Part 2 in the Apesurgency series. Part 1 here.
In which we situate the incipient market revolution as just the latest in a long lineage of revolutions, as the human race attempts to shake the iron grip centralised power structures.
The long nineteenth century1 saw the death spasms of a (roughly) two-thousand-year-old world order and midwifed a new world disorder. While various subsystems (social, economic, or political) had come and gone in the preceding two millennia, several salient characteristics from those systems persisted for the long haul. Despite western civilization’s popular claim to descent from the ancient Greeks (of the Athenian model), it is, in fact, a direct continuation of the Roman empire.2
(video provided courtesy of the United Nations Subcommittee On the Names of God)
Though intellectual foundations were being laid during the enlightenment, it was not until the French Revolution and the start of the long nineteenth century that this centralisation began to be systematically challenged and dismantled. In the wake of decentralisation, domain after domain of human endeavour faced existential challenges and experienced unprecedented flowerings as new forms and ideas were experimented with. As old rules were called into question or even discarded, the profusion of novelty resembled the Cambrian Explosion in vibrancy, false-starts, and disarray. Rather than viewing the revolutions of the long nineteenth century as curiously similar but disparate events (perhaps spawned from a common set of ideas and material conditions, yet discrete) we will examine the dramatic changes in philosophy, the sciences, society, and the arts as intertwined instances of a single phenomenon - the great confusion3.
Many different “revolutions” fall under under this rubric. If one of them was fundamental to and blazed the trail for others, I am convinced is was the revolution in philosophy. Despite today’s common conception of philosophy as a field distinct from the sciences and religion, philosophy has historically encompassed all of these. The great revolution in philosophy actually began much earlier than the others and took much longer.4 In fact, it is yet ongoing. Viewing the character of these revolutions as a trend towards decentralisation, it is not hard to pinpoint this revolution starting in earnest with Martin Luther.
Stop, Hammer Time
From Constantine until Luther, there was one centre of power and authority in the western world. The Roman Catholic Church, the earthly representation and embodiment of God. While various popes, monarchs, and princes competed, dynasties coming and going over the centuries, it was agreed all temporal authority and power flowed from God, through the EmpireChurch. Many peoples with widely differing cultures, histories, and languages all submitted to the Church’s edicts and bulls (though not always happily or even willingly).
Martin Luther did not disagree with the idea that God is the ultimate source of authority. Crucially however, he did disagree with the idea that only an elect few could (or should) have access to that authority, occasionally deigning to dispense some titbits as they would to the unwashed masses. The priesthood had insulated itself and its power quite effectively by raising steep barriers to entry. In an illiterate age, they kept all writings, teachings, and discussions of God in a language that eventually only they knew.
Luther’s two most revolutionary acts were translating the bible into a widely understood (and therefore vulgar) German and openly defying the infallibility of the Pope.
By making the scriptures accessible to everyday (literate) Germans, he reduced their dependence on the centralised church. People could access God and learn the scriptures themselves, without the latin clergy’s intercession to translate and interpret.
By denying the Pope’s infallibility, he denied the entire power structure. If the Pope did not actually have a unique ability to understand and interpret God’s will, then the Church’s intermediation between Man and God suddenly becomes unnecessary.
In nailing his theses into the Church’s door, Luther hammered cracks that spread through the foundation, eventually undermining the greatest Authority the western world has known.
Luther shattered the Church’s position as the sole possessor and purveyor of Truth. These faults in the Church’s foundation would continue to spread during the Age of Enlightenment, as humanism was born, rationality spread, and the gap between sæcular and spiritual authority grew. Natural philosophy splintered off and began to take its current form as the natural sciences. Philosophers were constructing new proofs for god starting from first principles, no longer relying on the circularity of appeals to revealed knowledge.
Revolution in Philosophy
Eventually, the long nineteenth century arrives, and philosophers move from rejecting a central earthly source for divine knowledge, to rejecting divinity itself. Nietzsche famously said “Gott ist tot”.5 Even those who still acknowledged a divine being made great effort to show that it was inactive and no longer necessary. Hegel, one of the last great philosophers to explicitly and seriously believe in a real God (in the Christian tradition) created the structure for an immense philosophical flowering that immediately followed him. His analytical tool of the dialectic6 and explanatory tool of a historical causality7 were taken up and used to develop atheistic philosophies that shaped the modern world.
Nietzsche used these tools to develop a theory of morality as a social construct; beyond merely removing the need for a transcendent moral source, he claimed that the current morality was the result of an insidious realpolitik power-play and that it actively undermined human potential.8 Freud developed psychoanalysis, attributing the human condition to the dialectical development of competing impulses and urges in within the individual’s psyche. While ultimately wrong in many details, he created a system to answer the whys and hows without appeal to the supernatural. With each new system of thought that was developed, Western society relied less and less on the Other to explain and justify the human condition. With each new system, the shackles and sharply defined borders of philosophical thought, imposed by a central Authority, loosened and fell away. Each new system created the conditions which would allow others to flourish.
