‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.’
We humans have a tendency to take our own suffering, angst and unhappiness and use it as a lens to colour the world we live in. It was something I first noticed in myself during my period of teenage angst, although I will readily admit I didn’t recognise the cause until after the fact. If I am unhappy or suffering, the world must be a terrible place, and this in turn creates a bias which subconsciously leads us to look for evidence to confirm our suspicions.
Above all, there must be a reason for our suffering, a protagonist upon whom to blame all our woes. If you are on the Right this villain is government and the way it imposes itself on human flourishing. If you are on the Left it is the evils of capitalism and the obscene wealth of the rich man. The awful truth is that suffering and unhappiness are intrinsic elements of what it is to be human- our moments of joy, contentment and happiness are brief respites against a burgeoning storm ever threatening to break, always lurking beyond the horizon and of which we are usually blissfully unaware.
The irony is it would seem that existential threat, the manufacture of crises, both personal and metaphorical, real or imagined, seems to be one of the only things which can distract us fully from our plight- which is probably why we have such a penchant for summoning them from nothing, and for creating a fictional world which bears no resemblance to the one we live in, with its general, gradual and incremental remittance of real human suffering in almost all its forms. Alas, for all our power to alleviate, progress cannot solve ennui, nor can it remedy the fact that most of us are inconsequential cogs in a vast machine, with little influence or earth-shattering contribution to the world around us.
We may have solved hunger, but for grief we can do nothing. We may have increased life expectancy to unprecedented levels, but we cannot remove the slow diminution which comes from entropy unleashed against our bodies, slowly enfeebling us, subject to worsening aches and pains, left grasping for ever-diminishing intellectual capacities, and ever fearful of a sudden precipitous decline far worse than the minor inconvenience of a now faulty memory or physical inconvenience.
We look to narratives to console us, to give us a reason why the world must occasionally be such a shitty place, but the truth is that narrative is probably the last place we should be looking if we really want to help ourselves. We need to recognise that for the most part, government is a substitute to remedy our own sense of inconsequentiality, it’s a proxy for the exercise of power and influence over others, to solve a problem which, for the most part, does not exist.
This is not to say that government is not necessary, or that it cannot help. But instead of asking the question how limited should government be, we should be asking how can we better deploy what to all intents and purposes are finite resources which have, at least in Europe, long since reached their rational limits? Meanwhile, in America few people realise that to confiscate all billionaire wealth (if such a thing were even possible), would only fund American government for six months. Such is the strength and potency of the narratives we construct to create the illusion that our own lack of power, influence, relevance and status must be the result of some evil ogre hoarding all such good things to itself. Unfortunately, despite the fact that in most instances the lump fallacy or zero sum has been proved wrong- when it comes to the attention economy and human relevance the Pareto distribution, much to the chagrin of millennials bemoaning the inherent inequality of music downloads, is very much in evidence- for every star, there are thousands of creatives who will die in obscurity.
Instead, if we really want to feel power, we should look to family, friends and community-even those virtual ones we create online. Impact and relevancy is to be found in the reciprocal, the simple warmth of a kind gesture and an occasional word of encouragement. Our world in not Manichean, a battle between good and bad people, much as many would have us believe it so. Instead, it’s battle against the indignity of existence, avoiding the temptation to sink into the moral quagmire of finally accepting one’s own irrelevancy, along with the desperate need to stoically gird oneself against the ever-looming storm.
The existential threat lies in ourselves, in avoiding the temptation to perceive the occasional nutjob we see on the other side of the political debate as in any way indicative of the group in its entirety. We are all too painfully aware of the ridiculous defamatory nature of stereotypes when they are applied to us, why can we not be more charitable and generous when looking at the opposing political tribe? Much as it may be annoying to admit it, belonging to any political tribe is replete with sunk costs- how many times have all of us winced at the sheer stupidity of some fool who is supposedly representative of our tribe or team. It’s why I am currently politically homeless- it’s liberated me from the inherent embarrassment of having idiots for leaders.
