REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Politics is a Disease!

POSTED BY: HKCAVALIER
UPDATED: Saturday, June 25, 2005 17:39
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Saturday, June 4, 2005 11:15 AM

HKCAVALIER


Wilhelm Reich made a very interesting criticism of liberal/conservative politics in his book The Emotional Plague (absolutely brilliant book, by the way). In his view, politicians are a kind of social parasite. He makes the distinction between "true work" and what politicians do. True work, he said, was something you could take anywhere and prosper with it; if you make shoes you can go to the other side of the world and even if you don't know the language, soon enough you will be able to make a living. Politicians, by contrast, are dependent on a very narrow band of cultural values, sometimes a walk of a few miles will render a politician powerless.

So Reich listed both liberalism and conservatism as diseases of the psyche, derangements of healthy living (politicians being a major symptom of the disease). Both were a reaction to a particular kind of "armoring" in the body/mind.

A thumbnail of his views is called for here (with apologies to Mr. Reich). He saw healthy living creatures in a constant state of expansion and contraction, from amoebae on up. This lead him to the understanding that orgasm, as the premier expansion of the body/mind of sexual creatures, was an essential regular component of mental/emotional health (this is where his detractors stop and dismiss him as merely sexually obsessed). The orgastic, as he called it, in life however moves far beyond the literal sexual climax to all forms of ecstatic experience. It's essential that healthy human beings "let themselves go" on a regular basis.

Problems arise early, when parents start to set arbitrary limits on thinking and feeling and acting. When a child is told "no" often enough, that "no" becomes internalized as "armoring." Armoring is a kind of wall that is built to disconnect one part of the psyche from another, undesirable part. So when the body/mind tries to expand into the armored area, it hits a wall and contracts back in upon itself without reaching full orgastic expression, and with dire consequences. Without release, the pressure builds and builds, people become rigid of mind as well as body. Generally, the wall of armoring can be passed through eventually, but it is painful and is expressed by "harshness." We have all been in an argument when a particular subject arises or we contact a particular feeling from which we are estranged and we feel this harshness. That's when we say things and they don't "come out" the way we meant them. We want to hit something or shout or scream, just so we can continue, clear our minds, "blow off steam." What we need is an orgastic charge to break down the armoring like dynamite in a mine.

But sometimes this "blow out" doesn't happen for years at a time. The armoring becomes too thick, too resilient and we experience what Reich called "emotional plague." Emotional plague is a perversion of empathy. When a severely armored person comes into contact with another person who is experiencing that part of their psyche from which the armored person has cut themselves off, the armored person will experience intense rage and even hatred for the other person. The homophobic man then, who has spent a lifetime pushing any hint of homoerotic feeling (feelings which everyone from Freud on down has acknowledge to be a part of every human psyche) out of his consciousness, when he sees gays being openly affectionate and reacts with rage and disgust, this man is experiencing emotional plague. When large sections of a society become similarly armored, the society become plagueridden. Emotional plague, in Reich's view, is the psychic source of all wars, genocide and racism (another brilliant book by Reich, Anatomy of Fascism, written in 1939 while he watched Nazis marching in the streets, explains eloquently what the rest of us are still trying to understand about the internal sources and function of fascism).

So, getting back to liberalism and conservatism; Reich saw both sides reacting to the same armoring but in opposite ways. The part of the psyche that has become armored is the dark, lawless selfishness that exists in everyone. The liberal reacts by retreating into a hopeful fiction, idealism and "faith in humanity." The liberal sees political life as a religious duty. Democracy may not work in any demonstrable fashion, but in Democracy we trust, because democracy is a form of government founded on the faith that humans can be relied upon to be reasonable and rational in all matters, the ultimate liberal philosophy. Try to tell a liberal that you don't vote and you will feel their disease in all it's unreasoning reasonable certainty. The conservative, by contrast, has no room for the childish liberal fantasy of a perfect world. They are all too well aware of the perfidy of human beings (but like the liberal, they fail to see the darkness in themselves). The conservative must go to war with "the other" to maintain his comfort and his identity. "Something has to be done about those people."

