Religion

Been pondering religion, self-expression values, capacity, and Martin Luther. Most people have heard of Martin Luther and his Ninety-Five Thesis. He was not the first person to make these complaints. They go back to at least the 13th century. But he was successful in causing a revolution of sorts based on individuals having their own interpretations of the way religion should be practiced. Much of his success is credited to the printing press and how it allowed for the rapid spread of ideas. I will not malign this invention but I must make two points related to capacity. First, for there to be a spread of printing presses not in the control of the courts or the church, there must have been enough capacity in the social system to allow people to create a market for the products they produced and/or have wealthy beneficiaries willing to support these local ventures. Second, there must have been a large enough population of literate people to absorb and spread the ideas to those not as literate. This means that a certain level of wealth, leisure and infrastructure existed at this time that I would argue did not exist in the centuries when John Wycliffe and Jon Hus made the same arguments. They had tried to spread the same seeds of discontent years earlier but they could not take root in the social systems as they existed at the time.

Some random thoughts of a work in progress

Introduction/Overall Proposition. Political structures or governmental systems change over time. In the last four hundred years Western cultures have experienced political structures including Monarchies and other Autocracies, Fascism Communism and other single party systems, and Democracies. It has been assumed that, expect for Democracies, these systems have been thrust upon the citizens (or subjects) of these governments. My overall proposition is that these government structures were rational solutions to the problems of government by a society in order to fill the society’s Needs using what I term Cultural Truths[1] within the parameters delineated by the Capacity of the natural and artificial surroundings the society occupies.

Application. This theory deals only with the Nation as defined by Smith as a “named human population sharing an historic territory, common myths, and historical memories, a mass public culture, a common economy and common legal rights and duties for all members” (Smith, 1991, 14).[i] My concern will be with the “mass public culture” and because of this I will use the term Nation-State which has connotations more closely associated with the population. While the theory I propose and the reasoning behind it may have application beyond the Nation-State I will not expand on those applications except where they clarify the general theory.

General Theory. A Nation-State chooses what governmental system best fulfills its Needs after consideration of Cultural Truths, the knowledge base of the society related to fulfilling those Needs .

Political Structure or governmental system. A governmental system is a social construct designed to take a portion of the excess goods or services its population produces and redistribute them to provide for the needs, desires, and concerns of its population. The more efficiently the government meets the needs, desires and concerns of its population the more likely it is that the governmental system will remain in force. Governmental systems do not provide equally for their population. In fact it would probably produce a very inefficient system as the needs, desires and concerns of various segments of the population are different. However, this construct is seen as desirable to all segments of the population because it redistributes this excess to accomplish tasks that no individual alone could accomplish.

Needs. A Nation-State’s Needs are those personal/social needs that the population as a whole feel are important. They are explained further below.

Cultural Truths. “Cultural Truths” are the bits of the Nation-State’s culturally accepted knowledge that can be used to satisfy the societies Needs. They are explained further below.

Supplemental Terms. My major concern is the Nation-State but I will often discuss the theory in regards to smaller elements. I will use the term “society” to describe the people who make up either the Nation-State or some part of it. The term “culture” will refer to the belief system that is common within the society.

Population. Much of what I discuss can be seen in both individuals and small groups. However, for these principles to hold true the population of the society must have reached a critical mass. What that number actually is I cannot say, but I would estimate the number at least one hundred thousand. It is also necessary for the population to have a common language or method of communication.

Time. In any society there is a group of ideas that are taken at face value as a given. When these ideas have utility in filling one of the societal Needs I call it a Cultural Truth. Cultural Truths change over time as the body of knowledge related to satisfying a societal Need expands. Often, a society will strongly resist changing a Cultural Truths since it goes both to individual and group identity. Cultural Truths tend to be assimilated by individuals during their youth. If the Cultural Truths are reinforced at that time by what the individuals see around them then they will remain the same. However, if the Cultural Truths is in contravention of what the youth actually experience then it may change. Often a Cultural Truth will only change with a generational shift: where the majority of adults see a different Cultural Truth as fulfilling their needs better than the current Cultural Truth. Resistance can often be the result of a segment of society has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. For example, whether in the United States it was acceptable for a woman to work outside the home required a series of generational shifts that resulted in a change in a Cultural Truth related to the appropriate place for a woman American society.

