Enlightenment thought: "Rights" are based upon the "unknowability" of human nature. (life/liberty/pursuit of happiness)
Modern Enlightenment economics replaced virtue/religion as foci in West.
The original violence of property acquisition intervenes in the Enlightenment from the East, 9/11, bin Laden.
Then... "but none of this will matter if we're all dead in the short run." Okay, so today mere self-preservation forces all of us to look at the world in New, to think strange new thoughts, and thereby to awaken from that very long and profitable period of intellectual Slumber and Amnesia that is so misleadingly called the Enlightenment.
What's going to be primarily new is that we must go counter to the enlightenment presuppositions. Counter to the intellectual slumber and amnesia that we've inherited, and that we have wrongly evaluated previously only positively, if we are to survive the East's challenge.
We Need counter-Enlightenment thinking (millermanschool.com) because the Enlightenment Economic model failed to keep the Peace.
Recap: Peter Thiel: The Straussian moment... we have the problem of September 11th, 9/11. The Islamic attacks on the Twin Towers. You have the fact that this force is a reconsideration of the foundations of the modern world because it seemingly refutes some of our political and Military assumptions (both the technological feat and the failure of the economic model.) I mean the model that economics, economic incentives, can reduce violence in the most important cases. Then we have the problematic history of the question of human nature; namely that it's been taken off the table in order to avoid conflict (religious wars/ nation state wars), and that was replaced by a Lockean model, but that the Lockean model has proven to be a failure, in part because of these two border cases: the case of the violent origin of property acquisition and the border of the non-western world, but also with the fact that oil itself, such an important feature in the modern world, is not properly accounted for. So it seems in Lockes model of Labor and nature. Therefore we have to look outside the Enlightenment resources, outside Locke. Not necessarily going to the pre-Enlightenment, but going to something slightly adjacent. Which is what he begins to do when he turns next to Carl Schmitt.
"Humanity's nature to know nothing about the nature of humanity". That was our unknowable X. Remember, Schmitt responds that it's equally a part of the human condition to be divided by such questions and to be forced to take sides. Politics is the field of battle in which that division takes place, in which humans are forced to choose between friends and enemies.
Modern Enlightenment economics replaced virtue/religion as foci in West.
The original violence of property acquisition intervenes in the Enlightenment from the East, 9/11, bin Laden.
Then... "but none of this will matter if we're all dead in the short run." Okay, so today mere self-preservation forces all of us to look at the world in New, to think strange new thoughts, and thereby to awaken from that very long and profitable period of intellectual Slumber and Amnesia that is so misleadingly called the Enlightenment.
What's going to be primarily new is that we must go counter to the enlightenment presuppositions. Counter to the intellectual slumber and amnesia that we've inherited, and that we have wrongly evaluated previously only positively, if we are to survive the East's challenge.
We Need counter-Enlightenment thinking (millermanschool.com) because the Enlightenment Economic model failed to keep the Peace.
Recap: Peter Thiel: The Straussian moment... we have the problem of September 11th, 9/11. The Islamic attacks on the Twin Towers. You have the fact that this force is a reconsideration of the foundations of the modern world because it seemingly refutes some of our political and Military assumptions (both the technological feat and the failure of the economic model.) I mean the model that economics, economic incentives, can reduce violence in the most important cases. Then we have the problematic history of the question of human nature; namely that it's been taken off the table in order to avoid conflict (religious wars/ nation state wars), and that was replaced by a Lockean model, but that the Lockean model has proven to be a failure, in part because of these two border cases: the case of the violent origin of property acquisition and the border of the non-western world, but also with the fact that oil itself, such an important feature in the modern world, is not properly accounted for. So it seems in Lockes model of Labor and nature. Therefore we have to look outside the Enlightenment resources, outside Locke. Not necessarily going to the pre-Enlightenment, but going to something slightly adjacent. Which is what he begins to do when he turns next to Carl Schmitt.
"Humanity's nature to know nothing about the nature of humanity". That was our unknowable X. Remember, Schmitt responds that it's equally a part of the human condition to be divided by such questions and to be forced to take sides. Politics is the field of battle in which that division takes place, in which humans are forced to choose between friends and enemies.
