostly how Man has no inherent ethic or moral content, but that such a content is only possible and ethical due to man´s universal nature, his ‘part’ in the creation. My Latin is likely wrongfooted, but there is a sense in which we might get to see the light inside the closed sack of the Medieval university. Most of ‘science’ those days was exemplum, like a sermon or an enlightened discussion to illustrate (illuminate even) some half-digested point. It is easy to imagine this ex-cathedra style. The flip-side here is the problem of universals was as yet foreign to the Medieval mind. The thing I am thinking here is how the world of the University was ‘stuck’ inside a way of doing things. My thinking here goes, that it is with idealist empiricist science we get J.S. Mill ethical-empiricism, perhap as an echo of Epicur and of David Hume (a closet epicurean). Greek thought via Augustine was big in the minds of scholastic reasoning. The nominalists in effect threatened all of the Greek inheritance of a universal logos, to say that they threatened universals is likely philosophically right and this is what you will hear, but the form of Theology was to continue. Hell, even Aquinas is said to have had his big break-through in the 17th century (these things are slippery). It is not until the invention of Protestantism does it really matter that we call these things universals or nominalism or revolutionary or whatnot etc, nothing really changes over night. Once again these terms matter little. The ones who say they were not doing anything but, i.e discussing the universals in Aristotle, they miss the point. We have Occham as the great divider (but he was hardly alone), an opposing view on the thoughts that reigned inside the bubble of Medieval speculation was brewing. It is fair to say ideas often appear in society due to some deepfelt need for change. For they lived inside the Medieval dream still, those lucky ones… This bubble if you will was GREEK!!! Nietzsche threw down the idols, in fact opening up the window of iconoclasm yet again, and of polytheism. In extenso Nietzsche who was a classics scholar was very much a romantic and loved Goethe. These are mere speculations but the increasing SOPHISTICATION of our institutions has brought about this problem of universals again! Have our very own institutions become behemoths of all too powerful agents that conserve and defend the status quo? We might call this business as usual. Are all ideas of government ‘always correct’, and are they sometimes misguided and stupid? Are they self-righteously blind to their own idiocy? Is this that same problematique? If so, that is interesting, we are in a sense repeating the same mistake. This time I think being more ‘greek’ is the clue.
A brief look at economics
If history can be compared to rhetoric then the sky is the limit. This loss of culture is not what the student of the classics is looking for. Studying the classics we can choose different categories. Since at heart we are here discussing not economics but social sciences, and or (rather) the humanities more broadly this section is a bit of an aside, but let us look at W.S. Jevons the post-ricardian economist. Did he in fact, along with Ricardo, use a Greek mode? That economics early on show how economics itself has limitations, yes even grave PROBLEMS. This to the student of the classics, or Greek drama is a commonplace indeed. As I said I am no economist, yet we see in Jevons the first theoretician of THE CONSUMER, and for this we might loath him. But being steeped in the TRADITION he was honest enough to see the PROBLEMS OF THE SCIENCE. The classicist should be better at discerning the shades of grey here, so much more than the economists of our day I think. Jevons is not discussed these darling days you see, mainly since his notion is a seeming side-note to modern economics. But is it? His notion of ‘the Jevons´ paradox’ may be to this day, his big contributions, thought as one of his exemplum exemplia.
EXEMPLUM EXEMPLIA — the systems way
Mind you Latin can be made to stand for anything, so DO NOT trust my translations, either on the grounds of the Latin language itself, or on account of feeble knowledge in grammar. As I said this is an essay, in a sense all the activities of the Medieval university was of this closed-loop kind. Thinking in terms of systems shows similar properties, of being what Russell describes (very correctly so) as humbug science. But I think it is a slight improvement, for this new way is indeed ‘new’. We often forget how our own history is much like a bulging and shifting entity, that it has properties of SYSTEMS. The consumer was underdeveloped, and it was not until Ford raised the minimum wage to 5 dollars a day, that these things are realised. Ford with his new ideas is in a sense creating a paradise on earth, a consumer life style slowly emerges. A consumer economy, the world Jevons and Ricardo warned of. They were honest due to their rhetorical dialectic training I think Gurr has this slant too. Pick any number of contemporaries to Gurr.
There is no need for economics here. We see in thinkers that carry on in Edward Gibbon´s footsteps, such as Joseph Tainter or Jared Diamond these kinds of ideas as well. Another way of saying this is saying they are advancing the ideas of universal historians such as Arnold Toynbee (a greek scholar by the way, but there are two Toybees so CAVEAT LECTOR), and many might retort that this kind of history is stone dead. But universals are both good and bad, saying they are all bad is indeed an overstatement. But wild essayism was common in the classic era and was seen in the 16th century as a middle-form between quasi-science and theological speculative notions or ideas, we see it in Roman and Greek writers but also in Montaigne who ‘reinvents’ the essay. His forebears and models were the classics. There is to my mind a little of this ‘theology’ inside systems-thinking, but as long as we guard ourselves from it we are fine. Hrmm, is this true?
Going back to Rome the philosophising thinker who merely speculates is often hard enough to follow, but Latin culture expresses itself well yet the content is very whimsical. It is not scientific. There is in fact a stoicism of the Republic and a stoicism of the Caesars (i.e of the time after and during Augustus). This second type as we see in Marcus Aurelius (and we will by no means dicuss its contents here) is very close to the ‘woke’ kind we see in Montaigne, a kind of self-critical and ironic text. In the mix of Montesqieu is a new idea, that of separation of power. Still more it is seen in Montesquieu for to him Man is Man, a universal type a unisex political model. Or rather as Montesquieu vistis England he is woken to the idea of writing about politics, this comparative stance is logical (or as Bateson states merely the operating principle of the mind). This second type is not more scientific, but it is woke for it has a ‘self’ or an EGO that is commendable and one that is vain (if it does not see the beauty of the stoic principles of self-restraint). It is more focused on this ego-aspect than stoicism of the republic (the ‘type one’ stoicism). It is often stated it copies Hellenism, but I would argue Greek culture was not Roman culture as Plutarch attests to as he cries at the river of Babel.
In a theological sense economics replaced theology as the new new, or the new black whatnot inside society. This is how economics is relevant, not to the classical writers, but to us. And remember the Apollo, know thyself. If we study the classics we often enough lay our own ideas on top, strangely the Victorians did LESS of this than do we. But I think there are MANY ways to look into the ancient history of Rome. Stoicism type two is a middle-form, that may well be why the renaissance emulates it. Stoicism repeats as a drumbeat inside our culture, but we should be careful in thinking that stoicism is easily defined, yet it is everywhere. This is a common property of systems, and of the history of ideas.
We are now in the 1800s, the new new was a logic of productive industry. Not that this is new to us, but we tend to not sensitise ourselves to this energy abundance, allowing for a shift in temperament also (cf. Heinberg). The new sources of energy was steam via coal, and it changed the people, but very slow at first. Allowing for this type of change is realising the hidden forces of the economic milieu of the population. Going back to Jevons we find as I said Jevons´paradox, being the observation that efficiency is reinserted into a human system, and that human actors will ‘react’ to better efficiency and possibly destroy its gains. Possibly it is intuitive only to engineers, but it takes a classicist´s wholism to see how efficiency can be inserted back into the society, and it is often quipped the ancients were disinterested in developing. The reason, and I find it a good one was in part due to the entrenched slave economy, so that those at the top saw no need for change. The quest for efficiency was thus POLITICS which we may find very odd. Our ideas are machine-oriented, efficiency is the religion almost of modern societies. Stoicism type two attests to Roman orientations to politics over science or metaphysics, which we see in Greek contemporary culture of the hellenic era. Going back to economics as story about society. If you have better coal-fired steam engines, the usage increases, thus the ‘savings’ are disturbed in society, obliterating the idea of efficiency — phuii that is strong medicine. If the machines are less costly to run, the risk is that people want MORE of that. This creates a paradox, one which economists will avoid at all cost. Yet Jevons is one of the forefathers of economics! The idea of Martingale risk is opposite this statement, e.g IF YOU MANUFACTURE these steel mills efficiency benefits you, but in aggregate the effect is nil. Those that sell the coal lose out. Only the top dogs of industry are better off, for they can wastefully employ themselves in a new set of machinery. Indeed this becomes a TRAGIC comedy, one which is quite visible inside the classicist mindset. For this surely is a field apparent to any student of the literature of the Greeks. I write this only to show how the classics might come to various useless conclusions via the principle of the exemplum (via the help of economics as a critical science) — but inside a moral tale we can come to very interesting systems notions, notions which can be hacked off by an Occham or an Alexander the Great. Fortune has it we are equipped with those tools! The classics point to relativism and to the history as having hidden properties, it is clear we have forgotten that the ancients were systems literate thinkers to a degree. Let´s have some examples. Ones that are relevant to point to relativism. Are you getting the knack of it? It´s systems ALL THE WAY!
