An Information-Theoretic Primer on Complexity, Self-Organization, and Emergence
Given my book Diaphysics, how can I not be interested in this?
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
The Author and the Narrator
I was looking at a poem I wrote recently and posted on my poetry blog, Too You, Too Me, Too Us, and I began to think about how such a poem could be misinterpreted as being about an episode in the author's life. Since I am the author, I am certainly in a situation to address whether or not this particular poem is about something in my life. It is not. Those who know me have nothing to fear: no such arguments in fact take place between Anna and me.
So why did I write the poem? Well, on one of my recent songs, I made a typo, leaving off the "ng" of young in a line that had "I was too young." A commenter on my poetry blog pointed it out, hoping it was intentional, but suspecting, based on the context, that I had in fact mean "too young." I thought the idea of "too you" was an interesting one, too, and decided to write a poem around that idea.
The outcome was the above poem. A poem or a story has both an author and a narrator. They are not necessarily the same. Very often they are not the same. It is a fallacy to equate the author with the narrator in a creative work like a poem, short story, or novel. Looking to an author's biography can help one to understand his works, but not by confusing the experiences of the author with the characters and/or narrators of his works.
So why did I write the poem? Well, on one of my recent songs, I made a typo, leaving off the "ng" of young in a line that had "I was too young." A commenter on my poetry blog pointed it out, hoping it was intentional, but suspecting, based on the context, that I had in fact mean "too young." I thought the idea of "too you" was an interesting one, too, and decided to write a poem around that idea.
The outcome was the above poem. A poem or a story has both an author and a narrator. They are not necessarily the same. Very often they are not the same. It is a fallacy to equate the author with the narrator in a creative work like a poem, short story, or novel. Looking to an author's biography can help one to understand his works, but not by confusing the experiences of the author with the characters and/or narrators of his works.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Markets and Morality
Herbert Gintis on markets and morality. I am glad this is a current topic, given my current interests. Which only means I need to step on it if I'm going to strike while the iron's hot. As Gintis points out, markets make one more moral, not less.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Political Ideology, Tribalism, and Morality
Here is an article that confirms my thesis that one only feels empathy -- meaning, one only acts morally -- toward those one considers to be in one's tribe. It turns out that knowing someone's ideology affects whether or not you empathize with them. But what does it say that Republicans are slightly less empathetic (96%) toward other Republicans than Democrats are to Democrats (100%), but more empathetic to Democrats (9.5%) than Democrats are to them (0%)? Indeed, politics makes people mean. But this is really only just a particular example of our tribalism.
The Social Sources of Cultural Creativity
Randall Collins' theory in The Sociology of Philosophies is, essentially, Nietzschean in nature.
He argues that agonal relations are what drive philosophical change. This results in what he calls the "law of small numbers," meaning only a few sets of philosophies can emerge -- too few, and there are splits; too many, and there is synthesis. Agonal relations are what drive both.
But there is more to it than this that makes the idea Nietzschean. Nietzsche argued that societies with strong cultures were small and diverse, but with freedom of movement and cosmopolitan in nature. There had to be both conflict and an ability to move around freely and exchange ideas. But there could not be true uniformity, even if there was enough commonality to allow for the exchange of ideas. Nietzsche's ideals were the independent German states and the ancient Greek city-states.
Collins:
He points out that the same is true of the development of ancient Indian philosophy as well (177).
If you want a vibrant development of philosophical ideas, you need political pluralism, the cosmopolitanism created by free trade and education, and a breakdown of the dominant world view. If you have increasing political unity, trade barriers, a less educated (in a real sense of high levels of learning vs. mere signalling) public, and a dominant world view, you are not going to have a vibrant philosophical community.
Nor are you going to have a vibrant artistic community. Consider the times when the Western arts became most creative: the tragic age of Greece, the Renaissance, and Modernism. Each were times of high political pluralism, free movement of goods and people, an emphasis on more widespread learning, and the breakdown of dominant ideologies. It is no coincidence that Modernism emerged in the aftermath of WWI.
Nietzsche argued that the strength of a culture is inversely proportional to the power of the government within that society. A strong government/political economy means a weak gift economy. The United States is facing a time of stagnant art, literature, and philosophy. It is no coincident that it is coinciding with a time when we are becoming more politically united (vs. the ideal political plurality of the 50 different states), with less economic freedom, where learning is being replaced with schooling-as-signalling, and where the political ideology is identical in the two dominant parties. The fact that we are generally disunited religiously is in fact a point in our favor. But we are practically all united in the religion of politics, where we try to emphasize false differences in order to justify our choice of tribe. We will have to reverse all these trends if we want a culturally vibrant, creative United States.
He argues that agonal relations are what drive philosophical change. This results in what he calls the "law of small numbers," meaning only a few sets of philosophies can emerge -- too few, and there are splits; too many, and there is synthesis. Agonal relations are what drive both.
But there is more to it than this that makes the idea Nietzschean. Nietzsche argued that societies with strong cultures were small and diverse, but with freedom of movement and cosmopolitan in nature. There had to be both conflict and an ability to move around freely and exchange ideas. But there could not be true uniformity, even if there was enough commonality to allow for the exchange of ideas. Nietzsche's ideals were the independent German states and the ancient Greek city-states.
Collins:
The substantive contents of philosophy are different in China and Greece; the similarities are at the level of the network structure. In both the law of small numbers was operative early, as multiple factions emerged to fill the new intellectual attention space. In both cases the precipitating conditions involved political pluralism, the cosmopolitanism of commercial development and literacy, and a breakdown of traditional religious practices. (146)
He points out that the same is true of the development of ancient Indian philosophy as well (177).
If you want a vibrant development of philosophical ideas, you need political pluralism, the cosmopolitanism created by free trade and education, and a breakdown of the dominant world view. If you have increasing political unity, trade barriers, a less educated (in a real sense of high levels of learning vs. mere signalling) public, and a dominant world view, you are not going to have a vibrant philosophical community.
Nor are you going to have a vibrant artistic community. Consider the times when the Western arts became most creative: the tragic age of Greece, the Renaissance, and Modernism. Each were times of high political pluralism, free movement of goods and people, an emphasis on more widespread learning, and the breakdown of dominant ideologies. It is no coincidence that Modernism emerged in the aftermath of WWI.
Nietzsche argued that the strength of a culture is inversely proportional to the power of the government within that society. A strong government/political economy means a weak gift economy. The United States is facing a time of stagnant art, literature, and philosophy. It is no coincident that it is coinciding with a time when we are becoming more politically united (vs. the ideal political plurality of the 50 different states), with less economic freedom, where learning is being replaced with schooling-as-signalling, and where the political ideology is identical in the two dominant parties. The fact that we are generally disunited religiously is in fact a point in our favor. But we are practically all united in the religion of politics, where we try to emphasize false differences in order to justify our choice of tribe. We will have to reverse all these trends if we want a culturally vibrant, creative United States.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Toward a Theory of Moral Change and Constancy
A moral action is a right action in the right circumstances for the right reason. It has a narrative structure. Like language, it has a grammar. A subject acts on or in relation to an object. Specifically, a character acts in relation to another person. This is related to the idea of virtue ethics, where one develops one’s character by always aiming at the beautiful/good(to kalon). From this character (ethos), one acts to achieve certain goals. One’s ethos affects what goals one wishes to achieve, but it cannot necessarily tell you how to achieve that goal. That is where the science of praxeology comes in. Praxeology tells us what actions to take to achieve our goals, no matter what our goals may be. One uses one’s character to judge whether the actions are themselves good (the ends do not justify the means). Thus, for there to be a fully moral action, a person of good character must engage in a good action capable of achieving the desired goal, which itself should be good. If you do this, what you have done is good. If you fail to choose the right action, what you have done is bad (we would not tell an architect who built a bad bridge out of ignorance that he was, nevertheless, a good architect because he meant well). If you have a bad goal, and you use the right action to achieve it, then what you did is evil. If you are of bad character, but you engage in good action that results in a good outcome, then what you have done is what was described by Bernard Mandeville in his The Fable of the Bees. It turns out a considerable amount of good can come from this latter structure, but since I am talking about morality in its fullest expression, we will leave that aside. However, if spontaneous orders are beautiful, or at least potentially so, then we have an idea of what virtue should aim at. This will bring us back to the issues of the varieties of economies. As I have pointed out before, moral instincts --> moral spontaneous order --> moral reasoning. That is morality in a nutshell.
