https://youtu.be/ju_a2-Pve4g
#PaulYoung - Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home)
#80smusic #80s #forgotten80s
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18 results for “symbolix”
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wheye: symbolic AI with answers you can inspect and check.
A Prolog subset in Rust: ask a query, request its proof, then independently check it under C1–C9. All 91 examples pass their goldens and proof checks.
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The symbolic is the world of the machine; writing is no longer surrogate sensuality but tautology of technicians.
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The symbolic order is enforced by libraries, while media technology distributes power by registering particulars beyond self-representations.
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Media reconstruct bodies beyond symbolic grids; photography and phonography are authenticated reproductions of the bodily real.
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Die taz hat das AfD-Leak ausgewertet und berichtet von NS-Symbolik in Kreisverbänden, einer Excel-Liste mit 24.521 angeblichen Antifa-Mitgliedern samt Adressen und einer Medienliste, die Journalistinnen und Journalisten als Linksaktivisten markiert.
Die taz sagt selbst: Verifiziert ist das Material nicht. Für die Echtheit des Datensatzes spricht einiges, eine zweite Quelle für die Einzelfälle fehlt noch.
https://faktenfackel.de/quellen/medien/taz/links/afd-leak-feindeslisten-hakenkreuz
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https://www.europesays.com/3331303/ ‘Democracy against Westminster’ as village turns to symbolic referendum in row over asylum seekers – London Business News #AndyBurnham #asylum #AsylumSeekers #IllegalMigrants #Labour #Politics
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Postdoctoral Position in Computer Music
📍University of Bordeaux, France12-month renewable postdoc starting January 2027. Applicants are invited to propose research in music information retrieval (#MIR) and/or sound and music computing (#SMC), particularly involving audio or symbolic guitar data, to develop tools for music analysis, composition and performance.
Deadline: 11/11/2026
https://scrime.u-bordeaux.fr/jobs/postdoc-2027
#MusicTechnology #ComputationalMusicology #DigitalMusicology
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Omsk. Putin’s Siberia is under attack; one of Russia’s largest chemical plants is on fire—a scene that sounds symbolic
“Let the war end.”
Ukrainian UAVs are increasingly hitting targets deep behind Russian lines, covering distances of 3,000 km and more.
The Russians are searching for clues.
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The phonograph stores indices, not poems, revealing the 'hidden' truths that evade the symbolic and imaginary.
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Changes in R-devel Bug Fixes:
The internal method of ‘untar()’ now checks the whole path of every member, so that a final component of ‘".."’ or ‘"~"’ can no longer place a link or file outside the extraction directory; rejects hard- and symbolic-link targets restored as file copies, which resolve outside the extraction directory or pass through a symbolic link; applies the ‘umask’ to extracted files; also no longer restores ‘setuid’ or ‘setgid’ permission bits. Simi...
https://developer.r-project.org/blosxom.cgi/R-devel/NEWS/2026/10/24 -
#citizensreport #richardbardon #fuelsecurity #oilcrisis #auspol
Domestic fuel security still nowhere in sight as Trump’s oil crisis drags on
Nine months in and with no end in sight to the oil crisis imposed upon the world by the USA and Israel’s illegal and unprovoked war on Iran, which Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was the first foreign leader to support, the Australian government has still made only symbolic moves towards domestic fuel security.
by Richard Bardon
https://citizensparty.org.au/domestic-fuel-security-still-nowhere-in-sight-as-trumps-oil-crisis-drags-on -
🐙💜 Sunday Philosophy with Leslie: Jacques Lacan, or Why Your Brain Cannot Be Trusted to Write Its Own User Manual
It is Sunday. Naturally, I have opinions about a French psychoanalyst who thought Freud had left a few things insufficiently complicated. And if this is sufficiently complicated, it means: not complicated enough... ;)
Jacques Lacan asks an inconvenient question: what if the self you know so well is partly an elaborate construction involving language, other people, social expectations, and desires you cannot entirely explain?
Naturally, I thought I could address that in a reasonably short article.
