The outcome of the Trump vs. Harris debate will continue endlessly (until the debate is over), but who bothers to debate what it is all about? thing Was that actually the case?
Whether the earrings were earpieces or the “host” was best friends with Harris, there's no need to believe that this event was orchestrated, rigged, biased, or otherwise engineered against Trump. A word cloud candidate doesn't need to literally splay a human face on a Terminator robot to function like that. literally To get a good match, you'll need to go it alone on the desert plains against a tentacled hydra lined with the bureaucratized heads of every industry.
Those who seek to displace the Christian church from its historical position of spiritual authority in American life see their opportunity in the digital revolution.
But we knew all of it, or something close to it, long before the so-called debate: It was a kind of primitive dance routine augmented and enhanced by layers of technology, but still nowhere near as powerful as the campaign’s dominant memes: Vance’s couch or Trump’s kittens.
That this discussion has not resulted in any real debate is unjust enough in itself, but it highlights something even more dramatic: our confidence in the debate. Such Like it or not, the realities of our current situation have buried the stubborn belief of many intellectuals that the truth is best revealed by the smartest people debating everything.
This too we have known for a long time. The field of science has produced an ocean of “studies” that are forever contradicting other studies and ultimately itself, a huge reproducibility crisis has occurred, and the whole prospect of “trusting science” has been thrown into permanent doubt. Ah, we are preached to, but true science is not tested! No, it has been tested, and it has given rise to even more powerful weapons! Don't you think this is the true theory?
The lie that underpinned the promise that the cleverest people would derive the truth through debate has collapsed science into mere technology and technology into mere militarism. Few Americans want to be vulnerable to a major rival or enemy. But a growing number of Americans are dying for something stable and reliable. Spiritual AuthorityAs we all know deep down, the real place to look for truth is not in politics, slogans, memes, propaganda, and especially not in the “politics of meaning.” No matter how obvious it may be that someone is your friend or enemy, these meanings are determined by theology, not politics.
As digital technologies rapidly transform our inner and outer worlds, politics is increasingly returning to the realm of theology. Top AI engineers profess to be worshippers of the gods they are making. Startups cheekily and seriously call themselves cults. CEOs seek the life of a temple monk rather than that of the ultimate businessman, and tend to make pious proclamations about what purity is. The two great factions of American politics are increasingly agree There is disagreement about the “underlying facts,” and only a difference in whether or not “it's a good thing,” spiritually speaking.
But technology is only reminding us of what was obvious until recently: Democracy is many things, but it is not sacrosanct. Alexis de Tocqueville once said: literally Tocqueville, writing about democracy in America, used the word as a sociological label, not as a sacred relic. In his analysis, democracy was not a political form worth jailing opponents for, but a social form in which what he called “equality of condition” took precedence over almost everything else. Importantly, Tocqueville did not limit himself to a materialistic understanding of the condition of equal human beings, but correctly focused on the condition of the mind and soul.
His appreciation of what truly unites Americans — the workings of their minds and hearts in the face of inescapable hardship — led him to realize that debate has little impact on the American soul.
“When conditions become nearly equal, people are less easily persuaded by one another,” he warned. “They seldom trust the opinions of their equals or like themselves. In a democracy not only does confidence in the superior achievements of particular individuals weaken, but any general notion of the intellectual superiority to which any man may owe his relationship in relation to the rest of society is soon obscured.” This is the bottom line.
As people become more similar to one another, the doctrine of equality of minds gradually permeates their opinions, and it becomes more and more difficult for any innovator to win the hearts of the people or to have any significant influence on them. Sudden intellectual revolutions are therefore rare in such communities, for if we read the history of the world aright, we will see that great and rapid changes in human opinions have been brought about by the authority of names rather than by the force of reasoning. … Even if we have won the confidence of democratic people, it is still not easy to attract their attention. It is very difficult to get the people who live in democratic countries to listen to us, unless we speak for themselves. … I find it very difficult to arouse the enthusiasm of democratic people for a theory that has no obvious, direct, immediate connection with the activities of everyday life.
Tocqueville makes clear that the greatest obstacle to advancing consensus through debate is democratic life itself: great and sudden changes come not from experts expounding abstract theories designed to stir passions, but from those with spiritual authority over everyday life.
Unfortunately, this is why these times are so dangerous. Those who would usurp the Christian church’s historical place of spiritual authority in American life see an opportunity in the digital revolution, whether their God is a God of awakened justice or a cyborg god of consciousness. Their indifference to debate is more in keeping with the reality of our social situation than the belief of many that our fate depends on a John Stuart Mill spiritual revival. If American Christians cannot reassemble the authority to bear witness against the soul-destroying idolatry of today, the idolaters will win handily, without argument.