The idea of “personhood” is central to my theory of morality. But so is the fact that we have moral instincts, which are part of our repertoire of instincts, or cultural universals. In the same way that we do not have a choice but to language when we are surrounded by language users, because we have a language instinct, and in the same way the particular language spoken by those around us is what determines what language we use, even if we can learn more languages later in life and, with some of the greatest poets, introduce elements of other languages into the mother language, morality is similarly both universal and learned. That is, we all have a moral instinct much like we have a language instinct. The fact that there is variation of moral expression is no more an argument against the existence of this instinct than is the presence of variation among languages an argument against the existence of an instinct. The fact that we can identify grammatically-structured sounds as a language certainly suggests that there must be some commonality among the languages to make them identifiable as being the same thing. The same would be true of morality. We can identify the moral codes of a given culture. How, unless there were commonalities with other moral codes that make them identifiable as such? Further, there are gene variations that can derail language learning, in much the same way there are gene variations that can derail moral learning.
The bottom line is that there is an inherited moral sense. Or senses. They become developed as they are expressed due to the moral environment in which the person in question is raised. The Westermarck effect, which is expressed more strongly in girls than in boys, and which is expressed toward those with whom one has been raised up to about the age of 6, results in the moral prohibitions against incest. There are variations on this, with cousin marriages prohibited in some places, but not in others, for example. But this prohibition against marrying cousins is a pretty recent development, and is a considerable extension of the incest avoidance principle. There are those who may object that there have been societies that allowed or even outright encouraged incest, such as the tradition of alternate generations of ancient Egyptian rulers marrying their sisters, but if we look closely, we can discover how these are not in fact violations, but demonstrate the variety of ways we define “personhood.”
Egyptian rulers were not considered persons, but were rather considered divine. This divinity was reinforced through the alternating generations of brother-sister marriages, which both reinforced the ruling line and reflected Egyptian mythology, which included stories of divine incest. This is why society did not object, and in fact thought it right. Insofar as brothers and sisters are raised apart, no Westermarck effect can develop. But if they are raised together, we should expect to see less fertility in such unions. Historically, when we see these kinds of incestuous marriages, these are the patterns we see. Incest only “feels wrong” when the Westermarck effect can properly develop. Thus, these so-called “exceptions” are shown to not really be exceptions. Sexual morality evolves, but within clear parameters.
Another example is murder. What is murder? Murder is the purposeful killing of a person. A person is anyone considered to be equal to you insofar as they are a “fellow human being.” Different societies have different definitions of what constitutes a person. In some societies, women, children (especially female children), deformed children, slaves, members of other tribes, members of other religions, people who have the wrong ideology, unborn children, and/or criminals are not considered to be persons. Darwin suggested that our morality increased as our notion of who is in our tribe expanded. You could, over the centuries, go from all male members of the tribe to all members of the tribe to slaves (at which point slavery becomes immoral) to other tribes to other religions to other ideologies. Eventually we come to those who consider all human beings to be persons. And we see a development of the concept of personhood being applied to animals.
However, we see in a variety of cultures rituals that make certain individuals no longer considered to be persons. To perform a human sacrifice of a member of your tribe, you first have to perform a ritual to remove them from the tribe. Jews and Muslims have to kill animals as they do because they have to be as kind to the animals as possible. This suggests a certain concept of animal personhood, since a ritual must be performed to kill the animal for food. And in places with capital punishment, a ritual (court proceedings) is performed that removes the human being on trial from society and strips him of his personhood so that he can be killed. Those who oppose the death penalty essentially disagree that this ritual performs this function. Those who oppose abortion essentially extend personhood back to conception (in the most extreme cases). The disagreements in these areas involve both definitions of personhood and whether or not certain rituals can in fact remove someone’s personhood. And this is also extended to a variety of violent acts we can make toward each other. The more developed our sense of the other’s personhood, the less violence we can justify to ourselves we can do to them. This would expand to rape as well, as this is a violation of an individual’s personhood in denying them a choice in sexual matters.
From our evolved sense of property rights is where our opposition to theft emerges. Out of our instinct for property emerges individualism itself and ritual. Thus, we need to understand our evolutionary relationship to territory/property rights to understand our morality and our artistic expressions, which develop out of ritual. As we have seen, too, ritual performs certain social realities, including whether or not someone is considered a person, or a full person (as adulthood rituals perform into becoming). Ritual then also points to how we may facilitate more people’s inclusion into our societies, encouraging us and them to consider more and more people to be persons.
But there are more subtle morals, manners, etc. Kenrick et al gives us the dynamic mechanism by which even the most subtle variations in morality can emerge from a universal core. I cannot recommend his two articles on this topic. More work needs to be done in this promising area.
If morality is the right action in the right circumstances, then moral action is the right action for and in the right economy. Consider the following:
Gift economy
What makes one a good artist? What makes one a bad artist?
What makes one a good scientist? What makes one a bad
scientist?
What makes one a good philanthropist? What makes one a bad
philanthropist?
That is, what constitutes good action within the gift
economy?
Market economy
What makes one a good entrepreneur? What makes one a bad
entrepreneur?
What makes one a good salesman? What makes one a bad
salesman?
What makes one a good capitalist? What makes one a bad
capitalist?
What makes one a good financier? What makes one a bad
financier?
What makes one a good banker? What makes one a bad banker?
That is, what constitutes good action within the market
economy?
Political economy
What makes good governance? What makes bad governance?
What makes one a good governor/executive? What makes one a
bad governor/executive?
What makes one a good legislator? What makes one a bad
legislator?
What makes one a good judge? What makes one a bad judge?
What makes one a good citizen? What makes one a bad citizen?
That is, what constitutes good action in the political
economy?
Divine economy
What makes one a good pastor/religious leader? What makes
one a bad pastor/religious leader?
What makes one a good believer? What makes one a bad
believer?
What makes one good? What makes one bad? What makes one
evil?
That is, what constitutes good action in the divine economy?
Each has actions that are good within that economy. However, what is good action in one economy is not good action in another economy.
And I haven't even brought up the issue of justice, which certainly deserves increased development. Since personhood is central to my theory of morality, I will say we must beware of dehumanizing theories of justice.
And then, this is also all connected to the Gravesean theory of psychosocial evolution.
And I haven't even brought up the issue of justice, which certainly deserves increased development. Since personhood is central to my theory of morality, I will say we must beware of dehumanizing theories of justice.
And then, this is also all connected to the Gravesean theory of psychosocial evolution.
I feel a complete model of morality coming about.
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
Moral Actions in the Economies
Ethics is based on character (ethos); morality is based on action. The ethical person aims at the beautiful/good; the actions one takes to achieve those actions are moral actions.
I have written a series of posts on the different kinds of economies, and the actions one takes to participate in those economies. I previously suggested that "it seems to me that when we confuse these orders and the actions appropriate to them, we may in fact be acting unethically." Given my distinctions above, I would now reword it to state that one would be acting immorally. This would make sense if morality is based on action.
The different economies each have different actions associated with them.
Consider the following scenarios.
If you apply market action (mutual exchange) to:
If you apply political action (master-slave) to:
If you apply gift action (love of others) to:
If you apply divine action (sacrifice) to:
This list is a first approximation of the moral issues at play in confusing one's actions and one's economies. Note that it is really the misapplication of the gift economy to the others that creates the problems we see today. This is a surprising outcome, unless one realized the gift economy is the latest one to emerge. It may be that, in its birthing process, a new economy gets overapplied in its actions and values to the other economies.
