As a process philosopher I understand everything in the universe to be moving at different rates, Because all is in motion causation is generated by constraints which alter the trajectories and speeds of processes. Therefore, choices are generated by constraints and act to delimit what's possible while generating conditions for new possibilities to emerge. Just thought I would provide an ontological ground for your arguments.
A thought about agency. I believe that much of the highly negative behavior I witness daily is a caused by a desperate cry for agency. I don't like this behavior. I abhor much of it, but I think I know the reason for it. The new game of being the last person through a change of traffic signals even if that requires dangerously running the red light. The stripping of mufflers from even the most run down of vehicles and the subsequent gunning of motors at the highest possible decibel level all around the town. The blatant running of stop signs. Car radios blasting at high with open windows. The scathing horror of RAP lyrics. Yes, even the prolific tossing of trash out of car windows despite fines and thousands of anti-littering ads. All of this is a subliminally purposeful thumb in the eye by the multitude of young people, mostly males, who have been left out by “us”, by a society that daily proves it does not value them by providing economic and social alternatives. Further, if we look a bit more deeply within, we will find that we too are progressively losing our own agency in this society. You and Mariah continue to hit the nail on the head.
Thank you, John. "Youthful Rebellion" may indeed be a claim to agency. But I know from personal experience (ahem) that some of the behaviors you describe extend back more than a half century. Loud cars, "inappropriate" Rock & Roll, dangerous driving, etc. were certainly condemned in my youth. I'm no historian, but if I had to guess, complaints about youth may extend back forever?
Could this rebellious claim for agency even be biological? Perhaps reflecting the inexorable demand of genetic combinations to pass their information into the future? Part of a drive to leave the family, the tribe, to find and discover new environments and ways of living in which to thrive? Nature is always experimenting.
Certainly the behaviors you mention have been impacted by changes in family structure and concepts of responsibility in our own time. But I'm not convinced that simply offering young males economic and social alternatives would bring them "back into the fold." In fact, doing so may actually force them to find even more extreme ways to express themselves as different than their parents.
I don't know the answers. You bring up a very interesting view on agency. Thank you for participating.
Maybe not gods in the traditional sense… but we’re definitely starting to treat them like oracles. And historically, once something starts answering questions for us, we stop asking who’s accountable.
Agency is such an interesting word/concept. At some point it got split into a kind of power on the one hand and a framework of responsibility on the other, and it seems to swing between those two aspects depending on where you focus.
I think that’s exactly the fracture point. Agency used to imply both power and responsibility at once. Now it feels like we keep trying to separate them, and the instability shows up wherever that split widens.
I feel like Agency is still at the individual level but because of incentives, autonomy has been eroded at the structural level. At least that’s what I keep feeling from an institutional psychology lens.
That interaction between the concepts of agency and autonomy is fascinating... They feel like two fish in the same aquarium, with agency perhaps intimating a bit more connection. Thank you for the morning exercise, Issa.
Just for more color on my comment: I've run my own business, an "agency" my whole career, I work on Wall Street where "agent" can have lots of specific functions and legal responsibilities, e.g. "transfer agent" so for me the other aspect of the word -- personal, individual agency -- feels much newer even though it isn't.
> Liberty once meant something relatively plain: having authority over one’s own actions while recognizing that others have authority over theirs. Our legal systems rest on that assumption. Liberalism once centered on it.
Very useful description. This authority of personhood was once better understood, at least implicitly, in Western culture.
First, I think the idea itself is an anomaly in human history. It seems what preceded the authority of personhood was a framework where the whole (the collective) was primary and the part (the individual) existed to serve the group. I think the contemporary change is what you and Erik described in the article: more people declining to exercise the responsibility and giving it back to an external authority.
I'm not sure if a significant portion of people ever really talked about it. People embody their beliefs before they philosophize about them; I'm not sure most ever get around to philsophizing (which is fine; the more important quality is to know them in one's heart).
I'm not an scholar of historical psychology, but wonder if there hasn't always been a tension between the individual and the collective, between a man and other men, with beliefs and traditions (commandments) that kept peace within the tribe and protected the tribe against "outsiders."
I think you're correct. Humans, even those with a string sense of individual identity, seem to be social. I think the evolution that happened sometime in the past isn't doing away with the duality of individual and group, but with locating the deepest human dignity in the person rather than in the collective institution.
It goes back to what you wrote, that I quoted initially. The profound change was in recognizing an authority of personhood that could be asserted, if necessary, against the pressures of group conformity. This authority of personhood could be universalized, not by collectivizing it, but by individuals recognizing the same capacity in other individuals.
What an ending! Honest interrogations of topics like these are exactly what we need.
As a process philosopher I understand everything in the universe to be moving at different rates, Because all is in motion causation is generated by constraints which alter the trajectories and speeds of processes. Therefore, choices are generated by constraints and act to delimit what's possible while generating conditions for new possibilities to emerge. Just thought I would provide an ontological ground for your arguments.
Thank you, Glenn. There would be no waves if water did not resist the wind?
Wow, truly grateful for this mind-bending walk down several truly worthy paths. A writing like this, I believe, is Substack at its best.
Thank you, Mitchell. The collaboration was meaningful.
