I was talking to my wife the other day about the state of the world and I came to the observation that our current “culture” is a mile wide and an inch deep. in other words, the abundance is everywhere but it can’t nourish us during a time when we need it the most.
This essay captures some really important reasons/examples why literal, story-less thinking is terrible and anti-human.
And it's also why I have always been put off, disgusted even, by utilitarianism. Every time I see someone discussing their utilitarian philosophy, it comes across as inhuman, dry, and overly analytical. Even if human flourishing could be quantified and plugged into equations and solved for (which it can't), why would you want to? The entire point of life is finding what moves you, not what "makes you suffer the least."
In fact, suffering, as cliché as it sounds, is often literally the best way to make your life worthwhile. The goal to remove it, therefore, is not only fundamentally impossible but also plainly naïve.
“The priests could read, and the people could not, so the people learned the stories in the Bible.”
I am one of the few among my peers and couleuges who have retained a deep and abiding faith gained in my youth even as I learned the ways of science and developed a deep and abiding interest in physics (not biology, though, evolution of live thrill me less than evolution of stars although the descent of man does get a lot of brain share).
As I've gotten older I’ve come to think a critical part of this was a series of LP records of Bible stories sold at King Supers (one per week) my maternal grandmother bought me. Each side was a full Biblical story: The Parable of the Good Samaritan, The Parable of the Prodigal Son, Creation through to Noah, and so on by Cricket Records.
They were a constant companion at nights when I stayed in my room instead of watching TV or as I fell asleep although with other records of secular stories and Disney music (and one of kid songs about ships).
The result was closer to learning the Bible at the knees of an elder telling stories than merely reading a book. I’m convinced the reading of the Bible in snippets aloud in sermons or in chunks alone is a conduit to knowing the stories but not living them. I’m not saying I can’t live in worlds I read but that is a learned skill not an inherent one. If one is still learning to live in the written word the stories read during the learning aren’t sticky in the way ones from the same period heard orally are.
I also think this was crucial to me taking the path to Eastern Orthodoxy which retains more of these traditions and metaphors. Get an Orthodox Deacan to explain how you can believe the two men who refused to aid the man set upon by thieves were the Prophets and Adam while the Samaritan was Christ himself as only he could repair the damage done by the thieves which was actually the effects of eating the fruit of knowledge and you’ll see what I mean.
I know you think Christianity as constituted won’t take us into the next phase of the world. I disagree in general but agree about the heirs of Luther and Calvin. Either way, I’m glad listening those records gave me a grounding that has been key to surviving the worst parts of my life even if some of the interpreations of them I learned growing up also contributed in small ways to the hurt in those times.
So I listened to it. The memory of it resonated, the music was there, and the images in my mind were fresh out of my youth where not only did I listen to these stories but tons of 50s and 60s Hollywood movies, most notable the Biblical epics like "The Ten Commandments" and the Ray Harryhausen films, especially "Jason and the Argonauts" and the Sinbad movies.
Good one for parents. It's tempting to try to simplify life and learning in the short term, because IT IS complicated and thus confusing and thus scary. But, sooner or later the world will make a chip in a perpetual child's world and then tap incessantly until the whole damn breaks and s(he) drowns in the flood.
To take in the world through metaphor requires courage because it is....not a sure thing. It is going to a bar to try to talk to someone instead of letting the algorithm match you up. It's trying to figure out which risks to let your kids take without knowing if they'll keep their feet underneath them.
As I sit here and contemplate, I wonder if some of this literal shift is related in some way to the drop in child mortality. Given that, particularly in the United States, the rate is low comparatively speaking, and the generations have or are dying that knew any differently, there is an illusion of control that originates here, and because it is an illusion, fear over everything adjacent to it hovers over us and urges us toward simplicity and liberalism.
>The Symbol and the Metaphor <...> But it’s not exactly a sudden problem.
