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I have never been able to accept any form of primitivism or reactionary ideology for many reasons. Chief among them is this: if everything was so great in this

by api 3y ago

I have never been able to accept any form of primitivism or reactionary ideology for many reasons. Chief among them is this: if everything was so great in this imagined past, why are we here and why if we did go back and revive this past would we not end up right back here “repeating the grade” so to speak? The second is that (as I hinted above) I am extremely skeptical of narratives that excessively glorify the past. I think it’s all a bunch of survivorship bias. Things often seem better in the past because we are experiencing only those cultural artifacts of the past that survived, which tend to be the most memorable or interesting. Lastly, I have doubts about the very possibility of revisiting the past. The arrow of time is unidirectional. I can’t think of a way we could even attempt to return without an insanely totalitarian system that attempted to forcibly suppress modernity at incredible cost in human life and freedom. That would end up looking like the worst caricature of precisely the totalitarian tendencies of modernity that these authors often call out. Pol Pot is kind of an example from history of someone who tried to return a society to a pastoral mode of existence by force. At their core these writers are critics, and I’ve come to see mere criticism of any form as broadly intellectually weak. It is far easier to criticize than it is to improve or fix things. Creation is infinitely more difficult than accusation or destruction. All our significant problems must be very hard to solve or they would already be solved. If they seem simple it’s because we haven’t fully grasped their scope, which in most cases includes ourselves. The reactionary is a particularly lazy kind of critic. They don’t even bother to propose an unworkable solution. That’s too much work for them. They just point back at an imagined past and blame people for having done things between then and now.

notacoward 3y ago
You've buried an assumption in there: that there is only one possible future. That we can only choose between that one future and the past. Since at least the original Luddites, the real tension has been between multiple futures enabled by technology. Kaczynski was in this tradition. It was an argument against inevitability, against the same glorification of one future that you condemn when it's about the one past. I suggest that you consider the possibility of one or more different futures, where technology still exists but is applied in ways that enhance our humanity instead of suppressing it.
- api 3y ago
  If this is the case then these writers should be spending 95% of their words talking about how to go from here to a different better future, or even better rolling up their sleeves and attempting to live or create such a future here and now. The only criticism you need is whatever it takes to frame the problem. I’ve read Kaczynski and numerous other primitivists and reactionaries and that’s not the dominant theme. The emphasis is on a lost golden age (that I do not believe actually existed) and accusing modernity in a moralistic tone.
kodah 3y ago
> if everything was so great in this imagined past, why are we here and why if we did go back and revive this past would we not end up right back here “repeating the grade” so to speak? "Progress" doesn't occur because things are "better" it occurs because things are incentivized. A system can incentivize bad things, and at many points in life we may choose bad things for one group and good things for another. Progress is merely another point further down on the timeline, as is the past. Qualitatively judging these points in isolation is difficult, but when viewed in collective over time I think people will often reflect that some things have gotten better, some have gotten worse, and we also have new problems. I view the past less as a former grade and more as just a different state of things, neither better nor worse in totality, but I'm also not cynical enough to say that restoring a previous state is the right choice either. Somewhat anecdotally I hardly ever believe in software rollbacks, I almost always bias towards rolling forward but I understand why some people think rollbacks are something they'd want. > The second is that (as I hinted above) I am extremely skeptical of narratives that excessively glorify the past. I think it’s all a bunch of survivorship bias. Things often seem better in the past because we are experiencing only those cultural artifacts of the past that survived, which tend to be the most memorable or interesting. Again, the present doesn't necessarily mean that things are better for people. We make choices every day to marginalize a group or way of life over another. A lot of times, this is just necessary but I can understand why people don't like it. > Lastly, I have doubts about the very possibility of revisiting the past. The arrow of time is unidirectional. You and I agree here, in that I understand the state of the past, even yesterday, can never be fully recreated. Again, I understand why that's difficult for people to wrestle with. It sounds like for you and I, life is mostly good, so it makes dealing with the present and optimism for the future quite palatable. For others, I think that's challenging, so the past looks favorable even if unviable. > The reactionary is a particularly lazy kind of critic. They don’t even bother to propose an unworkable solution. Unfortunately this is most of our politicians. Pretty much anyone that media would call a "firebrand" from Matt Gaetz to AOC is a reactionary, and they're so absorbed in their own thoughts, world, and problems that they can't help but take it out on the rest of the world. It's a symptom of a broken, tired, and frustrated system that we put trust in people who are simply meant to agitate rather than build comprehensive, intersectional systems.
bmitc 3y ago
> Chief among them is this: if everything was so great in this imagined past, why are we here and why if we did go back and revive this past would we not end up right back here “repeating the grade” so to speak? This is a quite limited perspective that ignores momentum of change. In the book Against the Grain, the author observes that the earliest societies that transitioned from hunter-gatherers to agrarian worked harder and longer hours with less time to relax and have leisure and were actually less healthy and didn't live as long. That's just one example where "progress" was not such. We see this again and again though. Yea, we've amplified the amount of stuff we can grow but at the great cost of the environment and even our own health and well-being. We now ingest food filled with plastics and toxins, like mercury. Human technological progress has occurred at rates that we cannot emotionally and biologically keep up with, and the distance is only accelerating. > All our significant problems must be very hard to solve or they would already be solved. Most significant problems were created by us in the first place.

