“The Enneads” by Plotinus (translated by George Boys-Stones, John M. Dillon, Lloyd P. Gerson, R.A.H. King, Andrew Smith, James Wilberding)

This huge corpus of philosophy was written by the Neo-Platonist, Plotinus, during the course of his lifetime, in the third century. He was almost certainly Greek, definitely born in Egypt, educated in Alexandria, and traveled during his lifetime as far afield as Persia and Rome. Plotinus wrote a comprehensive book of philosophy focusing on metaphysics, ethics, the human condition, and the nature of reality. He begins, “The virtuous person is always content and his state is one of tranquility, his disposition is lovable…. Happiness is living well, something which is bound up with the soul.”

Plotinus spent much of his thought grappling with the essence of the good and the nature of the human soul, the body, and the mind. “The Good is that upon which all beings depend and that ‘which all beings desire’; they have it as their principle and are also in need of it. It itself lacks nothing, being sufficient unto itself and in need of nothing. It is also the measure and limit of all beings, giving from itself Intellect and Substantiality and Soul and Life and the activity of Intellect. And all of these up to the Good are beautiful, but it itself is above Beauty and is the transcendent ruler of all that is best, all that is in the intelligible world…. Intellect is the primary activity that comes from the Good, and the primary Substance that comes from it, while it remains in itself.”

Not much space in “The Enneads” is concerned with worldly matters, but Plotinus does digress on the inequalities between men, “And if someone should complain of wealth and poverty, that is, of the inequality of their distribution to all people, then this person, first, fails to understand that the virtuous person is not interested in equality in these matters, nor does he think that those who have a lot of possessions are better off than those who do not, nor that those in positions of power are better off than private citizens, and that he rather leaves concerns of this kind to others. And the virtuous person is fully aware that there are two kinds of life here—that of the virtuous person and that of the human masses—and for the sage life is aimed at the highest peak and pinnacle, while the life of the all-too-human has again two forms—the one life involves the recollection of virtue and participating in some good, while the common mob is there, in a way, to do the manual work necessary to provide for the better kind.”

Metaphysics occupies the bulk of Plotinus’ philosophy. “And we are each of us an intelligible universe, connected to the world below by the lower parts of our soul, but to the intelligible world by our higher parts, that is, by our cosmic parts…. One should think that there is also a universe in our soul, not only an intelligible one, but a state like that of the soul of the universe. And just as the soul of the universe, too, has been distributed amongst the fixed stars and the planets according to its different powers, the powers in us are also of the same kind as these powers.” He continues, “Certainly, there is both the true universe and the imitation of the universe, that is, the nature of the visible universe. The true universe is, then, in nothing, for there is nothing prior to it…. The universe, the primary being, neither looks for a place nor is it in anything at all. Actually, the universe, being all, is not such that it falls short of itself; rather, it has both completed itself and is equal to itself. And where the universe is, it is there, for it is itself the universe…. And there is nothing to be astonished at if that which is everywhere is in being and in itself. For that which comes to be everywhere is already in unity.”

There is a dichotomy in Plotinus’ philosophy between the sensible world and the intelligible world. “Intellect, being real, thinks Beings and causes them to exist. It is, therefore these Beings…. For anything which is first is not a sensible. For the form in sensibles that is over and above their matter is an image of the real Form…. There must be, therefore, prior to the cosmos those Beings that are not impressions of other Beings, but archetypes and primarily Beings and Intellect’s substantiality…. Intellect, therefore, is the real Beings, and does not think Beings as if they were elsewhere. For they are neither prior to it nor after it. But it is, in a way, the primary lawgiver, or rather it is itself the law of their existence.” Plato’s theory of the forms also plays a substantial role in Plotinus’ metaphysics, “One has to grasp the general substantiality of the Forms, namely, that they exist, without someone, in thinking each of them, providing them with real existence by thought itself…. The thing itself, being without matter, is intelligible and intellection, not such as to be an account of the thing nor an act of apprehension of it, but the thing itself in the intelligible; what else could this be but intellection and scientific understanding…. This is not an image of the thing, but the thing itself…. One has to think that, generally, all things [in the intelligible world] lie within one nature, and that one nature contains them and, in a way, encompasses them, and not that they are each separate, as in the sensible realm.”

