88 Comments

1. Josiah:

   Maybe the answer lies in the dependent psychological patterns encouraged by oppressive social relationships. There seems to be a strange feedback loop, whereby people accept social inequality because they identify with (and derive vicarious pleasure from the lifestyle of) elites: opulence, leisure, cosmetically enhanced beauty, and above all being served hand and foot.

   There’s an old (1917) essay by the sociologist Edward Alsworth Ross, called “The Rise of Gross Inequalities,” where he describes this pretty well:

   “Great differences in social status presently give rise to contrasts in character which serve to accentuate and justify these differences. Normally, the personal ideal that grows up within a hereditary upper class is to be proud, free-handed, and high-spirited. If the class is also a martial and ruling class, its ideal will include courage and domineering will. […] On the other hand, by the presence above them of the privileged, the masses are liable to be warped out of their true line of character growth. They accept the master-idea of the disgracefulness of work; yey for them there is no other lot.”

   30 April 2011, 12:32 pm

2. DeAnander:

   Does this have anything to do with Stockholm Syndrome and our human propensity to bond with and kiss up to anyone who holds life/death power over us, even convincing *ourselves* that our captors are benevolent, that they won’t hurt us if we are nice to them, etc?

   30 April 2011, 1:18 pm

3. Morocco Bama:

   Excellent post, Stan. I often wonder the same thing. The intent of the following link is not to belittle your efforts, but rather augment them in satirical fashion. I’m quite certain many of you, if not all, have seen this, but here’s a refresher for those who haven’t seen it lately.

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xd_zkMEgkI

   I viewed a video within the past year that got me thinking about this topic. It was a documentary produced by one of the heirs to the Johnson & Johnson fortune. Here’s a link to the Documentary entitled The One Percent. It’s broken into eight parts. This is Part 1 of 8.:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCNKn7JirBU

   After viewing it, I couldn’t help but think that the Johnson father, currently the Patriarch and Chairman of the Board of Johnson & Johnson couldn’t manage his way out of a paper bag. He was a bum who had to be dragged kicking and screaming to his throne……by the Technocrats, like dutiful ants, who ensure that there is always a throne….so they can assure the perpetuity of their Technocratic positions, or rank in Society, perhaps? The Technocrats could conspire at any moment to secure the Johnson & Johnson Empire from the lap of this alcoholic, bumbling, fumbling, apathetic fool, yet they don’t. Rather, they prop this useless waste of flesh up 24/7 in order to carry on the charade…to maintain the farcical deception….a deception to which they themselves have succumbed.

   30 April 2011, 3:07 pm

4. Stan:

   Not my post. That’s De’s.

   30 April 2011, 5:58 pm

5. Stan:

   I think of two simultaneous phenoms. Dunbar’s number sets up hierarchy as an outgrowth of managerial necessity. People act their way into wrong thinking… that is, ideas emerge from lived experience… and it becomes a recursive feedback loop of idea-practice, that is then naturalized, rationalized, and reinforced by power and interests.

   30 April 2011, 6:13 pm

6. Morocco Bama:

   Excellent post, De. I should have looked closer at the author, rather than assuming every post is Stan’s.

   Disney doesn’t help matters any. My wife is a teacher, and one of her students came to school late, actually students because they are twins. They’re five years old. The twins told my wife they saw a Princess get married before they came to school. The Father mentioned it to her, as well, when he came to pick them up, and the expectation was that my wife, as their teacher, would some how be thrilled and supportive of this. She remained neutral, saying nothing, but all the while feeling deeply discouraged and disappointed inside. The twins are huge Disney fans, and visit the Magic Kingdom frequently.

   30 April 2011, 7:02 pm

7. sam:

   Kings have entitlement, fame, material wealth, power over others; the loftiest virtues one can attain in a consumer society where the infantile perception of oneself as the center of all existence is perpetuated and catered to. Many people’s “kingdoms” are their own egos and they never venture close to the borders.

   1 May 2011, 1:32 am

8. askod:

   Why kings indeed.

   I am thinking that this is mainly connected to why hierarchial organisations. And I think hierarchial order gives a clear place for everyone which lessens status-positional angst. Hierarchial orgnaisation is of course not the only form of organisation, I tend to see it as the most defensive of forms. If there is very little trust and much status-positional angst (suspicions that otehrs conspire against you etc) then a clear position, chain-of-command and all of that becomes a relief. A permanently depressed structure, sort of the least energy position of status-positional angst. This also makes it stable internally (not in relation to the biotic world) as anyone who says “why are we doing this?” shows weakness and will probably be shot down one way or another.

   To add to Bama’s comment, as a mountain must have a top, there must be a king. If necessary placed there by the priestly (today technocratic) caste and exchanged in times of crisis.

   1 May 2011, 6:15 am

9. Bob:

   In his book, Life of Earth, Stanley Rice writes of memes that have evolved through human cultures. Religion, nationalism and I suppose aristocracy all have roots in powerful memes that “use the human mind as the hardware to propagate the meme software”. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the concept that something can use our collective minds to evolve, however for some time now I’ve thought that maybe humans are just one of the creatures on the farm. Could we be managed with the use of these memes? Perception is a large part of our reality and people like Edward Bernays were able to use tools that his uncle, Sigman Freud, uncovered. (Edward famously used the suffrage movement in 1919, at the behest of his client Big Tobacco, when he arranged for photographs of the debutantes lighting cigarettes at the end of a parade for women’s rights. The photographs hit the newspapers with the caption with “Torches for Freedom”. Tobacco sales to women increased dramatically. I understand that he also gave us eggs & bacon for breakfast for another client).
   Anyway, the advertising industry has clearly evolved to the “What we should think” industry. Using capitalism, psychology and gadgets, they manage our activities by placing their ideas in our consciousness and fertilizing them regularly. I can hardly wait for Prince Harry to marry. It is so important for them to produce offspring so the meme can continue.

   1 May 2011, 7:00 am

10. Morocco Bama:

    Bob. that is certainly the methodology that is used to keep the Masses in line. Of course, this mindlessness which allows ready acceptance of social behaviors without critical analysis of the implications of said adopted behavior, must be educated into The Masses, and it’s why Education, and the importance thereof, is trumpeted by the very people you would think would want otherwise. Well, they do want otherwise, because Education is otherwise. Education, these days at least, and perhaps it always was, is the method whereby the human potential to create itself, the human potential to create, and the human potential to think critically are stunted, or mitigated altogether, thereby rendering a subject easily manipulated by Social Engineering and Reinforcement techniques. Education is Indoctrination into the order of things, at least the in its current state.

    However, that’s just part of what keeps it all in place. But it’s not the only thing. There appears to be something larger at play here, something that is above and beyond the sum of the mere individual parts, and no, I’m not copping out with a deference to a God, or Gods, but something more akin to a conjured, perpetuated energy cum entity that we feed, and that feeds us. In researching this idea, I ran across an old Gnostic concept that fits rather nicely with what I am trying to describe. It’s called an Egregore, and I believe Civilization is an Egregore, and to De’s point, it could very well explain why it keeps rearing its ugly head even when you think it has finely been scattered to the four winds. Here’s how it’s described:

    http://www.chaosmatrix.org/library/chaos/texts/gegregor.html

    An egregore is a kind of group mind which is created when people consciously come together for a common purpose. Whenever people gather together to do something and egregore is formed, but unless an attempt is made to maintain it deliberately it will dissipate rather quickly. However if the people wish to maintain it and know the techniques of how to do so, the egregore will continue to grow in strength and can last for centuries.

    An egregore has the characteristic of having an effectiveness greater than the mere sum of its individual members. It continuously interacts with its members, influencing them and being influenced by them. The interaction works positively by stimulating and assisting its members but only as long as they behave and act in line with its original aim. It will stimulate both individually and collectively all those faculties in the group which will permit the realization of the objectives of its original program. If this process is continued a long time the egregore will take on a kind of life of its own, and can become so strong that even if all its members should die, it would continue to exist on the inner dimensions and can be contacted even centuries later by a group of people prepared to live the lives of the original founders, particularly if they are willing to provide the initial input of energy to get it going again.

    1 May 2011, 8:33 am

11. Michael Anderson:

    @ askod:

    My thoughts exactly—hierarchy is stability (of a sort). It reinforces my belief that a LOT of people just don’t like to think for themselves—leave that crap to the ‘leaders’ (sic). I see this attitude a lot in career military people, even when retired (Mr. Goff being one notable exception). It’s like an umbrella…co-operation and thinking are messy processes (rain), as well as living with restraint and care for people and your surroundings.

    1 May 2011, 2:01 pm

12. m.c.:

    What I know about the British Ruling Classes:
    The Monarch is the head of State, Military, the Church of England & the Church of Scotland(Presbyterian Church). The Prime Minister is just the head of Government. The Church runs the top 15 or so top Public Schools which at least used to be the primary feeders to the Oxbridge colleges. Public School boys who chose instead to join the Army(Sandhurst), Navy(Dartmouth), RAF(Flight School), or the Clergy. The Church also runs St. Andrews University, and Trinity College Dublin(along with University of Edinburgh and the University of London Colleges as the peers of the Oxbridge system.)
    At least in theory there is some accountability. The system has produced Jethro Tull, the BBC, the NHS, Charles Darwin and the usual off-shore tax cheats whose money is in the French & Spanish Riviera. The Church benefits from the Monarchy as does the Dukes/Duchesses, Earls/Countesses, Barons/Baronesses, Knights/Dames(Ladies), local fox hunters and hangers on of the Tory Establishment. In a perfect world it keeps the numbers of Donald Trump types to a minumum, or at least in the back room. I guess the BP disaster disproves this theory.

    1 May 2011, 3:46 pm

13. Antifa:

    Royalty is religion. Which is to say, it’s imagination. Virtual reality.

    The brain we each carry evolved to cooperatively hunt and gather, and to train successive generations how to do this. Our language, our ability to pass knowledge of the world on is what got us through various evolutionary bottlenecks other hominid species did not get through. Some harsh lesson you learned the hard way is learned the easy way by your offspring.

    The other thing our brain does well is imagine, and we pass what we imagine on to the kids as well.

