It is difficult, if not impossible, to see anything from that low perspective. Probably one of the most uninspiring things I’ve read from him. There is this permanent attempt to personalize and pigeon hole a problem that is incredibly more vast and complex than presented. I’m not only thinking of Snyder, but of others who I do agree with and enormously respect, like Professor Hansen, etc. Have they ever talked to any guy on the street and asked them what their thoughts and expectations are? Have they ever had a conversation about “what are your plans this afternoon” or “where are you heading to for dinner tomorrow”?
He seems to be living in a very different world than mine. Until the people on the street starts to change, there’s absolutely no hope. There are no excuses for being stupid anymore, there hasn’t been for sometime.
There is a section (can’t remember if it is in Catton’s classic, 1980, or Ophuls’ “Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity”) which imagines the waggon of a steam train literally carrying the corpses of elephants, calculated to the exact amount of coal burned on the engine.. Actually, that might be from Hansen after all! In any case, those are just two examples of some important contribution to our predicament. I’m afraid to say that Snyder’s attempt adds very little light for the common people to understand where we are and why (quite the opposite).
I leave here with a note on the new religion of our age.
“Chronic dissatisfaction and yearning breed millenarian cults People need not have suffered actual material deprivation; heightened desires can produce equivalent dissatisfaction. The neo-exuberant ‘revolution of rising expectations’ together with the deterioration of the worldwide ecological basis for fulfilling such expanding hopes, have tended to foster millenarian beliefs and activities.” (Catton, Overshoot, 1980, p.185)
I don’t look for inspiration from public intellectuals, not even people I respect as much as Tim Snyder. I look for insightful perspectives, and this was one of the most insightful I have come across in a while. Is it the whole truth? Certainly not. It is an interesting aspect of the truth. Besides, there is no such thing as the whole truth, because Truth is not a whole that is comprised of parts. It is suprarational and supramental.
What Snyder has demonstrated is how much can be understood if we acknowledge (i) the total uselessness of rational explanation and (ii) the power and influence of the infrarational.
Call me arrogant if you will, but I think I know all I need to know about the thoughts and expectations of the guy in the street. I am aware that “even from a fool, if thou listen not with the ear and the reasoning mind but the soul's light, thou canst gather much wisdom,” as Sri Aurobindo wrote in his Thoughts and Aphorisms. Unfortunately the light of my soul isn’t yet up to that.
I fully agree with you that “until the people on the street starts to change, there’s absolutely no hope.” There is something to that effect in several of my previous posts. But there is also quite a bit about what it takes to make them change, so I won’t rehearse it here. What is certain that no amount of lecturing, however intelligent or inspiring, can do the job. If Snyder with is lecture actually attempted to add “light for the common people to understand where we are and why,” I would consider him a fool. Do you actually believe that Catton’s cerebrations (your quote) can enlighten the great unwashed?
No, I don’t think so, but it’s a notch up from Odin for sure. We are way closer to a technocratic cargo cult than paganism (assuming both are not the same). And I obviously do think that both of you, from who precedes up until now, have added something very substantial and truthful. As for Snyder on this piece, I doubt it.
I've given it a more attentive reading now, and still maintain the initial impression. But there is a fundamental difference that would be good to highlight. The story can be seen in two ways: from the point we are at, trying to make sense of things that already exist, or how we came to be at the point we are at, trying to make sense of things that do not exist anymore. What stands between these two is always an impersonal MATERIAL difference, in the sense that those are material constraints of a world that is already locked in, because it has changed physically; what it once existed, with its multifarious realms of possibility, does not exist anymore and cannot (we know it as a physical law) logically return. Why is this so crucial? Because for as long as we only talk about the former, we are within a universe of discourse that is self-perpetuating, we are missing the escape gate so to speak. Counterintuitively, the optimistic position is the latter. Our point in case is always material.
Allow me an innocent example. In 1902, one hundred and twenty two years ago (this is pretty much yesterday in biological terms), Hudson could walk up and down the country, and when he got tired or the weather turned, he simply knocked on any random cottage door in any village of the south of England and he would be lodged. He will actually stay there! If the family were having dinner, he would have dinner with them, if they didn't have a room he would stay with a neighbour, etc. How inconceivable is that? It's almost impossible to imagine. Why? Because that world does not exist anymore. Someone might say, "Yes it does, we call it AirBnB now, it's inside my pocket and it works, we have copied it from other parts of the technosphere and it works, it all works, we have SEEN it". That is basically a universal cargo cult. Was this implemented by someone with a sinister plan that we all look up to emulate? In some cases it might, but in general what it would allow us to look beyond, is the fact that we have lost and are continually losing something materially inconceivable (through the back door of the truck).
That sounds rather materialistic. Materialistically, however, the following is true. If A and B are points (or events) in spacetime, and B is objectively later than A, then there is a point C and a reference frame F1 in which C is simultaneous with A, and there is another reference frame F2 in which C is simultaneous with B. So?
To be clear, Orwell meant that if you are in position to write the history books (like Stalin then for the USSR and Putin now for Russia), you are able to create a fake determinism by which you can brainwash/control the people of your country. Putin is adept at it, as Snyder has shown on numerous occasions.
