"Chateaubriand, a strongly religious man, in awe, as we have seen, to royal legitimacy, has of the use of religion the same opinion as Marx. It is the opium of the people"
I am wondering whether religion is rather the opium of the rich. The lower classes know full well that they are oppressed by the rich (hence the rich guys are the bad guys), but the rich need an ideology that explains to them why they are the good guys anyway.
As in our example. Religion was not opium for Marx, but religion was opium for Chateaubriand.
À ma première lecture je suis resté bloqué sur cet épisode sidérant - arrestation procès et exécution du Duc d’Enghien - pendant au moins six mois. Impossible d’avancer. Et l’ombre de Napoléon n’y est pas étrangère mais pas seulement. Justice Pouvoir Raison d’État. Et le Général qui a lu et relu les Mémoires tout au long de sa vie. Tout est condensé là.
Une suggestion Branko : la vie de Rancé. Après les Mémoires. Pour mieux s’approcher de la Personne de Chateaubriand.
Merci. Je me souviens de cette episode. Vous avez raison que beaucoup de choses sont condensees dans ces pages. J'ai oublie qu'une des mes phrases favorites des Memoures, "en France, l'oubli ne se fait pas attendre" y est aussi.
Merci ... your link made me have a look at what C. actually wrote himself ... "Revenant le long des haies à peine tracées, la pluie m’a surpris ; je me suis réfugié sous un hêtre : ses dernières feuilles tombaient comme mes années ; sa cime se dépouillait comme ma tête ; il était marqué au tronc d’un cercle rouge, pour être abattu comme moi. Rentré à mon auberge, avec une moisson de plantes d’automne et dans des dispositions peu propres à la joie, je vous raconterai la mort de M. le duc d’Enghien, à la vue des ruines de Chantilly." ... maybe in times of ever increasing dominance of AI over our lives it is worth looking again at the romantics ...
"He was quite prescient in that: the excesses of the French revolutions were only amplified by the Russian and Chinese revolutions, and attempts to create “absolute equality” led to tyrannies"
In principle there could be a simple solution. Use debates in the public sphere of a democracy to decide on an acceptable level of inequality. Design a system that redistributes wealth so that a certain level of inequality will not be exceeded. I believe that this is what we had after WWII in most European countries. And it worked quite well. Until the Wall came down and the Western ruling classes cancelled this social contract. 30 years later, we see the mess that this created.
Thanks for the comment ... I don't play computer games myself, but started to pay more attention exactly for the reason you are hinting at: game designers know a lot about how to build and maintain complex economic systems that keep a lot of people happy.
Do you know whether there is a literature on this? How insights from computer games could help us to make our real economy and political system work for everybody?
There’s probably a lot out there for economic and player politics from the newer era of MMOs (massive multiplayer online games, e.g. world of warcraft) but I’m not as familiar with that. Some of the first wave of designers who wrote a lot would include Cris Crawford, Sid Meyer, Jesse Schell. I’m also fond of game related work by John Paul Gee for education, Augusto Boal for theatre and community activism, Viola Spolin for improvisational theatre. And many will cite Flow theory (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi).
The reason I mentioned him is that Varoufakis also worked at Valve/Steam and I think that is one of the reasons why he has more interesting ideas on the future than most economists.
| | | 'We are not different today in our rather arbitrary inclusion or exclusion of circumstances (i.e. separate from effort) that we believe give the beneficiary special rights. Obviously inheritance is one such case..
| | | 'Why does equality of opportunity so blatantly stop there .. why does the desire for equality of opportunity stop at national borders?'
I've been thinking lately that when I talk to liberals, as a left-winger who wants to bring them closer to my thinking, I should highlight how "equality of opportunity" is a hopeless contradiction in our current system, so if we want to achieve it, radical changes should be made. Thanks for reminding us, as always, that divide is sharpest along state borders.
I've also been wondering if there is an inherent liberal belief in "process," and if that is what allows us to "explain away" the very unequal order of things. If I'm thinking, what is part of the "religion" today that stops people seeing inequality, it seems like among liberals it might be a general belief that truth / order are procedurally generated or revealed -- so that the range of opinions on homelessness stretches from "if you're poor you must deserve it" to "we should level the playing field" by providing job counselling, temporary shelter, mental health services, reducing personal biases with new language, etc.
Of course the typical commie critique would be to call those measures Social Democracy / Welfare Statism and therefore insufficiently revolutionary, but then we're just substituting a necessarily vague sense of "revolution" as a different objective truth verification procedure.
| | | 'In all of this, Chateaubriand reminded me of the true believers in socialism who were also found an annoyance and embarrassment by those who were involved in “real” politics.'
Lol, I was proselytizing to some friends recently who are much better activists and organizers than I am about the importance of Kantian ethics to left-wing politics, and I'm realizing this is exactly the type of annoying person I am.
I'm curious if some people square the circle and can both remain a true believer and become useful. I heard Vijay Prashad discussing his new book about Ho Chi Minh, and based on the picture he paints, I think Prashad might say he did -- looking forward to reading that. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGB5y2TJ3RY]
this is a good one, thanks
"Chateaubriand, a strongly religious man, in awe, as we have seen, to royal legitimacy, has of the use of religion the same opinion as Marx. It is the opium of the people"
I am wondering whether religion is rather the opium of the rich. The lower classes know full well that they are oppressed by the rich (hence the rich guys are the bad guys), but the rich need an ideology that explains to them why they are the good guys anyway.
