My new stuff in in maroon.
Ed
>>>Every single lifeform
acts to preserve its genetic code more than anything else. In primate societies,
rank order is the main device that has evolved for the selection of sexual
partners. It's as basic and important as that.>>>
Well, I'm not really sure of what
you mean by rank order. You seem to suggest that the General should have a
more intelligent and sexually desirable wife than the Colonel who should outdo
the Captain, etc. I've been married twice, and both of my wives were
(still are) very good looking and really very intelligent. They should
have married the General. I never made it past the bureaucratic level of
Colonel. (And I recall some of the Generals' wives were far less
attractive than my own.)
By your view of it, a behaviour like altruism is not something based on
morality, on wanting to do 'right' by others and wanting others to do right by
you, but something that it essentially selfish and that we can't help because
we are genetically programmed to behave that way. I simply don't buy that.
>>>You are entitled to believe the
above, but the evidence is increasingly showing that all our principal
behaviours are predisposed by our genes. However, where we differ from other
primates is that our frontal lobes are able to embellish all our deep drives in
imaginative ways. For example, almost all the goods we buy have been, at one
historical period or another, status symbols. Another example: almost all
religions' rules about marriage put a civilised gloss on the incest taboo which
is followed rigorously by all human societies that are not under
stress.>>>
The only thing I've read on this
kind of thing recently is Pinker's "Blank Slate". What he argues, if I
recall properly, is that we have a genetic predisposition to do certain things,
like learn languages and socialize, but how we do them depends on the culture we
grow up in. That culture, as I argued in my previous posting, may be
enormously rich and historically deep, and may contain many rules of behaviour
which are determined by the society we grow up in, not our genes. They are
cultural, not genetic. A genetic predisposition does not mean that
things will be done rigorously in a certain way. They can be done in many
different ways, or not be done at all.
>>>Yes, but mothers try harder! In cases of
bad house fires in England where one of the parents perish trying to save the
children, it is the mother who nearly always dies rather than the father. The
ratio is something like 12 to 1 -- if my memory is correct (the ratio might be
more than that, but it's significant).>>>
I think you're reaching here.
I know of cases where both parents have tried very hard to save children.
I've done a lot to ensure that my children were safe. So have my
wives. It may have something to do with preserving our genetic codes but
it is also the way we
were taught to be.
Of course, individuals don't actually think about their
genes! In primate societies, brothers will nearly always come to the aid
of their brothers. In the case of humans, this could only be proved conclusively
by a scientific experiment which would be ethically impossible to carry out!
But, gosh! -- just think of the nepotism that goes on in buysiness and politics
and the way almost everybody writes their Wills.
Well, family looks after family. I don't see
anything very strange about that.
As for altruistic work, I know of
many people who do things for strangers without any thought of getting
something in return. I personally am involved in a food bank, and I demand no
recompense. I and the other people who work with me just feel that it is a
necessary thing to do.
>>>Yes, this is true. But this is quite rare,
and it nearly always involves individuals who are more intelligent than the norm
and are more aware of the importance of community/social linkages. In Bath there
are quite a number of charities and voluntary societies. There is only one I can
think of in which working class voluntary helpers are almost as numerous as
middle class individuals -- this is the Refuge Centre for battered wives (which
is the particular charity that I support)..>>>
I don't think it's rare at
all. I know ever so many people who volunteer at one thing or
another. Some have nothing better to do, but most do it out of a sense of
compassion.
>>>We
are only 'moral creatures' because we say there should be morals. And the people
who are the most insistent about morals are those who want power -- churchmen
and politicians >>>
Nonsense. We live in societies in which morals, in the sense
of codified behaviour toward one and another, form the basis of social order,
laws and institutions. We begin to learn moral behaviour when we are very
young. Those of us who don't become unattached misfits in our
societies. You'll recall the stuff I posted on inner city kids in Chicago
and punk rioters in Montreal as examples of unattached and dangerous
misfits.
Ed,
At 11:23 28/10/2003 -0500, you wrote:
Keith, you seem to attribute almost all of human behaviour to motives
like gaining status and ensuring the preservation of one's genetic code.
Every single lifeform acts to preserve its genetic
code more than anything else. In primate societies, rank order is the main
device that has evolved for the selection of sexual partners. It's as basic
and important as that.
