Secular Societies are happier and more sustainable

[Marcus]

Are you saying you decided to stay away from... you-know-where... and quit decorating the threads there with your random pseudo-religious and anti-materialist droppings?

I'm saying only that there might be better fora to on which to promote Philosophical Materialism/Atheism and the like. I kinda think this place is a hothouse of Theists of one sort or another.

[rhapsody]

Are you saying you decided to stay away from... you-know-where... and quit decorating the threads there with your random pseudo-religious and anti-materialist droppings?

I'm saying only that there might be better fora to on which to promote Philosophical Materialism/Atheism and the like. I kinda think this place is a hothouse of Theists of one sort or another.

I agree it is kind of a weird place here.

[ellens]

"No disgreement there, except:
- the whole world is our backyard now"

_____________

Thanks again for the thoughtful essay TI. One more thought on my part. Gilbert and Sullivan had a wonderful song from their operetta, "The Gondoliers" which describes the predicament of today's upwardly mobile Asians trying to imitate their Western counterparts in their social climbing aspirations. Permit me to provide a shortened version of this song.

"There lived a king, as I've been told, in the wonder-working days of old,
When hearts were twice as good as gold, and twenty times as mellow.
Good temper triumphed in his face, and in his heart he found a place for all the erring human race,
and every wretched fellow...

He wished all men as rich as he, and he was as rich as rich could be,
So to the top of every tree, he promoted everybody!
Lord Chancellors were cheap as sprats, and Bishops in their shovel hats were plentiful as tabby cats,
in point of fact too many.
Ambassadors cropped up like hay, Prime Ministers and such as they grew like asparagus in May,
and Dukes were three a penny...

That King, although no one denies his heart was of abnormal size,
Yet he'd have acted otherwise if he had been acuter.

The end is easily foretold, when every blessed thing you hold is made of silver, or of gold, you long for simple pewter.
When you have nothing else to wear but cloth of gold and satins rare, for cloth of gold you cease to care - up goes the price of shoddy. SHODDY, Up goes the price of shoddy.

In short, whoever you may be, to this conclusion you'll agree, when every one is somebodee, then no one's anybody!

Chorus: Now that's as plain as plain can be, to this conclusion we agree. When every one is somebodee, then no one's anybody!

[Collingwood]

More, schmore. Nothing in this world is sustainable. Nor is the world itself.

That's the rub: seems to make lots of folks unhappy.

Collingwood -- Having a few hardcore pessimists as ancestors, your post made me LOL! Pray tell, what motivates you to get out of bed in the morning, or even expend the effort of drawing your next breath?

Recently, a course of immersion in aspects of contemporary popular culture that I find strangely appealling. Like
this by Zimmer ... from Orff ... from Neusiedler ... As the old is made young, it changes, but it may grow better than it was before, no?

Could the good be such without seeking to become better? Sustainability is overrated. All things must pass, else how could the new be born?

[ellens]

Now that's a Spenglerian comment, "sustainability is overrated." Spengler once wrote an essay arguing that normalcy is overrated.

But, now that you mention it, perhaps there is a point. Why should we want things to be sustained permanently? If every item of culture or politics or lifestyle were permanently sustained, there would be no innovation.

On the other hand, I think the problem of the past 60 years (since WWII) is that there has been too much change and innovation in fundamental things like family structure, housing arrangements, cultural/religious life, etc. Too much change makes people long for sustainability, just as the Middle Ages made people long for change, I suppose.

We are now in the longing for sustainability mode because the most recent changes all seem to be pointing toward a downward trajectory for the developed world and subsets within that developed world (eg, those who appreciate high culture).

[Collingwood]

Now that's a Spenglerian comment, "sustainability is overrated."

In form, yes, but in substance? Our host, with all Christian and much Jewish tradition, regards longing for eternal life as normative -- as "halakhic" in Judaic context. But to make this more than longing for sustainability, more than the futile Eleatic-Platonic infatuation with stasis, more than the refusal to accept impermanence that Buddhism (or Heraclitus) views as the root of our follies, requires a more dynamic view of eternal life than seems offered either by scripture or by the bulk of traditional commentary thereon -- a view of "eternal life" as eternal "growth" or "becoming," not just eternal "being." That would seem implied by the traditional view of eternal life as conditioned on devoting this life to becoming better than one is, but the internal impetus of tradition seems thwarted, in the bulk of tradition, by an ancient identification of the static with the good. I have yet to see Spengler address the need to reconceptualize "eternal life" in such a way publicly, although I suspect he would do so unhesitatingly in private conversation.

Meanwhile, my sense of the matter remains that the issue is moot, at least for us pampered moderns: if we are not so grateful for the love and life that we already have as not merely to find it sufficient, but to move us to seek to reciprocate that love and to seek to justify our present life, how dare we hope for more? The traditional answer is of course that wanting more life is an inherent part of gratitude for life. But for moderns, at least, that's rather like telling a man who is already gorged on food that true gratitude entails wanting to order a second dinner. It requires imagining that one could grow in an unfamiliar way. And to avoid having same problem eternally in eternal life would seem to require eternal growth. Not mere "sustainability."

This is, I think, less of a digression from the topic than it may seem at first glance. Our vision of temporal social good, e.g., "a sustainable society," seems to be inextricably bound up with our vision of "heaven," of our ideal relationship with God. And that is a Spenglerian point; repeatedly, our host points out that our notion of God shapes our self-image through the emotional imperative of imitatio dei.

Our host, since his very first columns under the pseudonym "Spengler," has, in writing about secular matters, especially geopolitics, advocated ceasing to idolize stability and to resist impermanence. But he has not yet, at least publicly, taken the same approach to religious matters, especially "eternal life," despite his keen awareness of the interrelatedness of the two.

[total issues]

Ah, Collingwood loves Dark Ages, the better to chastise our sins. A sort of secular purgatory.

The model, I suppose, is that of Western Europe 400-1000 AD eventually producing a child that was greater than its parents rather than mouldering in the stagnation of endless Byzantium or Caliphate. That was a little local problem, however, civilisation was flourishing elsewhere, and the outcome had much to do with happenstance. No guarantee that it would be repeated.

Yes, there are issues of sustainability, demographically, culturally, environmentally. Above all, what do the citizens of the developed world do, now that the Enlightenment project has been all too successful? Perhaps nothing, but the other 6 billion might have a say? It's not the end of global civ, possibly just the end of you.

None of these problems are insuperable, but then you guys suffer from loss of faith (in Progress, that is). Collingwood, in Hari Seldon guise, seems to be preaching revolution, sweep away the corrupt old order .... well, that did not do too well compared to gradualist tinkering . As for moral improvement,under the rule of barbarian war bands with nukes...

[Collingwood]

Ah, Collingwood ... you guys suffer from loss of faith (in Progress, that is).

Not at all.

What is it that ecologists say about Nature? It will take care of itself, but may not be kind to us in the process, if we are not careful?

Progress is like that, 'though some of us call it Providence.