Finally, the primacy of the One is paramount to Plotinus’ metaphysics, “All beings are beings due to unity…. Being has life, too—for it is certainly not a corpse—it is, therefore, a many. If Being is Intellect, then it, too, would have to be many, all the more so if it contained the Forms. For the Idea is not one; rather, it is a Number, both each Idea, and all of them together, and one in the way that the cosmos is one. Generally speaking, the One is primary, while Intellect, Forms and Being are not primary…. So, neither will the One be all things, for then it would not still be one; nor is the One Intellect, for in that case it would be all things because Intellect is all things. Nor, finally, is the One Being. For Being is all things…. The biggest puzzle arising is that comprehension of the One is neither by scientific understanding or by intellection…. For this reason, Plato says it is neither to be spoken nor written of…. The One is certainly absent from nothing and from everything; it is present without being present, except to those who are able to receive it, and who are prepared for it, so as to be harmonious with it and in a way grasp it and touch it through their likeness to it…. The One, that is, the principle of all beings, is simple…. Intellect is not dispersed. Rather, it truly coheres with itself, without articulating itself, since it comes immediately after the One, having dared to depart somehow from the One…. Indeed, in truth no name suits it, but if indeed one has to name it, it is fitting to call it ‘One’, as is usually done, but not so that it is something else, and then one. This is the reason it is so difficult to know, and it is known rather through its offspring…. The One must be understood to be unlimited not because it cannot be traversed either in extension or number, but by being incomprehensible in its power…. Thus, there is no good for the One, and so it does not have a will for anything. It is beyond good, and is good not for itself but for other things, insofar as other things can participate in the Good.” 

“The Elephant in the Brain” by Robin Hanson and Kevin Simler

Humans often act in their own selfish interests. However, humans do not want to appear to others to be acting selfishly. Through evolution, the brain has come up with mechanisms to obscure one’s own selfish behavior. This book discusses the hidden motives that are ubiquitous in human society. These motives are so hidden that they are often hidden even from our conscious selves. Hanson and Simler’s thesis is “we, human beings, are a species that’s not only capable of acting on hidden motives- we’re design to do it. Our brains are built to act in our self-interest while at the same time trying hard not to appear selfish in front of other people. And in order to throw them off the trail, our brains often keep “us,” our conscious minds, in the dark. The less we know of our own ugly motives, the easier it is to hide from others.”

The social brain hypothesis suggests that humans got smarter than other primates primarily through competing with other humans in social and political situations. It was an intra-species arms race that led humanity to such massive brain size, through natural selection. Robert Trivers suggests, “both the detection of deception and often its propagation have been major forces favoring the evolution of intelligence. It is perhaps ironic that dishonesty has often been the file against which intellectual tools for truth have been sharpened.” We yearn for sexual partners, friends, prestige, and to be part of winning coalitions and so our brains have evolved to facilitate that type of success. However, signaling fitness as a mate, friend, or teammate is costly. “The best signals- the most honest ones- are expensive. More precisely, they are differentially expensive: costly to produce, but even more costly to fake.” Furthermore, successful humans live within the bounds of societies governed by norms. “The insistent egalitarianism of our ancestors was arguably the world’s first true norm…. Collective enforcement, then, is the essence of norms.” Collective punishment can deter even the strongest of alpha males and force them into submitting to the group. Gossip is an effective tool in spreading reputation and, therefore, status within society.  Meta-norms have also been established, whereby those who don’t actively punish norm breakers, because it might seem too costly, are themselves punished, thereby reinforcing group cohesion and loyalty. 

So, while it pays to be selfish, even more so, it pays not to look selfish. However, “weaker norms, the ones that regulate intention, are harder to notice.” Intentions leave room for more leeway and ambiguity. “Pretexts are a broad and useful tool for getting away with norm violations. They make prosecution more difficult by having a ready explanation for your innocence.” Discreet communication also allows for ambiguous interpretation. Body language, cryptic talk, and subtext all allow for deniability. These methods allow one to convey one’s meaning to the intended recipient, but also leeway to deny that meaning if confronted by a third party or even betrayed by your target. It is even easier to appear unselfish if you are able to deceive yourself. “It’s possible for our brains to maintain a relatively accurate set of beliefs in systems tasked with evaluating potential actions, while keeping those accurate beliefs hidden from the systems (like consciousness) involved in managing social impressions.” As Robert Trivers notes, “we deceive ourselves, the better to deceive others.” This pays evolutionarily. “We’re often rewarded for acting on selfish impulses, but less so for acknowledging them.” To do this we often come up with justifications. “Rationalization, sometimes known to neuroscientists as confabulation, is the production of fabricated stories made up without any conscious intention to deceive.” We spin our version of the truth for others (and ourselves) to consume.

