I was just listening to him in an interview with Bari Weiss, and I was curious because I fucking hate the free press but I always think it’s worth giving things a fair shake and trying to explore why I hate a them.
And it is interesting that, this man is deeply conservative, and while I love his philosophy around community and nature when I think about applying it to myself, but his view of the world seems to boil down to “the world would be fixed some authoritarianic person or group told people what to do” (and had the power to enforce it).
And it’s very hard for me to listen to anyone’s philosophy that revolves around the idea that the problem with the world is not enough people with power telling other people what to do.
I also can’t get over the fact that like the rise of right-wing authortiarianism is inherently linked to technology used to enforce it, which he is also attempting to decry?
anbcodes•2mo ago
I could see some of that idea (that a specific group needs to tell people what to do), although this podcast didn't seem to emphasize it too much.
I'm not sure what to think of that. On one hand, one group of people having power often ends up badly. But on the other hand, everyone doing as they wish doesn't seem to be working and ends up leading to groups having immense power anyway (capitalism, money, influence, advertising, etc.). Someone or something needs to have/will have power.
I would lean towards we need some sort of structure or culture that helps lead us in our choices. Part of culture is institutions which inherently have some level of power. If the institutions are created well, they can use their power to support some good values, instead of the whims of whoever happens to have power now. Kind of like a more values-focused culture instead of a more self-focused culture if that makes sense.
techblueberry•2mo ago
Yeah, I’m not sure if I gave this guy a fair shake. But I think too many of his ideas don’t have very dynamic solutions.
When he says the reason we have a culture war is because we don’t have a culture —- he seems to strongly discount the idea that fundamentally the “machine” is just pluralism, the fact that we all disagree with each other. Like I do feel the emotional salience of his idea of the machine, and that’s his goal, but also if I stop to think about it, I realize there are people in this world who really like AI and progress, it’s not just mindless.
And so if the culture war is about gay marriage - I’m not sure how to interpret his solution as anything other than thought policing - if we can enforce the idea that our culture denies (or accepts) gay marriage then we’ll have a culture.
He does seem to honestly struggle with these ideas, and criticisms of his earlier books suggest he does have an individualist approach as the solution (which I would support). But on the flip side, I loosely speaking agree with his four p’s but there’s an implication made that Buddhism and Wicca don’t fall under the definition of prayer, but orthodox Christianity does? So maybe he doesn’t want a white Christian theocracy (he specifically says this isn’t he solution) but it sounds like his solution rhymes with that?
But these issues are complicated and I struggle with them as well. I don’t think people deal well with too much freedom, but then of course how do we deal with the fact that my definition of too much freedom differs from yours?
Having different communities is a big part of the answer. I can choose to live in a different city than you. Have a different religion than you. But again, if his argument is we have a culture war because we don’t have a culture, it sounds like he wants to assert some level of uniformity on what I’m allowed to do in my city, and that I cannot abide.
But then again, I would also say that —- loosely speaking, it’s probably true that most of our cultural moral guidance should center around fairly simple, what could be described as conservative ideas. Community, hard work, family(I don’t care who you love, but marriage and family probably is a stabilizing force). People would probably be happier if they focused on these basics(if you’re weird and want to have a weird life go for it! But I do think there’s an extent to which our society teaches us you should _want_ a weird life (think different!) but really, if you don’t know what you want, don’t go find yourself, try hard work, family, community)
techblueberry•2mo ago
And it is interesting that, this man is deeply conservative, and while I love his philosophy around community and nature when I think about applying it to myself, but his view of the world seems to boil down to “the world would be fixed some authoritarianic person or group told people what to do” (and had the power to enforce it).
And it’s very hard for me to listen to anyone’s philosophy that revolves around the idea that the problem with the world is not enough people with power telling other people what to do.
I also can’t get over the fact that like the rise of right-wing authortiarianism is inherently linked to technology used to enforce it, which he is also attempting to decry?
anbcodes•2mo ago
I'm not sure what to think of that. On one hand, one group of people having power often ends up badly. But on the other hand, everyone doing as they wish doesn't seem to be working and ends up leading to groups having immense power anyway (capitalism, money, influence, advertising, etc.). Someone or something needs to have/will have power.
I would lean towards we need some sort of structure or culture that helps lead us in our choices. Part of culture is institutions which inherently have some level of power. If the institutions are created well, they can use their power to support some good values, instead of the whims of whoever happens to have power now. Kind of like a more values-focused culture instead of a more self-focused culture if that makes sense.
techblueberry•2mo ago
When he says the reason we have a culture war is because we don’t have a culture —- he seems to strongly discount the idea that fundamentally the “machine” is just pluralism, the fact that we all disagree with each other. Like I do feel the emotional salience of his idea of the machine, and that’s his goal, but also if I stop to think about it, I realize there are people in this world who really like AI and progress, it’s not just mindless.
And so if the culture war is about gay marriage - I’m not sure how to interpret his solution as anything other than thought policing - if we can enforce the idea that our culture denies (or accepts) gay marriage then we’ll have a culture.
He does seem to honestly struggle with these ideas, and criticisms of his earlier books suggest he does have an individualist approach as the solution (which I would support). But on the flip side, I loosely speaking agree with his four p’s but there’s an implication made that Buddhism and Wicca don’t fall under the definition of prayer, but orthodox Christianity does? So maybe he doesn’t want a white Christian theocracy (he specifically says this isn’t he solution) but it sounds like his solution rhymes with that?
But these issues are complicated and I struggle with them as well. I don’t think people deal well with too much freedom, but then of course how do we deal with the fact that my definition of too much freedom differs from yours?
Having different communities is a big part of the answer. I can choose to live in a different city than you. Have a different religion than you. But again, if his argument is we have a culture war because we don’t have a culture, it sounds like he wants to assert some level of uniformity on what I’m allowed to do in my city, and that I cannot abide.
But then again, I would also say that —- loosely speaking, it’s probably true that most of our cultural moral guidance should center around fairly simple, what could be described as conservative ideas. Community, hard work, family(I don’t care who you love, but marriage and family probably is a stabilizing force). People would probably be happier if they focused on these basics(if you’re weird and want to have a weird life go for it! But I do think there’s an extent to which our society teaches us you should _want_ a weird life (think different!) but really, if you don’t know what you want, don’t go find yourself, try hard work, family, community)