An hour ago was a year ago—2024. Now, it’s a year later, 2025. It’s confusing. This is a “New Year” but I am not “newer”-- just older.
And this “new” year seems really much the same as the last one – which was bad enough. People dying in Ukraine and in the Middle East and Europe falling apart.
The US? How is America 2025 different from America 2000? Oh, I’m older.
This is a season of movie and TV re-runs and re-makes—which applies to politics and foreign policy and nation states. Same content, new commercials.
Donald Trump has been born again as Trump 2025 which is not that different from Trump 2016.
Sadly, the “New Year” is “Same-Old”. That’s because we really don’t want “new” if it means changing our habits and routines. We don’t want “change” – we want that ineffable thing—”progress”, which means the illusion that things are getting better and better and we aren’t the same was Mom and Dad.
Some argue that “progress” doesn’t exist! Notably John Gray-- who might be a little esoteric for some. Watch the video at your own discretion,
In any case, the trajectory of the Western world seems to indicate that “progress” is not all that it’s made out to be. Kinda like Windows 11. Or the US. Maybe “progress” is not so much a “myth” as Gray would have it – but a marketing slogan.
In 2025, Trump will try to restore the US to a greatness it never actually achieved and certainly never deserved, using things all tried before and proven to be failures.
Yet, Putin and Xi Jinping are fashioning a new— a “different” global world order, which oddly enough recalls the thoughts of 18th Century social philosopher Adam Smith who saw “monopoly” – what we now call “hegemony” —as stifling the society of the time. BRICS is a free enterprise system of the kind Adam S would approve of.
Is this “progress” or just a return to sanity?
Happy New Year!
Last year, I made so many good friends on Substack. I also learned so much from all of you. It is a beautiful and humbling experience. Best wishes and much love to all of you.
Julian
As usual, you can buy a coffee for Ichi, Chappy and me by clicking here!
John Gray and Cats
I like Gray because he is a philosopher who loves cats.
Cats don’t celebrate New Years. Nor do they do “progress”.
Instead of being a sign of their inferiority, the lack of abstract thinking among cats is a mark of their freedom of mind. Thinking in generalities slides easily into a superstitious faith in language. Much of the history of philosophy consists of the worship of linguistic fictions. Relying on what they can touch, smell and see, cats are not ruled by words.
Philosophy testifies to the frailty of the human mind. Humans philosophize for the same reason they pray. They know the meaning they have fashioned in their lives is fragile and live in dread of its breaking down. Death is the ultimate breakdown in meaning, since it marks the end of any story they have told themselves.
― John N. Gray, Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life
Thanks for the link to John Gray's talk. As always when I read or listen to him, I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I agree with everything he says. On the other hand, I wonder if I have wasted my time since I already agree with everything he says.
His strictures on Herbert Spencer are particularly justified. I have always been amazed that such apparently intelligent men as Spencer, Teilhard de Chardin, George Bernard Shaw, and Henri Bergson should have imagined that evolution has a "goal". No one who understood even the bare outlines of what Darwin wrote and said could possibly think that. Obviously, biological evolution is completely without purpose - and teleology is the "original sin" of Darwinian biology. Even great scientists often offend against that principle, talking about how the liver "is designed" to do such and such, or the genes "want to perpetuate themselves". They don't, any more than a fire "wants" to spread. The amazing and fascinating fact of Darwinian biology is that everything we think and feel, as well as everything we say and do, is driven by our genes interacting with the environment. Talk of "soul" or "mind", just as much as of "purpose" or "free will", is metaphorical and hence potentially misleading.
As for the difference between the ability of science to "learn" and that of politics, etc., it is easily explained. Scientists aim - inasmuch as they share a common goal - to advance knowledge, to solve problems, and to understand the world. (Some of them also want to do good). Whereas politicians aim to advance themselves, and to become rich, famous, and powerful.
The short way of putting it is that scientists pursue truth and seek to drive out error, whereas politicians seek to spread deception and drive out truth. Abraham Lincoln is believed to have said of politicians (attributed but unsourced according to Wikipedia), "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time". He really did say, in a speech to the Illinois Legislature in 1837, "Politicians [are] a set of men who have interests aside from the interests of the people and who, to say the most of them, are, taken as a mass, at least one long step removed from honest men".
In stark contrast, Richard Feynman - who I hope needs no introduction - said "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that". https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm
So whereas each generation of politicians and businessmen seeks wealth and power, often stooping to wholesale deceit as a means, honest scientists strive to be ruthlessly straight with themselves and others. Quite the opposite.
Nota bene: I did say "honest" scientists.
Well, although for me the new year doesn't start until spring equinox, I'm more than happy to play along with the Gregorian calendar mumbo-jumbo for a moment or two in order to wish you all the very best for 2025 Julian. Thank you for all your superb analysis!! I don't always agree, but I do always appreciate!
Also, thank you for keeping us updated on news of your feline family!! I'm always keen to know how you're all doing. Hope the boys are getting the hang of their new domestic arrangements! 🙀😺
Happy new year, dear Julian. With love. 🙏💚🪷