Discuss.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Saturday, June 4, 2005 12:18 PM

SERGEANTX


That's certainly an interesting way to look at it. I can definitely see how people who've chosen different reactions to their armoring would react emotionally to each other. Something tells me this leaves a lot to be explained, but I'll ponder it awhile. Thanks HK.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Sunday, June 5, 2005 12:35 AM

NEUTRINOLAD


The fundamental problem, as I see it, is that very few human beings mature to the point where they'll reason from the basis of what they can know to be true or at least can be reasonably proved, instead of what they wish were true. For most folk, their cherished illusions trump any evidence. Allow me to provide an example.
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident was used by LBJ's administration to provide justification for escalating U.S. involvement in the Vietnamese conflict. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, and the testimony of eyewitness observers, all the available evidence provided indicates that the incident was purposely provoked by U.S. action.
I, for one, wish this were not true. I want to believe that my country and its elected officials exhibit moral rectitude and ethical behavior in all their actions.
And yet, I'm confronted with the evidnce, including testimony by members of our own military. And worse, multiple corroborating reports.
I wish it weren't true. I don't want to believe it. Hell, I don;t want to know about it. Yet there it is, undeniable unrefuted evidence that indicates it was our fault. That it was our intention to provoke an incident to provide a pretext for escalation.
There are those who will never admit to our culpability in this act. For what it's worth, there are those who have spent the last three decades trying to rewrite the war in Vietnam so that not only were we on the side of the angels, we were the victors. Or if we weren't, it was because we were undermined by some nefarious force without whose intervention we would certainly have won. And this is the hardest sort of counter-argument to rebut because not only does the person presenting wish it were true, those of us who know it is not true nevertheless wish it were true.
What can one do in the face of this attractive revisionism? Not much, except to constantly remind yourself that you are not omniscient, but the arguments you would like to embrace have been shown to be false by the accumulation of evidence, no matter how difficult it is to accept that evidence in the face of our personal desires.
Unfortunately, those who would destroy, cheat, and lie have all the advantages on their side, which explains why it is so difficult to behave in a moral and ethical manner. But we must try, some few of us must try.
There were those who despaired of ever dismantling the notion of the divine right of sovereigns. There were those who despaired of ever achieving the vote for members of both sexes. There were those who despaired of ever bringing and end to the instituion of slavery in the U.S. But in the end they succeeded, if only for a short span of history.
If you must despair, work on in despair. Tomorrow is coming.

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Sunday, June 5, 2005 4:49 AM

SGTGUMP


Quote:
In his view, politicians are a kind of social parasite.


"The word 'politics' is derived from the word 'poly' meaning 'many,' and the word 'ticks'
meaning 'blood sucking parasites.'" -George Stepanaphoulus


The 'Armoring' concept illustrates exactly the way I feel when I see politicians opposing common sense. When I heard that GW Bush wanted to a Constitutional Amendment to outlaw gay marriage, I couldn't believe it. It would be great if I could just believe that all politicians want to be in power for the noblest reasons, but that is my armoring. I am immediately suspect of anyone who would want to be in charge of anything larger than himself, so I don't fall into the Liberal category. I also don't care what anyone else does, so I can't be very Conservative.

I like that movie 'The Day After Tomorrow', but I think it was made by the liberal side. At the end of it, the U.S. had sought refuge in Mexico, and while I would like to believe that's what we would do I know that we wouldn't. I believe that Mexico would have become 'New United States' whether they wanted to or not, right or wrong. I also think an ice age would be a pretty good idea. Thin out the herd by about 90%.

So basically, I'm a 'heartless libertarian'.

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Sunday, June 5, 2005 5:32 AM

STAGGERLY


Quote:
So basically, I'm a 'heartless libertarian'.




A perversion of empathy, this is really very interesting, HK. Very stimulating. I think the 'typical' liberal and conservative ideologies are a little over-simplified and maybe a little inaccurate, but then that's not the point, is it? Thanks for posting this.

-----------------------
"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it." - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

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Sunday, June 5, 2005 8:39 AM

CHRISISALL


Politics to me always meant: slanting truth, ignoring facts and misdirecting attention in favour of a particular viewpoint.
This is why I consider myself apolitical, for the most part.
Thanks so much, HK. This is a great thread.
Fellows on the edge, take notes.

Banzai's my guy Chrisisall

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Wednesday, June 8, 2005 4:55 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Hi HKCavalier,

I've been dropping out for long periods and dipping back in briefly from time to time. I guess that's how I missed this.