Homogony. It is not necessary that the group be homogenous. As a society grows large enough to have sub groups of sufficient size, each sub group can develop its own set of Cultural Truths. Usually these sub groups and their beliefs are not incongruent with other groups within the society. However, if this happens, then there can be conflict and a political separation may become inevitable.

Argot Groups. In almost all cases the total population of the Nation-State will be splintered into separate subgroups based on common characteristics such as power, wealth, education, locality, ethnicity, gender, or even age. Often they are the histories or myths of that group that help form their identity fulfilling that groups Tribal Identity and may justify their stratification. Argot Groups are subgroups of a Nation-State that share common Needs and Cultural Truths. They may or may not be congruent with any of the above categories.

Argot Groups versus Physical Characteristic. It is normal to attempt to compartmentalize groups by similar external characteristics such as race, age, and gender. These groupings may be valid for numerous purposes but they are only partially helpful in identifying Argot Groups. Because an Argot Group is distinguished by its beliefs, it may or may not comport to any externally obvious characteristic. Of course, being of the same race or sex will cause people to have similar experiences when dealing with the larger culture and therefore will result in similar beliefs. This can result in certain groups formulating Petite Cultural Truths that are similar (because I am African-American I am less likely to get waited on at a department store) it does not automatically make every member of the distinguishable group a member of a unique Argot Group.

Argot Groups versus Subcultures. A subculture is a set of people with a set of behaviors and beliefs, culture, which could be distinct or hidden, that differentiate them from the larger culture to which they belong. Argot Group is very similar to a subculture in that it delineates a larger group into subsections by beliefs. However, Argot Groups are delineated strictly on their acceptance of Cultural Truths.

Major Political Argot Groups: Elites and the General Population. As any population grows there is a tendency for it to split into at least two groups that play a pivotal roll in that Nation-State’s governmental structure. The first is a group of people who amass power, riches or education, which I refer to as the Elite of the Nation-State, and the second consist of the General Population (GP).[2]

Elites. Because of the disparity in wealth and knowledge the Elites as a group often will have different Needs then the GP. This is not abnormal and unless there is a striking disparity between the two groups on which Needs they are trying to satisfy the two will exist in the society quit harmoniously. Further stratification can occur based on various parts of the population attempting to satisfy similar needs. Once they reach a critical point they will begin to form their own identity; a separate Argot Group. However, the Elite/GP distinction is critical in determining political structure. Normally the Elite will have already satisfied a level of Needs that the GP are still working to achieve. Because their education level tends to be different than the GP, they may also have differing Cultural Truths. Not all of these distinct Cultural Truths may be shared with the GP. But since the Elites are often seen as the model or goal that the GP seeks to aspire to the Cultural Truths that they publicly espouse tend to be accepted with less friction than other Cultural Truths. The Elites will often push for political change in advance of what the GP wants or needs in order to satisfy Needs that the Elite have but that the GP have not yet begun to see as critical. However, if they have a vested interest in the status quo, they may attempt to retard changes in Cultural Truths. The elite itself may even fracture into separate groups each advocating different Cultural Truths.

The General Population (GP). As a whole the GP are not normally active in politics. The GP are primarily concerned with their own lives and families. They will not take part in political activities beyond voting. They are interested in their own Needs and how to satisfy them. As long as the political system allows them to do this they are content. However, where the political system interferes with their drive to fulfill their Needs then they will look to the Cultural Truths to explain this. Where the Cultural Truth tells them that this is the way things are supposed to be, they will acquiesce to these abridgements of their Needs to a point. For example, in America it is a Cultural Truth that any person can succeed if they try hard enough. Failure, even if it was a result of inequities in the system, might be dismissed by any single individual. However, where multiple individuals fail and an alternative theory could explain this failure better, as in the case of racial or sexual discrimination, the Cultural Truth begins to loose its sway, particularly in that Argot Group. Either the society as a whole has to address the inequity and correct it or the Argot Group is likely to begin to believe that other Cultural Truths are also false. This could lead to a separation of that group from society.

