{"id":1015,"date":"2009-03-02T03:01:59","date_gmt":"2009-03-02T07:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/noahgreenstein.com\/wordpress\/?p=1015"},"modified":"2009-03-02T03:01:59","modified_gmt":"2009-03-02T07:01:59","slug":"the-lowest-desires-of-modern-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.noahgreenstein.com\/wordpress\/2009\/03\/02\/the-lowest-desires-of-modern-people\/","title":{"rendered":"the lowest desires of modern people"},"content":{"rendered":"

… Another alternative would have been to give you what’s called a popular scientific lecture, that is a lecture intended to make you believe that you understand a thing which actually you don’t understand, and to gratify what I believe to be one of the lowest desires of modern people, namely the superficial curiosity about the latest discoveries of science.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This quote is from the beginning of Wittgenstein’s “A Lecture on Ethics”<\/a> or whatever the untitled transcript of the talk he gave to The Heretics Society is called.\u00a0 I’ve seen this part of the lecture omitted; admittedly it has little to do with his later arguments.\u00a0 However, I always felt that this barb was something interesting.<\/p>\n

The quote has little force as an argument: it is merely his opinion that a superficial curiosity about the latest discoveries of science is bad.\u00a0 No contradictions or other nonsense is pointed out, nor does it even evoke a parallel between those he is disparaging and some accepted foul thing.<\/p>\n

But it is clear, concise and otherwise totally unlike everything else that Wittgenstein is known for, while touching upon the topics of belief, understanding, science, and desire.\u00a0 Odd, no?<\/p>\n

What the quote is, is a smear; it is an insult:\u00a0 Calling something a lowest desire, without reason, is merely to insult it.\u00a0 What’s going on here?<\/p>\n

Say I have a superficial curiosity about the latest discoveries of science.\u00a0 So what?\u00a0 If the latest scientific research has little to do with my profession, say I’m a restaurateur, then what harm is there in having a passing interest in what other smart people do?\u00a0 It might even be considered commendable that I make such an effort.<\/p>\n

Now Wittgenstein is saying that my earnest effort is nowhere near commendable, but all the way at the bottom, the basest, of desire.\u00a0 Since he accusing “modern people” it is not just ‘me’, but everyone.\u00a0 This is insulting and unwarranted.<\/p>\n

However, this isn’t exactly what Wittgenstein was after: he disliked superficial curiosity in scientific discoveries not because of the impulse of people to learn and take interest in others, but because it made people believe that they understood a thing which actually they didn’t understand.\u00a0 Understanding difficult things is an accomplishment, and scientific research is difficult. In enjoying a superficial curiosity about the latest discoveries of science, he is accusing us of feeling a sense of accomplishment when we have done nothing to merit it: he is accusing us of mental masturbation.\u00a0 Ouch.<\/p>\n

We can also now understand why this criticism is “modern”.\u00a0 Before\u00a0 modern times, there was no way to have a “popular scientific lecture”: only in the last century or so have we had the communications technology and an available public which allows for such a thing.\u00a0 You couldn’t expect feudal peasants to leave their farms or be educated enough to appreciate such a lecture.\u00a0 But by November 1929, the date of this lecture, mass media was in full swing<\/a> with the wide distribution of newspapers and books, and the start of national radio broadcasts.\u00a0 Only with widespread media distribution did the danger of popular science becoming a narcotic exist.<\/p>\n

Wittgenstein saw that with the modern increase in information distribution capability came a danger of intellectual drugging of the population.\u00a0 It disgusted him that people would take pleasure from the feeling that they understood difficult theories with which they only had the most superficial engagement.\u00a0 Unfortunately he had no argument or solution to prevent this, and so he resorted, as we all do when we are out of good arguments, to insults.<\/p>\n

One can only think that the internet has made this an even more pervasive problem.\u00a0 It blows our information distribution capability off the charts.\u00a0 And we are, unsurprisingly, completely addicted to it.\u00a0 It’s too bad dear Ludwig never really commented more on modernity, he seems to have been rather perceptive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… Another alternative would have been to give you what’s called a popular scientific lecture, that is a lecture intended to make you believe that you understand a thing which actually you don’t understand, and to gratify what I believe to be one of the lowest desires of modern people, namely the superficial curiosity about the latest discoveries of science. This quote is from the beginning of Wittgenstein’s “A Lecture on Ethics” or whatever the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,14,26,34,41],"tags":[291,252,268,279,287],"class_list":["post-1015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","category-internet","category-philosophy","category-science","category-wittgenstein","tag-ethics","tag-internet","tag-philosophy","tag-science","tag-wittgenstein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.noahgreenstein.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.noahgreenstein.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.noahgreenstein.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.noahgreenstein.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.noahgreenstein.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.noahgreenstein.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.noahgreenstein.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.noahgreenstein.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.noahgreenstein.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}