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
We now have the Imaginary, the Symbolic, the Real, the mirror stage, the big Other, objet petit a, jouissance, the phallus (no, not that straightforwardly), and enough theoretical knots to keep an entire seminar room busy until the heat death of the universe.
Along the way, we shall investigate why we want what we want, how we become who we think we are, what capitalism does with our dissatisfaction, and why Lacan is neither a universal answer to everything nor someone we should simply dismiss because his prose occasionally appears to have been translated from French into Lacan.
There are also feminist and queer questions, a few necessary disagreements, and some reminders that psychoanalysis cannot replace material politics. You cannot interpret your way out of poverty, and no amount of unconscious desire will pay the bloody rent.
This is your Sunday reminder that philosophy is not about collecting dead men like Pokémon. It is about thinking critically, questioning the categories we inherit, and finding ideas that might help us change the world.
The article got out of hand. The full text is therefore available only at the link below, because even an octopus has limits on how many tentacles it can devote to one Mastodon post.
🐙📚 Read the full article here: https://ko-fi.com/post/Lacan-Your-Ego-Is-a-Group-Project-and-Nobody-Is-L2S329GJ1X
CW: psychoanalysis, gender and sexual difference, capitalism.
#SundayPhilosophy #Lacan #Philosophy #Psychoanalysis #QueerTheory #CriticalTheory
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Where ancient masks come alive on frozen mountain slopes, La Vijanera transforms a quiet Cantabrian village into a realm of ritual and mystery every January. 🎭 Picture zamarracos dancing through snow-dusted streets on 3 January, their wild costumes and haunting masks channeling centuries of #EuropeanHeritage as they symbolically capture the bear to banish winter's grip. This free #CulturalEvent in Silio feels less like a #Festival and more like ...
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DATE: October 25, 2026 at 02:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Young adults who fear rejection also tend to fear death more, psychology study finds
Young adults who are especially worried about rejection in their close relationships tend to report a greater fear of death, which in turn is linked to more symptoms of anxiety, depression, and other forms of distress, according to a new study published in Scientific Reports. The findings also suggest that for several types of symptoms, this link depends on whether a person views death as the complete end of their existence or as a transition to another state.
Death anxiety refers to the worry, dread, or apprehension that comes from knowing that human life eventually ends. While it is normal to think about mortality from time to time, many psychologists now view persistent or poorly managed fear of death as a shared factor underlying many different mental health conditions. It can show up as panic or constant worry in anxiety disorders, feelings of hopelessness in depression, repetitive rituals aimed at preventing harm in obsessive-compulsive disorder, or extreme worry about physical sensations in somatic symptom disorders.
These existential concerns often become especially prominent during emerging adulthood, the developmental period spanning the late teens and twenties. As young people build their independent identities and confront major life transitions, they frequently grapple with questions about meaning and mortality, with prior research showing that fear of death tends to peak during a person’s twenties.
How well a young adult copes with the reality of mortality has been linked to their attachment style, which is the characteristic way a person relates to others in close relationships based on their internal sense of self-worth and their trust in other people. Psychologists often categorize adult attachment into four patterns: secure (positive view of both self and others), preoccupied (negative view of self, positive view of others), dismissing (positive view of self, negative view of others), and fearful (negative view of both self and others).
People with a secure attachment style generally manage stress well and turn to loved ones for comfort. In contrast, those with insecure styles rely on less helpful strategies to regulate their emotions, and a 2025 meta-analysis of 18 studies found that adults with higher attachment anxiety or attachment avoidance consistently report a greater fear of death.
Individuals with a preoccupied attachment style tend to experience high attachment anxiety, meaning they are overly sensitive to rejection and abandonment, which can amplify their distress when thinking about death. Those with a dismissing style exhibit high attachment avoidance, meaning they prize extreme independence and suppress their emotional needs, often trying to push thoughts of mortality out of their awareness.