Today there exists a veritable tangle of wildly different schools of thought coexisting where previously, there had been room for but one. Orthodoxy and certainty have declined throughout society, but we are now able to compare different philosophies on their merits and results. This growing freedom in philosophy and approach to life is accelerating our collective project to map the possibility space for ‘ways to live’.
Revolution in the Sciences
Of the great confusion’s various revolutions, the revolution in science had the most immediate impact on the material means of life. Advances in scientists’ understanding of the physical world led to technologies that radically changed how humans go about the business of living. The Industrial Revolution dramatically and physically reshaped the world we live in. The range of dense human habitation expanded and distance shrank, while communications provided access to information for the masses. While much of this development was driven by mere technologists, it was only possible due to the work of scientists, then still very much in the mould of the natural philosophers. In fact, modern physics fully came into existence during the twilight of the long nineteenth century with the creation of quantum mechanics.9
The development of quantum mechanics was at least partially in answer to a debate that reaches all the way back to Plato and Aristotle. Greatly simplifying matters, Plato thought that light was composed of some ‘things’ (particle), while Aristotle thought it was ‘stuff’ (wave). In fact, we now know that light variously exhibits properties of each. The possible implications of this duality have led to several new fields of physics, developments in which have had application in virtually every modern technology we have today. After centuries of the certainty and empiricism provided by Newtonian mechanics, physicists find themselves back where they started - pondering the ineffable and attempting to answer the grand questions.
Physics was not the only science to undergo revolution during the great confusion. Reinforcing each other, the life and earth sciences advanced towards radically new understandings. Newly freed from doctrinal shackles, new ideas began to emerge that fundamentally changed how we view ourselves and our place in the world. Darwin’s theory of natural selection provided a mechanism which explained both the differences and similarities we observe between species. This mechanism, while not necessarily anti-theistic, offered an alternative explanation for empirical observations which did not require an interventionist, creative god. Paradoxes such as the number of observed species and the space available on Noah’s Ark were resolved.10
The implications reached further however, and eventually challenged the entire Christian world-view. If species were related, and had developed from common ancestors, what would that entail for man’s creation in God’s own image?
New fossil discoveries bolstered the burgeoning evolutionary theory. As more were discovered, patterns in their distribution amongst the earth’s strata were observed. Discoveries such as radioactivity led to attempts to date the earth which produced results far older than the doctrinal five to six thousand years. These lent additional credence to Darwin’s theory, as did the various new theories of inheritance. The widespread acceptance of biological evolution was perhaps the mortal blow against the Church’s intellectual dominion over the western world. As the theory of natural selection grew into a holistic theory of Evolution (encompassing Life, the Universe, and Everything)11, people began to follow the implications towards their logical ends, bringing evolutionary thought into the social sciences.
Revolution in Society
Here’s the setup:
As evolved and evolving animals, we have been subject to the whims of a “blind idiot alien god” that is utterly uncaring and unaware of us.12
Here’s the question:
Armed now with an understanding of the process, and the ability to influence it, don’t we have some obligation to do so?
This is a powerful question, and the seemingly obvious answer led, in part, to two new types of government which would upend the world’s political landscape. Building upon Hegel’s historical dialectic, Karl Marx proposed his own history. One in which events were not only explained by earlier events, but specifically by the material conditions of the time (which were themselves the result of earlier events and conditions). Marx described an atheistic history in which mankind was fundamentally a producer. If something set us apart from the other animals, it was this ability to create the conditions we desired.
Without divinely mandated stations in life, and with a theory of value based on labour, Marx envisaged a future society which was not only better, but inevitable. Viewing the past as a series of systems built upon the dominant means of production, he extrapolated the trend forwards, realizing that new means of production were being developed. In the new system, built upon new means of production, Marx predicted a non-hierarchical society in which all would contribute as they could, and receive all that they need. He viewed Darwin’s theory as a biological foundation for historical materialism, a sort of natural selection of production models and their resulting societies. When communism was later implemented in Russia, Darwinian implications were further integrated. Soviet Russia adopted the Lamarckian view of inheritance and commenced a great project to perfect humankind.13
In central and southern Europe, a competing political-economic system took root. A different model of property applied to aspects of Marx’s theory resulted in fascism, which came to define itself largely in contrast to communism. Nazi Germany also chose to answer the question above in the affirmative. That government, however took a Mendelian view of inheritance. They too embarked on a great project, with similarly disastrous, though very different results.14
Though these two governments had catastrophic effects on their own populations and forever altered the political geography of the world, the great confusion saw other, subtler and yet more profound revolutions in society. New moral views, based on secular humanism and evolution, have seen the emancipation and empowerment of one previously disparaged group after another. Restrictions, official and cultural, have been steadily removed from these groups. Although the process was far from completed, the long nineteenth century saw these trends started and firmly established. Except for the failed experiments in communism and fascism, government itself was seen as largely settled, even in its final form as Fukuyama famously proclaimed almost a century later. While no longer under the sway of a single international authority, nation-states remained massively centralised affairs. The close of the long nineteenth century saw the start of a slow tide begin eroding even these regional monoliths.
