An English Major Reads the Techno-Optimist Manifesto

I've got progress on the brain.

Reason panel with Jim Pethokoukis, moderated by Peter Suderman, and the Midjourney art produced by the Reason staff to accompany it..

Progress in the sense of the cumulative growth of knowledge and power over nature is a term that says little about whether the new state will give us more satisfaction than the old. The pleasure may be solely in achieving what we have been striving for, and the assured possession may give us little satisfaction. The question whether, if we had to stop at our present stage of development, we would in any significant sense be better off or happier than if we had stopped a hundred or a thousand years ago is probably unanswerable.

The answer, however, does not matter. What matters is the successful striving for what at each moment seems attainable. It is not the fruit of past success but the living in and for the future in which human intelligence proves itself. Progress is movement for movement’s sake, for it is in the process of learning, and in the effects of having learned something new, that man enjoys the gift of his intelligence.

—F.A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty

Under ordinary circumstances, for the random individual, life in a dynamist society tomorrow will be better, on the whole, than life today. It will offer more variety, more opportunity, more options, more knowledge, more control over time and place, more life. It will address more sources of dissatisfaction (though it may also call attention to new ones) and create more sources of delight. And while it will not perfect moral character or avert foolish ideas, its continuous processes of criticism and correction will, over time, curb excesses and limit damage.

—Virginia Postrel, The Future and Its Enemies

I spent most of October immersed in the world of “progress studies.” Like women’s studies, Chicano studies, or peace studies, progress studies encompasses both positive and normative dimensions, both knowledge-advancing research (Did the Ottomans ban printing?) and political and moral commitments (“It is in the process of learning, and in the effects of having learned something new, that man enjoys the gift of his intelligence”).¹ It’s theoretically possible to read The Future and Its Enemies as a mostly accurate description of what progress is and how it happens and nonetheless believe that the personal qualities and social institutions I advocate there are bad. But people on both sides of the argument tend to mingle positive and normative assessments.

Midjourney images with prompt "Rohrschach test inkblot shaped like silhouette of Marc Andreessen's head all black no face." (It did worse when I fixed the spelling of Rorschach.)

That interweaving accounts in large measure for both the content of Marc Andreessen’s polarizing manifesto and its negative reception not only by the “late capitalism sucks” crowd but also by establishment figures like New York Times columnists Ezra Klein and Elizabeth Spiers. Klein, a self-described technocrat in the Future and Its Enemies sense², dubbed Andreessen’s viewpoint “reactionary futurism.” Spiers deemed it silly, nihilistic, “creepy and far right.”

The manifesto is a Rorschach test in which people see their hopes and fears.

I’ve been there. Back in the 1990s, I was called both a fascist and an anarchist based on misreadings of The Future and Its Enemies. I’m neither—not even close. Dynamism is a version of liberalism that foregrounds discovery and learning, rather than, say, liberty or justice. But it’s definitely liberalism.³ And I’m not a techie but a humanist trained in the close reading of texts, a skill rarely honed and far too rarely employed.

Midjourney's response when asked for the original inkblot image "in the future."

Close reading requires first understanding what genre conventions to expect. Manifestos are intentionally more vigorous than rigorous. They meant to polarize—to build movements and define enemies. That’s why manifestos use “we” so much. It’s why they employ emotional language. It’s why they are written in short sentences and bullet points.

“Manifestos exist to challenge and provoke,” writes Julian Hanna in a smart, fun article titled “Manifestos: A Manifesto.”⁴ Rachel Brett of the British Library explains:

A manifesto proves that writing is a tool of power and can be used to intervene and demonstrate against dominant systems. The phrasing used is often pleading, attacking, protesting and opposing in tone and declaring the intention of the writer. Any subject, cause or social group can write their own manifesto, but it is always written from an opposing position implying an ‘us’ and ‘them’. The style is often short and repetitive that attempts to get its message across and encourage readers to agree.

The texts broadcast ideals demanding the reader seize the moment to change the future.

Complaining that a manifesto is choppy or lacks nuance is like griping that Pride and Prejudice needs more kung fu action. Manifestos are literature and advertising. They are not philosophy. They aren’t even essays.

To understand a text, you also need to understand context and allusions. What does the writer expect the reader to recognize without elaboration? Andreessen says that “a mass demoralization campaign”—what

Brink Lindsey

calls the anti-Promethean backlash—began “six decades ago.” He describes that campaign as “against technology and against life.” It therefore isn’t reasonable to charge, as Jason Kuzinski does, that Andreessen dates that campaign to “the start of the civil rights movement.” What Andreessen is talking about has nothing to do with black Americans and everything to do with the spread of back-to-nature, small-is-beautiful, limits-to-growth ideas. Besides, the civil rights movement started seven decades ago.

