Your gloss on the temptation scene in Matthew 4:1 - 11 and Jesus's famous reply to the devil "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes out of the mouth of God" is profound and absolutely brilliant.
You've gone far beyond the hint Spencer Klavan gave you and reached a foundational concept capable of providing context for the entire spectrum of transhumanist challenges and temptations facing us, from gender-surgery to AI.
Your interpretation deserves to be widely known and serve as a departure for a civilisational reset and restoration of meaning to Being.
An incredible achievement, Mary--thank you and very well done, indeed!
Having said repeatedly that we're running the 17th century in reverse, I wonder if you've encountered Yanis Varoufakis's concept of "Technofeudalism" as the economic system currently replacing capitalism.
The distinction Jonathan draws between the meme as commonplace and the icon as encounter with a person is, I think, the precise hinge on which the larger question turns — and it connects directly to something I've been trying to work out in my own writing lately. The meme operates in the mode of the Scan: it moves rapidly across surfaces, deploys recognition, sets up a space, and moves on. The icon operates in the mode of the Gaze: it arrests, it addresses, it requires the whole self to be present in order to receive what it contains. Both belong to the symbolic world, but they belong to it differently — one as a tool wielded within it, the other as a threshold into its depth. The return of symbolic hunger Mary identifies is real, and Pageau is right that the acceleration of the feed has made principalities visible again in ways that required centuries of patient observation before. What it hasn't done is form the nous capable of receiving what it is now seeing. The symbolic world has come roaring back, as you both say — but into selves habituated to the Scan, which means the hunger for encounter keeps being fed with commonplaces, and the re-enchantment remains a sensation rather than a formation. The gargoyle is back on the parapet. The question is whether we have rebuilt enough of the interior architecture to understand what it is actually guarding.
I’m very excited to meet you in Cleveland in May. The monastery idea leaped out at me. Monasteries have been haunting me lately and I recently learned that Celtic Christianity was characterized by Abbots and monasteries as opposed to bishops and cathedrals. Rural vs urban. Organic vs planned. On another note I volunteer in a food bank and wonder how much happier these souls would be in a place where they could use the abilities they have for the common good instead of just receiving one sided charity. Not a bad model, perhaps.
Wow, lots to follow up. I stumbled on the first already and found it really interesting. Fascinated by Andreeson's comments. Just finished reading Morris' short biography of Beethoven which really suggests quite the opposite about great men! Some people just lack imagination is what we used to say and I guess in a way we meant empathy (the common or garden kind).
Your gloss on the temptation scene in Matthew 4:1 - 11 and Jesus's famous reply to the devil "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes out of the mouth of God" is profound and absolutely brilliant.
You've gone far beyond the hint Spencer Klavan gave you and reached a foundational concept capable of providing context for the entire spectrum of transhumanist challenges and temptations facing us, from gender-surgery to AI.
Your interpretation deserves to be widely known and serve as a departure for a civilisational reset and restoration of meaning to Being.
An incredible achievement, Mary--thank you and very well done, indeed!
The First Things lecture. Drop dead brilliant.
Having said repeatedly that we're running the 17th century in reverse, I wonder if you've encountered Yanis Varoufakis's concept of "Technofeudalism" as the economic system currently replacing capitalism.
The distinction Jonathan draws between the meme as commonplace and the icon as encounter with a person is, I think, the precise hinge on which the larger question turns — and it connects directly to something I've been trying to work out in my own writing lately. The meme operates in the mode of the Scan: it moves rapidly across surfaces, deploys recognition, sets up a space, and moves on. The icon operates in the mode of the Gaze: it arrests, it addresses, it requires the whole self to be present in order to receive what it contains. Both belong to the symbolic world, but they belong to it differently — one as a tool wielded within it, the other as a threshold into its depth. The return of symbolic hunger Mary identifies is real, and Pageau is right that the acceleration of the feed has made principalities visible again in ways that required centuries of patient observation before. What it hasn't done is form the nous capable of receiving what it is now seeing. The symbolic world has come roaring back, as you both say — but into selves habituated to the Scan, which means the hunger for encounter keeps being fed with commonplaces, and the re-enchantment remains a sensation rather than a formation. The gargoyle is back on the parapet. The question is whether we have rebuilt enough of the interior architecture to understand what it is actually guarding.
I’m very excited to meet you in Cleveland in May. The monastery idea leaped out at me. Monasteries have been haunting me lately and I recently learned that Celtic Christianity was characterized by Abbots and monasteries as opposed to bishops and cathedrals. Rural vs urban. Organic vs planned. On another note I volunteer in a food bank and wonder how much happier these souls would be in a place where they could use the abilities they have for the common good instead of just receiving one sided charity. Not a bad model, perhaps.
Wow, lots to follow up. I stumbled on the first already and found it really interesting. Fascinated by Andreeson's comments. Just finished reading Morris' short biography of Beethoven which really suggests quite the opposite about great men! Some people just lack imagination is what we used to say and I guess in a way we meant empathy (the common or garden kind).