Autumnal Equinox - 2019

Three Books You Should Read and a Big Question

First the question. How did we get here?

Here, of course, means the impending collapse of global civilization, of technologically-based cultures, of the majority of the human population, of the great die-off of species, in short the demise of a significant portion of Earth's biomass.

Though not everyone has given up hope, nor do I suggest that would be a good idea, there is a significant number of people, influencers, thought leaders, etc. who have now publicly acknowledged the threats of global warming. Fewer have realized the nature of the energy crisis, mostly because of the hype surrounding the so-called 'fracking revolution.' But this too figures in the mix of existential threats. Just about the time people get serious about adapting to climate change and sea rise, the energy needed to accomplish the significant amount of work needed will not be available! Ironic, really.

Hoards of climate refugees seeking water to drink and food to eat, let alone adequate shelter, will increasingly find hostile locals in the regions where they seek relief. That is already happening in Europe and the US/Mexico areas. But what is going to really exacerbate things is that the water and food in those regions will be shrinking due to soil depletion, ground water loss, and, of course, increasingly unfavorable climate conditions.

Where we are is in a system (all the parts are connected through various feedback mechanisms) that is suffering from multiple failure modes all at once. But, that begs the question: Why?

To get some background and context there are two books that might be of interest to you. They are actually only representative of a growing literature on the anomalous conditions in our civilization. These books do not answer the Why question, but they do examine the dysfunctions in major social institutions which, in turn, may point to the answer. And, then there is one book that might be seen to provide some response to the Why question.

The first is "Against Democracy" by Jason Brennan. From the book jacket: "Jason Brennan (Ph.D., 2007) is Robert J. and Elizabeth Flanagan Family Professor of Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy at the McDonough School of Business, and by courtesy, Professor of Philosophy, at Georgetown University. He specializes in issues at the intersection of politics, philosophy, and economics." Basically Brennan provides some very reasonable arguments for why democracy, representative or otherwise, fails to deliver on the promises it supposedly makes. He does not suggest that any other forms of governance that have been tried, historically, have done any better in terms of providing a social milieu in support of the citizens. In fact, quite the opposite. Rather he promotes something he calls Epistomocracy, meaning governance by the knowledgeable. In order to hold office or even vote for office holders, citizens would have to be provably knowledgeable in subjects of economics and civics (at least). This is not too different from what Jefferson claimed, that democracy depends on the participants to be well-educated, where "well" meant having a grasp of the humanities and not just some technical knowledge. Brennan is a little more specific in terms of what kind of education, but the sentiment is the same. Of course, the problem is that the majority of people in any society are generally ignorant and, it would seem, increasingly stupid as well. They certainly show no propensity to learn from experience, let alone textbooks.

Brennan paints a pretty bleak picture about the prospects of anything we would recognize as true democracy, where all citizens get to participate in politics and governance, if they want. Judging by the political evolution of the major world democracies, with so-called hard-right strongmen winning elections and promoting things like effective plutocracy, it can certainly be argued that Brennan is onto something.

Remember: stupidity and ignorance (including downright rejection of science) prevail.

The second book tackles another sacred cow of the modern world view, capitalism. Capitalism is bigger than democracy. Capitalism can thrive under regimes of autocracy, even presumptive communism! But according to Wolfgang Streek, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Research and Professor of Sociology at Cologne University, in "How Will Capitalism End?", capitalism everywhere is already in serious decline and will, as is happening with democracy for political power, fail to deliver the goods. Moreover, capitalism is self-destructing. Marx, of course, famously claimed the same thing. And much of Streek's arguments align with some aspects of Marxism. But there are significant differences and Streek does not see some version of socialism replacing capitalism when the latter falls (Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez notwithstanding). In fact Streek seems to be saying that while something might eventually come along that restores a social political-economy of some kind, he doesn't see anything on the horizon.

The book primarily examines the multiple internal inconsistencies within neoliberal capitalism (as practiced in the West), some of which are also present in, for example, the Russian oligarchic and the Chinese collectivist versions. [Another major problem with capitalism is presented by Naomi Klein in "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate".] The bottom line in all cases is that the continued production and expansion of capital inherently leads to its own destruction. A simple example of this, one I have written about frequently, is the notion that endless economic (capital) growth is a physical impossibility simply because resources are not infinite and wastes accumulate.

Capitalism and democracy, in the end, should be about the governance of an economic system that supports human existence and they are diametrically opposite in terms of the distributive functions of either. Democracy seeks to distribute the wealth, capitalism seeks to concentrate it in a few hands. They both interact in complex ways (so does plutocracy and collectivist autocracy). Their inherent deficiencies and dysfunctional designs as well as their natural antagonism contribute to each other's destruction. They are holding hands tripping down the path that leads to a cliff in the fog. The so-called leaders are completely clueless - some actually think, for example, that a Green New Deal is a possible solution!

What both books highlight is the role of human stupidity and ignorance as the underlying causal factors in the failures of these two realms. The third book I shamelessly recommend, is my own that attempts to answer the question as to why are human beings so stupid and ignorant? The answer, I claim, has to do with a retardation in what had been the evolution of the cognitive capacity that makes us as human as we are, our capacity for gaining and using wisdom, or sapience. The title is: "A Theory of Sapience: Using Systems Science to Understand the Nature of Wisdom and the Human Mind."
 [note: this penultimate draft will be available for free download for several more months, but Cambridge Scholars Books will be publishing a revised print version shortly and the MAHB library version will be removed. Also you can catch my interview on Doomstead Diner in which I talk a bit about this book.]

