The introductory remarks are helpful, but the real point starts at 1:07. Sagan was wise enough to frame this as an anti-Republican argument, so it got on major network television even in the Clinton era. It is actually a very serious threat to a self-governing society.
1) Science and technology are increasingly a focal point of our society, but they are not generally understood by the public -- yet in a democracy, the public has to make decisions.
2) Since they cannot, actual power passes out of their hands into the hands of 'experts' appointed by the government -- yet the same problem applies to choosing who the experts are. The people cannot assess whether real experts, or mere partisan power-players, have been chosen; and the politicians, not being experts either, can't distinguish the genuine ones either.
3) Since the politicians have to choose, and can't distinguish between real experts and political allies who are claiming to be experts, they'll generally choose political allies -- there's something in it for them there, at least. Appoint some nobody just because he has a degree or something and that person might do anything once in power. At least the party functionary will do what you want.
4) Thus, the 'scientific and technological society' ends up not only destroying self-government in favor of government by experts, but actually fails to achieve government by experts in favor of government by factional loyalists regardless of their mental or technological capacities.
Then the second reason, which relates directly to Tex's post below:
5) Science is really about skeptical empiricism, a mode of inquiry rather than a body of knowledge.
6) A free society needs people who have both education and skepticism, and must be free to question ideas. This is the only way to have a self-governing people.
7) Failing that the people do not run the government, the government runs them.
We seem to have achieved both of these in the last few years. We are now "governed by experts" to a greater degree than ever before, yet these experts at places like the Department of Energy seem to have been chosen for ideological reasons primarily (and possibly solely). All of this power has passed to the Secretary of Health and the rest of the bureaucracy, and the people in charge of it look to ordinary eyes to be barking mad, interested in political domination rather than actual expertise.
Meanwhile, attempts to question the science put forward by these experts is increasingly forbidden. Indeed, it looks like the government is investing heavily in technologies and partnerships expressly intended to suppress free inquiry. This is being done in the name of protecting less-qualified ordinary people from drawing wrong conclusions by being exposed to 'bad' information; but what it's actually suppressing is the very spirit of science Sagan described. It is the spirit of skeptical empiricism that is being attacked, to make sure there aren't challenges to the appointed 'experts' who increasingly serve as the replacement for democratic self-government.
#3 relates to my referring to Dominic Cummings in my post this on whether there is a uniparty or not, and his observation of what observationally does motivate politicians, rather than what they say or we say about them.
ReplyDelete#4-7 - They aren't going to like it when it's not their faction. And that's not to say that it will be my faction that reigns and I will laugh in their faces. We could easily both lose out.
When we must perforce discuss such matters with the "woke" -- those who claim critical consciousness -- we might approach them using their own version of English. the spirit of skeptical empiricism is largely synonymous with "the dialectic" An established privileged oppressive idea is challenged by new ideas -- a THESIS. The challengers provoke actions, and reactions. The reactions and reactionaries will be driven by an ANTITHESIS. In a healthy culture of progress the tension between action and reaction, thesis and antithesis, will be peacefully resolved into a SYNTHESIS, which becomes the new normal established privileged... yadda yadda yadda. (We don't have to accept this, we just need to know the Marxists are big on the method.)
ReplyDeleteThose who refuse to examine, challenge, debate, or defend an idea betray their own philosophy of the dialectic. Tell them so.
J, yes, that's a good approach. Do you have a more thorough development of your suggestion somewhere? Or can you recommend one?
ReplyDeleteOn the science question, in the video, Sagan says at two different places that this is a problem because our society is based on science and technology. It did not use to be, and it doesn't have to be. Part of the solution might be a move to basing society on something else, like natural rights.
Another part of the issue is that science is a set of methods and a body of knowledge. The methods are tied into social checks and balances within each scientific community (e.g., peer review). The problem comes in when everyone in the community works for the government, whether directly through employment or indirectly through government grants and funding for programs and universities.
We are particularly upset at the health experts because of Covid just now and there has been a lot of exaggeration of how bad they were. This is not a new phenomenon. Police detectives have tried to pass themselves off as experts - some might be - even when they are sending innocent men to jail. I went through the demolition of two sets of experts in my field in the 70s and the 90s. There was another under way when I left...
ReplyDeleteActually, I think I will expand this and make this a post of my own, about lots of experts in living memory who were worse than those we are currently upset with.
Except I'm really behind in my topics, which stack up.
Since the issue is structural (in the precise sense that you often object to, but this time it really is), it should be expected to have occurred in the past as well. Points 1-3 occur in every generation of a society founded on a technology basis that isn’t understood by the many, nor the leadership.
ReplyDeleteIt’s a real problem for the idea of self government in any era in which technology is more advanced than can be grasped by the general population.
"...we might approach them using their own version of English. the spirit of skeptical empiricism is largely synonymous with "the dialectic"..."
ReplyDeleteNot exactly, because the dialectic is not empirical. No information from the world is necessary to drive its process; you can do it entirely internally to the starting assumptions. It has this in common with strict logic. In classic Hegelian metaphysics, the thesis contains its own contradictions which gives rise to its antithesis, and which the thinking mind must then transcend by synthesis. You never need to go to the empirical facts of the world; you can be forever internal.
According to Kant, in fact, you have no choice but to be; you only have your internal apperceptions, and never access to the things themselves (noumina). Hegel, writing after Kant, seems to accept that; but he thought that the dialectic would nevertheless eventually lead you back to God.
What about Marxist dialectic? He rejected Hegel and conceived a materialist dialectic. Since he used a lot of empirical facts for evidence, I thought he was a form of empiricist.
ReplyDelete- Tom
Sorry, Tom, I missed that question earlier. I meant to object to the idea that "skeptical empiricism" and "the dialectic" were equivalent terms, on the grounds that the dialectic need not include any empirical information. I didn't mean to suggest that it wasn't possible to include empirical information.
ReplyDeleteThat said, the Marxist dialectic isn't really empiricism either. It draws from theoretical or empirical data almost equivalently; if the empirical appears to support the theory, great, but if it's against the theory you can argue the theoretical instead.
ReplyDeleteA real empiricism is going to want empirical evidence all the time, and will at least favor it over any theoretical information (which on that kind of system doesn't count as evidence in the proper sense). That is arguably a point against it, since empirical evidence isn't always available or fully reliable (e.g. when it isn't replicable).
Interesting. That makes sense. Although I haven't read a lot of Marx, I got the impression that he was more concerned with turning Hegel upside down than any kind of genuine inquiry. How he and Engels ever became thought leaders for the left is a mystery to me. So, of course, I'll be reading more of them in the near future.
ReplyDeleteI've recently started thinking about Marx vs Comte. In some ways they are similar, but I haven't read nearly enough to say anything definite about it. Yeah, so I'll be reading more Comte soon as well ... starting this weekend maybe?