    Our brains are our hardware. Our software is our current view and grasp of the world around us. The hardware has limitations left over from when it evolved, The software can be any damned thing the hardware will accept. Our software can cause us to think of Earth as our one chance, our one home in the Universe, and encourage us to live as global brothers and sisters. Or, our software can direct us to kill all the damned (insert ethnic type here) and steal their land because God wants us to. Or, our software can have us drink poison so we can all go ride on the tail of a passing comet. Like I said, any damned thing the hardware will accept.

    DeAnder is right to suspect our species’ innate love of royalty is hardware related, for love of royalty is a sentiment and function that arises out of every human settlement and civilization. Love of royalty exudes from us just as reliably as sewage. In short, it’s not a bug of our species, it’s a standard feature. It’s hardware, not software.

    And it is religious in nature. It is in answer to a primal urge to be at peace with the world, to know that all is well and God is in His heaven besides. It is magic, it is spiritual, it is the way to sleep at night.

    Look at this cerebral hardware and nervous system we’re stuck with. It evolved to keep us alive in a world of fire, sharp sticks, sharp stones, leather, sinew, fur, hunting and being hunted, eating other creatures and avoiding being eaten — all under a starry-sunny sky that offered up only questions about where it all came from, what it’s all about, who we are. The world offered pleasure, pain, questions and finally death, all without explanation. No user’s manual, so we always write our own.

    Our brains are wired to imagine, to imagine and anticipate mystery and creatures and powers behind the nearest tree, around the bend of every trail, up in the mountains, down in a dark pool of water. We are aware that the world is full of forces and creatures and all kinds of things beyond our control or ken.

    This imagination and ability to visualize alternate realities helped very much to keep us safe from the tiger unseen behind the nearest tree, the bears up on the mountain, the crocodile in the deep pool. When they leapt at us we were often ready, for we had already imagined they could be there. We even learned to take cover during lightning storms or the God of Thunder would smite us for defying his wrath. This hardwired imagination allowing us to imagine and try to manipulate unseen forces is what prompts humans to create and pray to gods and God to work for us, to be on our side, to save us from death, to find us a good parking space, to forgive us our regretted deeds. Because of this hardwired imagination, humans live more in virtual reality than in physical reality, and always have.

    This brain evolution took place in small tribal populations, small enough to wander a given territory and live off the land. In such a setting, whoever is better at hunting tends to take the lead, to be in charge. The best performer, the most aggressive, the strongest, the most clever, the eldest, all these nuances can come into play. All the hunters look up to the best hunter. It’s something everyone agrees on.

    But having picked a leader, what happens? Everyone vests their trust in him to be there tomorrow and tomorrow doing that cool stuff he does. Never missing when he tosses his spear at a mastodon, always sharing the food equally, settling squabbles, being in charge. Like a super Father for the tribe.

    Having a father figure to lay down the rules is probably pretty close to Rule One to our cerebral hardware. We are still largely hobbled as a species by our need to have clear authoritarian hierarchies in mind before we can function in the world. See the lifetime of work on this subject by Dr. Robert Altemyeyer.

    And in our shared world of virtual reality, that is where royalty happens.

    We aren’t a physical species. You can find material things in any human settlement. Tools of the trade, beads, pottery, furs, cloth, papyrus, Xerox paper, space shuttles, Wii playstations, Humvees — but you can’t find and pick up what really makes us human. Things far, far more real to us, but completely ethereal or virtual. Things like trust, honor, love, envy, lust, duty, devotion, inspiration, altruism, courage, fear, anger — on and on. You can’t put your physical finger on one bit of all this, even though it is all that really matters to us.

    Virtual reality. Shared mental and emotional space. Collective subconscious. Unspoken agreement about what is, what matters, who is in the group and who is not. All imagination, all virtual reality.

    When the hunters of a Stone Age tribe lay down to sleep through the dark hours, they are at peace knowing there is someone competent in charge. There is a shaman whose feathers and spells and powders are keeping evil away and keeping their luck strong. This is virtual reality, but it is where their sanity and peace of mind come from. There are competent authorities looking after the things and questions that scare each man and trouble his dreams. And so, he is not scared and his dreams are serene.

    The larger and more complex the human group gets, the more people are aware of the immense, unseen but omnipresent sense of cooperation, collective strength, collective will of their group, their tribe, nation, race. And they must express this in one central place or it remains an amorphous and unused force, which is a source of anxiety, not satisfaction. They must embody it in one place, one God, one shrine, one flag, one person. Something. Someone.

    Royalty is recognition of the group, the embodiment of ‘our power.’ We can all sleep at night knowing we all agree on how the physical world works, how the virtual world of gods and angels works. We sleep knowing that God is in His heaven and the King is on his throne and when we die we go to a happy place.

    Yes, our cerebral hardware is that stupid. It requires a central point where our virtual realities can be expressed in symbols. It requires someone in charge of what we cannot see – hence priests, shamans, astrologers, kings, generals, and all manner of people who understand and deal with forces and powers we don’t have any handle on.

    Kings and Queens are gods to our hardware.

    2 May 2011, 7:28 am

14. DeAnander:

    I’m thinking today about the tradition of field combat in the days when kings confronted one another directly and some wars were settled by a duel between the opposing leaders rather than a mass slaughter of their followers (my, how times have changed).

    It occurs to me that the popular imagination still reduces “war” (the story of war anyway) to a tussle between kingly antagonists, like a game of chess. The big hoopla over OBL’s (alleged?) demise is imho a facet of this imaginary reduction of conflict to a duel of kings. OBL was made (by the media, our professional shamans and storytellers) into the “other team’s king”, the figurehead. Our king (be it Bush or Obama) must be seen to defeat him, publicly, to satisfy the arc of the story. In earlier times he would have ridden (or been triumphally driven) through town displaying the defeated enemy’s head. (Remember the ghoulish display of photos of “Saddam’s sons” after their deaths?)

    But in the real world — biophysical or geopolitical — the narratives of heroic larger-than-life protagonists ring false and the real conflicts, movements, and cycles of life belong to vast hordes of “extras”, legions of bit-part players, all protagonists in their own right in their own local story. Our narratives are seriously at odds with the realities we are trying to manage — be they food production or the management of conflicts over resources and autonomy.

    The other idea haunting me is that of the Corn King, the notion of the king as sacrifice. Among some of the wheat-eating cultures, kingship lasted a year (count it): the appointed king, usually young and handsome according to legend, enjoyed absolute privilege, petting, cossetting, adoration, authority, power — for a year. At the end of which time he was ceremonially killed and buried in the wheat field to transfer his kingly mana and the love of the people to the soil, to guarantee a good crop. Kings pretty soon figured out how to retire that narrative in favour of one in which they stuck around ruling and wallowing in luxury for long lifetimes (absent unsuccessful warfare, palace intrigue, etc)

    Among the wonderful cast of characters in my little waterfront community is a big guy whose nickname is “Meat”. He’s wired, jittery, about 250 lbs of muscle and bone, stronger than two average guys, with a nervous laugh that makes you want to put a little distance between you and him. His shaven head is tattooed with a flat Mohawk of flame-like striping. He used to show off in the yard by breaking 2×4′s over his own head. He’s a handy guy when you need something really heavy moved around. But here’s the thing: Meat is a kindly, generous fellow in his own way. He has a little “family” of beta males, hard-luck stories, guys he has allowed to crash at his house when they were down and out. And these guys stay around. He’s often accompanied by one or two of them, tagging along as he works or visits. There’s a strong bond between them, but it’s noticeable that they all do what Meat says. He is in fact a primal alpha male gathering a pack, and when I look at Meat and his buddies I see — or think I see — vividly the inception of not only the archetypical gang or Mafia unit, but the distant origins of kingship: the generosity and brutality of the alpha male, the eager compliance and sincere admiration and fealty of his followers.

    Need I say that Meat has been separated for some time from his wife, after abuse complaints and restraining orders? I’m sure that if he had Henry VIII’s advantages he would have had her executed

    Sometimes being a primate is rather depressing.

    2 May 2011, 1:09 pm

15. Curt:

    Does anyone want to defend the idea that when we are born our hardware is a blank slate? If that is the case we are not hard wired to accept royalty. If we are blank slates human admiration or royalty would be learned behavior. I would describe Royalty as only one type of a hiarchical system. I would agree that however that in our complex world some type of hiarchical structure is inevitable. Will human preditors always sit on top of the structure? I do not think that is inevitable either. What does seem to be plausible is that because outrageous collective human stupidity and greed can break out anywhere the evolution of any hiarchy in to a oppressive system seems quite likely. If that is the case humans may not be able to escape a cycle of oppression followed by revolution followed by a period of just rule followed by a period of increasing corruption and oppression followed by revolution followed by followed by followed by……………….
    Furthermore most, if not all revolutions are carried out by a broad coallition of people with a wide variety of motives for wanting to overthrow the exsisting leadership. Some of these motives will provide the seeds of the next revolution.
    I do not think that any of what I wrote up to now would be new or contriversial to anyone over 25 years of age.
    According to the hidden phamphlet, Tostitos for Toastytoes by BuddhalovesPaine, “Deprograming (Reprograming) is a prerequisit for escaping this Samsaric Cycle.” I say that to make the assertion sound authoritive. Maybe it is foolish Babel but he said that I could quote him in order to get people to accept this assertion without actually needing to defend it.
    Anyways even if it is a reasonable sounding assertion, does it really have any meaning?
    If we humans live in a sea of uncertianty we could just be deprogramming aperson from one system of stupidity to replace it with another just as bad but in different ways.
    A sad thing about deprogramming, as I understand it is that to deprogram someone you have to remove them from the environment that programed them. My understanding is that The deprogamees have to be a captive audiance and have to be willing to particpate in their deprograming. Trust needs to be built between the deprogamers and the deprogramees to encourage the deprogramess to question their assumptions and the fallacies of their delusions.

    So it seems non sensical to believe that a system of deprogramming could acutally manage to survive inside of a host that had a whole host of defenses to identify and destroy any such system that an outsider might try to introduce in to the host society.
    I hope that there are no questions to this explination of nothing because I am surely not qualified to answer them.
    I only wrote this because there was nothing on TV that I wanted to watch on TV at this time of the evening. Also because I wanted an excuse to say,
    In honor of,
    Wang Quanyuan, survivor of the Long March.
    (Of course if most USans read this they would be turned off by someone who wants to honor someone who took part in the Long March. But then I imagine that you already know that.)

