Civilization.



Not Civilization?



Civilization? Not Civilization? Can't tell.

I like civilization, but ask yourself, how much longer did the pre-civilization cultures like the Australian and North American indigenous population last? — BC

Australians, around 60,000 years. Native Americans, about 10,000. True, it's a long time. Not a lot of Beethoven or Shakespeare, but robust in other ways.

As Augustine pointed out, where there are cities, there is continuous unrest and violence. It's more dramatic.

Magic is something maybe only seen from the outside. In which case, it's hard to identify if it's magic, because you sort of have to know how it works "from the inside" too. In which case it's no longer magical, so how do you spot the spell if it's lost its potency? — Moliere

Immanent critique springs to mind. You dig into it from the inside, or to mix metaphors, you pull at the loose threads of contradiction, till you see how the spell really works—and then you tell people about it. You don’t presume to begin outside, like you’re something special; you're able to see the spell thanks to your critical reason, which you apply from within while knowing you’re under a spell like everybody else. You continue to fetishize commodities after you’ve read Capital.

This is a bit like the question of the historical relativism of philosophy: it’s a problem only if you’re not aware of it. You don’t have to be transcendent in your thinking, only critical.

So while I find it all very interesting, I also get lost very quickly. — Moliere

I’m a bit lost too. There’s magic, enchantment, ideology, and, though I didn’t mention it, there’s myth too. And these terms are all used differently by different thinkers. For example, Adorno and Horkheimer contrast magic as a mostly ancient practice that addresses things in their specificity, with myth and enlightenment, which tend to bring things under general concepts as a means to explain and dominate nature. I feel like I should have stuck to the Weberian angle of disenchantment and enchantment. But then the OP would have been more boring.

Are there spells which counter-spells? — Moliere

I like the idea of counter-spells. The recent lifestyle movement they called “minimalism” was set against the spell of consumerism, but was really just a magic spell itself, sitting alongside all the other self-help trends as yet another choice in a consumerist world.

Minimalism is a tool that can assist you in finding freedom. Freedom from fear. Freedom from worry. Freedom from overwhelm. Freedom from guilt. Freedom from depression. Freedom from the trappings of the consumer culture we’ve built our lives around. Real freedom. — The Minimalists

Immanent critique springs to mind. You dig into it from the inside, or to mix metaphors, you pull at the loose threads of contradiction, till you see how the spell really works—and then you tell people about it. You don’t presume to begin outside, like you’re something special; you're able to see the spell thanks to your critical reason, which you apply from within while knowing you’re under a spell like everybody else. You continue to fetishize commodities after you’ve read Capital.

This is a bit like the question of the historical relativism of philosophy: it’s a problem only if you’re not aware of it. You don’t have to be transcendent in your thinking, only critical. — Jamal

I like this. Good points.

I’m a bit lost too. There’s magic, enchantment, ideology, and, though I didn’t mention it, there’s myth too. And these terms are all used differently by different thinkers. For example, Adorno and Horkheimer contrast magic as a mostly ancient practice that addresses things in their specificity, with myth and enlightenment, which tend to bring things under general concepts as a means to explain and dominate nature. I feel like I should have stuck to the Weberian angle of disenchantment and enchantment. But then the OP would have been more boring. — Jamal

As long as we can acknowledge being a bit lost then I'm OK with that :D

Less boring is always better, especially for an OP because it's hard to gauge what'll actually stick or pick up enough people.

I think I'm mostly on track in stating "magical thinking", yes?

I like the idea of counter-spells. — Jamal

Me too! Almost like the glasses in They Live! -- I think part of the point of calling it "magic" is to note how odd this behavior is in relation to other things we say and do and to attempt to counter-spell it, as it were. Or at least acknowledge that we're stuck with it.

The recent lifestyle movement they called “minimalism” was set against the spell of consumerism, but was really just a magic spell itself, sitting alongside all the other self-help trends as yet another choice in a consumerist world.

Just describing this phenomenon feels so surreal to me in the magical sense. For lots of reasons but foremost being that I feel like "magic" is the right description for how consumerism has an adaptability unto itself, or at least feels like it's behaving on its own, like it's alive. But it's not like consumerism is a thing with properties, either, so it sits in a quasi-place.

I don't have the answer. But I have a garden. — Banno

An enchanted one, I hope.

