I would agree that the way animals are treated is
also bizarre, but Mengele was experimenting on human children and must have
had a pretty good idea of the pain he was causing.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2003 11:21
AM
Subject: RE: You are naive (was Re:
[Futurework] Walmart and the American dream
Ed
asks,
Can you imagine anything more bizarre?
arthur,
Walk into an
experimental psychology lab and see the way the "researchers" deal with dogs,
cats and rats. Mengele all over again, except the "researchers" have no
idea of the pain they are causing.
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>
|