Of a proposed course of action He wants men, so far as I can see, to ask very simple questions; is it righteous? is it prudent? is it possible? Now if we can keep men asking “Is it in accordance with the general movement of our time? Is it progressive or reactionary? Is this the way that History is going?” they will neglect the relevant questions. And the questions they do ask are, of course, unanswerable; for they do not know the future, and what the future will be depends very largely on just those choices which they now invoke the future to help them to make.
I kind of wish people did use the future more, sometimes. For example, in Australia at the moment, neither major political party supports gay marriage. And beyond all the direct arguments for/against the concept, I can’t help but wonder if they really expect, in 50 years time, that we will live in a world of strictly hetrosexual marriages. What are they possibly hoping to achieve? Maybe that reasoning isn’t the best way to decide to actively do a thing, but it surely counts towards the cessation of resistance to a thing.
I can’t help but wonder if they really expect, in 50 years time, that we will live in a world of strictly hetrosexual marriages.
Here are a few things that have at one time or another been considered “obviously inevitable”:
The spread of enlightened dictatorship on the Prussian model.
The spread of eugenics.
The control of the world economy by “rational” central planners.
My point is that you appear to be overestimating how well you can predict the future.
What are they possibly hoping to achieve?
I don’t think you really believe this argument. In particular if the success of something you opposed seemed inevitable, you’d still oppose it.
Maybe that reasoning isn’t the best way to decide to actively do a thing, but it surely counts towards the cessation of resistance to a thing.
What I think is happening is that you support the “inevitable” outcome but are getting frustrated that the opposition just won’t go away like they’re “supposed” to.
In particular if the success of something you opposed seemed inevitable, you’d still oppose it.
Oppose in the sense of “actively work to stop it” or oppose in the sense of,
“if asked about it, note that one dislikes it”? I dislike the increase of surveillance
over the decades but look: Sensors get cheaper year by year. Computation gets
cheaper year by year. I’m not happy to see more surveillance, but I see it as so
close to inevitable, due to the dropping costs of the enabling technologies,
that actively opposing it is a waste of time and effort.
To put it another way: In the original C.S.Lewis quote, Lewis includes in his own
list of questions that he wants asked: “Is it possible?” I view most of the questions
that Lewis disapproves of as just being ways of asking whether recent historical
evidence make something look possible or impossible in the near future.
In my view, usually, claims of historical inevitability are overstated, but,
occasionally (as in the cheaper sensors example), I think there are situations where
a fairly solid case for at least likely trends can be made.
I can’t help but wonder if they really expect, in 50 years time, that we will live in a world of strictly hetrosexual marriages. What are they possibly hoping to achieve?
Being elected at some point in the next 3 years. They aren’t trying to achieve anything related to homosexual marriages. They don’t care.
Um, I know this is classic Hansonian “X is not about X” cynicism, but I doubt it’s actually true of most politicians. Sure, the need to get elected skews their priorities, but they do have policy preferences, which they are willing to pursue at cost if necessary.
FWIW, 20 years ago (when my now-husband and I first got together) I expected that I would live in a world of strictly heterosexual marriages all my life. That didn’t incline me to cease my opposition to that world. So I can empathize with someone who expects to live in a world of increasing marriage equality but doesn’t allow that expectation to alter their opposition to that world.
-- Screwtape, The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
I kind of wish people did use the future more, sometimes. For example, in Australia at the moment, neither major political party supports gay marriage. And beyond all the direct arguments for/against the concept, I can’t help but wonder if they really expect, in 50 years time, that we will live in a world of strictly hetrosexual marriages. What are they possibly hoping to achieve? Maybe that reasoning isn’t the best way to decide to actively do a thing, but it surely counts towards the cessation of resistance to a thing.
Here are a few things that have at one time or another been considered “obviously inevitable”:
The spread of enlightened dictatorship on the Prussian model.
The spread of eugenics.
The control of the world economy by “rational” central planners.
My point is that you appear to be overestimating how well you can predict the future.
I don’t think you really believe this argument. In particular if the success of something you opposed seemed inevitable, you’d still oppose it.
What I think is happening is that you support the “inevitable” outcome but are getting frustrated that the opposition just won’t go away like they’re “supposed” to.
Oppose in the sense of “actively work to stop it” or oppose in the sense of, “if asked about it, note that one dislikes it”? I dislike the increase of surveillance over the decades but look: Sensors get cheaper year by year. Computation gets cheaper year by year. I’m not happy to see more surveillance, but I see it as so close to inevitable, due to the dropping costs of the enabling technologies, that actively opposing it is a waste of time and effort.
To put it another way: In the original C.S.Lewis quote, Lewis includes in his own list of questions that he wants asked: “Is it possible?” I view most of the questions that Lewis disapproves of as just being ways of asking whether recent historical evidence make something look possible or impossible in the near future. In my view, usually, claims of historical inevitability are overstated, but, occasionally (as in the cheaper sensors example), I think there are situations where a fairly solid case for at least likely trends can be made.
Being elected at some point in the next 3 years. They aren’t trying to achieve anything related to homosexual marriages. They don’t care.
Um, I know this is classic Hansonian “X is not about X” cynicism, but I doubt it’s actually true of most politicians. Sure, the need to get elected skews their priorities, but they do have policy preferences, which they are willing to pursue at cost if necessary.
FWIW, 20 years ago (when my now-husband and I first got together) I expected that I would live in a world of strictly heterosexual marriages all my life.
That didn’t incline me to cease my opposition to that world.
So I can empathize with someone who expects to live in a world of increasing marriage equality but doesn’t allow that expectation to alter their opposition to that world.