For the various popular religions in Asia, in contrast to ascetic Protestantism, the world remained a great enchanted garden, in which the practical way to orient oneself, or to find security in this world or the next, was to revere or coerce the spirits and seek salvation through ritualistic, idolatrous, or sacramental procedures. No path led from the magical religiosity of the non-intellectual classes of Asia to a rational, methodical control of life. — Max Weber, Sociology of Religion

It's partly the way you're interpreting events. We naturally look for repetition, so we highlight the similarities between now and the 1930s, using words like "mirroring.". This view is melancholic per Kierkegaard. — frank

Magic is something maybe only seen from the outside. In which case, it's hard to identify if it's magic, because you sort of have to know how it works "from the inside" too. In which case it's no longer magical, so how do you spot the spell if it's lost its potency? — Moliere

Let's not psychologise, let's philosophise.

That it's partly the way I'm interpreting events is partly the way you're interpreting events. Interesting that you have recourse to the medieval humours to understand me.

My interpretation of the notion of "magical powers", is that it is an 'undue' influence, a misleading, or distortion precisely of my interpretation of the world. Folks may recall my threads on psychology as just such a systematic misleading tool. Every experiment begins with misdirection in order to prevent the natural human response of compliance with the other's wishes, or its opposite. The main successes being in the field of advertising and brainwashing; this has now reached the level of seriously interfering with elections by tailored posts based on individual data for example. Other techniques might include 'love-bombing' for example used by cults and others to recruit. There might be talk of memes here too.

So much for the secular magicians.

But we are already haunted by our selves. Billions of people all haunted by the way they interpret events, all seeing the magic from the outside, or not seeing it because it is inside. I was brought up with "The Bomb". It was the new thing in the world, to be accommodated by psyche; by pretty much everyone in the world. "When you hear the alarm, crouch under your desk, put your head between your knees, and kiss your arse goodbye." It was transformative, this new destructive power, and more shocking even than the revelation of the depths of human depravity exposed in the deliberate mass starvation in Russia, and the Final Solution in Europe. This is my interpretation of events: we haunt ourselves. The secular magicians are playing with forces they cannot comprehend because they cannot comprehend themselves.

So how to philosophise the forces that guide philosophy? First, breathe.
Now let us speak as equals round a campfire in the dark, of stories we have heard of faraway places and forgotten monsters, and the wonder of the stars, and the brevity of life.

And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way. — Trent Reznor, Hurt

I think I'm mostly on track in stating "magical thinking", yes? — Moliere

I think it's fruitful, but I don't know where the track is.

Me too! Almost like the glasses in They Live! — Moliere

Can we distinguish between counter-spells that reveal the truth, like the glasses, and those that merely compete on the same ground, like the minimalism example I gave--bewitching us with something different and possibly better, but still bewitching us? How would we make that distinction? Have I lost the plot?

Just describing this phenomenon feels so surreal to me in the magical sense. For lots of reasons but foremost being that I feel like "magic" is the right description for how consumerism has an adaptability unto itself, or at least feels like it's behaving on its own, like it's alive. But it's not like consumerism is a thing with properties, either, so it sits in a quasi-place. — Moliere

Yes, and this is why it helps to use the concept of magic; I disagree with those who are dismissing it with an easy let's get real, there's no such thing as magic. You can't point to quasi-places on an everyday map.

I think it's fruitful, but I don't know where the track is. — Jamal

Fair. I probably don't either then.

Can we distinguish between counter-spells that reveal the truth, like the glasses, and those that merely compete on the same ground, like the minimalism example I gave--bewitching us with something different and possibly better, but still bewitching us? How would we make that distinction? — Jamal

Yes, I think we can. And I think that's helpful too. In fact, one can probably sell the glasses, would be a way to put it. Counter-spells for sale, get your counter-spells here! Doesn't exactly have the same mystique as a magic box of glasses that shows you The Forms.

There's a similarity there with Plato's myth. I think I'd like to say They Live! is like that myth, but for something magic-akin (in Zizek's mind, ideology). It's a myth to talk about ideology rather than a spell proper.

Yes, and this is why it helps to use the concept of magic; I disagree with those who are dismissing it with an easy let's get real, there's no such thing as magic — Jamal

Cool. Same page, here. I find the notion of applying anthropological categories formerly reserved for understanding "primitive" peoples to better understand ourselves an interesting thought.

I hope to meet the bar of philosophy. Such is my intent at least!

My interpretation of the notion of "magical powers", is that it is an 'undue' influence, a misleading, or distortion precisely of my interpretation of the world. — unenlightened

Interesting. So rather than looking at "interpretation" there's an outside influence on a person's interpretation. That already answers my question, then, about whether the self is a spell -- no! The self is already there, as is an interpretation too. There's a lot already going on before we can say, here's a distortion of an interpretation.