We convey many intentions through body language. Leonard Mlodinow notes, “much, if not most, of the nonverbal signaling and reading of signals is automatic and performed outside our conscious awareness and control.” Hanson and Simler continue, “body language, however, is not arbitrary. Instead nonverbal behaviors are meaningfully, functionally related to the messages they’re conveying.” Acts of following and copying another can show sympathy or submission. Rituals, such as hand shaking or kissing of the hand, similarly convey status. Body language’s primary usefulness is in its lack of explicitness. “Relative to spoken language, it’s considerably more ambiguous. While the overall patterns of body language may be consistent, any isolated behavior will have many interpretations…. This is the magic of nonverbal communication. It allows us to pursue illicit agendas, even ones that require coordinating with other people, while minimizing the risk of being attacked, accused, gossiped about, and censured for norm violations.”

Laughter is another way to convey intentions ambiguously and often unconsciously. “We use laughter to flirt, bond with friends, mock our enemies, probe social norms, and mark the boundaries of our social groups. It’s a response to social cues, laced with interpersonal significance, and yet “we”- the conscious, deliberate, willful parts of our minds- don’t get to decide when we do it.” Humans laugh thirty times more often in groups than when alone. Speakers laugh fifty times more than listeners. Babies laugh more when tickled by their mothers than when tickled by a stranger. Laughter is a social phenomenon. It is a signal of play. “When we laugh at our own actions, it’s a signal to our playmates that our intentions are ultimately playful (although we may seem aggressive)…. When we laugh in response to someone else’s actions, however, it’s a statement not about intentions but perceptions. It says, “I perceive your actions as playful; I know you’re only kidding around.”” Laughter can be used to test norms. “We use laughter to gauge and calibrate social boundaries- both behavioral boundaries (norms) and group membership boundaries (who deserves how much of our empathy)…. Laughter, then, shows us the boundaries that language is too shy to make explicit.” Laughter allows us to test what is appropriate and what will get sanctioned by the group.

Why do humans engage in so much conversation? “We spend roughly 20 percent of our waking lives engaged in conversation.” One might assume it is to gain information cheaply. “Listening costs very little, but has the large benefit of helping us learn vicariously, that is, from the knowledge and experience of others.” Yet, it seems most of us prefer to speak than to listen. In fact, humans have evolved and honed our tools for speech far more than our listening apparatus. It seems that we have evolutionarily adapted to become better speakers, while remaining relatively unchanged on the listening front. Speaking well must have a benefit. “Every remark made by a speaker contains two messages for the listener: text and subtext. The text says, “Here’s a new piece of information,” while the subtext says, “By the way, I’m the kind of person who knows such things.” We convey a signal about the type of person we are (or hope to portray ourselves to be) through speech. We demonstrate our fitness and imply that we are the kind of person others should gravitate towards by talking to others, not by listening.

Humans engage in consumption, but more than that, we enjoy conspicuous consumption. We take pleasure in showing off. We even discuss our services and experiences with others (or post them on social media), so that we can flaunt those intangibles, as well as material goods. What is self-described as individuality or personality is often another way of distinguishing ourselves from the herd. Advertisements rely on this instinct in humans. “The easier it is to judge someone based on a particular product, the more it will be advertised using cultural images and lifestyle associations.” Fancy products are often advertised to the masses, who cannot afford them, because of this third person effect. By showing the product to non-buyers, it still increases the prestige of the product and thus the prestige of those few who can afford to buy it.

Art seems to be wasteful from the standpoint of natural selection. Making art is “a costly behavior, both in time and energy, but at the same time it’s impractical.” However, while it doesn’t make sense to produce art in terms of fitness selection, it does in terms of sexual selection. It signals that you are the type of person who is so fit you can waste your time on art. “Human art is more than just a courtship display, that is, an advertisement of the artist’s value as a potential mate. It also functions as a general-purpose fitness display, that is an advertisement of the artist’s health, energy, vigor, coordination, and overall fitness. Fitness displays can be used to woo mates, of course, but they also serve other purposes like attracting allies or intimidating rivals.” That is why it is often the extrinsic properties of art that society judges artwork by. “These properties include who the artist is, which techniques were used, how many hours it took, how “original” it is, how expensive the materials were, and so on.” These properties help to advertise the “survival surplus” of the artist. It is the very fact that he can spend so much time and effort on something non-functional that suggests that he has such as surplus of fitness that he can afford to waste his energy on frivolous pursuits. The impracticality and waste is actually the feature.

