Enchantment, Disenchantment, and Deacon Blues

On this day:
3761 BC
The epoch reference date epoch (origin) of the modern Hebrew calendar (Proleptic Julian calendar).
1571
The Battle of Lepanto is fought, and the Holy League (Spain and Italy) destroys the Turkish fleet.
1582
Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar, this day is skipped in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain
1763
George III of Great Britain issues British Royal Proclamation of 1763, closing aboriginal lands in North America north and west of Alleghenies to white settlements.
1777
American Revolutionary War: The Americans defeat the British in the Second Battle of Saratoga, also known as the Battle of Bemis Heights.
1780
American Revolutionary War: Battle of Kings Mountain American Patriot militia defeat Loyalist irregulars led by British colonel Patrick Ferguson in South Carolina.
1940
World War II: the McCollum memo proposes bringing the United States into the war in Europe by provoking the Japanese to attack the United States
1985
The Achille Lauro is hijacked by Palestine Liberation Organization.
2001
The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan begins with an air assault and covert operations on the ground.
2006
Russian journalist and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya is shot and killed outside her home in Moscow.

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There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth. -Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher 

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This is the anniversary of the attack by Hamas on Israeli civilian populations, the torture and murder of many, and the kidnapping of others.  Savagery indeed exists in every part of the world, and we risk becoming numb to it. (I am reluctant to call it inhumanity because it might well be just another aspect of us.) What is different is the inexplicable admiration and support demonstrated by some across the West for the terrorists themselves.

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Data centers are set to reach 12% of total U.S. electricity demand by 2030, according to Rystad Energy. That’s the equivalent of between 30 and 60 nuclear plants of additional capacity. Supplying all the copper to wire them would have led to a 25% shortfall of supply for the vital metal by 2040, according to S&P Global. (A major new copper mine takes 15 to 20 years to get up and running.) Paying for data centers is starting to create strains too. After exhausting their own mighty cash flows. In just one year, their share of the leading investment-grade bond index grew by 78%, according to Capital Group.

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"We need to clean our own house. Our house is not clean right now," Steeler coach McCarthy said.

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Enchantment, Disenchantment, and Deacon Blues

I do not know Ms. Ruxandra Teslo, but this is from her Substack, on The Secular Age by the philosopher Charles Taylor:

"According to Charles Taylor, modernity is marked not merely by a decline in religious belief, but by a profound transformation in our imaginative horizon. What he calls the transition from an enchanted to a secular world is this shift in how the world is experienced.

In the pre-modern “enchanted” world, the world of “spirits, demons and moral forces”, reality was thick with agency and meaning. The cosmos was not neutral or inert, but constantly impinging upon humans. Human beings were vulnerable to forces beyond them, open to both corruption and elevation by powers that exceeded their control. The boundaries between self and world were permeable.

Taylor describes this as the condition of the porous self: a self that was embedded in a morally charged universe, susceptible to outside influence, and conscious of its dependence within a larger, divinely structured order. That dependence came with a recognition of a certain impotence, but it also conferred belonging. One’s life was situated within a cosmic order not of one’s own making.

Disenchantment dissolves this structure. What disappears is not simply belief in spirits, but the very sense that meaning resides in the fabric of the world. The modern cosmos becomes impersonal and governed by physical laws that can be scientifically deciphered. The locus of meaning is relocated from the world to solely inside the human mind. Thoughts, feelings, aspirations — what Taylor calls “fullness” — are now understood to exist only within human minds.

This gives rise to what Taylor terms the buffered self. The buffered self encounters the world from behind a kind of membrane. It is no longer vulnerable to cosmic forces; nature is no longer enchanted, but inert, available for explanation and manipulation. Even when we acknowledge the limits of our powers as humans, the dominant modern posture assumes that natural obstacles yield, eventually, to technology and science. We do not propitiate unseen powers for a good harvest. Instead, we now design irrigation systems and engineer crops.

The advantages of a buffered self and of living in a disenchanted world are clear: no longer do we feel a sense of helplessness in the face of the powers of nature. No longer do we feel like our very destinies are at the mercy of Gods. The modern, buffered self can control fate itself. We are Gods on Earth.

Yet, in my interpretation, with such immense empowerment comes a crushing burden: that of radical responsibility. Once we anchor meaning within the individual and we understand him to be radically able to improve his condition, there is no longer any refuge to be found in helplessness. The secular mind implicitly understands power and merit as matters of will. The loser is solely responsible for their condition.

This goes the other way too. In earlier times, even the powerful, kings included, understood themselves as subordinate to God. Now, it is one’s talent and will, or agency, if one is to speak in currently popular terms, that brings about their fortune."

Yes. And there are enemies. Powers and forces, often ethnic or national, that conspire against your success. Kulaks, or Jews, or history, if you are unable to bear the new burden of your life.