Years of Poems and Spirits

I have been constantly exposed to the proposition that man’s role in history is no more than any other agents (weather, geology, random events, etc.) This idea per se is not controversial until it is used to undermine the goal of enlightenment. It seems to suggest that man is incapable of understand the materialistic world around him, let alone to say any chance to device ways to master it.

Related:
1. History determinism, “path dependence”. Source: Making Democracy Work by R. Putnam. Chapter 6 (p 179 has the def.)
2. On man’s reaction to material world and the subsequent definition as science and intelligence, etc. in Introdution, Chapter 1 in Rule of Experts, by Timothy Mitchell.

Prompted the following thoughts:
Claim: man’s only role in history is to find ways to justify what history tells him to do.

An interesting article (c)from NYT, about how political reaction being subconscious. Political sentiment has long been viewed as product of enlightenment and modernity. Now even that is proven as just a reflection of something timeless, and something material (with physical properties: action, reaction, bend, etc.) If we hope to change the world via political system or theory but in the end the urge is more subconscious—what does that tell you?

Here is a fuller, more comprehensive report from the Post.