Humans like to appear altruistic. However, “only 3 percent of donors do comparative research to find the best nonprofit to give to…. People also prefer to “diversify” their donations…. Only 1 percent of donations to public charities are anonymous.” This leads Hanson and Simler to believe that charity is actually more about making the giver feel good, than about helping others. They point to five factors that have been shown to influence charitable giving: visibility of the giving, peer pressure, proximity to the people being helped, relatability of the recipient, and thinking others from the opposite sex will notice. After all, “up to 95 percent of all donations are given in response to a solicitation.” Studies have also shown that men are much more likely to give to a cause when approached by a stranger of the opposite sex. We only get social rewards when others notice. Charitable behavior sends a signal that we have an excess of goods and wealth.  It also conveys that we are prosocial individuals, concerned with the greater good. They argue against Peter Singer’s theory of charity. “Singer may be right that there’s no moral principle that differentiates between a child drowning nearby and another one starving thousands of miles away. But there are very real social incentives that make it more rewarding to save the local boy. It’s a more visible act, more likely to be celebrated by the local community, more likely to result in getting laid or making new friends.”

Hanson and Simler rely on much of Bryan Caplan’s work to assert that most education is signaling. The sheepskin effect seems undeniable. “Each of the first three years of high school or college (the years that don’t finish in a degree) are worth on average only about a 4 percent salary bump. But the last year of high school and the last year of college, where students complete a degree, are each worth on average about a 30 percent higher salary.” Students signal their innate intelligence, work ethic, and ability to conform to expectations by finishing what is expected of them, school. School performance is just a proxy for future work productivity.

Medicine in America is expensive. Hanson and Simler suggest much of it is unneeded. There is social pressure to enlist every possible treatment, no matter the cost, lest there be gossip that we didn’t care enough for our dying parent or spouse. Expense has been equated with care. Cheap remedies are deemed not as effective as the newest expensive drug or fancy technological gadget. More is always better. The credentials and reputation of doctors shield them from probing questions. We are taught never to question the experts. However, Alex Tabarrok points out, “more people die from medical mistakes each year than from highway accidents, breast cancer, or AIDS and yet physicians still resist and the public does not demand even simple reforms.” Hanson and Simler add, “the public is eager for medical interventions that help people when they’re sick, but far less eager for routine lifestyle interventions.” The one is visible and thus could be commented on by neighbors and peers, while the other is often hidden from public approbation. “Medicine isn’t just about health- it’s also an exercise in conspicuous caring.”

Religiosity is still deemed admirable in American life. More citizens would prefer a Muslim president to an atheist one. Yet, “most religions are fairly lax on questions of private belief as long as adherents demonstrate public acceptance of the religion.” Jonathan Haidt says, “religion is a team sport.” Emile Durkheim agrees that “God is society writ large.” Sacrifice is a signal to the community that one takes religion seriously. Whether it is wearing distinctive clothes, abstaining from eating certain meats, giving alms, or actually killing an animal, sacrifice is costly and, therefore, hard to fake. By going to sermons you are implicitly submitting to the authority of the speaker and the religious organization at large. You are endorsing the message and staying within the norms of the group. Beliefs can be arbitrary, but as long as they are distinctive they serve the purpose of creating an in group/out group bond.

Politics seems to cost more than it’s worth. No single vote actually matters, but it costs time and energy to go to the polls. Yet, voting allows you to signal what team you are on. It is the symbolism that matters, not the results. Voters in “swing” states (where your vote might theoretically matter more) hardly show up to the polls in greater numbers than in “safe” states. Voters care more about values than particular policies. Even uninformed voters are encouraged to go vote. This only makes sense if voting is more about personal expression than actual outcome.

Hanson and Simler argue that in all these fields the brain distorts your real motives to your benefit. It makes you look better to the group than your real motives might. “Key tasks for our distant ancestors were tracking how others saw them, watching for ways others might accuse them of norm violations, and managing stories of their motives and plans to help them defend against such accusations. The difficulty of this task was a big reason humans had such big brains.” They conclude by suggesting, “savvy institution designers must therefore identify both the surface goals to which people give lip service and the hidden goals that people are also trying to achieve.” Humans are selfish and designed to conceal it. Any useful public policy will bear this in mind.

“Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future” by Dan Wang

For much of this past decade, Wang worked for an economics research firm, Gavekal Dragonomics, spotting macro and geopolitical trends for hedge funds and other well-paying institutions, while living in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai, also traveling the country extensively, looking at Chinese trends on the ground. Now, back in America, Wang has formulated this book into standalone chapters, loosely copying the format of the annual letters that he used to send out from China, which riffed on his thoughts of the past year. Wang begins, “Socialist China detains union organizers, levies light taxes, and provides a threadbare social safety net. The greatest trick that the Communist Party ever pulled off is masquerading as leftist…. China is an engineering state, which can’t stop itself from building…. Deng Xiaoping promoted engineers to the top ranks of China’s government throughout the 1980s and 1990s. By 2002, all nine members of the Politburo’s standing committee—the apex of the Communist Party—had trained as engineers…. Xi Jinping studied chemical engineering at Tsinghua, China’s top science university. For his third term as the Communist Party’s general secretary starting in 2022, Xi filled the politburo with executives from the country’s aerospace and weapons ministries…. The fundamental tenet of the engineering state is to look at people as aggregates, not individuals…. The chief feature of the engineering state is building big public works, no matter the financial or human cost.”

Wang worries about the loss of manufacturing capacity in America. He contrasts it with China’s ability to constantly build. “Embracing process knowledge means looking to people to embody eternity rather than to grand monuments. Furthermore, instead of viewing “technology” as a series of cool objects, we should look at it as a living practice…. The National Nuclear Security Administration found that it could no longer produce “Fogbank,” a classified material used to detonate the bomb, because it hadn’t kept good records of the production process and everyone who knew how to produce it had retired. The NNSA then spent $69 million to relearn how to produce this material…. It’s rare for blueprints to encode enough information to be technologically valuable…. Process knowledge is hard to measure because it exists mostly in people’s heads and the pattern of their relationships to other technical workers. We tend to refer to these intangibles as know-how, institutional memory, or tacit knowledge. They are embodied by an experienced workforce like Shenzhen’s…. Shenzhen is a community of engineering practice where factory owners, skilled engineers, entrepreneurs, investors, and researchers mix with the world’s most experienced workforce at producing high-end electronics…. The value of these communities of engineering practice is greater than any single company or engineer. Rather, they have to be understood as ecosystems of technology.”

There is a takeaway, related first in an anecdote, from Wang’s return to America which stood out. “I found one item particularly quite irksome on my return to America in 2023: a yard sign that begins “In this home we believe science is real.” The Communist Party “followed the science” of zero-Covid to its logical conclusion: barring people from their homes, testing people on a near-daily basis, and doing everything else it could to break the chains of transmission. Four decades ago, it “followed the science” to forcibly prevent many pregnancies in the pursuit of the one-child policy…. We can agree that “science is real.” But we have to keep in mind that there is a political determination involved with how to interpret the science. And that is something the lawyerly society is better at. It has lawyers interested in protecting rights, economists able to think through social science, humanists who consider ethics, and many other voices in the mix, attempting to open policy prescriptions up for debate. China doesn’t have a robust system for political contestation; engineers will simply follow the science until it leads to social immiseration.”

China’s engineering society has other downsides. Wang discusses Xi’s recent effort to clip the wings of China’s own tech sector. “The Communist Party distrusts and fears the Chinese people…. Authoritarian systems aren’t good at disseminating bad news…. China’s crackdown consisted of both technocratic regulation and an effort to impose political discipline on a freewheeling sector. Xi has forcefully reminded China’s tech companies that they cannot represent a power center that challenges the state’s sovereignty…. The Communist Party reminded them that it retains the discretionary power to engineer all aspects of society…. In the name of achieving change, the engineering state delivers such beatings on people or industries that they are unable to pick themselves back up again. Even if Xi’s judgments are right, his brute-force solutions reliably worsen things…. Sometimes, the only thing scarier than China’s problems are Beijing’s solutions…. The Chinese government often resembles a crew of skilled firefighters who douse blazes they themselves ignited…. After alienating so many people, has Xi decided to change course? No, he’s doubling down on promoting engineers to leadership…. Social engineering will increase as well. In 2018, Xi praised teachers as engineers of the soul, a phrase first used by Joseph Stalin…. [Xi] has talked about how love of the party and the country needs to start young, which means to “grab little ones from the cradle.” The party’s messages need to “enter the mind, enter the heart, and enter the hands.””

