The 19th Century
Introduction
The decisions made by the artists, thinkers, and scientists of the 19th century, also known as Romanticism, were controlled by an entirely different set of values than we’ve seen in both the 17th and 18th century, but especially the 18th. In fact, nothing so original, innovative and profoundly revolutionary had emerged in human culture since the neolithic period, and even before.
The change can be put in several ways. One way would be to restate what we said about the 17th and 18th centuries.
The 17th century innovators were intensely interested in cognitive tension and problem exposure, in the gap between the behavioral pattern and environmental demand.
But, the important point in this case is, that interest was motivated by a faith, religious in origin, that the gap could be closed. In Paradise, before The Fall of Man, there was no gap.
The 18th century innovators were convinced it was not the result of The Fall of Man but of man’s errors and the consequence of
religious tyranny which terrorized human beings and prevented them from closing the gap. In other words, Original Sin was replaced by Human Ignorance. Their faith was political.
But, they too believed that the gap between human behavior and situational environment could be closed, and they were motivated, inflamed, by an intense desire to do exactly that.
The ambition of the 18th century was to create patterns of behavior that were exactly respondent to the demands of human interactions with the environment, In short, perfect adaptation.
Note: The words perfect harmony were actually found not only in Coca-cola commercials 50 years ago, but in that Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder hit from the early 80's. Once again we see abstractions and sentimentality terminating not only in unspeakable violence and pointless destruction, but, even worse, in corny pop music as well (and from two people who should have known better).
So a religious heaven was replaced by a political utopia.
But by the 19th century a profound change had occurred.
What was it? What happened?
Part I
The 19th century Romantic innovators, for reasons both philosophical and pragmatic, were convinced that the gap between human interests and the world could not be closed, ever.
This meant, no single explanation, religious or political, could solve our social and economic problems once and for all.
Ultimately, this meant that there was no difference between a religious explanation and a political explanation, that there was no difference between theological and ideological statements, in the sense that both were seen as an attempt to redeem mankind by means of a single overriding explanatory system that could solve, once and for all, mankind's social and economic problems.
In fact, by the end of the century, the belief that any one explanation, or explanatory system, could possibly solve all of our problems came to be seen by those working at the advanced cutting edge of Western Cultural Life as something that was not only vain and illusory, but terribly destructive as well.
Who living today could possibly deny that they were right?
Note: Given the honest, accurate and unsettling conclusions Western Cultural Life's greatest representatives arrived at it's no surpise that Cancel Culture is as busy as can be trying to erase them from living memory. Proving the very point of those representatives in the process.
Their philosophical reasons were based, in part, on the work of Immanuel Kant, who said, in so many words, that order is a characteristic of the human mind. It does not come from a Divine source (the 17th century), or from Nature (the 18th).
The rage for order is simply a human rage. And the failure of human beings to realize this is what the 19th century Romantics believed to be the very source of so much pointless suffering.
The need for order is neither divine or natural, religious or political. The source of that need comes from human beings.
The source of our rage for order, as it turns out, is neither religious, political, social, or even psychological. No. The source of the human rage for order is physiological and biological.
After a seemingly endless search the answers appeared not high above us, not merely all around us, or even right in front of us.
The answers appeared inside of us, literally. As one might have guessed, we are the answer to the problem that is us.
When one considers this and then turns back to look at the social and psychological, the world is turned inside out and forever.
After such a profound transformation of consciousness there is simply no going back. Why would one want to?
But, the only way out is through, So, any individual genuinely interested in a life of continuous learning, change, and growth, achieved through a process of daily renewal, had to find their way out of the wasteland that one enters once they have rejected all salvation systems, whether religious, political, or social.
Is it any surprise that the 19th century Romantics were so profoundly original, so radically creative, and so innovative?
If anyone doubts this, just listen to an 18th century composer like Vivaldi and then listen to Beethoven’s Late Quartets.
With Vivaldi you’ll hear lots of pretty triads and lovely melodies, with Beethoven you’ll hear, well, lots of everything. One obeys the rules, the other breaks them. It's a movement from the pretty to the profound. This is why music was seen as the model art of the century and why Beethoven's portrait is this entry's icon.
In any event, the 19th century Romantic's pragmatic reasons for believing the gap between human interests and the world could not be closed, ever, had to do with the failure of The French Revolution, which moved from a political utopia to a bloody dictatorship without ever changing its belief-system.
In other words, no matter how bad the carnage, none of the believers thought the belief-system could in any way be responsible. So, none of the believers questioned the belief-system. And this in spite of the fact that they were demanding that everyone else who disagreed with them question theirs.
