The thread of epistemic attitude is important and, I am conscious, is to be revealed further next time. But I wonder whether epistemic confidence needs to be unbounded for the dynamics you outline to exist. Confidence in things being more knowable via a direction of intellectual is different to confidence that things are ultimately knowable - especially in a holistic way. I wonder also whether some other important factors are at play. A drive for efficiency, for example, leads to the use of algorithmic tools even when we know the resulting answers will be substantially wrong some of the time. The requirement of accuracy is limited to being mostly right often enough to be efficient in a utilitarian sense.
The interaction between society and the individual might also be worth exploring. It is not clear that our confidence in controllability rests deeply at an individual level - indeed I wonder whether it is an acceptance of individual uncontrollability that creates the demand we see for books and governments which offer a path towards more controllability. This is an inherently democratic dynamic, which exists all societies (democratic or not). It is in the interests of 'the people' that governments all types respond actively to this demand. But with that positive comes negatives. One is the offer of false levels of control at a point of time, if not through time. Another, which is related, is the outsourcing of responsibility for managing individual uncontrollability to society.
Your good character versus competence basis reference is fascinating. I suspect it is true that ancient writings (Confucius, Plato etc) emphasised character over competence. Whether that reflected how society actually operated is less clear (to me at least). Both are clearly important. I dare say Confucius' superior man and Plato's philosopher king were intended to be of good character and good competence. For what it is worth, my read of societal direction today is that character is strongly reasserting itself as a demanded quality, even if this is expressing differently in China (social credit) and the West (me too, amongst others). I know this is not the main thrust of your discussion, but thought it was an interesting side path.
Thanks! Some things to think about and I might end up needing a Part 3.... But I've got a couple of quick comments for now.
I'd phrase it that individuals believe the world is controllable, but recognise they can't control it themselves - hence the demands on governments etc. I'd suggest that in societies where there is a strong belief in something like Fate, the demands on books or governments are far smaller. Thus, by my analysis, the demands on modern governments are far greater than typically were on governments in the past - as we believe that far more is controllable.
The character discussion is an interesting side path. On character in education, I was actually had something like the traditional "public school" system that came out of England as an archetype in mind. So I don't think it is that ancient. And I take your point about the growing importance of character, but I would add that social credit and many of the approaches around 'me too' and similar are attempting to assess or police character algorithmicly. I'm not convinced that is possible, but we'll see!
Individual views are controllability should be at least somewhat testable via a survey. The distribution of individual views would be interesting and might provide some insight into the pressures faced by government and society today.
The public school is an excellent example. The 'noble' intent may well be the creation of philosopher kings or superior men (to continue my line of thought - lets leave aside the gender issues created by this construction for a moment) but the reality has been an entrenchment of 'the nobility' as a class, notwithstanding character or ability. It would be interesting to compare public schools with China's history of public examinations for government service. My sense is that the latter focusses more on selection (identification of the people with the right attributes to be 'superior') and less on training (which comes later) whereas the former has a light selection lens and a stronger training lens.
So much in this. Terrifically interesting.
The thread of epistemic attitude is important and, I am conscious, is to be revealed further next time. But I wonder whether epistemic confidence needs to be unbounded for the dynamics you outline to exist. Confidence in things being more knowable via a direction of intellectual is different to confidence that things are ultimately knowable - especially in a holistic way. I wonder also whether some other important factors are at play. A drive for efficiency, for example, leads to the use of algorithmic tools even when we know the resulting answers will be substantially wrong some of the time. The requirement of accuracy is limited to being mostly right often enough to be efficient in a utilitarian sense.
The interaction between society and the individual might also be worth exploring. It is not clear that our confidence in controllability rests deeply at an individual level - indeed I wonder whether it is an acceptance of individual uncontrollability that creates the demand we see for books and governments which offer a path towards more controllability. This is an inherently democratic dynamic, which exists all societies (democratic or not). It is in the interests of 'the people' that governments all types respond actively to this demand. But with that positive comes negatives. One is the offer of false levels of control at a point of time, if not through time. Another, which is related, is the outsourcing of responsibility for managing individual uncontrollability to society.
Your good character versus competence basis reference is fascinating. I suspect it is true that ancient writings (Confucius, Plato etc) emphasised character over competence. Whether that reflected how society actually operated is less clear (to me at least). Both are clearly important. I dare say Confucius' superior man and Plato's philosopher king were intended to be of good character and good competence. For what it is worth, my read of societal direction today is that character is strongly reasserting itself as a demanded quality, even if this is expressing differently in China (social credit) and the West (me too, amongst others). I know this is not the main thrust of your discussion, but thought it was an interesting side path.
Thanks! Some things to think about and I might end up needing a Part 3.... But I've got a couple of quick comments for now.
I'd phrase it that individuals believe the world is controllable, but recognise they can't control it themselves - hence the demands on governments etc. I'd suggest that in societies where there is a strong belief in something like Fate, the demands on books or governments are far smaller. Thus, by my analysis, the demands on modern governments are far greater than typically were on governments in the past - as we believe that far more is controllable.
The character discussion is an interesting side path. On character in education, I was actually had something like the traditional "public school" system that came out of England as an archetype in mind. So I don't think it is that ancient. And I take your point about the growing importance of character, but I would add that social credit and many of the approaches around 'me too' and similar are attempting to assess or police character algorithmicly. I'm not convinced that is possible, but we'll see!
Individual views are controllability should be at least somewhat testable via a survey. The distribution of individual views would be interesting and might provide some insight into the pressures faced by government and society today.
The public school is an excellent example. The 'noble' intent may well be the creation of philosopher kings or superior men (to continue my line of thought - lets leave aside the gender issues created by this construction for a moment) but the reality has been an entrenchment of 'the nobility' as a class, notwithstanding character or ability. It would be interesting to compare public schools with China's history of public examinations for government service. My sense is that the latter focusses more on selection (identification of the people with the right attributes to be 'superior') and less on training (which comes later) whereas the former has a light selection lens and a stronger training lens.