Roth Note: Long read from E.M. Burlingame that explains the source of ‘function.’ The Resentfuls, the Responsibles, and the Adoptables.
Everything below the human ran on constraints that could not do otherwise: the electron cannot choose its orbit, the protein cannot choose its fold. But a human being is a dissipative structure that models itself, that can turn its forcing functions upon its own future — and at that height the single machine parts into two tendencies, two hands of the one function. One builds: it pours the surplus of a life into raising new ordered structures — work, family, understanding, the whole expanding Game — and it is the generative, sustaining, sovereign hand. The other tears down: it cannot build, and so it consumes what others build, and it is the disruptive, cannibalizing hand that keeps the whole from ever settling into a fatal comfort. In the language of the foundational work these are the Responsibles and the Resentfuls — and the roughly half of humanity who are neither, the Adoptables, are the ground the two hands contend over, the swing on which the fate of a people actually turns.
2 responses to “The Eternal War As Forcing Function”
I for one have never been one who spends much time reading or listening to Burlingame’s long wind dissemination’s on the world stage. He takes historical stories and turns them into endless world salads I guess he just loves to hear himself wax poetically. I don’t think anyone who seems to have fantasies of being ruled by various royal monarchy’s ( since to him that seems to be the best form of .GOV ever) and especially the kind and gentle princes that have ruled thru history because of their love for their serfs and peasant slaves has anything to say to freedom loving peoples.
I have read history and most of the royals were inbred scum who did various evil things on whims or thought of slights done to them by others and most still are that way. Look at the UK’s royals, who originally were not even Brits but changed their names and history to cover that, funny how that is. So off they went to wars and savagery on a scale that was simply brutal…
Before the doctrine of Divine Right of Kings, things were much different. Kings ruled for the benefit of their people and were removed when they failed in that responsibility. After that doctrine was established, your opinion of monarchies matches my own. Kings became tyrants because their subjects were convinced that God put them in place and that it would be sacrilege to remove them.
As for Burlingame, I agree that some of his work is … windy, but much of it contains great insights. I choose to read his work selectively for the insights and only share his posts that I believe contain those insights.