We did mention Bertrand Russell, who changed his mind, if that is not a paradox then what isn´t? Another tragedy which illustrates this point is Shakespeare´s melancholy, but more important still is the melancholy of the great thinkers of antiquity. Alexander the Great affected paradoxically the life of Aristotle, as did Dion on Plato, inside the closed loop of philosophy this might be deemed ‘impossible’ yet if we know our history we know what Dion or Alexander did, and we know the side-effects of this on the philosophers’ lives. Romans and Greeks are very acutely aware of ‘paradox’. In that sense the classics are relevant yet again. We are equipped with their knowledge. It is perhaps De Beauvoir who first ‘notes’ change as a constant (Old Age, Simone de Beauvoir, 1970) in Plato, in a work she estimates it to be her foremost one.
Anthropology of the victorian age
There is a connect in the study of cognition i.e via psychology into classic history or indeed anthropology, this old idea once applied to modern society, uses simple ideas from victorian ethnography. It inadvertently puts a premium on feeling or what we today might today call PSYCHOLOGY. Ideas about totem and taboo and symbolism are poster childs of this impetus of Freud and Jung even. We must not forget how e.g in Chaucer (as in C.S. Lewis incidentally) as in Shakespeare the symbols are part and parcel, and very much commonplaces of the renaissance mindset. Think about it, for in Shakespeare what we see is hardly all that novel, the uses of symbols is common to his day and age, it is perhaps how a layperson, i.e a non-priest is allowed to appropriate them which is a bit innovative. It is true it has its special flavour, but would you be surprised to find it got its new impetus from Roman culture, as read in Cicero or Seneca or Horace? No, probably not, since you know something about this already. But the details matter, such as IF we have a stoicism type A and type B. We briefly touched on that above. This strange link might explain the idea of universal man so cherished somewhat later, for it is not wholly visible in Reformation and Tudor drama as such, but more importantly it lays bare how there is a direct and intimate link between the holy and the unholy. We see this in the fact that the Romans mixed religion and politics wildly. I am not proposing we should. Thinking in terms of systems may seem a bit odd, but you will get used to it if you try. It has been speculated, to specify how the jews once held the pig in veneration, and only later developed a mark of distinction in placing it as a tapu or taboo. The mystic symbols were used outside the realm of the Church, the Tempest is sometimes said to emulate the idea of a baptism (cf. Willam Shakespeare). This was taking the holy into the unholy. The important point then is we see reuse of ideas of a very deep and hidden character, and only when we COMPARE two different ages and their interdependencies do we see the commonalities or interconnections. This operation is old hat if you study the classics. This is familiar, it looks very much akin to the way the 19th century historians were operating, but we are more advanced, yet those are some of our clues.
The important idea here is how Seneca may very well be a culprit of modern thought, I myself am a half-stoic, and so I suppose are most people. And apart from that I am very proud of it and so might we all in fact. Darn Romans!
These ideas, in retrospect were quite common in those days, at least on the fringes, and these principles may for the student in actual fact be linked to religious ideas in paganism as we see it in Rome and in ancient Greece. This connect allows for the arguments made by myself earlier in that I think all languages adultered, largely the separation of a legal language may very well be a sign or result of such confusion, as new grammar (either by languages mixing or by the slow movements of time) will obfuscate meanings and intentions. One could argue Latin was destroyed by peasant logic and vulgar ideas, even Cato says such things, but I think in the end this idea is a vain one; Latin adultered or changed European societies in a very big way. Not in the surface of vocabulary but in ideas, styles of thought and government, and as we saw the old saw of philosophical ideas (this though a more ‘benign’ kind of influence as I see it) etc. One might equally say rationalism is more a product of this than of Descartes, and to those who question this statement I can only say that they are idolatrous idiots if they believe otherwise. Why? The Latin influence was IMMENSE. Hold on to the beard.
a small DIVERSO
On an esoteric level there are three cultures in the world; Egypt and China are monolithic, natural societies is/ are pre-monolithic, this leaves the West, then what is that, i.e the West? The West is SCIENTIFIC, Joseph Farrell thinks so, and the likes of myself (including Mark Juergensmeyer, echoing Max Weber) take this as a given. It is not quite all, but Plato adds the last piece to the puzzle. The West is post-monolith. For my magnum opus these ideas are reserved but instead of teasing; science came out of Hellenism, that´s it. Yet some one must unveil how, I think I know.
The opposits are made visible here between a anti-version on European thought and the American one; so what is the post-monolith view? China has a symbolic logic and an empathic understanding of dualism very natural to them, Egypt or other ancient societies are similar but more extreme — an elite of ‘interpreters’ high on drugs were able to scryb out the contents of society — why? due to the immense complexity of the symbolism. Super-science!
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The immensity of this inheritence
Latin adultered or changed European societies in a very big way... One might equally say rationalism is more a product of this than of Descartes, and to those who question this statement I can only say that they are idolatrous idiots if they believe otherwise. Why? The Latin influence was IMMENSE, and it is easy to show it, as I said deep down Europe changed with this influence from the classic era. We may find this strange for Descartes changed a lot of things. We forgot the past, OH ATHENA!!! Here is another argument of a more FORMAL or logical kind. For the system, any system in general terms or any milieu most naturally be more important than names and titles to determine whence came and idea or and attitude. As we might think the individual swims in a soup and we call that soup society. Yet few people in academia understands systems, the common folk uses systems, and they do it ALL THE TIME. The Victorians were no foreigners to ideas of this sort though, which is part of my selling-point. The idiots I am refering to here are the academics(the only difference being how we can describe this as abduction, theories made up on the go and of interactive action, sadly the academic does not understand this active approach). As we will see below when we stumble on these things in academia we make a big detour around them, I say this because I come from academia. The Greeks were very aware of systems, to a degree the Romans were a bit deaf to them; here is a first clue to our two modes. Ok, so is that it, some answer right, but there IS more.
A revolt in science — the victorian tradition of argument
It is a long shot to say C. Wright Mills deals in revolution, for he does not, however Ted Rober Gurr does. It is also true there is in Weber as in J.K. Galbraith a beholdenness to the three sources of power (an old medieval idea seen in Locke and Montesquieu), we see this in Daniel Bell too, and we see how Galbraith is a follower of the ‘good society’ C.W. Mills supports, and which Bell supports. I was surprised to find I couldn’t find this on the internet, a small disgrace! Will Ferrell puts up an image for us to watch, namely in the effects of the personal over the ‘social system and it´s trustees’ (this is NOT a cite). I use this oblique phrase, as I often do, but not because anyone ever said it, but because as an expression it shows a relation. This relation it seems was obvious to Confucius as to Jurgen Habermas, namely that we have society and society, and that these two are separate and united. In a way Plutarch says this too. This view is not too far from the Roman view though, and in a sense Habermas shows Stoic intellectual roots. If Germany was and is still the poster-child of an ordered and orderly society, then despite all the romantic strives in its romantics and nature-loving poets, then this still shows how very like the Romans are to Germany. Germany has been capitalist and ‘Roman’ for a very long time, but then it takes someone like you My Dear Reader who shows interest into what Roman culture (in a bad as well as in a good sense of ‘the police state’) was. In noce (in a nutshell) the likenesses of T.R. Gurr as a mere examplar and the writers I have referred to as the classicists of the 1920s and on are uncanny; his book is almost made up like a rhetorical speech. The actual crises of the 1920s, is related to the crises (multiple) of the 19th century. The Europe of the 1890s was in crisis, in the American case this was less the case — the previous crises is in a ways related to the last one; Gurr writes in the late 1960s. He has been criticised for merely providing a list, but his argument is that shift occurs under a set of circumstances where expectations are snubbed. The last gasp of this view of science is evident in the pages of C. Wright Mills as well as T.R. Gurr (cf. Why Men rebel, Princeton 1970). I place Michael Grant and Peter Brown in this same scaffold of science (their works respectively of ; 1971 and 1971). I tie back to this outmoded view of science as rhetoric. To modern eyes I can see how a reader misses Gurr´s point. This may be mistake to say that style matters, no there is something deeper here. It may even be the case that Gurr is not aware of his style which on the surface seems technical, but has that old-style taste. Why would we go back to this way of writing? Because it jitters and twists, and because I likes it, MY PRECIOUS!
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Gollum uses this expression as he seen TRUTH — his truth, poor creature.
