Do humans hate civilization?

[Happy Ent]

37 minutes ago, FalagarV2 said:

Your version of the dichotomy of 'open' vs. 'closed' societies (which I assume is from North?) strikes me as insufficient for understanding historical technological diffusion.

I hope it’s pure Popper, probably influenced by David Deutsch.

I don’t know who North is.

[Happy Ent]

Good responses on the previous page, folks! Pleasure to read.

[FalagarV2]

58 minutes ago, Happy Ent said:

I hope it’s pure Popper, probably influenced by David Deutsch.

I don’t know who North is.

Ah, I'm not particularly familiar with Popper's usage - I was thinking of Douglass North, who contrasts 'closed' (pre-modern) with 'open' (Western) societies in Violence and Social Orders, focusing on access to information. I guess he's drawing on Popper.

[Happy Ent]

4 hours ago, FalagarV2 said:

contrasts 'closed' (pre-modern) with 'open' (Western) societies

Yes, that sounds perfectly Popperian. “Open” is a better word than “Western.” (Even though “open society” currently undergoes a huge semantic shift “thanks” to George Soros, so the term may well become meaningless.)

[Darzin]

I think Happy Ent is right on the money about this, and for those of you still skeptical about  the example of the ax. I have a real world example of this kind of thing. I have a friend from a poor country, whose family is from a village in the most conservative part of that country. He has learned English and had foreigners for friends and room mates, which combined with his natural curiosity have given him a bit more of an "open" perspective, if we are using the above terminology.

Anyway, he has a passion for cooking, which is quite rare in his society and culture, as it's quite patriarchal and men generally cook nothing. He went from his home in the capital and visited his family and prepared them some dumplings, now there are a few ways to cook these traditional dumplings, with only vegetables, with beef or with lamb, those are the three ways and if you get them anywhere you will have only those options. My friend did something different he put cheese in them, they were a hit. His family in the village was amazed they loved them, thought they were the best thing ever, but they were puzzled how could you even put cheese in a dumpling? some asked, others asked if he had maybe learned the recipe from some of his foreign friends, but no he had just decided to try it, an answer they accepted but not too easily.

Now despite loving them and saying they were wonderful and even bragging to the neighbors about how great they were and despite having all the ingredients in the  kitchen and despite the women working all day in the kitchen, and having ample time, these dumplings were not reproduced. No one made them again. At the time and even now. I was a bit confused by all this I mean where I come from minor variations are normal people add ingredients all the time, and not only that cooking was one of the few spheres where these women could shine. A good cook would be highly praised and sought after, a girl who could cook well would have a better choice in husbands, and yet despite these benefits no one continued with this simple change, when my friend left the village there were no more cheese dumplings.

You don't need to kill someone who makes a better ax you just need the invention to die with him because no one adopted it. It seems like that shouldn't  happen if you think about it rationally and yet I've seen it not happen people whose job it is to cook everyday not adopt a food they like, because why? I guess culture, I admit it was very hard for me to understand but having seen it happen well it's clearly a thing. And the only reason they were even exposed to that is my friend has left the village without that and they would never have been. I wonder if he had stayed and been a farmer like his family if he could have made the leap to a cheese dumpling. From where I come from people experiment with food all the time, but you go to  villages in that culture and people just don't it's reproducing the same over and over, even the better off people who have free time. So when you leave a village and go to a tribe with even less. It's not even you'd be killed for making a better ax it's that you wouldn't think to do so, and if you did there is a good chance they's just view you as "special" and "eccentric" and not take your invention to heart.

[Happy Ent]

On 11/05/2017 at 3:22 AM, Darzin said:

It seems like that shouldn't  happen if you think about it rationally and yet I've seen it not happen people whose job it is to cook everyday not adopt a food they like, because why? 

Because human psychology. It’s extremely hard for us, who have lived in open societies for a few generations now, to get this. 

In the closed society, the social benefit from not messing with the dumpling recipe (beautiful example by the way!) is much higher than the culinary benefit from better-tasting dumplings. 

The member of the tribe who openly modifies dumplings, or who openly welcomes the change, encouraging it, copying it, is morally suspect. She has just signalled bad ingroup membership. Lack of loyalty. Such people are toxic. (We know this, of course. Plenty of our social or workplace interactions are still like this.)

Kill the dumpling-modifying witch! (Or at least ostracise her. Or at least stop encouraging her. Make sure she doesn’t get to teach dumpling-making to your children. They might become social outcasts – in fact you signal willingness to become a social outcast by just toying with this idea. It’s taboo! Crimestop!)