Correct. But he also meant that the only way out was to hang on to an old piece of matter (in his case a simple picture) to prove that we are still sane.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to see anything from that low perspective. Probably one of the most uninspiring things I’ve read from him. There is this permanent attempt to personalize and pigeon hole a problem that is incredibly more vast and complex than presented. I’m not only thinking of Snyder, but of others who I do agree with and enormously respect, like Professor Hansen, etc. Have they ever talked to any guy on the street and asked them what their thoughts and expectations are? Have they ever had a conversation about “what are your plans this afternoon” or “where are you heading to for dinner tomorrow”?
He seems to be living in a very different world than mine. Until the people on the street starts to change, there’s absolutely no hope. There are no excuses for being stupid anymore, there hasn’t been for sometime.
There is a section (can’t remember if it is in Catton’s classic, 1980, or Ophuls’ “Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity”) which imagines the waggon of a steam train literally carrying the corpses of elephants, calculated to the exact amount of coal burned on the engine.. Actually, that might be from Hansen after all! In any case, those are just two examples of some important contribution to our predicament. I’m afraid to say that Snyder’s attempt adds very little light for the common people to understand where we are and why (quite the opposite).
I leave here with a note on the new religion of our age.
“Chronic dissatisfaction and yearning breed millenarian cults People need not have suffered actual material deprivation; heightened desires can produce equivalent dissatisfaction. The neo-exuberant ‘revolution of rising expectations’ together with the deterioration of the worldwide ecological basis for fulfilling such expanding hopes, have tended to foster millenarian beliefs and activities.” (Catton, Overshoot, 1980, p.185)
I don’t look for inspiration from public intellectuals, not even people I respect as much as Tim Snyder. I look for insightful perspectives, and this was one of the most insightful I have come across in a while. Is it the whole truth? Certainly not. It is an interesting aspect of the truth. Besides, there is no such thing as the whole truth, because Truth is not a whole that is comprised of parts. It is suprarational and supramental.
What Snyder has demonstrated is how much can be understood if we acknowledge (i) the total uselessness of rational explanation and (ii) the power and influence of the infrarational.
Call me arrogant if you will, but I think I know all I need to know about the thoughts and expectations of the guy in the street. I am aware that “even from a fool, if thou listen not with the ear and the reasoning mind but the soul's light, thou canst gather much wisdom,” as Sri Aurobindo wrote in his Thoughts and Aphorisms. Unfortunately the light of my soul isn’t yet up to that.
I fully agree with you that “until the people on the street starts to change, there’s absolutely no hope.” There is something to that effect in several of my previous posts. But there is also quite a bit about what it takes to make them change, so I won’t rehearse it here. What is certain that no amount of lecturing, however intelligent or inspiring, can do the job. If Snyder with is lecture actually attempted to add “light for the common people to understand where we are and why,” I would consider him a fool. Do you actually believe that Catton’s cerebrations (your quote) can enlighten the great unwashed?
No, I don’t think so, but it’s a notch up from Odin for sure. We are way closer to a technocratic cargo cult than paganism (assuming both are not the same). And I obviously do think that both of you, from who precedes up until now, have added something very substantial and truthful. As for Snyder on this piece, I doubt it.
It seems to me that Snyder's neopaganism lies at the roots of the technocratic cargo cult, so they are not the same.
I've given it a more attentive reading now, and still maintain the initial impression. But there is a fundamental difference that would be good to highlight. The story can be seen in two ways: from the point we are at, trying to make sense of things that already exist, or how we came to be at the point we are at, trying to make sense of things that do not exist anymore. What stands between these two is always an impersonal MATERIAL difference, in the sense that those are material constraints of a world that is already locked in, because it has changed physically; what it once existed, with its multifarious realms of possibility, does not exist anymore and cannot (we know it as a physical law) logically return. Why is this so crucial? Because for as long as we only talk about the former, we are within a universe of discourse that is self-perpetuating, we are missing the escape gate so to speak. Counterintuitively, the optimistic position is the latter. Our point in case is always material.
Allow me an innocent example. In 1902, one hundred and twenty two years ago (this is pretty much yesterday in biological terms), Hudson could walk up and down the country, and when he got tired or the weather turned, he simply knocked on any random cottage door in any village of the south of England and he would be lodged. He will actually stay there! If the family were having dinner, he would have dinner with them, if they didn't have a room he would stay with a neighbour, etc. How inconceivable is that? It's almost impossible to imagine. Why? Because that world does not exist anymore. Someone might say, "Yes it does, we call it AirBnB now, it's inside my pocket and it works, we have copied it from other parts of the technosphere and it works, it all works, we have SEEN it". That is basically a universal cargo cult. Was this implemented by someone with a sinister plan that we all look up to emulate? In some cases it might, but in general what it would allow us to look beyond, is the fact that we have lost and are continually losing something materially inconceivable (through the back door of the truck).
That sounds rather materialistic. Materialistically, however, the following is true. If A and B are points (or events) in spacetime, and B is objectively later than A, then there is a point C and a reference frame F1 in which C is simultaneous with A, and there is another reference frame F2 in which C is simultaneous with B. So?
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” (George Orwell, 1984)
To be clear, Orwell meant that if you are in position to write the history books (like Stalin then for the USSR and Putin now for Russia), you are able to create a fake determinism by which you can brainwash/control the people of your country. Putin is adept at it, as Snyder has shown on numerous occasions.
Correct. But he also meant that the only way out was to hang on to an old piece of matter (in his case a simple picture) to prove that we are still sane.