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Yes, but I just dream of a world where reason rules over emotion a bit more.
Regards,
O.A.
So how do you create a constitution that would actually limit the growth of a government?
Most of the nations on Earth - and their many districts, prefects, states, regions, departments, etc. - all have constitutions, often with specific bills of rights. The fact that they even attempt it may well show a line of progress from earlier times. Nonetheless, paper promises must be enforced - and by definition, no other agency can force the government to do anything without a civil war.
If a culture of objective law exists, even partially, then elements _within_ the government will be dedicated to keeping it in check. Thus, you read about a judge who refuses a government petition or writ; or about an appeals judge who overturns a previous permission.
Consider Jefferson's purchase of Louisiana. Consider the creation of West Virginia. They were both unconstitutional. Conservatives rail against the federal income tax, but it was a proper amendment.
Based on the arsenal theory of military defense, if the government wants to expand nothing can stop it. here: http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2011/...
On the other hand, if a culture of reality, reason, and freedom exists, then the government will remain limited.
Read about Andrew Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. No Fermatist threatened to kill him. When his "proof" was challenged he did not resort to violence, but to paper and pencil.
Whatever the failings of many other people, some of us do make rational choices.
As for Mussolini - not the worst of them, in fact, but not relevant here - Stalin, etc., go back to Caligula or Nero or even farther... In discussing the origins of consciousness, Julian Jaynes pointed out that horrible mass slaughters, mass tortures, and mass punishments seem unknown until relatively recent times, since the last Ice Age (no earlier) and maybe only since the invention of writing. "Primitives" (so-called) tend to have ritualized conflict in which no one actually gets killed. It may be that atrocities are not in our "nature" but something we chose when we acquired introspection and reason.
You do underscore a basic, radical difference between conservatives and objectivists. You claim that this is not about "original sin or whether people are basically good or evil." Then, you assert a contradiction comprised of the (baseless) claim that people have "instincts" which "some of us" can override with volition while others _volitionally give in to their instincts_ for aggression. That last is a contradiction within the contradiction. Your claim, "people are going to act as nature has programmed us to..." is only a secular version of original sin.
Moreover, we do, indeed, act as nature programmed us to: we cannot fly by flapping our arms. We cannot dive as deep or as long as whales. Those facts are not in dispute. What is being argued is whether or not people can choose to recognize reality, use reason, and live in a community where rights are respected. Obviously, we can and do.
How, when, and to what extent this becomes a global norm is the problem of creating a culture.
The murderous behavior of Genghis Khan is well recorded but that would be classed as after the Ice Age. I have heard of but not read Jaynes, the idea is attractive but I cannot see how there could be much evidence one way or the other. When human population densities were low, what archaeological evidence could there be for or against 'mass slaughters' etc?
Was the extinction of the Neanderthals due to deliberate hostility by modern humans?
I acknowledge that animal behavior studies tend to support the proposition,
" ritualized conflict in which no one actually gets killed." at least in pack animals such as wolves and stags when fighting over mating and status. Or it could be a romanticization, the noble savage gets corrupted by a sense of self and us and of 'the other'.
Not sure how this relates to the design of systems of government that stay within bounds. Perhaps we have to recognize that humans are pack animals not individualists as some would prefer, more like dogs than cats, and that all animals have inherited characteristics, instincts, that can be overcome in only a minority by logic and in others only after many generations.
We have leaders and followers here in the Gulch. It is not entirely a matter of ideology. At their conventions, the Libertarian Party arrays itself alphabetically by state. What kind of individualism is that?
In addition to Gammas - male and female - social specials also have Omegas who participate hardly at all. We label them along the "autism spectrum."
As for the "mass slaughters" they are not a matter of mere numbers - though those are marked. At the margin of this, say about 8000 BCE we do find "mass" graves of a few or a dozen, all killed the same way, apparently by execution, at the terminus ante quem where one group supplanted another.
Why Neanderthals died out is not entirely clear. Also not clear is the extent to which they and we interbred. See, also, here in the Gulch "You Can be a Denisovan" http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/a6....
This ritual behavior in conflict described earlier, in your ref to Jaynes, has (I understand) been seen in various species. Whether they are alphas and betas only or have other types in the pack does not invalidate Jaynes' argument that mass slaughter is relatively recent.
Your example from 8000BCE is good, presumably no earlier examples have been found, but if so, does it mean that it did not happen? Or we have not found any evidence yet?
A counter example about dogs for what it is worth; dogs as individuals or in small groups attack sheep, the damage goes beyond satisfying hunger, bits of sheep bodies are bitten, chomped out and not necessarily eaten, we cannot say it is deliberate cruelty but if it were the effect would be the same.
From self analysis I am quite sure that I have instincts, I suspect all humans do, but there may a James Bond character or a Buddhist monk who does not. The same for reason. Thinking, analysis and use of reason are at my core. I have been accused of such by those who do not like the directions of my thinking, or maybe they do not like my predominant instincts of lust, greed, and such like while altruism is sparse. (Do I have to be serious at this time of night?). Again, I suspect that reason is inbuilt and cannot be avoided, tho' certainly the immediacy of some situations causes instinctual responses to override thought. A possible exception from fiction, the father of Zorba the Greek, a wholly emotional man.
