Max Weber thought we were destined to be confined in “iron cages” of reason, of rationality, of NECESSITY. In his world, all the fairies and demons, angels and unexplained beams of light were on the way out, on the verge of extinction. Matter was what was real, if I recall his epistemology right–or at least his metaphysical suspicions–and thus everything would one day be explained. Then, the course of life would become a road for all to travel together. There would be no other roads, because only ONE would conform to reason.
He went mad for a time. He came back, but it was no doubt quite unpleasant.
To the very day, this is the approximate project of the Socialists, who want to see in science the way forward to a definitive vision of what to do and why. We will look to neuroscience, and pharmacology. We will look to social science, and anthropology, and the right sorts of psychologist to tell us how to live. We see this daily in the newspaper: “experts” telling us how to think, how to act, what to do.
The Cult of the Left is in no small measure the Cult of the Expert, for the very simple reason that they have accepted the idea in principle that all principles are negotiable. There are no perduring truths, nothing to hang a hat on. Everything is being negotiated, discovered, redacted and informed with statistics.
My question is this: what sane person would want to live in such a world, where I might be asked to be someone else tomorrow, with no more reason than that some person with a degree says I should? What am I to infer when they change their minds, as they constantly do? Are they still pushing Vitamin E so assiduously? What happened to Gingko Biloba? Where is Dr. Spock, except in ghost?
There is nothing necessary about the iron cage, but it is endlessly interesting how much emotional appeal it has for so many people, to this very day. We do not live in a material universe. That idea was refuted, more or less decisively, some 50 years ago. Why do we still act as if we do?
We hear from the Left, from old hippies, “go with the flow”. There is some merit to this idea, but why does going with the flow, for them, equate to losing form entirely?
Oh, there is so much that is possible, and ignored and rejected by poorly thinking, poorly functioning, defective human beings, who have been blessed with lives they choose to live in direct opposition to the best that is possible, and to what was intended for them.