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“Balance in the universe” concepts (karma, what goes up must come down, what goes around comes around, Golden Rule) are authoritarian high modernism in culture and myth-making. The universe does have balancey things going on but they aren’t THAT crude. Takes artifice to force it
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These ideas predate modernism so are you saying high modernism embraces them? But authoritarian high modernist states reject many of these cyclic ideas; consider the thousand year Reich, the end of term limits, etc. they sure don’t Golden Rule
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What is the psychological tendency? To pattern-match a chaotic world into a semblance of order through pithy maxims? That’s true of pretty much any human cognition, and it can always produce pseudo-insights of such generality as to be unpredictive.
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If anything, it seems to me that AHM rejects balance in the universe, in statist planning, in architecture, in expansionism, in power relations between state and citizens. Can you guide me through some concrete examples so I can see where you’re coming from?
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My understanding of high modernism is that it is sited specifically in history, rising in the 1950s. You seem to be saying that AHM tendencies are a consistent part of the postagricultural human psyche: pyramid builders, Chinese dynastys, Roman roads. (Sapiens would agree.)
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