Hi List,
Am writing to say I am dealing with the plagiarism issue, as the folks at Psychology Today don't want me to print the full blog as it was not deemed consistent with their purpose and guidelines. As such, I have a revised blog in that summarizes Mercier and Sperber's book and highlights the remarkable similarities with the JH and then points readers to get the full story via a link to my website, where I have set up all the information. They are reviewing that at this time.
Am interested to see how this unfolds. As of now, it has been a major time suck and I am finding that the institutions are not exactly supportive of or conducive to dealing with this kind of process. Will keep you posted.
I will reply to your posts soon, Mark. Interesting one about Durant. I appreciate your focus on history and technology contextualizing things.
Best,
Gregg
-----Original Message-----
From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Mark Stahlman
Sent: Monday, August 6, 2018 10:58 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Will Durant, Spengler, Technology and the Arc of Civilization
ToKers:
Fascinating that Gregg spent his cruise reading Will Durant's 1926 "The Story of Philosophy" -- written by perhaps the most successful popularizer of philosophy in English in the 20th century (yes, other language-groups have taken different approaches.)
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__archive.org_stream_TheStoryOfPhilosophyWillDurant_The-2520Story-2520Of-2520Philosophy-2DWill-2520Durant-5Fdjvu.txt&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=pyETWxn2CmLxyi5WMuga1-70Wt2xZS_j2rQtKaxaG_E&s=Gi558V7akAF49_fYVk8NPsXj47ErPLlFy-AxuhS33n4&e=
As it turns out, Durant (1885-1981) was trained by Jesuits in High School and College, a century ago in the same town where I now live, Jersey City, NJ -- at St. Peter's (a college next-door to which my son recently bought a house.)
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_Will-5FDurant&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=pyETWxn2CmLxyi5WMuga1-70Wt2xZS_j2rQtKaxaG_E&s=D7dlXDE0TXzoMtwD_uxG2RVFq8r1wZqG1IPsJhlaQDI&e=
But, arguably, Durant's real focus was on history (as only partly illustrated through philosophy.) Along with his wife Ariel (who he "fell in love with" when she was 15 and his student, perhaps helping to explain why he didn't become a priest), he wrote the 11-volume "The Story of Civilization" -- which narrates 2000+ years of Western history.
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_The-5FStory-5Fof-5FCivilization&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=pyETWxn2CmLxyi5WMuga1-70Wt2xZS_j2rQtKaxaG_E&s=I86zN_ZlbT0j0XnwMq74clZMbeWZNzhdL3-DkQ7UAcE&e=
Another version of this was the 6-volume "The Great Ages of Western Philosophy," which constructs the following life-cycle: Belief (Anne
Freemantle) --> Adventure (Giorgio de Santillana, my other
"godfather") --> Reason (Stuart Hampshire) --> Enlightenment (Isaiah
Berlin) --> Ideology (Henry Aiken) --> Analysis (Morton White.)
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.amazon.com_Great-2DAges-2DWestern-2DPhilosophy-2DVOLUMES_dp_B001GDE68C&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=pyETWxn2CmLxyi5WMuga1-70Wt2xZS_j2rQtKaxaG_E&s=itLk2UgipKZ7uXRDGeL80y0pklFVeJTaLn2O-quKyKk&e=
Much like simple living organisms (Life, 2nd on Gregg's chart) and "higher animals" (Psychology, 3rd on Gregg's chart), Cultures (4th on Gregg's chart) come and go. They have a "life-cycle" that follows a particular arc. This theme was emphasized by Oswald Spengler in his
1918 "Decline of the West" and then picked up by Arnold Toynbee in his multi-volume "A Study of History" &al. This quote from Durant's SoC volume one is instructive (particularly when considered in the light of his Catholic upbringing) --
"Hence a certain tension between religion and society marks the higher stages of every civilization. Religion begins by offering magical aid to harassed and bewildered men; it culminates by giving to a people that unity of morals and belief which seems so favorable to statesmanship and art; it ends by fighting suicidally in the lost cause of the past. For as knowledge grows or alters continually, it clashes with mythology and theology, which change with geological leisureliness. Priestly control of arts and letters is then felt as a galling shackle or hateful barrier, and intellectual history takes on the character of a "conflict between science and religion."
Institutions which were at first in the hands of the clergy, like law and punishment, education and morals, marriage and divorce, tend to escape from ecclesiastical control, and become secular, perhaps profane. The intellectual classes abandon the ancient theology and—after some hesitation—the moral code allied with it; literature and philosophy become anticlerical. The movement of liberation rises to an exuberant worship of reason, and falls to a paralyzing disillusionment with every dogma and every idea. Conduct, deprived of its religious supports, deteriorates into epicurean chaos; and life itself, shorn of consoling faith, becomes a burden alike to conscious poverty and to weary wealth. In the end a society and its religion tend to fall together, like body and soul, in a harmonious death.
Meanwhile among the oppressed another myth arises, gives new form to human hope, new courage to human effort, and after centuries of chaos builds another civilization." (p. 71)
Yes, this "cyclical" approach -- which seems to apply to Life and Psychology, as well as Cultures -- is at odds with the "Omega Point"
theme brought to this list by Jamie. Is the West finished (with China on the rise)? Or, is it just "pausing"? Or, is it "evolving" into some version of "heaven on earth" (as the Book of Revelation would have it)?
My guess is that a Theory of Knowledge based on these "dimensions of complexity" will also need to deal with Durant &al's "rise-and-fall"
arc and, in the process, provide us with the tools to assess the current state of ours and its most likely future trajectory (yes, this would also be where the topic of technology enters the analysis, unfortunately a subject not well understood by Durant &al and, for which, McLuhan becomes necessary) . . . <g>
Mark
P.S. Most who have considered Spengler -- who kicked all this off, provoking scores of responses, including UofChicago's Great Books, Marshall McLuhan, JRR Tolkien and Narnia, the New Age/Aquarian Conspiracy &c -- don't take the next step to read his final summary, the 1931 "Men and Technics." It was only recently that a thorough biography (based on recent scholarship) of Spengler appeared in English. I highly recommend it for a backdrop of the 20th-century and how we have been delivered to our current predicament . . . !!
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.amazon.com_Prophet-2DDecline-2DSpengler-2DPolitical-2DTraditions&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=pyETWxn2CmLxyi5WMuga1-70Wt2xZS_j2rQtKaxaG_E&s=93s7EDuYe9SZXJnfNSbcMPYUuGptwMTY-OPbiMpW4r8&e=
P.P.S. When asked if he was a pessimist or an optimist, McLuhan answered, "Neither, I'm an apocalyptist" -- by which he meant that his work involved *revelation* (the meaning of the term "apocalypse") and shouldn't be taken as a "prediction" that could be mistaken as "good"
or "bad." He went out of his way to emphasize that "moralizing" (i.e.
attaching positive/negative "values" to reality and its causal
processes) is the surest way to block one's ability to understand what is actually going on. If we "want" something, then, as the Rolling Stones told us, you probably won't get it -- instead, what actually happens is what you "need" (which may be quite different.)
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.youtube.com_watch-3Fv-3DoqMl5CRoFdk&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=pyETWxn2CmLxyi5WMuga1-70Wt2xZS_j2rQtKaxaG_E&s=Q8ObTcOfqoy6c1jRRNU9quJzaFMwAZOqgz9f4GDdL0U&e=
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