Saving Private Parmenides — Mystic Legacy Bullshit
Herakleitos infects the Stoic mind via Plato to think in opposites. The relation that Meister Eckhart has to the Classics is as important as is the relation that Descartes (and Luther) has to the classics. The idea that in principle Stoicism type one corresponds to early Renaissance and that late Renaissance is infused with Stoicism type two, is wrong. I am not saying I have a better answer, but here is one answer; Eckhart was STRONGLY influenced by Pseudodionysios (Dionysios the Areopagite) a neoplatonist. Since there is just one other way this simple scheme can play out we can start by noting that Descartes was influenced by Stoicism type one, more than type two. We see how, Stoicism type two was fundamentally the idea that a logic was available in the world, the world then became to the Stoic (Stoicism type two) the empire herself. Descartes is more affiliatied with an earlier type of stoicism, often called Greek and Roman scepticism — my labels develops an idea that uses stoicism instead (types one and two). Late Stoicism is less interested in black and white, early Stoicism pays so much more attention to it — the early form is a ‘science philosophy’, the late stoic is instead a ‘science for life’, and the body (not nature) is the bigger focus (we see this in Descartes as well althouhg as we said his focus is SCIENCE). Cartesian ideas involve the description of the world as machine or mechanistic and secondly the ways to study this mechanistic world of his (he then invents the x-y diagram, one as we saw Seneca was in a sense already aware of, ‘the Seneca cliff’).
Virtue to the Greeks was to know many things, Odysseus wastes his life in a sense, and as the saying goes; you do not get nothing for nothing, no pain no gain etc, we think ourselves above such notions. That proves how Roman we are for we no longer believs such things. It is true the Paideia changed as Greek gymnasia spread all over the world (the known world OIKOUMENE), so that the training of the young man was reshaped into militarism — but there is little of the Roman attitude here. The type two Roman stoic if you will is nothing like the late or Hellenic Greek culture, the wisdom is slowly lost. Or rather this is often claimed, and I oppose it, this is too simple. The sum total is an uninteresting idea that two cultures (only with different focus) merge. To my mind they are not merging. Going back to Virtue, it seems it was only achievable inside the state in the Roman mind, I think this contradistinction suits well our simple purposes, for this was not virtue to the Greeks. Their ‘concepts’ are often enough hard to grasp, as is plato (cf. Pierre Grimes).
Shekinah -the being in God
The interpretations of the Founding fathers was a continuation of Descartes and Edward Gibbon, and Goethe (who adored Napoleon as much or more maybe than Joyce loved Vergil). One might say that the 18th century had its version of classics, that the 19th had one middle-form , and that thanks to post-modernism and Foucault we now have the 20th century version (It is true also that if instead we say there is a 21st century way this is how I see it). Three modes or ways of viewing the classics. This latest version relies heavily on the idea of ‘the novel’, for the key to understanding the novel and novelists is that they (the author-narrator-ego) kabbalistically percieve the world — this may or may not be your concern but the big take-away is how some deep levels of Greek culture were unobtainable by people such as Robert Graves, and even by people such as Arnold Toynbee, but in time it is available to us (as in Foucault or somewhat in Derrida, and McLuhan) for we are ‘woke’ as our whole culture is woke we must be, we are the post-moderns. This has consequences as you will see in my conclusions.
Did you know that Greek culture can be compared (in a sense as Éliade is most aware very much ahead of ayone else) to a more pensive kind of religion, so that the Tavola Rasa (Perpatetic, i.e aristotelians after Aristotle (to be contnd.).. stillworking on this (tying in with the notion of our world as of necessity ‘wake’ (to use milton’s words or ‘woke’ as in post-modern; in a sense eschatological end-times of fullfillment (bullshit theory for it does not explain the bags contents but rather explains these contents away). TO BE CONTD.
The political economy of mysticism
What Foucault proposes is in line with earlier thinkers, and was influenced e.g by Pierre Hadot, says individuals matter. Popper takes a similar view but this time in science and not in history or ideology. If we permutate this system one more time the notion of a DIRECTION of a system comes to mind.
Our system is winding down, not winding up. Important point.
In Greek society many of the political issues we tend to care about on a daily basis are not comparable, the activity thus becomes perilous. We can with justification feel repugnance to Hitler´s romanticism and mysticism, I am suggesting a thing on the premise of Foucault yet like Marx, I wish to stand this notion on its head, or rather make it relativist. Hrm, is a relativism on relativism an absolute? Hardly, but such are now my meandering thoughts.
The idea that Kafka or any number of poets killing themselves in droves is pitied as we imagine their martyrdom, but smirk at the same time is due to a mistake of culture. The integrity of a system has hierachical logic, and so Rimbaud is admired for his BRILLIANCE and not his martyrdom. Theretofore I take for granted that few people can escape their cultural underpinnings, I am thinking oddly enough about Aleister Crowley. Much like Greek society this fellow may be percieved as perilous same as a comparison with Greece.
Creation of the Golden Dawn is a footnote and so is Thycidides’ writings , for seen from a systems perspective both of these ‘things’ are useless activities. Aleister Crowley goes to Egypt and performs sexual magic, yet we must not forget he was a captive of late 19th century imagination (same as Nietzsche) and therefore ask what the heck is this? What Thycidides is not aware of is his own bias, and are we not the whole bunch of us, captives of an ideology or collective conscious (albeit such usage adulters Jung´s precepts)?
Mysticism is not statecraft. The problem as I see it is our myth of technology (cf. von Wright among others such as Richard Heinberg, and to some extent Russell though he seems to take a stance similar to that of Aaron James) has shifted over time. The gradualist change of technology is deceptive, for much like Jules Verne´s take on the utopian island in the sun, the whole island is a contraption not a functioning ecological sphere with a will of its own(Verne 1874). This ‘model’ is likely hidden in the mind of Crowley, we all carry these crosses… (cf. Metaphors we live by, Lakoff and Johnson)
This ‘contrapualisation’ is rampant, yet this is not the place to discuss it. The idea that technology which helps us should instill HOPE is philosophically dishonest. Russell calls this teleology as opposed to science, which is cold and logic and should remain just that. A political stance based on mysticism is sound in that it is always wrong. Allow me to explain. Aleister Crowley is for all intents and puposes best described as a martyr of technology. It doesn´t stop there he is a martyr of technological progress! This echoes Chilon (one of the seven wise of Greece) who says we should not disregard divination. In my piece The Great Quickening here at Medium.com I utilise the notion that Rome had lost itys religious core and was thirsty for sustenance (mystic revivalism).
The more important point is how Greece now comes into focus. The dynamics of cluster (cf.M.E. Porter) can be defined thus; A cluster is a geographical proximate group of interconnected companies and associated institutions in a particular field, linked by commonalities and externalities. Let´s not be too technical about this, the point is DYNAMISM in my outlay. We can only after the fact see how dynamism can take two manifestations. They are: that of Rome and that of Greece. Athens in the heat of the moment DESTROYS these dynamics, which explains the fanaticism and bewilderment of Thycidides as he defends Athens (although in fact Athens chews the system down as it grows much like Humpty-dumpty). Seen from this perspective we might see why ants defend the ant-hill, and it points to how Thycidides and Crowley BOTH carry a jungian shadow, or simply put a preconception they cannot fight against.
Mystic legacy — 1968
Are there new ways of looking at the bottom of a barrel? man has to realise his world in the appearence of Renaissance and Western egotistic man.
The 1960s was a crisis of our ego, the 1970s an emotion-revolution shift. Almost cultist in nature it infused LIFE into culture again, but on the back of profuse amounts of money-printing. Are we any different? Instead of answering this tough question, for is it not impossible to study one´s own culture critically, we revert to funky old classics.
As we scribble away on our mindfullness pads we choke on our own souls. Today´s man has to retrace his whole being to the 1500s and the awakening of the ego. Or this may be one way of reframing the crisis in our societies, although the 80s had it´s crisis too…
Our present folly (this word originates in French and implies madness) is a really sad one. It stems I think from the over-statement of science, a role which science was never cut out for.
I shall be dead at last in spite of all (Beckett, Malone dies 1951)
If this universe is inscrutable, we might at least have rough and ready models, waiting for Godot is kafquesque or that same idea which has Sartre of total freedom, and is this helpful in our search for active and reactive systems…
Roman culture like two eggs in one basket
If we use Spengler a second inconsistency appears; are the Greeks more like the 1600s or are the Romans more like that era? And I would like to argue this dichotomy is misleading.
Greek culture is often portrayed as terse, and to the point, scientific through-and-through. It may be terse in fact, but it is not all science or all rational to be sure. To my mind the trick is to see how Greek culture is BOTH at the same time — this makes Spengler in some sense correct; he sees Greek culture as the creative phase (he refers to it as culture) and Roman culture as a case of terminal decline (he calls this phase civilisation) — his dichotomy is not all-wrong but it is wrong-footed. Still my idea is merely an elaboration of this argument. That of a baloon filling and then emptying again, a rise and fall (note how Gibbon doesn’t care about the rise at all!).
This my argument follows a cybernetic MO of imprecise observation, which on the whole is the heart of cybernetics (the John Venn diagram).
I claim and have done so elsewhere that Spengler is right, but this observation is RELATIONAL or relative (as such cybernetics is NOT structural relativism but structurally relativistic to coin a phrase) in relation to a modern observer. The terms Roman and Greek after all must be seen as ‘labels’ in Spenglers thinking — I think you can see my point. For is this not a slippery slope?
Cybernetics embraces the slippery, and so in a sense uses symbolic logic as it thinks.