So in other words this is (Thiel quoting Schmitt) telling us that if you "believe in the goodness of human nature", well there are historical examples that those who think that are suckers and they're blind and they don't see what's right around the corner. Absent an invasion by aliens from outer space there never can be a world state that politically unites all of humanity. It's a logical impossibility.
If one agrees with Schmitt's starting assumptions, he writes, then the West must lose the war (on Terror) or lose its identity. One way or the other, the Persistence of the political spells the Doom of the modern West.
Kojiev's end of history: So long as the political exists, the world will remain divided. There's no guarantee that the political itself will survive. Let us grant that unilateral disarmament is impossible, at least for those who value survival, but is it not possible perhaps for everyone to disarm at once and for everyone to reject politics at the same time. There can be no worldwide political entity, but there's a possibility of a worldwide abandonment of Politics.
Schmitt end of history: Schmitt Echoes these sentiments but with rather different conclusions. In such a unified world, what remains is neither politics, nor State, but Culture, Civilization, Economics, Morality, Law, Art, Entertainment, Etc.. So at the end of History, in this worl,d after man's historical action, things still happen. You could still go to the casino. You could still flip on the TV. You could still go skip stones on the water, but "politics" is over. Politics is over, but Entertainment is not. So the world of "Entertainment" represents the culmination of the shift away from politics, a representation of reality might appear to replace reality. Instead of violent Wars, there could be violent video games. Instead of heroic feats, there could be thrilling amusement park rides. Instead of serious thought, there could be intrigues of all sorts. As in a soap opera, it is a world where people spend their lives amusing themselves to death. Schmitt does not reject the possibility of such a world out of hand, but believes it will not happen in an entirely ooous manner. The acute question Schmitt writes to pose is, "Upon whom will fall the frightening power?" Implied in a world embracing economic and Technical organization. This question can by no means be dismissed in the belief that everything would then function automatically, that things would administer themselves, and that a Government "by people, over people would be Superfluous because human beings would then be 'absolutely free' for what would they be free? This can be answered by optimistic, or pessimistic conjectures, all of which finally lead to an anthropological profession." Of the Schmitt such an artificial world, and by the way as you read this Schmitt talking about artificial world of entertainment, everything somehow organized, "Upon whom will fall the frightening power?" (If you have any interest in the question of artificial intelligence and whether AI can become government and all of that.)
If one agrees with Schmitt's starting assumptions, he writes, then the West must lose the war (on Terror) or lose its identity. One way or the other, the Persistence of the political spells the Doom of the modern West.
Kojiev's end of history: So long as the political exists, the world will remain divided. There's no guarantee that the political itself will survive. Let us grant that unilateral disarmament is impossible, at least for those who value survival, but is it not possible perhaps for everyone to disarm at once and for everyone to reject politics at the same time. There can be no worldwide political entity, but there's a possibility of a worldwide abandonment of Politics.
Schmitt end of history: Schmitt Echoes these sentiments but with rather different conclusions. In such a unified world, what remains is neither politics, nor State, but Culture, Civilization, Economics, Morality, Law, Art, Entertainment, Etc.. So at the end of History, in this worl,d after man's historical action, things still happen. You could still go to the casino. You could still flip on the TV. You could still go skip stones on the water, but "politics" is over. Politics is over, but Entertainment is not. So the world of "Entertainment" represents the culmination of the shift away from politics, a representation of reality might appear to replace reality. Instead of violent Wars, there could be violent video games. Instead of heroic feats, there could be thrilling amusement park rides. Instead of serious thought, there could be intrigues of all sorts. As in a soap opera, it is a world where people spend their lives amusing themselves to death. Schmitt does not reject the possibility of such a world out of hand, but believes it will not happen in an entirely ooous manner. The acute question Schmitt writes to pose is, "Upon whom will fall the frightening power?" Implied in a world embracing economic and Technical organization. This question can by no means be dismissed in the belief that everything would then function automatically, that things would administer themselves, and that a Government "by people, over people would be Superfluous because human beings would then be 'absolutely free' for what would they be free? This can be answered by optimistic, or pessimistic conjectures, all of which finally lead to an anthropological profession." Of the Schmitt such an artificial world, and by the way as you read this Schmitt talking about artificial world of entertainment, everything somehow organized, "Upon whom will fall the frightening power?" (If you have any interest in the question of artificial intelligence and whether AI can become government and all of that.)
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