Small Change
It only takes a little bit of change to make a system run better. Sometimes, we get disgusted with friction and stiction and other reasons why things don't work or work slowly. But often these factors require just a bit of polishing or lubrication. The one thing that cannot be so easily overcome is inertia, which is an innate property of all matter regardless of surface condition.
The only way one can overcome inertia is to develop control over the moment associated with it. There are two plausible and applicable definitions of inertia: 1) the tendency for something to maintain a particular momentum, and 2) the difficulty of altering the direction or other quality of that momentum.
These definitions are particularly plausible and applicable to human institutions of various sorts. Accordingly, the idea of inertia is now in frequent use within the economic, political, social and cultural spheres. The problem in many of the areas within these overlapping spheres of humanity is that free action tends to be opposed by mass action, or by hierarchical control.
Accordingly, inertia can be the product of random mass action or the irrational purposes of hierarchies. As Quentin Skinner writes in his analysis of Milton and what it means to be a free person, "If you are to be your own master, two conditions must in turn be satisfied. You must first of all succeed in mastering your self. By this Milton means that you must be able to control your passions and act in accordance with the dictates of reason at all times. If you instead allow yourself, as he puts it at the beginning of The Tenure, to be governed by blind affections, then your actions will not be an expression of liberty but of mere licentiousness."
Unfortunately, in the absence of a proper research programe, analysis, reflection and careful deep self-examination, institutions can obviously remain ungoverned by the dictates of any reason except affectation – and not admit to it. And the consequences for the system are dire in the extreme. I will end by quoting Skinner's piece on Milton (from the London Review of Books, 30(10), p.16; 22 May 2008) at length:
...he [i.e. Milton] does not in the least dispute that your standing as a free person will be lessened or taken away if you are impeded in the exercise of a choice. To be a free person is to be able to act according to your autonomous will; if you are constrained from exercising your will by force or the threat of it, then your liberty will to that degree be lost. Of greater importance, however, is the fact that it is equally possible according to Milton for your freedom of action to be curtailed even if no one subjects you to the least degree of interference. The reason is that, if you fall into a condition of dependence, your mere awareness of this predicament will have the effect of limiting your choices. This claim admittedly sounds strange, and has often been dismissed as confused. But Milton is making an important point about one of the ways in which liberty can be lost. He is asking you to reflect on what will happen if you come to realise that you are living at the mercy of someone else. As soon as you recognise your condition of dependence, he claims, this will be sufficient to cause you to censor yourself, thereby setting limits to your own freedom of action. You will now take care to do everything, however abject, to minimise the risk that your master or ruler will intervene in your life in a detrimental way, and you will at the same time take care to do nothing that might arouse their envy or rage.
These contentions about the psychological impact of living in slavery are also classical in provenance. Tacitus had illustrated them in a number of passages, always with the implication that servitude can be expected to breed servility, and that servility helps to entrench servitude. Sallust in his Conspiracy of Catiline goes still further, pointing to the baleful implications of the fact that rulers tend to be especially envious of their most outstanding subjects. The opening of Milton’s Tenure of Kings and Magistrates echoes the passage so closely as to be almost a translation of it. ‘Tyrants are not oft offended, nor stand much in doubt of bad men, as being all naturally servile; but in whom virtue and true worth most is eminent, them they fear in earnest, as by right their masters; against them lies all their hatred and suspicion.’ The consequence, as Sallust had stressed, is that such subjects find themselves condemned to curbing their most valuable talents for fear of what could happen if they were to display them too visibly.
This is one reason, Sallust goes on, why the citizens of republics always outperform the subjects of monarchs in the glory of their deeds as well as in the originality of their thought. Kings prefer flatterers and time-servers, whereas in republics the most creative spirits can soar unchecked by any craven anxieties. A further reason, he adds, is that there are few civic duties to be performed under kings, with the result that their subjects readily slide into a state of lazy and torpid acquiescence.