    2 May 2011, 5:01 pm

16. Curt:

    Sitt, that should read above, human admiration OF royalty,
    not human admiration or royalty.
    I bet that you did not know that.

    2 May 2011, 5:03 pm

17. m.c.:

    Before Henry VIII placed himself at the head of the Church of England and making the ArchBishop of Canterbury the #2(executive officer), The Pope was the Alpha for most of Europe. One argument for the Roman Catholic or Church of England or Martin Luther in charge is that it has a face. Unlike the purely Capitalist Religion which has what some nameless Hedge Fund manager living on his Yacht with a P.O. Box in the Cayman Islands? In the UK the main Anglican Church is often prominent on the High Street(in the US kind of like Main Street. At least it has an address.) Why do societies have hierarchies? Why do militaries have hierarchies? Why do hospitals have hierarchies? Schools? Why do wolf packs have hierarchies? Ants? Are they guilds which protect some knowledge real or imagined? Remember when the bible was only written in Latin so average educated people couldn’t read it?

    2 May 2011, 6:57 pm

18. DeAnander:

    Yes… the conflict over making an English version of the Bible (or French for French Protestants) available to the common people (well not *too* common, they still had to be able to read) was intense, brutal, violent. (As was the battle over universal literacy much later.) All about control, of course: there was enormous power in a guild or caste who considered themselves and were considered by all as intermediaries between layperson and God. Like all castes invested with great power they weren’t keen on giving it up and as usual when any power is devolved to a more local level, there were fears among the ruling elite that all control would be lost, that the entire hierarchical structure of society would break down.

    We seem to admire hierarchy (again I note that all the “great” civilisations that our history names and flatters are complex, hierarchical and slave-based). Yet we — and other primates — detest unfairness. Seems like a huge cognitive dissonance!

    @Curt I think your comment on the decay and corruption of institutions leading to periods of malfeasance (“bad” government), periods of rebellion/revolution/reform, periods of “better” government, then decay again, is thought-provoking. Stan and I have kicked around the idea that human institutions have a lifespan like organisms and undergo a kind of apoptosis, a decay of institutional culture, some kind of noise creeping in as the meme-set of the institution is replicated from generation to generation. Everyone it seems has experienced the “loss of direction/principles/authenticity” in an organisation or movement, which starts fresh with idealistic people and bold, big ideas, but then degrades into a personality cult, or sells out, or simply fizzles from lack of commitment.

    Maybe the noise factor is not such a problem in groups w/in the Dunbar size?

    2 May 2011, 11:30 pm

19. Michele:

    @Curt. Thanks. i have been reading on this blog for some time now, but haven’t felt moved to comment. Not because the content doesn’t strike a deep chord within, but because if i have nothing to add, then it is only distracting from the discussion. The assessment you shared is relevant to what i have been reading lately. Being indoctrinated into the system of hierarchy, (if not from birth, then from the moment we are capable of internalizing our “place” in society,) seems to be the primary form of socialization on a global level. When you couple that with the systems of production, economics, resource distribution and political will and their counterparts of depleted resources, wealth and power concentration, debasement of human rights and climate destablization; it becomes apparent that we have reached a crossroads. Can such a hierarchical system continue, or must we evolve? This idea is of an evolution that must take place external to the individual; one of the social body. Maybe i am just getting old, but it seems that we must evolve in this manner, or risk extinction by our own hands. i also appreciate the very valid point you make about deprogramming. How can the individual even be brought to “see” the system in which they live as being one bad choice in a fairly large set of possible choices?
    Generally speaking, thanks to all who maintain and post content, and comments. There are more people reading here than you might realize:)

    3 May 2011, 9:04 am

20. W.Kasper:

    I go with the religious thinking part – may be related to why we watch or listen to hideously rich stars of no great talent, but discuss them like they’re ‘important’ or represent us in some way. It’s a common language for us obscure rubes.

    Could even be evolutional – transition from pantheism to ancient sun kings (who presented themselves as divinity to back up their domination and plunder). The huge, violent shift in power and production may have ‘printed’ something in human thinking – to question it would have threatened your survival (just like you can be isolated from society if you question too much now).

    For the west, mass media now substitutes religion in many ways (religion itself cottoned on to this some time ago).

    3 May 2011, 4:45 pm

21. Stan:

    “The second millennium closed with the intellectual, political, and moral possibilities of a belief in progress explored to the extreme and exhausted. In the new millennium, with God dead and history without purpose, except that which power can impose, we approach the Hobbesian universe.”

    -William Pfaff

    Mark Jones taught me the word “exterminism” as a descriptor for this Hobbesian epoch we’ve entered, different than any before it on the basis of scale alone (and at some point, changes in quantity turn into changes in quality). A perfect storm period of disintegration that will paradoxically feature panoptic control-grids and the obscene consolidation of power – which, in another paradox, will be the runaway process of a massive social organism that consumes itself materially like an asexually reproducing praying mantis. Sorry, but if I’m heavily medicated, I get to mix metaphors. It’s the law. (-:

    The things about our current milieu that are distinct from other periods with their powers and principalities may be far more important to understand than what these periods have generally in common (heirarchies, exploitation, eg), because it is in grasping the particularities of our own period… and of each place, that we have the agency and flexibility and opportunities-at-hand for various kinds of bricolage to make something(s) new.

    This goes to the heart of our ruminations on Dunbar… not as some panacea (always a trap and a blinder), but as a lens through which we can perceive institutions (which aren’t going away) and effectively critique them as we work within them, and as a way to appreciate, nurture, protect, and enliven the actual Dunbar-scale communities of which we are all parts.

    De just sent me a great book by Frederick Kirschenmann on new agrarianism, in which he cites Polanyi as we did some time ago on the difference between looking at a place and dwelling in a place. The latter fosters intimacy and humility, which may well be the sword and shield we need most.

    3 May 2011, 6:17 pm

22. Stan:

    Can’t resist sending along the highly-suggestive-on-many-levels headline from Google News: “CNN tops competitors with Bin Laden coverage”

    3 May 2011, 6:22 pm

23. Antifa:

    A thought experiment — say technology advances in coming decades allow us to hand over the day to day management of our economy to an AI supercomputer which truly follows two rules the Federal Reserve currently only pretends to follow, which are low unemployment and low inflation. It also gives the environment full rights at the table.

    When it sees manufacturing capacity and jobs moving offshore it puts import tariffs in place to protect domestic industry. When it sees that certain industries are no longer competitive, or are destructive of the air and water it proactively moves its workers into training for new careers.

    Full and free education for every citizen, free medical care, real socialism. The works. Like the proverbial ‘good king’ it looks after Everyman the same across the board, instead of being an instrument of capital concentration for the few.

    Would people accept such an impartial potentate? Or would they allow some very clever fellows to tweak the program just a bit now and again, so that in a century or so there were once again the Rich and then the rest of us?

    If a machine could give us genuine fairness and equal opportunity would we honor it? Or do we have an intrinsic need (or failing) to follow the lead of the sociopaths among us?

    Are we hardwired from our evolution to admire and follow the ruthless and cunning and clever wherever they may lead us?

    3 May 2011, 9:17 pm

24. W.Kasper:

    If we are hardwired for that, may explain why so many are hostile to welfare or free healthcare. The type who just love billions spent on wars and conquests.

    There’s been a few semi-quack theories that ‘left’ or ‘right’ thinking goes back to paleolithic times, and so will never be resolved. But I’m not a fan of ‘sociobiology’ theories.

    3 May 2011, 11:24 pm

25. askod:

    @DeAnander
    

    We seem to admire hierarchy (again I note that all the “great” civilisations that our history names and flatters are complex, hierarchical and slave-based). Yet we — and other primates — detest unfairness. Seems like a huge cognitive dissonance!

    Been mulling a bit on this. For a tribe of hunter/gatherers that looks rather wise. Not the slave-built monuments (whatever the hunter/gatherers would make of that) but the quick forming of a small (seven or less, I believe tha magical number is) hierarchial gruop, following one persons command. It is a structure for common action, and common actions are often be necessary. On the other hand having the detestion for unfairness, makes sure everybody gets their share (at least within the group), so that the hierarchy does not get out of hand.

    And although it did get spectacularly of out hand, lets not forget that many tribes kept (and some still keep) older ways. At least until they are killed of by white men and their diseases.

    5 May 2011, 1:51 pm

26. m.c.:

    Was it Oscar Wilde who converted to Roman Catholicism later in life said, ” Catholicism is a logical absurdity and Protestantism is an illogical absurdity.”

    5 May 2011, 4:30 pm

27. Susan/catlady:

    Didn’t the folks in the early, small Xtian groups take turns playing priest?

    I have a friend who goes to 12-step meetings. He described to me the ways AA tries to remain leaderless.

    5 May 2011, 4:30 pm

28. Stan:

    12 step meetings are leaderless. Quaker meetings are, too.

    5 May 2011, 4:44 pm

29. Karl:

    re antifa 2 May 2011, 7:28 am

    I think that describes some but not all humans. It certainly describes those who are dependent in character, and there are many kinds of dependencies. America 2011 seems almost at the pinnacle of dependence, an almost absent belief in self-sufficiency and an over-riding Common Knowledge that in most things we must defer to The Experts — who are wiser, saner, more competent than us in everything.

    More obviously it describes people drawn to hierarchies of various types, most obvious to me being religion and military/quasi-military/paramlitary. The latter group would include police, fire departments, affiliated “contractors” and private firms executing similar tasks without direct government employ. It would also describe people who have a very fervent, identifying relationship as a “fan” of any sport or athlete.

    It describes tribalists, in other words. So it describes people who identify strongly with a national identity or a political party or a political person… or with a governmental entity, or any bureaucratic office within. Deference to authority would be a strong trait, obviously.

    It doesn’t describe everyone, even though it does describe a whole lot of people. I’d say it describes 95-97% of the people I’ve known in my life. But not everyone.

    5 May 2011, 11:38 pm

30. Gabriel:

    Anybody ever read Chesterton’s Everlasting Man? It’s been a while since I read it, but the question of the meaning of the corn king brought it to mind.

