Jay Hanson mailto:[log in to unmask] wrote:
>
> At 12:01 AM 4/30/97 -0700, m@2 wrote:
>
> >the different ways in which these are deployed socially ... if we are to
> >see all of society as driven by genetic competition, how do we explain
> >things like suicide?  lower birth rates among the rich?  celibacy?
> >homosexuality?  a social-darwinist approach simply can't account for these
> >without sounding silly (not that I am accusing you of promoting social
> >darwinism, although I am not certain from your post that you would not
> >advocate it, given what you've said) ....
>
> I do not propose that evolutionary theory (ET) can explain all behavior,
> nor do I propose that ET should be used to rationalize and "justify"
> behavior (social Darwinism).  To the contrary, ET highlights that innate
> behavior that is dangerous to society and must be limited by authority.
>
> Here is my short essay on the subject:
>
> ================================================================
>
>  "... in the first place, I put forth a general inclination
>   of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of power
>   after power, that ceaseth only in death." -- Thomas Hobbes
>                            . . .
>
>                       THE FATAL FREEDOM
>                         by Jay Hanson                 01/03/97
>
>    Exploit: To employ to the greatest possible advantage.
>                            . . .
>    There is now scientific consensus that humanity is
> "unsustainable," and may have less than 35 years before
> the "functional integrity" of its life-support system is
> destroyed.(1)  Despite this staggering evidence of its
> colossal stupidity, humanity remains firmly committed to a
> paradoxical struggle against itself.  Moreover, caught by
> an insatiable drive for power(2) -- like a school of sharks
> caught in a feeding frenzy -- humanity resorts to self-
> deception and is conspicuously unable to rationally question
> its own premises.  In this essay, I endeavor to point out
> the fatal flaw inherent in capitalism(3): the fatal freedom
> to exploit the commons.
>
> GENETIC ROOTS OF EXPLOITATION
>
>    A few million years ago, our ancestor Homo Habilis developed
> a hierarchical social life based on hunting and gathering.
> Habilis males and females shared meat and produce, dividing
> jobs by gender:  child care and gathering to females,
> fighting and hunting to males.  Habilis originated the
> hunter-gatherer lifestyle that was to last for millions
> of years until the invention of settled agriculture.
>
>    Hunter-gatherers exploited an area until it was exhausted
> and then moved on to a new one.  For millions of years,
> exploitation contributed to survival of the species and
> evolution selected for the best exploiters.
>
>    The transition to settled agriculture began around 12,000
> years ago and was primarily subsistence in nature.  Farmers
> generally grew only enough food to feed themselves and their
> families.  Approximately 7000 years ago, the inventions of
> the plow and irrigation allowed food supplies to increase
> by dramatically increasing the power of farmers to exploit
> nature.  Instead of just exhausting an area and moving on
> like the hunter-gatherers did, now farmers could totally
> devastate an area.  And then move.
>
>     "Some 4,400 years ago, the city-states of ancient Sumer
>   in modern-day Iraq faced an unsettling dilemma.  Farmland
>   was gradually accumulating salt, the byproduct of
>   evaporating irrigation water.  Almost imperceptibly,
>   the salt began to poison the rich soil, and over time
>   harvests tapered off.
>
>     "Until 2400 BC, Sumerians had managed the problem
>   of dwindling yields by cultivating new land, thereby
>   ensuring the consistent food surpluses needed to support
>   their armies and bureaucracies.  But now they had reached
>   the limits of agricultural expansion.  And over the next
>   three centuries, accumulating salts drove crop yields
>   down more than 40 percent. The crippled production,
>   combined with an ever-growing population, led to shrinking
>   food reserves, which in turn reduced the ranks of soldiers
>   and civil servants.  By 1800 BC, Sumerian agriculture had
>   effectively collapsed, and this once glorious civilization
>   faded into obscurity."(4)
>
>    We knew that irrigation "inevitably leads to the
> salinization of soils and waters"(5) that long ago?!  But
> we have been doing it ever since?!  Have we been deceiving
> ourselves for over 4000 years?
>
> GENETIC ROOTS OF SELF-DECEPTION
>
>    In the late 50s, the social scientist Erving Goffman made a
> stir with a book called THE PRESENTATION OF SELF IN EVERYDAY
> LIFE, that stressed how much time we all spend on stage,
> playing to one audience or another.  Goffman marveled
> that sometimes a person is "sincerely convinced that the
> impression of reality which he stages is the real reality."
