Vladimyr -
I agree strongly with this point. I think scientists (maybe especially those working in complexity?) are as prone as "civilians" to projection in their observations of natural phenomena. We see a "lead bird" and assume that the bird is "leading". A cynical variation on this in human populations (especially in Dilbereetaville) is the observation that many of our leaders are really like a "band leader" who sees the parade and jumps out in front of it waving his/her baton. Merle - Rather than stepping aside to allow emerging leaders to bring requisite variety to the "flock", elite hierarchies/patriarchies suppress distributed leadership and generally prevail for long periods of time. I am not inclined to disagree that this happens (all too frequently) but I wonder at the assumption in the first phrase "rather than stepping aside". It suggests that any leader is interested in the health of the flock/herd/tribe/state. I don't think that herd and pack animals' leaders act much differently than human leaders in this case. They seem to be driven by instinct to maintain dominance over the group, often defending that dominance unto death. It is their instincts to dominate and survive that leads the pack/herd to survival. An active form of metonymy where he group inherits (some of) the characteristics of the leader. Do we believe that humans are truly unique in this trait? It seems to me that "leadership" in all animals is emergent and a consequence of local forces (the individual urge to be dominant, almost exclusively among males, at least among mammals). Humans have the latent possibility for something more altruistic/noble perhaps... but it is the failure to rise to such altruism/nobility rather than a degeneracy away from what is "natural" for herd/pack mammals? I was just reading John Searle's mind language and society where he makes the case that only humans have a significant grasp on causality. This suggests to me that non-human "leaders" are leading circumstantially, instinctively, emergently and are "selected" the same way. It is *only* in humans that we see any significant deviation from this toward altruism... and that often seems only to be apparent, rather than real. Do we have true leaders/statesmen or do we merely have politicians who know how to pose as the former? I also accede that many cultures have managed to enhance the hierarchy/patriarchy (why are matriarchies never impugned by attribution of these traits?) into dysfunctional caricatures (albeit ones that often span generations and huge regions). I've ranted here before about "Homo Hiveus" and will indulge in a brief revisit of that rant. I very much want to attribute a lot of human's collective "bad behaviour" on acting completely out of the scale we were evolved for. If we evolved in family groups of 100-200 among clans of perhaps thousands in ethnic/language groups of perhaps tens of thousands, how in the world do we expect even cities of millions to make sense much less a world with billions. We are evolved to make decisions based on family and trust networks with dozens of others, not millions and billions. Our artificial social/economic/religious constructs of church/currency/state have allowed us to operate outside of these natural scales but at what cost? As an often-maligned male, I take exception to the general assumption that the problems of abusive/runaway hierarchy are a male-only trait. Power Corrupts. Period. On Venus as well as on Mars. Do we have any evidence that women do better at "leading" totally out-of-scale societies than men? If there is any (anecdotal?) evidence in support of Matriarchy, it might be that Matriarchies don't seem to grow out of control the way the Patriarchies in evidence have? - Steve |
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