Iain McGilchrist in The Master and His Emissary [https://www.sloww.co/left-brain-right-brain-hemispheres/] talks a lot about metaphor "residing" in the right hemisphere and language in the left. In the second part of the book he goes over cultural history of the West using his left / right hemisphere paradigm. According to him the Reformation was definitely a move towards the left hemisphere dominance. There were some comebacks for the right hemisphere, though, since then. His conclusion, however, is the same as yours: nowadays we are firmly in the left-hemisphere world. [Note that I do not necessarily agree or endorse his theory, but it is, imho, an excellent metaphor - no pun intended.]
> Raiders of the Lost Ark
Wow!
“Bloody hell,” said Majikthise, “now that is what I call thinking. Here, Vroomfondel, why do we never think of things like that?”
“Dunno,” said Vroomfondel in an awed whisper; “think our brains must be too highly trained, Majikthise.”
In one of The Big Bang Theory episodes Amy stumps Sheldon by claiming that Indiana Jones actions had no impact on the outcome of the plot. It would be the same not matter what he did. Sheldon is unable to stop analyzing it trying to come up with explanations how they were relevant. The autistic left-brainer that he is, Sheldon apparently cannot fathom that there might be other important considerations in a movie besides the plot. Such as character development, etc.
> being constrained fully by the mores of the current moment
G*d d*mn. You're expressing stuff that's hovering around in my awareness but haven't been able to articulate as you are doing here.
> The literal believer in Christianity worships a book, not a god
A book is a container of god and spirit meanings. Now multiply that by 10^8 for the internet/social media (including Substack) that can oversaturate the bandwidth of human attention and sensemaking.
God isn't dead; he's been colonized, co-opted, and capitalized. I think Nietzsche saw all this.
I deconstructed and dissected God; my society and the internet gave me all the required tools to make it past all the defenses, safeguards, tripwires, and police. The more I deconstructed my "self" and my experience, the more my social/external world crumbled - the meanings woven into relationships, identities, communities, and belongings.
I don't know if I can re-mythologize. The insight of seeing the matrix mechanisms is addictive. When serving God gets rough, I can just throw back the curtain and take it apart. But keep doing that whenever God gets too demanding or too contradictory, and don't be surprised when God can't be God for us any more. And it takes Gods, spirits, and metaphors to raise and teach children. The loving, male Gods with the fearsome side that keeps women and children in check seem to produce more children than the softer, smarter, more enlightened Gods that promote equal rights...
This is all stuff way, way above my pay grade, burdens too big for this individual to bear. Plutonium meant to fuel reactors in relative safety instead of melting my flesh as I try to hold or stare at it. I'm not sure whether I like living in a world that has become dependent on such reactors. I would not have been born without them. My own children would not have been born without them.
The past isn't what I thought it was.
The past is no more fixed than the future.
A community or society needs shared ways of making sense of world. I could argue that shared ways of making sense of the world (with attendant roles, norms, taboos, rules, expectations, standards, values, and scripts) *are* the core of community or society, which would not be possible or cohere without such culture.
I think I mostly just don't want to go back to my Mormon gods. I don't want to forgive a God that can't admit its faults without undoing itself. If I go back, it will hurt as it hurt before. I will be subject to all the judgment, inadequacy, cognitive bias, mindf*ck, etc. and become a party to the perpetuation of it for others. But at least it would work. It would keep us alive.
We're shredding all our meanings and narratives here on the internet and social media. What's emerging from this is AGIs entangled with corporate egregore become nation-states.
This is enough existential crisis for today. I'm sorry I don't know how to resolve this stuff. I'm sorry my children - my dear children - will instinctively take up the torch of these things I didn't know what to do with or didn't want to face. I'm not sure if any of us really exist as agents anyway, or if we have the courage to.
I hope there is prayer woven somewhere between these lines.
great essay. much to think about here.
I was talking to my wife the other day about the state of the world and I came to the observation that our current “culture” is a mile wide and an inch deep. in other words, the abundance is everywhere but it can’t nourish us during a time when we need it the most.
This essay captures some really important reasons/examples why literal, story-less thinking is terrible and anti-human.