By your view of it, a behaviour like altruism is not something based
on morality, on wanting to do 'right' by others and wanting others to do
right by you, but something that it essentially selfish and that we can't
help because we are genetically programmed to behave that way. I simply
don't buy that. You are entitled to believe the above,
but the evidence is increasingly showing that all our principal behaviours are
predisposed by our genes. However, where we differ from other primates is that
our frontal lobes are able to embellish all our deep drives in imaginative
ways. For example, almost all the goods we buy have been, at one historical
period or another, status symbols. Another example: almost all religions'
rules about marriage put a civilised gloss on the incest taboo which is
followed rigorously by all human societies that are not under stress.
Our sense of morality and decency is ancient. It has been developed
out of a vast array of interactions over the millennia. It has been codified
in religions, philosophies, laws and institutions, and surely plays at least
as important a role in our behaviour, one to another, as our basic animal
make-up. Without a codified morality, we could not function as societies. It
is what distinguishes us from other species. We could
easily function without detailed, codified moralities. But it's helpful to
codify them and, where they differ in detail from one culture to another it
adds colour to each.
The examples you give of morals that are prefigured in our genes are
not very convincing. Both mothers and fathers have died to save their
children. Yes, but mothers try harder! In cases of bad
house fires in England where one of the parents perish trying to save the
children, it is the mother who nearly always dies rather than the father. The
ratio is something like 12 to 1 -- if my memory is correct (the ratio might be
more than that, but it's significant).
And when, as in cases of intended rescues I know about, brothers have
tried to save brothers, the very last things they were thinking about was
the preservation of the family genes. Of course,
individuals don't actually think about their genes! In primate
societies, brothers will nearly always come to the aid of their brothers. In
the case of humans, this could only be proved conclusively by a scientific
experiment which would be ethically impossible to carry out! But, gosh! --
just think of the nepotism that goes on in buysiness and politics and the way
almost everybody writes their Wills.
As for altruistic work, I know of many people who do things for
strangers without any thought of getting something in return. I personally
am involved in a food bank, and I demand no recompense. I and the other
people who work with me just feel that it is a necessary thing to do.
Yes, this is true. But this is quite rare, and it
nearly always involves individuals who are more intelligent than the norm and
are more aware of the importance of community/social linkages. In Bath there
are quite a number of charities and voluntary societies. There is only one I
can think of in which working class voluntary helpers are almost as numerous
as middle class individuals -- this is the Refuge Centre for battered wives
(which is the particular charity that I support)..
My general point remains: quite apart from our genes and what might
be interpreted as our economic self-interest, we are moral creatures.
We are only 'moral creatures' because we say there
should be morals. And the people who are the most insistent about morals are
those who want power -- churchmen and politicians
All I was suggesting in the posting you challenged was that our
morality needs to be applied more forcefully to some of the more pressing
problems that confound our economy today. Something other than rounding them
up and deporting them needs to be done for illegal immigrants who enter the
rich world to do its menial work, and something must also be done to help
affected communities deal with job-loss problems arising out of outsourcing.
Perhaps because business has become so big and powerful in society or
because we have become more cynical and less secure, we seem to have lost
some of the focus that, for example, Roosevelt, applied to the economy of
his times via the New Deal and, as another example, the Kennedys and Johnson
applied to civil rights in the 1960s. I believe that we
in the developed world are prosperous enough and should be civilised enough to
adopt a general duty of care to many illegal immigrants. But let's not get
carried away about this. I can only speak of England. According to a BBC Radio
4 investigation, 2,000 children are brought into England every year from
Africa. Some have been brought here so that people here can claim children's
benefits from the welfare state, some are brought in as sex slaves and some
are actually brought in for ritualistic human sacrifice (and there is strong
police evidence that this goes on). Some come here for entirely valid reasons,
of course, for fear of persecution. There are also at least 70-80,000
prostitutes who have been brought in by (mainly Albanian) criminal gangs.
Their passports and papers are taken from them, they know no English and many
of them have no chance of escaping from the pimps' clutches. In effect, they
are slaves. At the present time, it is almost impossible to know how to sort
out all this substantial immigration because most illegal immigrants entering
the country simply destroy their passports and identity papers on the plane as
they fly here, or they hide them on arrival.
