We have discussed your penchant for blaming money and materialism (the M&Ms that won't melt in your mind?:) as your whupping child and my penchant for going farthest upstream and stopping child abuse/neglect as the fundamental cause of what is wrong with the Human Condition.
You do not cite any writers who perhaps could have helped you to your conclusion/concussion (sorry, not really sarcasm, you know we have fun poking each other in our ribs:) here so I will:
Pitirim Sorokin, Oswald Spengler, Arnold Toynbee.
Also the hard to find book on Sorokin’s Sensate Culture:
The Sensate Culture: Western Civilization between Chaos and Transformation by Harold O. J. Brown.
Here is Amazon blurb on the book that much reminds me of your take on the “decline of the West” (pace, Spengler—who I recall you too have read in this genre?):
“Why have so many lost confidence and hope in spite of the progress of modern times? Why do even those who deny their despair run ever faster in pursuit of pleasures that burn all thought from their minds? Distinguished Christian thinker Harold O. J. Brown argues in this incisive analysis that our culture suffers such symptoms because we have cut ourselves off from our spiritual roots. We are in the last stages of what the late Russian scholar Pitirim Sorokin called a late, degenerate, sensate culture. Furthermore, this crisis of culture is too opaque to be penetrated by human understanding and efforts alone. Instead we must begin by confessing our need for grace and wisdom from above. Brown shows how, with that confession, Christians may be able to point the way out of cultural despair. They above all people know the power of faith, hope, and love. Hence the author can conclude that, There are some indications that disillusionment with the fading favors of a rotting sensate culture is causing people to become receptive to solutions that are identifiably Christian.”
Sounds like you? I think you could/should have written it?
I would like to see you (re)read these authors, especially Brown, and do a revised version of your civilizational decline thesis.
Looking forward to reading it.
To end with a new beginning:
My take on “civilizational decline” is akin to that in the book: The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power by Joel Kramer & Diana Alstad which is about "Structural Violence/Control/Authoritarianism" (which I know is your interest too) baked into the Human Condition, so I hope you will read this as I think it can add to your take on this topic.
Hi Jack. Thank you for the suggested readings. Just one point of clarification: I *did* cite one very good source, Sir John Bagot Glubb, who has the disadvantage of not being anywhere near as well known as Spengler or Toynbee. Sorokin, whose name I'd heard, *does* look like someone I need to acquaint myself with, and have already begun. I wasn't sure what to do with the second to last link above (I'm low tech, as you know); the third took me to what looks like a good introduction to Sorokin's thought.
Lots of new jargon, though, and the jury's out on Sorokin's helpfulness to what looks like is going to be my main project going forward once things settle down a little on the home front: integrating Christian and Stoic worldviews into a single, actionable package. To begin with the person is to begin with the realization of the difference between what we can control and what we cannot control. We cannot control the weather, or the fact that, e.g., Benjamin Netanyahu is a warmongering sociopath who just attacked Iran last night. We can control our decision to write about it (not that he's going to care; you cannot control others' responses or opinions).
Re: childrearing: wishing you saw the effects of *structure* on the conditions that make good childrearing and avoidance of neglect/abuse more likely to occur. *Structure* here takes us back to at least one of those factors you eschew as unhelpful: the money political economy (my phrase for it) which by its very nature is stress-inducing since many of us are not transactional hustlers by nature. (For this use of "hustler" see Sec. 4 of https://medium.com/@stevenyates/10-things-i-wish-i-knew-when-i-was-young-and-stupid-d3158bea391c. ) Even the superrich suffer from stress, though, and will neglect their offspring: Exhibit A: Elon Musk. Trump, incidentally, is a transactional thinker to the max: everything is quid pro quo.
Interestingly, the need for principled, effective childrearing has a characteristic you may or may not have noticed: for the parents it does not pay anything monetarily. Just the opposite: raising a child, which includes food, clothing, school supplies, etc., has gotten so expensive that it is now a factor in falling birthrates. This does not diminish its importance. One of the drawbacks of marketplace über alles political economy of neoliberals, libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, voluntaryists, etc., is that (1) what can be monetized is often not just worthless but objectively harmful, e.g., many drugs, legal or illegal, and (2) civilization absolutely depends on many activities that not only do not pay but constitute expenses. Childrearing is the example closes to home. Just a thought.
Be all that as it may, since I'd not heard of the Harold O.J. Brown volume at all ... interesting: it has the same publisher as What Should Philosophy Do?, Wipf and Stock ... I'll be sure to put it on my list for the second half of this year.
Interesting article Steven, thanks.
We have discussed your penchant for blaming money and materialism (the M&Ms that won't melt in your mind?:) as your whupping child and my penchant for going farthest upstream and stopping child abuse/neglect as the fundamental cause of what is wrong with the Human Condition.