Beyond relationship patterns, how a person fundamentally defines death also shapes how they handle existential fear. In psychology, this belief is called the ontological representation of death, which captures what a person believes happens to their core identity when they die. Some people view death as total annihilation, meaning the absolute and permanent extinction of the self. Others view death as a passage, meaning a transition to another form of existence, whether through a literal afterlife or a symbolic legacy that allows some part of their identity to continue.
The research, led by Alessandro Musetti, an associate professor of dynamic psychology in the Department of Humanities, Social Sciences and Cultural Industries at the University of Parma in Italy, examined how these relational and existential factors work together. Psychologists use the term internalizing symptoms for inward-directed problems such as depression, anxiety, obsessive thoughts, and unexplained physical complaints.
“Death anxiety is increasingly recognized as a factor involved in many forms of psychological distress, including anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and somatic complaints,” Musetti told PsyPost. “However, we still know relatively little about why some people are more vulnerable to death anxiety than others, and why death anxiety seems to affect some individuals more strongly. We wanted to integrate attachment theory with existential psychology by examining whether attachment styles are linked to internalizing symptoms through death anxiety, and whether this process depends on how people fundamentally represent death, either as total annihilation or as a form of passage or continuity.”
To investigate this, the researchers analyzed data from 640 Italian young adults between the ages of 18 and 22, with an average age of about 20.5 years. The sample was predominantly female (83.4 percent) and consisted mostly of students (62.7 percent) or working students (28.8 percent). In terms of religious views, 39.1 percent identified as agnostic, 30.6 percent as atheist, and 30.3 percent as religious believers.
Participants, recruited through social media, completed a series of online questionnaires. To measure attachment styles, the researchers used the Relationship Questionnaire, which asks participants to rate on a 1-to-7 scale how well four short paragraphs describing secure, dismissing, preoccupied, and fearful attachment patterns apply to them. Death anxiety was measured using a 15-item true-or-false questionnaire that included statements like “I am very much afraid to die.”
Participants also completed the Testoni Death Representation Scale, which uses six items rated on a 1-to-5 scale to determine the degree to which a person views death as a passage versus definitive annihilation. Finally, the researchers assessed four types of internalizing mental health symptoms over the prior two weeks: depression, anxiety, somatic symptoms (such as unexplained physical aches and pains), and obsessive-compulsive symptoms (repetitive unpleasant thoughts or urges).
The researchers used a statistical technique called conditional process analysis, which tests whether an indirect pathway between two variables changes depending on a third factor, while controlling for gender. In the initial look at how attachment related to fear of mortality, participants scored an average of 9.31 out of 15 on the death anxiety scale. Higher scores on preoccupied attachment were associated with higher death anxiety, whereas higher scores on dismissing attachment were associated with lower reported death anxiety.
Secure and fearful attachment styles were not linked to death anxiety once all four styles were considered together. The finding for dismissing attachment differs from the 2025 meta-analysis described earlier, which linked attachment avoidance to greater fear of death. The authors suggest that people with a dismissing style may push death-related thoughts out of awareness rather than feel less threatened by mortality.
When looking at how death anxiety connected to mental health, the researchers found that a participant’s view of death played a moderating role for three of the four symptom categories. Death anxiety was linked to worse anxiety, obsessive-compulsive, and somatic symptoms, but only among young adults who strongly viewed death as total annihilation. For participants who viewed death as a passage to another state of existence, higher death anxiety was not linked to higher levels of these three symptom types.
Consequently, the indirect pathways linking attachment styles to these three symptoms operated only among those holding annihilation beliefs. For young adults who believed death is the complete end of existence, having a preoccupied attachment style was indirectly linked to greater anxiety, obsessive-compulsive, and somatic symptoms through heightened death anxiety.
Among those same annihilation-believing participants, by contrast, a dismissing attachment style had a negative indirect association with anxiety, obsessive-compulsive, and somatic symptoms because these individuals reported lower death anxiety. However, the authors caution against interpreting a dismissing attachment style as psychologically healthy. When looking at direct relationships outside of the death anxiety pathway, dismissing attachment was directly linked to higher levels of unexplained somatic symptoms, which the authors suggest may indicate that suppressing emotions and relationship needs can contribute to physical complaints even when conscious fear of death is kept at bay.