Honest readers should also have no trouble recognizing the continuing examples of demoralization Andreessen cites: “We are told that technology takes our jobs, reduces our wages, increases inequality, threatens our health, ruins the environment, degrades our society, corrupts our children, impairs our humanity, threatens our future, and is ever on the verge of ruining everything.” Andreessen is wrong that these are invariably lies—technology has definitely taken my jobs and reduced my wages—but he is entirely correct that these claims are ubiquitous, misleading, and demoralizing. Although internet publishing has played havoc with my earnings, I wouldn’t want to give up its advantages. Benefits also count!

What seems to most offend Andreessen’s critics, especially establishment figures like Klein and Spiers, is the notion that a billionaire could see himself as representing outsiders rather than “the dominant system.”⁵ But the reception of the manifesto demonstrates that its ideas are anything but dominant. Techno-optimism is a minority viewpoint in both political parties, in mainstream and conservative media, and in the academy. It is countercultural. Throw in a positively Victorian celebration of ambition, courage, achievement, and adventure—more Tennyson’s “Ulysses” than Marinetti’s “Futurist Manifesto”—and you’re asking for trouble. “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield” is out of style.

Most important, critics assume that the manifesto demands that techno-optimists run the world. “Would-be corporate monarchs,” Spiers calls them. That doesn’t square with the manifesto’s praise of decentralized markets, attacks on regulation and central planning, praise of Friedrich Hayek on the knowledge problem, and claim to favor Thomas Sowell’s constrained vision.⁶ It’s hard for reflexive technocrats to imagine that deeming certain activities or personal qualities desirable doesn’t mean requiring them of everyone. And, of course, they resent calls for limits on their own powers.

Finally, the manifesto is clear that it claims that technology can solve material problems, not all problems. “Techno-Optimism is a material philosophy, not a political philosophy….We believe technology opens the space of what it can mean to be human,” it declares.

Still…

I do wonder whether techno-optimists are willing to grant the worthiness of those who are not “deliberately and systematically transforming ourselves into the kind of people who can advance technology.” I’m not sure what that means. Is there no place for artists in this club—or this world? For philosophers? For me? I’m inclined to read the manifesto as a defense of one important way of living, and of a society that accepts it, rather than a declaration of the One Best Way. But the ambiguity is disquieting.

I also wish techno-optimists of all stripes would pay more attention to the sins and errors of 20th-century technocracy. The anti-Promethean backlash didn’t come out of nowhere. Smart people can do evil or stupid things if they operate unchecked by competition and criticism. Jim Pethokoukis defines his “Up Wing” coalition this way:

The core claim of Up Wing thinking is this: A vibrant and resilient society is one with a firm belief that tomorrow can be better than today — that is, if we choose to make it so. An Up Wing society is a “no pain, no gain” society. It accepts the necessity of change, although sometimes really uncomfortable, as it strives to generate fast economic growth through scientific discovery, technological invention, commercial innovation, and high-impact entrepreneurship. Up Wingers are all about acceleration for solving big problems, effectively tackling new ones, and creating maximum opportunity for all Americans.

I understand wanting to build a pro-progress coalition that includes “supply-side progressives” like Klein. Dynamists are always in the minority. The question is whether the technocrats ally with them or the reactionaries. Jim is hoping to get them on our team. But aside from its American orientation, his Up Wing coalition is so expansive that it could include Xi Jinping. It definitely includes Robert Moses. To understand the anti-Promethean backlash, you need to understand not only the reaction against oil spills and DDT but also the trauma of urban renewal. One reason it’s so hard to build these days is that it used to be so easy to tear down neighborhoods using eminent domain.

Quick rhetorical pro tip: Don’t quote Nietzsche unless you’re a philosopher. Find someone equally poetic without the totalitarian followers.

I have many more thoughts on these subjects, but Substack informs me that I’ve hit the email length limit so I’ll stop. If you haven’t already done so, please buy and read The Future and Its Enemies, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this month.

1. That the progress-oriented gatherings I attended over the past month took place in and around DC gives you a sense of where the intellectual energy is. It will be interesting to see whether the “doers” who sustain the field with money will be willing to pay “thinkers” to engage in research with no immediate policy payoffs. A few stars notwithstanding, scholars and writers are generally cheaper than lobbyists or think tank executives. But the return on investment is significantly harder to quantify, especially if you’re inclined to be suspicious of endeavors lacking substantial commercial returns.

2. He told me so when he moderated a panel I was on at a Breakthrough Institute conference.

3. My former Chapman colleague John Thrasher, a philosopher, is doing interesting work on dynamism and liberalism. He argues that the usual philosophical approach to, say, justice assumes a static goal. Here’s an article he wrote on environmentalism and dynamism. Here’s an article he wrote on the “paradox of diversity.”

4. He has since published a book on the subject.

5. Or, in Spiers’s case, that a billionaire exists.

6. Since I find both the constrained and unconstrained visions uncongenial as Sowell limns them, I’m somewhat skeptical. But then I haven’t read A Conflict of Visions in decades.