    6 May 2011, 9:19 am

31. tochigi:

    the comment i submitted on May 1 disappeared without a trace.

    6 May 2011, 10:45 am

32. Curt:

    Tochigi,
    try to post it again as well as you remember it.
    I for one look forward to reading it.
    It might help me get warmed up.

    6 May 2011, 12:00 pm

33. m.c.:

    I think its a paraphrase of James Joyce in a Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man.

    6 May 2011, 1:29 pm

34. Stan:

    @ Karl…

    Forgive any weird diction. I tweaked my recently reconstructed shoulder during the night, so I’ve taken a little bit of pain med that makes me loopy.

    Dependency is a crucial concept here, if a slippery one. In every aspect of human existence except ideological fiction, human individuals are dependent on groups of other humans. We start life as the most helpless of infants, born prematurely to get that giant brain through the birth canal – and incapable of survival alone throughout our lives. We are very obviously social, socially determined, and socially dependent. We develop in groups, and we depend upon various kinds of exchange within those groups, physical exchanges, linguistic exchanges, emotional exchanges, and on and on. Even our idea of self, while different from epoch to epoch, culture to culture, is something that is invariably reflected back to us from other members of our groups.

    The questions of dependency, then, do not even include a choice between dependence and independence. Our dependence is inscribed on us by our very makeup as social beings. It is only through acceptance of a mental division between individual and society that we can learn to accept individualism as an ideological fiction that results in valorizing narcissism – which is instrumentally effective at sustaining alienated dependency, which is an important prop for the maintenance of exploitative power, or vertical (hierarchical) dependency.

    We wouldn’t think of asking a personal friend, for example, to make our clothes for us by living in a slum and working for two dollars a day; but we depend to some degree – living in the imperial metropolis – on exactly that circumstance being imposed on others who we don’t know personally, and to whom we cannot be held accountable.

    There is a material relation between the phenomenon of general purpose money, the exploitation of fossil hydrocarbons, increased social mobility, rapidly changing technology, and our increasing dependency on credentialed experts who monopolize certain aspects of our lives – whether education, medicine, or even entertainment. We experience the sum of those relations as our zeitgeist – as an uncritical as-is, as nature, axiomatic, beyond our ability to control.

    (Sensory experience does reside in individuals; and it is delimited by the reach of those senses, access to various knowledges, and a finite lifespan. So our most direct and compelling perceptions “naturalize” things as they are now. There is a table full of clutter in front of me now that is far more tangible than all the myriad histories of that clutter. This clutter is “real,” the way things are.)

    We still cooperate to survive – inter-dependent – but the exchanges between us have become increasingly depersonalized; the divisions of labor that constitute the forms of cooperation between humans are now managed and administered, and that administration and management has become highly self-organized and self-reproducing (so long as the material relations of that self-organization remain stable).

    Vertical dependency is not the whole story, though. Every one of us has relations of horizontal interdependence. We have friends, family and voluntary associates of various kinds. We dwell in these horizontal relations, even as our material survival is inescapably predicated now on many of those hierarchical, alienated relations of exchange. We seek money in an exploitative relationship at a job to survive, but we spend some of that money gifting, personally exchanging, or providing for those with whom we dwell – with whom we associate as flesh and blood with authentic concern and care.

    Some of those relations are hierarchical. though in a different sense – a non-exploitative sense; for example as parent-child, deference to respected elders, even apprenticeships. These are social realms where there are specific vertical relations that are not depersonalized, and where mutual care and concern often characterize the relationships. I would call this something like authentic authority.

    Obviously, I rely for this argument on archetypes that are fuzzier in real life than this attempt to model certain patterns; but the point is that this alienated, exploitative, hierarchical form of dependency has become hegemonic, even as it is displaying an inhering tendency toward various personal maladies and social-environmental catastrophes.

    Our dependency in this realm – which I think is what you are alluding to – has become a jammed door on a runaway train.

    That dependency, however, can be easily described; and there is a way to reduce vertical, exploitative, alienated dependency, that will require shifting our dependency more and more into those relationships where we dwell… where there is concern, care, and accountability.

    All of us here have mastered certain skills. We are all as we read this, operating a computer of some kind, manually manipulating a technological extension of our physical capacities, moving an arrow with a mouse, tapping keys, reading, et al. I myself now spend a considerable amount of time, making up short articles then tapping keys then pointing and clicking. Then I tap come more, point and click some more, and virtual money goes into my virtual account, allowing me to operate a motor vehicle to go to a store, where I can exchange some of that money for food, using a human or mechanical intermediary to facilitate the exchange of virtual dollars for a box of pasta or a head of lettuce.

    If the self-organized system of vertical, exploitative, depersonalized, and hierarchical (grid) exchange runs into a contradiction for which it cannot adapt, then the skills I have learned – as part of that general culture – will become less useful, perhaps even useless. My grid-dependency will be on stark display, and I will share personally in the more general crisis. To the extent that I can use in-dwelling relations to secure our most basic needs, I will be able to cope with general crises.

    Unspoken recognition of grid-dependency accounts for many conservative impulses I expect (including liberal conservatism, which constantly calls for strengthening the technocracy, and sees some vague salvation latent in electoral processes), as well as many forms of denial about existing and impending crises. It is easier to believe the system for which we are skilled is infinitely sustainable than to be confronted with the terrifying idea that it is not. If things can drastically change, we will not know what to do. About as scary as it gets, eh.

    The problem is that we generally lack skills to secure our most urgent needs, because our dependency on experts and on money as the facilitating sign of exchange between us and said experts. We have been skilled only in the hegemonic and alienated relations. We tap keys, drive cars, and pay money.

    Which is why re-skilling is about ten million times as important to our future than any ideology. And this is also why we need to use those in-dwelling, embedded, flesh-and-blood relations as the basis for re-skilling.

    6 May 2011, 2:54 pm

35. Christine:

    Some thoughts on Royalty & Kings. I’m thinking specifically about the tribes of hunters-gatherers who migrated to the Swedish coastline about 12,000 years ago. It’s commonly agreed now that these tribes came from the northern part of Germany (the Hochdeutsch); a fairly homogeneous group of people. They took off in boats and landed on the southern/coastal areas as the glaciers started to recede from the Ice Age. As the ice melted, the tribes moved further inland. I believe it was a little early for agriculture; these people were out throwing spears.
    These were fairly small groups. The leader was chosen/or picked himself, based on utility. He got to be the leader because he was the most clever/strongest in the eyes of the tribe. That spot was not guaranteed. If he screwed up too many times, he was eliminated and someone else got the job.

    Over time, I have to assume that the DNA of the tribe followed this general pattern: small group>efficient leader>ensures our survival.
    Chores were divided up so that everyone contributed to the efficient working of the group. I don’t think it was chauvinist or unfair; everybody worked together. If you read the Icelandic Sagas, you get a very good feel for how society was structured. The Sagas also reveal big problems in the unit; jealousy, intrigue, property disputes, magic spells being cast against each other. In early Iceland, there were LOTS of skirmishes. People were killed over simple matters like the cows went grazing on the neighbor’s land, and so on. Legal matters had to be decided each year at the Thinget, and even then people were killed because of simmerng resentments.
    One of the things you discover from the Sagas is how brittle and ineffective the Tribal/Leader setup was. People had now switched exclusively to agriculture there was nothing to hunt on Iceland (except for some stray pigs which ran over to the other side of the island). People were now raising animals, spinning wool. And yet the old system was still used. People seemed to be really unhappy. Also around the Viking Age, those folks were really successful at going out as raiding groups they brought home an awful lot of loot. So the tribal model worked for limited, focused operations like raids. But the model didn’t work for agricultural communities, simply because the Jarl wasn’t able to be everywhere the group had now spread out.
    We seem to be operating on the same primitive model, but it doesn’t work any more.

    King William & Queen Kate? Sure, only because in the back of my brain, there is some dna that expects me to honor my Leader and so my best for the welfare of my tribe.

    6 May 2011, 3:45 pm

36. m.c.:

    Jesse Ventura can’t be as bad as the clowns there now. Maybe Jesse & Ron Paul or Cynthia McKinney or Russ Feingold….

    6 May 2011, 6:29 pm

37. Andy:

    “If the self-organized system of vertical, exploitative, depersonalized, and hierarchical (grid) exchange runs into a contradiction for which it cannot adapt, then the skills I have learned – as part of that general culture – will become less useful, perhaps even useless…

    …Which is why re-skilling is about ten million times as important to our future than any ideology. And this is also why we need to use those in-dwelling, embedded, flesh-and-blood relations as the basis for re-skilling.”

    Ya know, I had been thinking recently of obtaining a more advanced and specialized certification in my field (IT), just to keep myself current with the trends, i.e. maintaining job security. Somehow, though, learning the skills of farming, construction, guarding food sovereignty (and expanding it to others in need of it), and co-oping, seem far more valuable, in light of the bigger trends of the collapsing matrix.

    I recall, Stan, your observations in a couple of speaking engagements, that real change is not likely not come about voluntarily, as long as life is easy. Until the unseen sources of electric, water, oil, gas, money, and subsequently food, collapse, most of us are not likely to change our lifestyle. Once it collapses, we will be forced to make hard choices.

    Localism is one of the keys, it seems you are saying. At the same time, there is a challenge to be on guard against necessary and practical localism turning into provincialism. I am not as astute on human behavior, as you are, but I assume that provincialism is the germ of national supremacy – fear of “them.” Localism sounds too similar to provincialism. Can’t think of a single word for it, but the aim is to build a self-sustaining community without becoming dependent on other groups or entities, at least not like the scenario we live now. What do you think??

    8 May 2011, 11:11 pm

38. Stan:

    Good questions, and not the first time they’ve been asked. Provencialism might scare me more if we were in a different epoch, I suppose. Right now, I live in a more provincial place than I have for some time, and it’s actually an improvement on the big city.

    Whatever I might have said in the past, I reserve the right to have been wrong. (-:

    Do tend to think, however, that necessity is the big motivator. We are growing a community-donation garden here now to get more fresh stuff into the food pantries; and more and more people are growing at home to offset food prices, so this is more than a hypothetical notion already. SuperWalmart is still selling people Mexican watermelons in May, for sure, but there is movement, bit by bit, toward something else… and interest.