Xi is also ready to isolate China from the West and go to war if need be to fulfill his vision of China’s future. “In speeches to China’s national security community, he has spoken about “ensuring normal operation of the national economy under extreme circumstances.” What does that mean? As usual, the top leader is oblique, but it suggests that he’s worried that China will one day be cut off from the rest of the world…. The intention, it feels to me, is to build China into a great fortress…. Xi has already put up higher walls. In 2018, while I was living in Hong Kong, I started to tell people that China might close its doors in forty years, by the centenary of the founding of the People’s Republic. At that point, it will once again become the Celestial Empire, its people serenely untroubled by the turmoils of barbarians beyond its borders…. It turned out that I was off by a centenary: China had been mostly shut in 2021, a hundred years after the founding of the Communist Party. The pandemic was like a practice run—an exercise in what life in China would be like with its doors closed to the outside world. Xi apparently liked what he saw…. At the end of 2024, the country felt more fortresslike than before the pandemic…. It’s not encouraging for the future of Chinese and American relations that there are only about a thousand American students studying in China. Just before the pandemic, there were ten times that many.”

Wang concludes by, again, pointing out what China’s engineering state sees at its highest priorities. “Rather than prizing efficiency and just-in-time deliveries, China has invested in redundancies and shock buffers…. China takes energy security seriously…. Low carbon capacity—solar, wind, nuclear—has to be understood as part of a broader motivation to make the country dependent on energy sources within its borders…. In 2023, China added twenty times more coal-burning capacity than the rest of the world put together…. That also explains why China is so enthusiastic about electrifying the auto fleet: It would rather burn domestic coal than Middle East oil to power its cars…. China takes food security seriously as well…. [Xi stated,] “The bowls of the Chinese people should be filled mostly with Chinese grain.” The pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have made Beijing more conscious of food self-sufficiency. Chinese leaders have always been aware that food shortages have toppled imperial dynasties. And so one of the things that provincial governors are graded on is whether they are self-sufficient in rice and wheat, while mayors of major cities have to make sure that a variety of foods are grown locally.” Wang ends, “Communist Party propaganda blared in 2023, “China will always be a developing country.””

“The German Sturm und Drang” by Roy Pascal

Pascal's book is a history of the Sturm und Drang movement, which took place in Germany roughly between 1770 and 1778. Although relatively brief, the movement was to have a large impact on the contemporary debates about social criticism, morality, the role of government, religion, poetry, and, in particular, it was to presage the ideas of the German Romantic movement in many ways. “Associates of the Sturm und Drang were urged on by the desire to live according to instinctive feeling, to fashion their lives according to intuition and ‘revelation’, not social norms and practical reasonableness.” There was a general unease and restlessness about the current epoch that helped mold the Sturmer und Drangers. Hamann, Herder, Goethe, and Lenz were the movement’s most enduring members.

Hamann was the eldest of the group. He was a pietist, hated the French bureaucracy, installed by Frederick the Great, despite holding a minor post under it, was a thoroughly impractical man, and, finally, was an obscure writer, known for his Biblical allusions. He despised public affairs and social conventions. He prized intuition over reason. This led to a “repudiation of the claims of all political and social organization, an expression of his conviction that only religious faith, and private life in which religious belief can be fostered, have real value.” Thus he was “against the authority of all impersonal forces, whether of state or metaphysics, against all formalism in religion and secular life.” His was a spiritual, subjective individualism. Hamann espoused, “Everything that man undertakes, whether it be produced in action or word or anything else, must spring from his whole united powers; all separation of powers is to be repudiated.” He valued experience and personal feelings above all else.

Herder considered Hamann a friend and a mentor. However, he was not as doctrinaire as him. Herder sought a synthesis of theory and practice, of thought and action. However, he too prized feelings, intuition, perception, and using one’s senses as a means of discovering reality. Herder, alone in the movement, was “to construct a general philosophy of life, embracing the scientific, practical and intuitive faculties of man…. a philosophy of man which would justify all his capacities, including the senses, that would give all his faculties more intense life and vibration.” He had manic and depressive spells in which he alternated between rapturous enthusiasm and hypochondria.

