34 ms·
>Alfred Whitehead's observation that 'civilisation advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them'. Rem
by personlurking 6y ago
>Alfred Whitehead's observation that 'civilisation advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them'.
Reminds me a bit of a quote I heard recently: "Tradition is a set of solutions for which we have forgotten the problems. Throw away the solution and you get the problem back."
- mam2 6y agoIt's actually a very interesting line of thought, but people lose their mind as soon as you start digging in.
- esperent 6y agoIt might apply to some traditions. However, for others, this is more accurate: "Tradition is a set of solutions for problems that don't exist anymore". An example of the latter that immediately springs to mind is circumcision.
- hansbo 6y agoWhat problem did it solve before?
- discreteevent 6y agoHygiene
- janeroe 6y agoThat's the modern justification. Surgery "in the middle of a desert in the insanitary conditions and no water" for "hygiene" is a very counter-intuitive practice, don't you think?
- Layke1123 6y agoWow, I never thought about this. It would be interesting to do a study to see what lead to more disease, child circumcision during that time, or hygiene complications later in life, not to mention and STDs that might be spread more easily. Fascinating new way to look at it.
- heavenlyblue 6y agoWhat is even more counter-intuitive is to say that ancient wisdom knows more about human health than today’s medicine.
- baby 6y agoDisorder in society
- pjc50 6y ago.. how?
- tomasdore 6y agoPhimosis, I presume.
- janeroe 6y ago>> Tradition is a set of solutions for problems that don't exist anymore That'd be reductionist rationalists' position.
- heavenlyblue 6y agoDefining a name for something doesn’t make it into a point. It’s like calling someone conservative for saying that migration is taking away jobs. So what? What is the point you are making here? Is the point to reframe the idea in such a way that it would be easier to reduce their opinion to the outer group associated with the name?
- pjc50 6y agoVariant of Chesterton's fence? Of course, sometimes the underlying problem has gone away entirely or been dealt with by a different solution. Then you run into traditionalists defending ridiculous things with arguments that make no sense.