    Spose we need to say what we mean by provincialism; cause as is it seems like an epithet, and a kind of abstract one at that. Nationalism – though it might share one characteristic with provincialism – mistrust of outsiders, also shares that characteristic with a lot of other social phenomena. In fact, who is or is not inside one’s circle seems to be a factor for high school cliques or college fraternities, or bridge clubs. That’s why it seems like we oughta unpack each case separately. Nationalism emerges from nation-states; nation-states did not emerge from nationalism. So there may be an idealist fallacy to watch out for here. Nation-states are a particular kind of political organization that correspond to the many factors that constituted the breakdown of medieval political structures, which came apart as various economic relations displaced those that underwrote former systems. More importantly, nations are organized primarily for one purpose, with all others being tangential – war. Even more nuance… is the nationalism of Bolivia, for example, synonymous with that of the US? Is the provincialism of one place the same as that of another?

    I hope I’m saying this in a way that makes sense.

    Relocalization as an intentional movement now is certainly starting at a different place than the ‘accidental’ provincialism of, say, one of the farm towns near where I live now 75 years ago – though those communities were destroyed by a process of increasing dependence on factory jobs, the enclosure of farm lands, then the disappearance of the factory jobs. Different stories for some bi-racial, segregated communities in the south, so you see what I mean by dong this analysis case-by-case.

    We’d better figure something out to materially relocalize, because the handwriting is on the wall. Your caution that we need to be watchful during that process is certainly important, but even with the risks, I can’t see the alternative. Every day that goes by without it moves us closer to a very dangerous form of nationalism, imo.

    I feel like we ought to bring this discussion back into the original thread somehow. It’s related, though several of us may have different ideas about the relative influence of ideas vs material conditions, or biology vs culture. I tend to see all this stuff as interactive, recursive. Dunbar’s number is a claim of physical anthropology for a limit, but within that limit, there is a tremendous amount of plasticity. In our little pilot project here, things have been extremely democratic… and the push is to include more, not fewer.

    9 May 2011, 5:39 am

39. Tom:

    Andy — nicely stated. At some point, perhaps universities and high schools will offer a subject or 2 off your list (farming, construction, etc.). Who knows, maybe there will be a Localism 101 required of all. It’s a thought.

    9 May 2011, 5:40 am

40. tochigi:

    @Curt:
    thanks. the comment was a bit of late-night melancholy on my b-day. so i only recall the gist. needless to say, whatever i was trying to write has been said much more elegantly by Richard Manning (Against the Grain). somehow, De’s threads often get me thinking about Manning’s writing…

    9 May 2011, 11:29 am

41. Curt:

    Tochigi.
    The book by Richard Manning sounds like it would most likely be an interesting book. I do not think that I will read it for a while though. I am not in the mood for that kind of reading at the moment.
    I am more in the mood for some escapist fantasy reading. I think that I would like to find a book that would hypothisize what the world would be like if the North had actually won the Civil War. Or perhaps a book about an American Dentist who served on a bomber crew during WW 2 who goes to a Dental Convention in Dresden around 1955. Or perhaps an even stranjer story about a US Marine who served in Korea and then defects to the Soviets and then defects back to the Americans and then gets a job in Dallas and raises a family and no one knows him very well, except for Elvis Presely and Dolly Parton. So he goes to Memphis on day early in April of 1968…………….

    9 May 2011, 12:08 pm

42. Gabriel:

    I’ve enjoyed this discussion thread immensely, and I think Stan is very correct in thinking that localism is the only alternative to the way things are now. But I hope for Stan’s community’s sake that they are on an island a decent distance off shore if shit hits the fan, the inevitability of which is becoming less of a fringe position by the day, if it isn’t main stream yet. “In our little pilot project here, things have been extremely democratic… and the push is to include more, not fewer.” Breaking news, communism works (in small doses)! What one group can do, another can do…

    So, I live in the greater New York area. In the event of collapse (due to peak oil, hyper-inflation, whatever) I don’t think the transition to localism will be pretty. I have more trust than most in neighbors being willing to help each other if they can, but consider the concentration of people in this area, and the ratio of mouths to local food production (not just land, but ability, know how, people specialized in producing food). Say there is a serious disruption in the food supply (transportation is impossible, or there is no price which will motivate anyone to bring food up). How long will this area last before chaos reigns? And then it floods out from here, like a plague. Let’s see how long it takes before a NY accent makes you the victim of the new, friendlier provincialism. Oh, but NYU will teach the youth about organic farming… That should take care of it.

    If this results from something like peak oil, the USG will impose some fast acting socialism (as opposed to the hidden creeping type it has espoused for 100 years), and something like the status quo will be kept. If it results from hyper-inflation, there is no more USG. So everything’s copacetic then, right? Well, I think on balance the world may be better off, but domestically it will be some interesting times. Point being, I don’t know if collapse of the existing order is something we should be rooting for like a bunch of pagan fundamentalists. I was surprised to find recently that we are a net importer of food (barely). I would think that this could be changed easily, but this is a big (and environmentally diverse) country. If transportation costs were negligible, no problems. If they are astronomical, the other thing.

    I think we should instead cheer for an end to the lies: that deficits are artificial constaints on government spending, and mean nothing; that a growing economy (in $ terms) means anything, let alone that it is an inherent good; that “education” has inherent value, as compared to a skill or trade… This is a world we have made, and it’s continued existence is dependent on these and others. Let’s get real. There’s alot to object to in the status quo, but official lies are what have made it unsustainable and the past irrecoverable, because people do really stupid things when they believe them. If a revolution happens, there will be blood. It may be inevitable, but lets try to understand why.

    9 May 2011, 1:54 pm

43. Stan:

    on reskilling

    9 May 2011, 5:03 pm

44. Robert Karaffa:

    Good find Stan….will share

    9 May 2011, 9:12 pm

45. Mark:

    I’d like to bring this back to the original question De asked: Why Kings? I live in an area where we have many Native Americans, I have many native friends and family and I was thinking what the Ojibwe response to such a question would be. I think they would be amused and a bit perplexed. The native “leaders” would never implement social policies that would end in the kind of inequality discussed here. I’m sure they would consider it shameful.

    The kind of heirarchy imagined by our Western/christian brains does/did not exist in many indigenous cultures. Indeed it was generally imposed by those attempting to “civilise” and “christianise” them. Everything we think we know about heirarchy comes to us filtered through our cultural experience. Our cultural experience is suburbia, christian fundamentalism, television, consumerism, and hyper-national militarism. I think people just keep returning, re-doing what they learn – and this is what we learn: compete, dominate, get whatever you can for yourself and screw the other guy. The message is repeated over and over by the great video/media god that tells us when to shop, when to wave the flag, etc… I think a good argument can me made that this is not genetic or somehow programmed into the human race generally.

    14 May 2011, 11:54 am

46. Stan:

    Hierarchies, especially hereditary hierarchies, pre-date both western civilization and christendom by quite some time. And again, the idea of hierarchy itself also requires a good deal of qualification. The hierarchy between an experienced artisan and an understudy of some kind is different than the hierarchy between parent and child is different than the hierarchy of Imperial Japan is different than the hierarchies we might identify in various US polities today.

    It seems pretty safe to say that kingdoms of various kinds appeared in correspondence to two simultaneous developments: systematic agriculture and urbanization. There is a core-periphery dynamic there that also seems a constant… ie, administered delivery of rural surplus to non-food-productive urban cores, enforced by constabularies/militaries of some sort.

    In many ways, it also seems safe to say that the diffuse power structures of the modern “democratic” bureacratic state, in conjunction with the diffuse civil society structures in support (media, schools, etc) exercise a far more effective, and in many ways restrictive, form of social control than the identifiable powers of, say, 1lth Century European feudal sovereigns. That lateral social mobility is the responsibility of the individual can give the impression that there is some kind of unprecedented freedom, but this is largely illusory… its the advantage for a capitalist class of “free” labor over impressed labor… let the market crack the whip, and foreclose any way of life that doesn’t require money for survival.

    The remaining kingdoms in the world today exist as extraction satrapies of the capitalist metropoles… one of several examples of the continuing necessity of primitive accumulation sites to support capitalist accumulation in the core economies.

    Some of the nostalgia for kingdoms, I suspect, is a romanticized ideal that longs for some mythical state of order in the past, where there was still a possibility for… valor, or whatever… anything but the alienated ennui of modern life.

    Christendom was responsible for this meme and its continuing emotional resonance in the west, when much of the administration of medieval governance was being done by churchmen, who had retained literacy through the early medieval period in monasteries, and the ideology of the scholastics prevailed – the idea of a totalizing microcosmic/macrocosmic, universal “chain of being,” in which the body mirrored the state which mirrored the cosmos.

    Ironic, because the formative story of the Gospels is of a parody-king, and anti-king who leads his triumphal procession mounted on a donkey colt and who washes the feet of his subordinates.

    14 May 2011, 7:33 pm

47. David:

    I started a business 8 years ago and soon had to stat learning to deal with people who were acting super friendly but not being very nice. Glamorous people would charm me into a good deal especially with talk of future work, then after the job, complain an even better deal.
    So I wrote a note to myself that said “look out for the people that are looking out for you” I probably heard it in an old cowboy movie or something but it ended up being very useful for keeping my efforts in the right place. I try to say it out loud a lot when people are talking about voting and such to maybe put people back in the center of their lives. People looking out for each other is as good as a community gets and the princes resources dwindle.

    Stan, This is specialist Alford who was in 18D with you and thrown out of training at Ft Sam for shoplifting (the best thing that ever happened to me of course).
    I just discovered you were out here doing the right thing and I cant thank you enough. I always credited some sort of higher self to my getting out but after watching the utube advice video and remembering you saying pretty much the same thing to me seems much more likely that your example and honesty were the wrench in my ill conceived machine.

