ROGER ADMIRES MARCO'S RECENT POST AND ADDS COLOR-COMMENTARY
MARCO WROTE:
The 'absence of a concept of indefinite Dynamic Quality' is not only the
cause of a boring black-and-white everyday life. On a larger scale, it
creates the impossibility to develop new ideas, new technologies. Sooner or
later, the dynamic breakthrough happens and, like an earthquake, the effects
are as strong as the situation has been static.
Is just this the big mistake of Eastern European communism? Pirsig seem to
say that its blindness to the individual's rights is just the impossibility
to understand rationally the intellectual value of different opinions. An
intellectual system which pretends to plan everything, and defends its point
by all the means, excluding all the different ideas: the intellectual way to
totalitarianism.
Diversely Fascism is the social way to totalitarianism, the absolute defense
of Q-society values against any intellectual value.
Two ways, similar results. (there's a difference: the blindness of the
q-society is inherent and incurable. At the intellectual level, communism
with its static and rational objectivity has been immoral, but it doesn't
mean that the whole intellect is lost forever).
ROGER ADDS:
Socialism is an intellectually inspired social structure that sufferered from
the immaturity of the level at the time it was developed. It was based on
Marxist dogma, which itself was lifted from Hegel's dialectic philosophical
history and Kant's trust of only rational thought. The problem with the
intellectual concepts of the time is that they were mired in misconceptions.
Philosophy was still hopelessly dualistic, and science was still convinced of
the sanctity of absolute, discrete reality and determinism. If you build a
theory off bad assumptions, you usually get bad results. Socialism is
certainly the poster child for 20th century good intentions and bad results.
What would a modern intellectual theory of the economy look like? Well, it
would include concepts drawn from the study of chaos, VALUE attractors,
networks and indeterminism (a miniscule change can result in totally
disparate outcomes). It would include the concepts of evolution -- which now
includes not just the competitive aspects of Darwin's big idea, it would also
include the cooperative aspects. It may also include many of the old
classical concepts dating back to Adam Smith, Hegel and Newton, but these
would be tempered by modern knowledge. In short, we would probably see the
competitive/cooperative/value driven/decentralized/networked economies that
are thriving worldwide.
BACK TO MARCO:
The capitalistic democracies have been able to give a better answer. What I
fear is the current lack of a strong different point of view. After the
second world war, the presence of communism just behind the frontier has
been a constant input for many European nations to create a system in which
many rights were granted: the welfare state has been the western answer to
many socialist instances, especially in those countries just on the eastern
frontier, or with a strong socialist party inside. Now that the cold war
is over, the welfare state isn't anymore so important. All Europe is full of
statesmen (left or right is the same) talking about competitiveness, public
expenditure cutting, free trade.
I think this is the source of my fears. It's not exactly about democracy,
it's about the lack of chances. Democracy, capitalism, free market... they
have been more dynamic than the Russian communism, but now there's the risk
they don't need anymore to be dynamic. In this sort of intellectual
stagnation, the result could be another boring movie. In technicolor, full
of lights and sounds, but poor of contents.
ROGER ADDS:
The point is that they do need to be dynamic. For my first dumb metaphor of
the month -- there may be only one current style of music being played, but
there are innumerable bands competing for space on the airwaves. Different
economies and divisions within economies continue to compete to discover the
most dynamic, flexible, variable response. The most dynamic versions of the
most dynamic economic system are thriving, and according to the evolutionary
beliefs central to the MOQ, THEY WILL CONTINUE TO DOMINATE AND EVOLVE.
Eventually new musical (economic) genres will surface.
On the other hand, economies....even intellectually inspired versions of
economies are social entities. Fairly low level. Economies bring wealth and
power and influence and Britney Spears and Chia Pets. It is the intellectual
and dynamic aspects of humanity that offer all the exciting opportunities. I
guess I am saying that dynamic social structures are still pretty frickin'
shallow. But who was expecting enlightenment to come from Tommy Hilfiger?
MARCO WROTE:
"Could there be an intellectually guided society with an inherent concept
of indefinite Dynamic Quality ?"
This is a very difficult question.
ROGER:
One of the learnings from the last century was that some things cannot be
guided. Or should not be guided. Tjhis is now an intellectual theory. Read
"Out Of Control" by Paul Kelly (of Wired Magazine fame).