My thesis is that there are not just three mental domains, intelligence, creativity, and affect, the classical ones psychologists have studied. There is a fourth (more recently coming under scrutiny in psychology), wisdom. The latter is characterized as superior judgment and intuitions with respect to complex, messy, or wicked social problems. My research found that sapience, the brain capacity to attain wisdom over one's lifetime, depends on several styles or modes of thinking (especially subconscious thinking). These are strong moral sentiments meaning a sense of conscience, strategic, and systems thinking. In a broad survey of the literature on the psychology of wisdom these factors stand out as common to most studies in one form or another. When all four of these factors, judgment, moral sentiment, strategic, and systems thinking are in full bloom, the individual is in a good position to learn from life's experiences and to use that knowledge, that is wisdom, to provide the most helpful solutions to problems. They have learned deep mental models of how the world works, can think in terms of the long-term and the broadest space (strategic), can think systemically about all of the factors and interactions that are involved in the problem, and are strongly motivated to help their fellow humans.

Wisdom is what puts intelligence and creativity to positive work for other humans' benefit. Without it, intelligence and creativity are left to be used as maliciously as we witness in practice. Some of the most evil people (meaning selfish, self-centered, greedy, etc.) who are successful, in a financial sense, are often very clever. They have to be to be devious enough to take advantage of their fellow humans. And those taken advantage of are just not clever enough to recognize it.

Sapience can be dulled and thwarted. The designs of our capitalistic system does a great job of that. But its strength is based on strong genetic influence. Given a sufficient level of sapience, an individual can overcome the programming of society and learn to use their intelligence and creativity to not be stupid and ignorant. Unfortunately, high sapience is a rare commodity in human mentation. The average human possesses just enough to possess vague consciousness of being conscious. Just enough to possess the typical traits of our species such as language and an ability to solve not-too-complicated local problems. Just enough sapience to call our species Homo sapiens. But that isn't enough.

The problems humanity has created for itself come directly from exercising cleverness to gain convenience and power. No thinking about future consequences. No concern for egalitarian ideals, No sense of how everything affects everything else. We just plow ahead full speed to find new ways to dominate the planet. And so here we are.

Happy Equinox

 

Comments

[RE]

For those interested in further thoughts on the future of Homo Sap & Planet Earth, you can listen to the discussion we ha on this topic a couple of months ago...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlFU6sXn880

RE

[Paul Harris]

Your last paragraph captures humanities essence perfectly.
But, short of massive, controlled genetic manipulation of the species to steer it onto the correct path, what do we do about it?
There’s nothing we can do, of course. This is our path and we’re reaching the end of it.

[George Mobus]

Several people have said that the link I provided for the Doomstead diner doesn't work(?) It did for me. But if you use RE's link to Youtube you should be able to get the interview.

[Dr Scanlon]

"why are human beings so stupid and ignorant?"

The Maximum Power Principle.

Nature abhors a gradient.

[Joe Clarkson]

And yet these "stupid" people with minimal sapience have ancestors that managed to live in equilibrium with the rest of the earth's biota for over 200,000 years. Somehow I doubt that our problems are "based on strong genetic influence".

[Paul Harris]

200,000 years is an eye blink. Our genetic destiny was always taking us down this path in time.
Besides, there’s no evidence that we ever lived in harmony with the rest of the biome.

[George Mobus]

All,

If you are interested in the idea of sapience as a unique human characteristic, which is, unfortunately, only weakly present in the majority of the population, then please read my book. We can all form opinions about what is and isn't genetic or nurture vs. nature. But whether those opinions conform to reality is dependent on scientific facts examined systemically.

I addressed the MPP in a reply to my previous blog.

George

[Don Stewart]

Result of a lot of reading:
Becoming Who You Are (Nietzsche's Question)

I am a creature searching for homeostasis in a changing world, using heuristics (e.g., Maximum Power Principle; the Golden Rule; Look Out For Number One) which served my younger self from inception in the womb, and my ancestors well enough to be favored by the epigentics governing hormonal expression and the assessments of the tiny, but important, rational part of my brain.

Creativity is putting together two previously disparate considerations or technologies, creating a new path toward homeostasis. The new path, in order to be effective, must become instantiated in the epigenetics governing hormonal expression and rational assessment (e.g., we have to feel good about it, and believe it is actually possible). We engage in creativity every night that we experience REM sleep. However, the ’solutions’ we invent are overwhelmingly rejected as impractical in the cold light of morning. Nevertheless, ’sleeping on it’ is one of the best heuristics our species has invented.

I am also a creature entirely dependent on relationships with other creatures:
*from the microbes that perhaps created me and continue to supply most of my genetic material and control my metabolism,
*to the creatures I eat for energy from grasses to cattle, and the microbes and other living things that they rely upon
*to my fellow humans who supply the only way for my genetic material to survive into the future,

Comments solicited...Don Stewart
*as well as co-operate to survive in the changing world.

[Tony Noerpel]

Hi George et al.

The last thing we want would be economists running things. I would opine that the test should include a little physics as well. I think also we should not underestimate the contribution of our hands to our "success" and we should not over estimate our intelligence.

My current thoughts on the human economy:

https://blueridgeleader.com/the-rich-and-the-poor/

and

https://blueridgeleader.com/consistency-with-what-we-know/

Best regards

Tony

[guide of lucky patcher]

Several people have said that the link I provided for the Doomstead diner doesn't work