Turning off thinking- yes by training in military type situations. Turning off instinct- yes training /self discipline can stop unthinking reaction in complex situations where there is time to think.
The balance between reason and instinct is fascinating. There is the problem of where to run to catch a ball thrown by hand, the mathematics is determinate but complex, dogs are better than humans at this game, fun to watch them, how is it done? Ok maybe the word 'instinct' is a furphy.
Oh and there have been psychology experiments on problem solving by men and women that concluded that holistic methods were superior to analysis. But what are holistic methods? , and is psychology a proper science?
'Above all, do not deny your humanity', Einstein
hmm, At first I thought this was MM's comment- James Bond>Zorba the Greek's father >dogs>"furphy">Einstein. What???
MM would assert, as do I, that Man does not have instincts. It is what separates humans from all other animals. So I'd like us to agree on a definition of "instincts."
Here's Galt's:
"An instinct of self-preservation is precisely what man does not possess. An “instinct” is an unerring and automatic form of knowledge. A desire is not an instinct. A desire to live does not give you the knowledge required for living. And even man’s desire to live is not automatic . . . Your fear of death is not a love for life and will not give you the knowledge needed to keep it. Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force him to perform. Man has the power to act as his own destroyer—and that is the way he has acted through most of his history."
Galt continues:
"The key to what you so recklessly call “human nature,” the open secret you live with, yet dread to name, is the fact that man is a being of volitional consciousness."
When driving a car and wanting to turn left the driver turns the steering wheel (top) left. If wanting to turn tighter, more left, the wheel is turned more. This behavior is not inherited but learnt. The beginning driver is slow at steering as there is thinking to be done. With the experienced driver all this thinking is not done from effort, the body itself remembers and does what is needed. I define this phenomena of remembering in the body as 'instinct'. Technically it could be called distributed intelligence.
Now suppose the car is moving on unexpected ice. The car does not respond to a movement of the steering wheel. With a naive driver instinct takes over, the driver turns the wheel more. Whether from experience or training the driver learns how to detect and respond to the presence of an icy road by steering into the slide to regain control. This is a new instinctual response taking over, it has been learnt. This correct response can be derived from thinking and analysis or just from authority when obeying an experienced instructor. After repetition, the new response is called instinctive as it has been learnt by the body, the eyes and backside communicate directly to the arms and hands without recourse to the brain.
Dogs salivate in the presence of food. No leaning is involved. We call that reaction instinct. Pavlov found that with training, dogs would salivate to the sound of a bell, no food being needed. A new instinct had been learnt.
A person sees a big spider nearby. There may be responses such as flinching, moving away, or screaming. After thought the person may find a way to capture and remove it, both reaction and action come from the instinct of fear.
Animals feel pain, they seek to stop it, they withdraw from the source, they may try to destroy the source. When there is a recoil from pain we call it instinctive. The unpleasant sensation of pain is itself an instinct.
Definition- instinct is the cause of action (or reaction) in animals not derived from thought. Automatic, yes. An unerring source of knowledge, not at all as an instinctive response is not always correct. That is why thought and analysis are needed to overcome, or replace, the actions that would come from instinct alone where those actions are harmful or not desired.
Instincts that exist without being taught are inherited, they are the moving average of the experience of our past several million generations of ancestors. Instincts are stored in all the body not just the brain. In instincts, there is knowledge, wisdom maybe, that should not be ignored though it may not suit the immediate circumstances.
Then upon what do you base your assertion that, alone among animals, Man is devoid of instinct?
2 million years of evolution, somehow we evolved beyond having instincts?
Where's the evidence?
Animals act against their nature as much and almost as often as do humans. Predators 'adopt' prey. They share their food, even to going without. They care for sick and injured pack/herd/tribe members.
I'm trying to see where Man acts against his nature any more than does, say, Dog...
life has included chances to exercise power over
others -- as a department head in responsible
charge of 121 craft employees, as a National
Management Association trainer and article writer
for the national publication, etc. -- and I contend
that it is absolutely corrupting.
the "modern" era has automated the power-over-
people stuff so that many, many more have the
chance to indulge. this is proving dangerous,
from BHO's narcissism to satphones used by the
Taliban. from -- well,, you know -- senators,
teachers, mass murderers, advertisers........
yes, power over thousands goes way back, but
the prevalence has increased, so that more "bad
actors" are corrupted. I felt it, and it is strong;; it
is bad. -- j
p.s. Yes, professor Brenner, a cold drink here in
the corner of the kitchen at the end of a good day,
enjoying rationality with you and the gang, is great!!!
At the end of AS, she said the Constitution had contradictory statements that must inevitably destroy it. She also suggested a new Right for the Bill of Rights: "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade."
As for those contradictions in the Constitution, we have had some discussions here in the Gulch, not very deep or involved. Basically, the Seventh Amendment is not objective. Ayn Rand also questioned the Second Amendment. You can argue that as you wish because it is arguable and only points to the fact that you cannot impose a political solution from the top down.
