4 ms·

Our "underlying perceptions" for most things concerned with society are nigh completely incompatible with that of Shakespare and most certainly Machiavelli. Su

Our "underlying perceptions" for most things concerned with society are nigh completely incompatible with that of Shakespare and most certainly Machiavelli. Sure we can still understand thinkers of old in a limited capacity, but that's not due to us thinking like them or even experiencing the world like them as our experience is coloured by the concepts we use. We can understand them because of the continuity of society, the constant translation of the old into the new. Capitalism can only exist now because of how much those underlying assumptions have changed.

graeme 7y ago
You misunderstood. I was saying people can and do use the first four as practical guides. As for Shakespeare, his plays still speak to fundamental, understandable human drama.
- re-actor 7y ago
  I don't understand how I misunderstood? That's exactly what I was replying to.
  - graeme 7y ago
    Oh. Well your original post was saying that human nature had changed radically over the past few centuries. I mentioned the authors as evidence that the stuff they taught about human nature still applies. When you said when we only understand them in a limited way I took that to mean you disagreed with me that the books have practical value still, and thus were not a good marker of an unchanging human nature. But that's mere contradiction of a claim, you didn’t argue anything directly to show that old authors are in fact hard to understand etc. I don’t think it’s merely cultural continuation. We can likewise read Sun Tzu and recognize ourselves and our psyches in his stories. There is no cultural continuity with European authors there. Perhaps I missed something?
    - re-actor 7y ago
      > Oh. Well your original post was saying that human nature had changed radically over the past few centuries. I dispute the very concept of "human nature", it implies a platonic "human", a base which we can only uncover the details of. While in reality there doesn't appear to be such a thing. > I mentioned the authors as evidence that the stuff they taught about human nature still applies. It kind of does, changes in the "public consciousness" are more often subversive than radical, a lot of concepts Shakespeare popularised or came up with are still in common use, however it's not because he's unlayering the onion of "the human" concept, but because these concepts are useful and haven't been subverted or forgotten. > When you said when we only understand them in a limited way I took that to mean you disagreed with me that the books have practical value still, and thus were not a good marker of an unchanging human nature. But that's mere contradiction of a claim, you didn’t argue anything directly to show that old authors are in fact hard to understand etc. They of course still have practical value, when I say "in a limited capacity" I mean it in a more "glass-half full" way, a lot of context for these works has been lost forever and how a person reading a text understands a word relies more on his entire lifetime of experience than it does on the authors intent, good authors can generally bridge the gap easily, dead authors can't. So information is lost. > We can likewise read Sun Tzu and recognize ourselves and our psyches in his stories. There is no cultural continuity with European authors there. Unless you've brushed up on your ancient Chinese that's not really true, the cultural continuity here is the translator.
    - Nasrudith 7y ago
      I suspect the cultural continuity is there but it is taken for granted and not noticed as oppossed to the "exotic". Like how most people don't see themselves as speaking with an accent.
sfink 7y ago
Uh... have you actually read Machiavelli? What in The Prince, exactly, does not fully apply to people today? (As long as you don't get literal minded and say we don't live in a monarchy or something.) Don't go by the dictionary definition of machiavellian. He really wasn't saying things that are hard to believe. He was really just pointing out the sorts of manifestations of human nature that surround us if we don't blind ourselves and refuse to see it.

graeme 7y ago

You misunderstood. I was saying people can and do use the first four as practical guides. As for Shakespeare, his plays still speak to fundamental, understandable human drama.

re-actor 7y ago
I don't understand how I misunderstood? That's exactly what I was replying to.
- graeme 7y ago
  Oh. Well your original post was saying that human nature had changed radically over the past few centuries. I mentioned the authors as evidence that the stuff they taught about human nature still applies. When you said when we only understand them in a limited way I took that to mean you disagreed with me that the books have practical value still, and thus were not a good marker of an unchanging human nature. But that's mere contradiction of a claim, you didn’t argue anything directly to show that old authors are in fact hard to understand etc. I don’t think it’s merely cultural continuation. We can likewise read Sun Tzu and recognize ourselves and our psyches in his stories. There is no cultural continuity with European authors there. Perhaps I missed something?
  - re-actor 7y ago
    > Oh. Well your original post was saying that human nature had changed radically over the past few centuries. I dispute the very concept of "human nature", it implies a platonic "human", a base which we can only uncover the details of. While in reality there doesn't appear to be such a thing. > I mentioned the authors as evidence that the stuff they taught about human nature still applies. It kind of does, changes in the "public consciousness" are more often subversive than radical, a lot of concepts Shakespeare popularised or came up with are still in common use, however it's not because he's unlayering the onion of "the human" concept, but because these concepts are useful and haven't been subverted or forgotten. > When you said when we only understand them in a limited way I took that to mean you disagreed with me that the books have practical value still, and thus were not a good marker of an unchanging human nature. But that's mere contradiction of a claim, you didn’t argue anything directly to show that old authors are in fact hard to understand etc. They of course still have practical value, when I say "in a limited capacity" I mean it in a more "glass-half full" way, a lot of context for these works has been lost forever and how a person reading a text understands a word relies more on his entire lifetime of experience than it does on the authors intent, good authors can generally bridge the gap easily, dead authors can't. So information is lost. > We can likewise read Sun Tzu and recognize ourselves and our psyches in his stories. There is no cultural continuity with European authors there. Unless you've brushed up on your ancient Chinese that's not really true, the cultural continuity here is the translator.
  - Nasrudith 7y ago
    I suspect the cultural continuity is there but it is taken for granted and not noticed as oppossed to the "exotic". Like how most people don't see themselves as speaking with an accent.

sfink 7y ago

Uh... have you actually read Machiavelli? What in The Prince, exactly, does not fully apply to people today? (As long as you don't get literal minded and say we don't live in a monarchy or something.) Don't go by the dictionary definition of machiavellian. He really wasn't saying things that are hard to believe. He was really just pointing out the sorts of manifestations of human nature that surround us if we don't blind ourselves and refuse to see it.