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1 [1] 2 The Convivial Society 3 4 [2]The Convivial Society 5 6 SubscribeSign in 7 8 Share this post 9 10 [8] 11 [https] 12 The Convivial Society 13 The Convivial Society 14 Life Cannot Be Delegated 15 Copy link 16 Facebook 17 Email 18 Notes 19 More 20 21 Life Cannot Be Delegated 22 23 The Convivial Society: Vol. 5, No. 15 24 25 [9] 26 L. M. Sacasas's avatar 27 [10]L. M. Sacasas 28 Dec 29, 2024 29 321 30 31 Share this post 32 33 [12] 34 [https] 35 The Convivial Society 36 The Convivial Society 37 Life Cannot Be Delegated 38 Copy link 39 Facebook 40 Email 41 Notes 42 More 43 [13] 44 7 45 83 46 [14] 47 Share 48 49 Welcome to the last installment of the Convivial Society for 2024. Come 50 January, this iteration of the newsletter will celebrate its fifth year. It’s 51 been a joy to write, and a pleasure to connect with readers over the past five 52 years. Thank you all. In this short installment, I offer you a principle which 53 might guide our thinking about technology in the coming year, along with a 54 couple of year-end traditions tagged on at the end. 55 56 Cheers and happy new year, 57 58 Michael 59 60 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 61 62 A few weeks ago, I posted about how certain lines or quotations can function as 63 verbal amulets that we carry with us to ward off the deleterious spirits of the 64 age. Such words, I suggested, “might somehow shield or guide or console or 65 sustain the one who held them close to mind and heart.” 66 67 One such line for me, which I did not include in that earlier post, comes from 68 a rather well-known 1964 essay by historian and cultural critic Lewis Mumford, 69 [15]“Authoritarian and Democratic Technics.”[16]1 Of course, to say it is 70 “well-known” is a relative statement. I mean something like “well-known within 71 that tiny subset of people who are interested in technology and culture and who 72 also happen to care about what older sources might teach us about such 73 matters.” So, you know, not “well-known” in the sense that most people would 74 mean the phrase. 75 76 That said, the essay should be more widely read. Sixty years later, Mumford’s 77 counsel and warnings appear all the more urgent. It is in this essay that 78 Mumford warned about the “magnificent bribe” that accounts for why “our age 79 surrendered so easily to the controllers, the manipulators, the conditioners of 80 an authoritarian technics.” 81 82 Here’s how Mumford describes the bargain. Forgive the lengthy quotation, but I 83 think it will be worth your time if you’ve not encountered it before. 84 85 The bargain we are being asked to ratify takes the form of a magnificent 86 bribe. Under the democratic-authoritarian social contract, each member of 87 the community may claim every material advantage, every intellectual and 88 emotional stimulus he may desire, in quantities hardly available hitherto 89 even for a restricted minority: food, housing, swift transportation, 90 instantaneous communication, medical care, entertainment, education. But on 91 one condition: that one must not merely ask for nothing that the system 92 does not provide, but likewise agree to take everything offered, duly 93 processed and fabricated, homogenized and equalized, in the precise 94 quantities that the system, rather than the person, requires. Once one opts 95 for the system no further choice remains. In a word, if one surrenders 96 one’s life at source, authoritarian technics will give back as much of it 97 as can be mechanically graded, quantitatively multiplied, collectively 98 manipulated and magnified. 99 100 There’s a lot to think about in those few lines. For my money, that paragraph, 101 written sixty years ago, tells us more about the current state of affairs than 102 a thousand takes we might stumble across as we browse our timelines today. 103 There is, for instance, just below the surface of Mumford’s analysis, a 104 profound insight into the nature of human desire in late modern societies that 105 is worth teasing out at length, but I’ll pass on that for the time being.[17]2 106 107 A little further on, nearing the close of the essay, Mumford tells readers that 108 they should not mistake his meaning. “This is not a prediction of what will 109 happen,” he clarifies, “but a warning against what may happen.” More than half 110 a century later, I’m tempted to say that the warning has come perilously close 111 to reality and the only question now might be what comes next. 112 113 But all of this, patient reader, is prelude to sharing the line to which I’ve 114 been alluding. 