As I said, this is a first approximation. I am certainly open to suggestions, modifications, etc. This is an idea I am thinking through, and revisions are expected and necessary. So please, critique, comment, suggest!
I have written a series of posts on the different kinds of economies, and the actions one takes to participate in those economies. I previously suggested that "it seems to me that when we confuse these orders and the actions appropriate to them, we may in fact be acting unethically." Given my distinctions above, I would now reword it to state that one would be acting immorally. This would make sense if morality is based on action.
The different economies each have different actions associated with them.
Consider the following scenarios.
If you apply market action (mutual exchange) to:
the political economy, you are bribing
the gift economy, you are buying the scientific or artistic outcome you want, regardless of its truth, goodness, or beauty
the divine economy, you are scamming people
If you apply political action (master-slave) to:
the market economy, you are stealing
the gift economy, you are censoring to prevent the discovery of truth, goodness, or beauty
the divine economy, you are imposing your morals/values
If you apply gift action (love of others) to:
the market economy, you actually place your business in danger of losing profit and, thus, of shutting down and losing people their jobs (this is the situation Milton Friedman famously described when asked if corporations should behave altruistically, and he argued that if they did so, they would be acting unethically)
the political economy, you get the welfare state or socialism
the divine economy, you get outright destruction of the divine economy, or nihilism
If you apply divine action (sacrifice) to:
the market economy, you undermine the profits necessary for your business to survive (similarly to if you try to apply the gift economy to the market economy)
the political economy, you get theocracy
the gift economy, you get self-censorship (of science, one's art, etc.) to avoid offense
This list is a first approximation of the moral issues at play in confusing one's actions and one's economies. Note that it is really the misapplication of the gift economy to the others that creates the problems we see today. This is a surprising outcome, unless one realized the gift economy is the latest one to emerge. It may be that, in its birthing process, a new economy gets overapplied in its actions and values to the other economies.
As I said, this is a first approximation. I am certainly open to suggestions, modifications, etc. This is an idea I am thinking through, and revisions are expected and necessary. So please, critique, comment, suggest!
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Bipolar Feedback Prices
According to mainstream (neoclassical) economics, price is determined by the negative feedback of both supply and demand interacting with one another. As the supply of a good goes up relative to demand, the price goes down; as demand for it goes up relative to supply, the price goes down.
Underlying the supply of a given good, there are producer costs affecting how much will be produced. The law of diminishing returns (negative feedback) says that you will get less and less value out of something over time. You can only get so much work out of people, at incrementally lower levels. You can only get so much work out of a machine. Crops can only be grown at a certain 2-D density.
Underlying the demand for a given good, we have the law of diminishing marginal utility (negative feedback), which affects how much demand one has for a given good at a given time. I will likely pay more for the first apple than for the second. I will probably not buy more apples than I can eat before they rot. Thus, my demand for a given good decreases the more of that good I have.
Again, this is traditional, neoclassical economics. From this we get our supply and demand curves, and from their intersection, we get the market clearing price. This is the equilibrium price.
But this is wrong. This is not how prices come about.
The problem is that with only negative feedback, we have only half the equation. What if there is positive feedback? Let us look at what would happen in a positive feedback-only economy.
The positive feedback version of the law of diminishing returns is the law of increasing returns. How can we have increasing returns? If the marginal cost of producing something decreases with each unit created, we would have increasing returns. Software is a good example of this. So would be e-books (paper books abide by the law of diminishing returns). However, there is another example of this outside of knowledge/information-based products, and that is the agglomeration economies of cities. The existence of spillover effects and mass production creates increasing returns (at least for a while, in the latter case). Thus, increasing urbanization and increasing virtualization result in increased positive feedback.
The positive feedback version of the law of diminishing marginal utility is the law of increasing marginal utility. While it is true that individual consumers must necessarily abide by the law of diminishing marginal utility, groups do not. Fads cause more and more product to get purchased. Of course, there are various mechanisms that can drive a fad, from those that drive fashion fads to those that drive things like housing bubbles. The former may be accurately described by things like Keynes' "animal spirits," but the latter likely have underlying mechanisms more accurately described by Austrian Business Cycle Theory. Whatever the case, if you can get a lot of people buying something, you can get positive feedback.
As pointed out above, negative feedback results in equilibrium. Positive feedback, however, results in boom-bust cycles and multiple equilibria. If you had a positive feedback fire, it would get hotter and hotter over time, until it suddenly became too hot and burned itself out. This is the description of a bubble, be it a housing bubble or a fad.
But note that negative feedback models, which give us the equilibrium theory of prices, is based on viewing people as individuals. The individual producer has diminishing returns; the individual consumer has diminishing marginal utility. However, if we view the economy as being a group of people, producers can have increasing returns and consumers have increasing marginal utility. This can cause one to come to the conclusion that a future of abundance is possible (and if an abundance economy is possible, socialism is possible). Such people would have to ignore the fact that increasing returns are not infinite, and in fact result in not just boom, but bust as well. But one can nevertheless see why they would make such an error.
However, if we understand people as being what they in fact are, both individuals and social, we have to consider both negative and positive feedback processes simultaneously.
With both kinds of feedback, supply is determined by both diminishing and increasing returns, demand is determined by both diminishing and increasing marginal utility. Both interact. Thus, the supply of a good cannot reach an equilibrium point, but must always fluctuate in ways that are incalculable and unpredictable. For the same reason, demand cannot reach an equilibrium, but must always fluctuate in ways that are incalculable and unpredictable. Thus, we would not have the smooth curves we see when we draw supply and demand curves, but lines that would instead look more like the graph for a given stock over time. Worse, these two complex processes then have to interact to create the price of that good. Thus, price is inherently incalculable and unpredictable. Without the ability to calculate what the price "should" be, if there is not any such thing as a market clearing price, dreams of even market socialism must fall away.
Bipolar feedback drives a large number of complex, creative processes. The economy is but one kind of such a process. As we can see, we have bipolar feedback (increasing vs. diminishing returns/marginal utility) underlying both supply and demand, which are themselves bipolar feedback processes. This is complex, creative process on top of complex, creative process. The economy thus becomes increasingly incalculable, the more such processes we realize are part of the economy.
Underlying the supply of a given good, there are producer costs affecting how much will be produced. The law of diminishing returns (negative feedback) says that you will get less and less value out of something over time. You can only get so much work out of people, at incrementally lower levels. You can only get so much work out of a machine. Crops can only be grown at a certain 2-D density.
Underlying the demand for a given good, we have the law of diminishing marginal utility (negative feedback), which affects how much demand one has for a given good at a given time. I will likely pay more for the first apple than for the second. I will probably not buy more apples than I can eat before they rot. Thus, my demand for a given good decreases the more of that good I have.
Again, this is traditional, neoclassical economics. From this we get our supply and demand curves, and from their intersection, we get the market clearing price. This is the equilibrium price.
But this is wrong. This is not how prices come about.
The problem is that with only negative feedback, we have only half the equation. What if there is positive feedback? Let us look at what would happen in a positive feedback-only economy.
The positive feedback version of the law of diminishing returns is the law of increasing returns. How can we have increasing returns? If the marginal cost of producing something decreases with each unit created, we would have increasing returns. Software is a good example of this. So would be e-books (paper books abide by the law of diminishing returns). However, there is another example of this outside of knowledge/information-based products, and that is the agglomeration economies of cities. The existence of spillover effects and mass production creates increasing returns (at least for a while, in the latter case). Thus, increasing urbanization and increasing virtualization result in increased positive feedback.