Revolution in the Arts
“Art”15 is extremely interesting to consider in this context. The Long Nineteenth Century saw one change after another in the material conditions underpinning “Art”. With this slew of changed conditions, modern art has been in a perpetual state of identity crisis as the category itself (and our relationships to and intuitions for it) came under scrutiny. Just what is “art” (“Art”?) anyway? And who gets to definitively answer that question?
New technologies, the end of the patron-artist model, the end of the artist-as-craftsman, the birth of the hobby artist; all of these are directly attributable to specific changes in historical-material conditions. And all of them cut to the heart of how “Art” had been historically understood in the Western World.16 There had been a widely agreed upon Authority who could separate the wheaty Art from the chaffy trash. And that Authority had the authority to impose and enforce its view of what counted as art. Of course, that Authority was the Church. With the dissolution of that authority, the limits on art were removed, but so was any consensus of what made the cut.
Art17 is an inherently introspective (though certainly not exclusively so) endeavour. Even with a commission to paint some external object, the artist must be aware of her own cognitive and perceptual biases. The (actual) sciences have their empirically testable hypotheses and, of course, reality18 slaps. Unlike the sciences, when we lost the Central Art Authority, we did not gain any external measure to replace it. The only valuations/judgements of art that are possible are ultimately subjective and will necessarily vary from subject to subject.
In much the same way, we’ve lost the central humanity Authority. We are constantly creating measures against which to hold ourselves: social norms, new moralities, ideas of human potential, and so on. Despite the apparent authoritativeness of “consensus”, it isn’t.19
Humanity has freed itself to decide its own destiny, and the range of possible destinies20 is staggering. Even the range of plausible destinies is huge, and most of them are not very desirable.
Having assumed Authority for ourselves, we find ourselves with the terrible responsibility to choose wisely from amongst these destinies. This terrible weight is shown in the chaos and confusion of modern art. When we determine our own purpose, meaning, and meter, there are bound to be different determinations.
These account for questions such as:
What is art?
What is its purpose?
Why do art?
Does a given thing count as art?
Is modern art good?
Who gets to decide these things?21
The ‘proper’ answer is to realize that these are bad questions. ‘Art’ is an arbitrary categorization that has persisted through the ages defined and judged by various authorities. We have dismantled those authorities, and with them the category itself. The open-ended world of no-Authority is frightening, and so we cling to the trappings of Authority – even in its absence. For example, the idea that there is some coherent and sensible category called art, or that somehow a group of people in fancy robes gets special exemptions to act in ways we mostly agree is immoral if only we call them government.
Humanity (to paint with a broad brush) has rejected Authority, but is currently without the courage of its conviction.
During the long nineteenth century, we rushed headlong into the great confusion, so consumed with tearing down Authority22 that we scarcely paused to consider what would come next. Today we live in a world between; exuberant in our triumphs, unsure of how to deal with them. What authority remains is under siege, central governments are splintering as small groups and individuals begin to wield their newfound power. The twenty first century will see us pick up the pieces, as it were, and move forward along the paths started for us during the great confusion. This will be the age of empowerment and decentralisation, as we all gradually assume authority and responsibility for ourselves. The outcome can be anything, anything but what we have left behind. Though many will apathetically watch the future unfold around them, there are others who will take it upon themselves to create it. Our destiny is now fully in our own hands; this is the challenge of modernity.
The Long Nineteenth Century began in 1789 with the French Revolution and lasted until 1914 with World War I.
Corpus Iuris Civilis
Rando supporting docs:
* Roman Law and Its Influence in America (1927)
* The Importance of Roman Law for Western Civilization and Western Legal Thought Western Legal Thought (1981)
Lovely tension between exoteric and esoteric readings of this word
You might see the Enlightenment as a voice of reason, crying out from the wilderness of human stagnation, preparing and bearing witness to the Golden Path
I recognize that Hegel said it first, and that the phrase is a commentary on human/societal belief in God in the face of the enlightenment - not an actual deicide.