    16 May 2011, 3:03 pm

48. Curt:

    i recall hearing a story that is a story floating around somewhere about a man who was crusified during Roman times who says just before his death, “Father forgive them they do not know what they are doing.” Forgive me if I misquoted him. It has been a long time since I heard the story and I may not have heard the same version of the story that you the reader heard.
    Is the dying man asking his father to forgive all of mankind or only those standing around beneath him and watching him die? This could be a sentence with two meanings on two levels. It could be a seen as general pardon for all of mankind. Yet I see this appeal to the father as also being more limited to those Roman soldiers carrying out their orders and perhsps some others who came to watch to see if anything extra ordinary would happen at the event. The reason that I think this limited view is also valid is becasue there were those, the high priests of the time in this case who knew exactly what they were doing although they might have been totally clueless about what the longer term outcome of their political manuverings would be.
    So I see this story as one in which we perhaps grant forgiveness to those high priests in the hereafter but not in this world (dimension) unless certian conditions are met, one of which is a willingness to accept poetic justice (punishment).

    17 May 2011, 2:51 pm

49. Curt:

    After I hung up I recalled another story that heard a long time ago. It was about how the railroads were given huge tracts of land to resell to farmers for a few dollars an acre. I think that they were sold in plots of 80 acres. Maybe it was 40 acres. Maybe the 40 acres comes from the 40 acres and a mule that freed slaves were suspossed to get after the civil war. In any case the important point is that once upon a time a family of 4 could live of the income from an 80 (midwestern or southern or eastern) acre farm.
    Soemone should see to it that it becomes that way in America again. That would be a big job. Not a job for a carpnter or a truck driver but a committee of on extremely intellegent and dedicated scientists working with the best computer programs and an informed citizenery that has a desire to make the project work. It might even be part of a parecon project. Assuming an average harvest 80 acres should provide a family of four with all the income that they need to live and take a vacation in Florida or California and some savings to help finance the childerens advacned education, or if in the future that is free to help finance their wedding or living room furniture. If the harvest is bad then not only will there be no savings but no vacation. If the harvest is worse than that then the crop insurance should kick in to make sure that the bills for all of the neccissities get paid.

    I saw a video recently in which a young man calls for a 100% inheritence tax. I do not think that is a bad idea as long as there is an exemption below a cerian level. One can not know what the future will be like. Based on what life is like today in the USA I do not think that it is unreasonable for someone to inherit an 80 acre farm tax free. Yet that is a general statemnent becasue 80 acres of farmaland near a major city that is being eyed by developers for developement is a much different situtation than 80 acres near New Ulm.
    It is hard to say what this exemption level should be because the cost of living in general and the costs of housing in particular vary so much throughout the USA.

    17 May 2011, 4:29 pm

50. Mark:

    @Stan,

    Yes I am familiar with the standard explanantion for settled societies and “hierarchies.” This is all very conventional western civ kind of stuff. As societies became more settled agriculturally there was excess grain. This represented “wealth” in a certain sense and required people to guard the wealth and hence arose a beaurocratic and administrative state structure along with a priesthood and hierachical division within society, etc. etc…

    When De posits the question “Why do we choose kings?” (And by kings and/or hierarchy in general I’m guessing that we’re not talking about the nurturing and affirming relationship between an artisan and his/her protege) The thing is that not all of “we” chose kings. This whole continent is full of peoples who did not choose these kind of relationships, this kind of societal organisation. The fact that their societies were systematically targeted and destroyed by the ancestors of those who then give us our “history of civilisation” is exactly the thing that bothers me. I think it’s culturaly myopic.

    I was at a Native American funeral last year and in talking with some of my in-laws I mistakingly refered to the one leading the ceremony as a “holy man.” I was politely corrected that he was refered to as just an elder or spiritual leader. They “didn’t want him to get a big head.” (Much laughter)

    I offer this anecdote as an example that our western view of “heirarchy” or “societal order” is exactly that: the western view. It by no means proves some kind of “rule” or “law” as to how societies are organizied or even how humans are genetically built. When you ask: “Why do we choose kings?” I ask: “Who do you mean by we?”

    18 May 2011, 7:39 am

51. Curt:

    David,
    I just watched Stan’s youtube advice video. It brought me back to my youth. How could all of the Stan’s in my life compete against all of the episodes of Combat that I saw when I was three years old in the early 60s? I had thought that I wanted to be a soldier even before I had decided that I wanted to be an NFL football player. Then add to that the governmental authority figures in my life telling me that military service was an honorable thing to do and those telling the truth end up having a credabilty problem.
    My father of course tried to tell me that joining the military was stupid. Yet we often had political disagreements when I was growing up so his opinion did not count for much. Then there was another person who tried to talk some sense in to me. Richard was drafted during the Vietnam era and had a bit of luck. He spent his time in the Canal Zone in a communications unit, burying commo wire he said.
    Richard was one of my mothers cousins. He lived in a small house on a lake on the White Earth Indian Reservation, although he was not a Native American. Every summer I would go a visit him with my grandparents for a few weeks of fishing up north.
    It I remember correctly it was from him that I was introduced to the idea that wars and international tensions are manufactured by the defense industries to be able to sell weapons. At that young age I could not believe that people could be so treacherous as to cause massive human misery to be able to create a market for something that was really unnesseccary for people in general but neccessary for the weapons sellers to be able to make a profit.
    What 13 or 14 or 15 year old can imagine that the adults of the huge society that he is growing up in are so
    irresponsible as to allow weapons industries to be privately owned created an obvious conflict of interest between the society as a whole and the weapons manufacturers. Not would it be hard for a young person to reach that conclusion so many adults today either can not comprehend it or are convinced that tryibg to change this is impossible and therefore it is not worthwhile to try.
    Take the crew members of the USS Liberty for example. They knew and they tried to get the word out for years that the attack on their ship was no accident. But not one of them ever came to the conclsuion that it was the US that either ordered order somehow enticed the Israelis to luanch that attack. If any of them did reach that conclusion none of them have said so publically as far as I know.
    Now such an observation seems obvious, to me anyways at least. But until Charles made this observation as far as I know no one had dared to say so publically if they had ever considered the idea because people did not want to consider that their leaders could be so treachorous as to set up an attack (ambush) on their own citizens.
    So now at least 6 persons who were not part of the operation and maybe thousands understand that the US leaders set up the murder of thier own sailors. Of course that happened more than 40 years ago and so people think we can not paint the leaders in power today with the same brush as those who were in power then because there have been 7 changes in administration since then, each administration is a fresh start, with no criminal ties to the past.
    So that brings me now to why things have changed. There will always be a large pool of foolish people who will be willing to do the bidding of the kings. It does not make any sense to try to keep people out of the military and hope that we can starve the beast. What is needed now is a policy of actually poisoning the beast. Every leftist or anarchists or anti empire libertarian that joins the military with the intention of not serving the chain of command but undermining the chain of command is one less fool that can be turned in to a MIC zombie.
    How these “volunteers” could undermine the chain of command I could really not say other than to suggest, let the force be with you.
    Of course maybe I am just writting this so that if any member to the opposition sees it s/he will report that Uncle Joes and not Uncle Sams have been joining the military and that is realy why the military has not had problems in meeting its quotas for several years. hahahahahahahahahahahahaha. In case you could not hear that it was an evil sounding hahahahahahahahahahaha.

    18 May 2011, 9:37 am

52. Curt:

    It has only been 128 years since the death of Marx. Where was Christianity 128 years after the death of Jesus?
    It is only 202 years since the death of Tom Paine. Where was Christianity 202 years after the death of Jesus?
    Where would Christianity be today if it had not been for the fact that Raul switched sides in the middle of his ideological struggle?

    Say Stan and I have something in common with Raul. I wonder if history will be so kind to either of us. Of course there is a small difference in our paths. Stan was on the wrong side of history then he got on a good side. I was already on a good side then I got on an even better side than what I had been on.:<(!
    Ahhhh, that means he climbed a higher mountain than I did. His path has been even more scenic too. Of course some of you other readers may have switched sides as well but do not say much about it. You are on an epic journey down s scenic path. I hope that your story is filled with Romance and Comedy and Mystery and Drama and very little blood shed in the scenes that you get to enact. A broken bone or two should suffice to appease the blood thirsty Gods. But the Pual Bunyan Model Woodchipper should always be visable in the background. In fact s great scene might be some pathfinders pulling one of them with ropes like Hadrian's Army past some of the really scenic backdops of the Swiss Alps. Only the pathfinders should not be dressed like Legionaires. No they should be dressed as Shao Lin Monks. Their begging bowls will serve as their helmets. Their weapons will be thier shepard staffs and their lassos. Of course we will want to get a close up everything showing the Made in Vietnam mark especially the sandals. We do not want Saffron colored Robes though. No we wnat deep purple colored Robes to symbolize synthisis. Music. Music? Someone help me here. What kind of music in general and what song specifically should be playing during these scenes?

    23 May 2011, 5:00 pm

53. Curt:

    In contrast some people have been at the pinacle of political wisdom all along. For example a high school classmate that I had many hours of political debates with. If I remember correctly his name was Charlie, Charlie Bruin, if my memory is not playing tricks on me. Well when he came out of his mothers womb he was wrapped in paper that had the manifesto printed on it. HIs first spoken words were Comrade, Genosse, Kumple, Citizen, Rafiq, and Cousin.
    If I said, Ride of the Valkryies is the correct answer he would say, that is not a good idea due to the song’s association to insanity through Wagner and Kurtz, always 333 steps ahead of me.

    I wonder where he is at today. (333 steps a head of me?)

    24 May 2011, 8:37 am

54. Ben:

    Why is heirarchy ingrained in our culture? Heirarchy wins. Not in every situation but in many of the ones that matter.

    27 May 2011, 8:13 am

55. m.c.:

    Some hierarchy in life makes sense. You want an experienced investigator to investigate homicides, not a rookie beat cop. You want a brain surgeon to perform a brain surgery with lots of surgeries under their belt, not for example a general practicioner who once saw such surgery done in medical school years back. So letting the janitor or receptionionist preform the surgury makes little sense. There are exceptions though. Your spouse shouldn’t do the surgury, even if they’re the best brain specialist in the world for lack of emotional detachment.