The positive feedback version of the law of diminishing marginal utility is the law of increasing marginal utility. While it is true that individual consumers must necessarily abide by the law of diminishing marginal utility, groups do not. Fads cause more and more product to get purchased. Of course, there are various mechanisms that can drive a fad, from those that drive fashion fads to those that drive things like housing bubbles. The former may be accurately described by things like Keynes' "animal spirits," but the latter likely have underlying mechanisms more accurately described by Austrian Business Cycle Theory. Whatever the case, if you can get a lot of people buying something, you can get positive feedback.
As pointed out above, negative feedback results in equilibrium. Positive feedback, however, results in boom-bust cycles and multiple equilibria. If you had a positive feedback fire, it would get hotter and hotter over time, until it suddenly became too hot and burned itself out. This is the description of a bubble, be it a housing bubble or a fad.
But note that negative feedback models, which give us the equilibrium theory of prices, is based on viewing people as individuals. The individual producer has diminishing returns; the individual consumer has diminishing marginal utility. However, if we view the economy as being a group of people, producers can have increasing returns and consumers have increasing marginal utility. This can cause one to come to the conclusion that a future of abundance is possible (and if an abundance economy is possible, socialism is possible). Such people would have to ignore the fact that increasing returns are not infinite, and in fact result in not just boom, but bust as well. But one can nevertheless see why they would make such an error.
However, if we understand people as being what they in fact are, both individuals and social, we have to consider both negative and positive feedback processes simultaneously.
With both kinds of feedback, supply is determined by both diminishing and increasing returns, demand is determined by both diminishing and increasing marginal utility. Both interact. Thus, the supply of a good cannot reach an equilibrium point, but must always fluctuate in ways that are incalculable and unpredictable. For the same reason, demand cannot reach an equilibrium, but must always fluctuate in ways that are incalculable and unpredictable. Thus, we would not have the smooth curves we see when we draw supply and demand curves, but lines that would instead look more like the graph for a given stock over time. Worse, these two complex processes then have to interact to create the price of that good. Thus, price is inherently incalculable and unpredictable. Without the ability to calculate what the price "should" be, if there is not any such thing as a market clearing price, dreams of even market socialism must fall away.
Bipolar feedback drives a large number of complex, creative processes. The economy is but one kind of such a process. As we can see, we have bipolar feedback (increasing vs. diminishing returns/marginal utility) underlying both supply and demand, which are themselves bipolar feedback processes. This is complex, creative process on top of complex, creative process. The economy thus becomes increasingly incalculable, the more such processes we realize are part of the economy.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Power is Addictive
The Daily Mail reports that political power is literally addicting:
Only by decentralizing power, distributing it as widely as possible, can we overcome these deeply primitive drives. If you want to know what politicians are really like, learn about primate dominance behaviors. Power is primitive, it is atavistic. Politics is the least human(e) form of organization.
Cocaine works in a similar way, which can have varied effects from increasing alertness, confidence, energy, feelings of well-being and euphoria, but also anxiety, paranoia and restlessness.
Power has almost identical effects to cocaine and too much of it can produce too much dopamine leading to more negative effects such as arrogance and impatience.Power also makes one more aggressive and sexually active (sex scandals, anyone?). But look at this list. Do we really want people in power who are anxious and paranoid? But, as it turns out, getting political power is what makes you anxious and paranoid. If you are confident to the point of arrogance and paranoid, that seems the perfect cocktail for centralizing power. It is perhaps no wonder people with power try to centralize it around them.
Only by decentralizing power, distributing it as widely as possible, can we overcome these deeply primitive drives. If you want to know what politicians are really like, learn about primate dominance behaviors. Power is primitive, it is atavistic. Politics is the least human(e) form of organization.
Storge
When talking about kinds of love, we are familiar with eros, philia, and agape. But it turns out there is also storge. This is defined as "the love of a parent toward a child," but has become in social psychology "the form of love between friends." If storge is familial love and friendship, this frees up philia for object-love (which would include such objects as sophos) and agape for the more inclusive "love of mankind." It would also draw attention to the relationship between friends and family. Still, the fact of overlap shows how complex these different kinds of love are, even in a language like Greek, that has four terms for it.
Friday, April 27, 2012
What We Love and What We Do
I have been thinking more lately on something I posted not long ago on the different kinds of human interactions. I want to expand on what I said there, looking at how these kinds of interactions are related to different kinds of love.
Our social interactions begin at home. We find in the home eros, or sexual love, on which our sexual relationships are founded. I eros my wife. For the rest of the family, there is agape, or familial (brotherly) love, on which our relationships with those we are related to are based. I agape my children. And if we consider friendships as an extension of family, we can then include philia. Philia, however, is also used for the love of things, ideas, etc. "Philosophy" is of course the "love of wisdom," and "philanthropy" is the "love of mankind."
Within the home we find all of the aforeblogged interactions. We gift each other, we engage in any number of exchanges/barters, we sacrifice for each other, and there is even some level of politics at play. Thus we find the gift economy, the political economy, the market economy, and the divine economy all at work in the household -- something which should not be surprising, given "economics" means "rule of the household."
Of course, we are talking about the strongest of our strong bonds in the household. In our extended societies most of our bonds are weak bonds -- some downright ephemeral. Each of the aforementioned economies have developed into their own spontaneous orders, with their own kinds of philia.
Love of mankind give us our gift economies. That love of mankind can be direct, in philanthropy, or indirect, in philosophy, science, the arts, or literature. These economies are based on the development of reputation.
Love of God gives us our divine economies.
And then there are two varieties of love of self:
1.) Love of power gives us our political economies.
2.) Love of gain gives us our market economies.
There are of course moral and immoral versions of each of these. Take the market economy. We get the word "market" and "merchant" from the Roman god Mercury, who was the god of merchants, but also of thieves. Both are certainly ways of improving one's material conditions, even if one is based on force and is zero-sum and the other is based on mutual benefit and is positive-sum. The more theft-like one's exchange interaction, the less moral that behavior is. And it does not matter if you rob the person yourself or have a third party do it for you.
One can do this with each of these. Lying about your accomplishments to gain reputation is how one is unethical in the gift economy (to a degree, this is turning love of others into love of self, which is what makes it unethical, not being in the right economy). Centralized power is less ethical than decentralized power. Sacrificing others is less ethical than sacrificing self. There are of course degrees between these extremes. Further, it seems to me that when we confuse these orders and the actions appropriate to them, we may in fact be acting unethically. Perhaps that is too far -- but it is something that needs to be thought through. As, I would argue, is true of all of the above.
Finally, if the flipside of love is hate, and our inherited tribalism causes us to see an enemy when we have love of one's own, what does this say about people's attitudes toward those orders with which they do not self-identify?
Our social interactions begin at home. We find in the home eros, or sexual love, on which our sexual relationships are founded. I eros my wife. For the rest of the family, there is agape, or familial (brotherly) love, on which our relationships with those we are related to are based. I agape my children. And if we consider friendships as an extension of family, we can then include philia. Philia, however, is also used for the love of things, ideas, etc. "Philosophy" is of course the "love of wisdom," and "philanthropy" is the "love of mankind."
Within the home we find all of the aforeblogged interactions. We gift each other, we engage in any number of exchanges/barters, we sacrifice for each other, and there is even some level of politics at play. Thus we find the gift economy, the political economy, the market economy, and the divine economy all at work in the household -- something which should not be surprising, given "economics" means "rule of the household."
Of course, we are talking about the strongest of our strong bonds in the household. In our extended societies most of our bonds are weak bonds -- some downright ephemeral. Each of the aforementioned economies have developed into their own spontaneous orders, with their own kinds of philia.
Love of mankind give us our gift economies. That love of mankind can be direct, in philanthropy, or indirect, in philosophy, science, the arts, or literature. These economies are based on the development of reputation.
Love of God gives us our divine economies.
And then there are two varieties of love of self:
1.) Love of power gives us our political economies.
2.) Love of gain gives us our market economies.
