Cosmopolis (Stephen Toulmin)

Prof. Galileo Galilei seems to have been a narcissitic, selfish, cowardly man. By "selfish" I do not mean a person who looks out for their own best interests, but a person who is wilfully inconsiderate of others, in his case, his two illegitimate daughters whom he disposed of in nunneries. The heliocentric astronomical hypothesis did not need him, but, yes, his use of the telescope was an important contribution to astronomy. One 20th century expert (ref. lost) has argued that Galileo did not really have enough evidence to fully aback up his assertion tha the earth went around the sun and not the other way around: Galileo propagandized more than he could verify, so his Papist critics were not altogether wrong.

But the heliocentric hypothesis as deployed by Mr. Galilei really was two things: (1) an astronomical theory, but also: (2) a socio-politicallogical statement. Had he presented it as an hypothesis, and written about it only in the lingua franca of scientists at the time: latin, the Holy Office of the Inquisitoin would likely not have bothered him and the science of astronomy would hav edeveloped apace. It was the socio-political staement aht caused trouble. Balileo wa an "Ativiet": With his "Dialogus of the two great world systems" he was doing the 17th century equivalent of anti-Xi protesters in Hong Kong streets in 2022. He wa advocating overthrow on the Vatican political regime. That would ha ebeen a good thing, but Mr. Galileo wa also a coward, and when The Vatican called his bluff, instead of being a hero like Alexei Nevalny in Russia today vis-à-vis Dr. Putin, he wimped out and abnegated. So he taught scieists a lesson that stopped its prograssive social agenda of making the social world rational. Scienists learned to not fight for social justice but just keep to their observateion and equations.

It is ot very important whether the earth goes around the sun or the other way aroumd. Whether, per Prof Norwood Hanson, in the east, the sun rises (Ptolemaic astronomy) or the earth sts( heliocentric asctronomy), I was a wage-slave to pay the bills all my life. Social life has not advanced like cosmology has. I blame it all no Mr. Galilei. Had he been discreet, he couls have quietly worked for incremental change in social life. But ht had to be hothead. Few scienists wan tto be Alexei Navalnys. In 1811, John Adams blamed the French revolutionaries for trying to force the pace of change in a way that set back human progress.

"Their precipitation and temerity has, I fear retarded the progress of improvement and amelioration in the condition of mankind for at least an hundred years.... The public mind was improving in knowledge and the public heart in humanity.... the fragments of feudality,the inquisition, the rack, and the cruelty of punishment, Negro slavery were giving way.... But the philosophers must strive at perfection per saltum... they rent and tore the whole garment to pieces. They have even compelled to resort to Napoleon" (E. Eisenstein, 2011, p. 152)

I once again advert to George Steiner's judgment of the British art historian traitor Sir Anthony Blunt: "Damn the man."

Novus ordo sceclorum

The way to start is simple but not easy. It costs almost nothing and needs no new lab equipment. If people can schmooze around an office water cooler they can do radical anthropological self-critical self-study there instead.

"Take every statement I make as a question not as an assertion." (Niels Bohr)

[After a professor told his class some idea he believed that is not generally acceptable to say: A]cademic freedom has nothing to do with content. It is not a subset of the general freedom of Americans to say anything they like (so long as it is not an incitement to violence or is treasonous or libelous). Rather, academic freedom is the freedom of academics to study anything they like.... / [T]he number of viewpoints Mr. Barrett presents to his students is not the measure of his responsibility. There is, in fact, no academic requirement to include more than one view of an academic issue, although it is usually pedagogically useful to do so. The true requirement is that no matter how many (or few) views are presented to the students, they should be offered as objects of analysis rather than as candidates for allegiance. (Stanley Fish, Prof. of Law, Florida International Univ., "Conspiracy Theories 101", Op-Ed Piece, NYT, 23Jul06, p.WK13)

The history of science and technology of the post-war [post-1945] era is filled with examples of reckless and unreflective "progress" which, while beneficial or at least profitable to some in the short run, may yet devastate much life on this planet. Perhaps it is too much to hope, but I hope nonetheless that as our discipline matures our practitioners will mature also, that all of us will begin to think about what we are actually doing and ponder whether, whatever it is, it is what those who follow after us would want us to have done. (Joseph Weizenbaum, Professor of Computer Science, MIT)

That's all you need to do is follow those three guidances. How much easier can it get? It's all restated in G.W.F. Hegel's "Phenomenology of Spirit", the section: "Evil and its forgiveness". If a gentleman and his valet can do it, surely pesons with PhD's can do it too.

Cosmopolis (Rabelais's Theleme)

Cosmopolis, as I would envision it, is a polis where the citiens engage in civil discourse and when there are disgreements, as Jurgen Habermas described it, the unforced force of the better argument carries the day. Persons are always rational, or rather, reasonable (not calculatively rationcinative). But they are always also, except when persecutd by Fortuna (aka: ill), joyous, because they are always peacefuly, constructively engaged in genuinely joyful endeavors, not pragmatic agenda and ritual celebrations:.

• Studying humankind's acculumated knowledge of all peoples and times.
• Creating in the arts and sciences.
• Savoring esthetic connoisseurship.
• Enjoying safe sex (generalized erotic delectation).

How boring, selfish greenhouse gas producing, and other bad things can you get, right? How horrible that people will no suffer brain damage doing tackle football. Or make zillions of dollars extracting surplus value from their fellows. Surely the preditions of hell would be better than to be deprived of Thanksgiving dinner and Disneylanding and shelling Russians in the Donbas, yes?

America runs on Dunkin', as it was in the beginning, is now and ever will be, dounts without end, Amen.