Depression followed a different pattern than the other three mental health domains. Whether a participant viewed death as total annihilation or as a passage did not alter the link between death anxiety and depressive symptoms. Instead, preoccupied attachment was indirectly associated with greater depressive symptoms through increased death anxiety across the board, regardless of what the person believed happens after death. Additionally, preoccupied and fearful attachment styles were directly linked to worse symptoms in all four mental health categories, while secure attachment was directly associated with lower depression and anxiety.
“Our findings suggest that psychological distress is influenced not only by how people relate to others, but also by how they make sense of their own mortality,” Musetti explained. “At the same time, the way people understand death appears to matter: when death is experienced as the complete end of personal existence, death anxiety seems more strongly connected to several forms of psychological distress.”
“One finding that surprised us was that the ontological representation of death mattered for anxiety, obsessive-compulsive, and somatic symptoms, but not for depressive symptoms,” Musetti noted. “This suggests that depression may be connected to existential concerns through somewhat different mechanisms than other forms of psychological distress.”
The findings are consistent with research by Musetti and colleagues covered by PsyPost in 2025, which found that death anxiety and feelings of relational disconnectedness helped explain the link between attachment anxiety and problematic social media use. Both studies indicate that fear of mortality helps explain how insecure attachment is linked to psychological difficulties, though the earlier study focused on problematic social media habits across a wide adult age range while the new research examined internalizing mental health symptoms in young adults.
The depression results also align with a study covered by PsyPost in 2023, which examined broader existential anxiety and meaning in life among adult mental health professionals rather than death anxiety and attachment styles in emerging adults, and similarly found that existential anxiety helped explain the link between lower meaning in life and more severe depressive symptoms.
Musetti pointed out that the statistical relationships uncovered in the study should be kept in perspective. “The effects were statistically significant but generally modest in magnitude, which is common when studying complex psychological phenomena,” he said. “We are not suggesting that attachment style or death anxiety alone determine mental health outcomes. Rather, our findings indicate that existential concerns may be one piece of a broader psychological puzzle that includes relational experiences, emotional regulation, personality, and social context.”
As with all research, there are some caveats to consider when interpreting these findings. Because all the survey data were collected at a single point in time, the study cannot establish cause and effect. While psychological theory suggests that attachment patterns develop early and shape later fears and symptoms, it is also possible that experiencing depression or anxiety makes a young person feel more insecure in their relationships or more frightened of dying.
“A key caveat is that this was a cross-sectional study,” Musetti emphasized. “The findings identify associations that are consistent with a theoretically grounded model, but longitudinal research is needed to clarify causal pathways. Additionally, representing death as a passage should not be interpreted simply as being religious. The construct we studied concerns a person’s fundamental understanding of what happens to the self after death and cannot be reduced to religious affiliation alone.”
There are a few other limitations to keep in mind. Over 83 percent of the participants were young Italian women, and most were students, meaning the results may not generalize equally to men, older adults, or people from different cultural and religious backgrounds where views on death and the afterlife differ. Participants were recruited through social media and word of mouth rather than randomly selected, and the authors note that mediation analyses based on a single time point can overstate indirect pathways. In addition, the researchers relied on brief self-report screening tools rather than clinical interviews, and the two-item measures for depression and somatic symptoms showed only modest internal consistency.
Future studies could track diverse groups of young people over several years to confirm the order in which attachment insecurities, existential beliefs, and mental health symptoms develop. The authors suggest, though this was not tested, that clinicians working with young adults who have a preoccupied attachment style and view death as total annihilation might combine relationship-focused therapy with existential approaches that help build a sense of meaning and continuity, as long as such approaches respect a person’s own worldview.
“One important next step is to examine these relationships longitudinally to better understand how attachment, death anxiety, and psychological symptoms influence one another over time,” Musetti added. “We are also interested in studying whether similar processes operate across different age groups and cultural contexts, since beliefs about death are deeply shaped by culture and life experience.”