You do not cite any writers who perhaps could have helped you to your conclusion/concussion (sorry, not really sarcasm, you know we have fun poking each other in our ribs:) here so I will:
Pitirim Sorokin, Oswald Spengler, Arnold Toynbee.
Also the hard to find book on Sorokin’s Sensate Culture:
The Sensate Culture: Western Civilization between Chaos and Transformation by Harold O. J. Brown.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1556351887/?mr_donotredirect
Here is Amazon blurb on the book that much reminds me of your take on the “decline of the West” (pace, Spengler—who I recall you too have read in this genre?):
“Why have so many lost confidence and hope in spite of the progress of modern times? Why do even those who deny their despair run ever faster in pursuit of pleasures that burn all thought from their minds? Distinguished Christian thinker Harold O. J. Brown argues in this incisive analysis that our culture suffers such symptoms because we have cut ourselves off from our spiritual roots. We are in the last stages of what the late Russian scholar Pitirim Sorokin called a late, degenerate, sensate culture. Furthermore, this crisis of culture is too opaque to be penetrated by human understanding and efforts alone. Instead we must begin by confessing our need for grace and wisdom from above. Brown shows how, with that confession, Christians may be able to point the way out of cultural despair. They above all people know the power of faith, hope, and love. Hence the author can conclude that, There are some indications that disillusionment with the fading favors of a rotting sensate culture is causing people to become receptive to solutions that are identifiably Christian.”
Sounds like you? I think you could/should have written it?
Here to read it on Archive:
https://archive.org/details/sensateculture0000brow/page/n3/mode/1up
Here is good intro to Sorokin:
Pitirim Sorokin – Sensate, Ideational, and Idealistic Cultures
https://www.john-uebersax.com/pdf/SorokinCulturalOrientations.pdf
I would like to see you (re)read these authors, especially Brown, and do a revised version of your civilizational decline thesis.
Looking forward to reading it.
To end with a new beginning:
My take on “civilizational decline” is akin to that in the book: The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power by Joel Kramer & Diana Alstad which is about "Structural Violence/Control/Authoritarianism" (which I know is your interest too) baked into the Human Condition, so I hope you will read this as I think it can add to your take on this topic.
Hi Jack. Thank you for the suggested readings. Just one point of clarification: I *did* cite one very good source, Sir John Bagot Glubb, who has the disadvantage of not being anywhere near as well known as Spengler or Toynbee. Sorokin, whose name I'd heard, *does* look like someone I need to acquaint myself with, and have already begun. I wasn't sure what to do with the second to last link above (I'm low tech, as you know); the third took me to what looks like a good introduction to Sorokin's thought.
Lots of new jargon, though, and the jury's out on Sorokin's helpfulness to what looks like is going to be my main project going forward once things settle down a little on the home front: integrating Christian and Stoic worldviews into a single, actionable package. To begin with the person is to begin with the realization of the difference between what we can control and what we cannot control. We cannot control the weather, or the fact that, e.g., Benjamin Netanyahu is a warmongering sociopath who just attacked Iran last night. We can control our decision to write about it (not that he's going to care; you cannot control others' responses or opinions).
Re: childrearing: wishing you saw the effects of *structure* on the conditions that make good childrearing and avoidance of neglect/abuse more likely to occur. *Structure* here takes us back to at least one of those factors you eschew as unhelpful: the money political economy (my phrase for it) which by its very nature is stress-inducing since many of us are not transactional hustlers by nature. (For this use of "hustler" see Sec. 4 of https://medium.com/@stevenyates/10-things-i-wish-i-knew-when-i-was-young-and-stupid-d3158bea391c. ) Even the superrich suffer from stress, though, and will neglect their offspring: Exhibit A: Elon Musk. Trump, incidentally, is a transactional thinker to the max: everything is quid pro quo.
Interestingly, the need for principled, effective childrearing has a characteristic you may or may not have noticed: for the parents it does not pay anything monetarily. Just the opposite: raising a child, which includes food, clothing, school supplies, etc., has gotten so expensive that it is now a factor in falling birthrates. This does not diminish its importance. One of the drawbacks of marketplace über alles political economy of neoliberals, libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, voluntaryists, etc., is that (1) what can be monetized is often not just worthless but objectively harmful, e.g., many drugs, legal or illegal, and (2) civilization absolutely depends on many activities that not only do not pay but constitute expenses. Childrearing is the example closes to home. Just a thought.
Be all that as it may, since I'd not heard of the Harold O.J. Brown volume at all ... interesting: it has the same publisher as What Should Philosophy Do?, Wipf and Stock ... I'll be sure to put it on my list for the second half of this year.