Election 2020

[pbrower2a]

(12-21-2020, 12:00 PM)David Horn Wrote: Don't assume a huge difference between the tribal factions, regardless of where they are.  Tribe is the second circle in the security zone we built over millennia as hunter-gatherers -- even predating agriculture -- so it's pretty primal.  It takes desire to set that aside, but it's still there, lurking beneath the surface in all of us.  Autocrats tend to stoke that innate trigger, probably without a lot of thought on their part. That's the primitive leadership style coming to the fore. You're right that the enlightenment ideas are hardening into a new paradigm (WEIRD seems as good an acronym for it as any), but it will take a long time for that to become engrained in the culture.  For now, it's an ongoing struggle of two models of communal life, and both will continue a lot longer than we will.

Under stress people tend to resort to the more primitive drives. Fight or flight is obvious.  Tribalism is about the second-most obvious. When people are certain that their ways of life and personal survival are not at risk they can reach for the stars. When people see themselves in extreme stress they can do literal murder. Autocrats in more recent times, including Hitler, Pol Pot, and Saddam Hussein have stoked that trigger, but in their cases I would say that they or their subordinates put much thought into the destruction of 'racial', 'ethnic', or 'class' enemies. Heinrich Himmler and "Chemical Ali" weren't stupid fools. Utterly amoral, perhaps, but that is a different story.  Autocrats do not create security; they create and enforce insecurity, and that can be their downfall. Take away the fear and people become apathetic about the grand schemes of their leaders.  

In a stress-free society, economic gain and enjoyment of the product of economic gain come rather easy. One does one's work and gets paid, and the legal system heavily centers its focus on disputes of ownership. 

The German Enlightenment was possible only once the Little Ice Age was over, and agricultural productivity soared because growing seasons lengthened.  (Yes, something so seemingly banal as crop yields can create openings for high achievements that seem to have nothing to do with economics.  This said, even the economic realities make possible someone like Johann Sebastian Bach, who could compose some music so sophisticated that people still learn much about music from it. So what was Leipzig like in the early eighteenth century? The collection plates became richer in the churches where much of Bach's music was performed, so churches could afford to hire consummate musicians. They could build and maintain glorious organs on which such people as Handel, Telemann, and Bach himself could perform upon the music synthesizers of their day. People not having to spend all their time working the fields were able to do choir practice... on some very difficult and far-from-obvious music.  Communities and people could buy and maintain musical instruments. We must remember that although we remember Bach as a composer, but to make his work a reality he also had to be a performer and a teacher. J S Bach was of course the composer, but he was also an expression of civic pride. 

But try to imagine J S Bach operating under the stress of a military siege -- or in army barracks. OK, like Shostakovich (probably the closest 20th-century analogue to Beethoven, and much  -- like Beethoven -- an admirer of Bach) in Leningrad he might maintain old habits,  or perhaps he might compose marches for the army rigid in rhythm and never so daring in distracting counterpoint or chordal progressions.      

OK, this may be Toynbee-like analysis coming from me (I hardly claim originality), but a certain level of stress is appropriate for bringing out the greatest in cultural achievement. Too little ensures that people get lackadaisical and indulge themselves without achieving anything. Too much stress indicates that survival is so strong a concern that nothing nobler is possible. Great achievements are next to impossible under conditions of famine; regimes like Napoleon's aggressive empire, Nazi Germany, or thug Japan are culturally sterile. Note also that people rarely achieve much while resting at the beach or tooling around in a motor vehicle. Economic elites have rarely achieved much except to enrich themselves and indulge their baser drives, except perhaps to commission something for their entertainment. 

...The modern age begins with the Renaissance and goes through the Enlightenment. It is one smooth, connected time because there has been no cataclysmic break. Maybe the modes of cultural expression change, but... we would appreciate Michelangelo if he were alive today as did people of his time. One of the marks of modernity is a curiosity about the past, including antiquity which might offer something to exploit in some desperate time (Churchill claimed to have learned little from the Romans, but his speeches suggest the contrary) or a warning about a nearly-halcyon time that fouled up badly. The Romans certainly had marvelous resources and sophisticated technology for their time... but they would have done far better without slavery and as a result a more sophisticated economy.

