MY HUMBLE CONTRIBUTION TO COGNITIVE FATIGUE (OR, CONATIVE PSYCHOLOGY WRONGLY VESTED)

Conative psychology is the lesser-known sibling of cognitive, affective, and behavioral psychology — but it plays a crucial role in understanding human motivation and volition. While cognitive psychology focuses on thinking and reasoning, and affective psychology deals with emotions, conative psychology is all about doing — our drive, willpower, and purposeful action.

The term “conation” comes from the Latin 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘳𝘪, meaning “to try” or “to endeavor.” It refers to the mental faculty involved in goal-directed behavior: how we initiate, persist in, and regulate actions based on our desires and intentions. In other words, conation is what bridges the gap between knowing and doing.

Here are a few key aspects of conative psychology:

- Volition and agency: It explores how people make choices and commit to them, even in the face of obstacles.

- Motivated behavior: It examines the internal forces that push us to act beyond just instinct or emotion.

- Self-regulation: It includes how we manage impulses, delay gratification, and stay focused on long-term goals.

Philosophers like Thomas Aquinas and psychologists like William McDougall and Kurt Lewin touched on conative elements, but it’s often overshadowed in modern psychology by cognition and emotion. That said, it’s gaining renewed interest in areas like educational psychology, leadership studies, and even AI ethics—anywhere understanding human initiative and perseverance matters.

Aside from all the acting-out or action for its own sake,  how does conative theory intersect with macrohistory’s ideas on societal will or how relate to systemic reform movements?

Today’s theory of historical change hinges on the re-instrumentalization of institutions. The usual process of change follows an entropic curve: how tools created to meet societal needs become ends in themselves, leading to stagnation and crisis. At the heart of this cyclical model is a society’s capacity for reform, which depends not just on knowledge (cognitive), or values (affective), but on will — the conative dimension.

Here’s where conative psychology dovetails beautifully:

- An instrumental institution — the mechanism by which a civilization follows a law of increasing returns — requires not only innovation but the will to act on it. Conation explains how individuals and groups sustain purposeful effort to build, reform, or resist institutions.  

- In this view, civilizational decline occurs when elites lose the will to reform obsolete structures. That’s a conative failure: the erosion of volition, initiative, and long-term commitment.

- Macrohistory also emphasized the role of dissent and reform movements. These are driven by people with strong conative traits—those who persist despite resistance, who act on conviction rather than convenience.

So, if we think of historical actors not just as thinkers or feelers, but as doers, conative psychology becomes the missing psychological substrate of his theory. It’s what animates the reformers, the revolutionaries, and even the reactionaries.

How might this apply to modern systemic reform efforts — like the Green New Deal — or how can it be modeled in educational or leadership contexts?

That’s a rich thread to pull. Adam Curtis has long argued that elites — particularly in Western democracies — have stymied reform not through overt repression, but through narrative control, bureaucratic inertia, and the illusion of change.

In his recent BBC series 𝘚𝘩𝘪𝘧𝘵𝘺 (2025), Curtis explores how power shifted in the late 20th century from politics to finance and technology. He suggests that elites, rather than offering bold visions for the future, now manage public perception through technocratic fixes and emotionally resonant but hollow gestures. The result is a kind of ambient stasis: people sense that something is wrong, but the mechanisms for meaningful change are obscured or defanged.

This echoes his earlier work, like 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘱 and 𝘏𝘺𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘕𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, where he argued that:

- Reform is neutralized by complexity: Systems are made so opaque and interconnected that no one feels capable of changing them.

- Individualism replaces collective action: By promoting personal empowerment over structural critique, elites fragment potential reform movements.

- Crisis becomes background noise: Constant low-level emergencies (economic, environmental, political) create a sense of helplessness, making radical reform seem unrealistic or even dangerous.

In macrohistorical terms, this is a conative breakdown at the elite level: the will to reform is replaced by the will to manage appearances. Reform becomes simulation.

Let’s trace the arc of elite paralysis across history and see how it resonates with what Curtis and Toynbee describe.

1. Late Roman Republic (1st century BCE):  

Paralysis mechanism: The Roman senatorial elite clung to outdated republican norms while wealth from conquest flooded the system. Reformers like the Gracchi were violently suppressed, and the Senate failed to adapt to the empire’s new scale.  