And it's also why I have always been put off, disgusted even, by utilitarianism. Every time I see someone discussing their utilitarian philosophy, it comes across as inhuman, dry, and overly analytical. Even if human flourishing could be quantified and plugged into equations and solved for (which it can't), why would you want to? The entire point of life is finding what moves you, not what "makes you suffer the least."
In fact, suffering, as cliché as it sounds, is often literally the best way to make your life worthwhile. The goal to remove it, therefore, is not only fundamentally impossible but also plainly naïve.
Great piece.
Utilitarianism is machine-thinking, and useful for engineering.
But for humans, it is horrifying all through.
There are countless gems in this piece, but this one struck me the most:
"They have no past, so they will have no future."
“The priests could read, and the people could not, so the people learned the stories in the Bible.”
I am one of the few among my peers and couleuges who have retained a deep and abiding faith gained in my youth even as I learned the ways of science and developed a deep and abiding interest in physics (not biology, though, evolution of live thrill me less than evolution of stars although the descent of man does get a lot of brain share).
As I've gotten older I’ve come to think a critical part of this was a series of LP records of Bible stories sold at King Supers (one per week) my maternal grandmother bought me. Each side was a full Biblical story: The Parable of the Good Samaritan, The Parable of the Prodigal Son, Creation through to Noah, and so on by Cricket Records.
They were a constant companion at nights when I stayed in my room instead of watching TV or as I fell asleep although with other records of secular stories and Disney music (and one of kid songs about ships).
The result was closer to learning the Bible at the knees of an elder telling stories than merely reading a book. I’m convinced the reading of the Bible in snippets aloud in sermons or in chunks alone is a conduit to knowing the stories but not living them. I’m not saying I can’t live in worlds I read but that is a learned skill not an inherent one. If one is still learning to live in the written word the stories read during the learning aren’t sticky in the way ones from the same period heard orally are.
I also think this was crucial to me taking the path to Eastern Orthodoxy which retains more of these traditions and metaphors. Get an Orthodox Deacan to explain how you can believe the two men who refused to aid the man set upon by thieves were the Prophets and Adam while the Samaritan was Christ himself as only he could repair the damage done by the thieves which was actually the effects of eating the fruit of knowledge and you’ll see what I mean.
I know you think Christianity as constituted won’t take us into the next phase of the world. I disagree in general but agree about the heirs of Luther and Calvin. Either way, I’m glad listening those records gave me a grounding that has been key to surviving the worst parts of my life even if some of the interpreations of them I learned growing up also contributed in small ways to the hurt in those times.
Absolutely the best way to experience the KJV.
I decided to search YouTube to see if they were there. I found the LP side with the story of Samson (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QasISGxRN0).
So I listened to it. The memory of it resonated, the music was there, and the images in my mind were fresh out of my youth where not only did I listen to these stories but tons of 50s and 60s Hollywood movies, most notable the Biblical epics like "The Ten Commandments" and the Ray Harryhausen films, especially "Jason and the Argonauts" and the Sinbad movies.
Good one for parents. It's tempting to try to simplify life and learning in the short term, because IT IS complicated and thus confusing and thus scary. But, sooner or later the world will make a chip in a perpetual child's world and then tap incessantly until the whole damn breaks and s(he) drowns in the flood.
To take in the world through metaphor requires courage because it is....not a sure thing. It is going to a bar to try to talk to someone instead of letting the algorithm match you up. It's trying to figure out which risks to let your kids take without knowing if they'll keep their feet underneath them.
As I sit here and contemplate, I wonder if some of this literal shift is related in some way to the drop in child mortality. Given that, particularly in the United States, the rate is low comparatively speaking, and the generations have or are dying that knew any differently, there is an illusion of control that originates here, and because it is an illusion, fear over everything adjacent to it hovers over us and urges us toward simplicity and liberalism.
> These words are not real.
"Ceci n'est pas une pipe"
>The Symbol and the Metaphor <...> But it’s not exactly a sudden problem.
