World Peace

[Deranged Nasat]

Interesting discussion everyone.

I'd say the real issue, beyond any desire for peace or "rights" or "freedom of speech", etc is the need to be free from control. And I don't mean the "don't stab that guy" control or the "we're arresting you for stabbing that guy" control, which is fine and good (in theory, when it's not corrupted by the other sort as it often is ...and I'll get to that in a minute), I mean from the desire by others to try and impose themselves upon you on the basis of fear and aggression. Of fear of the other. To control your life, destiny, etc by declaring or demonstrating power over you in a manner stemming from their own psychological/instinctual state. Because that's what underlies the struggle for all those other freedoms- of speech, etc - and for the ideal of peace (which I guess we here mean a freedom from anyone, be it a neighbour or your own nation, trying to impose war upon you, in any way).

But freedom from this control doesn't mean a lack of constraints. That sort of freedom can never be achieved, nor should it. True and total freedom is complete self-reliance, and healthy humans don't work that way. Unless you live entirely alone, provide your own food, water and power and owe nothing to anyone, you're not really free. Because humans are social animals; we live in groups and respond to our ties to others. If we don't, its abhorrent, unhealthy. We all feel obligations, ties of emotion and contract, agreement, exchange, co-operation and competition (healthy competition, not the aggressive variant that masquerades as it). Again, if we don't feel those obligations, we're unhealthy. And lack of freedom that stems from this social instinct is actually often healthy because of it. That's why hardly anyone would suggest society shouldn't have a legal system constraining theft, murder, etc. So long as these things stem not from fear and aggression and a desire to control, but a simple, healthy desire to maintain the society, they're fine. Control should be an occasional necessary evil, not a driving force. And for that to be the case, we have to reduce the fear people have of the other, the fear that they'll be a threat if not under orderly authority and tight restraint, be it moral authority of politics, religion, or public opinion, intellectual control and intimidation, "you must think/do/support this or else", pointless or oppressive legal restrictions, or even imperial control (in the most overt cases, and getting back into the war issue. Sometimes the fear is so strong it manifests in a "must attack/raid/beat even exterminate That Nation" idea- and the attacked people end up reciprocating, and imposing on their own folks too).

People talk of a "will to power", but I say they're off target- it's a will for security that I see driving our people. But they don't know how to be secure with one another. They fear each other, and so compete to get each other under their own control. Nations, religions, international organizations, scholarly ideologies, political groups- its always about control, about assimilating or ruling until you feel safe. And legal systems, etc, are polluted by this unhealthy desire to control, so it becomes not a shared self-regulation and maintenance but an assault on the dignity of some by others.

As Surak of Vulcan put it , "Cast out fear. There is no room for anything else until you cast out fear".

Anyway, excuse me that little babble.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

If someone takes some stuff that belongs to you, such as a clay pot, pursue them to the ends of the Earth, break their arms, cut out their tongue, gouge out their eyes, and then rip their heart out and throw it on the ground. Make sure everybody else knows what you did so they won't be tempted to steal your stuff in the future.

Not attacking you or anything (I'm not "siding against you" in the debate or anything), but I felt like responding in a casual way to this.

The problem is, who determines whose stuff it is? You can say it's yours, indeed most of us here would no doubt recognise it as such, but if some guy with a gun strolled in and said "that pot, it's mine now, okay?"? Who am I going to believe? You, or guy-with-a-big-gun? Maybe morally I think it's yours, but really, its guy-with-a-gun's now, isn't it? And rather than pursuing him to the ends o'the earth, breaking his arms, etc, etc, he'll just do it to you. First. Because he's a bully. And he has the gun. Under the system you just outlined, do the weak ever have anything? If aggression is needed to stake a claim, the aggressive own it all, don't they

This is why Britain has boxes of India's shiny stuff sitting in its attics. Because the British wandered in and said "this is our shiny stuff now. What you gonna do, become an oppressed colony at us?".

 

[gturner]

If someone takes some stuff that belongs to you, such as a clay pot, pursue them to the ends of the Earth, break their arms, cut out their tongue, gouge out their eyes, and then rip their heart out and throw it on the ground. Make sure everybody else knows what you did so they won't be tempted to steal your stuff in the future.

Not attacking you or anything (I'm not "siding against you" in the debate or anything), but I felt like responding in a casual way to this.

