A Manifesto Against the Enemies of Modernity

[Karma Dondrup Tashi]

“Modernity” is the name for the profound cultural transformation which saw the rise of representative democracy, the age of science, the supersedence of reason over superstition, and the establishment of individual liberties to live according to one’s own values. At its core, it values empowering the individual to think, believe, read, write, speak, doubt, question, argue, and refute any ideas at all in pursuit of truth. What is there in the society of today for someone who still believes in this? If we insist on continuing to think in purely political terms, there are two primary choices, and they’re both bad.

We find ourselves offered a left-hand path upon which progressive crusaders bill themselves as the righteous defenders of Social Justice and moral progress, and thus the true future of Modernity. Beside it, forking away, lies a right-hand path upon which conservative stalwarts position themselves as the last desperate defenders of the heart of the project of Modernity, the so-called “values of Western Civilization,” defending it from the potential failures of progressive social and economic experimentation. Upon which of these two paths can the hopeful believer in Modernity hope to find the cornerstone of the Modern project, which is an allegiance to seeking objective truth and erecting sufficiently strong institutions to secure the fruits of Modernity?

Neither.

The progressive left has aligned itself not with Modernity but with postmodernism, which rejects objective truth as a fantasy dreamed up by naive and/or arrogantly bigoted Enlightenment thinkers who underestimated the collateral consequences of Modernity’s progress. The regressive right champions premodernism instead, which is little more than a grand delusion that the intricate complexities of Modern society can function without the elaborate infrastructure required to run a Modern society in the first place. Both are outright rejections of the Enlightenment’s commitment to truth.

If you value Modernity, much of political and cultural life of late therefore feels like standing at this dismal crossroads, not of truth, but of what Stephen Colbert famously called “truthiness,” that which feels true, though it isn’t — or, put more squarely, an intuition of moral or ideological “truth” which has little to do with any objective reality.

Take the leftward road, and you’ll find the objectionable notion that truth is “situated” in identity, which leads to the farcical belief that truth is relative to whatever one’s cultural background has traditionally held it to be — unless that culture is considered to have unfairly dominated in the past, in which case anything it holds to be true must be refuted on principle.

If this sounds confusing, you’re not to worry. Priestly representatives have appointed themselves along this path to divine who can’t say what to whom and under what circumstances. You need only to check your privileges in life, fall in line, become an “ally,” shut up, and listen to those deemed more oppressed than you are. The shutting up is particularly important. It’s almost impossible to avoid being “problematic” if speaking independently. You probably won’t like being told your existence is obsolete, but according to the rubric (about which you will be reminded at every opportunity) there are those less privileged in the world and they like their oppression even less.

Veer rightward instead, and you’ll be similarly disappointed. There, truth isn’t much different, although they wouldn’t call it “situated” (but it is). It is the kind of capital-T “Truth” that’s both “obvious” to everyone and too simplistic to be true, and it’s situated in the lived experience of the traditionally recognized everyman. This right-hand Truth often arrives as some amalgamation of divination upon the everyday experience of rubes and the locally agreed upon exegeses of God’s parochially preferred ancient manuscripts. A more capital-S Sophisticated Truth can also be found along the right-hand path, placed there by Nature Herself in the form of philosophically reasoned-out Natural Law, despite the demonstrated meaninglessness of this term and its distinctness from anything established by the natural sciences. Truth, on the right, is thus exactly the “plainly True” Common Sense everybody “knows” (except the elites and experts, who are deemed too educated and too out-of-touch with Real Life to see what’s plainly the case).

How can you know what’s “plainly True” along the rightward path, then? It is whatever seems immediately obvious, which “obviously” works good enough to be getting on with (so long as most complexities of systems and of human interaction are dropped), or it is that which accords with the views of the provincially correct religious or political deities or their self-appointed emissaries. If you’re concerned that Common Sense in its perfected capitalized-letters form isn’t actually terribly common, that self-styled Holy Rollers and fearmongers might not speak for you, and that simple heuristics often miss the point, the right-hand road is going to be a frustrating and painful choice. You’d be exactly right in believing that Modernity requires a bit more than plain sense and “Natural Law” to keep itself functioning and moving forward. Not only that, but down this way, if you’re concerned that what passes for capital-T Truth often tends to rationalize and exacerbate structural inequalities in society, your job is to deal with what’s True, suck it up, and keep your questions and interfering to yourself.

Neither road seems good. In reality, they’re both bad. You’ll not make it far down either path before observing that the chief commodities along both are hysterical moral panic and a corollary absolute intolerance of thinking differently — duly papered over with claims to appreciate the right kinds of (limited) diversity. So it is that with just a bit of patient observation, you’ll come to realize these premodernists and postmodernists, despite their distinct moral dialects and impossibly irreconcilable differences in every political mood, are almost indistinguishable. Both are bent toward authoritarianism and values at odds with Modernity.