Iain McGilchrist in The Master and His Emissary [https://www.sloww.co/left-brain-right-brain-hemispheres/] talks a lot about metaphor "residing" in the right hemisphere and language in the left. In the second part of the book he goes over cultural history of the West using his left / right hemisphere paradigm. According to him the Reformation was definitely a move towards the left hemisphere dominance. There were some comebacks for the right hemisphere, though, since then. His conclusion, however, is the same as yours: nowadays we are firmly in the left-hemisphere world. [Note that I do not necessarily agree or endorse his theory, but it is, imho, an excellent metaphor - no pun intended.]
> Raiders of the Lost Ark
Wow!
“Bloody hell,” said Majikthise, “now that is what I call thinking. Here, Vroomfondel, why do we never think of things like that?”
“Dunno,” said Vroomfondel in an awed whisper; “think our brains must be too highly trained, Majikthise.”
In one of The Big Bang Theory episodes Amy stumps Sheldon by claiming that Indiana Jones actions had no impact on the outcome of the plot. It would be the same not matter what he did. Sheldon is unable to stop analyzing it trying to come up with explanations how they were relevant. The autistic left-brainer that he is, Sheldon apparently cannot fathom that there might be other important considerations in a movie besides the plot. Such as character development, etc.
> being constrained fully by the mores of the current moment
AKA "presentism"
I was wondering if anyone would think of the not-a-pipe :-)
Brilliant.
G*d d*mn. You're expressing stuff that's hovering around in my awareness but haven't been able to articulate as you are doing here.
> The literal believer in Christianity worships a book, not a god
A book is a container of god and spirit meanings. Now multiply that by 10^8 for the internet/social media (including Substack) that can oversaturate the bandwidth of human attention and sensemaking.
God isn't dead; he's been colonized, co-opted, and capitalized. I think Nietzsche saw all this.
I deconstructed and dissected God; my society and the internet gave me all the required tools to make it past all the defenses, safeguards, tripwires, and police. The more I deconstructed my "self" and my experience, the more my social/external world crumbled - the meanings woven into relationships, identities, communities, and belongings.
I don't know if I can re-mythologize. The insight of seeing the matrix mechanisms is addictive. When serving God gets rough, I can just throw back the curtain and take it apart. But keep doing that whenever God gets too demanding or too contradictory, and don't be surprised when God can't be God for us any more. And it takes Gods, spirits, and metaphors to raise and teach children. The loving, male Gods with the fearsome side that keeps women and children in check seem to produce more children than the softer, smarter, more enlightened Gods that promote equal rights...
This is all stuff way, way above my pay grade, burdens too big for this individual to bear. Plutonium meant to fuel reactors in relative safety instead of melting my flesh as I try to hold or stare at it. I'm not sure whether I like living in a world that has become dependent on such reactors. I would not have been born without them. My own children would not have been born without them.
The past isn't what I thought it was.
The past is no more fixed than the future.
A community or society needs shared ways of making sense of world. I could argue that shared ways of making sense of the world (with attendant roles, norms, taboos, rules, expectations, standards, values, and scripts) *are* the core of community or society, which would not be possible or cohere without such culture.
I think I mostly just don't want to go back to my Mormon gods. I don't want to forgive a God that can't admit its faults without undoing itself. If I go back, it will hurt as it hurt before. I will be subject to all the judgment, inadequacy, cognitive bias, mindf*ck, etc. and become a party to the perpetuation of it for others. But at least it would work. It would keep us alive.
We're shredding all our meanings and narratives here on the internet and social media. What's emerging from this is AGIs entangled with corporate egregore become nation-states.
This is enough existential crisis for today. I'm sorry I don't know how to resolve this stuff. I'm sorry my children - my dear children - will instinctively take up the torch of these things I didn't know what to do with or didn't want to face. I'm not sure if any of us really exist as agents anyway, or if we have the courage to.
I hope there is prayer woven somewhere between these lines.