The problem is, who determines whose stuff it is? You can say it's yours, indeed most of us here would no doubt recognise it as such, but if some guy with a gun strolled in and said "that pot, it's mine now, okay?"? Who am I going to believe? You, or guy-with-a-big-gun? Maybe morally I think it's yours, but really, its guy-with-a-gun's now, isn't it? And rather than pursuing him to the ends o'the earth, breaking his arms, etc, etc, he'll just do it to you. First. Because he's a bully. And he has the gun. Under the system you just outlined, do the weak ever have anything? If aggression is needed to stake a claim, the aggressive own it all, don't they

That's why you have to inscribe "Nasat his pot" on it (or use the shorthand "Nasat's pot". It also helps if the whole village knows dang well that it's your pot, so they'll know the other guy is a thief and run him off before he steals their stuff, too.

The point about violently defending your stuff is that it was, at one time, a crucially important part of our social behavior, enabling us to accumulate possessions prior to the invention of police and courts. It's wired into our brains as vengeance and is designed to make us act out of all proportion to the perceived wrong, which kept primitive people from transgressing against each other because they knew the victims would go ape-shit, such as they do when someone steals their pot. (If you're confused about the details, watch season 3 of Weeds.)

That instinctual behavior in modern society causes lots of police problems, most notably when combined with alcohol. Surely half of any episode of Cops involves drunks seeking vengeance. It also causes all attempts at implementing communism to up either in abject failure or tyranny, because when the state shows up at some drunk guy's house and tells him his house and truck now belong to the people, he'll generally go apeshit and gun down the comrades from the government confiscation office.

Not ones to admit their worldview is a bizarre, paranoid conspiracy theory, the Marxists in charge invariably claim that the populace is seeded with counter-revolutionary capitalist agents. Then they round up everybody who still has food, accuse them of hording, and put them in death camps.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Nice points. Of course, evidently the whole thing didn't really work, because people did and do transgress against each other all the time, even full knowing it will get many people violent. Indeed, they wind up glorifying or at least accepting this violence, so we end up with blood feuds and entire families wiped out - and wars of retribution and cycles of vengeance. Which are accepted as part of the way of life, because the response of vengeance is prioritized. Cultures even get to the point where anything less than violent vengeance is frowned upon. Some deterent- they want it! The problem is that humans are okay with violence- so its not a deterrant at all (again, except in the weak- so once again you have a system where the weak cower and the strong and aggressive own everything). The threat of violent response is no threat at all, because humans are okay with violence. Who was that American military leader who famously said that if there are two Americans left and one soviet that meant the USA and its allies had won? Every culture has guys like him- some cultures are made up near-entirely of them. That's the other instinctive response we have to worry about. It escalates. Once let out, in a system where vengeance is accepted it in turn promotes further acts of aggression. I take your pot, so you break my arm, so I kill your brother, so you torch my house....which is of course how many parts of the world still live. So while I understand the early human's need for the instinct, it doesn't appear to have worked too well. A better strategy would be to learn not to fear one another's grasping little hands and forego the whole sorry affair. Let my neighbour know I'm not afraid and will treat him or her as brother or sister, not encourage an atmosphere of "touch my pot and taste fist".

Hmmm, another point, and back on the war issue (and here we go with my favourite topic, just briefly )- forced conscription. Try to take that man's truck and house away, and yeah, as you say, he'll go "apeshit crazy" (guns optional, I suppose). But take his son away and all too often he'll grumble a bit but he'll accept that. Grudgingly, but he will. On a larger scale, a British officer would happily send 50 enlisted men to certain death as part of a military calculation (not even an action, a calculation), but dare to touch any of his stuff and he'll be outraged. And right there's the weakness- the obssession with "stuff" has always meant that that humans have a tendency to treat the person as nothing, because the property law is key.

This is why, is it not, a man essentially "owned" his wife and children - because when they were marked as "his", they were protected by law and societal convention much, much more. No other man could just wander in, pick them up and carry them off, because they were that guys'. They were worth nothing as people (people are worth nothing)- but under the category of his property, they were far more valued. Because stuff, and ownership of stuff, is, as you pointed out so well above, vital to how humans tend to see the world.

I'm certainly not arguing against your core point - namely, that stuff and the "don't touch this, it's MINE" attitude has indeed been integral to human civilization. And I'm certainly not a Marxist. But I feel that the instinct has been supported and promoted by culture so strongly that it's never actually done its job of keeping things secure and removing the desire to transgress. It just leads to pain, and escalating cycles of it. A different approach is needed - and I see that as the approach of letting go of fear. That means taking the risky step of opening up, dropping shields, demonstrating trust even at risk of betrayal. And to take that step means dropping the original aggressive attitude towards neighbours and their relationship to your stuff. It doesn't mean getting rid of boundaries and ownership, but of negotiating them based on something other than intimidation and violence and fear- because those have never really worked, at least not since we became something more than just another primate, or at least not in a way I can support.