I have to say I don't get the point. (Too bad there's no emoticon for "I'm a dummy". Everyone else seems to get it just fine.) I'll need to think on it.

I come from the direction where I LIKE to think that my personal politics are reality-based, neither presuming man to be good nor bad, but able to conform to the social standards of the day as a matter of survival (which takes place socially, not individually). And therefore, we need to be mindful of which social standards we embrace, as society will on the whole tend that way.

So I think I need to rearrange my thinking to get a handle on this. Unless you can somehow say the same thing in a different way and help me out?

PS
Quote:
Anatomy of Fascism, written in 1939 while he watched Nazis marching in the streets, explains eloquently what the rest of us are still trying to understand about the internal sources and function of fascism.
By complete coincidence, a few days ago during a discussion, I heard fascism described as the politics of sociopaths. So this is another instance where politics is described, albeit in a different way, as the external manifestation of the internal psyche. But I'm still trying to get a hold of what you wrote.

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Tuesday, June 14, 2005 10:37 AM

HKCAVALIER


Hi Rue,

I certainly didn't mean to suggest that all opinions were a result of mental pathology, that all positions we hold are inherently distorted. Just as a man can take a drink without being an alcoholic, you may certainly have a "liberal" opinion without being the victim of a full-blown "case" of liberalism (you may only have a mild inflamation).

I had some thoughts this morning on the general subject of political consequences of personal psychic pathology.

One is the disease model of evil; that evil is a syndrome much like addiction. Evil tends to manifest in people in similar ways which can then become endemic to a particular community. Unchecked greed, racism and power-hunger in our leaders can work in concert to create an overseas war without the leaders ever consciously discussing these forces that drive their actions. There need be no equivalent of a Wannsee conference. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of evil is that it always hides itself behind our conscious ego-identified motives.

One of the constructs that particularly impedes people's ability to see evil for what is, is the notion that "intent" is its defining characteristic. It's at the heart of our legal system, but unfortunately our legal system is predicated on our pathological obsession with blame.

The notion of blame brings me to another way I understand the nature of evil; that the essence of evil is the denial of evil in ourselves; without denial, evil is no more threatening than virtigo. Evil exists in all of us, but we tend not to act on it when we are aware of it as such. We all have anti-social and self-destructive urges, but we don't have to act upon them if we can see them for what they are.

We get into trouble when we start seeing all kinds of evil in others, but see ourselves as champions of virtue. Then if we commit evil, we can tell ourselves and anyone who's listening that it was the evil-doers that made us do it. That the other is to blame, that they are the source of evil and we are blameless.

Bush & co. deny any wrong-doing, anything bad, even any error, and certainly any evil in their policies. Well, that is madness, it is humanly impossible and inherently dishonest (so yes, Bush lied, but the most important lies are the ones he tells himself).


HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Tuesday, June 14, 2005 11:02 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Rue, HK- I read the same thing and had the same reaction. Tried to "grok" what this person meant and couldn't get past the "orgiastic" pulsation that apparently drives all living things. Sounds a little too much like the "id needs to be liberated" to make sense to me, for a whole variety of reasons. But the idea of "armoring" catches a related concept in my brain. Decided the whole thing needs more thought!


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Tuesday, June 14, 2005 3:58 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Hi HK,
Quote:
One is the disease model of evil; that evil is a syndrome much like addiction. Evil tends to manifest in people in similar ways which can then become endemic to a particular community. ...

One of the constructs that particularly impedes people's ability to see evil for what is, is the notion that "intent" is its defining characteristic. It's at the heart of our legal system, but unfortunately our legal system is predicated on our pathological obsession with blame.

Interesting. Eloquent. And such a different data set and point of view from my own. I catch glimpses ... like watching light reflect from some internal structure in a crystal - a flash seen sideways, of something you can't see straight on ...

Odd things which resonate - evil as pathology, like serial killlers who kill b/c it is the only thing that they feel anything about ... Australia, a community of endemic life-forms evolved for ever-escalating bio-chemical warfare, how does that happen? and once initiated, what is the end point? ... societies which raise children to feel that life is a battle, unsympathetic, unempathic, created sociopaths .... yes, the lack of intent in evil (though I do think when you see those with elaborate rationalizations for what they do, they do feel the evil as evil and have to create the reasons why it is OK; the truly driven will say "I do this b/c of something within me") ... and something I'd never thought too much about which is the apparent need to blame ...