If that doesn't ring a contemporary bell, it ought to.
This is why the Romantics tended to reject political revolution in favor of cultural transcendence. Because political revolution sees only the false dichotomy of an Either/Or World. It sees only opposites. In other words, it sees only Political Polarization.
While the 19th century vision recognizes the opportunity for a Both/And Choice and the corresponding need for continuous learning, change, and growth. It sees Cultural Polarity. Or, as Geothe put it, Two souls, alas, cohabit in my breast.
The 19th century Romantics were the first in human history to see that our very mode of thinking was not derived from the world, but from us. They saw that the world, the environment, as
contrasted with the interpreted situation, was forever inaccessible, that things in themselves could not be known.
So then, what do we know? We know what we can explain. And we can explain best what we've experienced and respond to.
Once again, we see ideas having consequences, and the greatest ideas are the ones that liberate us from an exhausted past.
We also see another example of cultural convergence, since each of the early Romantics arrived at this position independently.
Part II
This idea of the world turned inside out is why the English poet Coleridge could arrive at the structure of transactionalism or direct-state theory as early as the 1820’s and why Schopenhauer could say even earlier that the way we represent the world to ourselves is determined by our will, our interests, our intentions.
It’s why such theories, together with modern philosophy, and in particular the contemporary philosophy of science - in short, the point of view from which this blog is written - is but a development and refinement of 19th century Romanticism.
Note: PRC International is firmly and proudly rooted in the Romantic tradition.
In the 19th century cognitive tension became once again a central value, but with a big difference from the superficially similar 17th century. This requires a bit of explanation.
In the 17th century the motivation arose from the conviction that problem exposure led to problem-solving. In other words, cognitive tension and problem-solving were means to an end.
To the Romantics, cognitive tension and problem exposure are an end in themselves. To the Romantic, and to the modern scientist (operating free of Cancel Culture, few as there are), the most important thing a person can do is not to find an answer.
The most important thing they can do is to ask a question.
A problem is successfully solved only if it leads to a question which logically includes both the original question and answer.
This is the heart of problem-solving at its highest level!
When such a vision began to control the decisions of those operating at the advanced cutting edge of that time the result was an extraordinary explosion of creativity and innovation.
An interesting phenomenon of the 19th century is that, though the philosophy of the first half of the century, especially in Germany through the work of Kant, Hegel, and Schopenhauer, was to have an enormous influence, the innovative scientists of the second half, such as Darwin, von Boltzman and others, were just as influenced by early 19th century artists who themselves were playing the role of philosophers, because they had to.
The reason artists (poets, painters and musicians) found themselves playing the role of the philosopher is something we’ll discuss in a future entry devoted exclusively to Romanticism.
In any event, another way of putting the change from the 17th and 18th centuries to the 19th is to say that the Romantics for the first time in human history distinguished the self from the role.
The role became the mere instrument for realizing the self, culminating in Nietzsche’s call to Become who you are.
The role also came to be seen as a weapon that society used to block the self-realization of each of its individual members.
Just as rigid family roles, such as the golden child and the scapegoat, as well as the flying monkeys, can inhibit growth.
Hence the term arrested development in Family Systems.
Of course, rigid social roles don't simply inhibit growth, they also, paradoxially, destroy the very social systems that control them. Hence Romanticism's preference for a culture of individual conscience over cultures of blind obedience to authority, like the one that now exists in the late, great United States of America.
The individual can participate in human life only by playing a role. True. But, if they do, they also run the risk of obliterating the distinction between the self and the role, of losing the self.
This is what we’ll refer to here as The Romantic Paradox.
How one can be at once an existent self and a successful role player was the Romantic psychic problem, and still is.
Hence its extraordinary relevance and usefulness today.
The cultural history of the Romantic tradition can be seen in terms of the various strategies and stages made to solve this problem, and, again, we will look at them in a future entry.
This way of looking at the situation, in terms of both a personal self and of a social role, had the same effect as the philosophical way of seeing order as a characteristic of the mind. How so?
Problems can only be solved by breaking through our current ways of thinking about them, ourselves, and the world.
But the only way to do that is to expose those ways as illusions.
In terms of problem-solving, this necessarily involves a profound increase in tension, disorientation and disturbance. Or,
Socially, conformists see this as a violation of the role, as something “wrong.” But more courageous spirits see this as an opportunity for the individual to transcend both self and role.
