fromderinside
Mazzie Daius
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2008
- Messages
- 15,945
- Basic Beliefs
- optimist
The above quote from political scientist Joshua S. Goldstein coomes at the end of an article about Steven Pinker and his new book (2011) "The better angels of our Nature" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/s...a1&adxnnlx=1322530112-1kDSxKhRWQRmeuqtbWKygw&) and http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/b....html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=Kinder and Gentler&st=cse.)
Better angels is about drops in all kinds of killing over the last few thousand years. What the book gets down to is that our natures through our cultures through our genetics are clearly focused on getting the most from our selves through getting the most people from our cultures in the most effective ways for us to advantage ourselves in the world in which we live.
We do it by adjusting our cultures through our natures to the end of paying the lowest prices for surviving, reproducing, with a brain that features our equally potent nature of discriminating us from them, and in a world that is uncertain.
That isn't what the articles, from which I leverage says, it is my take given the continuing tension between dominance of us and them in cultures. When the lowest price is perceived to come from order and and doctrine there will be tendencies to limit who is us. When the lowest price is perceived to be from openness and sharing the tendency will be to limit them.
We can see this tension in our local, federal, and international compacts and we can easily detect when us or them is becoming the dominant social theme.
So there we are. A framework and some literature from which to launch ourselves int a discussion about whether cultural-social norms are actually underpinned by long ingrained, inherited, human tendencies, or whether cultural conditions drive social behavior, more or less on their own.
So if it is true that "if we want peace we must work for peace" does that come from resolving our grouping versus discriminating tendencies and is that software already in place, or does that software develop because we live in particular conditions?
Of course you can take this thing anywhere you want. Just take it somewhere.
Better angels is about drops in all kinds of killing over the last few thousand years. What the book gets down to is that our natures through our cultures through our genetics are clearly focused on getting the most from our selves through getting the most people from our cultures in the most effective ways for us to advantage ourselves in the world in which we live.
We do it by adjusting our cultures through our natures to the end of paying the lowest prices for surviving, reproducing, with a brain that features our equally potent nature of discriminating us from them, and in a world that is uncertain.
That isn't what the articles, from which I leverage says, it is my take given the continuing tension between dominance of us and them in cultures. When the lowest price is perceived to come from order and and doctrine there will be tendencies to limit who is us. When the lowest price is perceived to be from openness and sharing the tendency will be to limit them.
We can see this tension in our local, federal, and international compacts and we can easily detect when us or them is becoming the dominant social theme.
So there we are. A framework and some literature from which to launch ourselves int a discussion about whether cultural-social norms are actually underpinned by long ingrained, inherited, human tendencies, or whether cultural conditions drive social behavior, more or less on their own.
So if it is true that "if we want peace we must work for peace" does that come from resolving our grouping versus discriminating tendencies and is that software already in place, or does that software develop because we live in particular conditions?
Of course you can take this thing anywhere you want. Just take it somewhere.