Simulation Argument Reloaded

In two earlier posts now, I have expended energy on trying to clarify exactly what is wrong with the "simulation argument"—not because I think it is particularly likely to persuade anyone, nor because it would have any consequences if it did, but because it is a kind of epitome of faulty reasoning. If we can manage to pinpoint exactly where it goes astray, therefore, we can use what we have learned to defeat any number of other sophistries. More specifically, it will enable us to think our way out of that species of theological argument that seeks to work upon our sense of wonder at the inherent "implausibility" of our particular universe. 

Having made the earlier arguments, I don't intend to revisit them fully here. I have already made the case to the best of my ability that the core of the argument's fallacy is to be found in the "principle of indifference." I will, however, lay out these arguments in abbreviated form once again, so that we don't need to turn back to those earlier attempts.

Upsetting the Apple Cart

 So I guess this GameStop market frenzy is the latest way in which quasi-libertarian online subcultures are invoking their ostensible right to unrestricted personal action to ultimately compromise the freedom and wellbeing of all the rest of us. Reading about the online Reddit and Discord chat rooms that have launched this faceless and uncoordinated effort to drive up the stock price of otherwise failing companies—in order to reap enormous pay-outs on the part of those who are able to unload their shares and/or options before the house of cards collapses—one gets a distinctly Parler-ian, 4chan-ish vibe. In other words, we have a group of atomized young-ish men reveling in the anonymity and near-total exemption from social and legal constraints that the internet affords, no matter how destructive their actions may be to the rest of society. 

And, as with so much on the internet, it is also a space where extremes meet. Just as this postmodern, decentralized pump-and-dump scheme for the digital age has emulated the far fringe of the anti-governmental right; so too it has drawn the favorable attention of segments of the Left, who delight in its insurgent mentality—not to mention the schadenfreude of watching established investment firms and rich hedge fund managers suffer billion-dollar losses for having shorted the same stock prices that are now being artificially jacked up. At least one Wall Street Journal article covering the phenomenon cites—rather pointedly—a former Bernie Sanders campaign staffer who has sunk his own cash into this GameStop venture, arguing as he did so that the scheme is a chance to turn the tables on the supposed experts of the financial industry, scoring big for the outsiders and the newcomers. 

Errata and Marginalia 016: Horkheimer/Adorno

Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment (Stanford University Press, 1987), originally published 1947, Edmund Jephcott translation. 

When one is young, one often aims to know everything all at once, and therefore to have read everything all at once; and since that proves impossible in such a compressed timeframe, one resorts to certain expedients. For instance, one starts to thin the list of books that one accepts as counting toward the real knowledge one wishes to acquire. 

For my college-age self, the application of this particular strategy meant tossing out anything that smacked—however faintly—of Critical Theory, postmodernism, and continental philosophy. Life is short, I declared, and I had seen enough early enough to believe that everything in the above-mentioned categories was just so many shades of mumbo-jumbo. (And I'm not saying I was entirely mistaken either, but hey—I remain more than happy to be proven wrong on further reading.)

A Passage from Suetonius

It will surprise exactly no one to learn that Southern segregationist Senator Robert Byrd—he of the bad old variety of racist Democrat, who modulated his views somewhat over the course of his career but nonetheless, it is worth recalling, helped filibuster key civil rights legislation, and began his political life as a member of the KKK—was also, when the issue arose in the early days of the Clinton administration, a fierce opponent of allowing gay men to serve in the military. (One form of bigotry oft begets another.) What is surprising, however, is the particular angle he adopted for his line of attack.  

In a record of conversations between himself and the president while in office—published as The Clinton Tapes—historian Taylor Branch details a rather striking conversation Clinton held with a group of elderly Democratic senators. The topic was that of whether or not out gay men should be able to serve in the armed forces. Lo, Robert Byrd was against it. And while he eventually got around to quoting the tenets of his fire-and-brimstone religion to justify his stance, the Bible was not the first authority he chose to cite in his favor. Instead, and rather unexpectedly, he turned to the reports of the scurrilous Roman historian Suetonius. 

Waiting for the Carthaginians

In a post from late November, I quoted from a very brief—about two paragraphs long—reflection on the Trump era by Francis Fukuyama; to me it still seems the most honest assessment that can be made of the fundamental mystery of the last four years. As a big thinker and explainer, of course, Fukuyama should of all people be ready to supply reasons and causes to account for the direction our country has taken—and he acknowledges that plenty of these might be and have in fact been put forward: economic dislocations caused by globalization, white backlash caused by a perceived shift in social values and relative prestige, etc. 

What none of these proferred reasons, however, can manage to explain is—why now? And why is it taking such an intensely aggressive and virulent form? "There is a qualitative change in the nature of partisanship that conventional explanations fail to capture," Fukuyama observes. We have seen a shift toward right-wing extremism, a mainstreaming of ideological currents that were previously kept to the fringes, that seems totally out of proportion to any particular concrete source of social strain or economic distress. 

