There is something which unites magic and applied science [=technology] while separating both from the “wisdom” of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men; the solution is a technique. --C. S. Lewis
This week I happened on a conversation by @swardley, one of my favorite tweeters. He was describing magic in the realm of corporate desire. The thread is here:
X : Culture eats strategy for breakfast
— Simon Wardley #EEA (@swardley) August 27, 2019
Me : Magic eats culture for lunch
X : What?
Me : I asked 20 tech executives - “Do you think your workplace is magical compared to others” and 40% said yes. Magic is real.
X : This is bullshit
Me : You started it with culture.
And the idea of magic occurs to me in two contexts. The first is the series Magic 2.0 by Scott Meyer. My review of the first book is here.
What a fun book, and what an exceptionally diabolical villain. Scott Meyer's protag is an ordinary bumbling, self-deprecated cornball of a 'Greatest American Hero'. All good intentions and smarmy sentimentality of a Millenial Charlie Brown, Martin Banks can't figure out a purpose for his life and becomes a marvelous fish out of water in the series. And having read the audiobook, one of the greatest voice actors in the business does a pitch perfect mentor in Phillip, the wise and conscientious mentor to Martin the Magnificent. But the true genius of this book is found in the character of Jimmy, social engineer par excellence. I cannot think of a villain who exemplifies so much of what is wrong in this world than this ruthless manipulator. He is the kind of glib evil that permeates so much of American society that recognizing the lengths he goes to is a revelation.
The book is an excellent meditation on ethics and power, wrapped up in fantasy and fun, a brilliant and entertaining combination. Trekkies will immediately recognize the centrality of the Prime Directive in this work.
But Lewis' is deeper. I remembered what he said about the expertise of technologists. He said that they cannot explain what it is they do, because they're all wrapped up in technique and their specialization has a necessary measure of opacity and obfuscation. I think I'm feeling this right now in my profession, and mustn't we all eventually? I mean if we really become proficient, we learn the underside of our business. Lewis said however, any child can understand magic. If you want to explain why all rockets don't explode on the launch pad, someone who understands all of the 735 components of the the rocket assembly couldn't explain it in a year. But if you say "it's magic", everybody gets it.
There's another tangent to this which is the explanation of the infinitely contingent nature of human decision making. Jordan Peterson made a remarkable impression on me in describing how humans handle tools. A car, for example, is just a tool to get you from point A to point B. It's only when the damned thing breaks that you bother to look under the hood. You will spend as little effort in using this tool as possible so you can accomplish your goals. When the tool begins to fail you, it becomes a problem and so you get into its innards, yet only up to a point. You then decide that all of its complexities are a waste of your time & money and you discard the entire thing. It is no longer relevant to your purposes. You find an alternative tool. In that respect, it doesn't matter if your car runs on electricity, squirrel farts or vampire blood. It's technology you're never going to learn unless that is your purpose.
Philosopher Peter Kreeft writes in clarification of Lewis:
Science and religion both aim at conforming the mind to objective truth, objective reality (science conforms our mind to the nature of the universe, and religion conforms our mind to the mind of God and our will to the will of God).
Magic and technology, on the other hand, try to conform objective reality to the human will. That is why they both arose at the same time—not the Middle Ages but the Renaissance, not the Age of God but the Age of Man. Both are Faustian, Promethean. The difference is, of course, that technology works while magic doesn’t (usually). But their end, their goal, the purpose behind them, the human values and desires and state of soul that set them in motion, are the same.
What I need to think about is - oh never mind I just figured it out. Wow!
The abuse of religion always is involved in the establishment of the illusion of supernatural magic. The charlatan seeks the authority granted by inverting the idea of approaching God, the sacred divine by objectifying God as the ultimate authority to which the charlatan naturally appeals. The abuse of science always is involved in the established of the illusion of supernatural technology. The charlatan seeks the authority granted by inverting the idea of practicing the scientific method by objectifying Science as the ultimate authority to which the charlatan naturally appeals.
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