As in our example. Religion was not opium for Marx, but religion was opium for Chateaubriand.
Combien nos personnalités se découvrent dans nos perceptions !
Pour moi un moment-clé des Mémoires est là : https://fr.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Mémoires_d’outre-tombe/Deuxième_partie/Livre_III
À ma première lecture je suis resté bloqué sur cet épisode sidérant - arrestation procès et exécution du Duc d’Enghien - pendant au moins six mois. Impossible d’avancer. Et l’ombre de Napoléon n’y est pas étrangère mais pas seulement. Justice Pouvoir Raison d’État. Et le Général qui a lu et relu les Mémoires tout au long de sa vie. Tout est condensé là.
Une suggestion Branko : la vie de Rancé. Après les Mémoires. Pour mieux s’approcher de la Personne de Chateaubriand.
Merci. Je me souviens de cette episode. Vous avez raison que beaucoup de choses sont condensees dans ces pages. J'ai oublie qu'une des mes phrases favorites des Memoures, "en France, l'oubli ne se fait pas attendre" y est aussi.
Merci ... your link made me have a look at what C. actually wrote himself ... "Revenant le long des haies à peine tracées, la pluie m’a surpris ; je me suis réfugié sous un hêtre : ses dernières feuilles tombaient comme mes années ; sa cime se dépouillait comme ma tête ; il était marqué au tronc d’un cercle rouge, pour être abattu comme moi. Rentré à mon auberge, avec une moisson de plantes d’automne et dans des dispositions peu propres à la joie, je vous raconterai la mort de M. le duc d’Enghien, à la vue des ruines de Chantilly." ... maybe in times of ever increasing dominance of AI over our lives it is worth looking again at the romantics ...
Tres beau. Un peu trop de pathos mais la transition est excellente.
"He was quite prescient in that: the excesses of the French revolutions were only amplified by the Russian and Chinese revolutions, and attempts to create “absolute equality” led to tyrannies"
In principle there could be a simple solution. Use debates in the public sphere of a democracy to decide on an acceptable level of inequality. Design a system that redistributes wealth so that a certain level of inequality will not be exceeded. I believe that this is what we had after WWII in most European countries. And it worked quite well. Until the Wall came down and the Western ruling classes cancelled this social contract. 30 years later, we see the mess that this created.
this is what any good game designer would do, you have to keep success possible, or people quit playing
Thanks for the comment ... I don't play computer games myself, but started to pay more attention exactly for the reason you are hinting at: game designers know a lot about how to build and maintain complex economic systems that keep a lot of people happy.
Do you know whether there is a literature on this? How insights from computer games could help us to make our real economy and political system work for everybody?
There’s probably a lot out there for economic and player politics from the newer era of MMOs (massive multiplayer online games, e.g. world of warcraft) but I’m not as familiar with that. Some of the first wave of designers who wrote a lot would include Cris Crawford, Sid Meyer, Jesse Schell. I’m also fond of game related work by John Paul Gee for education, Augusto Boal for theatre and community activism, Viola Spolin for improvisational theatre. And many will cite Flow theory (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi).
I really no nothing about games. Thanks a lot for the names. I will check them out. Ever heard of Varoufakis?
Only from the news during the Greek EU conflict, but I just scanned a Guardian piece he wrote since you mentioned him.
The reason I mentioned him is that Varoufakis also worked at Valve/Steam and I think that is one of the reasons why he has more interesting ideas on the future than most economists.
Very interesting, ty!
| | | 'We are not different today in our rather arbitrary inclusion or exclusion of circumstances (i.e. separate from effort) that we believe give the beneficiary special rights. Obviously inheritance is one such case..
| | | 'Why does equality of opportunity so blatantly stop there .. why does the desire for equality of opportunity stop at national borders?'
I've been thinking lately that when I talk to liberals, as a left-winger who wants to bring them closer to my thinking, I should highlight how "equality of opportunity" is a hopeless contradiction in our current system, so if we want to achieve it, radical changes should be made. Thanks for reminding us, as always, that divide is sharpest along state borders.
I've also been wondering if there is an inherent liberal belief in "process," and if that is what allows us to "explain away" the very unequal order of things. If I'm thinking, what is part of the "religion" today that stops people seeing inequality, it seems like among liberals it might be a general belief that truth / order are procedurally generated or revealed -- so that the range of opinions on homelessness stretches from "if you're poor you must deserve it" to "we should level the playing field" by providing job counselling, temporary shelter, mental health services, reducing personal biases with new language, etc.
Of course the typical commie critique would be to call those measures Social Democracy / Welfare Statism and therefore insufficiently revolutionary, but then we're just substituting a necessarily vague sense of "revolution" as a different objective truth verification procedure.
| | | 'In all of this, Chateaubriand reminded me of the true believers in socialism who were also found an annoyance and embarrassment by those who were involved in “real” politics.'
Lol, I was proselytizing to some friends recently who are much better activists and organizers than I am about the importance of Kantian ethics to left-wing politics, and I'm realizing this is exactly the type of annoying person I am.
I'm curious if some people square the circle and can both remain a true believer and become useful. I heard Vijay Prashad discussing his new book about Ho Chi Minh, and based on the picture he paints, I think Prashad might say he did -- looking forward to reading that. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGB5y2TJ3RY]