Hitler claimed the same about Jews and
Gypsies.
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2003 9:23
AM
Subject: Re: You are naive (was Re:
[Futurework] Walmart and the American dream
Yes,
Animal experimentation.
REH
Ah yes, but a church minister I know says that animals don't have souls,
so it's probably OK.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2003 9:25
AM
Subject: Re: You are naive (was Re:
[Futurework] Walmart and the American dream
Yes,
Animal experimentation.
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2003 9:00
AM
Subject: Re: You are naive (was Re:
[Futurework] Walmart and the American dream
REH:
That is my problem with "social" experiments
like economic systems that have been put in place based upon theory but
with inadaquate "checks and balances" to assure the "guinea pigs" that
they can still survive and even be happy should it fail or need
"tweaking." Mengele assumed Jews and Gypsies were
"guinea pigs" and that simply burning them rather than "using" them for
science was a waste. Today our economists ruin individual and
professional lives in the service of market theories for the "greater
good" in "Mengele" like experiments that require that their lobbying
representitives be impotent for the "experiments" to
work. Why else would everyone be so anti-labor union in
such situations? Personally I have both belonged to and been
abused by labor unions but they are a part of the system that checks and
balances the abuse of individual workers by other groups i.e. the wealthy
share holders.
Just a few comments, Ray. Economists aren't
all bad. It's the defunct ones that one has to go after. As
Keynes put it: "We are all the slaves of defunct economists", or some such
thing. Defunct economists enslave us, present day ones try to fix
things up and, in turn, become defunct and enslave us. What a
dastardly profession!
However, I would suggest that there is a
difference between economist and Mengele. Even if theoretically,
economists attempt to understand reality. Mengele's world was one of
complete and utter unreality, except of course for the unfortunate people
that were thrust into its madness. For example:
Twins in the experiments describe
three days of what must have been psychological examination and three
days of laboratory experiments. "Three times a week we were marched to
Auschwitz to a big brick building, sort of like a big gymnasium. They
would keep us there for about six or eight hours at a time - most of the
days. ..... We would have to sit naked in the large room where we first
entered, and people in white jackets would observe us and write down
notes. They also would study every part of our bodies. They would
photograph, measure our heads and arms and bodies, and compare the
measurements of one twin to another. The process seemed to go on and
on." (Echoes from Auschwitz, Kor).
The laboratory experiments were
described by Kor as follows: "Most of the time, they would take blood
from one arm, and they gave us shots in the other." (Echoes from
Auschwitz, Kor).
Experiments did not end with the death
of the twins. Dissection of the corpses for final medical analysis is
well documented by Nyiszli and by Lifton. (http://www.candles-museum.com/mengele.htm)
Can you imagine anything more
bizarre?
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003
2:14 PM
Subject: Re: You are naive (was Re:
[Futurework] Walmart and the American dream
Bravo Harry,
Very elegantly put. Now for a
couple of things. "Simple" is an interesting
word. Would you not not agree that "simple"
for Horowitz (on the piano) is not the same as "simple" for
Liebowitz (the writer) even though their names are
similar? Complexity always depends upon competance and
simplicity is what has become "natural" to the person i.e.
"walking" is simple to an adult who is healthy and complicated to a
person who has had a knee injury or to the child just learning to
stand.
The second part has to do with
cooperation. Just as there are levels of competance i.e.
complexity, for individuals, so are there levels of competance for
groups. The group that has the highest level of competance
and the lowest complexity level is the most successful, would you not
agree? So what seems almost casual in your comments is
really a lot more interesting than that in reality. Does not
the future of work depend upon such expertise in analysis as
systematically exploring what you are describing in a more deep and
layered fashion?
And finally are not the "simplicities" of
science based upon predictability? In the end, does
not science accept a certain degree of sloppiness if it
"works"? Is not the problem for science, the
necessity of experimentation for the purpose of nailing down
"predictability?" As a result do you not need a
certain number of "smallpox" experiments to know if the vaccine works or
not? (or on the extreme you have the experiments of Mengele with the
twins.) That is my problem with "social" experiments like
economic systems that have been put in place based upon theory but with
inadaquate "checks and balances" to assure the "guinea pigs" that they
can still survive and even be happy should it fail or need "tweaking."
Mengele assumed Jews and Gypsies were "guinea
pigs" and that simply burning them rather than "using" them for science
was a waste. Today our economists ruin individual and
professional lives in the service of market theories for the "greater
good" in "Mengele" like experiments that require that their lobbying
representitives be impotent for the "experiments" to
work. Why else would everyone be so anti-labor union in
such situations? Personally I have both belonged to and been
abused by labor unions but they are a part of the system that checks and
balances the abuse of individual workers by other groups i.e. the
wealthy share holders.
So for me it ultimately comes down to
competance and the lowering of complexity through the raising of the
competance of indivduals and
groups. Simplicity then becomes "elegant balance"
and not just the most "stupid solution"
possible.
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003
12:08 AM
Subject: RE: You are naive (was
Re: [Futurework] Walmart and the American dream
Gentlemen,
As you might expect, I have a rather more simple
view of human behavior.
There seems to be a certain acceptance of
experimental research that is based more on the reports of these
efforts, than the actual research. Any scientific research is full of
maybe's, and perhaps, and possibilities, rather than
probabilities.
However, reporting such uncertainties doesn't
make for sexy news.
I know that people will survive or not depending
on how they behave. They surely have a better chance of surviving in
communities. Cooperation multiplies well-being.
We who have survived because we enjoyed the
advantages of community. If we are nice
to each other, if we help each other, if, on occasion, we even
sacrifice for each other - it may be because these are traits which
have made us welcome members of the community. Those without this built-in behavior are probably
long gone (or most of them). How this propensity to cooperate moves
from generation to generation is, I feel, less important than the fact
that exists.
Harry
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>
|