Goethe is perhaps the most famous of the Sturmer und Dranger. Although his views would significantly change as he got older, in this period of his life, he prized feelings over science and reason. As he put it, he was “surrendering himself from moment to moment.” Herder would say to him, “everything with you is vision.” He lived an intense life in which experience dominated and he was able to express both his feelings and imagination ably. During the Sturm und Drang period, Goethe exclaimed, “I am delighted! I am happy! I feel it, and yet the whole content of my joy is a surging longing for something I do not possess, for something I do not know.” His happiness was buoyed by the search of something indescribable. He was  a man of extremes, who lurched from one intense experience to another. “Goethe lives in a constant inward war and rebellion, since all things have a most violent effect on him.” He did not respect the normal social and moral values, and so “he sought in his works not to teach or preach, but to find a form for his experience of the world, and through this form to grow in range and depth.”

Lenz is perhaps the least well known major character in the Sturm und Drang movement. He was an emotional man. He felt, “the greatest misfortune is lack of capacity for feeling…. My greatest sufferings are caused by my own heart, and yet, in spite of all, the most unbearable state is when I am free of suffering.” He was a man who suffered much, but who knew that his greatest thoughts were propelled by such suffering. He revealed to a colleague, “my philosophical reflections must not last more than two or three minutes, otherwise my head aches.” His thoughts could be profound. Lenz pondered, “the more I investigate myself and reflect on myself, the more reasons I find to doubt that I am really an independent being, despite the burning desire within me to be so.” Yet, he was a man crippled by his own doubts and insufficiencies, “give me more real sorrows so that the imaginary ones don’t overwhelm me.”

What united the Sturm und Drang? There was a conviction that life was all about feelings and intuition above reason and metaphysics. They also buckled against the social mores and general morality of their age. “They suffer continually under the pressure of practical life, not only in the form of routine work but also in that of social morality. The normal definitions of good and evil are irrelevant to their values, for they seek above all intense life, joy and woe, without which all human relationships are meaningless for them. They are tossed about by their emotions and imagination, are unstable, can see no perspective for the realisation of their ideals, and often feel themselves to be prey to forces within them which they worship even in their destructive power.” Theirs was a quest for “personal significance within an environment they considered worthless.”

The members of the Sturm und Drang movement were opposed to all absolutism. They did not believe in universal values. They buckled under the rule of an absolute monarch and impersonal laws. They were concerned with a national culture. However, this was far from the racist nationalism that sprung up and corrupted their thoughts later in the 20th century. Theirs was an appreciation for the forms of life and art that were grounded in the nation. Hamann would always stress the primacy of family versus the State as an organizing social institution. Leisewitz would ask, “And must the whole human race, in order to be happy, be locked up in states- where each man is a slave to others, and no-one is free- where each is riveted to the other end of the chain by which he holds his slave fast? Only idiots can dispute whether society poisons mankind- both sides admit that the state murders freedom.”

The Sturm und Drang praised the simple morality of the common folk that was unreflecting and unsophisticated. They particularly found sympathy with the Volk, the poorest of the laborers and peasants. The Sturm und Drang praised practical work, free from the learned society of professionals and bureaucrats. The Volk possessed a simple wisdom, spoke with unvarnished speech, and often felt and believed without having to espouse a reason. “Here sturdy individualism and communal ties, realism and religion were reconciled.” Moser would emphasize, “learning has weakened and perverted all human pleasures.” Herder, particularly, saw folksongs as embodying latent knowledge and national culture, passed down through the generations. The national poetry was embedded in folksong. For Herder, folksong was “the impression of the nation’s heart, a living grammar, the best dictionary and natural history of the people.”

Most of the Sturmer und Dranger were Pietists or, at least, viewed Christian religion with respect and awe.  “Religion as they understood it is not a mere code of belief in a supernatural reality, a mere discipline or rule of behaviour, but the expression of a total relationship between man and the universe, man and his fellows, and between the different faculties of man; it embraces theory and practice.” The Sturmer und Dranger felt obliged to surrender to their innermost feelings, often expressed in their religious devotion. Merck would chastise the Deists, who “have deprived religion of all its sensuous elements, that is, of all its relish.” Hamann’s world was “a living web of meanings, instead of an objective, impersonal structure.” Hamaan would insist, “our own existence and the existence of all things outside us must be believed, and can be proved in no other way.” Herder would ask, “but what is a God, if he is not in you and you do not feel and taste his Being in an infinitely inward fashion?” Goethe did not consider himself a believer and yet he found “love and tolerance towards religion, a friendly feeling towards the Gospel, a holier veneration for the Word.” Faith, for Goethe, was the inner expression of the good life. He stated, “in religious faith, I used to say, the important thing is that one should believe; what one believes is of no concern…. Whether [children] believe in Christ, or Gotz, or Hamlet, it’s all one, but see that they do believe in something. If you don’t believe in something you despair about yourself…. The only useful religion must be simple and warm.” Lavater also believed in “the immediate feeling of Christ” that was a “sensuous experience.” He stated, “religion is the need for higher invisible things and a faith in them; religion is always sense, feeling, genius for the invisible, the higher, the superhuman, supermundane; religion is always faith!” Lenz would agree, “the soul creates itself and therewith its future state…. So all our independence, our whole existence is based on the number, the scope, the truth of our feelings and experiences, and on the strength with which we face up to them, think about them or, what is the same, are conscious of them.”