Collectively, these two groups represent one overarching ethos. They are both anti-modernists, and they are the enemies of Modernity. Treated as a single entity, they make up a relatively small, intrinsically divided, but alarmingly powerful minority. Separately, these two factions whirl in a centrifugal death spiral for society driven by a near-religious and redemptionless hatred for each other. They proceed as if by superpower, as they are nearly unrivaled at fomenting ideological divisiveness amongst the majority who believe in Modernity. They should be seen and resisted as a single dragon with two noxious heads that pose far more threat to everyone else than they do to each other. Regardless of the validity of any claim on which head is the nastier, the debate is a matter of much fruitless argument that feeds the dragon rather than slaying it.

https://areomagazine.com/2017/08/22/a-m ... modernity/

[Malcolm]

“Modernity” is the name for the profound cultural transformation which saw the rise of representative democracy, the age of science, the supersedence of reason over superstition, and the establishment of individual liberties to live according to one’s own values. At its core, it values empowering the individual to think, believe, read, write, speak, doubt, question, argue, and refute any ideas at all in pursuit of truth. What is there in the society of today for someone who still believes in this? If we insist on continuing to think in purely political terms, there are two primary choices, and they’re both bad.

Hooray for tepid centrism!

[Johnny Dangerous]

I'm really tired of "the progressive left" being equated with a bunch of twitter identity politics crusaders. This article is silly, it's easy to argue against someone else's ideology when you just make it up and caricature it.

[Karma Dondrup Tashi]

The reason I like the essay is that it is certainly centrism, but it is not tepid. Between the "ludicrous choices" of Postmodern Utopia and the lost Golden Age what else is there except a growing realization, that is perhaps tragic, that all we can do is merely do our best with the cards we have been dealt. Dharma is radical enough - why must we also hunt for a radical pre- or post-modern utopia that is an intellectual impossibility?

The noisy anti-modern fringes have each planted their flag in the soil of Modernity and set themselves up as the sole moral luminaries of the left and right; as the only True Scotsmen of Modernity’s diametrically opposed ideological visions: liberalism and conservatism. These moral luminaries demand we face a ludicrous choice between odious poppycock and loathsome codswallop: only by perfect radical left-thinking can the true Modern Utopia be achieved, and only by perfect radical right-thinking can we hope to regain Modernity’s lost Golden Era.

https://areomagazine.com/2017/08/22/a-m ... modernity/

[Karma Dondrup Tashi]

I'm really tired of "the progressive left" being equated with a bunch of twitter identity politics crusaders. This article is silly, it's easy to argue against someone else's ideology when you just make it up and caricature it.

What I would be interested in is whether you agree with the authors' characterization of modernity as something to be defended, and if not, why not. it would be "tepid" if the authors' weren't so concerned to preserve what they perceive to be vitally important achievements of civilization:

A profound respect for the power of reason and the utility and strength of science;
An unwavering commitment to the norms of secular democratic republics, including rule of law, and an abiding belief that they are the most beneficent political force the world has known;
A keen understanding that, whatever and however group dynamics may influence human societies, the atomic unit of society to be defended and cherished is the individual;
An earnest appreciation that the Good is best achieved through a balance between human cooperation and competition brokered and mediated through the interplay of institutions that work on behalf of public and private interests.

https://areomagazine.com/2017/08/22/a-m ... modernity/

[Johnny Dangerous]

I'm really tired of "the progressive left" being equated with a bunch of twitter identity politics crusaders. This article is silly, it's easy to argue against someone else's ideology when you just make it up and caricature it.

What I would be interested in is whether you agree with the authors' characterization of modernity as something to be defended, and if not, why not.

I think it's worth defending and expanding on the ideas that arose with Liberal Democracies. Freedom of speech, human rights, individual dignity etc.

However, there's a lot that goes along with "modernity" that doesn't fit in those categories, and I think most of his definition is bunk.

[Karma Dondrup Tashi]

I think it's worth defending and expanding on the ideas that arose with Liberal Democracies. Freedom of speech, human rights, individual dignity etc.

However, there's a lot that goes along with "modernity" that doesn't fit in those categories, and I think most of his definition is bunk.

It sounds like you believe that our incremental progress toward Enlightenment values is a little bit more valuable than "bunk".

[PeterC]

Does anyone honestly think that profound-sounding prose is going to save the world?