Folks may recall my threads on psychology as just such a systematic misleading tool. Every experiment begins with misdirection in order to prevent the natural human response of compliance with the other's wishes, or its opposite. The main successes being in the field of advertising and brainwashing; this has now reached the level of seriously interfering with elections by tailored posts based on individual data for example. Other techniques might include 'love-bombing' for example used by cults and others to recruit. There might be talk of memes here too.

So much for the secular magicians. — unenlightened

Advertising, brainwashing, love-bombing -- techniques developed to influence people for organizational ends. But there's something different, here. It's not like door knocking where you have a pamphlet to talk about what's pertinent to a person about the world around them. There are honest ways of building relationships -- and it's exactly that it's not a technique, but a relationship. It's not a procedure for getting a person to do X, but a conversation which goes both ways.

But we are already haunted by our selves. Billions of people all haunted by the way they interpret events, all seeing the magic from the outside, or not seeing it because it is inside. I was brought up with "The Bomb". It was the new thing in the world, to be accommodated by psyche; by pretty much everyone in the world. "When you hear the alarm, crouch under your desk, put your head between your knees, and kiss your arse goodbye." It was transformative, this new destructive power, and more shocking even than the revelation of the depths of human depravity exposed in the deliberate mass starvation in Russia, and the Final Solution in Europe. This is my interpretation of events: we haunt ourselves. The secular magicians are playing with forces they cannot comprehend because they cannot comprehend themselves. — unenlightened

Great point. The self as a haunting is really fascinating to me. In a good way. Stories of the past as hauntings of the present invokes the impossibility of memory bringing the past forward to effect the future (through our actions).

I like this phrase "the secular magicians". It fits.

So how to philosophise the forces that guide philosophy? First, breathe.
Now let us speak as equals round a campfire in the dark, of stories we have heard of faraway places and forgotten monsters, and the wonder of the stars, and the brevity of life.

And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way.
— Trent Reznor, Hurt — unenlightened

:)

But we are already haunted by our selves. Billions of people all haunted by the way they interpret events, all seeing the magic from the outside, or not seeing it because it is inside. I was brought up with "The Bomb". It was the new thing in the world, to be accommodated by psyche; by pretty much everyone in the world. "When you hear the alarm, crouch under your desk, put your head between your knees, and kiss your arse goodbye." It was transformative, this new destructive power, and more shocking even than the revelation of the depths of human depravity exposed in the deliberate mass starvation in Russia, and the Final Solution in Europe. This is my interpretation of events: we haunt ourselves. The secular magicians are playing with forces they cannot comprehend because they cannot comprehend themselves. — unenlightened

You were taught to worship Shiva.

No path led from the magical religiosity of the non-intellectual classes of Asia to a rational, methodical control of life. — Max Weber, Sociology of Religion

You have to laugh, surely, at such hubristic naivety? And written just after WW1, that fine exemplar of rational methodical control —not.

A thermostat controls the temperature by allowing it to fluctuate between limits. Where is the thermostat of humanity, and whose hand is upon it? Poor Max is clearly in the thrall of his own magic if he thinks it is a human hand.

You were taught to worship Shiva. — frank

Speak for yourself Frank; everyone already knows I'm insane!

Speak for yourself Frank — unenlightened

Ok, sorry.

It's not personal, that's the point. It was Oppenheimer who quoted the Bhagavad-Gita in 1945. "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

You have to laugh, surely, at such hubristic naivety? And written just after WW1, that fine exemplar of rational methodical control —not. — unenlightened

He had initially supported the war, maybe because it seemed to represent a cure for, as he saw it, the mediocrity of rationalization and disenchantment. He was not especially approving of the "rational, methodical control of life," as far as I can tell. Nationalism of course is another kind of magic.

Apparently he sort of turned against the war later, but I've forgotten why.

It's not personal, that's the point. It was Oppenheimer who quoted the Bhagavad-Gita in 1945. "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." — unenlightened

I meant you were part of a generation baptised in it.

That already answers my question, then, about whether the self is a spell -- no! The self is already there, as is an interpretation too. There's a lot already going on before we can say, here's a distortion of an interpretation. — Moliere

Yeah, but no, but... one is not born with the right interpretation, or any interpretation, one is indoctrinated with here and now, already haunted by 'once upon a time'. In other words, magic is what we are made of, – magic is subjectivity itself, and the repudiation of it is the repudiation of humanity itself in the name of "rational control", alias "total war". The scientist has thrown himself out of the bath with the bathwater, and has become Death.

And if that doesn't convince everyone to repudiate the enlightenment then nothing else I can think of will.

