In medieval times, moral philosophy was ‘absolutist’.
This is the belief that there was a definite right and wrong in all circumstances.
The main reason for this was religion.
Life and death depended on religion, and religion depended on belief not reason.
So humans were limited to obeying, not thinking.
But since medieval times, religion has lost its grip on our minds.
Now we are capable of thinking and questioning.
And that has led to the rise of ‘relativist’ moral philosophy.
Relativist differs from absolutist because all answers are dependent on circumstances.
So all answers are relative, not absolute.
For instance, we still accept “Thou shalt not kill” as a general rule.
But now we also think first.
If we kill a single evil person in order to save the lives of thousands of innocent people, can that be wrong?
The same is true with homosexuality, gender equality, slavery, or torture.
Many things which were taught as unquestionably right or wrong can now be seen as more nuanced, less simplistic.
Everything is dependent on circumstances, which require thinking, which requires questioning.
Which is what I find worrying about handing all thinking over to technology.
Technology is absolutist, technology starts with an answer.
Machines will defer mechanically to whatever has been programmed into them.
They aren’t capable of differing from their programming.
For me, technology feels like a return to the days of belief instead of thinking.
A return to medievalism and scholasticism.
Scholasticism were the debates that scholars (monks or priests) would indulge in.
Debates which centred around interpretations of God and The Bible.
Debates like: if God is omnipotent can he make something he can’t lift?
Because if he can’t lift it, then he isn’t omnipotent.
And if he can’t make it, then he isn’t omnipotent.
The winner of the debate was whoever best justified God’s purpose.
(Because the one thing that wasn’t open to debate was doubting God’s existence.)
So the greatest ‘thinkers’ of the dark ages were the scholars who could argue, in esoteric detail, points that had no bearing on ordinary people’s lives.
How many angels could fit on the head of a pin?
It was called scholasticism because the debate could only be had between scholars, and the results would only be of interest to scholars.
It had no bearing on the lives of ordinary working folk.
Which pretty much sums up where we find ourselves in advertising today.
All our debate is arcane and left to people who are good at debating.
People who have knowledge of technology, thinking, and language that has nothing to do with ordinary people.
So the results have nothing to do with ordinary people.
And all thinking is given over to a higher authority.
And the higher authority can’t be questioned.
Technology gives us answers which we can’t question.
In fact we are not even allowed to join the debate unless we can prove we are also scholars.
That we’ve learned the esoteric language.
The language that ordinary people don’t speak.
So technology dictates all thinking, and the language keeps it impenetrable.
It feels like we’re progressing all the way back to a modern version of the dark ages.
In both situations, there’s a story that those involve believe, which is assumed to be true.
In the first, it’s that the God of the Bible exists and created the world, as described in the Bible.
Whether or not that’s true is likely known only to God.
In the second, the story is the story of The Digital. I call it ‘The Digital’ because it’s always portrayed as a kind of semi-animate force of nature, rather than as an emergent series of computer programs developed to solve line of business headaches (which is what it actually is, and which is all it ever has been.)
The story goes that before the arrival of The Digital, nothing had ever changed in the history of the human race. And that after the arrival of The Digital, everything immediately started changing, and has never stopped changing.
Unlike the God story, this story is provably untrue. I find the shortsightedness of it breathtaking, because it ignores the huge changes (social, political, technological) that came before the arrival of The Digital, just as much as it ignores the things that haven’t changed at all.
In fact, one can easily make a case that outside of VERY specific fields, the changes caused by The Digital have been the least transformative of all the changes that occurred in our society in the last 100 years. And that (outside of very specific fields) the changes it has brought are largely superficial.
People still buy things. Some of them online, most of them not. People still laugh at the same things. They’re still moved to tears by the same things. They still get up in the morning and go to work. They still struggle to fit in the kids’ sports practice afterwards. They still go to the pub and complain about not having enough time to go to the pub and complain.
They still (fundamentally) want the same things. The same things they wanted, ironically enough, in the Dark Ages.
Jon is spot on. Re: medieval debates no one argued whether the angels dancing on the pin head exist at all. Re: The Digital the proper questions for marketers are – does this work at all? Then go ask how and why. Instead we seemed to be consumed with the how and why questions and not at all with whether the impact even exists. Cardinal example is digital attribution. It’s obsessed with determining which online tactic delivered a sale and how much impact it had. It mostly ignores the possibility that of a single conversion (sale, lead etc) all the work was done via something that isn’t being measured eg word of mouth, radio, luck, good UX, bad UX (from a competitor) etc etc ad infinitum. The role of digital in increasing likelihood to convert could well be near non-existent. But no. Technology has given us an answer. Three angels danced on the head of this particular pin. Drives me crazy.
“Computer says ‘No'”.
Oh dear, who gave David Trott ‘An Introduction to Philosophy’?
PUB QUIZ NIGHT.
Throughout the stages of mankind, who has had the most fun?
Was it:
A. H and M.
B. Neanderthal Man.
C. Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
D. Homo Erectus.
E. Maximus Penis.
F. Venus de Lilo.
G. Digital Dickus.
Yet again, thank you Dave and I completely agree.
Add a splrinking of the regrettable ageism thast also accompanies this issue to this and the picture is complete.
Best / Bob W
Nice article!! Keep it up
Bob W.
You know, one day perhaps people will look on ageism and realise it wasn’t ageism at all.
We were just being persecuted for original thoughts and speaking our minds because we
were born into a world of freedom where you could buy a house, get a job, and make money.
What have the young ones got to look forward to today? 2 weeks holiday in the sun. That’s it.
I’m proud to be one of the Last Mohicans rather than one of the first suffering yes men.
Thanks for sharing this insightful article. Keep it up