It is the acceptance which comes from finally accepting that as we grow older, an over fondness for coffee may cause anal fissures, that an ever increasing list of aging pains is our lot in life and we will never feel the same way we did when we were young. Even the past is an illusion- one which we selectively edit to remove all the grist and anxiety. And the future is a world we construct in which we would hopefully want to live if we were young again, unheedful of the fact that we still won’t have solved to real problem which confronts humanity in the modern age- that status, influence, relevancy and impact all really are zero sum, the lump fallacy. Overall, we should be content to live with relative obscurity and a lack of influence, to be known, liked and even occasionally admired by those we encounter along the way, and treat it all with the gallows humour it deserves, sipping the not-so-occasional whisky at the absurdity of it all.
Finding reasons to see the best in others is a far more rewarding state of mind than finding fault.
My Grandmother would tell it as "If you've got nothing good to say about a person, then say nothing at all."
Deep article Geary. I believe you've captured something very important here and in extremely short supply. It makes me question myself and revaluate my own behaviour. I want to be the person you describe. I know it is me. I want others to know it too.
Cheers, mate. As I mentioned in the article, I leaned heavily on my teenage experiences. Mind you, back in our day there was far more latitude for equating our own suffering with the sufferings of the world. That's why I mentioned Freddie- back then the scenes from Ethiopia really were horrific.
I wouldn't worry too much about the stereotyping, sometimes it can't be helped. For the past three or four days I've been engaged with a Romanian fan of communism over on Quillette. He seems convinced that the world is a horrible place because of capitalism. The point being that although I have tried to remain generous and polite, I have become increasingly frustrated with his accusations that I have fallen for propaganda, and stubbornly refuses to see the flaws in Marxist thinking.
Unless I were able to distinguish between the old school class conscious Marxist intent upon workers owning their own means of production, and those like him, willing to hand all power over to government, then I would be sorely tempted to apply the same brush to all socialists. It's only experience, a fair amount of reading and watching a lot good faith podcasts between people who disagree, that I understand that is another type of socialist who is more laudably libertarian in their outlook, and doesn't necessarily want to cede all power to government.
I won't get thru it. Half an hour in and it's still civilized. Besides, I'm falling in love with that girl. If I ran the country I'd give Prof. Loury a blank cheque and tell him to go and do what he needs to do.
Loury uncharacteristically, for our times, allows her to speak at length even though he questions her positions. He was extremely generous with her critique of his positions, too much so on occasion, I thought.
I think a lot of it stems from the belief in modern times that culture is some immutable characteristic, or at least something which cultural relativism insists we shouldn't want to change. Lacking the melanin forcefield, I've recently taken to labelling it community damage, with the caveat that is was Leftist policies like the way that welfare was structured to disincentivise both fatherhood and work along with indiscriminate high density urban housing which caused far more community damage than historical legacies like slavery or Jim Crow.
> This Bad Faith podcast between Professor Glenn Loury and Briahna Joy Gray
Sheesh, I can't handle it. I'm two minutes in and there hasn't been a single insult or stereotype or characterization. This mutual respect and cordiality better stop or soon or I'm not going to be able to watch much more.
> It’s why I am currently politically homeless- it’s liberated me from the inherent embarrassment of having idiots for leaders.
That's the thing. True, one longs for comrades, united in the good fight, but there is the liberation from tribal loyalties which can, respectively, oblige one to believe that Trump really won the election *or* that men are women.
> Even the past is an illusion- one which we selectively edit to remove all the grist and anxiety.
Dunno, I often find myself going over the bad stuff.
> at the absurdity of it all.
From a dolphin's perspective, life is essentially a joke-on-us, but still there is grace and beauty and truth and virtue and these are not accidents.
'Dunno, I often find myself going over the bad stuff.'- Sure, but these are the major bits. Spraining your ankle, the routine panic of an awkward social situation (worse when young) or the wince which we make when we see an old photo, where we are dressed like a twat- these are the irksome daily grinds which we tend to edit out as we get older.
We remember the highlights though- they shine out to use from across the decades, creating fond memories which weren't a feature of our lives back then.
Not only would the rich not be able to fund government for long, but you'd then have no rich people and no successful new businesses to produce the wages that are taxed and the products that are taxed.
'Not only would the rich not be able to fund government for long, but you'd then have no rich people and no successful new businesses to produce the wages that are taxed and the products that are taxed.'- I usually preface this statement with a condition 'even if it were feasible...'