One puzzler is whether a person can transform herself through redirecting self-talk.

We recently had a thread about a famous American comic strip author. One of the things he's famous for is that he apparently guided his career by writing down his goals as if they were bound to happen. In each case, his goal was realized. One of his written messages was something like: "My comic will become the number one syndicated comic in America." And it happened.

I've used this myself, recently. Learning to trade on the foreign exchange market is known for its choppy psychological waves, especially at the beginning. Even before I learned first hand what they were talking about, I figured I better write down my goals. At the time, I thought they were very modest. Turns out, they were actually pretty challenging. My goals are like the glimmer of a lighthouse, confirming that the shore is over there. As I travel, the light gets brighter. My goals remind me to stay disciplined. At this point, I have chosen a strategy and I write it out every morning when I analyze the charts. It's my magic.

Notably, I'm drawn to using the ocean as a symbol of the wildness of emotion that follows trying and failing. The market itself is like an ocean with unknown depths and travelling "whales." Whales are institutional traders or guys like George Soros (known for having made the historically largest profit off the foreign exchange market.).

According the American literature, the ocean is the watery depths of the psyche and in response to a battle waged against it by a captain of rationality, it sends forth a white whale called Moby Dick. It doesn't end well for the captain or his ship. This book is specifically intended as a warning in an age of hyper-rationality: that waging a war against the psyche is dangerous to the whole community. The psyche has to play out its stories and it will react violently to being molested.

So this kind of magic doesn't allow you to create whatever world you might think of on a whim. It just acts as a rudder to guide you through the maze of possibilities toward the one you want. Every step of the way, you have to acknowledge the majesty and power of the psyche. Pit yourself against it, and you're doomed.

Speaking of a re-occurring magical spell -- can we repudiate the enlightenment? Haven't we already done so, or tried?

Dis-enchantment as the repudiation of subjectivity: no hauntings from the past, no indoctrinations in the here and now, and no invocations for the future. If we are magic, and we're still around to say, then the dis-enchantment must be some kind of an illusion.

Even if we are magic, for dis-enchantment to work the magical power cannot be me. There are magical powers in the world which act, which various invocationists unleash upon the world and which we don't know really how they work. Once the advertisement increases sales the secular magician goes on to summon another demon into the world without a care for what other effects might come about. It lives on somehow beyond that moment, in the hauntings. And there are other secular magicians who will offer to exorcise the hauntings, too. But these offerings are offerings directed at me, not formations of me. I suppose that's what I'd like to say, even if we are magic.

Speaking of magic, John Michael Greer has a series of posts on disenchantment, the current edition being The Destiny of Disenchantment, discussing Owen Barfield, Ken Wilber and Jean Gebser, and what 'post-disenchantment' might consist of.

An enchanted one, I hope. — Jamal

I'm that old bloke down the road who gives you a half-dozen oversized Zucchinis.

I find it enchanting.

Dow nunder, there's a book called "Dark Emu" by Bruce Pascoe. It describes the civilisation that existed here before colonisation, one so very, very different that it was unrecognisable as a civilisation by the white fellas as they wandered through fields of grain that had been cultivated for tens of thousands of years - from long before Asia and Europe decided to farm.

It's a book guaranteed to piss off folk who think civilisation consists in monuments. Add it to your reading list.

Bruce taught me short story writing back in the 1980's.

Very cool.

I was looking for a link to send to @Jamal, and came across this graph of reviews of Dark Emu, which sums up the response beautifully.

A book that divides.

Dark Emu — Banno

Just had a look around the internet. Pretty controversial eh!

My first thought was that Bruce might implicitly be conceding too much to the linear progress narrative that divides people into distinct stages of development. Turns out that’s one of the criticisms the book faced from historians.

Arguably, Pascoe is using that narrative, of a linear progression, because it is foundational to the world view of his antagonists. See Inside story.

Pascoe is consciously using the proud words the invaders used about themselves, words that justified dispossession — farming, villages, crops — and here he finds them in colonial descriptions of the original inhabitants of Australia, who he is keen to show were not “mere hunter-gatherers.”

He is that clever a writer.

Cool. Maybe I’ll read it.

There is a fair amount of inaccurate information circulating about the native Australians. Poignantly, that information (baloney about dreamtime and so forth) made it's way back to aboriginals who had no knowledge of the culture of their ancestors. They adopted the bullshit as their own.

I'll stick to scholars, thanks.

They adopted the bullshit as their own. — frank

Maybe at that point it’s not bullshit any more. Maybe culture works like that all the time.

You are being far more polite than I would be, were I to respond to .

I’m interested to see what you say actually.