[Nemo]

“Modernity” is the name for the profound cultural transformation which saw the rise of representative democracy, the age of science, the supersedence of reason over superstition, and the establishment of individual liberties to live according to one’s own values. At its core, it values empowering the individual to think, believe, read, write, speak, doubt, question, argue, and refute any ideas at all in pursuit of truth. What is there in the society of today for someone who still believes in this? If we insist on continuing to think in purely political terms, there are two primary choices, and they’re both bad.

Hooray for tepid centrism!

Agreed, if centrism worked climate change, voracious oligarchs and nuclear weapons would not exist. If it can't deal with those issues it's some feel good liberal garbage.

[Karma Dondrup Tashi]

This is the authors' prognosis for "centrism", by the way:

To counter existential polarization, a solution calling for a collaboration in the name of centrism has been held out. On the surface, this seems precisely the kind of compromise and rejection of extremism that is needed, inviting, as it does, the beleaguered majority to set aside its partisan differences and form a coalition called the “New Center.”

This project will fail.

The center, for the reasons described above, is unstable and cannot hold against existential polarization.

[Queequeg]

tl;dr
Just read the bullet points.

Sounds like something the contented haves of the bourgeois neighborhoods of the world would say. The half assed rallying cry of those whose biggest dilemma is presented when they find themselves at the head of the line in Starbucks faced with the choice between a soy latte and a soy mocha latte while the unseen gaze of the hurried patrons behind them are felt on the back of the head.

That yoga pants life style depends on a ton of others whose existence is marked by limited choices and desperation.

Sounds comical.

"The rich suffer, too, you know!"

I'm sure the author is angling for an invitation to Davos so they can be the warm up act for Tom Friedman.

[Karma Dondrup Tashi]

soy latte and a soy mocha latte

I prefer venti pike with half and half.

[Malcolm]

The reason I like the essay is that it is certainly centrism, but it is not tepid.

Centrism is just a nice way of saying, "Get back in Line, the elites will take care of everything."

[Johnny Dangerous]

The reason I like the essay is that it is certainly centrism, but it is not tepid.

Centrism is just a nice way of saying, "Get back in Line, the elites will take care of everything."

This. "Centrism" today is almost as anti-democratic as authoritarianism, it's just more covert about it.

[Caoimhghín]

postmodernism, which rejects objective truth as a fantasy dreamed up by naive and/or arrogantly bigoted [...] thinkers

Like the Buddhadharma, one wonders?

[Karma Dondrup Tashi]

Like the Buddhadharma, one wonders?

Who knows. As religions go it does seem to be pretty miserable.

[Caoimhghín]

Like the Buddhadharma, one wonders?

Who knows. As religions go it does seem to be pretty miserable.

From the least happy sutta in the dispensation to the śrāvaka:

Thus I heard: At one time the Gracious One was dwelling near Anupiyā, in the Mango Wood. Then at that time venerable Bhaddiya, Kāḷigodhā’s son, having gone to the wilderness, to the root of a tree, to an empty place, was frequently uttering this exclamation: “Ah, happiness! Ah, happiness!”

Many monks heard that when venerable Bhaddiya, Kāḷigodhā’s son, had gone to the wilderness, to the root of a tree, to an empty place, was frequently uttering this exclamation: “Ah, happiness! Ah, happiness!” And after hearing this, it occured to them:

“Undoubtedly, friends, venerable Bhaddiya, Kāḷigodhā’s son, has no great delight living the spiritual life, and remembering the royal happiness he had formerly in the home life, having gone to the wilderness, to the root of a tree, to an empty place, he is frequently uttering this exclamation: ‘Ah, happiness! Ah, happiness!’ ”

(Bhaddiyasutta)

[Karma Dondrup Tashi]

... the head of the line in Starbucks

Speaking of Starbucks.

So, yes, the Starbucks manager in Philadelphia screwed up. And the Starbucks response to that lapse in judgment is a classic case study in responsible crisis communications. Starbucks President and CEO Kevin Johnson apologized and flew to Philadelphia to meet the two men who were arrested. Starbucks Executive Chairman Howard Schultz apologized on national TV. Starbucks is changing its policy on bathroom use in all of its roughly 14,000 U.S. locations. And the company is responding as best a company with 200,000 employees can. Short of rooting out every white American employee who feels threatened by a black person — good luck with that, by the way — Starbucks is training its employees to find the better angels of their nature.

Truly, even on the day of our panel discussion, two months before Philadelphia happened, Hines said he welcomes this kind of pressure. “It forces us to push the envelope in terms of what does it mean to be a responsible corporation,” he said. So here’s a thought: We might cut Starbucks a little slack and target our outrage instead at a company that’s not even trying.

https://www.seattlebusinessmag.com/comm ... -corporate