On Medium: Socialist Fantasies and the Escape from Nature’s Prison
This article is about a trendy critique of culture wars that rebrands old philosophical and religious ideas in terms of information ecologies, Game B, Rule Omega, and memeplexes.
The inventor Buckminster Fuller expressed similar sentiments. In the late 70's he took a thorough inventory of all the resources our planet has (both in raw materials & those already in use), compared that to what the current population of the world would need & came to the conclusion that there was no GOOD reason why any man, woman or child should be hungry, homeless or otherwise suffering from want. In fact, Bucky Fuller concluded that, given the planet's resources & the tendency of technology to do more with less, everyone should be living a comfortable upper middle class lifestyle. This was back in the early 80s.
Why are people still starving, homeless, poor & sick? Fuller's answer was that it's because our species evolved in a world of scarcity & even though scientific knowledge & technology has made it possible for everyone to live abundantly, every instinct we have is telling us that resources are limited & we have to put ourselves & our families first even if doing so means hoarding more than we need while others go without. That's how the rich ( and the poor, too) think & until we can change their minds no resource will be abundant enough, no technology will be advanced enough, to eliminate poverty. Our civilization could literally possess infinite, free energy & people would still be hungry, cold & miserable until we change the minds of those who control the resources.
That's a plausible explanation of social inequality. I think we can add to it a similar one arising from the existentialist's take on Freudianism, as provided for example by Ernest Becker: we need our self-esteem to protect us from despair in the face of natural life's absurdity. We evolved to attain that esteem (pride) by competing with others, so we feel good about ourselves only when we seem to be doing better than others.
We're obsessed with social status, and if everyone were doing equally well, as in a socialist utopia, individual status would be meaningless so we'd lose that protective delusion to keep out the recognition of life's absurdity. Society would become as absurd as nature. What seems to make sense is the social game of competing for differential status, because that's a suitable distraction for aggressive, clever primates.
Alternatively, if we identified with our species as a whole, as in a collectivist mindset like the Borg's, we could revel in our collective's dominance over other species and indeed we do that too. But we'd lose all sense of individuality.
I think your Freudian vision is very limited and reductionist.
There are thousands of ways to satisfy ego and pride that do not involve accumulating more money, power or resources than the rest. For example, art, play, exercise, painting, etc ... All this allows man to exercise, in Nietzsian terms, his will to power.
Nor is it necessary to destroy individualism in favor of collectivism, that duality is false and harmful, the individual is just as important as the collective.
And no, we do not need to reinforce a human species on the rest of the planet, simply because everything is connected and it would be harmful to do so, as shown by the economic actions that destroy the habitats and limited resources.
What Bucky Fuller raised, the Technocracy movement, or Jacque Fresco and the Venus Project, has nothing to do with your conclusions about type B society.
How is anything in that article or in my other articles "Freudian"? I base my view of the reality of the self on cognitive science, not on Freudian psychology. In an aside I say Sellars' "manifest image" is roughly the same as what Freud called the Ego, just to clarify the image, but I didn't mean to put everything Freud said on the table.
You seem to be mistaking descriptions for prescriptions. Often I mean to describe our situation vividly, but that doesn't mean I wholeheartedly approve of the reality I'm describing. So in the above article I'm saying the trendy critiques of culture wars underestimate the causes of tribalism. I'm not saying we shouldn't try to reform our tribal ways. I'm saying flashy rhetoric may not suffice.
Thus I conclude by saying, "Theoretically, we have the means to spread messages of enlightenment around the world, but as the Game B theorists recognize, such messages have to compete with the seas of noise that are likewise free to compete in the information ecology. Just as social groups tend to settle into dominance hierarchies, we as individuals often submit to our baser impulses."
You say we don't need to impose our species on the rest of the planet. But that's what we're doing, isn't it? And that's what we've been doing since the invention of civilization twelve thousand years ago, isn't it? Again, you're mistaking a description of unpleasant facts, with an approval of them.
You say we shouldn't impose our species because that would be self-destructive. Indeed, but you're leaving out the possibility that our species is inherently self-destructive, that the tools of self-consciousness, reason, and the opposable thumb in the hands of glorified apes are bound to end in disaster. See for example the link below: "Humankind as Life's Executioner: The Environmentalist's Nightmare."
In this article I was focusing on the Game B theorists at Rebel Wisdom, not on Fuller or the Venus Project.
"What seems to make sense is the social game of competing for differential status, because that's a suitable distraction for aggressive, clever primates."
This does not depend on individual psychology, it depends on the environment. Robert Sapolsky has done studies with baboons, when by an accident, the dominant males ate contaminated meat and died, the resulting group was much more equal and peaceful, and what is more important, they had less stress which increased their health and hope of lifetime.
You normally focus on Trump and narcissistic characters, these guys are a cultural creation, not genetic or hereditary problem, thays is, it is not something innate to human nature.
You seem to be contradicting yourself. If domination is present in baboons, how is domination in humans not genetic or based on inherent human tendencies?
Contrary to what you say, psychopathy is likely due to an interaction between genetic predispositions and an adverse environment. Trump would have had both (his psychopathic father raised him, and Trump's wealth insulated him and enabled him to push the psychopathic envelope).
I don't say psychopathy is entirely genetic. I say that power tends to corrupt whoever has it. See, for example, "Some Basics of Cynical Sociology":
You must study Robert Sapolsky, he has studied baboons and another group of non-violent monkeys, the difference? The baboon environment does not have abundant resources and the other group of monkeys does. They both live in the same country, but in a different region. Genetics does not explain these differences in behavior.
