As usual, I think you are spot on - both about Callard's typical ability to come right to the edge of a problem but never grasp it, as well as the re-emergence of character over identity. Perhaps even what defines "good character" could be the new universal good.
It is much easier to disagree with someone and accept their divergence from you, if you respect them as a human being and believe that divergence is coming from a thoughtful, or at least well-meaning, place. Diversity based on identity will never move beyond tolerance. It is too subjective, variable, and ultimately easygoing to engender true respect from someone who dislikes another's way of life. But you can respect the effort it took them to develop into someone who is responsible, reliable, devoted, committed, and everything else that a strong character entails even if you despise the content of it.
An added bonus, as well, to the revivification of character is the diminution of the reliance upon contracts. In a world where character is essential, word is bond. This would have all sorts of positive downstream effects for community and commerce.
I haven't read Pierce or James so I didn't have any introduction to this sort of character-based morality. But to me that has always seemed obvious and I've written about it before for my own reasons. The ideas that are worth pursuing are the ones that work across time, and which make you a person worth being.
This is also why I am a person who defaults to trust in traditions, rather than what "sounds good" academically. Or why I'm a person who believes religion is the most useful thing ever [invented/inherited/choose your word] - because even if it's not literally true, it has led to the most, and the most consistent, good outcomes of anything we have ever tried as a species. It works across time to produce mostly happy people with mostly good shared codes of conduct and some really god damn good stories.
That's the genius (or divinity) of Christianity - it gives you an actual recipe you can live by to be a good person. No absurd calculations, no meta-cognitive hoops to jump through, no abstract philosophy that isn't even accessible to the layman. It's an actual recipe. It's universal and scalable, because it's individual and clear.
And even if you don't like religion, you can just find people who seem wise and happy to you, and try to mimic some of their behaviors and thought patterns. That's, like, *obviously* the way to become a good person. Isn't it?
The tolerance of lies and hypocrisy in our current society is genuinely what I believe is the root cause of most of our cultures ills. All other evils are downstream from that initial error in our cognition. Our society did not used to have this problem, we did it to ourselves. If we could somehow once again make the population genuinely regard being a hypocrite with the same level of outsized disgust that we typically reserve for pedophiles, I think we would very quickly find ourselves living within a paradise on earth when compared to our present circumstances.
What an awesome essay. I have at times considered myself something of an Emersonian Transcendentalist in the past but in truth I am equally drawn to the vitalizing communal forces of animism and tribal ways of living that preceded modernity and they still strike me in many ways as a superior way of living. As a neurodivergent person who has struggled to adapt to the nihilistic hyper individualistic nature of our current society I am drawn to anything that elevates personal character above all other considerations. My self awareness and moral rigidity can be both an asset and a weakness in this current climate, context determines all. I confess that I detest nothing more on earth than a hypocrite and a liar though. Seeing someone debase their spirit in this way typically in service of greed or selfishness depresses me every time. As I watch the liars currently globally ascendent do their best to destroy the world with their delusional arrogance, the fantasy to go be a hermit in the woods or join a commune grows strong. When the dominant culture is misaligned so severely with your spiritual and moral code what other option does one have but to start looking for the exits? But deep down I understand as you do that there is no going back, we must all make the most of the world we are given. Your resistance to giving easy answers or making firm conclusions is to your credit and the mark of a very intelligent thinker. Your point about the rise of podcasts being a return to oral traditions and at heart an appeal to authenticity in a world in which post modernism thinkjng has atomized meaning into abstracted oblivion is spot on and had never occured to me before but is so obvious now. I genuinely feel smarter for having read this which is about the highest compliment I can give to anything. Cheers.
Is your soon to be explicated techno-rural the kryptonite of techno-determinism, or maybe only part of “the armor of Good”?
Captivated by the idea of place-revealed as the recaptured modality of tribal commons. Is Revealing our “mediating institutions” (Tocqueville) and our “based” (somebody from your generation) status enough? Or must we scale down the actual commons of character to include a higher percentage local flesh-friends and local ancestors and saints? Please discuss at the appropriate schedule and sequence. I know your spirit is pretty full of potential already.
