We inhabit what James Carse (Finite and Infinite Games, 1986) described as a complex system of Infinite Gaming.
Cold War tactics that view the economy and international relations as a game defined by clear boundaries (sovereign nations, definite outcomes, and clearly defined win/loss enemy/friend binaries) are supplanted by infinite games woven over time with only probabilities and blurred boundaries:
"Simply stated, in contrast with previous eras, we are confronted with imperatives for managing processes of interaction with one another and our environments that extend indefinitely in time and space....Borders demarcating spheres of interest and influence have evaporated." (See Peter Hershock, Buddhism in the Public Sphere, p. 139)
In response to astute comments added to my last post, I have been mulling over the issue of specialization, and the temporal constraints in taking true ownership of one's democracy. Put simply, who has the time or the specialization to endure the litany of issues and tables of facts and figures that would allow one to responsibly take charge in their district? The answer is simple: the representatives we vote for. After all, that's what they're paid for, right?
I will follow this post with a succinct and more developed sense of what I was scratching at in "Author Your Own Life"---but the bottom line is this: Enough data from a diverse range of experts in their respective scientific, economic, and political fields points to a variety of different but ultimately related international crises: from poverty and food shortage in the coming years, to climate change, water shortage, and the continued Die-Off of species. My hope, and all those who are passionate in maintaining hope, is that collective action at local level and municipalities, along with a radical unhinging of corporate sponsored politics, will offer us sustainable and democratically realized solutions and alternatives. We cannot merely wait for the market to "correct" itself (a Libertarian Hope) or the workers to finally gain world-wide ownership of production means (the Marxist Hope) or the virtuous balance of Government and corporate wealth coming to the rescue (The Progressive-Liberal Hope). I call these "hopes" and not "dreams", because they all aim ultimately at securing social justice and meaningful lives. They all derive from a noble source. However, they alone cannot fully cope with the unprecedented struggles that currently lie before us.
Once again quoting Raj Patel is worthwhile, because he points out that no silver-bullet solutions exist. Rather a complex range of different local movements designed to cope with the intricacies of local habitats and farmlands, etc., along with global regulatory commitments, and individual sacrifices (or habit adjustments for us in the affluent West) can offer the best solutions: infinite gaming, with creative and improvisational output. The one ideology in play here is what Peter Hershock calls, "relating freely in mutual contribution" or "appreciative and contributory virtuosity." Our value cannot only be driven by prices and profits, but by a recognition of our unavoidably tangled and interdependent existences, and our willingness to realize care and contributory virtuosity as our driving motives:
"It would be foolish to sugarcoat the challenges that lie ahead, both personal and political, if we are to feed the world. In a world with 9 Billion people, we'll need to cut back on meat. If meat's to be eaten at all...the global allowance will be 25 kilograms of meat and 50 kilograms of dairy per person per year--any more, and the climate will suffer [and then we really wont be eating meat!]. Suppressing the Western diet's lust for flesh will be hard to do--it'll mean taking on all manner of food processing and retail interests, as well as our own habits--but we will need to get used to paying the price for our two-hundred dollar hamburgers, and ensuring that everyone can make similar consumption choices. We'll also need to make time for politics, which involves changes that will affect everything from watching TV to reducing the extremely long working hours that we have come to accept as normal"--Raj Patel (The Value of Nothing, p.164).
To make time for democracy. To deliver sustainable choices for our immediate environment while governments busy themselves with turf battles and red-tape, we have to minimize the mad-rush they've sold us on, because it is that very rush that keeps us working 50 to 65 hours a week. When we're left with only the energy to watch television, the corporations win, the planet loses, and you (and our kind) goes away. I have hope, because I know we can coordinate efforts, and I know that science geared toward public interest, and invigorated shifts in paradigms will ultimately build a sustainable future.
xoxo
K.P.M.
I think it is important to study the major socioeconomic paradigm shifts of history to determine what is the most prudent course of action. I can only think of one off hand: The Soviet Union going from communist to capitalist virtually overnight. Your average high school senior taking Econ (granted he/she is actually paying attention instead of Twittering) will tell you that shifting your economy from one spectrum to the other must be done one step at a time. Otherwise you're left with modern Russia. I think China is a great example of slowly injecting capitalism into their current structure, and they have become a dominant economic force because of it. They have a long way to go, but imagine if they followed the USSR.
