Abortive Sorrows and Short-winded Elations - IN DEFENSE OF ROMANTICISM

The title of this post is taken from
the American classic novel
"The Great Gatsby"
by F. Scott Fitzgerald.


In music, it's said that the romantic period (and it's overblown excesses) ended with Wagner.
That may be so. It brings to mind the quote oft attributed to Mark Twain (yes it sounds like his work, but it was actually Bill Nye [not our Science Guy, but the journalist-humorist]  "Richard Wagner's music is better than it sounds”. It's a densely packed statement.

But what exactly is romanticism?
And why do we need it now?

I posit that romanticism is hardly a "sweetness", as many may conjure up.
There is nothing particularly sugary about being dark and tormented, the furor of passion, nor the despair of an idealism that can not be attained.
Yet that is what the core of romanticism is composed of. Nor is it merely adjective abuse.
It's more than an aesthetic in decor.
So what is it then?
Ideals.
Perhaps Ideals have more to do with romanticism than anything else
when one deconstructs the notion.

Why do we need Romanticism today?

My daughter is a physicist & holds advanced degrees in neuroscience. Neuroscience has always been part of the dinner conversation in my family, often, along with logic, a lens for discerning truth.

 Want to talk about art?
Neuroscience plays a role.
(As does physics)

Interested in justice?
Can someone’s sanity be determined without parsing scans of the brain?
Is any sort of forensics available without scientific investigation?

Science helps us refine our thinking, and indeed the scientific method of deduction
 is certainly the best lens we have for viewing the truth of a thing.

Yet outside of mathematics,  no view of reality can achieve an absolute certainty.
The conflict is relevant in this age of anti-science,
with far-Right activists questioning climate change, evolution,
 and nearly all other current finds.

In his book Enlightenment Now (2018), Steven Pinker describes the enlightenment values of reason, science, and humanism as the source of all human progress and he effectively argues that these values are under threat from modern trends such as blind allegiance to ideology, religious fundamentalism, political correctness, and postmodernism.

 In an interview about the book published in Scientific American, Pinker clarified that his book is not merely an expression of hope—it is a documentation of how much we have gained as a result of Enlightenment values, and how much we will lose if those values are abandoned.
On this subject, he is right of course.
But there is a bit more to The Enlightenment than cold facts and science.
Operating within the realm of ideals is NOT the same as devotion to ideologues and their ill formed ideologies. I suggest there is a need for a new romanticism.
The ideal of ethical exercise of conscience.

I have often argued that Václav Havel was the last working class hero.
The last idealist in politics.
In my comments regarding "Prague Rock" (my latest musical work)
I published this explanation.

"Consumerism, communication,
and information have been transformed
into a monstrous phantasmal Chimera.
Social media has given rise to political leaders
and a hoi polloi that exists on celebrity alone
with no substance whatsoever.
Today, any truthful sincere idealist
who might walk in Havel’s shoes,
will find it impossible to spread their ideals
without succumbing to crass commodification.
To communicate through the internet,
they must assume the shape of entertainment,
They must succumb to being a cheap commodity.
The concessions required detract from or destroy
any honest thesis making it unlikely
to simultaneously communicate
effectively and truthfully.
The stories of Fahrenheit 451, Idiocracy, Brazil,
1984 and Black Mirror's "The Waldo Moment"
are mere child's play now in comparison with where we are as a society and what we have actually become."

In his speech ‘Politics and Conscience’ (1984), the Czech dissident Václav Havel, discussing factories and smokestacks on the horizon said: ‘People thought they could explain and conquer nature – yet … they destroyed it and disinherited themselves from it.’ Havel was not against industry, he was just for ethical labor relations and the protection of the environment.
In a sense he was exercising romanticism.
Certainly he stood for an ethical exercise of conscience.

Let's harken back a bit.
On nuclear weaponry, Pinker places the blame on anti-Enlightenment forces.
Scientists working on the Manhattan Project to develop the first nuclear weapons did so because they needed to beat Hitler".
 Pinker states "Quite possibly, had there been no Nazis, there would be no nukes."

This may be true, nuclear energy may never have been weaponized & history may have taken a different course. We may all be speaking German as well.
In contrast, even I; a great fan and proponent of all science & knowledge will readily admit that science lacks any sort of ethical logic of its own. It's a pursuit of knowledge, and truth.
A logical system of analysis that measures the relative truth of a thing.
A form of logic.
But humanity is not a mathematical equation, and we do need to consider what is humane, ethical, and responsible.
Scientific progress is certainly liberating and inestimably important.
But in truth, as every "B" black and white monster movie posited,
it can also be threatening,
and can present dangers precisely because of how hugely it expands human power.


Such issues persist today. From use of GMO seeds and aquaculture to assert control over the food chain to military strategies for gene-engineering bio-weapons, power is asserted though scientific patents and financial control over basic aspects of life.
While science itself is certainly not to blame, what it's purpose becomes, and how it is used, is outside the actual realm of science.
The French philosopher Michel Foucault in The Will to Knowledge (1976) referred to such advancements as ‘techniques for achieving the subjugation of bodies and the control of populations’. With winners and losers in the new arena,
it is inevitable that some folks are going to push back.
And to some degree, the chaotic nonsensical state liberal democracies have fallen into can be ascribed to just that. A push back against science & reason.

While I put no credence in this particular push back, and would say it is actually suicidal.
However I do understand why it is occurring.

(Idiocy- Not to be confused with idealism)

Anyway, as wonderful as science is, a dash of romanticism, or at least the idealism of romanticism is likely important in proceeding.

We are on the verge of a new revolution in control over life.
 The gene-editing tool Crispr-Cas9, has given us the ability to fiddle with the color of butterfly wings and alter the heritable genetic code of humans.

 In this uncharted territory, where to say the least, ethical issues can be legitimately raised,
science alone can not provide the answer.
Along with seeking knowledge we must guard against losing our sense of humanity and belief in human rights. Scientists do not control what their discoveries are used for.
The importance of informed intelligent and compassionate leadership plays the role of gatekeeper.
You can't trust chuckleheads to make these decisions.
You can't trust people who are tied to the profits from selling new tech either.
 The role of sound leadership is probably in no other area equally important.

Science should inform values. But it does not create them. It plays a critical role in areas such as vaccine and climate policy, but it can not determine all values. For instance, pharmaceutical companies are pricing new drugs as high as the market will allow: a gene therapy to restore vision for $850,000; the first genetically engineered immune system T-cell to fight cancer for $475,000, eight times the median income in the United States (despite manufacturing cost estimates of $25,000.
Oh, and forget the claim that the price is a reimbursement for research, 98% of all research in the US is paid for by taxpayers....publicly funded. Businesses contribute very little.)

Is that Medicine or extortion?  Science can not answer that question.
Nor should it.
Humanitarians, not owners of patents must decide.

While I don't agree with everything Pinker says in his book, 
(I find his assertion that post- modernism and the left are partially responsible for the anti science - anti reason movement hard to agree with, and his claim that the inequity gap is fine as long as the poor's lot improves as well impossible to defend in the shadow of ethical conscience he argues for).
I may not agree on all fronts, but I join  whole-heartedly in Pinker's defense of the forces that have produced progress and let's all hope in the future they continue to be successful.

A toast then, here is to the Enlightenment! And to Romanticism as well.
We need them both.