Even with the "Narragansett Amendment" Congress could pass laws against CREATION ahead of production and trade, forbidding people from creating genomes or software or rockets to the Moon or time machines or vaccines or shoes... If the culture of a society allows it, the government will expand to meet its own needs.
Take management pay, for example. Many CEO's and other high-ranking businesspeople get bonuses for improving the bottom line every year. As a result, they stress cost-cutting measures that for a few years increase the bottom line. The problem is that most of these cuts are from R&D or IT, where the value provided is long-term in nature rather than short-term. So what ends up happening is that the business makes huge gains for 2-3 years (during which time the CEO rakes in fortunes in stock options and bonuses), and then the company inevitably declines. The smart CEO's have figured out this system so they just bail out and look for "new opportunities" when they see the inevitable results of sacrificing long-term for short-term start to hit them. The next CEO then gets to clean up the mess.
If one is to create a long-term business or to craft a society or culture, one must start with the long-term in mind. For a society or culture, that means that long-term must equate to dozens of generations at a minimum.
One must also remember, however, that what one is actually setting up are standards. The standards we set up must match with the standards of reality in every measure, and this is where we ignorant humans falter. We do not necessarily have an unbiased vision of "perfection", and because we are subject to the minor little limitation called "death", we also must acknowledge that we can not control the long-term future of our creation. Thus any attempt to create a long-term society must include not only a societal vision and the means by which to carry it out in the short-term, but the means by which to promulgate this vision throughout the ages - i.e. the education and rearing of the next generation in such a way as to uphold our utopian vision.
Here are the challenges I see:
1) defining the ideals of a utopian society - especially if the members of society are to retain their own free will
2) implementing the society
3) reminding existing participants of the long-term goals and the short-term decisions that lead to the long-term goals
4) promulgating the vision of the society to future generations - including both the vision, its means, and the administration by which it can be perpetuated.
All one has to do is look down through history at all the proposed models for government and it is fairly easy to see that the largest dichotomy exists in a society that both retains free will AND must promulgate itself, due to the imperfect understanding or grasp of the vision itself! If the one(s) who design the vision in the first place aren't around to help disseminate the vision, correct oversights or errors, or provide guidance for hitherto unforeseen situations, society is more likely than not to diverge from the vision.
Christianity in the West is an example of a society (or societies) with a long-distance vision. One reason that astronomy advanced in the Middle Ages was their centuries-long expectation of a Second Coming that required the calculation of Easter into the future. Our own American republic was a direct consequence of the "City of God" or "City on a Hill" vision of the Pilgrims, Quakers, and others, who thought in terms of a long future.
Would you be willing to offer your own intentions?
For myself, all I have in mind is some kind of Heinlein-Asimov future of wondrous new inventions, long lives, travel to distant planets, and other trivia. I can envision only everything we have now from schools to parks to roads being as they are, but privately owned and run for profit. However, it is also required that the very privatization will change them in ways we cannot predict. What if we discovered that roads are never profitable?
So, again, do you have a vision of your own?
Next, you have to have buy-in from everyone in society to abide by these principles (assuming you will preserve the idea of self). This is where a governmental body necessarily must be established to make laws reflecting these principles.
The next step is educating the populace regarding the principles themselves, why they are important, and helping each individual citizen commit to the principles and believe in them. This one becomes a bit sticky because you don't want people intentionally violating these principles just to verify that they are valid, so there is going to be a certain amount of "faith" exhibited.
Lastly, there must be provisions for not only promulgating the principles, but for promulgating society itself.
It seems fairly obvious to me that the basis for any society - let alone a utopian version - must necessarily start with a method of perpetuation (ie procreation). Further, it strikes me that the perpetuation of society forms an ideal framework from which to derive also the education of the next generation. Thus, it is no surprise to any conservative mind to derive that the family then becomes (and always has been) the fundamental unit of society that can simultaneously and most efficiently fulfill all these tenets at the same time.
It can also be derived from this that any force that seeks to undermine the family in this capacity will have the effect - unintended or not - of debilitating or even destroying the most efficient method of societal perpetuation and education.
So principle #1 would be recognition of self. Principle #2 would recognize the family as the basic unit of societal promulgation and education.
All other principles would necessarily spawn from these two.
A "brat" is usually someone who significantly underestimates the value of nearly everything, thereby taking it for granted. This usually happens because they are not made to work or contribute for what they are given (i.e. they are "spoiled"). The parents lose sight of the virtue of value and the children then acquire a warped (or nonexistent) view of true value themselves.
The most sure defense against an erosion in the perception of value is work - effort put forth in the obtaining of a goal. It is the single most effective principle in teaching value.
Our older daughter shares all of our values. My younger daughter shares many of them. The younger daughter works hard at her school work and some outside activities, but some of our values she does not share. On those values, I am concerned, but I am not going to force the issue. She will need to learn the wisdom of those values on her own.
I disagree with your first paragraph, however. I have seen many cases of parents who taught the basic virtues to their children, yet their children rejected them as too strict in favor of values taught outside the home.
http://www.TheSocietyProject.org