J-
Love the Arendt quote/reference... an (space-time) region I've
become fond of revisiting (pre/post-war Europe), especially in light
of the abstractions of organization and form/function dualities.
Your observation about Trump/Musk/MAGA feels /aphorismically
correct/ (I may be the only one who would use those two words
together) and aligned with another aphorism: /"take two (or three)
problems, put them together and call them a solution"/
/- /S
On 10/20/24 3:29 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote:
Wonderful essay.
Hannah Arendt wrote in the 1951 preface to her book "The Origins of
Totalitarianism": "It is as though mankind had divided itself between
those who believe in human omnipotence (who think that everything is
possible if one knows how to organize masses for it) and those for
whom powerlessness has become the major experience of their lives".
https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2024/why-free-minds-are-our-best-defence-against-the-rise-of-totalitarianism
Trump and Musk clearly belong to the former, his MAGA followers to the
latter class. If MAGA followers are similar to the people who vote for
the far right AfD here in Germany, then they probably indulge in
resentments against immigrants and refugees, because they feel
powerless and generally unable to achieve the life they long for.
-J.
-------- Original message --------
From: Roger Critchlow <r...@elf.org>
Date: 10/20/24 9:30 PM (GMT+01:00)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] On Evolutionary Atavism
My video watching has just started season 3 of His Dark Materials,
Phillip Pullman's epic fantasy, which has a lot to say about
Authority, its excesses, and the necessity to overthrow it. Then
there was this essay,
https://hedgehogreview.com/web-features/thr/posts/why-individualism-fails-to-create-individuals?ref=upstract.com,
which definitely had a conservative axe to grind, but said some
interesting things about authority in the context of learning.
Trump and Musk seem to be playing argument from authority to death,
that is, demonstrating how far you can get on bs alone in this age.
-- rec --
On Sun, Oct 20, 2024 at 3:32 AM Jochen Fromm <j...@cas-group.net> wrote:
I agree that the hype in conservative news sources about great
CEOs is an example of the Great Man theory. The hype about AI
godfathers is an example too. Nevertheless I still believe that
authoritarian organization is the rule in social systems. In
almost all companies and corporations the CEO has the last word,
in armies the general at the top, in families traditionally the
father.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory
In hierarchies there are two ends of a spectrum: at the one end we
have an authoritarian system and a top-down hierarchy where people
at the bottom are doing what the leader at the top wants. At the
other end we have a democratic system and a bottom-up hierarchy
where elected people at the top are doing what the people at the
bottom want. In between are authoritarian systems that pretend to
democratic, and democratic system that have authoritarian tendencies.
An example of the spectrum would be a Navy vessel vs a pirate ship
in the 18th century. Mutiny is one form of transition between the
two types.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governance_in_18th-century_piracy
Another example is the Catholic church vs protestantism. In the
Catholic church officials are appointed from the top, in
protestant culture they are elected.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestantism
The question why people are shifting from one form of organization
to another is intriguing. I am not sure if we have clear answers
to this interesting question. Nick argued that "groups capable of
shifting to an authoritarian organization in response to a
perceived existential threat survived in greater numbers than
those that didn't" but this argument alone is not fully
convincing, or is it?
-J.
-------- Original message --------
From: glen <geprope...@gmail.com>
Date: 10/18/24 9:47 PM (GMT+01:00)
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] On Evolutionary Atavism
I can't help but feel that the sentiment that authoritarian
organization is the rule is an example of (or sibling to) the
Great Man theory. Ultimately, it's something akin to a
psychological investment in teleology - which I'm using to mean
when the appearance of purposeful behavior is often treated as an
indicator that processes do have purpose (as opposed to teleonomy
- where processes merely seem to have purpose, behave as if they
have purpose, or perhaps purpose is emergent). But it's not merely
the attribution of purpose, but also the attribution of unity or
fusion into a bounded whole.
I'd challenge anyone to present an organized system that is
*actually* unified in this way. Even political systems we name and
accept as authoritarian, are not completely fused, atomic,
centralized. The extent to which the nominal leader is actually
the leader is a graded extent, never perfect. Each particular
authoritarian system will be more or less authoritarian than
another. And, worse, each particular system will be more
authoritarian in some dimensions and less in others.
So if I read this generously, what I hear is that we're very used
to ... comfortable with ... the attribution of leader-controlled
organization, as in corporations with chief executives, etc. And
we're less used to ... facile with ... comfortable with ...
distributed organization and quantifying the extent to which
organization is centralized or distributed.