There are of course moral and immoral versions of each of these. Take the market economy. We get the word "market" and "merchant" from the Roman god Mercury, who was the god of merchants, but also of thieves. Both are certainly ways of improving one's material conditions, even if one is based on force and is zero-sum and the other is based on mutual benefit and is positive-sum. The more theft-like one's exchange interaction, the less moral that behavior is. And it does not matter if you rob the person yourself or have a third party do it for you.
One can do this with each of these. Lying about your accomplishments to gain reputation is how one is unethical in the gift economy (to a degree, this is turning love of others into love of self, which is what makes it unethical, not being in the right economy). Centralized power is less ethical than decentralized power. Sacrificing others is less ethical than sacrificing self. There are of course degrees between these extremes. Further, it seems to me that when we confuse these orders and the actions appropriate to them, we may in fact be acting unethically. Perhaps that is too far -- but it is something that needs to be thought through. As, I would argue, is true of all of the above.
Finally, if the flipside of love is hate, and our inherited tribalism causes us to see an enemy when we have love of one's own, what does this say about people's attitudes toward those orders with which they do not self-identify?
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Anti-Ritual Collectivism
It occurs to me that one of the main features of collectivism is that it is anti-ritual. Collectivism is to be differentiated from social individualism by the fact that social animals are simultaneously distinct individuals and engage in interactions with members of their same species, usually those closely related to them. Lobe-finned fish are social individuals; schooling fish like herring are collectivist in nature. The former recognize territory; the latter have no territory. The evolution of territorialism resulted in the evolution of ritual such that territory could be protected while, at the same time, mating could occur. Herring do not engage in rituals -- they merely spawn en masse.
The mating ritual, stemming from the evolution of territory/property, eventually evolved into other interaction rituals, including politics, religion, science, market exchange, etc. Among our rituals are those that can include or exclude others from our group. A notable one is the ritual we engage in so we can kill another human being because they, themselves, engaged in a crime so bad we want them to be removed from our society. There are certainly pro-life, moral, and sociological arguments to be made against capital punishment, but I do have to wonder how many collectivists are against it simply because one has to engage in a ritual for capital punishment to take place.
Please note the list I gave above. Collectivists are typically anti-religion, anti-market, anti-property (the foundation of all rituals), and even anti-politics insofar as they would typically prefer an apolitical ruler/central planner. They typically present their anti-ritual stance as stemming from their rationalism -- however, this rationalism is of the Continental/Cartesian variety rather than the Scottish Enlightenment version. It is perhaps not surprising that the Scottish version of rationality is both not anti-ritual and social individualistic. Collectivists are still pro-science only because science is perceived to be anti-ritual -- so the ignorance of its fundamental ritualistic nature protects it. For now.
We can see, then, that to the extent that lobe-finned fishes evolved from schooling fish, collectivism is more primitive than social individualism. Thus collectivists are hyper-atavists. As is anti-ritualism.
The mating ritual, stemming from the evolution of territory/property, eventually evolved into other interaction rituals, including politics, religion, science, market exchange, etc. Among our rituals are those that can include or exclude others from our group. A notable one is the ritual we engage in so we can kill another human being because they, themselves, engaged in a crime so bad we want them to be removed from our society. There are certainly pro-life, moral, and sociological arguments to be made against capital punishment, but I do have to wonder how many collectivists are against it simply because one has to engage in a ritual for capital punishment to take place.
Please note the list I gave above. Collectivists are typically anti-religion, anti-market, anti-property (the foundation of all rituals), and even anti-politics insofar as they would typically prefer an apolitical ruler/central planner. They typically present their anti-ritual stance as stemming from their rationalism -- however, this rationalism is of the Continental/Cartesian variety rather than the Scottish Enlightenment version. It is perhaps not surprising that the Scottish version of rationality is both not anti-ritual and social individualistic. Collectivists are still pro-science only because science is perceived to be anti-ritual -- so the ignorance of its fundamental ritualistic nature protects it. For now.
We can see, then, that to the extent that lobe-finned fishes evolved from schooling fish, collectivism is more primitive than social individualism. Thus collectivists are hyper-atavists. As is anti-ritualism.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
The Intellectual Ritual
Randall Collins applies his idea of interaction rituals specifically to intellectuals. He is of course focusing on philosophers in his work, but the fact of the matter is that this description is equally applicable whether the intellectuals are philosophers, historians, scientists, or artists. In each case, social interactions are vital, and can make the difference between being a major intellectual and a minor one.
This also creates a particular understanding of the individual who is both an individual and a participant in the social order (similar to Hayek's discussion of the individualism of the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers):
This, then, is the intellectual ritual. Intellectuals gather, focus their attention for a time on one of their members, who delivers a sustained discourse. That discourse itself builds on elements from the past, affirming and continuing or negating. Old sacred objects, previously charged up, are recharged with attention, or degraded from their sacredness and expelled from the life of the community; new candidate sacred objects are offered for sanctification. By reference to texts past and texts future, the intellectual community keeps up the consciousness of its projects, transcending all particular occasions on which they were enacted. Hence the peculiar guiding sacred object---truth, wisdom, sometimes also the activity of seeking or research---as both eternal and embodied in the flow of time. (29)In a real sense intellectuals have taken over the role once exclusively held by priests. The above is certainly what priests of all religions have done and do. The fact that we do these things in different institutions doesn't make a difference. In fact, Collins makes the point that
The entire macro-social structure, of non-intellectuals as well, is anchored on ritual interactions. What we call structure is a shorthand way of describing repetitive patterns, encounters that people keep coming back to, a recycling of rituals. This larger structure has the feel of externality; it seems thing-like, compulsory, resistant to change. This sense of constraint arises in part because the major institutions as repetitive networks are based on their distinctive IRs, which have generated emotional commitments to their identifying symbols. (29-30)In other words, institutions matter. They are places where we engage in particular rituals relevant to the creation and participation in particular social orders. Imagine the power of combining the understanding of rituals with institutional analysis and with spontaneous order theory.
This also creates a particular understanding of the individual who is both an individual and a participant in the social order (similar to Hayek's discussion of the individualism of the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers):
As individuals move through this grid of encounters, they generate their own histories of ritual participation. We may call this an interaction ritual chain. Each person acquires a personal repertoire of symbols loaded with membership significance. Depending on the degree of cosmopolitanism and social density of the group situations to which they have been exposed, they will have a symbolic repertoire of varying degrees of abstraction and reification, of different generalized and particularized contents. This constitutes their cultural capital." (29)We are our interaction ritual chains. And participation in the intellectual rituals within intellectual institutions is what makes one an intellectual.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Interaction Rituals
Sociology studies the social interactions of humans (which may be the same as saying sociology studies humans). Sociology is typically understood to be its own area of study, but I am increasingly convinced that sociology ought to be understood to be a metadiscipline that covers disciplines such as economics, the sociology of science, the sociology of artistic production, etc. Another way of looking at it, sociology should be understood to cover the market economy, the gift economies, the political economy, and the divine economy, as well as the interactions of those economies. As such, sociology is the study of spontaneous orders. Or should be.
I believe this is how Randall Collins understands sociology. In The Sociology of Philosophies, Collins points out that when two or more people interact, they engage in what are called "interaction rituals." He points out that
Consider the implications of this. Those familiar with the rituals of the market economy will want to try to impose them on, say, the political economy. Such people would talk about making the government more efficient or even profitable. Those familiar with the rituals of the gift economy will want to try to make the government act more like philanthropies, helping the poor, supporting the arts and sciences, etc. Those familiar with the rituals of the divine economy will want to try to make the government more theocratic and will use rhetoric like "sacrifice." Equally, those familiar with the interaction rituals of the political economy will want to replace the rituals of the other economies with its own, such as replacing true philanthropy with government subsidy programs.
I think we can now make sense of much of what takes place in society. We can both understand what is going on within a given spontaneous order, why people prefer one spontaneous order over another, and the problems that arise when we try to impose the interaction rituals appropriate to one order on another. We need to understand better the different kinds of interaction rituals and how they give rise to their different spontaneous orders as people engage in interaction chains. This should be the primary job of anyone working in the social sciences.