115 116 It is this: “Life cannot be delegated.” 117 118 Simply stated. Decisive. Memorable. 119 120 Here’s a bit more of the immediate context: 121 122 “What I wish to do is to persuade those who are concerned with maintaining 123 democratic institutions to see that their constructive efforts must include 124 technology itself. There, too, we must return to the human center. We must 125 challenge this authoritarian system that has given to an under-dimensioned 126 ideology and technology the authority that belongs to the human 127 personality. I repeat: life cannot be delegated.” 128 129 I say it is simply stated, but it also invites clarifying questions. Chief 130 among them might be “What exactly is meant by ‘life’?” Or, “Why exactly can it 131 not be delegated?” And, “What counts as delegation anyway?” So let’s start 132 there. 133 134 Whatever we take life to mean, we should immediately recognize that we are 135 speaking qualitatively. Mumford is telling us something about an ideal form of 136 life, not mere existence.[18]3 Earlier, for example, he had spoken about life 137 in its “fullness and wholeness.” 138 139 Mumford’s claim is a provocation for us to consider what might be essential to 140 a life that is full and whole, one in which we might find meaning, purpose, 141 satisfaction, and an experience of personal integrity. This form of life cannot 142 be delegated because by its very nature it requires our whole-person 143 involvement. And by delegation, I take Mumford to mean the outsourcing of such 144 involvement to a technological device or system, or, alternatively, the embrace 145 of technologically mediated distraction and escapism in the place of such 146 involvement. 147 148 I also tend to read Mumford’s claim through Ivan Illich’s concept of thresholds 149 . Illich invited us to evaluate technologies and institutions by identifying 150 relevant thresholds, which, when crossed, rendered the technology or 151 institution counterproductive. This means that rather than declare a technology 152 or institution either good or bad by its nature, we recognize instead the 153 possibility that a technology or institution might serve useful ends until it 154 crosses certain thresholds of scale, volume, or intensity, after which it stops 155 serving the ends for which it was created and become, first, counterproductive 156 and then eventually destructive. 157 158 So, with regard to the principle that life cannot be delegated, we might 159 helpfully ask, “What are the thresholds of delegation beyond which what we are 160 left with is no longer life in its fullness and wholeness?” 161 162 This seems to be an especially relevant question as we navigate the 163 ever-widening field of technologies which invite us to delegate an increasing 164 range of tasks, activities, roles, and responsibilities. We are told, for 165 instance, that we are entering an age of LLM-based AI agents, which will be 166 able to streamline our work and simplify our lives across a wide array of 167 domains. 168 169 [19] 170 [https] 171 172 Perhaps. My point is not to rule out any such possibility.[20]4 Rather, I am 173 inviting us to critically consider at the outset where the thresholds of 174 delegation might be for each of us. And these will, in fact, vary person to 175 person, which is why I tend to traffic in questions rather than prescriptions. 176 I am convinced that these are matters of practical wisdom. No one can set out a 177 list of precise and universal rules applicable to every person under all 178 circumstances. Indeed, the temptation to wish for such is likely a symptom of 179 the general malaise. We must all think for ourselves, and in conversation with 180 each other, so that we can arrive at sound judgments under our particular 181 circumstances and given our particular aims. 182 183 The principle “Life cannot be delegated” is simply a guidepost.[21]5 It keeps 184 before us the possibility that we might, if we are not careful, delegate away a 185 form of life that is full and whole, rewarding and meaningful. We ought to be 186 especially careful in the cases where what we delegate to a device, app, agent, 187 or system is an aspect of how we express care, cultivate skill, relate to one 188 another, make moral judgments, or assume responsibility for our actions in the 189 world—the very things, in other words, that make life meaningful. 