A Tobin-style tax is much better idea, it's fractions of a cent on a dollar which only tends to stack with things like high frequency trades. Tobin was wrong about the level though- about half of what he suggested is about the right level, without impairing activity- like most tax proponents he forgot the Laffer curve. I'm just not sure where the tax refund would be best applied- probably by lowering the structural cost of employment imposed by the ACA (Dan Crenshaw has talked about structuralising catastrophic medical costs, which is an interesting idea for lowering costs, overall).
In the UK, it would probably be best applied to implementing a negative income tax replacing welfare with income support for low income workers, and thus removing the disincentive to work.
Anything above 10% is immoral. At least this has been a rather long-standing tithing amount, which is why expecting 20% tipping isn't tipping but a way to defraud with your fake low pricing.
The negative income tax is likely the best solution for welfare as it provides a safety net, though it's always a bit unclear why everyone needs a safety net even if they are not trying to be as productive as their current health status allows.
“ Human’s have a tendency to take our own suffering, angst and unhappiness and use it as a lens to colour the world we live in.”
Spot on. Great line. (Although I’ll note for your benefit that there’s a typo, which I think should be easy for you to correct.)
“ We may have increased life expectancy to unprecedented levels, but we cannot remove the slow diminution which comes from entropy unleashed against our bodies, slowly enfeebling us, subject to worsening aches and pains, left grasping for ever-diminishing intellectual capacities, and ever fearful of a sudden precipitous decline far worse than the minor inconvenience of a now faulty memory or physical inconvenience.”
Yes. But that’s not to say we can do nothing about death or aging. We all age and die. But there are ways we can live that slow or speed up the decline and make it harder or easier on our minds and bodies.
“ It’s why I am currently politically homeless- it’s liberated me from the inherent embarrassment of having idiots for leaders.”
That is a satisfying thing.
“ Unfortunately, despite the fact that in most instances the lump fallacy or zero sum has been proved wrong- when it comes to the attention economy and human relevance the Pareto distribution, much to the chagrin of millennials bemoaning the inherent inequality of music downloads, is very much in evidence- for every star, there are thousands of creatives who will die in obscurity.”
To some extent that’s true. However, I’ll note that digital technology has made it less true and that we now live in a world partially defined by Kevin Kelly’s “1000 True Fans” model, in which more creatives can earn a middle class income than ever before. It’s no longer the old world in which you either made it big time or you were penniless. Much in the same way that the industrial and market revolutions created middle classes in societies that had previously been divided into serfs and nobility.
Also, I’ll point out that there’s a big upside to “irrelevancy:” you have privacy. Celebrity does weird things to people. Fame can make life miserable. Better to have a limited impact on friends and family than a massive cult following.
Great point about the creatives issue. Quick question- have you gone paid on Substack, and, if so, did you find it meant that your work was promoted more? I also completely agree with you on the celebrity thing, especially in the modern context- where the slightest expression of wrongthink can bring down the cancel mob. Still, even before, although I've never had a problem with more money :), I've never had the slightest desire to be famous.
'Much in the same way that the industrial and market revolutions created middle classes in societies that had previously been divided into serfs and nobility.'- with the digital revolution, perhaps creatives are becoming the latest merchant class?
I’ve had paid subscriptions enabled from the beginning and have both free and paywalled content. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t get me any more promotion. Promotion is more based on the size of your mailing list/Twitter following, and mine are still relatively small.
Yes, I’m hoping that it will. I think in some areas we’re already seeing that. For all that we’re hearing about “the decline of books,” once you take into account worldwide sales of both e-books and print, traditional and independent and self-published, it’s the best time in history to make money as a writer. There are about 1-2 thousand self-published writers earning 6-figures on Amazon in sales per year. And probably an order of magnitude (or two orders) more than that earning 5-figures in royalties, given how these things scale.
Finding reasons to see the best in others is a far more rewarding state of mind than finding fault.
My Grandmother would tell it as "If you've got nothing good to say about a person, then say nothing at all."
