3 ms·

Magic died when art and science split

45 points by dnetesn 2y ago

keiferski 2y ago
Disenchantment (the term used to describe the loss of magic in the world) is a bit more complicated and started earlier. Charles Taylor’s book A Secular Age is an excellent read if you’re interested in how (and if) it happened: https://intotheclarities.com/2014/08/23/charles-taylor-on-disenchantment/ https://intotheclarities.com/2014/08/23/charles-taylor-on-di... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Secular_Age https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Secular_Age It’s a huge tome but one detail worth mentioning is that Taylor says disenchantment goes back to at least the Reformation (1500s-1600s), as that’s when “strong belief” became more important. Prior to that, religion was essentially on various speeds, with the religious establishment “believing more” and the rest of society believing at a less serious level, content to live in a world of mixed beings, magic, etc. Once the Reformation kicked off, it became much more important to clarify and commit to the beliefs - which also had the unintended result of many people analyzing their beliefs and not believing them anymore. I can’t summarize the whole thing here, but I highly recommend it. I also think Taylor recently published a book about Romantic poetry, which is apt considering the blog post’s discussion of Coleridge.
polotics 2y ago
Obligatory reference: Jason Josephson Storm's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Disenchantment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Disenchantment explains that it's not so simple...
anthk 2y ago
>Latin was necessary for a professional career, but science was not. With the British industrial revolution, science was almost mandatory. >religious thought became much less central, Well, guess why. Once you get a logical foundation on how the Universe behaves, all of the tribalist, messianic babble goes down the sink. The problem with Humanities/Arts is that they love being hideous and fancy instead of being just fine with any truth we found. No metter which side of Politics you choose; they love having biases like nothing so their prejudices stay on top of the facts. Look what happened with Galileo, or the Google guy stating that, yes, there are differences on which careers men and women choose _on average_, (hormones rule us a lot), and then most 'woke people' began a witch hunt. These people forgot to extrapolate that the more social it's a society, with granted rights, (and nurturing/caring rights/aids), the less the differences will happen on a future. And, yes, education and context plays a huge rule. We are like computers, having civilized 'software'(evolved social rules, modern law, 'weird' non-animal customs...) but with outdated hardware (Neolithic era genetics and hormones). That will change over millenia, for sure. Science, OTOH, tries to kill any bias since the beginning.

45 points by dnetesn 2y ago

Disenchantment (the term used to describe the loss of magic in the world) is a bit more complicated and started earlier. Charles Taylor’s book A Secular Age is an excellent read if you’re interested in how (and if) it happened: https://intotheclarities.com/2014/08/23/charles-taylor-on-disenchantment/ https://intotheclarities.com/2014/08/23/charles-taylor-on-di... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Secular_Age https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Secular_Age It’s a huge tome but one detail worth mentioning is that Taylor says disenchantment goes back to at least the Reformation (1500s-1600s), as that’s when “strong belief” became more important. Prior to that, religion was essentially on various speeds, with the religious establishment “believing more” and the rest of society believing at a less serious level, content to live in a world of mixed beings, magic, etc. Once the Reformation kicked off, it became much more important to clarify and commit to the beliefs - which also had the unintended result of many people analyzing their beliefs and not believing them anymore. I can’t summarize the whole thing here, but I highly recommend it. I also think Taylor recently published a book about Romantic poetry, which is apt considering the blog post’s discussion of Coleridge.

polotics 2y ago

Obligatory reference: Jason Josephson Storm's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Disenchantment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Disenchantment explains that it's not so simple...

anthk 2y ago

>Latin was necessary for a professional career, but science was not. With the British industrial revolution, science was almost mandatory. >religious thought became much less central, Well, guess why. Once you get a logical foundation on how the Universe behaves, all of the tribalist, messianic babble goes down the sink. The problem with Humanities/Arts is that they love being hideous and fancy instead of being just fine with any truth we found. No metter which side of Politics you choose; they love having biases like nothing so their prejudices stay on top of the facts. Look what happened with Galileo, or the Google guy stating that, yes, there are differences on which careers men and women choose _on average_, (hormones rule us a lot), and then most 'woke people' began a witch hunt. These people forgot to extrapolate that the more social it's a society, with granted rights, (and nurturing/caring rights/aids), the less the differences will happen on a future. And, yes, education and context plays a huge rule. We are like computers, having civilized 'software'(evolved social rules, modern law, 'weird' non-animal customs...) but with outdated hardware (Neolithic era genetics and hormones). That will change over millenia, for sure. Science, OTOH, tries to kill any bias since the beginning.