    But hierarchy & specialization rubs up against big D Democracy. Professional Politicians, Diplomats, National Security Experts, Judges, Legal Scholars, Bankers, Economists, etc. all have their role, but why do we have jury trials, where the jury is selected from the defendant’s peers? Why have popular vote for U.S. Senators instead of letting the state legistlators choose like this country used to. Why not still have legalized slavewry or indentured servitude?Specialization in some cases is wise, but not in every aspect of life.

    27 May 2011, 12:56 pm

56. Stan:

    Another difference that has been lost… authority used to mean something different than power. It implied knowledge of some kind. When I went to work cutting stone, Brooks Burleson, the guy I worked for, never power-tripped me… but he told me what to do, because he had been doing it for 25 years; just like a professor would tell me what to read, or a sensei would drill me in a dojo, or a Haitian woman did when she taught me the right way to wash clothes in a river. To lump this kind of authority with the kind of power you encounter in bureaucracies or among thugs or that exercised by an abusive husband – as “hierarchy,” undifferentiated – is a failure of both our language and our milieu.

    27 May 2011, 1:34 pm

57. Henry:

    Exactly right, Stan. From this confusion and failure many a baby has been tossed out with the bathwater.

    27 May 2011, 3:38 pm

58. DeAnander:

    (Random thought) Another thing about “authority” of an authentic (those words are related) kind is responsibility.

    Power sloughs off its responsibility, blaming subordinates for its own decisions, picking “fall guys” and scapegoats. Conscientious authority claims responsibility for the errors of apprentices and students, knowing that they are not yet fully taught and therefore the teacher bears a share of the blame for their errors.

    I do wonder about hierarchy “winning.” It does seem that imperial/militarist cultures displace peaceful ones, winning the skirmishes, taking slaves, stealing land, accumulating loot, building empires… and then overreaching and collapsing in chaos and disorder. Boom, bust. Maybe that’s “winning”. But it seems to me that really “winning” means living in peace and prosperity for as long as possible, with nothing much happening that would merit a chapter in a history book.

    I read a book some years back called ‘Black Sea’ (author Acheson I believe) which among other things chronicled a period in that area in which a multicultural society (Christian/Jewish/Muslim/Mithraic or something like that) flourished for about 400 years (iirc) with no notable wars, pogroms, persecutions, exterminations, riots, famines, or much of any headline news. They fished and grew food and traded and built houses and made wine and beer and cheese, baked bread, played music and wrote poetry and painted murals and didn’t interfere much with each other’s religions. Probably there were occasional family dramas of the Romeo/Juliet kind, but no waves of burning at the stake and chopping off heads. I don’t think they had much in the way of kings, as it wasn’t clear which empire they belonged to and no one much cared. They had mayors/aldermen types and some kind of local gentry, not too grandiose, probably local militias for defence, no big standing armies. Historians consider it a very boring epoch. It sounded really nice. It sounded like “winning” to me. I remember that chapter more clearly than all the other highly hierarchical, imperial dramas described in the rest of it

    28 May 2011, 12:46 am

59. Stan:

    Political margins, hmmmm. Maybe, like a forest border, these are places where a lot of creativity happens.

    You are definitely grasping the crux of it, one suspects, with the point about accountability. And one of the things that most easily disappears in bureaucratic society is accountability. Hope you’ll flesh that out, because these marginal societies are mythic-ally embedded in visions that drive, for example, the transition town proto-movement.

    28 May 2011, 9:00 am

60. m.c.:

    I forgot to mention above, at one point in the early history of the U.S., only white landowning men could vote or serve on juries. In Great Britain until around 1900 to attend a top university you had to be a member of the Church of England. These are two examples of hierarchy that looking back seem fairly absurd.

    29 May 2011, 3:06 pm

61. m.c.:

    I’m throwing this one out there. I havn’t gone back and read what Alexis Tocqueville wrote about this. What does everyone think about the U.S. as an Empire and a Colonialist Power(the terms might have different labels); does America have even a passing curiousity about the Cultures of the people it dominates, as I guess compared with the older European Colonists?

    1 June 2011, 2:14 pm

62. m.c.:

    Guessing by how Rumsfeld and Bremer let the Iraqi National Museum be looted I say probably the answer is No. At least Napoleon took archeologists & anthropologists with him to Egypt. They were upper-crust looters but at least they were curious.

    1 June 2011, 3:10 pm

63. m.c.:

    Getting back to Kings & Hierarchies. Even the ancient Hawaiians had hierarchies. Beside the King/Queen; there were Chieftans which controlled individual islands; next were the priestly castes the Kahunas, which were also the skilled artisans, boat builders, ocean navigators, and healers. Next were the Commoners. The Kahunas were the glue of society though because they could rise from a Commoner background, as far as possible social mobility without marriage, kind of the warrant officers of Hawaiian sociaty with much political power.

    2 June 2011, 11:41 am

64. m.c.:

    On Colonialism, Tocqueville isn’t that helpful from my quick Google search reading. He lambasted Americans for their treatment of Black Slaves and Native Indians, but his later writing defends France’s colonization of Algeria. I guess if we do it it’s o.k. kind of argument.

    2 June 2011, 11:58 am

65. Stan:

    Not sure where to put these thoughts, since we have at least three recent threads and innumerable ones before that which relate to them.

    Walking into town to put diluted urine fertilizer on some of the plants at the community garden a while ago, and I tend to have better luck thinking while I walk.

    A link posted recently from Bob Jensen showed that he has caught the bug on the implications of Dunbar’s number, and just as I’d listened to the AV link I was picking up MacIntyre’s After Virtue.

    One of MacI’s points about practitioners and institutions is that for many things institutions become the carriers of the practice; but practitioners are the ones who do what they do for what he calls “internal goods,” which means if you are talking about women’s basketball, for example, a player is a practitioner and she gains an internal good from playing, the satisfaction of “excellences.” But if there is a league or association, the institution will tend to practice what it does for the sake of external goods, ie, money, prestige, power, etc.

    So there is this tension set up by the fact that many practices require institutional carriers, but that institutions tend to orient to external goods, while practitioners orient to internal goods. There will always be this tension because of the contradiction between the internal and external goods.

    Now I’ve been stuck on the notion that the actual dynamic that takes over somewhere between practice and institution is related to Dunbar and the development of administration/management based on the dynamic of dogwaggery.

    MacIntyre says that one of the archetypical characters of our age is the bureaucratic manager; and he calls our culture bureaucratic individualism. Bureaucrats run things; and we all regard one another as Homo economicus in a controlled Hobbesian universe.

    What is the solution to dogwaggery? Is it to limit the size of institutions and people them solely with practitioners?

    Help me out here, because all thoughts are fuzzy after this.

    9 June 2011, 5:18 pm

66. m.c.:

    Almost all MSM journalists, like most college professors, and small-time lawyers/solicitors are amateur politicians, and as such are social climbers(‘crawlers’ in British english means brown-nosers), similar to the country or small town parson or priest hoping to get invited to the bishop’s dinner or weekend party with the good cutlery or silverware.

    extra: A Few Good Men has been playing on TV this month. I didn’t realize that it’s roughly based on a true story(Aaron Sorkin wrote it originally as a broadway play) that took place in Gitmo in the 1980′s. In the true storyline, the victim doesn’t die and instead of just two Marines hazing him it’s the whole squad. I don’t know if the X.O. commits suicide & the C.O. has a meltdown in the courtroom.

    24 June 2011, 12:19 pm

67. m.c.:

    It appears Rod Blagojevich is going to do 7-10 years for Federal Conspiracy to use a Public Office for Personal Gain, although no Deal every went through and he and his supporters never received a single Red Cent or any Ambassadorship or any other Political Office.

    His mistake was he talked about potential deals over a Federally wiretapped telephone, something Pols in Washington and 50 State Capitals do every day of the year.

    Scooter Libby has his sentence commuted and he, his bosses, and colleagues who Ginned up a War-of-Choice go off scott free. War Criminals scott-free & small-time don’t even make it crooks go to the Can? Hmmm….

    27 June 2011, 7:04 pm

68. m.c.:

    More like 6-11 years maybe.

    27 June 2011, 7:47 pm

69. Michael Anderson:

    Something else from “A Canticle For Leibowitz”, in light of the Saudi prince’s comment today on Iran’s nuclear “aspirations”:

    “It was said that God, in order to test mankind which had become swelled with pride as in the time of Noah, had commanded the wise men of that age, among them the Blessed Leibowitz, to devise great engines of war such as had never before been upon the Earth, weapons of such might that they contained the very fires of Hell, and that God had suffered these magi to place the weapons in the hands of princes, and to say to each prince, “Only because the enemies have such a thing have we devised this for thee, in order that they may know that thou hast it also, and fear to strike. See to it, m’Lord, that thou fearest them as much as they shall now fear thee, that none may unleash this dread thing which we have wrought.”

    But the princes, putting the words of their wise men to naught, thought each to himself, If I but strike quickly enough, and in secret, I shall destroy those others in their sleep, and there will be none to fight back; the earth shall be mine.

    Such was the folly of princes, and there followed the Flame Deluge.”

    30 June 2011, 2:17 am

70. m.c.:

    A Few Good Men was on TV again last night. In spite of being a little too stereotype-happy IMO(The Tom Cruise character is slumming punching his ticket as a slick, superficial ivy league JAG officer for a greater political career down the line. Keifer Sutherland as the bible thumping southern cracker, etc.) It works 1)as a Military film 2)as a Lawyer film 3)as a Political film 4)with Demi Moore as a central character as a gender issues film.

    1 July 2011, 12:02 pm

71. m.c.:

    Rupert Murdoch’s daughter Elizabeth is married to PR bigwig Matthew Freud, Sigmund’s great-grandson. Keeping the legacy of Edward Bernays in the family.

    12 July 2011, 11:37 am

72. m.c.:

    Murdoch’s The Sun is currently the king of the British tabloid hill with a daily circulation of ~2.8 million. It ran M-Sat, but with the closing of News of the World will start a Sunday edition. The trashy right-wingish reactionary Daily Mail is number 2 at ~2.1 million. It could be said that Murdoch when he bought News of the World & The Sun patterned them on the Daily Mail, just making them worse, lower, bad, whatever. I’m going to pray to the newspaper gods tonight that employees & executives of The Daily Mail have been hacking into phones & email too and paying bribes.

