Humans can only strive ; results are determined by the Haven
The development of worldly affairs often has its own logic. We can make plans, but whether we can succeed often depends on forces beyond our control.
Author: GUDORDI | 2022-11-23
Hong Kong’s past success as an international financial center was an unintentional effect of the achievements of the natural order. (Asian News Agency)
Continuing from the above: “Doable, very doable – Hong Kong’s legendary future”
“The way of a saint is to work without fighting.” ─ Lao Tzu
Tracking the social effects of conscious individual actions
“Why do conspiracies rarely produce the desired results? It’s because social phenomena tend to be just that way…This allows us to establish that one of the main goals of social science theory is to track the social effects of conscious individual actions. “(Why do the results achieved by a conspiracy as a rule differ widely from the results aimed at? Because this is what usually happens in social life… This remark helps to establish one main task of theoretical social science, which is to trace the social repercussions of intentional human actions.)
The above is an excerpt from Sir Karl Popper’s important work Conjectures and Refutations . “Conjectures and Refutations” was published in 1959. Three years ago, in 1956, Popper published another important work – “The Logic of Scientific Discovery “ . A closer look shows that the arguments of these two books are very similar. The difference is that “Conjectures and Refutations” focuses on social phenomena and history rather than natural science. From this perspective, perhaps we can understand “Conjectures and Refutations” as the “humanities version” of “The Logic of Scientific Discovery”. Behind Popper’s above views is Popper’s entire philosophy of science.
It is worth noting that Popper is widely regarded as one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century and an authority in scientific methodology. This is one of the important reasons why the author believes that Popper’s views above are worthy of attention and reflection. Another reason is that this sentence itself has a very outlining meaning. Upon closer inspection, it can vaguely reveal the theoretical framework we can adopt when discussing the future of Hong Kong and how to evaluate the pros and cons of various approaches.
Popper is widely regarded as one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century. (Adam Smith Institute photo)
It's up to people to plan things, but it's up to God to make things happen
There is an old Chinese saying, “Things are planned by people, and things are accomplished by heaven.” The origin of this sentence should be Zhuge Liang’s words in “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms”. It has been widely circulated among the people and has become a part of Chinese folk wisdom. The sentence “Luo Guanzhong designed” was uttered by Zhuge Liang, and its wide spread among the people should prove that this sentence is profoundly wise and can stand the test of time. In the author’s opinion, the most important meaning of this sentence is that the development of worldly affairs often has its own logic. We can make plans, but whether we can succeed often depends on forces beyond our control.
Of course, just because we can’t control it doesn’t mean that we can only throw pills at random and just try our luck, but we want to “seem” that we have made an effort and done something. From the perspective of “institutional behavior”, the relevant practices are in line with human nature and are understandable. However, the role of these behaviors may be mainly for explanation, and they may not be of substantial or lasting help in whether things can be done well in the end. They may even be cheating. The danger of rebellion. When it comes to the development of things in the world, we need to have strategies and have a very deep and thorough understanding of the logic and sequence of the development of things. To use Popper’s words, we need to master the “tracking” of “conscious personal behavior” “The ability to develop into the final overall “social effect” context.
Borrowing from Lao Tzu’s words in the “Tao Te Ching”, “doing” means “can be done”, but “it is not very simple and ordinary doing”. In many cases, we need to be able to guide others to do something we want them to do. . If we can do this, and add some artificial assistance and promotion to the natural forces at the right time and in the right place, we can seem to be able to control the invisible hand and guide the natural forces to where we want to see. The effect is not impossible in theory. In the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu once wrote, “Governing a big country is like cooking small delicacies.” This probably reflects Lao Tzu’s profound side. If you want to take advantage of the huge natural force, you need to constantly observe carefully, be cautious and adapt to changes.
I sweated a lot, but in the end I did nothing.
The above-mentioned operation of “ruling a big country” requires a high degree of wisdom and skill, and is not something that ordinary people can control. In the history of economics and finance, the person with the highest relevant abilities may be Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve. According to records, on the night after the stock market crash broke out in 1987, he stayed up all night, constantly observing every moment of the market changes, keeping in close contact with the top executives of major Wall Street investment banks, and preparing to take various emergency measures at any time. Looking back afterwards, he described his handling of the crisis as “sweat a lot, but do nothing in the end”, and the U.S. financial market was able to survive the crisis safely in the end. crisis.
The author mentioned Greenspan because I think this is a very vivid example of a direction to deal with Hong Kong’s current problems. In the author’s opinion, a big difficulty in dealing with related issues is that personal wishes and the social effects caused by the interaction of thousands of individual behaviors can be completely two different things. The theoretical basis for this is the beginning of this article. Mention Popper’s view that the essence of social phenomena is “unintended consequences” (Unintended Consequences) that are beyond the control of individuals.
Under the supervision of former Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan, the U.S. financial market finally weathered the crisis. (Asian News Agency)
The way of a saint is to work without fighting
In the author’s opinion, the “unintentional effect” mentioned above is a very important concept in understanding and promoting social phenomena. It is also in line with the concept of “Spontaneous Order” in Western philosophy mentioned above. According to these concepts, Hong Kong’s past ability to become an international financial center was an unintentional effect of the achievements of the natural order. Hong Kong’s future will also be another unintentional effect of the achievements of the natural order.
From this perspective, the key to handling the whole matter is how to ensure that the natural order naturally promotes Hong Kong to continue to move in the direction of becoming an international financial center. How can this be done? In addition to Greenspan’s crisis management method of the 1987 stock market crash, the author believes that another trick is the last sentence of Laozi’s “Tao Te Ching”: “The way of a sage is to work without fighting.” In the next chapter, I will talk more about this point and its subtle relationship with philosophical concepts such as natural order and unintentional effects.
“Hong Kong’s Legendary Future” Series 10
Contact the author: Gudordi@proton.me