Conative failure: The will to reform was replaced by factionalism and short-term self-preservation. Julius Caesar’s rise was less a coup than a symptom of elite inaction.

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2. Ancien Régime France (18th century):  

Paralysis mechanism: The French aristocracy resisted tax reform and clung to privileges even as the fiscal state collapsed. Turgot and Necker’s reforms were blocked by court factions.  

Conative failure: The nobility lacked the volition to sacrifice for systemic survival. The result? Revolution filled the vacuum they refused to address.

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3. Late Qing Dynasty (19th century):

Paralysis mechanism: Faced with Western imperialism and internal rebellion, Qing elites oscillated between superficial modernization and Confucian orthodoxy.  

Conative failure: Reformers like Kang Youwei were marginalized. The dynasty’s inability to commit to meaningful change led to collapse and decades of fragmentation.

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4. Weimar Germany (1920s–30s)

Paralysis mechanism: Elites failed to stabilize the republic or address mass discontent. They underestimated radical threats and over-relied on proceduralism. 

Conative failure: The political class lacked the will to defend democracy with bold reforms. Their inaction opened the door to authoritarianism.

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5. United States & UK (Late 20th–21st century, per Curtis):

Paralysis mechanism: Neoliberal elites outsourced governance to markets and algorithms. Political vision was replaced by managerialism and PR.  

Conative failure: As Curtis argues, elites simulate reform through symbolic gestures while avoiding structural change. The will to act is replaced by the will to appear.

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Across these cases, the pattern is striking: when elites lose the conative drive to reform, history doesn’t pause — it reroutes through rupture. Toynbee would say the instrument of economic progress becomes an idol, and Curtis would say the narrative becomes a loop. Either way, the result is stasis followed by shock.

Before I describe how these GOP factions are duking it out (counter-elites) let's take a look at the Reformers.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) fits intriguingly into the counter-elite framework we’ve been exploring. While they operate within the Democratic Party, their agenda and rhetoric often position them as a systemic reform bloc challenging the inertia of both major parties.

Here’s how they align with historical patterns of counter-elite emergence:

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1. Origin as a Response to Elite Paralysis

Founded in 1991 by figures like Bernie Sanders and Maxine Waters, the CPC arose during a period when neoliberal consensus dominated both parties. Their formation was a reaction to what they saw as the Democratic Party’s retreat from economic justice and structural reform.

Like earlier counter-elites, they emerged from within the system but sought to redirect it — channeling discontent over inequality, climate inaction, and militarism into a coherent legislative agenda.

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2. Narrative of Legitimacy

The CPC frames its mission around “transformative change”, explicitly opposing systems that “privilege the wealthy and powerful”. This echoes the revolutionary legitimacy claims of past counter-elites: they don’t just want better policies — they want a different *paradigm*.

Their support for the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and demilitarized foreign policy reflects a vision that challenges the technocratic, incrementalist approach of mainstream elites.

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3. Institutional Strategy

Unlike revolutionary counter-elites, the CPC works through legislative means. But they’ve built parallel influence structures — think of their PAC, media alliances, and grassroots mobilization — that allow them to pressure leadership from below and outside.

This is reminiscent of how counter-elites in Weimar Germany or the French Revolution built alternative institutions to rival the dominant order — though in this case, the tools are democratic and procedural.

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4. Limits and Co-optation

Here’s the twist: the CPC’s position inside the Democratic Party also makes it vulnerable to co-optation and containment. As Adam Curtis might argue, their bold rhetoric can be absorbed into the system as symbolic dissent — useful for managing discontent without altering power structures.

So the question becomes: are they a genuine counter-elite with disruptive potential, or a pressure valve that helps the system simulate reform?

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Let's explore how their trajectory compares to other reformist factions in U.S. history — like the (real, original) Populists or the New Left — or how their conative energy might be sustained or neutralized over time. There’s a lot of nuance in how institutional proximity shapes revolutionary potential.

Both of these earlier movements offer a revealing contrast in how reformist energy can surge, fragment, or be absorbed by the system.

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1. The Populist Movement (late 19th century):

Base: Primarily rural farmers in the South and Midwest, suffering under debt, deflation, and railroad monopolies.  

Grievance: Economic exploitation by industrial capital and financial elites.  