190 191 Perhaps we are tempted to think that care, skill, judgment, and responsibility 192 are only of consequence when the circumstances are grave, momentous, or 193 otherwise obviously consequential, which means that we might miss how, in fact, 194 even our mundane everyday work might be exactly how we care, develop skill, 195 exercise judgment, and embrace responsibility. (It occurs to me just now, that 196 the etymology of mundane, usually given a pejorative sense in English, suggests 197 something that is “of this world.” It is the stuff our world is made of, to 198 take flight from the mundane is to take flight from the world.) 199 200 If you’ve been reading for a while, you know this is something I’ve sought to 201 articulate at various points in the last few years ([22]for example). So I’m 202 always glad to encounter someone else trying to say the same thing and saying 203 it well. Recently, I stumbled across this bit of wisdom from Gary Snyder[23]6: 204 205 “All of us are apprenticed to the same teacher that the religious 206 institutions originally worked with: reality. Reality-insight says … master 207 the twenty-four hours. Do it well, without self-pity. It is as hard to get 208 the children herded into the car pool and down the road to the bus as it is 209 to chant sutras in the Buddha-hall on a cold morning. One move is not 210 better than another, each can be quite boring, and they both have the 211 virtuous quality of repetition. Repetition and ritual and their good 212 results come in many forms. Changing the filter, wiping noses, going to 213 meetings, picking up around the house, washing dishes, checking the 214 dipstick—don't let yourself think these are distracting you from your more 215 serious pursuits. Such a round of chores is not a set of difficulties we 216 hope to escape from so that we may do our ‘practice’ which will put us on a 217 ‘path’—it is our path.” 218 219 I’ll conclude by offering you a complementary principle to Mumford’s: To live 220 is to be implicated. 221 222 I take the language of implication, with its rich connotations, from Steven 223 Garber, who writes about work and vocation from a religious perspective. 224 Drawing on Wendell Berry and Václav Havel, Garber argues that we should seek to 225 live in a manner that implicates us, for love’s sake, in the way the world is 226 and ought to be. In my view, Garber’s exhortation echoes Mumford’s warning but 227 in another key. To say that life cannot be delegated is to say that life, lived 228 consciously and well, will necessarily implicate us in the world. May we have 229 the courage to be so implicated. 230 231 [24]Share 232 233 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 234 235 This newsletter is reader-supported and a crucial part of how I make a living. 236 You’ll notice there are no paywalls, though. The writing is public and 237 supported by those who are able and willing to do so. If that’s you, you can 238 subscribe at the usual rate of $5/month or $45/year. If that seems a bit steep, 239 you could use the second button below to support my writing at about $3.50/ 240 month or $31/year. Which, as they say, just amounts to a cup of coffee a month. 241 242 [35][ ] 243 Subscribe 244 [37]Get 30% off for 1 year 245 246 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 247 248 Year’s End 249 250 It is customary for me to share Richard Wilbur’s poem [39]“Year’s End” in the 251 last installment of the year. Enjoy. 252 253 Now winter downs the dying of the year, 254 And night is all a settlement of snow; 255 From the soft street the rooms of houses show 256 A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere, 257 Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin 258 And still allows some stirring down within. 259 260 I’ve known the wind by water banks to shake 261 The late leaves down, which frozen where they fell 262 And held in ice as dancers in a spell 263 Fluttered all winter long into a lake; 264 Graved on the dark in gestures of descent, 265 They seemed their own most perfect monument. 