Indeed. Perhaps this is why we should read the classics from time to time; not because they are old, but because they remind us that certain things never change about the human condition, its rights, freedoms, and failings.
The only way one can overcome inertia is to develop control over the moment associated with it. There are two plausible and applicable definitions of inertia: 1) the tendency for something to maintain a particular momentum, and 2) the difficulty of altering the direction or other quality of that momentum.
These definitions are particularly plausible and applicable to human institutions of various sorts. Accordingly, the idea of inertia is now in frequent use within the economic, political, social and cultural spheres. The problem in many of the areas within these overlapping spheres of humanity is that free action tends to be opposed by mass action, or by hierarchical control.
Accordingly, inertia can be the product of random mass action or the irrational purposes of hierarchies. As Quentin Skinner writes in his analysis of Milton and what it means to be a free person, "If you are to be your own master, two conditions must in turn be satisfied. You must first of all succeed in mastering your self. By this Milton means that you must be able to control your passions and act in accordance with the dictates of reason at all times. If you instead allow yourself, as he puts it at the beginning of The Tenure, to be governed by blind affections, then your actions will not be an expression of liberty but of mere licentiousness."
Unfortunately, in the absence of a proper research programe, analysis, reflection and careful deep self-examination, institutions can obviously remain ungoverned by the dictates of any reason except affectation – and not admit to it. And the consequences for the system are dire in the extreme. I will end by quoting Skinner's piece on Milton (from the London Review of Books, 30(10), p.16; 22 May 2008) at length:
...he [i.e. Milton] does not in the least dispute that your standing as a free person will be lessened or taken away if you are impeded in the exercise of a choice. To be a free person is to be able to act according to your autonomous will; if you are constrained from exercising your will by force or the threat of it, then your liberty will to that degree be lost. Of greater importance, however, is the fact that it is equally possible according to Milton for your freedom of action to be curtailed even if no one subjects you to the least degree of interference. The reason is that, if you fall into a condition of dependence, your mere awareness of this predicament will have the effect of limiting your choices. This claim admittedly sounds strange, and has often been dismissed as confused. But Milton is making an important point about one of the ways in which liberty can be lost. He is asking you to reflect on what will happen if you come to realise that you are living at the mercy of someone else. As soon as you recognise your condition of dependence, he claims, this will be sufficient to cause you to censor yourself, thereby setting limits to your own freedom of action. You will now take care to do everything, however abject, to minimise the risk that your master or ruler will intervene in your life in a detrimental way, and you will at the same time take care to do nothing that might arouse their envy or rage.
These contentions about the psychological impact of living in slavery are also classical in provenance. Tacitus had illustrated them in a number of passages, always with the implication that servitude can be expected to breed servility, and that servility helps to entrench servitude. Sallust in his Conspiracy of Catiline goes still further, pointing to the baleful implications of the fact that rulers tend to be especially envious of their most outstanding subjects. The opening of Milton’s Tenure of Kings and Magistrates echoes the passage so closely as to be almost a translation of it. ‘Tyrants are not oft offended, nor stand much in doubt of bad men, as being all naturally servile; but in whom virtue and true worth most is eminent, them they fear in earnest, as by right their masters; against them lies all their hatred and suspicion.’ The consequence, as Sallust had stressed, is that such subjects find themselves condemned to curbing their most valuable talents for fear of what could happen if they were to display them too visibly.
This is one reason, Sallust goes on, why the citizens of republics always outperform the subjects of monarchs in the glory of their deeds as well as in the originality of their thought. Kings prefer flatterers and time-servers, whereas in republics the most creative spirits can soar unchecked by any craven anxieties. A further reason, he adds, is that there are few civic duties to be performed under kings, with the result that their subjects readily slide into a state of lazy and torpid acquiescence.
Indeed. Perhaps this is why we should read the classics from time to time; not because they are old, but because they remind us that certain things never change about the human condition, its rights, freedoms, and failings.
Labels: Freedom, Humanity, LRB, Milton, Sallust, Skinner, Tacitus
etched with acid at 4:15:00 pm
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