Daddy's not coming

I was made aware of this article by that name in the Metamodern forum. It addresses something I've been pondering for some time now: That this new wave of idealistic model building, be it integral theory or metamodernism or whatever, is pie in the sky idealism which can solve our problems. All of which is based on the notion that we've achieved a never before newer and higher level of development that is capable of the task.

It's a common and repeated refrain we've seen time and again throughout history. And yet here we are, with the same problems we've always had of inequality, poverty, war, power struggles etc. But this time is different, right? We're more evolved now, can see it all more clearly, have better technology guided by higher consciousness. Utopia is now within our grasp if we just come up with the right societal design.

It seems to me that the article is suggesting that we need to give up this idealistic frame. These problems have always been with us and always will. So how then do we realistically address them to at least in some way ameliorate them? He suggests that "today is the time for renewing philosophies of competition, of war and of civilisation." He warns that "only children fall back into the habit of wanting to recreate the infantile paradise of a totally ordered world, without blood, violence or pain — where absolute lack is covered by nice principles."  

Accepting these premises I've previously posted (here, here, here, and here) on the ancient philosophy and practice of the Chinese martial arts, of which I'm a long-time practitioner. Given these realities we need to learn how to fight, physically and even more importantly, psychologically and rhetorically. We have updated tools to do so in the cognitive science of framing, which merely builds on the same techniques throughout the ages. And fighting wars is seldom if ever pretty; it gets down and dirty in the muddy trenches. It stinks of shit and piss and blood. We need to wake up and smell the grit and grime.

Pretending that the enemies of freedom and democracy can be overcome by idealistic notions of fair play and reasoned debate is part and parcel of this latest iteration of impotent model builders with the best of intentions. Not recognizing the need to fight back, instead putting it down to some bygone lower level of development that we must supersede, defeats its intended purpose of realistically addressing the very problems they propose to fix by eliminating them. We cannot do so but must learn to accept them and do what we can to make it at least somewhat better. Knowing when and how to fight goes a long way toward that goal.