Very interesting and I will probably go back to reread some parts later. But my initial thoughts are that this is why I prefer the way Dougald talks about it, as opposed to Vanessa. (They are the two I have experience reading) We are at the time of choosing what to hold on to. No one knows what exactly will happen in the future, although if you are looking I believe it is obvious that some sort of collapse is coming. I've been thinking that for quite awhile but the last three months in the US has only solidified my opinion. We are at a time now, where we can begin to decide on an individual level what we want to keep. For me, I am keeping the skills needed to grow food and cook it. Once I feel like I have a good handle on that, I hope to begin to save other things. My husband is looking more towards politics and community. He is reaching out to others through the Internet and locally to preserve connections. When I am living in the ruins, or my children are, or my children's children are, I hope that they will still have those skills and values that me and my husband are trying to learn, live and teach.
I guess that is not an exact response to the content of your post. 😅 I suppose, I don't think it matters what the definition of modernity is. I don't think it matters how exactly society will collapse. It matters more what you do with that knowledge.
Thanks Nicole. Knowing how to grow food and cook it seems wise. I’m blessed with a garden, but don’t yet make use of it for that purpose because I’m too busy trying to define modernity (just kidding). I agree that establishing our relationship to collapse is important, as is figuring out what follows for how we live. Perhaps my post was a kind of confession that I am not there emotionally yet.
May "modernity" be too reified a concept? Consider the Mods versus the Rockers in mid-60's London, and the moral panic of the British press, in which both were presented as signs of the coming end of civilization. This is not to say the metacrisis wasn't already looming. The later-60s perspective from within the American counter-culture contained an awareness of it. That was my perspective then, carried forward since. I'm just not sure that being concerned with being "modern" is even the right street light under which to search for the keys to our best tomorrows.
In a line of Plato celebrated by Beat poet and Fug Ed Sanders, "When the mode of the music changes, the walls of the city shake." May we shift our psychological and social tones, tunings, harmonies, syncopations, even discords such that beauty, virtue and honesty become more fully expressed in societies, interpersonally, politically, and spiritually, in the near-enough future? As Sarah Wilson (yet another Realisation speaker) posted yesterday, on her return to Australia she's seeing more kindness than she'd expected from past years there, following on the landslide electoral victory of the saner party. Perversely -- and incredibly dangerously -- may Trumpism turn out to be the fever which breaks "modernity's" illness? What comes next may be left best named by future historians.
“I'm just not sure that being concerned with being "modern" is even the right street light under which to search for the keys to our best tomorrows.”
Great line!
That’s partly why I wrote the piece. Modernity ending has become part of the conceptual practice in my field of inquiry, and I’m not sure it’s helpful or not.
I think modernity ending because it is rare for people to demonstrate genuine delight or surprise or admiration about the latest shiny technology. That delight is fleeting as is our exhausted, overstimulated attention span. Modernity has been too much for at least my human capacity.
I think we still flirt not out of choice but because we have to. Any reflective person doesn't want a long-term or deep relationship. But, also, there aren't any other options (maybe the "conservatives" are only flirting with "wonder", neo-romanticism etc as well?). Plus, because we - "I say 'we' out of politeness"- have been shaped for so long by modernity (capitalist realism/modernity) we must continue to flirt- even if we've fallen out of love.
[At the prosperity conference in Mayfair we both attended a Tory MP (forget the name but he has written on Adam Smith) said: "this is the best time to be alive". I guess that kind of temporal parochialism is to be expected. The "best" regime for moderns is always the current one (Manent writes)]
"Who could destroy a part of their own heart?"
-- Solzhenitsyn (haven't read him but liked the quote).
I remember meeting you and you gave me a copy of your book (on spirituality). Rowan Williams was the main speaker. Ofc, I don't expect you to remember me…it's okay. Just saying.
Yes, I think AI represents another hollowing out of human subjectivity. More western nihilism, I'm afraid.
Ah, that was a few years ago now! (2019?) I believe you mean a CUSP event where I was speaking about my essay on Bildung. Apologies for not remembering.