The inventor Buckminster Fuller expressed similar sentiments. In the late 70's he took a thorough inventory of all the resources our planet has (both in raw materials & those already in use), compared that to what the current population of the world would need & came to the conclusion that there was no GOOD reason why any man, woman or child should be hungry, homeless or otherwise suffering from want. In fact, Bucky Fuller concluded that, given the planet's resources & the tendency of technology to do more with less, everyone should be living a comfortable upper middle class lifestyle. This was back in the early 80s.
ReplyDeleteWhy are people still starving, homeless, poor & sick? Fuller's answer was that it's because our species evolved in a world of scarcity & even though scientific knowledge & technology has made it possible for everyone to live abundantly, every instinct we have is telling us that resources are limited & we have to put ourselves & our families first even if doing so means hoarding more than we need while others go without. That's how the rich ( and the poor, too) think & until we can change their minds no resource will be abundant enough, no technology will be advanced enough, to eliminate poverty. Our civilization could literally possess infinite, free energy & people would still be hungry, cold & miserable until we change the minds of those who control the resources.
All I can say is "Good luck!"
That's a plausible explanation of social inequality. I think we can add to it a similar one arising from the existentialist's take on Freudianism, as provided for example by Ernest Becker: we need our self-esteem to protect us from despair in the face of natural life's absurdity. We evolved to attain that esteem (pride) by competing with others, so we feel good about ourselves only when we seem to be doing better than others.
DeleteWe're obsessed with social status, and if everyone were doing equally well, as in a socialist utopia, individual status would be meaningless so we'd lose that protective delusion to keep out the recognition of life's absurdity. Society would become as absurd as nature. What seems to make sense is the social game of competing for differential status, because that's a suitable distraction for aggressive, clever primates.
Alternatively, if we identified with our species as a whole, as in a collectivist mindset like the Borg's, we could revel in our collective's dominance over other species and indeed we do that too. But we'd lose all sense of individuality.
I think your Freudian vision is very limited and reductionist.
DeleteThere are thousands of ways to satisfy ego and pride that do not involve accumulating more money, power or resources than the rest. For example, art, play, exercise, painting, etc ... All this allows man to exercise, in Nietzsian terms, his will to power.
Nor is it necessary to destroy individualism in favor of collectivism, that duality is false and harmful, the individual is just as important as the collective.
And no, we do not need to reinforce a human species on the rest of the planet, simply because everything is connected and it would be harmful to do so, as shown by the economic actions that destroy the habitats and limited resources.
What Bucky Fuller raised, the Technocracy movement, or Jacque Fresco and the Venus Project, has nothing to do with your conclusions about type B society.
DeleteHow is anything in that article or in my other articles "Freudian"? I base my view of the reality of the self on cognitive science, not on Freudian psychology. In an aside I say Sellars' "manifest image" is roughly the same as what Freud called the Ego, just to clarify the image, but I didn't mean to put everything Freud said on the table.
DeleteYou seem to be mistaking descriptions for prescriptions. Often I mean to describe our situation vividly, but that doesn't mean I wholeheartedly approve of the reality I'm describing. So in the above article I'm saying the trendy critiques of culture wars underestimate the causes of tribalism. I'm not saying we shouldn't try to reform our tribal ways. I'm saying flashy rhetoric may not suffice.
Thus I conclude by saying, "Theoretically, we have the means to spread messages of enlightenment around the world, but as the Game B theorists recognize, such messages have to compete with the seas of noise that are likewise free to compete in the information ecology. Just as social groups tend to settle into dominance hierarchies, we as individuals often submit to our baser impulses."
You say we don't need to impose our species on the rest of the planet. But that's what we're doing, isn't it? And that's what we've been doing since the invention of civilization twelve thousand years ago, isn't it? Again, you're mistaking a description of unpleasant facts, with an approval of them.
You say we shouldn't impose our species because that would be self-destructive. Indeed, but you're leaving out the possibility that our species is inherently self-destructive, that the tools of self-consciousness, reason, and the opposable thumb in the hands of glorified apes are bound to end in disaster. See for example the link below: "Humankind as Life's Executioner: The Environmentalist's Nightmare."
In this article I was focusing on the Game B theorists at Rebel Wisdom, not on Fuller or the Venus Project.
http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.ca/2013/04/humankind-as-lifes-executioner.html
"What seems to make sense is the social game of competing for differential status, because that's a suitable distraction for aggressive, clever primates."
ReplyDeleteThis does not depend on individual psychology, it depends on the environment. Robert Sapolsky has done studies with baboons, when by an accident, the dominant males ate contaminated meat and died, the resulting group was much more equal and peaceful, and what is more important, they had less stress which increased their health and hope of lifetime.
You normally focus on Trump and narcissistic characters, these guys are a cultural creation, not genetic or hereditary problem, thays is, it is not something innate to human nature.
You seem to be contradicting yourself. If domination is present in baboons, how is domination in humans not genetic or based on inherent human tendencies?
DeleteContrary to what you say, psychopathy is likely due to an interaction between genetic predispositions and an adverse environment. Trump would have had both (his psychopathic father raised him, and Trump's wealth insulated him and enabled him to push the psychopathic envelope).
I don't say psychopathy is entirely genetic. I say that power tends to corrupt whoever has it. See, for example, "Some Basics of Cynical Sociology":
https://medium.com/@benjamincain8/some-basics-of-cynical-sociology-fc714ea98b6?source=friends_link&sk=c07effa72090d168b57fb90de9dc70d2
You must study Robert Sapolsky, he has studied baboons and another group of non-violent monkeys, the difference? The baboon environment does not have abundant resources and the other group of monkeys does. They both live in the same country, but in a different region. Genetics does not explain these differences in behavior.
Delete