[FalagarV2]

Well, the explanation here is clearly that dumplings with cheese are an abomination unto the gods.

More seriously, there is a distinction between active suppression by authorities fearing competition, which Happy Ent argued, and innovations failing to disseminate for reasons of internalized habits, cultural taboos, abundance of slaves, or what have you.

[Happy Ent]

57 minutes ago, FalagarV2 said:

More seriously, there is a distinction between active suppression by authorities fearing competition, which Happy Ent argued, and innovations failing to disseminate for reasons of internalized habits, cultural taboos, abundance of slaves, or what have you.

My point is that these things go together. They are the natural state for human societies to be in. If you want to go evo-psych on this topic: the adherence to cultural taboos that ossify hierarchy and reject change were selected for. 

There is not contradiction between active suppression by the authorities and change-preventing cultural habits. These are the same mechanism. Humans prefer to live in hierarchical societies, no matter if they happen to be the ruler. At any level you will find this: the stickler-for-rules secretary, the totalitarian HR manager, the janitor who tells you to not walk on the grass – they protect the hierarchy just as much as the CEO. Now imagine how a tribal society must have been, with religious taboos, evil spirits, magic, … Hierarchy, submission, taboo: these things are woven into us. We genuinely like submission. How else could Nature have built the amazing social machines that are homo sapiens?

By contrast, the Open Society is messy and ever-changing. You are not guaranteed a secure position just by following the rules. Instead, you must constantly decide, negotiate, expose, innovate – that is hard, and goes against most people’s deepest desires. The stress of constant renegotiation and adaptation is what Popper calls the strain of civilisation.

We who have only ever lived in the Open Society are blind to this. All our cultural artefacts today (movies, books) espouse the virtues of the Open Society. We think the Open Society is the normal state. But it is not. It is a unique, and quite possibly fragile, blip in human history that we currently enjoy and which is ours to destroy. Its enemies are eternal, for we all bear the wicked Spell of Plato inside us.

This completes our daily dose of Popper. (Or our 5 minutes of hate.)

(The best fictional account of this conflict is, of course, Thomas Mann’s Der Zauberberg – The Magic Mountain, where Hans Castorp is pitted between Settembrini and Naphta.)

[Buckwheat]

I do not feel qualified to contribute anything of substance t:o this thread, but I just want to say it is an enligtening read, very impressive. Thanks for educating me, board.

[FalagarV2]

On 12.5.2017 at 11:08 AM, Happy Ent said:

My point is that these things go together. They are the natural state for human societies to be in. If you want to go evo-psych on this topic: the adherence to cultural taboos that ossify hierarchy and reject change were selected for. 

There is not contradiction between active suppression by the authorities and change-preventing cultural habits. These are the same mechanism. Humans prefer to live in hierarchical societies, no matter if they happen to be the ruler. At any level you will find this: the stickler-for-rules secretary, the totalitarian HR manager, the janitor who tells you to not walk on the grass – they protect the hierarchy just as much as the CEO. Now imagine how a tribal society must have been, with religious taboos, evil spirits, magic, … Hierarchy, submission, taboo: these things are woven into us. We genuinely like submission. How else could Nature have built the amazing social machines that are homo sapiens?

By contrast, the Open Society is messy and ever-changing. You are not guaranteed a secure position just by following the rules. Instead, you must constantly decide, negotiate, expose, innovate – that is hard, and goes against most people’s deepest desires. The stress of constant renegotiation and adaptation is what Popper calls the strain of civilisation.

We who have only ever lived in the Open Society are blind to this. All our cultural artefacts today (movies, books) espouse the virtues of the Open Society. We think the Open Society is the normal state. But it is not. It is a unique, and quite possibly fragile, blip in human history that we currently enjoy and which is ours to destroy. Its enemies are eternal, for we all bear the wicked Spell of Plato inside us.

This completes our daily dose of Popper. (Or our 5 minutes of hate.)

(The best fictional account of this conflict is, of course, Thomas Mann’s Der Zauberberg – The Magic Mountain, where Hans Castorp is pitted between Settembrini and Naphta.)

