The Enlightenment - roll it back or forward?

[DrYouth]

So I've been off the boards for a bit...

Reading me some Ken Wilbur.

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Basically Wilber helps me sort out my position.

I agree completely with many of the blistering critiques that have been shared on this forum and elsewhere about our post enlightenment world...

However I disagree completely with the reactionary position of rolling it back.

Wilber critiques the enlightenment and it's current post enlightenment continuation in a scathing fashion but proposes something different....

Rolling it forward.... i.e. transcending it as a mammal transcends it's reptile inheritance.... rather than rolling back to an amphibian form...

Overcome it's shortcomings while keeping what works about it....

Wilber is nothing short of genius.

Reptiles are no longer the kings of earth... Mammals are...
Postenlightenment has jumped the shark.... as did the enlightenment....
But rolling it all back is simply going back to the salamander age.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Without having read the books, I definitely agree with the sentiment. These are growing pains, as we move ever farther from hunter-gatherer to Type 1 Civilization. It will hurt, but there's no going back now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

[DrYouth]

Ok so we have two in the lets not retreat from the postmodern clusterfuck...

Anyone on the side of rolling back?

Back to the ethnostate?

I think we had a few in that camp...

And what does moving forward from the postmodern mean anyways?

Wilber has some ideas on this...

Many of you probably don't need to read the book.... but some of you probably should.

[Speaker to Animals]

Let it die on its own.

[SuburbanFarmer]

The next steps IMO, are to go through an inevitable collapse of the current system, and build it back in a better way. Civilization always falls back close to the baseline, then realizes that it's no alternative, then builds a better structure.

When we have no choice remaining but to band together for survival, the former divisions are revealed as superficial and useless. Then we figure out what went wrong, and do it better.

The new system will probably ban the use of fiat money, have better accountability, greater limits on government power, and different social norms. You can see this pattern throughout history. Ancient pharaohs had god-level powers, Caesars had a little less, Kings had a little less, and Presidents have a little less. The next level of civilization will inevitably be less authoritarian, and more decentralized. Societies will be just a bit closer to 'humanity' over the State, and the cycle will repeat.

[Speaker to Animals]

You wish.

The historical cycles for multiple civilizations has been a rise to over-complexity and high amounts of fragility, a much-needed collapse, and a new equilibrium around more sustainable levels of social complexity.

Our species is not really suited for global empires. We are tribal. You are fighting against our genetic heritage.

[DrYouth]

The next steps IMO, are to go through an inevitable collapse of the current system, and build it back in a better way. Civilization always falls back close to the baseline, then realizes that it's no alternative, then builds a better structure.

When we have no choice remaining but to band together for survival, the former divisions are revealed as superficial and useless. Then we figure out what went wrong, and do it better.

The new system will probably ban the use of fiat money, have better accountability, greater limits on government power, and different social norms. You can see this pattern throughout history. Ancient pharaohs had god-level powers, Caesars had a little less, Kings had a little less, and Presidents have a little less. The next level of civilization will inevitably be less authoritarian, and more decentralized. Societies will be just a bit closer to 'humanity' over the State, and the cycle will repeat.

Wilber actually puts some pause to this idea of leadership having less power...
Part of postmodernisms failure is it's "allergy" to hierarchy.
Wilber talks about postmoderns believing that all hierarchies are "dominator hierarchies" and therefore "bad".
But hierarchies can be "growth hierarchies" which pretty much equate with natural and adaptive hierarchies...
Leadership does not need to be stripped of power to be effective... that is in and of itself a postmodern fallacy.

[DrYouth]

You wish.

The historical cycles for multiple civilizations has been a rise to over-complexity and high amounts of fragility, a much-needed collapse, and a new equilibrium around more sustainable levels of social complexity.

Our species is not really suited for global empires. We are tribal. You are fighting against our genetic heritage.

Our genetic heritage also includes reptiles.... so do we need to roll all the way back to the lizard age.

[Speaker to Animals]

You wish.

The historical cycles for multiple civilizations has been a rise to over-complexity and high amounts of fragility, a much-needed collapse, and a new equilibrium around more sustainable levels of social complexity.

Our species is not really suited for global empires. We are tribal. You are fighting against our genetic heritage.

Our genetic heritage also includes reptiles.... so do we need to roll all the way back to the lizard age.

We just need to be who we are: a patrilocal species organized tribally.

[SuburbanFarmer]

The next steps IMO, are to go through an inevitable collapse of the current system, and build it back in a better way. Civilization always falls back close to the baseline, then realizes that it's no alternative, then builds a better structure.

When we have no choice remaining but to band together for survival, the former divisions are revealed as superficial and useless. Then we figure out what went wrong, and do it better.

The new system will probably ban the use of fiat money, have better accountability, greater limits on government power, and different social norms. You can see this pattern throughout history. Ancient pharaohs had god-level powers, Caesars had a little less, Kings had a little less, and Presidents have a little less. The next level of civilization will inevitably be less authoritarian, and more decentralized. Societies will be just a bit closer to 'humanity' over the State, and the cycle will repeat.

Wilber actually puts some pause to this idea of leadership having less power...
Part of postmodernisms failure is it's "allergy" to hierarchy.
Wilber talks about postmoderns believing that all hierarchies are "dominator hierarchies" and therefore "bad".
But hierarchies can be "growth hierarchies" which pretty much equate with natural and adaptive hierarchies...
Leadership does not need to be stripped of power to be effective... that is in and of itself a postmodern fallacy.

I agree - postmodernists and SJWs are trying to undermine all authority. There will always have to be some form of hierarchy, but the trend has been toward decentralization. Every time, we get a little further away from a single, central authority. At the peak of current cycle, our central authorities are completely underground and secretive, because they know that the population will not support it.

Once it all falls apart again, we'll try harder to keep it from repeating.

The argument against a global civilization is always a loss of personal freedom. Our current paradigm of state control is not compatible with a global-level government. We have to find a way to bring humanity together under a single standard, without trying to control the individual. And it's happening. There's less control than there's ever been over thought, behavior, and speech. But the backlash has to play out first.