Deep article Geary. I believe you've captured something very important here and in extremely short supply. It makes me question myself and revaluate my own behaviour. I want to be the person you describe. I know it is me. I want others to know it too.
Excellent writing. Inspirational.
Cheers, mate. As I mentioned in the article, I leaned heavily on my teenage experiences. Mind you, back in our day there was far more latitude for equating our own suffering with the sufferings of the world. That's why I mentioned Freddie- back then the scenes from Ethiopia really were horrific.
I wouldn't worry too much about the stereotyping, sometimes it can't be helped. For the past three or four days I've been engaged with a Romanian fan of communism over on Quillette. He seems convinced that the world is a horrible place because of capitalism. The point being that although I have tried to remain generous and polite, I have become increasingly frustrated with his accusations that I have fallen for propaganda, and stubbornly refuses to see the flaws in Marxist thinking.
Unless I were able to distinguish between the old school class conscious Marxist intent upon workers owning their own means of production, and those like him, willing to hand all power over to government, then I would be sorely tempted to apply the same brush to all socialists. It's only experience, a fair amount of reading and watching a lot good faith podcasts between people who disagree, that I understand that is another type of socialist who is more laudably libertarian in their outlook, and doesn't necessarily want to cede all power to government.
This Bad Faith podcast between Professor Glenn Loury and Briahna Joy Gray is one which I particularly enjoyed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLK68dagC6E
I won't get thru it. Half an hour in and it's still civilized. Besides, I'm falling in love with that girl. If I ran the country I'd give Prof. Loury a blank cheque and tell him to go and do what he needs to do.
Loury uncharacteristically, for our times, allows her to speak at length even though he questions her positions. He was extremely generous with her critique of his positions, too much so on occasion, I thought.
I think a lot of it stems from the belief in modern times that culture is some immutable characteristic, or at least something which cultural relativism insists we shouldn't want to change. Lacking the melanin forcefield, I've recently taken to labelling it community damage, with the caveat that is was Leftist policies like the way that welfare was structured to disincentivise both fatherhood and work along with indiscriminate high density urban housing which caused far more community damage than historical legacies like slavery or Jim Crow.
Good Morning Mr. D.
> This Bad Faith podcast between Professor Glenn Loury and Briahna Joy Gray
Sheesh, I can't handle it. I'm two minutes in and there hasn't been a single insult or stereotype or characterization. This mutual respect and cordiality better stop or soon or I'm not going to be able to watch much more.
So well said, brilliantly articulated and just what I needed to hear today. 👏 Thank you
Thank you so much for the positive feedback.
> It’s why I am currently politically homeless- it’s liberated me from the inherent embarrassment of having idiots for leaders.
That's the thing. True, one longs for comrades, united in the good fight, but there is the liberation from tribal loyalties which can, respectively, oblige one to believe that Trump really won the election *or* that men are women.
> Even the past is an illusion- one which we selectively edit to remove all the grist and anxiety.
Dunno, I often find myself going over the bad stuff.
> at the absurdity of it all.
From a dolphin's perspective, life is essentially a joke-on-us, but still there is grace and beauty and truth and virtue and these are not accidents.
'Dunno, I often find myself going over the bad stuff.'- Sure, but these are the major bits. Spraining your ankle, the routine panic of an awkward social situation (worse when young) or the wince which we make when we see an old photo, where we are dressed like a twat- these are the irksome daily grinds which we tend to edit out as we get older.
We remember the highlights though- they shine out to use from across the decades, creating fond memories which weren't a feature of our lives back then.
Not only would the rich not be able to fund government for long, but you'd then have no rich people and no successful new businesses to produce the wages that are taxed and the products that are taxed.
'Not only would the rich not be able to fund government for long, but you'd then have no rich people and no successful new businesses to produce the wages that are taxed and the products that are taxed.'- I usually preface this statement with a condition 'even if it were feasible...'
A Tobin-style tax is much better idea, it's fractions of a cent on a dollar which only tends to stack with things like high frequency trades. Tobin was wrong about the level though- about half of what he suggested is about the right level, without impairing activity- like most tax proponents he forgot the Laffer curve. I'm just not sure where the tax refund would be best applied- probably by lowering the structural cost of employment imposed by the ACA (Dan Crenshaw has talked about structuralising catastrophic medical costs, which is an interesting idea for lowering costs, overall).