Well, there is certainly a need for separating the two analytically - your first argument seemed to suggest that it was only the powers-that-be that suppress creativity bubbling from below, the second implies that creativity is regulated through habits which are shared on all levels of society. This second is true, up to a certain point. Human societies are certainly geared towards maintaining stable social units, no doubt about that. Taking part in a social unit is after all a prerequisite for survival, and so acceptance of its rules is indeed fundamental to human behavior. However, taking submission as THE characteristic of human psychology is again quite reductionist. It ignores the vital ability to adapt creatively, which must also have been selected for both on an individual level and on that of societies. It also ignores other drives, such sexuality, aggression, play or social distinction (the proverbial will to power).

Re: 'tribal societies', if you by that mean prehistoric foraging cultures, i.e. those groups which most of our 'evolution' occurred in (and thus relevant to the evo-psycho stuff), need to be separated from pre-modern agricultural societies, which are after all a new development. The Australian aborigines are generally taken to be the most 'pure' surviving example of a foraging culture (although the extent to which is debated). Aboriginal society was not particularly hierarchical: it was organized into kinship groups and clans, run by groups of "elders" (grandees who had won distinction) and communal bodies of men/women (varying from field to field), not chiefs and appointed officials. Not to say that it was necessarily egalitarian (in our sense): clan and kinship structures were certainly complex and restrictive of the individual, providing norms regulating daily life to a high degree. This was however in turn mitigated by social and technological factors: the group's ability to enforce rules were limited and meant a high degree of reliance on individual self-regulation, which would certainly have varied. Ritual and religious matters saw a higher degree of stratification, but personal efforts to distinguish oneself was important for one's role in ritual, not passive submission. As such hierarchization and a high degree of role institutionalisation is in fact a late stage of human history, a product of increasingly "complex" societies.

Moreover, the magical techniques or taboos were not there for preservation alone. I'd argue they are closer to coping mechanisms by which change can be dealt with, even enacted or legitimized. Evil spirits that cause sickness are countered by good spirits that help enterprising humans with inventing hunting equipment or point the way to new foraging grounds. Popper's argument ignores the extent to which such institutions - rituals, later hierarchies, etc. - themselves are technologies which facilitate change. They allow specialization and provide processes for integrating new technologies (most technological change in the past 5000 years has in fact occurred within the arguably most stratified societies). Humans need familiarity to come to terms with novelty.

As to the topic at hand, I'd argue that modern society does not stand apart from or in opposition to human biology, but emphasizes different aspects of it. I'd agree with the paragraph regarding the problems particular to the 'open society', apart from the claim that it goes against some humans' "deepest desires". There are probably psychological discomfort that are particularly associated with modern life. However, previous societies were not free from such discomforts either. There's plenty of historical material which attests to anxiety or pent-up rage, individually or collectively, in other social forms (one of my favorites is a Hittite ritual against depression, ca 1300 BCE).

Also, it's been too long since I read the Magic Mountain. I'll do a reread with this debate in mind.

[Jo498]

I don't think Popper had mainly tribal societies in mind. Rather a (IMO misunderstood) version of Plato's "ideal state" , conservative Hegelian defenses of a status quo and especially post-Hegelian Marxism. (Apparently disregarding that Plato's Republic is only on the surface about an ideal state which is obviously totalitarian, that's true, but it really is at least as much about reason ruling your soul (which is freedom, not totalitarianism) as about the philosopher caste ruling the state)

As it has been ages that I read Popper (and I never completely read that book, but more of the philosophy of science stuff) I am not sure if he already draws the strong parallel between political openness, "open markets" and scientific and technological innovation. I doubt that they necessarily run together.

My unscientific eco/evo hypothesis is that humans are supreme at adaptation. This also holds for complex "civilized" societies, not only for Inuit or Kalahari dwellers. They will often strike the "best" balance between stability and innovation. (As Falagar pointed out, stability is usually the necessary background for innovation, often it will be preferred when in doubt.) Or sometimes they won't and then they will fail like the Easter Islanders. Sure, there might be strange failings but overall I am not convinced that suppression by rigid bureaucracies etc. even in spite of obvious advantages of innovations are frequent or even typical. (And conversely, I am not convinced that we who are supposedly more open and obviously far more technologically advanced are so much better at the proper balance. I'd also claim that in some fields like art and architecture, byzantine failings might be superior to 21st century successes...)

Humans are also nastily opportunist and will usually not hesitate to use any possible innovation to their advantage. There are historical examples for "arms races", in fact watching a bunch of youtube videos on medieval arms and armor by people who reconstructed and tested such stuff would cure any ideas one got from a whiggish satire like Twain's Connecticut Yankee. (Although the best response ever to this is Anderson's "High Crusade")

Do I believe that human history is therefore "determined" by the interplay of ecological, geographically and other factors to which both individuals and societies usually adapt to in a very good way? No. But I think that such factors are very important and usually trump the societal factors trying to suppress innovation. Also human ingenuity and opportunism often trump such factors and innovation prevail despite rigid societies.