This requires more thought, but please don't be too discouraged or frustrated that I am slow. It's refreshing to try to form my thoughts around a completely different outlook, and I'm looking forward to more discussion ...

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Tuesday, June 14, 2005 4:10 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Hi SignyM -

No message, just HI.

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Wednesday, June 15, 2005 4:44 AM

HKCAVALIER


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Rue, HK- ...Tried to "grok" what this person meant and couldn't get past the "orgiastic" pulsation that apparently drives all living things. Sounds a little too much like the "id needs to be liberated" to make sense to me, for a whole variety of reasons...


Hey, Signy!

Reich is tough material. In some respects, we may interpret his project as nothing less than the overthrow of modern society. He challenges our common sense and threatens our sacred cows. Oh boy, did he ever get in trouble for that whole "orgasm" issue (he was ultimately imprisoned here in the U.S. for his beliefs and there is compelling evidence that he was simply allowed to die of an easily treated illness which we decided not to treat, essencially murdering the man for his ideas).

Here's the thing about the "pulsation" you mention. All couples (I think I can say this), every last one, have periodic arguments. Eventually, we all come to understand that the ostensible subject is in some way arbitrary, our rational grasp of "why" we were arguing falters until we forget what was so almighty important about the conflict in the first place. And yet the arguments persist as if following some mysterious time-table of their own. After the argument, things revert to normal until the next argument. Then, of course, there's the popular institution of "make-up sex," a very real phenomenon experienced by couple all over the world. After a fight, people feel cleared of the negative charge and ready to embrace life and each other fully. Even if you are not the type to have "make-up sex," you do sometimes recognize that a negative charge has been released and even when the "issues" are not resolved, you can nonetheless feel unburdened by the simple act of arguing. Why? I wouldn't say that "the id needs to be liberated," but I can see how a "charge" builds up in the individual which reaches a critical mass and the psyche finds a pretext for release.

The trouble with Reich and Freud is that these guys were obsessed with the unconscious drives that tend to rule our lives. It's unsettling to any thinking person to imagine that they are not, after all, in control of their actions; that there is a secret part of us that gets its needs met, while we go around thinking we're in charge. But both men proved that with the proper attention, these forces in the psyche could be observed and in many cases brought into harmony with our conscious selves.



HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Wednesday, June 15, 2005 2:23 PM

CORNCOBB


Great thread / post. At the end of the day, all political ideologies are just repeated memes. They only exist as ideas passed on from one person to another like a virus.

"Gorramit Mal... I've forgotten my line."

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Wednesday, June 15, 2005 3:14 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Wow. OK, this sparked a lot of thoughts... none of them very coherent, and some contradictory. Let me toss them out and see what y'all think.

OH crap. ran out of time! Later!

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Wednesday, June 15, 2005 6:49 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


OK, just enuf time for a couple of quick thoughts...

I agree that ppl are not really conscious or necessarily rational about what they do. While we like to talk about our big cortexes (cortices?), underneath all that gray matter we still have the rabbit brain, and in our abdomens we still have the slug brain, and they are all still working, busy forming their own memories, making their calculations and decisions while our gray matter is busy with "more important" stuff. Ppl who have had a corpus callosotomy- where the connection between two halves of the brain are cut- can see and react to something with one half of the brain, and be entirely unable to explain their reaction with the other half of the brain. Or, more interestingly, they confabulate some pretty wild explanations.

Another example of unconsciousness. When looking at the activity in a person's brain, they find that the motor cortex that controls the arm "lights up" BEFORE someone has made a conscious decision to move their arm. So clearly, we are often motivated by urges that we aren't even aware of, that we only rationalize after the fact.

However. I think there is more to "evil" than what occurs in the individual. "Evil" is a social construct, and whatver behavior we define as "evil" can be either promoted or inhibited by society- the whole meme idea previously mentioned. So I'm having a hard time resolving the individual/ societal aspects of evil.

And, still having a hard time digesting Reich unless I put it into "scientific" terms which may actually not be a good translation of his concepts.

That's where I'm at right now.

