That luminous modern thing

A system, even when it has serious rivals, may be maintained for centuries as religions are maintained, institutionally; but a movement comes to an end; it is followed presently by a period of assimilation which transforms it, or by a movement in some other direction. I ask myself accordingly whether the condition of the world in the coming years will be favourable to refined and paradoxical science. The extension of education will have enabled the uneducated to pronounce upon everything. Will the patronage of capital and enterprise subsist, to encourage discovery and reward invention? Will a jealous and dogmatic democracy respect the unintelligible insight of the few?

George Santayana - Five Essays (1933)


We now have an answer to that one – a jealous and dogmatic democracy does not respect the unintelligible insight of the few. It has no use for the vast uncertainties of climate science but demands high drama, facile predictions, celebrities, two-dimensional villains and vicious vengeance. The extension of education will have enabled the uneducated to pronounce upon everything. Particularly politicians, journalists, pundits and celebrities.

It has been a mistake to view good science as some kind of imperishable discovery which once found cannot be lost again. A citadel which once built cannot be destroyed even if it has to be repaired every now and then. It isn’t a citadel. Climate science, gender politics and the pandemic debacle tell us it isn’t. 

Then perhaps that luminous modern thing which until recently was called science, in contrast to all personal philosophies, may cease to exist altogether, being petrified into routine in the practitioners, and fading in the professors into abstruse speculations.

George Santayana - Five Essays (1933)


The foresight may be chilling, but today we know enough to see it as foresight and draw conclusions from that. For example, it is unlikely that there is a route back to more a more rigorous science. A century of mass entertainment, advertising, public relations and the politics of centralisation seem to have buried the habit of rigorous language.

Now that luminous modern thing is no longer modern, it is no longer fashionable. No amount of argument can bring that back. 

Missed Opportunity

Critically endangered vulture chick hatches at London Zoo for first time in 40 years

Meet Egbert, the first baby vulture to be safely hatched at London Zoo in 40 years.

The critically endangered Rupell’s griffon vulture was carefully hatched in a specialised vulture incubator, weighing in at just 115g – the same as a bar of soap.

A missed opportunity I'd say. Inviting the public to suggest names for this baby vulture could have provided a dash of entertainment in these dark days. My suggestion for the little vulture would be Gary. 

But he would know what he meant

As what I now write will certainly never be read till I am dead, I may dare to say what no one now does dare to say in print, — though some of us whisper it occasionally into our friends’ ears. There are places in life which can hardly be well filled except by “Gentlemen.” The word is one the use of which almost subjects one to ignominy. If I say that a judge should be a gentleman, or a bishop, I am met with a scornful allusion to “Nature’s Gentlemen.”

Were I to make such an assertion with reference to the House of Commons, nothing that I ever said again would receive the slightest attention. A man in public life could not do himself a greater injury than by saying in public that the commissions in the army or navy, or berths in the Civil Service, should be given exclusively to gentlemen. He would be defied to define the term, — and would fail should he attempt to do so. But he would know what he meant, and so very probably would they who defied him.

Anthony Trollope – An Autobiography (1883)


Even in Trollope 's day this claim was not one to make out loud. Yet we need some way to define an honest, upright, incorruptible and experienced ideal by which we measure those who would rule over us. Some way to draw together the necessary threads of character without which we end up where we are now.

The current spat between Corbyn and Starmer highlights the problem. Neither man is fit for high political position. Corbyn is appalling and as one of his shadow ministers Starmer supported Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party. A gentleman in the mould of Trollope’s ideal would look down his nose at both men and vote for neither.

Yet according to many mainstream commentators, Starmer has “dealt with” the Corbyn issue. In a sense he has, but he hasn’t dealt with the Starmer issue.

Blue Mark

 

A mammoth snack

Woolly mammoth meatball - would you eat one?

The mammoth snack was produced by an Australian company which aims to "transition a few billion meat eaters away from eating (conventional) animal protein" to eating cultivated meat instead.

The mammoth snack was produced by an Australian company called Vow which is aiming to uses cells from unconventional species to create new kinds of meat.

Vow's project doesn't involve the slaughter of animals and highlights the link between large-scale livestock production and the destruction of wildlife and the climate crisis.

What was the problem with ultra-processed food? Presumably it can be virtuous or evil depending on its politics.

Guardian Angels

Richard Williams has a worthwhile Mercatornet piece on the prevalence of circular logic within political doctrines such as CRT masquerading as academic theories. Such doctrines he refers to as 'guardian angel' theories.


Circular logic protects ‘critical race theory’ from its own contradictions

CRT has a ‘guardian angel’ which keeps it safe from criticism

One of the great frustrations of my academic career, now spanning four decades, has been the number of “guardian angel theories” that I have encountered. Opposing and undoing them is very hard work, not because the logic and conceptual work are difficult, but because the guardian angels are conceived and maintained for mostly emotive, political, and otherwise self-serving reasons. Such motivations make it difficult for people to examine or critique the theory openly and transparently.

A “guardian angel” theory is one that is self-referential, relies on itself to prove itself, and has built-in mechanisms acting to protect a theory from critique.


Not unfamiliar, but the whole piece is well worth reading as "guardian angel" theories are very common in modern political discourse. Also worth reading for this observation on personal moral choices.


Some CRT proponents will make light of my belief that personal moral decisions can have any impact on hard socio-moral issues such as racism. I am convinced that it can and that it does. I use as my example a historical instance where a single moral decision by a single man could have saved as many as 10,000,000 human lives. Josef Stalin could have stopped the murder of the Ukrainian farmers who opposed his Marxist program in the mid-1930s (the Holodomor) with a single word (nyet). But he did not.

Warren Buffett On Diversity

 

As Warren Buffett also says, Berkshire Hathaway has no committees. Imagine a public sector without committees - a world where people just get on with whatever they are supposed to be doing instead of talking about it.

The video indirectly highlights another problem, competition for the best people, there are only so many of them. It can be a problem within an organisation where a good manager attracts the best people and lesser managers are stuck with the duds.