[Happy Ent]

15 hours ago, FalagarV2 said:

However, taking submission as THE characteristic of human psychology is again quite reductionist. It ignores the vital ability to adapt creatively, which must also have been selected for both on an individual level and on that of societies.

The only place I’ve seen this question (an apparent paradox: how can selective pressure for social conformance select for creativity?) even adressed is David Deutsch’s mind-blowing The Beginning of Infinity, which I highly recommend. (Half of that book is utter nonsense, the other half is mind-blowingly insightful. And nobody agrees on which half is which. It’s a spectacular book.)

 

(Deutsch also has an answer to the question.)

[Happy Ent]

13 hours ago, Jo498 said:

I don't think Popper had mainly tribal societies in mind.

He was highly influenced by the tribal societies of New Zealand, where he wrote the book.

[Happy Ent]

13 hours ago, Jo498 said:

if he already draws the strong parallel between political openness, "open markets" and scientific and technological innovation. I doubt that they necessarily run together.

There is nothing about open markets, and almost nothing about technology.

[Jo498]

4 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

The only place I’ve seen this question (an apparent paradox: how can selective pressure for social conformance select for creativity?) even adressed is David Deutsch’s mind-blowing The Beginning of Infinity, which I highly recommend. (Half of that book is utter nonsense, the other half is mind-blowingly insightful. And nobody agrees on which half is which. It’s a spectacular book.)

Apparently those two halfs are mixed together within single pages... I read a few from the amazon preview and it is an infuriating mix of valid points, highly opionated presentations of things as "facts" or obvious "progress" that are only very doubtfully so (or have since been relativized or superseded again, like falsificationism) and stuff that is plain wrong and shows stunning disinterest in real history (incl. history of science) for someone who claims to write something like a history of ideas and scientific methods. Because the blatantly wrong things he writes about ancient and medieval science (in the introductory pages and the beginning of the "Spark" chapter) could have been avoided by just looking into any serious book on such topics. Even by the most cursory acquaintance with that history one encounters the scholastic maxim that "Nothing is in the intellect that had not before been in the senses" which contradicts Deutsch's claim "that senses are little more than a source of error to be ignored" was a "persistent idea". (It might have been "persistent" but it certainly was *dominant* neither in antiquity nor in the middle ages.) Or at the very beginning he gives the impression that the inductivism Popper reacted to in the 1920 was the uncontested theory of scientific knowledge for the 2500 (or at least the 400) years before that time which is also simply wrong. His critical points against inductivism are mostly plausible but inductivism as a "master method of science" was a far more local thing that dominated only some branches of late 19th and early 20th century thinking. And even they knew of course about the general problems with induction that had been common knowledge since Hume.

It might still be an interesting book. But the way highly biased and opinonated positions (that before Poppers "bold conjectures that are only later subjected to the trial of experiences" we didn't know how people actually did science and that the Popperian way *is* actually the way people do science which is extremely doubtful, even Popper only thought that it was the way they *should* do science) are presented like scientific facts, mixed with actual facts, plausible theorizing, valid criticism and again whiggish falsehoods about the history of science lets me hesitate to read it. There is nothing wrong with simplifying stuff but if a presentation is always simplified in a particular direction it is hard to take it seriously. It would certainly be better to skip historical background and developments if one cannot be bothered to get them at least halfway right.

[Happy Ent]

7 hours ago, Jo498 said:

 Even by the most cursory acquaintance with that history one encounters the scholastic maxim that "Nothing is in the intellect that had not before been in the senses" which contradicts Deutsch's claim "that senses are little more than a source of error to be ignored" was a "persistent idea".

In this, and many other questions, there is no doubt that Deutsch is aware of the fact that he contradicts widely held opinions.

This particular issue (which is tangential to the present thread, at best) is one of those where I’ve come around to his point of view, kicking and screaming.

But it’s really a mind-blowing book. Almost everything he writes is poised to elicit the reaction “WTF? That can’t be right!” And then he convinces you, half of the time. His positions are laid out incredibly clearly, because he really wants you to avoid the pitfall of “oh, this sounds good, and mainly reaffirms what I already thought”—one of the most dangerous sources of miscommunication and bias. Deutsch really wants your disagreement. It’s a fantastic, infuriating, and very enlightening little book. I was very impressed. 