Strategy: Build a third party — the People’s Party (1892) — with a platform of monetary reform (free silver), nationalizing railroads, and direct election of senators.  

Outcome:  

- Initially successful: elected governors, senators, and gained millions of votes.  

- But in 1896, they fused with the Democrats behind William Jennings Bryan. This co-optation diluted their distinctiveness, and the movement faded.  

- Legacy: Many of their ideas (e.g. income tax, direct election of senators) were later adopted during the Progressive Era.

Counter-elite dynamics: The Populists were classic counter-elites — outsiders building parallel institutions — but lacked the staying power or structural leverage to resist absorption.

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2. The New Left (1960s–70s)

Base: Urban, educated youth; civil rights activists; anti-war protesters.  

Grievance: Alienation from Cold War liberalism, racial injustice, Vietnam War, and bureaucratic technocracy.  

Strategy: Decentralized activism (e.g. SDS, SNCC), cultural rebellion, and participatory democracy.  

Outcome:  

- Achieved major cultural and civil rights victories.  

- But fragmented in the 1970s due to internal divisions, state repression (e.g. COINTELPRO), and the rise of neoliberalism.  

- Some elements were absorbed into academia and NGOs, while others radicalized or faded.

Counter-elite dynamics: The New Left challenged elite consensus but lacked a unified institutional strategy. Their cultural influence outlasted their political cohesion.

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Comparison to the Progressive Caucus

- Like the Populists, the CPC channels economic discontent into a legislative agenda — but within a major party.  

- Like the New Left, they emphasize justice, inclusion, and systemic critique — but with more institutional discipline.  

- Their challenge is to avoid the Populists’ absorption and the New Left’s fragmentation, while sustaining a conative drive for reform.

As tempting as it is to trace how these movements influenced later waves — like Occupy, the Tea Party, or even today’s post-liberal thinkers, the lineage of reform is tangled but telling when you consider what the Reactionaries are doing with their top-down pseudo-populism and intellectually prostituted think tanks (or "junk tanks").

That these movements are instruments of "die Reaktion" is  one that political scientists like Christopher Parker and Matt Barreto would agree with. In their book 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘊𝘢𝘯’𝘵 𝘉𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦 𝘐𝘯, they argue that the Tea Party wasn’t just a fiscal conservative movement — it was a reactionary response to perceived cultural displacement, especially following the election of Barack Obama.

Here’s how it fits the mold of a reactionary counter-movement:

- Cultural nostalgia: Like earlier reactionary waves (e.g. the Know-Nothings or the John Birch Society), the Tea Party idealized a mythic past — one of small government, traditional values, and “real Americans.” This wasn’t just about taxes; it was about identity.

- Elite sponsorship with populist aesthetics: While it presented itself as grassroots, many scholars describe it as an astroturf movement — funded and amplified by elite interests (e.g. Koch-backed organizations) to channel discontent away from systemic reform and toward cultural grievance (ressentiment).

- Obstruction over transformation: Rather than proposing new institutional frameworks, the Tea Party focused on blocking change — from healthcare reform to immigration policy. In Toynbeeyan terms, it acted to preserve the existing elite structure by redirecting reformist energy into reaction.

So in many ways, the Tea Party functioned as a reactionary buffer — a tool of the Reaction, not the Reform. It mobilized conative energy, but toward restoration, not transformation.

There’s a fascinating dialectic at play.

Post-2016 populism shares some DNA with the Tea Party, but it’s evolved into something more volatile, more ideologically scrambled — and arguably more dangerous to institutional stability.

Here’s how they compare:

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1. From Reaction to Rebellion

The Tea Party was a reactionary containment movement — it sought to halt perceived overreach (Obamacare, immigration reform) and restore a nostalgic vision of America. Post-2016 populism, especially in the form of Trumpism, mutated into a rebellion against the entire political class, including traditional conservatives.

Where the Tea Party wanted to steer the ship back on course, post-2016 populism wants to sink the ship and build a new one from the wreckage.

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2. Elite Sponsorship vs. Elite Disruption

The Tea Party was heavily backed by elite donors and think tanks (e.g. the Koch network), functioning as a top-down mobilization with grassroots aesthetics. Post-2016 populism, while still benefiting from elite media and tech figures, has seen counter-elites emerge from outside traditional institutions — disaffected influencers, rogue billionaires, and conspiracy entrepreneurs.

