I had a dinner with a friend tonight and we spoke of how the new era which has just begun makes lots of our knowledge, or the ways of thinking, about international relations, economic policies, poverty and wealth etc.
I surprised myself by finding his "The Origins of Political Order" and "Political Order and Decay" to be relatively reasonable and useful. Not that these somehow excuse much other nonsense of which he remains guilty ...
Some of the thinkers whose work i have read are Veblen, Schumpeter, LeBon, Galbraith and Hobsbawm. Recently finished Theory of the leisure class by Veblen. Written more than 100 years ago and ideas still applicable today. Also think of concept of historical materialism by Marx & how it reshaped understanding of History.
The new intellectuals like Timothy Snyder, Ruth Ben Ghiat and Laurance Tribe are adored by western liberals. They sell books, they hold prestigious positions and admired in western society. In terms of substance, they really have very little to offer. No offence to them but this is reality.
Bravo. So refreshing to read someone who nails their colours to the mast.
In Scotland we have a phrase to describe a fleeting, cheap, star. That person is 'a two-bob rocket.' Which is to say, a cheap, 10 penny firework, which goes up fast, goes bang, causes a brief bright flash and vanishes in the dark in a matter of seconds.
Nobody would have felt his fame more strange than Machiavelli himself. According to renaissance historian Garret Mattingly he wrote a satire, which everybody at the time understood as a satire, and that everybody today take as serious.
Mattingly argues for his thesis in many ways, but the final proof is that Machiavelli again and again in his book says "do so and so, and you will be as lucky as Cesare Borgia". Today, nobody knows who Borgia was, but in Machiavelli's own days everybody knew that Borgia was a failure, and a ridiculous failure at that. And if you emulated him, you would have to run for your life, as Borgia had to do.
Maybe there are some markers about which ideas come in the third category of long-term significance.
In the natural sciences, the most important theories are those which make predictions that are both falsifiable and suggest useful lines of further investigation. In the social sciences, many ideas only describe the status quo, or more particularly how influential people like to feel about the status quo. They don’t describe what caused us to get to the situation they describe (except in the most anodyne, circular ways such as “because it was a good idea that would make things better”). More particularly, they don’t include mechanisms for future change and hence cannot make any predictions except more of the same.
Karl Marx on the other hand made many predictions that were incorrect and even underestimated the significance of movements like nationalism that were important at his time. However, his methodology: the development of the relations of production in driving social change, class struggle and the instability of capitalism has had an enduring influence, even on thinkers fundamentally opposed to his political project.
As Branko points out, Machiavelli is not important because of his historical accounts of 16th Century Florentine politics but because his realistic approach to analysing statecraft is relevant right up to today. It’s the method, not the specifics, that is important.
So where can we look to for new productive methodologies? Learning is far more siloed today than in the times of Marx or Machiavelli. Perhaps we need to look outside the social sciences for metaphors. For example anthropological research plus the developing theory of evolution suggests the path by which humans have evolved and how that might influence and constrain future development. Game theory in mathematics has put understanding anything involving negotiation on a firmer basis. Chaos theory explains how patterns emerge and develop even in apparently unpredictable situations, such as the behaviour of markets. Quantum theory and the idea of incomputability also relate to what we can know when some things are unknowable. There are many more.
If I am right, then many of the thinkers of today that will be remembered in the future will be those than can transcend their subject boundaries and look more broadly for patterns.
I believe that when someone writes about what in considered "common sense" its easier to get published and even to sell a bunch of books. This common sense is greatly rewarded in academy: if you write something that critizes mainstream ideas, it is hard to be published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Thinking out of the box is what may allow you to write something worth remembering.
David Graeber? He at least offers a novel approach.
As for Fukuyama... I read only his work that everyone read, and it has clearly shown me that he has no idea about dialectic. Not even on a freshman level. Which is weird for a philosophy professor. So he might be closer to Hariri than some think.
Still, I'm pretty baffled about how much the meteor of such a patent charlatan as Harari has endured
Charlatan is a good characterization.
I thought that the view of Fukayama was very generous.
I surprised myself by finding his "The Origins of Political Order" and "Political Order and Decay" to be relatively reasonable and useful. Not that these somehow excuse much other nonsense of which he remains guilty ...
