Steven Pinker is a careful, non-doctrinaire thinker---a position that does not come easily to a scholar not steeped in the aesthetics of mathematics, the aesthetics that illustrates the intense pleasure of discovering truths instead of imposing one's tastes on others. (It suffices that there exist a group of others who share the relevant tastes.)
Pinker's point that the realised violence in the Westernised world has historically declined is persuasive. For making predictions, however, it is the past potential (i.e., expected), not realised, violence that matters. Potential violence may have gone up in the last century, if only due to the risk of a nuclear catastrophe. Pinker's goal is not to make predictions, however, but to alert the reader to the fact that one lives in the best of the worlds that have ever existed, which presents one with the extraordinary opportunity to make the world even better and make it last a little longer.
Pinker's unified theory of technological and cultural progress is compelling. These are the restless young who create (and also destroy and degrade). Just as the Internet is believed to help the citizens who hold dissenting beliefs recognise each other and coordinate on an uprising, so did television, radio, and the interstate highways in the 1960s help the young recognise the condition of youth in the millions of others all over the world, declare this condition normal, and resist the excessive civilisation by the old.
Before the authority of the older generation was fruitfully challenged, the authority of the dead and the fictional had been---with the invention of the printing press and the rise of the Republic of Letters. Once the conditions of being alive and sometimes young had been framed as acceptable, the young and the alive found themselves contributing to mainstream culture and technology, instead of armed conflicts, thereby accelerating the progress of the civilisation.
One economist's model of the world derailed and has been cast as one of the evil ideologies of the twentieth century. The perception of the malice in the theory can be traced back to the elevation by the practitioners of the idea of the class struggle to a necessary condition for progress. In the long term, however, those social visions are most fruitful which seek mutually beneficial transactions, not those that artificially pit one social group against the other and dissipate resources in the course of the struggle. Mutually beneficial transactions require ingenuity and empathy (to experience the warm glow from making a gift or recognising others' rights, or to imagine others' needs and innovate); these are not too hard to come by.
Technological and moral progress are intertwined. The free circulation---and an occasional case of theft---of ideas promote both.
27 March 2016
An American in Paris
(The Palace Theatre, 26 March 2014)
The production's stars are Bob Crowley, the set designer, and Natasha Katz, the lighting designer. They have found the balance between what should be carved out and painted, and what can be lit up and projected. The projections are not lazy, but necessary.
The desire to merely remake a movie betrays certain timidity of intention. Trevor Nunn would adapt classical musicals by capturing and amplifying their essence, which drew audiences to the big screen in the first place. Christopher Wheeldon's adaptation does not attempt to seduce; it addresses the fans of the genre, and this genre must be classical ballet, whose audience is as conservative as the musical's choreography. This audience will likely be more pleased by attending a performance by the National Ballet of Canada.
The music lacks daring and jazz; it sounds like a recording from an unidentifiable era, inhospitable to the musical's events. Improvisation projects freedom. Syncopations project joy. Sevenths project nuance and depth. These are the signatures of the time in which the story is set, and they are missing from the opening lines, the score, and the book.
The musical is well-acted, well-danced, and well-conceived. But it is a musical that follows, not leads, except, perhaps, in its "The Stairway to Paradise" number.
The production's stars are Bob Crowley, the set designer, and Natasha Katz, the lighting designer. They have found the balance between what should be carved out and painted, and what can be lit up and projected. The projections are not lazy, but necessary.
The desire to merely remake a movie betrays certain timidity of intention. Trevor Nunn would adapt classical musicals by capturing and amplifying their essence, which drew audiences to the big screen in the first place. Christopher Wheeldon's adaptation does not attempt to seduce; it addresses the fans of the genre, and this genre must be classical ballet, whose audience is as conservative as the musical's choreography. This audience will likely be more pleased by attending a performance by the National Ballet of Canada.
The music lacks daring and jazz; it sounds like a recording from an unidentifiable era, inhospitable to the musical's events. Improvisation projects freedom. Syncopations project joy. Sevenths project nuance and depth. These are the signatures of the time in which the story is set, and they are missing from the opening lines, the score, and the book.
The musical is well-acted, well-danced, and well-conceived. But it is a musical that follows, not leads, except, perhaps, in its "The Stairway to Paradise" number.
18 March 2016
"Irrational Man" (2015)
Woody Allen’s latest picture is rare in that its title summarises its content perfectly. In the movie, a philosophy professor mistakes his disillusionment with moral philosophy for disillusionment with reason. He advocates following one’s gut feeling, intuition, instinct. The film illustrates how easily unchallenged gut feelings can lead to actions that are not only misguided but plainly evil.
One can be guided by intuition to form hypotheses. But one cannot ever convince another by arguing that one’s intuition is stronger than the other’s. One cannot aggregate knowledge by aggregating intuition.
One can be guided by intuition to form hypotheses. But one cannot ever convince another by arguing that one’s intuition is stronger than the other’s. One cannot aggregate knowledge by aggregating intuition.