Ultimately, cultural transcendence is self-transcendence.
Cultural transcendence will always be of benefit to society in a way that an automatic and mindless conformity never could.
A good example of the difference between 18th century cultural conformity and 19th century cultural transcendence, and how this relates to the distinction between self and role, can be seen in the difference between Fielding’s Tom Jones, who is an 18th century Enlightenment hero who is rewarded when he learns to play a role devoted to perfect adaptation, and such Romantic heroes as Byron’s Don Juan, Stendahl’s Julien Sorel, and Wordsworth’s “I”, whose rewards come when they have disassociated themselves from role and society, and who reap a second reward when they have discovered and created a way of life that enables them to live in society but keep apart from it. Like I did with PRC.
Whereas the 18th century Enlightenment figures focused on cultural commitment and social conformity, the 19th century Romantics were the first to use any social role as an instrument for self-realization and not for social control of the self. Nice.
Part III
We can interpret anything in two ways, just as anything we look at can be perceived in two modes. We can interpret anyone’s way of looking at the world as predictive, referring forward from their orientation to the world they are interpreting. Or, as orientive, referring backward from the world to the interpreter.
In the first case we are directing attention to the environmental aspect of a transaction between an individual (or group) and the world they are interpreting. In the second case we are directing attention to the orientative aspect of the transaction between the world being interpreted and the individual interpreter.
What does this have to do with the 19th century vision, and us?
Everything!
Because, the 19th century Romantics were the first to truly begin focusing on, and as fully as possible, the interpreter. This explains their interest in self-expression as self-discovery, and how both can be used for acquiring a sense of self-awareness.
Anything, from a work of art to a business proposal, can be looked at in one of two ways. As a model for the perceiver's behavior, or as a model of the orientation of the individual offering the sign field in question, whether it be a painting or a proposed business project involving lots of people and money.
In either case, its function for the interpreter can be behavioral control over interaction with the environment, or, behavioral control over orientative activity. In other words, it can be interpreted as predictive or as symptomatic.
Again, what’s this have to do with us? And how is it relevant?
Anything we look at can be seen as a prescriptive construct for organizing behavior. It’s a model. So, one can use that model for controlling their social interaction, or as a model for understanding their own orientative behavior, or that of others.
Again, this is as true of a painting as it is of a business proposal.
The model can be used for understanding ourselves and our responses, or, for understanding the world we live in. That is, the model can be used for self-awareness and situational-awareness.
The more self-awareness, the more situational-awareness, and visa versa. A virtuous cycle indeed. That’s why, unlike the 18th century Enlightenment, the 19th century Romantics weren’t interested in moralizing, they were interested in insight.
Specifically, insight into our many problems. Especially the problems resulting from excessive and hypocritical moralizing. Like the kind of compulsive moralizing that has completely destoyed the United States, and not just the United States.
Note: This is the problem many people have with Cancel Culture. Not only is its non-stop moralizing so irritating and so obviously corrosive, but, worse, its observations on life itself are so excrutiatingly uninteresting and uninformative (except, of course, in what those observations tell us about them).
The 19th century Romantics were more interested in understanding why all of us think as we do, instead of automatically believing that what we think is the truth.
From this perspective the question to ask is not, Is what we’re saying true, false, right, or wrong? But, rather, Of what pervasive orientation are our statements a symptom?
What is the value of the second question?
Or, in what way is the second question relevant and useful?
It’s value, relevance and usefulness, is found in what we can do with that question. And what can we do with such a question?
The short answer is, we can use that question to understand both ourselves and other people. A more precise answer would be that if we can make a verbal construction of another person’s pervasive orientation we can better understand how they think.
Note: This is what we're doing in this series with Cancel Culture and not just Cancel Culture.
We can then apply that to ourselves. A virtuous cycle, indeed!
Ideally, this is how a healthy social institution and individual should function. And, of course, this is the basic idea behind PRC International. Unfortunately, however, the sad fact is,
Most people don’t want to know. They want to judge.
But the 19th century Romantics did want to know, exactly so they could make better judgements. The same goes for us here.
Again, ideas have consequences. One consequence can be in the inspiration one gets from a group of ideas or a single idea.
And if we had to reduce the influence of 19th century Romanticism to a single idea it would be that they were the first to get us to separate our responses to the world from the world we are responding to so that we could improve our responses.
This is the reason why our motto here at PRC International is
The meaning of life is your response to it.
Part IV
After Kant turned the world inside out and after the failure of the French Revolution, Romanticism was born and the human mind became radically creative. The mind was separated from the world, and the self from the role. The initial response was chaos.