Of course, there's also the fact that I've never really understood the drive people call vengeance. I don't really experience the urge. But then I've never been aggressive. Maybe this has helped psush forth my view on things- I'm just inclined to re-create the playing field where I'm currently disadvantaged to make it one where I'm not?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

voting isn't about oneself, it's about others: I vote to oppress you with the power of majority rule.

Chaos is a worse oppressor than our government ever has been.

 

[sojourner]

Freedom of choice is what you want, freedom from choice is what you got!

 

[gturner]

Nice points yourself.

Of course, there's also the fact that I've never really understood the drive people call vengeance. I don't really experience the urge. But then I've never been aggressive. Maybe this has helped push forth my view on things- I'm just inclined to re-create the playing field where I'm currently disadvantaged to make it one where I'm not?

Well, I also think vengeance may have originally grown out of a response to predatory animals, such as big cats. I wrote an essay on it years ago, and my theory is this:

Primitive human tribes were frequently attacked by predators such as big cats, which also happen to be territorial, whether singly or in groups. If the humans just massed together as a group and killed the offending animals, another group of predators would quickly move in and occupy the now vacant territory, accomplishing nothing.

So the humans need to get clever enough to scare the living hell out of their local predators without actually killing them or driving them off. But unfortunately the early humans are not very bright, nor are the cats, which is why a cease and desist letter or a restraining order weren't options.

The solution: Take the outrage the humans feel at the attack (seeing a couple of half-eaten friends, children, and lovers does tend to focus the mind) and have it trigger a cascade of pre-wired, specific behaviors and emotions. These behaviors need to be really extreme because the humans have to send a message understandable by a pack of predatory animals, and the behaviors have to be based in emotions because that's all evolution had to work with at the time.

One of the first requirements is that all the humans have to work together, and fortunately there were already defensive group behaviors for animal attacks. These still show up consistently in National Parks and other settings where an aggressive predator threatens a human. You can look at Youtube or other sources to see how people try to distract a predator from an attack by getting out of their cars to scream, holler, bang pots, car doors, or anything else that makes loud noises. Not a single one of them ever had a class in "When animals attack", nor, with rare exceptions, would any of them have ever witnessed an animal attack, much less enough animal attacks to sit in their basement and postulate a planned response. So our behavior of banding together for mutual defense while trying to scare off a predator seems to be instinctual.

But although that might stop a particular attack, it doesn't alter the balance of terror where predators hold the upper hand. To change that, evolution needs to add something sick and twisted to our behavior repetoire.

So the humans band together, screaming and hollering, as they would for any predator attack, but now feel the anger and bloodlust resulting from a successful predator attack. So we have the humans forming a mob, an ugly social construct, feared by those who don't control it and feared by those who pretend to control it because in reality, nobody is in control, only raw emotions are. Banding together in a mob is probably a requirement for what's to follow, because singly humans are just cat food and any humans acting alone would be quickly weeded out of the gene pool.

So the external inputs of being inside a mob, combined with internal rage (confirming one as a member of the mob), triggers some further behaviors, because the mob has a target and a goal. The target is whatever predator caused the outrage, and the goal is to teach a lesson with violence and mutilation, preferably involving cat corpses and burned body parts hanging in trees where no predator can miss them. You can browse the photographs of mob violence across the past century and it bears these same odd marks: People hanging from trees, often burned, often cut into pieces.

Note that the total extinction of the offending predator is completely outside the mob's capabilities, and in most cases the mob doesn't even seek to kill all the local predators. That would be evolutionarily self-defeating because new predators would just move in, so there is an emotional signal for the mob to stop, a "satisfaction." This same trait shows up in more modern mobs. Generally lynch mobs in the old South would target some particular black person, not all the blacks they could get their hands on. The mob's violence is appeased after "sending a message."

You see other telling traits in mobs to this day. There is some perceived outrage that causes a group to band together to seek the target, whether a black man accused of rape in the Old South, American contractors in Fallujah, or other nationals in Eastern Europe during WW-I. They shout encouragement to each other, shout warnings to anyone not already in the mob, and stay clumped together like a tiger was about to lunge out of the bushes at any moment - like the real enemy was a cat.

