Monday, November 22, 2010
Fraser and Libertarianism.
It turns out that the connection between J.T. Fraser and libertarianism was closer than I thought. Though Fred Turner and I are both libertarians, I know that not everyone who loved Fraser's ideas were, and Fraser himself never gave a clue as to what his politics were in anything I read of his (probably for the best in the grand scheme of things).
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12 comments:
Troy,
RE: Fraser / sociotemporal
Is there anything you've run across that discusses Fraser's concept of sociotemporal, with time-preference, with the tendency of people to develop frameworks of related concepts with similar production cycles? Or perhaps, using non-economic terms, people's tendency develop networks of judgements, values, or perceptions that have similar time frames?
It appears (Banfield->Hoppe) that class is largely a function of time preference. And that class is largely a function of IQ and concept distribution. And therefore that classes and time preferences are not infinitely alterable, at least in relation to one another.
Just hoping that if you're interested in the time problem (I am too) you might know about something that I don't.
I am sure he has, but I will have to look it up and get back to you on that. There is also Gravesean psychology's different temporal perceptions at different levels of cognitive complexity that might be of interest.
I am very much interested in the time problem. I'm a member of the International Society for the Study of Time, after all. :-)
The ISST site is down again btw.
If you could get that for me I'd appreciate it. I'll look into the Gravesian work as well.
Thanks.
I get off work here in 15 minutes. After a few hours of sleep, I'll take a look and get back to you on Fraser.
He does not address time preferences per se, but I believe one can develop a much more complex, nuanced version of time preference from his work. The way people experience/perceive time is of course going to affect their time preference. Along these lines, Fraser's Time, the Familiar Stranger and Time, Conflict, and Human Values are to be recommended. And, if I may, I also connected Gravesean psychology to Fraser's theory of time in my book Diaphysics.
Thanks very much.I'll order the Fraser books.
As for Graveson, I've found quite a few references, but no papers or summaries.
I think what I see so far is an analogistic framework, that assists in conveying an understanding that is meaningful to the reader. However, I'm looking for necessary and sufficient non-contradictory principles. (Which is why the propertarian argument is useful as an epistemic device -- at least within bounds.)
If I'm wrong it this quick assumption will you correct me?
Thanks
The Clare Graves stuff is mostly through Christopher Cowan and Don Beck. They have a book titled "Spiral Dynamics" that explains the ideas in terms of management theory. There are several elements of the book I wish it did not have, but the ideas are good.
As for Fraser, he makes the argument that time itself evolves and emerges new properties. I suspect it may be that each level experiences time differently. This would make sense from the human perspective to be sure. Maybe I'll do a more lengthy posting in the main body of the blog tonight laying out my conception of the evolution of human time experience. I have lots of time at work. :-)
Here's my summaries Graves' ideas
Hope they help until I post my piece on these levels' time experiences.
Perfect. Thank you very much.
OK. Yes, now I see.
Right idea, but I think it's the wrong methodology.
Various cycle theories with the same underlying concepts: Roman Quaternum, Strauss and Howe's Generations, Kondreitev's Waves, Hayeks traditional knowledge, Quigley's Civilization Cycle. Toynbee, Spengler, Durant's versions. Spiral is just another discipline's language applied to the same problem. (and I dont think any more insightful).
But WHY? We know some of the properties of the process: class rotation, trade routes, exploitation of opportunities, human flocking on mythos and then dispersing, calculative system breakdowns, limits of law and religion under urbanization. The question is, what is the mathematics of human learning in groups. Mandelbrot is probably right.
Thanks for sharing.
Don't focus on the term "spiral," as that only means that there is a switching back and forth from individualist to communitarian world views with emerging complexity. Thus, it is not cyclical, but "spiral." The important part of it is that greater social complexity results in greater psychological complexity. When the paradoxes of one level become too much, there is a movment into another level of complexity. One reacts against individualism to become communitarian; one reacts against communitarianism to become individualistic. It actually fits in quite well with Fraser's overall emergentist world view as well as Hayek's spontaneous order theory of the mind. (I'll to the time piece soon.)
Yes, I'm not disagreeing with the general approach, but he isnt' saying why.
There is a very clear reason (I think) why this occurs in history.
Or rather, the causes are what we need to understand if we wish to alter them.
In political economy, how do we both solve for innovation, which as a minority, is the means by which we benefit the majority, and at the same time preserve our ability to solve for innovation, despite the fact that the process of creative destruction is intellectually counter-intuitive to the individual?
We desire stability, and low prices, but these two things are mutually exclusive. Wealth creation requires a middle class that is large, but both the middle and lower classes gain political power by the process of price reduction and innovation. And they seek stability and redistribution and consumpiton rather than capitalization and innovation.
Furthermore, our information systems of law, religion (unwritten principles of ethical behavior, not rituals or emotional content) and even it appears credit, break down at scale. Urbanization seems to make a civilization incalculable (irrational). And then resource management is impossible. (This is why civilizations die. Jarred Diamond is wrong. We exploit because our property rules fail us and calculation and resource management become impossible, yet law, and religion are not sufficient tools for managing property at scale, we need credit and sound money.)
I am not concerned about hoe people 'feel' or their psychology. Those properties are subject to external stimuli. The question is, how do we create external stimuli so that people have the appropriate psychological and emotional reaction to that stimuli while maintaining a cooperative and competitive division of knowledge and labor.
I hope that makes at least some sense. it is too grand a topic for this medium.
But that said, I'll get into Frazer a bit and see if there is anything in there that helps. ANd thank you very much for the advice.
Beck and Cowan get more into the "why" and "how" than does Graves. Of course, they've had a few more decades to work out his ideas. :-) But they are not at all concerned with feelings, but with why people have particular values and behaviors.
I made my posting. GO check it out.
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