Where the society as a whole is not achieving their Needs they will acquiesce as long as the Cultural Truth comports with the world they see around them. For example, the GP would submit to a monarchy/aristocracy’s subjugation of their Needs as long as the conventional wisdom or Cultural Truth was that this is the natural way of the world as God intended. A cruel, despotic monarch would be viewed as an aberration, not a failure of the commonly accepted Cultural Truth.

Where the Need is essential, like a Survival Need, then the GP are more likely to no longer trust the Cultural Truth that works to deny them of that Need and will seek to replace it with another Cultural Truth. The replacement is not so much a conscious effort as a flailing about for an alternative. Trial and error will lead to a solution that will then become the next Cultural Truth. The same would be true where it is generally accepted that the Survival Needs are met and the next level of Needs is being withheld by the prevailing Cultural Truth. The GP will first work to adjust the existing Cultural Truth to try to explain its failure to provide for the GP’s Needs. If no acceptable answer can be found then the GP will find a replacement Cultural Truth. Sometimes the Elite, or a subsection of it, may offer the alternative Cultural Truth. Other times, the Elite will be the ones attempting to maintain the Status Quo.

Shifts in Governmental Structures. As the population of any Nation-State’s Needs change over time the political system they finds acceptable will change, but only if the shift is large enough. If basic Survival Needs are of primacy in the minds of the society then the society is more likely to acquiesce to an authoritarian form of government, particularly if there knowledge base is limited and if the authoritarian system provides security against others seeking limited resources. The more the society fills their Survival Needs and the population seeks Self Expression Needs the more likely the society is to demand a Democracy.[ii] It would be wrong to think of this as a unidirectional progression. At any time a society can drift between autocracy and democracy and back depending on the Needs that the population perceive as important at the time.

Caution. While the general proposition that I propose would hold true for any society once it reaches the appropriate dimensions, individual examples of its application will be unique to that society. Examples of how this theory applies in America would be slightly different then how it played out in France or India because the commonly accepted Cultural Truths will be unique to that social group. Where I give examples of culture or behavior of a society I will be referring to American society unless I state otherwise.

---

[1] This is by no means a new idea. At a minimum it was espoused by Ludwig Von Mises in Human Action. Mises, Ludwig Von, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, Contemporary Books, Inc, Chicago, Il, Third Edition, 1966, 149.

[2]

---

[i] Smith. Anthony. 1991, National Identity, London: Penguin Press.

[ii] Inglehart

The Birth of Autocracy

This Blog is progressive. Start at the bottom and read up or it may make no sense.

Now that I have explained the basic components of the model I will apply them to history. Even though the theory was intended to apply to the Nation-States that would be starting millennium too late. The problem of how to manage a Nation-State may have only come about a few hundred years ago but the knowledge base that was used to solve the problem of government would have been amassed beginning around the time human beings started to have a consistent excess of their survival requirements, in particular, food. That would be the first time that humans would have encountered the problems associated with governing.

What Governments Do. A governmental system is a social construct designed to take a portion of the excess goods or services its population produces and use them to provide for the needs, desires, and concerns of its population[i]. The more efficiently the government does this the more likely it is that the government will remain stable. Governments do not provide equally for their population. In fact it would probably produce a very inefficient system. What the government will do is use this excess to accomplish tasks that no individual alone could accomplish.

Anthropologists will tell you that the first humans societies were small Bands of Hunter-Gatherers that lived a simple, egalitarian life. For the most part, other than biological distinctions, all people were equal. There were no governments, no externally enforced regulations. There was no need for them. At this point in history there was no stratification of society beyond that established by gender and age. All the people were engaged in basic survival activities. There may have been excess food after a good hunt or during the autumn season but it was not a continual condition. Basic Survival Needs overrode all other concerns. People lived in as close to a “natural state” for a human society as was likely to exist. For our purposed think of a group of egalitarian Hunter-Gatherers as the “default position” for humans.