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Wednesday, June 15, 2005 8:37 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Quote:
underneath all that gray matter we still have the rabbit brain, and in our abdomens we still have the slug brain, and they are all still working, busy forming their own memories, making their calculations and decisions while our gray matter is busy with "more important" stuff
I think even our muscles, kidneys and lungs make chemicals that seep through our bodies, creating their own unconscious currents.

I agree with you both in thinking that humans live on a largely unconscious level.

I do think there are different levels of evil though. There are those doomed to it b/c literally nothing else matters; and those who could develop emotional connections, but due to upbringing, environment, nutrition etc pass through that stage of development into a stunted adulthood. (I do think like langauge, emotional and social development happens during certain stages, and once passed, the opportunity is gone.)

Anyway, with gears grinding, smoke pouring out of my ears, this is as far as I got today.


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Saturday, June 18, 2005 7:32 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Just to report - I'm not too much further along, but I've started to think about politics in general. But it occurred to me, when a decision must be made regarding a group of people, there's often discussion of the particulars, and sometimes a discussion of group values. Yes, we need to move our village to try to follow the game which seems to be scare nowadays, our people don't hide the game we hunt, we always share! Of course the cityfolk have their ways, but we do things our own way here. Going back to my historical lore (Europe) it seems 'politics' has been a recognized topic for at least a few centuries. So I am trying to figure out if that kind of politics is also a disease and maybe the problem just goes far back, or if there is a particular variant which is abnormal while the rest is OK.

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Sunday, June 19, 2005 11:35 AM

HKCAVALIER


Rue, Signy,

Thanks for taking the time to wander out here beyond the edge with me

I keep coming back to the old "rats in a cage" theory of social dynamics; the human infestation of this planet has been at critical levels for so many centuries that it can be very difficult to even imagine what a healthy population would look like. What we are left with is racial nostalgia; the mythologizing of Native American culture, the mythologizing of "Small Town America," even the Nazis' nostalgia for their Tribal Aryan prehistory. Everyone seems to imagine a simpler time of small communities living in peace.

As you know, some will say that it all started with agrarianism, when humans began to settle in one place, opening the door to overpopulation and creating the need for sanitation; a need that has always far outstripped our technological and medical means to control (although we have been at least successful enough to make urbanization survivable, managing many plagues and epidemics that would otherwise have devastated our populations, but at tremendous cost).

At some point, illness, both physical and mental, became an important factor in defining culture.

As new pathologies settled into human population centers, and more and more individuals became subject to disease, the idea that the general population of a community was fundamentally ill-suited to make decisions came into being. Christianity as the first truly urban religion (feel free to disagree with that one) postulated "original sin," inaugurating disease as the defining characteristic of human nature. The system of gerontocracy vanished from the earth as more and more would-be elders succumbed to the onslaught of disease and senility.

Overpopulation, distrust of "the masses," the need to control the unknown, all these are preconditions for an outbreak of politics.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Sunday, June 19, 2005 12:32 PM

SERGEANTX


HK, have you read any Daniel Quinn? Your comments on agriculture and it's affects on human culture align very closely with his.


SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Sunday, June 19, 2005 1:48 PM

OPPYH


Quote:
Originally posted by Corncobb:
Great thread / post. At the end of the day, all political ideologies are just repeated memes. They only exist as ideas passed on from one person to another like a virus.

"Gorramit Mal... I've forgotten my line."



well said

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Sunday, June 19, 2005 3:37 PM

HKCAVALIER


Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
HK, have you read any Daniel Quinn? Your comments on agriculture and it's affects on human culture align very closely with his.


SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock


Hey X, I just went over to Amazon.com and read the first 22 pages of Quinn's Ishmael. Hrm. Can't say I was "enthralled." Kinda made me think of The Celestine Prophecy; clearly, Quinn has some information to impart but he unaccountably feels the need to "sex it up" with the fantasy stuff. Does the writing get any less turgid as he warms to his subject? Is it some other of his books you had in mind? Could you, would you summarize what you got out of Quinn?

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Sunday, June 19, 2005 4:12 PM

SERGEANTX


Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Hey X, I just went over to Amazon.com and read the first 22 pages of Quinn's Ishmael. Hrm. Can't say I was "enthralled." Kinda made me think of The Celestine Prophecy; clearly, Quinn has some information to impart but he unaccountably feels the need to "sex it up" with the fantasy stuff. Does the writing get any less turgid as he warms to his subject? Is it some other of his books you had in mind? Could you, would you summarize what you got out of Quinn?


