much more basic. One might say this is our attitude towards 'machines
of loving grace'. In short, we live in the fantasy that "the machine"
will put things right, returning to an equilibrium as our
interventions are little more than 'of mice and men'. The real world
of the environment and the exchange world of economics return to
equilibrium after fluctuations. It's very tempting to believe this -
one might see Gaia as a case in point - the planet and other species
flourishing after we've crazed ourselves to extinction through
consumption and wars.
You can pick up the ideas of 'all watched over by machines of loving
grace' here - http://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/video/2160186460/All-Watched-Over-By-Machines-Of-Loving-Grace-Ep-2
A review with an economic twist can be found here -
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/10/the-natural-chaos-of-markets.html
My own work has often focused on the difference between espoused
theories and theories-in-action. In some subjects like chemistry the
relationship between theory and practice is good - if you follow the
rules and recipes you get what you intended and the explanations make
sense if you study enough. There is a working core, you can trust or
check the work of others and speculation can eventually be tested on
what is not accepted as 'settled'. In the human sciences this is much
more difficult, not least because we do not exclude much in human
society that prevents science. Few of us have much aptitude for
science, perhaps especially for its negation of ideology soaked up
from community.
I always noted as a teacher that I was more comfortable saying 'you
just can't handle the maths' (unlikely for me as I'd teach people like
that without the stuff), than in saying 'you just don't get argument
because you can't let go of any prejudice'. Teaching people to think
for themselves contains a paradox. One finds much one is expected to
teach based on dross. I know of no country in which history is taught
without gross ideological distortion. We hear the Japanese rip out
pages in textbooks on the 'rape of Nanking' yet it's rare to find
Brits who know much of our squalid imperialism and involvement in much
similar. In the middle east you will find a more accurate picture of
the Crusades than we get, but the Jihad that is the mirror image is
revered.
Most people like to imagine themselves as individual, but if we're
honest we are subjects of machines of loving grace. One makes one's
way in an economy (machine) on a planet (environmental machine). I
think these are only "machines" because we don't examine them.
Examination often ends in paradox - logical positivism eventually
conceded its own quest to extirpate metaphysics was - oops -
metaphysical. My own guess is that rigorous thinking seeks to
discover and eliminate dross - this involves a great deal of courage
in accepting you are likely made of same oneself!
I'm a maverick systems theorist and conceive of our social-political
arguments (and the systems themselves) as houses of cards. one looks
for the soft spots that can bring the lot down or as places to put in
effort to keep the ball rolling. No argument survives this process
more than twenty seconds with such soft spots arising. Most don't
have either the energy or tools to keep going and run to the 'bliss'
of the machine (religion, patriotism, left and right etc.). We are
thus robots of one 'machine' or another, not individuals, hardly
people if we're not careful.
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