>
>    What modern evolution theory brings to Goffman's
> observation is an explanation of the practical function of
> self-deception: we deceive ourselves in order to deceive
> others better.  In his foreword to Richard Dawkins' THE
> SELFISH GENE, Robert Trivers noted Dawkins' emphasis on the
> role of deception in animal life and added, in a much-cited
> passage, that if indeed "deceit is fundamental to animal
> communication, then there must be strong selection to spot
> deception and this ought, in turn, to select for a degree of
> self-deception, rendering some facts and motives unconscious
> so as not to betray -- by the subtle signs of self-knowledge
> -- the deception being practiced."  Thus, "the conventional
> view that natural selection favors nervous systems which
> produce ever more accurate images of the world must be a
> very naive view of mental evolution."(6)
>
>    For millions of years, self-deception also contributed to
> survival and evolution selected for the best self-deceivers!
> Indeed, self-deception and exploitation certainly seem to be
> what we do best.
>
> THE TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS
>
>    The inevitable outcome of self-deception and exploitation
> is brilliantly illustrated in Garrett Hardin's classic, THE
> TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS (1968).  The "commons" refers to the
> common resources that are owned by everyone.  The "tragedy"
> occurs as the result of everyone having the fatal freedom to
> exploit the commons.
>
>    Hardin's essay goes something like this:  Visualize a
> pasture as a system that is open to everyone.  The carrying
> capacity of this pasture is 10 animals.  Ten herdsmen are
> each grazing an animal to fatten up for market.  In other
> words, all the grass that the pasture can produce is now
> being consumed by the 10 animals.
>
>    Harry (one of the herdsmen) will add one more animal to the
> pasture if he can make a profit.  He subtracts the original
> cost of the new animal from the expected sales price of the
> fattened animal and then considers the cost of the food.
> Adding one more animal will mean less food for each of the
> present animals, but since Harry only has only 1/10 of the
> herd, he has to pay only 1/10 of the cost.  Harry decides to
> exploit the commons and the other herdsmen, so he adds an
> animal and takes a profit.  Shrinking profit margins force
> the other herdsmen either to go out of business or continue
> the exploitation by adding more animals.  This process of
> mutual exploitation continues until overgrazing and erosion
> destroy the pasture system, and all the herdsmen are driven
> out of business.
>
>    Although Hardin describes exploitation in an unregulated
> public pasture, the pasture also serves as a metaphor for
> our entire society.  Our communities are the commons.  Our
> schools are the commons.  Our roads, our air, our water;
> we ourselves are the commons!
>
>    There is no "technological" solution to this fatal flaw
> in capitalism.  A "political" solution is theoretically
> possible:  prohibit freedom in the commons.  But with
> capitalism serving as our political system (one-dollar-one-
> vote), there is no political solution either!(7)
>
>   Most importantly, Hardin illustrates the critical flaw
> of freedom in the commons: all participants must agree to
> conserve the commons, but any one can force the destruction
> of the commons.  Thus, as long as we are free to exploit the
> commons, we are locked into a paradoxical struggle against
> ourselves -- a terrible struggle that must end in universal
> ruin.
>
> HOBBES' PERMANENT WAR OF ALL AGAINST ALL
>
>    Three-hundred years before Hardin, the English philosopher
> Thomas Hobbes anticipated the inevitable outcome of freedom
> in the commons in LEVIATHAN (1651):
>
>     "And because the condition of man . . . is a condition
>   of war of every one against every one, in which case
>   every one is governed by his own reason, and there is
>   nothing he can make use of that may not be a help unto
>   him in preserving his life against his enemies; it
>   followeth that in such a condition every man has a
>   right to every thing, even to one another's body. And
>   therefore, as long as this natural right of every man to
>   every thing endureth, there can be no security to any
>   man . . . "
>
>     "To this war of every man against every man, this also
>     is consequent;  that nothing can be unjust.  The notions
>   of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no
>   place.  Where there is no common power, there is no law;
>   where no law, no injustice.  Force and fraud are in war
>   the two cardinal virtues."
>
>    Every social phenomenon, according to Hobbes, is based
> upon an endless drive for power that emerges when individuals
> compare themselves to other individuals.  The result is that
> the objects one seeks to obtain are not pursued for their
> own sake, but because someone else also seeks to obtain them.
>
>    "Scarcity" is the relationship between unlimited desire
> and limited means.  For Hobbes, scarcity is a permanent
> condition of humanity caused by the continuous, innate
> drive for power.
>
>    Society becomes a lifeboat in which all the passengers are
> fighting each other.  In order to escape universal ruin, men
> will create a great Leviathan, a semi-absolute state that
> controls its subjects and prevents permanent scarcity from
> developing into a war of "all-against-all."