I believe this is how Randall Collins understands sociology. In The Sociology of Philosophies, Collins points out that when two or more people interact, they engage in what are called "interaction rituals." He points out that
The following are the ingredients of any interaction ritual:If each spontaneous order has its own interaction rituals -- as one would expect to be the case if there are different kinds of human interactions -- then one would expect, from Collins' description of IR participants as creating solidarity with others in that group, meaning there is also a sense of exclusion of those not doing so, that our tribalistic instincts will kick in. In other words, those who think of themselves as being in the political economy will have an inclusive attitude toward others in the political economy and an exclusive attitude toward others in the other economies. More, they will seek to bring everyone else into their tribe, whose rituals make sense to them (whereas the rituals of the other "tribes" make no sense and, thus, must be wrong -- even morally wrong).
1. a group of at least two people is physically assembled;
2. they focus attention on the same object or action, and each becomes aware that the other is maintaining this focus;
3. they share a common mood or emotion.
4. The mutual focus of attention and the shared mood cumulatively intensify...[until]...participants are temporarily united in a shared reality, and experience a boundary or membrane between that situation and whoever is outside it.
5. As a result, the participants feel they are members of a group, with moral obligations to one another. Their relationship becomes symbolized by whatever they focused on during their ritual interaction.
6. Individuals who participate in IRs are filled with emotional energy, in proportion to the intensity of the interaction. Durkheim called this energy "moral force"
These encounters produce an ongoing flow of social motivations, as people come away from each situation with a store of charged symbols (which can be called cultural capital, or CC), and with emotional energies. Persons are attracted to those situations in which they can make the best use of their previously acquired cultural capital and symbolic resources to focus discursive action and thereby generate further solidarity. Individual lives are chains of interaction rituals; the meshing of these chains constitutes everything that is social structure in all its myriad shapes. (22-24)
Consider the implications of this. Those familiar with the rituals of the market economy will want to try to impose them on, say, the political economy. Such people would talk about making the government more efficient or even profitable. Those familiar with the rituals of the gift economy will want to try to make the government act more like philanthropies, helping the poor, supporting the arts and sciences, etc. Those familiar with the rituals of the divine economy will want to try to make the government more theocratic and will use rhetoric like "sacrifice." Equally, those familiar with the interaction rituals of the political economy will want to replace the rituals of the other economies with its own, such as replacing true philanthropy with government subsidy programs.
I think we can now make sense of much of what takes place in society. We can both understand what is going on within a given spontaneous order, why people prefer one spontaneous order over another, and the problems that arise when we try to impose the interaction rituals appropriate to one order on another. We need to understand better the different kinds of interaction rituals and how they give rise to their different spontaneous orders as people engage in interaction chains. This should be the primary job of anyone working in the social sciences.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
President Faust on Kickstarter
I have a project -- President Faust - on Kickstarter. Help me write my play!
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Illegal Home-Made Food
When I was growing up, my elementary school used to hold various fund raisers. People would bring home baked goods to sell. My mom would make cookies and fudge -- her two most popular treats. Especially her fudge and her chocolate chip cookies.
It would also be common for people to bring home canned green beans, corn, and other vegetables for special school events, to be cooked and served.
All of this is now illegal.
Was it done for the stated excuse, health concerns?
Of course not.
It was done because corporations pushed for that legislation, so that people would have to buy store-bought vegetables and baked goods.
Big government and big business are two sides of the same coin.
It would also be common for people to bring home canned green beans, corn, and other vegetables for special school events, to be cooked and served.
All of this is now illegal.
Was it done for the stated excuse, health concerns?
Of course not.
It was done because corporations pushed for that legislation, so that people would have to buy store-bought vegetables and baked goods.
Big government and big business are two sides of the same coin.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
How Food Subsidies Make Us Ill
When I gave up grains for Lent, I began to feel much better. I no longer felt bloated, my late-night acid reflux went away, my morning nausea went away. Naturally, come Easter, I ate a pizza. All of those symptoms returned. With a vengeance.
I suspected I was allergic to wheat. It turns out I was right. More specifically, I am allergic to gluten. I have all the symptoms of standard gluten allergy. For someone who loves pasta, this is about as bad as news can get.
It turns out that at least 6% of the population is allergic to wheat. Perhaps more, since I was never diagnosed. It turns out that wheat causes all sorts of digestive problems in laboratory rats, and it may be that practically everyone is negatively affected by wheat. If you have digestive problems, I recommend giving up wheat for a while to find out if that's the problem.
My natural tendency is to think about any social implications of things like this. Like the fact that the U.S. government subsidizing corn-based ethanol drove up corn prices, causing Mexicans to switch from corn to wheat tortillas, causing increased obesity in Mexico.
Corn subsidies have also driven the use of high fructose corn syrup, which is 55% fructose (vs. 50-50 for regular sucrose, or table sugar). High amounts of sugar is bad enough for us (and tends to cover the taste of food rather than emphasize it), but fructose does not trigger the "full" response of your stomach. Thus, you are more likely to ingest more calories for anything with high fructose corn syrup than products with regular sugar.
Sugar subsidies also drive down the price of sugar, making it more readily available for addition to foods to make them more calorie-rich. The result is more type-2 diabetes, which I am sure is under-reported, and thus poorer health.
The pattern of agricultural subsidies in the U.S. creates overly sweet, low-nutrition, weak-tasting food. Europe too subsidizes agriculture, but their patterns of subsidies is different. The French are more likely to subsidize champagne grape farmers in order to maintain the French reputation for producing champagne than to subsidize mega-agribusiness -- though they are equally guilty of this. Subsidies more often than not create bad food that create poor health.
But don't worry about that, the same government that created the bad food that contributed to your bad health are trying to provide your health care now.
I suspected I was allergic to wheat. It turns out I was right. More specifically, I am allergic to gluten. I have all the symptoms of standard gluten allergy. For someone who loves pasta, this is about as bad as news can get.
It turns out that at least 6% of the population is allergic to wheat. Perhaps more, since I was never diagnosed. It turns out that wheat causes all sorts of digestive problems in laboratory rats, and it may be that practically everyone is negatively affected by wheat. If you have digestive problems, I recommend giving up wheat for a while to find out if that's the problem.
My natural tendency is to think about any social implications of things like this. Like the fact that the U.S. government subsidizing corn-based ethanol drove up corn prices, causing Mexicans to switch from corn to wheat tortillas, causing increased obesity in Mexico.
Corn subsidies have also driven the use of high fructose corn syrup, which is 55% fructose (vs. 50-50 for regular sucrose, or table sugar). High amounts of sugar is bad enough for us (and tends to cover the taste of food rather than emphasize it), but fructose does not trigger the "full" response of your stomach. Thus, you are more likely to ingest more calories for anything with high fructose corn syrup than products with regular sugar.
Sugar subsidies also drive down the price of sugar, making it more readily available for addition to foods to make them more calorie-rich. The result is more type-2 diabetes, which I am sure is under-reported, and thus poorer health.
The pattern of agricultural subsidies in the U.S. creates overly sweet, low-nutrition, weak-tasting food. Europe too subsidizes agriculture, but their patterns of subsidies is different. The French are more likely to subsidize champagne grape farmers in order to maintain the French reputation for producing champagne than to subsidize mega-agribusiness -- though they are equally guilty of this. Subsidies more often than not create bad food that create poor health.
But don't worry about that, the same government that created the bad food that contributed to your bad health are trying to provide your health care now.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Epidemics and Economies -- Network Theory, Constructal Theory, and Spontaneous Order Theory
Epidemiology studies the way diseases spread. Insofar as this spread can be understood through scale-free network theory and, thus, through constructal theory, there is really not much difference among understanding the spread of disease and the spread of ideas, whether technological, scientific, or artistic, and the spread of goods through an economy.
