Why are things so bad? And why will they continue to grow worse? The Enlightenment. Also known—or, rather, as it should be known—as The Great Corruption. Things are bad because we all believe the Enlightenment’s foundational axioms, all of which are false. But all of which drive much of our behavior and our thoughts.
The word 'expert' should never be used except in scare quotes.
There are no 'experts' in life - specialists in certain defined fields might, I emphasize 'might,' have more arcane knowledge, but they deal in the material and don't know or care about the soul.
Anyway, most of the fields in which the credentialists claim 'expertise' are largely if not wholly intellectually fraudulent.
N.B. I am not talking about the physical sciences here, although knowledge claims there must always be taken as contingent as well
One of the main takeaways of the Covid era was I learned how little the medical fraternity understand about the immune system. I mean the detail. Triggering an immune response we have understood since Edward Jenner's cowpox experiments. But understanding the detail, not so much.
The medical fraternity doesn't know that much at all.
The science/research industry is structured in a way that promotes scientists chasing endlessly fruitless endeavors. Why? Because that's where the money is.
You only get paid once for what you do discover, but you'll be paid forever for what you "might" discover. And most scientific research is not well understood by those who control the flow of money. What an easy grift.
As a result, there are few scientists that are truly looking for answers. That is why in physics, little has changed since the 70s.
*** We are today making more investments into the foundations of physics than ever before. And yet nothing is coming out of it. That’s a problem and it’s a problem we should talk about. ***
The medical scientific industry is no different. I'm sure you've heard this a million times, and most people consider it a conspiracy theory, but nobody is looking for a "cure" because that stops the money. But this is actually true. How many diseases have been "cured" compared to how many have "treatments" -- that are lifelong?
It doesn't require some evil mastermind commanding people to do this or that, it just requires a system that rewards failure. Kind of like the scientific systems we have now!
The "big money" is on the production side (of medicines) -- but the big money for scientists is on the research side. Scientists are endlessly looking for a cure (for whatever) but instead continually come up with new treatments?
Don't believe me. Take a look at the number of prescription drugs for depression. Why the hell are there so many prescription drugs for depression? Did any of the prior drugs ever really work? If so, why do they need to keep coming up with new ones? The argument then becomes about patient tolerance. It's a shell game.
Totally agree. But regulation has played its part. the FDA used to only have the authority to remove drugs from the market. Then they changed the rules where you have to prove efficacy to them, the FDA, not the patients. That plays its part.
Government regulation nearly always results in much less than ideal outcomes. Regulations are the worst because they set the minimum threshold, where competition, and advancement almost always results in better outcomes.
Well said, yet a new dawn inevitably follows every plunge into darkness. It may not be on a schedule that we find agreeable, and the daylight probably won’t be the exact hue we wish, but it will certainly be glorious when compared to the preceding night.
The worst part about the Great Corruption is that it has given birth to both modernity and postmodernist, which have rendered the entirety of the world we currently live in desacrelised in places it has been allowed to spread.
There is no better indictment of the Enlightenment's failings than the French Revolution, the Terror and the reign of Napoleon. The full spectrum of human vulgarity and duplicity can be couched in intellectualism, pride, expediency and "science." Communism itself was/is explained as a science. Have we now a new war between the Rationalists and Empiricists? Melville wrote we should leave both heads behind and sail trimmed and high the water.
Good polemical piece. I mostly agree with you. My problem with the Enlightenment is not its basic premises, but that it has failed to deliver on any of its promises. I know some people argue that our current material wealth and so on, have all derived from the Enlightenment and without it we'd still be medieval peasants living in misery. Maybe, but that is just speculation. I remember reading years ago that pre-revolutionary France was making strides in science and industry and social reforms were on the table. Maybe that's true, an "expert" might chip in on that. The point of the piece I read was that the Revolution killed off social, scientific and industrial innovation, leaving the field to the British. I should dig that out and read it again.
For the most part I accept and agree with your critique. There is no equality among real living persons. Secularism and utilitarianism have been disastrous.
But part of me does still believe that the ideal of rights in the negative sense, a moral space around the individual that provides them with a certain inviolable distance from other individuals and the state, is genuinely worth caring about.
The question that nags at me is whether you can get this much without ultimately collapsing into a war of special interests motivated by "woke" resentment and envy. The other side of the question is, does that require the enlightenment's vision of a rational self-unto-itself, or do we get what is worth having in rights out of older traditions, like Catholic natural law? Each year that passes, I'm coming to believe it's the latter or nothing.
I really enjoyed reading this article. It is an odd paradigm shift coming to realize how destructive pure rationalism is to the human soul. In my twenties I celebrated much of the enlightenment. When I came back to church, I began to have doubts. When I began to study history and move towards the Catholic Church, the enlightenment seems less light and more dark. Thank you for the piece.
The enlightenment oozed from Venice's salons and infected European thought. It marked the beginning of the Venetian invasion of Netherlands and England which saw the establishment of the 3-city Empire - London, Vatican and Washington DC.
The Venetian Black Nobility, via their investment houses (BlackRock and Vanguard) now own all the corporations which are robbing the world into abject poverty.
This is the enlightenment of their bank accounts but the dark ages for humanity.
The enlightenment oozed from Venice's salons and infected European thought. It marked the beginning of the Venetian invasion of Netherlands and England which saw the establishment of the 3-city Empire - London, Vatican and Washington DC.
The Venetian Black Nobility, via their investment houses (BlackRock and Vanguard) now own all the corporations which are robbing the world into abject poverty.
This is the enlightenment of their bank accounts but the dark ages for humanity.
The word 'expert' should never be used except in scare quotes.