Mission Fusion Extravaganza
(Foster City, 10--14 March 2016)
Freedom is trust. Trust requires intelligence and the expectation of intelligence. Effective intelligence is scarce if only because wealth is scarce and unequally distributed. Trust requires some commonality of experience or values. The exercise of trust requires the willingness to bear risks. This willingness is facilitated by wealth and also by the culture of restlessness, which promotes novelty seeking.
That freedom leads to joy and that joy (or at least its pursuit) is a worthy goal are relatively new (Enlightenment) ideas, not universally accepted.
Freedom is trust. Trust requires intelligence and the expectation of intelligence. Effective intelligence is scarce if only because wealth is scarce and unequally distributed. Trust requires some commonality of experience or values. The exercise of trust requires the willingness to bear risks. This willingness is facilitated by wealth and also by the culture of restlessness, which promotes novelty seeking.
That freedom leads to joy and that joy (or at least its pursuit) is a worthy goal are relatively new (Enlightenment) ideas, not universally accepted.
14 February 2016
fragmenta.dos (o tres)
(Un Teatro, 11 February 2016)
In bad dance, just like in bad poetry, it is hard to hide. Nor is one compelled to hide in dance (or in mathematics or poetry), as one is liable to believe (falsely) that the medium’s abstraction alone must obfuscate sufficiently.
Violence is an instrumental need. When the end is clear and a superior means is available, violence is not demanded. When the vision of the end is blurred, however, violence can bring direct gratification.
The dances prioritise expression over communication. The dancers talk at each other, past each other, but rarely to each other. Skills, just as violence, are embraced instinctively, for their instrumental value, and are deployed to awake, to feel awake, to challenge, to risk—with no clear end.
No narrative is offered or invited; causality is denied; instruction is inaccessible. Aesthetic gratification is limited.
In bad dance, just like in bad poetry, it is hard to hide. Nor is one compelled to hide in dance (or in mathematics or poetry), as one is liable to believe (falsely) that the medium’s abstraction alone must obfuscate sufficiently.
Violence is an instrumental need. When the end is clear and a superior means is available, violence is not demanded. When the vision of the end is blurred, however, violence can bring direct gratification.
The dances prioritise expression over communication. The dancers talk at each other, past each other, but rarely to each other. Skills, just as violence, are embraced instinctively, for their instrumental value, and are deployed to awake, to feel awake, to challenge, to risk—with no clear end.
No narrative is offered or invited; causality is denied; instruction is inaccessible. Aesthetic gratification is limited.
19 January 2016
"Markets Without Limits: Moral Virtues and Commercial Interests" by Jason Brennan and Peter M. Jaworski (2015)
The freedom of speech and the freedom of contracting are analogous in that they both bolster innovation: of ways of life, institutions, goods, and services. Indeed, the freedom of speech may be moot without the freedom of contracting. The purpose of speech is to coordinate individuals on acting differently, on contracting differently.
Brennan and Jaworski make a point that is rather obvious but apparently needs to be reiterated to the self-proclaimed moral philosopher: one cannot build a theory of morality by merely consulting one's prejudice (which is culture-specific) and instinct (which is animalistic). Nor can one make factual statements without consulting facts. Moral philosophy is a branch of social science, whose scientific method it must respect lest it never rise above demagoguery.
Like most men, moral philosophers are ill-equipped to ponder trade-offs. An act is either good or evil, moral or immoral. Rawls advocated the minmax criterion, presumably, because he could not conceive of a way to trade-off one individual's wellbeing against another's. Some moral philosophers today similarly castigate some acts as being so disgusting (to the refined observer) as to warrant an unqualified ban, even if its imposition costs lives. Such a dichotomous approach to morality might have been a decent rule of thumb for the troglodyte, but the modern man is intelligent enough to afford a more nuanced approach.
Brennan and Jaworski make a point that is rather obvious but apparently needs to be reiterated to the self-proclaimed moral philosopher: one cannot build a theory of morality by merely consulting one's prejudice (which is culture-specific) and instinct (which is animalistic). Nor can one make factual statements without consulting facts. Moral philosophy is a branch of social science, whose scientific method it must respect lest it never rise above demagoguery.
Like most men, moral philosophers are ill-equipped to ponder trade-offs. An act is either good or evil, moral or immoral. Rawls advocated the minmax criterion, presumably, because he could not conceive of a way to trade-off one individual's wellbeing against another's. Some moral philosophers today similarly castigate some acts as being so disgusting (to the refined observer) as to warrant an unqualified ban, even if its imposition costs lives. Such a dichotomous approach to morality might have been a decent rule of thumb for the troglodyte, but the modern man is intelligent enough to afford a more nuanced approach.
2 January 2016
La Gaviota
(Foro Shakespeare, 25 December 2015)
Chekhov’s plays are about craving freedom from the constricting circumstance. Contemporary American and British theatre is about coping with the freedom. The latter is more intellectually stimulating.
Chekhov’s plays are about craving freedom from the constricting circumstance. Contemporary American and British theatre is about coping with the freedom. The latter is more intellectually stimulating.
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