LOL, yeah, he can be a bit much to take. A bit silly and fantastical in the beginning, moving on to preachy and pedantic in the latter portions, but I liked his different perspective on civilization.

Basically he seems to see agricultural based civilization, starting approx. 10,000 years ago, as a kind of sickness that has befallen the human race. He shows how great huge swaths of our basic values have been formed around the ever expanding consumption that fuels, and is in turn fueled by, an agrarian food supply.

He claims that the problem with the agricultural lifestyle it requires such organization and cooperation from disparate groups that social structures were build to support it, to keep people laboring in the fields. It also precludes competing modes of living. Tribal or nomadic peoples in particular found agrarians to be very 'difficult neighbors'.

I'm not sure he gets into it in Ishmael, but much of his stuff pokes around the edges of 'new tribalism'. These aren't people looking to live in the jungle as savages, but rather people looking for alternative, perhaps more satisfying, ways of living. I found it particularly interesting because one of the models he describes as 'tribal' is very much like the crew of Serenity.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Monday, June 20, 2005 3:22 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Another author who touches on the themes of social organization, politics and culture is Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel and Collpase. I The first book is how civilizations reach ascendency and the other is how they fall apart. G,G&S is a little harder to understand, because the the "rise" of civilization seems to depend on some stochastic factors: abundance of grain types and animals that can be domesticated led to groups of people who became tolerant of each other's (and animal) germs. But one of the things that he talks about is the fact that killing among young males is pretty endemic in small-group foragers because they depend on the landscape and must seriously protect their patch of ground sicne it means survival. The point is that even low population densities do not guarantee peace.

There seem to be some typical trends in human behavior, who seem to be very clever without being very rational. The first is that we generally respond only to overt problems: this year's drought, this season's flu, next year's currency flucutation. Problems that are invisible- dropping water tables, resistant bacteria, economic imbalance- don't get any attention until they become overt.

The other thing is that it seems far easier for us to respond with technology than with conscious social changes. Although behavior changes over two or three generations (birth rate falls as income increases) in response to changin circumstance, memes pretty much stay the same until revolution occurs or (less frequently) people sit down and figure out what to do next.

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Wednesday, June 22, 2005 12:22 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


I am not used to thinking in these terms.

My sister (the smart one) mentioned an idea she'd been thinking about, which is that humans and human social structures, and, I think, 'memes', might be responding unconsciously to large-scale factors that seem unconnected to human life. A good example would be the 'demographic transition', which works consistently around the globe. I've been chewing on that for the last couple of years (and getting nowhere, I might add), but it was such a unique proposal, and so intuitively attractive, that it stuck in my head. And one way or another, I've been testing most ideas against it ever since.
Quote:
Problems that are invisible- dropping water tables, resistant bacteria, economic imbalance- don't get any attention until they become overt.
This is similar to an idea I got out of a commercial for 'shiftingbaselines.org'. And that is that ppl are geared to respond to things of a certain magnitude, whether it is in space or time. I sometimes wonder if the Early Americans did actually hunt the horse and wooly mammoth to extinction, and rather than repeat the same short-sighted pattern ad infinitum, some tribes adopted the 'seventh generation' concept in response. The other portion I've considered is that when you are young, things tend to seem better. First, they might actually be better - firewood is closer, water is cleaner, game more abundant etc. And then as often happens, one moves from the childhood location. The tribe packs up and leaves, the young go with a different tribe, etc. The young don't actually face the exhaustion and decay of what had been their Eden. And so with childhood stresses forgotten and current problems out of sight, home remains pristine in ppl's minds.
Quote:
The other thing is that it seems far easier for us to respond with technology than with conscious social changes.
Something I've been also wondering about (and also not getting very far with btw) as you see women in veils driven around in a/c cars, and the call to prayer being broadcast over TV. (Not anti-Muslim, it's just easier to see in other cultures, I think - but the anti-evolution 'Christian' radicals in the US also fit as far as I'm concerned. Certianly willing to accept the fruits of science but not the ideas.)
Langauge, the bowl, fire, the blade, the point, agriculture + cities, the alphabet - all were profound changes in human technology that brought new ways of individual survival, that changed social organization, that demanded a changed self-concept. The last great change, though not as profound I think as agriculture, was the rise of capitalism. What type and how profound does a change have to be to spark a basic social response? And, if you see society pretty much hell-bent on the cliff's edge, and not coincidentlaly taking at least big chunks of the rest of the planet along, what kind of response might stop the death march?