If I read it less generously, it sounds like reification -
pretending like some illusory property is actual.
On 10/17/24 10:21, Jochen Fromm wrote:
> Interesting thoughts. The use of "atavism" in the context of
social systems is interesting, but it is not new. Joseph
Schumpeter has used the term atavism to explain the outbreak of
World War I
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atavism
>
>
> I believe authoritarian organization is not the exception, it is
the rule. A pecking order or "dominance hierarchy" is the most
common order in social groups and almost all organizations,
corporations and companies. Even among chickens in farms or apes
in zoos.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominance_hierarchy
>
>
> The opposite of authoritarian organization is an egalitarian
society where everybody is equal. In his book "Warlike and
Peaceful Societies", Agner Fogar agues that people tend to prefer
one of these two types depending on the situation. His regality
theory says "people will show a psychological preference for a
strong leader and strict discipline if they live in a society full
of conflict and danger, while people in a peaceful and safe
environment will prefer an egalitarian and tolerant culture"
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regality_theory
>
>
> -J.
>
>
>
> Inters-------- Original message --------
> From: thompnicks...@gmail.com
> Date: 10/17/24 12:08 AM (GMT+01:00)
> To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
<friam@redfish.com>
> Subject: [FRIAM] On Evolutionary Atavism
>
> On Evolutionary Atavism
>
> My so-called mind is still churning from our conversation about
evolutionary atavism, the idea that current behavioral systems
may be ill-suited to contemporary circumstances. As an
evolutionary psychologist I should be for it; however, as a
survivor of the instinct wars of the 1950’s, I should be against
it. Where am I?
>
> The problem with evolutionary atavism arises when people
start attributing any necessity to it. Natural selection would
not be possible if organisms did not offer up structures and
behaviors that are maladapted. Evolution could not have occurred
if organisms did not respond to these maladaptations with adaptive
changes. Evolution is a dynamic between change and stability and
the interesting question is why some things change while others
don’t, and why some changes occur more rapidly than others.
Asserting that some things are the same as they were a million
years ago because they didn’t happen to change is just silly.
>
> Still, evolutionary atavism does play a role in my thinking.
Let’s work an example together and see what that role is and
whether it is justified. I listened with guilty pleasure to
Obama’s address ridiculing MAGA thinking. My pleasure was guilty
because I thought his speech would make Trump more likely to win
the election. This conclusion arose from an evolutionary
hypothesis about the origins of charisma. The logic, such as it
is, goes like this.
>
> 1. *The modern human species arose 160kyrs ago from a very
small number of small groups. *That the human species passed
through a severe bottleneck at it inception is probably true; that
it was composed of small group at that time is a plausible surmise.**
> 2. *Those groups were engaged in intense competition at the
bottleneck. *This statement is reasonable but not supported by any
data I can think of. **
> 3. *Therefore, they survived or failed as groups. *Again,
merely plausible.**
> 4. *Those /groups/ survived that were capable of rapid
concerted action. *This is based on the idea that in emergencies
it is most important for every to do some thing, rather than for
them to wait and work out the best thing to do.**Barely plausible.
Not even clear how one would go about researching it. **
> 5. *Groups capable of shifting to an authoritarian organization
in response to a perceived existential threat survived in greater
numbers than those that didn’t.*
> 6. *Humans, therefore, are inclined to put their faith in a
single person when they perceive an existential threat. *Let’s
call this the “Charismer Response”**
> 7. *The person most likely to be selected for this role is
apparently single-minded and decisive. *This gives us the
characteristics of a *Charismer*, **
> 8. *Charismees relinquish their capacity for independent
rational thought in favor of the Charismer’s decision-making. *
> 9. *Charismees receive benefits from the group in proportion to
their demonstrations of surrender of rationality.*
> 10. *Charismees demostrate their surrender by the repetition of
o or more flagrantly irrational beliefs. (virgi birth, stole
election , etc.)*
> 11. *Challenges to these beliefs only increase charismees
allegiance to the group*
> 12. *Therefore, Obama should have kept his smarty-pants mouth
shut. *
>
> You all ca*n* evaluate the heuristic, rationality, a*n*d
probability of this argument. I am going to stop *n*ow because my
keyboard has stopped reliably producing “*n’s” * ad is drivig me
uts. At best, I think evolutionary atavism is a source of
plausible hypotheses about why organisms are not adapted to their
current circumstances. See some of you tomorrow.
>
> Sicerely,
>
--
ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ
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