Very interesting and I will probably go back to reread some parts later. But my initial thoughts are that this is why I prefer the way Dougald talks about it, as opposed to Vanessa. (They are the two I have experience reading) We are at the time of choosing what to hold on to. No one knows what exactly will happen in the future, although if you are looking I believe it is obvious that some sort of collapse is coming. I've been thinking that for quite awhile but the last three months in the US has only solidified my opinion. We are at a time now, where we can begin to decide on an individual level what we want to keep. For me, I am keeping the skills needed to grow food and cook it. Once I feel like I have a good handle on that, I hope to begin to save other things. My husband is looking more towards politics and community. He is reaching out to others through the Internet and locally to preserve connections. When I am living in the ruins, or my children are, or my children's children are, I hope that they will still have those skills and values that me and my husband are trying to learn, live and teach.
I guess that is not an exact response to the content of your post. 😅 I suppose, I don't think it matters what the definition of modernity is. I don't think it matters how exactly society will collapse. It matters more what you do with that knowledge.
Thanks Nicole. Knowing how to grow food and cook it seems wise. I’m blessed with a garden, but don’t yet make use of it for that purpose because I’m too busy trying to define modernity (just kidding). I agree that establishing our relationship to collapse is important, as is figuring out what follows for how we live. Perhaps my post was a kind of confession that I am not there emotionally yet.
Nicely put, well elucidated. Thanks.
May "modernity" be too reified a concept? Consider the Mods versus the Rockers in mid-60's London, and the moral panic of the British press, in which both were presented as signs of the coming end of civilization. This is not to say the metacrisis wasn't already looming. The later-60s perspective from within the American counter-culture contained an awareness of it. That was my perspective then, carried forward since. I'm just not sure that being concerned with being "modern" is even the right street light under which to search for the keys to our best tomorrows.
In a line of Plato celebrated by Beat poet and Fug Ed Sanders, "When the mode of the music changes, the walls of the city shake." May we shift our psychological and social tones, tunings, harmonies, syncopations, even discords such that beauty, virtue and honesty become more fully expressed in societies, interpersonally, politically, and spiritually, in the near-enough future? As Sarah Wilson (yet another Realisation speaker) posted yesterday, on her return to Australia she's seeing more kindness than she'd expected from past years there, following on the landslide electoral victory of the saner party. Perversely -- and incredibly dangerously -- may Trumpism turn out to be the fever which breaks "modernity's" illness? What comes next may be left best named by future historians.
“I'm just not sure that being concerned with being "modern" is even the right street light under which to search for the keys to our best tomorrows.”
Great line!
That’s partly why I wrote the piece. Modernity ending has become part of the conceptual practice in my field of inquiry, and I’m not sure it’s helpful or not.
I think modernity ending because it is rare for people to demonstrate genuine delight or surprise or admiration about the latest shiny technology. That delight is fleeting as is our exhausted, overstimulated attention span. Modernity has been too much for at least my human capacity.
"AI is as likely to enslave us as liberate us."
Really? "As"?
I think we still flirt not out of choice but because we have to. Any reflective person doesn't want a long-term or deep relationship. But, also, there aren't any other options (maybe the "conservatives" are only flirting with "wonder", neo-romanticism etc as well?). Plus, because we - "I say 'we' out of politeness"- have been shaped for so long by modernity (capitalist realism/modernity) we must continue to flirt- even if we've fallen out of love.
[At the prosperity conference in Mayfair we both attended a Tory MP (forget the name but he has written on Adam Smith) said: "this is the best time to be alive". I guess that kind of temporal parochialism is to be expected. The "best" regime for moderns is always the current one (Manent writes)]
"Who could destroy a part of their own heart?"
-- Solzhenitsyn (haven't read him but liked the quote).
You feel it should be that AI is more likely to enslave us? I could live with that claim, though doubts remain.
I’m not sure we were ever at the same conference in Mayfair?
I remember meeting you and you gave me a copy of your book (on spirituality). Rowan Williams was the main speaker. Ofc, I don't expect you to remember me…it's okay. Just saying.
Yes, I think AI represents another hollowing out of human subjectivity. More western nihilism, I'm afraid.
Ah, that was a few years ago now! (2019?) I believe you mean a CUSP event where I was speaking about my essay on Bildung. Apologies for not remembering.
No, no problem at all. Not sure who organized it…T. Jackson, I think? Will Davies was also there so I'm sure you're right.