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Musings Report 2018-32 8-11-18 Modernism and our Desperate / Destructive Tribalism
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For those who are new to the Musings reports: they are basically a glimpse into my notebook, the unfiltered swamp where I organize future themes, sort through the dozens of stories and links submitted by readers, refine my own research and start connecting dots which appear later in the blog or in my books. As always, I hope the Musings spark new appraisals and insights. Thank you for supporting the site and for inviting me into your circle of correspondents.
Special Offer for my new novel, "The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher"
I've been working on a secret skunkworks project for the past few years, a breezy mystery of the sort I always wish I had to amuse myself while waiting at the airport, etc.
I'm offering it to you, the Inner Circle, for 99 cents for the Kindle edition. Of course I hope you find it entertaining enough to recommend it to other readers in your circle.
I'm putting the book out there at 99 cents for the first 1,000 copies, after which the price will notch up in increments.
The print edition will be available in a few days at $8.95.
Here's the novel's back-cover blurb:
On the eve of a wedding, what to do when the groom mysteriously disappears? When the police and private investigators come up empty, what's a desperate bride to do?
Call in the man with no qualifications: Caverlock Victor Oliver -- the world's only Consulting Philosopher.
Will he prove there's no mystery that can withstand his prodigious powers of Applied Philosophy?
Will he succeed in reuniting sweet Victorine with her lover?
Can a Taoist-quoting bookworm solve the mystery ... and will he be paid? How much do you pay a Consulting Philosopher, anyway?
The answers to these questions (and many more you would have never thought to ask) are all found in The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher.
Here's the first few lines:
"I can’t believe it--you actually have a client."
The Consulting Philosopher shifted his substantial weight on the office’s velvet draped divan and looked up from the tattered paperback in his hand at the astonished expression on his assistant’s endlessly charming face.
"Your wonderment is exceeded only by my own, JP," he replied, his deep voice easily audible in every room of the sparely furnished flat. "But let’s reserve our absolute astonishment for a client’s payment of cash."
Here's the Amazon link to the book:
The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake
Modernism and our Desperate/Destructive Tribalism
One of the more stimulating books I read last year was Modernism: The Lure of Heresy by eminent historian Peter Gay. A free-ranging account of modernism, it's less a history and more an exploration of the manifestations of modernism in the various arts.
One of the key takeaways of the book is a description of Modernism as the primacy of the individual over all norms--social, artistic and political. The lure of heresy is Gay's shorthand for the allure of Modernism's vast personal freedom: kicking down doors and leaping over barricades is tremendously liberating.
But having flouted every heresy, Modernism has been replaced by post-Modernism, a world view that proclaims the same absolute personal freedoms as Modernism but with little reference points beyond the ultimate contingency of life, culture and language.
It turns out that heresy was only fun and exciting when the structures being flouted still held sway.
Once the traditionalist norms had crumbled, there was nothing left to define the "tribe" of rebellious Modernists.
This is the tension and irony in both Modernism and post-Modernism: anything goes and individual freedom is absolute, but humans are still social creatures and we all need a positive social role within a group or "tribe" that we can belong to and contribute to.
Modernism and post-Modernism fed the fantasy of an atomized individual consumer who defined himself/ herself by whatever consumerist product was being purchased, worn, exhibited, etc.
What sort of tribal loyalties and social roles exist in an atomized group of individuals seeking to stake out their own identity outside of any social norms or groups, even those of fellow Modernists and post-Modernists?
In my view, this helps explain the appeal of what my friend GFB labeled tacit tribes, online digital groups that offered what absolute consumerist freedom couldn't provide: some sort of tribal membership and identity.
But the free-floating consumerist identity of individuals in these digital tribes is unanchored to real groups and identities that have to be earned via hard work or sacrifice.
Having lost an understanding of true tribal membership, we've substituted digital groups' echo-chambers, in which "membership" is informal (and thus without much actual meaning) and defined by intemperate attacks on some "enemy" tribe.
This is a desperate tribalism, one of unhappy, disconnected people who are seeking the solace of belonging to a tribe but who lack the drive or wherewithal to actually contribute to a real tribe that demands work and sacrifice (for example, a small church in which everyone has to perform some work to keep the doors open).
These digital tribes are simulacra of actual tribes, and as such they are not just desperate but destructive, for "membership" consists of showing that your attacks on other groups are even more vile and shrill than other members.
Nothing is being constructed or solved by these vaporous digital tribes; nobody is stopping by to share their surplus goodies or lend a hand. No new structures are being erected by hard work and collaboration.
The online echo-chamber tribes are manifestations of a deeply ill culture that has lost its way. The elevation of the individual consumer who needs no context or tribe other than the brand he/she is buying at the moment has led us to a state in which we no longer know how to belong to real-world tribes, no longer know what positive social roles even are and have no idea how to recover positive social groups and roles.
The explicit promise of my CLIME system (outlined in my book "A Radically Beneficial World") is the creation of a template of purposeful local community groups that serve their community's needs and provide an abundance of positive social roles (as well as an earned income) for all members.
CLIME (community labor integrated money economy) is opt-in--anyone is free to join or quit a group, or start their own. But every group must abide by the rules of democratic governance and be of service to the local communities. These are positive tribes with positive social roles for every member. This is what individuals and society need to thrive.
Highlights of the Blog This Past Week
The Grand Irony of RussiaGate: The U.S. Becomes More Like the U.S.S.R. Every Day 8/10/18
The Fantasy of "Balanced Returns" Funding Retirement 8/8/18
We'll Pay All Those Future Obligations by Impoverishing Everyone 8/6/18
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
Finally completed my new novel, "The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake."
Market Musings: Emerging Markets Meltdown
Last week I discussed Currency Crises, and that trend appears to be gathering momentum as both Turkey and Iran both spiral into a black hole as their currencies implode.
Here is a weekly (long-term) chart of Emerging Markets (EEM), which climbed in lockstep with US stock markets through 2017 and into January 2018.
While US markets have mostly recovered their ensuing losses, emerging markets have declined and are well below their January 2018 peak.
I've marked up the chart to show that EEM has a long way to fall just to reach the support of the 200-week moving average. If that gives way, a full retrace to the levels of late 2016 become likely.
The global synchronized growth story is now deeply imperiled as emerging markets crater. A slowdown in China, Japan, the EU or the US would put a decisive nail in the coffin of synchronized global growth.
From Left Field
Theresa May’s Impossible Choice -- democracy vs. an eroding economy due to deglobalization -- worth reading: we're tired of globalization but killing it weakens an already dysfunctional economy....
Trump betrays the elite sense that the US is always pure and democracy-loving -- heresy....
Beyond the crash: Politics don’t matter; market forces shape our world. So ran the dominant ethos before 2008. It was always an illusion
Understanding Russia, Un-Demonizing Putin -- more heresy.....
Deconstructing Trump’s tariffs, turning point in history and the end of globalisation
China’s Shadow Currency: Bankers acceptance notes are financing tremendous speculation in China’s provinces. How long can this last?
As California burns, many fear the future of extreme fire has arrived
Inside my nightmare working in de Blasio’s government -- heresy! There's just way too much heresy in these Musings....
The $2.5 trillion reason we can’t rely on batteries to clean up the grid
The Problem With Capitalist Philanthropy -- or asI call it, philanthro-capitalism...
Who Speaks for the European Right? Orban. Yes, Orban.
How Dangerous Is Putin's Russia?
India Mortgaged? Forced-Fed Illness and the Neoliberal Food Regime -- diets degrading, leading to an explosion of diet-lifestyle chronic diseases....
"Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see." Rene Magritte
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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