There are no 'experts' in life - specialists in certain defined fields might, I emphasize 'might,' have more arcane knowledge, but they deal in the material and don't know or care about the soul.
Anyway, most of the fields in which the credentialists claim 'expertise' are largely if not wholly intellectually fraudulent.
N.B. I am not talking about the physical sciences here, although knowledge claims there must always be taken as contingent as well
One of the main takeaways of the Covid era was I learned how little the medical fraternity understand about the immune system. I mean the detail. Triggering an immune response we have understood since Edward Jenner's cowpox experiments. But understanding the detail, not so much.
That was a revelation to me.
The medical fraternity doesn't know that much at all.
The science/research industry is structured in a way that promotes scientists chasing endlessly fruitless endeavors. Why? Because that's where the money is.
You only get paid once for what you do discover, but you'll be paid forever for what you "might" discover. And most scientific research is not well understood by those who control the flow of money. What an easy grift.
As a result, there are few scientists that are truly looking for answers. That is why in physics, little has changed since the 70s.
*** We are today making more investments into the foundations of physics than ever before. And yet nothing is coming out of it. That’s a problem and it’s a problem we should talk about. ***
The medical scientific industry is no different. I'm sure you've heard this a million times, and most people consider it a conspiracy theory, but nobody is looking for a "cure" because that stops the money. But this is actually true. How many diseases have been "cured" compared to how many have "treatments" -- that are lifelong?
It doesn't require some evil mastermind commanding people to do this or that, it just requires a system that rewards failure. Kind of like the scientific systems we have now!
The "big money" is on the production side (of medicines) -- but the big money for scientists is on the research side. Scientists are endlessly looking for a cure (for whatever) but instead continually come up with new treatments?
Don't believe me. Take a look at the number of prescription drugs for depression. Why the hell are there so many prescription drugs for depression? Did any of the prior drugs ever really work? If so, why do they need to keep coming up with new ones? The argument then becomes about patient tolerance. It's a shell game.
http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-present-phase-of-stagnation-in.html
Totally agree. But regulation has played its part. the FDA used to only have the authority to remove drugs from the market. Then they changed the rules where you have to prove efficacy to them, the FDA, not the patients. That plays its part.
Government regulation nearly always results in much less than ideal outcomes. Regulations are the worst because they set the minimum threshold, where competition, and advancement almost always results in better outcomes.
Well said, yet a new dawn inevitably follows every plunge into darkness. It may not be on a schedule that we find agreeable, and the daylight probably won’t be the exact hue we wish, but it will certainly be glorious when compared to the preceding night.
The worst part about the Great Corruption is that it has given birth to both modernity and postmodernist, which have rendered the entirety of the world we currently live in desacrelised in places it has been allowed to spread.
Why are things so bad? Because we have no humility in the face of the unknowable.
"Blank slatism" is another foolish legacy.
With an astonishing amount of data to thoroughly debunk it. Even Pinker trashed it.
How is it surviving? Why is this defended in academia?
There is no better indictment of the Enlightenment's failings than the French Revolution, the Terror and the reign of Napoleon. The full spectrum of human vulgarity and duplicity can be couched in intellectualism, pride, expediency and "science." Communism itself was/is explained as a science. Have we now a new war between the Rationalists and Empiricists? Melville wrote we should leave both heads behind and sail trimmed and high the water.
Marxists believe that humanity is perfectable. History shows this is a pipe dream. No theory can change human nature.
Good polemical piece. I mostly agree with you. My problem with the Enlightenment is not its basic premises, but that it has failed to deliver on any of its promises. I know some people argue that our current material wealth and so on, have all derived from the Enlightenment and without it we'd still be medieval peasants living in misery. Maybe, but that is just speculation. I remember reading years ago that pre-revolutionary France was making strides in science and industry and social reforms were on the table. Maybe that's true, an "expert" might chip in on that. The point of the piece I read was that the Revolution killed off social, scientific and industrial innovation, leaving the field to the British. I should dig that out and read it again.
Thanks for this thought-provoking essay.
Hear! Hear!
For the most part I accept and agree with your critique. There is no equality among real living persons. Secularism and utilitarianism have been disastrous.
But part of me does still believe that the ideal of rights in the negative sense, a moral space around the individual that provides them with a certain inviolable distance from other individuals and the state, is genuinely worth caring about.
The question that nags at me is whether you can get this much without ultimately collapsing into a war of special interests motivated by "woke" resentment and envy. The other side of the question is, does that require the enlightenment's vision of a rational self-unto-itself, or do we get what is worth having in rights out of older traditions, like Catholic natural law? Each year that passes, I'm coming to believe it's the latter or nothing.
I really enjoyed reading this article. It is an odd paradigm shift coming to realize how destructive pure rationalism is to the human soul. In my twenties I celebrated much of the enlightenment. When I came back to church, I began to have doubts. When I began to study history and move towards the Catholic Church, the enlightenment seems less light and more dark. Thank you for the piece.
The enlightenment oozed from Venice's salons and infected European thought. It marked the beginning of the Venetian invasion of Netherlands and England which saw the establishment of the 3-city Empire - London, Vatican and Washington DC.
The Venetian Black Nobility, via their investment houses (BlackRock and Vanguard) now own all the corporations which are robbing the world into abject poverty.
This is the enlightenment of their bank accounts but the dark ages for humanity.
The enlightenment oozed from Venice's salons and infected European thought. It marked the beginning of the Venetian invasion of Netherlands and England which saw the establishment of the 3-city Empire - London, Vatican and Washington DC.
The Venetian Black Nobility, via their investment houses (BlackRock and Vanguard) now own all the corporations which are robbing the world into abject poverty.
This is the enlightenment of their bank accounts but the dark ages for humanity.