    22 July 2011, 12:57 pm

73. Michael Anderson:

    Didn’t know quite where to post this, so here goes:

    http://truthout.org/files/nuclear_ethics.pdf

    http://www.truth-out.org/air-force-pulls-christian-themed-ethics-training-missile-officers/1311972789

    Been a lot of comments out in NetLand about this—looks like the USAF pulled it form their training (who knows?)

    Comments from Christians? I did notice that according to the PPS (St.) Augustine was born after Rome had made Christianity the State Religion. I am, therefore, suspicious of his teaching. I admit I know nothing of context here, not ever serving in the Armed Forces, but it doesn’t smell good to me. How in king-sized hell do you work up the balls to (ethically—SIC)murder millions?

    1 August 2011, 1:47 pm

74. m.c.:

    I’m going to Generalize, something when I see often in the writing/thoughts of others usually makes me cringe. Since the dawn the Hyper-Modern Technology(jet aircraft, nuclear technology, nuclear powered submarines, space satellites used for spying & weather forcasting etc., chemical weapons, biological weapons) This Age I’m gonna say started in the 1940s & 50s although as early as WWI saw the use of mustard gas, and the machine gun for example.

    1) The rise of the Defense/National Security Intellectual. This class may have a background in Corporate Law, Finance, Business(think Bob McNamara), Economics, International Affairs, Diplomacy, etc.

    2) The rise of the class of Professional Physical/Natural Scientist. Chemists, Physicists, Computer Scientists, Engineers, Statiticians, Mathematicians, Accountants.

    3) The rise of career Government Civil Servant. This probably hasn’t changed going back to the days of the Roman or Chinese Empires, but in a very large Bureaucracy of thousands of personnel their influence can have a multiplier effect.

    Elected Politicians & Career Military Officers(who to some extent are answerable to their constituents; an Officer who fails to keep his ship or aircraft or chow hall running well may find themselves on the short exit path to retirement.) I wonder who the above groups answer to? They don’t have to stand for election every 2/4/6 years; do they receive performance reviews from their superiors? Do they ever get fired for screwing up royally?

    28 September 2011, 7:07 pm

75. m.c.:

    Has anyone else been watching the C-SPAN Contender Series? They’ve been profiling the lives of 14 Famous Pols who ran for President and failed. This week they covered Eugene V. Debs.(There usually is a re-run later this week. Check the C-SPAN listings)

    I’m glad they included him but quietly outraged that Robert La Follette was left off. George Wallace was included though. He (La Follette) ran on the Progressive Party ticket in 1924, won his home state of Wisconsin and 17% of the vote nationwide in a in 3-way race. In comparison, Ross Perot got 19% in 1992. George Wallace & Curtis LeMay(another military pilot) got 13.5% in 1968.

    I really like the first episode on Henry Clay, maybe of the big 3 with Ben Franklin and Alexander Hamilton the most influential U.S. Figures who never became President.

    2 October 2011, 3:45 pm

76. m.c.:

    I forgot: James Stockdale, Perot’s VP Choice in 1992 was also a military pilot.

    2 October 2011, 3:48 pm

77. Eric:

    Will occupy Wall St be effective? Is this the rekindled spark of revolution? I am headed in that direction, my birthplace, soon…after almost 20 yrs on the west coast. I go with a sober mind & heart. Interested to hear what others have to say on the topic of occupywallst.

    2 October 2011, 11:29 pm

78. Kim Sky:

    excited!!! found out that occupychicago was “organized” by people that had never done organizing before. so began with something like three people. the word got out, and it’s growing.

    in portland. it began with a small number showing up for a protest in solidarity on OCT-6. then a meeting called by, people i’d not heard of before. some 15 people showed up. the following week, another meeting, this time 200 people. TV, porta-potties, blankets, you name it. organized. wiki-pages, blogs, twitter. press release. again, only knew three people at this event. people were so excited. that night, someone donated $1000 to the cause!

    normal people, any and all types of people. lot’s of good will. and to imagine these people, willing to face arrest, sleep on cardboard, etc. is almost unimaginable.

    Brooklyn bridge — the 700 arrested — reminded me of the salt protests by Gandhi. lining up, facing arrest, one by one, quiet, dignified.

    powerful stuff!!! non-violence – hip, hip.

    how lucky you are to be able to go to the place where this has begun! good wishes!

    3 October 2011, 9:51 am

79. Kim Sky:

    Good Source for following protests here and around the world …

    Roar Magazine — posts by Jérôme E. Roos

    http://roarmag.org/author/jerome/

    3 October 2011, 10:03 am

80. DeAnander:

    Dysfunctions of Scale

    Dunbar — and related critiques of Big — it just keeps coming up. Scale is an issue in its own right. I would xref to “cold violence” as well, the force of impersonal violence in large structures…

    3 October 2011, 2:45 pm

81. Stan:

    Guess we’ll see what happens. Occupy Lansing is in a week and a half. And our pastor is very interested in what is going on here (there are more than 1000 congregants). This is one of the worst hit regions in the country by the recession.

    The Bigness link is excellent!!!

    5 October 2011, 6:49 pm

82. Michael Anderson:

    I’m only a little ways into this (free) internet book on Authoritarianism, but on the basis of what I’ve read so far, I highly recommend it—it has a lighter approach (tone) to the subject, but still analytically sharp and on target. @ Boer Tom—-you might know this fella.

    http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/TheAuthoritarians.pdf

    The Authoritarians
    Bob Altemeyer
    Associate Professor
    Department of Psychology
    University of Manitoba
    Winnipeg, Canada
    Copyright

    29 October 2011, 11:49 am

83. m.c.:

    I believe even within an ESTABLISHMENT, there can be room for Maneuver.
    Are people familiar with Jeremy Paxman? He’s the Host of BBC’s NewsNight, a television Interview Show and the longest running news program in the UK(over 20 years.) He once questioned Tony Blair about the Iraq War and when Blair resorted to his usual snake-oily naked & instinctive dissembling answers, Paxman repeated his question 14 times on live national TV. A cross-between Peter Jennings and Sam Donaldson. More like him are needed.

    4 November 2011, 5:39 pm

84. m.c.:

    By naked, I mean he knows he’s lying, you know he’s lying, and he knows that you know he’s lying.
    When I was younger I used to admire Jennings & Donaldson’s good cop/bad cop routine.

    5 November 2011, 2:10 pm

85. m.c.:

    I’ve been accused of being an anglophile. At their best the British/English whom people around the rest of the world tend to like, are intelligent, cultured, somewhat cool and detached, but pragmatic, tolerant, and personable. Here’s my list of institutions if you/your children ask where they can obtain a good education.

    University of Oxford–1249
    University of Cambridge–1284
    University of St. Andrews–1410
    University of Edinburgh–1583
    Trinity College Dublin(University of Dublin)–1592
    University of London(University College London; Kings College London; School of Oriental and African Studies[SOAS]; Birkbeck College, etc.)–1826
    University of Durham–1832
    University College Dublin–1854
    London School of Economics & Political Science[LSE]–1895
    Imperial College London[The Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine]–1907

    7 November 2011, 5:40 pm

86. m.c.:

    Univ. of Bristol-1876
    Maybe its most famous grad is Jeremy Wade, the host of the fishing show, River Monsters. Widely watched now in its 4th season(Icon Films-UK), is on Animal Planet & the Discovery Channel in the U.S.

    On a different topic, I’ve wondered why the US Air Force Academy hasn’t produced many top level politicians. Former Air Force Generals like Brent Scrowcroft(West Point) and Michael Hayden(ROTC) didn’t attend. The only one I can think of is Heather Wilson(Rhodes Scholar) former US Rep.(R) from New Mexico. Future G. Bush AG Alberto Gonzales dropped out according to Wikipedia.

    17 April 2012, 11:55 am

87. m.c.:

    I just started Bill Bryson’s excellent, At Home A Short History of Private Life; 2010. (from pp. 13-15)

    “In 1851, when our story opens, there were 17,621 Anglican clerymen; a country rector, with only 250 or so souls in his care enjoyed an average income of 500Pounds(good money in those days…) For the younger sons of peers and gentry, going into the church became of of the two default career moves(the other was joining the military), so often they brought family wealth to the position as well.”

    “Clergymen in the Church of England were of two types: rectors(from rector, helmsman ruler, leader) and vicars(from vicarious, indicating a surrogate role, like a substitute teacher.) The difference was a narrow one ecclesiastically but a broad one economically. Historically, vicars were stand-ins for rectors. Parson(from persona ecclesiae) was the general term covering both the rector & vicar.”

    “The role of country clergy was a remarkably loose one. Piety was not necessarily a requirement, or even an expectation. Ordination in the Church of England required a university degree, but most ministers read classics and didn’t study divinity at all, and so had no training in how to preach, provide inspiration or solace, or otherwise offer meaningful Christian support. Many didn’t even bother composing sermons but just bought a big book of prepared semons and read one out once a week.
    Though no one intended it, the effect was to create a class of well-educated, wealthy people(many of the vicars though were not) who had immense amounts of time on their hands. In consequence many of them began, quite spontaneously, to do remarkable things. Never before in history had a group of people engaged in a broader range of creditable activities for which they were not in any sense actually employed.
    Consider a few:
    George Bayldon, a vicar in a remote corner of Yorkshire, had such poor attendances at his services that he converted half his church into a hen-house, but he became a self-taught authority in linguistics and compiled the world’s first dictionary of Icelandic…
    In Devon, the Reverend Jack Russell bred the terrier that shares his name…”

    Adding my own to cents here: I want to emphasize the Archetype of the eccentric Vicar{an idea for a future internet handle}, being not usually the model role of official Piety. The flavor of Rural Britain….

    6 November 2012, 1:06 pm

88. m.c.:

    Another vestige of the Puritan/Calvinist anti-Roman Catholic sentiment that came to the fore during the English Civil War well into the 18th century. Lord George Gordon(1751-1793)led the dangerous Gordon Riots or “No Popery” riots in London in 1780, where there had been proposals for extending toleration/rights to Catholics & Dissenters.
    Barnaby Rudge, a historical novel(1841) by Charles Dickens was a popular and well read account. Edward Gibbon, a converted Catholic also wrote about the riots.

    6 November 2012, 6:31 pm

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