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Saturday, June 25, 2005 5:39 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


I was cruising thtough scientific sites and came across these, which I think belong here:

Source: Vanderbilt University
Date: 2005-04-04
URL: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050328143813.htm



Understanding Biological Foundation Of Human Behavior Critical To Improving Laws
Laws and public policy will often miss their mark until they incorporate an understanding of why, biologically, humans behave as they do, scholars from Vanderbilt and Yale universities argue in the March issue of Columbia Law Review.

"The legal system tends to assume that either people are purely rational actors or that their brains are blank slates on which culture and only culture is written. The reality is much more complicated and can only be appreciated with a deeper understanding of behavioral biology," said Vanderbilt law professor and biologist Owen Jones. He co-authored the article with Timothy Goldsmith, Yale professor emeritus of molecular, cellular and developmental biology.

All laws at their foundation are designed to influence human behavior, from how we interact with one another, to how we relate to our own property and that of others, to how government agencies interact with each other and with citizens, Jones said.

When developing laws, legislators and legal scholars have traditionally relied heavily on the social sciences, such as economics, psychology and political science, often responding to the popular or political trends of their time. They have rarely looked to incorporate the latest findings from fields such as biology, neuroscience and cognitive psychology, which have grown exponentially in recent years and have shed brand new light on how the human brain is structured and how it influences behavior.

Jones argues that integrating law with behavioral biology, which examines the biological underpinnings of human behavior, could strengthen legal measures in a variety of areas. Such an approach might enhance understanding of why some penalties are more effective than others, how people make choices in areas such as environmental protection and retirement savings, and what the underlying causes of aggression are and how they help explain why young men are sometimes willing – even in the face of the severest penalties – to kill in reaction to threats to their status.

"I hope this paper will spark continuing research in this area and foster a greater synthesis of life science and social science perspectives, ultimately enabling law in many areas of human behavior to achieve its goals more efficiently and effectively," Jones said.

Jones has a joint appointment in the Vanderbilt University Law School and the university's biological sciences department. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050328143813.htm

I do think that behavioral biology is not quite up the the task yet. We look back on Skinner for example as being a primitive level of this kind of study; in 10 years time I think we'll look back on today with the same judgement

Source: University Of California - Los Angeles
Date: 2004-11-30
URL: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/11/041129111632.htm


UCLA Study Points To Evolutionary Roots Of Altruism, Moral Outrage
If you've ever been tempted to drop a friend who tended to freeload, then you have experienced a key to one of the biggest mysteries facing social scientists, suggests a study by UCLA anthropologists.

"If the help and support of a community significantly affects the well-being of its members, then the threat of withdrawing that support can keep people in line and maintain social order," said Karthik Panchanathan, a UCLA graduate student whose study appears in Nature. "Our study offers an explanation of why people tend to contribute to the public good, like keeping the streets clean. Those who play by the rules and contribute to the public good will be included and outcompete freeloaders."

This finding -- at least in part -- may help explain the evolutionary roots of altruism and human anger in the face of uncooperative behavior, both of which have long puzzled economists and evolutionary biologists, he said.

"If you put two dogs together, and one dog does something inappropriate, the other dog doesn't care, so long as it doesn't get hurt," Panchanathan said. "It certainly wouldn't react with moralistic outrage. Likewise, it wouldn't experience elation if it saw one dog help out another dog. But humans are very different; we're the only animals that display these traits."

The study, which uses evolutionary game theory to model human behavior in small social groups, is the first to show that cooperation in the context of the public good can be sustained when freeloaders are punished through social exclusion, said co-author Robert Boyd, a UCLA professor of anthropology and fellow associate in UCLA's Center for Behavior, Evolution and Culture.

"Up to this point, social scientists interested in the evolutionary roots of cooperative behavior have been hard-pressed to explain why any single individual would stick his neck out to punish those who fail to pull their weight in society," Boyd said. "But without individuals willing to mete out punishment, we have a hard time explaining how societies develop and sustain cooperative behavior. Our model shows that as long as it is socially permissible, withholding help from a deadbeat actually proves to be in an individual's self-interest."