The Sturm und Drang struggled to find a purpose in the harsh reality in which they lived. “Obscurely but determinedly they refuse to see man as the instrument of external forces or as chained to external purposes, be they religious, metaphysical, physical, or social; they refuse to exalt one side of man, his soul or reason or sense, at the expense of others; they destroy the image man made of himself as an abstract intelligence, or a sentimental idealist, or a sensual egoist in the Mandeville or Helvetius sense. Man exists, in their view, to be himself most intensely, to develop all his powers to the full.” Goethe would summarize, “All that a man undertakes, whether it be by deed or word or anything else, must spring from his whole united powers; all separation is to be rejected.” Herder would emphasize, “The development of the forces of our soul is the purpose of our existence on earth…. Everyone’s actions should arise utterly from himself, according to his innermost character, he should be true to himself: that is the whole of morality.” Herder espoused a moral pluralism as well as a cultural pluralism. He stated, “each nation has its centre of happiness in itself, as a sphere its centre of gravity…. We live in a world we ourselves create.” Herder would go on, “The ideal of happiness changes as circumstances and regions change- for what else is it but the sum of fulfillment of wishes, of the purposes, and the gentle surmounting of wants, which all are transformed according to land, time and place.” Each culture is unique and cannot be judged by the criteria of another. There is no single purpose to life. Klinger would say, “I live like all true sons of Prometheus in the inward war of energies and activity with the bounds which men have imposed on demi-gods for their own comfort, for otherwise they would be crushed for ever.” Lenz would emphasize, “that action, action, is the soul of the world, not enjoyment, not sentimentality, not ratiocination, and only so do we become images of God, who incessantly acts and incessantly rejoices over his works. This we learn: that the active force within us is our spirit, our highest portion, which alone gives our body with all its sensory properties and feelings a true life, and true consistency, and true value, and without which all our enjoyment, all our feelings, all our knowledge are merely passive, merely a postponed death.” Goethe would say of man, “Nature is the source of his being, as it is the limit; what is beyond is meaningless, is unreal.” Herder sums up the Sturm und Drang’s feelings that man “is but an ant, that crawls on the wheel of fate.”

The Sturm und Drang movement is perhaps best expressed through their poetry. Herder would claim that poetic beauty is “what raises me above myself, what sets in motion all my powers.” He speaks to the poet, “for you, as a dramatic poet, no clock strikes on tower and temple, but you have to create space and time; and if you can produce a world and it cannot exist but in time and space, lo, your measure of time and space lies within you.” On language, Herder hypothesizes, “in a sensuous language there must be unclear words, synonyms, inversions, idioms…. Idioms are patronymic treasures of beauty, like the palm trees round the academy of Athens which were dedicated to Minerva.” He concludes, “the object of poetry is the energy that adheres to the inner meaning of words, the magic power which works upon my soul through fancy and memory.” Hamann would intone, “Speak so that I can see you…. Senses and passions speak and understand nothing but images. In images rests the whole treasury of human knowledge and understanding.” Lavater felt there was something divine expressed in poetry. He asks and answers himself, “Who is a poet? A spirit who feels that he can create, and who does create, and whose creation does not only please himself as his work, but of whose creation all tongues must witness: Truth! Truth! Nature! Nature! We see what we never saw, and hear what we never heard, and yet, what we see and hear is flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone!” Poetry, above all, must have realism; it must be lived within you. Burger would write, “in poetry, in spite of all divine sublimity, everything must be tangible and visual; if not, it is no poetry for this world, but perhaps for a different world which, however, does not exist.” Lenz summarizes the aims of the poetry of the Sturm und Drang, “We would like to penetrate with one glance into the innermost nature of all beings, to absorb with one feeling all the joy that is in nature and combine it with ourselves.”