The study, “Adult Attachment, Death Anxiety, Representation of Death, and Depression, Anxiety, Obsessive-compulsive, and Somatic Symptoms in Emerging Adulthood: A Moderated Mediation Model,” was authored by Alessandro Musetti, Andrea Zagaria, Vittorio Lenzo, Gianluca Santoro, and Adriano Schimmenti.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #Psychology #MentalHealth #DeathAnxiety #FearOfRejection #AttachmentStyles #YoungAdults #Anxiety #Depression #PsychologyResearch #EmotionalWellbeing
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A Look Back at X-Men 2099 #24 (1995)
Disclaimer: This is my original work with details sourced from reading the comic book and doing personal research. Anyone who wants to use this article, in part or in whole, needs to secure first my permission and agree to cite me as the source and author. Let it be known that any unauthorized use of this article will constrain the author to pursue the remedies under R.A. No. 8293, the Revised Penal Code, and/or all applicable legal actions under the laws of the Philippines.
Welcome back, superhero enthusiasts, 1990s culture enthusiasts, X-Men fans and comic book collectors! Today we revisit the Marvel Comics shared universe through one of the many tales of the X-Men 2099 monthly series.
One of the things I enjoyed the most about the X-Men 2099 series was its expansion of the 2099 universe lore as well as the portrayal of uncertainty that mutants deal with in the more desolate parts of America (far away from Spider-Man 2099 and Punisher 2099). Along the way, the futuristic X-Men themselves were really torn down by a series of unfortunate events that includes the departure of their founder and leader Xi’an (eventually Controller X of the Theater of Pain). With the team members separated by circumstances, they were given their own tales and character development periods.
With those details laid down, here is a look back at X-Men 2099 #24, published by Marvel Comics in 1995 with a story written by John Francis Moore and drawn by Ron Lim.
The cover.Early story
The story begins in southern California where the Slaughterhouse gets shaken by the force of a gamma bomb that detonated far away. Inside the facility, Quiver and Sham struggle as they sneak carefully. They intend to escape even though the odds are against them.
Nearby, the demonic Theater of Pain leader Brimstone Love strikes Junkpile (now with SHIELD serving the new President Doom 2099) hard and seriously damages him. With Junkpile down, the evil leader believes that Doom’s best is a failure and the Theater of Pain has nothing to fear from him. Brimstone Love issues an order to have Junkpile disposed.
Several feet below the ground, Skullfire and Luna find themselves contained after getting captured. For Luna, Xi’an is a lost cause and she prefers to find Shakti and escape. Skullfire, however, insists on pursuing Xi’an even though their situation looks very hopeless. As the two try to escape, they end up facing the muses of the Theater of Pain’s bloodsport arenas…Euphoria, Felicity and Bliss. Luna was previously one of them…
Quality
Shakti represents the remaining X-Men while her former superior Xi’an has fully sided with the evil Theater of Pain as Controller X.Being the comic book that immediately precedes issue #25, there is a lot of creative stuff here that X-Men 2099 fans will enjoy. The Moore-Lim duo took their time in setting up the eventual restoration of the futuristic X-Men as a team while carefully telling the dangerous events they will face with the Theater of Pain standing in their way.
Fans can find small moments that can be enjoyable or even intriguing to discover such as Luna facing off with her Theater of Pain “sisters” of long ago, the reuniting of Bloodhawk with Meanstreak and Krystalin followed by the justification behind their decision to get involved, and more. What I find very compelling to read is Shakti’s interaction with Controller X (Xi’an behind the mask obsessively serving the Theater of Pain) and the rising danger the Theater’s operation is brewing. There is richness in the dialogue between Shakti and Xi’an, and the symbolic division between them – Shakti representing the X-Men and their former leader Xi’an now serving the evil ones – is really powerful to see.
The storytelling as a whole has a lot of depth behind it, and the build-up of the events is undeniably powerful. As the story progressed, the tension also grew stronger and you can feel the danger that awaits the futuristic X-Men.