This shift reflects what Peter Turchin calls elite overproduction: too many aspirants, not enough seats at the table. (How is that for a zero-sum symptom? Not only the facts on the ground but the thinking that comes with it as a result of the s-curve's plateau.)

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3. Populism as Permanent Revolution

As Geoffrey Kabaservice notes, the Tea Party followed a familiar cycle of populist surge and institutional absorption. But post-2016 populism has broken that rhythm. It’s not a wave — it’s a permanent churn, fueled by grievance, spectacle, and algorithmic amplification.

Think of it as populism without a pause button.

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4. Ideological Fluidity

The Tea Party was ideologically coherent: small government, low taxes, constitutionalism. Post-2016 populism is ideologically promiscuous — mixing economic nationalism, anti-globalism, cultural grievance, and even leftist critiques of elites. It’s less a platform than a mood: anti-system, anti-expert, anti-status quo.

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5. Institutional Impact

The Tea Party reshaped the GOP’s policy agenda. Post-2016 populism has reshaped its identity — from a party of ideas to a party of loyalty and spectacle. It’s also eroded trust in elections, media, and science in ways that outstrip the Tea Party’s ambitions.

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In short, the Tea Party was a reactionary firewall. Post-2016 populism is a reactionary wildfire — less controlled, more chaotic, and harder to extinguish.

On to Spenglerian Caesarism!

The Trump–Caesar comparison has become a kind of modern political Rorschach test — provocative, revealing, and deeply contested. Some historians and commentators have drawn striking parallels, while others caution against oversimplification.

Here’s how the analogy is often framed:

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Similarities Highlighted by Commentators

- Populist appeal: Like Caesar, Trump bypassed traditional elites and spoke directly to the masses, often railing against a corrupt establishment.

- Norm-breaking leadership: Both men operated outside conventional political norms—Caesar by defying the Senate, Trump by challenging institutional checks and balances.

- Celebrity and spectacle: Caesar staged lavish games and public displays; Trump mastered media spectacle and branding.

- Legal vulnerability: Caesar sought power partly to shield himself from prosecution; some argue Trump’s political ambitions are similarly entangled with legal exposure.

- Crossing the Rubicon: Caesar’s literal march on Rome is often metaphorically linked to Trump’s role in the January 6 Capitol riot — seen by some as a symbolic breach of democratic norms.

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Key Differences

- Military vs. media power: Caesar commanded legions; Trump commands attention. Their tools of influence are radically different. (But Trump is working on it.)

- Institutional outcomes: Caesar’s actions ended the Roman Republic and birthed an empire. Trump, despite his disruption, has not dismantled the U.S. constitutional system—though critics argue he’s tested its limits.

- Historical context: Rome’s republic was already crumbling from decades of civil war and elite dysfunction. The U.S., while polarized, remains structurally intact.

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The “Mighty Martyr” Archetype

Some thinkers go further, casting Trump as a kind of modern Caesar and Marc Antony — a wounded leader whose perceived victimhood fuels his mythos. This taps into a deeper psychological pattern: the leader as both scapegoat and savior, whose suffering becomes a rallying cry for followers.

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So, is Trump like Caesar? In some symbolic ways, yes — especially in how both leveraged populist discontent to challenge elite authority. But the analogy breaks down if taken too literally. Trump is not a general-turned-emperor; he’s a media-savvy disruptor in a digital republic.

There’s a lot of historical voltage in how this archetype plays out in other populist figures — and how the U.S. system has (so far) resisted a full Caesar moment.

The U.S. system has resisted a full “Caesar moment” — a decisive collapse of republican norms into autocracy — through a combination of institutional friction, cultural pluralism, and elite fragmentation. While the guardrails have bent, they haven’t yet broken. Here’s how:

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1. Institutional Redundancy and Federalism

Unlike Rome’s centralized republic, the U.S. system is built on layered sovereignty — federal, state, and local. This dispersal of power makes it harder for any one figure to seize total control. Even during moments of executive overreach, courts, governors, and bureaucracies have acted as brakes.

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2. Norms and Professional Bureaucracy

The U.S. civil service, military, and judiciary — though not immune to politicization — have largely upheld procedural norms. For example, during the 2020 election aftermath, state officials and courts across party lines rejected attempts to overturn results, preserving electoral legitimacy.