In the UK, it would probably be best applied to implementing a negative income tax replacing welfare with income support for low income workers, and thus removing the disincentive to work.
Anything above 10% is immoral. At least this has been a rather long-standing tithing amount, which is why expecting 20% tipping isn't tipping but a way to defraud with your fake low pricing.
The negative income tax is likely the best solution for welfare as it provides a safety net, though it's always a bit unclear why everyone needs a safety net even if they are not trying to be as productive as their current health status allows.
Good post, Geary.
“ Human’s have a tendency to take our own suffering, angst and unhappiness and use it as a lens to colour the world we live in.”
Spot on. Great line. (Although I’ll note for your benefit that there’s a typo, which I think should be easy for you to correct.)
“ We may have increased life expectancy to unprecedented levels, but we cannot remove the slow diminution which comes from entropy unleashed against our bodies, slowly enfeebling us, subject to worsening aches and pains, left grasping for ever-diminishing intellectual capacities, and ever fearful of a sudden precipitous decline far worse than the minor inconvenience of a now faulty memory or physical inconvenience.”
Yes. But that’s not to say we can do nothing about death or aging. We all age and die. But there are ways we can live that slow or speed up the decline and make it harder or easier on our minds and bodies.
“ It’s why I am currently politically homeless- it’s liberated me from the inherent embarrassment of having idiots for leaders.”
That is a satisfying thing.
“ Unfortunately, despite the fact that in most instances the lump fallacy or zero sum has been proved wrong- when it comes to the attention economy and human relevance the Pareto distribution, much to the chagrin of millennials bemoaning the inherent inequality of music downloads, is very much in evidence- for every star, there are thousands of creatives who will die in obscurity.”
To some extent that’s true. However, I’ll note that digital technology has made it less true and that we now live in a world partially defined by Kevin Kelly’s “1000 True Fans” model, in which more creatives can earn a middle class income than ever before. It’s no longer the old world in which you either made it big time or you were penniless. Much in the same way that the industrial and market revolutions created middle classes in societies that had previously been divided into serfs and nobility.
Also, I’ll point out that there’s a big upside to “irrelevancy:” you have privacy. Celebrity does weird things to people. Fame can make life miserable. Better to have a limited impact on friends and family than a massive cult following.
Great point about the creatives issue. Quick question- have you gone paid on Substack, and, if so, did you find it meant that your work was promoted more? I also completely agree with you on the celebrity thing, especially in the modern context- where the slightest expression of wrongthink can bring down the cancel mob. Still, even before, although I've never had a problem with more money :), I've never had the slightest desire to be famous.
'Much in the same way that the industrial and market revolutions created middle classes in societies that had previously been divided into serfs and nobility.'- with the digital revolution, perhaps creatives are becoming the latest merchant class?
I’ve had paid subscriptions enabled from the beginning and have both free and paywalled content. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t get me any more promotion. Promotion is more based on the size of your mailing list/Twitter following, and mine are still relatively small.
Yes, I’m hoping that it will. I think in some areas we’re already seeing that. For all that we’re hearing about “the decline of books,” once you take into account worldwide sales of both e-books and print, traditional and independent and self-published, it’s the best time in history to make money as a writer. There are about 1-2 thousand self-published writers earning 6-figures on Amazon in sales per year. And probably an order of magnitude (or two orders) more than that earning 5-figures in royalties, given how these things scale.
I wrote at much greater length about Substack and the e-book market in this free essay here:
https://hardihoodbooks.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-substack?s=w
It’s very long ~9000 words, but it covers some of these same topics you’re asking about.
> For the past three or four days I've been engaged with a Romanian fan of communism over on Quillette.
Where? I see no such thread.
https://forum.quillette.com/t/the-tragedy-of-american-diplomacy-a-rebuttal/48417/4
The poor guy has a hard time making an argument with resorting to insult. Weak.
Yes, his entire debating method seemed to consist of resorting to ad hominem.
Sorry Geary, what's your point? It was a good article, but how does it relate to your essay here?
Doh .... sorry for being so thick. Nice to have a real commie at QC tho.