The flows of diseases, ideas, good, traffic, money, immigrants, etc. are all described using constructal theory, which underlies network theory. All give rise to the same network structures, with power law distributions. If you understand the structure of flows, you can understand much in the social sciences, psychology, the biological sciences, and even the physical sciences. Diseases, ideas, goods, etc. all do in fact flow like rivers. The fact that they are rivers layers on top of rivers does not mean the basic structures differ -- the only difference is in the complexity created from the overlaps and nested hierarchies. Yes, it matters which kinds of networks one is looking at, be it hierarchical or scale-free (all the ones mentioned above are scale-free), but many of the principles are the same.
Hierarchical networks are embedded in the scale-free networks, and have to be understood as such. If you mistake a scale-free network for a hierarchical network, you can make errors in judgement that can in fact kill people. If you understand the economy as being a hierarchical network rather than a scale-free network, you will make the mistake of thinking central planning (as one finds in firms) for an economy possible. Can one plan an epidemic? Of course not. But the same thing that will stop an epidemic will collapse an economy -- destruction of the most-connected nodes (in the case of an epidemic, targeting the most connected nodes/people with medicine to stop the spread). The person who understands spontaneous orders understands epidemics as well.
The flows of diseases, ideas, good, traffic, money, immigrants, etc. are all described using constructal theory, which underlies network theory. All give rise to the same network structures, with power law distributions. If you understand the structure of flows, you can understand much in the social sciences, psychology, the biological sciences, and even the physical sciences. Diseases, ideas, goods, etc. all do in fact flow like rivers. The fact that they are rivers layers on top of rivers does not mean the basic structures differ -- the only difference is in the complexity created from the overlaps and nested hierarchies. Yes, it matters which kinds of networks one is looking at, be it hierarchical or scale-free (all the ones mentioned above are scale-free), but many of the principles are the same.
Hierarchical networks are embedded in the scale-free networks, and have to be understood as such. If you mistake a scale-free network for a hierarchical network, you can make errors in judgement that can in fact kill people. If you understand the economy as being a hierarchical network rather than a scale-free network, you will make the mistake of thinking central planning (as one finds in firms) for an economy possible. Can one plan an epidemic? Of course not. But the same thing that will stop an epidemic will collapse an economy -- destruction of the most-connected nodes (in the case of an epidemic, targeting the most connected nodes/people with medicine to stop the spread). The person who understands spontaneous orders understands epidemics as well.
Tuesday, April 03, 2012
Egalitarian Psychology and Society
I have had several discussions of late on the egalitarian level of Gravesean psychology. In the past I have talked about Gravesean psychology from a political perspective, particularly focusing on the evolution toward bleeding-heart libertarianism, but there seems to be considerable confusion when it comes to the relations among the dominant political views, particularly within the egalitarian level.
The Renaissance gave rise to the Enlightenment and, thus, to Modernism (the Entrepreneurial level of Gravesean psychology). The Enlightenment was itself divided into two camps, which one could very loosely divide into "left" and "right." The "left" -- which did in fact evolve into the egalitarian left -- was represented by the continental thinkers, like Descartes and Voltaire. They believed in constructivist rationalism -- they believed that they could reconstruct the world into something more rational. To us, they would be considered quite libertarian overall, however. We would also consider the "right" to be quite libertarian -- and not the least reason being that it includes such people as the Scottish Enlightenment philosophers (Locke, Adam Smith, Hume, etc.) and Burke (more typically viewed as "conservative"). However, they differ in their view of reason and society. They believed that reason was not the end-all-be-all, that emotions underlay them. Further, they did not believe that one could rationally construct a society; rather, society evolved organically. It was, to use Hayek's term, a spontaneous order that slowly evolved in relation to tradition. Darwin was influenced by this tradition, and it underlies his theory of natural selection.
There was a reaction to the Age of Reason, and that was Romanticism. Out of Romanticism, particularly philosophical Romanticism, we get postmodernism. Both are part of egalitarian psychology. Rousseau is the foundational thinker, and we are still reaping the consequences of his ideas on education and society. For Rousseau, man was good, but was corrupted by society. Hegel viewed human relations as a master-slave dialectic and, thus, as power relations. He viewed Romanticism and the State as where all the world was evolving. Marx disagreed that the State was the end-point, but otherwise agreed with Rousseau and Hegel -- proposing a post-state communist utopia that would shed the shackles of society. The dialectic would conclude with the slaves (the proletariat) overthrowing the masters (the bourgeoisie), thus power and mastery over themselves. Communist anarchy would work because, after all, men were good, just corrupted by society (and property). This is the direct path toward what we understand as leftism.
Nietzsche reacted against these ideas, but did so within that world view (at least for a while), even pointing out that he himself was a Romantic. He thus came up with a right-wing version of Romantic/egalitarian thinking. Existentialism developed out of Nietzsche's ideas -- both those they understood (more or less, pre-Zarathustra), and a version of those they misunderstood (from Zarathustra, on). With Heidegger, we get an explicitly right-wing version of the egalitarian world view, which gets developed more by Leo Strauss and by others of the postmodern right into neoconservatism. Like the left, neoconservatives are concerned primarily with democracy and the spread of democracy. Their almost exclusively political concerns (and view of everything through a political lens) derives from the fact that postmodernists view everything as power relations.
What we typically understand as postmodern philosophy -- which is really only the final stage of postmodern/egalitarian psychology -- developed out of the synthesis of both left and right egalitarianism. Contemporary progressivism and neoconservatism both come out of this perspective. Indeed, one sees very little difference between the two world views, regardless of the sound and fury signifying nothing coming out of both camps about the other. If Obama were a Republican, would any of the neoconservatives complain about a single thing he has done? If Bush 43 were a Democrat, would any of the postmodern progressives have complained about anything he did (expanding Medicare to include medication, No Child Left Behind, etc.)? Both sides see democratic government as a force for good, as being good in and of itself. Anything wanted by a democratic government is thus good -- thus the complaints from right and left about an "unelected judiciary" deciding whether or not a given piece of legislation is Constitutional. If the people/representatives decide to do something, it is legal in this view. What matters is who has the most power.
I suppose the average person would see my description as being negative, but I have in fact only described the psychosocial situation. From left to right, communism, socialism, the welfare state, and neoconservatism are all potential directions egalitarian psychology can go. All evolved out of the constructivist rationalism of continental Enlightenment thinkers. To a certain degree, contemporary libertarianism is the version of egalitarian psychology which evolved out of the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, particularly among the anarcho-capitalists. What matters is if one is fundamentally at an egalitarian level of psychology -- regardless of how one thinks egalitarianism can come about (socialism, welfare, or free markets). However, given that the egalitarian level is simultaneously radically individualistic and collectivist (rather than seeing humans as social individuals, which is a completely different way of understanding humans) simultaneously, we should not be surprised if we find few true libertarians (and no classical liberals, who are at the Enlightenment/Entrepreneurial level of psychology) at this level.
What we would expect to see, then, is social evolution into experiments in society -- communism, socialism, progressivism, welfare statism -- i.e., discontinuous change being pushed constantly. We would expect a society that pushes change for the sake of change, a constant overturning, identity politics emerging out of a concern for expressing one's authentic self, and a desire to expand social democracy throughout the world -- where democracy is determined less by the structure of the government than by the outcomes. We should not be surprised if this sounds like contemporary Europe and the direction in which the United States is heading.
The Renaissance gave rise to the Enlightenment and, thus, to Modernism (the Entrepreneurial level of Gravesean psychology). The Enlightenment was itself divided into two camps, which one could very loosely divide into "left" and "right." The "left" -- which did in fact evolve into the egalitarian left -- was represented by the continental thinkers, like Descartes and Voltaire. They believed in constructivist rationalism -- they believed that they could reconstruct the world into something more rational. To us, they would be considered quite libertarian overall, however. We would also consider the "right" to be quite libertarian -- and not the least reason being that it includes such people as the Scottish Enlightenment philosophers (Locke, Adam Smith, Hume, etc.) and Burke (more typically viewed as "conservative"). However, they differ in their view of reason and society. They believed that reason was not the end-all-be-all, that emotions underlay them. Further, they did not believe that one could rationally construct a society; rather, society evolved organically. It was, to use Hayek's term, a spontaneous order that slowly evolved in relation to tradition. Darwin was influenced by this tradition, and it underlies his theory of natural selection.