You make a great point. Your essay confirms my bias that reading time-tested works of fiction is more rewarding than reading most non-fiction.
If you need new ideas, read an old book.
Some of the thinkers whose work i have read are Veblen, Schumpeter, LeBon, Galbraith and Hobsbawm. Recently finished Theory of the leisure class by Veblen. Written more than 100 years ago and ideas still applicable today. Also think of concept of historical materialism by Marx & how it reshaped understanding of History.
The new intellectuals like Timothy Snyder, Ruth Ben Ghiat and Laurance Tribe are adored by western liberals. They sell books, they hold prestigious positions and admired in western society. In terms of substance, they really have very little to offer. No offence to them but this is reality.
Snyder in particular is egregious.
I enjoyed the article and was happy to see Harari and Fukuyama in the category of charlatans to which we should also add Tom Friedman
"...you are talking about them collaborating in fighting an invisible, non-political, force"
How about the nations in the EU muscling up to Russia, without a common language to unite their armed forces?
Based on your prior praise, I’m guessing the leading candidate is Taleb
Bravo. So refreshing to read someone who nails their colours to the mast.
In Scotland we have a phrase to describe a fleeting, cheap, star. That person is 'a two-bob rocket.' Which is to say, a cheap, 10 penny firework, which goes up fast, goes bang, causes a brief bright flash and vanishes in the dark in a matter of seconds.
Nobody would have felt his fame more strange than Machiavelli himself. According to renaissance historian Garret Mattingly he wrote a satire, which everybody at the time understood as a satire, and that everybody today take as serious.
Mattingly argues for his thesis in many ways, but the final proof is that Machiavelli again and again in his book says "do so and so, and you will be as lucky as Cesare Borgia". Today, nobody knows who Borgia was, but in Machiavelli's own days everybody knew that Borgia was a failure, and a ridiculous failure at that. And if you emulated him, you would have to run for your life, as Borgia had to do.
Branko, how do you choose your own reading in light of this issue?
Maybe there are some markers about which ideas come in the third category of long-term significance.
In the natural sciences, the most important theories are those which make predictions that are both falsifiable and suggest useful lines of further investigation. In the social sciences, many ideas only describe the status quo, or more particularly how influential people like to feel about the status quo. They don’t describe what caused us to get to the situation they describe (except in the most anodyne, circular ways such as “because it was a good idea that would make things better”). More particularly, they don’t include mechanisms for future change and hence cannot make any predictions except more of the same.
Karl Marx on the other hand made many predictions that were incorrect and even underestimated the significance of movements like nationalism that were important at his time. However, his methodology: the development of the relations of production in driving social change, class struggle and the instability of capitalism has had an enduring influence, even on thinkers fundamentally opposed to his political project.
As Branko points out, Machiavelli is not important because of his historical accounts of 16th Century Florentine politics but because his realistic approach to analysing statecraft is relevant right up to today. It’s the method, not the specifics, that is important.
So where can we look to for new productive methodologies? Learning is far more siloed today than in the times of Marx or Machiavelli. Perhaps we need to look outside the social sciences for metaphors. For example anthropological research plus the developing theory of evolution suggests the path by which humans have evolved and how that might influence and constrain future development. Game theory in mathematics has put understanding anything involving negotiation on a firmer basis. Chaos theory explains how patterns emerge and develop even in apparently unpredictable situations, such as the behaviour of markets. Quantum theory and the idea of incomputability also relate to what we can know when some things are unknowable. There are many more.
If I am right, then many of the thinkers of today that will be remembered in the future will be those than can transcend their subject boundaries and look more broadly for patterns.
I believe that when someone writes about what in considered "common sense" its easier to get published and even to sell a bunch of books. This common sense is greatly rewarded in academy: if you write something that critizes mainstream ideas, it is hard to be published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Thinking out of the box is what may allow you to write something worth remembering.
David Graeber? He at least offers a novel approach.
As for Fukuyama... I read only his work that everyone read, and it has clearly shown me that he has no idea about dialectic. Not even on a freshman level. Which is weird for a philosophy professor. So he might be closer to Hariri than some think.
Excellent. I see Minsky as an example of the rediscovered.
Feynman’s lectures on physical wonders seem to be another category? I feel every generation of students will read his lectures.
Disagree with you vis-à-vis Fukuyama. Still think he’s right. But you’re right about Harari.