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3. Media Fragmentation and Exposure

While media polarization has fueled populism, it’s also made it difficult for any single narrative to dominate. Caesar controlled spectacle through games and oratory; modern populists face a chaotic infosphere where counter-narratives proliferate — even if truth itself is contested.

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4. Elite Division, Not Unity

In Rome, Caesar eventually co-opted or crushed rival elites. In the U.S., elites remain fractured across ideological, economic, and institutional lines. This fragmentation has prevented the consolidation of a unified authoritarian bloc — though it also contributes to dysfunction.

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5. Civic Resistance and Legal Pushback

From mass protests to watchdog litigation, civil society has mobilized in defense of democratic norms. The January 6 insurrection, for instance, was followed by a wave of prosecutions and institutional introspection, not a successful seizure of power.

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6. The Absence of a Standing Army Under Executive Control

Caesar’s power rested on legions loyal to him personally. The U.S. military, by contrast, is constitutionally subordinate to civilian leadership (for now) and has repeatedly affirmed its apolitical stance — even under pressure.

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That said, many scholars warn that these defenses are not invulnerable. As one Politico article put it, the U.S. has revealed “cracks in the ability of institutions to withstand the creep of authoritarianism.” The danger isn’t a dramatic Rubicon moment — it’s the slow erosion of norms, the normalization of exceptionalism, and the fatigue of vigilance.

AI and digital governance are challenging democratic guardrails in ways that are subtle, systemic, and accelerating. Here’s how:

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1. Concentration of Power in Tech Infrastructure

As AI systems become embedded in everything from healthcare to finance to public services, control over the underlying infrastructure — cloud platforms, data pipelines, and foundational models — is consolidating in a handful of firms. This creates a quasi-sovereign layer of governance that operates beyond traditional democratic oversight.

> Think of it as a digital East India Company: not elected, but indispensable.

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2. Regulatory Capture and “Ethics Theater”

Governments are racing to regulate AI, but many frameworks—like the EU’s voluntary AI Code of Practice—are being criticized as window dressing that prioritizes industrial competitiveness over human rights. Civil society voices are often sidelined, and the result is a governance model that simulates accountability without redistributing power.

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3. Algorithmic Governance and the Erosion of Legibility

As decision-making is increasingly delegated to opaque algorithms, citizens lose the ability to contest or even understand outcomes. This undermines the principle of democratic transparency. In Curtisian terms, it’s governance by black box — where the system runs, but no one knows who’s really in charge.

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4. AI as a Tool of Narrative Control

Generative AI can flood the infosphere with synthetic content, making it harder to distinguish truth from manipulation. This doesn’t just spread misinformation — it dilutes the very idea of shared reality, weakening the epistemic foundations of democracy.

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5. Institutional Drift and the “Slow Caesarism” Risk

Boards and bureaucracies are adopting AI tools without fully understanding their implications. As governance becomes more automated, human judgment is displaced by proceduralism, and the space for moral or political deliberation shrinks. This creates fertile ground for what you might call algorithmic authoritarianism — rule by system, not consent.

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6. The Crisis of Consent

Ultimately, AI governance is testing whether democratic societies can maintain legitimacy in the face of complexity. If citizens feel decisions are made by inscrutable systems or unaccountable elites, the social contract frays. That’s the real Caesar moment — not a coup, but a quiet collapse of consent.

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How civil society might push back against this drift — or how historical analogues like the printing press or the telegraph reshaped governance in similar ways. There’s a deep current here. Civil society right now is like God: TOO BUSY.

Moving on - both the printing press and the telegraph were seismic shifts in how power was distributed and exercised. They didn’t just change communication; they reconfigured the architecture of governance.

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The Printing Press (15th–17th centuries): The Democratizer of Knowledge

- Explosion of literacy and dissent: Gutenberg’s press shattered the monopoly of scriptoria and clergy over written knowledge. Suddenly, ideas could circulate widely and cheaply. This catalyzed the Reformation, scientific revolution, and eventually republican thought.

- Challenge to centralized authority: Monarchs and the Church initially tried to control the press through licensing and censorship. But the genie was out: pamphlets, broadsheets, and underground tracts became tools of resistance and reform.