Simply put, a dialectic considers a proposition, its negation, and their eventual reconciliation. For example, we have, according to Freud, an impulse towards life (proposition) as well as an impulse towards death (negation). When properly balanced we utilize both forces in the creation of great works, such as medieval cathedrals (reconciliation).
Previous views of history typically limited it to an account of what happened. There was a succession of events that occurred for reasons outside of history itself, whether heroic personalities or divine intervention. Hegel pioneered the use of historical events to explain following ones. For example, he might have said (were recent discoveries available) that the Trojan war was not due to the meddling of various gods, but was rather the result of competing ideologies that brought two different civilizations into conflict.
Nietzsche posited what he called a slave revolt in morality. The essence is that (prior to Christian times) a group of weak and ineffectual aristocrats grew jealous of their powerful brethren. They could not compete for power directly, due to the character flaws that made them weak. Instead they created a religion that lionised their own traits such as meekness and created sins out of the nobles’; ambition, pride, greed, etc. They spread this religion, undermining the nobles until, with the help of the underclasses (slaves), they overthrew the nobles and took control. This historical account was a barely allegorical indictment of Christian morals and the Catholic Church.
The story of the of Quantum Mechanics is a fascinating one that includes all the great physics luminaries, as they ‘finished up’ statistical thermodynamics, and ushered in particle physics, relativity, and more.
The dimensions of the Ark are detailed in Genesis. Even off-the-cuff calculations show that the space available was not even remotely sufficient for two animals of every current species. With natural selection, one could now say that Noah took aboard two of every parent or archetypal species, which then evolved into what we have today. Or, using evolution to refute creation, one could then question the literal truth of the bible and see the story as allegory or simple myth.
Quick nod to Teillhard de Chardin here and his Ω. view of successive/meta evolution.
If you are unfamiliar with “Meditations on Moloch”, the author describes the ‘everything-is-evolution’ kind of processes as a “blind idiot alien god”. This is referencing an earlier article on Less Wrong in which the Yud describes Darwin’s discovery thusly:
“But instead Darwin discovered a strange alien God—not comfortably "ineffable", but really genuinely different from us. Evolution is not a God, but if it were, it wouldn't be Jehovah. It would be H. P. Lovecraft's Azathoth, the blind idiot God burbling chaotically at the centre of everything, surrounded by the thin monotonous piping of flutes.
Which you might have predicted, if you had really looked at Nature.”
The Lamarckian model of inheritance is basically that acquired traits are passed on. Based on this view, they implemented widespread national education and training programs designed to develop desired traits in the citizenry, so that those would be passed on to future generations, in which people would be completely constitutionally suited to communism. Information and science were tightly controlled so as not to negatively impact this process. Eventually, the system came to look rather Orwellian.
If anyone has a good source on Lysenkoism and the New Soviet Man to share, this is in process of being memoryholed from the front pages of the internet. The only remaining easy-to-find, non-paywalled sources are all hyper-partisan.
The Mendelian model, which has been vindicated, proposes a genetic view of inheritance. Combining this with sociobiology led to Eugenics, in which a race (or the whole species) is essentially bred for desirable traits. The two prongs of this are positive (active breeding or pairing to preserve desirable traits) and negative (‘pruning’ of undesirable traits, typically through forced sterilization or death). Eugenics became unpopular after revelations about the various Nazi eugenics programs. Had they been able to continue, the results would likely have appeared Huxleyan.
Yes, I’m using scare quotes intentionally, but not derogatorily. The general thrust here is that the Victorian/Modern/current sense of what “art” (as a category) means has become disconnected from the current situation. As with SSC’s The Categories Were Made For Man, Not Man For The Categories, “Art” is a category that has ling-since ceased to cleave social reality at the joints (if it ever really did). Talking about “Art/art” (as a single, coherent thing) in current year is about useful as talking about how the 4 humours influence alchemical implementations of web3.
I’m keen to distinguish between the Western World pre- and post- Christendom. Throughout this post, and especially in the art context, I am specifically thinking of the post-Constantine I Western World.
Here I am using the term descriptively and not normatively.
Whatever that turns out to actually be.
E.g., if the government or “society” decides something, that seems to carries significant weight of Authority. But even if you could convince a large minority/plurality/majority of people that the moon were made of cheese, that wouldn’t make it so. I mean, have you paid attention to propaganda over the past couple hundred years? It’s just one flase flag after another mass gaslighting.
I’m using destiny here to mean something like the human endowment throughout posterity, or the humanity’s light cone going forward. Or, possible/plausible worlds.
Everyone/Noone
The first version of this post was written way back in 2013 or 2014. And it’s only become more on point, though I’m no longer quite as optimistic. Here’s hoping we make it