Keith
- ----- Original Message -----
- From: Keith Hudson
- To: Ed Weick
- Cc: Harry
Pollard ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
- Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 2:16 AM
- Subject: You are naive (was Re: [Futurework] Walmart and the
American dream
- Ed,
- At 18:04 27/10/2003 -0500, you wrote:
- I believe I started all of this by rather
innocently posting an article from the NYTimes dealing with cheap
illegal immigrant labour doing cleaning work at Walmart.
Personally, because I have first hand familiarity with what second
generations can achieve, I'm not against bringing in cheap immigrant
labour to do menial work, nor am I against sending work abroad to India
and China. What I am against is holding the threat of deportation
over immigrant labour's head and using outsourcing to undercut domestic
workers and their communities. There must be a decent and moral
way of doing both out and in sourcing. Society, acting through its
elected politicians, has to find that way and not leave it up to Walmart
and the outsourcers. The matter has to be considered as an
important political issue and not be kept hidden under the table.
But perhaps I'm being naive?
- Ed
- I think you are being naive. Not because you are an innocent but
because you are trying to mix morals and economics. In truth, consumers
are greedy and will always go to the cheapest sources. When the British
car industry was dying in the 1960s and early 70s in my home town of
Coventry (we had eight large factories there then: one now) and
politicians of both parties were appealing to us to "Buy British" whenever
they were in power -- with "Buy British" stickers everywhere you looked
and stuck on every conceivable product -- the very same workers who were
destroying the British car industry were also buying Japanese cars.
They were there, large as life, in the car parks of all the factories when
their owners were on shift. Why? Because Japanese cars were better and
cheaper.
- And why were Coventry car factories destroyed (the last remaining one
-- Jaguar -- is due to move abroad shortly)? Because the car workers were
greedy (they were already earning twice or thrice the average UK wage for
those days) and the local management was weak. I know because I worked in
one of the factories for many years.
- We all deplore the demise of the corner shop, yet we (Bathonians, at
least) all do the bulk of our weekly shopping in the superstores because
there's more choice, the food is cheaper and the quality is more reliable.
When I first came to live in my present house in Bath 17 years ago there
were five corner shops (literally) at the end of the road -- greengrocer,
butcher, grocer, newsagent, post office. They've all gone now. What we
have now is a deli (in truth, a posh takeaway) and four antique shops,
mainly for the benefit of tourists. Yet another dagger in the heart of the
local community.
- We don't have much by way of morals -- but all are deeply prefigured
in our genes. They are:
- 1. A mother (but not a father) will give her life in sacrifice for her
children in an emergency; in a period of starvation, however, she will
allow her child to die instead of herself. (Why? Because she has a chance
of having more children if and when the starvation period goes --
otherwise, both might die. Observe any and every TV clip you see of mass
starvation, as in Ethiopia and northern Africa.);
- 2. An individual will help another within his family in order to
maximise the survival of his/her particular cluster of genes;
- 3. An individual will help another in his community (that is, when
there is a fair chance that the help can be reciprocated sooner or later
either by the recipient or by an observer in that community);
- 4. An individual will tend to trust another (friend or stranger) in
any transaction if there is an almost certain chance of reciprocation
either immediately or at some stage in the future;
- 5. It is permissable to use every trick in the book (that one can get
away with) to raise one's status in the community because in this way one
is able to choose a beautiful and talented sex partner with
survival-worthy genes for your offspring.
- The first three are called altruism; the fourth is called trade, the
last is called art and/or science and/or philosophy and/or organised
religion (another version of politics) and/or politics and/or economics
and/or consumerism.
- This may seem a bleak list -- and so it is, because, ever since we
left hunter-gatherer times (after having extinguished most of the
easily-available animal prey) the majority of the world's population are
either suffering physically or are experiencing unhappiness. Even the
'prosperous' developed world is becoming increasingly stressful and will
probably become increasingly divisive (both inter-nationally and
intra-nationally). It will always be so -- until we have a more realistic
notion of what sort of creature we are and are able to fashion our social
and political units more in accordance with our genetic make-up. Until
then, I'm afraid, it's all pie in the sky.
- Keith
- Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, <www.handlo.com>,
<www.property-portraits.co.uk>
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, <www.handlo.com>, <www.property-portraits.co.uk>
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