Takedown of the classics redux
The word classic or classics has a dark side, not only as its use in Rome applied to state-sponsored poets (classici), but also an analogy which is more metaphysical. The discussion we are now having you and Me My Dear Reader, has come to a saturation-point. This concept is to the ‘woke’ a well-known idea, yet brain-storming is not wholly related to it. As we brain-storm we copy each-other as in a parroting, then most people do not in fact know what brain nor brain-storming means. If you are woke/ cybernetic in your thoughts the operation is in essence brain-storming, but such storms are of necessity not focused to the subject such that the results are all over. The notion of saturation which I think we have reached at this point is illustrative of what pro- and reactive might come to. One of these is a ‘high’ system, the other is a ‘flat’ system, so that they are almost incompatible; they will I think not have the same experience of ‘saturation’. The Roman way is RATIO (i.e Max Webers ‘rationality’) as such piecemeal, the Greek way is wholist. From the above it might be clear how in fact the Romans thought mostly Wholist and the Greeks thought mostly Wholist as well (still I think this distinction holds)and how the notion of RATIO (David Graeber thinks this) is a later invention.
Now we are back to square one or so it seems. What is going on here?
Saturation (I refer to this as Super-modernity in my theory) can accrue to a system, it will then permutate or collapse (in my theory I use the hyperbole SYMBOLIC COLLAPSE) — that a work-out will need to have rest periods is this same thing, the system recoups and recollects, takes stock. The late Hellenic era was such a period, smack in the middle of when Plutarch wrote his Moralia, this calls our attention to the fact that Cicero or Plutarch may in fact be outliers more than anything else. Not only this, we have a person such as Plotnius who graciously has provided us with a prime example of Reactive attitudes, we might refer to them as dogmatic or rules-based. We can help Peter Hall to refine his theory (cf. Hall 1998) of cities, such that the places of civilisational rush and spurt or sprout, are not equal but can be sorted into groups (cities marked by more or less of these pro-/reactive forces). One might mention Lone Frank as a compiler of relativisms in this field as well (cf. Frank 2007/2008) in a book called MINDFIELD.
The clue is to think that these forces ALWAYS are contained inside a system they may even define LIFE as such, who GNOWS (pun on GNOSIS — rHWCIC to emulate the Greek letters: knosis, or know which is its cognate in English)? Yes who Gnows, really? Countervailing forces, right.
This take-down is visible in the romantic/ or rather the late-romantic movement via said Mr Crowley, and Oscar Wilde or Nietzsche, as in a writer such as Thomas Hardy, for the attitudes in the American continent as or relative to Europe is revelatory as seen via the classics and other cultural markers. A system can shift you see, take different states.
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NOW WILL FOLLOW TWO CHAPTERS ALIEN TO MOST PEOPLE, BUT FEEL FREE TO SKIP THEM. THEY CONSIDER PHILOSOPHICAL ROOTS AND THE HISTORIAN/ PHILOSOPHER DAVID HUME (On natural religion, 1757).
Inductive thinking is rationalism (RATIO)
There is a tendency away from induction in Greek thought, so that deduction figures larger in the Ionian thinkers. Leucippos and Demokritos use induction and are 4th century thinkers, a first wave of thinkers of this rationalist kind. The real shift in bigger terms cannot be expected until the Victorian era, but in practice Roman ideas are in many ways machine-oriented without theory, even if such ideas tend to be inductive this is not in cruder machines wholly necessary. Xenophanes was an early Ionian (although living in Italy) thinker and said to have influenced Herakleitos. Parmenides should be mentioned in this context but as thinker thoughtful of Herakleitos and contemporary to Leucippos and inspired by inductive ‘logic’ in his closed-loop metaphysics. Xenophanes supposes very much against mystics and truthers alike that you can only know so much, and duality (earth and water) explains much more. Science also is a fight over Greek thinkers, after Bacon and Descartes, such that Plato is reconsidered over Aristotle and the Church reinforces its doctrine against ‘saracen’ influences of the Dominicans who claim people cannot be saved. The concepts (i.e theory of ideas) in Plato is very much a consequence of the opposite positions of Herakleitos and Parmenides. Cybernetics then, is a reversion to Herakleitos.
Unlike mystics, Xenophanes claims that we can only know what we know, as such a limited amount. Heralitus of Ephesus was as we saw influenced by this sceptic idea. But we can see how he was very much influenced by older traditions out of Persia (cf. Jason Reza Jorjani)namely of fire-worship and binary oppositions. Xenophanes and Heraclitus both seem to think that there is such a thing as a MIND of God, a loong Western sequel as we well know.
From these splinters Stoicism takes its cue of a universal law, a long-lost idea. In Heraclitus we also have a ascetic element of otherworldliness. The ‘justice’ that Heraclitus belives in smells of monotheism, but this would have been a new chance for him to heap scorn on such ideas should he have heard it. Providence is if a slightly different kind and is a confusion of various elements including nations, peoples and persons. It is though, much associated with the justice in heathen thought which is seen as ‘outcome’ (a rather scientific notion), yet in a sense Stoicism confuses justice with justice and providence.
Mixed ideas are perhaps rather common to the Renaissance mind, but not to modern man, and as you can see wholism is promoted by me. Stoicism then appears as in part science, yet it is also compared to a religion (it is in sum a mix of elements Greek and Roman). I share Heralitus’ scorn for man’s contrapualisation of the world via science and technology over and ABOVE nature (and in the end this is what pushes me forward ever searching for solutions, like Kafka’s dog), but I fall back on a metaphysics as primitive as that of Heraclitus. Classics does not naturally end up in abstuse matters of metaphysics but by all means these two chapters are of little real value for the general student. My hope is, if you have done so anyway, that you may have a feel for the early cosmological thinkers of Greece. In my meta-theories of history which I have dubbed Fractalism the rise or apex of a culture (and here I follow Spengler) is preceded by a period of proliferation, but this apex is necessarily followed by a period of similar proliferation (NOTE; ideas or ‘pivots’ in my theory work on the level of individual ideas and are connected but loosley to this ‘higher-level’ idea of an apex of big shift whatnot in a culture which we might dub material, so that we can imagine a layer of ideas running separate but in parallel and sometimes in ways not completely synchronised); to sum it up the froth is seen on both sides of the big apex. Imagine an hour glass or somesuch idea. This froth in Greece was the schools of philosophy, although as Hadot proves the word philosophein as yet did not exist, and the tip or apex was in part the creation of this word as well as words such as democracy presumably, the froth after the apex of Athens/Greece was that of Alexandria and cosmopolitanism as seen in Alexander’s ramblings, a man forced to follow his cultural bias and create MANY copies of Greece to be able to make a new unity (and this was short-lived). If we forget Rome which on the whole is a bit impossible, the process of convulsion and change was already in the cards for the whole system and after its apex (period 400s BC circa) a new PROLIFERATION takes place but this time in terms of religious sects or groups all over the Mediterranean basin — that Rome was not forced to comply to these rules of the existing system, is from a systems poit of view a complete impossibility.
An advantage on Hall is we can relate Alexandria to Athens in this way, as part of a historical ‘system’ or movement in time (I am not fond of hegelian world spirits but have stolen his model). That makes for twin cities in history as part of such a new view of history generally (i.e a view dependent on systems).
David Hume the Cyberneticist
My Dear Reader, a funny thing we see in Montesquieu (and Hume is very much a student of Locke and Montesquieu) is as Allan Mcfarlane notes how Montesquieu is disappeared inside living memory. Hume in a sense combines a method (that of Montesquieu) with Epicurean elements, the result has close affinity to Heraclitus.
Hume in a convoluted way believes in God, but it is relativist and AGNOSTIC if as such it can be considered (which he denies himself). Very much at issue in this day and age was concepts, as such to Adam Smith Wealth, and to Hume Reason. That Hume’s theory questions reason would appal him, and it should be noted I support this notion inside systems-logic. The good was to be realised in the family and would magically emmanate into society at large (oh, darn hippie!), the method of free conjectures of Hume conducive to ‘ethics’ /metaphysics, made it possible for Smith (who befriended Hume) to combine the ‘philosophe’ notion of a knowable machine or stucture of society (in effect a postulate, or what James calls ‘abduction’ — an on the fly notion) as seen in the encyclopedians. This combination ended up in Smith’s ideas about ‘sentiments’ which (in the manner of hippie or ‘homeian’ emmanation) made ‘wealth’ possible, of e.g nations whatever. These same conjectural ideas figure large in cybernetics, but we always ‘scrap’ the ideas before we go home, to avoid ‘contrapualising’ the equivalent of mortal sin in cybernetics (giggles).
A diatribe metaphysics, that is as far as I am willing to go. Cybernetics has as it were no computational high-ground (and yes I mean that literally) but Home was IMPORTANT to free conjecture as we saw with Smith (this idea is as old as the hills, and reeks as I said of herakleitean nihilism. Nihil (best latinate translation ‘ain’t shit’) is used by Hume to create ‘hilum’ (‘a little something’).
Once again skip this part and read later if you so please, but allow me to deepen this a bit. Hume in a way repackages Commenius / and or Spinoza and tries to sell it as honeypie. I have made the point before, of how the missed trains of understanding (voire even ‘learning’ i.e knowledge about the REnaissance generally; preferrably the kind I sell myself of wholism) accrue to the 1600s and by extension to the poorly understood 1700s, that IS to say poorly in terms of metaphysical understanding. Every age has a ‘crux’ and it is fair to say Winstansley (true Levellers movement) echoes the down-side of the up-side (giggles). Polite tone is not scientific in science nor in history, and WE Europeans know as much, in this sense Americans are virgin — here is one clue among many as to American culture as beholden to the holy grail of the individual (I thereby imply we should be careful to think we understand the individual, a concept indeed VERY complicated and obstuse by itself). My ramblings on Justice has a dishonesty to it, for on the one side ‘the Justice’ has changed hands as the concept travelled to the Brittish Empire, and it is true as I propel the notion of Republican decentalisation (see above, SUPRA) and may indeed have many guises, slapping on the idea of system hither and here is not science, even IF this might be justifiable such relations must be honestly carried out and not merely bandied about. Another side to this conundrum of the decentralised judge is Talcott Parsons’ notion of the businessman as self-propelled and the corporate (reading Parsons we end up in Platonic absolutes, so we have not a scrap of doubt as he sees it, a rather difficult ‘metaphysic’ if you ask me) as INSIDE of a logic. This smells very much of Popper vs Kuhn, and of ‘high’ as opposed to ‘flat’ system — this is a clue also to individualism.
These Pandora’s boxes are not for naught. David Hume attest to a troubled age which had reconfigured Monarchy (democratised it if you will), this was one of his main cruxes. Trying to politicise philosophy was impossible for a Church that was fighting so many other battles; fighting Gallileo was in a sense a pyrrhic victory as the Church had tried to forbid Astrology in the 1350s it revamped the effort later to forbid star-gazing. This ‘science’ superweapon was also used by Spinoza for he used lenses and nature to talk about God, Hobbes has similar leanings, as does Hume if only 100 yrs later. In this sense Hume is an outlier a kind of ‘blue-shift’ of history.
The big issue discussed in his posthumous work on natural religion, is if an original monotheism existed, Hume says no.
Salvage of notions of justice can appeal to decentralisation and define ‘justice’ in this way but strictly speaking is half-assed. The appeal to tradition might fail equally, even though as we have seen Greek society was ‘flat’ and not as such ‘high’ — the ONLY recourse then is to metaphysics and we must revert to Hume shortly but the argument of Pierre Grimes (not Pierre Grimal) of how we understand Greek thinking generally. So bare with me and we will come back to the back-packer we know as David Hume, AKA genteel Mr Home. It hinges on language which from some unknown source (i.e the proto Greek language) inserted the particle ‘the’. The likely thing as McKenna has pointed to is Latin CREATES a culture and Greek CREATES a culture due to the very mechanics of its language (I make this point in The Great Quickening, here at Medium.com) and going back to Greek it had a definite article, a fancy thing indeed (cf. Grimes). It allows for reification, but in a double motion informs us of the duality of Greek thought, it might even ‘splain’ the start of science.
Home again, Home sweet Home. In short metaphysics and Hume are two cockerels, and this is common knowledge. The argument then of the ‘the’ is how concepts in the agile hands of Greek (as opposed to many other known languages) could fudge itself, presumably the metaphysics is a finer sort of nonsense merely because of the article, but as Grimes shows it allows for a whole (almost on a par with Prakrit which reads like descriptions of wall-papers or high-end cottages where the words are suggestive more of the beyond then of this world of here and f-ing now) host of discussions and including those of Socrates. Grimes makes no argument of the INHERITANCE as skewed but he indirectly points to it, the discorery of the ‘the’ is his. The law or justice might fit in here in that the law was represented in other cultures on the back of Greek writings as ‘a thing’ in essence it was reified (much of Greek ideals are comings-into-being as seen in the derelict car salesman Aristotle or the neoplatonists). Hume fits nicely with this lot. Allow me to expand on’t.
Very much at issue was to the ‘philosophe’ the question of toleration (in religion), this was one side of the obstinacy with freedom.
to be contd.
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continue here
Just like the fisher´s net is STRONG due to its supple knots — a combine of tradition (or practical reality), techniques of string-manufacture and fibre, the fashion of mending itself, or even of drying and of handeling the net — all of these various separate factors. None have precedence over and above some others, except perhaps in some limited senses. The philosopher’s net is mere yarn a comment on a complex whole. The problem in all of this is how people start making contraptions of relations, sometimes by an unthinking posteriority sometimes in real-time. Realism (in Plato or Aristotle´s layered /becoming idealism) is part of CYBERNETICS but much like Plato is dualist, we are most cognizant of universals as enemies (Plato’s cave whatnot).
As we will se shortly Plutarch´s cave replaces Plato´s, inside a model that along with hegel follows a curve doing up and down moves. This cave as we will see is just a rephrasing of the idea that in a transition players, to use Shakesperean lore, are stuck or caught in a trap of blindness. The visible existence of such periods in history is how people such as Plutarch or bacon, or Shakespeare are dubious characters (perhaps what Nietzsche refers to as the scarecrow that kant will become) full of opposite talents and outpourings.
A recepie for cookies has a length (a bit-code). Cybernetics unlike idealist philosophies denies that the length is (size of the bit-code) an easy formula or a known ‘length’ — yet as we saw Cybernetics is ‘realist’ in its use or usage of words — this seeming paradox lies in combines (the net just described). Like chaos theory claims an infinite length of the coast of England, so the length of the recepie is infinite in principle, the recepies we know or have seen are in real fact COMBINES of the above not a mere bit-code. This echoes Ludwig Wittgenstein who outdid his own code in later phases of his thought.
Saying this is also admitting things are also processualist, this is part of David Hume´s claim too.
As Bertrand Russell notes ‘the concepts’ (the theory of ideas in Plato a.k.a. universals) was very much a consequence of the opposite positions of the Elean Parmenides and the Ionian Herakleitos (the eleans were working on a concept similar to ‘the one’). The Simurgh or divine bird which is made up of many birds in the Persian tale forms a whole. This mythological idea then, is a mere ‘model’ but looks a lot like the skeleton of cybernetics. If so it reaches us via Herakleitos, and takes a stance against Parmenides the monist. As we will see it is hard to withold the idea that cybernetics IS history, but we might try and relate it to history (much like Lovejoy tries to) and we will see how the REnaissance and other periods are tell-tale of the existence of ‘swedenborgian’ notions of thought. Mindscapes if you will.
I must defend the positions I have taken on Stoicism and will do so below (see further sections). Note how Roman Stoicism is changed and how Christianity takes ideas from Plotinus and late Stoicism (The Great Chain of Being) and makes it a most permanent element, in Greek thought generally (e.g The Timaios) the triade of gods, demi-gods and men is maintained and never ever eschewed. Yes it is garbled in the post-platonian golden era of the 400s but remains even in Plutarch a mainstay. P-H-U-S-I-S to the Greek was quite synonomous to change or development and was pounced upon by Aristotle who saw in the Greek city-state ‘the end of history’, a state of perfect harmony.
That this is so, can be seen ethnographically from the concept KA-TA-LEPSIS which is the stoic idea of COMPREHENSION of a fact or external data-point. As such this three-stage process I think confirms a stage-like metaphysical stive toward the higher knowing (in god). The scientific drive is an element of Stoicism strangely enough, this philosophy teeters on the problem of how a person can be good in an evil world.
Now starts the fun, for we have a Trireme and are headed out! The notion of ‘tension’ is seen in Thycidides (STASIS) and is used in his story of the war as that dangerous state which appears in a city when some elements of nobles and the plebs are in ‘stasis’ — Thycidides always the aristocrat sides with the noblemen. I am here making a meta-game of comparing Thycidides to Huckleberry Finn, just get on a raft and we pretend we are Odysseus.
WE ARE THE HUCKLEBERRYS
Even they go to town every once in a while, purchasing stores, and purchasing freedom from freedom. But If I do not sum up this story I will lose you like wild geese presumably, so let us sum it all up. The WHOLE of this text is mere meditation on ying and yang, and then as we can see a usefull one.
Cybernetics has surreptitiously stolen the name classics and this story is, though informed by my ideas not about this but about OUR common past. Hey, is the man with good qualities always good, and is a man with bad qualities always bad? Or rather and put differently are there BIG TIME big dualisms which hide in history? The good guy may have bad qualities, and the bad guy may have good qualities (a basic precept of idiotic hollywood-logic) and we all are patched-up feel-good fashion in the end of the movie. This is if you haden’t figured it IS the kindergarten logic which breathes life into CYBERNETICS, not only have we detected (You and Me My Dear Reader) americanisms as binary opposites to europeanism (small-caps since these are indeed small-town phenomena, side-shows to the hegelian juggernaut) we have talked our brains into thinking hard about stoicism. Then since we are here exploring pattern (not modus operandi), the reason Jesuits chose cybernetics long ago is it can ferrets out ‘sinners’, we should note not the potential dark sides of seeking pattern but the good side. Roman history is the key. It steals Greece and seeks to romanise it; this is the template the template we see in Augustine, and Augustine then is merely a fellow cyberneticist who doggishly seeks the doggish pattern. The Middle-Ages is split by Aristotle into late-phase stoicism (if we follow this logic), but then our pattern becomes blurred. There is a disturbance in the force. Darwin explores the same thing, as Lovejoy sees it; these three super-pivots in three repetitions of stoicism type one and two, is really uncanny. Is it real? Let’s find out (see discussion).
Things change; as Jill Lepore writes things in history are often inter-meshed and ‘messy’, as to the first secure elections in late 19th century America ”Many of the reforms proposed by populists had the effect of diminishing the political power of black and immigrants. Chief among them was the Australian ballot, more usually known as the secret ballot, which, by serving as a de facto literacy test, disenfranchised both black men in the rural South and new immigrants in Northern cities. In 1888, the kentucky state legislature became the first in the nation to attempt the reform, in the city of Loisville.” (Lepore p.344, 2018). Here racism and democracy comingle, serve as agents of change. The modern society we live in is too compartmented, or rather we might say we live in a time constituted by Plutarch’s cave.
Method-wise the notion of describing a system seems at first glance static and formal. But this first step (inside cybernetics) leads to a second one of DYNAMIC in which the system is stretched, strained or twisted. In history we might see how persons are mere shadows in front of the big events, the blame here falls on hegelian deterministic fate — if we add cybernetics with McLuhan and Hegel (sugar anyone?) we add seemingly stray things into a mix I call fractalism. Yet this materialist or marxist stance is redoubled by cybernetics which puts a big focus on the psyche. Every actor cybernetics claims, is a system unto itself, merely since it is equipped with a MIND, a radio-frequency disc if you will on the events in the world. The MIND as such upgrades the individual (much like hermeticism does too) making him or her into a KING (or Queer, oups, sorry…). At the very same time two opposites comingle this seemingly is also part of what is going on with Sartre’s thought, but it is mostly expressed in the ‘ethics’ of de Beauvoir (cf. Pour une morale de l’ambiguité). Periods of tremendous change traps the actor inside this cave that opens and closes at certain times in history. The sect is a prime example of a kind of cave (a corrected term for this is group think) which can be artifically created by individuals or groups. This cave is almost the same as Plato´s cave, yet this new concept is put on the axis or curve of change. Near a top or a bottom we have ‘markers’ (I sometimes call these twins) with Shakepeare I think we have a person at least condemned by us to live in an idealised cave, this should accrue to Bacon as well; much like Plutarch they posess many strange properties all at once, the physicalist analogy is a system thet chnages from liquid to solid is in a transitional stage (referred to as meta-stable). The Dead Sea scrolls were produced by a sect called the Qumran brethren (likely Essenes), these inside the typically transitional phase of the hellenic era, are a prime example of symbolic collapse, and of the ‘logic’ of an end-of-days sectarian mind (combining theology with therapeutic, with science and metaphysics in a strange and ‘stable’ mix — likely a mix of dualisms picked up from in-vogue ideas with prophetic millenarianisms out of Jewish mysticism, e.g Book of Enoch).
This is not the time to invent new theory but to recoup. Cultural history is merely the tape, we have only to sit comfortably and take in the good news. The notion that all religions or cultures have ‘symbols’ was part of this revolt as it was written out in Paris via the Surréalistes in the mid 1920s. But I think with the First World War we ‘woke’ mankind to a relativism sometimes said to be modern sometimes post-modern (same same, both got ‘m’ in them), or rather to creativity in art as symbol. But waking up takes time, the argument then is in early adopters such as Proust (who was influenced by Ruskin who seems to have cyberneticist leanings) or even Balzac (La peau de chagrin) and Thomas Hardy we have precursory attitudes. That this attitude dies is far from certain, part of my rediscovery is how a flip-switch polarised America, you know like polaroids or phosphorylation. They wandered apart, did USA and old Europe as in a creative moment romanticism fragmented, like two twins living in different environment; one with RICH soil like America, one with WEAK soil like Europe. Processus of nature is harsh, the creation moment of Christ and of Christianity is a similar event, as is the many schools of ancient Greece. In practice metaphysics is not some theory, but simply a mirror. Nature has many things, so the study of nature might involve the study of many things — the sects are created long before Rome attaches interest to them, and Alexandria is merely a place for these to meet — the supercafé. Rome was a supercafé too but did not acknowledge it. The idea that like Oswald Arnold Gottfried Spengler supposed, the title can ever find an answer is most likely wrong, for now we will look at our conclusions, after these conclusions we will have a discussion of other aspects of the study of classics — things which might help classics revive its core values. Nothing is ever lost.
Some preliminary results of our investigations
A) Greeks most likely had a culture not too far dissimilar from that of the Romans, at least in terms of a shared geography and climate. But we could note at this instant that Rome was a self-fashioned centre, yet was also a place of confusion in a new sense where forces converged very much despite the politics of Rome — being the owner of a spider´s web makes the ‘agent’ into what must be simply described as an eater of insects, very much despite any personal wishes.
B) A game of pieces of string and cardboard. Late Antiquity attests to Roman attitudes and Greek attitudes, it is true they mix up but this mixing can be pinpointed using My methods of inquiry (and they are now yours too). The differences are often overplayed — the pure empiricist will disallow looking backwards but this is scientifically possible inside systems; outcomes are revelatory of process, a notion not foreign to the modern hard sciences at all, but sadly the humanities have not adopted these. Systems have in many ways Spinozist tendencies of either / OR. Here Leibnitz can in fact represent Roman as opposed to Spinozist Greek attitudes. As far a M.A. Porter concerns (see above) we have at one level a system of islands — seperate but equal. The self-taught Greeks had a thing against them; the sea. The start of philosophy was a big bang of Greek culture, but on the surface of things these islands may in fact have been a reason behind the many opinions much like the bloom of Norse literatutre on Iceland was the implosion of that society the set-up of ‘bits’ of the myth-logical system of Greece involved separate places of interaction. This MUST have an importance of some kind or other, the centralized Delphi was an oppositorum to this dispersedness. On a more speculative note Melos is not melon in Greek but apple, and the golden apples a ready chimera of Hesperides, the tree of life and death and other myth-logical ‘bits’ located ‘somewhere’, the origins of the story comes from Crete and the primitive islanders of pelasgian Greece formed part of a network most likely similar to the one Malinowsky describes in the Trobriands. Believing in miracles is believing the Greeks are NOT at the mercy of this build-up. Rome was constructed in a different manner, and I think on the basis of centralised control of the mental symbolic system at its inception. The glue-on effect of all and every idea into the corpus hermeticum of mystic cybernetics is not a good thing, but one quite unavoidable. As I think I have shown it is NOT mystical at all but dynamic and imprecise. But it shakes the ground. It is equally strange to observe how the American primitive mind developed, and was set in binary oppositorum to Europe (volumes should flow from this interesting anomaly), for cybernetics is NOT a doctrine but a story of ‘bits’ in history perhaps best described by Lovejoy or by the angular as well as fourletter word ‘romanticism’ (Lovejoy tries to avert himself from -isms). Bits and pieces of connections form it. Cybernetics is affiliated to pragmatism in a big way. Cybernetics is fundamentally a theory of man as ‘ethographic’.
C) Erich Fromm is cognizant (or perhaps not) of neoplatonic influences as he writes about Pico de la Mirandola in his book Man for Himself. Mindscapes of freedom we take for granted, not so Pico living in the Italian REnaissance, nor the post-war oppression felt by Fromm — we seem to have entered this space again. Yet much like Boccacio fled into the country (cf. Decamerone) we seem to have a similar thing going on of what Goodhart calls; to reflect individualist vs collectivist(nativist) - ANYWHERES and SOMEWHERES; ideas coined by the journalist David Goodhart. John Ralston Saul’s discussion on these matters is relevant and illuminating (The Unconscious Civilization).
D) The often quoted definition of modernity is it implies a society which promotes change, and presumably the idea of economic booms and busts. The ‘super-pivot’ is only super or even a pivot if it repeats, and as such it has been made a stock-in-trade of the word modernity, and also with Hegel, but I think this may very well be a super-pivot which now will involve China or disappear in the dung-heaps of history, the fourth pivot is 4)econometrics, the third is 3)biological evolutionary progress, the second is the 2)glory of Christ, the first is the fall and 1)decreptitude of Rome; how we treat the Enlightenment (I make a sketch of this in my piece You are Crazy I know, at Medium.com) is hard to say, but if we stand in front of a fourth turning (cf. Howe and Strauss) it is fair to say it involves the eschatology of two ideas about history, this old way of thinking is not forgotten in Europe but fading and weak (cf. Johnny Rotten in memoriam by Niel Young). To rephrase. To describe the super-pivot is unnecessary, the model is the Great Chain of Being, which to my mind seems to imply a start-up phase (Greece) and a decline phase (Rome), the model of a ladder is not taken serious by the Greek, but following the joint scheme of Spengler plus Lovejoy (which is what I have tried throughout)we see this idea of a ladder toward the infinite via Aristotle is repeated three times!!! On the surface it seem to be and as I have repeated previous Cybernetics is NOT responsible for this ‘pattern’ and it must not be taken too literally.
