{"id":162,"date":"2018-11-11T16:45:03","date_gmt":"2018-11-11T21:45:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/psci257-f18\/?p=162"},"modified":"2018-11-11T16:45:46","modified_gmt":"2018-11-11T21:45:46","slug":"study-notes-for-modernitys-wager-by-adam-seligman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/psci257-f18\/modernitys-wager\/study-notes-for-modernitys-wager-by-adam-seligman\/","title":{"rendered":"Study Notes for Modernity&#8217;s Wager, by Adam Seligman"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><i>\u00a0<\/i>1.\u00a0 Once you cut through the jargon, Seligman&#8217;s argument is premised on a simple claim:\u00a0 Modernity&#8217;s wager rests on the notion that the individual, as an unfettered authority, will make the world better than one in which authority resides in the sacred.\u00a0 Put plainly, moderns are hostile to authority other than their own.\u00a0 Seligman&#8217;s assessment of how this bet has played out is grim.\u00a0 Be prepared to explain why he is so skeptical of improvement, as well as what he sees as the consequences of this failed wager.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>2.\u00a0 Again, internal versus external sources of authority are the lynchpin of Seligman&#8217;s account of modernity.\u00a0 Be ready to compare Seligman&#8217;s call for a return to the scared with Tocqueville&#8217;s prescription of &#8220;fixed beliefs.&#8221;\u00a0 How might these be reconciled to individual freedom and autonomy, to modernity&#8217;s promise of emancipation and universal equality?<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>3.\u00a0 Do you accept Seligman&#8217;s premise that modernity has called into being its own antitheses, in the form of fundamentalism, violence, etc.?\u00a0 Are our lives fully transactional and measured by a calculus of exchange and choice?\u00a0 Or do we still ethical lives, bound by an &#8220;irrational&#8221; (unreasoned) morality, unquestioned and taken on faith?<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>4.\u00a0 The weakness of the individual in modernity, which we&#8217;ve discussed in the last two sessions, is highlighted rather clearly on pp. 49-50.\u00a0 Please take a close look at this section.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>5.\u00a0 Consider the parable of Mr. Stern and the question of shame (pp. 72-77).\u00a0 How does this imagined story relate to your own life, if at all?\u00a0 Is this section coherent, or intelligible?<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a01.\u00a0 Once you cut through the jargon, Seligman&#8217;s argument is premised on a simple claim:\u00a0 Modernity&#8217;s wager rests on the notion that the individual, as an unfettered authority, will make the world better than one in which authority resides in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/psci257-f18\/modernitys-wager\/study-notes-for-modernitys-wager-by-adam-seligman\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1690,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9],"class_list":["post-162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-modernitys-wager","tag-modernitys-wager"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/psci257-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/psci257-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/psci257-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/psci257-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1690"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/psci257-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/psci257-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/psci257-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162\/revisions\/163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/psci257-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/psci257-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/psci257-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}