The reason for this we have already seen. Once one abandons all salvation systems they enter the wasteland. And the only way out is through the wasteland. And what exactly is the wasteland?
It's a place of personal doubt and social alienation. It's the place where, like Oedipus, one sways between hope and fear. The fear that we won't find the answers and the hope that we will.
Or, visa versa.
In any case, we here at PRC reject the notion of hope. Why?
Hope is waiting for things to happen. Courage is doing it!
Hope is all promise with no fulfillment.
Courage is promise fulfilled. But in ways we didn't expect.
Hope lives in the head and stays there.
Courage lives in the heart and moves out into the world.
Hope is perfect and always unreal.
Courage is real and often messy.
Hope is another word for cowardice.
Courage is facing the coward in us all.
Hope is a kind of Magic that keeps us from facing Reality.
And, since all Evil is the result of turning our back on Reality, Hope, left to itself, is another word for Evil, as is all Magic.
Courage, on the other hand, is facing the unpleasant facts of life in general and ourselves in particular, and using the despair and sadness that often results as an opportunity for personal growth.
Note: Hope is for benefit concerts and celebrity charity culture. Courage is about facing the unpleasant facts of a recalcitrant reality that doesn't give a damn about celebrity culture and its addiction to virtue signalling. In short, courage is about facing the very facts celebrity charity culture and their benefit concerts are specifically designed to ignore. Bluntly, celebrity charity culture is symptomatic of the most cynical and self-serving form of false hope ever imagined in human history.
Courage is the willingness to stumble and fall on the right road of self-discovery and cultural transcendence, as opposed to walking tall on the wrong road of cultural conformity and self-betrayal.
Such a position would be impossible without Romanticism.
19th century Romanticism’s gift to the world was the high value it gave to creativity and innovation in philosophy, art, science and valuation. Self-discovery as a way out of the wasteland. Never before had creativity and innovation been so highly valued.
Briefly, this is, in part, the result of a desire to see the world so clearly that all social roles, at least for a time, disappear.
Upon return, those social roles are transformed and a further desire for continual self-transformation is the happy result.
Connected to this is another desire, to break through to new orientations, to new ways of looking at the world and ourselves.
The satisfaction of this motivation depends upon an advanced form of disparity awareness. Between, on the one hand, our current categories of organizing perceptions, judgments, and interpretations, and on the other hand, the perceptual data offered.
The connection to problem-solving is immediate and striking.
This explains the 19th century Romantic’s extraordinary commitment to fact, to reality, to history, and to style.
Because the experience of these at the highest level is exactly how one becomes who they are and not who they’re told to be.
By exposing themselves to more of reality than ever before in human history Romanticism made possible to the culturally transcending individual the experience of spiritual ecstasy.
This too explains the extraordinary dynamism of 19th century culture. Again, never before, anywhere in the world, had creativity and innovation been so highly valued. And empathy.
Because empathy too is one of 19th century Romanticism's many insights. Arguably, it's most important. Because, if I have a self beneath the role, a self that speaks to who I am and not who others tell me to be, than so do you, so does everyone else.
It's very common today to hear people say that empathy is the ability to stand in someone elses shoes. This is simple-minded.
Empathy is not a cliche. And it's more than a feeling. It's also anything but passive. Empathy is cultivated imagination for what unites us, our common humanity. As such it is unapologetically engaged in an active rejection of what divides us. And nothing divides us more than cultures of blind obedience to authority.*
*Authoritarian cultures love cliches. Because they can be used to delude the public into believing it has something that is actually forbidden, like empathy. Since cliche-repetition and a mindless conformity go together, repeating the cliche that empathy is being able to walk in someone else's shoes convinces the individual that they and their culture are empathetic not authoritarian and conformist.
Empathy is impossible in authoritarian cultures. In fact, not only is it impossible, it's prohibited. Authoritarian cultures equate social effeciency with blind obedience. In doing so, intelligence is badly distorted, good will perverted, and empathy eliminated.
Empathy is the answer to blind obedience to a "moral" authority.
For this reason, empathy would become the leading moral ideal of the 19th century vision. Empathy was a solution to the problem of moral responsibility to one's self and to others.
Note: If there's anything that requires genuine courage it's empathy, both for ourselves and for others. This includes the ability to resist sentimental attachment and cynical dismissal. But, above all, the ability to resist the great temptation of social conformity - intellectual pretention and moral pomposity.
Komentáře