E)It is not for the faint of heart to explain what Stoicism is, many have tried, and many have failed, for it is much like Romanticism a many-coloured beast. There is both my reframing into phases 1 and 2, and also the contents of the philosophy itself almost the lifeblood of Roman life (it is true as coloured by Roman elites and their interests). Stoicism type 1 is impossible for it is a blend of two cultures and as such is dishevelled, stoicism type 2 is ruffled in the way that it mixes the personal with the state and the empire in a wild fluid mixture of impossibilities.
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Details of exegesis (G plus F) — I N T E R P R E T A T I O
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… summary points a through e (through g, less important ones)
F) At some point the whole idea of cybernetics becomes ridiculous, it’s just the other side of midnight. But Sartre plays into this (see also SUPRA, above discussion). The facts of a fact cannot ‘act’ in retrospect.
G) On the opposite end, the march of history strangely reignites the hope for cybernetics. How? As Cicero evolves his speeches, and slowly over the many hundreds of yrs, rhetoric dies.The thing boggles our MIND completely. The church engages in ‘rhetoric’ as it establishes its sway, but slowly at first it engages in a march of rationalisation. The emphasis on the left side of the brain in short kills the older concerns of Stoicism which was engaged in APATHIA to be able to think with the right hemisphere, this APATHIA thus can only happen inside a Roman(and/OR Greek past) context!!! Not ONLY this as we know, but also in so far as Rhetoric, Dialectic, Mythologic-Poetic relations and all of the ‘higher’ sciences (math being perhaps the ONLY exception) were all right-brain activities. The boggeling boggle here is rhetoric is killed by rhetoric or ‘propaganda’ if you will — this interplay has as yet NOT been investigated although Chomsky engages in it.
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In summary we see a bit of a jumble, and I will have a discussion shortly, which we can sum up even further. Jump this as it is, much like the advanced arguments about the Scottish philosopher David Home above; a ‘bit’ over the head of most people…
An apologetic of the framework
In one sense the theory I present is physicalist, for it states that two spaces or masses (a raincloud and the atmosphere below it and other examples) can fuse in short periods. The fact that some meteorites ‘evaporate’ comes down to plasma-like configs in the internal engine of the impact moment (often only a two to three second drama of interactions) which makes it optimal for the meteorite to evaporate rather than ‘stay’ solid — this is a systems effect. The fact known for a while in the childish brain of men that gold melts in liq./sld. quicksilver is hardly a secret to science and was utilised by gilders for many centuries. To put up ‘bits’ in rows and examine them is an assemblage of symbol-facts and thus not math nor even science (these are not observable things in nature), but look more like poetry. In the sense that cybernetics uses such ‘bits’ it slips into the space of mentalism — in McKenna and Joachim of Fiore we have similar approaches, there are two directions to thread here, 1) McKenna is a follower of the mystic Giaocchino (henceforth JoF) who founded a monastery at Fiore late in his life (end of 12th century) and under this heading I will allow that Hegel follows a similar path, also under this heading I will add I have a similar outlook as McKenna (we share most of the approaches to ‘metaphysics’) but reading McKenna I find we cover the same ground I however find it jarring and like spikes into my head, might be due to the closeness, 2) it is seemingly strange to compare to JoF to interactions of systems but there are clear similarities; at the end-times the Church will become unnecessary and an order will arise which will unite those at the top with those at the bottom (mystics? the people?). In the third age {justice 1st, law 2nd, and freedom 3rd} we enter an new system it seems, seen from where I stand the system ‘collapses’, and the idea here is NOT to delve into the words or details — rather this is a sola scriptura approach. This is akin to via negativa seen strictly cybernetically — scripture as opposed to real world plus a set of historio-speculative idea about ages (presumably based upon Apocalypse of John, a John to be kept separate from John the Apostle), hey no worries the idea of a curve as in GDP moves up and down or SINE curve as a background to the confabulations must be seen as similar any old day. Metaphysics as such as Rorty explains are impossible to Cybernetics generally, and it exists in the minds of literalist theology or rational science, whereas to cybernetics the same or similar ideas as those of neoplatonic lore or indeed of platonism are equivocating metaphysics merely to morphology, as such cybernetics cares little whether such ‘forms’ are imagined or real as long as they have an outlay (i.e you can darn well drww’em!) — classics I prupose can appropriate some of these ideas — look for these patterns in history (and minds of writers such as Cicero e.g.). Of signature importance is how cybernetics (cf. Bateson) makes a big point of not separating matter from spirit or mind (in fact same as nature/nurture idea in most of early anthropology which in some sense following ‘cybernetics/ morphology/ mentalism’ must be seen as flawed) and to open up for a new era of science generally where we open up the lid of this controversy or at least realise that Bacon operates both in a set-up of power-freedom and one of matter-spirit and how these are not even remotely commensurate. Saying that lockeian logic solves this is half-true only.
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Start here for D I S C U S S I O N
PLUTARCH
This man may in fact represent some of the virtues I am looking for, but most likely the influence on Plutarch from individualist religiousness which ran rampant in his day makes him into a strange bird. Often enough we look at history this way (i.e the wrong way) and think we see the truth but are deep down just seeing the surface — to cybernetics or classics this is hardly a problem as long as we make room for this, and the only way to do so is to discuss a putative curve in the style of Spengler (build-up followed by decline or ‘civilisational’ phase to use Spengler’s words). Spengler on the other hand was completely flawed in holding on to a particularist idea about ethnicity — his writings had I suppose to make a myth about the German nation or else lose in book sales, and seen more broadly the approach is possible but will become so only inside a 200 to 300 yrs epoque at most if you will of German supremacy. Spengler was a serious man of science, but had some things wrong evidently as do most of us.
It is better to use a dense style when describing the above but I will now revert to a more available style discussing first and foremost Plutarch’s role as a model for classics. In many ways rhetoric is the model and the model grows out of a concern for literalism in Cicero and a concern for truth in Plutarch but the result is very similar — we cannot say with impunity that neither are to be seen as perfect examples of anything but rather that they approximate or ‘fit the bill’ so to speak of examplars of an age, then again most obvious is the fortunate profusion of text/writings we have of both.
In many ways rhetoric is the model and the model grows out of a concern for literalism in Cicero and a concern for truth in Plutarch
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Oppositorum in Western culture
In what kind of milieu was he active? The implosion of Classics in the 1890s is in many ways a non-event, but as time passes we can see how strange factors work toward the safe-haven of a particular kind of thought in America in the wake of romanticism and emersonianism, yet strange as strange can be — equally strange in fact as the bipolarity Merton points to (cf. Robert Merton) in the 1600s as science is promoted in England as in a back and forth with France (this may even be the role of Vienna, Berlin or the classical Rome or Athens under a few happy yrs as described by Peter Hall but a very fragile state (cf. Hall 1998)). Explaining the meta-story of American history as it relates to Classics is of a much higher order of abstraction than ‘the study’ as described above which only ascribes importance to scrying into Greece or Rome of the classical past. The visible haplessness of Rome is a bit harsh, but proves how India the Near east and Hellenism generally afforded an impossible cultural backdrop to Roman culture which chose an all-out ‘cosmopolitan’ approach (i.e looking outward instead of looking inward) and must be said in general terms not to be anything but a victim of the bigger events, and it may explain how VIRTÚ was eqivocated with power in the Roman mind for ‘culture’ imposed itself on Rome. It should be obvious to You My Dear Reader that this argument is systemic or a systems approach to history (incidentally to Rome as to Plutarch himself). It is also against this fond of facts Plutarch should be discussed. Mowing on; how do we evaluate his ‘sources’ why his insistence on his part or sources?
He makes of himself ‘a writer’ a fine job one might say. The aspirations of the future (I think a dangerously funky concept) expands and contracts like mouths watching cinema, for Shakespear lives in Plutarch’s cave (yes a metaphor, but here comes the explanatory). The Tudor poet, wild, crystalline or sublime — for can we express COMPLETE truths? Hardly, my Dear Reader.