by api 3y ago

notacoward 3y ago

You've buried an assumption in there: that there is only one possible future. That we can only choose between that one future and the past. Since at least the original Luddites, the real tension has been between multiple futures enabled by technology. Kaczynski was in this tradition. It was an argument against inevitability, against the same glorification of one future that you condemn when it's about the one past. I suggest that you consider the possibility of one or more different futures, where technology still exists but is applied in ways that enhance our humanity instead of suppressing it.

api 3y ago
If this is the case then these writers should be spending 95% of their words talking about how to go from here to a different better future, or even better rolling up their sleeves and attempting to live or create such a future here and now. The only criticism you need is whatever it takes to frame the problem. I’ve read Kaczynski and numerous other primitivists and reactionaries and that’s not the dominant theme. The emphasis is on a lost golden age (that I do not believe actually existed) and accusing modernity in a moralistic tone.

kodah 3y ago

> if everything was so great in this imagined past, why are we here and why if we did go back and revive this past would we not end up right back here “repeating the grade” so to speak? "Progress" doesn't occur because things are "better" it occurs because things are incentivized. A system can incentivize bad things, and at many points in life we may choose bad things for one group and good things for another. Progress is merely another point further down on the timeline, as is the past. Qualitatively judging these points in isolation is difficult, but when viewed in collective over time I think people will often reflect that some things have gotten better, some have gotten worse, and we also have new problems. I view the past less as a former grade and more as just a different state of things, neither better nor worse in totality, but I'm also not cynical enough to say that restoring a previous state is the right choice either. Somewhat anecdotally I hardly ever believe in software rollbacks, I almost always bias towards rolling forward but I understand why some people think rollbacks are something they'd want. > The second is that (as I hinted above) I am extremely skeptical of narratives that excessively glorify the past. I think it’s all a bunch of survivorship bias. Things often seem better in the past because we are experiencing only those cultural artifacts of the past that survived, which tend to be the most memorable or interesting. Again, the present doesn't necessarily mean that things are better for people. We make choices every day to marginalize a group or way of life over another. A lot of times, this is just necessary but I can understand why people don't like it. > Lastly, I have doubts about the very possibility of revisiting the past. The arrow of time is unidirectional. You and I agree here, in that I understand the state of the past, even yesterday, can never be fully recreated. Again, I understand why that's difficult for people to wrestle with. It sounds like for you and I, life is mostly good, so it makes dealing with the present and optimism for the future quite palatable. For others, I think that's challenging, so the past looks favorable even if unviable. > The reactionary is a particularly lazy kind of critic. They don’t even bother to propose an unworkable solution. Unfortunately this is most of our politicians. Pretty much anyone that media would call a "firebrand" from Matt Gaetz to AOC is a reactionary, and they're so absorbed in their own thoughts, world, and problems that they can't help but take it out on the rest of the world. It's a symptom of a broken, tired, and frustrated system that we put trust in people who are simply meant to agitate rather than build comprehensive, intersectional systems.

bmitc 3y ago

> Chief among them is this: if everything was so great in this imagined past, why are we here and why if we did go back and revive this past would we not end up right back here “repeating the grade” so to speak? This is a quite limited perspective that ignores momentum of change. In the book Against the Grain, the author observes that the earliest societies that transitioned from hunter-gatherers to agrarian worked harder and longer hours with less time to relax and have leisure and were actually less healthy and didn't live as long. That's just one example where "progress" was not such. We see this again and again though. Yea, we've amplified the amount of stuff we can grow but at the great cost of the environment and even our own health and well-being. We now ingest food filled with plastics and toxins, like mercury. Human technological progress has occurred at rates that we cannot emotionally and biologically keep up with, and the distance is only accelerating. > All our significant problems must be very hard to solve or they would already be solved. Most significant problems were created by us in the first place.