- Birth of the public sphere: As Jürgen Habermas argued, the press helped create a space where citizens could debate policy and hold rulers accountable. Governance began to shift from divine right to public legitimacy.

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The Telegraph (19th century): The Centralizer of Command

- Collapse of distance: For the first time, governments could issue orders and receive intelligence across vast territories in near real time. This enabled the rise of bureaucratic empires and national coordination.

- Corporate and state fusion: Companies like Western Union became quasi-governmental actors, managing critical infrastructure. The telegraph helped birth national markets, central banks, and modern militaries.

- Media and surveillance: The telegraph enabled the first national news networks, shaping public opinion at scale. It also allowed states to monitor dissent and coordinate repression more efficiently.

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Too Much of a Good Thing

It’s one of the great paradoxes of the digital age. The democratization of knowledge, especially through the internet, has made information more accessible than ever before. But that very abundance has created a new kind of scarcity: the scarcity of attention, discernment, and trust.

Historically, the printing press overwhelmed early readers with pamphlets and polemics; today, we face what scholars call infoglut, data smog, or information anxiety. The Oxford Research Encyclopedia notes that information overload arises when there’s so much potentially useful content that it becomes a hindrance rather than a help.

Here’s how the overload undermines democratization:

- Signal vs. noise: When everyone can publish, the challenge shifts from access to evaluation. Truth competes with misinformation on equal footing.

- Cognitive fatigue: Constant exposure to fragmented, contradictory, or emotionally charged content can lead to disengagement or cynicism.

- Algorithmic distortion: Platforms designed to maximize engagement often amplify outrage or novelty, not accuracy — skewing what knowledge gets seen.

The democratization of knowledge has collided with the limits of human cognition and the incentives of digital capitalism. But it’s not a lost cause. The next frontier may be what Luciano Floridi calls “infosphere stewardship” — designing systems and literacies that help people navigate abundance without drowning in it. Personally I'd prefer a selective process or filter based on values. Currently the middle class is stuck in looking out for Number One. "YOU can benefit from a Time of Troubles!" Sorry, but this class's performance over the past 40 years has been dismal. (Typically the p'tit-boo fundies bought up real estate around the Dome of the Rock.) As for the working class, it reminds me of the MI6 agents disguised as Inuits in Monty Python's "Mr. Neutron" sketch: "More fish!!"

Ancient societies didn’t face “information overload” in the modern sense, but they did experience disruptive surges in knowledge — especially during periods of technological, religious, or imperial expansion. Their coping mechanisms were surprisingly sophisticated, blending ritual, memory systems, and institutional gatekeeping to manage the flow and meaning of new information.

Here’s how they did it:

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1. Ritual and Symbolic Compression

In oral cultures, information was encoded in rituals, myths, and symbols — forms that compressed complex knowledge into memorable, repeatable acts. Think of Vedic chants, Homeric epics, or African griot traditions. These weren’t just stories — they were mnemonic architectures that preserved law, cosmology, and ethics across generations.

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2. Institutional Gatekeeping

As writing spread (e.g. in Mesopotamia, Egypt, China), scribal classes emerged to control and curate information. These elites didn’t just record — they filtered. Access to archives, script, and interpretation was tightly regulated, creating an early form of epistemic hierarchy.

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3. Canon Formation

Religious and philosophical traditions responded to textual proliferation by **canonizing** certain works and excluding others. The Hebrew Bible, Confucian Five Classics, and Buddhist Tripitaka are all examples of curated knowledge systems designed to stabilize meaning amid textual expansion.

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4. Spatial Organization of Knowledge

Libraries like those in Nineveh or Alexandria weren’t just repositories — they were information architectures, with cataloging systems, metadata (like colophons), and even early forms of subject classification. They helped elites navigate abundance through physical order.

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5. Embodied Cognition and Memory Arts

In Greece and Rome, orators used the method of loci — a mental technique that mapped ideas onto imagined physical spaces. This allowed them to retain and retrieve vast amounts of information without external aids. It was a way to internalize complexity without being overwhelmed by it. Cumberbatch's Holmes used such a technique.

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In short, they turned memory into infrastructure and meaning into hierarchy.

Here’s a side-by-side look:

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1. Memory Palaces vs. Cloud Storage

- Ancient: Orators used the *method of loci* to mentally map knowledge onto imagined spaces—an embodied, mnemonic architecture.