These purely egalitarian societies were the tabula rasa of politics. But nothing lasts forever. It is now about 10,000 B.C. Things change and people form a new group. Humans start to remain in one place rather than wander. Agriculture takes root (no pun intended). There was time to do things other than forage for food. Sometimes referred to as “Tribes”, these extended family groups began have to deal with more complex problems than killing and eating their food. This causes a number of changes. First, the success of humans presented them with both the excess resources, both physical and temporal. They had time to gather together to fulfill their Social Needs. They satisfied this need by forming interfamily groups. Second, the excess resources created a de facto inequity. This in turn created a new problem and the necessity for a new Cultural Truth; how to equitably distribute excess resources. Third, at least some societies floundered at coming up with solutions for this problem. They attempted ceremonial solutions. [ii]These solutions as well as others may become the tribe’s Cultural Truth and solved the problem for some time.

The next rung up society’s evolutionary ladder will preordain the type of government societies will have when they become city-states or empires until the time of the Greeks. Because of the monumental affect this change will have on the world of political science I feel if wise to explore it further. To do that we will take a detour from the world of anthropology into the world of evolutionary psychology.

Things are changing. As a species, humans are becoming fantastically successful. With that success will come the exacerbation of a problem that developed with the tribe; the inequities created by excess. Somehow the group had to decide how to distribute these assets. A solution was needed. A solution that could be adopted and accepted by all members of the group. The eventual solution was to vest that power in one person, and the autocracy was born. This solution was so powerful, so innately natural, and so “instinctual” that it would come to be accepted nearly universally. Why?

There are two theories for why this choice would have been natural. The first is that socially humans are prone to certain behavioral habits. Discovered during his work with the Moose of Burkina Faso, Alan P. Fiske described them as “Incommensurable Models for Social Relationships” (Fiske, 1990). They are “communal sharing, characterized by solidarity, common identity, and commensality; authority ranking, involving precedence, asymmetrical power, and deference; equality matching, entailing quid pro quo, in-kind reciprocity, turn taking, and egalitarian distributive justice; and market pricing, oriented toward commodity values or some kind of calculation of cost-benefit ratios” (Fiske, 1990). The inference from his work is that these behavior patterns are “hardwired” into the human animal and are at least partially responsible for our social success. If true, then authority ranking and the idea that one person somehow has predominance over others would be natural. The second theory is more generic and basically identified the family unit as the origin of the “singe person” solution. Almost everyone starts out a in this world as a child completely dependant on an adult, usually their mother. This single person becomes the provider for everything. In either case, what became the solution for the first inequity was to give a single person the excess. The autocracy is still with us.[i]

If one goes back in history (or goes to certain isolated tribal societies) you will see a transition that occurs at the point that a social group begins to have excess food (or excess resources in general). They tend to give the excess to two separated people, the shaman or religious leader and the “head man” or whomever they see as the “political” leader. This allows those two separate individuals to not have to spend their entire day finding food themselves. Over time this tendency becomes institutionalized into the government and the church. Earle, T. (2002). Bronze Age Economics. Boulder, Westview Press.

In a purely economic sense nothing has changed. When the clan began to give their excess to the shaman and headman this allowed the shaman and headman not to have to find the food themselves. They no longer added directly to the resources of the groups but did so indirectly through advice and direction on the affairs of men and God. Today both the church and the government provide for the people in their own way. However neither of these two entities adds directly to the GNP of a country and in that sense what we do today is exactly the same as what those early societies did

[ii] Flannery, Kent V. “The Cultural Evolution of Civilizations”, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, Vol. 3. (1972), pp. 399-426, 402-3.

Prime Force - Human Motivation

Motivations. The driving force behind action in human society is motivation. This is a fairly elementary concept. People do not act unless there is some reason to act. The reason could be as simple as the need to eat or as complex as the desire to help a complete stranger who is the victim of a disaster on the other side of the world by donating money or goods. These common motivations, when looked at collectively, form the prime force behind all mass human action.

Types of Motivation. For the purposes of this model there are three types of motivation that drive governmental choice; needs, concerns, and desires. Simply stated, needs are those things humans “require”. The concept as used here is nearly identical with the concept outlined by Maslow in his hierarchy of needs with three alterations for this model.[i] The first is simple terminology: they are a progression of needs rather than a hierarchy. The term better describes the intent for the purposes of this model. Second, progression is more pliable based on the values of the society. For instance a communal society my cling to certain social needs like sacrificing personal gain for the good of the group longer than a society whose values are based on more individual responsibilities. Third, progression from survival to self-expression to esteem needs reflects the cumulative or progressive nature of the needs better than hierarchy.