There was a reaction to the Age of Reason, and that was Romanticism. Out of Romanticism, particularly philosophical Romanticism, we get postmodernism. Both are part of egalitarian psychology. Rousseau is the foundational thinker, and we are still reaping the consequences of his ideas on education and society. For Rousseau, man was good, but was corrupted by society. Hegel viewed human relations as a master-slave dialectic and, thus, as power relations. He viewed Romanticism and the State as where all the world was evolving. Marx disagreed that the State was the end-point, but otherwise agreed with Rousseau and Hegel -- proposing a post-state communist utopia that would shed the shackles of society. The dialectic would conclude with the slaves (the proletariat) overthrowing the masters (the bourgeoisie), thus power and mastery over themselves. Communist anarchy would work because, after all, men were good, just corrupted by society (and property). This is the direct path toward what we understand as leftism.
Nietzsche reacted against these ideas, but did so within that world view (at least for a while), even pointing out that he himself was a Romantic. He thus came up with a right-wing version of Romantic/egalitarian thinking. Existentialism developed out of Nietzsche's ideas -- both those they understood (more or less, pre-Zarathustra), and a version of those they misunderstood (from Zarathustra, on). With Heidegger, we get an explicitly right-wing version of the egalitarian world view, which gets developed more by Leo Strauss and by others of the postmodern right into neoconservatism. Like the left, neoconservatives are concerned primarily with democracy and the spread of democracy. Their almost exclusively political concerns (and view of everything through a political lens) derives from the fact that postmodernists view everything as power relations.
What we typically understand as postmodern philosophy -- which is really only the final stage of postmodern/egalitarian psychology -- developed out of the synthesis of both left and right egalitarianism. Contemporary progressivism and neoconservatism both come out of this perspective. Indeed, one sees very little difference between the two world views, regardless of the sound and fury signifying nothing coming out of both camps about the other. If Obama were a Republican, would any of the neoconservatives complain about a single thing he has done? If Bush 43 were a Democrat, would any of the postmodern progressives have complained about anything he did (expanding Medicare to include medication, No Child Left Behind, etc.)? Both sides see democratic government as a force for good, as being good in and of itself. Anything wanted by a democratic government is thus good -- thus the complaints from right and left about an "unelected judiciary" deciding whether or not a given piece of legislation is Constitutional. If the people/representatives decide to do something, it is legal in this view. What matters is who has the most power.
I suppose the average person would see my description as being negative, but I have in fact only described the psychosocial situation. From left to right, communism, socialism, the welfare state, and neoconservatism are all potential directions egalitarian psychology can go. All evolved out of the constructivist rationalism of continental Enlightenment thinkers. To a certain degree, contemporary libertarianism is the version of egalitarian psychology which evolved out of the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, particularly among the anarcho-capitalists. What matters is if one is fundamentally at an egalitarian level of psychology -- regardless of how one thinks egalitarianism can come about (socialism, welfare, or free markets). However, given that the egalitarian level is simultaneously radically individualistic and collectivist (rather than seeing humans as social individuals, which is a completely different way of understanding humans) simultaneously, we should not be surprised if we find few true libertarians (and no classical liberals, who are at the Enlightenment/Entrepreneurial level of psychology) at this level.
What we would expect to see, then, is social evolution into experiments in society -- communism, socialism, progressivism, welfare statism -- i.e., discontinuous change being pushed constantly. We would expect a society that pushes change for the sake of change, a constant overturning, identity politics emerging out of a concern for expressing one's authentic self, and a desire to expand social democracy throughout the world -- where democracy is determined less by the structure of the government than by the outcomes. We should not be surprised if this sounds like contemporary Europe and the direction in which the United States is heading.
Monday, April 02, 2012
Pragmatarianism
I have been invited to review the idea of Pragmatarianism. What is pragmatarianism? It is a tax idea, that people should be able to direct their taxes to whatever government programs they want. That way, taxes are less forced on us, and we have at least the appearance of voluntarism.
Let us assume for a moment the legitimacy of taxation as currently practiced. Under pragmatarianism, I could donate all my money to, say, the National Endowment for the Humanities. Certainly this would force people to literally put their money where their mouths are. Those who think the NEH and/or NEA should receive greater funding would be able to direct their money to those programs. Other than expose the rank hypocrisy of most NEA supporters (who want to spend YOUR money, not THEIR money), would this in fact increase NEA funding? How many people do in fact want to support the NEA?
I have heard about this idea before. I have heard it argued that military spending would go down, suggesting we would defund future wars, but I find that improbable. A significant portion (about 1/3) of the population is conservative and, thus, pro-military. These people are more likely to support the military with their tax dollars, at the expense of welfare. But don't worry, because another third of the population is liberal, and would direct their money to welfare programs. One has to wonder what difference any of this would make. Perhaps the individual taxpayer feels better about where their money is going, but I also see how this can result in much deeper divisions in the country, where people become resentful that their neighbors are not supporting their pet projects.
Also, consider the potential for corruption. An agriculture company receiving subsidies would of course want to support the Ag Dept so that much of the taxes they donated would return back to them. Of course, only corporations could do this, so they would be able to reduce their tax burden considerably through such methods. Further, one could imagine corporations approaching wealthy people, paying them to donate their tax dollars to the departments that hand out their subsidies. The net effect of something like this would be to effectively reduce the taxes of the wealthiest people. The poor and middle class would not be approaches simply because there are so many with so little.
A better approach would be to have a program like pragmatarianism, except private donations are 100% tax deductible. This would effectively privatize most government activities, and it is well established that the private sector does better with money than does the government. This would have the effect of reducing the size of government not just because it is starved of money, but because its duties have in fact been privatized. This would be a pragmatarianism I could sign up with wholeheartedly.
Let us assume for a moment the legitimacy of taxation as currently practiced. Under pragmatarianism, I could donate all my money to, say, the National Endowment for the Humanities. Certainly this would force people to literally put their money where their mouths are. Those who think the NEH and/or NEA should receive greater funding would be able to direct their money to those programs. Other than expose the rank hypocrisy of most NEA supporters (who want to spend YOUR money, not THEIR money), would this in fact increase NEA funding? How many people do in fact want to support the NEA?
I have heard about this idea before. I have heard it argued that military spending would go down, suggesting we would defund future wars, but I find that improbable. A significant portion (about 1/3) of the population is conservative and, thus, pro-military. These people are more likely to support the military with their tax dollars, at the expense of welfare. But don't worry, because another third of the population is liberal, and would direct their money to welfare programs. One has to wonder what difference any of this would make. Perhaps the individual taxpayer feels better about where their money is going, but I also see how this can result in much deeper divisions in the country, where people become resentful that their neighbors are not supporting their pet projects.
Also, consider the potential for corruption. An agriculture company receiving subsidies would of course want to support the Ag Dept so that much of the taxes they donated would return back to them. Of course, only corporations could do this, so they would be able to reduce their tax burden considerably through such methods. Further, one could imagine corporations approaching wealthy people, paying them to donate their tax dollars to the departments that hand out their subsidies. The net effect of something like this would be to effectively reduce the taxes of the wealthiest people. The poor and middle class would not be approaches simply because there are so many with so little.
A better approach would be to have a program like pragmatarianism, except private donations are 100% tax deductible. This would effectively privatize most government activities, and it is well established that the private sector does better with money than does the government. This would have the effect of reducing the size of government not just because it is starved of money, but because its duties have in fact been privatized. This would be a pragmatarianism I could sign up with wholeheartedly.
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