- Modern: We outsource memory to cloud platforms, searchable databases, and AI assistants. The body is no longer the archive; the server is.

Trade-off: Ancient methods deepened internalization; modern tools maximize retrieval but risk shallow understanding.

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2. Canon Formation vs. Algorithmic Curation

- Ancient: Religious and philosophical traditions curated canons to stabilize meaning and exclude heresy.

- Modern: Algorithms curate feeds based on engagement, not epistemic value—creating filter bubbles instead of shared truths.

Trade-off: Ancient curation was slow but intentional; modern curation is fast but opaque.

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3. Scribes and Gatekeepers vs. Open Platforms

- Ancient: Scribes controlled access to writing and interpretation, reinforcing elite authority.

- Modern: Anyone can publish, but platforms like YouTube or X (formerly Twitter) act as de facto gatekeepers through moderation and monetization policies. (I think I've worn both of these out.)

Trade-off: We’ve democratized expression but re-centralized distribution.

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4. Ritual Compression vs. Data Visualization

- Ancient: Rituals encoded complex knowledge in symbolic acts — think of the Passover Seder or Vedic fire rites.

- Modern: Dashboards, infographics, and AI-generated summaries compress complexity into visual or textual shorthand.

Trade-off: Rituals fostered communal memory; digital compression often isolates the user.

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5. Libraries vs. Search Engines

- Ancient: Libraries like Alexandria organized knowledge spatially and hierarchically.

- Modern: Search engines flatten hierarchy, ranking results by relevance or popularity.

- Trade-off: Libraries encouraged slow, structured exploration; search engines reward speed and surface-level skimming.

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In short, modern tools echo ancient strategies — but often invert their values. Where ancients prized depth, continuity, and communal memory, we prioritize access, speed, and personalization. The challenge now is to reintegrate intentionality into our tools — so that abundance doesn’t become amnesia.

My personal method is to sniff out any Second-Gilded-Age self-serving. So much contention is being fueled by MAH-nee! Blood from a turnip, blood from a stone. Just find that niche issue and you have your side-hustle for life. ("Will blacks become the next Zionists?" "How the Nerds Were Co-Opted." "The Self-Destruction of the Neo-Matriarchy via Short-Sighted Lubricity.")

Want to explore how AI might help recover some of those ancient virtues—or how digital minimalism is a kind of modern ritual? I think you’d enjoy the parallels.

Digital minimalism functions as a modern ritual by reclaiming intentionality in a world of algorithmic abundance. Like ancient rites that structured time, attention, and meaning, digital minimalism offers a deliberate practice to counter the chaos of the infosphere.

Here’s how the parallels unfold:

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1. Ritual as Boundary-Making

Ancient rituals marked sacred time and space—Sabbaths, solstices, temple thresholds. Digital minimalism does something similar: it carves out zones of disconnection, like screen-free mornings or tech Sabbaths, to reassert control over attention.

> As Cal Newport puts it, it’s not about rejecting technology, but “using it to support your values, not subvert them”.

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2. Symbolic Abstention

Just as fasting or silence once signaled spiritual focus, digital minimalists often abstain from social media, push notifications, or multitasking. These acts become symbolic gestures — ritualized refusals that affirm autonomy in the face of digital compulsion.

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3. Repetition and Rhythm

Rituals gain power through repetition. Likewise, digital minimalism isn’t a one-time detox — it’s a rhythmic practice: weekly reviews of app usage, daily journaling, or scheduled “deep work” sessions. These routines anchor the self amid digital flux.

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4. Re-enchantment of the Ordinary

Minimalism often pairs with practices like hygge or slow living, which elevate mundane acts — reading a book, walking without earbuds—into intentional experiences. This mirrors how rituals once sacralized everyday life.

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5. Community and Identity

Just as rituals bind communities, digital minimalism fosters shared identity among practitioners. Online forums, books, and challenges (like “Digital Declutter”) create a sense of belonging around a countercultural ethos.

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In a way, digital minimalism is a secular ritual system for the age of overload — a way to restore meaning, rhythm, and agency in a world that monetizes distraction.

There’s a contemplative thread we could follow. But I won't. I didn't plan for this to become an advice column on coping skills. This rant really started as an examination of how you fine historical non-actors, in spite of your pop culture, let Trump get elected.