As usual, I think you are spot on - both about Callard's typical ability to come right to the edge of a problem but never grasp it, as well as the re-emergence of character over identity. Perhaps even what defines "good character" could be the new universal good.
It is much easier to disagree with someone and accept their divergence from you, if you respect them as a human being and believe that divergence is coming from a thoughtful, or at least well-meaning, place. Diversity based on identity will never move beyond tolerance. It is too subjective, variable, and ultimately easygoing to engender true respect from someone who dislikes another's way of life. But you can respect the effort it took them to develop into someone who is responsible, reliable, devoted, committed, and everything else that a strong character entails even if you despise the content of it.
An added bonus, as well, to the revivification of character is the diminution of the reliance upon contracts. In a world where character is essential, word is bond. This would have all sorts of positive downstream effects for community and commerce.
I haven't read Pierce or James so I didn't have any introduction to this sort of character-based morality. But to me that has always seemed obvious and I've written about it before for my own reasons. The ideas that are worth pursuing are the ones that work across time, and which make you a person worth being.
This is also why I am a person who defaults to trust in traditions, rather than what "sounds good" academically. Or why I'm a person who believes religion is the most useful thing ever [invented/inherited/choose your word] - because even if it's not literally true, it has led to the most, and the most consistent, good outcomes of anything we have ever tried as a species. It works across time to produce mostly happy people with mostly good shared codes of conduct and some really god damn good stories.
That's the genius (or divinity) of Christianity - it gives you an actual recipe you can live by to be a good person. No absurd calculations, no meta-cognitive hoops to jump through, no abstract philosophy that isn't even accessible to the layman. It's an actual recipe. It's universal and scalable, because it's individual and clear.
And even if you don't like religion, you can just find people who seem wise and happy to you, and try to mimic some of their behaviors and thought patterns. That's, like, *obviously* the way to become a good person. Isn't it?
The tolerance of lies and hypocrisy in our current society is genuinely what I believe is the root cause of most of our cultures ills. All other evils are downstream from that initial error in our cognition. Our society did not used to have this problem, we did it to ourselves. If we could somehow once again make the population genuinely regard being a hypocrite with the same level of outsized disgust that we typically reserve for pedophiles, I think we would very quickly find ourselves living within a paradise on earth when compared to our present circumstances.
What an awesome essay. I have at times considered myself something of an Emersonian Transcendentalist in the past but in truth I am equally drawn to the vitalizing communal forces of animism and tribal ways of living that preceded modernity and they still strike me in many ways as a superior way of living. As a neurodivergent person who has struggled to adapt to the nihilistic hyper individualistic nature of our current society I am drawn to anything that elevates personal character above all other considerations. My self awareness and moral rigidity can be both an asset and a weakness in this current climate, context determines all. I confess that I detest nothing more on earth than a hypocrite and a liar though. Seeing someone debase their spirit in this way typically in service of greed or selfishness depresses me every time. As I watch the liars currently globally ascendent do their best to destroy the world with their delusional arrogance, the fantasy to go be a hermit in the woods or join a commune grows strong. When the dominant culture is misaligned so severely with your spiritual and moral code what other option does one have but to start looking for the exits? But deep down I understand as you do that there is no going back, we must all make the most of the world we are given. Your resistance to giving easy answers or making firm conclusions is to your credit and the mark of a very intelligent thinker. Your point about the rise of podcasts being a return to oral traditions and at heart an appeal to authenticity in a world in which post modernism thinkjng has atomized meaning into abstracted oblivion is spot on and had never occured to me before but is so obvious now. I genuinely feel smarter for having read this which is about the highest compliment I can give to anything. Cheers.
Is your soon to be explicated techno-rural the kryptonite of techno-determinism, or maybe only part of “the armor of Good”?
Captivated by the idea of place-revealed as the recaptured modality of tribal commons. Is Revealing our “mediating institutions” (Tocqueville) and our “based” (somebody from your generation) status enough? Or must we scale down the actual commons of character to include a higher percentage local flesh-friends and local ancestors and saints? Please discuss at the appropriate schedule and sequence. I know your spirit is pretty full of potential already.