Well it’s fashion in this exact sense I was thinking of (hype). I just read this (lengthy) relevant quote:

“In her book, Philosophy in a New Key, Susanne Langer remarks that certain ideas burst upon the intellectual landscape with a tremendous force. They resolve so many fundamental problems at once that they seem also to promise that they will resolve all fundamental problems, clarify all obscure issues. Everyone snaps them up as the open sesame of some new positive science, the conceptual center-point around which a comprehensive system of analysis can be built. The sudden vogue of such a grande ideé, crowding out almost everything else for a while, is due, she says, “to the fact that all sensitive and active minds turn at once to exploiting it. We try it in every connection, for every purpose, experiment with possible stretches of its strict meaning, with generalizations and derivatives.”

After we have become familiar with the new idea, however, after it has become part of our general stock of theoretical concepts, our expectations are brought more into balance with its actual uses, and its excessive popularity is ended. A few zealots persist in the old key-to-the-universe view of it; but less driven thinkers settle down after a while to the problems the idea has really generated. They try to apply it and extend it where it applies and where it is capable of extension; and they desist where it does not apply or cannot be extended. It becomes, if it was, in truth, a seminal idea in the first place, a permanent and enduring part of our intellectual armory. But it no longer has the grandiose, all-promising scope, the infinite versatility of apparent application, it once had. The second law of thermodynamics, or the principle of natural selection, or the notion of unconscious motivation, or the organization of the means of production does not explain everything, not even everything human, but it still explains something; and our attention shifts to isolating just what that something is, to disentangling ourselves from a lot of pseudoscience to which, in the first flush of its celebrity, it has also given rise.”

Given I’m, still quite intellectually curious about the bearings (and philosophical implications) of evolutionary thinking I probably have to seriously considering the book.

First of all: I’m actually making quite a trivial point – that humans often need a hand to navigate this world (like the bright colors of a lifebuoy to metromaps only highlighting routes and not the entire infrastructure) – but by accentuating it it suddenly becomes an ethical issue of manipulation. But I’m thrilled that anybody joins us to explore the details. Thanks!

Let’s take your comment bit by bit. Regarding the dethronement of rationality I cannot quite figure out if we disagree or if it’s just hairsplitting. I think that few today regard our rationality as supreme, ‘clean’ and autonomous as we did just a century ago (why do you think Freud and Nietzsche created such a fuzz?). So yes, there is something wrong in believing in rationality as good guidance whether it’s individually or collectively. And that is NOT common knowledge if you study people choices and not least their explanations for choosing so.

As regard communication I cannot follow your point that its sole purpose is to make people ‘find out more about themselves’. Communication serves numerous different purposes. Instruction, information, communication, etc. And as for the beautiful philosophical aim of ‘know thyself’ as the ultimate goal in life I can only say: well for some (rationalistic enlightenment philosophers) that might be so. The rest just want a flat screen television, a little love and a yearly trip abroad.

So the point of not helping people to make fewer mistakes is flawed. A 25 year old drug-infused man drives your 3 year old daughter over at high speed. Should we try to avoid that kind of behavioral mistakes from other 20-28 old males (that unfortunately doesn’t have the cognitive capacities to recognize own mortality and the consequences of their actions) or just let them reflect upon their mistakes and change behavior some 10-15 years later? I think most agree we should ‘help’ them. On a less dramatic note: Should we help obese people with the wrong network, habits and trouble understanding nutrition loose weight by stimulating the right choices? Again yes I think we should? Should we do it covered, with coercion or commercially? No of course not. The Nudge literature is full of examples of the importance of free choice (proponents confess to ‘libertarian paternalism’) and in KL7 we are proponents of transparency (e.g. through monitoring and feedback as the agent for behavioral change). But the break assistant in modern cars that step in if you approach the object at too high speed first with a notification and ultimately just taking over breaking control doesn’t need your consent. There is simply no scenario where the non-breaking outcome is desired (we do not design for suicide). So the need for freedom is a continuum and not a ultimatum. Besides the situations in life where our solutions are relevant is only a fraction of everyday choice. So I still haven’t issues sleeping at night in trying to make this world a little healthier, safer, cleaner, and more beautiful.

Hope my answer made sense, clarified our position and helped you find out just a little bit more about yourself

Ed
http://www.CarolinaEventPlanning.com