MARCO WROTE:
I'd be glad that our societies would
follow these intellectual principles:
"Actually, these last two piles, junk and tough, were the piles that gave
him the most concern. The whole thrust of the organizing effort was to have
as few of these as possible. When they appeared HE HAD TO FIGHT THE TENDENCY
TO SLIGHT THEM, SHOVE THEM UNDER THE CARPET, THROW THEM OUT OF THE WINDOW,
BELITTLE THEM, AND FORGET THEM. These were the underdogs, the outsiders, the
pariahs, the sinners of his system. But the reason he was so concerned about
them was that HE FELT THE QUALITY AND STRENGTH OF HIS ENTIRE SYSTEM OF
ORGANIZATION DEPENDED ON HOW HE TREATED THEM. IF HE TREATED THE PARIAHS WELL
HE WOULD HAVE A GOOD SYSTEM. IF HE TREATED THEM BADLY HE WOULD HAVE A WEAK
ONE. They could not be allowed to destroy all efforts at organization but he
couldn't allow himself to forget them either. They just stood there,
accusing, and HE HAD TO LISTEN". (Lila chapter 2, my emphasis).
Who are today the pariahs of the system? Communists? Religious?
Intellectuals? Idealists? No. The pariahs, the sinners are usually poor
people which have not been able to ride this crazy horse that is the
western model. Is there someone listening to them? Are we fighting the
tendency to throw them out of the window?
ROGER:
Free enterprise and democracy didn't create poverty, it inherited it. And
with time, I am convinced it can HELP solve it. But the solution won't be
painless or immediate. But to maximize dynamic complexity and evolutionary
advancement it is clear that we need to extend opportunity to ALL.
To clarify this, let me throw out a quote from Richard Wright's "Non Zero"
dealing with the necessity of societies to foster the opportunity for win/win
interactions throughout all levels:
This points to a general problem faced by ruling classes. To stay strong, a
society must adopt new technologies. In particular, it must reap the
non-zero-sum fruits they offer. Yet new technologies often redistribute power
within societies. (They often do this precisely because they raise
non-zero-sumness-- because they expand the number of people who profit from
the system, and so wield power within it.) And if there is one opinion common
to ruling classes everywhere, it is that power is not in urgent need of
redistributing.
In other words, new technologies and new forms of win/win interaction create
value for society by creating value for the members of that society. The
freer the populous to engage and benefit from positive sum interactions, the
more society will benefit along with her citizens. Again, in Wrights words:
The basic trend is this: new information technologies open up new vistas of
non-zero-sumness. But typically the transmutation of non-zero-sumness into
positive sums depends on granting broad access to those technologies, along
with the freedom to use them well. And, over the long run, polities that fail
to respect this liberating logic tend to get punished with relative poverty.
Far from being new, this is to some extent the story of history. One thing
that is new is how vividly and swiftly the polities get punished. Political
leaders now see their competition up close, in real time. And, with
technological change coming faster than ever, stagnation breeds calamity in
decades, not centuries.
Leaders or powerful interest groups can restrict the benefits of positive sum
advance for their own short term gain, but only at the risk of destroying
their culture. Long term, the only workable strategy for social survival is
to liberalize control and allow people to capitalize on all the technologies
at their disposal. Or as Wright says, To stop technical progress is to
reserve a place in the dustbin of history.
Read Non Zero. It reveals a clear social evolutionary pattern toward
enhanced cooperation and positive sum (net gain) interactions that are, by
necessity, being extended to a wider and wider range of people. Of course,
the evolutionary period isn't easily captured in daily periodicals, but it
becomes apparent that the world just keeps getting more complex, dynamic and
cooperative over the long haul. (More on this tomorrow in my reply to Dillon)
Roger
PS -- The final passage sounds frighteningly Darwinian in some ways, but
remember, it isn't the people who necessarily suffer in the competition among
societies, it is the social structure. In other words, the evolution is of
MEMES, not people. People's self interests cause them to abandon bad ideas.
If Coke wins and Pepsi loses, the employees of Pepsi quite often jump over to
the other side -- and sometimes at a healthy raise. Same thing holds between
political and economic patterns. (of course those that dogmatically hold to
bad ideas had better beware!)
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