Conclusion
Bloodhawk is back with Meanstreak and Krystalin.X-Men 2099 #24 (1995) succeeds a lot on setting-up the big conflict of issue #25 and it also sets in motion the eventual reuniting of the X-Men. Along the way, there are small details here and there that will compel you to revisit previous X-Men 2099 issues. Brimstone Love’s evil was emphasized more here and Controller X/Xi’an’s determination to serve him and make a lot of people suffer under the Theater’s operation added a lot of tension to the plot. Consider this a very important read before reading X-Men 2099 #25.
Overall, X-Men 2099 #24 (1995) is recommended.
+++++
Thank you for reading. If you find this article engaging, please click the like button below and also please consider sharing this article to others. If you are looking for a copywriter to create content for your special project or business, check out my services and my portfolio. If you want to support my website, please consider making a donation. Feel free to contact me with a private message. Also please feel free to visit my Facebook page Author Carlo Carrasco and follow me on Twitter at @HavenorFantasy as well as on Tumblr at https://carlocarrasco.tumblr.com/ and on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/authorcarlocarrasco/.
#1990s #2099 #2099Universe #America #amusement #Bloodhawk #California #CarloCarrasco #ChatGPT #comic #comicBook #ComicBookReview #comicBooks #comicReview #comics #comicsBlog #comicsReview #Communist #CommunistCalifornia #CommunistCaliforniaCommiefornia #Doom2099 #Fediverse #fun #geek #Google #GoogleSearch #illustratedLiterature #Islamist #IslamoLeft #IslamoLeftist #JohnFrancisMoore #Krystalin #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA #literature #Marvel #Marvel2099 #MarvelComics #MarvelEntertainment #Marxist #Mastodon #Meanstreak #nostalgia #Punisher2099 #retroReview #Retrospective #review #Reviews #RonLim #sciFi #scienceFiction #Shakti #Skullfire #socialist #SpiderMan2099 #superhero #superheroes #The1990s #UnitedStatesOfAmericaUSA #USA #woke #WordPress #WordPressCom #XMen #XMen2099 #XMenReview #XiAn -
“Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought… Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override.”*…
Jacques-Louis David, The Tennis Court Oath, 1790-4 (source)Stephen Colbert once observed that “reality has a well-known liberal bias.” And indeed, liberalism— the political/moral philosophy rooted in individual liberty, consent of the governed, and equality before the law– has been a major ideology through modern times… and, of course, the major ideology animating the founding of the United States.
But as Easten European states turn to authoritarians, Western European nations wrestle with the rise of nationalist far-right parties, and the U.S. is “steered” by MAGA using Project 2025‘s “map,” there’s a concern that liberalism’s days may be past.
Persuasion is running a series of essays on “Liberal Virtues and Values.”
The series, made possible with the generous support of the John Templeton Foundation, will make the case that liberalism has its own distinctive set of virtues and values that are capable not only of responding to the dissatisfaction that drives authoritarianism, but also of restoring faith in liberalism as an ideology worth believing in—and defending—on its own terms.
The latest installment is from Martin Gurri, who argues that Liberalism needs a new foundation (and that how we handle AI will matter fundamentally)…
That liberal democracy is in a state of terminal decline I take to be beyond dispute. Like Alice in the rabbit hole, those of us who dwell in democratic societies suffer from a nauseating sense of falling without ever landing on solid ground. The usual suspects blamed for this tumble—populism, inequality, the economy—are mere surface symptoms of an internal breakdown. We have arrived at the conclusion of a world-historical cycle. Liberal democracy is the procedural embodiment of Enlightenment ideology—and after two centuries of dominance, that ideology has lost all purchase and stands utterly exhausted.
Radical alternatives confront us. Either we reorient our system to post-Enlightenment principles or we risk staggering into the nihilist’s paradise I have called the Endarkenment.
Enlightenment philosophers placed their faith in reason and science. These are purely critical disciplines: liberal propagandists wielded criticism like a scalpel to dissect conservative laggards and utopian revolutionaries alike. Once triumphant at the “end of history,” liberal democracy turned the knife on itself—a process of self-criticism and self-doubt that has shredded its own ideals to ribbons.