[Rippounet]

I almost feel like I'm barging in now, but I discovered the practice of "rolling coal" today, and believe it or not it's much closer to what I had in mind in the OP (yeah, I wasn't necessarily shooting for something very deep ^^).

So what's rolling coal and what has it got to do with civilization. First, a wikipedia definition:

Quote

Rolling coal is the practice of modifying a diesel engine to increase the amount of fuel entering the engine in order to emit an under-aspirated sooty exhaust that visibly pollutes the air.^[1] It also may include the intentional removal of the particulate filter.^[2] Practitioners often additionally modify their vehicles by installing smoke switches and smoke stacks. Modifications to a vehicle to enable rolling coal may cost from $200 to $5,000.

And an article on the subject:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/05/business/energy-environment/rolling-coal-in-diesel-trucks-to-rebel-and-provoke.html?_r=0

So what's the link with Freud? Well, Freud suggested that repressing individualistic impulses or urges was necessary for civilization. Civilization could thus be understood here as being "the greater good for the greater number of people." Though most of us tend to be altruistic in rather small circles of fellow humans with whom we relate (family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, fellow citizens... ), the altruistic impulse would naturally lead to ever expanding circles. Eventually, civilization would require demands on every individual in the name of the entire human species.
This I think is exactly what the entire climate change debate is really about. For most educated folks in Western societies, there is an obvious need to adapt our behavior because of it, if only as a precaution. For others however (not always less educated, must I say), such a demand on the individual is too great a burden. They strongly reject the premise that all humans should bear a responsibility toward the entire species, prefering instead to underline individual liberty. Individual liberty, of course, then becomes synonymous with a rejection of collective responsibility. You can see that in national politics in most countries, but it becomes more obvious when considering global issues.
Of course, no one hates civilization itself. But many reject its demands. And the greater a society, the greater the demands of civilization might be. In a global world, each and every individual would have to be -among many other things- tolerant and responsible. Which is exactly why, as our civilization becomes ever more inclusive, the counter-reaction becomes inceasingly strong and violent, claiming the right to be intolerant and irresponsible. The question then becomes if, as a species, we can actually build a global civilization, or whether the individualistic impulses will prevail through a resurgence of nationalism. Not that this is really a yes/no answer.

[Darzin]

I would say that people rolling coal has almost nothing to do with civilization or not, rolling coal is an example of pure tribalism, people doing that aren't doing that for freedom to rebel against restrictions for the good of society, it's tribal signaling pure and simple. People are doing it as a form of resistance to a system of values they disagree with, it's a way of social signalling. If you read some of the comments about this you'll see the people who do this often mention clouding  certain cars such as the Prius with smoke. Certain kinds of people drive pickup trucks, certain kinds of people drive the Prius both are signals of a tribe and value system. People who roll coal are rebelling against another tribe, it's not rational or about freedom vs responsibility I doubt many of the people who roll coal even believe in global warming.

Also back to the original question do humans hate civilization? No I don't think so, parts of modernity are stressful but they are a feature of modernity and an open society no t civilization per se. The dissolution of kin groups and the extended family leaves people without a support group and the lightening pace of technology and new social values diminishes people's ability to empathize with and understand older family members. Where before grandma could serve as a guide and experienced teacher, now grandma is obsolete barley able to function in the modern world and likely holding opinions that you would not accept if your friends held them. This is a very different situation then most of history. Despite this, we have all levels of civilization from hunter gathers to developed democracies. Few people from modern open societies seem to want to leave them so I'd say despite the stresses people like the material comforts of modernity enough to not give them up.  

[Rippounet]

10 minutes ago, Darzin said:

I would say that people rolling coal has almost nothing to do with civilization or not, rolling coal is an example of pure tribalism, people doing that aren't doing that for freedom to rebel against restrictions for the good of society, it's tribal signaling pure and simple. People are doing it as a form of resistance to a system of values they disagree with, it's a way of social signalling. If you read some of the comments about this you'll see the people who do this often mention clouding  certain cars such as the Prius with smoke. Certain kinds of people drive pickup trucks, certain kinds of people drive the Prius both are signals of a tribe and value system. People who roll coal are rebelling against another tribe, it's not rational or about freedom vs responsibility I doubt many of the people who roll coal even believe in global warming.

But that's kind of my point. Call it a tribe rather than a "circle" it's still the same basic idea.