266 267 There was perfection in the death of ferns 268 Which laid their fragile cheeks against the stone 269 A million years. Great mammoths overthrown 270 Composedly have made their long sojourns, 271 Like palaces of patience, in the gray 272 And changeless lands of ice. And at Pompeii 273 274 The little dog lay curled and did not rise 275 But slept the deeper as the ashes rose 276 And found the people incomplete, and froze 277 The random hands, the loose unready eyes 278 Of men expecting yet another sun 279 To do the shapely thing they had not done. 280 281 These sudden ends of time must give us pause. 282 We fray into the future, rarely wrought 283 Save in the tapestries of afterthought. 284 More time, more time. Barrages of applause 285 Come muffled from a buried radio. 286 The New-year bells are wrangling with the snow. 287 288 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 289 [40] 290 [https] 291 “The Hunters in the Snow,” Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1565) 292 [41]1 293 294 For a more extensive consideration of this essay, see this excellent discussion 295 by Zachary Loeb: [42]“Authoritarian and Democratic Technics, revisited.” 296 297 [43]2 298 299 Here’s another paragraph that remains timely: “The inventors of nuclear bombs, 300 space rockets, and computers are the pyramid builders of our own age: 301 psychologically inflated by a similar myth of unqualified power, boasting 302 through their science of their increasing omnipotence, if not omniscience, 303 moved by obsessions and compulsions no less irrational than those of earlier 304 absolute systems: particularly the notion that the system itself must be 305 expanded, at whatever eventual cost to life.” 306 307 [44]3 308 309 Although I am immediately tempted to add that there is no such thing as mere 310 existence. Existence itself is a miracle, and the recognition of this fact the 311 beginning of wonder and thus thought. 312 313 [45]4 314 315 Although I commend to you Rob Horning’s [46]analysis: “Generative AI, [Ben] 316 Recht argues, ‘always seems to provide the minimal effort path to a passing but 317 shitty solution,’ which actually seems like a fairly charitable assessment. But 318 it is obviously something that worker-users would employ when they don’t care 319 about what they are asking for or how it is presented, for optimized producers 320 who see research as an obstacle to understanding rather than the essence of it, 321 for people conditioned to be absent at any presumed moment of communion. 322 Generative AI is the quintessence of incuriosity, perfect for those who hate 323 the idea of having to be interested in anything.” 324 325 [47]5 326 327 I’m tentatively planning on following up with two additional posts on related 328 principles: Life cannot be simulated, and life cannot be accelerated. We’ll 329 see! 330 331 [48]6 332 333 In the original post, I wrote “the late Gary Snyder,” which, as more than one 334 attentive reader pointed out, was a grave mistake. Snyder is still with us, and 335 I’m not sure how I got it in my head that he had passed. Snyder was the subject 336 of a recent [49]episode of the wonderful 337 [50]The Lost Prophets Podcast 338 . Also, I think the most recent [51]episode with 339 [52]Dougald Hine 340 is quite pertinent to the content of this post, and well worth your time. 341 342 321 343 344 Share this post 345 346 [54] 347 [https] 348 The Convivial Society 349 The Convivial Society 350 Life Cannot Be Delegated 351 Copy link 352 Facebook 353 Email 354 Notes 355 More 356 [55] 357 7 358 83 359 [56] 360 Share 361 PreviousNext 362 363 Discussion about this post 364 365 CommentsRestacks 366 User's avatar 367 [ ] 368 [ ] 369 [ ] 370 [ ] 371 [63] 372 Annie Gottlieb's avatar 373 [64]Annie Gottlieb 374 [65]Dec 30 375 376 Gary Snyder is still alive!! Please take out that “late!” 377 378 Expand full comment 379 Reply 380 Share 381 [67]2 replies by L. M. Sacasas and others 382 [68] 383 Melba's avatar 384 [69]Melba 385 [70]Dec 30 386 387 Re your 5th footnote, I would love to read those two pieces soon! 388 389 Expand full comment 390 Reply 391 Share 392 [72]5 more comments... 393 TopLatestDiscussions 394 395 No posts 396 397 Ready for more? 398 399 [88][ ] 400 Subscribe 401 © 2025 L. M. Sacasas 402 [90]Privacy ∙ [91]Terms ∙ [92]Collection notice 403 [93] Start writing[94]Get the app 404 [95]Substack is the home for great culture 405 406 Share 407 408 Copy link 409 Facebook 410 Email 411 Notes 412 More 413 This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. 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