This said, we have our problems. We are approaching the end of the era of economic scarcity in which people can simply produce enough stuff to allow prosperity for workers. If that doesn't stop us, the Singularity in which machines become smarter than we are can make intellectual effort meaningless. Then come the more devastating effects of global warming that can make a mess of the intricate system of food production that underpins such prosperity as Humanity now enjoys.     



One expression. Successful people in a wholesome social order can easily achieve physiological needs and safety needs. At this point "successful" can apply as much to those at the social bottom, like farm laborers in America. The exception is in crises involving the potential or nearly-certain loss of life, as during coronary thrombosis, terminal cancer, drowning, or being mauled by a bear or Big Cat. In a thoroughly rotten political system, such may always be nigh, as in a torture chamber or labor camp in which food, rest, water, moderate temperatures, or safety from summary execution may be denied. A political system that operates at that level, one that holds human life in contempt deserves to be overthrown with its surviving leaders getting this sort of judgment:

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(Tokyo trials after WWII).

The antithesis of such a vile regime:

Quote:"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

Still a valid measure for determining the need for secession or at least the overthrow of a despotic or totalitarian system. Source: Hint; 1776.

Then come safety and basic dignity. Slaves were somewhat safe on the plantation, as their masters would have certainly protected them from kidnapping and murder -- unless they rebelled, in which case they would face the exquisite pain of slow strangulation at the end of a rope if they surrendered. They might have gotten the right to procreate... all the better to ensure that people would inherit subjection and nothing else from their parents, or the slave parent in the event of rape by the master or one of his family members. They could have religion -- sure, work as diligently as possible for Ol' Massa, and you will get pie in the sky when you die. Less severely, people might become helpless proles, damned to work but with no economic security, never able to put anything aside to any future beyond the current drudgery, and of course expendable if they were to get sick or disabled. 

America had a war that established that slavery was an abomination inconsistent with liberty, and in the wake of the Great Depression at its worst America had to ensure old-age security (really a pragmatic concern because elderly workers in industry retired on the brink of death or had incredibly-high rates of death on the job due to industrial accidents). Subjection of any kind does not have widespread support even in the name of prosperity (Oh -- I forget Donald Trump and his acolytes!) unless perhaps as a punishment for criminality. I notice that some Americans believe that the rest of Humanity exist for the sole purposes of enhancing the power, indulgence and gain of economic elites whom those people consider the sole measure of morality... we resolve that or we have big problems arising. 

An economic order can maintain control of people by demanding gratitude for not being debased more than they already are because it can degrade people very fast for some tiny pretext.  

The third level is a sense of social belonging, and it is far from an easy achievement. Perhaps it comes from abandoning the quest for prosperity, as in committing oneself to live in a community  in which opportunities for self-expression are rare or unwelcome. I think of many hick towns in America in which all that is available is religion, civic and fraternal organizations, and family life. Life is otherwise a crashing bore, and seeking something uncharacteristic of the conformist norm such as preferring classical music, world folk music, or jazz to country music is one way to be seen as a questionable oddball. Love is possible, but it may be a difficult achievement (ask me how supposedly high-functioning autism can mess that up!)  But this can disappear if one breaks a rule, as in participating in an interfaith or inter-ethnic marriage in which the adults are shunned and the children can have huge difficulties.         

Fourth is self-esteem, but never in a manner that requires the debasement of others in the elevation of Self. Rightful self-esteem must be earned, at least if one is to enjoy it in adulthood. An economic order that requires mass suffering for command and control or for some delusion of prosperity denies healthy self-esteem to the masses but promotes overbearing haughtiness among the elites (narcissism).  If one's good feelings about oneself depend upon the debasement of others, then the best thing for Humanity is that one go back to relearn how to earn self-esteem. 

Finally self-actualization marks what Maslow considers the apex of self-hood. Here is the zone of legitimate, distinctive achievement without self-destructive tendencies. This is itself the brink of transcendence. To be sure, great achievement while leading a miserable life (Richard Wagner, Vincent van Gogh, F. Scott Fitzgerald) due to serious flaws as a person is not self-actualization. 

People can go down this pyramid if the social order collapses or if the system turns on one.