A thought about agency. I believe that much of the highly negative behavior I witness daily is a caused by a desperate cry for agency. I don't like this behavior. I abhor much of it, but I think I know the reason for it. The new game of being the last person through a change of traffic signals even if that requires dangerously running the red light. The stripping of mufflers from even the most run down of vehicles and the subsequent gunning of motors at the highest possible decibel level all around the town. The blatant running of stop signs. Car radios blasting at high with open windows. The scathing horror of RAP lyrics. Yes, even the prolific tossing of trash out of car windows despite fines and thousands of anti-littering ads. All of this is a subliminally purposeful thumb in the eye by the multitude of young people, mostly males, who have been left out by “us”, by a society that daily proves it does not value them by providing economic and social alternatives. Further, if we look a bit more deeply within, we will find that we too are progressively losing our own agency in this society. You and Mariah continue to hit the nail on the head.
Thank you, John. "Youthful Rebellion" may indeed be a claim to agency. But I know from personal experience (ahem) that some of the behaviors you describe extend back more than a half century. Loud cars, "inappropriate" Rock & Roll, dangerous driving, etc. were certainly condemned in my youth. I'm no historian, but if I had to guess, complaints about youth may extend back forever?
Could this rebellious claim for agency even be biological? Perhaps reflecting the inexorable demand of genetic combinations to pass their information into the future? Part of a drive to leave the family, the tribe, to find and discover new environments and ways of living in which to thrive? Nature is always experimenting.
Certainly the behaviors you mention have been impacted by changes in family structure and concepts of responsibility in our own time. But I'm not convinced that simply offering young males economic and social alternatives would bring them "back into the fold." In fact, doing so may actually force them to find even more extreme ways to express themselves as different than their parents.
I don't know the answers. You bring up a very interesting view on agency. Thank you for participating.
You nailed it again Eric! Thank you! I'm sorry it has become so necessary...
Thank you, Annie. Thsi was a fun process on a difficult topic.
Big fan of Erik Dolson.... newspaperman turned iconoclast. Glad to see your collaboration and thoughtful essay.
Thank you, Georgia.
(smile)
Holy snap my latest piece is super similar to this but from a different angle! We definitely think along the same lines 🤗
We may sailing the same breeze. Thank you, Issa.
The various flavours of AI are our new gods.
If not gods, perhaps elements of a new religion.
Maybe not gods in the traditional sense… but we’re definitely starting to treat them like oracles. And historically, once something starts answering questions for us, we stop asking who’s accountable.
Staggering essay--I'll be contemplating this for days.
This is the first piece of writing I've encountered that feels like a liminal space.
That means a lot! We were trying to hold the question open rather than rush it toward an answer, so liminal space feels right.
Thank you, Nate. I won't speak for Mariah, but I was surprised and so very pleased by what came from our collaboration.
Agency is such an interesting word/concept. At some point it got split into a kind of power on the one hand and a framework of responsibility on the other, and it seems to swing between those two aspects depending on where you focus.
I think that’s exactly the fracture point. Agency used to imply both power and responsibility at once. Now it feels like we keep trying to separate them, and the instability shows up wherever that split widens.
I feel like Agency is still at the individual level but because of incentives, autonomy has been eroded at the structural level. At least that’s what I keep feeling from an institutional psychology lens.
That interaction between the concepts of agency and autonomy is fascinating... They feel like two fish in the same aquarium, with agency perhaps intimating a bit more connection. Thank you for the morning exercise, Issa.
Just for more color on my comment: I've run my own business, an "agency" my whole career, I work on Wall Street where "agent" can have lots of specific functions and legal responsibilities, e.g. "transfer agent" so for me the other aspect of the word -- personal, individual agency -- feels much newer even though it isn't.
Careful, we're circling a rabbit hole 🕳️ here. We're lost if anyone uses the word "agentic." Oh noooo....
Sounds to me like a salve to spread on poison ivy, but I'm obviously old and imagining spring is actually near and I can get into my garden )
Exactly, Brian. The word morphed, and requires context to convey what we mean.
> Liberty once meant something relatively plain: having authority over one’s own actions while recognizing that others have authority over theirs. Our legal systems rest on that assumption. Liberalism once centered on it.
Very useful description. This authority of personhood was once better understood, at least implicitly, in Western culture.
I agree! Question, do you feel like what’s changed is the idea itself or just the way we talk about it?
First, I think the idea itself is an anomaly in human history. It seems what preceded the authority of personhood was a framework where the whole (the collective) was primary and the part (the individual) existed to serve the group. I think the contemporary change is what you and Erik described in the article: more people declining to exercise the responsibility and giving it back to an external authority.
I'm not sure if a significant portion of people ever really talked about it. People embody their beliefs before they philosophize about them; I'm not sure most ever get around to philsophizing (which is fine; the more important quality is to know them in one's heart).
I'm not an scholar of historical psychology, but wonder if there hasn't always been a tension between the individual and the collective, between a man and other men, with beliefs and traditions (commandments) that kept peace within the tribe and protected the tribe against "outsiders."
I think you're correct. Humans, even those with a string sense of individual identity, seem to be social. I think the evolution that happened sometime in the past isn't doing away with the duality of individual and group, but with locating the deepest human dignity in the person rather than in the collective institution.
It goes back to what you wrote, that I quoted initially. The profound change was in recognizing an authority of personhood that could be asserted, if necessary, against the pressures of group conformity. This authority of personhood could be universalized, not by collectivizing it, but by individuals recognizing the same capacity in other individuals.
Thank you, Domenic. That simple line took a surprising amount of time. ~ Erik
I know the feeling! Getting ideas into clear, concise verbiage is a struggle for me, too. But it's worth it 😎