The positive values inherited from the Enlightenment—equality, individualism, compassion—were always parasitic on Christianity. But Christianity, like all religions, has no place in a universe ruled by reason and science. Nietzsche long ago brought us the troubling news: the Christian God is dead. Oblivious to the implications of this calamity, liberal democracy kept marching like a cartoon character over the edge of the abyss, until the laws of moral gravity asserted themselves. So began the Great Fall.
Criticism is a force for progress so long as there are blatant irrationalities, like slavery or Jim Crow discrimination, to overcome. But under the hammer of Enlightenment ideals, modern society has been flattened, centralized, and rationalized. Deprived of obvious superstitions to debunk and totalitarian rivals to defeat, liberal democracy has been revealed in all its internal contradictions.
One such contradiction, I contend, pits the cherished principle of equality against the chosen few who actually practice reason and science: let’s call this the problem of the elites.
A second contradiction finds freedom of the press and of opinion arrayed against the need to protect objective truth: call it the problem of information.
Finally, freedom of worship and the life of the spirit collide head-on with the materialist criticism favored by Enlightenment ideology: the problem of meaning.
Each of these contradictions could prove fatal to the democratic project, but none is insoluble, and the search for solutions offers an opportunity for renewal. While there are no guarantees, we could emerge from the crisis with a better understanding of the reach and limits of equality, a more transparent information sphere, and even, it may be, a rich infusion of the transcendental into everyday life…
[Gurri unpacks each of those contradictions…]
… So what is to be done?
The first, obvious step is to move the question to the center of our shared conversations. The most capacious thinkers of the age should contemplate first principles and ultimate goals with at least as much intensity as they invest in Donald Trump or the latest economic report. There’s nothing artificial about this. Science and reason are necessary for modernity. Meaning and moral aspiration are necessary for humanity. A balance must be struck that preserves the one and gives full weight to the other.
Materialism, we must understand, is a valuable perspective for science but not a realistic appraisal of the human condition. Scientists work as if on a geometric point, abstracted from nature and indifferent to its dispositions. In reality, however, we come from nature, we are of nature, and we are far from indifferent to our place in it. Our intuitions are internal to the system: humanity’s spiritual quest is, in every sense, nature reflecting on itself. One such intuition is agency—the belief that, at the crossroads, I am free to go right or left, and I alone make the choice. Another is faith in causation. These stances are irrational, or rather pre-rational, but without them liberal democracy as well as science itself would be impossible.
In the end, materialism is self-defeating. To say, “I choose to be a materialist” is to fall into an absurd fallacy. Either our bodies, which consist of matter, obey unchanging laws, or the mind, transcending matter, is capable of choice. There can be no middle ground.
Politics, in a metaphysical age, will resume its traditional place as a secondary activity—a means to an end. This will leave liberal democracy vulnerable to false prophets who are willing to trample on individual rights in pursuit of some apocalyptic scheme. The interesting question is whether the post-truth condition will make the peril greater or lesser. On the one hand, the lack of universal firewalls might make it easier for a fanatic to flood the system. Yet post-truth itself, I believe, is the strongest kind of firewall. In our fractured, eternally contested environment, the progress of any totalizing doctrine will be painfully slow. The quest for meaning and the struggle over frames of reference are, in the end, really one and the same.
We have inherited a rich and evocative spiritual vocabulary, but it belongs to a worldview thousands of years old. “King of kings,” to cite just one example, should sound archaic in a democratic age. Can we awaken the scientific world to the spirit? Is it possible to sanctify our largely instrumental relations? This shouldn’t entail a belief in fairies and goblins, or even necessarily in religion. Any good empiricist will admit that the richest human lives are lived symbolically. Can we climb the symbolic ladder to the mountaintop, where meaning and modern humanity come harmoniously together—anchoring, it may be, a loftier understanding of equality and social life, and of the sanctity of truth?