>
> LOCKE'S TEMPORARY WAR OF ALL AGAINST NATURE
>
>    From Plato to our present society, we can trace the faith
> in human reason through the ideas of Aristotle, Bacon,
> Descartes, Hobbes, and especially the English philosopher
> John Locke.  In his SECOND TREATISE OF GOVERNMENT (1690),
> Locke argued that there is a natural law governing humans
> and that it can be known by human reason:  "The state of
> nature has a law of nature to govern it . . . that being all
> equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his
> life, health, liberty, or possessions."
>
>    Locke did not accept Hobbes' idea that scarcity results from
> an innate drive for power.  Locke said it was the invention
> of money that caused scarcity.  Prior to money, it was
> solely the usefulness of things that counted, and every man
> should have only as much property as he needed.(8)  Money
> caused scarcity by enabling a man "to enlarge his
> possessions" more than he needed.(9)  Although Locke saw
> money as the source of the problem, he also saw that
> "improving" the earth could help to alleviate scarcity.(10)
> Moreover, improving the earth didn't harm anyone because
> there was still plenty of land left:  "Nor was this
> appropriation of any parcel of land, by improving it, any
> prejudice to any other man, since there was still enough,
> and as good left; and more than the yet unprovided could
> use."
>
>    So rather than attack the source of the problem as Hobbes
> did, Locke chose instead to treat the symptoms by attacking
> nature.  No doubt the great moralist would have followed
> Hobbes for social reform if all the land had been taken.
> Thus, Locke's temporary -- till the land is gone -- answer
> to the scarcity caused by money was to exploit the earth,
> and Hobbes' permanent war of "all-against-all" was reflected
> in Locke's temporary war of "all-against-nature."
>
>    Locke's ideas legitimized colonialism as a quest to
> alleviate scarcity.  For example, America was an empty
> continent that could be exploited to help alleviate the
> effects of scarcity in Europe.  Cecil Rhodes, a well-known
> imperialist of the last century, even wrote about the
> necessity of an ongoing exploitation of the universe:
> "I would annex the planets if I could."  More recently,
> former president Reagan in a speech after the failure of the
> Challenger, told the American people that we have to conquer
> space in order to overcome war, scarcity, and misery on
> earth.  His argument for more exploitation is exactly the
> same as that given by Locke in the seventeenth century.
>
>    Both Hobbes and Locke knew that scarcity originates in
> human relations and that people trying to escape scarcity
> would inadvertently spread and propagate it to the ends of
> the earth.  Even into outer space.
>
>    From the beginning, rationality has never held a prominent
> place in our society.  In the final analysis, the call for
> endless economic growth is rooted in a hidden, insatiable
> drive for power;  rational debate rarely manages to bring
> this fact out into the open, let alone confront it.  Modern
> society remains a crumbling monument to self-deception and
> exploitation.
>
> DEAD END
>
>     "Every man . . . is left perfectly free to pursue his
>   own interests in his own way, and to bring both his
>   industry and capital into competition with those of
>   any other man, or order of men."    -- Adam Smith (1776)
>
>     "We human beings are being led into a dead end -- all
>   too literally.  We are living by an ideology of death
>   and accordingly we are destroying our own humanity and
>   killing the planet.  Even the one great success of the
>   program that has governed us, the attainment of material
>   affluence, is now giving way to poverty.  The United
>   States is just now gaining a foretaste of the suffering
>   that global economic policies, so enthusiastically
>   embraced, have inflicted on hundreds of millions of
>   others.  If we continue on our present paths, future
>   generations, if there are to be any, are condemned to
>   misery."                         -- Daly and Cobb (1989)
>
>    It is now obvious to anyone brave enough to look, that
> our continuing self-deception and exploitation no longer
> contribute to the survival of the species.  If we are to
> survive, we must now recognize the necessity of giving up
> the fatal freedom to exploit the commons.  Locke's temporary
> war of all-against-nature must now come to an end.
>
>    When a society is free to rob banks, it is less free, not
> more so.  When individuals mutually agreed (passed laws) not
> to rob banks -- gave up the freedom to rob banks -- they
> became more free, not less so.  Only by giving up our fatal
> freedom can we free ourselves from the inexorable, deadly
> logic of the commons.  Only then can we become free to
> establish a new organizing principle for humanity.
>
>    We've known for 4000 years that freedom in the commons
> brings ruin to all.  What are we waiting for?