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Plutarch is caught inside a shrine, only perhaps the man who maketh his final voyage, one perhaps who’s battles are already LOST can let go, stare Death in the face. Shakespear, unlike Jonson seemed to prefer privacy to political activism (or was he ‘lucky’?, had friends? who knows?) for Jonson was not silenced. The vast part of late antiquity was a REMEMBERING, the big escape if you will; the remembering of a big remembering! Antiquity was even made into idea and romantic thought by said Romans themselves; oh look at those collonades crumbling! This is a defense as well as a riposte — romanticism is a two-front war. Shakespeare then is more of a genious locii (or let us be frank and call him out as an ICON of our collective MIND) much unlike Jonson who perhaps was more real and blighted by time and history or both. We think we know that there once was a genre called ‘fantasy speech’ or the ‘masque’ (which was common in Shakespeare’s and Jonson’s time, the fantasy speech a forgotten genre of classical Greece), but we have forgotten Plutarch is an animal of a very uncommon sort. Much like Shakespeare we made of him an ICON. Even theatre at the time was so many things all at once; OPERA, COMMEDIA DELL’ ARTE as well as PAGENTRY and the GLOBE THEATRE COMPANY was merely of late offspring.
The Late Hellenic era (the time of Plutarch) was in part a froth or large proliferation; Plutarch, Epictetos and Plotnius are all contemporaries. Philo of Alexandria is another contemporary…
TO BE CONTD. (some more on Plutarchs environment still processing)
Putting the finishing touches on some of my texts, this ‘afterword’ will likely end up somewhere else in the future but rounds up this our discussion.
A last infamous word — the science of unscience — C O N C E P T S
Surrealism is a crack in itself inside Western culture, such that this is a symbolist crack as opposed to the ‘materialist’ cracks of war, also and inclusive of the so-called ‘french’ revolution. If we imagine like Hegel a continued struggle of opposits, the idea here is we have the notion here of matter as opposed to mental process. The strangeness here is that ideas seem to have replaced activity or whole and integral totality. The notion visible in Gortz as in habermas as noted in the above. A culture wholly integrated kills its enemies and befriends its frenemies, and if it goes down it burns down to the ground. Ideas can dislodge wholehearted cultural (vertical) integration in its rigid state with the Western sort — but seemingly this idea comes out of a focus in the West upon the rational which ‘hides’ the soul — hence Kant, hence Hegel, hence Goethe, and indeed Jung. What this points to is also the singular activities of a next-to-previous search for values (a version on McLuhan’s and Benjamin’s ideas about man as backwards oriented, with his back to history, The Ayamara indians have instead made this part and parcel of their thinking so that the word for future is referred to as ‘past’) in a culture of crisis. The REnaissance period also appears on our radar in our search for RED OCTOBER, as a vantage point it is in fact like some of those cities often back-water that turn out to be junctures of the rail-system more than in and of themselves ‘productive’ — they are a turnup of the system itself. This points to how humans prefer to live a main or cultural norm (the so-called matrix in present folk-lore) and how men (in Western life) are trapping themselves inside a box, in some senses like Gibbon points to following Tacitus. This psychology is similar to how animals become chattels of man. Universals have occupied the thoughts quite a lot, mainly since they seem to crop up upon us from different places. The notion of universals indeed IS dangerous, for one it often serves as a transcendental spiral escaping staircase down into the dark abyss of evil, mainly as we ‘side’ with the opressor as against the oppressee (or however it’s spelt). In the Ramappa temple a number of what can only be described as pre-flood statues symbolise universals (in a tradition of 12, they depict or ‘point to’, which is a more likely scientific description, the zodiac). The early neolithic (in fact and verse this is actually pre-neolithic) raised stones, but at some earlier stage as seen in Turkey (san Lrfa, Sabines) stones that were raised often symbolises ‘man’ as man (another example is the men at easter island). Such a universal is in stone, yet joking for it points to a goal hardly reacheable in those far-off stages of human society, reading Rifkin we seem to have come to a time in which we must raise such stones again (cf. Rifkin 2009). The symbol is the internalised version of either the sky as in Velikovsky or of religious symbols such as these, as such this ‘tech’ of the soul can become an enemy too. The universal is an interesting concept and as such must have been invented at some point in the past. The universal inside Western culture and inside philosophy is a conundrum, yet seen from this new vantage it becomes less strange and ‘esoteric’, it is part of our technological package of the brain. At some point it was invented and the culturalised, most likely at many places and repeatedly until it stayed with us. We have hegelian notions of reuse, so that the universals (as well as other general or religious/ cultural concepts) are reappropriated by new generations, a taking back of the symbols. The ideas seem a prevalent idea (uh, sorry just read on) in the West in particular, this can be the reason we contrapualise ever so often. These are hitches that we ourselves produce and if Hegel is right we do so in a see-saw pattern, or we might use Nietzsche instead and use his idea of the two forces inside Greek culture; the Appollonian and the Dionysian. Neither Oswald Spengler who lacks our after-the-fact knowledge, nor McGilchrist (as Lachman points to) nor Nietzsche as I point to are aware of the psychohistory of all of this (following Isaac Asimov!). In my outlay Greek and Roman serve as simple spenglerian ‘labels’ which we seem to accept, but these are a Western ‘quirk’, and work as operators in a cultural analysis (using like Hegel did, these historic facts as a window into the MIND).
The universals at some previous point in history is as Hadot points to, and as Nietzsche points to philosophy reappears at juncture-points, not in existence before the time of Socrates. he shows how the use of the word ‘philosophy’ was not used before this juncture in time. Looking at Göbekli Tepe we should assume previous instances in prehistory (pre-flood) of the idea.
Symbolism and cybernetics are in a sense surrealist, these ideas are often depicted as ‘symbolist’. Inside the between-the-wars period e.g. Egon Friedell appears as a rather symbolist character, the Barocque was an opposition to the symbolist impulse in REnaissance culture, despite its appearances to the contrary. The idea of symbolism in America is how a tradition inherited via multiple routes took hold of the American soul, yet if we see in Charles Pierce someone who is beholden to positivism this is the same illusion that Sartre displays (who in a sense fuses idealism of the right with idealism of the left) the shadows of Pieirce and James tower above cybernetics as does it over pragmatism proper. In latter yrs McLuhan was the residue of these ideas in North America. The strange opposite of European thought comes out as we observe Claude Lévi-Strauss. In my version of cybernetics I have fused the two traditions of the inside-out (McLuhan meets Bateson).
A joking relation to science is a particular hobby in America, or rather of late America has lost this idea to time, it resides in thinkers such as Bloom and Rorty still. As the ant strays into the pic-nic basket all is lost. The dual nature of Europe AND / or America could only be explained using the ideas as presented via structuralism, not that this on the whole matters a lot...
This will forever debunk the word metaphysics as so many have tried it we must too… On the other we have awakened to the sublime such that Junger is a guide in his aethereal search, this transcendence is an Andean flute out of Turkey which has layed a spell on us — this is the spiritual band-wagon
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This will forever debunk the word metaphysics as so many have tried it we must too… On the other we have awakened to the sublime such that Junger is a guide in his aethereal search, this transcendence is an Andean flute out of Turkey which has layed a spell on us — this is the spiritual band-wagon. Harari who points to the dangers ahead is essentially a modernist/ nihilist in Bloom’s outlay (Prometheus.. whatnot), can be depicted as a base rehash of nihilist existentialism. In the environment of Sartre´s day the absolute was a given, in the anti-stance of George Bernad Shaw is another kind of nihilism more opposite that that of Albert Camus. Sartre and Shaw seem ‘twins’ or sign-posts of cultural change. The dramatic actor is always a vessel only as such not good or bad, but rather as someone said at the velvet revolt in Prague 1968, the actors were the prophets the heroes the mouth-pieces of the people in the streets at that moment. The whole idea of symbolic collapse as presented in my writings is a mere show-off, it has itself an inverted surface where the young will ‘appropriate’ culture and infuse it with new yet differnt light and life. The universals we seek are even untrue themselves in this ‘light’, though it is debatable since Hegel is relativist. Popper in a sense lives inside a kuhnian bubble, as do we ourselves…
The German peasantry of the REnaissance partook of a benevolent change for the better in society, as such a battle-cry for change is part of a clandestine force which stalks Western minds and men. The millenials have spent many a malinvested dollar upon a liberal education, but did they not in the end make a right-turn, the pun here is on right. That such change often which we cannot forsee in society often enough is violent we should duely note. But just maybe these deplorables (I am myself a ‘failed’ academic) have funneled themselves to safety — this escape is an escape which reestablishes symbols and symbol logic in human thinking, but incidentally also one which embraces the idea that man is irrational to a degree, and notes with the prophet Nietzsche that man IS brittle. The ant that strays is doomed. In human societies cannibalism is similar to this idea, and the so-called civil society a mere inversion of this. Put as in an eschatological last word, colonialism seems merely a middle-phase t’ween two barbarisms. This our present barbarism is the shearing of even larger global populations and is backed by a symbolic system. Once such symbolic systems wobble this fragility comes to bear especially hard on a global or larger scale one which becomes increasingly out of touch as its symbols comingle(symbolic collapse).
Thank you for w/ reading this!
Happiness HQ