This is another sign the behavior is instinctive, because mob behavior makes no tactical sense in the modern world. A group can cover more ground acting in small teams, have better defensive firepower in seperate but mutually supporting positions, would be a heck of a lot more successfull catching someone if they weren't moving slowly, (on foot), making as much noise as humanly possible, and frankly should be using cars and cellphones, which never seem to be a feature of mob violence. Militaries don't train armies to walk around like mobs because mobs are really crappy formations for defense or attack, but people keep forming them.

I've gone on too long, but that's my basic take on the underpinnings of vengeance, with the additional observation that it doesn't work against other humans. Trying to strike fear in another group by blowing up their children doesn't win their respect, nor does it gain anyone an ounce of additional security. Yet we see terrorist groups constantly justifying their actions as if it would. I suspect that they've been sucked into the emotional behaviors that worked on cats but backfires when used against people.

 

[sidious618]

Freedom is a vague and meaningless idea that doesn't have any real place in legitimate discussions about how people live.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

^^ gturner: Interesting. And it certainly makes sense to me. Thanks for taking the time to outline your thoughts on this.

Part of the problem with me (well, it's not actually a problem, it just happens to be the way it is) is that I seem to be "wired" a little differently to most people. Not in any drastic way, I'm sure, just that I've never had the crowd/group response most people seem to (or, I suppose, I have a "weaker" instinct there). I don't slip into the group mentality (for better or worse) anywhere near as easily. No doubt a poor survival trait in more "natural" crcumstances. I'm probably like a walking satchet of Felix Whiskers .

I can intellectually understand these things, of course, but it takes me a bit longer to emotionally grasp them, if that makes sense?

Anyway, that was an interesting piece.

 

[Davros]

How are you oppressing someone by not letting them steal your stuff?

Nobody here is advocating stealing anything.

 

[gturner]

How are you oppressing someone by not letting them steal your stuff?

Nobody here is advocating stealing anything.

Actually, someone is.

Let me guess, the 'freedom' you're thinking of is that brand which accepts - nay, requires - oppression to the extent necessary to protect the peculiar institution of private property, thereby - in the absence of further hypocritical anti-freedom measures such as taxation and labour regulation - inevitably leading to the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few and the exploitation of the masses; and thus to conflict.

I'm not even going to get into the disrespect of describing capitalism, which has let American blacks hold more wealth than most countries on the planet, as a "peculiar institution" which is a term reserved for race based human slavery (which the Democrat Party was founded to defend and continue)

The beliefs espoused in the greater quote are centuries old, responsible for the brutal deaths of over a hundred million. The storyline is that those who own property somehow must have gotten it by "stealing" it from others. The urged solution is to overthrow not only the government but all civil institutions, replacing them with a dictatorship which will steal all the stuff back and redistribute it to the rightful owners, the "masses".

That weird conspiracy theory is the foundation that Marxist propagandists, Nazis, fascists, and some Islamic radicals have used to win support among the populace, convincing people that they've been "robbed" by some outgroup (Jews, capitalists, or especially Jewish capitalists), and that they're just stealing the stuff back (seizing the means of production, seizing Jewish bank assets) and punishing the thieving, backstabbing traitors, the enemies of "the people".

It never ends well.

 

[gturner]

^^ gturner: Interesting. And it certainly makes sense to me. Thanks for taking the time to outline your thoughts on this.

No problem.

I think it might make an interesting premise for a science fiction story in which a true predator species attacks some humans, then tries to understand why we don't act like normal prey species when we attack in huge numbers in an effort to defeat them. We really don't reflect on the roots of our behavior, since to us it's a given, so perhaps the aliens and some captured human could together bring realization to them in a nice "Oh fuck" moment.

Part of the problem with me (well, it's not actually a problem, it just happens to be the way it is) is that I seem to be "wired" a little differently to most people. Not in any drastic way, I'm sure, just that I've never had the crowd/group response most people seem to (or, I suppose, I have a "weaker" instinct there). I don't slip into the group mentality (for better or worse) anywhere near as easily. No doubt a poor survival trait in more "natural" crcumstances. I'm probably like a walking satchet of Felix Whiskers .

I can intellectually understand these things, of course, but it takes me a bit longer to emotionally grasp them, if that makes sense?

Anyway, that was an interesting piece.

Hrm... If you have a three year old daughter and some wacko animal charges at her, you'll get to experience crazed warrior mode like Achilles on crack!

Then you'll wonder, what was that killer animal machine that took over my brain and where did it come from?