We won’t know until we try. Pessimism, let me suggest, is unwarranted. History moves in mysterious ways. We may be due for a second coming of historian Karl Jaspers’ “Axial Age”: preachers and philosophers who conceived a drastically updated transcendental vision, with the rational and the sacred, truth and meaning, reconciled with political freedom.
For 200 years, we placed society under the sway of universal principles. That’s gone with the wind. We have entered an era of radical contingency, in which even truth is indeterminate. The natural tendency is to retreat to the certainties of the past—but there’s no going back. If we hope to preserve the gains from Enlightenment society, and resolve its many contradictions, we’ll have to do so within a new and wildly unstable conceptual framework.
With the spell of the Enlightenment broken, liberal democracy will have to redefine what “created equal” means. This process could end in a rigid caste system, with the institutions in the hands of self-selected mandarins who wield the power of the state to impose their “solutions.” Preferably, and more likely given the thrust of the new technology, we’ll see a flattening of the institutions and the continued trampling by the public into the sacred spaces of politics and communication.
Equality, however understood, will be forged in the will of the citizenry rather than granted by a benevolent God. That will make it contingent like everything else, and so liable to variation and in constant need of defense. And if perfect equality is an impossible dream, eternal inequality requires impossible discipline. The current elite class, already under enormous pressure, may lose its cohesion and melt into the impermanence of the age, divided among the various schools and sects and frames of reference.
The structure of information will follow the definition of equality. The commanding heights will be control over AI. If AI development and deployment is a closed game, the elites could set themselves up as intermediaries in the oracle of an omniscient divinity. If AI is a competitive product, the public will gain the upper hand. In that case, we can expect a flowering of eccentric applications, the individualization of commerce and industry, and the final overthrow of the expert class. The information sphere will remain the mirror to our passions, divisions, and metaphysical longings. Freedom of speech, no longer “endowed by our Creator,” will become the battleground on which the question of equality is ultimately settled.
Here I finally reveal myself in my true colors. I’m an analyst. My task is to describe reality, and that’s what this essay is about. But I also lead an active life inside the world that I’m describing—and I have preferences. I see equality as a factor of opportunity, law, and human dignity, not of perfect outcomes. I think truth emerges from examining a subject from a large number of perspectives, even those that may seem disturbing or false. I hope that my story—as a person, a father, a grandfather—connects to other stories in the past and will connect to more in the future, in a pattern that is not entirely devoid of meaning. And I believe fervently in liberal democracy, because—born in Cuba—I have tasted the alternative.
The breakdown of Enlightenment ideology is only the latest challenge liberal democracy has faced in my lifetime. I’m not entitled, as an analyst, to downplay the perils ahead, but I’m allowed, as an American, to have faith that they will once again be overcome…
Eminently worth reading in full: “The Search for a Post-Enlightenment Democracy”
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As we renew, we might send free-thinking birthday greetings to Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque (or as he’s usually called, Benjamin Constant); he was born on this date in 1767. A French political thinker, activist, and writer on political theory and religion (whose work influenced, among many others, Sir Isaiah Berlin), Constant was a committed republican from 1795, backing the coup d’état of 18 Fructidor in1797, and the following one on 18 Brumaire, in 1799. He became the leader of the Liberal opposition in 1800, during the Consulate. Constant fell out with Napoleon, and had to flee (first to Switzerland, then to Saxony). Nonetheless, after his return to France, Constant sided with the Emperor during the Hundred Days, drafting the Charter of 1815. He became politically active again during the Bourbon Restoration and was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1818 (where he remained until his death in 1830). As the head of the Liberal opposition, known as Indépendants, Constant was one of the most notable orators in the Chamber, especially in his role as a proponent of the parliamentary system.
Portrait of Constant by Hercule de Roche, c. 1820 (source) #authoritarianism #BenjaminConstant #culture #democracy #Elites #Enlightenment #FrenchHistory #history #illiberalism #information #liberalism #MartinGurri #meaning #moralPhilosophy #Napoleon #philosophy #politicalPhilosophy #religion