ReplyDeleteNow I know you are suggesting not only a paradigm shift but a complete completely new paradigm, but I believe the same rules apply here. The middle road may take longer to execute, but will result in few casualties and will ease the masses into a new society. Furthermore, this kind of change should come from the roots of society. It can't come from the top tier or from an overbearing group of radicals. Otherwise you're left with perpetual public mistrust of government. In other words, the public has to think it is their idea to change the culture for the betterment of society and our environment. We basically need Leonardo DiCaprio to go into everyone's subconscious and do inception. It's no easy task...
Excellent post once again, Mr. Perri. I apologize for the delayed comment, but here it is:
ReplyDeleteI readily agree that the best form of governance is local governance (right down to self-governance, I would conclude). However, I cannot agree that individuals must take a more active role in local governance simply for the sake of greater general political participation. Rather, the level of political participation that any individual cares to assume is exactly right, so long as there remains a minimum of intelligent discourse and debate regarding pertinent social issues (and currently there is plenty of political discourse). That minimum discourse is whatever level of political participation is needed to vet, refine, and perfect (to the extent humanly possible) society's policy decisions.
At the heart of your and Mr. Patel's argument is that individuals must sacrifice what they empirically desire – watching TV, earning money, etc. – for what they SHOULD desire: political participation. I cannot emphasize enough the normative claim in your/Patel's argument: that people SHOULD desire political participation. This begs the rhetorical question: Why should people sacrifice watching TV for political participation? To which you answer: Because “if we are to feed the world,” we need to make that sacrifice. And therein lies the normative leap: do individuals actually care about feeding the world?
The answer, on an empirical basis, is a negative: individuals just don't care about the 9 billion other people out there, and there is no reasoned basis that they should. By the droves, people walk by the Salvation Army bucket without a glance, and decline to donate a dollar to fight breast cancer at grocery store. People will over-feed their parking meter but neglect to put in a quarter to fight child hunger. And why should they be philanthropic? Because it's “right,” or “nice,” or “good?” But mankind is not “right,” nor “nice,” nor “good.” Mankind is “naturally indifferent to all others outside [his] circle” and “the idea of human rights... ha[ve] been shown to have no foundation whatever in natural human attributes” (Michael Ignatieff at p. 80). Can Mr. Patel identify why individuals must give a damn about an anonymous other besides Mr. Patel's own subjective notion of virtuosity, when it is empirically established that such notion of virtuosity is in fact NOT a reflection of humanity? Mr. Patel cannot identify anything but his own hopes and desires, which commands no more authority than my hope and desire to watch The Jersey Shores.
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ReplyDeleteBut moving beyond metaphysical considerations, the idea of increased political participation suffers practically from the erroneous conclusion that increased political participation results in better governance. On the contrary, the wisdom and expertise of “the People” are inferior to technocrats and experts; and no extent of education can possibly raise the People's wisdom/expertise greater than those who are teaching them. That's simply a logical conclusion: the student of everything cannot overcome the master of one thing. Greater general political participation dilutes the influence of those who are actually knowledgeable. This is democracy's fatal flaw, and it has been recognized at least since Edmund Burke's criticism of democratic forms of governance: “The occupation of a hair-dresser, or of a working tallow-chandler... ought not suffer oppression from the state; but the state suffers oppression, if such as they, either individually or collectively, are permitted to rule. In this you think you are combating prejudice, but you are at war with nature.”
I would argue (as you know if you've been reading my paper), that technocrats should govern, always answerable to the People, under a single principle: societal survival. It is time to elect officials who are knowledgeable in policy fields; gone should be the days of electing officials because they are or are not a “witch.” In this way, governments will be empowered to take on climate change, despeciation, water shortage, food shortage, and all other issues that threaten humanit, but simultaneously forbidden from violating human rights, initiating unprovoked war, enacting Jim Crow laws, or acting for any reason unrelated to survival.
I hope this stimulates some more thoughts and discussion. Keep up the great writing!
To Ben's first comment, I must say that we need more facts at hand. The empricial FACT that Mr. Patel and VAST segments of societies (from social organizations, to neighborhood organizations, to public educational institutions)not only contribute purposively and intently to the public good--or what they regard "subjectively" as the public good...if by "subjectively" you mean not subject to the same language-game and strictures that mathematicians, physicists, and reductionist scientists speak in...but they also care about the survival and diversity of human communities and the species as a whole. In fact, they give up many so-called comforts for the values they uphold (values that many if not most might agree are compassionate "subjectively" or "objectively"). The implicit circularity in your position of continually relying on "objectivity" versus albeit human-generated but no less objective values, is that we SHOULD only take serious those factoids that are easily reducible to physical or biological models--that my friend is as normative as any well-regarded cultural value.
