Pretty horribly, it seems, if what their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed is any indication. Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying get to the heart of it in this on-point Dark Horse clip:
And lest you retain an intact shred of hope that once-functioning and crucially important institutions haven’t been compromised, Bret and Heather assure us in episode 144 that “It’s even worse than that” (YouTube, Apple Podcasts). We’ve got some real work to do, if we’re to restore our knowledge-building capabilities to a semblance of sanity and trustworthiness.
Another superb and timely short video from Academy of Ideas. The reference to Václav Havel’s ideas about building “parallel structures” takes me back to Bill Whittle’s 2012 “Where do we go now?” talk, and I wonder whether Bill was aware of an influenced by Havel’s writing on this subject.
One of many profound passages: (See here for the full transcript. It’s well worthwhile.)
Compliance is the food that feeds totalitarians. Compliance is not, and never will be, the path back to some form of normality. Rather non-compliance and civil disobedience are essential to counter the rise of totalitarian rule. But in addition to resistance, a forward escape into a reality absent the sickness of totalitarian rule requires the construction of a parallel society. A parallel society serves two main purposes: it offers pockets of freedom to those rejected by the totalitarian system, or who refuse to participate in it, and it forms the foundation for a new society that can grow out of the ashes of the destruction wrought by the totalitarians. Or as Václav Havel, a dissident under the communist rule of Czechoslovakia, explains in his book The Power of the Powerless:
“When those who have decided to live within the truth have been denied any direct influence on the existing social structures, not to mention the opportunity to participate in them, and when these people begin to create what I have called the independent life of society, this independent life begins, of itself, to become structured in a certain way.
“…[these] parallel structures do not grow . . .out of a theoretical vision of systemic change (there are no political sects involved), but from the aims of life and the authentic needs of real people.” (Václav Havel, The Power of the Powerless)
There are innumerable ways to contribute to the construction of a parallel society. One can build technologies that promote freedom or agoristic economic institutions that further voluntary exchange. One can run a business that resists implementing unjust laws or mandates, or one can create media or educational institutions that counter the lies and propaganda of the state. Or one can create music, literature or artwork that counters the staleness of totalitarian culture. The parallel society is a decentralized and voluntary alternative to the centralized and coercive control of the totalitarian society and as Havel explains:
“One of the most important tasks the ‘dissident movements’ have set themselves is to support and develop [parallel social structures]. . . What else are those initial attempts at social self organization than the efforts of a certain part of society to . . . rid itself of the self-sustaining aspects of totalitarianism and, thus, to extricate itself radically from its involvement in the [totalitarian] system?” (Václav Havel, The Power of the Powerless)
I always am very uncomfortable with these sort of categories of … extreme optimism, extreme pessimism. I think those are somehow the wrong categories. … And I think they’re actually weirdly the same. Extreme optimism … says that you don’t need to do anything. The movie of the future will go on its own. It’s sort of automatic, accelerating progress and all you have to do is sit back and eat some popcorn and watch the movie of the future unfold. And then extreme pessimism is that … nothing you can do will make a difference. And the truth is always, I think, somewhere in between, or at least it’s best for us to believe that it’s somewhere in between and that … instead of being in emotive denial (that everything’s great) or acceptance (that everything is awful) and both denial and acceptance are code words for laziness, for not doing anything, because there’s nothing you can do — nothing you need to do. It’s best to be somewhere in between and to think: It actually matters. Things are always up for debate … and we should be fighting, and we should be figuring out … how to continue to have this healthy and free country in which we live.
In a democracy, what 51% of the population believes is probably better, and there’s a certain bias towards majoritarianism, and if you have 70% of the population [that] believes something it’s even more true. But if you go from 51% to 70% to 99.9%, you’ve gone from a democracy to North Korea. And it’s this very important question that one needs to always needs to come back to. Where do we sort of go from the wisdom of crowds to the madness of crowds, and where’s that dividing line between majoritarian democracy and where do you get to the sort of totalitarianism of North Korea. And it’s hard to define where that line is, but I want to suggest that in all kinds of contexts we’re far too far on the side that you can describe as collectivist, centralized, Borg-like, conformist, and also generally just simply incorrect.
We’ve had all these derangements of science, where … in the name of “science” we’ve done these rather unscientific things. And I often think that … when people use the word “science” it’s often a tell of the opposite … that the things that are actual science like physics and chemistry, you don’t need to call them “physical science” or “chemical science” because you don’t need to protest that much like, you know, Lady Macbeth. But when you call things “climate science” or “political science”, that’s sort of a tell that they’re not quite scientific.
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I’ve come to think that one way to think of a healthy “science” is that it has to fight a two-front war against excessive skepticism, and against excessive dogmatism. So excessive skepticism is if you can’t believe in anything: I don’t believe I’m here, I don’t believe the audience is here, nothing is real, everything is imaginary. That’s probably not an attitude that’s conducive to science. And of course, excessive dogmatism, at the other end of the spectrum, is … the 17th century church telling you that the Aristotelian view of the universe was correct and therefore the Earth couldn’t possibly be moving. And that’s excessive dogmatism, and that’s also very bad for science.
James Lindsay (@ConceptualJames) is an irreverent and insightful force of nature, who’s immersed himself deeply in the abyss of present-day social critic culture and the postmodern philosophy from which it originates. He excels at dissecting the thinking behind cultural phenomena now in play, and laying the implications bare for much-needed exposure to daylight. His appearance on Joe Rogan’s show this week was a well-worthwhile dive into the insane times we live in, tracing the origins of the toxic theories responsible for present lunacies back to their sources.
Freedom is a tremendous and precious inheritance. To develop our potential, thrive in it, and pass it along to each successive generation is our highest calling. I write here to give my thanks, and to seek ways we can cultivate the resilience, independence, courage, and indomitable spirit necessary to sustain a culture that cherishes liberty.