The second type of motivation is concerns. Like needs, concerns are progressive however concerns represent the altruistic side of human motivation. Once a certain level of need is fulfilled to the point that the society takes their fulfillment as a fact of life, they will feel compelled to help other entities less fortunate then themselves. This compulsion is usually based on an ethical argument, that to not do so would be morally repugnant. Concerns apply to living entities and progress from those most like us (humans), then to other sentient beings (like monkeys, dogs and cats), then to any other animal life, then to plant life and finally to any life. The most obvious governmental manifestation of this pattern can be seen in the outlawing of slavery and laws that prohibit abuse of animals.

Finally, there are desires. Unlike needs and concerns desires are not progressive. Desires are universal but may manifest themselves differently at different times. There are five desires that can affect governmental actions: consistency, justice, competition, pleasure and spirituality. Simply stated, consistency is our desire to have predictability and is one of the basic reasons for our complex legal systems. The second reason for the complex legal system is the desire for justice. At this level, it is more of an eye-for-an-eye type of concept. Competition is the desire to have more than or be “better” then others. Pleasure or hedonistic desires represent the desire to enjoy life rather than simply exist and can be seem in decorations on simple utilitarian objects like bowls to masterpieces of sculpture, music or film. The most powerful desire affecting governmental choice is spirituality. It can be seen in all things religious including theocracies and it is the drive to connect with that the group finds holy.


[i] Maslow, A. H. (1943). "A Theory of Human Motivation." Psychological Review Vol. 50: 370-396.

The Basis of the Philosophy – An Atomic Metaphor

This blog will discuss my views on the origins of democracy. It views democracy as the natural form of government that comes into existence when the level of needs satisfaction of its population reaches a certain point. It sees democracy as neither good nor bad. It does not see democracy as the “End of History”.[1] It certainly does not view democracy as the best form of government in all circumstances.

While not truly the end state, the prior paragraph is the product of a philosophy on collective human behavior. A philosophy that sees collective human behavior of a large enough group over a long enough period of time as predictable even though those involved are largely unconscious of what is happening. The easiest way to explain this philosophy is to use a metaphor –the metaphor I will use is the atomic model. In the atom there are the three components, the electron, proton and neutron, and the forces that act on these components, the strong and weak force, gravity, and others that go to produce everything we see. Likewise there are three components to collective human action and a number of forces that go to produce all possible collective human activities you see.

In this metaphor the three components of the collective human actions are the physical human beings that collectively form the culture, the biophysical world they exist in, and the collective knowledge of the culture.[2]

1) Humans. Humans beings have physical abilities, limitations, and requirements. These are the same for all humans anywhere around the world. Everything we create takes these abilities, limitations, and requirements into account.

2) The Environment. Then there is the biophysical world. From it we take what we need. But it is not the same everywhere. Weather, soil type, flora, fauna, rivers, mountains, and oceans varies from place to place. Each of these affect how the human population develop. Whether they will develop into farmers or herders or fishermen or traders.

3) Our Knowledge. Over time the culture learns to interact with its biophysical environment.They also learn how to interact with members of their own culture and members or other cultures. Generations of trial and error become our collective memory. Because it is the result of trial and error there have been consequences for failed practices. Practices that produce good results are seen as "right" and those that produce detrimental results are seen as "wrong". As such, our knowledge becomes peppered with moralistic thought. Hence there becomes a "right" way for marriages to be arranged, either through contract by the parents or consent of the two people to be married. Over time a "truth" about how things must be done emerges. I use the term truth because it is not a fact. I refer to these as cultural truths. Cultural truths help us solve problems but they also limit the potential universe of solutions we see as correct. Eventually, our knowledge controls us. These three components make up our “atom”.

The three components have a number of forces acting on them. That is for the next installment.



[1] Fukuyama, F. (1992). The End of History and The Last Man. New York
Toronto, Free Press : Maxwell Macmillan International; Maxwell Macmillan Canada.

[2]These three limitations are variations on a theme established by Gerhard Lenski in his Ecological-Evolutionary Theory. Lenski, G. E. (2005). Ecological-Evolutionary Theory: Principles and Applications. Boulder, Colo., Paradigm Publishers.