ReplyDeleteAlso, there when looking at what human communities are and have been, we are in no way forced to assume that is what they MUST be. Compassion is as much to our species selective advantage (if not more so) than "selfishness". But I think what you are describing as "selfishness" is not so insidious as that word marks out. What you are describing is the fog of affluent sleep--something more akin to ignorance (where literally one IGNORES what is painfully obvious for short-term, and not necessarily rational, pleasure). So watching Jersey Shore is not intrinsically "evil" or "bad"--but if you believe humans are evolving extraordinary capacities, capacities to not live only self-interested like most common creatures on the planet, but a capacity to think at a complex and macro-biological level, then watching Jersey Shore in lieu of doing what you know is correct (for either physical, emotional,or cultural survival)is simply deplorable--not "evil".
Evolved moral ethical positions, although continually in flow, and constantly developing, have more to do with creativity, not moral finger pointing. The creative question is how can we maximize the most amount of diverse input and adjusted utilization of situated goods for the overall health of a species, culture, ecosystem, and planet. And we have a right to continually mete those questions out---that is the hope of a free population--MORAL INGENUITY as well as financial ingenuity. We have the ability to create values, and that makes them no less important and no more arbitrary then basic physical, Newtonian or quantum theoretical laws of matter.
It seems you are disguising--I think subconsciously--a cynicism that needn't be made a universal law, and that is the thesis that we are ONLY inherently selfish, and have no right to determine or convince others of what SHOULD be done--when in fact, given certain agreed upon desires and outcomes--there very well may be a right thing one should do in a situation.
As for your second comment, I think that you nailed the fundamental tension between self-governance and expertise.
ReplyDeleteBurke makes great sense as does Plato in his Republic.
Thank you for the comments, and I will definitely have more to say, and hopefully more will pipe in---
Also, some excellent points in your paper I am reading, but will speak more of that.
Best,
K
Great response; I enjoy a vigorous debate.
ReplyDeleteYour response betrays fundamental misunderstandings that, I believe, taint your whole analysis. For example, you incorrectly assert that I believe the whole of human nature can be reduced to selfishness. Quite the opposite, I am the first to defend that human nature includes both selfish and altruistic desires. The real issue here is what proportion of an individual's conduct is governed by selfish v. altruistic impulses. You and Mr. Patel demand that individuals assume MORE altruistic tendencies than they in fact exhibit. The very fact that you are asking for greater participation in social issues means that you are asking they change their actual conduct, which is a normative demand. I, on the other hand, am merely identifying the status quo (what the world IS) and asking you why we must submit to your demands (what you feel the world OUGHT to be).
At bottom, I echo the anarchist's challenge to all political theories: on what grounds should I change my conduct? This is a burden of persuasion issue; a burden YOU and Mr. Patel must meet because you and Mr. Patel are demanding the world to change to what it OUGHT to be. I (along with anarchists) hold no such burden, because we are simply resting on what IS. There is no circularity here, because I am not saying that what is ought to be – if individuals voluntarily changed their behavior I certainly would NOT demand that they change back! Rather, I demand to know on what basis we must change what is into what you think ought to be. All the normativity is on your side of the table.
In addition, you correctly state that the historical or current state of society/morality/religion/etc. does not constitute what MUST be. But then you contradict yourself in the next paragraph by stating that on social issues our current moral opinions MUST be. The first premise negates the second premise, unless you have a different justification for the second premise. If I am reading your argument correctly, you assert that humans have been endowed with the ability to form moral opinions and therefore they must do so in their governance of society. Such a justification, if a justification at all, would justify anything humans are “capable” of, including murder, genocide, etc. The mere fact that humans are capable of forming moral opinions and imposing those opinions on dissenters does not justify such impositions, anymore than a man with a gun is justified in highway robbery simply because he is capable.
What is most disturbing are all those instances where moral majorities have committed atrocities – genital mutilation, honor killings, religious inquisitions, witch trials, genocide, etc. – which are all justified by moral opinion. Under your analysis, there is no basis for distinguishing what you and Mr. Patel feel ought to be and what Islamists or Christians or nazis feel ought to be. You try to say that saving the environment is “right” and religious inquisitions are “wrong,” yet they will claim the exact opposite. Both are justified by moral opinion. You cannot resolve this conflict.
Morality is relative and arbitrary. It is relative because each individual holds notions of morality that differ from one another in degree if not in kind; it is arbitrary because (as you admit) the fact that a moral opinion exists does not mean that such moral opinion MUST be, and there is no means of deciding which set of conflicting morals commands more authority.
I look forward to your response!