With funding from the National Science Foundation, Panchanathan set out to recreate mathematically a small community in which people participate in a public good, such as an annual clearing of a mosquito-infested swamp, which takes time from their day but which saves the entire community time down the line because the work prevents them from getting sick. He assumed that individuals in the close-knit community frequently swap favors, like helping neighbors repair their homes after a storm. He also assumed that no single individual or agency was being paid to keep individuals in line. Community members had to do it themselves, much as our evolutionary ancestors would have done.

In his mathematical model, Panchanathan pitted three types of society members:

* "Cooperators," or people who always contribute to the public good and who always assist individual community members in the group with the favors that are asked of them. * "Defectors," who never contribute to the public good nor assist other community members who ask for help. * "Shunners," or hard-nosed types who contribute to the public good, but only lend aid to those individuals with a reputation for contributing to the public good and helping other good community members who ask for help. For members in bad standing, shunners withhold individual assistance.

During the course of the game, both cooperators and shunners helped to clear the swamp. The benefits from the mosquito-free swamp, however, flowed to the whole community, including defectors. When the researcher took only this behavior into account, the defectors come out on top because they enjoyed the same benefits the other types, but they paid no costs for the benefits.

But when it came to getting help in home repair, the defectors didn't always do so well. The cooperators helped anyone who asked, but the shunners were selective; they only help those with a reputation for clearing the swamp and helping good community members in home repair. By not helping defectors when they ask for help, shunners were able to save time and resources, thus improving their score. If the loss that defectors experienced from not being helped by shunners was greater than the cost they would have paid to clear the swamp, then defectors lost out.

After these social interactions went on for a period of time that might approximate a generation, individuals were allowed to reproduce based on accumulated scores, so that those with more "fitness points" had more children. Those children were assumed to have adopted their parents' strategy.

Eventually, Panchanathan found that communities end up with either all defectors or all shunners.

"Both of those end points represent 'evolutionarily stable equilibriums'; no matter how much time passes, the make-up of the population does not change," Panchanathan said.

In a community with just cooperators and defectors, defectors -- not surprisingly -- always won. Also when shunners were matched against cooperators, shunners won.

"The cooperators were too nice; they died out," Panchanathan said. "In order to survive, they had to be discriminate about the help they gave."

But when shunners were matched against defectors, the outcome was either shunners or defectors. The outcome depended on the initial frequency of shunners. If enough shunners were present at the beginning of the exercise, then shunners prevailed. Otherwise, defectors prevailed, potentially pointing to the precarious nature of cooperative society.

"We know that people pay their taxes and engage in all kinds of other cooperative behaviors in modern society because they're afraid they'll get punished," Panchanathan said. "The problem for the social scientist becomes how did the propensity to punish get started? Why do I get angry if someone doesn't contribute? Isn't it just better to say, 'It's their business,' and let everybody else in the group get angry? After all, punishing someone else will take time and energy away from activities that are more directly important to me and I may get hurt."

"By withdrawing my support from a freeloader, I benefit because every time I do something nice for someone, it costs me something," Panchanathan said. "By withdrawing that support, I'm spared the energy, time or whatever costs are entailed. I retain my contribution, but the deadbeat is punished."

In practice, however, cooperative societies hold defectors in line through a series of measures, Panchanathan said. "The first level is disapproval: you say, 'That wasn't cool' or you give a funny look," he said. "Then you withdraw social support. Finally, you lower the boom and either physically hurt the defector or run him out of town."

Ultimately, he admits, this model is "a very simple and crude approximation" of the real world. "For example, in my model, only defectors or shunners can persist. They cannot coexist," he said. "But we know that some people are generally cooperative, playing by society's rules, while others are not. This type of modeling doesn't explain everything. Instead, it boils down a complex social world and tries to understand one small piece. In this case, we found that cooperation can persist if people need to maintain a good reputation in their community."

But, to go along with this very simplistic model for the moment, if co-operators are do-gooder liberals, and defectors are social-darwinista conservatives, who are the shunners? And PS - SignyM, I wonder if this could be show to be a variation of the tit-for-tat strategy?

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