"I'll be right there with you"

In the latter half of Elias Canetti's Crowds and Power— the 1960 classic discussed in somewhat more depth in the previous post—the author quotes at length an autobiographical passage from the ancient historian Josephus. The reason the section would have stood out to Canetti is readily apparent—it is astonishingly self-revealing; even self-incriminating. Josephus describes how he managed to evade capture and execution at the hands of the Romans, despite his role as a military commander in the Jewish revolt against their power, and it does not redound to his credit. 

The future historian tells us (in Canetti's citation) that he first managed to survive by taking shelter with a group of his soldiers in a cave. Then, when offered a chance to live by the Romans, he was inclined to trust them and deliver himself into their hands. His soldiers, however—whom he used to command—regard this as rank treason and cowardice. They urge him to stay in the cave so that they might all perish together. Josephus dissimulates, pretending to agree with them and suggesting they draw straws, with the loser in each case being killed by one of his comrades. 

Crowds and Power

Events of the last week prompted me to finally take down from my shelf a volume I have kept there throughout the final months of the Trump administration, assuming its day would eventually come. And lo, it has: Elias Canetti's Crowds and Power (Carol Stewart translation) has never felt more relevant. I am just shy of halfway through the book, but it is already clear—as I expected from its reputation—that Canetti's classic work seems to presage our time. It is impossible to turn to this volume in this week after January 6, 2021, and not see the insurrectionist assault on the Capitol foretold in its pages.

There is Canetti on the destructiveness of crowds: the impulse to break windows, to storm buildings, to smash plates—all attacks on the symbols of separateness and hierarchy within society (the need to "pull down established honour" being one of the well-known instincts of this mass, as Yeats says of "The Leaders of the Crowd"). Think of the pro-Trump mob carrying off the speaker's podium from the House of Representatives. Think of their desire to invade the inner sanctum of constitutional governance and halt the certification of the votes.  

Against Trumpius

Two nights ago, I wrote a post for this blog comparing our outgoing president to an ancient Roman aristocrat, Catiline, who conspired to overthrow the Republic through force of arms. I was basing the analogy on Trump's repeated effort to subvert the outcome of the election—including by trying to bully state officials into "finding" ballots that were never cast in his favor, as well as his plans to host a rally in front of the Capitol building on the day Congress was set to tally the electoral college votes and confirm Joe Biden's victory... but even with these marks against him, the comparison between the ancient and the modern demagogues might have seemed forced. After all, Trump, unlike Catiline, had at least not conspired in a violent coup attempt, right? 

Since that post went up, the events of the last forty-eight hours have shown the analogy rather more inescapably apt than it was even the first time around. I decided Catiline needed a further look. I therefore turned (having read Sallust in preparation for the first post) to the other great ancient account of the events of Catiline's plot: namely, Cicero's contemporaneous speeches in which he denounced the would-be usurper. What one discovers is that Cicero—who was serving at the time as consul, the highest executive position in the Republic—was in much the same position as we find ourselves now, on January 7, 2021. The plot has been unmasked. All serious doubt as to the seditionists' plans has vanished. 

The Conspiracy of Trumpius

I seem to recall an interview with Steve Bannon in the early days of the Trump presidency—before the two had become enemies—in which he referred to the president as a modern-day version of the "Gracchi"—the plebeian-friendly land reformers of Roman times. It struck me at the time as a profound abuse of would-be Classical erudition—not least because Trump's plutocratic policy agenda in office has evinced not the slightest desire to redistribute anything, least of all land, which he has hoarded to himself throughout his career the better to waste as much money as he can on tax-deductible business expenses and accelerated depreciation ("depreciated acceleration" as William Gaddis' J R calls it). 

A vastly more fitting Classical reference for Trump fell into my lap the other day, in the course of my attempt to catch up on all the Roman history I missed in college by taking the non-traditional path through the "Civ" sequence. Here I was, looking at the works of Sallust online, and a vaguely-familiar title suddenly took on new significance to me. "The Conspiracy of Catiline." Conspiracy, you say? Who was this Catiline again, and what was he conspiring to do? I looked it up—an aristocrat who sought to subvert the Republic and carry off a coup, before he was halted mid-course by the opposition of then-consul Cicero. That Catiline. What could be more fitting to the moment? I decided I had to read Sallust. 

Even Under Bad Emperors?

Well, here we are in a new year, 20 days out from the inauguration—far past the safe harbor deadline, long after the states certified election results and the electoral college voted to confirm them (without a single faithless elector), long after the Supreme Court rejected the last major legal challenge to the results, and after federal judges around the country threw out innumerable similar, lesser lawsuits—long after all these things... and still, Trump is plotting to overturn the results of the election. 

Once again, that is to say, the president has confirmed the worst that might have been said of him. The attempts to normalize him, to "both-sides" the issue, to dismiss criticism of Trump as so much partisan hype and hand-wringing, has run up against the final, irrefutable fact of the president's own behavior. 

This happens time and again! Trump makes life difficult for everyone, but perhaps no one suffers more under his reign than his would-be "respectable" defenders—the op-ed writers who say every couple of weeks, "Oh, we doesn't really mean that"—only to have Trump swing around days later and do exactly that.