> _______________________________
>
> (1) In 1992, the two most prestigious scientific
>  institutions in the world, the National Academy of Sciences
>  and the Royal Society, issued POPULATION GROWTH, RESOURCE
>  CONSUMPTION, AND A SUSTAINABLE WORLD which ended with:
>  "The future of our planet is in the balance.  Sustainable
>  development can be achieved, but only if irreversible
>  degradation of the environment can be halted in time.
>  The next 30 years may be crucial."
>   Archived http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page7.htm
>
>  Also in 1992, a WARNING TO HUMANITY was issued by the Union
>  of Concerned Scientists that began:  "Human beings and the
>  natural world are on a collision course. Human activities
>  inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the
>  environment and on critical resources.  If not checked, many
>  of our current practices put at serious risk the future that
>  we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms,
>  and may so alter the living world that it will be unable
>  to sustain life in the manner that we know.  Fundamental
>  changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our
>  present course will bring about."
>
>  This warning was signed by over 1,500 members of national,
>  regional, and international science academies. Sixty-nine
>  nations from all parts of Earth are represented, including
>  each of the twelve most populous nations and the nineteen
>  largest economic powers.
>
>  It was also signed by 99 Nobel Prize winners.
>   Archived http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page8.htm
>
>  And finally, in 1993 THE GROWING WORLD POPULATION, a joint
>  statement by 58 of the world's scientific academies said:
>  "In our judgement, humanity's ability to deal successfully
>  with its social, economic, and environmental problems will
>  require the achievement of zero population growth within
>  the lifetime of our children."
>   Archived http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page75.htm
>
> (2) The drive for power is the process by which we seek
>  predictability as a means of avoiding or reducing anxiety.
>  The more we feel in control, the more we can relax.  The
>  more power we have been granted or won or achieved, the more
>  we generally assume we will be able to maintain control.
>
> (3) Here when I use the term "capitalism", I refer to
>  American capitalism:  From an ecological point of view,
>  capitalism may be seen as an organized process to ingest
>  natural, living systems (including people) in one end,
>  and excrete unnatural, dead garbage and waste (including
>  wasted people) out the other.  From a thermodynamic view,
>  capitalism may be seen as the conversion of low-entropy
>  matter/energy into high-entropy matter/energy.  From an
>  economic view, capitalism may be seen as the high-speed
>  depletion of natural capital.  From a political view,
>  capitalism may be seen as the world's dominant political
>  system -- one-dollar-one-vote.
>
> (4) p. 5, SHRINKING FIELDS: Cropland Loss in a World of
>  Eight Billion, Gary Gardner;  Worldwatch Institute, Paper
>  #131, July 1996.  Worldwatch Institute, 1776 Massachusetts
>  Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20036, Phone: 202-452-1999; FAX:
>  202-296-7365, [log in to unmask], http://www.worldwatch.org/
>
> (5) http://www.ussl.ars.usda.gov/salinity.htm
>
> (6) pp. 263-264, THE MORAL ANIMAL ,Robert Wright; Pantheon,
>  1994; ISBN 0-679-40773-1.
>
> (7) http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page4.htm
>
> (8) ". . . what portion a man carved to himself, was easily
>  seen; and it was useless, as well as dishonest, to carve
>  himself too much, or take more than he needed."
>
> (9) ". . . there is land enough in the world to suffice
>  double the inhabitants, had not the invention of money, and
>  the tacit agreement of men to put a value on it, introduced
>  (by consent) larger possessions, and a right to them . . ."
>  Locke continues, "Thus in the beginning all the world was
>  America, and more so than that is now; for no such thing as
>  money was any where known.  Find out something that hath the
>  use and value of money amongst his neighbours, you shall see
>  the same man will begin presently to enlarge his
>  possessions."
>
> (10) "God and his reason commanded [man] to subdue the earth,
>  i.e. improve it for the benefit of life . . ."  Locke said
>  that the earth needs improving because nature herself is
>  nearly worthless:  "I think it will be but a very modest
>  computation to say, that of the products of the earth useful
>  to the life of man nine tenths are the effects of labour:
>  nay, if we will rightly estimate things as they come to our
>  use, and cast up the several expences about them, what in
>  them is purely owing to nature, and what to labour, we shall
>  find, that in most of them ninety-nine hundredths are wholly
>  to be put on the account of labour."
>
> Hobbes Locke and Smith are available several places on the
> web. See, for example:
> http://www-lsi.upc.es/www/links/fun/booktitles.html
>
> *****************************************************************
>
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> Jay


        Authority cannot undue the damage caused to society by
self-deception because it is those IN authority who deceive themselves
and others the most.

                        Howard