Glen/Nick/Marcus/List - When reading Ben Franklin's autobiography as a young man (me not Ben), I remember being disturbed by his observation about the members of the Continental Congress as (paraphrase) "building factions in response to a particular topic, then dissolving and reforming them into different factions for the next topic".
I thought he was criticizing this behaviour, that he was suggesting that this was "fickle". I now am not sure if that was the case, I think instead, it was (at least) my own projection. As a strongly individualistic personality, at least by circumstance, I think I found the possibility of (more) persistent tribalism/factionation being a holy grail... I know I am still *highly* conflicted about my own role with "tribe". I don't like to have to be anti-choice to be pro-life (or pro-death to be pro-choice), I don't like to have to be anti-semitic to question Israel's treatment of Palestinians, I don't like to have to be a "Republican" or "Conservative" if I might not support the current Democrat running (or in office) or not agree with every detail of the current instance of a collective "Liberal" or "Progressive" issue. It seems that tribalism too often degenerates to false dichotomies. As for "mob", I understand that Glen was deliberately invoking it to cajole/confront us with it's negative implications. My own biggest discomfort(s) with "the mob" is twofold: 1) I seem never comfortable in a "Mob" because I can't shake the awareness that they could "turn on me" in a heartbeat if I didn't manage to remain fully compliant with their rhetoric; 2) I am equally uncomfortable with my own "berserker" element... next to having my own tribe (mob) turn against me on a whim is the fear I will wake up and realize that I have been entrained in something abhorrent to me. I really respect Glen's contrarian contributions, so don't mean this to be an argument *against* "merging with the mob", merely bracketing aspects of it that I think are key in doing it "righteously" if there is such a thing. Looking briefly at the complementary space, after 50 or 60 years of being "me" and having a fairly strong "individualist" bias, I accept that there is something fundamentally flawed with that as a default solution. Sure, every hive species seems to have "rogue" members who do not live within the hive, and our closest familiars in collective animal species (herd and pack animals) have examples of highly individualistic "batchelor" outliers who do not participate in the herd/pack from "inside", though I think they generally contribute as "outsiders" in some sense. Carry On, - Steve On 1/25/18 9:59 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote: > On 01/25/2018 08:42 AM, Nick Thompson wrote: >> Apologies for arriving late at the party and then quibbling, but .... I >> assume we all agree that not all groups of people with a common set of >> values and interests are "mobs". > We can't really agree on that unless we define "mobs" in such a way as to > allow persnickety particulars. 8^) Because I don't find anything wrong with > groupthink, or mobs, it will be difficult for me to justify those persnickety > particulars ... and the round-and-round sophistry we'll have to go through to > arrive at them. > > The truth (as in the eventual consensus after years of haggling) will be > "everything in moderation, including moderation". Being trapped by an > entraining pattern is good, as long as it's not permanent. > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove