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κρυπτός @apokekrummenain
20 Tweets • 2022-08-03 20:27:48 UTC • See on Twitter rattibha.com
1. This is an excellent question. To reiterate, there are no “solutions” to the great “social” and societal problems we face. There are multiple reasons for this. First is ultimately, and most importantly, religious.
2. Ever since Rousseau, there has been this belief that if we are able to get all of the structures and institutions right in our society, most of our problems will just go away. Why is this? Rousseau argued that people are born basically good, blank slates.
3. These little blank slates are then slowly corrupted by society. If we are able to properly educate them, fix the flawed structures in society, then people will continue to be good as they grow up.
4. One of the main claims of the Christian faith is that people are born flawed. However you work out that teaching, the reality remains that human beings have a predisposition, a weakness for what is evil. Not amount of education or social program is going to affect that.
5. This creates a divergence between Christianity and liberal enlightenment thinking. Essentially, enlightenment liberalism following Rousseau is offering a different “soteriology” that is a theory of salvation. It gave reason to reject Christianity.
6. It said, we as human beings are not what the church says we are. We are good. We are capable of saving ourselves. More than this, the solutions are not essentially moral and personal, they are structural, social and technical in nature.
7. Why liberalism is so appealing is that it takes away much of the personal responsibility for evil. The old Christian way of thinking said the problem is within each of us and if society is going to get better, it will only do so because each of us is overcoming the evil within
8. Liberalism dispenses with that inner moral battle. The problems are things like poverty, racism, the class conflict, poor education, etc, all things that we can fix through the application of human ingenuity.
9. Liberalism offers an alternative soteriology that says we can all go about the business of pursuing life, liberty and happiness, and leave the fixing of society to reason or science. Once we have fixed society and everyone is properly educated then all your issues will go away
10. The problem with this is, first of all, that it flies in the face of our direct experience of people. People are flawed in ways that have nothing to do with any externalities or cannot be accounted for by externalities.
11. Second, it just is not possible to solve all human problems through the application of reason, science or technique. We cannot develop systems or processes or institutions without flaws. There is no such thing as the perfect process, the perfect solution.
12. Why is this? Jacques Ellul, looking deeply into this question argued that all rational, intentional, technical, organizational solutions obey a number of rules. These solutions, these techniques, do not care. They are neither good nor evil. They will all have effects.
13. You have a plan to end poverty? To improve student education outcomes? Reduce racism? End crime? Improve quality on the assembly line? Make a more fuel efficient car? A better social media app? Whatever the solution it follows a number of rules:
14. Remember, every plan, every technique, every system, every law, technology has effects. The technology/technique/system/policy/plan does not care.
All technical progress has its price. Whatever the solution, no matter how beneficial, there will always be a cost to it.
15. Second, at each stage of development, every solution will raise more and greater problems than it solves. They will solve problems, but they will create more problems and this will grow at an exponential rate.
16. Third, the harmful effects of a technology or a plan are inseparable from its positive and beneficial effects. The classic example is the gun. It can both protect and assault. You cannot have the positive without the negative.
17. Fourth, all solutions, all techniques, have a great number of unforeseen effects, both good and bad, but generally more bad than good.
18. What this means is that the more that we as humans attempt to solve problems through “solutions” the worse we will makes things. The problems will become increasingly complex requiring ever more sophisticated plans, that breed more sophisticated problems.
19. The fundamental drive of the enlightenment for saving ourselves by fixing all of the structural problems is a false hope. It cannot be done. Religiously, it does not address the root problem, inborn human inclination to evil.
20. Nor can it achieve what it sets out to achieve because it simply cannot be done. The laws of technique will not permit it. It simply cannot be done. In part because we as humans are flawed.
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